Behind the Candelabra (UR)
"Such a Nice Boy"
Telling the unique story of Scott Thorson, Liberache's secret live-in lover and adopted son, Behind the Candelbra takes us past the sequins and gold plating to the gay men who dominated Las Vegas entertainment while suing anyone who tried to out them as they gallivanted through the American pop culture subconscious.
Played with amazing versatility by Michael Douglas (The Game), Liberace struts and croons and tickles the ivories without distracting or disparaging the king of bling. Matt Damon is the new man in his life Scott, an adopted son with a shaky orphan upbringing who is brought into the glitz and glamour and storm that is living with Liberace. The film is based on Thorson's autobiography, apparently with enough details to make the Marquis de Sade blush. Nothing is out of bounds for the two actors as they explore their onscreen tumultuous affair, further fueled by unlimited wealth, all brought together by the "retiring" director Steven Soderberg (Ocean's Eleven) who brings his cool technical head to bear with delicious exactitude. Apparently too hot for cineplexes, HBO picked it up to much acclaim, and the rich, textured lives of a closeted homosexual virtuoso and his exploited/exploitative ex-son/ex-chauffeur/ex-lover is handled with class while still retaining reality. The three of them (Damon, Douglas and Soderberg) each make up a glittering candlestick of the Candelabra, illuminating the dark of unknown lives forced to live in the shadows despite their world-wide fame.
8 How many Man Butts to get an R out of 10 (GREAT)
Showing posts with label D2V. Show all posts
Showing posts with label D2V. Show all posts
Trick 'R Treat (2008)
Trick 'R Treat (R)
"Smell our Feet"
Anthology of horror centering around a town's Halloween celebrations, with intertwining stories with a little sack headed trick 'r treater tying them all together, Trick 'R Treat was shelved by a studio and then pushed to the video market without a wide release, where horror hungry cult fans found it and began carrying it around from door to door.
Despite a good cast and a great grasp of the holiday's bumps and scares, the film devolves quickly into horror tropes and is short on real originality (and good looking SFX). Structured kind of like a Tarratino narrative, with pieces hodge-podging and crossing paths, Trick 'R Treat unfortunately never obtains scary, and some moments are so eye rolling that you'll be reaching for the John Carpenter DVDs to get you back on track to creepy town. While the theme and inside jokes make the film re-watchable, this movie is more like those icky sweets your grandma still insists on handing out than the full size Snickers everyone wants. It's the Candy Corn of Halloween movies, and sure some people lap them up, but others can see their fructose flaws and would rather leave it at the bottom of the bag for their siblings with less discerning tastes.
4 That Guy From Happiness was the most convincing part out of 10 (BAD)
Shredder (2003)
Shredder (R)
"Maybe all that hardware's for making Coleslaw"
Who wants to see a painfully late to the scene, painfully acted snowboarding slasher film (he hates snowboarders cuz he is a skier, haha!) filled with unlikable characters using unlikable vernacular, action filled with continuity errors in audio and video, that flings some stabs at satire and black humor and gore but mostly looking like a really bad Friday the 13th script that was rewritten by some college dropout snowmen and women over a weekend with an appeal to extreme alternative lifestyle audiences (they like punk rock right?) that will frequent the local Video franchises? Yeah, thought so.
2 Out Cold beat this by two years out of 10 (AWFUL)
"Maybe all that hardware's for making Coleslaw"
Who wants to see a painfully late to the scene, painfully acted snowboarding slasher film (he hates snowboarders cuz he is a skier, haha!) filled with unlikable characters using unlikable vernacular, action filled with continuity errors in audio and video, that flings some stabs at satire and black humor and gore but mostly looking like a really bad Friday the 13th script that was rewritten by some college dropout snowmen and women over a weekend with an appeal to extreme alternative lifestyle audiences (they like punk rock right?) that will frequent the local Video franchises? Yeah, thought so.
2 Out Cold beat this by two years out of 10 (AWFUL)
From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (2000)
From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (R)
"Vampin' in the Ole West"
The Mexico border in the early 20th century, groups of pilgrims, desperadoes and lawmen unknowingly end up at a den of evil and prostitution in this prequel to the original From Dusk Till Dawn with a welcome western motif saddled with a dehydration of new ideas.
The film hitches a ride on the mystique of real-life Civil war hero and southern poet Ambrose Bierce (played by the always lovely Michael Parks), who has clairvoyance about his impending doom when he drinks. He is looking to join Pancho Villa in his revolution and finds his caravan joined by a bible salesman and his virtuous wife who quickly run afoul of a team of banditos and outlaws and a den of vampires. The film apes the format and twist of the original film without any of the finesse of writing or camerawork. The color temp varies wildly shot to shot, especially in the daytime scenes, eliciting a nausea that the slimmed-down gore can't achieve. The gunplay and production design may be far superior to FDTD2:TBM, but the general malaise of sequelhood can't sustain interest, and the forced prequel mother/father plot with its constant call backs to the original prevent it from being its own film. Both Park and Danny Trejo's return lend weight to the production, but when even Danny's stunt double gets the vampire makeup and replaces him for the rest of the film its time to hang up FDTD3:THMD's spurs and say "whoa cowboy, I don't think you're quite ready for the rodeo just yet".
4 Jeez Earl McGraw really knows how to act drunk out of 10 (BAD)
"Vampin' in the Ole West"
The Mexico border in the early 20th century, groups of pilgrims, desperadoes and lawmen unknowingly end up at a den of evil and prostitution in this prequel to the original From Dusk Till Dawn with a welcome western motif saddled with a dehydration of new ideas.
The film hitches a ride on the mystique of real-life Civil war hero and southern poet Ambrose Bierce (played by the always lovely Michael Parks), who has clairvoyance about his impending doom when he drinks. He is looking to join Pancho Villa in his revolution and finds his caravan joined by a bible salesman and his virtuous wife who quickly run afoul of a team of banditos and outlaws and a den of vampires. The film apes the format and twist of the original film without any of the finesse of writing or camerawork. The color temp varies wildly shot to shot, especially in the daytime scenes, eliciting a nausea that the slimmed-down gore can't achieve. The gunplay and production design may be far superior to FDTD2:TBM, but the general malaise of sequelhood can't sustain interest, and the forced prequel mother/father plot with its constant call backs to the original prevent it from being its own film. Both Park and Danny Trejo's return lend weight to the production, but when even Danny's stunt double gets the vampire makeup and replaces him for the rest of the film its time to hang up FDTD3:THMD's spurs and say "whoa cowboy, I don't think you're quite ready for the rodeo just yet".
4 Jeez Earl McGraw really knows how to act drunk out of 10 (BAD)
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999)
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (R)
"It's Quentin' Time"
An oddball crew of bank robbers find themselves hunted not only by authorities from Mexico and the USA, but also by vampiric assholes, some even from inside their own team.
This direct to video sequel is a lowball affair that achieves some semblance of the cool vibe of the original. Starring Robert Patrick and directed by Scott Spiegel (an old chum of director Sam Raimi), the film is an ultra low budget ham salad of Tarantino-esque wastebasket-fodder chats about the nature of pornography and camera tricks straight from an Evil Dead clone's youtube sizzle reel. The movie itself is preposterous, with a caper so lamebrained and one sided it would be laughable if you weren't already too choked up by their choice of main bad guy (menacing he's not). Admirably avoiding the normal sequel-trappings of these kind of films, FDTD2:TBM still sucks the life out of the room with some fun tricks ruined by their overuse, sets from a third world trash heap, and a third act shoot out that is just as lazy as the special effects. Danny Trejo lends a hand to generate connective tissue, but the movie's mostly a bloodless stone compared to the first's grandiose rolling stone.
"It's Quentin' Time"
An oddball crew of bank robbers find themselves hunted not only by authorities from Mexico and the USA, but also by vampiric assholes, some even from inside their own team.
This direct to video sequel is a lowball affair that achieves some semblance of the cool vibe of the original. Starring Robert Patrick and directed by Scott Spiegel (an old chum of director Sam Raimi), the film is an ultra low budget ham salad of Tarantino-esque wastebasket-fodder chats about the nature of pornography and camera tricks straight from an Evil Dead clone's youtube sizzle reel. The movie itself is preposterous, with a caper so lamebrained and one sided it would be laughable if you weren't already too choked up by their choice of main bad guy (menacing he's not). Admirably avoiding the normal sequel-trappings of these kind of films, FDTD2:TBM still sucks the life out of the room with some fun tricks ruined by their overuse, sets from a third world trash heap, and a third act shoot out that is just as lazy as the special effects. Danny Trejo lends a hand to generate connective tissue, but the movie's mostly a bloodless stone compared to the first's grandiose rolling stone.
5 You Know It's A Bad Sign When Bruce Campbell shows up in the Preamble out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Rock N Roll Nightmare (1987)
Rock N Roll Nightmare (R)
"Sex, Dishes, more Sex, more Dishes & then Rock N Roll"
A rock group heads to the Canadian country side to work on a new album free of distraction (except from their own women), where unbeknownst to them Beelezbub and his minions are also looking to rock out with their souls in direct-to-video cheapie Rock N Roll Nightmare.
It's hard to come down on a silly flick like RNR Nightmare, an exuberantly Canadian horror flick with some talented special effects work that tries to do too much with too little, some mildly talented and territorially famous musicians without a lick of acting talent and a director who can point a lens at things but would probably be better off staying home and getting drunk. It's all fueled by the cult of Thor, or actually Jon Mikl-Thor, a formed body builder aka Glam-rock star aka movie star aka human-meat loaf who couldn't act his way out of a brown paper bag. It's hard to come down on something so effortlessly lame, there are unconscious shades of Spinal Tap throughout, but down we must go. Between the endless stilted banter, the countless scenes of doing the dishes, the gratuitously bad love scenes which sometimes run back to back, the Canadian-tinged accents, the cans of Coke instead of Cocaine, to the hopelessly awfully jaw dropping silly conclusion, all scored with bland aging arena rock, Rock N Roll Nightmare is more like a dream that you wake up from and wonder "must have been something I ate," chuckle to yourself and then effortlessly roll over and fall back asleep.
2 Funny Little One Eyed Puppets that steal the show out of 10 (BAD)
"Sex, Dishes, more Sex, more Dishes & then Rock N Roll"
A rock group heads to the Canadian country side to work on a new album free of distraction (except from their own women), where unbeknownst to them Beelezbub and his minions are also looking to rock out with their souls in direct-to-video cheapie Rock N Roll Nightmare.
It's hard to come down on a silly flick like RNR Nightmare, an exuberantly Canadian horror flick with some talented special effects work that tries to do too much with too little, some mildly talented and territorially famous musicians without a lick of acting talent and a director who can point a lens at things but would probably be better off staying home and getting drunk. It's all fueled by the cult of Thor, or actually Jon Mikl-Thor, a formed body builder aka Glam-rock star aka movie star aka human-meat loaf who couldn't act his way out of a brown paper bag. It's hard to come down on something so effortlessly lame, there are unconscious shades of Spinal Tap throughout, but down we must go. Between the endless stilted banter, the countless scenes of doing the dishes, the gratuitously bad love scenes which sometimes run back to back, the Canadian-tinged accents, the cans of Coke instead of Cocaine, to the hopelessly awfully jaw dropping silly conclusion, all scored with bland aging arena rock, Rock N Roll Nightmare is more like a dream that you wake up from and wonder "must have been something I ate," chuckle to yourself and then effortlessly roll over and fall back asleep.
2 Funny Little One Eyed Puppets that steal the show out of 10 (BAD)
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About Me
- Kevin Gasaway via HardDrawn
- Turlock, California, United States
- Media and Reviews by Kevin Gasaway