No one will mistake FROM PARIS WITH LOVE for a classic. The story is just so many set pieces that hang together by the most delicate of gossamer threads. Yet, they are set pieces that show off the best of stars John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, while allowing director Pierrel Morel to indulge in… Read More »
MACHETE
MACHETE, Robert Rodriquezs homage to grindhouse genre, is a bracing concretion of advocacy filmmaking and raucous hyperbole. In spirit, it is the unexpected successor to the likes of Rabelais, who used giants and satire to bring low the status quo. The giant here is the title character (Danny Trejo), a former Mexican federal agent out… Read More »
KITE
KITE is a sadistic little film that returns us to a dystopian future where civilization is just a suggestion, and mayhem is the main occupation of everyone, no matter what their official calling. Based on the popular anime of the same name by Yasuomi Umetsu, this live-action rendering is all flashy directing and disjointed plot.… Read More »
WANTED
The question that comes to mind while watching the first big action sequence in WANTED is how in the heck are these folks going to top this? Automobiles do things Newtonian physics can barely account for and so do the people driving them. It, like the other chase scenes in this big, messy, gloriously over-the-top… Read More »
LAST STAND, THE
And so Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned to the silver screen after his sojourn in the theater of politics. The action star of dozens of blockbusters has wisely chosen for his vehicle a flick that acknowledges that he will not again see 40, nor even 50. Sort of. While this is an Arnold who wears reading… Read More »