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2006 Fall Video Roundups, Vol. I

9/12/06

"Taking Lives"

Once again, I suckered myself into believing that seeing an Angelina Jolie movie would be a positive experience...jeez, what the fuck is wrong with me?  This go-round, the cast around our girl Angie is ridiculously good--Kiefer Sutherland, Ethan Hawke, Olivier Martinez, Tcheky Karyo, Paul Dano (from the recent "Little Miss Sunshine")--and the director, D.J. Caruso, did the great Val Kilmer flick "The Salton Sea" from a few years back.  None of this mattered; with a script this shitty and predictable, I'm amazed that any of these stars signed on.  Besides having a pile-of-shit ending and a killer so obvious I considered burning the DVD in effigy, you have to wait until the 90-minute mark to get a half-baked sex scene that belongs on the cutting room floor not because it's there, but because it's bad.  Now, there are a couple of good laughs, and Angie is pretty hot.  Otherwise, avoid this, or take your own life!

Rating:  Rental

"Miller's Crossing"

Catching up on Coen Brothers films that I have somehow missed over the years, I rented "Miller's Crossing" thinking I would be getting that peculiar brand of off-the-wall ideas, characters and imagery.  The violence that has marked so many of their films is present, and a strong script with some colorful Prohibition-era language is also there...but, this one is missing the strong characters that mark so many of the Coen Brothers' other films, like "Raising Arizona" or "Fargo."  That leaves us with many great actors, like Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, and Coen Brothers regular John Turturro, but their characters don't register for some reason like they have in past efforts.  It's all positioning and angles and stereotypes; even the dame, played by Marcia Gay Harden, gives you nothing you don't see coming, which is a bit of a disappointment.  "Miller's Crossing" is still very watchable despite the lack of strong characters, but it takes a hit because it is nothing that I would call memorable.

Rating:  Matinee

"Truck Turner"

Blaxploitation films are more prevalent than just the surface level flicks that include "Superfly", "Shaft" and "Foxy Brown"; in "Truck Turner", Isaac Hayes plays "Mack Truck" Turner, a former football player-turned-bounty hunter who has his work cut out for him after snuffing a big-time pimp named Gator.  This leads the head of a major whore operation--fucking Lt. Uhura, Nichelle Nichols!!--to get a bunch of pimps, including Harvard Blue (Yaphet Kotto), to go after Truck and take him out.  This movie is not very well done but this shit is incredibly hilarious, right down to watching Truck take out guys with what looks like the biggest handgun ever wielded by one guy.  The language is raw and the women are ever...rawer (made it up) and you will fucking LOVE the funeral scene with Gator's dead body and some of Gator's former, er, "colleagues."  Wow, films these days can't even touch this stuff.

Rating:  Matinee

"Dolemite--Special Edition"

No doubt about it, "Dolemite" was an absolute piece of shit.  I'll admit, it's a good laugh because it is SO bad, but still, every single thing about this movie sucks.  Let's cover the basics--Dolemite (Rudy Ray Moore) is a pimp and drug hustler that gets busted by The Man for things he didn't do, so after getting out of the pen he gets back to killing Whitey, bangin' hoes, and wearing the most ridiculous clothes ever made.  He even takes time to kill guys by ripping out their intestines--no, I'm not kidding--and drop his signature line:  "Dolemite's my name, and fuckin' up muthafuckas is my game!!!!"  I really thought that this cult classic was better, but I was sadly mistaken.  Fucking atrocious, I was wishing I hadn't just put "Truck Turner" into the Netflix envelope.

Rating:  Hard Vice

 

Comments?  Drop me a line at justin@bellviewmovies.com.

 

Bellview Rating System:

"Opening Weekend":  This is the highest rating a movie can receive.  Reserved for movies that exhibit the highest level of acting, plot, character development, setting...or Salma Hayek.  Not necessarily in that order. 

"$X.XX Show":  This price changes each year due to the inflation of movie prices; currently, it is the $9.50 Show.  While not technically perfect, this is a movie that will still entertain you at a very high level.  "Undercover Brother" falls into this category; it's no "Casablanca", but you'll have a great time watching.  The $9.50 Show won't win any Oscars, but you'll be quoting lines from the thing for ages (see "Office Space"). 

"Matinee":  An average movie that merits no more than a $6.50 viewing at your local theater.  Seeing it for less than $9.50 will make you feel a lot better about yourself.  A movie like "Blue Crush" fits this category; you leave the theater saying "That wasn't too bad...man, did you see that Lakers game last night?" 

"Rental":  This rating indicates a movie that you see in the previews and say to your friend, "I'll be sure to miss that one."  Mostly forgettable, you couldn't lose too much by going to Hollywood Video and paying $3 to watch it with your sig other, but you would only do that if the video store was out of copies of "Ronin."  If you can, see this movie for free.  This is what your TV Guide would give "one and a half stars." 

"Hard Vice":  This rating is the bottom of the barrel.  A movie that only six other human beings have witnessed, this is the worst movie I have ever seen.  A Shannon Tweed "thriller," it is so bad as to be funny during almost every one of its 84 minutes, and includes the worst ending ever put into a movie.  Marginally worse than "Cabin Boy", "The Avengers" or "Leonard, Part 6", this rating means that you should avoid this movie at all costs, or no costs, EVEN IF YOU CAN SEE IT FOR FREE!  (Warning:  strong profanity will be used in all reviews of "Hard Vice"-rated movies.)