Friday B-Movie Pick: Speed
Let’s set the Wayback Machine to 1994 and visit the movie that helped two young actors on their way to movie stardom. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. It has some other fine actors as well, including Dennis Hopper and Jeff Daniels. Hopper plays a bitter former bomb squad cop out to feather his retirement nest by threating to blow stuff, and people up. His first attempt is thwarted by two LA cops played by Daniels and Reeves. So he tries a again, rigging a city bus to explode if it goes under 50 MPH. Sandra Bullock just happened to be on the wrong bus and ends up behind the wheel as Reeves plays a battle of wits against man who wants “his money” and Reeves dead. Definately worth the popcorn, so sit back and enjoy “Die Hard on a bus.” Since this is Valentines day, I’ll throw in a spoiler, the two young leads end up together at the end. Which of course lead to a sequel.
Friday B-Movie Pick: John Wick 2
Keanu Reeves is back John Wick in another cautionary tale. When you force an assassin known for his focus and strength of will, even among other assassins, to kill your sister, don’t then put a contract on him for killing your sister. This may tend to make him cranky, and when John Wick gets cranky, people die! Seriously, a lot of people. Mostly other assassins trying to collect the bounty on Wick’s head, but a ridiculous amount of henchmen of the guy who put the contract out. He even kills two guys in a bar with a pencil. In a fun bit of uber-violence mixed with with bits of dialog by some really good actors (like Ian McShane and Laurence Fishburne, but not Ruby Rose, who plays a mute assassin). Fire up the popcorn and enjoy.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Black Panther
Black Panther
There are reasons the Marvel superhero movies make money hand over fist. The built in fan base of nerds is nice, but they are actually producing good actions stories with some serious star power (Angela Bassett and Forest Whitaker for example). The conflict within the royal family is sort of stuff that old Billy S. was writing to put paying butts in seats of the Globe Theater. Like DC’s Wonder Woman, this movie was a labor of love and it showed. The set and costume designing were outstanding and the action scenes were top notch. Plus this film took the formula for a good James Bond Movie to heart. The better the villain, the better the movie. Michael B. Jordan, as the unknown member of the royal family coming home to stir up trouble, was fornicating excellent. Right up to his final scene, he just owned the total bad assness of his character.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Atomic Blonde
Atomic Blonde
A fast paced action film set at the tail end of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall starts to come down during the movie. Charlize Theron plays a British agent sent into Berlin to collect the McGuffin (in this case, a list of spies, including who is actually working for whom). Add in James McAvoy as the MI6 agent in charge of Berlin, who has not just gone native, he’s gone “bloody feral.” Spectacular fight scenes, and of course, nobody is exactly what they seem. Double agents, double crosses, and of course someone seduces the beautiful French agent.
Friday B-Movie Pick: The Hitman’s Bodyguard
The Hitman’s Bodyguard
An action comedy buddy story with the inspired pairing of Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson. This is a funny and deliciously violent film. Reynolds is a high priced bodyguard at the top of his game, until he loses a high profile client (a well known arms dealer). Now down on his luck, he gets a call from his ex-girlfriend (an Interpol agent) who asks him to transport his arch nemesis (Jackson’t hitman character) so he can testify against a war criminal. From there, the fun really starts. Not a family film, unless your kids are old enough for an impressive amount of profanity and violence.
Friday B-Movie Pick: The Accountant
The Accountant
Honestly, a better movie than I expected. Ben Affleck played the poker faced autistic genius who does forensic accounting for very bad people for very large amounts of money. In some ways, this movie has a similar theme to Revenge of the Nerds, i.e. don’t piss off the really smart people. Except in this case, messing with the smart kid with the nerd glasses can get you killed. Raised by his father (Army Intelligence spook) not to be a victim, the Accountant is deadly dangerous, and will feel no remorse as he shoots you through the head. The movie actually tells a good story, in which people are not what they appear to be on the surface, but face it, it’s the fight scenes that you are going to rewatch it for. Fast, in close fighting and CQB Gun Fu. Plus some nice long range Barrett Fu. One of the bad guys pulls a knife, the Accountant pulls out his study leather belt. I’ve been practicing martial arts for a long time, trust me, the guy with the knife was deep trouble. Even Anna Kendrick, who also plays an accountant (she wanted to study art, but her dad said that wouldn’t pay the mortgage), gets some good hits in, including bashing a bad guy’s arm with toilet lid. Remember kids, a true warrior uses the weapons at hand (bonus nerd points for identifying the Chuck Norris movie that is from). Kendrick’s character isn’t a dark accountant, she’s just a regular nerd accountant doing cost accounting. I’ve also taken some graduate accounting courses, so if you are going to do accounting, cost accounting is the most fun. Trust me on this one. Trust me on The Accountant too. Fire up the popcorn and enjoy.
Friday B-Movie Pick: The November Man
Former Bond Pierce Brosnan teams up with former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko in this tale of espionage, morality, and international conspiracies. The action is good, as is the acting. There is the occasional upper torso female nude scene, just so you can have some sex with your violence. Not all the portrayal of human sexuality is wholesome though, one of the main villains is not a nice person. In all, a good example of B-Movie making. Well worth the rental and popcorn.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Bullet to the Head
Sylvester Stallone may be in his mid sixties, but he can still pay a convincing bad ass. He plays a career criminal who has worked his way up to professional assassin. The story starts with his latest employer deciding to kill him and his partner rather than pay them. His partner was killed and that really pissed him off. He ends up teaming up with an out of town cop investigating his ex-partner murder. Ok, the cop knows that Stallone character killed him, but he wants the man who paid him. Excellent fight scenes and the acting was pretty decent as well. Christian Slater as the other name actor, and is does a good job playing a crooked lawyer. The other actor I recognized was the big barbarian guy from Star Gate: Atlantis. He was delightfully bad ass himself as a mercenary working for the chief evil bad guy. In all it was a fun action flick. Well worth the rental and popcorn.
Friday B-Movie Pick: A Good Day To Die Hard
Yes, there really is a fifth Die Hard film. Another chapter in the saga of John McClane, a man who keeps ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He bonded with his daughter while fighting cyber-terrorists in the last film. This time he travels to Moscow in order to help out his son, who he thinks is in really deep trouble. Little does NYC Detective McClane now just how much trouble John McClane, Jr. is really in. This adventure gets us a Bond worthy car chase in downtown Moscow, a bunch of fire fights, and the required Die Hard plot twists. A good addition to the series.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Django Unchained
Yet another tale of bloody revenge from Quentin Tarantino. He takes on the old American West this time. Django (the D is silent) is a slave rescued by a German bounty hunter, because he can identify three men worth a lot of money dead or alive. The Good Doctor (the German bounty hunter, played by the Oscar winning Christoph Waltz, is also a dentist), finds dead is easier to deal with. He and Django hit it off and become partners. Together they go off to free Django’s wife Brunhilda from the Candyland Plantation in the deep, deep South. Much death and destruction follows. Not much a spoiler, this is a Tarantino movie after all. I say check it out, and I’m pretty sure Joe-Bob Briggs would agree.