Friday B-Movie Pick: Scoop
Woody Allen’s latest movie. I was a bit hestitant about watching this after the horribly bad Curse of the Jade Scorpion, but I figured at worst, Scarlett Johansson might provide some decent eye candy, which she does BTW. I was pleasantly surprised that this flick was much better than the last effort I saw by the Woodman, but then that bar wasn’t set very high. At least he didn’t cast himself as the romantic lead in this one, instead taking the role of the helpful elder, sort like your goofy uncle who alway avoided those ‘respectible’ jobs. Hugh Jackman supplies the eye candy for those who aren’t into curvy blonde females. You won’t be studying this one in film school, unless you are doing a theis on Woody Allen, but this one was worth the rental and home made popcorn.
Friday B-Movie Pick: The Warrior Way
Cowboys and Ninjas. Hell ya! Good cast, lots of action, including much, much sword fu, knife fu and gun fu. Plus a seriously bad bad guy. Worth the popcorn.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Navy SEALs
This movie was made in 1990, back when Hollywood wasn’t afraid to have Muslim terrorists be the bad guys. Charlie Sheen pulled off what was a badly written character as well as it could be expected. It was Michael Biehn who really shined in this film though. This was the first of at least three times he play a Navy SEAL. A good action flick where the bad guys get shot, stabbed, drown and blown up. Think of it as low budget way to get ready for Act of Valor, which is current playing in theaters and has real Navy SEALs playing the Navy SEALs. It also has Muslim terrorists as bad guy, which bucks the trend Hollywood has been following. A trend that has resulted in movies that suck and don’t make much money.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Digital Assassin
Way back when, I was working on some of the first commercial grade digital movie servers. One of our customers was a large pay for view service, so as part of the testing process, I had to watch a lot of B-Movies. This turkey was one of them. It has since be released under a new name, probably in an attempt to get anybody to watch it who wasn’t required to, like I was. So if you run across Cyberjack, same movie. Makes your typical B-Movie look like a snooty art film. Quick summary, Michael Dudikoff plays an alcoholic ex-cop haunted by the criminal who killed his partner. He is currently working as the alcoholic janitor of a high tech research facility that produces sophisticated computer viruses. The facility is taken over by a criminal gang lead by, yup, you guessed it, the same criminal who haunts the janitor’s cheap booze soaked nightmares. The drunken janitor must face his fears and remember all the training in close quarters urban combat with assault rifles that he learned as a rookie street cop and save the day. Brion James plays the criminal in question and delivers the best acting in the movie. The only other notable part of the movie was Suki Kaiser, providing good eye candy as the beautiful and brilliant Dr. Alex Royce.
If there were still Drive-In movie theaters in numbers enough to matter, this would be the second feature that you ignore in order to have cramped car sex with your date.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Hanna
A modern spy thriller with a nice Cold War feel to it. Good cast, great action and visually pleasing. Fire up the popcorn and enjoy.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Jonah Hex
I caught most of this turkey on cable and oh, it was sooooo bad. Bad acting, bad scrip and Megan Fox. Even a dial in performance by John Malkovich (and a Malkovich dial in is still pretty good) couldn’t help this truely bad film. OK, decent special effects, but a bad film none the less.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Colossus – The Forbin Project
HT to my friend John for reminding me of this Cold War era classic. A 1969 spin on the classic Frankenstein story, except this time it’s with highly “intelligent” super computers running the nuclear arsenals of both the United States and the Soviet Union.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Blade
Wesley Snipes plays ‘the Day Walker’, a sorta half Vampire who can withstand daylight, and really, really hates Vampires. They killed his mother you see. Fun flick, got Kung Fu, sword fu, machine pisol fu, and for extra added bonus B-Movie credit, Traci Lords!
Friday B-Movie Pick: Genesis II
Dipping into the mid-70s well again, we find this 1973 SciFi flick by none other than Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Set post-apocalyptic where humankind nuked the crap out of the planet, and people are digging out, rebuilding, and empire building. Mariette Hartley provides some nice eye candy, and ya, Roddenberry gets a bit preachy. No surprise there.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Black Belt Jones
Another martial arts classic staring Jim Kelly. Coming at you straight from 1974, this “kung fu” flick also falls squarely in the blaxploitation sub-genre as well. This is mid-70s low budget drive-in theater fodder in all its glory. Jim Kelly delivers the martial arts goods, and manages to carry this flick with some decent acting chops as well.