Conan the Barbarian (Marcus Nispel, 2011)

According to IMDB Marcus Nispel started his career by doing video clips for Billy Joel, Janet Jackson, George Michael and likes. And his first feature film being that horrendous piece of shit remake of mighty Texas Chainsaw Massacre I didn't expect much from this. Was in fact even reluctant to check it out since Conan used to be my favorite comic book hero.

So I was surprised that it is actually watchable although far from being good. Cannot really define good parts, but bad ones are obvious:

1. It's too long. And one of the reasons for being too long is because it spends half an hour introducing the main character. We don't need this, we know who Conan is.
2. Story is too disjointed. It actually feels like watching some kid playing a video game and going through various levels. 
3. This Momoa guy just doesn't cut it for me as my favorite Cimmerian. But on the other hand I have no idea who would fill this role better.
4. It's too graphic. It's not of course that I don't like violence but that CGI blood is (once more) ridiculous.
5. It should be masculine movie but both of our leading ladies totally steal the show from their muscular co-stars colleagues. Rose McGowan is weird as usual and Rachel Nichols is cool too just by not being some whining damsel in distress. Btw - she was great in that little masterpiece P2.

And this is really all that I remember watching this. When I'm going to take my little nephew to see Conan it will be definitely Milius' one with Arnie.

5/10

Terminator Salvation (McG, 2009)

Just a pathetic and undeservingly bad end of franchise. Not much is left of sci-fi element; all we get here is average CGI action.

But most disappointingly for me was this typical American family shit “subtly” integrated into the story. There’s a little kid, handicapped (black) girl, pregnant wife and so on. 

For 200+ million spent it deserves lowest possible grade but I’m giving it 3 anyway – additional one for atom bomb actually going off (I don’t know why this shit is so rare to see) and another one for having Michael Ironside. Though I’m not sure why they gave him this job as he only appears couple of times.

3/10

Jjakpae aka The City of Violence (Seung-wan Ryoo, 2006)

Somehow classic story about broken friendship and betrayed loyalty told in action style. Although is sounds familiar it doesn't really tries to copy John Woo and has its own aesthetic and fight choreography.

6/10

Tae-poong aka Typhoon (Kyung-Taek Kwak, 2005)

Good action/drama flick about modern terrorists in Korea. Maybe a bit too long but not boring at all since there's lots of shit going on.

Liked a gloomy dark atmosphere and the fact that main characters are not stereotyped. The whole cast did a good job, especially actress who played bad guy's elder sister was impressive.

6/10

Alien 3 (David Fincher, 1992)

By far the best one of the sequels and – I know it’s a blasphemy – in some ways even better than original one! It has that old and gritty and warned-out feeling that first one captured so well and we all love (fuck that high techno CGI Cameron’s action shit!). It gets even better with claustrophobic shots of shafts and corridors chases with creature’s POV camera works.

It does start a bit slowly but we are rewarded for our waiting with the best scene of the movie. It’s at the funeral when Dillon is giving “ashes to ashes” speech and simultaneously alien rips apart that poor dog. It’s simply brilliant and it reminded me somehow about ending of the first Godfather.

Then it turns into action/slasher and most of the killings are great and gory enough, especially for high budget Hollywood blockbuster. First massacre is my favorite following by sneaky dispatching of Pete Postlethwaite. He didn’t see it coming at all!

Action is masterfully intertwined with Ripley’s “motherhood” story and this gives movie really cool tone. One of the convicts has a remark about her not being married and having children and – voila – next thing you know she carries an embryo. I wonder if pro-life fanatics would change their attitude after seeing this masterpiece. Or maybe not – she does end up in the lake of fire, doesn’t she? In any case - that "close up" of Ripley and alien is gotta be one of the coolest shots in the film history!

So good to see it after a while, cannot believe it’s been 20 years already. It hasn’t aged a bit, it’s still flawless! 

And such a shame about David Fincher - after this one he made one more masterpiece in Se7en and then sadly disappeared from my radar.

9/10

Driven to Kill (Jeff King, 2009)

I have at least 20 DVDs of Seagal movies and they all have subtitles. Rest of his opus I downloaded and those too usually come with optional subtitles. This one doesn't have subs and for the first time I realized how important they are in the Seagal movie.

The thing (or should I say the problem) is that he is so tough and mean motherfucker that he doesn't need to raise his voice. So for the most times he just inaudibly whispers and since he imitates Russian accent it's really hard to follow the story.

Which is complicated and sometimes disjointed as in the best times of his direct-to-video career. In this one he plays ex-Russian mobster now successful crime novels writer who lives in exile in California (at least I think so). But when his daughter gets married he returns to his old 'hood in New Jersey (at least I think so) for her wedding. Which is not appreciated by his old rivals who kill his ex-wife and kidnap the bride. He gets his sidekick in her fiancee and from then on everything is pretty much standard stuff.

Look and feel of the movie reassembles a bit too much to those bleak east European ones, but action is decent. It's not shot or edited spectacular, but there's a lot of it and it comes in all kinds of forms, from martial arts to knife fights to shootouts. Which is good to see after that disappointment of Against the Dark.

The best scene is when our two buddies come to the ghetto to get the bad guys. But when they arrive, Seagal starts, apparently without any good reason, shooting in the air with his big ass shotgun. When you start wondering WFT he quickly offers explanations that "this way rats will come out themselves". Or some shit like that. He is just too cool and too busy to do any routinely investigation stuff. Classis Seagal, almost!

5/10

Ninja Vengeance (Karl Armstrong, 1988)

Just an American Ninja rip-off made three years later on it seems very low budget. David Lord as a main protagonist is no Michael Dudikoff although he's not that awful that this was his first and also last role.

To make one thing very clear at the beginning: he does gets his vengeance at the end but he's definitely no ninja. He does carry that black suit around along with shurikens and some other lethal shit but all his stuff gets confiscated by police when he gets arrested quite early in the movie. So maybe only that kimono gives him ninja powers, we will never know. In this flick he practices just some kind of jiujitsu (I think) and even at that he is not very good as he gets his ass kicked often.

Story is simple. Our hero is stranger on the flashy motorbike who comes into this hillbilly town full of racial prejudices, dirty law enforcement is connected with the bad guys, sheriff's daughter falls for our hero and one of the bad guys falls for her, our hero stands up against the bad guys, he eventually wins and gets the girl.All that said, it is surprising that story is not totally trivial because it has some interesting twists and our ninja does get his ass kicked a bit.

One little thing I've found interesting and somehow amusing is that leading actress Janet Pawlak is not typical blond good looking bimbo who was almost mandatory companion to main hero in this type of straight-to-video action flicks. She's just an average looking girl who could easily miss a pound or two. But don't worry, she does show her tits so movie respects unwritten laws of the genre at least in this area. Although it might still be too stressful for her, because this was her first and last film role. Which is a shame, she did a good job in this one.

4/10

Shin Zatôichi monogatari: Kasama no chimatsuri aka Zatoichi’s Conspiracy (Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1973)

It’s always nice to watch Zatoichi movie, it’s like running into an old friend and having a pint over pleasant conversation.

This is 25^th, one of the last and our favorite masseur is pretty tired and travels to his hometown for the first time in 20 years. Things have changed of course as well as his old friends. One in particular has turned into greedy asshole and has deceived villagers and has taken control over the local quarry. He has also cheated people over some rice tax but that part is not very clear to me. But it’s not really important because it’s clear who the bad guys are by that point.

Zatoichi is a surprisingly patient and gives this asshole even two chances to leave town peacefully. So we need to wait 50 minutes for the first limb to come off some unfortunate bastard who tried to cheat at gambling. And 15 minutes more after this mutilation there comes first real fight and massacre. But it’s well worth waiting for! Not only for the great action choreography and ridiculously high body count. We are used to these in Zatoichi flicks of course. 

What is well worth mentioning is strange camera work. It follows fighters really close and under strange angles and every now and then jumps into wide shot for a second or two so you really have a feeling that you are in the middle of the scene. Really good and effective, I’m surprised this technique is not used more nowadays.

7/10

Cleopatra Jones (Jack Starrett, 1973)

Fun, but not very good. At least not from pure blaxploitation point of view. It’s not violent enough, there’s no swearing (!!!??!) and music is okay but far from other funky “Shaft” like classics. 

Tamara Dobson is cute and cool and has some style and does few kung-fu moves and has this fancy Corvette but she’s not nearly as dangerous as Pam Grier in Coffy or Foxy Brown. But she wears better or should I say most outrageous costumes! Opening scene is a killer – she is in the desert somewhere in the Middle East and she’s wearing fuckin’ fur coat!! Hilarious, poor girl must have been sweating like a pig!

Oh yeah, I mustn’t forget to mention Shelley Winters. She plays “Mommy”, lesbian leader of the hoods and she is once again adorable as she plays the role totally over the top. Final climax and “showdown” between the leading ladies at the car junkyard is classic and total highlight of this fun little flick.

5/10

Lat sau san taam aka Hard-Boiled (John Woo, 1992)

Saw this masterpiece for the first time on the big screen and was naturally blown away. My favorite Woo’s flicks used to be Killer, Better Tomorrow 2 and Hard-Boiled. But now I’m not too sure anymore – Hard Boiled is at least tied with Killer at the first spot. 

You see I kind of preferred to watch Chow Yun-Fat as cool kind of guy and not stereotypical (even more for HK that is) humorous and charming ladies man, but his portrayal of Tequila is just brilliant. I must see Killer again soon and decide about this tie.

10/10

Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007)

This is crap, it’s a simple as that. The worst thing that can happen to an action movie is to be boring. I won’t go into awful geeky sidekick, his even more clichéd friend (for fuck’s sake why did you do it Kevin!?), anemic and not-sinister-at-all villain (though Maggie Q as his sidekick is cool but she dies too soon), idiotic story line, special (def)effects made to astonish cretins and so on and on and on.

Bottom line is that it’s boring and therefore crap.

2/10