TRY AND GET ME! (1950)

Jobless Frank (THE HITCH-HIKER, IN A LONELY PLACE) Lovejoy has a wife and kid depending on him. His employment prospects are looking like shit and he's down to his last few bucks when he runs into Lloyd Bridges, a slick-talking small time hoodlum who's looking for a driver. Frank doesn't want to do it, but he doesn't really have a choice. They successfully pull off a couple of convenience store hold ups, but when a botched kidnapping turns deadly Frank is quickly eaten alive by the guilt. To make matters even worse a local newspaper man has whipped the local citizens up into a frenzy of bloodthirsty vigilantism.

It's a shame this movie is so hard to find, because even though the newspaper moments drag and are bogged down in simplistic social commentary, the rest of the film moves along smoothly and the ending was quite a shocker! Frank Lovejoy does a great job of portraying somebody riddled with guilt and Lloyd Bridges is scary as the balls to the wall criminal who will stop at nothing to get money.

Not the greatest noir that ever did noir, but it's a good watch.

APT. (2006)

Alright. So you got this big apartment building and awhile back this chick who's in a wheelchair (her legs don't work) and because of that, even though she's in her 20's, she literally does nothing but stare out the window. No job, no hobbies, nothing productive, just staring out that goddamn window.  Anyway, her parents die in a car wreck and her neighbors take her in. Sounds nice, except for the fact that they're assholes who beat the shit out of her and even rape her. Instead of simply leaving or calling the cops, she commits suicide instead and now her ghost (the standard head down chick with long, straight black hair and having a non-stop seizure variety) goes around every night at 9:56 killing people. Yawn.

A woman who lives in the complex thinks that it's odd that people die every night around 10 0'clock, but instead of hauling ass away she investigates the murders on her own. Great idea! Eventually she tells the police, but they're useless.

If you're a time traveler from the past and you've never seen a horror movie before, APT. might come off as original and scary, but to everybody else it'll blow so hard all of your Nintendo cartridges will start working. Zero scares, unoriginal story, slow pace, weak kills (falling, more falling, yet even more falling, falling in front of train, eating to death, gunshot suicide, needle to neck) plus the main females are only mildly attractive and never even get close to being naked...I cannot think of one single reason to watch this movie, especially when there’s already so many superior styled movies already out there: UZUMAKI, JU-ON, RING, etc. Skip it and never look back.

The scariest part about this movie is this fucking parking lot. How are the assholes in the middle suppose to get out?!! I'd rather face a long-haired seizure ghost than have to park my car here!

SEX IS ZERO 2 (2007)

Well, I still haven't figured out what the title SEX IS ZERO means, but I did like this movie better than the original. Most of the characters are back (there's even a new and improved main girl), a lot of the jokes are rehashed, very little nudity and the story is that same bizarre half funny/half depressing mixture, but for whatever reason I enjoyed this outing. I think the characters are starting to grow on me.

The dweeb from the first movie is still in school and even though he's a complete dork he has yet another superhot girlfriend! She's beautiful, has a great personality and is completely dedicated to him, but her mother hates him and wants to set her daughter up with a handsome, successful lawyer instead. The other stories revolve around the guys training for a MMA tournament and the girls training for the swimming championship...there's also a new sexy swim coach that catches the eye of the guy with the psychotic girlfriend. That story was actually funny. On the depressing side of things you have an attempted suicide, a really sad breakup scene and the even sadder accidental meeting afterwards.

Overall, a fun movie and I think the best improvement over the original was the new girl. The older girl was beautiful, but I really liked this girl's character and that added a new dynamic to the film: me actually caring what happened to the characters. One thing I did find disturbing was the repeated occurrence of guys sticking stuff up other guy's buttholes. WTF?

Part 1

THE PERFECT STORM (2000)

A group of fishermen (each with a heart of gold so pure that the mere sweat off their manly brows could cure a blind, one-armed orphan with terminal butt cancer) go fishing out in the ocean. They catch some fish and when they turn around to go back there's the biggest hurricane in the history of the universe between them and the mainland. They're warned multiple times that this storm is fucking huge, but goddamn it the ice machine has conked out and they gotta get this fish to market! Fifty foot waves be damned!!! You can probably guess what happens next...that's right Marky Mark uses the Shining to communicate to his wife onshore. Say what?!!! o_O

When it comes to pure Hollywoodized excessively sentimental unicornshit, it doesn't get much sappier than THE PERFECT STORM. From the very beginning of the movie the musical score was swelling and each character introduced was even more faultless and contrived than the last one. By the 15 minute mark I actually started profusely lactating what appeared (and tasted) to be strawberry milk! True story. Speaking of true stories this movie was based on a true story. I've done zero minutes of research, but I'm pretty goddamn sure that most of the bullshit in this movie was bullshit. Like the part were the boat was damn near vertical and George Clooney was still standing. I doubt that happened in real life.

That said, this movie was a lot of fun to laugh at. Everybody had horrible New England accents, Marky Mark and George Clooney had dueling whiskers, people risked their lives left and right to save others, nonstop swelling music, tons of crying, cliches on top of cliches and the best part? The failed attempt to make the audience give a fuck about the crew of the boat. Not only was each one portrayed as to be so pure of heart that they made Norman Borlaug look like fucking Hitler, but they were warned repeatedly not to go and they went anyway. That right there removes any emotional connection that I might have actually had to the characters no matter how immaculate they each were...I guess God just wanted his angels back in Heaven.

Check it out with some friends and laugh.

I'm I the only one that thought they were about to kiss right here?

If Jesus had been on the Titanic it would have looked like this.

THE LAST LOVECRAFT: RELIC OF CTHULHU (2009)

Mildy-humorous Lovecraft comedy about a nerd who's the last living descendent of the great Howard Phillips Lovecraft. He doesn't know this until a man comes to him from the Council and tells him he must protect this sacred relic from the followers of Cthulhu. Naturally instead of just going to a bank and putting it in a safety deposit box the nerd and his two nerd buddies drive out to the desert to look for a retired sea captain who was once "fish-raped". Low-budget action and a few actually funny jokes ensue.

For a movie with probably a smaller budget than a episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" this movie is better than expected and the writing is good. Not great, but good. I was kinda disappointed in the lack of a big showdown fight and very disappointed in the absence of a cute female love interest, especially since this dude is the last living descendent of Lovecraft then it would be wise if the filmmakers maybe added a potential girlfriend to help carry on the bloodline (and the sequels). Also it would add an extra layer to the story.

Complaints aside, I enjoyed the movie and even though I would never watch it again, I am interested in seeing a sequel if they make one. At only 78 minutes it's an easy, fun watch. If you like stuff like Buffy and Lovecraft then you'll be amused.

Sounds like somebody watched BOOTY CALL recently.

Only female with a speaking role in the entire movie. She was only onscreen for just a few seconds, but they were a very nice seconds.

MYSTERY STREET (1950)

Highly entertaining police procedural about a small town cop (a young Ricardo Montalban) who's trying to solve to murder of a prostitute. All he has to go on at the beginning is some bones that washed up on the beach. He takes the bones to Harvard Medical School and from what he learns there he starts his investigation about the identity of who the bones belong to, how she ended up missing and whether she was murdered or not and if so by who? Of course all kinds of roadblocks arise including and lying witness and a landlady who's looking to blackmail the killer!

The story was well written (it was even nominated for an Oscar), but the most surprising thing to me about the film is how wonderful Ricardo Montalban was. I've always known him to be a good actor, but he was really good here portraying the driven detective who starts to have internal doubts about the case he's created. A lot of what goes on with his character is unspoken and Ricardo does an excellent job relaying all of that to the viewer. I kept finding myself wishing that they'd made an entire series of these crime dramas centered around his character.

As far as film noir goes MYSTERY STREET isn't a dark film filled with deep shadows. It's really just more of a mystery/crime drama, but who's cares? It's a great film and it would make an excellent double feature with T-MEN.

I also want to mention that Jan Sterling who scared the living shit out of my four years later in THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY was smoking hot here and very seductive. The scene where she picks up Marshall Thompson in the bar nearly melted my DVD player!