HESHER (2010)

[Update 03/23/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Like an Americanized version of Pasolini's TEOREMA (or maybe Miike's VISITOR Q), HESHER is the story of a mysterious stranger who briefly enters the lives of a family and leaves just as quickly, but not before changing their lives forever.

Young T.J. is having a shitty life. His mother recently died in a car wreck and the grief has sent his father so deep into his shell that he rarely even gets off the sofa. Then, at school this dork-looking bully beats the crap out of him all the time. Added to that, every time he gets on his bike he seems to wreck. After one gnarly wreck he gets mad at a nearby half-constructed house and breaks out the main window, unknowing that the house is the squat pad for the long-haired, greasy looking rocker named Hesher. After this encounter, Hesher begins following T.J. and eventually starts squatting in his garage. But Hesher isn't a guardian angel sent from Heaven, if anything he make T.J.'s family's life even shittier. But yet, somehow Hesher teaches them how to man up and push through their misery...or something. I don't know, I was too busy setting my house on fire to pay attention.

I liked this movie. It's nothing original or groundbreaking, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great, so is Natalie Portman, Piper Laurie, Rainn Wilson, Devin Brochu and honestly everybody in the movie. The story is entertaining, but the acting is what really pushes the film to a higher level. Also, the filmmakers had the good taste to use mostly Cliff Burton-era Metallica songs instead of that satan-awful butt rock they've been shoving down our ears for the last few decades. Definitely worth a rent.

TWISTER (1996)

Punch the core, backbuilding, finger of god, cone of silence, jumper, the suck zone.  These are all terms that tornado chasers use every...single...day. It's almost as important as being able to hold on to a metal pipe tight enough to keep yourself from being pulled up into the suck zone of a finger of god tornado that just threw a two-story house at you.

Bill Paxton is an ex-storm chaser, who with his new fiancee Jami Gertz, goes into the field to find his soon to be ex-wife Helen Hunt and have her sign the divorce papers. While there, the biggest string of tornadoes in 12 years pops up and quiet life be damned! Bill Paxton is gonna chase some of these suckers down and punch their hole with his fancy measuring device. The rest of the movie is just that: overly excited nerds driving all over the joint wrecking shit, overacting and screaming non-stop. You definitely don't have time to get bored, but you do have time to yell "Bullshit!" over and over as repeatedly the main characters defy logic, high winds and flying debris (like an exploding tanker truck, multiple tractors and a cow...twice) without even getting a scratch. But that's the whole point of the movie: forget reality and just have fun. If you're unable to do that, then skip this movie. It's pure junk food for the brain.  It's awesome.

Compared to other mid-90's disaster movies, TWISTER is pretty good. There's tons of action and Bill Paxton is great. I just wish the filmmakers would have let him be a little looser with the character...imagine how awesome it would have been if a little bit of Pvt. Hudson came out during the final tornado! "We're in some real pretty shit now!"

If you like disaster movies, then TWISTER is very much worth watching. And surprisingly the special effects still hold up alright even after all these years.  I watch it once or twice a year easily. Also, watch out for the reference to THE ABYSS, plus THE SHINING and A STAR IS BORN (1954) featured.

MIND KILLER (1987)

[Update 07/19/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Warren is a dork. He works in the basement of a library and in his spare time watches self-help videos on how to pick up women. He's almost like a strange combination of Michael Scott from "The Office" and Marcus Templeton from EVEN HITLER HAD A GIRLFRIEND. Things change though when he discovers a long lost book that teaches you how to use your mind to control things around you...including women. ZAPPED! it's not, instead Warren uses his new found power to seduce an ugly chick at the night club, get free candy bars, help his friend solve a Rubik's Cube and eventually get a female co-worker he has a crush on to start dating him. All of that comes with a price though because the more he uses the power...the more fucked his brain gets until it somehow turns him into a brain with teeth creature that looks like the Mother Brain in Metroid.

At 84 minutes, MIND KILLER is at least 30 minutes too long. The story was compelling in a weird way, but there was too much down time and the pay off at the end was disappointing. I think maybe the filmmakers set their goals beyond what their budget could provide.

Mediocre acting, mediocre 80's fashions and settings, mediocre special effects, nightmare inducing topless female, 90% talking and 10% action. Not really worth watching unless you're really bored.