LOVE AND A .45 (1994)

Back in the early 90's there was a whole slew of these criminal/murderer lovebirds road trip movies: WILD AT HEART, THELMA & LOUISE, TRUE ROMANCE, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, KALIFORNIA, THE DOOM GENERATION and so on.  LOVE AND A .45 is another one and it tells the story of Watty and Starlene.  Watty pays the bills on their crappy little trailer by doing small time hold up jobs.  Starlene sometimes acts as a diversion.  After one job goes horribly wrong (thanks to their high as a kite buddy, Billy, going nuts and killing a woman), they head out on the road to Mexico.  Of course, if things went according to plan there wouldn't be much of a movie, so to add to the drama we got some macho policemen, strung out criminal tough guys and a left for dead but not quite so dead Billy hot on their trail.  That doesn't stop them though from seeing the sights, getting married, visiting Starlene's folks and even stopping off to buy camera film.

I remember seeing this film when it came out and enjoying it, but watching it now it doesn't hold up very well.  There's very little action and I never once got a feeling that Watty or Starlene were ever in much trouble.  The whole movie Starlene's just giggling away.  You would think they were on a road trip to a petting zoo not on the run for their lives.

Average pace, dated everything, Peter Fonda in a small role, Rene Zellweger actually looking attractive, a nod to PINK FLAMINGOS, nice looking old cars, $279 VCR's, nice Texas scenery, a skull tattoo, Jeffery Combs as a mobster bill collector, fork to neck stabbing, a young Gil Bellows and a soundtrack featuring stuff like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Mazzy Star, The Reverend Horton Heat and Johnny Cash.

For a low-budget movie you could definitely do worse,  but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it.

CATACOMBS (1988)

Oh my god what a boring movie!  Four-hundred years ago an ugly dude with demonic powers is boringly sealed into a room in the basement of a monastery.  Fast-forward to the present day and a female teacher comes to visit the monastery.  At the same time the demon dude breaks free of his tomb and...does pretty much nothing.  No bullshit at least 95% of this movie is just people talking and walking around.  There are a few murders, but they're so boring they wouldn't startle the weakest of horror fans.  I've seen more brutal murders on reruns of "Remington Steele"!

Zero excitement, zero gore, zero nudity, slow as molasses pace that had me yawning nonstop.  Can you imagine the anger and disappointment this turd must have created when it came out on video back in the day and some poor teenager went through all kinds of hoops to secretly watch it only to be rewarded with 84 minutes of talking?!

Skip it.  There is absolutely no reason that this movie should come within 500 yards of your TV.

THE GAUNTLET (1977)

The story is about as simple as it can get: a honest Phoenix cop (Clint Eastwood) is sent to transport a prisoner (Sondra Locke) from Las Vegas back to Phoenix.  Along the way every cop and mafia hood in the state tries to kill them by shooting tens of thousands of bullets at them. The End.

I would love to know more about the development of this story, not physical making of the movie, just the writing of the story itself cause there's nothing to it.  The entire film is Eastwood/Locke traveling from place to place getting shot at by people who can't hit shit!  There were times (the helicopter scene) when the bad guy had a clear (and I mean fucking clear) shot and totally missed it.  There was a reasonable amount of action, but since the bad guys were so inept I never once thought that Eastwood was in any real danger.

Topless Sondra Locke, ridiculous amount of bullets fired, average pace, really nice poster artwork, mildly boring action scenes, good supporting cast: Bill McKinney, Roy Jensen, Pat Hingle, William Prince.  The films starts out interesting, but the story is beyond belief.  Worth the occasional viewing for Eastwood fans, but the whole thing is kinda silly.