ABANDON SHIP (1957)

[Update 02/27/2022: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

A cruise ship is blasted and 26 survivors gather on and around a large lifeboat.  Ship officer Tyrone Power has to take charge of these weak-minded losers and if that means tossing some of the old and injured overboard then so be it.  Or something like that.

I was hoping ABANDON SHIP would be better than Hitchcock’s weak LIFEBOAT...and it is better, but not by much.  There's a bunch of people on a boat, there's a lot of talking and people get upset, somebody threatens to eat a dog, another guy is stabbed and another shot with a flare gun, people drown, somebody spots a shark fin.  Sounds exciting, but it's really not.  I doubt I’ll ever watch it ever again.  Skip it.

WINTER'S BONE (2010)

Not to be confused with the world's least-watched porno "Edgar Winter's Boner", WINTER'S BONE, tells the story of Ree (Jennifer Lawrence), a 17-year-old girl born and raised in the hillbilly outbacks of Missouri. Her mother is a vegetable who sits and stares the wall all day. So, it's up to Ree to raise her two younger siblings by herself.  Her worthless father is a crankster and a snitch who's on the run. To make matters even worse, her pa put their shitty house and the 100 acres surrounding it up for his bail!  So now Ree has one week to prove to the bondsman that her father is dead or they're gonna be out on the street, well, more like out on the dirt road.

I liked this country noir.  Great acting, authentic sets and county locations, good pace, depressing story, but I do wish it had been darker because even though you gotta guy getting his hands chopped off with a chainsaw WINTER'S BONE only touches the surface of the kind of fucked up shit that goes on out in those woods.

Recommended.

THE LOVED ONES (2009)

"Bring the hammer, Daddy."

The film opens with high school student Brent being asked to the prom by fellow student Lola. He replies sorry, he's going with his girlfriend. Wrong answer. The correct answer would have been to punch her in the face, dropkick her fourteen times, spray a full bottle of mace into her eyeballs and then put her in the Von Erich Iron Claw until the coppers shows up, cause that bitch is fucking cray. Later that afternoon, while walking over to his girlfriend's house, Brent is knocked out and wakes up tied to a chair sitting across the table from Lola and her father. The first thing they do is inject Drano into his neck to prevent him from screaming. It only gets worse off from there. Much worse.

THE LOVED ONES isn't the most original film ever, but what it lacks in originality and budget it makes up for in style and energetic actors, especially the chick who played Lola. She runs the full gambit of emotions in some of these scenes from shy to crazy to sad to angry to full-blown meltdown and back again. It's pretty impressive. She's still not as crazy as the scissor woman from INSIDE, but I damn sure wouldn't want to mess with her...except for maybe in the sack. Mmmm! She's like a mixed up version of a child beauty pageant mother and Chop-Top from TCM2.

If you like these types of films then check it out. I thought it was a lot of fun, even though I wish the story was fleshed out a little more.