Wednesday, March 13, 2013

DREDD (2012)

Set way off in the future after nuclear war has fucked up everything, Mega-City One takes up pretty much all of New England and has a population of 800 million people.  Yikes!  As you can imagine, life is pretty shitty, especially for people who live in the gigantic 200-story slum towers.  One of the worst of these high-rise ghettos is Peach Trees which is controlled by a drug lord named "Ma-Ma".  Dredd and his brand new trainee, Anderson, go to investigate a triple murder only to get locked inside and hunted by Ma-Ma's ruthless and heavily-armed gang.

I'm not quite sure why DREDD bombed so bad at the box office (North America $13m vs. a $30m - $45m budget), but it did.  Which is a shame, because DREDD is a fun, no-nonsense action movie that starts out with a bang and keeps the action going the entire film. Tons of action, nice looking sets, non-distracting CG, quick pace, bright colours, cool use of slow-motion, fun story, good acting, Cersei from "Game of Thrones", surprising amount of blood.

Definitely worth checking out if you're an action fan. If they ever make a Part 2, I'll watch the fuck out of it!

Same source material - Judge Dredd (1995)

Saturday, March 9, 2013

SCREWBALLS (1983)

Made at the height of the teen sex comedy boom of the early 80's, this Roger Corman produced comedy is so over the top that it's almost like a parody of other films like PORKY'S, H.O.T.S. and FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH.

Five male students of Taft & Adams High School (T&A get it?) make a pack that they are gonna see the hottest girl in school's tits before school is out.  Problem is the girl, Purity Busch, is a total tease.  So for the rest of the movie it's pretty much like a live action cartoon as these nerds pull off one absurd plan after another to see her topless.  A few examples would be hypnotism, posing as a teacher, hiding in the sand at the beach, sneaking into her house and so on.  Of course, when they're not chasing Purity Busch, they take out time to get busy at the drive-in, play strip bowling with some girls and go to a strip club.

As far as 80's teen sex comedies go, SCREWBALLS is alright.  The comedy is often more confusing than actually funny and very lowbrow (example: when an overweight girl gets horny there's a pig squealing sound effect played), but there is a nice amount of nudity.  Unfortunately, we never get to see any nudity from the main chick.  According to the commentary, her topless scene was done by a stand in.  Fucking lame.

Worth checking out if you're into 80's sex comedies.  Also, what was the time period of the story?  It almost seems like it was set in the 60's and at other times even the 50's, but at the drive-in they showed clips from two movies from the 70's?  Bizarre.

Friday, March 8, 2013

BROKEN ARROW (1996)

Stealth bomber pilots John Travolta and Christian Slater are on a practice mission flying around a desert in the western United States when Travolta tries to murder Slater and then ejects him so he can steal the two nuclear weapons on board.  From that point on, it's just these two numbnuts (and various unimportant bad guys) battling it out in the desert.  Only thing is, since it's a huge desert and the writing is so poor, they have to constantly telling each other their plans or they would never see each other ever again.  Also, they repeatedly get the other one dead to rights, but hold off long enough to smirk and let the other one get away!  At one point there is a fucking nuclear bomb counting down just a few feet away and Slater actually has a tire jack in his hand, cocked to cave in Travolta's skull, but he puts it down and punches him instead.  That kind of shit is enough to drive a logical person batty, but like any good train wreck you can't take your eyes off it. 

Travolta hams it up nonstop to the point where you begin to believe he's fucking with the audience, Slater gets a forest ranger sidekick, explosions all over the joint, lots of gunfire and not many people getting hit, zero nudity, overacting, helicopters exploding, train exploding, absolutely horrible boxing scene, cheesy special effects, slow motion overdose, shooting two guns at once.

Honestly, BROKEN ARROW is awful...but still a fun watch.  Hell, I own the damn thing.