Director Jonathan Mostow is an interesting director to say the least. He directed Kurt Russell is the great Breakdown where a man must fight to save his wife. He director Arnold Schwarzenegger in the third Terminator film where a machine must fight another machine to help save the human race; but before he made Terminator 3, he directed Matthew McConaughey and Bill Paxton in a film where men must fight against their wits to save themselves. Two of the three films are great and are a joy to watch,...

Synopsis

Jeremiah is taken at the age of five from his loving foster parents and turned over to the tender mercies of his white-trash mother, Sarah (Asia Argento, in an absolutely monstrous role). He is dragged down into the abusive nightmare of her life, being raped by her male partners when he is being beaten by them. There is an interlude where he is taken under the care of his fundamentalist grandparents (whicih is a nightmare in itself), but mother reclaims him, ultimately making him up as a gir...

Synopsis

Not having seen the first season, I confess as to floundering somewhat in my encounter with the second. In the interest of keeping things simple and comprehensible, I thus present the synopsis provided by the box itself. The second season “finds Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary) away from his former crew . . . and working in a Staten Island firehouse. He must come to terms with the havoc his drinking has caused and realizes it’s time to get his problems under control. His comrades back at 62 Truck a...

Limitations of budget and social conventions of the time prevent Murder, Inc. from being all it can be - still, the performances, and the captivating dynamic between hero (Stuart Whitman) and villain (Peter Falk) result in entertaining fare, so long as this film is allowed to be a movie and not a documentary. Whitman leads a fine cast as the mob lackey, who is constantly manipulated by a tough-talking contract killer. Part of the real life syndicate of hit-men "Murder, Inc.," Falk's baddie steals every ...

Synopsis

Photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders decided to do a series of portraits of some 30 porn stars. Two pictures of each, one clothed, one not, the same pose in both pictures. This is his documentary of that shoot. Scenes of the studio process are intercut with interviews with the various stars and talking-head moments from the likes of Karen Finley, Gore Vidal, John Waters and Whitley Streiber (!). We are at the other end of the porn spectrum from Dag Yngvesson’s Rated X – these are t...

In 16 Blocks, Bruce Willis plays Jack Mosley, a NYPD detective who seems to be annoyed and tired of he job. He looks lethargic 90% of the time never wanting to really do his job. Jack is told that his boss wants him for another job; which is the last possible thing Jack wants right now. Jack has been told to transport a key witness 16 Blocks to a grand jury hearing. The witness must arrive in two hours before the grand jury's term expires. The witness is Eddie Bunker (Mos Def), who seems to have more lines tha...

The Culpepper Cattle Company was a surprise for me, and one that I looked forward to immensely. I love a good western, and I'm particularly fond of anything post-Leone. A western doesn't have to be spaghetti, however, for me to like it. I just feel that, for all Sergio's overblown proportions, he did instill an accurate degree of nastiness in his films, which I'm sure was prevalent in that time of American history. Once Sergio came, westerns grew up, even if they were playing closer to the American style of fi...

You might not know this, but there are two Jackie Chans. The original Chan was an intense martial artist. His films were quite serious and action packed. While humor was always an element to his style, these early films did not really capitalize on that element. The Asian productions were nearly a genre unto themselves. Still, international stardom was elusive to this talented actor.

The second Jackie Chan is the man most Americans are familiar with. Still a talented martial artist, these films show a lighter side to the actor.

Synopsis

Rayne (Kristanna Loken) is a dhamphyr – a human/vampire hybrid. Escaping from the carnival where she is imprisoned as a freak, she sets out on a crusade against vampires, her ultimate target being the lord vampire Kagin (Ben Kingsley, an actor showing Michael Caine’s former penchant to whore himself out without shame), who also happens to be her father. Along the way, she forms an initially uneasy alliance with Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez, and Will Sanderson – members of Brimstone, a ...

Synopsis

Tómas Lemarquis plays Nói, a 17-year-old living in a tiny, frigid, massively isolated town in Iceland. He is brilliant, but refuses to be so, and many people in the town think he isn’t all there. He sleeps through school (when he bothers to show up), deals with his useless alcoholic father, and dreams of being somewhere else. When he meets a young woman who turns out to be a kindred spirit, his desire to escape is further enflamed. The odds, however, are stacked against him.

Quirky...