Tuesday, August 31, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: Django (1966)



'You can clean up the mess, but don't touch my coffin."- Django

ok, this is totally weird, but this is the 2nd flick I've reviewed by Sergio Corbucci this month. Superfuzz was also directed by him years later. and now that I look at it, Terence Hill looks uncannily like Franco Nero from his role here in Django...
check it:




Wow, I just looked it up, and Terence Hill is 2 years older than Franco Nero. Strange. I would've thought Franco was his dad. Anyway, this also marks my second review of a Franco Nero film after reviewing KEOMA earlier in the year.
One of the earliest, most violent (up until then) spaghetti westerns, Corbucci really had it down when he made DJANGO!!!



Django is the story of a lone gunman who fought for the north during the civil war, walking the western deserts in search of revenge dragging along behind him a coffin. He comes upon some Mexican dudes basically stringing up this chick named Maria, and then these white dudes with red masks kill the mexicans, and start to kill the woman themselves. Django isn't gonna have that, so he kills those dudes and tells the girl he has to go to town.
When he gets there, he goes to the whore saloon that serves both the mexicans and the remnants of the southern army, still operating under some dude named Major Jackson. The story really reminds me of this book I read by Cormac McCarthy called BLOOD MERIDIAN. In that book, even after the war is over, jerks like Major Jackson kept scalping the Native Americans, and when they couldn't get them, they'd go kill some Mexicans. Its a terrible thought, and something they don't speak much about in history books, but it happened.

So basically this Jackson is just killing for fun, and taxing the citizens and being a really bad man. I don't wanna give away the best part, but Django has it out for his ass. He spits this wine cork in this smug preacher's face in one scene. Its so badass. Then that guy gets his ear cut off later. Anyway, Django takes care of them, then the story takes a turn, and you find out he has a plan to rob a shitload of gold from the Mexican border with the help of some Mexican friends of his own. He does this, and then, well, like I said, why ruin it? This bad motherfucker is streaming right now on Netflix instant, so make it happen, yall. thumbs up.

fall tshirt designs

new tshirt designs

Rocknowledgy flyers

getting to jam some tunes lately. wanted to add the flyers up


Monday, August 30, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: Shogun Assassin (1980)



"When I was little, my father was famous. He was the greatest Samurai in the empire, and he was the Shogun's decapitator. He cut off the heads of 131 lords for the Shogun. It was a bad time for the empire."- Daigoro (Cub)

"They will pay... In rivers of blood!"- Ogami Itto (Lone Wolf)

"Your technique is magnificent. When cut across the neck, a sound like wailing winter winds is heard they say. I've always hoped to cut someone like that someday to hear that sound, but to have it happen to my own neck ---is ridiculous."- Claw (Master of Death)

Rounding out the "Big 3 Cult Ninja/Samurai/Black Belt movies" (the others being Riki-Oh, and The Crippled Masters) we have arguably the greatest samurai movie of all time. This flick is simultaneously as beautiful and as bloody as they come. Originally released in Japan as a six film series beginning in 1972 based on the long running manga comic series LONE WOLF AND CUB, the first 2 films were recut, and released in the US and Britain in 1980 as SHOGUN ASSASSIN!!



Most people who first watch the film recognize the voice of the dubbed voice of Daigoro in the first few moments as the sample in the beginning of the GZA's debut solo record "LIQUID SWORDS". Daigoro comes on to explain that his father (Ogami Itto) was a "famous" man. He was the "Shogun's" killer for years, until the Shogun's mind became infected with "devils". The Shogun became untrusting and sent his guards to kill Ogami Itto. In the original films, there was a war between the different clans, and the Shogun was like one of the head Emperors or some shit. Anyway, he sends his goons to off Ogami Itto, but Ogami was out doing some samurai shit. The goons killed his wife, and shamed his honor. So Ogami freaked out, swore vengeance and became the mad one, the mad wolf, or the Lone Wolf. He quit his job with the empire, and was gonna split, but the Shogun had other ideas.



The Shogun made Lone Wolf win his freedom by fighting the Shogun's son. Wolf did it with ease. Then he comes and says, ok you won your freedom, but you didn't win the freedom for your son, so hand him over, we're gonna sacrifice him since you killed my son. Wolf is like, "Bull-shit!", and he starts hackin dudes up. He even kills the Shogun's other son. Shogun's like, I'll send every son I have up against you. Wolf is like, I'll kill every ninja in this world you motherfucker.

So then, the Wolf asks his son to make a choice, choose a ball or choose the sword. If he chose the ball, Wolf would kill him and he would rest in peace with his mother, if he chose the sword, he would walk along the path to hell with his father. Needless to say, he chooses the sword. Then they set out, always wary of what lay on the road ahead. Lone Wolf slices and dices his way throughout their journey easily defeating every enemy with a giant spray of blood across the screen. Its beautiful. The end of the story shows how they make money on their journey. Selling his services as a secret assassin to those who can't protect themselves from the empire's taxing lords, he is set on a journey to find and kill the Shogun's brother. The journey takes them on a ship, through the desert, and against 3 men known as the Masters of Death. The Masters of Death look as though they were the inspiration for the "Three Storms" in my favorite movie of all time BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA.

So... I would go ahead and give this movie the highest rating that I can give a flick. Find yourself a copy and buy it, and watch it at least once a year with a giant pizza and a couple buddies. word up. PS, the goddamned soundtrack sounds like it was written by John Carpenter. Its amazing. Turns out it was the singer from Paul Revere and the Raiders, Mark Lindsay. Ba-zong!

Saturday, August 28, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: Demolition Man (1993)



"Mellow greetings. What seems to be your boggle?"- Guard

"Rat? This is a rat burger? ...Not bad."- John Spartan

"But there's just one thing I wanna know... How's that damn three seashell thing work?"- John Spartan

A truely bad/awesome flick, 1993 brought us a summer blockbuster loosely based on ideas from Aldous Huxley's novel, BRAVE NEW WORLD. Yet another future cop flick, this was the first flick that popped up yesterday when I loaded Netflix onto my IPhone. What a killer choice! Starring Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, & Sandra Bullock w/ Denis Leary, Rob Schneider, and cameos by Jack Black, and Jesse "the Body" Ventura, I'm proud today to review DEMOLITION MAN!



Wow! I'm surprised how this holds up. The basic story is that in 1996, shit is hitting the fan. Drug gangs run the city of Los Angeles, and they have the whole city sectioned off. One of the toughest and meanest is Simon Phoenix (Snipes). He's been pursued for over 2 years by John Spartan (Stallone) a cop who has the nickname "the Demolition Man" because the blows shit up from time to time when catching bad dudes. He finally catches Phoenix, but is framed for involuntarily murdering 20 or so kids on a bus. They both get thrown into this new cryogenic jail facility, Phoenix forever, and Spartan for 70 years. Fast forward to 2032... Phoenix is up for parole, and somehow he has the knowledge to escape. He is awakened into a society that is unfamiliar to violence because after "the big one" (an earthquake that destroyed most of old LA and killed millions in 2010) the cities Santa Barbara, LA, and San Diego were combined into a giant utopian city built on peace. No "murder death kills" (no one has died besides anything but natural causes) have happened since the earthquake. So when Phoenix comes out and starts murdering everyone, the cops have no idea what to do. Lenina Huxley (Bullock) and an old cop named Zach Lamb suggest bringing the only man to ever bring Phoenix to justice back outta his icy snooze. Blah, Blah, Blah... they do it, and immediately Spartan is disgusted by what he sees. He calls the way they live their lives "fascist" and says it makes him wanna puke.



But here is why I find the movie great. There are a lot of funny ideas in it. Example number #1- in this future society, everything that's deemed bad for you is deemed illegal. So everything from cursing to salt, to alcohol, contact sports, meat, chocolate, uneducational toys, gasoline, anything spicy, abortion, or even having a baby without a license. Even when Huxley asks Spartan if he wants to have sex, he starts getting ready, and she comes out and puts a helmet on his head. When he suggests they do it the "old fashioned" way, she's like, "what, you mean the exchange of bodily fluids??" Then there's the idea of being fined for cursing out loud. There are sensors that are chiming throughout the whole movie..."John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the Verbal Morality Statute." Then there's the 3 shells in the shitter. Spartan can't figure it out. They laugh at him and the idea that "in the 20th century they used wads of paper..." I've always thought that idea was amazing. And finally, the funniest one to me was the idea of the Franchise wars. they only mention this once, but there's a scene where this dude asked to take some of the characters to dinner at "taco bell". And he looks as if he's very pleased with himself. Spartan is like, "uh... ok." Then Huxley explains that after the franchise wars, only one restaurant was left. "Now all restaurants are Taco Bell." and that's it. It only leaves you wondering... WTF? What happened? I would love it if there were franchise wars. Do you think the fry cooks would all get raises? or at least some battle helmets? There's so many very subtle references and critiques on modern society and free will here that if you aren't quick, you might miss, and chalk this up to just another shitty action movie. Sinister heads of state think they are doing the right thing by building a "better" society, but in reality are demonizing the poor, and trying to get rid of them altogether! They are after the "Scraps" who are just poor people living in the sewers and ruins of old LA who want to live "free" and are trying not to starve to death. Heavy shit man! much deeper than your typical action flick.
What else? Sting redid the old Police song, "Demolition Man" for the end credits, and its hilarious. I think I may have finally found a rating system to use. I should use the Demolition Man "3 shells" system to rate movies. 1 shell is total shit. 2 shells rides the line between total shit, and totally awesome, and 3 shells is a perfect wipe!
this one is 3 shells. ah fuckit, that's too confusing. I recommend it, and its now on netflix instant. word up.

Friday, August 27, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: Cleopatra Jones (1973)



"Hair's like a woman. You treat it good and it treats you good. Ain't that right honey? You hear what I'm saying? Yeah, you got to hold it, caress it, and love it. And if your hair gets out of line you take a scissor and say, "Hair I'm going to cut you." - Doodlebug

"that's what I call sum extra, HEAVY, DUBBLE-DUTY stuff!! MMM-MMMM!"- ol dude

A high quality blaxploitation flick if I ever saw one, you can tell they actually dropped some duckets on this one! Like the funky female version of James Bond, there was no tougher than Tamara Dobson. Also starring Bernie Casey, Antonio Fargas, and a hilarious Shelly Winters, bad/awesome flicks review takes on CLEOPATRA JONES!



What I found impressive right in the beginning of this one compared to others of the genre was that they introduce the character as she is off in Turkey infiltrating someone's poppy field and instructs some official looking dudes to "blow up the poppy field". The wide frame has just had her fly in over this beautiful turkish landscape by helicopter and sashay down through a double line of all these Turkish dignitaries looking like one of the most fashionably dressed and beautiful super models one could ever hope to see, and then she's the one telling people to blow up these poppies, and our work will never be done, til we "get it all off the streets and outta the reach of the kids". Typical fare for blaxploi films, but both beautifully orchestrated and believably rendered. I mean the director wants us to know we are dealing with one bad mamma, and it comes across. From there, we are introduced to "Mommy" (Shelly Winters) a big shit dope dealer back stateside, who is absolutely furious at Cleo for burning up her poppy field. Mommy's business is already deteriorating and Cleo's blow has proved to be a breaking point. Mommy comes up with a plan to get Cleo back stateside so she can keep all of her crops from being destroyed. She calls in a favor to a crooked cop and has Cleo's pet project Safe house for kids trying to get off drugs raided, and a huge bag of heroin planted on one of the residents.



Cleopatra comes back to town, and is totally pissed. She kills a couple dudes straight off the airplane, and just flashes her "special agent" badge and walks straight outta the fucking airport!! haha!! no questions asked! I know shit was different back then, but come on! No paperwork whatsoever?? Bullshit! Anyway, I guess I shouldn't give away too much on this one, but let's just say there's a special appearance by Florida from Good Times!! and her sons are these bad ass karate dudes! (of course!) and what else? Cleopatra drives the sweetest corvette you've ever seen with a crazy extra on the T-top that makes it raise so it doesn't mess up her afro when she's getting out of the car!! TUFF!! pretty sick car chase through the same drainage ditches that are in T2 between her vette and a badass mustang, a hilarious character named Doodlebug who has some pretty funny sidekicks, some motorcross, and plenty of action. You can find this guy at Big Lots for like 5 bucks or maybe even less. Pick it up!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: The Wild Life (1984) (Cameron Crowe)



"It's casual"- Tom Drake

"It's my hair, isn't it? You don't like my hair."- Harry

Alahoyus! Now this is more like it! Another childhood awesome flick completely debunked! Well not completely... How could a movie starring Chris Penn, Eric Stoltz, Lea Thompson, with cameos by Ben Stein, Randy Quaid, Rick Moranis, Ron Wood, the "pussy wagon" guy from KILL BILL, and Lee Ving from Fear, written by Cameron Crowe as a follow up to "Fast Times...", and a score written by Eddie Van Halen possibly be anything but amazing?? Well watch this and find out... Bad/Awesome personified, all of those people trying their best to make a fantastic comedy with no discernable plot whatsoever- in THE WILD LIFE!!



It took me a very long time to find a copy of this. It has only ever been released on VHS and Laserdisc (I think because Cameron Crowe doesn't want it to get out that his name is attached to such a big flopping stinker... but wikipedia says its because of soundtrack issues... somebody in Steppenwolf is looking for the big bucks...). Its one of those movies that you try to remember the name of and then after explaining what it's about, everyone goes, "OHHHH YEEAHHH!" The fucking thing is worth watching to see Chris Penn try to out-Spicoli his brother as a super thin young wild buck. Seems like they got everyone to be in this thing. You'll even recognize the little brother as the "other" kid from WEIRD SCIENCE (opposite AMH {shorthand for Anthony Micheal Hall [duh]}).
Story goes (if you can call it that) its the end of summer. Almost time for school to be back in sesh. Tom Drake (Penn) and Bill Conrad (Stoltz) work at the bowling alley. Bill is outta school and getting his own place. He's recently busted up with his chick (Lea Thompson) who is porking this cop (who turns out to be married). Tom is like a local wrestling star wildman who goes out with this chick with terrible 80s hair and style who works in the mall at a shop with Rick Moranis (who fucking knocks it outta the park as always.)
Bill's lil brother is Jim who is tuff as shit and obsessed with Vietnam. He doesn't know if he'll go back to school yet or not, because he's fucked i guess.



Tom decides he want to marry his chick but she's like no way dude, yer crazy... He tells his buds that she said yes, and that they're gonna have a stag party. Bill's rent is too high, so he gets Tom to move in with him. They go to "Les Girls" and get in a huge slugout. Tom starts raging all the time, and pisses Bill off. Jim takes his buddy to meet Charlie (Quaid) a Nam vet. Charlie turns out to be a junkie, and Jim splits. Bill finds out about his chick porking the cop, and goes to tuff him up. He gets sauced, but his lil bro Jim fixed the pigs up real good, dig? Crash, Huge doughnut to the copmobile. Bill tries to pull it together in the 7th inning stretch only to come home to a rager to end all ragers in his swank bachelor pad, with Lee Ving the cable guy hanging and so many partyers that the place has no room. Tom and his wrestling buds take care of that by ker-smashing the wall down. "Lawsuit." Bill gets her in the closet. Tom kidnaps his girl. IF, (big if) IF you can find it... get some "burlacious gange buds" and it'll prolly be worth it. still gotta come up with a sweet rating system. one thumb up. one somewhere else.

Monday, August 23, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: Superfuzz (1980)



Ok, so for the last movie... I got called out for reviewing an awesome/awesome movie... so, the only way to redeem myself was to find and review a truly bad/bad movie. Then the balance shall be restored. I have to admit, when I was a kid, this movie was awesome. I even remember when Robocop came out, thinking that somehow they had gotten part of the idea from this movie. Upon long overdue rewatching... this thing is a pile of dogshit. Terence Hill and Ernest Borgnine in SUPERFUZZ!



So the story goes, Dave Speed is this rookie cop in Miami who is always goofing up. Ernest Borgnine is the sarge, and he sends him out to collect the bread on this parking ticket... Speed goes to it, finds out he has to deliver the ticket way out on a deserted Native American reservation. He has to canoe there. So, while he's on his way to do that... NASA decides to fire an experimental missile over the reservation. I have know idea how this was supposed to fly in the real world, but I guess it WAS 1980. Anyway, the reservation has been evacuated and Speed is like, "where is everyone?" He starts shouting hello, figures it a lost cause, hangs the ticket on a teepee, and decides to split. When he tries to get back in the canoe, there's an alligator in it. At first he's gonna shoot it, but he can't bring himself to do it, so instead he decides to fire his pistol into the air. When he shoots into the air, the fucking bullet hits the rocket?!? causing it to explode and then mushroom cloud around him, covering him in this red powder. No word on the condition of the alligator.
Everyone thinks he dies, but he's fine. When he gets back to town, he sees Borgnine, who has been busted down to traffic duty for sending an officer into the shit. Borgnine busts his chops and calls bullshit on him even going out there because he says nothing could survive that. Right away Speed notices that he has powers "far beyond those of mortal men". Powers like super strength, speed, telekinesis, he sees the future, etc. But no one believes him because the powers don't work all the time. The gag is, his powers fail if he sees the color red.
He starts to fight crime, and eventually the mob who are counterfeiting bills around town. They kill the Sarge and frame Speed. Then the cops try to kill Speed, unsuccessfully.
Probably the worst thing about the flick was the constant theme song. "Supah-Supah". Anyway, this is cornball to the max, sped up film for special effects, mobsters that counterfeit one dollar bills instead of 100s. Its killer if you're 9 years old... other than that... skip it.

Monday, August 16, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: Wild at Heart (1990) (David Lynch)



"Did I ever tell ya that this here jacket represents a symbol of my individuality, and my belief in personal freedom?" - Sailor

"Speaking of Jack, One eyed Jack's yearning to go a peeping in a seafood store!" - Bobby Peru

"Uh oh. Baby, you'd better get me back to that hotel. You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt." - Lula

The last of the flicks I watched while in the house on the beach in France, another chapter in the weird and wild mind of David Lynch. This one sort of hit home with me being set in Cape Fear, North Carolina and being about young lovers on the lam(b)(?) in a world of shit. Kind of reminds me of high school. A very violent and strange movie from beginning to end, from characters to dialogue and its delivery... Nicholas Cage, Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton, Diane Ladd, Crispin Glover, and Willem Dafoe in David Lynch's WILD AT HEART.


What a helluva flick. Its classic Lynch, with insane cameos, dialogue thats so cheesy that you can smell it coming off the screen, lots of violence and gore set against a backdrop of the broken American dream, this time viewed through the crystal ball of the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz. It starts off with Sailor (Nick Cage) beating the shit outta this dude named Bobby Ray Lemon, actually beating him to death. The dude pulled a knife on him because Lula (Dern)'s mother Marietta Fortune (Ladd) hired him to kill him because Sailor wouldn't fuck her in the bathroom. Sailor goes to jail for 5 years, gets out, gets picked up by Lula, and then they set off on a lover's adventure to California. Marietta hires a detective (Stanton) to follow them, and also a mobster named Marcellos Santos. The whole damn movie is great. They fuck a lot, and listen to a heavy metal band called Powermad. And they love Elvis, and there's a wreck where they see this chick croaks right in front of them.



Crispin Glover plays a weird cousin in a flashback story scene who loves christmas, and makes sandwiches all night and sticks cockroaches in his pants. Issabella Rossalina is in it as a killer, and the main chick from Twin Peaks as Glenda the good witch. There are many other assorted characters that you'll recognize from other flicks as minor characters... like John Lurie, and the dude from "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" that doublecrosses the boys... "sorry, i gotta do for mine"... But, by far and away, the best character in the movie is Bobby Peru, as portrayed by Willem Dafoe. A greasy slippery rapist rat fink hitman,

***SPOILER ALERT***

the penultimate scene in the flick is when he after doublecrossing Sailor in their feedstore robbery, accidently blows his own fucking head off with a shotgun. Man, the sound coming from the screen, I had to rewind it two or three fucking times. "So intense"! This movie won the Cannes film festival top prize in 1990, and was panned by critics everywhere... but they were all obviously full of shit, because this movie ruled. Also, Diane Ladd is Laura Dern's real mom. And she was even creepier than ol Bobby Peru. No shit!!! ok, double thumbs up. Check it out at all costs..... More soon.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: Darkman- (1990) (Sam Raimi)



"Tell us where to find the Bellasarious Memorandum, and we shall disappear... like a nightmare before the breaking day." - Durant

I love Sam Raimi, but talk about a shitty flick. This is one of those flicks that maybe you see once years ago, and maybe back then you were like, this is great OR, at least, that was pretty good. When you're a young dude or dudette, some things can seem amazing that are totally shitty. Sports for example. (That's sort of a joke). Ok, so like I said, I found a stash of VHS at this chateau in France, and I've been watching them. I thought I remembered this one being a really well done movie about a seedy underworld with a cool character trying his best to overcome the forces of evil, and with Sam Raimi at the helm, I had to revisit. Boy was I disappointed. Liam Neeson, & Francis McDormand in a piece of shit entitled DARKMAN.



To tell you the truth, I don't even know when it was that I saw this. I may have been taken by my folks with some neighborhood dudes to see this one hot summer day, and just been really high on kool-aid. Then again, it could have been one of those sleepover domino's pizza/oreos/coca-cola classic features. I can't remember. Either way, I was too young to discern how terrible Liam Neeson's acting was. Sam Raimi apparently wanted to do a big budget superhero flick, trying for Batman, and the Shadow. Unable to secure the rights for those, he said fuck it, and just made up his own character. The whole thing is NOT THAT BAD. BUT... i guess I've come to enjoy good/bad flicks so much, that when you see a bad/bad one, it just bums you out that much more.



the story is about a scientist who is trying to create some kind of synthetic skin, and he's almost there, except for that the skin disintegrates after 99 minutes. Finally he figures out that it won't melt if its in the dark. (I feel like in this day and age of plastic surgery that this whole movie doesn't make ANY sense anymore, and MAY be my problem with the whole movie. I think its become dated because of upgrades in technology.) So, buying into this, he also dates this chick who is a lawyer. She comes across a super badass named memo ("the Bellasarious Memorandum") and it says that her boss is bribing the board of directors allowing him to build a "super city". She splits to confront him on it, and he sends some gangster dudes (the nastiest one cuts off dudes fingers and collects them) to get the memo from the lab. I'm assuming that the lab was their apartment, because why the fuck would he take her paperwork to his lab?? But I digress. So anyway, they fuck him up, he becomes hideously deformed burning his hands and face and then blowing up the lab sending him flying into the water and assumed dead.



BUT... he didn't die, he was taken to a hospital as a john doe, and then treated with special techniques that cut his feeling off... Because he'd live in agony forever (if he woke up they said) but the bad news was that he'd go crazy because he couldn't tell how much adrenaline he was working up or whatever. Anyway, he wakes up, escapes, puts some of his old equipment together in an old warehouse, reconstructs masks of his face and his enemies faces and tries to go get his old lady back from the asshole who blew him up and stole her away. He succeeds, but I don't know, I was totally passing out... the one dude gets blown up in a helicopter but must've not died, because part 2 is called the return of Durant... and i don't even think he killed the main guy. Theres a couple cool scenes. He puts his regular face back on, tells his old lady he's fine, and now they're back in love, and then he goes to a carnival and wins her a stuffed elephant, but the redneck carny won't give him the prize, so he goes Bonkers, and wigs out, sees fire, and breaks the dudes fingers, grabs an elephant and just splits. So, its not all bad. There are some Raimi moments. Ok... I do not recommend this one. And that may be like the 2nd out of all of these that i don't recommend, so thats saying something. Last but not least, there's a special cameo at the end of none other than BRUCE CAMPBELL! He's the last mask Darkman puts on when he says fuck it, and splits from his chick to live the life he hates, but is forced to live.

If you have any bad/awesome flicks recommendations, leave them in the comments for me!! thanx for reading!!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: Bad Lieutenant- (1992) (Abel Ferrara)



“I've been dodging bullets since I was 14. No one can kill me, I'm blessed. I'm a fucking Catholic.”

Hello out there... if you read this vloggg with any frequency, you know that lately I've been writing about the weirdest and best/worst movies that I can remember watching growing up. Last night, I was digging around the chateau that I'm staying at in France, and found a badass collection of vhs on the back of a shelf in the living room. I thought I'd take advantage of reviewing some more classics and searching for a few that I haven't thought of in years. The first one that nearly jumped off the shelf in my hands was Harvey Keitel's outstanding performance in a movie that creeped me out beyond belief as a teenager, Abel Ferrara's BAD LIEUTENANT. (The trailer is ok, but doesn't really do the movie justice, so Ill put a link to a rad tribute some dudes made on youtube at the bottom of this review... word):



I was glad to get a chance to see this again, as a few friends have recommended seeing last year's pseudo-remake by Werner Herzog starring Nick Cage. Yeah, I was skeptical too, but even the snobbish of critics gave it some praise (Not that that really matters in the context of this vloggg, of course its better if its dogshit...). I can't remember exactly when I first saw this movie, but I'm pretty sure it was on skinemax or showtime?!? Like I said, I can't remember, but I do remember that I DID see the uncut nc-17 rated version w/ the naked dance, and the "beat off in front of the young girls" scene. Even with those 5 minutes cut out, this is definitely one of the most fucked up movies ever. I still cringe at the level of the destructive path this character is on. Harvey Keitel plays a cop (they never say his name actually) who starts the movie by dropping his kids off late to school, then as soon as they jump outta the car, he starts doing bumps of coke. And its all downhill from there. I'm not going to give you the whole plot of this flick, but it does have a bit of everything: excessive drug use including but not limited to cocaine, smoking crack, chasing the dragon, shooting heroin, drinking, prostitution, transvestites, he steals drugs from crime scenes and gives it to dealers to make money on it. And his heinous gambling problem is what sort of ties the whole plot together. He bets a shitload on a series between the Mets and the Dodgers, and Darryl Strawberry (who by now has started playing with LA) is up 3 games to 0 in a series of 7. The Mets make a comeback, and he just keeps doubling up on his debt as the movie goes along. There's also a nun who gets raped, and he starts investigating this crime somehow in his drunken stupor, and for those of you who have seen this already...

(SPOILER ALERT)

- what the fuck was up with when he tracks down the 2 dudes after the jesus/baglady shows him the goblet??? Why did he take them to the bus station? I figured they were dead for sure. But, I figure, the nun wasn't going to prosecute them, so he figured, he's such a fuck up, that who was he to judge them.... BUT- that still doesn't explain why he gave them 30,000 FUCKING DOLLARS!!! I mean, if we're talking redemption here, I'm 99% sure those 2 dudes did NOT split town. They probably took one look in that cigar box, and were like, "who the FUCK was that?" And then maybe moved across town, I don't know. That whole part just didn't make sense to me. Of course I'm not a drug addled maniac.


ok, so... I highly recommend checking this one out. And maybe Ill do a review of the Herzog one if its worth a shit. And maybe even if its not. More soon.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzsayiLy52E