Sexy Cineplexy: Reviews

Personaly, I would have cast Ryan Gosling and Jon Seda for this movie.
Street Kings it's not, but as a cop movie it's definitely not as bad as you make it out to be. You need to spend more time around cops to really understand it. Most days on patrol are boring and uneventfull and cops do juvenile stuff to break up the boredom.
You are right about the lack of chemistry between Pena and Jake. I just think Pena was a terrible choice for this movie. The shaky cam didn't help either but this movie is definitely worth a watch.

Pump Up The Volume
(directed by Allan Moyle, 1990)



Psst! Wanna know a secret? I just voted for Pump Up The Volume as my #1 movie for the MoFo Top 100 Films of the 1990's. I did it on an instinct because I had always loved the movie, but it's been ... I'd say six years since I last saw the movie. Well, after voting for it, I decided that I should watch it again, just to see if I had made the right decision, even though it's too late. And you know what? I feel quite good that I picked it as my #1. Actually, it's kind of, in a way, like my #1 choice for the millenium movies -- Ghost World. For starters, both feature an artistic, black haired, foul mouthed teenage girl in a lead role - Pump has Samantha Mathis, who plays Christian Slater's love interest, Ghost has Thora Birch, of course. And they're both about young adults who are sick of how boring the world is.

Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) has just moved to Arizona with his parents. He's a shy, nerdy guy, who doesn't talk to anybody at his high school, eats lunch by himself, makes good grades, etc. His dad is some big administrator for the school board. His parents are ridiculously unaware (but I can let it go) that he's downstairs in the basement broadcasting live on his ham radio set (a present from his parents so he could communicate to his old friends back on the east coast -- remember, this is 1990) under the name "Happy Harry Hardon." He's a dirty mouth, teenaged Howard Stern, who plays music, pretends to jerk off, and reads letter on the air from kids at his high school who write to him - and if they include a phone number, he calls them. Nobody at his high school knows that shy Mark Hunter is the rude underground radio personality that they all love and listen to every night at 10:00. However, arty and funky Nora Diniro (Samantha Mathis) who writes to Happy Harry Hardon all the time (calling herself the "Eat Me, Beat Me Lady") and has a deep crush on the mystery talker, is on Mark's trail. Eventually she closes in on him and from there they both work together in keeping the spirits of all of the disillusioned teenagers up.

Their school -- especially their bitchy old female principal -- is a real nightmare -- and a real treat to movie goers like me. Pump Up The Volume could never be made today -- not in our current Glee society where high school is "JUST THE BEST!", the best time of your life, where everybody gets up and dances with handicapped kids in wheelchairs, geeky gay students and fat ass ugly girls who tromp on some stage and sing their pizza stuffed mouths off. Although, Pump Up The Volume does have its share of sap -- there's a gay teenager who gets bullied and a guy who is so geeky and lonely that he actually commits suicide. But, it's all a part of the nightmare of life -- Pump Up The Volume admits that life is hard, and cruel, and that the only way to survive is to tough it out and survive it. There's no "It Gets Better" message really planted here, although these people are certainly looking for something better. These kids are trapped in a system that expects them to over perform -- or else. The psychotic principal expels students and psychologically manipulates others into dropping out if their SAT scores are low because she wants to have the best school in the country. Mark Hunter, or Happy Harry Hardon, is their voice of thunder, their sound of sanity, their primal public figure. He unleashes beastly energies that are being stunted around him, he is a God for anarchists and rebels. And he is very well played by Christian Slater. This is, as far as I'm concerned, the movie of his career. It's not a perfect movie, but it works. It's inspiring and enjoyable.

Go watch Pump Up The Volume and put it high on your MoFo Top 100 Films of the 1990's list and TALK HARD!

Great movie. Didn't know you liked it so much. Always been a favorite of mine as well.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

#80 on the HK 100.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Warrior
(directed by Gavin O'Connor, 2011)



One of the best movies I have ever seen. Possibly even my new favorite film. The Blu-ray has sat on my shelf for the past month, waiting to be watched, but I couldn't get into the mood. I heard a lot of praise for Warrior -- people comparing it to Rocky and such -- people thinking Tom Hardy is so fantastic in it. The praise made me think the movie was going to be overrated and wasn't really all that spectacular. Once I was done with it, though, I felt it was one of the most emotional experiences I ever had with a movie of its kind -- a sports movie, a movie about boxing, about fighting, etc. I love the Rocky movies, but they never got inside my head the way Warrior did. The final scenes of this movie were like the best sex ever. It was like being under the influence of a drug. It made me want to watch a different movie afterwards, but I sadly could not think of any that would have given me a similar experience.

So, yes, I recommend this movie totally. It stars Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy as two brothers who are born fighters, but they have been estranged for a long time -- until at the end of the movie, they end up in a mixed martial arts ring together. Brendan (Edgerton) needs money so that he and his family can keep their house -- Tommy (Hardy) wants money to give to a widow in Texas. Nick Nolte (now this performance was alright, I thought, but saying he's the best thing about the movie is totally overrated -- personally, I think Joel Edgerton is) plays their father. He's a former alcoholic, but now he's gone through 1000 days sober. Brendan works at a high school and is an all around beloved guy, while Tommy is dark, sullen, angry, quiet and scary. They are fierce fighters.

The only problem I have with Warrior is that it's hard to believe that these two guys wound up at this major MMA competition -- and end up fighting against each other. To me, this chain of events, and all of the other connections that happen (particularly one involving Tommy being a hero in Iraq) -- it is very fantastical. It could only happen in a movie. I was overwhelmed by how they all lucked out. But, it is a movie, and a very entertaining one. A very emotional one. Go see it.

Dammit SC, you got me on this one-- getting it soon.

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Under-the-radar Movie Awesomeness.
http://earlsmoviepicks.blogspot.com/

BRONSON
(directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, 2008)



I adore Tom Hardy. He didn't stand out to me in Inception, but I loved him as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. For me, he was the best thing in that film. I think he could have been used a lot better, too. I have now got around to watching two Blu-rays of his that I had been putting off -- Warrior and Bronson -- and I can safely say now that I love this guy and I think he's a brilliant actor.

Bronson, though, is something else. A reviewer compared it to A Clockwork Orange -- I'd say it has something Stanley Kubrickesque about it, but it's not a new Clockwork Orange. The film is basically plotless, except for the fact that you get to witness Tom Hardy play a hardcore aggressive, yet clownish, yet artistic f**k up of a human being who winds up in jails and mental asylums all of his life. It's full of style, full of flash, full of rhythmic, adrenaline pumping music... and FULL of NAKED TOM HARDY. *GASP* PENIS GONE WILD. *GASP* Often coated in dark body paint -- at one point, it's even applied on him by a policeman -- but still good stuff.

The film is based on a real life British convict named Michael Peterson, who took on the name "Charles Bronson" later on when he got into some kind of "professional" fighting gig. This movie is babbling and incoherent, but interesting and keeps your eyes glued to the screen, even when there's not a Tom Hardy penis jangling right in front of you. I definitely recommend seeing it at least once. I'm sure there's much weirder movies than Bronson, but for someone not accustomed to weird, this will probably be really strange. Sometimes it gets a little dark, and sometimes it gets rather sad, but most of the time it's a sort of surreal, crazy dream. The best part about it is that it keeps Tom Hardy's character sympathetic, although he never really feels real. This is a movie about madness, genius, creativity, aggression, and a man who seems destined to only self destruct. Fans of body paint and prolonged male nudity should definitely check this movie out. Did I mention that there are also a couple of drag queens?

Though I wasn't as excited by the nudey scenes, I liked the fact that the film wasn't afraid to show some of the more extreme things that Bronson got up to.

Awesome film too, Hardy was absolutely fantastic as the psycho nutter... loved him in this role.
Loved the whole film tbh...

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Every film could use more penis right?

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Grand Theft Parsons
(directed by David Caffrey, 2003)



Yes, I'm back again folks with another movie review -- been watching up a storm lately. This one is a little feature that I can't believe stars people like Johnny Knoxville, Christina Applegate and Robert Forster, but what can you do? It's based on the DEATH of musician Gram Parsons -- someone I never knew existed until now. Johnny Knoxville plays his road manager who hires a hippie to drive a hearse to an airport to pick up Gram Parsons' body so he can take it to the desert and burn it in a special ceremony that the two of them planned in case one of them should ever die, but their plans go to Hell when Gram Parsons' father (Forster) shows up to collect the body and fly it back home.

Most of the movie takes place in a yellow painted hearse (complete with flowers painted on it) with Knoxville and the hippie (played by Michael Shannon -- who I found cute, actually). The hippie is constantly lied to by Knoxville in order for Knoxville to successfully pull off his scheme. Marley Shelton plays Knoxville's girlfriend and she hitches a ride with Christina Applegate, who is playing Gram Parsons' girlfriend, who is super bitchy and out for Gram Parsons' money and personal belongings.

The film is decent but feels cheap and indie -- it probably is, I dunno, don't really feel like bothering to check much information up on it, do it yourself. Poor writing, poor editing, but a decent execution and thank God it wasn't that long (an hour and a half.) Johnny Knoxville could have starred in a much better movie -- and especially Christina Applegate -- and what is it with Christina Applegate and movies where she deals with improperly handled dead bodies? You know, I'm thinking of Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead, where she and her younger siblings ditch their dead old babysitter's body, but keep her car. She seems to be attracted to these kinds of movies, I guess.

I don't recommend Grand Theft Parsons for laughs and entertainment, but fans of the actors and fans of hippies and 1970's nostalgia, as well as morbid but quirky goth people that love hearses and outdoorsy cremation scenes, MIGHT get a kick out of this movie. Skip this, but if you need a good movie after someone you know dies, a movie that doesn't have a hard edge when it comes to death -- this might be the film for you.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch
(directed by John Cameron Mitchell, 2001)



A fabulous movie... if only the very end of this movie could grab a hold of me and really make me understand it without needing to turn to IMDB.com's Hedwig message board for an answer. Everything before the last 15-20 minutes of the film is really fabulous, but the ending becomes all symbolism and confusion.

I have seen this movie countless times over the years -- in fact, I saw it when it first arrived in theaters back in July of 2001. It played in Washington D.C. at a little movie theater in Dupont Circle (the GAY part of Washington D.C.) that I would years later work at briefly (back in 2006) before it would close for good the following year. When I saw Hedwig back in 2001, Ghost World was playing there at the same time. I love that movie now, but I unfortunately did not see it at that theater (I wish I had!) I remember a long line of people waiting to get in and Ghost World was completely sold out. I was so intrigued by the Ghost World movie -- something I had never heard anything about until I stood in line to buy Hedwig tickets -- that I wanted to see it more than Hedwig. A new person I had met who was with me to see Hedwig seemed to want to see Ghost World more, too -- I wasn't surprised as she looked like she belonged in the movie Ghost World. It would be a year before I did see Ghost World. The two of us had just come to D.C. to see a mutual friend who was dying to see Hedwig -- he had introduced me to a book based on the play the year before because of my interest in Rocky Horror Picture Show (I couldn't get into the Hedwig book, though.)

Anyway, the combination of those films playing together (Ghost World and Hedwig) and me being there for it is probably why I chose them as my top two films of the millenium. To me, they sort of represent some sort of awakening, I guess, in my life, of new and different films, and of a new and different chapter in my life. It wouldn't be long before I joined Movie Forums, too.

I didn't like Hedwig and the Angry Inch very much when I first saw it. I came out of that movie theater feeling very indifferent (and probably obnoxiously complaining to my Hedwig fan friend how much I wish I had seen Ghost World instead -- and my instincts were right, I instantly loved that film -- but I do believe it turned out best that I saw it a year later.) Anyway, I didn't get Hedwig, and I think it was largely because of that confusing ending, but that's not all. My friend kept telling me that Hedwig was like Rocky Horror Picture Show, so I totally expected it to be like that. It ended up being, I think, NOTHING like Rocky Horror Picture Show. Instead, it was this really deep, really personal story, and to me at the time, it was like some sort of strange hippie fest or something. I mean, when that "Origin of Song" song first came on with the cartoon, I was like, W.T.F.?

"They had two sets of arms... they had two sets of legs."

I just kept thinking, why does my friend really like this movie??? This is so unusual. And I know he took me to see it sort of because I was a new member of the gay community back then and he must have figured this movie would be my style, but it really wasn't. I liked drag queens and transsexuals just fine, sure, but this movie... this Hedwig... I didn't get it. I did not get it. Maybe it was because I was seventeen? I hadn't had much experience with love and relationships and changing as a person and all that yet. Now, at twenty-nine (God, how time flies), I feel more in tune with Hedwig's story. I have - unfortunately - had some experiences that help me feel more connected with the movie. Strangely, in some bizarre ways, the Hedwig movie has MATCHED my own life autobiographically. When Hedwig sits alone in a chair and watches her sugar daddy who took her away from home take off with another man and leave her behind with nothing -- when Hedwig watches the rest of the world celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall while Hedwig feels completely trapped and miserable in her own life -- I've been there. I have so been there. I know what it feels like to wear Hedwig's shoes. Damn, maybe I never should have seen Hedwig -- perhaps then it wouldn't have blended into my own life.

John Cameron Mitchell is also heavily involved with a gay group called the Radical Faeries -- this group would later heavily influence his next film, Shortbus -- I, years later, and especially right after my own little Hedwig life parallel, met some real Radical Faeries and even attended a Radical Faerie group meeting. None of this is really all that exciting and special, but it's interesting to me how these connections can all lead me back to Hedwig.

Now for a plot summary: Hedwig and the Angry Inch deals with a gay guy who grew up in East Berlin, moved to America to be with a big black sugar daddy, got a botched sex changed that left him with a one inch mound of flesh (where his penis used to be) and he later performs in a band called The Angry Inch -- but the movie could not happen until he meets Tommy Speck (Michael Pitt), a young guy whom Hedwig falls for. After Tommy steals all of Hedwig's music, Hedwig stalks him by traveling across the country with his band and manager and performing at salad bars (much to the horror of everybody who's just trying to eat there) located close to Tommy's entertainment venue. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is largely Hedwig's life story, centering on her disastrous relationship with Tommy.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rollicking romp and pretty entertaining -- if, I think, it's your speed. It's taken me years to adjust to this movie. It is a movie that I think in its own way stalks me just like how Hedwig goes on stalking Tommy. I only wish it had a more satisfying ending. If I ever get to a point where I really feel satisfied by that ending, then I think it would signify a total evolution for myself. For perhaps Hedwig's own transformation at the end of this movie is somehow connected to my own transformations.

I do recommend Hedwig and the Angry Inch to general audiences, though, because I think that, understandable to you or not, it features some rather amusing bits. And, fortunately, you never get to see that one inch mound of flesh. Just a bare butt -- which I didn't even care for because it was Hedwig's.

When Gram Parsons was with the Byrds.
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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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The Year of Living Dangerously
(directed by Peter Weir, 1982)



Twenty minutes into this movie, I was ready to turn it off and be done with it. Finally, when Linda Hunt, a little actress whom I always remember as Roseanne's friend and business partner in the movie She-Devil (and she was the principal in Kindergarten Cop, which I saw recently and loved but did not review) -- when Linda Hunt, portraying a MAN named Billy Kwan, gives a little shadow puppet show to Mel Gibson explaining, I dunno, ghosts or something, I finally started becoming interested.

Mel Gibson is in Indonesia. He's a foreign correspondent for an Australian network. Indonesia is basically a big mess -- a nightmarish government and so forth -- lots of poor and unhappy people, lots of mean Indonesian guys with guns. Other foreign correspondents are around - they all mingle with Mel. Mel befriends Billy Kwan, a short Chinese-Australian guy who works as a photojournalist. Billy is loved and respected by everyone. One of his good friends is Jill Bryant, played by Sigourney Weaver. Billy hooks up Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, who just happens to be leaving in a week. The movie is a love story surrounding one of those political unrest historical tales. I found the material regarding Mel Gibson, Linda Hunt and Sigourney Weaver very interesting, but the rest was not my cup of tea.

Early in the movie, I tried to change the plot of the story to suit me because it wasn't that interesting yet. First of all, in the beginning, I had a very hard time believing that Linda Hunt was a man. Many reviewers think it's such a remarkable and convincing performance, and later on it sort of was, but I was not sold from the beginning. I became convinced that the movie was nothing but this little woman pretending to be a little man in order to follow around Mel Gibson. She even stalks him and takes pictures of him -- she cuts his shape out of a picture -- she has a FILE on him. She writes about him constantly on her - HIS - typewriter. She/He keeps a file on all of her close friends. She seems very into astrology, as well, since she always notes what astrological sign they are. She believes in spirits and the spirit world being all around Indonesia. She's a little good spirited, devilish type. She even had the balls to ask Sigourney Weaver to marry her/him, we learn. There is no stopping this crossdressing woman, who reminded me of The Leprechaun from those Leprechaun movies oddly at times. The Year of Living Dangerously feels like a Leprechaun movie if The Leprechaun took some medicine to change into something more human and actually be a nice guy/gal who doesn't kill people. I'm sorry, Linda Hunt, but it does. It's Leprechaun in Indonesia.

I liked The Year of Living Dangerously, but I don't really love it. I didn't feel like it was very engaging. It had a good ending, though. Mel Gibson is also shirtless quite a few times. But the "living dangerously" stuff was boring. Linda Hunt's performance felt calculated to me -- like she was some sort of carnival freak show attraction put into the film to beef it up and make it a little controversial and exciting and interesting. It was a good move and she's certainly probably the best thing about the film, but I wish it had had something more. This was not a very good movie for Sigourney Weaver, really. She usually can bring down the house -- in this movie, she's very subdued. Maybe it's cause it's 1982 and she's not really - I guess, except for Alien, maybe - a huge, huge star. There's not a problem, really, with her being subdued, but I can almost count on her sometimes to pull a movie even if it's sinking -- well, no, that's not true with Vantage Point.

Mel Gibson is really good in this, but the material is so lackluster for him. At least he went on to bigger and better things - for awhile.

Jason Lives:
Friday the 13th Part VI
(directed by Tom McLoughlin, 1986)



In what is probably the best Friday the 13th movie, Jason Voorhees, the zombie serial killer who wears a hockey mask, is dug up from the grave and accidentally (or maybe purposely?) hit by a thunderbolt, which reanimates his rotting, maggot filled corpse back to life and causes him to start coldly murdering every person he stumbles upon - except for some little kids camping on a camp site (they have his sympathy.)

Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews) last saw Jason in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (part four) when Tommy was just a little kid (played by Corey Feldman) and Tommy savagely took a machete to Jason over and over again, just to make sure he'd die. In part five, A New Beginning, an older Tommy thought Jason came back, but it was only an imposter wearing the costume. But now, in part six, the REAL Jason is back - all thanks to Tommy digging up his grave just because he had to be SURE that Jason was truly dead. Tommy runs for help to the local sheriff's office, but everyone believes he's crazy, and when bodies start popping up, they believe he's the killer. The sheriff's blonde, sexy daughter is the only one who is willing to believe and help Tommy so that Jason can be finally put to rest. Meanwhile, a campground nearby has just received a new batch of little kids for the summer, but their camp counselors sure are disappearing on them....

This is a really fun and really breezy Friday the 13th sequel that keeps you entertained, laughing, and on the edge of your seat. In the past, I never really cared much for this movie, but now I can see why it's so beloved. This is the best typical Friday the 13th/Jason movie you could possibly see if you just had to see one -- it's got everything from the campground setting, to Jason on a major slaughter spree (with the deaths actually being shown in somewhat gruesome detail), to being more fast paced than some of the other films (this is a good thing), to comedy and originality (Jason even kills a group of people playing paintball) and it's even got them putting Jason down in the lake again. It's not as dark and dreary as many of the other entries, and for that you kind of do lose something, I think, when it comes to Friday the 13th, but it makes up for it in other ways. It even has Jason killing people on board a motorhome, which Jason crashes and climbs out of to stand on top of it, valiantly, flames surrounding him. There's also a very creepy and effective opening scene in a cemetery where Jason comes back to life.



Give it a watch sometime, perhaps during October if that's your time for horror.

Damn Sexy you've been on quite a tear with your reviews of late. You've been setting quite the pace. Well done

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Porky's Revenge
(directed by James Komack, 1985)



Porky's Revenge is the third and final chapter of the infamous 1980's Porky's franchise, which focused on a group of teenage boys from the 1950's (and one random girl who hangs around them... who I don't think is a lesbian because sometimes she kisses and fools around with a guy or two, but I don't really get the point of the one girl among them, unless she thinks she's an early Elaine from Seinfeld.) Anyway, the series focuses on a group of teenage boys who are all horny and who are all looking for sex.

In Porky's Revenge, all of these guys end up butt ass naked, sometimes several times, which is a good thing for me. There is more male nudity than there is female nudity in this film. Anyway, the guys are all seniors in high school (in reality, they're pushing 30 years old) and in this film, they're going to the basketball state championship because they're all on the same high school basketball team together. However, their coach is in a lot of trouble -- he's indebted to Porky, the fat, redneck owner of Porky's, which is a strip bar that's on this big boat that sails through a river at night. The guys decide to help him out by visiting Porky and making a deal to throw the basketball championship so that Porky can make a bet with someone that they'll lose and thus win a lot of money. Will this actually happen, though?

Along the way, several crazy things happen to these characters, most of them pranks, and many of them sneaky and involving blackmail and cameras. These guys are so brutish that they DEMAND that their cheerleaders throw them a VICTORY ORGY at the home of one of these cheerleaders, in their inground pool. The girls show them who's boss, though, by tricking the guys to get completely butt ass naked (while the girls aren't) -- and then, unexpectedly, the parents come home and see them! The old mother faints at the sight of all of that bare, masculine, Caucasian flesh.



And then when one of the guys -- Meat (Tony Ganios) -- a beefy Italian stud -- is about to fail biology (he won't dissect a frog) and is going to get kicked off the basketball team for this, the guys decide to break into his biology teacher's (Rose McVeigh) apartment where they catch her and another older male teacher engaging in a serious, kinky dominatrix session where she turns into a naughty southern bartender and he a drunk impotent monk. The guys all hide behind things and watch. Pee Wee (Dan Monahan), the lead dork of the group, hides in a table underneath an ice bucket, which is facing the biology's teacher cabinet full of dildos, leashes and whips.

In another subplot, the lone girl of the group decides to play a prank on the mean female gym teacher, Miss Balbricker (Nancy Parsons), by writing a phoney love letter to her, pretending to be her old flame from her high school wrestling days. Miss Balbricker - a staple of the Porky's series who appeared in each film - winds up in a dark motel room, wrestling around in a sexy nightgown with Tommy Turner (Wyatt Knight, who died in 2011), one of the teenaged guys who thought he was hooking up with a sexy foreign exchange student. I am not sure why neither of these two couldn't figure out that they were wrestling with the wrong person until they both said the wrong name out loud -- wouldn't you know that's not a sexy, blonde foreign exchange girl when you're feeling up a fat woman?



There is also a subplot involving Meat hooking up - rather unfortunately - with Porky's ugly, braces wearing daughter and there's a dream sequence that turns into reality later on when Pee Wee gets an erection after seeing the breasts of the foreign exchange student as he's walking the podium to accept his high school diploma, and the principal steps on his gown, ripping it off and revealing all of Pee Wee to a shocked audience.

Porky's Revenge is a lightweight comedy that isn't very well made, or well plotted (most of the events in the film seem random and put in just to fill time) and it's never been as well received as the first Porky's movie, but I think it's a pretty decent sex comedy and entertaining and coherent for what it is. The excess of naked male behinds in this film is pretty shocking (and very much appreciated) - but then, the other Porky's movies had a lot of guy nudity too -- this one is just the king. Porky's Revenge is an absurd and fun joy ride through hormones and history, although the veil of trying to believe that they're really in the 1950's is very thin with Porky's Revenge, I feel. Except for the cars, and some of the outfits, it looks like they're just in the 1980's to me.

Don't miss it if you see Porky's and are told to skip the sequels. This one is the most fun.

SC you ruined the best part of that whole film.

Bigger than the Sky
(directed by Al Corley, 2005)



Bigger than the Sky is a wonderful little movie starring the great talents of Marcus Thomas, John Corbett, Amy Smart, Clare Higgins, Patty Duke, Allan Corduner and Sean Astin. Marcus Thomas plays a quiet, nervous, lonely man named Peter who has recently been dumped by his girlfriend. He works at some office job where he's about to be promoted as the art director, yet even there he is lonely -- he is not invited out to lunch with his co-workers. The film is set in Portland and Peter happens to pass by, on his way to work, a community theater that's announcing auditions for Cyrano de Bergerac. Curious and maybe hopeful for a larger possibility, Peter attends the auditions one night, and despite a terrible performance, the director, Edwina (Clare Higgins - one of my favorite actresses as she portrayed the evil Julia in the Hellraiser films and I've not really seen her in anything else until this), casts Peter as Cyrano based on the honesty he gave while talking about himself in front of a group of people.



The film is a story about a man who finds himself and comes to life thanks to getting involved with the theater and all of the actors and people associated with it. He meets eccentrics and hot headed folks who express themselves quite differently than he does, and in order to successfully pull off his Cyrano character, he needs to adapt and mesh with them. He goes from meek to ballsy. From unseen to seen.

Along the way, he becomes buddies with John Corbett's character and the two of them get involved in drinking rum, dressing up in costumes in the middle of the night and playing pranks and feuding over Amy Smart, who likes them both, and who has an open relationship with Corbett. A major theater buff and director, Kippy (Allan Corduner), who lives with Corbett, is dying of cancer and redecorating his house completely at the same time. Patty Duke plays mysterious twin sisters - one the assistant to Edwina, the other the costume director. Seth Astin is a bratty, spoiled actor who may end up taking over Peter's Cyrano role if Peter cannot learn the role well enough in time before opening night.

The film is funnier than you'd expect it to be and very well done for low budget. This is an enjoyable, light watch with only a few minor complaints -- a ceremony at the end of this movie does not seem that important to me and I do wish we had seen more of the actual Cyrano play when it's performed. But, I enjoyed it a lot and I do recommend it.

COMMANDO
(directed by Mark L. Lester, 1985)

** Review Requested by Iroquois **



Iroquois! What was so important about me seeing Commando? Was it because of Bennett, the homosexual lead bad guy who looks like he belongs in a sleazy S&M club? Did you check out his outfit, particularly his chainy shirt? He wasn't a very good idea for a bad guy up against Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Commando is a balls to the wall action movie that is glamorously violent. A real masculine movie. But it's also at times rather silly and cartoonish and at some points, dull. Other times, it's on fire, such as during the scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger kills a black pimp on a plane and then escapes from it before it takes off (the plane that is, not the black pimp gone all zombie.) After an opening sequence involving bad guys killing off a bunch of army guys who are trying to now lead normal lives, they attack their last target -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays a guy called Matrix. A young Alyssa Milano plays Matrix's daughter and she ends up kidnapped. The bad guys want Matrix to go kill some president in a foreign country, but it ain't happening. The scene where he first goes after the bad guys after they've descended upon his secluded home and taken his daughter is phenomenal. Arnold Schwarzenegger is one hell of a man. You can feel the testosterone just oozing from the screen -- Chaz Bono probably uses Commando for medicinal purposes.



Later... we're introduced to this black chick with big hair and a blue mini-skirted suit (Rae Dawn Chong -- I had no idea she was Asian) who gets in the middle of things when one of the bad guys hits on her in an airport and Arnold Schwarzenegger later rips the passenger seat out of her two-door sports car and kidnaps her, taking her to the galleria where he goes and plays Tarzan using these big balloons hung from the mall ceiling. This character - Cindy - is a real piece of work. She just so happens to be studying to be a pilot or something, so she comes in real good handy for Arnold when he has to get a plane and fly to, I dunno, Mexico or something like it. At other times, she is screaming furiously about how awful Arnold and the bad guys fighting is because it's so macho. She disappears in the last act, at least -- waiting on board her plane/boat thing and calling for help. There is a pretty rad scene, though, in which she and Arnold go shopping for weapons and things at an army surplus store -- Cindy pushes a shopping cart around while Arnold loads it up with badass goodies. Later, she pretends to be a prostitute that knows how to use a rocket launcher -- although, she accidentally launches some rockets in the wrong direction, at first.



The film is much like the Sylvester Stallone films that I've already seen, such as the Rambo movies and Cobra. I was also reminded of the Pam Grier blaxploitation films like Coffy and Foxy Brown. As much as I love Sylvester Stallone, I have to say, though, that I think Arnold Schwarzenegger is a much better action star. Commando is very good and that's in large part thanks to Schwarzenegger's personality. However, the kill scenes go on and on and on, especially in the last act, which got boring. The final fight between Schwarzenegger and the knife wielding Fairy Godmother felt forced and not all that spectacular. Very typical, cheap and easy ending, which is surprising because most of Commando was actually filled with a lot of surprises and twists and moments of, "How the hell is he going to get out of this?" thoughts.



And of course, Iroquois, it wouldn't be a full Sexy Celebrity review without commenting on the beefcake -- supplied 100% by Arnold Schwarzenegger, a ravishing beauty. Glorious. Simply glorious. And at full sexiness in the last act when he's got black stripes painted all over his face and body and when he's wearing the military fatigue vest with the grenades dangling from it. I would love to have him as a daddy and have him come rescue me. That Alyssa Milano, she was so spoiled -- not only did she get raised by Arnold Schwarzenegger, but she also called Tony Danza her boss! What a lucky lady. And you know, I can understand Arnold Schwarzenegger wanting to save her and everything, but think about all of the dead people he kills along the way -- those dead people had parents who probably care about them. It's very arrogant to kill all of those people just so Alyssa Milano can live.

Oh, and I also wondered what was happening in that motel room that Arnold Schwarzenegger burst into that had the naked man and woman hiding under the covers -- the woman was on top of the man and the man was below her with his ass to her crotch. I thought it looked kinda kinky.



Well, Iroquois, there you go. Commando review written and finished. Thanks for urging me to see it -- I'm glad I did.

Now go let off some steam, bitch.

Told you you'd like it... nice review