Pineapple Express (2008)
dir. David Gordon Green
Really really love this movie, can't wait to watch it again. One of my favorite movies of 2008. I'll talk more about it when I get my top 10 list done.
Product Decsription:
The latest bro-mance from team Apatow (the guys who brought us Superbad, Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin), Pineapple Express is the story of Dale Denton (Seth Rogan) and Saul Silver (James Franco), a pothead and his dealer who accidently get caught up in a drug war between two gangs with some corrupt cops, high-school girls and small-time henchmen thrown in for good measure. At its core, Pineapple Express is a stoner comedy--a tale of two semi-slow giggling and loveable idiots in way over their heads--this formula has made for some entertaining comedy over the years, Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke and Dave Chappell's Half Baked being two of the best examples. What sets Pineapple Express apart from these silly classics however, is the consistency of the humor, the perfect chemistry between Rogan and Franco and the giddily ridiculous action sequences (and the fact that even mild intoxication is not required to enjoy the humor). The movie retains the sweetness that is present in most of Apatow's films, making the characters’ poor choices and ultra-violent actions somehow justifiable, or at least relatable. The site gags, pop-culture references and perfectly timed non-sequiturs only enhance the hilarity. Director David Gordon Green, known mostly for the understated and reflective films George Washington and All the Real Girls, seemed like an odd choice for such a raucous and over-the-top comedy, but it turns out Green's stamp is all over this film (as is his long-time cinematographer, Tim Orr) who together manage to turn Pineapple Express into much more than the sum of its parts. --Kira Canny
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Righteous Kill (2008)
dir. Jon Avnet
I don't know what it is about this movie, but I have absolutely no interest in seeing it. Considering the DeNiro/Pacino team-up, that's a damn shame.
Product Decsription:
Righteous Kill pairs two cinematic icons whose previous screen collaboration, Michael Mann's 1995 Heat, was absolutely electrifying despite minimal time together in a long movie. Now in their mid-60s, De Niro and Pacino are playing veteran cops who, despite being grizzled, should look much younger than these actors. The incongruent casting makes the dark story improbable from the get-go, and things get worse as dialogue by screenwriter Russell Gurwitz quickly sounds like a parody of vintage cop movie cliches. It's a strain to find anything that works. The two leads play longtime detectives and partners whose weariness with rapists, murderers, pedophiles and other villains appears linked to the acts of a serial killer taking out bad guys who got away with heinous crimes. A videotape confession by De Niro's tightly-coiled Turk--who has been seeking the killer with Pacino's Rooster--would seem to establish his ties to the events. But the movie isn't over until it's over, assuming one is still with the movie after plodding along with its facsimile of noir conviction. Director Jon Avnet never gets a handle on Righteous Kill's gritty heart, superficially pushing suspense along with heavy-handed editing, and adding unpersuasive sauce in the form of Turk's somewhat S&M sexual relationship with a female cop (Carla Gugino). Giving the proceedings sort of a boost are Donnie Wahlberg and John Leguizamo as a younger pair of sleuths working the same case. This could easily have been a better movie with those two in the leads. --Tom Keogh
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Bangkok Dangerous (2008)
dir. Danny Pang, Oxide Pang Chun
Looks like a pretty generic, predictable action/thriller. Nick Cage catches a lot of hate these days, but I still like him.
Product Decsription:
An adrenaline-charged action thriller, Lionsgate's Bangkok Dangerous stars Nicolas Cage (Leaving Las Vegas, National Treasure) as "Joe," an anonymous assassin takes an unexpected turn when he travels to Thailand to complete a series of contract killings. Joe (Nicolas Cage), a remorseless hitman, is in Bangkok to execute four enemies of a ruthless crime boss named Surat. He hires Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm), a street punk and pickpocket, to run errands for him with the intention of covering his tracks by killing him at the end of the assignment. Strangely, Joe, the ultimate lone wolf, finds himself mentoring the young man instead whilst simultaneously being drawn into a tentative romance with a local shop girl. As he falls further under the sway of Bangkok’s intoxicating beauty, Joe begins to question his isolated existence and let down his guard …just as Surat decides it’s time to clean house. Directors The Pang Brothers (The Eye) paint an explosive picture of the Bangkok underworld, illuminated with neon and saturated in violence. From a screenplay by Jason Richman, Bangkok Dangerous is based on the Pang Brothers’ wildly popular Hong Kong action film of the same name. Starring alongside Cage are Shahkrit Yamnarm (Belly of the Beast), Charlie Young (Seven Swords), Panward Hemmanee and Dom Hetrakul (Sniper 3). The film is produced by Jason Shuman, William Sherak, Nicolas Cage and Norm Golightly. Andrew Pfeffer, Derek Dauchy, Denis O’Sullivan and Ben Waisbren serve as the executive producers.
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Babylon A.D. (2008)
dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
This got hammered by critics, but supposedly the director's cut is much better. Mathieu Kassovitz hasn't made a movie since Gothika in 2003, which was a pile of shit, but he also directed La Haine, so he's got a pass in my book.
Product Decsription:
In sci-fi thriller BABYLON A.D., Vin Diesel's Toorop is an antihero who quotes the best of cinema's bad boys from films such as THE GODFATHER and SCARFACE. But all the tattooed muscleman really wants to do is leave poverty- and violence-ridden Russia and return to his family's home in upstate New York. However, he has been banned from his native America, so when a Russian mobster (a prosthetic-enhanced Grard Depardieu) offers him a job and a forged passport that will take him back home, he agrees, even though the mission seems close to suicide. He takes a strangely gifted orphan named Aurora (Melanie Thierry) from a Mongolian convent to Harlem, his only help being a nun--though it is a nun played by action star Michelle Yeoh. Thugs attack them on every leg of their journey, following them as they take car, train, sub, and snowmobile to ensure Aurora's safety.
BABYLON A.D works best when it's revealing facets of its futuristic world, from the refugee-camp look of Russia to the high-tech gloss of a 22-million-people-strong New York City. Production designers Sonja Klaus and Paul Cross, as well as director Mathieu Kassovitz (GOTHIKA), deserve praise for creating settings that evoke memories of dystopian films from BLADE RUNNER to CHILDREN OF MEN. Kassovitz, who is most familiar to audiences as the object of affection in AMELIE, also adapted the script from the Maurice G. Dantec novel BABYLON BABIES with Eric Besnard. The book weighed in at over 500 pages, so there are times when it feels like something is missing in BABYLON A.D. with its brief 90-minute run time. In small roles, Depardieu and French favorite Charlotte Rampling (who plays a mysterious religious leader) provide substance and gravitas.
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The Wackness (2008)
dir. Jonathan Levine
Product Decsription:
Jonathan Levine's nostalgic reverie recreates a more innocent New York. In 1994, the Twin Towers watch over Manhattan, and Rudolph Giuliani reigns as mayor--not a bestselling author or presidential candidate. Recent high school grad Luke Shapiro (sleepy-eyed Josh Peck, Drake and Josh) plies the kind of trade Giuliani seeks to discourage: dope dealing. Otherwise, though, Luke's not such a bad kid. He sees a therapist, the pot-smoking Dr. Squires (Sir Ben Kingsley), and nurses a crush on the doctor's flirtatious stepdaughter, Stephanie (Juno's Olivia Thirlby). Hip-hop fills the air, and Luke spends his days grooving to Nas, the Notorious B.I.G., and A Tribe Called Quest, while selling cannabis out of an ice-cream cart (Wu-Tang rapper Method Man plays his Rasta supplier). As the summer heats up, Luke and Stephanie grow closer, while Squires and his wife, Kristin (Famke Janssen), drift apart. Meanwhile, Luke's family faces eviction if his father's fortunes don't improve, and he finds himself torn between the hot girl, the bummed-out shrink, and a job that could land him in the clink for a good long time--or save the Shapiros from moving to New Jersey. Though Levine (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) doesn't judge his law-breaking protagonist, he does suggest that love can make a smart guy lose his head just as easily as lust--and even a trained psychiatrist can't always tell the difference. With Mary-Kate Olsen (Weeds) and Jane Adams (Happiness) as the spaciest of Luke's spacey customers. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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Duckman: Seasons Three and Four (1996-1997)
dir. n/a
I'm glad to see they didn't take forever to release the rest of this criminally underrated animated series. You can get all four seasons for under $60!
Product Decsription:
He's a foulmouthed mallard with a license to be a dick--Duckman (voiced by Jason Alexander) is a private detective with a chip on his shoulder, a family on his back, and a nonexistent work ethic. This cult animated series follows the sex-crazed duck as he rails against the Universe and gets in a succession of off-color adventures in the detective biz. Pushing the envelope years before SOUTH PARK and FAMILY GUY hit the airwaves, the adult cartoon's third and fourth seasons are assembled in this collection.
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Ping Pong Playa (2007)
dir. Jessica Yu
The trailer for this movie made me cringe, but supposedly it's not too bad.
Product Decsription:
Jessica Yu's Ping Pong Playa is that rare film unlikely to appeal to a director's usual fan base. Best known as a documentary filmmaker, her first feature targets a completely different audience. In it, co-writer/production accountant Jimmy Tsai plays Christopher "C-dub" Wang, a Los Angeles-based, basketball-obsessed, Chinese-American slacker. Chris shares his enthusiasm for urban culture with African-American best friend J.P. Money (Khary Payton). J.P., in turn, has been taking Chinese-language lessons, so the cultural exchange doesn't just run one way. Unfortunately for Chris, his family lives for ping-pong, a pursuit in which he has little interest. When his mother (Elizabeth Sung, The Joy Luck Club) and brother, Michael (Roger Fan, Better Luck Tomorrow), are injured in a minor traffic accident, however, they recruit him to help run their supply store and to teach table tennis at the local community center. Since Chris has just lost a gig hawking cell phones at the mall, he's in no position to decline. Along with some Asian-American youngsters, both Chinese and East Asian, who hunger for a cool role model, Chris changes from the world's laziest human being into something that almost resembles a respectable member of society. With its antic humor and underage hijinks, Yu's self-proclaimed popcorn comedy offers more mainstream appeal than her inventive documentaries In the Realms of the Unreal and Protagonist (she won the Oscar for non-fiction short Breathing Lessons). If the loud-mouthed Chris can be fairly off-putting at first, her affectionate representation of his multicultural world rings true. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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Hard Gun (1994)
dir. Panna Rittikrai
I guess the original title of this movie is Plook mun kuen ma kah 4, or Spirited Killer in the US. The reason I'm guessing is because there is absolutely no mention of the title "HARD GUN" anywhere on IMDB, so by process of elimination, I guess this is the one. Don't expect another ONG BAK or TOM YUM GOONG (The Protector) since this was made years before those.
Product Decsription:
Martial Arts superstar Tony Jaa (Spirited Killer, The Protector, Ong Bak) costars with his mentor and trainer Panna Rittikrai in this non-stop action assault on your senses. In an a-typical role for Jaa, Tony plays the villian, along with Rittikrai, being hunted down by police after pulling a robbery.
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Blind Mountain (2007)
dir. Li Yang
Product Decsription:
Li Yang, the award-winning Blind Shaft director and (master of cinematic tension - Screen International), raises the stakes in Blind Mountain, a (resolutely tough minded, beautifully crafted film - LA Times) of uncompromising intensity. In rural early 90 s China, Bai (Lu Huang), a pretty and enterprising college student, travels to a remote, mist shrouded mountain village in the company of a pair of affable strangers. But what Bai thought was an expedition to gather herbs for resale turns into a (true crime shocker - NY Times) when her fellow travelers sell her into slavery. This can t be happening!, Bai screams on awakening from a drugged stupor to find herself (married) to a middle-aged pig farmer, and her freedom, identity, and dignity stolen. Yang s (hard-to-shake drama - NY Times) depicts Bai s horrific ordeal with both gravity and the kind of (stunningly realistic - New Yorker) detail that emphasizes the authenticity of the all too common predicament that she fights to escape. Contrasting the exotic beauty of its locale and a (very fine lead turn by Lu Huang - Time Out London) with the cruelty of a system that tolerates human trafficking and a community that thrives on it, Blind Mountain premiered to (a thunderclap of applause and cheers from the audience - Time) at the Cannes Film Festival.
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The Grocer's Son (2007)
dir. Eric Guirado
Product Decsription:
It is summer, and thirty-year-old Antoine is forced to leave the city to return to his family in Provençe. His father is sick, so he must assume the lifestyle he thought he had shed driving the family grocery cart from hamlet to hamlet, delivering supplies to the few remaining inhabitants. Accompanied by Claire, a friend from Paris whom he has a secret crush on, Antoine gradually warms up to his experience in the country and his encounters with the villagers, who initially seem stubborn and gruff, but ultimately prove to be funny and endearing. In the end, this surprise French box-office hit is about the coming-of-age of a man re-discovering life and love in the countryside.
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The Alphabet Killer (2007)
dir. Rob Schmidt
Product Decsription:
A ten year old girl is found brutally murdered outside the small blue-collar city of Rochester, New York, and obsessed police detective Megan Paige (Eliza Dushku of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and DOLLHOUSE) suffers a mental breakdown while trying to solve the crime. But when the child-killings resume two years later, Megan’s return to the investigation also brings back her own horrific hallucinations. Even if she can prove a ‘double initial’ connection to the slayings, will she hang onto her sanity long enough to catch a psychopath? Cary Elwes (SAW), Michael Ironside (STARSHIP TROOPERS), Bill Moseley (THE DEVIL’S REJECTS), Carl Lumbly (ALIAS) and Academy Award® winner Timothy Hutton co-star in this chilling thriller directed by Rob Schmidt.
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Opium and Kung Fu Master (1984)
dir. Tang Chia
Ton of Shaw Bros. releases today, although this and Life Gamble are probably the last releases that BCI Eclipse will see, since Navarre recently announced that "BCI Eclipse Company, its wholly-owned subsidiary, will shut down its licensing operations in connection with the implementation of a restructuring plan." Always sucks to see another small label bite the dust. Read about it here.
Product Decsription:
Tang Chia is considered one of the greatest kung-fu choreographers ever. He directed three movies on his own and his last, is not only his greatest, but one of the greatest ever. Ti Lung, in one of his finest performances, stars Tieh Chiao-san, head of the Ten Kwangtung Tigers, who falls victim to opium, the drug which crippled China. The tragedies and drama that ensue are as stunning as the kung-fu, created by a superlative team of six martial artists. It leads to a truly unforgettable climax, as a trembling Tieh, still weak from going cold turkey, must face the gangsters who have ruined his town while he was addicted. A legitimate masterpiece and one of the finest, most effecting martial arts movies Shaw Brothers ever produced. Also starring Chen Kuan-Tai (Heroes Two) and Phillip Ko Fei (Enter the Dragon).
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Life Gamble (1979)
dir. Chang Cheh
Product Decsription:
For the film LIFE GAMBLE, Legendary director Chang Cheh teamed his latest star, Alexander Fu Sheng (THE BRAVE ARCHER), with some new talent - a Taiwanese Opera artist (Kuo Chue) and a powerful Chinese muscleman (Lo Meng). These two new talents would become the foundation for his internationally popular Venom series including the classic film THE FIVE VENOMS. Teaming the trio with the top supporting actors (Ku Feng and Wang Lung-wei) and the prettiest starlets (Lin Chen-chi, Shirley Yu, and Hui Ying-hung), LIFE GAMBLE is an entertaining and exciting tale of a kung-fu blacksmith taking on four famous robbers while a villainous gambling boss plots to destroy them. The film would be another classic film in the distinguished career of the greatest martial arts directors ever!
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Sword Masters: The Battle Wizard (1977)
dir. Pao Hsueh
Product Decsription:
Based on Chin Yung s novel The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, a brother, Tuan Yu, who loves books and a sister, Mu Wan-Ching, who loves swords must face the yellow-robed warrior, the Red Python, a sinuous snake-charmer and a silk-masked beauty (who must kill or wed the first man to see her face) before they can bring peace to their battle-addled family. Danny Lee (John Woo s The Killer) stars as Tuan Yu, while the striking Tanny Tien Ni, plays Mu Wan-Ching, in this familial fight fest. Choreographed by Tang Chia and Huang Pei-Chi and directed by Pao Hsueh-li, trusted co-director for several of Chang Cheh s most memorable productions including The Water Margin, The Battle Wizard is kung-fu action and pure entertainment!
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The Lizard (1972)
dir. Yuen Chor
Product Decsription:
THE LIZARD takes the classic Robin Hood story and gives it a kung fu twist: the hero not only robs the rich to give to the poor, he's also a formidable martial arts expert. Produced by the Shaw Brothers in 1972, this flying-fist fairy tale is packed with corrupt cops, chase scenes, and plenty of carefully choreographed combat. This release features a rare English-dubbed version in addition to the subtitled Chinese version.
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