Post by mystermystery on Mar 12, 2024 21:11:46 GMT -5
62. SATANIC HISPANICS (2023)
A heck of an anthology movie with one of the better wrap around stories I've seen in a long time (Vote for Pedro...to get sequels as The Wanderer). My sense of humor means the Fat Vampire story was one of my favorites but daggone if The Hammer of Zanzibar isn't the daggone-dest thing I've seen in a long while.
It's a recommend on Shudder
63. HARD TIME: THE PREMONINTION (1999)
Direct to TV sequel to the Direct to TV original that Burt Reynolds used his post-Boogie Nights clout to get made. Burt, surviving a one-year prison sentence gets moved to Death Row (as a cautionary move because inmates keep trying to murder him because he's a former cop) and makes friends with one prisoner while dealing with another (Bruce Dern) who is a mad bomber having vision dreams of a copycat...that are coming true. The cops try to get Burt to make friends and get info so they can stop the newest bomber and things come to a kind of a shrug end, although the b-plot ends up being Burt and the original mad bomber's daughter hooking up after his attempt to get her to visit her father fails.
Daggone, Burt.
64. HARD TIME: HOSTAGE HOTEL (1999)
That's right. The third of a trilogy of direct-to-TNT movies starring Burt Reynolds that, again, he used his post-Boogie Nights clout to get made. This one is directed by Smokey and the Bandit's own Hal Needham (it's actually the last film Needham ever directed) and it's essentially Die Hard with a Burt Reynolds, which sounds a whole lot more exciting than it ends up being. A couple of bad guys take a hotel hostage and, with it, the daughter (Danielle Harris) of a politician primed for a Senate run. Burt breaks the rules after his former partner is caught and also held hostage, and slowly (SLOWLY) makes his way up the hotel floors avoiding traps set by the Vietnam vet kidnappers. Kind of a bummer how slow it moves.
65. EVASIVE ACTION (1998)
Con Air on a train. Yep, that kind of knockoff film a year after Con Air came out (Makes Snakes on a Train seem less goofy, I guess?). They even have a warden character essentially say "Yeah, we gotta use trains now, ever since Con Air happened."
Interesting cast for this knockoff with:
Roy Scheider plays the Cyrus The Virus (John Malkovich) stand-in
Clint Howard playing the Garland Greene (Steve Buschemi) crazy, locked up killer character who gets quasi-redeemed.
Dorian Harewood as the Cameron Poe (Nicholas Cage) "wronged" criminal who doesn't want the plan to go down.
Ray Wise as John Cusack equivalent playing the dedicated local policeman tracking down the train
Don Swayze (Yes, Patrick's brother) as a combination of multiple side-character convicts because we're on a budget.
It's...okay. Every stunt seems half done, like nothing worked so they just cut away and back in a "Don't worry, it happened" kind of way. The post on Letterboxd makes it look like Scheider is the hero instead of the villain.
66. RETROGRADE (2004)
Dolph Lundgren is sent back in a space ship capable of time travel to prevent the discovery of a crashed meteor that releases a plague that...uh...plagues humanity for centuries (including killing Dolph's own family, so he sees this as a suicide mission with the giant explosive they've given to destory everything within a five mile radius of the meteor). However, his crew goes rogue and decides they want to Biff Tannen it in the past, leaving Dolph for dead, but the original crew that discovered the meteor finds him instead and now he has to protect while also essentially dooming them with a bomb. There should be more pathos here, but it doesn't work out. Gary Daniels is here, too, but doesn't get much of a fight scene.
Also, I love any "I have access to a time machine" movie that has the audacity to ignore itself at the end (a vague spoiler, but a spoiler just the same. Sorry).
67. HIJACK (1999)
Senator Ernie Hudson announces he's creating a gun control bill after the tragic shooting of his wife and son at a charity event, which gets his train taken over by a bunch of rogue survivalists looking to let off a daggone nuke in a big city to "start the second Revolutionary War" but no one expects suspended ATF-Agent Jeff Fahey to be on the train.
Surprisingly decent train siege movie that develops all the villains, hostages, and hero and delivers a decent, albeit low budgeted, ending.
68. DIRECT HIT (1994)
Ever seen a Steven Seagal movie that stars perennial movie villain William Forsythe instead?
An "Agency" hitman works his last job and his boss immediately offers him another job because that's how bosses work. They want the mistress of a potential Senate candidate taken out and won't payout the hitman's last job until he does...but she's got a kid and he's somehow still got a soul, so instead he turns things around on them. George Segal plays the cigar chomping 'head of the agency' and makes a good main foil to Forsythe going 'rogue.'
I liked how well this was done. A shame Forsythe couldn't have clipped more scripts from Seagal.
69. FOLLOWERS (2023)
A sequel to a movie I haven't seen, but it thankfully recaps the first film in the first 15 minutes. An influencer and friends are attacked by a masked assailant and manage to defeat him. A year later they meet up and are ambushed by multiple home invaders inspired by the original attacker's "legacy."
Yes, it's Incel "You're Next" but nowhere nearly as fun. Rough stuff at points. My review on Letterboxd led to the director following me on Twitter and...I don't know how to feel about that, yet.
70. FOLLOWERS (2021)
That's right. I watched two movies with the same title back-to-back! This one was about a British Influencer who embarrassed himself on a reality show and is now "on a journey" to make himself right in the world...by exploiting the fact the new place he's moved into may indeed be haunted. As things ramp up, instead of bailing, he (and his roommates) keeping digging for likes, shares, and subscribes and it's all leading to a very bad ending.
Found Footage-y and okay. You will 100% not like the main dude and also 100% be able to compare him to other influencers. Has a few fun bits where the guy with morals about the whole thing immediately corrupts when he gets sponsorship money and the pretty girl of the group gets lewd comments about her breasts and immediately starts wearing more revealing tops to get more subscribers (she doesn't reference it, it just starts happening and you know why).
The ending goes all out and I appreciated that after getting through a middle that feels a bit sluggish.
A heck of an anthology movie with one of the better wrap around stories I've seen in a long time (Vote for Pedro...to get sequels as The Wanderer). My sense of humor means the Fat Vampire story was one of my favorites but daggone if The Hammer of Zanzibar isn't the daggone-dest thing I've seen in a long while.
It's a recommend on Shudder
63. HARD TIME: THE PREMONINTION (1999)
Direct to TV sequel to the Direct to TV original that Burt Reynolds used his post-Boogie Nights clout to get made. Burt, surviving a one-year prison sentence gets moved to Death Row (as a cautionary move because inmates keep trying to murder him because he's a former cop) and makes friends with one prisoner while dealing with another (Bruce Dern) who is a mad bomber having vision dreams of a copycat...that are coming true. The cops try to get Burt to make friends and get info so they can stop the newest bomber and things come to a kind of a shrug end, although the b-plot ends up being Burt and the original mad bomber's daughter hooking up after his attempt to get her to visit her father fails.
Daggone, Burt.
64. HARD TIME: HOSTAGE HOTEL (1999)
That's right. The third of a trilogy of direct-to-TNT movies starring Burt Reynolds that, again, he used his post-Boogie Nights clout to get made. This one is directed by Smokey and the Bandit's own Hal Needham (it's actually the last film Needham ever directed) and it's essentially Die Hard with a Burt Reynolds, which sounds a whole lot more exciting than it ends up being. A couple of bad guys take a hotel hostage and, with it, the daughter (Danielle Harris) of a politician primed for a Senate run. Burt breaks the rules after his former partner is caught and also held hostage, and slowly (SLOWLY) makes his way up the hotel floors avoiding traps set by the Vietnam vet kidnappers. Kind of a bummer how slow it moves.
65. EVASIVE ACTION (1998)
Con Air on a train. Yep, that kind of knockoff film a year after Con Air came out (Makes Snakes on a Train seem less goofy, I guess?). They even have a warden character essentially say "Yeah, we gotta use trains now, ever since Con Air happened."
Interesting cast for this knockoff with:
Roy Scheider plays the Cyrus The Virus (John Malkovich) stand-in
Clint Howard playing the Garland Greene (Steve Buschemi) crazy, locked up killer character who gets quasi-redeemed.
Dorian Harewood as the Cameron Poe (Nicholas Cage) "wronged" criminal who doesn't want the plan to go down.
Ray Wise as John Cusack equivalent playing the dedicated local policeman tracking down the train
Don Swayze (Yes, Patrick's brother) as a combination of multiple side-character convicts because we're on a budget.
It's...okay. Every stunt seems half done, like nothing worked so they just cut away and back in a "Don't worry, it happened" kind of way. The post on Letterboxd makes it look like Scheider is the hero instead of the villain.
66. RETROGRADE (2004)
Dolph Lundgren is sent back in a space ship capable of time travel to prevent the discovery of a crashed meteor that releases a plague that...uh...plagues humanity for centuries (including killing Dolph's own family, so he sees this as a suicide mission with the giant explosive they've given to destory everything within a five mile radius of the meteor). However, his crew goes rogue and decides they want to Biff Tannen it in the past, leaving Dolph for dead, but the original crew that discovered the meteor finds him instead and now he has to protect while also essentially dooming them with a bomb. There should be more pathos here, but it doesn't work out. Gary Daniels is here, too, but doesn't get much of a fight scene.
Also, I love any "I have access to a time machine" movie that has the audacity to ignore itself at the end (a vague spoiler, but a spoiler just the same. Sorry).
67. HIJACK (1999)
Senator Ernie Hudson announces he's creating a gun control bill after the tragic shooting of his wife and son at a charity event, which gets his train taken over by a bunch of rogue survivalists looking to let off a daggone nuke in a big city to "start the second Revolutionary War" but no one expects suspended ATF-Agent Jeff Fahey to be on the train.
Surprisingly decent train siege movie that develops all the villains, hostages, and hero and delivers a decent, albeit low budgeted, ending.
68. DIRECT HIT (1994)
Ever seen a Steven Seagal movie that stars perennial movie villain William Forsythe instead?
An "Agency" hitman works his last job and his boss immediately offers him another job because that's how bosses work. They want the mistress of a potential Senate candidate taken out and won't payout the hitman's last job until he does...but she's got a kid and he's somehow still got a soul, so instead he turns things around on them. George Segal plays the cigar chomping 'head of the agency' and makes a good main foil to Forsythe going 'rogue.'
I liked how well this was done. A shame Forsythe couldn't have clipped more scripts from Seagal.
69. FOLLOWERS (2023)
A sequel to a movie I haven't seen, but it thankfully recaps the first film in the first 15 minutes. An influencer and friends are attacked by a masked assailant and manage to defeat him. A year later they meet up and are ambushed by multiple home invaders inspired by the original attacker's "legacy."
Yes, it's Incel "You're Next" but nowhere nearly as fun. Rough stuff at points. My review on Letterboxd led to the director following me on Twitter and...I don't know how to feel about that, yet.
70. FOLLOWERS (2021)
That's right. I watched two movies with the same title back-to-back! This one was about a British Influencer who embarrassed himself on a reality show and is now "on a journey" to make himself right in the world...by exploiting the fact the new place he's moved into may indeed be haunted. As things ramp up, instead of bailing, he (and his roommates) keeping digging for likes, shares, and subscribes and it's all leading to a very bad ending.
Found Footage-y and okay. You will 100% not like the main dude and also 100% be able to compare him to other influencers. Has a few fun bits where the guy with morals about the whole thing immediately corrupts when he gets sponsorship money and the pretty girl of the group gets lewd comments about her breasts and immediately starts wearing more revealing tops to get more subscribers (she doesn't reference it, it just starts happening and you know why).
The ending goes all out and I appreciated that after getting through a middle that feels a bit sluggish.