Original Cultfilmfreak
COUNTDOWN: PAUL VS TYSON (2024)
Watching Tyson's bio followed by Paul's is like comparing George Washington to a district councilman in Cleveland with a dog that has hiccups... one's genuinely historic; the other got famous for getting tons of hits from what even this documentary doesn't fully explain...
The Ryan backers use the word "haters" when describing what/who he was up against... Haters is a term of a lot of people suddenly being against something or someone... And haters only exist in a world where someone goes from nobody to celebrity because of an overnight "viral" sensation... So basically, haters exist in a world to counter celebrities who become famous for no actual reason, which is unlike Tyson... So if haters hate for no reason, they're hating people who became famous for no actual reason... It all evens out... And if this documentary was more on Tyson and his struggles, it would be a lot better and would last longer because at this point we've already seen the Tyson/Paul cash-grab fight... this is all basically promoting something that has already happened. Rates: **
GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE
Mckenna Grace in GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE Year: 2024 Rates: ** |
Jason Reitman's GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE set up a rural family to become
the new Ghostbusters, a cross between the original, created by his
father Ivan Reitman along with main-idea-man Dan Aykroyd and the late
Harold Ramis, and STRANGER THINGS... centered on a group of small town
Middle-American teens more inspired by Steven Spielberg's classic cinema
than anything by the patriarch Reitman...
While AFTERMATH had
moments, the same primary problem exists in this sequel, Frozen
Empire... there's simply no real flow between the now New York City-set
character-development and their job busting ghosts...
Emily Alyn Lind in GHOSTBUSTERS |
The central figure again is Ramis's Egon's granddaughter, Phoebe, a kind of science-goth tomboy who, like Wynona Ryder in BEETLEJUICE, befriends ghosts: herein a beautiful young lady, and there's a more than noticeable lesbian influenced attraction, which should have been either delved into further or not touched at all... And that's the problem... scenes between the dead and living young ladies, or with Paul Rudd (who was the Rick Moranis of AFTERLIFE) trying to become a new stepdad, amounts to very little in a bland adventure/comedy that goes in one nostalgic ear and out the other.
CRAZY PEOPLE
Dudley Moore in CRAZY PEOPLE Year: 1990 Rating: ***1/2 |
A shame since this parody of not just the advertising industry but of one man who decided to be brutally forthright with his ads (basically parodying his own job), including taglines about fat people, scary movies, plane crashes, boxy cars, sexy cars and having sex at luxury resorts...
Dudley Moore in CRAZY PEOPLE with Daryl Hannah |
Mostly taking place in a mental institution with an endearingly semi-humorous ensemble of troubled patients liken to THE DREAM TEAM, the biggest problem is that CRAZY PEOPLE takes too many detours away from the ads (that his loony friends help him with) and into Moore's romance with older-man's-fantasy Daryl Hannah, always a good actress but their relationship is contrived and horribly unrealistic...
From classics 10 to ARTHUR a decade earlier, Dudley Moore passed as an anti-sex-symbol sex-symbol... however, at this point he could be her uncle or father and yet, when CRAZY works it works pretty well, overall an enjoyable time-passing flick you can watch again and again... if only the director (Moore's buddy Tony Bill) stuck closer to the actual theme linking borderline insanity with complete and total honesty.
Title for CRAZY PEOPLE |
Dudley Moore in CRAZY PEOPLE |
Dudley Moore in CRAZY PEOPLE with Daryl Hannah and Bill Smitrovich |
Dudley Moore in CRAZY PEOPLE with Daryl Hannah and Bill Smitrovich |
John Terlesky in CRAZY PEOPLE with Daryl Hannah |
David Paymer in CRAZY PEOPLE with Danton Stone and Bill Smitrovich |
CROSSING DELANCEY
Peter Riegert in Crossing Delancey Year: 1988 Rating: ***1/2 |
Which means something two-fold since, as a perfectly normal, hard-working owner of a Manhattan pickle store, he's the last person that gorgeous Jewish single girl Amy Irving wants to date... especially because her own doting mother (and mom's doting friend) really, almost desperately wants the relationship to happen...
Amy Irving in Crossing Delancey |
Then again, all these distractions (also including a handful of girl-friends that often seem like three characters in one) make the relatively few sequences with Riegert that much more important and effective, and even romantic... in a perfectly suited anti-romantic-comedy fashion, neatly towing the line of mainstream and art-house.
Amy Irving and Peter Riegert in Crossing Delancey |
Peter Riegert in Crossing Delancey with Peter Riegert |
CLASS OF 1999
Bradley Gregg in CLASS OF 1999 Year: 1990 Rates: *** |
But in Mark L. Lester's sequel to CLASS OF 1984 titled CLASS OF 1999... where instead of teachers fighting against lethal gang-member students the gangs are fighting against three human/android teachers... Gregg is trying so hard to be stiffly cool (in a kind of Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western style) he has almost no personality at all...
Patrick Kilpatrick, John P. Ryan and Pam Grier in CLASS OF 1999 |
Instead of being a cutup who learns about how strong those bionic teachers (led by mad scientist Stacy Keach and played by John P. Ryan, Pam Grier and Patrick KilPatrick) really are, he's already done with drugs and fighting by the opening credits, making his transition not matter since it never actually happens at all..
Instead he just frowns and grimaces, even while dating principal Malcolm McDowell's sexy yet scholastic daughter Traci Lind and, more liken to the ironical police-state-future of ROBOCOP than Lester's gritty teen-angst original, CLASS OF 1999 plays like a straight-to-video title that's surprisingly decent for a day off work, school, or whatever you happen to be breaking from.
Bradley Gregg and Traci Lind in CLASS OF 1999 |
The teacher's house in CLASS OF 1999 |
Malcolm McDowell with Bradley Gregg and Traci Lind in CLASS OF 1999 |
Malcolm McDowell with Stacy Keach in CLASS OF 1999 |
GODZILLA MINUS ONE
Ryunosuke Kamiki in GODZILLA MINUS ONE (doing a JAWS imitation) Year: 2023 Grade: C |
And while attempting a searing human story in-between the monstrous ocean-to-city attacks... including our much too vulnerable hero meeting a pretty girl raising an orphaned baby in the ruins of their hometown... the action and downtime feels awkwardly imbalanced as the titular GODZILLA, looking fitfully menacing and formidably ferocious, seems like a special guest star crashing an otherwise slow-burn postwar-melodrama.
Godzilla in GODZILLA MINUS ONE aka Gojira -1.0 |
Godzilla in GODZILLA MINUS ONE aka Gojira -1.0 |
Godzilla in GODZILLA MINUS ONE doing a JURASSIC PARK imitation |
THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER
Linda Blair in THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER Year: 2023 Rating: * |
Underlining the fact that the original EXORCIST, although originally deemed demonic itself to Christians and Catholics, can now be considered Faith-based being that without God, there is no Satan at all...
Ellen Burstyn in THE EXORCIST BELIEVER |
That said, BELIEVER sluggishly plays-out like a cheap, too-darkly-shot, CGI-filled straight-to-streaming throwaway that is simply no fun at all... and yes, the original classic has many moments of the audience not only reacting to terrifying possession scenes with Linda Blair, but getting to know the other two main characters with both intensity and sarcasm, in particular Burstyn and younger priest Jason Miller as Karras... who, in the William Friedkin classic, wound up the 11th-hour sacrificing hero while the absence of the latter (i.e. a solid central protagonist) takes away from this movie's expository structure even beyond having two girls possessed instead of one... because you never get to know either girl enough to base an entire 2-hour movie on...
Starting out with the girls lost in the woods, involving a cult of homeless freaks, there's a rudimentary glimpse of intrigue, and perhaps they could have centered more perspective on the pair and their own spooky pre-possessed plight: but all that's quickly abandoned, replaced with what's basically a replica of the original yet without any real suspense or, with a stressed-out single father in charge, no logical reason or any purpose and, news just came out that they're abandoning a sequel to this sequel and starting over with a NEW reboot instead... which is important information lacking in any review written before May 30th, 2024... So whatever did POSSESS this film's creation has thankfully been exorcised, forever.
Linda Blair in THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER |
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR (2013)
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color Rates: ***1/2 |
Celebrated French teenage-lesbian romantic-drama stars now famous Léa Seydoux and still unknown Adèle Exarchopoulos... the latter being the true lead (the original title translates to THE LIFE OF ADELE) as we go through her daily high school routine ranging from teachers teaching to a pseudo-boyfriend flirting to her finicky gal pals gossiping... soon enough about how she's been seen hanging around with Seydoux (who she kind of accidentally met at a girl-gay bar) as the lovely and confident blue-haired artist Emma...
When both first see each other crossing the street, it's intense intrigue at first sight, which is how the director grabs the audience, albeit sometimes dragging out their relationship through mundane family dinners to backyard parties while the lesbian bedroom scenes become far too graphic, paling to the rudimentary budding-relationship aspects featuring Adèle with full lips kissing Seydoux, comparably more sexy than anything taken further: ultimately making BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR far too long, often overreaching the more simple mainline of two young opposites in love, which, when centered only on them, is right on target.
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos first kiss with Alma Jodorowsky in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos first kiss with Alma Jodorowsky in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Alma Jodorowsky in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color |
GIA (1998)
Angelina Jolie playing Gia Carangi would be like, musically, if Jeff
Beck played a concert celebrating Eric Clapton... while both Jolie
and Carangi are knockouts, they're completely different kind of
knockouts: Gia was subtle, more cute-gorgeous while Angelia's... well... Angelina Jolie and, acting-wise, is quite good here, wielding the
kind of energy that steals her own movie... yet it often feels more like a biopic set during the 1990's than the 1970's/1980's...
The director's partially to blame, making GIA seem a bit too much of exactly what it is: a risque cable movie (or
one of those Don't Do Drugs Specials without any specific reasons behind her using) that sporadically
almost-reaches big-screen potential (the documentary-style interview/interludes mirroring another doomed beauty flick, STAR 80)... meanwhile the lesbian scenes with Kim
Dickens needed to evolve past cliche lipstick chic... although they did
both have terrific chemistry in their build-up, and, overall,
Jolie's almost too good here, not seeming like she's portraying an
actual former niche celebrity but embracing the fact she's on the verge
of becoming a revered beauty-icon herself: Or like she's rebooting
Gia's life rather than factually reliving it... which isn't too shabby,
either way. GRADE: B—
Kim Dickens and Angelina Jolie |
James Haven and Angelina Jolie in GIA |
White Shadow star Joan Pringle in GIA |
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