From the moment its opening credits start to roll, an oh-so-’90s montage of helpless women accompanied by the voiceover of their captor, Kiss the Girls tells you exactly the kind of movie it is. Part of its moment’s spate of serial killer thrillers looking to capitalize on the success of The Silence of the Lambs, the movie’s differing story, as well as its preexisting source novel, do (just) enough to prevent it from being a rip-off.
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If nothing else, one can admire the fact that Double Team represents an era of film when studios weren’t afraid to take big risks. Today, the idea of spending 30 million dollars on an R-rated movie starring a past-his-prime action star and a famous athlete would never get past the pitching stage, let alone greenlit. And though Double Team’s gamble didn’t pay off, neither in quality nor box-office receipts; I, for one, am happy that this turkey exists.
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The Edge, much to my pleasure, is a hard movie to classify. It’s a survival adventure but not a survival adventure, a killer-animal flick and not a killer-animal flick, a two-hander yet not a two-hander. It skirts that rare line of mass entertainment and highbrow drama, chiefly thanks to David Mamet’s sly script, which never sacrifices smarts for action – or vice versa. Continue reading
As an avid fan of killer-animal movies, one thing I’ve learned is that they are shockingly easy to fuck up. For every Deep Blue Sea there are a dozen Shark Nights, for every Alligator countless Primevals. But within the pantheon of trashy creature features, my favorite has to be Anaconda. The movie has never enjoyed the warmest of receptions – its critical response was mixed at best, and it’s often used as a bad-movie punchline – and it’s not hard to see why. It’s unapologetically cheesy, old-fashioned, and lowbrow. But I believe that Anaconda’s true intended audience is the die-hard fans of its genre, and for those of us in that group it’s an absolute corker. Continue reading
Subgenre: Psychological / Anime
Summary: A pop star’s mental state deteriorates when she transitions to an acting career. Continue reading