LADY DEATH: THE MOTION PICTURE

 

 

Lady Death: The Motion Picture is the straight-to-video animated film version of the "cult" comic book/graphic novel. Lady Death has been in different incarnations since the character's inception in the early-nineties. The animated feature was released in 2004 by now-defunct anime distributor A.D. Vision and has since been re-released. The movie is a bit different from the comic books/graphic novels in that Lady Death is more of a "heroic" figure than she tends to be in print. The movie mostly gives the back story of Lady Death as she starts off being a human girl named Hope whose father is a merciless tyrant named Matthias who turns out to be Lucifer himself. Matthias keeps Hope a virtual prisoner in his castle until she finally discovers the horrible truth about her father one night when the townsfolk, led by a rather sadistic priest, finally decide to revolt against Matthias and his barbarism. When Matthias/Lucifer goes back to Hell, he leaves his daughter Hope at the hands of the vengeful townsfolk and the sadistic priest. While she's being held captive by the priest, Hope gets visited by one of Lucifer's men, a sort of Satanic jester named Pagan, who offers Hope a chance to save herself if she agrees to go to Hell and serve her father. At first, Hope vehemently declines Pagan's offer, but then has a change of heart when she gets burned at the stake. When she arrives in Hell, she gets tortured by Pagan before he allows her to see her father. To Hope's horror, she sees both her mother and her lover Niccolo--whom her father had forced to "work" for him while he was on Earth--imprisoned by Lucifer. When Lucifer asks her to join him in exchange for their lives, Hope angrily turns him down, saying how she's fed up with his lies. So he banishes her from his castle. As she roams Hell, Hope meets up with another demon named Cremator who was once a master blacksmith and slave to her father. He, too, was cast out when he tried to go up against Lucifer and was unsuccessful. Sensing an immense power within her, Cremator agrees to train Hope. Vowing revenge against her father, Hope trains with Cremator and transforms herself into the scantily-clad Lady Death. Along the way, Lady Death and Cremator gather a demon army to help them fight against Lucifer. Lady Death: The Motion Picture would likely appeal to diehard fans of the Lady Death comic books/graphic novels, though certain "religious" types might take issue with some of the themes within the movie (but then, don't certain "religious" types take issue with pretty much anything?). Lady Death: The Motion Picture I feel would also appeal to fans of anime since, though it's certainly not the best animated film ever made, it is certainly one of the more, shall we day, unique anime flicks I have seen. Plus the fact that Lady Death spends about three-fourths of the flick scantily-clad is an added bonus (even though she IS animated!)!



HATCHET

 

 

Hatchet is yet another "slasher" horror film along the lines of Friday the 13th, which is rather appropriate since the killer in this film is played by Kane Hodder who, as any "slasher" horror flick aficionado no doubt knows, played Jason Voorhees in about three or four of those movies. Besides Hodder, Hatchet also features a cameo from none other than Robert Englund who, of course, played Freddy Krueger in the original Nightmare On Elm Street flicks. In this flick, Englund plays a redneck swamp hunter who gets offed by Hodder's character within the first five minutes of the flick. The film takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana. During a trip to Mardi Gras, a couple of friends decide to go on this swamp tour one night along with a group of other tourists given by this rather shady tour guide. It probably goes without saying that the tour group gets stranded out in the swamp where they start being picked off one-by-one by Hodder's character whom we find out from this redneck chick in the group--whom we also learn is on the swamp tour to search for her missing father (who turns out to be Englund's character)--that he's this deformed monstrosity named Victor Crowley who was thought to have been accidentally killed by his own father with a--that's right!--hatchet to his deformed head after some kids set fire to their backwoods house one Halloween night and his father was trying to break down the door with the hatchet and instead hits his deformed head with the hatchet instead. After the father dies ("from a broken heart," according to the redneck chick who's telling the story), people start mysteriously disappearing in the swamp. Of course, like Jason Voorhees, Victor Crowley is hard to kill as he's shot, stabbed and even set on fire at one point but, like his fellow maniac undead killer Jason, he just won't stay down. He manages to kill off everybody in the group--or at least we're led to believe he's killed pretty much everyone--save for the redneck chick whom Crowley--spoiler alert!--grabs a hold of while on a boat in the middle of the swamp before the screen suddenly fades-to-black before the credits roll, thus setting the stage for a sequel (which. at the time of this writing, there has been two). Hatchet is pretty typical "slasher" horror film fare, although Victor Crowley does find some rather ingenious ways to off his victims; like, for instance, he pins the rather shady tour guide down on the ground and he digs a shovel deep into his neck thereby popping his neck clean off. Nice! Anyway, diehard fans of the "slasher" horror film genre will probably enjoy this film the best, especially fans of Friday the 13th who'd like to see Kane Hodder in a different "slasher" role (and, believe you me, he looks pretty damn creepy in this flick!). Oh yeah, this flick also stars actress Mercedes McNab who is perhaps best known for her recurring role in the popular TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. McNab plays a VERY ditzy blonde in this flick whose character rather mysteriously disappears without really knowing what happens to her character (I believe they saved that for the sequel). Mercedes also, I think I should point out, shows her bodacious ta-tas at least a couple of times in this flick. Now if THAT doesn't convince you to watch this flick, I don't know WHAT will! (Yeah, I know, I'm a perv!)    



BLACK CHRISTMAS

 

 

Black Christmas is a 2006 remake of a 1974 horror film. I haven't yet watched the original so I can't rightly comment on it, but the remake offers up practically every horror "slasher" cliche in the book: a silent serial killer who's difficult to kill who killed his family escapes from the insane asylum where he was sent to and he terrorizes a houseful of young people (in this case, a sorority house where said serial killer once lived with his family he killed), the serial killer has a horrific (pardon the pun!) backstory (like, for instance, the killer's cruel mother kept him in the attic after offing his father and had him impregnate her so he could give birth to his inbred sister), the killer manages to kill off everyone save for one person--usually a girl--who manages to kill him, stop me if you've heard all this before. Still, in spite of the flick's "slasher" plot familiarity, Black Christmas isn't terribly bad as far as "slasher" flicks go. The killer in the flick is named Billy who was born with a rare liver condition that makes his skin look yellow. As a result, Billy's mother abuses him and ends up murdering his father while he watches. So she locks Billy up in the attic and marries the guy who helped her off Billy's father. Wanting desperately to have another child that she can actually "approve" of, and seeing as how her new husband is unable to give her one, she goes up in the attic where Billy is one night and . . . well, I think I'll let you use your perverted imagination at this point, all right? In any case, she gives birth to Billy's "sister" named Agnes whom Billy's mother treats like a princess who likewise gets sent to an asylum after Billy kills his mother and stepfather and he gouges her eye out one Christmas. In one of the movie's gorier moments, Billy carves out his mother's flesh with a cookie-cutter after he strangles her with a strand of Christmas lights and beats her with a rolling pin--nice!--and bakes her flesh in the oven in the shape of Christmas cookies of which the police find him eating when they enter the house. Yum! (By the way, the film shows all of this in a series of flashbacks.) Several years later on one snowy Christmas eve, Billy manages to escape the looney bin by stabbing the security guard with a candy cane he sharpened and kills another man wearing a Santa outfit. While dressed in the Santa outfit, he heads off to his former home that now is a sorority house. You know what's coming next, don't you? There is a kind of twist in the flick in that it turns out--spoiler alert!--there's two killers, one of them being, of course, Billy and the other one being his nutso "sister" Agnes whom everyone believed disappeared after she was released from the asylum. And, like I pointed out before, everyone gets offed save for one lone blonde girl who manages to kill both "sister" Agnes while she's in the hospital by--second spoiler alert!--burning her to death with a defibrillator and then kills "brother" Billy by pushing him down the stairs and impaling him on a Christmas tree. Merry Christmas! Like I said, Black Christmas isn't too terrible of a "slasher" flick even though it's definitely not the first said "slasher" flick that's mined the Santa-Claus-serial-killer angle before--the earlier-reviewed Silent Night (which is, of course, a remake of another "slasher" flick) is an example (and is, I feel, a better "slasher" film)--and could most definitely be a "holiday" film for those who are sick to death (again, pardon the pun!) of seeing 24-hour-a-day reruns of A Christmas Story and/or It's a Wonderful friggin Life. And what BETTER way to celebrate the holidays by watching a flick of a serial killer and his inbred sister brutally killing a houseful of hot chicks? Ho, ho, hell, indeed! A sidenote: Black Christmas did manage to scare up (there again, pardon the pun!) some controversy when it was released on Christmas day back in 2006 and some "religious" groups, one of them calling itself--and, no, I'm NOT making this up!--Operation Just Say Merry Christmas, groused how such a brutal film could dare be released on such a "sacred" holiday. Apparently these "religious" yahoos have never heard of Saturnalia and/or Krampus, have they? (Google it, OK?)



WRECK-IT RALPH

 

 

Wreck-It Ralph is a computer-animated Disney flick that features the voices of John C. Reilly, Jane Lynch and Sarah Silverman (yes, THAT Sarah Silverman!). The flick is about a video game "bad guy" named Wreck-It Ralph--voiced by John C. Reilly--who wants desperately to be a "good guy" and goes about becoming said good guy. He seeks to find a hero's medal so that people can respect him more and finds out he can get one in a first-person shooter game called Hero's Duty. So Ralph sneaks into the game and swipes the medal. Afterwards, he gets attacked by one of the "bugs" that are the targets of the shooters in the game while fleeing in an escape pod. The pod crashes in another game called Sugar Rush and ends up losing his medal. When he finds the medal hanging from a tree, he climbs up the tree and meets a game character named Vanellope--voiced by Sarah Silverman--who's considered an outcast in the game due to her "glitchy" nature. Anyway, Vanellope ends up stealing Ralph's medal so she can use it to enter the next game race in an attempt to make others within the game to stop treating her like such an outcast. Finally, Ralph makes a deal with her that he will help her win the race so he can retrieve his medal after she wins. Their efforts are hampered by Sugar Rush's leader the aptly-named King Candy who--spoiler alert!--turns out to be another video game character named Turbo who had earlier sabotaged another game out of jealousy and caused both games to be shut down as a result. King Candy/Turbo tinkers with Sugar Rush so he can rule it even though--second spoiler alert!--Vanellope is the actual "queen" of the game. While all this is going on, the actual "hero" of Ralph's game named Fix-It Felix searches for Ralph with the leader of the Hero's Duty game--voiced by Jane Lynch (of Glee fame)--who's afraid the "bug" who attacked Ralph in the escape pod will multiply and cause havoc within the game system and whom Felix winds up having the hots for. While I won't say precisely how the movie ends up, of course, the film does have a "happy" ending--with a sort of twist--and, as with other Disney flicks, does have a kind of "moral" message. Though I'm not usually the biggest fan of Disney flicks overall, animated or otherwise, I did actually enjoy Wreck-It Ralph. I do feel the film would appeal to not only kids but to adults as well, especially adults who remember going to arcades to play coin-operated video games when they were kids back during the time when one had to actually step out of their house if they wanted to play a video game. (Yes, I'm THAT old!) A sidenote: I was actually kind of surprised Sarah Silverman was hired to do a voice in this film given her R and/or X-rated comedy performances. But, then again, I guess it's no more surprising than noted "shock jock" Howard Stern being hired to host the "family-oriented" show America's Got Talent. My, how times have changed, indeed! 



ROAD HOUSE



Road House is a "classic" action flick starring the late Patrick Swayze. In the flick, Swayze plays a bouncer named Dalton with a degree in philosophy--stay with me here!--who gets "hired" to be the head "cooler" at a club called the Double Deuce in a small town in Missouri. Along the way, Dalton locks heads with the town head honcho Brad Wesley--again, stay with me!--which culminates in a rather violent confrontation both with Wesley and Brad's lead henchman whom Dalton kills by ripping out his throat with his bare hand. Nice! Road House also stars raspy-voiced Sam Elliot who plays Dalton's older--and supposedly wiser--mentor who's himself a "cooler" who visits Dalton and winds up--spoiler alert!--getting knifed in the chest by Wesley's henchmen and hot-as-hell Kelly Lynch as Dalton's doctor love-interest (and, yes, fellas, Kelly has a nudie scene in the flick!). As one would probably expect, the rest of the cast of the film consists of a rather colorful assortment of, shall we say, characters. Actually, Road House isn't too bad of a flick as far as action flicks go and is, I think, a prime example of a good "bad" film. Road House is the type of flick where you need to suspend disbelief and turn off your brain for a couple of hours to really enjoy it. Of course, I think the same could be said of Patrick's earlier "classic" film Dirty Dancing, which, along with Ghost, is one of Swayze's best-known flicks (which contains perhaps one of the cheesiest lines in movie history of which Swayze himself stated made him cringe: "Nobody puts Baby in the corner!"). Road House is probably his most "famous" flick among the fellas mainly because it has PLENTY of action and has LITTLE dancing (sorry, ladies!) and has gone on to enjoy a "cult" following. The movie has even been "referenced" on other shows like Family Guy and there was even a straight-to-video sequel that was released years later of which didn't feature Patrick Swayze. Oh yeah, Road House was also directed by a director named--and, no, I'm NOT making this up!--Rowdy Herrington. Kind of explains a lot, doesn't it? Best line in the flick: "Be nice until it's time to not be nice." Second best line in the flick: "A polar bear fell on me." A sidenote: One of the co-stars of the film is a musician named Jeff Healey who was blind and was most noted for playing the guitar on his lap (see YouTube clip below). In the flick, The Jeff Healey Band is the house band for the Double Deuce who provides much of the music for the film's soundtrack. (Patrick also performed a song or two for the film's soundtrack as he did for Dirty Dancing.) Jeff died about a year before Patrick Swayze did. Both are sorely missed!



RANGO

 

 

Rango is a pretty entertaining computer-animated flick that would appeal to both children and adults. Rango is about a wayward rather bumbling lizard named--you guessed it!--Rango who stumbles into the small western town populated by assorted critters appropriately-named Dirt that’s in dire need of not only water but a new sheriff after the last sheriff met a rather untimely end. Rango manages to con his way into the job after telling the townsfolk the tall tale of how he defeated a gang of outlaws with only one bullet. The town is run by a conniving turtle mayor who’s controlling the town’s water supply unbeknownst to the town’s populace for his own nefarious scheme which Rango stumbles upon of him secretly building a more “modern“ town. The movie pays homage to a number of other movies which adult viewers might recognize, including a number of “spaghetti” westerns such as A Fistful Of Dollars starring Clint Eastwood whose Man With No Name character even makes a cameo in the film (though not voiced by Clint). The movie also contains a number of action scenes, including the “climax” of the film when Rango confronts the head bad guy named Rattlesnake Jake whom the scheming turtle mayor “hires” who runs Rango out of town after publicly humiliating him in front of the town’s populace by making him admit that his story about taking on the outlaw gang with one bullet was untrue. Rango is voiced by Johnny Depp which, of course, may explain why the character Rango sounds like a cross between Jack Sparrow and Hunter S. Thompson--whose likeness also makes a cameo in the film--which are, of course, characters that Johnny Depp has played. Like I said, I think Rango is a film that would be entertaining to kids and grown-ups alike (though I will say that the film‘s move violent scenes, especially the ones with the character Rattlesnake Jake, might be too intense for really younger viewers). Rango also gained the distinction of being the first Nickelodeon movie to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Film. The Man With No Name would be so proud!

 





NEIL YOUNG JOURNEYS

 

 

Neil Young Journeys is primarily a concert film starring legendary rocker Neil Young with a few scenes of him talking about his childhood while driving through his childhood home in a small town in Canada. The concert just shows Neil onstage while playing his guitar and keyboards. Most of the songs are newer songs with a few "classics" thrown in such as Hey Hey My My, Down By The River and Ohio. While performing his hit song Ohio, which was Neil's rather angry response to the senseless shootings by the Ohio National Guardsman of four college students at Kent State University while students were protesting the Vietnam War, footage of the shootings as well as pictures of the four slain college students was shown while he was playing the song. Also, while he was singing a song called Hitchhiker, there was a POV cam put underneath Neil's microphone and, well, let's just say the footage gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "spitting distance," all right? In any case, diehard fans will undoubtedly enjoy this film. As for others, well, let's just say this film would NOT be for fans of Justin Beiber, if you know what I mean! A sidenote: It should probably probably go without saying that all the guardsman who killed those four students were never held legally accountable for the senseless shootings as they were acquitted of any & all wrongdoing save for a court case brought on by the families of the victims that was settled out-of-court with the stipulation that said family members make a public statement that basically absolved the guardsman of the shootings. That's Nixonian "justice" for ya! NOTE: Here's a clip from YouTube of Neil Young's "Ohio" performance from Journeys: