'Warriors' actor Roger Hill dies

'Warriors' actor Roger Hill dies

LAND OF THE DEAD

Land Of The Dead is a 2005 zombie/horror flick directed by legendary zombie/horror film director George A. Romero who's known for his zombie/horror flicks, most notably his late-sixties black & white groundbreaking zombie/horror classic Night Of The Living Dead. Admittedly, Romero's zombie flicks have been rather hit or miss, but Land Of The Dead is actually pretty good, especially given that I'm NOT the biggest zombie fan. At least in this one the zombies learn, at least somewhat so, how to think and especially how to fight back instead of just being mindless brain-eating undead machines. Anyway, this film stars Simon Baker (of TV's The Mentalist fame) who created an armored tank/zombie-killing machine called Dead Reckoning that he created for a corrupt despot--played with usual evilness by the late Dennis Hopper (of Easy Rider and Speed fame)--who runs a city that's "protected" from the zombie horde where--of course!--only the well-to-do can afford to live in while the less fortunate have to stay outside in makeshift camps and such and basically fend for themselves. Hopper's despotic character enlists Baker's character's help in tracking down a former associate of his--played by John Leguizamo (of Ice Age and To Wong Foo fame)--who also did some assassinating jobs for Hopper's character with the hope that he'd allow him to live in the city. However, when Dennis's character screws him on that deal, he hijacks the Dead Reckoning and vows revenge on the corrupt despot. Aided by his constant zombie-fighting companion who is a little slow (played by actor Robert Joy) and a raven-haired hottie--played by the "uber" hot Asia Argento (of XXX and Dario Argento fame)--whom he rescues from being zombie-bait in a cage match between two zombies thrown by a "little person" who gets shot in the head by his sharpshooting "slow" companion along with a few soldiers provided by Hopper's character, Simon's character goes off in search of the Dead Reckoning and his former cohort. Meanwhile, the zombies, led by an undead gas station attendant, start becoming more intelligent and start descending on the city. Simon's character and his group catches up with the Dead Reckoning and takes it back from John's character. They return to the city only to find it overrun with--that's right!--zombies. They in turn use the Dead Reckoning to help fight against the zombie invasion. Like I said, Land Of The Dead is actually one of the better zombie flicks I've seen. Frankly, I think a lot of the zombie flicks and/or shows I've seen is just more or less a rehash of Romero's first zombie flick Night Of The Living Dead (The Walking Dead, anyone?). And, while Land Of The Dead is along the same theme of those other zombie flicks and/or shows, it's a better quality zombie flick since a lot of other zombie flicks I've seen, including some of Romero's other zombie flicks, have a kind of B-movie "quality" to them. Plus it doesn't hurt that it co-stars "uber" hottie Asia Argento (am I right, fellas!)!    

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is a 1974 action film starring the late Warren Oates and directed by legendary film director the late Sam Peckinpah. Sam Peckinpah is actually one of my favorite film directors of all-time and would be considered to be the Quentin Tarantino of his day, at least in my view, with his ultra-violent films that were similar to Tarantino's movies (although, strangely enough, I've never heard Quentin list Peckinpah as of his favorite film directors even though--again, at least in my view--their films are so similar). Anyway, Peckinpah took the concept of cinematic violence to a whole new level in his films, including this one. Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is about a ruthless powerful man--who is only known as "The Boss"--who orders a $1 million bounty on the "head" of the man who impregnated his daughter who tells her brutal father who he is after he strips her and has one of his henchmen break her arm to get her to tell him after she initially refuses. Warren's character along with his girlfriend decide to seek the "head" of Garcia when two of The Boss's henchmen walk into Warren's character's bar to see if he or anyone else in the bar knows the whereabouts of Alfredo. Along the way, Warren's character and his girlfriend encounter two rapist bikers--one of whom is played by country music legend/actor Kris Kristofferson (of Blade fame)--whom Warren's character winds up shooting & killing before they have a chance to rape his girlfriend. They finally come upon Alfredo's grave--who had already died in a drunk driving accident a few weeks prior of which Warren's character learns about when his girlfriend tells him that she cheated on him with Garcia--and, before they can retrieve his head, they get attacked by a couple of other thugs who are likewise seeking the million-dollar bounty on his head. Warren's character wakes up later in Garcia's grave only to find his girlfriend dead and Garcia's head gone. So he hunts down the thugs and winds up shooting & killing them both and takes the head. He eventually gets stopped by members of Garcia's family and, while he's trying to talk them down, the two henchmen who first approached him in the bar pull up and end up gunning down Alfredo's family members save for one old man. One of the family members, before he gets shot, manages to kill one of the henchmen while Warren's character shoots & kills the other and then takes Garcia's head directly to The Boss. However, when The Boss attempts to give him the $1 million bounty, he has a change of heart and instead pulls his gun on him and ends up shooting him at the urging of his daughter who's standing next to her brutish father while holding Alfredo's baby. After Warren's character guns down The Boss along with his guards, he tries to make a run for it in his car and--spoiler alert!--gets gunned down by the rest of The Boss's guards. The scene is reminiscent of the final shootout scene in Sam Peckinpah's late-sixties classic western The Wild Bunch, which is widely regarded as Sam Peckinpah's most famous--and most violent--movie (and also stars Warren Oates who had starred in a number of Peckinpah's films). Anyway, as you can probably tell, Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is not your typical action film. Also, Warren Oates is not your typical action star, at least compared with the "hunky" action movie stars of today. The violence is also not as, shall we say, cartoonish as it tends to be in a lot of modern-day action films. However, for those who are interested in seeing an action flick that's--again, shall we say--different than modern-day action flicks, especially those that tend to focus more on the "action" than on the actual plot, then they might find Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia--there again, shall we say--interesting.     

HALF PAST DEAD

Half Past Dead is a 2001 action flick starring the one & only Steven Seagal in what would be his last theatrical release. Since then, all of his flicks have been straight-to-video (and with apparently good reason!). Anyway, the title of this flick refers to Steven's character--who's an undercover FBI agent--being clinically dead after a shootout at the beginning of the flick. Some years later he goes undercover at the newly-opened Alcatraz prison to further investigate a gun runner--played by rapper Ja Rule (this was, of course, back when people still cared who the hell Ja Rule was!)--he was investigating when he got shot. While in Alcatraz, the prison gets broken into by a gang of heavily-armed thieves who are wanting to break out an inmate who's about to be executed who ended up killing a few cops during a gold heist so he can tell them where the gold he stole and hid is. Of course, Seagal and Ja Rule's characters are hell-bent on stopping them. There's actually only a couple of fight scenes with Seagal in the flick compared to his other movies where he seemingly has endless fight scenes (you know, since he's such a karate "expert" and all!). Actually, Half Past Dead isn't too bad of an action flick in spite of the drubbing it took from critics (which I think had more to do with the fact that it starred the one & only Steven Seagal than anything else). I mean, compared to the straight-to-video drek Steven Seagal HAS starred in since the release of this movie, Half Past Dead is high art indeed! Diehard Steven Seagal fans--you know, the ones who'll watch the guy in ANYTHING (including that rather asinine "reality" show titled Steven Seagal: Lawman or whatever it was called!)--will undoubtedly enjoy this flick along with diehard (pardon the pun!) action film fans. Oh yeah, the resident eye candy in this flick is provided by Claudia Christian (of Babylon 5 and Playboy fame) who plays a fellow FBI agent in the flick and Nia Peeples (of Fame and Walker Texas Ranger fame) who plays a hot-as-hell bad, uh, guy--complete with tight leather clothing and sexy blue eye makeup!--who actually has a fight scene with none other than Ja Rule (and, yes, she whips his rapper ass!), which I think it would've been more, shall we say, interesting if she had a fight scene with the one & only Steven Seagal (but then, that's just me!).

CHRISTMAS FLICKS FOR SCROOGES (from Squidoo)

Here's a link to an article I published around Christmas that I thought I'd post on this blog: http://www.squidoo.com/christmas-flicks-for-scrooges
Enjoy!

AN ODE (OR FU?) TO JENNIFER LAWRENCE

Jennifer Lawrence (but you already know that, DIDN'T you?)

Jennifer Lawrence looking cheeky!

Jennifer Lawrence in body paint as Mystique

Jennifer Lawrence showing off her, er, talent!

Jennifer Lawrence is without a doubt one of the most if not the most successful and popular young actresses in Hollywood today. Jennifer has starred in the highly-popular Hunger Games and X-Men movie franchises and has won a slew of awards for her roles in films such as Silver Linings Playbook. She’s even become a sex symbol of sorts; like, for instance, she was ranked #1 of the Top 99 Most Desirable Women list on AskMen‘s site. So why the hell is it that every time I see Miss Lawrence interviewed on TV she’s seemingly complaining about, well, everything? Jennifer has seemingly waged a one-woman war against what she calls the negative body images perpetrated by--who else!--Hollywood. Which is all well and good, but, if Jennifer truly felt this way, why then has she chosen to pose provocatively for men’s magazines such as Maxim and Esquire? I mean, isn’t she perpetrating the SAME negative body images she claims is so harmful to young women? What makes her criticisms even more head-scratching is that she’s also gone-on-record about her distaste of all the rampant airbrushing that occurs within these very same magazines that she’s posed so provocatively for. Hell, she even complained during an appearance on David “D-Bag” Letterman’s show how this sneaky paparazzo superimposed a, as she put it, 90-year-old’s ass onto a backside bikini shot taken of her (see above pic to, uh-hum, judge for yourselves). The last straw for me came when she told Barbara Walters how it should be “illegal” to call somebody fat in a public forum such as TV and similar outlets. (For the record, I’ve never called anyone “fat” on this or any of my blogs. I may call people D-Bags or A-Holes, but I haven’t called anyone The F Word!) If I were interviewing Jennifer Lawrence, I would ask her point-blank why ALL the complaining? I mean, as I pointed out, she’s by far one of the most popular actresses working in Hollywood today. So what if some A-Hole dared to call her fat? I would also kindly suggest to her that, if she truly feels that Hollywood perpetrates a negative body image that’s “harmful” to impressionable young girls, she stop posing so damn provocatively for “airbrushed” men’s magazines such as Maxim and Esquire. And I would also suggest that maybe--just maybe!--she stop wearing these low-cut tops out in public where half--or more!--of her ta-tas are hanging out for those “sneaky” paparazzi to, er, see  (again, see above pic)! And do I even have to say ANYTHING about Jennifer wearing blue body paint for her role as Mystique in the X-Men films? For the record, I actually like Jennifer Lawrence. I, like many others, think she’s an actual talented actress who actually deserves all her success. However, like with too many OTHER celebrities nowadays (and, yes, I’m looking at YOU, Halle Barry!), I can do without all the damn complaining about getting what she wants, you know what I mean? A sidenote: Another reason why I'm tempted to give an FU to Jennifer Lawrence is that she reportedly called Christian Bale "Fatman"--you know, because he played The Dark Knight in those vastly overrated Batman flicks--reportedly making fun of his deliberate weight gain for a movie they starred in together, reportedly adding how she didn't really want to kiss him during their kissing scene together because he was--you guessed it!--too FAT to kiss. Here's the link to the article where I first read this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2537966/How-Jennifer-Lawrence-reluctant-make-chubby-Christian-Bale-American-Hustle.html Of course, this "quote" is coming from a secondhand source, but, given how hypocritical celebrities can be (and, again, I'm looking at YOU, Halle Barry!), I wouldn't be too surprised that she did in fact say this, you know what I mean? A side-sidenote: Jennifer Lawrence was recently the "victim"--as SOME in the media have dubbed her--of a hacking "scandal" where some nudie selfies of her leaked online. Jennifer's lawyers have, of course, threatened to sue ANY site that dares post these pics. (Yeah, since THAT worked so well for that Kate Middleton chick!) Here's my advice to those celebs who are "victims" of having their "private" nudie selfies hacked & leaked: STOP TAKING NUDIE SELFIES!!!! Problem solved! I just have to ask: Just how narcissistic do YOU have to be to take a nudie selfie of oneself and store it in your phone or some other computing device to where it CAN get hacked & leaked? I mean, it's almost as if these celebs WANT to get these "private" nudie selfies hacked & leaked, you know what I mean? But, surely, that CAN'T be the case, now CAN it?

Here's a clip of Jennifer Lawrence's "illegal fat" interview with Barbara Walters: