I watched 6 movies last week:
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- Tokyo Gore Police does exactly what it says on the tin. Never mind that the tin is more than a little dented, or that its contents have started to go rancid, that seems like it’s maybe kind of the point. The movie is ridiculously over-the-top, certainly delivering on the violence and gore—sometimes in silly or inventive ways, though mostly just to shock and disgust—but it doesn’t offer a lot except for that, even when it finally gets around to having some kind of story. Some cheap but creative glimmers and an in-your-face attitude aside, the whole thing quickly grows tedious.
- The Hunted is…fine. It’s best when it’s a game of cat and mouse between its two leads, though mostly only because those leads are Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro, who invest more in their characters than the script does. The movie never really goes anywhere, beyond a stab at a lukewarm First Blood remake. And while William Friedkin certainly knows his way around a chase scene, this was not one of his better efforts.
- The new Anaconda doesn’t work just as a love letter to the 1997 original. Which is good, because I don’t have much if any love for that movie. This one is goofy and amiable, and if it doesn’t go anywhere even remotely surprising, at least the ride itself is good-natured fun.
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- Roger Ebert said that Runaway Train was “a reminder that the great adventures are great because they happen to people we care about.” In this case, that’s Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, who really do manage to make you care about their characters and keep the tension high from start to finish.
- Imagine a cheap Canadian answer to Mad Max with a little Smokey and the Bandit tossed for some reason, and you probably have a pretty good idea of how Firebird 2015 AD ever got made. Of course, what you’re imagining is almost certainly a better movie than this lazy and tedious shamble. Some of the actors do their best with the absolute nothing they’re given, while some just do a lot, but none of it is worth watching even a little.
- I often didn’t like Marty Supreme the character, but Marty Supreme the movie takes so many weird and audacious swings, it’s hard not to largely enjoy it.
I also rewatched Coherence, which I think is a little less clever upon rewatching, and a little dated by its shot-on-video aesthetic and some of its cast—RIP to the troubled Nicholas Brendon—but still holds up as a clever explorations of science-fictional ideas.