Rocky Horror Picture Show

Newly engaged virginal couple Brad and Janet (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) are heading to visit their scientist friend, Dr. Scott (Jonathan Adams) when their car breaks down during a storm. They head to a nearby castle, where they find themselves becoming embroiled in a bizarre party/science experiment/orgy/clusterfuck. Continue reading

Riddick

This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.

The last time we saw Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel) he was being crowned leader of the Necromongers, a race of deeply religious killers who destroy anyone who does not accept their way of life, but five years later he once again finds himself lost and alone on a strange planet, battered and bloody, fighting for his life against humans and alien creatures alike. Where is he and why is he there? Riddick doesn’t care; he’s just trying to survive. Continue reading

The Rock

This review was originally written for French Toast Sunday.

Michael Bay’s The Rock sees U.S. Marines, led by Ed Harris’ Brigadier General Frank Hummel, taking over the island prison of Alcatraz, now a tourist attraction, and keeping the tourists hostage until a ransom is paid to cover the money owed to unpaid troops. If the money is not paid, Hummel and his men will launch deadly chemicals into San Fransisco, killing thousands of people. The FBI arranges for a Navy Seal team to go after the marines, but to do so they need the help of a chemical weapon specialist, Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) and John Mason (Sean Connery), the only man ever to survive an escape from Alcatraz.  Nicolas-Cage-in-The-Rock-nicolas-cage-18205121-1067-800 Continue reading

First Blood

This review was originally written for French Toast Sunday.

John Rambo, Vietnam veteran, green beret and recipient of the congressional medal of honor, is looking for an old war buddy of his. Upon hearing the news of his death – thereby making Rambo the only surviving member of his platoon – Rambo’s day is exacerbated further when the town’s sheriff (Brian Dennehy) denies him access because of his haircut, curmudgeonly manner and generally unkempt appearance. When Rambo fails to comply he’s locked up, but once the small town cops start antagonizing him, out things start to get messy.first_blood_pic1 Continue reading

Runaway Train

This review was first written for French Toast Sunday.

Oscar Manheim (Jon Voight) is a convicted killer and bank robber, whose multiple escape attempts and generally uncouth disposition have rewarded him with three years of solitary confinement in Stonehaven Maximum Security Prison, during which he was welded into his cell. However, a court ordered has decreed that Manheim be released back into the prison’s general population, where the man is something of a hero. Of course, once he’s out of his cell he makes another escape attempt, during which he’s joined by Buck McGeehy (Eric Roberts), a loyal but simple fellow inmate whose laundry job provides a perfect means of escape. Once on the run in the freezing Alaskan wilderness, the two end up on a train that’s out of control, and they may be the only ones that can stop it.Voight Continue reading

Superman The Movie

On the planet Krypton, the elders have disrupted the planet’s core and caused it to begin to erupt. Everyone on the planet is doomed, except for a small, barely explained plot contrivance that allows one newborn baby to be launched in a pod and sent to another planet that will be hospitable to him, but where the atmosphere and density are different enough to provide him with extraordinary powers. Krypton explodes, but the baby arrives safely on Earth, where he lives his life as a loner, the last of his kind… wait a minute, didn’t I write this the other week? Hmmmm. Anyway, Kal-El…Earth…Smallville…the Kents…Metropolis…Lois Lane…Daily Planet…Kryptonite…Laser vision…flying…Superman.1025_clark2 Continue reading

The Reader

Berlin, 1958. A teenage boy coming down with scarlet fever is briefly cared for by a woman whose apartment building he has just vomited in. Once he is healed, the two begin a secret relationship revolving around sex and literature, however his youth becomes a problem, and the pair are driven apart. Some years later, the boy becomes a student at law school, and ends up sitting in on a case in which his former fling has an important role, and only he may have the key to save her.
thereader460 Continue reading

The Sand Pebbles

The year is 1926, just before one of the many Chinese revolutions. Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) is a ship’s engineer who has been transferred to a small run-down gunship named the San Pablo, or the Sand Pebble to her crew. Aboard the Pebble, Holman causes tension amongst the already tight-knit yet divided crew, which doesn’t help when the Chinese public attempt to instigate a war with the US. Continue reading

The 39 Steps

Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a Canadian man visiting London, thinks nothing of assisting a strange woman (Lucie Mannheim) to escape a theatre riot, especially when, after the melee, she requests he take her home with him. She seems rather odd, with an indistinguishable European accent and clearly fake name, hiding from the windows and the reflection of the mirror, scared of a ringing telephone, and it turns out she’s being pursued by a gunman over some business involving a secret being smuggled out of the country. Hannay of course is sceptical, until she winds up dead on his living room floor, a knife in her back and a map in her hand, with Scotland’s Alt-na-Shellach circled. Hannay suddenly finds himself in the frame for murder, and must flee up north if he hopes to clear his name and save the secrets.

The Barbarian Invasions

Remy (Remy Girard), a college professor with a womanising history, is mere days away from death. His wife (Dorothee Berryman), from whom he separated fifteen years ago when he refused to give up his philandering ways, summons their son, Sebastien (Stephane Rousseau) to see him. Sebastien and his father have never been close, with the son playing the father for destroying the family, and the father being disappointed his son never became a cultured intellectual, even though he is now a fantastically wealthy international businessman. Sebastien uses his fathers last days to reconnect with his old man, and make his remaining time happy, by contacting his father’s old friends, disrupting the Canadian health system to get him a better room, and making an arrangement with a heroine addict (Marie-Josee Croze) to make his father more comfortable before the inevitable happens.
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