Fun fun fun. I can’t remember when I’ve had more fun at the movies. I love old American International exploitation flicks, and love the trailers for those movies even more, since the movies themselves could frequently be a bore, waiting for the killings or flash of breasts or car crashes. There’s a big helping of both trailers and waiting-for-action going on here. This has been written about to death everywhere of course, which is maybe why no one is bothering here. (If only Bakunin had written about it, then at least maybe John would have deemed it worthy of a mention.) A little too much reliance on Rose McGowan throughout, but the Josh Brolin / Marley Shelton bits made up for it. (more…)

I’d never seen this. It’s sweet as hell. I wonder if it was intentionally marketed as a film “for the whole family” when it was released, or if it just ended up that way…

Though all four of the main characters (known by the pejorative “Cutters” as in stonecutters, which was the local industry) have enough of a backstory to understand their situations, we don’t get enough from them. Daniel Stern in particular gets the short shrift on his life story, and David, the main character, with his wannabe-Italian kitsch, might actually be the least interesting of the bunch, definitely the one that grows tiresome most quickly. I’m no fan of sports movies and last second victories, but this really did have me in its clutches through the end. I do vaguely remember as a kid that scene of David riding his bike on a highway in the slipstream of a semi-truck carrying Cinzano, with the driver giving him hand signals letting him know how fast he’s going – 60 mph at one point. Dennis Quaid looks like one of those half-nude Abercrombie & Fitch catalog models durng the “swimming hole” scenes – and Hart Bochner (!!!) of all people, looking a lot like Luke Wilson’s guest spots on That 70s Show, is better than decent as the ass-hole frat-boy. (more…)