Country: Japan
Genre: Action/Swordplay
Director: Kenji Misumi
Year: 1972
Rating:

TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword Of Vengeance, the first of six films in the series, is far from perfect, but it’s still entertaining.
Ogami Itto is the executioner for the Shogunate. Unfortunately, an offshoot of the Yagyu clan plots to eliminate Ogami and his family so they […]

Country: United States
Genre: Drama/Action
Director: Bruce Beresford
Year: 2006

Rating:

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME
If you ever happen across the trailer to The Contract, you’ll know why I rented it. It’s got a couple of reliable stars in John Cusack and Morgan Freeman, and an old pro in director Bruce Beresford. And sure enough, John Cusack is fine as […]

Country: Italy
Genre: Poliziotteschi
Director: Massimo Dallamano
Year: 1976

Rating:

WORTH A LOOK
It’s difficult to say exactly what I didn’t like about Colt 38 Special Squad. It’s competently directed and paced by Massimo Dallamano, it’s got a reasonably good score by Stelvio Cipriani, it’s got a moment or two of kinky carnage, which I always appreciate, lots of innocent […]

Country: United States
Genre: Drama
Director: Marcel Langenegger
Year: 2008

Rating:

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME
It would be all too easy to simply dismiss Deception, a would-be thriller that takes place in the milieau of corporate boardrooms and upper class sex clubs, as a dumb vanity project for Hugh Jackman, who also produced the film.
Jonathan McQuarry (Ewan McGregor) is a […]

Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Martial Arts/Comedy/Action
Director: Tsui Hark
Year: 1989

Rating:

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME
Surely it might have been possible to make a decent film out of the material of The Master.
Tak (the great Yuen Wah) runs a Chinese medicine practice in Los Angeles. He’s also known as a kung fu master. One day, Johnny (Jerry Trimble) shows […]

Country: United States
Genre: Action
Director: Andrew Davis
Year: 1993

Rating:

CLASSICS THAT I HATE
The Fugitive is by no means a terrible movie, but it isn’t the deathless classic people imagine it to be either. I put the esteem people hold this movie in down to three things: Tommy Lee Jones’ performance as U.S. Marshall Girard, a seemingly suicidal […]

Country: Thailand
Genre: Action
Director: Wisit Sasanatieng
Year: 2000

Rating:

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME
Into every life a little rain must fall. In my case, that maxim is illustrated by movies like Tears Of The Black Tiger.
On the face of it, Tears Of The Black Tiger should have been quite entertaining. Imagine this: a Thai film using Western cowboy visual […]

Country: United States
Genre: Drama
Director: Renny Harlin
Year: 2007

Rating:

WORTH A LOOK
When I started writing this review, I thought that the major flaw of Cleaner was that it isn’t cohesive thematically, but I discovered I was mistaken, to a certain extent. It’s an odd thing. If you had told me that I would be uncomfortable with a […]

Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Bullet Ballet/Martial Arts/Comedy/Action
Director: Stanley Tong
Year: 1992

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE
Police Story III (AKA Supercop) is a deeply schizophrenic movie.
Interpol, the Hong Kong police department, and China’s security forces mount a joint operation to shut down the drug smuggling operation of Chaibat (Kenneth Tsang). Hong Kong supercop Ka-Kui (Jackie Chan) is selected […]

Country: United States
Genre: Western/Action
Director: Clint Eastwood
Year: 1973

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
In the classic film Chinatown, character Noah Cross said “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.” The same can be said of genre actors and directors. Take Clint Eastwood.
Back when he was starting out as a director, he got […]