Random Rewind: JCVD

JCVD (2008) is a crime drama film starring action star Jean-Claude Van Damme.  This is no normal Van Damme, it’s actually Jean-Claude Van Damme flexing his acting chops instead of his muscles.  The film takes bits of Van Damme’s real personal life into a fictional setting to deliver a something that you might not expect from Van Damme but something that must be seen.

Random Rewind: Bronson

Bronson is a 2009 film starring English actor Tom Hardy, directed by Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn and has nothing to do with the actorCharles Bronson.  Bronson is a film based on the life of Michael Peterson who is known as being one of England’s most violent and infamous prisoners.  He is still in prison to this day.  A good portion of that time in prison if not most of it has been spent in solitary confinement.

Random Rewind: Ip Man

Ip Man (2008) is a Hong Kong film starring Donnie Yen,  directed by Wilson Yip with fight/martial arts choreography by Sammo Hung.   It’s a very semi-biographical film, very loosely based on the life of martial arts master Yip Man, who was a practitioner of the Wing Chun style of Kung Fu and was a onetime teacher of a young Bruce Lee.

Random Rewind: Lone Wolf and Cub Saga

Lone Wolf and Cub is a period samurai manga (Japanese comic) that was written by Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Goseki Kojima in 1970. Six films were made in Japan from 1972-1974 based on the manga.  In 1980 a movie using edited parts from the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films was released as Shogun Assassin for western audiences.  In this week’s column I’m going to talk about, give information and compare the originals with what initially got released here in the west.

Random Rewind: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Remakes and reimaginings have taken us by storm.  I have honestly lost count of how many movies within the last decade have fallen into these categories.  I am not shy about my disdain for the majority of these kinds of movies.  My disdain is layered.  On the one hand it’s almost insulting as a movie fan that the industry is concerned with investing in the familiar by rehashing movies that are not that old and that are easily available.  The fact that when the remake is executed it ends up being a flaccid version of the original and stains the legacy of said original movie is frustrating.  Sometimes it feels like the industry is primarily concerned with marquee value and the only thing the remake/reimagining might have in common with the original is the name and maybe a few aesthetic values.  Finally, where are the new ideas?   The industry keeps doing it because the public keeps paying money and going to these remakes.  People be brave, try something new, you might be pleasantly surprised.  If we support new intellectual properties with our dollars the industry will have to stop spoon feeding us regurgitated versions of classic films.  Please don’t get me started on movies based on old antiquated TV series or cartoon series that was good for its time (and sometimes not so good).  That is for another time.

Random Rewind: After Hours

Martin Scorsese might be one of my favorite directors.   He has a way of telling a story in a film with incredible style yet makes it feel very believable.  I also love his use of music in his films to accent a scene and makes it feel complete and memorable.  Yup, I really like Martin Scorsese films.  To be honest with you, as much as I like him I can’t say I’ve seen everything he has ever done.  So looking through his films there are quite a few that I still have yet to see and out of those one caught my eye.

Random Rewind: The Hunger

The Hunger is a vampire film, released in 1983,  directed by Tony Scott (True Romance, Crimson Tide, Top Gun) starring Susan Sarandon, David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve.  The Hunger is a different vampire film and worth checking out for the opened minded.

Random Rewind: Angel Heart

Angel Heart is movie directed by Alan Parker(Midnight Express, Pink Floyd:The Wall) staring Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet and Robert De Niro. Released in 1987 the movie is most well known by the controversy that went on around it, more so than the movie itself. The lead is played by, at the time, one of Hollywood’s biggest bad boy leading men Mickey Rourke, but the controversy comes in the name Lisa Bonet, 19 years old at the time of filming. Lisa Bonet was known for playing one of Bill Cosby’s daughters in the very popular 80’s sit-com The Cosby Show. In Angel Heart she appears topless and has a sex scene with Mickey Rourke. This caused a mass media freak out before the films release because of her scenes in the film contrasted with her clean teen image on a prime time sit-com. The notorious sex scene also had to be edited a bit to get an “R” rating.

Our New Weekend Column

Starting this weekend, today, right now, we will have a new weekend column. This column will feature films that up until now haven’t really fit any of our other categories.  The column will be manned by newcomer Luis Ramos and it will be called “Random Rewind.”  I think the column title says it all. They’re random, they’re and at one time they probably had to be rewound on VHS.

Check Luis out.  I’m already a big fan and I think you all will be too.