AGE OF THE DRAGONS
Metrodome - On DVD from MondaySometimes I just get suckered in by the promise of car-crash cinema and Age Of The Dragons promised a fucking pile-up: Moby-Dick, but with a dragon instead of a whale, and Danny Glover, and Vinnie Jones calling a dragon a "baarrrr-staaaard!". I expected, at the very least, a catastrophic mess of entertaining proportions. Shit is just shit, but endeavours like this, where people adapt lofty, celebrated novels into tawdry B-movies, appeal to the voyeuristic side of me that marvels at horrendously misplaced ambition.Alas, ambition is not a word to be used in connection with Age Of The Dragons. There is no entertainment on offer here, despite the fact that the director has actually said, with a straight face, that the film is "way more exciting" than its source material. Everything in and about this film is so inept that Vinny Jones isn't the worst thing in it. Danny Glover hams it up so much it's hard to tell if he's been told to act like a drag queen with grenades for a brain or he's just milking the experience of being on a film set/with other people given that this movie may well kill his career. In an interview with a local paper while it was being shot in Utah, he told the journalist that when he was sent the script, "My first real reaction was, 'Wow, somebody gave me a job.'" Thanks Danny. Thanks everybody. Well done.
2
HERMAN SMELVILLEUNSTOPPABLE
20th Century Fox - On DVD from March 28thMy dad is OBSESSED with trains. So much so that every single holiday I went on as a kid would have some kind of barely-concealed trainspotting agenda. Even the years when my mum would take charge of the holiday because she was "sick to fucking death of looking at trains" we'd get to the caravan park, start to "relax", and then see a plume of steam come over the horizon to the sound of my dad saying "Oh yeah, the Ffestiniog line does run near here!".This movie is "based on a true story" meaning that something totally uninteresting happened with a train, and these guys threw in a bunch of explosions and abseiling out of helicopters and near misses with trains full of kids. Which is kinda like saying that The Matrix is based on a true story because it features a scene where somebody talks on a mobile phone. Anyway, I called my dad up and described the plot of Unstoppable to him, expecting him to scoff and rant about Hollywood's misrepresentation and exploitation of trains, but apparently everything in this totally could happen. I guess that means the most implausible thing on display here is Denzel Washington, 20 fucking million fucking dollars richer thanks to this turkey.
5
THE PHAT KONTROLLAMACHETE
Sony Pictures - On DVD from March 28thDespite sometimes getting the feeling that the sole purpose of Robert Rodriguez's career is to prove he's got a bigger VHS collection than Tarantino, he makes pretty good films. Machete (the realisation of his fake Grindhouse trailer), is the latest in his "really violent cool shit happening in Mexico and Texas" genre which seemed so important in the 90s.This is Danny Trejo's first ever lead role, after playing bit-parts as a sort of Mexican Freddie Cruger with guns instead of magic for twenty-odd years. If you're not down with Trejo's back story or 200-strong filmography, let me save you a trip to IMDB: Trejo's career has played out a lot like Macaulay Culkin's in reverse, progressing from criminal drug addict to Hollywood legend. After years in and out of prison, he eventually got his big break at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting before graciously accepting the role of every Hispanic vigilante/criminal/psycho/gardener ever. Anyway, Machete is great, even if you just watch the intestine scene and Lindsay Lohan's translucent breasts (0:55:25 and 1:20:06, in case you only have your chocolate hand free and you're in a hurry).
9
LINDSAY BLANCA LOCO-HAN
Metrodome - On DVD from MondaySometimes I just get suckered in by the promise of car-crash cinema and Age Of The Dragons promised a fucking pile-up: Moby-Dick, but with a dragon instead of a whale, and Danny Glover, and Vinnie Jones calling a dragon a "baarrrr-staaaard!". I expected, at the very least, a catastrophic mess of entertaining proportions. Shit is just shit, but endeavours like this, where people adapt lofty, celebrated novels into tawdry B-movies, appeal to the voyeuristic side of me that marvels at horrendously misplaced ambition.
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2
HERMAN SMELVILLEUNSTOPPABLE
20th Century Fox - On DVD from March 28thMy dad is OBSESSED with trains. So much so that every single holiday I went on as a kid would have some kind of barely-concealed trainspotting agenda. Even the years when my mum would take charge of the holiday because she was "sick to fucking death of looking at trains" we'd get to the caravan park, start to "relax", and then see a plume of steam come over the horizon to the sound of my dad saying "Oh yeah, the Ffestiniog line does run near here!".This movie is "based on a true story" meaning that something totally uninteresting happened with a train, and these guys threw in a bunch of explosions and abseiling out of helicopters and near misses with trains full of kids. Which is kinda like saying that The Matrix is based on a true story because it features a scene where somebody talks on a mobile phone. Anyway, I called my dad up and described the plot of Unstoppable to him, expecting him to scoff and rant about Hollywood's misrepresentation and exploitation of trains, but apparently everything in this totally could happen. I guess that means the most implausible thing on display here is Denzel Washington, 20 fucking million fucking dollars richer thanks to this turkey.
5
THE PHAT KONTROLLAMACHETE
Sony Pictures - On DVD from March 28thDespite sometimes getting the feeling that the sole purpose of Robert Rodriguez's career is to prove he's got a bigger VHS collection than Tarantino, he makes pretty good films. Machete (the realisation of his fake Grindhouse trailer), is the latest in his "really violent cool shit happening in Mexico and Texas" genre which seemed so important in the 90s.This is Danny Trejo's first ever lead role, after playing bit-parts as a sort of Mexican Freddie Cruger with guns instead of magic for twenty-odd years. If you're not down with Trejo's back story or 200-strong filmography, let me save you a trip to IMDB: Trejo's career has played out a lot like Macaulay Culkin's in reverse, progressing from criminal drug addict to Hollywood legend. After years in and out of prison, he eventually got his big break at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting before graciously accepting the role of every Hispanic vigilante/criminal/psycho/gardener ever. Anyway, Machete is great, even if you just watch the intestine scene and Lindsay Lohan's translucent breasts (0:55:25 and 1:20:06, in case you only have your chocolate hand free and you're in a hurry).
9
LINDSAY BLANCA LOCO-HAN