The Movie:
Do you ever feel that someone out there is listening to you without your permission? The Listening is an Italian-made espionage thriller about the spying capabilities of the United States and the abuse of those capabilities by corrupt people in power. A film of wonderful production values, The Listening concentrates on spying technology being used by the US National Security Agency, but it also makes a story of global proportions personal, and quite relevant. The movie looks good and is a pleasure to watch.

The story follows Jim Wagley (Michael Parks), a high level NSA technician stationed in England. He works at the headquarters of Echelon, a multi-billion dollar surveillance system that listens in on phone calls all over the world for key words that could signify national security threats to the United States or its allies. Wagley is a man of conviction who, at the beginni...Read the entire review

I've summarized a few odd movie plots in my day, but try this one on for size: a group of childhood "geniuses" grows up to become a group of twenty-something social misfits who use their love of odd inventions to save a local pool hall owned by Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Written and directed by Brian Petersen, who also co-stars, it's obvious from square one that Think Tank (2007)---referring to said group's name, of course---is truly an odd duck. The DVD packaging proudly states "From the producers of Napoleon Dynamite", implying a gaggle of oddball characters, uncomfortably dry humor and a quasi-1980s atmosphere. During certain stretches of the film's 92-minute lifespan, it's a fairly accurate comparison. Other times...not so much.

To its credit (and discredit, when th...Read the entire review

The Movie:
This frequently compelling Canadian production, which plays like the bastard offspring of CSI and Insomnia, has much to recommend it. With gorgeous Ontario location shots, an unusual storyline (best summed up by my favorite pull quote in recent memory, from The Montreal Gazette: "A dark, stylish story about love, redemption and forensic archeology"), and one of the most evocative scores in recent memory (by Steve London), this has the makings of a cult classic. And yet it strangely misses the mark, mostly due to some stilted dialogue and other over-expository screenplay moments, which leave the actors floundering and in search of a consistent tone.

Focusing on two damaged souls played by Roy Dupuis (looking like a cross between CSI's William Pederson and a young Dennis Farina) and Jane McGregor (herself almost a clone of Carrie-Anne Moss of Matri...Read the entire review

Maybe it's just the masochist in me (or is it the sadist?), but for some strange reason I like watching romantic comedies. Don't get me wrong, because I'm hardly the sort of person that could be defined as a romantic. I'm not the sort of person who watches these films, tears welling up in my eyes, mumbling too himself, "Isn't that sweet? They managed to work it out, even though she's a clueless twit and he's an insensitive asshole." Quite the contrary, I tend to watch romantic comedies with a sense of disdain that usually builds to intense hostility by the third act as I mumble to myself, "These idiots deserve each other, I hope they drown in the shower." Truth be told, as oxymoronic as it may be, I love watching romance films because I hate them so much.

There's no doubt a therapist would have a field day exploring my twisted notions of love and romance, and certainly those views have sent more tha...Read the entire review

The Movie:

If the credits for The Stone Merchant didn't indicate otherwise, I'd swear Dick Cheney and a team of neocons had scripted this ludicrous Italian thriller about Islamist terrorists. You might think that post-9/11 realities would demand a serious-minded, complex treatment of terrorism, but you'd be wrong. The creators of this 2006 flick refuse to strain brain cells on such things. Instead, they more or less paint the entire Muslim world as al Qaeda operatives. The closest the picture comes to a positive Muslim is the titular character -- and he's a terrorist.

And that's not the worst of it. Contrivances abound. Leda (Jane March) is an Italian beauty who is briefly taken hostage by Islamic terrorists at the Rome airport. As fate would have it, she also happens to be the wife of an expert on terrorism, college professor Alceo (Jordi Molla). He teaches his class that M...Read the entire review

I grew up during the golden age of Bigfoot movies, so I have a lot of fond memories of Saturday matinee fodder like The Legend of Boggy Creek, Sasquatch, the Legend of Bigfoot, In Search of Bigfoot, The Mysterious Monsters, and of course, that episode where Steve Austin meets Bigfoot on The Six Million Dollar Man. I'm a confirmed fan of the genre. So it's with sad regret that I must say Sasquatch Mountain (originally titled Devil on the Mountain prior to its premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel) is barely a Bigfoot movie at all - and a pretty poor film to boot.

Sasquatch Mountain opens (in faux The Blair Witch Project style - which was faux already) with Chase Jackson (Lance Henriksen) losing his wife to Bi...Read the entire review

The Movie

In the past, I've written about my life-long love of horror films and I'm always first to defend the artistic merit of scary movies. But, I'm also a realist and I acknowledge that horror movies are a dime-a-dozen -- video stores shelves are littered with low-budget horror titles and in the past few years, we've seen an upsurge in the number of horror films hitting theaters. (I won't go into the fact that many of those movies have been remakes). With all of these horror movies, it can be difficult to find one which is actually scary or creepy. When these films come along, I immediately sit up and pay attention. Dark Remains is a frustrating film because it gets creepy right, but it gets many other aspects wrong.

Dark Remains tells the story of Allen and Julie Pike (Greg Thompson and Cheri Christian). As the film opens, the couple find that their daughte...Read the entire review

Low budget films truly are the backbone of the movie industry. Each year indie features are released that are greeted with one degree of success or another. 2005's Searching for Bobby D is an example of one that connects with moderate success in what it attempts to do but for all intense and purposes falls short in the end.

The movie features a plot about an aspiring filmmaker getting his name out there and attempting to put together his opus. It's supposed to be a comedy that showcases the plight of a struggling script writer with the backdrop of a mob-like atmosphere. It's fun, sometimes witty, and entertains in spurts but ultimately the script feels shallow and the acting, even more so.

Johnny Argano (William DeMeo) spends his days and nights dreaming about starring in a film with Robert DeNiro. He wrote a script but hasn't been able to make any conn...Read the entire review

The Movie

Here's what the low-budget potboiler Deepwater has going for it: A surprisingly good cast, some really solid cinematography, and an excellent musical score.

Here's what works against the flick: An intermittently slow pace, plot twists that are sometimes predictable and/or loopy, and a story that feels like it fell out of a 1989 made-for-cable movie.

A young drifter rides the back highways of the midwest, yearning silently to own an ostrich farm. He comes across a nasty car accident, and helps save an old stranger from a nastier explosion. The two become pals of a sort, so the older one invites the younger one to be a handyman at his seedy motel, oh, and be sure not to look at mah purty wife. Yeah, that kind of story. Pretty soon we're dealing with sweaty adultery, crooked cops, dangerous criminals, and acts of attempted murder.

Basically, Deepwater is not the fres...Read the entire review

The Movie:

"Keep Your Distance" has the look of something that you'd see on Showtime late on a Sunday evening, but after a few direct-to-video surprises lately (such as "The I Inside"), I've learned to be better about not judging a direct-to-video flick by its cover. "Distance" stars Gil Bellows ("Ally McBeal") as David Dailey, a Louisville radio host with a chilly marriage to Sarah (Kim Raver, now known for her role on TV's "24").

On his way out of the racetrack, he runs (literally) into Melody (Jennifer Westfeldt, famed for "Kissing Jessica Stein"), who was fleeing the place after saying no to her boyfriend's marriage proposal in front of the entire crowd. The two share something of a connection, but go their own ways. Afterwards, David comes back to their hotel room wanting to surprise his wife, but gets a surprise of his own when he finds her in bed with another woman.

M...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
One of Rodney Dangerfield's last (and least funny) films

The Movie
Being Rodney Dangerfield had some good benefits, one of the biggest being the respect other comedians had for him, no matter how many times he said he didn't get it. Because of that respect, when he made a film, he could call on his friends to take part. Back by Midnight is a perfect example; a film that, despite a truly bad script, drew several well-known names to be in it. Sure, Randy Quaid, Paul Rodriguez and Kirstie Alley aren't top stars, but they have had pretty good careers. Will this movie end them? Probably not, but it won't help.

Dangerfield stars as Jake, the warden of privately-run Rockwood Prison, a run-do...Read the entire review

The Movie:
White Rush is one those movies that makes you wonder: "who agreed to finance this film?" It is the tale of a group of "friends" who are out camping when they suddenly find themselves involved in drug deal gone wrong—and decide that they should sell the drugs themselves and become rich! It's not a comedy, but it sure comes off that way….

The Story:
As White Rush opens, a group of friends (who never seem to care much for each other) are camping, and at the same time, a few forests away, Judd Nelson is in the midst of a drug deal with a bunch of baddies. Ah, Judd Nelson. Remember after his amazing performance in The Breakfast Club we were all so sure he was going to go so far? Well, as I watched this, I immediately thought, "So this is what happened to Bender 20 years later. He became a drug dealer. Guess one day in detention just wasn't enough tim...Read the entire review

Movie: Fantasy stories are some of the most difficult to review because you have to accept their structure as unique (as long as the show is internally consistent), they are usually driven by mythical elements not unlike those we are familiar with and they are generally directed at a fragmented market niche rather than a generalized audience. On top of that, you'll be bombarded by those who are slavering fan boys of the show if you say anything bad or called a sell out if you are too liberal in your praise. With that in mind, I turned my reviewer eye to a little computer animated movie, Aero-Troopers.

The movie centered on a young boy, Joshua, who started off the show by seeing his village blown from the sky in a hail of fireballs. You see, all life here floats in small forests that hang freely in the skies. There are a number of villages sparsely populated and two warring...Read the entire review

Most die-hard film fans have at least one movie they love that is hard to find. For many fans of black cinema – especially blaxploitation era black cinema – that film is 1973's The Spook Who Sat by the Door. For years, fans of director Ivan Dixon's adaptation of Sam Greenlee's novel had resigned themselves to the fact that crappy bootlegs were the only way they would ever see the film. But somewhere, out there in the world of DVD programming, someone heard the prayers, and now, miraculously, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is getting a legitimate home video release.

When a senator desperate for re-election discovers he is going to lose, he decides to garner black votes by accusing the CIA of racism and segregation. The result is the CIA recruitment of their first black spy – a concession held with contempt by those in the organization, who are under the belief that none of the recruits will...Read the entire review

There's no better B-actress on the scene than Debbie Rochon. She also wears her scarlet "B" with a great deal of pride. In fact, she's a devoted fan of fringe cinema and a gifted writer who once had a regular genre column and co-authored the B-Movie Survival Guide. Debbie left Vancouver before her 18th birthday to study acting in New York, where she appeared in many off-Broadway productions, but truly blossomed as a genre actress in the early '90s. What's most striking about Ms. Rochon is her chameleon-like versatility which allows her to slip effortlessly from one well-formed character to another -- a tattoo'd, pie...Read the entire review