As most that know me know that I love all movies. And most that really know me know I have a very long and loving relationship with horror movies. Not just the ones that the majority of the world watch, meaning the theatrical American films. I happen to love all horror movies whether they are big A films or your run of the mill B films. I mean there are a few out there that are really shitty but I love them, maybe because I saw them during my early teenager stage when I was developing my love for film to begin with. I also love foreign pictures, mainly because they are raw as raw can be.
So, onto the point of this post.
I don't remember when I first saw this film, I do remember which part I first saw. I was young at the time and my sisters and brother and I went to the movie theater closest to where we lived at the time. Since my brother and I were too young to watch this type of film we had to watch something else. I don't even remember what we had watched, only what we were not supposed to watch. What I do remember was our film had ended and we had to wait for my oldest sister and maybe her boyfriend or some shit like that. we started to wait in the hallway outside the screen this film was being played in. My other sister that was with my brother and I may have gotten restless so the three of us went just inside the door of said theater. I will never forget what I saw on that screen. There was a fuckin' huge man with a jacked up face standing in the middle of the road swinging a chainsaw around, meanwhile a girl in the most hysterical state I can think of sitting in the back of a truck, then the credits. That was all I saw, but it was enough, I was hooked. It wasn't until a few years later when I met my best friend that I would even find out the name of the film. His parents owned a video store and we were able to take any movie for any amount of time. So we were looking through the shelves of horror movies when I came to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I knew at that moment I would finally be able to see the film that haunted (in a good way) my dreams. This is what I found on the shelf covered with VHS tapes...
After watching it I knew that I had found the holy grail of horror movies. I am now 36 years old and this movie has stayed with me longer then any other that I've seen. Today being 2014 and we now have a handful of sequels and the ultra-violent remakes of a few years back, but none have ever come close to the original!
Now I am gonna go into a little story that happened to me in the year 2006.
I had been living in southern California for about 10 years at the time and I decided to move back home to a small town in Maine. I got a job at a restaurant as the kitchen manager on Mount Desert Island, in a town called Northeast Harbor. I had gone for a walk one day just to see the sights that surrounded me and I happen to be walking by a house and I noticed a Ford Focus. Now normally I wouldn't have taken a second look but it just happened to be the same as mine just different color. So, I looked a bit closer at this vehicle and I have a little problem in my brain that if I see a license plate cover I have to read it. This car had one that read "What Would Leatherface Do?". Naturally I thought to myself, wow, that's pretty weird!
A few days had passed and I was talking with the owner of the restaurant and she was telling me all the famous people that live or lived on the island. She went over a ton of names but one stood out, Gunnar Hansen! I got excited! She noticed my excitement and she asked if I knew who he was. I said "Ummm, Yeah!". It's weird to me that someone that has lived there their whole life didn't know what a famous person living there, also for along time, was famous for. I schooled her. My last day on that island I made a decision to do what I had been trying to get the courage to do the entire time since I found out he lived there. That decision was to knock on his door and annoy the shit out of a famous person at their own home. So, on this day I took a couple things with me and I stood on his porch outside his house for what seemed like hours but it was actually about a minute. I was just hoping that he didn't freak out and tell me to get off his property and stop bothering a man at his home. I knocked. The door opened and my heart skipped about 12 beats at that very moment. This man took up the entire doorway, he is a mountain of a man! Or maybe it was just celebrity status that made him seem like it, but I think he is just a big ass dude.
He says to me, "Can I help You?".
I come back with, "Are you Gunnar Hansen?".
He answered with a simple "Yes".
I then asked, "As in Leatherface-Gunnar Hansen?".
He then answered with another "Yes".
"I know this is very annoying to have someone come to your house like this but I gotta know if I could get your autograph?"
"Sure, come on in." I follow him into his house and we go into his, what looks like an office/library room. "What ya got for me?" he asked.
I opened my bag, "I got my copy of Texas Chainsaw on DVD and Leatherface #1 comic book." I hand them both over to him and he just looks at the comic and says,
"I've never seen this before!"
"I've had it for years." I replied.
He signed both things for me and I apologized to him for coming to his home and all he said to me was, not a problem. To him, I can only imagine, the memory of the guy showing up at his house is not even a memory. I can almost guarantee, that he does not remember that, but to me, that is one of my all time favorite memories and now 2 of my favorite pieces of film memorabilia I own.
I would like to thank Gunnar Hansen again for even answering his door that day and I want to leave this post with a picture of the DVD he signed for me.
I just got done watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier and well I can say this right at the beginning that is is friggin awesome. Yeah I know, it kinda ruins the surprise.
I am a fan of comic book films for the most part but the first Captain America movie is by far my favorite one made so far. This sequel to that film a very close second. In this we finally get to see Cap do what he does in the comics and the cartoons, afterall he is kind of an acrobatic martial artist, but he gets to do all of it finally. He was barely in any action in the Avengers film and the first Cap he was really just getting to know himself. There is alot of action, hand to hand and a bit of bullet dancing and it's all choreographed very well.
We get a new addition to the Marvel family in Falcon and I gotta say all Anthony Mackie's actions scenes are quite exhilarating and he is comic relief for the entire film. Then we have the other title character in The Winter Soldier. He has a cool little back story to explain where he came from
All the acting is done very well in my opinion, but I am also comparing it to the other Marvel phase films. But it is acting quite well, all is believable all through it. The story is quite engaging and seems at times kinda like a Bond film, I really mean that.
I would recommend this to anyone that enjoys comic movies or like an awesome government espionage type film. It is easily one of the best Marvel movies to date.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah I know, another Michael Bay picture. I also know your thinking that if I don't like Bay movies then why do I watch them? Well, for one this film is what Michael Bay does best. Completely full of testosterone and a mans style of comedy. Second, and just because he messes alot of things up doesn't mean there is some redeeming factor in them. The factor in this one being...Bad Boys kicks ass!
Will Smith, when he didn't have a huge head and Martin Lawrence when he had a career. These 2 make probably one of the best buddy cop mixes ever. Only better ones are maybe Lethal Weapon, but I still think this is better. Their interaction seems very natural. And all others do a good job but fall short when compared to the two headliners.
The story is exactly like you would imagine from a buddy cop film so really nothing new here. Pretty much all the antagonists are the same cliche villains as well.
The action set pieces are pretty awesome and the car chase scenes are pretty spectacular too. To end this I would definitely recommend this to anyone that likes the old 90's style action movies with a good versus bad scenario. It is so funny at times as to make your stomach hurt from laughing too hard. Very entertaining from start to finish so I dare you to watch it and not laugh at all.
First time I heard about this film I was, to say the least, very skeptical. I thought to myself, How is Hollywood gonna pass off Tom Cruise as a Samurai? The answer is they weren't even trying to. The poster for the film only had his picture and the title so naturally all who looked upon it thought the same thing I did. And I am a fan of his films. So, when i finally get to see this movie I figured out that the title is referring to the last band of Samurai. Cruise is just a character in a story about the downfall of the Samurai.
First time I watched this was shortly after it's DVD release. I got it through Netflix back when there was no such thing as streaming. It was on two DVDs and I had no idea it was such a long movie. After watching it I was hooked. This film is so damn good! The acting is top notch from the American actors to some of the best Japanese actors alive today. I have absolutely no problem with any of them. And a little side note is The woman playing Taka, Koyuki, is such a classic Japanese beauty that it's hard to stop looking at her. The set design is spectacular. The costumes are spot on. Great music. Awesome Samurai fight sequences. An outstanding story of redemption, honor and love. Another thing about this movie that makes it stand out is it is an American film that is set in Japan. Now, most of the time when Americans make a film like this one they tend to make it exclusively in English. Nothing annoys me more than that. When you put the language barrier into this film it adds to the characters and the story by showing how they get over that. So I love the fact it has the subtitles during the Japanese language areas, of which there are alot of them.
I have to advise all to watch this. Even if you don't normally like Asian film or Tom Cruise, check it out because it may change your mind. This is probably in my top 5 films I have ever seen in my life, and I have seen alot of them.
The first trailer has finally been released for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This is the reboot of the live action Turtle films and I'm gonna go out there and say right off that I am freakin' excited as hell for this movie. Now this being a teaser trailer basically means it is in beta mode at the moment, which in turn means it is not the final product we are all gonna see in the theater. I, for one think it looks pretty badass. I may be biased because I have been a fan since the early comic book beginnings and I have seen them go through a whole ton of changes since then. I just happen to be a huge fan is all. I am still waiting for them to make the original cartoon series into a live action movie with Bebop, Rocksteady and Krang. I just think it would be cool to see.
This reboot though I had my extreme doubts because as I have stated in previous posts I am not a fan of Michael Bay. He has tendency to destroy everything he touches by either trying to make it a testosterone filled film or at the very least have actual testicles in it like the second Transformers movie. And since the early draft of the script word has it that the Turtles were Aliens? WTF? And that Donatello was gonna be a girl? Double WTF? I am so pleased that Bay got at least part of his head outta his own ass and make some things right before he started this.
There is alot of people that are still a bit butthurt about the casting of Megan Fox as April O'Neil. All I gotta ask is......Why? She isn't hard on the eyes by any stretch of the imagination and if all the folks that have a problem with could have their way, who would they pick?
I know it is only a teaser trailer after all and there should be a whole ton of more footage to come but I actually am hoping for one thing....Casey Jones!
I had an urge today to watch Highlander from 1986. The decade of the greatest films ever made. Okay so maybe not but I do love me some 80's movies. They just don't make them like this anymore. You know, making movies for the sake of making interesting stories to watch. Not like today, where they only make movies to see how much money it can make. Which I understand that making films happens to be there job just like my job is make money also, just not at quite the same scale. But before the 2000s movies really were different. Much more memorable characters back then as well. Who that has seen Highlander has ever forgotten the phrases "There can be only one!" and "Connor Macleod, of the clan Macleod"?
I love this film so I may be a bit biased when it comes to any type of review. But i will try. The acting is well....80's acting. Christopher Lambert has never been known for his acting chops and would probably never be ever nominated for an academy award but he does a pretty good job in this film because he actually gets to use his real accent through alot of it. The bad guy though, Kruger, played by Clancy Brown is one of his best roles ever. He is one evil sonofabitch. He plays it so well it was hard for me to ever see him in anything else, like when he was Zim in Starship Troopers and the dad in Pet Sematary 2. I think he is really at his best when playing a protagonist. Sean Connery plays Ramirez, and he does what he usually does. He has never been able to do any other accent but his real one but it is quite forgivable because this film is so badass.
Special effects are, for the most part, only lightning and some blood so really not much to talk about there. One of the real draws from this movie was the soundtrack. Written and performed in it's entirety by the legends of rock, Queen. Fantastic soundtrack to say the least.
I would recommend this to anyone that likes 80's films and all that like a good detective story that spans generations. The sequels are just okay but this one that started the whole thing is spectacular.
I haven't been on in a few weeks as I was moving to a different town and without internet for a bit. But I am back on and while I was offline I did in fact watch a few movies. Most of the films I watched were just okay, some were absolute shit and only one was absolutely spectacular. The shit one I don't want to say much about is the remake of Robocop, complete trash and worthless. You would think with all the great actors in it it would have been at least good, but Hell No! Thats all I will write about that film. The spectacular one was 12 Years A Slave. In every possible way this movie was my choice for every single category it was nominated. It did in fact win best picture and it deserves it more than alot of films that have won that prestigious prize. It so deserved best director but instead lost to Alfonso Cuaron for that shitty ass Gravity. The most horrendous upset for me was Chiwetel Ejiofor losing best actor to Matthew McConaughey. If ever there was a man that had it in the bag it was Ejiofor, he was fuckin' robbed. 12 Years a Slave is one of the finest made films I have seen in a long while. Ejiofor pointed like Babe Ruth and knocked it into the next state. I am as upset over his loss as I was when The Hurt Locker won best picture. I am done with Oscars.
