Wednesday, August 13, 2025

The Amazing Bulk

 














              This is probably one of these things that I had to see to believe, although I found this movie by accident. Apparently the guys from MST3K, Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett who've now formed their next movie bashing internet show, Rifftrax and a year ago They made fun of this green screen movie The Amazing Bulk and I just watched some of these on YouTube, until I decided to look it up on the internet and realized holy crap this film is on Tubi? Well, then I had to see this movie and honestly this is one of those things that gives you a chuckle because it's absurd, but then you realize that it's seventy minutes of the same thing.
               Basically, the movie is a parody of Edward Norton's The Incredible Hulk only this feels like a cheaply made and trying to be funny.
               I've always said when you make that passionate movie and just fail or your ego gets the better of you and yet it's unintentionally funny because of the films flaws and we always get that from every Stallone movie in the 90's or Van Damme hell even the Batman TV series in the late sixties. Like all of those elements of which I just mentions were all funny or unintentionally funny, but with this movie, sure you get a few laughs and have a great time looking at how embarrassing they look in the movie, but then through the course of the movie it just feels so dirty and annoying that you want to take a shower. Majority of this film was shot entirely on a green screen with basically one camera in frame with tons and tons of stock footage that you would find on any website, and according to a source, the director of the movie many of the backgrounds on free stock footage website, which you can always use if your trying to make a school project movie, unfortunately a lot of these stock footages have unnecessary cartoons, for which when you watch the film there some absurd cartoon in the background which had nothing to do with the movie. When I first watched the movie granted, I laughed at how ridiculous the movie was but then I had to turn the movie off mainly because it started to hurt my brain as well as having a hard time figuring out if this movie was funny or not. In the end I did finish the movie and wanted to know more, luckily, I found a Rifftrax interview with the director of the movie as well as the actor and they claimed that this was supposed to be a joke, which explains so much how funny it was but then the joke gets extremely old. The Amazing Bulk is not as fascinating as The Room and not as iconic as the Batman TV series though that's obvious when I say that. I'd say check the movie out on Tubi but then you're going to have to shower after thirty minutes in. Though more importantly sure if you love weird B-Movies or loved Sin City then give this movie a watch but you'll probably regret it in the end after thirty minutes but like I said long before if you have Tubi the streaming subscription is free but then after watching the movie you'll need to delete this movie out of your movie and TV list. Even after watching this film, it was claimed from a source that the film was made for 14,000 dollars for which I refuse to believe and I will chose not to believe even till the day I die I mean sure unknown actors I can get by shooting this movie for six days sure, but fourteen grand I just cannot believe that, which fits this movie as absurd. 
   
                   

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

The Naked Gun

 














                   Well believe it friends, the impossible has happened. Although it all started with me and my dad having a Naked Gun Trilogy watch on Hulu, and with all the fun time we were having my dad wanted to go and see how the newest version of The Naked Gun movie holds up. Now I was a little skeptical since Seth MacFarlane was producing the film and well let’s just say, the last film I saw of his was 8 million ways to die in the West and I left about ten minutes into the movie all because of how miserable the movie made me feel. Though I'll have to admit I never expected the outcome that would lead to the film’s success.
                    Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) becomes a police officer like his legendary father and must save the police squad from shutting down by solving the case. 
                    I think we can all agree that before the latest Naked Gun, the Spoof movie genre was completely dead, majority of that thanks goes to Hollywood for making spoof sequels to Scary Movie like Epic Movie, Superhero Movie hell, I'm just going throw in 8 million ways to die in the West because MacFarlane needs to answer for that monstrosity. And even I was not all interested, for a gillion reasons none of them are funny to begin with basically being unrepetitive children trying to gain support from Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Bros, David and Jerry Zucker. With this movie sure they nailed the best joke in the trailer were everyone is paying tribute to the original cast and O.J.'s son is like "Nope", which is funny considering now the man is dead as well as being guilty to killing his wife so on and so on. But when you go into the movie the biggest hope you can wish for is that they at least stay true to what the Naked Gun films are and why everyone loves them which is the dry humor as well as the serious tone to make great comedy, and surprisingly enough they really do stay true to the original Naked Gun films for which I was hoping but knew that MacFarlane was going to f**k it up somehow, but literally was hands off and let director Akiva Schaffer do his thing and, I loved the way it turned out and me and my Dad we're sitting in the theaters just chuckling all the way through the final frame of the movie. And I'm not joking when I say the comedy is actually great, hell Liam Neeson does a fantastic job creating his own version as Frank Drebin moreover him and Danny Huston are great together in terms of playing off one another moreover being great pros of comedy it's almost as if they've done it all of their lives and the trick is trying to be serious and funny but not showing the sense of humor but trying to be serious if that makes any sense. But more importantly everyone in the cast, including Pamela Anderson and CCH Pounder do a great job of backing these great actors up. I never imagine I would be impressed especially when Seth MacFarlane is producing these films but, hands down The Naked Gun was most certain one of the best summer films of 2025 furthermore the writers and directors did a fantastic job staying true to the Naked Gun films but keeping the jokes fresh and new, for which I always believe is the most important thing when your tackling a remake like this or sequel. So, I'm going to end this review short because I don't want to spoil anything, but I would highly recommend spending your money on The Naked Gun, and I would highly recommend your kids watching this great movie or if you’re a bit concerned just give them money to watch the crappy superhero movies, because if I want to have a great father and son bonding I would defiantly have my own kid watch The Naked Gun.
       

30th Anniversary of Street Fighter: The Movie

 











                  

             I will admit their times in my movie watching experiences, I usually don't make the greatest of choices, Vacation is a good example along with films like Charles Bronson's The Mechanic and Kingpin. And for sure those were not the greatest of choices to watch in terms of movies to experience, but then there comes a movie I grew up watching on cable TV or Dish Network TV, and suddenly you feel in urge to take on the world. I'm talking about Street Fighter: The Movie, based on the popular video game series, most notably Street Fighter II. Street Fighter was in fact my first ever Jean Claude Van Damme movie I watched out of his filmography but more importantly is Raul Julia's final film before his death in 1994 right before the film came out in December of 94. With all the silly elements that the film contains, I will argue and say that this is a billion times better than Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.
             Gen. Bison (Raul Julia), the evil dictator of Shadaloo, captures a busload of relief warriors and holds them for ransom. Col. Guile (Jean Claude Van Damme) leads an international strike force to invade Shadaloo and rescue the hostages. Along the way, Guile recruits Chun Li (Ming-Na Wen), a reporter and martial arts expert, as well as Ryu and Ken, an All-American Boxer and a Sumo Wrestler.
              I've said many times of being a Mortal Kombat fan, though I was actually being a short term Street Fighter fan ever since I saw the Street Fighter II arcade back when arcades were a thing (man I miss the 90's) in fact one of my earlier memories was being excited to go over to my Grandpa's house because we would usually get burgers at the local bar but also had a Street Fighter II arcade and although I wasn't good at the game, there were times when I would usually just play around the joysticks and buttons while the replay mode was playing. Though more importantly if you were a kid growing up in the 90's, G.I. Joe's were the toys to have as well as Street Fighter and I had actions figures of Guile and Bison. While I never seen the movie in the theaters my memory of the film was more of watching the film on Cable TV or Dish on Demand when I was a teenager, and this was before Star Wars Special Edition became my whole favorite and Street Fighter was another one of those trends that became a phase. Following the success of Street Fighter II and the many updates, Capcom wanted to get a live action film in progress and so, with the help of Universal Pictures, they were able to get the movie in progress along with Capcom making the approvals. Steven E. de Souza, writer of your favorite action films 48hrs and the beloved Christmas movie Die Hard, was also a fan of the game, wrote countless drafts of the story as well as putting his name in the ring of helming the director’s chair. Although the film was financed with an estimate of 35 million dollars, the executives as well as Capcom had to get an action star that can sell the movie and Jean Claude Van Damme according to Capcom always envisioned to play Guile, but Van Damme apparently was asking for big bucks and majority of the money went to Van Damme and the remaining cast went to unknowns. Though in the positive note you at least get some uprising stars like Ming-Na Wen (Disney Legend and Fennec Shand) as well as Kylie Minogue, well to all the Gen Z’s, she was a gorgeous pop star with the infamous song "Can't get you out of my head". The positive thing in what gives the movie credit is that Raul Julia who plays M. Bison really wanted to play the character for good reasons he was facing his final years on earth and his own kids were fans of game so, watching his kids play the game really helped him get into character, for which yes the film is silly but this film also gives sympathy considering that Julia in his final days just wanted to be more with his own family and this was the best way to do it by playing one of the characters in Capcom's successful fighting game. Thirty years since the film’s release and it always puzzles me on the film getting the lowest rating in terms of critics’ expectations, granted nobody cares about what the critics think, more importantly they have very lack of what makes a great movie as well as their very high expectations. Although critics have not played the game which would explain why, but if you look at the game as well as the film, it literally doesn't have much of a plot and de Souza had to work out a story that would be suitable as well as put up with a limited budget that would work for the film and audiences who've never heard of the game before. Rewatching the film again, I got to say that this was a breath of fresh air to watch and more importantly fun to watch from beginning to end, furthermore this was one of those films that whenever you have a bad day or trying to vent or don't want to do anything, Street Fighter: The Movie is most certain the film to watch on those days and defiantly a great example of actors like Raul Julia that even when your facing for seeable death, you spend your final days with your family and kids by playing a role that your kids and love and cherish for the rest of their lives. Now as a video game series by itself I would rank the Street Fighter series second to Mortal Kombat mainly because I love playing some of the Nostalgia games such as the re-release of the 30th Anniversary of Street Fighter on Playstation 4, furthermore some of the games now don't have that magic that the original games have which makes the games feel unnecessary to play especially when there's at least four out of the many characters I still don't know how their special moves work, ugh so frustrating. Anyway, if you’re looking for that movie that can give you a unintentional laugh as well as a movie to have a good time watching, then Street Fighter: The Movie is a movie worth watching from beginning to end. Sadly though you'll have to buy the movie considering the film was on Peacock a couple of weeks ago and you'll have to buy or rent the movie, but I promise you all if you love a good comedic action movie than this will fill you with great cliche's as well as great laughter from beginning to the final frame.
 

Friday, August 8, 2025

Escape from New York

 













              When it comes to John Carpenter, I've always been a fan of such great films like the very first Halloween movie, They Live and most recently, close to a year ago, The Thing. Now full disclosure there were other films I remembered watching most notably Christine, didn't realized he directed that movie until I saw his name on the credits and look I'd say I like cars but I'm not going to fall in love with one especially when I have to get the damn thing fixed all the time as well as changing the oil once every 5,000 miles. The other film was The Fog, and it was entertaining for the first minute until I stopped watching The Fog. Which leads us to the latest John Carpenter movie, I sat down and watched and to be truthfully honest I have mixed emotions about the movie especially Kurt Russell's acting.
              In 1997, a major war between the United States and the Soviet Union is concluding, and the entire island of Manhattan has been converted into a giant maximum-security prison. When Air Force One is hijacked and crashes into the island, the president of the United States (Donald Pleasence) is taken hostage by a group of inmates. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a former Special Forces soldier turned criminal, is recruited to retrieve the president in exchange for his own freedom. 
              Originally Carpenter wrote Escape from New York prior to the aftermath of the Watergate Scandal which led to Nixon's resignation. Moreover, he wrote the screenplay during a time when New York City was tearing itself apart with crooked cops running wild especially in 1977 came around. Although Carpenter wanted to pitch this movie to major studios, a good portion of them didn't want to finance the movie mainly because of the film being way too violent, too scary and just too weird. Now granted the writing development is fascinating as well as understanding Studio execs weren't intrigued in wanting to finance the film. All that a side the major problem I had with the film is understanding what Kurt Russell was saying, I mean I don't know if it was the TV I was watching because I had this problem because it's almost the same as watching Oppenheimer the first time, but there were times where I felt that Kurt was speaking softly that I couldn't understand what he was saying and wished that Lee Van Cleef would say "what? Speak up I can't hear you!" and it just got to the annoying point where I was close to turning it off but didn't and just turned up the volume until I can hear him or felt he was either talking gibberish when he gets loud either way I'm not quite sure I could be wrong, just the bottom line is Kurt through the course of the film was talking way to softly almost like a whisper and it just took me into a negative space in wanting to recommend this film to anyone who loves John Carpenter. Granted it was nice to see actors like Isaac Hayes, before he became crazy like Tom Cruise and found space ships in Scientology, and even Donald Pleasence in a real movie for a change, because if you look at the man's filmography he's in a ton of bad to sh*tty movies, and I personally think that Carpenter felt bad for him and just casted him to play the President in the movie. Being a fan of both St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Blues I will admit in hearing that some of the scenes like the gladiatorial arena was filmed in the St. Louis Union Station for which I've been there, couple of times furthermore a good portion of the film was shot between the city of St. Louis and East St. Louis Illinois, so maybe in near future if I go up to St. Louis for a baseball game or hockey game I might find some of these locations. Although I have mixed emotions about the film, a lot of that has to do with Kurt Russell's acting but I do love the fact that we're almost close in seeing a New York City being turned into a massive garbage dump for criminals and the way Democrats are treating the city, I have no intentions in visiting the city. Although the film is on Amazon Prime, I really don't feel comfortable in wanting to recommend this film unless you’re a big fan of John Carpenter's films than go nuts, but just keep in mind that Kurt Russell's whispering acting severely scared me for life and I'm not sure if I want to re-watch the film nor have the interest in wanting to watch Escape from L.A..