A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

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Three women receive a letter from another broad who says that she left town and took one of their husbands with her as a memento. I was hoping that these three dames would be busting the head of every snitch in Gotham City trying to dig up some info on which man of theirs had taken a powder. I even thought there might be some kind of hair pulling slap fight between these chicks that would end with all of them crashing into a giant fountain in the middle of town.

Admittedly, two of them are almost bickering at one point during the film and one of the characters gets off a jewel of a line about how they were starting to act like they were in a movie about a women’s prison (we wish!), but what do these women do once they get the letter? They go off to a picnic for some children’s organization! Continue reading “A Letter to Three Wives (1949)” →

Empire of the Ants (1977)

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Things begin ominously enough when the unseen narrator starts droning on about how cool ants are and how they can do all this great stuff like push aphids around and dig up dirt between the cracks of sidewalks. They also have this super sweet gimmick where they spray pheromones on people to make them do their bidding!

Sensing an opportunity to turn this dopey giant bug movie into a learning experience, I hit the world wide web to find out if pheromones could really cause giant ants to take over the world. Continue reading “Empire of the Ants (1977)” →

Black Eagle (1988)

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An important piece of work in the history of the cinema, Black Eagle sees the passing of the torch from one of our greatest second-rate action heroes of the early to mid 1980s to one of our greatest second-rate action heroes of the early to mid 1990s as Sho Kosugi squares off with Jean-Claude Van Damme in a muddled cold war flick marked chiefly by both stars’ inability to speak English intelligibly.

Sho of course made his name in such fare as Pray For Death and Revenge Of The Ninja, before becoming irrelevant by starring in movies like Rage Of Honor where the ninja stuff was played down for more generic action.

JCVD was just getting his start at this time and though we should have guessed that he peaked with Bloodsport in 1988 once we got a look at the next year’s Cyborg, he continued to trick moviegoers off and on for the next ten years or so (mainly by being in movies where he played twins). Continue reading “Black Eagle (1988)” →

Angel Town (1990)

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There’s a lot of stuff in Angel Town (directed by Eric Karson of Black Eagle fame) that doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Olivier Gruner‘s presence at Southern California University is good for about two scenes and nothing else. There’s some talk about Gruner training the Olympic team or something. There’s the flashbacks he has to his youth in France where he was treated poorly. And best of all, there’s the scene at the beginning of the movie when Gruner was still in France and a woman screws him in a cemetery! And he still decided to go to America! Continue reading “Angel Town (1990)” →

Gaslight (1944)

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Young Paula is hustled out of London after the death of her famous singer aunt. As is the case with most survivors of violent crime, Paula is eligible for an all expense paid trip to beautiful Italy! While there, you will try and follow in the melodic footsteps of your aunt, but be sidetracked by the smooth-talking Charles Boyer who is after a bunch of really sweet jewels that your dead aunt got from some shadowy royal figure. Or you can pass and bid on Showcase #2! Continue reading “Gaslight (1944)” →

Jungle Raiders (1985)

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I like a main character in a movie that needs as much action as I do! Too many times we’re saddled with reluctant heroes and guys who only grudgingly go about the business of serious ass kicking.

Where are the dudes who want to take it right to the dirty scum that’s threatening to take over everything that matters to them? Isn’t there anyone willing to risk everything for the simple pleasure of killing Borneo pirates? Aren’t there any two-fisted guys in red neck kerchiefs and sea captain’s hats that don’t mind invading the island stronghold of the evil Tiger single-handedly while time bombs are going off everywhere around him? Continue reading “Jungle Raiders (1985)” →

Alien from the Deep (1989)

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I really couldn’t tell if Charles Napier’s Colonel Kovacks, the evil chemical plant operator, was supposed to be the bad guy in this mouth-watering alien slime drenched Italian jungle/horror/sci-fi casserole.

Napier ruthlessly pursues a couple of trespassing environmental activists, cusses out his employees, shrugs off the Chicken Little whining of his head scientist (first about the problems with the volcano they are using to dump toxic waste in and then about the strange burrowing creature that’s terrorizing the plant) and settles on a plan of blowing everything back to the Stone Age to defeat the creature.

How can you not admire a guy who, when given dire information about the alien, smirks and says “don’t worry about it Geoffrey because this is war and that’s something I know a lot about.” First environmentalists and now this? It’s all just more asses to kick for Col. Kovacks! Continue reading “Alien from the Deep (1989)” →