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Behind the Crime: Self Defense or Slaughter (2023)
Tubi
On April 7, 2021, four men made their way to Travis Rudolph's house - a former wide receiver for Florida State and the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins - to confront him about a fight he had with his girlfriend Dominique Jones. It got violent, he grabbed an AR-15 and as they ran, Rudolph fired 39 rounds at them, killing Sebastien Jean-Jacques as he made it to the passenger seat of a black Cadillac.
During the trial, Rudolph asked Judge Jeffrey Gillen to dismiss the case last year because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, which allows the use of deadly force to protect someone against death or bodily harm.
Gillen denied his request. It was up to the jury to decide if it was self-defense or murder.
During the trial, Rudolph would not back off the idea that he fired those shots in self-defense. Text messages introduced into evidence by his legal team proved that his ex-girlfriend sent text messages to her brother and the others, telling them to go "shoot up" Rudolph's home because he had been cheating on her.
This Tubi special tells the entire story and you can see how the jury decided. It's an interesting case and one everyone needs to consider, especially if they have guns and are ready to use them to defend themselves.
Mean Guns (1997)
Mean Guns
Vincent Moon (Ice-T) has had it with the hundred people - a hundred people! - who have done him wrong. He lures them all to the prison that his crime syndicate has built - yes, this script is insane - and hides $10 million dollars. Only three people will be allowed to survive, as he's also left guns throughout and gives everyone six hours to be the last person standing. If more than three people are alive in six hours, his kill squad will wipe everyone out and if anyone tries to escape, he has snipers ready to shoot them.
Albert Pyun knew how to set up a movie.
In the middle of all this violence, four people come together: killing machines Marcus (Michael Halsey), D (Kimberly Warren) and Lou (Christopher Lambert) as well as Cam (Deborah Van Valkenburgh, The Warriors but yeah, also Too Close for Comfort!), an accountant who tried to do the right thing and tell the police about what Moon's syndicate is doing. Cam is in shock at all the bloodshed, but surrounded by these three stone cold assassins, she may survive.
In the midst of all this chaos, Lou also has a daughter, Lucy (Hunter Doughty), who is waiting in a car. He takes care of her and wants the money to make sure she has a future.
The killers are all as Pyun infused as you hope they would be, played by actors like Yuji Okumoto (Chozen, the best bad guy of all time, from The Karate Kid Part II) and Thom Mathews (The Return of the Living Dead and Tommy Jarvis from Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives). James Mathers, who was Dr. Jekyll in Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death, also is in this.
Shot in Los Angeles' The Twin Towers Correctional Facility - which was empty at the time of filming, due to budget problems (thanks Schlock Pit!) and where Blast was also made by Pyun - this movie looks so much better than its budget would let you believe. It also has, as much Pyun movies do, a cast that makes it work, as Ice-T seems to be having the time of his life as a silver grilled mambo loving maniac.
In case you're wondering why there's hardly any blood while everyone is being killed, well, they couldn't get the prison dirty. And everyone only had one costume for the duration of shooting.
Credit also goes to Andrew Witham's script, which is filled with tough killer dialogue and little bursts of weirdness. Sure, it's The Most Dangerous Game, but this movie is a marvel of low budget magic, as it has so many wild lines, a Three Stooges-style suitcase bomb death and even a line - "You're Now In The Purgatory Network. Audio and Visual surveillance is constant by Lucifer Command." - that can be read that the entire prison is in the afterlife.
Pyun also pulls off some small budget miracle here as while Lambert was paid half the budget, he was only available for a third of the shooting days. Most of his scenes were done in two eleven-hour days and the rest is all clever shots and fake Shemps, as Sam Raimi would credit.
It also looks wild, as Director of Photography George Moordian had secured free film stock by Moordian from Fuji Film and loved how Se7en had bleached the film. He fought to get the same look and it totally works, making this feel like it is inside some strange past future.
All in all, this is a near perfect movie.
Incompreso (Vita col figlio) (1966)
Misunderstood
John Duncombe (Anthony Quayle), the British consul in Florence, has come home from his wife's funeral and makes the decision to tell his son Andrea (Stefano Colagrande) that his mother is dead. He hides the truth from his other son, Milo (Simone Giannozzi).
Andrea has to become a grown-up well before he should, while Milo is allowed to be a child and can act has badly as he wants. As for their father, he becomes absent from their lives until it is almost too late.
Director Luigi Comencini understands the time that exists and is so fragile between being a child and an adult. He shows how all three of these men navigate this loss in their own ways. It's a really dramatic film that made me consider how I went from a child to a grown-up and how my father made his journey as well.
This was remade in 1984 as Misunderstood with Gene Hackman in the lead role.
Dead Girls (1990)
Dead Girls
The Dead Girls are a shock rock band whose members are Gina Verelli, who goes by Bertha Beirut and is played by Diana Karanikas (Click: The Calendar Girl Killer); Dana Grant, who is Lucy Lethal and is played by Angela Eads (Fatal Images); Amy is Nancy Napalm and is played by Kay Schaber (Fatal Images); her brother Mark, who is Randy Rot and played by Steven Kyle and Susie Stryker who is Cynthia Slain and is played by Angela Scaglione.
Their manager Artie (Brian Chin) has ideas to make them go mainstream, but the girls realize that they are mainly known for their death-obsessed lyrics more than their abilities. Much like the Stained Class and Ozzy Osbourne lawsuits that inspired this story, the band's fans have been inspired by their lyrics to engage in a mass suicide. The biggest problem for Gina is that her sister Brooke (Ilene Singer) was one of them and barely survived. Now, Aunt Annie (Carol Albright) and Uncle Jim (Robert Morris) - who raised them with good Christian values - think that Gina is to blame.
The band decides to take a two week vacation to a remote cabin, bringing along Brooke, the band's assistant Jeff (Jeff Herbick), Gina's old boyfriend from home Mike (David Chatfield) and a groupie named Karen (Mara Holland). Moments after they depart, Artie is murdered by a masked person. Also along for the ride is a nurse (Deirdre West) who is helping Brooke to recover.
The small place they're staying it is frightening from the beginning. Elmo (David Williams), the developmentally challenged handyman seems to be stalking everyone. And when they send the groupie away, she's soon killed. The murder doesn't stop, as Susie is drowned in the lake by the killer and her body is found by Amy. Her body disappears and the band think that it's a prank, as she has died on stage several times and worked with a magician to learn how to slow her heart and breathing.
If you think that this feels like a giallo, that's no accident. Writer Steven Jarvis was influenced by the Italian genre.
The next morning, Amy find Susie and Jeff's corpses in a barn. Gina runs, trying to stop the nurse who is taking Brooke to the hospital. She doesn't get to her, stranding the group in a place with cut phone lines and a sheriff (Robert Harden) who thinks that they're all pulling a stunt. Dana believes that Amy and Gina are behind the murders and the group begins to battle amongst themselves.
Amy is obsessed with the military - after all her name is Nancy Napalm - and she sets bombs up all over the barn trying to stop the killer. Dana and Gina start to believe that Mark is the killer and while they're discussing that, Amy is dismembered with an axe just as Mark returns with firewood. Gina finds her body and takes her gun, returning to find Dana tied up and Mark holding a pistol.
That's when it all comes out. Dana and Mark wanted to kill Amy and Gina, thinking that they were the murderers. And then, the real killer shows up and slices Dana's throat. Gina runs with the killer following her. Mark kills Elmo and we think that's the end...except...
Spoiler warning...
Mark is the real killer. He's a religious man who thinks that the Dead Girls had to die to end their music and save teenagers. He accidentally steps on a bomb and blows up, just as the nurse returns, finding Gina tied up. Thinking - just like Mark - that they're all evil, she leaves Gina tied up and drives away.
Director Dennis Devine (Things II, Fatal Images) said that the weather and cold temperatures made this the most difficult film of his career. I love the idea that the band is being killed by weapons from their songs. I just wish that they actually had a chance to play their songs. It's so close to being a great metal movie and that would push it over the top.
The Island (1980)
Pirates!
Richard Zanuck and David Brown paid Jaws writer Peter Benchley $2.15 million for film rights to the novel and a first draft of the screenplay, plus 10 percent of the gross, five percent of the soundtrack sales and approval of all of the crew and the locations.
Needless to say, in 1980, Peter Benchley was a big deal.
Blair Maynard (Michael Caine) is British-born but American, which explains how he could be Michael Caine. Anyways, he used to be in the Navy, now he's a journalist and he's also a dad whose son Justin (Jeffrey Frank) kind of hates him. So he takes him to Florida, supposedly for Disney World, but also to shoot guns and fish and oh yeah, get kidnapped by an unknown colony of French pirates.
For some reason - the last name - everyone thinks that the Maynards are related to the captain who killed Blackbeard, Robert Maynard. So they let them live, making Blair their writer - and he also gets to keep their in-bred gene pool a little less in-bred - and Justin the adopted son of their leader Nau (David Warner).
Director Michael Richie also made the films Smile, Downhill Racer, The Golden Child, Semi-Tough, The Bad News Bears, Fletch, Fletch Lives and wrote Cool Runnings. He also - as Alan Smithee - directed Student Bodies.
The poster promises that this is going to be a horror movie and it's...I don't know. It's kind of Straw Dogs but not as good, despite the high concepts of pirates hanging out on a secret island in the Bermuda Triangle for three centuries. At least Ennio Morricone did the soundtrack (he did thirteen movies in 1980).
Benchley also had The Deep, another pirate story, made into a movie and that made more than Jaws did its first weekend. It also has Jacqueline Bisset in a see-through white t-shirt and this movie didn't have any success or Bisset almost nude.
Man, people were busy in 1980. Richie also made Divine Madness and Caine was in Dressed to Kill.
Così fan tutte (1992)
Woah!
Così fan tutte comes from Tinto Brass, who started his career as an avant-garde director but is best-known for his erotic cinema like Salon Kitty, The Key and P. O. Box Tinto Brass. He wrote the script with Bernardino Zapponi - who wrote Deep Red with Argento - and Francesco Costa. It's based - somewhat - on the Mozart/da Ponte opera.
The American script and dubbing is by Ted Rusoff, who was the husband of the voice of all your favorite giallo queens, Carolyn De Fonseca.
It stars Claudia Koll, who is almost supernaturally gorgeous, and it's not without reason that every man in this movie wants her. She works in a lingerie shop for Silvio (Renzo Rinaldi), who constantly is trying to make love to her, and is married to the nice yet boring Paolo (Paolo Lanza). She tries to spice up their love life by telling him stories of her being with other men, which he thinks are fantasy, but are all quite true after she gets pushed by her friend Antonietta (Isabella Deiana) and her sister Nadia (Ornella Marcucci).
She becomes obsessed with an antiques dealer named Donatien Alphonse (Franco Branciaroli) who is turn obsessed with her backside - Tinto Brass is living through his characters - and he leaves marks on her that Paolo discovers which places their marriage in jeopardy.
As for Koll, she passed what Brass called his "coin test." The director said, "I have them presented in their skirts and without panties, then I drop a coin on the floor. Depending on what they let me see in the bow, I sense their cinematic potential. Believe me... it's an infallible method."
As you can see, this is a dirty movie. Yet it's filled with sophistication, incredible cinematography and an actual story. And wow - a score by Pino Donaggio.
Yoru no henrin (1964)
Yoru No Henrin
Yoshie Nomoto (Miyuki Kuwano) is a young and naive woman from the countryside who has come to the big city and fallen for Eiji Kitami (Mikijiro Hira), a young gangster who pushes her into a life of ill repute. But when we first meet her, she's already been living this life for some time and despite Hiroshi Fujii (Keisuke Sonoi) thinking he can save her from it, it seems like she's trapped forever.
Directed by Noburo Nakamura, The Shape of Night is a gorgeous film, one that is filled with the most lush colors and a filmmaking style that makes the heart sing. Speaking of the heart, this proves that love can't stop an unhappy ending, but such is how it works sometimes in the movies.
Yoshie loves Eiji, no matter how harsh the life he has led her into. There's a harrowing scene where his bosses take advantage of her and he must watch. It's not an easy scene to sit through, which is something one can say for the drama of this entire film.
Deadbolt (2024)
Drugs
Amelia (Rebecca Liddiard) is an unreliable narrator, if you will. She's just getting over a bad breakup - maybe - with a man who was wrong for her - perhaps - and is trying to improve her mental health. Or stop taking her pills and ignoring every time her mother calls. She's found her way to a rougher part of the city, living with a roommate named Melinda (Camille Stopps) who may have even more issues than she does.
And oh yes. Their house might be haunted.
Deadbolt is directed by Mars Horodyski and written by Michael Rinaldi (Meet the Killer Parents). It has a nice glossy look that doesn't betray its Tubi origins. And it does a great job of making us wonder who is really trying to drive its heroine even madder.
Amelia has to stay on her meds or she starts to hallucinate. This being a potentially haunted house, that's not a good thing. Nor is the fact that her ex-boyfriend Colin (Joey Belfiore) is continually stalking her, while Melinda's addict boyfriend Mark (Thomas Duplessie) keeps crashing on their couch and speaking of Melinda, what's with that rash that's overtaking her face?
There's a bright spot. Amelia meets an artist named David (Jamie Spielchuk) who is very protective of her in the face of everything she's dealing with, like rats in the basement, a fire in the neighborhood and Bruno (Bill MacDonald), a neighbor who seems threatening but is just dealing with dementia.
Sure, this seems like it could be a Lifetime movie, but is that a bad thing?
Invasive (2024)
Fun twists!
Directed and written by Jem Gerrard, who also made Slay for Tubi, this starts with Kay (Khosi Ngema) and her friend Riley (Matthew Vey) sneaking into the home of pharma king Pierce Patton (Francis Chouler) and his girlfriend Jessica (Alex McGregor). Much like Parasite, they seemingly live in the spaces where rich people leave behind during the day, remaining hidden and enjoying the comforts of life that their jobs could never afford.
Except there's some way strange things going on in this house.
You can tell that Pierce is insane right from the beginning, as when he sees a photo that a journalist (Grant Ross) has used for his cover story, he instantly reacts like it's the biggest slight ever. It takes Jessica to calm his nerves and make him settle down at his party.
Spoilers from here on out...
When you buy an entire mountain so no one else can be near you, you're probably the kind of maniac that is conducting secret body horror experiments in your basement. That said, I was surprised several times by this movie, as characters aren't what they seem and the lure of power, money or medical innovation start to be more important than being a human being. Only Kay emerges as someone who just wants to escape and tell the world about what she has seen. There's a good chance that no one is going to allow her to be so altruistic.
This is the second movie by Gerrard that I have enjoyed and I hope that Tubi keeps them coming.
TMZ Presents: Hollywood is High (2024)
Sniff
The TMZ crew gathers yet again - these people love to get together and yell at one another - to discuss drugs in Hollywood, like ayahuasca retreats and ketamine therapy.
I wouldn't know what ayahuasca was if it wasn't for Howard Stern and I'm fascinated by a drug that basically makes you **** your pants. This doc even meets the Soul Quest, an Ayahuasca church located in Orlando, Florida, and explains how this drug has followers including Lindsay Lohan, Jim Carrey, Aaron Rodgers, Jada and Will Smith, Sting, Mike Tyson and Andre 3000.
In case you don't know what it is, it's a South American psychoactive drink that came from the Amazon and Orinoco basins and is traditionally part of spiritual ceremonies, divination and healing.
But yeah, it can make you go in your pants.
Drugs have always been a big deal in the tabloids so it's wild to see one so supportive of drug use, but we also live in a world where marijuana is nearly legal, which I never believed would happen. I mean, I get microdosing ads on Instagram all the time.
Ready to learn how the A list trips balls? Harvey Levin is ready to let you in on all the behind the scenes substances.
TMZ NO BS: Cardi B (2023)
Cardi B
Directed by David Thies, this TMZ No BS doc gathers their gossip crew to discuss how Cardi B went from Belcalis Marlenis Cephus in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, joined a gang, became an exotic dancer, then started to become an early social media influencer before becoming popular on the reality show Love & Hip Hop: New York.
In 2015, she made her musical debut on the remix to Shaggy's "Boom Boom and then covered British rapper Lady Leshurr's "Queen's Speech 4" as the song "Cheap Ass Weave." Within two years, her song "Bodak Yellow" was certified Diamond and won best song of the year from Pitchfork.
She hasn't looked back.
I really liked how this show didn't just show the celebrity side, but how she became politically active, using her fame for the right things. She has called attention to Social Security and asking for transparency in how taxes are spent, as well as endorsing Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, who she refuses to endorse again because of his stance on wars.
Today's rap isn't something I know much about, so I use these Tubi shows to get up to date. Sure, I'm still behind because I'm old, but they at least help me to know a little bit about things that are rapidly passing me by.
Don't Trick-Or-Treat Alone! (2022)
Good idea, needs more
Don't Trick-Or-Treat Alone! Is written and directed by Dustin Ferguson and is made to look like it's taped from WXIP-TV Channel 6. So if you saw WNUF Halloween Special, you're getting something similar if on a much lower budget (or Late Night With the Devil, which was made after both).
The main movie within this forty-minute film is Don't Trick-or-Treat Alone, an after school special warning kids not to make the mistakes that Cindy (Isabella Alexandra Russo) and her father Henry (Erik Anthony Russo) have made, as when she - you get it - tricks and treats alone, she ends up getting kidnapped by a Satanic gang of cannibals led by Lilith (Brinke Stevens).
There was also a release called WXIP - TV Channel 6 After School Triple Feature, which had Wrong Side of the Tracks, Runway Nightmare and Asylum of the Devil. Plus, I found evidence of a remake of House On Haunted Hill that says, "On October 31st, 1978, the WXIP-TV Channel 6 Team investigated the infamous "Hill House" on Live Television, with dire results. The broadcast was banned and never seen again, until now."
Throughout the story, it keeps getting interrupted by commercials and news. It begins with the end of an Amityville special, a nice touch, before an ads for a news special called The Satanic Agenda, Dinosaur Park, 1-900-PSY-CHIC, an anti-drug PSA and Bigfoot bananas at WinLo's Grocers.
The filter on this makes it look very 1990 even if everything in it feels mid 2020s. That said, the story is fun and Stevens and the young Russo are great in it. There are a ton of commercials, which isn't a bad thing until they start to repeat. Here's a breakdown of the ads:
Second block of commercials: Castle of Creeps, Jack's Pumpkin Patch, 1-900-PSY-CHIC, Breast of the Bird (a place I would certainly eat at), a news report on razors in apples and a commercial for Dr. Lobotomy's Lunatic Theater playing Rise of the Undead.
Third block: Ghoul Line 1-900-666-GHOUL, news of a missing child named Becky, Good Buddies mask ad, the same ad for The Satanic Agenda and a movie of the week by the name of Flash Force.
Fourth block: News about a mysterious van and ads for Breast of the Bird, Riverside County Flea Market, 1-900-PSY-CHIC, Mom's Against Drug Abuse and Bigfoot's bananas at WinLo's Grocers.
Fifth block: News on Halloween candy and a weather report, as well as the ads for The Satanic Agenda, Prehistoric Park, Jack's Pumpkin Patch, Castle of Creeps and Ghoul Line.
Sixth block are a PSA from Eric and Isabella Russo, Riverside County Flea Market,Bigfoot's bananas at WinLo's Grocers, Breast of the Bird, Good Buddies, Flash Force, the Satanic news special, a news report on razor blades, Castle of Creeps, Riverside County Flea Market, Good Buddies, Jack's Pumpkin Patch and a Halloween message.
Then, the film starts into Dr. Lobotomy's Lunatic Theater but is cut off.
The commercials are funny, but when they repeat three times in under forty minutes and cut up a film that's around ten, you wonder why they didn't just make almost all new commercials for every block. Ferguson is definitely talented - and prolific - enough to do it, even if trailers for his other movies were turned into movie ads.
I didn't mind my time with this and if you like micro budget horror that is looking to the past, you may enjoy it.
The Tin Star (1957)
The Tin Star
Ed on May 9, 2024 by bandsaboutmovies
Jacques Rivette hailed Anthony Mann as "one of the four great directors of postwar Hollywood" alongside Nicholas Ray, Richard Brooks and Robert Aldrich. Studied by French film critics, several of whom would be part of the French New Wave, Mann started as Preston Sturges' assistant director as well as the director of screen tests for movies like Gone With the Wind.
He's probably best-known for his Westerns, many of which starred Jimmy Stewart like The Naked Spur and Winchester '73. He was fired from Spartacus by its star, Kirk Douglas, and left his next film, Cimarron, after disagreements about shooting on a sound stage. After all, Mann's locations are just about characters in themselves. He was right. The good news was that when he made El Cid it was a huge success.
The heroes of the Westerns that Mann made aren't always heroes at first. In his article "The Last Mann," Richard Corliss said, "The Mann western hero has learned wariness the hard way, because he usually has something to hide. He is a man with a past: some psychic shadow or criminal activity that has left him gnarled and calcified. Not so long ago he was a raider, a rustler, maybe a killer. If a movie were made of some previous chapter in his life, he'd be the villain, and he might be gunned down before he had the chance at redemption that Mann's films offer."
Bounty hunter Morgan Hickman (Henry Fonds) rides into town with a dead body, looking to make his money. He's treated like evil itself, except by Sheriff Ben Owens (Anthony Perkins), a way too young and innocent man who has become the law because no one else wanted the job.
Ben is in love with Millie Parker (Mary Webster), whose father was the last law in town and she won't take him as a husband until he quits. Hickman tells him she's smart because he used to have a star and it ruined his life. That said, he does offer to teach Ben a little about how to stand up for himself.
On the day the town plans on celebrating his 75th birthday, Dr. McCord (John McIntire) is killed by the McGaffey brothers, Ed (Lee Van Cleef) and Zeke (Peter Baldwin). The entire town wants them dead but Ben believes in innocent until proven guilty. He's willing to stand up for himself and even defeats town bully Bart Bogardus (Neville Brand) by slapping him and then outdrawing him.
As for Morgan, he falls for Nona Mayfield (Betsy Palmer) and becomes a surrogate father to her son Kip (Michel Ray). It's a nice way to show that he can still be a tender person after years of hiding his humanity. It's also an interesting inverse comparison to the renter falling for his landlady and helping her son relationship that also shows up in The Shootist.
Tales from the Crypt: Easel Kill Ya (1991)
The composer of Creepshow directed this
This episode is directed by John Harrison, who directed eight episodes of Tales from the Dark Side, the movie of that film, the Dune miniseries on SyFy and oh yeah, wrote the theme for Creepshow. You can learn more about him in this interview we did last year. It was written by Larry Wilson, who wrote five episodes of this show as well as Beetlejuice and The Little Vampire.
"Greetings, art lovers. Vincent van Ghoul here with another morbid masterpiece sure to paint you into a coroner. (cackles) Hmmmmm. Something's not quite right. Ah, yes. (stabs the beating heart next to his fruit bowl) Now that's a still life. (cackles) Tonight's tale concerns a painter who's tired of people giving his work the brush. I call this pestilent portrait of the artist as a young mangler: "Easel Kill Ya.""
Jack Craig (Tim Roth), whose name is a combination of EC Comics artists Jack Davis and Johnny Craig, is a starving artist who drinks and has rage issues that he hopes to solve with a support group, Obsessives Anonymous. That's where he meets Sharon (Roya Megnot) and hopes that she too can save him. Of course, he still gets angry all the time and ends up killing a neighbor, but uses the photo of the crime scene to finally sell his artwork. Malcolm Mayflower (William Atherton) loves gore and he wants more of Craig's art.
Sharon needs an operation, so he keeps killing and selling art. Sadly, the first person he kills is the man who was rushing through a parking lot to get to the hospital to operate on her. Oh EC, your endings.
This story is based on "Easel Kill Ya" from Vault of Horror #31. It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Johnny Craig. In the original story, an artist makes money from painting violence but when he's married, he starts to paint beautiful things. When she becomes sick, he brings a painting to his patron and he won't buy it. He kills the man, who ends up being the doctor who could save his wife.
The Shootist (1976)
A hard movie to watch yet a great one!
In the opening hours of June 11, 1979, I was listening to KDKA AM radio with my dad. In the middle of a show, the national news broke in to say that John Wayne had died.
I started crying because I always thought my grandfather was John Wayne. If the Duke could die, my grandfather could.
It was too much for a six year old child.
I'm glad the young version of me never saw The Shootist.
The last movie that Wayne would be in, this is the tale of sheriff-turned-gunfighter John Bernard "J. B." Books, a man who has killed more than thirty men and become a legend. The kind of man that people run from rather than even look at, someone who Marshal Walter Thibido (Harry Morgan) hopes he doesn't have to arrest.
He's in Carson City to visit one of the only people he trusts, Dr. E. W. "Doc" Hostetler (Jimmy Stewart), the man who once saved his life after a gunfight gone wrong. He doesn't have the energy he once did and he soon finds out that he has cancer. He has days, maybe weeks left. All he can do is take liquid painkillers and hope for the best.
Until he's taken, he plans on just living a quiet unknown existence in the home of widow Bond Rogers (Lauren Bacall), a woman who instantly dislikes him and grows to feel differently. He also ends up being a father of sorts to her son Gillom (Ron Howard) who is close to being a criminal.
Once others learn he is in town, killers come to make their names off shooting him but even in the throes of death, Books is too tough to die. He also has no interest in telling his story to reporter Dan Dobkins (Rick Lenz), even if it makes money for one of the only women he ever loved, Serepta (Sheree North).
Realizing the end is near, Books tells Gillom to bring three men to the bar. They are dairy owner Jay Cobb (Bill McKinney), a man who insulted him when he first arrived; Jack Pulford (Hugh O'Brian), a Faro dealer who was once a killing machine who needs to destroy Books to get his name back and Mike Sweeney (Richard Boone), who wants to kill Books in revenge for the death of his brother. Despite being critically wounded, Books kills all three before being shot in the back by a bartender, someone he never even figured on. Gillom takes his gun and shoots the man before throwing the revolver down. As he dies, Books smiles and nods.
Gillom walks away without a sound.
Books lived by the words "I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."
Paul Newman, George C. Scott, Charles Bronson, Gene Hackman and Clint Eastwood all passed on this movie and it was thought that Wayne - who had his left lung and several ribs removed when he first had cancer - couldn't handle the role. His breathing and mobility, as well as the altitude of Carson City were challenges he had to fight. When he made Rooster Cogburn a year before, he had pneumonia so bad that he damaged his heart from how much he coughed. A lot of people thought he couldn't make this movie and his doctors almost stopped filming after he caught the flu.
He changed the ending of the book and the script. Books was supposed to kill his last opponent by shooting him in the back and would be put out of his misery by Gillom after he was shot in by the bartender. Wayne felt that he had never shot a man in the back and would not in this movie either. He also objected to his character being killed by Gillom and added the bartender shooting him in the back because "no one could ever take John Wayne in a fair fight."
Director Don Siegel told Wayne. "That's what Clint Eastwood would do."
Wayne apocryphically replied, "Well I don't like that, and I didn't like High Plains Drifter!"
There are also some great moments with Scatman Crothers as a blacksmith and a short role for John Carradine (Wayne, figuring this was his last movie, got several of his friends to act in the film) as an undertaker. Even the horse, Dollar, is Wayne's horse.
This is also one of only seven movies in which Wayne dies, along with Reap the Wild Wind, The Fighting Seabees, Wake of the Red Witch, Sands of Iwo Jima, The Alamo and The Cowboys.
The father and son relationship between Books and Gillom reminds me of the way that Tin Star takes a man ruined by a hard life and shows how he can be redeemed by how he treats a younger one.
Si da men pai (1977)
Thank you Sammo!
The last movie that fight choreographer Sammo Hung made with his mentor director Huang Feng (Lady Whirlwind, Hapkido) before directing The Iron-Fisted Monk, The Shaolin Plot is about Prince Daglen (Chan Sing) who is creating a library of Chinese martial arts manuals and learning each form so he becomes the greatest fighter in the world.
With only two manuals left, he sends a renegade monk (Hung) with two cymbals he uses to chop heads to take the Wu-Tang and Shaolin books. Yet for his plan to happen, Daglen will have to get inside the Shaolin temple, which will see him battle Little Tiger (James Tien) and a warrior monk team (Casanova Wong and Kwan Yung Moon).
I'm such a fool for movies like this, where people need to take all of the knowledge and moves and create their own ultimate style. Anything with the Wu-Tang or Shaolin makes me happy and as long as these movies keep getting re-released, I'm going to never stop watching them and throwing little kicks in the air as I cheer the fights.
As a fat guy who loves martial arts, I just have to say, "Thank you Sammo." You have made all of us so proud.
The Scarface Mob (1959)
Pilot
Originally conceived as a two-part TV pilot, The Scarface Mob would go on to become one of TV's most famous shows, The Untouchables. It takes place in 1929 Chicago, as Al Capone's (Neville Brand) gang runs the city and is making money selling booze despite it being illegal. They pay off anyone they can but Federal Investigator Eliot Ness (Robert Stack) plans on brings together a team of men from across the country who he feels can't be bought.
Desi Arnaz had optioned the rights to Eliot Ness' book about fighting Al Capone and decided to turn it into a two-part episode of his show, the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, under the title of The Untouchables. Westinghouse paid $200,000 for the two shows, but Arnaz put up his own money to get a better looking product and to hire Stack and Brand. He sold the rights to the film in Europe to make up the difference.
Brand would return for two episodes of the show, which were also released as a movie, Alcatraz Express. There's also another two episodes that become a third film, The Guns of Zangara.
Stack, who was most famous for this show until Airplane and Unsolved Mysteries, based Ness on the three bravest men he had met: Audie Murphy, his former roommate and war hero Buck Mazza and stuntman Carey Loftin. He said of the men, "All three had one thing in common. Tthey were the best in their fields and they never boasted!"
Director Phil Karlson was a film noir director and he fits this story, which was written by Paul Monash, who created Peyton Place and wrote The Friends of Eddie Coyle and the Salem's Lot TV miniseries.
According to the Italian-American Herald, "Italian-American actors and publishers who expose and perpetuate the stereotype image of Italians as mobsters, wife abusers, hitmen and cheats as it has since the debut of The Untouchables in 1959." This is where, as always, I remind you that there is no such thing as the Mafia, but I'm Italian. I am legally bound to write this.
That said, everything about The Untouchables - good and bad - starts here. If anything, you can enjoy just how off the rails Neville Brand is.
Earthquake Underground (2024)
The title is true
Made by The Asylum, this was directed by Brian Nowak (Jurassic Domination) and written by C. M. Dowling (Super Volcano) and M. L. Miller (Shark Waters). This takes place in The Armada Hotel, which is under construction when an earthquake shakes the city. It traps Brian (Matthew Gademske) and his girlfriend Amy (Angela Cole). While he knows that she's diabetic and worries about her condition, he doesn't know that she's pregnant. Along with the architects Deb (Jenny Tran) and Joe (Pakob Jarernpone) and the person in charge of the construction, Reese (Houston Rhines) and several other future victims, they must try to get out of the building or die trying.
Most of them die, no spoiler needed.
A whole bunch of attractive people get killed by everything from malfunctioning elevators to flooding and even a helicopter bisecting them. The first part has nearly no effects and instead uses the building - which has fallen into the underground - to good effect. Then they get to the surface and that's when The Asylum remembers that they have to have lots of CGI, some bad, some not as bad, and there's even a great moment where the survivors try to escape a flood by driving through a parking garage before smashing into a wall because of bad driving.
I love 70s disaster movies so much and always hope that modern movies can get close to them. This has the spirit, if not the cast of famous people, but is missing the budget. That said, if you just want to chill out, stop thinking and enjoy what citywide destruction looks like on a low budget, who am I to hold you back? I just wish that there were sharks in the water when it flooded or that this went crazier, but as it is, it moves fast and won't bore you.
My Husband Hired a Hitman (2024)
The title is not a lie
Daniela (Tamara Almeida) and her husband Jaime (Jason Diaz) have seen better days. He was once a star athlete but got hurt, so now all he does is play video games and get more depressed while his wife cooks, cleans and makes all the money. He resents her, because she reminds him of the great past that he once had. She wants out so that she can have a future.
While talking with his friend Miguel (Milton Torres Lara), the conversation gets around to what Jaime should do now that it looks like he's heading for a divorce. His wife has a $500,000 life insurance policy, but when Miguel suggests they kill her, Jaime reminds him how much he loves his wife.
However, one of her fellow nurses and her best friend Rosie (Erica Deutschman) has a crush on Jaime and takes a photo of Dani consoling a cop named Noah (Brett Geddes)who saved her from a homeless man who was attacking people inside the hospital. It isn't even a romance yet, but it's already upset Dr. Will (Connor McMahon), who has an infatuation with Dani, and when Miguel sees the photo, he decides that yes, his wife must die.
Miguel decides to pull the job but he gets nervous and struggles with Dani, whose hand is on the gun when it goes off. She has no idea what to do, so she hides the body and calls Noah instead of 911. He reacts so much unlike how she expected, telling her that she's going to hurt his career. That said, he does help her hide out until she figures out what to do next. As she waits in a trailer, she's using her house's cameras to watch what Jaime is doing.
Antonio (David Chinchilla), Miguel's brother, wants revenge a lot more than Jaime. He decides that he's going to be the one to kill Dani and get the money. Noah, who falls for women in trouble, wants to help her. Jaime has no idea what he wants. Dani, however, is the kind of heroine who will do whatever she has to do to get away from all of these men and the various things they need from her.
Directed by Lisa Soper (the production designer on Peacemaker, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and The Blackcoat's Daughter) and written by Huelah Lander (Twisted Neighbor), this film has a wild color palette that feels like people live inside a Mario Bava film, as well as some great character work. Rosie is one of the most horrible, self-centered and awesome villains I've seen in a movie in some time. And Dani ends up being stronger than anyone else, making unexpected decisions and pulling herself out of the mess her life has become.
TMZ NO BS: Hollywood's Messiest Divorces (2023)
Split
Divorce isn't easy, trust me. I've been through it. But I never had someone serve me paper's at my grandmother's funeral or try and negotiate while I'm dealing with brain surgery like Doctor Dre.
From Brad and Angela's split to Kanye and Kim Kardashian, TMZ gets into it in this breakdown on the messiest divorces in Hollywood.
For tabloids - which TMZ is the closest thing there is to them today, as a weekly newspaper is behind the times by the time it hits supermarkets - divorce was always what sold big. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard; Liz and well, any of her many husbands; Carson and his many wives. The big d word moved papers and I know I read tons of stories of who was right and who was wrong over the years.
If you're as pop culture obsessed as I think you are, you might not learn much new here, but it's well produced and pretty even in the way that it deals with Kanye, so that's interesting.
TMZ NO BS: Hollywood's Biggest Lies (2023)
TMZ
Ually make fun of the TMZ crew but this episode of their Tubi specials gets into how they fight for the First Amendment. Sure, it's over the Mel Gibson drunk driving case, but the idea that the LAPD would get a search warrant for all of their phone records to out the source who told TMZ about four pages deleted from the arrest report is insane. It's even legal to do that now after the Patriot Act.
This time, Hollywood's biggest lies - yes, it's right there in the title - are exposed. Like did Kim Kardashian and her mother engineer her sex tape? What happened when Jussie Smollett claimed that he was attacked in a hate crime? Did Milli Vanilli really lipsync their songs? And yes, what really happened with Mel Gibson?
It's really incredible how much of this cuts through things that are accepted and shows us what really lies beneath Hollywood. Sure, these stories are all rather innocuous when it comes to lies, but the Gibson one, as I mentioned earlier, goes much deeper than I thought it would.
This Never Happened (2024)
Never happened
Directed by Ted Campbell (Final Heist), who co-wrote the script with Richard Pierce, This Never Happened is all about Emily (María José De La Cruz) who is the next in her family's history of being able to see the dead. After all, her grandmother could as well and that's why she lived out her days alone in a mental hospital.
Emily goes with her boyfriend Matteo (Javier Dulzaides) to his father's funeral in Mexico City. Afterward, his mother Melora (Andrea Noli) tells him that the house will be sold in a few days. Matteo's friends - Olivia (Conny Cambambia), Ale (Juana Serrano) and Nica (Gonzalo Zulueta) - decide that one weekend in their old house would give them closure.
You know what happens next.
I mean, Matteo even says to Emily, "You forgot to take your pills."
Here are a few words of advice for the characters in this movie but well, they're all dead so it's hard to say, right? Don't go back home with your boyfriend. If his friends all seem like drug addicts and may have put drugs in your drink, don't trust them. If you can see the dead, maybe leave instead of dealing with that big toothed monster in the swimming pool. And if you buy Tarot cards, make sure they're not razor sharp, no matter how good the scene is, because you're going to die.
I think that Less Than Zero properly prepared me for a life of hating rich people. This movie is much the same, as they the thing that never happened is - spoiler warning - a girl being drugged and assaulted by several of them at a party in this same house. Now, her spirit wants revenge and is swimming in the pool, activated by those magic crystals that got thrown into the water. That's more advice. If you have magic objects, don't be throwing them into the pool.
Then again, I am all for rich kid comeuppance and this movie delivers on that. Tubi horror has been getting better and I'm hoping that a year from now, we'll all be amazed at just how far they've grown. Until then, this has a nice budget, an attractive cast and a scene where a blender leaks blood everywhere. Can you really ask more from free?
Deadly Gossip (2024)
Not bad!
Quinn Walker (Susan Ateh) has just returned to detective work after the death of her police officer husband, a man who everyone loved and who she knew as an abuser. She's kept that a secret from everyone but most essentially from her son Liam, who idolized his dad. She's become even more of the mean mom that he forced her to be, keeping her son from his interest in detective work and using true crime websites to help others solve crimes.
On the first day back on the job, she nearly shoots a suspect who ends up being an actor in the middle of a scene. It gets her noticed and while some of the press is bad, many see her as a hero for the way she tried to save someone, even if it was on a movie set.
She's also just been assigned a new partner, Carter (Jay Rincon), a London detective who has come to America to - as we learn later - find the murderer of his father. They don't get along and she doesn't trust him, but her son sees him as someone worth knowing.
In the middle of all this drama, there are also murders.
Mia Bailey is the hottest actress in Hollywood and she's about to star in a movie based on her friend Anna's (Roisin Browne) script, Blind Items. At the same time, there's a blind items website that reveals who will die next, from Mia in the place where her career started to her business manager Jason Cohen (Luis Donegan-Brown) and almost everyone connected to Mia and Anna, who came to the city of dreams together, living with a circle of friends, all of whom are either dying or suspects, like Ozzie, a former military veteran and now spiritual healer.
As Quinn tries to deal with her grief, her new partner and being a mother, she starts to depend on her son, who is able to find clues that she never saw and use the internet way better than she ever would be able to. However, this puts him in danger.
I really liked Quinn's boss, Captain Ellis (Doña Croll), who has a really great scene with Quinn where she explains that she knew that she always had a hard time being the wife of someone that everyone saw as a much better person than he really was.
The strange thing is deciding to have a London detective in the U. S. When does this ever happen? It's kind of strange, but not enough to put me off the movie.
Director and co-writer - with Daniel Mahler Landman - Nanea Miyata also directed A Party To Die For, another Tubi Original. I liked how whoever is behind the murders goes through some twists and turns, using Quinn's recent incident in the news against her. And by the end, there's a moment that makes who the killer is up in the air, as the messages haven't stopped on the site.
Tales from the Crypt: The Reluctant Vampire (1991)
Too silly
"I want to suck... Oh, hello kiddies. You caught me in the middle of my homework. Your old pal the Crypt Keeper's a real believer in continuing dead-ucation. Which brings us to tonight's murderous morsel. It's a juicy little tale about a real blood sucker who never learned to go for the jugular. I call this plasma play "The Reluctant Vampire.""
Directed by Elliot Silverstein (The Car, A Man Called Horse) and written by Terry Black (Dead Heat), this stars Malcolm McDowell as Daniel Longtooth, a vampire who choose to get his fix from the blood bank he works at. It's run by Mr. Crosswhite (George Wendt) and he takes every chance to be rude and mean to his workforce, saving his sexual harassment for Sally (Sandra Dickinson).
It turns out that Daniel is drinking so much that the blood bank is in danger of going out of business. He decides that he must use his vampire abilities to get victims and refill the plasma to save the job of Sally, who he is in love with.
Meanwhile, the police - led by Detective Robinson (Paul Gleason, forever a jerk in every movie) - have brought in Rupert Van Helsing (Michael Berryman, looking like Judge Doom) to hunt down the vampire who they believe is haunting the streets, draining muggers and low level criminals of their blood. What complicates matters is that Mr. Crosswhite knows that Daniel is a vampire and is using him to fix his business.
Maybe Sally knows too, as we find out in this episode's happy ending.
Terry Black wrote five episodes of this show, including three using the name Donald Longtooth. Yes, the same last name as the character in this episode.
I'm not a fan of the total comedy episodes of this show, but what can you do?
TMZ NO BS: Hollywood's Dumbest Moments (2024)
Yellow
The TMZ crew all gets together and yells at one another about the dumbest celebrity decisions, like how T. I. wanted to be there for his daughter's gynecologist visits and to be sure she was still a virgin. According to Global News, his daughter said that T. I. had been going with her to these doctor visits since she was 14 or 15 and she "couldn't have said no" to her dad when he asked to join for the appointments. She also revealed on Instagram that she has harmed herself in the past to deal with her emotions.
Want even dumber? There's Justin Bieber saying that Anne Frank would have been a "Belieber," "Live for Now" the Kim Kardashian Pepsi commercial where she solves a protest and police unrest by giving a cop a soda - created by a team of white people and which caused Pepsi to have to write "Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are removing the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position." - as well as the celebrity "Imagine" video during the COVID-19 era and Adam Levine cheating with a woman and using his band's Instagram account to send messages.
Of all of these decisions, the fact that I watch multiple Tubi TMZ shows in a row to write about them on this site may be among the silliest.
That said, this is just like lying on my grandmother's bed with a stack of National Enquirer, Star, National Examiner and Globe newspapers and tearing through them, learning about Liz Taylor's sad last days and who was on drugs, who was on the watermelon diet, who was a friend of Dorothy and who was a cheat. Those are some of the best days of my childhood.