Shameless Self Expression

Overwrought drama has Lauren Holly playing a tough U.S. senator having a wild sex romp with staffer/lover Billy Warlock (yes, that Billy Warlock, from “Baywatch” and just about every daytime soap you’ve ever been ashamed to admit watching), whilst her angry husband John Doman tries to get his problem-solver brother Angus McFadyen and his cohort Mykelti Williamson to bump her off. Meanwhile, two completely unconvincing teens (McFadyen’s daughter Rachel Miner and her hot Israeli pal Lacey Chabert!) snort coke delivered to them by a disillusioned Libyan cab driver (Roger Guenveur Smith), who is also considering a career in terrorism. Gee, I wonder whom his intended target might well be. Elizabeth Uhl mugs shamelessly in the most unbelievably attention-seeking cameo I’ve ever seen, as an eager-to-please waitress the two would-be hit men encounter. Cheaply made but mostly dopey and incoherent mess from 2006 directed by John Carter isn’t worth your time. It’s filmed in some of the w...

Set in New Mexico in the 1980s, Kodi Smit-McPhee plays a bullied 12 year-old who is neglected by his parents (who are apparently Charlie Brown’s parents too). He becomes interested in an unusual girl in the apartment next door, played by Chloe Grace Moretz. Seemingly around the same age as Smit-McPhee, she tries to tell him that she’s ‘not a girl’ and that they can’t be friends. However, that doesn’t stop Smit-McPhee, and soon they do indeed become close, with Moretz even giving him advice on standing up to school bullies. It turns out that Moretz is indeed not a ‘girl’, but a vampire, whose blood thirst is aided by her guardian/father Richard Jenkins, who provides her with fresh bodies. Elias Koteas turns up as a solemn investigating cop tracking down a vamp...er...‘serial killer’. I’ve found some films in the past to be really hard to review. “Precious” , “The Killer Inside Me” , and “Death Proof” all spring to mind for various reasons. This 2010 remake of the Swedish horror...

Lots of people thought the characters in the original “Trekkies” did not fully represent real “Trekkies” or “Trekkers” (something I partially agree with, though I’m in neither category, I simply like some of the movies and love sci-fi and fantasy), and that it was a shamefully condescending display of the most bizarre and unpleasant of die-hard “Star Trek” fans. This 2004 Roger Nygard (the original doco “Trekkies” ) follow-up firstly aims to make up for the earlier doco’s apparent narrow-mindedness, but also offers up a wider display of Trek fandom by giving us a look at fans from around the globe (except, rather curiously, Asia). Unfortunately, not only did I absolutely love “Trekkies” (condescending or not, it wasn’t a lie. Those people were real, whether they represented a small minority or not. They were also really entertaining), I found that half of this film was unnecessary (i.e. The rectifying of earlier ‘mistakes’) and the other half was just more of the same, only less...

After his father is murdered by a mugger on the way home from a screening of “Death Wish II” , young Matt Scully is taken in by uncle Damien Garvey, who runs a storage facility and gives Scully a job there. He quickly discovers that the facility is full of oddballs and secretive-types. Along with friendly but flaky co-worker Saskia Burmeister he starts to take a particular interest in the secretive and surly Robert Mammone, who seems to be hiding something a bit suspicious. After Burmeister picks the guy’s lock and they go inside for a gander whilst Mammone is out, the inquisitive duo are caught by Garvey. Garvey sacks Burmeister on the spot and scolds Scully for not coming to him first with his suspicions. Eventually even Garvey seems to share Scully’s suspicions that Mammone might be a murderer who has something very incriminating in the big barrel he has stored in the facility. But are appearances deceiving? Well this sure was a surprise. An enjoyable, interesting, and fairl...