Johnny Mack Brown rides across the old west until he reaches a seemingly abandoned ranch. Someone takes a shot at him with a gold bullet. It’s because the the ranch has a reputation for being haunted and everyone knows that the only way to take care of a ghost is to shoot at it with gold bullets.
(It’s common frontier knowledge!)
Johnny may says that he’s a simple cowhand who has been hired to look after the ranch but actually, he’s a government agent who has been sent to investigate the disappearance of rancher John Roberts (Forrest Taylor) and the theft of government gold. Bill Grant (House Peters, Jr.) is the main suspect in the Roberts disappearance but Roberts’s daughter (Lois Hall) insists that he’s innocent. Even though Roberts forbid Grant from seeing his daughter, Johnny Mack Brown suspects that Grant is being set up as well. Brown doesn’t buy the idea of the ranch being haunted either. If Fuzzy Knight was there, he’d probably see a ghost but Fuzzy takes this film off. Time for Johnny Mack Brown to investigate.
Despite the exciting title, Blazing Bullets is only a so-so B-western. Working without his usual sidekicks, Brown just goes through the motions and there’s not nearly enough action. A movie called Blazing Bullets should have had more blazing bullets in it. Today, it’s impossible to watch the film without expecting Harvey Korman to show up as Hedley Lamarr.
Originally filmed in 2010 but not released until 2018, Con Man is one of the strangest vanity projects that I’ve ever seen.
Originally entitled Minkow, Con Man tells the story of Barry Minkow. When Minkow was a teenager, he started a carpet cleaning business and he quickly learned how to both promote himself and how to lie about how much money he was making. The media ate up the story of the teenager became a millionaire by cleaning carpets. His father (Mark Hamill) was proud of him. His mother (Talia Shire) worried that he was moving away from God. A local mobster (Armand Assante) decided to get involved. It was eventually discovered that Barry was kiting checks, lying to insurance companies, and massively defrauding both his investors and his employees. After being busted by the FBI (represented here by James Caan), Barry Minkow was sent to prison.
In the film, teenage Barry Minkow is played by a young, handsome, and charismatic Justin Baldoni. When Barry gets out of jail, he’s suddenly been transformed into …. well, Barry Minkow. That’s right. Barry Minkow plays himself. Needless to say, Barry Minkow looks nothing like Justin Baldoni. It’s not just that the two men are different ages. It’s also that there’s no way to imagine Justin Baldoni transforming into the gargoyle that is Barry Minkow.
In prison, Barry Minkow is converted to Christianity by a prisoner named Peanut (Ving Rhames). After Minkow serves his sentence, he not only helps the FBI track down other con artists but he becomes the pastor of his local church. Despite his past, everyone loves and trusts Barry Minkow. Everyone talks about how charismatic he is, despite the fact that the adult Barry Minkow delivers his lines in a flat monotone and looks like he should be sitting over the entrance of a cathedral. People who suspect that they’ve been a victim of financial fraud start to come to Barry, asking him for advice. The always humble Barry is concerned that he’ll let people down but, in the end, even James Caan says that Barry is a great guy. “I’m doing the work of God!” Barry proclaims.
Yes, the film is fueled by pure ego. Unfortunately, it took more than ego to pay the bills so Minkow embezzled money from his own church, stole money from his congregation, and resorted to his old track of “clipping” checks to finance the whole thing. Shortly after the film was completed, Minkow was arrested and sent back to prison. (A hot mic caught Minkow bragging to James Caan about how he financed the film. After his arrest, Minkow denied he had ever said that and dared anyone with proof to turn it over. The film’s director proceeded to do just that. Barry Minkow was not only a criminal. He was a stupid criminal.)
As for the film, it sat in limbo for eight years. Eventually, talking head interview with Minkow’s actual victims talking about how much they disliked Barry were sprinkled throughout the film. (Shortly before Minkow starts playing himself, we hear one of his business partners say that everyone told him not to play himself.) The original film ended on a triumphant note. The new film — which was retitled Con Man — ended with real people talking about Barry Minkow going back to jail and casting doubt as to whether or not Barry ever even knew a prisoner named Peanut.
The film is a vanity project and not a very good one. Minkow is a terrible actor and, just in case we forget that fact, he reminds us by trying to hold the screen opposite James Caan and Ving Rhames. (Even Elisabeth Rohm manages to outact him.) As bad as the film is, the story behind it is endlessly fascinating. Barry Minkow was determined to become a star. (Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can was an obvious inspiration.) Instead, he went back to prison and his vanity project was transformed into a roast. And it probably couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.
Victor Trenton (Brad Leland) is a high school football coach who is determined to have an undefeated season so that he can score a college coaching job. However, when one of his players, Benny Robison (Fred Tolliver, Jr.), dies of a previously undiagnosed heart condition during a grueling practice, Trenton’s plans fall apart. Instead of rescheduling the next game, Trenton insists that his players play it. When an assistant coach forfeits the game, Victor starts to become the town pariah.
This is a short and simple indie film about the price of win-at-all-costs competitiveness. Even before Benny dies, Victor Trenton is not a particularly likable character. A part of him does care about his players but an even bigger part sees them as pawns in his quest to get a college position. When Benny dies, Trenton refuses to take any responsibility and descends into drinking and self-pity. When Trenton is sued by Benny’s mother, Trenton insists that nothing is his fault. By the end of the movie, Trenton has started to take some responsibility but the movie doesn’t end with a definite resolution. It’s up to the viewer to decide whether or not Victor Trenton is responsible or truly sorry for Benny’s death.
It’s not a totally satisfying viewing experiences but Brad Leland gives one of the most authentic “coach” performances that I’ve ever seen. He knows how to win football games and, for his hometown, that’s enough until it isn’t.
When a high school basketball player named Willie Joe Harris (Derrick Franklin) gets in some trouble with some local drug dealers, he goes to Dakota Smith (Fred Williamson), an ex-cop and private investigator who now spends his time golfing. Realizing that the old neighborhood has been taken over by drug dealers like Slim Jim (Ice-T), Dakota and his friends come together to take back the streets. Jim Brown is former football coach Chad Grant. Ron O’Neal is Willie Joe’s guardian, Frank. Bernie Casey is Rex Stevens, whose family was killed by hitmen looking for Willie Joe. Together, they’re on the edge. They’re not alone on the edge, though. A manic Gary Busey plays a hitman named Felix. Gloria Allred (!) plays Councilwoman Gloria Johnson, Dakota’s contact at city hall.
Fred Williamson directed On The Edge and, in tradition of Original Gangstas, the main appeal of the film is to see a bunch of former blaxploitation stars showing off that they could still own the screen. Our stars may not move as quickly as they used to but they’re still good shots, they’re still good with a quip, and the ladies still love Fred. The film also has an anti-drug “take care of your community” message but most people will just be watching to see Fred Williamson and Jim Brown doing their thing. (The film’s cover art might feature Ice-T front-and-center but this is a Fred Williamson film all the way.)
The film itself isn’t great. Sometimes, it was impossible to make out what the characters were saying and the scene with Gloria Allred mostly seemed to be there so that Fred could say that he knew Gloria Allred. But the combination of Williamson, Casey. O’Neal, and Brown still carried a punch. Say what you will about his films, few people were more confident on screen than Fred Williamson.
I knew who Jackie Chan was well before I discovered Hong Kong cinema in the early 90’s through the works of John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat. I had seen him in the CANNONBALL RUN movies, including part 2 in the movie theater, and I recognized the VHS for THE PROTECTOR (1985) at my local video store, but I had no idea just how amazing he was as a filmmaker and performer until I became obsessed with Hong Kong’s local film industry in the mid-90’s. As I read about the incredible work that Chan had done or was doing in books like “Hong Kong Babylon,” I made notes on all of his movies that I wanted to see. Of course, the original POLICE STORY was at the top of the list.
In POLICE STORY, Chan plays Hong Kong cop Chan Ka-Kui. In the film’s opening scene, he takes part in a sting operation to bring down Chu (Yuen Chor), one of Hong’s major drug kingpins. After the plan goes awry, we get an incredible action sequence where cars crash through a shantytown, bullets fly, cops piss themselves, Chan hangs off of a bus with the handle of an umbrella, runs down a mountain, arrests the drug lord, and we’re just getting started!
From that amazing opening, Chan is assigned to protect the key witness, Salina (the gorgeous Brigitte Lin), whose testimony is key to bringing Chu down. This doesn’t go well. Between corruption in the police force, false accusations, and Chan’s tenuous relationship with his girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung), the ensuing chaos seems to indicate that Chu is going to get off on the drug charges and Chan just may end up dead.
But let’s be honest, the plot is just a reason to get to the action. And once you’ve seen a few of Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong movies, you just settle in for a loose story, lots of goofy humor (that doesn’t always work), and some of the most insane stunt work you’ll ever see. POLICE STORY is a perfect example of that formula, and quite honestly, it’s one of the great action films. The stunts feel and look dangerous. The final sequence, set in a shopping mall, is some of the best action I’ve ever seen in a movie. I sat there with my mouth open and shaking my head as great stunt after grunt stunt takes place. I can’t help but wonder how many people got injured doing those scenes as glass shatters, bodies fly, and Chan puts himself through hell for the sake of the scene. It can’t be described… it needs to be experienced.
And yet, for all the amazing action, I can relate to Jackie Chan. He messes up. He gets hurt. He argues with his girlfriend. I’ve done all of these things, and I love it when he gets his stuff together and uses his unique set of skills to save the day!
As awesome as POLICE STORY is, viewers need to be aware of the serious tonal shifts that take place in the Hong Kong cinema of the 80’s. It can be a little jarring if you’re not used to it, as the movie goes from slapstick comedy to brutal action to melodrama, sometimes within the same scene. In some ways, that’s part of the charm, but these films can feel very strange for the uninitiated.
At the end of the day POLICE STORY isn’t perfect, but it is Jackie Chan at his best… fearless, inventive, and committed to giving the audience their money’s worth. If you’re interested in the unique and dangerous films that Chan made at this physical peak, this is as good as it gets.
“I may not do everything great in my life, but I’m good at this. I manage to touch people’s lives with what I do and I want to share this with you.” — Carl Casper
Jon Favreau’s Chef is one of those modest, crowd‑pleasing films that wins you over by staying sincere. It is not trying to be more elaborate than it needs to be, and that restraint is part of its charm. The movie understands that a good meal, like a good story, does not need to be overloaded to leave an impression.
At its center is Carl Casper, a Los Angeles chef who has spent too long under the thumb of a controlling owner and a punishing routine. Favreau builds the character as a man with genuine talent who has gradually been boxed into serving the same familiar dishes until the spark goes out of his work. That setup gives the film emotional weight without making it needlessly grim, and the early conflict feels grounded in the kind of professional frustration that many viewers can recognize.
What makes Chef work so well is that it treats food as more than decoration. The kitchen scenes have the energy of a workplace movie, but they also carry the warmth of a film about craft, pride, and rediscovery. Favreau clearly cares about the details, and the movie’s culinary authenticity helps make the food feel alive rather than merely photogenic.
The film’s strongest material often comes from its sense of rhythm. Favreau lets scenes breathe, whether Carl is cooking, arguing, bonding with his son, or slowly finding his footing again through the food truck. The road‑trip structure gives the movie a loose, easygoing momentum that matches its themes of starting over and rebuilding a life from something more personal. It is a familiar shape, but Favreau handles it with enough warmth and confidence that it never feels mechanical.
The cast also helps carry the movie’s laid‑back appeal. John Leguizamo brings dependable energy as Carl’s friend and partner, while Emjay Anthony gives the father‑son relationship a needed emotional anchor. Sofía Vergara and Scarlett Johansson add texture to the supporting ensemble, and the cameos help the film feel like it belongs to a broader world without turning into a stunt parade. Robert Downey Jr.’s appearance is especially in the spirit of the movie’s playful, slightly scrappy personality.
If there is a weakness in Chef, it is that the stakes are sometimes as light as the movie’s tone. The conflict is easy to understand, but the film is not interested in digging especially deep into the pressures of restaurant life beyond what it needs for Carl’s personal reset. Some viewers may also feel that the story moves so smoothly that it can occasionally glide past tension rather than fully wrestle with it. Still, those softer edges are part of the movie’s comfort‑food approach, and they fit the film more often than they hurt it.
There is also something undeniably self‑referential about Favreau making a film like this at this point in his career. After years of working in large‑scale studio filmmaking, Chef feels like a deliberate return to basics, a movie about rediscovering joy in the craft rather than chasing spectacle. That choice gives the film a little extra meaning, because it plays not just as a story about a chef but as a story about an artist reconnecting with the thing that made him care in the first place.
That connection carried forward in a very natural way with Netflix’s The Chef Show, which Favreau made with Roy Choi after the film. The show turned the movie’s culinary curiosity into a full‑fledged project, with Favreau cooking alongside celebrity friends and guests across its two‑season run. In that sense, Chef was not just a one‑off passion project; it became the foundation for a longer creative obsession that blended cooking, conversation, and filmmaking into the same kind of easygoing pleasure the movie already had.
What lingers most about Chef is its tone. It is upbeat without being fake, personal without becoming self‑pitying, and relaxed without losing its sense of purpose. Favreau understands that small victories can matter just as much as dramatic ones, and he shapes the film around that idea with real affection. The result is a feel‑good film with enough flavor to satisfy, and enough honesty to keep it from feeling empty.
And for anyone who had never been especially drawn to a Cubano sandwich, Chef also worked like a terrific advertisement for giving one a try. The film made the sandwich look less like a simple handheld meal and more like a kind of culinary payoff, something warm, rich, and memorable enough to make viewers hungry before the scene was even over. While most audiences understandably gravitated toward those rapturous Cubano moments, for me the real standout was the scene featuring the mojo‑marinated pork. There was something about the way the meat was staged—the slow rendering of fat, the caramelized crust, the faint sheen of orange‑garlic sauce—that made it feel less like a quick bit of menu decoration and more like the heart of the film’s culinary language. That sequence, in its quiet way, captured the same blend of craft and desire that the whole movie is built on.
Overall, Chef is a warm, appealing, and thoughtfully made film that succeeds because it knows exactly what it wants to be. It is funny, heartfelt, and easy to enjoy, even when it does not push its dramatic material as far as it could. Favreau serves up a movie that celebrates food, family, and creative freedom in a way that feels genuine, and that sincerity is what gives the film its staying power.
A young Indian brave named Little Hawk (Don Reynolds) runs across the countryside, hoping to run into the Durango Kid. Instead, he runs into Steve Reynolds (Charles Starrett), who listens as Little Hawk explains that the Indians and the white men are about to go to war. Steve promises to deliver the message to Durango. That will be easy for Steve because he is Durango!
White bandits are disguising themselves as Native Americans and attacking stagecoaches. The local townspeople are getting riled up. Meanwhile, businessmen Jim Haverly (Monte Blu) is running a trading post and secretly selling weapons to the Indians. Jim is hoping to profit from the upcoming war. Jim is also the uncle to Little Hawk’s best friend, Billy (Tommy Ivo). When Durango and his sidekick Smiley Burnette show up, they team up with Billy and Little Hawk and try to stop the war before it happens.
This is one of the many B-westerns that featured Charles Starrett as the Durango Kid. The Durango Kid was always an agent of the federal government but he pretended to be an outlaw to make it easier for him to get information. Sometimes, it really didn’t make sense for Steve to pretend to be the Durango Kid, like in this movie. I guess no one wanted to give up the gimmick, just like no one wanted to give up Smiley Burnette’s musical comedy.
This one has all of the horse-riding and gun-shooting that fans of the genre would expect from a Charles Starrett western. It also has a lot of stock footage that appeared in a countless number of other B-westerns. Starrett is a convincing cowboy and Monte Blue is a good villain, as always. The child actors can sometimes be difficult to tolerate but I imagine the kids in the audience preferred watching them to sitting through the romantic subplots that these films usually had. Fans of the gerne will enjoy the film, if just on a nostalgic level. Those who are not into westerns will still not be into them after watching.
In my quest to see every movie and TV show that Charles Bronson ever appeared in, I finally decided to take on THE MOB this morning. I’ve held off for years because this early, uncredited role as a dockworker only gives Bronson a couple of lines. He looks like a natural fixture on the docks, but his screen time only adds up to a minute or two in total.
With Bronson being little more than some temporary dockside scenery, I settled in for a story about Johnny Damico (Broderick Crawford), a tough, no-nonsense cop who’s doing some rainy night ring-shopping for his girlfriend when a man is killed just outside the store. He bungles up the whole situation, and the killer gets away. It turns out the killing was a mob hit and soon Damico is going undercover as Tim Flynn from New Orleans so he can infiltrate and bust the organized crime ring operating on the waterfront.
Broderick Crawford is so good in this role. His Damico / Flynn has a cynical sense of humor that I enjoyed. He thinks fast, he’s rough around the edges, and he even gets to slap some bad guys around a time or two. He’s one of those characters whose mouth should probably get him in more trouble. Well, now that I think about it, his mouth does almost get him killed a couple of times. Crawford and Bronson would work again together a few years later in the prison film BIG HOUSE USA (1955).
With Crawford’s performance anchoring the movie, Director Robert Parrish delivers a tight, efficient and entertaining crime story that clocks in at just under an hour and a half. One of the things that made the film enjoyable for me is the interesting and recognizable supporting cast of actors who pop up throughout the film. I’ve already mentioned Bronson, but actors like Ernest Borgnine, Neville Brand and Frank DeKova all show up to torment our undercover cop at various points throughout the film. It’s always fun for me to see a cast full of familiar faces!
At the end of the day, I enjoyed THE MOB. It doesn’t try to be anything more than a good crime film, and with Broderick Crawford’s excellent performance, it does its job well.
In the 1960s, druken Pvt. Franklin Fairchild Bean (Charlie Sheen) punches an MP in West Germany. The rebellious Bean is hoping he’ll be discharged from the Army. Instead, he’s sent to the stockade for 90 days. The stockade is run by an alcoholic tyrant named Sgt. Otis McKinney (Martin Sheen) and, shortly after arrival, Bean discovers that he’s the only white prisoner. With McKinney determined to break him, Bean befriends his fellow prisoners, including Roosevelt Stokes (Laurence Fishburne), and the two white corporals (James Marshall and Ramon Estevez) who try to protect the prisoners from McKinney’s erratic behavior.
Cadence is the only film to have been directed by Martin Sheen. Considering that it co-stars two of his sons, it’s unfortunate that Cadence isn’t a better movie. Charlie Sheen gives a one-note performance as Franklin Bean but he still does better than his father, who is such a raging monster as Sgt. McKinney that it’s difficult to take him or the movie seriously. As a director, Martin Sheen always goes for the most ham-fisted shot and it’s hard to see what he’s really trying to say about the Army or Franklin Bean’s rebellion.
The supporting cast is better, especially James Marshall and Ramon Estevez. Laurence Fishburne brings his trademark gravitas to the role of Stokes. The other prisoners are played by Michael Beach, Blu Mankuma, John Toles-Bey, and Harry Stewart and they all make a good impression. Stewart plays the most saintly and innocent of the prisoners. Guess what happens to him.
Back in the day, this movie was an HBO mainstay. Somehow, I always seemed to catch the end of it but never the beginning.
I remember the first time I ever saw the Charles Bronson western, CHINO. I was probably around 13 or 14 years old and already well known in my school for being obsessed with the actor Charles Bronson, who would have been roughly 65 years old at the time. There was this girl who I guess had a crush on me, so she invited my best friend Chad and I, along with her best friend, over to her house to watch a movie one Saturday. And the movie she chose… CHINO, AKA THE VALDEZ HORSES! I don’t think I watched the movie very close that day. CHINO was treated poorly on VHS in the 80’s, and I was more interested in the DEATH WISH 3s and MURPHY’S LAWs of the world at that time. I was also more interested in trying to make the girls laugh, which was always my main move because I was never good looking enough to smolder.
So, for many years, CHINO was nowhere near the top of my list of favorite Charles Bronson films. I watched it a few times, but I always found it hard to take seriously due to the cheap quality of the video presentation. Well in 2021, Kino Lorber released the film under THE VALDEZ HORSES title in a glorious Blu-ray. CHINO is a revelation with this new release, and I finally saw what I had been missing all these years. For the first time, I felt like I was able to watch it, and judge it, based on its own merits as a film.
CHINO opens on Jamie (15-year-old Vincent Van Patten) riding across the range as the title tune “Freedom Rainbow” plays over the credits. When he comes upon a ranch just as it’s getting dark, a tough-as-nails-looking Chino Valdez (Charles Bronson), emerges from the cabin and offers him a warm fire and a meal. Initially a little scared of Chino, Jamie is looking for work and Chino needs help, so the boy hangs around for a while. Things seem to be going well as the eager Jamie and Chino work the horses at his ranch, but soon issues start popping up. First, it’s the barbed wire that cattle baron Maral (Marcel Bozzuffi) puts up on the range that results in serious injuries for some of Chino’s wild horses. Then, it’s the fact that every time Chino goes to town for supplies, he ends up drinking, brawling, and spending a little time in jail. But those things pale in comparison to the biggest issue… Chino falls in love with the beautiful Catherine (Jill Ireland), Maral’s sister, and Maral will have no part of her falling back in love with the half breed Chino! Maral threatens to kill Chino if he doesn’t quit seeing his sister, and he means it.
Based on the award-winning 1967 novel THE VALDEZ HORSES by female author Lee Hoffman, director John Sturges crafted a movie around a role that seems tailor made for Bronson. Chino Valdez is a loner who reluctantly takes on a fatherly role towards Jamie, and then even more reluctantly falls in love with Catherine. He seemed like the kind of man who would be perfectly fine working the ranch by himself forever until Jamie rides up. A loner in real life who valued his family over anything else, who also purchased his own horse ranch in Vermont the same year of CHINO’s release, it’s hard to know where the character of Chino begins and Charles Bronson ends. This is a particularly strong performance from Bronson, one of his very best.
And you really do need to savor the film for Bronson’s incredible presence, because the film doesn’t have as much action, nor does it lead to the typical showdown that we’ve come to expect in Bronson’s movies. Chino gets into a scuffle when he goes into town, and he shoots some bad guys at the end, but this is first and foremost a character study. As a matter of fact, the film that John Sturges delivered had even less action than what we see in the final product. Disappointed in the surprising lack of action, producer Dino De Laurentiis hired director Duilio Coletti to shoot some additional action scenes for the film after Sturges had left the project. These scenes are incorporated very well into the final product, and I agree that they add value.
Without the typical Bronson action, we’re left with a perfectly cast Bronson interacting with the supporting characters in ways that are atypical for his filmography. Bronson and Vincent Van Patten work well off each other, and Van Patten is phenomenal as the teenage Jamie. I love that their relationship evolves into something meaningful as the movie progresses. Chino learns that he can trust the boy who seems to emerge as a young man right before our eyes. And then there’s the relationship between Chino and Catherine, played by Bronson’s wife Jill Ireland. Not quite as effective as the Chino / Jamie relationship, it’s still character driven and unique. Chino shows a tenderness towards her in a couple of scenes that we’re not used to seeing presented onscreen, even if one of the moments is brought on by the admittedly odd inclusion of the two watching his stud mount a beautiful wild mare. Ireland is extremely beautiful, so it’s not completely surprising that the self-sufficient Chino would fall for her. Unfortunately, while the Chino / Jamie relationship strengthens throughout the film, the Chino / Catherine relationship eventually goes the other way leading to the somewhat surprising, some might say disappointing, finale.
After watching the restored Blu-ray presentation by Kino Lorber, I can confidently say that CHINO is a good Charles Bronson film that features one of his best performances. It’s still not in my personal Bronson top ten, but if you’re a fan of Charles Bronson the actor, then this a must-watch. It’s my opinion, after having read the book and watched the movie, that no other actor could have brought the character of Chino Valdez alive in a stronger way than Charles Bronson. It was the perfect combination of actor and character, and I’ll stand by that opinion to the end.
Johnny Mack Brown rides across the old west until he reaches a seemingly abandoned ranch. Someone takes a shot at him with a gold bullet. It’s because the the ranch has a reputation for being haunted and everyone knows that the only way to take care of a ghost is to shoot at it with gold bullets.
Through the Shattered Lens 