Tag Archives: Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Insomnia File #67: Heist (dir by Scott Mann)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you find yourself awake later tonight, you can always go over to Tubi and watch the 2015 direct-to-video action thriller, Heist.

Heist takes place in Louisiana.  Francis “The Pope” Silva (Robert De Niro) is a mobster and businessman who owns a riverboat casino.  The Pope lives his life according to a set of simple but very specific rules.  He doesn’t lend money.  He doesn’t forgive people who betray him.  If you steal from him, he will track you down and he will get his money back and he will make you regret your decision.  Working as his main henchman is the sadistic Dog (Morris Chestnut).  The Pope’s former main henchman was a man named Luke Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) but Luke grew tired of the violence and walked away from it all.  Now, Luke works as a dealer in The Pope’s casino.  His daughter is sick and Luke desperately needs $300,000 to pay her medial bills.  When The Pope refuses to give him the money, Luke teams up with security guard Jason Cox (Dave Bautista) and sets out to rob the place.

The robbery is carefully planned by Luke but, inevitably, things go wrong.  A security guard shows up earlier than he was supposed to.  A shootout leads to Jason’s best friend, Dante (Stephen Cyrus Sepher), getting shot.  The getaway driver panics and drives off, leading to Luke, Cox, and Dante hijacking a bus.  Cox orders the bus driver (D.B. Sweeney) to take them to Galveston but Luke is more concerned with getting the money to his daughter.  Meanwhile, two police officers — Kris Bajos (Gina Carano) and Detective Marconi (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) — follow the bus, each pursuing their own agenda.

Considering that this film is basically a low budget rip-off of Speed (albeit without a bomb threatening to take out the cast), Heist has an impressive cast and they all do a good job of elevating the film above its B-movie origins.  Don’t get me wrong.  There are hundreds of plot holes to be found in Heist.  The film’s big twist really doesn’t make much sense when you think about it.  But, in the end, Heist is an entertaining thrill ride that moves quickly enough that most viewers really won’t have time to obsess on all the lapses of logic.  Morgan plays his role with just enough heart that you want his criminal to succeed.  De Niro brings some extra layers to a role that could have been a caricature.  There’s a brief scene in which he meets his estranged daughter (Kate Bosworth) and, as a result, you suddenly see his character in an entirely new light.  As a character who seems like a much more sinister version of Zach Morris, Mark-Paul Gosselaar keeps you guessing.  And finally, Gina Carano — years before her cancellation — gives an earnest performance that works despite her character being rather inconsistently written.

Heist is an entertaining and fast-paced action film with a good cast and an interesting story.  If you can’t sleep, you might as well be entertained.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It

October True Crime: Texas Killing Fields (dir by Ami Canaan Mann)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The so-called Texas Killing Fields are a stretch of land situated off of Interstate-45 and about 26 miles southeast of Houston.  Despite being surrounded by oil refineries and being near one of Texas’s busier interstates, it’s a location where one can easily disappear.  Since 1971, over 30 bodies have been found in the Texas Killing Fields, the majority of them being girls and young women.  Many of them came from the surrounding area but others were last seen far away from Houston.  Kelli Cox, for instance, disappeared from Denton.  Jessica Cain was last seen in a suburb of Fort Worth.  Michelle Garvey disappeared from Connecticut, just for her body to later be discovered in the Texas Killing Fields.

Because of the number of bodies and the length of time, it’s believed that multiple serial killers use the killing fields as a dumping ground for their victims.  Over the years, there’s been many suspects and a few convictions.  Most recently, a trucker named William Reece was convicted of three of the Killing Fields murders.  Another person convicted of committing two of the murders, Michael Self, is now believed to have been innocent and to have only confessed after being tortured by the police.  Unfortunately, Self died in prison while waiting for his appeal to be heard.

The 2011 film, Texas Killing Fields, is very loosely based on the murders and the area’s reputation for being a serial killer dumping ground.  Sam Worthington plays Detective Mike Souder and Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays his partner, Detective Brian Heigh.  (The characters are based on real-life detectives Brian Goetschius and Mike Land.)  Brian is originally from New York and is a devout Catholic who views his work as almost being a holy crusade.  Mike is from Texas and is a bit more cynical.  He’s not happy that Brian insists on helping out Mike’s ex-wife, Detective Pam Stall (Jessica Chastain), whenever a body is found in Pam’s jurisdiction.

The discovery of a dead sex worker leads to Mike and Brian pursuing two pimps (played by Jason Clarke and Jon Eyez).  However, it soon becomes apparent that the pimps aren’t the only murderers stalking the area and using the fields as a dumping ground.  A young mother is attacked in her house and, when interrogated by Mike and Brian, demands to know why they aren’t out on the streets, looking for the men who attacked her.  Later, a mysterious phone call leads Mike, Brian, and Pam out to the killing fields, where they discover another body.

While this is going on, Brian also tries to look after Anne Sliger (Chloe Grace Moretz), a 12 year-old girl who spends her time wandering around town because it’s preferable to spending any time at her home with her mother (Sheryl Lee) or her mother’s creepy boyfriend (Stephen Graham).  When Anne is kidnapped, Brian and Mike head into the Killing Fields to find her.

Directed by Ami Canaan Mann, The Texas Killing Fields is an atmospheric film in which every frame is full of a sense of dread.  Much as David Fincher did with Zodiac, Mann creates a feeling of a world that has been taken over by evil.  Unfortunately, the film itself gets bogged down with a few subplots that don’t really go anywhere.  (Jessica Chastain’s character and her relationship with Mike felt somewhat superfluous.)  As well, the film’s examination of both Mike’s atheism and Brian’s Catholicism felt a bit shallow at best, as if it was added at the last minute to try to give this thriller some theological heft.  The identity of all the killers is pretty obvious from the start.  That said, Ami Canaan Mann gets good performances out of her cast and the action scenes are well-executed.

As a final note, the film was not actually shot in the actual Texas Killing Fields.  Instead, much like the same year’s Killer Joe and 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club, it was filmed in Louisiana and, to be honest, it looks like it was filmed there as well.  There’s little about the film that feels authentically Texan, though it does do a good job of capturing the atmosphere of the bayous.

TV Review: The Walking Dead 11.14 “The Rotten Core” (dir by Marcus Stokes)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve always wondered how little Herschel would react when he eventually met Negan and learned that Negan was responsible for killing Glenn.

I mean, we all knew that it would happen eventually because, let’s face it …. Maggie and Negan are totally in love!  It’s going to take them a while to admit it, of course.  Maggie’s busy ruling Hilltop like a dictator and Negan’s got a new wife.  Plus, there’s the whole thing where Negan savagely murdered Glenn and then spent a few seasons gloating about it.  I mean, it’s going to take a while to move on from all of that.  Taking all of that into consideration, Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan still have more legitimate chemistry than anyone else on this show and Maggie and Negan are definitely in love.  Plus, they’re scheduled to get their own spin-off, where they both move to the most romantic city in America, New York!  Not only does that mean that Hilltop is probably screwed (because why else would Maggie leave) but it also means that Maggie and Negan are destined to fall in love while listening to Dean Martin sing That’s Amore.

And the question has always been, how would Herschel react?  Well, this week, we got our answer.  After discovering that bratty little Herschel had snuck into the Apartment Complex, Negan agreed to keep an eye on him while Maggie and the other Hilltoppers continued to fight off a combination of walkers and Commonwealth soldiers.  It didn’t take long for Herschel to figure out that Negan was the man who killed his father.  Herschel pointed a gun at Negan but was eventually talked out of shooting him, proving that Herschel is ready to forgive and it’s time to let the healing begin!

Just as Herschel was discovering that Negan killed Glenn, Darryl was discovering that the Commonwealth isn’t as much of a paradise as he perhaps originally thought.  He and Rosita was ordered by Sebastian to enter his old house and retrieve his cash.  The only problem was that the house was full of walkers!  In not very subtle terms, Sebastian threatened Darryl’s children.  Inside the house, Darryl and Rosita discovered that they were not the first people to be ordered into the House of Death.  There was also April, whose children were also threatened by Sebastian.  Apparently, threatening people’s children is Sebastian’s thing.  Fortunately, Carol and Mercer showed up to help.  Unfortunately, they still had to give the money to Sebastian because he’s Governor Milton’s son and, as a result, doesn’t have to face the consequences of his actions.

This was an okay episode, though it was hard not to feel that the whole thing with the Apartment Complex was a bit overextended.  The Complex invasion could have been wrapped up in one episode instead of stretching it out over two weeks.  That felt like a throwback to the days when almost every episode was Rick talking about something that he was going to do in a future episode as opposed to just going ahead and doing whatever needed to be done.  The Walking Dead has often had a bad habit of stretching things out a bit too far.  As far as the other subplot was concerned, we already know that Commonwealth is a bad place so devoting an entire episode to Darryl finally figuring it out felt a bit superfluous.

That said, the important thing is that this episode reminded us all that Negan and Maggie are totally in love, even if they won’t admit it.  Good for them.  The world may end but love never dies.

Horror TV Review: The Walking Dead 11.7 “Promises Broken” (dir by Sharat Raju)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s been such a busy week that it was only about an hour ago that I was finally able to sit down and actually watch last Saturday’s episode of The Walking Dead.  

As I watched Promises Broken, I found myself asking one question over and over again.  Can Maggie and Negan just kiss already?  Seriously, it’s totally obvious that Maggie and Negan are in love.  Even if the writers didn’t necessarily plan for them to be in love, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan definitely have the right chemistry for some Maggie/Negan action.  And I know some people are going to say that it’ll never happen because of what happened in the past but listen …. Glenn’s been dead for a long time.  Because of the time jump, he’s been dead even longer on the series than he has been in reality.  The world of the Walking Dead is a different place and traditional periods of mourning no longer hold much currency.  It’s time to move on.

This week, Negan did convince Maggie to stop plotting to kill him.  That was definitely a step forward.  Then he taught her how to wear a whisperer’s mask.  Awwwwww!  But then he said that he should have killed Rick’s entire party when he had the chance and that …. well, that was awkward.  I know I’ve been critical of the way the show has used Negan in the past but, this season, he’s gotten on my nerves a lot less and Jeffrey Dean Morgan finally seems to have a handle on the character.

As for the Reapers …. eh, who cares.  Pope sent Daryl and Leah on a scouting mission.  They came across a family of survivors.  They didn’t kill the survivors like they were supposed to.  Pope will probably be pissed off but Pope’s always pissed off so who cares?  The Reapers are like totally squaresville.  Real melvin.

Meanwhile, in the Commonwealth …. well, listen, I just love the Commonwealth!  There’s just something so brilliant about this gated, suburban community just sitting there in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.  So far, this season’s best scenes have been set in the Commonwealth and that continued to be true this week.  In the latest episode, Eugene and the Gang had to do community service by killing walkers.  Unfortunately, this led to Eugene and Stephanie interrupting a date between Sebastian Milton and his girlfriend, Kayla.  Sebastian, who is basically the preppy from Hell, got mad about the interruption.  Words were exchanged  Eugene punched Sebastian.  Uh-oh!  Sebastian is the son of Governor Milton!  Eugene ended up getting thrown in jail, where he was informed that he was going to stay imprisoned unless he gave up the location of Alexandria.  Is it is possible that all of this was just a set up to get Eugene to turn snitch?  Bravo, Commonwealth, bravo!

Interestingly enough, Sebastian Milton played a small but key role in the final few issues of The Walking Dead comic book.  After Rick (who was still around in the comic book) took over the Commonwealth and started to form an alliance with the recently deposed Governor Milton, a jealous Sebastian ended up killing him.  On the TV show, of course, Carl is dead and Rick is believed dead.  Unless the show is going to go super dark and kill off either Judith or Rick, Jr., there are no members of the Grimes family for Sebatian to kill.  In theory, who would Sebastian kill?  Ezekiel, with his leadership experience and his messianic tendencies, seem the most likely to take power in the Commonwealth so he might want to watch his back.

Next week is the finale of the first half of season 11.  So far, season 11 has been a bit uneven but it’s started to pick some momentum with the previous few episodes.  Hopefully, that momentum will continue to build and season 11 will give this show the conclusion that it deserves.

TV Review: The Walking Dead 11.5 “Out of the Ashes” (dir by Greg Nicotero)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As opposed to what we’ve previously seen since the start of the 11th season, this week’s episode of The Walking Dead focused on multiple storylines.

At the Satellite Outpost, Negan and Maggie continued to argue about whether or not anyone else in their party would be smart, lucky, or brave enough to join them.  At this point, Maggie and Negan pretty much sound like an old married couple and, considering the chemistry between Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, that could very well be what they end up becoming by the time the show ends.  Sorry, Glenn!  Anyway, this time Maggie won the argument because Gabriel and Elijah eventually showed up and proved that people could be depended upon.  Yay, Maggie!  Unfortunately, if Gabriel’s the best you go, you probably have bigger problems to deal with than just a philosophical disagreement.

At Alexandria, Judith tried to keep the other kids from taunting the Walkers and potentially getting everyone killed.  Judith had a point but seriously, no one likes a snitch.

Aaron, Carol, Lydia, and Jerry returned to the ruins of Hilltop on a supply run.  It turned out that Hilltop was also being used as a home by the last surviving Whisperers!  Their leader, Keith, insisted that the Whisperers were no longer a threat.  Aaron didn’t quite buy that and he wanted to torture and then kill Keith.  Fortunately, Carol talked him out of it.  Keith lost an arm but he got to keep his life.  And he also told them where Connie’s hiding!  Now, of course, is where I should remind our readers that, until the start of this season, I hadn’t really watched the show since Carl died so I’m not exactly sure who Connie is.  But I guess I’ll soon find out.

Meanwhile, at the Commonwealth, Eugene and the crew got to watch a really neat presentation on VHS tape that welcomed them into the community.  Eugene then went for a walk with Stephanie and nearly screwed everything up when he broke into the radio room and tried to contact Alexandria!  Or did he?  See, my theory is that the Commonwealth is still setting Eugene up.  They’re manipulating him to reveal everything that he knows about Alexandria but they’re doing it in a way that makes it seem as if they actually don’t want to know anything about Alexandria.  They’re manipulating him into contacting Alexandria by pretending like it’s something they don’t want him to do.  It’s all very clever and it’s the type of thing that Eugene always seems to fall for, despite the fact that he’s the smartest guy on the show.

This week’s episode, which was directed by Greg Nicotero, was a definite improvement over the past few episodes.  I liked the fact that it focused on several different groups, as opposed to getting bogged down with one repetitive storyline.  I liked that it revisited the Whisperers and showed that, as far as they were concerned, they were the heroes and the Alexandrians were the villains.  (The show has always been at its best when it has acknowledged that even the bad guys are just scared, lonely, and trying to survive the end of the world.)  The Judith subplot was handled well and showed that some things — like obnoxious children –are never going to change.

Mostly, though, I just liked the Commonwealth stuff.  From the minute I saw that introduction on the VHS tape, I was all about the Commonwealth.  The intro may have looked cheap and all the happy scenes were obviously staged but, seriously, it’s easy to see why some people would find it appealing after spending years fighting other humans and trying to avoid Walkers.  I loved the way the tape went from celebrating community to celebrating “security.”  It felt very relevant to our current times, a true libertarian’s nightmare.  You want to have ice cream and watch your kids play?  Then you’ve got to accept the legion of armored men watching everything that you do.  And, as always, I loved the oddball intensity of Josh McDermitt in the role of Eugene.  I would seriously watch a spin-off that was just Eugene going to different communities and voicing his disappointment with their life choices.

This was a good episode, one that took a look at how different communities are trying to find some sort of normalcy in the face of the zombie apocalypse.  The remains of the Whisperers are just scrounging to survive.  Alexandria is trying to balance the needs of the collective with the need of every human being to be an individual.  And the Commonwealth is living in denial, embracing the myth that random chaos can be controlled by strictly enforced order.  

I’m looking forward to seeing where things to go.  After a few weak episodes, The Walking Dead might be able to reclaim some of its lost narrative momentum.  Here’s hoping!

TV Review: The Walking Dead 11.2 “Acheron Part II” (dir by Kevin Dowling)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As a show, The Walking Dead has lately suffered a bit from the fact that there’s only so much you can do when civilization has collapsed and the world is full of zombies who only care about eating every living they come across. You can set up a little community of the living, one that will inevitably collapse because death is an unavoidable part of life and all it takes is one zombie to start an outbreak. You can keep moving, which might keep you alive for a little bit longer but still, death is inevitable. Or you can go batshit crazy and set yourself up as a dictator, which means that you’ll soon be as dangerous, deadly, and feared as the undead.

The lack of choice when it comes to what to do during a zombie apocalypse is one of the key parts of the genre and the best zombie films — like Romero’s Dead films for example — explore what happens to people when they find themselves in a hopeless situation. From Night of the Living Dead to Survival of the Living Dead, George Romero always remained consistent in that the undead were ultimately going to win. You simply can’t outrun death.

The first few seasons of The Walking Dead managed to capture that feeling of inescapable doom perfectly. However, now that The Walking Dead has started its eleventh season, it’s hard not to notice that there don’t seem to be any new stories left to be told. The Walking Dead has done it all and the series now often feels as if it’s just repeating itself. Last night’s episode was well-directed and well-acted (particularly by Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Josh McDermitt) but it just all felt a little bit too familiar.

Once again, we had Maggie and Negan coming to an uneasy truce while seemingly trapped in an inescapable location by a bunch of walkers. Even Maggie’s decision to leave Gage to be killed by the walkers felt like a replay of the same stuff that Rick used to do in almost every single episode. I felt sorry for Gage but I could see Maggie’s reasoning, just as I could understand Negan’s reasoning for leaving her behind last episode. It’s a dark world where only the ruthless and unsentimental survive. We already knew that, though. A few season’s ago, Gage’s death would have been shocking but, after 11 seasons, everyone watching should have known Gage would eventually end up dead. Darryl, of course, saved everyone because that’s what Darryl does. At the end of the episode, we met a new group of masked villains, the Reapers. And, again, we’ve been through all this before. There’s always a new group of villains showing up and they always announce their presence by killing a minor character. Sorry, Roy. The plot mechanics demand that you die.

Meanwhile, Eugene, Princess, Ezekiel, and Yumiko have been accepted as citizens of the Commonwealth which …. hasn’t this happened before? Again, it all felt very familiar and rather expected, right down to the sudden introduction of a woman claiming to be Stephanie, the woman that Eugene was trying to find. At this point, it’s pretty obvious that the woman is not really Stephanie and Stephanie probably doesn’t exist but was instead an elaborate ruse that the Commonwelath came up with to trick Eugene.

The sad truth of the matter is that all shows eventually run out of stories to tell and they end up recycling. Just think about the final three seasons of The Office, where everyone was suddenly developing an unrequited crush on a coworker in an attempt to recreate some of the Jim/Pam magic of the first four seasons. Running out of new stories to tell is especially likely to happen when your entire show revolves around how impossible it is to avoid death. As well-directed and well-acted as last night’s episode was, it still left me with the feeling that The Walking Dead has run out of new stories. The actors will always hold my interest but, from a narrative point of view, it’s definitely time for this apocalypse to come to an end.

Insomnia File #38: Six: The Mark Unleashed (dir by Kevin Downes)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1pd9Jr_bgA

If on Sunday night, if you were having trouble getting to sleep around midnight and if you lived in North Texas, you could have turned over to channel 58 and watched a 2004 film called Six: The Mark Unleashed.

Six: The Mark Unleashed is an evangelical film about the end of the world.  By that, I mean there’s a lot of talk about tribulation, the mark of the Beast, and all the rest of that.  The whole world is one big secular dystopia, in which people who refuse to accept the mark of the beast are sent to prison and given the choice of either getting the mark or getting their head chopped off.

I think one reason why so many faith-based films deal with the end of the world is because it allows characters to rebel, break the law, blow stuff up, and steal cars while still getting to remain a believer.  I mean, usually, you run into the problems of turning the other cheek and giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s but, once you’ve been left behind, you can pretty much do anything you want because you’re fighting against Satan.

Now, admittedly, the car thieves in Six aren’t into religion.  They’re just rebels who didn’t want to get the mark and who are talked into stealing a car by Eric Roberts.  (That’s right, Eric Roberts is in this movie.  Eventually, Eric Roberts will be in every movie.)  Anyway, the two thieves get caught in that stolen car and they get sent to prison.

Also getting sent to prison is Tow Newman, who is a smuggler who was arrested by his own ex-wife!  Tom is given the option of either losing his head or infiltrating a group of Christians and killing their leader.  What’s interesting about this is that Tom is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan.  That’s right.  Negan is in this movie!  Morgan goes all in and does a pretty good job as Tom.  In fact, I’d say his performance here is more interesting than his work on The Walking Dead.  It helps, of course, that Tom is the only person in the film who actually has a character arc.

Stephen Baldwin’s in the movie, too.  That’s not really a shock because it’s a proven statistic that 9 out of 10 evangelical movies will feature Stephen Baldwin.  Anyway, Baldwin plays Luke, who is a prison preacher and who teaches everyone about peace and forgiveness.  He gets beat up for his troubles.

In the end, it all leads to three characters being tortured until they agree to accept the mark of the beast.  Two of them refuse and lose their heads.  One says yes and regrets it forever.  Try to guess who does what!  It’s fun.

Anyway, I have to admit that I always find these low-budget, independent films to be a little bit fascinating.  It’s always interesting to me to see movies that were obviously made with one very specific audience in mind, whether that audiences is religious, political, or whatever.  Six is the type of film that, quite literally, preaches to the choir.  Those who share its vision of the end of the world will nod in agreement.  Those who do not will roll their eyes.  Both sides will probably end up getting too worked up, since that’s what people tend to do.  Myself, I just find myself wondering if there’s any role that Eric Roberts would turn down.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita

RAMPAGE – Review by Case Wright, ALT Title – The Video Game Movie Curse Is Broken by Dwayne’s Awesome Arms!

Posted on by casewright

Rampage-Movie-

I thoroughly enjoyed this film!! Why? Because it’s a Dwayne Johnson movie.  He’s an actor, a brand, and you know what you’re going to get.  EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.  Did it have a couple of slow moments?  Yep.  Were the characters, especially the villains, one dimensional or 8-Bit?  Sure.  But, so what? Rampage is fun and sometimes it’s great to take a bath in nostalgia and see some shit blow up.

A Dwayne Johnson movie is really a sub-genre all its very own.  I won’t compare it to other movies.  His movies are also fun because we just like Dwayne Johnson so much as a Man that we feel like he’s a friend.  It becomes reflexive that we hear Dwayne Johnson has a movie out, it’s as if one of our friends just made one.  I told a guy at work that I was going to see a Dwayne Johnson movie, he knew exactly what I meant, and he referred to Dwayne Johnson as a National Treasure.  Yes, we’re now getting married in the fall and are registered at Pottery Barn.

I played Rampage when I was a wee bairn.  In fact, with the help of my friend Robbie, we stayed up all night and destroyed the whole country. Congratulations! I, like every boy in the Y-Generation, was excited for this film.  Sidenote: sorry everyone, Millenials are no more, you’ve been folded into Y, but take heart – “Even children get older, I’m gettin older …too.”

An Evil Corporation, run ostensibly by Ivanka Trump and her Generic Trump brother, create a virus that mutate ordinary animals into genetically spliced super-creatures that run amok.  That’s it- that’s the plot- and like the video game upon which it was based, Rampage the Film is beautifully Wabi Sabi.

The film begins with The Rock who is closed off from people because after seeing their terrible acts in war and poaching, he just can’t let them in. *sniff*  The Rock’s best friend is George- an albino gorilla- who can sign.  Soon, the Trump family look alikes’ experiment accidentally infects George, a wolf, a crocodile, and a partridge in a pear tree. The Partridge Monster doesn’t actually destroy anything, but he blatantly re-gifts Christmas presents; therefore, he’s the worst monster of all because he destroys your self-esteem.

George, the wolf, and crocodile get BIGGER, the government – embodied by Jeffrey Dean Morgan- try to stop the monsters, but can’t.  Jeffrey becomes an ally of The Rock, helping him along the way with helicopter keys, air strikes, and lending him his edger so The Rock can really make his lawn POP for barbecue season.  The Trumps put out a signal to draw the monsters to Chicago, hoping they’ll kill each other off.  The Trumps hope that they’ll be able to take a sample of the monster flesh, replicate it, and sell it to whomever.  It doesn’t go well.  The monsters go nuts.  I’m not going to spoil anything.  Needless to say, the last 40 minutes of the film are amazingly satisfying.

Congratulations! Dwayne you’ve done it! The Video Game Curse is Broken.

 

TV Review: The Walking Dead 8.9 “Honor” (dir by Greg Nicotero)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, has everyone seen the latest episode of The Walking Dead?  If not, why are you reading this review?  I ask because, on another site that I write for, I’ve got two people bitching at me for revealing too many spoilers about the shows that I review and, as a result, I felt the need to post an apology to those people.  As far as apologies go, it was fairly passive-aggressive and I’d hate to have to be that insincere on this site.  So, in other words, if you haven’t watched the latest episode of The Walking Dead, don’t read this review.  Thanks!

(Okay, I think I’ve rambled on long enough that anyone who didn’t want spoilers should have left by now.)

On Sunday night, the eighth season of AMC’s The Walking Dead resumed and oh my God, I have got such mixed feelings about what I just watched.  Before I go any further, allow me to share something that I tweeted back in April of 2017:

In other words, I can’t say that I’m shocked that Carl’s dead.  In fact, to a certain extent, I kind of respect the show for following through as opposed to coming up with some last-minute contrivance to allow Carl to live.  At the same time, I do think that the death of Carl has robbed the show of some potentially intriguing future storylines.  In the comic, Carl is still alive and he’s even bonded a bit with Negan.  During Season 7, the show seemed to be laying the foundation for that storyline but apparently, Negan’s going to have to bond with some other kid now.  Maybe Henry.  Maybe Judith.

I guess the main thing that bothers me about Carl’s death is that I really do feel that it was mostly due to the fact that the show’s pace has slowed down to such an extent that Chandler Riggs was getting too old to play the role. The Walking Dead has been on the air for 8 seasons but how many years have actually passed in the show?  It’s hard to say but really, it doesn’t seem like Carl should be any older than 14 or maybe 15.  Meanwhile, Chandler Riggs is closing in on 19.  It’s hard not to feel that the show’s producers decided to kill Carl off rather than maybe just wrap up a few storylines and have season 9 open with a “Four years after the defeat of the Saviors” title card.

Myself, I’ve frequently gotten annoyed with Carl as a character, even though I’ve always appreciated Chandler Riggs’s performance.  That said, Carl was one of the few characters left on the show with room to grow.  Rick is never going to change.  If Negan does become the friendly gardener that we saw in Carl’s fantasy, it’s going to have more to do with expedience than anything else.  Carl, though, was still discovering who he was and what he believed.  The majority of the characters have spent the last three or four seasons in a rut.  By virtue of being young, Carl was one of the few characters who actually had a chance of breaking out of that rut.

I mean, to be absolutely honest, I always assumed that the show would end with Carl shooting Rick before he could reanimate.  If you go all the way back to season 1, that’s the ending that the show has appeared to be logically building up to.  Now, I guess Judith will have to do it.

As for the episode itself … again, my feelings were mixed.  This episode was determined to wring every last drop of emotion out of Carl’s passing.  When it worked, it was largely due to the performances of Riggs, Danai Gurira, and the always underrated Andrew Lincoln.  At the same time, there was a part of me that started to resent just how much the show dragged out Carl’s death.  I know that AMC likes to do “super-sized” episodes of The Walking Death but, in this case, I think this episode would have been more effective if it had just been an hour.  Yes, that single gunshot was heart-rendering but, up until I heard it, there was a part of me that feared the show was planning to drag Carl’s death out over the entire rest of the season.

While Carl was dying, Carol, Morgan, and a few other people went off to rescue Ezekiel.  Gavin, who was always one of the most obnoxious of the Saviors, is now dead and yay for that.  Morgan has apparently decided that he’s okay with killing people again.  Morgan also apparently now has Jason Voorhees-style super strength.

It wasn’t a bad episode, though it certainly didn’t carry the power that it would have carried if it had happened during the fourth or fifth season.  On the one hand, I’ve always appreciated the fact that anyone can die on The Walking Dead.  On the other hand, characters die so frequently (and then pop up on the Talking Dead to say goodbye) that it’s now easy to get cynical about the whole thing.

In fact, it may be too early to say whether The Walking Dead handled Carl’s death the right way.  It depends on how this all plays out.  Will the show use Carl’s death as an excuse to go off in an unexpected direction or will we promptly get back to Negan chuckling and Rick giving speeches?  I’m actually looking forward to next week, just because I’m interested in seeing which Rick we’re going to get.  Are we going to get the crazy Rick who appeared after Lori died or are we going to get the catatonic Rick who showed up after Negan executed Abraham and Glenn?  Or maybe it’ll be the return of the Stoic Rick who shot zombie Sophia because he knew he had no other choice.  Which Rick will it be?

We’ll find out next week … hopefully.

 

TV Review: The Walking Dead 8.8 “How It’s Gotta Be” (dir by Michael E. Satrazemis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

SPOILER ALERT!  DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW UNLESS YOU’VE WATCHED THE LATEST EPISODE OF THE WALKING DEAD!  SERIOUSLY, I’M NOT KIDDING!

Right now, I would say that 75% of The Walking Dead fandom is heartbroken.  The end of tonight’s episode has generated some very real angst among some people.

As for me, I’m actually feeling rather proud of myself because I predicted that all this would happen.  I predicted it way back on November 5th and I’ve even got the tweet to prove it.  But, before I go on, I think it might be good to consider the words of a song from 1965.  Here are the Poets with That’s Way It’s Got To Be:

See, it all gets back to what has always been the underlying theme of The Walking Dead.  Nobody is going to get out of this show alive.  It doesn’t matter how good you are.  It doesn’t matter how likable you are.  It doesn’t matter how much the audience loves you.  Everyone on this show is eventually going to die.  The only question is whether someone will be around to keep them from reanimating afterward.  Negan, Rick, Maggie, Carol, Daryl, Michonne, Eugene … none of them are going to get out of this alive.  Death will come for everyone eventually and tonight, it appears that it’s coming for Carl.

As I tweeted on November 5th…

Tonight’s episode featured a lot of Carl.  When Negan and the Saviors showed up at Alexandria and demanded that Rick be given to them, Carl is the one who offered to sacrifice his life so that the rest could live.  (And, of course, we now know why Carl was willing to do that.  He literally had nothing to lose.)  When the Saviors were blowing up Alexandria, we watched as Carl made his way through the flaming wreckage of his former home.  Throughout the show, we got flashbacks of Carl arguing with Rick about Rick’s harsh philosophy.  Tonight, we saw more of Carl then we’ve seen in a while and I spent the whole show assuming that meant that Carl was probably not going to come to a good end…

But still, it’s hard to overstate the emotional impact of seeing Carl there at the end, bitten by a walker and fighting to breathe.  As Chris Hardwick and Khary Payton stated at the start of Talking Dead, Chandler Riggs really did grow up over the past few seasons of The Walking Dead.  It’s always kind of been easy to make jokes at Carl’s expense.  Early on in the show, it always seemed inevitable that he would end up getting lost or picked up the by the wrong people.  Whenever I live tweeted those early seasons of The Walking Dead, I almost always suggested that the ideal solution to almost any problem would be to sacrifice Carl.  But tonight, Chandler Riggs showed why Carl has become a favorite of many fans of this show.  The episode ended with Carl still alive but fading.  Will he die?  I really don’t see how he can’t.  He’s been bitten on his side so it’s not like they can just chop off a limb, like they did with Herschel.  If the show is to have any integrity, Carl has to die and he will be missed.

Up until that final scene with Carl, tonight’s episode could have just as easily been called “Everyone Better Do What Rick Says.”  Darryl took it upon himself to crash that truck into wall of the Sanctuary, which is actually what Rick did not want him to do.  As a result, the Saviors escaped, were able to launch a counter attack, destroy Alexandria, and take over The Kingdom.  Carl, meanwhile, went off on his own, helped out Siddiq, and ended up getting bitten for his trouble.  From now on, everyone better listen to Rick.

Rick got the line of the night when he asked Negan, “Don’t you ever shut the Hell up?”  That’s something that I’ve been wondering for a season and a half now.  Tonight, Negan actually lived up to his fearsome reputation.  As for the other Saviors, Simon made me say, “Oh God, this fucking guy again…” as soon as he got out of that truck and Gavin came across like a teacher trying to control an unruly classroom.  I guess Dwight is officially a part of Rick’s group now.

This was sometimes a hard episode to watch, not because it was bad but because it literally took place in the dark.  All of the action played out at night and the show actually did good job of using the darkness to its advantage.  There was an eerie and horrible beauty to scenes of Alexandria burning to the ground.

But you know what?

In the end, all anyone is going to remember about this episode is that final scene with Carl.

That’s the way it’s got to be.

And with that, The Walking Dead is on hiatus.  Season 8 will resume in 2018 and so will our coverage!