I hadn’t seen this movie since I saw it in the theaters. I remember that it was on all the loop tapes we played in the video store I worked in. I saw the clips of the monkeys in the police car, and the animal stampede countless times, so much so that it almost overpowered…
Tag: budget
The Beastmaster (1982) – Don Coscarelli
I remember seeing The Beastmaster back in the early 80s on one of the free First Choice/Super Channel weekends. I liked it a lot at ten years old, and hadn’t seen it since. So I was curious if I was going to enjoy it. The opening credits and title cards made me dubious, but over…
Clerks (1994) – Kevin Smith
I remember when Clerks came to VHS. I was working at a video store and it resonated with everyone of us. It was like someone had taken our lives and put it on the screen. We as a crew identified so much with the film that we’d printed up labels with our names on it…
If Looks Could Kill (1991) – William Dear
Richard Grieco takes on the super-spy genre in this teen action comedy. There are nods to the established tropes of the genre, filled with lots of teen humor. Grieco is Michael Corben. An almost high school graduate. He’s receives an incomplete. The only impossible way for him to get the missing credits… join the French…
Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) – Brian Taylor
I love the character of Hellboy, both the cinematic and the source material brought to life in the Mike Mignola’s comic books. However, this time out, thanks to budget constraints, which directly impacted actors, effects, camera et. al. what fans are given feels like a fan-film and not a studio one. Set in the early…
The Vigil (2019) – Keith Thomas
Once again, it’s thanks to Mike Flanagan and his podcast, Director’s Commentary, for introducing me to a film that I may have missed out on. The Vigil is a wonderful little horror film that has a quick runtime of ninety minutes, and uses every one of those to tell an engaging and spooky story. Yakov…
The Delta Force (1986) – Menahem Golan
Chuck Norris has never really done it for me when it comes to action movies. No matter what his martial arts skills, he’s not the best actor, and consequently, he found himself stuck in lower-budget action films, much like The Delta Force. But with all of it’s trappings and tropes, the film has a really…
Navy Seals (1990) – Lewis Teague
Navy Seals features a very recognizable cast, Micheal Biehn, Charlie Sheen, Dennis Haysbert, Rick Rossovich, Bill Paxton, Joanna Whalley. Unfortunately, the script is less than stellar, and Teague, while a capable director, has never been given a budget or script that has served him as well as they should. It’s a b-movie, with a solid…
22 Jump Street (2014) – Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
With some sly remarks about sequels, more of the same, but bigger, 22 Jump Street takes Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill) to college. Once again, the film walks a fine line between raunchy/silly comedy to delivering a commentary on relationships, bromance, and box-office budgets. When the pair are shipped off to college for…
Allan Quatermain & The Lost City of Gold (1986) – Gary Nelson
Gary Nelson, who directed my beloved The Black Hole, directed the sequel to 1985’s King Solomon’s Mines, Allan Quatermain & The Lost City of Gold, which was filmed back to back with the first film. In fact, it steals a large portion of Jerry Goldsmith’s score for the first film as a way to save…
The Mind Reels 