Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington team up for another Equalizer sequel, this time moving the story to gorgeous Italy. With picturesque backdrops the power duo attempt to do something more with the Robert McCall character, but this one, despite sharing the story with Man On Fire co-star Dakota Fanning doesn’t quite have the punch of…
Tag: violence
Avatar: The Last Airbender – Book 3: Fire (2008) – The Southern Raiders, and The Ember Island Players
We are racing to the conclusion of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and there’s lots going on. After Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen) and the gang are forced to separate and make an escape from the Air Temple following an attack by Fire Nation forces led by Azula (Grey Griffin), Zuko (Dante Basco) wants to prove himself…
Zero Cool (1969) – Micheal Crichton
Zero Cool is a a rapid-fire thriller from Micheal Crichton written under his pen-name of John Lange while he was in med-school. A riff on the ordinary man caught up in extraordinary circumstances that seems to have shades of North by Northwest to it, the tale follows Dr. Pete Ross, a radiologist on his first…
High Plains Drifter (1973) – Clint Eastwood
High Plains Drifter marked the first time Eastwood directed a western. Keeping in line with the work he put in on his spaghetti westerns, the movie is a darker, grittier style western, as opposed to the type of film made prior to them. To illustrate that the Stranger he’s playing is a bad dude, Eastwood…
The Shadow of the Wind (2001) – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A friend of mine recommended this book to me, and I found myself completely swept away in the tale that is a love letter to books and Barcelona (it even comes with a walking tour at the end of the book which will allow those in the city to visit all the sites mentioned in…
Sisu (2022) – Jalmari Helander
Sometimes you just want a little of the old ultra-violence and you want to see nazis get the comeuppance you know they deserve. Sisu will check that box for you. Running a brisk ninety minutes there is blood, gore and violence galore as we join an older prospector (Jorma Tommila) in 1944 Finland. He’s left…
Deadpool (2016) – Tim Miller
Ryan Reynolds was made for the role of Deadpool, the Marvel meta-merc. His appearance as the character in Wolverine: Origins was horrible, and this is nothing but redeeming, and insanely funny. While the film is an origin story, showing how Wade Wilson (Reynolds) became Deadpool, it also knows to make fun of itself and origin…
The Substitute (1996) – Robert Mandel
Its action sequences are flawed, and don’t look anywhere as near as cool, and sharp as they could, but 1996’s The Substitute (which spawned three increasingly bad direct-to-video sequels) is packed with familiar faces. The cast is led by Tom Berenger, and includes Raymond Cruz, Luis Guzman, William Forsythe, Rodney, A. Grant, Ernie Hudson, Marc…
Live at Five (1999) – Raymond Benson
007 is back. Raymond Benson wrote a short story, just in time for the premiere of The World is Not Enough. It was published in TV Guide and gives a brief glimpse of a Cold War defection that James Bond was involved in. Set in the United States following a botched attempt in London, Bond…
Road House (1989) – Rowdy Herrington
Patrick Swayze plays Dalton, a lethal but zen bouncer in the cult-favorite, Road House, which also features the famed blind Canadian guitarist Jeff Healey as the bar band of the Double Deuce. Dalton is hired by Tilghman (Kevin Tighe) to help change his bar, the Double Deuce, into something a little more profitable. It has…
The Mind Reels 