Monster Hunter (2021) - Movie Review

Oh goodie, Paul W. S. Anderson has found another video game franchise he can milk dry. Yeah, suffice it to say, I wasn’t really looking forward to this one largely because of his attachment to it (although, as I’ll get into, his isn’t the only name that spells trouble for this whole thing). Having sat through his last film with Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, easily one of the messiest and incoherent action films of the 2010s, if not ever, I went into this expecting the same level of aggrandising clutter. And yet, while that is certainly what I got out of this, this is the first film I’ve seen from Anderson in a long time where I find myself debating if this film is still entertaining in spite of his… eccentricities, let’s say.

Cut Throat City (2020) - Movie Review

The RZA earned his stripes as a cinematic storyteller long before he ever picked up the camera. That’s what made the first wave of Wu-Tang albums so fucking good: They all felt like mini-movies devoted to a single sense. The hard-body kung-fu of 36 Chambers, the stoner horror of Tical, the outsider comedy of ODB’s solo debut, the Godfather-tier Mafioso yarn of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, the thinking man’s chambara of Liquid Swords, the blaxploitation of Ironman, even the panoramic victory lap of Wu-Tang Forever; the RZA did what any director does and surrounded himself with capable writers and actors who wound up influencing the entire genre around them in one fell swoop.

Which is why the RZA’s first step into visual cinema with The Man With The Iron Fists, as fire as the soundtrack was, felt like a misstep. It was too raw (read: unrefined) and felt more like fan worship of the genre it sits in than him putting his own boot print on it. And when he followed that up with a directing spot on Iron Fist (AKA the worst of the Netflix Marvel series), him being in that chair just felt like a bad idea. Maybe his own ability to control the maestro stayed in the vocal booth. But I decided to relent and give his latest a try, and man, am I glad I did.

Get Hard (2015) - Movie Review

For the third time now in as many months, I am once again looking at a film starring the man who I can now rightfully call my nemesis: Kevin Hart. It’s not that I have any real hate for the guy himself, as I really don’t have any reason to; I just don’t like his work on screen and it feels like we’ve been getting more and more of it since I formed that opinion. After the lameality of Ride Along last year and the current frontrunner for worst of 2015 The Wedding Ringer, I have no genuine desire to see anything he’s involved in. The only exception to this is Top Five, but then again he was in all of one scene in that movie and he served his purpose as well as can be expected. I’d call this the film I was looking forward to the least this season, but I’ll be getting to that one later on in the week. So, can the added boost of the occasionally funny Will Ferrell save this in my eyes?