Well, It's Shorter Than Renaldo and Clara...

MASKED AND ANONYMOUS-2003-In a war torn fictitious country ruled by a dying dictator, a crooked music promoter Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman) plans a big musical benefit to aid the impoverished country but actually wants to keep all the proceeds for himself and pay off his debts. Unfortunately the only performer he can get is a once famous but now forgotten rock star Jack Fate (Bob Dylan) who's in prison. He's let out and goes by bus to perform. It turns out Jack was born and raised there and was childhood friends with the low life who plans to take over when the dictator dies (Mickey Rourke). Another musician Bobby Cupid (Luke Wilson) who joins Jack and his band "Simple Twist of Fate" (Dylan's real band) says he has a guitar that belonged to Blind Lemon Jefferson.

Meanwhile Sweetheart's wife?/girlfriend?/sister? Nina (Jessica Lange) insults him, complains, smokes a lot and cries. A government agent (Bruce Dern) sends a reporter (Jeff Bridges) to spy on the activities. He's accompanied by his religiously bent wife (Penelope Cruz). Other characters include an animal handler (Val Kilmer), a performer friend of Fate's father (Ed Harris in black face), a government whore (Angela Bassett), Christian Slater as a roadie, Fred Ward as a drunk and Cheech Marin in one scene with Dylan whose character mainly listens to others spouting their philosophy and has very little actual dialogue (he narrates much of it though). I didn't expect the violent ending. 

The film was written by Dylan and Larry Charles, both using pseudonyms. Charles was a former writer/producer for SEINFELD who later worked on a lot of TV shows (CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, THE TICK, DILBERT, ENTOURAGE) and directed nonsense like BORAT and BRUNO.  

Iron Ass

IRON MAN-2010-2-This film is the biggest joke of 2010! Iron Man is reduced to a clown in this talky nonsensical hit which is too long, over acted and just plain annoying. The first 30 minutes had me wondering if I was actually watching an Iron Man sequel or weird promotional short about Tony Stark.

Still in Academy Award nominated mode Mickey Rourke (with Russian accent) shows up as Whiplash, a revenge seeking super villain but the initial fight is him against an Iron Man-less Stark. Don Cheadle returns as Rhodey Rhodes and dons the War Machine armor to battle a drunk Iron Man in a lounge at the Stark Expo in Flushing Meadow Park. Samuel L. Jackson has a bigger role this time as Nick Fury who says witty things like "I've got my eye on you". Scarlett Johansson is the Black Widow (this is also unfortunately seems like a major introduction for a her character). Sam Rockwell is Justin Hammer, Stark's moronic villainous rival and Gary Shandling plays a senator who wants the Iron Man suit turned over to the evil US. Oh yeah, Gwyeth Paltrow is back as Pepper Potts who somehow becomes in charge of Stark Enterprises.

Later Whiplash programs War Machine to go after Iron Man and the all out climax begins when giant Transformer like robots are let loose. Director Jon Favreau (from Queens, NY) plays Happy Hogan. I hope he sticks to acting.

Also with John Slattery, Kate Mara, Leslie Bibb, Clark Gregg and the voice of Paul Bettany. Stan Lee has a cameo and there's a post credit scene relating to Thor.

I have to admit though Downey plays a great asshole

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They Definately Live Up To Their Name!

THE EXPENDABLES-2010-Director and star Sylvester Stallone is Barney Ross who leads a mercenary group which includes Jet Li, Jason Stratham, Randy Couture and Terry Crews. Dolph Lundgren is also part of the team but gets kicked out. Ross wants Tool (Mickey Rourke) to take his place.

Despite the odd ball cast promotion most of the film is Stallone and Stratham trying to save the daughter (Giselle Itie’) of a dictator (David Zayas) who’s teamed with an ex-CIA agent (Eric Roberts, the only real actor in the group and he wasn't even featured in the ads!) who’s bodyguard is played by pro wrestler Steve Austin. Li gets to do some martial arts toward the end and the climax is an all out violent gun and hand to hand battle. The best fight occurs during this sequence. But Stallone isn’t a great director and there’s too much CGI effects. This was a real hyped up movie that fails to deliver anything that hasn’t been done already in countless direct to video movies!

As of this writing a sequel is planned to include Jean Claude Van Damme...

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Three The Bad Way

DOUBLE TEAM-1997-This movie is terrible. Mickey Rourke is the villian and Dennis Rodman is a good guy! Jean Claude Van Damme of course is the actual star. He spends a lot of time holding his breath under water and kicks bad guys in the head. He really needs acting lessons though and his English is still atrocious. Rourke does his usual non-acting and looks like he's had bad plastic surgery. Rodman's dialogue contains a lot of basketball refrences but Kareem Abdul-Jabar was better in GAME OF DEATH. It's all pretty annoying despite the fact it was directed by Hark Tsui who made ONCE UOPN A TIME IN CHINA and PEKING OPERA BLUES! Well, it worked for John Woo! The one good fight takes place in a hotel room. Hark didn't learn his lesson though and directed Van Dumme in the even worst KNOCK OFF the next year. Fortunately he returned to Hong Kong later on and made TIME AND TIDE, ZU WARRIORS and BLACK MASK 2.



Director Paul Nicholas aka Lutz Schaarwhachter is responsible for such dreck as JULIE DARLING, CHAINED HEAT and NAKED CAGE. He also made the bizarre NIGHT OF THE ARCHER (1994) wherein a lot of bow and arrow shenanigans take place on an estate owned by sleazy Joseph Bologna and his frigid wife Barbara Carrera. At dinner they insult each other and while their daughter (Avital Dicker) goes head to head in a tournament with a greasy biker (Eric Roberts wannabe Jeff Griggs) being chased by two idiot gangsters. Sandahl Bergman shows up as a horse trainer and Bologna's character winds up dead. Who did it? Who cares? Every one in this shot in Germany dog is weird.........



By it's title alone BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER (2002) should speak volumes. Volumes of "stay away", "do not rent", "do not watch". The only people who should go ballistic are the poor unfortunate movie goers who got suckered into paying to see this trash that should have gone directly to video.

Antonio Banderas (looking like he's been up all night snorting coke with Melanie Griffith) plays some kind of ex-agent who whispers alot. Lucy Liu (obviously being groomed to be the new Karen Black) is another agent who kidnaps Banderas' son, kills about a hundred people and is suppose to evoke sympathy from the (hopefully very gullible) audience. Gregg Henry (who when he's seen in a silly fedora looks like he could play the lead if they ever decided to make a bio of that guy on The Quaker Oats Box) is another agent and "bad guy" but it's quite confusing when you like the villian (who can at least act) better than the supposed lead "good guys" (who are stiffs). There's lots of violent explosions and shootouts but movies like this give the term "action film" a bad name. The Tawianese director of this schlok also made a movie called FAH.

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