Joe Don Justice

(imdb)

FINAL JUSTICE-1985-2 Italian mobster brothers kill a sheriff and his deputy Geronimo (Joe Don Baker) chases them to the Mexican border. He kills one of them and captures Palermo (Ven-antino Venantini; CANNIBAL FEROX (1981)) who vows revenge. For some reason, Geronimo is assigned by Chief Wilson (Bill McKinney), to take Palermo back to Sicily to stand trial but through sabotage and violence Palermo escapes when the plane makes an emergency landing in Malta. Geronimo is ordered back to the US but instead he goes out on his own, shooting and disregarding orders. He's assisted by local Gina (Patrizia Pelligrino). Palermo's boss (Rosanno Brazzi) gives Palermo 24 hrs. to get rid of the American. 

Stupid low budget crime drama filmed entirely in Malta by producer/writer/director Greydon Clark (who plays the doomed sheriff). A US-Italy co-production. Baker (who died in May of 2025) starred in director Clark's JOYSTICKS in 1983. Rossano Brazzi (who directed and starred in THE CHRISTMAS THAT ALMOST WASN'T in 1966) was in Abel Ferrara's FEAR CITY the year before this.

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Giant Robots

(wallpaperaccess.com)

PACIFIC RIM-2013-Earth is invaded by giant prehistoric like monsters from another dimension. Dubbed "Kaiju", mankind counters by building "Jaegers", Transformer like giant robots controlled by two pilots whose minds link when they operate it. Charlie Hunnam (SONS OF ANARCHY) plays Raleigh Becket whose brother dies in battle with a monster. He winds up working in Alaska but is called back 5 years later when the government shuts down the program. The remaining Jaegers are deployed to Hong Kong where the project former leader Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba; THOR's Heimdall) has a plan to destroy the invaders. Along the way Becket meets Mako (Rinko Kikuchi; BABEL) another pilot tortured by child-hood memories of a Kaiju attack.

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Despite a couple of long stretches of character development and some comic humor that doesn't really work, PACIFIC RIM has some of the best SFX I've ever seen and the battle scenes take it to another level.  Director/co-writer Guillermo del Toro went on to make THE SHAPE OF WATER. Ron Perelman (who starred in the two HELLBOY by del Toro) is in it too. 

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Another Installment of...

Since I'm still setting up my new computer and haven't brought everything over from my old one, I had to take a little movie reviewing break. Here are some more interesting links I found on YouTube:

Fan Made Godzilla:

 https://youtu.be/isuDgr0ADP4?si=VVUiNE51w8ElUCBr

Takeshi Kitano Tribute:

https://youtu.be/jjzYxmR7Hz8?si=nCuz4STYuDs5Sz28

Might come in handy:

https://youtu.be/foX2BgfIQqg?si=84XJ_Lw5-EVYxO7w

About the paintings on Night Gallery:

https://youtu.be/rUAAFFQw6lI?si=PqoSt3kmWTe04w5h

A horror brawl:

https://youtu.be/X8iBq2g-KrY?si=mCAhuZWzLccJvXq6

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Chan Vs. Wooden Men

 

 (imdb)

SHAOLIN WOODEN MEN-1976-in a Shaolin temple, a guy everyone calls Little Mute (Jackie Chan), because he can't speak, gets in trouble a lot with the monks and meets a prisoner Fat Yu (Kang King) chained up in a cave who teaches him to fight. A nun (Ping-Yu Chang) also helps train him. He passes the test of the 36 Shaolin wooden men, a long corridor with giant wood men who continually punch, and leaves the temple. In the city, he meets a cafe owner (Hsin Chin) and his son (Kam Cheung) and daughter (Chun Lung). 

The Green Dragon gang kidnap her and Little Mute and the son go looking for her. They save Yu from being re-captured but split with him when they learn he’s a vicious killer. The story takes several turns with Little Mute having a showdown battle with his father's killer. Early Chan film directed Lo Wei.

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Wilder's Fright

 

 (imdb)

FRIGHT-1956-After psychiatrist Dr. Hamilton (Eric Fleming) helps police stop a murderer (Frank Marth) from jumping off a bridge, he meets Ann Summers (Nancy Malone; INTIMACY (1966)) who seems to have some problems. He regresses her through hypnotism where she speaks German. Then she disappears. Later he learns she was once Baroness Maria in 1889 Vienna. They wind up falling in love. The doc thinks it's a case of split personality but an annoying reporter prints the reincarnation story which causes a rift between the two lovers. Eventually, Maria takes Ann over completely and vanishes, leading the police to think she might have been murdered by the doc. To get her to come out of hiding, he convinces the murderer that he's the crown prince Maria might be looking for! 

Extreme boredom from director W. Lee Wilder, whose son Myles wrote the screenplay obviously inspired by the Bridey Murphy reincarnation case. The elder Wilder also made MANFISH the same year. Lead actor Fleming starred in QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE in 1958 and in 1959 began a long run as the trial boss on TV's “Rawhide”. TV actress Malone later was also a TV director.

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Don't Look A Zombie In The Mouth If He Has A Gift For You

 

 (themoviedb.org)

THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS-2016-Some whacko who didn't like children must have come up with the premise for this UK production. A fungus has turned the human race into noisy cannibalistic zombies. Some mad scientists, led by Dr. Caldwell (Glen Close) experiment on children trying to find a cure. Later, some of them escape with a young girl, Melanie (Sennia Nanua), a 10-year-old cannibal child with a high IQ. It seems she may be heralding a new kind of human.

Screenplay writer Mike Carey adapted his own book. Director Colm Mc-Carthy worked mostly on TV in England before this.

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From Finland

 

 (imdb)

THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL-1990-In Finland, lonely Iris (Kati Outinen) works a mundane factory job to support herself, her mother and stepfather who she keeps house for. She goes to dances but doesn't attract a partner. She buys a new dress but her parents disapprove. Later she meets a strange guy and they have sex. On a second date, the guy tells her he doesn't want a relationship (he thought she was a prostitute) and she should beat it. Later she finds out she's pregnant. It looks pretty bleak for Iris but then she decides to buy some rat poison….

This unconventional drama directed by Aki Aurismaki, is regarded as one of the greatest films to come out of “the land of a thousand lakes”. It's the third installment of the director's “Proletariat Trilogy”. I have to check them out some day...

Aurismaki is also known for his movies about the Finnish rock band “The Leningrad Cowboys”.

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