13 Tzameti

Sweating Bullets!

Sebastien, a Georgian immigrant is living in

France and working construction to support his poor family. When the man that hires him to help fix his house dies, his widow informs Sebastien that she cannot pay him. Before he leaves, he overhears the widow talking to her husbands friend on the phone about a "secret job" that pays a lot of money and that all the info for the job is in an envelope at the train station. Sebastien steals the envelope before anyone gets their hands on it and thus begins his scavenger hunt to hell! I'm not giving away the rest, lets just say that shit will have you on the edge of your seat. I bet a buck, you'll be sweating by the end of the film.

This is a great debut from the young Georgian film director Gela Babluani, that's Georgian as in near Russia. He won the Sundance Film Festival for this film and it's easy to see why. The film is just one hell of a ride and wherever you expect the film to go, trust me it's going surpass anything you can think of. I also like the fact that the movie plays on your human nature of being nosey, and the trouble you can get into.

The world is never what it seems and this film proves that if you look hard enough you'll find out there's people out here that live in a world beyond our wildest dreams or nightmares. Four words sum up the whole movie, "mind your fucking business"!

Tony Rome

The Chairman!

Frank Sinatra brings that Rack Pack swagger to the big screen in this hard-boiled detective story. Sinatra stars as Tony Rome, an ex-cop turned private eye who's also a compulsive gambler. He lives on a houseboat in Miami that he won in a dice game, how cool is that!

Tony's former partner, a slimeball motel security guard, pays him to return the daughter of a rich construction baron back home to her father because she's unconscious and drunk in the sleazy motel he works for. The father pays Tony to find out why she's been acting out of character and this is when the story gets a little light.

This is still your typical hard-boiled detective movie, nothing special about the story, but Sinatra's slick lingo and tough guy aura make the movie very watchable. This is not his best movie by far but it does prove that you can hand him any script, let him flash the baby blues, give him a suit and pretty co-star and I'll bet the house that he'll deliver an entertaining movie regardless of the story.

Coffy

Foxy Brown Coffy!!!

Pam Grier plays Coffy, a nurse that goes undercover as a prositute/dope fiend, to kill the drug dealers that turned her sister into a fiend and gave her police friend brain damage.

Pam Grier is legendary! She was the spark that started it all. Women in action movies really didn't exist in american cinema until her movies hit the screen. As far as sex appeal, she oozes it. In my opinion there was nobody back then and only one woman now that matches her sex appeal on camera and that's Italy's Monica Bellucci.

Night of the Living Dead (1990)

A stand-up remake of George Romero's 1968 original classic. Beginning in a cemetery, the dead return to life - nobody knows jack shit why - and attack the living. One woman escapes these zombies to take refuge with 5 other people in a abandon farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere, as every dead person for miles prey on their flesh.

After all these years, this movie still creeps me. Probably because it was the first zombie movie I saw as a kid and it freaked me to pieces. It's like having a bad experience with clowns as a kid and now that you're an adult you get the bubble guts everytime you order a Big Mac.

Tony Todd proves his greatness, pre Candyman, and Patricia Tallman is good in her role as the damsel in distress turned Red Sonia. The major reason I love this franchise and have tremendous respect for Mr. Romero is because he had the guts to star a black guy in a horror movie in 1969 and show the world that great actors and great concepts pack theaters, not their race. It's almost 2010 and I can count on 1 hand and a couple fingers how many horror films have starred a person of any color other than white. Funny thing is Tony Todd's been in 4.

Out of Time

I'm going mainstream with this one and calling this the most underrated Denzel movie that he's done.

Matt Whitlock a respected Florida police chief, has an affair with a married woman, played by the sexy Sanaa Lathan. He gives her stolen drug money that he seized from a major drug bust, after she tells him her cancer treatment will cost a grip. This is when things get murky and he has to solve a double homicide and stay two steps ahead of his own detectives, cause all the evidence points to him!

This movie is entertaining as hell, watching Denzel scramble to avoid getting caught is worth the price of admission alone. If you don't like Denzel, cool, watch it for Eva Mendez, watch it for Carl Franklin's directing, just watch it!

City of God

A masterpiece in crime cinema!

City of God is based on a true story that takes place in Rio de Janeiro Brazil in the 60's, where two friends grow up in a violent neighborhood, one has dreams of becoming a photographer and the other a big time drug dealer. This place in Brazil is across town from the beaches, thongs, and caipirinha's you see on the travel channel.

The movie is much more than that one sentence plot I just spewed, in a nutshell it's Brazil's version of "Goodfellas". The movie is drenched with tension and danger, all from the director putting us smack dab in the middle of a place where life is worth nothing and guns are like candy. As a matter of fact, the KIDS have more guns than candy.

City of God also opened the doors for other countries to show their version of gangsters and violence (some I'll post later). As I write this review, I'm also thinking I gotta watch this again tonight, off to the store for a 12 pack.

Battle Royale

One of the most controversial movies ever!

Set in the future, the Japanese government rounds up 42 of the baddest ninth-graders around and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale Act" to eliminate the bad seeds.

This movie is like watching a baby holding a knife and not being able to doing anything about it. There are moments where you feel like you shouldn't be entertained by this, but you really are. This is the main reason why I love Japanese movies, they have no boundaries when it comes to ideas for movies. Don't be surprised if you check my IMDb credits in 5 yrs. and I have a Japanese movie under my belt.