Uwe Boll exploits Occupy anger in Assault on Wall Street!
I’ll have to break my unofficial ban on giving Uwe Boll attention to talk about his new movie. Because even though the recent financial apocalypse has a large deal to do with the banks doing whatever they can to make buckets of money while the world burns around them, there has been very little repercussions against said bankers (or banksters!) Not only that, but the media rarely even gives lip service to what a lot of the incredibly rich did, partially because the incredibly rich hold a lot of sway in said media companies. So when the whole Occupy movement first sprung up it was an amazing thing, an actual grassroots movement not astroturfed by millionaires on FoxNews. Of course, it was disorganized and quickly fizzled out due to the lack of organization and focus (part of the problem was they did want there to be any leaders of the movement, which meant everyone tried to pull Occupy to whatever cause they cared about most!)
Even the recent election had a whole rich vs. poor mentality, particularly when Mitt Romney was recorded saying that 47% of the country just lived off the government and thought they were entitled to things like food. The best result ever was when Mitt Romney finished with 47% of the popular vote. But that rich vs. poor divide has not gone away, and the gap between the wealthy 1% and the rest of America continues to grow. Billionaires are now funding SuperPACs and blasting the airwaves with ads for politicians they are literally buying, and the next election will only get worse. There is room for another round of protests and movements, and one will probably happen some day.
But until then, we go as we always do, to the world of cinema, where directors are waiting in the wings to exploit the latest news and trends for their own films. And German filmmaker Uwe Boll is not one to shy away from making a film about controversial subjects. Thus we get Assault on Wall Street, a film featuring a guy in a knockoff Anonymous mask gunning down offices full of bankers and sniping the rich.
A security guard for an armored truck, Jim (Dominic Purcell) is a blue-collar New Yorker who works hard to earn a living. His wages support himself and his wife Rosie (Erin Karpluk), who is on the upswing recovering from a near-fatal illness. Yet things start to fall apart after Rosie’s health insurance stops covering her treatment and Jim’s life savings are lost via a disastrous investment his stockbroker had advised him to make. As a row of professional and personal dominoes falls, Jim is confronted by the realization that, after being abused and exploited by financial institutions for far too long, he has only one choice: to strike back. From the mind of notorious German writer/director Uwe Boll (House of the Dead), Assault on Wall Street is excoriating look at the American financial system that is sure to stir up plenty of Occupy-esque sentiment.
Categories: Movie News Tags: Dominic Purcell, Edward Furlong, Erin Karpluk, John Heard, Keith David, Lochlyn Munro, Michael Paré, Tyron Leitso, Uwe Boll
Ninja Cheerleaders (Review)
Ninja Cheerleaders
2008
Directed and written by David Presley
Ninjas and cheerleaders go together like peanut butter and scotch tape, except now I need a new awkward comparison because Ninja Cheerleaders isn’t that bad of a film. There are a few problems, such as pacing, padding, and pointless stuff; but besides the three P’s, it holds together pretty well. It also has George Takei, who is awesome, but fails to give us cheerleader ninja nudity, instead it is just random strippers who look as fake as a Sorny TV. Writer and director David Presley did an okay job for a low-budget picture like this. So pay attention to this film, because it is filled with hot chicks. And stuff happens. But mostly hot chicks with swords and butt being kicked. Because that is what makes movies great.
|
Komodo vs. Cobra (Review)
Komodo vs. Cobra
2005
Starring
Michelle Borth as Susan Richardson
Jerri Manthey as Sandra Crescent
Glori-Anne Gilbert as Darla
Ryan McTavish as Jerry
Ted Monte as Ted
Chris Neville as Lerner
Michael Paré as Mike
Jay Richardson as Dr. Richardson
Renee Talbert as Carrie
Delpano Wills as Marsden
Directed by Jim Wynorski
Komodo vs. Cobra!!! KvC!! Giant komodo vs. a giant cobra. This should be a winner! In the name of Boa vs. Python, another fun SciFi Channel monster vs monster film. But what should easily be a winner can often become a chore as cheapness conspires to clutch a loser of a film from the jaws of winningness. What else do you expect when your director is Jim Wynorski and it doesn’t involve naked chicks? Having nothing to do with either Curse of the Komodo or King Cobra, despite Wynorski’s work on CotK, this film tries to set itself in an independent universe. That’s the excuse, then, for making this film 95% identical to CotK. Many of the same major scene reenact themselves, many of the same sets are reused, and at least four actors and the director/writer are the same. This is akin to just taking the CotK film and adding a King Cobra wandering around digitally added to the background in a few scenes and calling it a new movie. Oh, our title characters fight, all right. At the very end of the movie, for about two minutes. That’s it. Despite them saying repeatedly that there are many giant cobras and giant komodo, we don’t even get a hint that they fight each other except one small scene in the flashbacks where they hiss a lot. This isn’t like Naked Lunch, where no one ate a lunch while naked, this is SciFi Channel, we want a damn monster fight. And this movie which promises a monster fight in it’s title is determined to deny us what we so desperately desire. In the end, all it does is tick you off. Really tick you off. Freaking tick you off. Tick you of like a MoFo! GARRRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!
The movie opens promising enough. Three people are running through the jungle of a tropical isle. It’s Dr. Richardson, his daughter Susan, and a third man we’ll call Orson Welles, because he was The Third Man. Their running is useless, because they are cut off by Johnny Komodo. Johnny Komodo looks a little different from CotK, he’s got a more dinosaur-shaped head. He’s just as immune to bullets, as none of the ones fired seem to have any effect on him. Johnny Komodo shows that the Jim Wynorski watched Jurassic Park, as komodo can now not see you unless you move, like the T-Rex. Orson Welles runs off, which attracts Johnny Komodo and he chomps down on Orson Welles. Dr. Richardson and Susan escape then and set up shop by a lake, looking around for a bit, until Johnny Cobra emerges from the lake, and has Dr. Richardson chops for dinner. Now Susan is all alone…
Read more…
