Cookie Monster hangs with the guys from the National Film Society and talks film shop, as well as showing clips from Sesame Street parodies of The Karate Kid and Pirates of the Caribbean! And as I enjoy every opportunity to post things involving Cookie Monster, here it is!
aka 消失的子彈 aka Xiao shi de zi dan aka Ghost Bullets
2012
Written by Yeung Sin-Ling and Law Chi-Leung
Action Directed by Nicky Li Chung-Chi
Directed by Law Chi-Leung
Bodies begin appearing at an ammunitions factory that have been shot but with no apparent bullet. The mystery crimes draw the investigators into a web of corruption, murder, and betrayal. Thus, The Bullet Vanishes sets the tone, as a mystery/police procedural that has all the layers of government and business corruption that you’d find in an episode of The Wire.
Part of the fun of The Bullet Vanishes is just watching Inspector Song (Lau Ching-Wan, Black Mask) do his thing. Song is methodical and deductive, not afraid to put himself in danger in order to get to the truth. Song values the truth above all else, this integrity is why he’s appointed as an officer to weed out corruption.
Song immediately attaches himself to Captain Guo Zhui (Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung, Treasure Inn), who is Song’s new department’s best detective, in that he doesn’t let the rich and powerful get away with anything, either. Captain Guo is more brash, more likely to threaten and fight, but he’s also the fastest draw in town, so his threats are backed up with deeds. Guo’s also showing the ropes to his partner, the junior detective Xiaowu (Boran Jing Bo-Ran, The Guillotines), including advising Xiaowu to take some bribes so he doesn’t become a target.
Guo’s instincts and Song’s scientific approaches mesh well, helped by both of their obsessions with finding the answers. Much of their time is dealt with impatient factory owners, rude foremen, panicked workers, and their annoyed corrupt Chief, who is just trying to get to retirement with all his bribe money before these murders muck everything up.
When beloved Debbie Martin commits suicide, her preacher husband Andrew grieves alongside the whole town and especially Debbie’s mom, Susan. But then moments long forgotten and incidents about Andrew’s strange behavior start bubbling to the surface. At first Susan doesn’t want to believe them, but when mounting evidence can no longer be denied, she has to admit that she now believes Andrew killed Debbie and sets out to prove it. And so begins a battle that eventually tears the town apart. Inspired by a true story.
And a reminder that Sins of the Preacher is part of Lifetime’s Watch and Win Sweepstakes, which mean you can actually get paid to watch! Where’s our bribe for watching Robocroc, SyFy? Besides the bribe of watching a movie called Robocroc!
Sins of the Preacher stars Gail O’Grady, Chris Gartin, Bree Williamson, Taylor Cole, and James McDaniel
You know he’s guilty, look at that 5 o’clock shadow!
2012
Written by Tina Hawthorne
Directed by Eric Lacey
Videos of me? Having sex? On the internet???
Sex Tapes is another Tina Hawthorne script (who has by far become my favorite softcore script writer, even her wide misses are interesting!), you can expect a lot of talking and relationship issues to come to the surface. As characters stress over the missing sex tapes and their own relationship issues, the arguments get personal and circular, so a lot of the recap portion is just summarizing the arguments. But much of the talking feels real, like you would overhear at a coffeeshop while couples are arguing. Unfortunately, it sometimes feels a bit too real, while other sections are a bit too staged. This all combines with a lack of resolution that makes Sex Tapes disappointing, but an interesting disappointing.
My Sex Tape themed microbrew will bring the beer blogging community to its knees!
Carrie and Tyler argue constantly and have clear trust issues, which is odd because they’re also in open relationship which requires trust. But their fights never last long and always end in them making up. There is also a hint of Carrie having poor self image, which might explain some of the problems. Tyler is more sedentary, spending long portions of the film just sitting on the couch. His passiveness seems like it would cause Tyler to get upset about his lack of action, but that isn’t even discussed.
Alexis and Brent have the most damaged relationship in that their goals are completely opposite. Brent is becoming more important in his law firm and realizes the days of having sex on camera needs to stop. Alexis has no intentions of stopping, nor of stopping her affair with Sam. Brent is unaware of the affair, and seemingly unaware that Alexis has even had sex with anyone else, describing their participation as just watching others have sex while they as a couple have sex. Brent is no saint, he does cheat on Alexis before he has confirmation that she is cheating on him. But the fact his wife disappears for long periods with Sam should be a tip off even the blindest man would get.
With these three couples, the damage is already there, and when tapes go missing and all the secrets and lies get exposed in the open, it is not a pretty sight. Good thing there are Sex Tapes that recorded everything!
These sex tapes are BETA!
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Virgin Vaginas lives!
As we reported back in the day about RoboCroc‘s plot (SPOILERS!):
When a top-secret unmanned spacecraft disintegrates on re-entry, its mysterious military payload crash-lands in the crocodile habitat of a place called Adventure Land, a combination water park, amusement land and world famous crocodile exhibit. Following its pre-programmed instructions, the payload – a next-generation nanotech-based combat
drone – finds a host in the form of the park’s prize twenty-foot Australian Saltwater crocodile, Stella. She is the largest Saltwater croc in captivity. Immediately upon infecting its host, the drone payload’s nanobots begin to transform Stella from an organic, living creature into a lethal killing machine with only a single directive: Survival!Before Chief Zoo Keeper Tim Duffy and reptile biologist Jane Spencer are able to figure out what’s going on, they find the park taken over by the government team responsible for the secret project. As the crocodile continues to transform, it escapes the crocodile exhibit and enters the water park, running amok, killing dozens of patrons.
The park is evacuated, but a handful of teens are trapped behind – including among them, Duffy’s estranged son. Duffy and Jane set out to rescue Duffy’s son while the government team and military personnel scramble to stop the rapidly evolving croc but nothing works. After their best efforts fail, the now fully-evolved ROBOCROC escapes the park and rampages further forcing a massive military deployment to stop it. Still following its prime directive: RoboCroc enters the city sewer system. With time running out, only Duffy has the knowledge and experience that will allow him to get close enough to the croc to destroy it.
In a desperate gambit, Duffy enters the sewer system armed with his knowledge of crocodile behavior and a tactical Electromagnetic Pulse Generator. Finally, after a terrifying confrontation in the bowels of the city and with his own life on the line, Duffy detonates the EMP and destroys RoboCroc and the nanobots once and for all.
Silent Rage stars noted racist homophobic bigot Chuck Norris, noted cool director Stephen Furst, and noted dead guy Ron Silver. It also features a lot of confusion at just what kind of movie it is:
Take Chuck Norris. Pair him up with the guy who played Flounder in Animal House. Quickly ball that screenplay up into a wad and toss it into a garbage can where it lands next to a half-eaten ham sandwich because that is obviously a terrible idea and what have you got? Silent Rage!
Silent Rage has trouble deciding what type of movie it wants to be. For some scenes, it’s a really, really bad action movie about doctors reanimating a serial killer’s brain. For other scenes, it’s a really, really bad comedy about a bumbling deputy. And in others, it’s a really, really bad romantic love triangle between Chuck Norris, an ex-flame, and his mustache. But when you add all these disjointed elements together, the results are magic! (One of those crappy plastic magic tricks that you ordered from the back of a comic book when you were seven and even you knew it pretty much sucked but you had to pretend you hadn’t wasted your parents’ money so you bothered your dad with it when he was trying to watch football until he told you to go outside.)
The plot is fairly standard. Guy kills innocent people, doctor revives him, biker gang invades town, Ron Silver plans a surprise party for his sister, doctor goes mad with power, guy kills again, doctor ignores warnings, Ron Silver breaks his wife’s heart by telling her her cinnamon cake is no good, guy keeps killing, Chuck Norris kicks some guys. And at one point the guy who played Flounder in Animal House tells an anecdote about a dog that is so wildly misplaced and tone deaf you’ll wonder if just maybe he should be kicked in the nads in real life thirty one years after filming it.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you probably won’t be so silent about the great deal of rage you’ll feel. Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for Silent Rage!
Contains a few brief scenes of nudity. No gorilla-grams are provided.
