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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.

Assault on Wall Street

Wyvern (Review)

Wyvern


2009
Written by Jason Bourque
Directed by Steven R. Monroe

Do you guys have those pancakes with chocolate chips in them? Mansquito really turned me onto them…

Wyvern is a generic title for a generic movie about a thawed out tiny dragon that terrorizes an isolated town until it’s killed by a stunt from a 1950s teenage rebel movie. If you think this sound generic enough to be a SciFi Channel (aka SyFy) original flick, then you win a gold star!

Director Steven R. Monroe is a SyFy machine, helming flicks such as Sasquatch Mountain, Ogre, Jabberwock, Mongolian Death Worm, and Ice Twisters. Writer Jason Bourque both writes and directs B-grade schlock such as Beyond Loch Ness, Metal Tornado, Dark Storm, and Doomsday Prophecy. So this are experienced hands here.

The most hardcore rock station Alaska has ever seen!

As Wyvern takes place in Alaska and we got two stars of Northern Exposure in the cast (3 if you count the bloody moose head!), so it is fun to pretend this is sort of an epilogue to the series, especially since I was never that into the show and only casually watched it. So let’s enjoy this fanfic version where all the beloved characters are eaten by a dragon! (Excuse me…a wyvern!)

If this happened more often I’d actually watch Ice Truckers!

The big problem with Wyvern is it is a bit too by the numbers. It doesn’t do anything beyond what it is, a simple monster flick. Now, I don’t expect every film I watch to have all sorts of hidden meaning and cool things going on. That’s why I make up crazy things like the Northern Exposure connection. But I do believe with working with what you have, and that wasn’t achieved, and the film is poorer for it. So what could have been exceptional is instead just average. It isn’t bad, it’s even fun. But it was so close to being over the top, and floundered. It makes me sad just thinking about it. So instead of making frowny faces, let’s enjoy us some monster mayhem!!

Jake Suttner (Nick Chinlund) – Just your average trucker getting over the the death of his brother by killing a giant thawed out wyvern to save a tiny town.
Claire (Erin Karpluk) – Owns a cafe and is the love interest, because there are only like three women in this town.
Haas (Barry Corbin) – The richest man in Alaska has now become a hillbilly! We’re through the looking glass here, folks!
Deputy Susie Barnes (Elaine Miles) – Hey, it’s me, that lady from Northern Exposure you recognize sort of and then went on to do little. Does little here.
Vinyl Hampton (Tinsel Korey) – The radio DJ for the local low-watt station that just seems to employ her and no one else. This was her pre-werewolf days, for all you Twilight fans out there.
Farley (Simon Longmore) – Local resident who just wants to grill. He plays checkers by himself, and I don’t mean Nixon’s dog.
Colonel Travis Sherman (Don S. Davis) – TarsTarkas.NET salutes the late, great Don S. Davis, here playing a complete nutter who gets chomped. There seems to be a lot of mental illness in this tiny town.
Chief Dawson (John Shaw) – The chief and the only sensible guy in town. So he’s dead…
Wyvern (CGI) – If you think penguins marched, just wait until you get a load of this guy! Wyvern has come out from the ice to eat and eat and eat like some sort of prehistoric jerk!
How quickly do you think we’re gonna die? Very quickly.