video review : 3 From Hell

video review : 3 From Hell

When I first heard Rob Zombie would bring back The Devil’s Rejects after they went out like Thelma And Louise nearly a decade and a half ago, I figured it would be some sort of prequel. This isn’t. It’s a bona fide sequel featuring the original members with one disappointing caveat.

While all 3 Rejects are here, Captain Spaulding, the most enthralling, is limited to a cameo role. That’s reportedly the result of real-life health problems. The actor, Sid Haig, is 80 years old. He’s replaced by a less interesting brother of Otis, who helps him (Otis) escape from prison.

That’s one of many blatant implausibilities happening in this movie, including the fact that the Rejects are still alive in the first place, though it’s Baby’s escape that’s most absurd. Once the new trio is set, the plot starts to get good, but by then it’s almost at the halfway point.

The best parts are still the kills; what I like most about Rob Zombie movies is the amoral depiction of brutal violence; but 3 seems incomplete without Cutter. A phone call in Mexico gives the peak dramatic suspense, but this is the worst movie in the Firefly trilogy.

my rating : 3 of 5

2019

video review : Do The Right Thing

video review : Do The Right Thing

There are plenty of stupid things in this movie, beginning with the opening dance sequence, but the stupidest or at least most annoying are Smiley and Buggin Out. They’re characters who live in Brooklyn and are obsessively infatuated with the black race like seemingly every other black character in this movie. Smiley, who stutters whenever he speaks, is a retard. Buggin Out just acts like one. The problem with the two is that their annoying ways are played-out almost to the point of caricaturization. They come across as virtual cartoons in a movie that’s supposed to be about real life.

It’s a hot summer day and Mookie, who works as a delivery man for an Italian pizzeria, is just trying to get thru life. That’s the gist of a plot that cares more about observing characters in their everyday environment; the neighborhood of Bedford–Stuyvesant; than telling a cohesive story. At one point, the story is temporarily abandoned for an impromptu insult session. That bit too is, of course, all about race. “Tawana (Brawley) told the truth,” reads a graffiti message in a another scene. All this racial tension peaks at the end when a guy named Radio Raheem becomes the victim of police brutality.

my rating : 3 of 5

1989