Tag: new Orleans

Walter Hill’s Bullet To The Head

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The last time Walter Hill made an ultraviolent crime flick set in New Orleans it starred Mickey Rourke and was a lot better than this one, but I’ll take all the Hill I can get and his Bullet In The Head is a bit of B grade fun in its own way. Sylvester Stallone is Jimmy, an angry mob hitman who goes postal when he’s set up and his partner (Jon Seda, short lived) is murdered following the dispatch of a troublesome corrupt cop (Holt McCallany in sleaze mode). The cop, it turns out, has a partner (Sung Kang) who is a lot less corrupt but still seems vaguely interested in why his former colleague was killed and comes gunning for him, putting them both squarely in ‘attempted buddy movie’ territory, a shtick that Hill also did way better in another one with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. Anyways the two of them are on the run from a nasty African war criminal turned real estate developer (Killer Croc from Suicide Squad, because I’m too lazy to look up the spelling of his unpronounceable name) who dispatches impossibly badass mercenary Keegan (Jason Momoa) to kill basically anyone who looks at him wrong. If it seems like I’m explaining this sloppily or without my usual elegant vernacular its because the film itself barely rises to the occasion in terms of plot and feels hasty, ragged and rushed. Stallone is actually kind of awesome as the pissed off antihero, sporting dope Yakuza style tattoos that even top the ink he had in The Expendables. Christian Slater shows up randomly as a wise-ass gang boss who finds himself on the wrong end of Stallone’s temper while Momoa is genuinely threatening as the whack-job ex warlord who just wants to fuck shit up, he and Stallone literally showdown in an axe fight that provides the last five minutes of the film with more energy and imagination than the rest of the eighty nine minutes of it combined. It’s a souped up B movie with little thought or innovation put forth, and it works well enough but I honestly expected more from a guy like Hill making a Stallone flick. At least it lives up to its title as multiple people do indeed get bullets to their heads, which was satisfying enough.

-Nate Hill

Actor’s Spotlight: Nate’s Top Ten Dennis Quaid Performances

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

What’s the first thing you think of when Dennis Quaid is mentioned? Western? Action film? High concept SciFi? Disney flick? For a guy with hero good looks and a winning smile he has deftly managed to avoid being totally typecast in his career and although very frequently nails the romantic lead, also shows up in unconventional, challenging roles that test and allow him to grow as an actor. He’s got charm through the roof but there’s also a darkness brooding in his persona that I always enjoy seeing brought forth in the work, as well as a talent for quick paced deadpan humour. Here are my top ten favourite performances:

10. Vaughn Ely in Martin Guigui’s Beneath The Darkness

Villain roles are a rare breed for him to be found in, but there is the odd one out there. This is a low budget ‘serial killer next door’ type horror flick in which a group of teenagers try to prove that their upstanding, affable neighbour (Dennis) is in fact a mass murdering maniac. Sounds fun, right? It is but only thanks to Quaid’s certifiably fruit-loopy performance that steals the whole thing. It’s new ground for the actor but he seems right at home in dark, tongue in cheek character work and plays the pants off of this unhinged suburban maniac.

9. Jack McGurn in Alan Parker’s Come See The Paradise

This is an important, heartfelt performance and one of the only ones where he doesn’t use that winning smile or roguish charm. Set in the US following the attacks on Pearl Harbour, he plays a family man married to a Japanese woman who, along with their young daughter and entire family, are imprisoned in internment camps during a period of history that is shamefully not discussed very often. It’s a terrible situation to find you and your loved ones in and his performance, which spans over a decade, reflects the hardships and turmoil of that time while retaining a fierce love for family and country.

8. Davidge in Wolfgang Petersen’s Enemy Mine

An intergalactic survival story sees military pilot Quaid and an extraterrestrial (Louis Gossett Jr.) marooned on a strange planet together. Fighting as mortal enemies in a war, they are forced to reconcile hatred and rely on each other for survival. A bond like no other is formed and both actors handle the mutual character development beautifully, making this much more than just a SciFi adventure story.

7. Doc Holliday in Lawrence Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp

This is frequently known as ‘that other Wyatt Earp’ film because in most circles it is eclipsed by the admittedly superior Tombstone. Easy to see why as it’s moody, emotional and dour where it’s counterpart is essentially a cheerful swashbuckler. Val Kilmer’s pitch perfect take on Doc gets all the raves and rightly so but I find Dennis’s rendition to be equally as compelling, a snarky, fatalistic loudmouth who blindsides in certain scenes by laying down lucid emotional truths and providing sad yet profound insights.

6. Jimmy Morris in John Lee Hancock’s The Rookie

I’m not usually huge on sports films but this one is such a great underdog story, father son drama on two levels and just an all round feel good piece. Quaid plays a prodigy pitcher who never got his shot at the major leagues as a kid but now, in his mid forties, he’s thrown another chance when most of the guys around him trying out are half his age. You just find yourself rooting for this guy so willingly when you see the shine in the eyes of his kid (Angus T. Jones) and the blooming admiration his own father (Brian Cox, excellent as always) shows when he succeeds. Quaid plays it stoic, achingly modest and unsure of himself until that magic pitching arm gets to come into play and he becomes youthful again in the blink of an eye with a remarkable piece of acting.

5. Remy Mcswain in Jim McBride’s The Big Easy

About the cockiest hotshot vice cop you could find on the streets of New Orleans, Quaid’s Remy is womanizing, fast talking, fun loving, well meaning and just a tad corrupt, which spurs on the conflict of the film. He clashes royally with uptight DA Ellen Barkin until sparks inevitably fly and we are treated to some of the hottest, most adorable romantic chemistry I’ve seen in cinema. Quaid is easygoing and lighthearted in the role but never too goofy or self parodying, and there’s several scenes of sobering gravity that show his range even in a role as walk-on-the-clouds effervescent as this. We also get to see one of the most mature, realistic and down to earth sex scenes in film history, which is all too rare in Hollywood.

4. Arlis Sweeney in Steve Kloves’s Flesh & Bone

A dark, chilling tale sees Quaid play the son of a ruthless killer (James Caan) who falls in love with a drifter (Meg Ryan) that has some connections to their collective past. This is a stormy, doom laden psychological family drama that didn’t see half the exposure it deserves. Quaid plays the role introverted, a man haunted and confused by events he is still trying to reconcile, pitted against his demon of a dad and on a path to a violent, destructive conclusion.

3. Frank Sullivan in Gregory Hoblit’s Frequency

Trust Quaid and costar Jim Caviesel to make such an ‘out there’ premise feel so down to earth. As father and son they are able to communicate across a thirty year gulf of time and transcend the barrier of death itself via a very special HAM radio. Quaid makes comforting magic out of the Everyman/dad/firefighter/baseball fan archetype. There’s a warmth and genuine love he has for his family that jumps off the screen as grounds the film in human emotion.

2. Guy/Joshua Rose in Predrag Antonejevic’s Saviour

A little seen or heard of film, this one is brutal to sit through but worth it every second. A French foreign legion soldier with a tragic, bloody past, Quaid’s rough hewn mercenary finds himself awash in the Serbian/Bosnian war with no discernible side to fight on, genocide abound at every turn and a stunning lack of humanity poisoning the region. He finds a modicum of redemption in caring for a woman (Natasha Ninkovic) and her baby that is the product of rape by muslims, something her whole village has now shunned her for. This is dark, grim stuff we witness along with Guy, but his actions and eventual turnaround of soul are something wonderful to see. Quaid plays him streamlined of any heroic sensibilities or obvious moral fabric, just a man of few words with a tortured spirit trying to navigate a region tearing itself apart with evil.

1. Nick Parker in Disney’s The Parent Trap

This is a very personal choice for me, it’s one of the first films I ever saw as a kid, and was my introduction to Dennis’s work as an actor. There’s something cosmically perfect and warm about his performance here and to me no other film or series has captured his essence quite like this. Just a laidback Napa valley winemaker, a loving father and husband who finds himself in the wackiest of situations. His father daughter chemistry with both versions of Lindsay Lohan as well as Natasha Richardson just works so well and their whole unconventional, very sweet family dynamic carries the film to memorable heights.

Thanks for reading!! Please feel free to share your own favourite performances from Quaid and as always stay tuned for more content!

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Streets Of Blood

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Streets Of Blood more like Streets Of Crud. Maybe I’m being a little harsh but from what I remember this thing is a huge, huge whack of disappointment when you look at the capable, wasted cast and the premise ripe with potential. Val Kilmer and Curtis 50 Cent Jackson are slick New Orleans cops investigating the corruption and death in their department following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Sounds cool eh? Not so much. Most of it is noisy, incomprehensible shootouts in soggy, dilapidated warehouses and faux intense verbal standoffs in dank interrogation rooms that have no payoff because they had no discernible setup or pacing. It’s not the actors faults, they’re not even half bad. Kilmer does a flashy Orleans drawl that echoes his famous Tombstone accent. Sharon Stone even shows up as an ice queen DA,

looking like a forgotten First Lady. These fine talents just can’t rise above the muck of a half assed script that’s more hollow than the waterlogged buildings they chase suspects through. Not even the great Michael Biehn can save the day, showing up as a nasty, accusatory FBI agent that you just know will turn out to be part of the conspiracy later (I’d feel sorry spoiling that if it weren’t so blatantly obvious right off the bat). It’s a shame no one remakes B movies and gives what could have been a cool concept another shot, because they blew this one pretty bad, and produced a bigger mess than Katrina herself did.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Night Trap

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


Night Trap is so old, obscure and out of print that I had to order an Amazon copy just to make sure it was even real, and not some dream I had as a kid. It’s real enough, and a glorious helping of low budget supernatural tomfoolery at that, with two charismatic character actors headlining. Robert Davi, in a rare lead role, plays a headstrong New Orleans cop who is hunting down a serial killer (Michael Ironside) that appears to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for invincibility and a host of freaky deaky evil superpowers. Davi’s father was also a cop who pursued Ironside, and the monster likes to taunt both of them, leaving a trail of bodies in the hectic celebration of Mardi Gras. There’s a million of these type of movies, and they’re all across the board in terms of quality. It comes down to script and actors, really, as there’s never enough money to make any real visual magic. This one has a mile wide mean streak though, Ironside’s villain is a full on moustache twirling, nightmarish fiend and the veteran tough guy plays him as such. Matched against Davi, another notorious badass, it’s a B movie royal rumble that hits high notes of intensity, schlock and pulpy, violent delirium in all the right cues. Fun stuff if you’re a fan of these actors, and can actually locate a copy. 

-Nate Hill

Sinners And Saints: A Review by Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

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Sinners And Saints is a very adeptly made New Orleans set cop thriller that pays homage to tough archetypes of yore such as Lethal Weapon, Dirty Harry and Bad Boys. It’s far more serious and sinewy than those movies though, sucking the humour off its own bones and leaving a grim tale of one man ditching the force and going rogue in an attempt to hunt down some extremely bad people. Johnny Strong, a formidable, mscular guy, plays Detective Sean Riley, trying to sort through the post-Katrina chaos of the city whilst internally dealing with the loss of his wife and infant son. Strong is known for The Fast And The Furious as well as Black Hawk Down, quickly making it his calling card to play tough outsiders who get shit done with a fiery knack for not always playing by the rules. As it turns out, New Orleans is rife with psychopathic criminals up to no good, starting with evil mercenary Raymond Crowe (a badass, hateable Costas Mandylor), leading a crew of paramilitary scumbags into some very nefarious deeds. Riley discovers that his old army buddy Colin (the blonde half of the Boondock Saints, Sean Patrick Flanery, getting some nice, quiet moments of introspect before the firefights) is involved somehow, spurring him further into action. His commanding officer Trahan (Tom Berenger, stoically reminiscing about the youthful days in which he headlined flicks like these), worries that the path he’s headed down is too dark and similar to the men he is hunting. He’s paired with an unseasoned rookie (Kevin Philips), and an inevitable bond is forged in between and during bouts of gunfire. The action is wickedly staged, rising above the ineptitude that usually brands direct to video efforts like this. No, these filmmakers know exactly what they are doing and how to raise a pulse, demonstrating care and passion in creating their battle scenes. The cast is stacked high as can be as well. A boisterous Kim Coates has a fleeting scene to kick off the film. Resident baddie Jurgen Prochnow shows up a few times as malicious arch villain Mr. Rhykin, pulling strings which we are never fully privy to (I’ve heard rumblings about a sequel, hopefully with answers regarding his character). The other Mandylor brother Louis plays a bleach blond Australian mercenary and is beyond priceless. UFC legend Bas Rutten plays Dekker, a frightengingly nasty dude who proves a tough obstacle for Riley. Rapper Method Man even rears his head as a bad tempered, disfigured street thug who has his part to play in the whole cluster fuck. I watch countless direct to video action flicks that try their absolute adorable best to emulate the films they admire, often very lazily and without adding any new flavors. Can’t say that about this one. It fires up such a wicked, visceral punch while maintaining it’s own solid gold originality that it can scarcely even be called a B movie save for the fact that it wasn’t released theatrically. It’s pure, first class action, and demands a watch from anyone who says they’re a completist of the genre, before that claim can be validated.