tom sizemore – Podcasting Them Softly

B Movie Glory: Zyzzyx Road

October 14, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but occasionally it spills violently out onto the surrounding interstates, in this case obscure dust-bowl backroad Zyzzyx Road in this patchy, bizarre, uneven yet mildly entertaining low budget chiller that has nothing to boast except stars Katherine Heigl and Tom Sizemore and a tad of notoriety in being the only theatrically released film on record to land a staggering 30$ at the box office. It stars a dude called Leo Grillo as a philandering accountant who romances a young stripper (Heigl) and heads out into the desert to dump the body of her volatile boyfriend (Sizemore), who is in the trunk and they are both assuming is dead. Cue a bunch of stumbling around in terribly lit Mojave locales, messy, jittery editing and storytelling that almost, *almost* comes close to something of note but is just too cheap and shabby to hold interest. Heigl has quite a few buried curios in her early career before she sunk into the glossy, sanitized romcom groove and she does okay here. Grillo I’ve never heard of and isn’t much of an actor but a bit of light research tells me he’s an advocate for animal rights and has founded the largest rescue centre for stray dogs in North America so he gets a free pass in my book, keep up the good work sir. Sizemore is unusually calm and serene here in a role that could have easily allowed him to deliver one of his patented bananas, super wild takes. He’s good in anything no matter how lowbrow the material is, and as far as this one is concerned, well.. I’ve certainly seen him in many better films, but I’ve also seen him in some worse ones too. The film would have been better with more money because there is something to this script, a twisty psychological shocker with demon elements, mind bending qualities and some nice dark turns but they just didn’t have the budget or focus to make this thing feel like anything other than a dreary, dusty B flick, which it is to its bones.

-Nate Hill

Passenger 57

December 17, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

A handful of seasoned Hollywood action stars got their chance to fight terrorists on a plane including Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Kurt Russell, Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson (snakes count as terrorists, right?) and in Passenger 57 Wesley Snipes gets to as well in a kind of Coors Lite version of the aesthetic that is a bit more low-key when compared to the others but still fun. The real standout here is underrated Bruce Payne as some sort of super hyper mega terrorist, an ice cold aristocratic mad dog limey bastard who is being transported to execution IN FRIGGIN COACH and only guarded by one ignoramus cop. Why the rampant negligence in the face of such obvious nefariousness? Why, Wesley’s intrepid Air Marshal can step in to beat seven shades shades of shit out of Payne and all his varied cohorts of course, played by everyone from Elizabeth Hurley to Michael ‘Deputy Hawk’ Horse, how’s that for unintentionally eclectic casting. Throw in a reliably twitchy Tom Sizemore as Snipes’s best bud boss and Bruce Greenwood as a smarmy Airline CEO and you’ve got quite the roster. But how’s the action? Decent, yet nothings a standout and even the final villain death feels a tiny bit overwhelming like air being sucked out of the room (mild spoiler). Snipes is always a badass though and holds his own, I just feel like this would have been more impressive with a bigger budget, a longer runtime and some more chutzpah, bells and whistles and over the top carnage in the fashion of.. well what’s an airplane set action film I haven’t mentioned yet… Con Air? That’s a benchmark and hard to top. Anyways this one is a decent distraction while doing chores or whatnot.

-Nate Hill

Rowdy Herrington’s Striking Distance

June 20, 2019 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Bruce Willis in another cop flick? That’s not even a Die Hard Entry? Rowdy Herrington’s Striking Distance got put through a wheat thresher by critics and viewers alike but I think it’s a lot of fun. Never mind that it’s overly lurid, predictable to a dime and excessively stylish. Willis is Detective Tom Hardy (lol) one of his mopey disgraced cops who drinks a bunch and mutters half assed one liners under his breath whenever someone tries to tell him to get his shit together. After failing to catch a slippery serial killer, he’s relegated to boat duty in the Pittsburg harbour and assigned to a rookie partner (Sarah Jessica Parker doesnt do much here) he can barely stand. Tom comes from a police family, his uncle (Dennis Farina) is the commissioner, his cousin (Tom Sizemore) a fellow detective and as such he’s been kind of shunned and also blamed for the death of his other cousin (Robert Pastorelli), a cop who lost his mind. But this killer has resurfaced and is playing sick mind games with him all over the city, murdering people and ghost calling him, until a series of sting operations, stand offs and one man hunts are conducted to smoke him out. The cast also includes Brion James, Tom Atkins, Andre Braugher and John Mahoney as Tom’s father who, you guessed it, is also a high ranking cop. Director Rowdy Herrington is known for Roadhouse and therefore subtlety isn’t his game, so the lapses in logic and continuity are kind of to be expected. What he does do well are scenes of atmospheric suspense and well staged shootouts. Yes, the identity of the killer is kind of easy to surmise given that it’s not a huge cast and there’s only a few people it could be (at least it doesn’t go Jennifer 8 and cheat by literally picking one of the bit players out of the crowd that we’d never suspect), but the fun is in watching how Willis hunts and takes him down. Plus the cast is great, you really can’t go wrong with Farina and Sizemore, both of whom are reliably intense. Not the best cop vs. killer flick out there but for sure not the worst either.

-Nate Hill

Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel

June 20, 2019 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

How bad could your first day on the job as a cop go? For Jamie Lee Curtis in Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel, pretty damn bad. Before the title was a Ben Stiller fourth wall break it was a sexy, simmering, extremely violent psycho thriller from Bigelow, who was always way better back in the day when she focused on gritty genre films and not the politico-war stuff she’s known for today.

Curtis is a rookie cop who finds herself in a tense stand-off with a convenience store robber (Tom Sizemore, fired up in one of his first gigs). When the guy won’t back down she’s forced to shoot him, case closed. Right? Nah. First of all, her superiors take harsh disciplinary actions instead of giving her the medal she deserves, but there was also someone else there that night, a posh stockbroker (Ron Silver) who witnessed the whole thing, and something about the violence and potency in the air just kind of makes him lose his shit. He somehow got ahold of her gun, has been carving her name into the bullets and shooting people all over town, making it look like she’s out there playing vigilante. The captain (Kevin Dunn, always welcome) and the DA (Richard Jenkins, also always welcome) are furious and blame her for inciting this whole hellish series of events. But soon he’s insinuated his way into her life and she finds herself in a steamy affair with him, unbeknownst that he’s the lunatic that’s been circling her for days like a hungry wolf. There’s also another fellow cop, a hard nosed detective played by Clancy Brown, who she *also* starts up a torrid affair with and naturally that doesn’t end well. It’s nice to see Brown in a non-villain role for once and especially as the romantic lead, of sorts anyways. Elizabeth Pena shows up as well, as do Louise Fletcher and Philip Bosco as her troubled parents.

This is a gritty, bloody, scary piece of filmmaking and I can see why it turned many viewers off. There’s a kinky psychosexual vibe running through it like a perverse current of deviant energy and delirious, trashy abandon. Curtis is tough but vulnerable as well, no stranger to playing the lone girl stalked by an unrelenting, spectral madman. Silver is an actor who is no longer with us (remember him as the evil senator in TimeCop?) and it’s a shame because he was a real treasure. This has to be his best turn and he’s eerily on point in showing how a mind can deteriorate and turn sick after witnessing trauma. There’s an ‘unstoppable killer’ vibe to his action and pursuit scenes but he also gives the quieter moments a terrifying humanity as a guy who maybe doesn’t even know what he wants or isn’t in control anymore, it’s deeply disturbing work. Bigelow is just so good at staging practical action scenes and makes the chases, gunfights and jump scares supremely effective while maintaining a shadowy, blue tinged nocturnal palette that’s decidedly noirish and feels like an outright horror film in many instances. A real forgotten classic.

-Nate Hill

The Man who would be Cage: An Interview with Marco Kyris by Kent Hill

June 5, 2019 by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

I feel like I’m somehow getting closer to Nicolas Cage. I’ve spoken to a man who has directed him – a man who has “Nic-polished” his scripts. So, you can image my delight when Marco Kyris, Cage’s stand-in from 1994 till 2005, agreed to not only have a chat, but also to give me a preview of his new documentary, UNCAGED : A Stand-in Story.

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People ask me, “What’s with this Cage obsession?”

My answer is always…I think he’s a genuinely smart actor, with eclectic tastes and a wide repertoire which has seen him enjoy Oscar glory, big box office success and become a champion of independent film.

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The son of August Coppola (nephew of Francis Ford), but with a name lifted from the pages of his comic book heroes, Cage is at once both an actor and a movie star. With a legion of devoted fans worldwide and, heck, even a festival that bears his name – celebrating the wild, the weird, and the wonderful of the cinema of Nicolas Cage. From the genius of Con Air to the brilliant subtlety of Adaptation, the exceptional character work of Army of One to the gravitas of Leaving Las Vegas – Cage is a ball of energy that needs only to be unleashed on set.

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It was my sincere pleasure to talk with the man who stood in for the man when the man wasn’t on set. Marco’s tales are a fascinating glimpse – another angle if you will – in the examination of one of the movie industry’s true originals. I know you’ll find his story and his film, UNCAGED, compelling viewing – for both those curious as to the life of a stand-in, and also those looking for a unique look at the life of a superstar.

I’ve been privileged to chat with the people who made the rough stuff look easy for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rene Russo…

Now it’s time to uncage the legend.

(ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF MARCO’S WEBSITE: https://www.mkyris.com/)

BEFORE YOU GO, CHECK THIS OUT…

FOR MORE INFO: https://www.facebook.com/HailThePopcornKing/

Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man

May 10, 2019 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Some action movies are so over the top they sort of become fantasy by accident, so overcharged, chromed up, packed to the brim with bar fights, motorbikes and sexy chicks that they seem to exist on a plane where only those things exist, like they sprung forth from a shared dream that Bon Jovi and Patrick Swayze from Roadhouse are having. Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man is one such movie and really deserves a legacy of more acclaim than its gotten. It’s a road movie, a biker flick, a high powered ultra violent action palooza, a buddy film and almost a satire of itself at times in its own earnestness.

It opens with Bon Jovi’s Wanted Dead Or Alive as Mickey Rourke’s impossibly cool Harley Davidson hops on his bike and heads up the coast to the city that raised him, intent on bringing hell with him. He reunites with his old buddy the Marlboro Man (Don Johnson) and together they set out save their pal’s bar from an aggressive Big Bank, until one wrong move starts a literal war with them and they’re forced to shoot, stab, bicker and banter their way out of close calls, near misses, hijackings and explosion after explosion. Rourke has publicly talked shit about this film and claims he only did it for the money but it’s his loss to not take credit because Harley is one of the most badass creations of his career. He’s a devil may care urban warrior with a slick outfit and even slicker one liners. Johnson goes scruffy as the sharpshooter of the pair, a rough hewn, world weary old school cowboy who can’t stand Harley’s impulsive decisions but keeps tagging along on the misadventures they cause. Tom Sizemore does his ice cool villain shtick awesomely here as Chance Wilder, the worlds most evil Banking CEO, calmly chewing scenery like a viper and deploying a bulletproof trench coat clad Daniel Baldwin to dispatch our two heroes. This thing is casted to the nines as well with supporting turns from Chelsea Field, Vanessa Williams, Giancarlo Esposito, Big John Studd, Kelly Hu and Tia Carrere as Sizemore’s slinky second in command.

They don’t really make films like this anymore, unless it’s a knowing, tongue in cheek throwback from someone who admires and misses the aesthetic. This thing is built of bourbon, beer, chrome, blood, bullets, sexy chicks, cigarettes and a whole lot of attitude, and I fucking love it to the bones. There’s countless iconic 80’s buddy pair-ups from Nick Nolte/Eddie Murphy to Mel Gibson/Danny Glover and they all rock the house but I feel like Rourke and Johnson in this are not given enough love. Regardless of whether they just did it for the money or whether they got along on set (they didn’t, apparently), they have a macho chemistry and easygoing rapport that is both believable and irresistible. This one gets a bad rap and the reviews have never been kind, but fuck all that. It’s not meant to be taken so seriously and is the very definition of a fun flick, a raucous modern western full of stylized violence, barroom soundtrack picks and all round rough n’ tumble shenanigans. Good times.

-Nate Hill

John Flynn’s Lock Up

November 11, 2018 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

John Flynn’s Lock Up is a great early Sylvester Stallone prison flick, back in the late 80’s heyday of the action genre where envelopes were pushed, no punches were pulled and rough, brutal scripts were green-lit on the daily. Stallone plays Frank Leone, a genuinely likeable guy who has a few weeks left on a sentence that resulted from a trumped up charge to begin with, and he’s ready to get out. Donald Sutherland’s Drumgool, the new warden, has other plans though, as the two of them have a rocky past and he has nothing but contempt for Frank. This spurs an onslaught of ruthless, bloody prison violence, yard fights, shankings, betrayal and riots as sneering sociopath Sutherland does his best to ensure that Stallone never again breathes free air. The film is so charged up and cold blooded it’s almost comical at times, but always enjoyable and hard hitting. Director Flynn is responsible for stuff like the Steven Seagal bone cruncher Out For Justice and notorious 70’s exploitation flick Rolling Thunder, so grit and machismo are par for the course and then some. Sutherland just goes above and beyond as Drumgool, it’s one of the great under-sung villain performances in the genre, the guy is fucking evil personified and the legendary actor eats up every frame of screentime, demolishing scene partners left and right with that leering glare and slate granite drawl. John Amos scores as the incredibly stoic captain of the guard, there’s great work from Sonny Landham, Darlene Fluegel, Frank McRae, Larry Romano, Danny Trejo and a stunning film debut by Tom Sizemore, already a scene stealer as a fast talking con who plays sidekick to Stallone. You won’t often hear this mentioned in the prison flick round table discussion but it’s really one of the best out there, rough and ready to brawl, with a galvanized steel veneer over the fight sequences, hard bitten performances, nice moments of fleeting humour and no shortage of breathless, pulverizing violence.

-Nate Hill

Stephen Kay’s Get Carter

November 5, 2018 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

As far as the remaking of cult classics, Stephen Kay’s Get Carter is a piss poor effort, so much so that not even a positively stacked cast could do much of anything about it. The original saw fearsome bulldog Michael Caine getting shotgun fuelled revenge and has since become iconic, while this one switches up rainy Britain for rainy Seattle and a sedated Sylvester Stallone in a shiny suit takes over as Carter, a mob enforcer who hails from Vegas but has travelled north both to escape scandal and look into a shady family matter. There he finds all sorts of characters played by a troupe of big names, character actors and even Caine himself in an extended cameo as a bar owner, but it all feels lazy, listless and flung about like a ball of yarn full of loose plot threads and scenes that fizzle. It’s obvious that there were major editing problems here as the pacing is in conniptions and an entire subplot involving a love interest back in Vegas (Gretchen Mol) has been slashed to ribbons. So sloppy was the final product that my college acting teacher, who landed the role of Carter’s gangster boss back in Vegas, although mentioned brazenly in the opening credits, can only be seen briefly from the neck down and heard on the phone, except for whatever reason they decided to dub his voice over with an uncredited Tom Sizemore, which is just so bizarre. Anywho, Stallone sleepwalks his way through a local conspiracy involving his dead brother, the widow (Rachel Leigh Cook), a mysterious femme fatale (Rhona Mitra), a weaselly computer tycoon (Alan Cumming) a sleazy pimp/porn baron (Mickey Rourke) and more. It’s just all so terminally boring though, and none of the clues or twists spring to life or feel organic at all. Rourke provides some of the only life the film has to offer as the villain, a guttural scumbag who has two painful looking nightclub boxing beatdowns with Stallone which are fun. John C. McGinley raises the pulse somewhat as a lively Vegas thug dispatched by Sizemore’s voice to bring Stallone back to face the music. Others show up including Miranda Richardson, Mark Boone Jr., John Cassini, Johnny Strong, Frank Stallone, Tyler Labine and more. None of it amounts to much though and by the time the anticlimactic plot resolutions arrive and Carter jumps a red eye back to Vegas before the credits roll, you wonder what the point of it all was and want your hour and forty minutes back. A thorough bummer.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: toXic

October 11, 2018 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

In the endless sea of direct to video output, sometimes you find one that although is rough as all hell around the edges, has potential and moments that shine, even if they’re stuck in a muddled, overcrowded narrative. Toxic is one such film, a psychological horror/crime hybrid that is so full of B level movie legends, rappers and porn stars that some are only around for a second, a whole galaxy of fringe talent caught up in a story that needs complete attention to be understood, not because it’s any kind of genius labyrinthine story, but simply because it’s edited with a chainsaw and has more dangling plot threads than an entire season of CSI. There’s two timelines it takes place in, a setup that already isn’t explained well enough off the bat, but such is the level of commotion. In one, nervous mobster Tom Sizemore (nuttier than usual as this was his first gig after a stint in jail) hires two henchman (Corey Large and Danny Trejo) to find his daughter (Charity Shea) who is apparently very dangerous, but he won’t say how or why. She ends up at a strip club run by rapper Master P and her presence seems to cause nothing but trouble for everyone there including a severely depressed hooker (Dominique Swain), an ill fated homeless man (C. Thomas Howell) and others. In another timeline we see another strip club run by pimp-with-a-heart-of-gold Costas Mandylor, in which Corey Large shows up again as a mysterious bartender and the whole berserk plot hinges on his two characters, but they really should have let him stick to producing duties and hired another actor because he’s in desperate need of some acting classes. All manner of other famous faces make cameos too including Bai Ling as Sizemore’s weird clairvoyant girlfriend, scene stealer Susan Ward as a sympathetic bartender, Steven Bauer, Lochlyn Munro in dual roles, Paul Johansson, Ron Jeremy, James Duval, Johann Urb, Holt McCallany, Cerina Vincent, Shar Jackson, Nick Chinlund and the list goes until you start to wonder if these prolific people were just hanging around the studio lot and needed extra work. Here’s the thing: there *is* actually a discernible story here that’s interesting and engaging, and upon reflection it does all in fact make sense. *But*…in a ninety minute film with this many cameos and random stuff, it’s too much to feel coherent. I will say that the final twist/revelation is handled in a top tier, musically visceral way that’s quality stuff, but so much else was kind of incomprehensible that several people I’ve watched it with could tell there was a twist by the tropes being used, but not what it actually was. With a new angle on editing, sharpening up the script and whatnot this could have been something more accessible, but I still really like it for effort put into a neat storyline, the laundry list of cool cast members, that final scene that’s done so well and the obvious, endearing homages to Tarantino and Tony Scott in style and tone. Interesting, pulpy, lurid, scattershot stuff.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Bottom Feeder

June 23, 2018 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It’s ironic that Tom Sizemore starred in a B flick called Bottom Feeder, because he’s been called worse by many in Hollywood. Jokes aside I love the guy, he’s up there with my favourite actors and I’ve had to reconcile his behaviour next to my admiration for years. It’s also no secret that he’s made some piss poor cash grab films, like this one, which lives up to it’s name. Sizemore is clearly emerging from the hazy doldrums of rehab here (the timelines check out), and as such is more subdued than his trademark zany, jumping bean persona. That and he probably had zero interest in putting an effort into material this low brow and schlocky. He plays the head of a maintenance crew here who are dispatched into the catacombs of a city sewer system. Coincidentally, it’s also the home of a maniac scientist who shoots himself up with a weird genetic serum, feeds on a live rat and turns into a giant gooey rat/hooman hybrid that immediately starts hunting people down there. Sizemore’s team has all kinds of theories that reach conspiracy level but at it’s core this is just a standard made for SyFy channel mess, and if it weren’t for his name above the billing, it wouldn’t have even blipped on anyone’s radar, especially mine. The monster looks like a weird ramshackle cross between the thing in Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift and the gross giant rat that Tom Savini becomes in From Dusk Till Dawn, except way less cool than both of those beasties. This is a bottom feeder flick, derivative of basically everything in other better horror flicks and bereft of any of its own originality. Hard pass.

-Nate Hill