Tag: wes studi

Jason Momoa’s Road To Paloma

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I was always kind of aware of Road To Paloma as ‘that biker flick passion project that Jason Momoa directed and stared in but didn’t really make a big splash’ so I never really got around to it until now. Well I think that there’s a reason it didn’t make a big splash, as it’s far more of a meditative, almost spiritual picture than any sort of action thriller type thing, an esoteric, atmospheric portrait of one Native American man meandering the southwest on the run from both the law and his past. But it’s a fantastic film, one that shows Momoa as a true visual poet in command of every frame, giving his story a loose, elegiac aura that’s not always so easy to capture authentically. He plays Robert Wolf, an indigenous wanderer who has a nasty, predatory federal agent (Timothy V. Murphy) on his tail at the behest of a gruff FBI section chief (the briefest of cameos from Lance Henriksen), guided by a conflicted sheriff (Chris Browning). That sounds like the setup for something fast paced and thrilling, but such is thankfully not really the case. There are some scenes of action and pursuit but most of the film is Wolf and his rambunctious buddy Cash (Robert Homer Mollohan) rambling from place to place on their bikes and carving out a path through the gorgeous, rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains and desolate plains below. They visit Robert’s friends and family, participate in a junkyard fight club for cash, hang out, drink, ponder existence and the unjust system that led to their predicament and really just… live. Many people have said this film is ‘dull’ and ‘nothing happens’ but I guess those people need constant gun battles and car chases pumped into them from an IV. If they slowed down to think a bit they’d see this film is anything but dull or nothing, it’s a heartbreaking, honest look at one man running from injustice after avenging the death of a loved one, and naturally being part of an indigenous tribe, he and his family experience the full weight of the racism, hate and evil that has bred in the area since time immemorial. Wolf feels less like martyr here and more like myth, a totem of the swiftly shrinking freedom human beings have in any given era or area, and a deliberate force of nature who lives moment to moment in utter clarity, possessive of an elemental restlessness that sees him never tarry in one space for long. He meets others including his tribal police chief father (the great Wes Studi), his sister (Sarah Shani) who has married an old friend of his (Michael Raymond-James), briefly entering and re-entering their lives before hitting the road again. He also meets a mysterious stranded girl called Magdalena, played by his real life wife Lisa Bonet. The two have a brief romantic encounter here that’s sweet, haunting, supported by their genuine love and chemistry and adds a heartfelt dynamic to Wolf’s story, even just for a few quick scenes. The story may be lilting and free form, simply a brief, tragic and melancholy glimpse into the life of a man who has spent most of it on the road, and is now nearing the end of it. But in that lyrical, shifting-sand narrative there’s a profundity and aching soul, a need to tell the story of great injustice and corruption, however far you need to read, and feel, between the lines. Great film.

-Nate Hill

THE MICHAEL MANN FILES: THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992)

by Patrick Crain, posted in Film Review

I’ve never read anything by American novelist James Fenimore Cooper, author of the book from which The Last of the Mohicans was adapted. But if Mark Twain is to be believed a decent critic of letters, I’m not missing much. Or, to be precise and on the contrary, I’m missing a lot because, as a friend once opined, “I wish he were James Feniless Cooper.” So it seems that the consensus is that if Cooper was anything, it wasn’t economical. And neither, really, is filmmaker Michael Mann (though it’s not necessarily a bad thing with him). A man who toils in ostensible action films, Mann’s work slowly percolates before hitting a full roil as he allows minute details to create the fuller flavor when the action finally hits.

So it’s sort of a surprise that Mann’s adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans is such a tight and nimble affair that yet still feels robust and epic. But in all transparency, Mann’s film isn’t a finely combed reworking of the original source material, but is a copy of a copy; less adapted from the novel itself but from the 1936 adaptation by John L. Balderston, Daniel Moore, Paul Perez, and Philip Dunne which was the basis of the George Seitz-directed version of The Last of the Mohicans starring Randolph Scott.

Set in 1757 during the third year of the French and Indian war, The Last of the Mohicans spins the yarn of Cora (Madeline Stowe) and Alice (Jodhi May) Munro, daughters of British Colonel Edmund Munro (Maurice Roëves) who are attacked by their Mohawk-née-Huron guide, Magua (Russell Means) on a march to a military fort and are subsequently intercepted and led to safety by a frontier family unit made up of the white born/native raised Nathanial ‘Hawkeye’ Bumppo (Daniel Day-Lewis); his Mohican father, Chingachgook (Russell Means); and brother, Uncas (Eric Schweig). Throw in some frontier romance that looks like the cover of a million and one bodice-rippers that would litter the rack of a Safeway in years long extinguished, a gloriously unsubtle and full-blooded score by Randy Edelman and Trevor Jones, and Dante Spinotti’s cinematography making damn sure that every shot looks like a gorgeously textured painting, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a rousing adventure film that cleverly folds pulp into purpose.

If all of this sounds a little rustic for the glossy kind of urban plotting favored by Michael Mann, it’s not. For The Last of the Mohicans plays very well to Mann’s strengths and shows what makes him such a special filmmaker. Here the examination of a crime scene is replaced with the almost preternatural knowledge of just who and what slaughtered a defenseless frontier cabin. Nobody cases a score but Magua plots diligently and carefully to satiate his obsession with slaughtering the entire Munro family. Nobody has a history of existential baggage causing their personal lives to be high-tension quagmires of personal failure but there is an inevitable march to the same kind of doom and loneliness that befell Thief’s Frank and Miami Vice’s Sonny Crockett and caused the endings to their tales to contain bitter, Pyrrhic victories.

Aside from expanding the widescreen visual language that had eluded Mann the previous seven years during his sojourn in television, The Last of the Mohicans is perhaps the most foundational embodiment of the Mann hero. Nathanial Bumppo is a man without a heritage, a white man raised in a native family in a land that is wild and tangled beyond its small British foothold. Not only does this expand to Magua, likewise disconnected from his roots after being taken a slave by the Mohawk people, this also expands to Mann’s reflection of the America as contemporarily dressed westerns in which the protagonists reside in the absolute middle between law and lawlessness, even when they themselves are cops and/or criminals. Mann’s heroes are just the progeny of the cast of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch; fiercely independent and untamed criminals with a modicum of personal honor battling against authority figures right on the dividing line of the two. This is why Nathanial’s declaration of “I do not call myself subject to much at all” sounds suspiciously like Frank’s “I am Joe the Boss of my own body.”

As is his wont to do, Mann’s insistence on giving Magua a third dimension and not rendering him a cartoon villain without proper motivation makes the character a little less than the symbolic Francis Dollarhyde from Manhunter who served as a literal reflection of the protagonist. Here, the antagonist is placed into much more devastating territory, painted as someone understandably twisted by a hate in regards to a tragedy with which the audience can empathize. After all, didn’t we cheer Clint Eastwood’s titular character in The Outlaw Josey Wales back in 1976 for doing pretty much the same thing? And let the record state that I don’t exactly not root for Magua to kill Colonel Monroe and eat his heart, I’m just a little bearish on him killing the kids.

Mann puts his actors through the absolute ringer as they traverse uphill and down dale in some pretty rough terrain, earning themselves every layer of dishevelment that occurs to their wardrobes along the way. And while the whole cast is amazing, special mention has to be given to Daniel Day-Lewis for giving straight men the meaning of what it is to look like a whole snack. Despite its technical prowess, flawless pacing, and containing some of the most beautiful cinematography this side of Barry Lyndon or The Duellists the secret sauce of The Last of the Mohicans is likely its casting. Every now and again, I see a tweet make the rounds that states “My sexual orientation is the cast of 1999’s The Mummy,” replete with four stills of its principles. Well, I’ll see your Mummy and raise you a Last of the Mohicans because I know of no other film that oozes base sexuality and affects its viewers quite like this one without doing much of anything at all (though, quite honestly, neither does The Mummy). For about 55 minutes into the film, Mann stages one of the most erotically charged moments of his career that is astonishing in its ability to raise the temperature to a ridiculous degree without showing a single thing outside a passionate kiss. And it serves as a reminder that, though not generally thought of as a composer of romantic moments, Michael Mann certainly knows how to create almost painfully gorgeous sequences of physical sensuality. When Madeline Stowe coos “The whole world is on fire,” one is tempted to mutter “Yeah it is. Go ahead and let it burn.”

Put another way, a family dinner with my much more conservative parents and sister turned into a literal thirst trap as my mom, a woman who thinks long hair looks positively awful on men, couldn’t help but bemoan the fact that Daniel Day-Lewis cut his hair after production on The Last of the Mohicans wrapped and my sister, generally demur in such moments, offered up “Now… see… I liked his brother in that.”

A little something for everyone, America.

(C) Copyright 2021, Patrick Crain

Disney/Pixar’s Soul

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Trust Pixar to bravely and almost effortlessly tackle a subject as delicate and demanding as the human soul. They already kinda did in 2015’s Inside Out (the movie where feelings have feelings), which acts as a nice companion piece to Soul, a brilliant metaphysical stunner in every sense of the word and one of the most ambitious, rewarding films of the year. Jamie Foxx stars against type as Joe, a middle aged high school band teacher who always hoped to make it big as a jazz musician. When he finally nails a gig with a hotshot artist (Angela Bassett), he has an accident and goes into a coma before he can make the venue, hurling his soul into the great beyond where he furiously fights to make it back earth-side, but it’s more complicated than all that. He finds himself chained in mentorship to a dysfunctional soul (Tina Fey) who could never get the entry process right and hasn’t lived a single incarnation on earth. Together they traverse the gorgeously surreal lands beyond our earthly realm and eventually earth itself in a search for Joe’s body, a reason for Fey’s wayward soul to transition into earthly life and the very meaning of existence itself. Much like Inside Out, this takes on deep themes in a disarmingly lighthearted manner while still managing to be emotionally affecting enough that it doesn’t feel sappy or inconsequential. Joe literally learns that life isn’t about finding meaning or purpose, but that the meaning and purpose are there in the simple fact that there *is* life. The visuals are incredibly trippy and abstract in the realms beyond earth and beautifully photorealistic in a stunningly rendered New York City brought to life in painstaking autumnal detail. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross compose a reliably ambient and almost dark hued score that is something we haven’t ever heard in a Disney film and aside from Foxx and Fey’s solid lead voice work, listen for others including Richard Ayoade, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Questlove, Wes Studi, June Squibb and more. Pixar has gotten staggeringly mature and creative in ways I never thought possible since Inside Out and now Soul, this is a complex, wonderful, visually stimulating, wittily written, philosophically engaging piece of art and one of the best films you’ll see this year.

-Nate Hill

David Von Ancken’s Seraphim Falls

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Liam Neeson ruthlessly pursuing Pierce Brosnan across an unforgiving post civil war US landscape, from snowy peaks to vast plains to acrid deserts and all the midlands in between. David Von Ancken’s Seraphim Falls is a stunning, folklore inspired tale of revenge, burning guilt, wayward ambitions and the joyless act of the hunt, portrayed not as thrill here but more as grim duty.

Brosnan is Gideon, an ex General now on the run from Carver (Neeson), another high ranking soldier who harbours deep hatred and rage against him for reasons the film wisely keeps to its chest until the last few minutes. This allows us to form our own picture of each man that is cultivated by each passing deed, and the labels of bad and good, hero and villain need not apply, which is how stories should be told anyways. They both appear to be good men in some instances, and both hardened killers in others. The film starts off in the snowy northern mountains, moves below to hills, valleys and ranches, continues on to the river lands and finally winds up in a scorching desert where the final revelations are laid bare and each man must make a choice. Von Ancken gives this story an almost biblical tone, from the Dante-esque journey from one specific natural setting to the next to the appearance of several key characters that seem to have supernatural undercurrents including a lone First Nations man (Wes Studi) who mysteriously guards a watering hole to a strange medicine lady (Anjelica Huston) who appears in the desert as if a phantom.

Neeson and Brosnan are phenomenal here. Liam lets the sickness of revenge spill out in his behaviour, that of a man with tunnel vision and no hesitations on letting anyone in his way become collateral damage. Pierce is haunting as a man running from both his adversary and his past, scenes where he hides out in a farmhouse and interacts with a young boy are subtly heartbreaking when you finally see the big picture later on. He’s grizzled to hell too, and there’s nothing like watching him patch up a bullet wound on his own, frontier style. Von Ancken carefully chooses his cast with wonderful character actors and familiar faces like the awesome Michael Wincott as Neeson’s roughneck hired bounty hunter, Xander Berkeley, Ed Lauter, Kevin J. O’Connor, Angie Harmon, Jimmi Simpson, James Jordan and more. I’d like to think that this exists in the same western universe as Von Ancken’s AMC drama Hell On Wheels because Tom Noonan briefly shows up here as pretty much the same Minister character he went on to excellently portray in the show, which I thought was a nice touch. This is a mean, callous, relentlessly and graphically violent piece of filmmaking that throws nods to Eastwood films of the same ilk while subtly doing its own kind of mythic, folklore thing that thrums along under the main story arc for you to pick up on, if you’re tuned into it’s ever so slightly esoteric frequency. Great, underrated film.

-Nate Hill

So I met this guy who worked on Street Fighter by Kent Hill

by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

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So there I was, peddling my wares. A heapin’ helpin’ of the ideas I had for movies were dying slow, dusty deaths on shelves and in draws until a friend suggested that I should simply write them all as books.

Supanova is what we have Down Under instead of Comic Con, and it was on day one of said Con that I sat, anxious, for there were no takers. Books with no pictures seemed about as welcome in that place as a sign stating: Cosplayers will be shot!

Still I kept the faith and soon enough I noticed folks were coming around. The awesome cover art and weird juxtaposition of genres were beginning to grab attention. Soon this cool cat with steampunk attire and weaponry approached the bench. To my surprise he bought a book and then, as is often the case when talking to me, the conversation quickly shifted to the topic of movies.

It was in that moment the guy, out of the blue, told me he had worked on Street Fighter – a film generally regarded as one of those tiresome ‘video game’ movies. Big, expensive, lead weights that treated the box office like the iceberg that sank the Titanic.

Sue me, okay, I gotta soft spot for Street Fighter man, it’s a guilty pleasure – plus I was intrigued, as I often am, to hear behind the scenes stories.

People line up at these Cons and spend ridiculous sums of money to get celebrity autographs. It’s money they could save, let me tell you, if folks would just hang around til the end of the day – or come in really early. It’s this tactic that saw me meet Chewbacca and have a coffee with Nick Frost for a grand total of zero dollars. So to these types I must have appeared bonkers when I asked Daryl Zimmermann for his autograph. A guy that had worked on a film most of the kids walking the floor that day, I’m pretty sure, had no idea existed.

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So Daryl, shocked as I supposed he must have been, signed the back of a card I had in my wallet. And he’s a top bloke I tell you – as well as being a man who worked on a movie I happen to like.

If you haven’t seen Street Fighter, now’s your chance. It’s written and directed by the guy who wrote Die Hard and stars Van Damme, back when he had more cocaine than brains (apparently). I have already interviewed Zengief, who gave me a few stories from in front of the camera. But, Daryl played his part in the movie too (see E. Honda Vs Zengief clip above) …

 

 

 

Michael Mann’s The Last Of The Mohicans

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Before Terrence Malick lyrically explored the relationship between settlers, natives and nature in The New World, Michael Mann crafted the emotionally gripping, beautifully feral The Last Of The Mohicans. Take Mann out of his comfort groove of big city crime epics and whatever new avenue he explores is going to be incredibly fascinating (his much forgotten, sadly panned The Keep is further evidence). Trading in looming urban skyscrapers for equally imposing trees of the frontier, high powered weaponry for one badass long-shot rifle and the onslaught of rapid fire combat for incendiary cannon fire, the colonial times suit him splendidly and he rocks this period piece for all its worth. Daniel Day Lewis is a force of nature as Nathaniel Hawkeye, the white man raised by his adoptive father (Russell Means) and brother (Eric Schweig) in the wild. Madeleine Stowe is a dark haired candle of radiance and fiercely spirited as the lovely Cora Munro, brought from the prim, lacy traditions of Olde England out to the wild, uncompromising new land, with her impressionable young sister (Jodi May is low key brilliant). Wes Studi gives the bitter hearted warrior Magua a steady grace and brutal resolve. The film is lovingly made, sweeping from thundering battles to cascading waterfalls to meticulously constructed war forts to uneasy treaties to verbose politics to romance that stirs the heart and unlocks the tear ducts. But it’s all about those last twenty minutes, man. Holyyy fuck does this movie have an ending. When the final, white knuckle climax happens atop the scenic yet unforgiving Promentory Ridge, hearts, bones and dreams are broken as all the characters collide in a tragic, inevitable confrontation that leaves fire in your heart and tears in your eyes. James Newton Howard and Trevor Jones provide a legendary, soul stirring musical score that swells for the final act and carries it to transcendent heights. Mann directs with a compassionate, objective eye, never designating anyone as the good or bad guy, but simply showing us human beings fighting for survival, love and revenge in a land only just finding its cultural identity. A real classic and one of the best of the 90’s. Oh, and avoid the director’s cut at all costs. That’s not usually advice I’d give for any film but Mann somehow thought it necessary cut an incredibly important final scene of dialogue between Lewis, Means and Stowe that gives thematic weight to the story and caps off the characters arcs gorgeously. Rookie move, Michael, that’s a key scene and bookends the film beautifully.

-Nate Hill

Scott Cooper’s Hostiles

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Scott Cooper’s Hostiles is beautifully shot, competently staged, well produced, acted and scored, but there’s a certain depth, development and complexity lacking, and I lay the blame on script, which seems a little south of the polished stage, with one foot still rooted in the blueprint phase. It’s a shame because the actors are game to give the film all they’ve got, but the script handed to them just isn’t on par with their efforts. Christian Bale is implosive as ever in one of his best performances as Blocker, a decorated civil war vet who has spent a great portion of his career heavily involved in the war and genocide against Native American tribes, and as such has become a hard, mean and brittle tempered creature. It’s fascinating to observe how someone like him, who does have a decent soul deep down, can be turned so backwards and hateful in circumstances like that, another theme the film doesn’t quite follow through with. Blocker is tasked with one last mission before semi-early retirement: Escort legendary Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi, excellent as ever) and his kin from Arizona back to his home in Montana to live out his remaining years. Blocker bristles at the thought, but when his salty superior officer (Stephen Lang) threatens his pension, he begrudgingly saddles up. The film then showcases their journey, several hardships and skirmishes they find themselves in, all to fertilize the eventual bond and understanding formed between the two groups and their decision to work as a unit, and even respect each other. Here’s the problem: the script isn’t deep or thoughtful enough to make any of these arcs believable. The Native characters are painfully underdeveloped, particularly Yellow Hawk’s son and his wife, played by Adam Beach and Qorianka Kilcher, two actors more than capable of handing in great work when the material comes their way. The one thing that does work and is probably the best quality that film has is a character played by Rosamund Pike, a frontier farmer whose entire family is slaughtered by vicious Comanches in the film’s arresting opening scene. She joins Bale’s company, and Pike plays her with harrowing sadness, terrifying vengeful poise and gives one of the most realistic, un-cinematic portraits of grief I’ve ever seen. Come awards season next year, she should be a front runner. The film almost doesn’t deserve her sterling subplot, but it does it’s best, and reaches some heights here and there. Bale’s company is played by a reliable troupe including upright Jesse Plemons, melancholic Rory Cochrane and grizzled Peter Mullan. Also appearing is western veteran Scott Wilson in a brutal last minute cameo, always nice to see him still in the game. There’s an unbalanced focus between the soldiers and the natives, who I wanted to learn more about but were left as mainly tagalong bystanders with scant dialogue. When Bale’s arc reaches it’s final stages, I felt slightly cheated by everything that came before: I didn’t quite believe that what he’d been through was enough to sway over two decades of hate and prejudice, and once again the fault lies with script. A little more care, preparation and editing could have turned this from a good film into one for the ages.

-Nate Hill

Mystery Men: A Review by Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

  
I’ve always been both fascinated and puzzled by Mystery Men. It’s essentially a titanic budget spent on a bunch of inane tomfoolery that makes sense neither as satire, straight up comedy, serious superhero fare or anything in between. And yet, it’s so much fun, coming out a complete winner despite any odds it dodges on the way. I bring it up because Suicide Squad is coming soon, and for whatever reason every trailer and bit of marketing for it so far reminds me of this one. Couldn’t even really say why, just something about the vibe and aesthetic of both films that seems distantly related. Could just be me being strange, which is the word in question for this one. It’s bizarre beyond belief, stylized to a point where Dr. Seuss would get dizzy and full of abstract, off the wall humour that requires you to coast along in the same delirium as the characters before you really get it. It takes place in Champion City, a cluttered metropolis that makes Gotham look like dullest suburbia. It’s a place populated by heinous, eccentric super villains, one legitimate superhero and a bunch of misfits who fancy themselves costumed crimefighters. When theatrical arch menace Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Wright proved to me that he could top Barbosa, no easy feat in my books) is booted from prison, he launches into his old ways, ransacking the city and bringing hero Captain Fantastic (Greg Kinnear), to his knees. It’s now up to a hilarious group of lovable buffoons to bring him and his minions down. You better sit down before I describe these guys, cuz they’re too good to be true. Ben Stiller is Mr. Furious, a dude who believes he can get so angry he has super strength… except..not. William H. Macy plays The Shoveler, who pretty much shovels. Janeane Garofalo is The Bowler, who carries a ball with the essence of her superhero dad trapped inside. Kel Mitchell is the Invisible Boy, who is only invisible when nobody is looking. My favourite by far is The Blue Raja (a scene stealing Hank Azaria), a turban wearing, plummy British accent spouting dude whose weapons of choice are forks, which he flings about the place like ninja stars. I could go on and on about every little quirk and stroke of genius, but I’d rather let you discover it all yourself, and immerse yourself in the giddy treasure chest that is this film. I must make mention of Tom Waits as a scientist who designs elaborate and “non lethal” weapons. Man, this movie rocks. Additional flair is provided by Lena Olin, Ned Bellamy, Claire Forlani, Paul Reubens, Wes Studi (whose character cuts guns in half with his mind and blurts out endless paradoxical platitudes) and Eddie Izzard. There’s a few hidden moments of emotion that take you off guard like easter eggs amongst the lunacy, for all you folks who want a side of seriousness with your buffoon burger. This isn’t everyone’s thing, but check ‘er out anyways, just to make sure. It’s one of my favourites.

Stephen Sommer’s Deep Rising: A Review By Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

  

Stephen Sommers’s Deep Rising is some of the most fun you’ll have watching an overblown action horror spectacle, if that’s your type of thing. It plays the slimy underwater alien formula to the hilt, an epic and very funny gory swashbuckler that is sadly very underrated and not too talked about these days. It’s ridiculously watchable, insanely gory and punctuated by one liners and quips that work so well in the flippant context of the script. The story concerns a band of nasty sea pirates who plan to hijack the world’s largest ocean liner cruise ship, and all the riches onboard. They arrive to find the vessel empty of any passengers, and full of something they’ll wish they never came across. A massive and very icky underwater predator has eaten everyone onboard and now has turned its attention to the newcomers. They are picked off one by one in deliciously grotesque kills that show director Sommers in his little seen R rated mode. Treat Williams is a hoot as John Finnegan, a sort of cross between Indiana Jones and Bruce Campbell, a soldier of fortune and adventurer with a vernacular chock full of wiseass quotes and idioms that tickle the funny bone no end. He’s got a sidekick named Joey Pantucci (Kevin J. O Connor slays it) and a girlfriend named Trillian St. James (isn’t that the best name ever?) played by Famke Janssen in a fierce, sexy and capable turn as the chick with the gun that everyone loves. The trio make the film dizzyingly entertaining and you find yourself wishing you could hang out with them longer once it’s over. There’s a snivelling villain played by the always smarmy Anthony Heald, and the ragtag group of pirates are brought to life by distinct personalities such as Jason Flemyng, Cliff Curtis, Clifton Powell, Djimon Hounsou and the great Wes Studi. Sommers is a seriously underrated director. He spins loving odes to the adventure films of Old Hollywood with passion, wonder and the spark of imagination in spades. And what does he get? Critically and commercially spat on, time and time again, with some of his films not even getting a proper release (don’t get me started on the masterpiece that is Odd Thomas). Hollywood and the masses don’t deserve him and his toiling, thankless work, and yet he soldiers on. What a guy, and what a stellar filmmaker. This ones a testament, a rollicking, bloody piece of creature feature bliss that never fails to knock my socks right the hell off.
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