Reviews

Faithfully based on Mike Mignola's Dark Horse Comics series, fans will be all fired up over director Guillermo del Toro's "HELLBOY" and his 'homage' to weird-war comic books, the chest-burster scene in "Alien", a tentacled thing causing "Predator 2" havoc on a subway, a bug-eyed, deaths-head villain that wheezes like 'Darth Vader' and a 'Baby Ruth' munching, ugly little monster, that grows up into a beer-swilling, ugly, big monster.

Ron Perlman is the 'Hot Stuff' actor here, a domesticated 'good' demon, whose job is to knock the hell out of the 'evil' ones. Referred throughout the film as either 'HB' or 'Red', Perlman's performance, while relying on the 'Ben Grimm' school of droll one-liners, is also surprisingly human for an entity from the 'other side'. Whether HB is power-sanding down his twin 'horn' stubs, slicing and dicing infernal creatures with a Conan-like frenzy, or making out with his fire-brand of a lady, Perlman allows his character to remain strong and likeable throughout many surreal and violent action sequences.

Other entertaining performances include dependable John Hurt as HB's mentor 'father', Selma Blair as the waifish 'Liz' (who has the emotional capacity to take charge of almost any situation) and Doug Jones as the scaled-down CGI 'Abe Sapien', a chatty C3PO fish out of water.

If you have a burning desire to see the latest comic book movie, then you should go straight to "HELLBOY" ...______________________________________________________

In Stephen King's autobiography "Danse Macabre", the author writes that his best story ideas were cribbed from EC horror comics of the 1950's, typically where the wimpy husband gets revenge on his cheating wife and her hunky honcho.

Based on the novella by Stephen King, and filmed in Montreal last year, "Secret Window", stars Johnny Depp as 'Mort Rainey', a successful writer who snaps after discovering his trophy wife 'Amy' (Maria Bello) having sex in a roadside motel with Timothy Hutton.

Six months later, Mort is on his own, a recluse existing in a waterside country house, an unwashed couch potato who asks his dog for advice, while his precious 'sloth' time is frequently interrupted by calls from his now

weepy wife who says she still loves him.

Even more of a headache, Mort is stalked by a psychotic "Deliverance" type in the form of 'John Shooter' (John Turturro) who plays head games by accusing Mort of stealing his script for a book.

To make a long story short (which is what director David Koepp seems to have done here), Mort falls headlong into some mighty confusing situations, slowly realizing he is a legend in his own mind.

With star Johnny Depp going for a mind-blowing performance, "Secret Window" provides an entertaining escape, attempting to throw some new light on the thriller genre.

The premise of "Highwaymen" focuses on a psycho who revs up his 1972 El Dorado to deliberately run down the gal of 'Rennie Cray' (Caviezel). This drives Rennie crazy and he vows to destroy the killer, who continues to make a lasting impression on people with his car.

Its obvious Caviezel was cast in this film to look like Mel Gibson's "Mad Max", as the film hits and runs with numerous high speed road rages and spectacular crashes.

Rhona Mitra as the beautiful 'Molly', meets up with Rennie after her blonde girlfriend is reduced to roadkill. Molly provides the only sex in the film when she asks Rennie to turn away so she can change her torn blouse. Unfortunately the camera turns away at that point too.

Colm Feore as the Polaroid-snapping, prosthetically-challenged bad guy 'Fargo', sounds like Hal 9000 over a CB throughout most of the film, but what little screen time he does get, its 'Hannibal Lecter' meets "Demon Seed", doing wheelies in an electric chair.

"Highwaymen" is as fast 'n furious as they come, but some action fans may feel like they've been taken for a ride ...

If you liked the old war-era POPEYE cartoons then you'll love "1941" !

It was great FUN when it first came out and its still enjoyable on so many levels ...

Opening gag alluding to JAWS, Slim Pickens doing his DR. STRANGELOVE homage, Chris Lee as a most despicable pulp villain, Robert Stack crying at a dumb DUMBO premiere, sexy Nancy Allen ... howza'bout Treat Williams doing his tuff GI bit in an amazingly choreographed USO dance-hall sequence that predates the fun of TEMPLE OF DOOM's opening dance number ?

This is a massive film along the frenetic lines of ITS A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and Spielberg should be proud of it (which I am sure he is, despite the bashings he took from world film critics wanting to "put him in his place" at the time).

Way to go Steven ...

And thanks for all the fun ...

A great little action movie, lensed on the streets of Toronto, Canada. Kiefer Sutherland plays a tough plainclothes cop. Some great scenes here.

Worth checking out ...