The Rundown (2003)

Director: Peter Berg

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Sean William Scott, Rosario Dawson, Christopher Walken

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: Bulls, guns, whips, gold and one sacred cat

Plot: A tough aspiring chef is hired to bring home a mobster's son from the Amazon but becomes involved in the fight against an oppressive town operator and the search for a legendary treasure.



My Rating: 7/10

Would I watch it again? Sure

Fun, fun, fun movie. It's the first film I've seen Johnson in (I saw this in the theater previously) and I was surprised at how charismatic he was. Scott is funny as is the banter between him and Johnson. Walken is always fun to watch. Dawson wasn't very good. And I like her. She's definitely gotten better but then that's when she worked with Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez and those guys can get great performances out of anyone.

The opening sequence with Johnson on a job to extract something from a football player in a club is fucking awesome. After that the picture moves along at a pretty good clip. It's funny and it's doing a little something different with the genre. It's just damn fun. But about halfway through the movie Dawson show back up in the jungle to save the day and from that point for the next half hour it's downhill. Not as much action, not as much humor and not as much chemistry. It's still fun but that last 2/3 drag brings it down. Other than that it was a blast.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)

Director: Michael Schultz

Starring: The Bee Gees and everyone else in Hollywood without any common sense

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

Plot: Small town band hits it big, but they must battle a nefarious plot in the music industry.

Here's the trailer but you can find a ton of clips on YouTube:



My Rating: 2/10 and that's being generous

Would I watch it again? Not even with somebody else's eyes

Remember those bubblegum card packs we used to get when we were kids? Like STAR WARS, THE BLACK HOLE, or whatever movie was hot that summer? And remember that thin rectangular strip of hard pink gum that came with it? And even though it smelled kinda good, you'd put it in your mouth and suddenly it tasted like semi-flavored cardboard and it would break apart as you tried to chew it which, despite your giving that gum a chance, you end up spitting it out because, in the end, it's a completely worthless piece of shit. That's this movie.

It's horrendously slow and just plain awful. I watched it with a bunch of friends thinking, "how bad could it be?". Well, at one point I hit the display to see how much time we had left since it seemed to be well over an hour at that point and it looked like it could be wrapping up. FUCK ME! WE'RE ONLY 40 MINUTES INTO IT AND THERE'S AN HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES LEFT TO GO!! I started drinking heavily. I'm serious. I started drinking. By the time it was over I was hammered and I don't remember much about watching THE BLUES BROTHERS afterwards. I'm double pissed because I sat through this giant turd AND I missed the great film that followed. Fuck You, Bee Gees!

Bond 13: Octopussy (1983)

Director: John Glen

Starring: Roger Moore, Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: James Bond's all time high.

Plot: A fake Fabergé egg and a fellow agent's death leads James Bond to uncovering an international jewel smuggling operation, headed by the mysterious Octopussy, being used to disguise a nuclear attack on NATO forces.



My Rating: 7/10

Would I watch it again? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.


Pretty good Bond picture. I really dig Inda as a locale. Jourdan makes a great villain. He's got class and that goes a long way. But that hideous beast of a girlfriend is easily one of the most unattractive Bond women EVER. EVER. (shown below left of Jourdan).


I really wish they'd treat the Ruskies seriously. Since THE SPY WHO LOVED ME they've been cartoon characters. I know, look at what we're dealing with. It's Bond. But still. The general who goes apeshit wanting to destroy the West is way over the top. I like the Bond pictures that have a little edge and seriousness. The guy that played Bond's contact in India, Vijay Amritraj (Vijay) was awesome. I would have liked to have seen more of him.

Other than that it's the final assault on Jourdan's palace tha bugs me. I mean, come on. A bunch of circus acrobatic women in skin-tight clothes politely killing and beating people up? And Bond showing up with Q in a HOT AIR BALLOON??? WTF? Up to that point it's a pretty good film and then they just lose it.

"James Bond will return in...Octocameltoe"
(click the picture to enlarge - you have been warned)

This came out one year prior to INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and it's interesting how they share a few things in common. Jourdan's enforcer looks just like one of the main thugs in DOOM and there's also a dinner scene where Jourdan & company are served a disgusting entre - boiled sheep's head or something like it. You can't help but know that Spielberg/Lucas ripped off some ideas from this picture. Christ on crutches; A VIEW TO A KILL (1985) is next. Kill me now.

Scorethefilm will return with his thoughts to...

A VIEW TO A KILL (1985)

Chrome and Hot Leather (1971)

Director: Lee Frost

Starring: William "Badass Muthafucker" Smith, Tony Young, Marvin Gaye, Wes Bishop, Bobby "Monster Mash" Pickett

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: Don't muck around with a Green Beret's Mama! He'll take his chopper and ram it down your throat!

Plot: A Green Beret returns home from the Vietnam war to find that a gang of murderous bikers has killed his fiancee. He calls on several of his Green Beret buddies to come and help him take revenge on the gang.



My Rating: 4/10

Would I watch it again? Uh-ah

#74 on Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 1 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

What a great tagline! What a great plot! You've got William Smith as the leader of a biker gang for fuck's sake! Great movie, huh? Nope. Not by a long shot.

What hurts this picture is the lead Green Beret, Tony Young as Mitch. He's as wooden as Al Gore and has as much emotional range as a Vegas hooker after drinking two roofie coladas. Then you add that to him and his Army buddies dress like gay bikers and ride Japanese dirt bikes pretending to be real bikers. They look like fancy lads when compared to William Smith's crew.

They even have a bike riding training montage on their dirt bikes set to a song called, "Butterfly Wings"!!!!!!!!!!!! Fags. No offense, of course. I don't mean to belittle gays by comparing them to these bozo losers. For what it's worth, the rest of the soundtrack is shitty, too.

THEN you toss on the fact that Mitch wants revenge but he doesn't want to kill anyone so he and the boys use Army training rounds and dummy smoke grenades to scare the bikers into submission. You go through this potentially ripe story, waiting patiently 'cause you just know there's going to be some serious bloodshed at the end of the picture and there isn't any. We were fucking pissed. I felt like that really ugly, lonely girl that goes out on her first date in years, gives HERSELF a roofie, and her date politely leaves without so much as a grope.

Bond 12: For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Director: John Glen

Starring: Roger Moore, Carole Bouquet, Topol, Julian Glover

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: Bond Has Everything - James Bond Agent 007 Is Back

Plot: Agent 007 is assigned to hunt for a lost British encryption device and prevent it from falling into enemy hands.



My Rating: 8/10

Would I watch it again? Yep

After sending Bond into space with MOONRAKER the producers decided to bring Bond back to Earth, so to speak, by creating a more realistic, grounded Bond picture. No one has a plot to take over the world. And for all of that I really like the direction they were taking. There's less humor which I dig.


What I don't dig is Bill Conti's disco score. Barry must've been unavailable but surely they could've done better than Conti. He's got one sliver of a tender moment between Bond and Melina that's great. But that's only a few notes. The rest of the score is obnoxious as hell.


Topol kicks major ass. He should be in every Bond picture. Lynn-Holly Johnson is luscious as the teenage ice-skating Bibi. Mmmmmmm. Bibi.


Kudos to the film makers for trying to bring Bond back to a serious spy story. Too bad the music sucks. Mmmmmmm. Bibi. Mmmmmmmm.

Scorethefilm will return with his thoughts to...

OCTOPUSSY (1983)

Saturn 3 (1980)

Director: Stanley Donen

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett, Harvey Keitel

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: Some*thing* is wrong on Saturn 3.

Plot: Two lovers stationed at a remote base in the asteroid fields of Saturn are intruded upon by a retentive technocrat from Earth and his charge: a malevolent 8-ft robot.



My Rating: 4/10

Would I watch it again? Fuck no

Featured on Stephen Romano Presents Shock Festival (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

Goddamn this movie is bad. I remember back in the early 80s, as a pubescent young boy, waiting up late at night to catch this on HBO to see one thing.

There. Now you've seen it. That's all she shows throughout the entire picture. You don't need to watch this movie. It's bad. So so bad.

What I like:

- The ship's interior design, with the exception of the stupid bright colored vent pipes, is excellent.
- I'm cool with Kirk's character being older.
- I dig the plot.
- Keitel's voice was dubbed. It was bizarre at first, knowing full-well what he sounds like as an actor, but I got used to it. It works if only for the fact that Keitel's natural accent would have ruined it. He sounded like an android here and it suited his cold character.


What I didn't like:

- Fawcett is not a good actress. They should've gone with someone whose talent extends beyond their sex organs.
- It's SLOW, SLOW, SLOW. You've only got 3 humans on a ship and a killer hot-to-trot robot. You've got to do something to keep the pace brisk once the shit hits the fan.
- Kirk didn't have to die. OOOPS! SPOILERS!!!

Avoid it. I wanted to like this film. I love a good sci-fi story but I hate it when the fuck it up in the execution. Go watch ALIEN instead and leave this clone to fade away.

Bond 11: Moonraker (1979)

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Starring: Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Richard Kiel

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: Where all the other Bonds end . . . this one begins!

Plot: James Bond investigates the mid-air theft of a space shuttle and discovers a plot to commit global genocide.

My Rating: 9/10. That's right, 9/10.

Would I watch it again? Yes


I love this movie and it's mostly because of John Barry's most beautiful and lush Bond score ever. It sucks me in. Sure, the film's got some silliness in it, and, for the most part, I don't care for it. But the movie's a lot of fun and I enjoy the hell out of it. If you're one of the others that thinks it's one of the worst, then suck it.

I'm tellin' ya, the music just pulls me right into it and doesn't let go. I've said it before, I like every actor that's played Bond - A LOT. They all bring something to the character that I like. I may not like the films but I like the actors.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie has always been, since I was a kid when I saw it in the theater, the centrifuge trainer sequence. It feels real and his predicament feels real and you start to believe that maybe he might not make it. You know he will because it's in the first 20 minutes that it happens. Moore pulls out a very convincing performance here and it's very effective.


This movie doesn't fuck around. In the first 20 minutes Bond has met the villain and is almost killed. Now let's talk about Lonsdale. This guy is a beast. He's very soft-spoken but you can tell that he's very much in control, brilliant, and ruthless. After his initial meeting with Bond he tells his hired killer, Chang, "Look after Mr. Bond. See that some harm comes to him." Fucking badass.

His under-played performance is enhanced when, on the space station, he tells Jaws to remove Bond and Goodhead (giggidy). Jaws hesitates and Drax repeats the order, this time barking it very loudly and strongly like a vicious beast. Goddamn if it isn't a jarring scene that makes you feel on edge. Very nicely done.

The death of Drax's personal helicopter pilot is particularly effective. As she runs through the forest being chased by dogs, with moments of slow motion, John Barry's brooding score underplays the entire scene. It's ominous and tense but the notes move slowly. Damn, what a fine scene.

Ken Adam's sets are astonishing.


And the space station reveal is beautifully done.


I could go on and on. Even though there are a lot of plot points here that have been stolen from previous Bond pictures, it still comes down to entertainment and this, to me, defines Bond as entertainment. Now wait until I rip that piece of shit apart that is A VIEW TO A KILL (1985)

Scorethefilm will return with his thoughts to...

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981)