Archive | 3:48 am

Why I like Bad Movies: Punisher War Zone

18 Mar

punisherwarzoneposter-62908I’ve seen a lot of movies.  I mean, a ton.  I worked 5 years in a Hollywood Video and before that I survived middle school and high school on a steady diet of 5 rentals a week.  I had friends, I swear.  I just really dig films.  As I get older, I find myself really digging some bad ones, but honestly… They’re really great.

See, expectations are the enemy of everything.  Books, music, sex, parties, politicians, you name it.  Barack Obama could be the greatest president we ever have, but the expectations for his administration are staggering.  You throw that attitude at something overly hyped like The Dark Knight or Titanic or Forrest Gump and you’ll see some pretty unsatisfied viewers.  They’ll most likely say the following, “It was good.  I mean, I can see why so many people liked it… I just expected more.”  Some variation of that phrase usually will be the review.  You can only imagine what might happen with a movie that isn’t a blockbuster or critically acclaimed or even quality in the slightest.  These are the movies that make up a good third of my DVD collection.  These films are Why I Like Bad Movies.

Today I bought Punisher War Zone.  This movie is terrible, don’t get me wrong.  The acting is wooden and accents are hidden poorly and attempted worse (British actors do Brooklyn and American’s attempt Irish, all in the same scene), the action is gory as all hell (one scene involve the Punisher dispatching a villain like he’s a Pez dispenser) and the plot is non-existent (I honestly forgot there was one towards the end).  Yet, I saw this movie three times in the theater.  Why?  Because it’s just so much fun.  The trick with a character like the Punisher, a product of a bygone vigilante-obsessed era known as, “the 80′s,” is that you have to play it full tilt.  You can’t hold back one inch or you’ll lose what makes that character still resonate:  Revenge Fantasy.  See, John McClane in Die Hard probably kills more people than the Punisher but does it in a wife-beater instead of a costume.  While the vigilante has been done over and over again as so many different characters, exploring the idea of the audience being able to exact their frustrations on the cannon fodder of criminals will never go out of style.  Punisher War Zone even kicks it up a notch to Rambo levels of gore allowing for so many, “They did NOT just do that,” moments that any true Bad Movie Action Fan will crack at least one smile.

No this film is not for everyone.  Hell, it’s probably only for ten people.  Suffice it to say, Punisher War Zone is Why I Like Bad Movies.

Blind Buys and Recommendations: Mister Blank by Chris Hicks

18 Mar

misterblankexhaustivecollection1I really enjoy two things about movies and comics and the like: The blind buy and the easily recommended.  The blind buy is usually fulfilling for the purposes of being in a shop and finding a book or DVD that just leaps out at you and says, “Trust me. You’ll like it.”  To then turn around and pass that book or DVD on to someone else and actually be the ones to speak the words is also extremely enjoyable.  Many a time, I’ve had a pretty good streak of luck with being able to not only judge a book by its cover, but also keep the trust of a friend by adding my name to the recommendations strewn over said cover.

When I was in New York City for the first time back in 2000, I stumbled upon Jim Haney’s Comic Universe over by, of all places, the Empire State Building. The friends I was on vacation with had actually found the shop a few days prior and been hiding its location from me so that I wouldn’t end up spending 5 hrs and $200 inside it.  They failed.  At the tail end of my cathartic shopping spree, I caught the simple cover of a rather large omnibus for a series called, “Mister Blank.”  I stopped dead in my tracks.  There wasn’t much the outside and I had never heard of the author, Chris Hicks.  Something about the art style, though, spoke to my sensibilities.  Cartoony yet expressive with layout that was extremely thoughtful and experimental.  It was obvious Hicks had some formal training and being that he was also the writer of “Mister Blank” he could make every character moment work twice as well.

The story of “Mister Blank” follows everyday joe, Sam Smith, as he gets swept from his boring uneventful life into a thousand year old battle of wills against the daughter of creation and her immortal sons who have been secretly conquering the world for generations.  While this all may sound “epic” and “intense,” it’s not all played that way.  Sam’s every man status is played to the hilt.  He’s completely unprepared for robotic assassins, shape-shifting clones, and psychic mimes.  In the end, all Smith wants is to ask out Julie from his office and rescue his loyal dog, What.  When it counts, though, Sam steps up and stares down Russian gods of the wind and leads the charge against the potential end of the world.

Amazing and fresh illustration that holds up years after publication, fun and familiar character driven humor and action, and an epic saga collected for reading in one sitting in one tight omnibus.  “Mister Blank” is one of my all-time favorites and I highly recommend it.  Trust me, you’ll like it.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.