Day 237: Hardcore Henry (2015)

In my experience watching films, I feel like I have seen just about everything especially in the found footage genre. Well for this week’s Ass Whoopin Wednesday film, we have a film shot in a video game style first person shooter view called Hardcore Henry. Henry (Ilya Naishuller) has just awoken on a table and told that he had been severely damaged and that he is a cyborg now by his wife Estelle (Haley Bennett). But when the evil Akan (Danila Kozlovsky) comes looking for Henry, he’ll kidnap Estelle and put Henry through the ultimate test, but Henry has a limited amount of time to not only upgrade himself, but to save Estelle as well. The film also stars Sharlto Copley (The Snow Queen 2) as Jimmy, Andrei Dementiev (Biting Elbows: Bad Motherf**ker) as Slick Dimitry, Svetlana Ustinova (Heaven On Earth) as Olga the Dominatrix, Darya Charusha (Muzhskaya zhenskaya igra) as Katya the Dominatrix, Oleg Poddubnyy (Biting Elbows: Bad Motherf**ker) as Yury, Tim Roth (Planet Of The Apes) as Henry’s Father, Will Stewart (Red Shoe Diaries 18: The Game) as Robbie, Cyrus Arnold (Zoolander 2) as Young Bully 2, Martin Cooke (Begemot i kompot) as Marty, and the film was directed by Ilya Naishuller (Biting Elbows: Bad Motherf**ker). To check out the rest of the review and the stats of the film, please click here to go to Moshpits and Movies.

Day 97: The Hateful Eight (2015)

I usually reserve Wednesdays for my action film piece called Ass Whoopin Wednesdays, but sometimes there are films that supersede everything. A Quentin Tarantino film by definition is one of those films and that is why there is no Ass Whoopin Wednesday flick. So, we are checking out Tarantino’s eight film The Hateful Eight which stars Kurt Russell (Tombstone) as hang man John Ruth. All John wants to do is deliver a prisoner of his named Daisy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the town of Red Rock so that she can be hung. The only problem is that there is a massive blizzard and when they get to a safe place, John is having a hard time trusting a couple of guys he picked up along the way and the four other strangers he encounters in the safe house. Is John right about them being up to no good or will he get the job done. The film also stars Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs) as Oswaldo Mobray, Samuel L. Jackson (Avengers: Age Of Ultron) as Major Marquis Warren, Walton Goggins (House Of 1000 Corpses) as Sheriff Chris Mannix, Demián Bichir (The Heat) as Bob, Michael Madsen (Kill Bill Vol. 1) as Joe Gage, Channing Tatum (22 Jump Street) as Jody, Zoe Bell (Death Proof) as Six Horse Judy, Bruce Dern (Django Unchained) as Gen. Sandy Smithers, James Parks (Kill Bill Vol. 2) as O.B., and Dana Gourrier (Django Unchained) as Mindy.

I want to start this paragraph by saying that this was an excellent film that didn’t tell you that it was a certain type of film and it didn’t live up to it. This film was exactly as it was presented and that was mostly a mystery film set in a western of sorts. I love how Tarantino calls this his eight film and it’s called The Hateful Eight which could be a nod to Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini who named his eighth film 8 1/2. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true considering the fact that Tarantino is just as much a fan of cinema as I am. It was hard to choose a stand out performance from the film because everyone from Russell, Goggins, Jackson, and even Leigh did an amazing job in the film. What helped them was the fact that the film was well written and the dialogue is amazing as what would be expected from a Tarantino film. So as you can see, it was hard to just choose one person as a standout. The other factors that make this film amazing is that it was filmed using 70 mm film which gives it that authentic look and the soundtrack was done by Ennio Morricone. Ennio deservedly won the Oscar for best Score because it definitely fit the type of film that it was. If you are a true fan of Tarantino then do not miss out on this film, it is a classic. That is why I am going to give the film an A- and it gets that because Django Unchained was the better Western. Plus there are definitely somethings that are going to happen that you don’t see coming. 

Day 46: Reservoir Dogs (1992)

This one was always hard to believe considering that I am a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) and it’s that I have never seen his first film Reservoir Dogs. So with this challenge going, I figured today was better than ever. The film is about five guys Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), and Mr. Brown (Tarantino) who are all hired to do a jewelry store robbery that goes terribly wrong. When the surviving members meet back at the compound, they suspect that one of them may be a rat and may have tipped off the police about the job. Through chaos, conversation, and impatience they will try to figure out just who the rat is in the group. The film also stars the late Chris Penn (Best Of The Best) as Nice Guy Eddie, Lawrence Tierney (The Naked Gun: From The Files Of Police Squad!) as Joe Cabot, Randy Brooks (Colors) as Holdaway, Kirk Baltz (Natural Born Killers) as Officer Marvin Nash, and it features the voice of Steven Wright (Son Of The Mask) as K-Billy DJ.

If you know the way Tarantino films work, then this is the film where it all began for him. The heavy dialogues that his films are known for and not to mention the films where the timeline doesn’t exist or as I should say that it can be messed with. You know exactly what I am talking about when I say that because the story can be moving along and then out of nowhere we jump back in time as we get the origin stories of the more important characters of the film. I truly love that about his films because it’s different than just going through the events in chronological order. Now some of the audio can be a little shaky where you can here Keitel very well, but you notice that the microphone isn’t near Buscemi. Other than that, I truly loved this film and the twist that it gives. You are never going to believe who the rat was because I was kind of shocked when I found out myself. That to me was great storytelling on the part of Tarantino who pulled triple duty for this film being it’s director, writer, and one of the actors in the film. Not a bad cast of characters either for a guy making his first film as he pulls in names like Keitel, Buscemi, Penn, Madsen, etc. This was a different time though when Hollywood believed in originality. The film is available on Netflix and I think you should check it out if you never have before. That is why I am going to give the film an A for a final grade.