Did you know that Errol Flynn had a seedier, puffier, older brother also named Errol? Me neither, but it turns out that he tried to follow in his more glamorous and roguish brother’s footsteps by starring in a movie about Scottish dudes getting worn out by the British Empire and turning tail and becoming pirates in beautiful Tortuga Bay. Oh wait – that was Errol Flynn in this movie! Read More

I get the sense that Steven Seagal and director Don E. FauntLeRoy wound up 2005’s Today You Die, looked at what an awesome opera of action violence they wreaked and Don said to Steve, “if that’s what we could do when you’re just an armored car driver, what would happen if you were the most decorated veteran of the first Gulf War?” And Steve responded with, “and I was the leader of an elite team of mercenaries?” Don says, “that just might be one of our best projects of 2006!” Steve is nodding his chins and Don seals the deal with “have you ever been to Cape Town, South Africa, Steve?” Read More

Before this movie started I didn’t even know what continent Damascus was on! If that’s the sort of detail that really matters to you when you’re watching a movie, Goliath at the Conquest of Damascus begins with a map with labels and narrator to walk you through it. For me though, by the time the guy was babbling on about the fourth different set of tribes fighting over some sandy armpit the civilized world quit caring about thousands of years ago, I just gave up trying to sort out what some guy named Thor was doing in the middle of it all. Unleash the glistening guns of whatever gargantuan grapple god this movie stars already! Read More

Kenpo legend Jeff Speakman is of course famous for his legendary Kenpo movie The Perfect Weapon. He is not famous for other movies such as The Expert, Scorpio One or Deadly Outbreak. I think I knew what the hell Kenpo was back in the early 1990s, but I don’t have the slightest idea what it entails anymore. Probably something with sticks and lots of grunting and kicking. Read More

Giant of the Evil Island promises us so much. Like a giant. And an evil island. And director Piero Pierotti (Hercules Against Rome) delivers exactly all of it! Now you may need to be a bit flexible on your definition of what a giant is since the pirate Malek appears to be of normal size, though admittedly stocky enough that a little kid might think he was giant. But there’s no doubting the presence of an evil island since Piero has the good sense to actually name Malek’s island hideout as Evil Island! Read More

Don The Dragon Wilson, Esq. It’s the sort of phrase that conjures up a variety of dream-like images. There’s the one where Don The Dragon is doing research using Westlaw and gets so excited to find a case on point that he karate chops his secretary through the office water cooler. You could also be excused if you imagine The Dragon objecting to some bit of damning testimony so vociferously that he actually splits the counsel table in half while pounding on it for emphasis! And then there’s all those billable hours for “kicking the shit out of hostile witness” and “ex parte beat down of trial judge.” Read More

Did it really take until 1999 to make a movie where a rapper hijacked a combination flamethrower/rocket launcher from low budget action icon Frank Zagarino? Did it really take cinema 100 years or so before it was mature enough to handle a film with Zags, Gary Busey, Jeff Fahey, Pam Grier, and prolific British kickstud Gary Daniels? Some of you are surely questioning the wisdom of letting Master P direct such a classic conflagration of paycheck hungry workhorses. I would question the wisdom of NOT letting him do it! Read More

Takeshi Miike’s Shinjuku Triad Society has a Chinese triad and the Yakuza mix it up over some illegal organ trafficking business resulting in lots of guys getting beaten, shot, stabbed, eye gouged, and drugged. Not satisfied though with merely depicting a typical gang war punctuated with extreme belches of brutal violence, Miike solidifies this as required viewing for all real fans of crime films by throwing in the cop who plays by his own rules! Read More

Mario Siciliano was a pretty minor player as far as Italian scuzz cinema goes with credits on a few spaghetti westerns, a bunch of sex comedies, and Evil Eye. Mario proves though that it isn’t how much you do, but what you do with what you have. Some folks like Lamberto Bava or Bruno Mattei may be willing to share their gifts with us three or four times a year. Others, like Mario, may simply explode one day on the scene and burn brightly for a single film or two before returning to the relative obscurity whence they came. Read More

Supposedly there was a little fad in the late fifties and early sixties following Kirk Douglas’ The Vikings where everybody in charge of those Hercules, Maciste or whatever name they were giving their hunky slab of beefy sword guy movies, decided to break out the long ships and fur trimmed coats to cash in on the Nordic craze that was sweeping some remote part of Minnesota. Read More