Riddick Retrospective: DARK FURY

The Chronicles Of Riddick: Dark Fury
2004
Director: Peter Chung
Starring: Vin Diesel, Keith David, Rhianna Griffith, Nick Chinlund, Tress MacNeille, Roger L. Jackson
Not Rated

Careful, you may find what you're digging for.
                    ~Riddick

Around this time, it started to become cool to come up with some sort of DVD tie in to coincide with your upcoming sequel.  The most notable being the The Animatrix series that led up tot he release of The Matrix: Reloaded.  Some of these would do their best to bridge the gap between two films.  Dark Fury straight up follows the The Animatrix's lead and does a full on Anime short telling what happened directly following the events of Pitch Black.

Breakin' 2: Diesel Boogaloo

A special thanks to Jim Dietz for sharing this lovely piece of 1984 with me last night.  At age 17, Vin Diesel did an instructional video on the art of break dancing.  Cracked covered this in an article a year ago, but I guess I never saw it.  However, its quite humorous and perfectly timed for the Riddick Retrospective.  As if you couldn't find more ways to love this unique individual, you go and dig up this.  After the jump is a link to the video.  My favorite part is where his dance partner accidentally kicks him in the junk.  Don't worry, Vin plays it cool.

Riddick Retrospective: PITCH BLACK

Pitch Black
2000
Director: David Twohy
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Vin Diesel, Cole Hauser, Keith David, Claudia Black
Rated: R

I was just watching Predator in my bedroom louder than this!
                                        ~James Brindel


Whenever I think of Pitch Black, the quote above always enters my brain like it was yesterday.  Quite possibly my worst theater going experience of all time came with seeing this film.  If not the worst, it easily ranks in the top 3.  Films that the reel breaks or have projection problems were better than this.  The time I went and saw The Empire Strikes Back for the 3rd time and it was playing at a 45 degree angle was better.

Freddy Vs Jason Turns 10 Years Old!

In another one of the ever so growing "has it really been that long?" cases in my life, today marks 10 years ago that slasher icons Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees FINALLY met together on the big screen.  It was an idea struck in the 80s that finally came to fruition in the summer of 2003.  It also became the highest grossing film for either character.  Both's previous few entries had shown a big decline,  To reiterate Scott Mendelson's article from last week when referring to diminishing returns on sequels and mentioning Wes Craven's New Nightmare tanking...SHAME ON ALL OF YOU for not going to that one.  But this one showed, they still got it!

RANKING: Beverly Hills Cop

Here we are, the easiest series to rank to date.  The Beverly Hills Cop adventures were one that purely hinged on its star being golden.  And I guess the old saying "2 outta 3 ain't bad" goes to work here.  Without Murphy in these however, they become generic and forgettable.  Heck, if he doesn't show up they get that way and worse.

Beverly Hills Cop Retrospective: Beverly Hills Cop III

Beverly Hills Cop III
1994
Director: John Landis
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Saxon, Hector Elizondo, Bronson Pinchot, Timothy Carhart, Theresa Randle
Rated:  R

The third movie was so attrocious...the third Beverly Hills Cop was like "We're not doing any more of these." Axel was banished from the town.
                              ~Eddie Murphy


Seven years, and this is what they deliver?  Whoof.  I dunno where to start or what to say.  This is a bad, lackluster, generic effort if I've ever seen one.  I couldn't recall much from this movie aside from Axel Foley involved in an action scene on a ferris wheel, and after I viewed it again I can see why my brain has chosen not to remember it.  This movie isn't laughably bad, its not "Eh, its better than no Beverly Hills Cop" or just the unfortunate third best in a string of good to decent movies.  This movie is just a complete waste.

Beverly Hills Cop Retrospective: Beverly HIlls Cop II

Beverly Hills Cop II
1987
Director: Tony Scott
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Brigitte Nielsen, Dean Stockwell, Jurgen Prochnow, Ronny Cox, Paul Reiser
Sponsored By: Playboy
Rated: R

Fuck Rambo!
      ~Sergeant Taggart


The second Axel Foley adventure falls into that sequel trope of being "more of the same".  A lot of times back in the day, if you got a sequel, you just got the same movie repackaged.  I'm not saying its an exact remake, but all the beats are the same and very little progresses.  Its an entertaining movie no doubt, but there's nothing here that really needed to be explored.

Thank You, Scott Mendelson!

First off...that's an old photo (I think circa 2006, taken by Sharon i think)

1 year ago today, Scott published the first piece of my very first retrospective and my first as a regular contributor to Mendelson's Memos.  While that was the start, it wasn't the first time he'd published something from me. That would be this. A review I don't even agree with myself on now.  Its very amateur and I'm obviously trying too hard, but its nice to see I've come a long way.  I had been wanting to start a film criticism related blog for many years and it was just that, an idea.  I was never able to sit down and motivate myself to actually do it.  Last summer, Scott called and asked if I'd be able to slide him some content regularly and I saw this as finally the opportunity and obliged.  It was a great opportunity to help out Scott and to kick start something and see if I was really cut out for it and if I was going to like doing it.  A very important part is Scott was offering me an already established audience rather than just throwing out shots in the dark and hoping people found what I was doing.  So I came up with my (not wholly original) Jame Bond retrospective idea and went from there.