Friday, January 20, 2017

I Stream, You Stream Vol. 17

by Patrick Bromley
Here's a bunch of stuff to watch this weekend. It's not like there's anything more important going on.

Teenage Cocktail (2016, dir. John Carchietta) The solo directing debut of John Carchietta (a producer on movies like The Hills Run Red and Wicked Lake) casts the great Fabianne Therese and Nichole Bloom as teenage girls who fall in love, start messing around with a webcam and eventually attract the attention of family man Pat Healy. Things don't go well. Shot in bright colors and scored to dreamy pop, Teenage Cocktail is like a modern-day version of Smooth Talk. It takes some sudden shifts that aren't always earned, but it's beautifully put together and says some interesting things about personal responsibility and naiveté in the digital age. (Watch on Netflix)
The Wraith (1986, dir. Mike Marvin) The second half of the '80s saw a lot of teenage monster movies: teen vampires in The Lost Boys, teen witches in Teen Witch, teen wolves in Teen Wolf Too. We didn't get too many teen ghost movies, which is where The Wraith comes in. Charlie Sheen plays a motorcycle riding spirit who appears in a small town to exact revenge against an overacting Nick Cassavettes and his gang and get naked with Sherilyn Fenn, which is worth coming back from the dead for. This unofficial remake of High Plains Drifter is really fun and entertaining but doesn't get mentioned enough in conversations about '80s genre films. After you watch it, you should check out my guest appearance on The Projection Booth's episode on the movie. (Watch on Netflix)

Extreme Justice (1993, dir. Mark L. Lester) This super underrated '90s actioner stars a murderers' row of action character actors -- Scott Glenn, Lou Diamond Phillips, Chelsea Field, Yaphet Kotto, Andrew Divoff, William Lucking, Paul Ben-Victor, Stephen Root and Ed Lauter -- in a story about corrupt LA cops. It either went pretty much straight to DVD or premiered on HBO (which is where I saw it) and it's the kind of movie that had to cut down the crazy violence to avoid an NC-17. So many people get shot. I love it. I just watched Truck Stop Women for the first time and was reminded of what an amazing genre filmmaker Mark L. Lester is: besides that movie and this one, he made Commando and Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw and Firestarter and Showdown in Little Tokyo and Class of 1984 and a whole bunch of others. He's due for career retrospective. Maybe I'm the guy to do it (Watch on Amazon Prime Video)
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, dir. Anthony Minghella) On the podcast this week, we talked about Matt Damon getting his big break in Good Will Hunting and becoming a huge movie star in the span of one movie. His partner Ben Affleck went a much more commercial route and went to work for Michael Bay while Damon continued to choose interesting projects like this psychological thriller based on Patricia Highsmith's novel. It's brilliantly acted from the likes of Damon, Jude Law (never better), Gwyneth Paltrow, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Cate Blanchett, it's insanely gorgeous to look at and is always tense and interesting. 1999 was an insanely good year for movies and this one stands out as one of the very best. (Watch on Hulu)
Angel of Death (2009, dir. Paul Etheredge) My Girlfriend Zoë Bell made this movie years ago based on a character and a screenplay by Ed Brubaker. She gets stabbed in the head and survives to come back for revenge. There is nothing else you need to know because you really should have been heading over to Crackle (where this originally debuted) and pressing play as soon you read the words My Girlfriend Zoë Bell. (Watch on Crackle)

8 comments:

  1. Mark L. Lester is my favorite cult director who's still flying under the cult radar. Way back when I lucked into watching a one-two punch of Stealing Candy and Pterodactyl (both starring the incomparable Coolio,) and fell in love. Then I started looking at his directorial back catalog and starting shitting myself at what was in there: Commando, Class of 1984 and it sequels, Firestarter, Armed and Dangerous, Showdown in Little Tokyo, Roller Boogie?!?!. Some people just don't get the recognition they deserve.

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    1. Too bad he's a molester... or am I thinking or Polanski and Salva? JK. :-P

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  2. Teenage Cocktail is good, especially the two leads who convincingly play younger. But for me the violence at the end was out of place and really cheapened all the terrific moments along the way.

    Also Lester is da shit.

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  3. I'm gonna go with The Wraith. I'll think of it as a potentially fun movie that unlocks a bonus Bromley episode.

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    1. Congratulations. Achievement unlocked.

      "The Wraith" is shit (my opinion), but it's worth seeing just to hear Patrick's Projection Booth episode. Personally I think Patrick's finest hour on the PB podcast was in the "Bad Lieutenants" episode, but whatever.

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    2. I used to absolutely love The Wraith as a kid. I haven't seen it in years and would almost prefer not to taint that memory by re-watching it...but I can't help myself. Hopefully I can salvage at least a little nostalgic joy out of it.

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    3. I dug it! That many memorable lines and performances from the thugs is all I needed. The car and Sherilyn Fenn were bonus points.

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