Ouija (2014) - Review

When I was about seven years old my parents went off to a funeral while my sisters and I stayed home, as it wasn’t relatives us kids knew all that well who had died. My sisters thought it would be fun to pull out our Ouija board and contact the dearly departed and minutes after we started playing in my darkened bedroom I spotted a little girl in a white dress standing by my dresser. Needless to say seven year old me totally lost his shit. I later learned that the white dress I described was the same as the one my little cousin was buried in that day.

How much of that was due to an over active imagination of a seven year old child? One can assume most of it, because kids just love to frighten themselves. When put in a certain spooky setting our little minds can conjure up worse things than even Hollywood could dream up. So I went in to my viewing of Hasbro and Platinum Dunes Ouija with the hope of capturing some of that childhood terror. Sadly it was not to be.

 

“Spirits from beyond, does this script have an original scare in it?”

The movie begins with two little girls, Laine Morris and Debbie Galardi, playing with a Ouija board in Laine’s room. It’s here that we learn the three important rules from Debbie. These of course are brought up so that they can be broken with dire consequences later in the film.

 

1) You can never ever play alone.
2) You can never play in a graveyard.
3) You must always say goodbye at the end.

The movie then jumps to the present day where we find Debbie (Shelley Hennig) all freaked out about something but won’t tell her best friend Laine (Olivia Cooke) what it is, only that she had recently been playing with the a Ouija board… by herself. Debbie tries to burn the board in the fireplace but it magically appears un-singed on her bed. She looks through the board’s planchette (pointer), her eyes turn white, and in a trance-like stare she hangs herself with Christmas lights.

 

Strange that the giver of the rules is the one that breaks them first.

Laine is devastated by her friend’s apparent suicide as well as Pete (Douglas Smith), Debbie’s boyfriend, Trevor (Daren Kagasofff), Laine’s boyfriend, and mutual friend Isabelle (Bianca A. Santos). Laine convinces her friends to participate in a Ouija board session at her dead friend’s home so that she can get closure as she never got a chance to say goodbye to Debbie. I can buy Trevor agreeing to this as he hopes to continue getting laid, but her other friends should have told her to go piss up a rope.

 

“No, and hell no!”

Laine even drags along her sister Sarah (Ana Coto) because Sarah is a wild child and currently seeing an older man so she cannot be left alone. We never see this older man, though he is apparently an idiot as he parks right outside the house in full view of overprotective Laine. Sarah would certainly have been in better hands with that creep than going off with Laine and company.

 

“Question, does the order we are sitting around this table determine the order in which we die?”

They contact a spirit through the board that identifies itself as “D” and then spells out the message “hi friends”, and of course Laine is convinced it’s Debbie while her friends are all pretty sure Laine was the one moving the planchette either consciously or subconsciously. That is until all of them get the “hi friend” message sent to them at random places; chalk graffiti on a tunnel wall, written in moisture on a car window, on a computer screen and carved into Pete’s desk.

 

“That ghost totally trashed my fucking desk!”

Unless Debbie secretly hated her boyfriend, that is the first clue that the ghost they contacted may not be of the Casper the Friendly Ghost variety. The film then stretches the realms of creditability well past the breaking point as Laine is somehow able to convince her sister and friends to return to the house for a second session with the Ouija board. When the ghost fails to answer personal questions that only Debbie would know it finally reveals itself to be “D.Z” who turns out to be the ghost of a little girl by the name of Doris Zander whose freaky mother sewed her mouth shut to keep the evil spirits from talking through her.

“Boo.”

The ghost tells them to “Run. Mother is coming.” The Scooby Gang flee the house, but not the country as I probably would have done. The movie then follows the tried and true formula of friends dying one by one while our heroine tries to solve the mystery behind Ghost Doris and the Ouija board.

 

Isabelle has a fatal flossing incident.

Ouija is by first time director Stiles White and it shows, as this movie is formulaic in the extreme with no real style of its own. Though mostly relying on jump scares the film does manage to build a sense of peril and dread in some of the scenes, which is more than what Annabelle managed to do. Maybe with a better script Stiles could turn into a decent director. Unfortunately the mystery that Laine has to solve is so transparent and obvious that the audience is always ten steps ahead of the characters. This does not help with suspense.

 

They should have burnt the script instead.

According to actress Olivia Cooke, half of the film was re-shot at the studio’s request changing substantial elements of the story including the backstory of Doris and her mother. It would be interesting to see if the original version was less clichéd and by the numbers, but alas, we may never know.

 

“Originally I was Norman Bates’s sister.”

As it stands this isn’t a terrible movie, nor is it a particularly good one, you have your standard group of pretty people who constantly do stupid things because they don’t realize they are in a horror movie, and we grimly watch them die one by one. Ouija is just your run of the mill horror film with nothing new to add to the genre. More and more when I watch these new horror movies I keep asking the same thing, “Why don’t they call Sam and Dean Winchester?”

“Salt and burn them baby, salt and burn.”

Tarzan Goes to India (1962) - Review

In Tarzan Goes to India Sy Weintraub decided he wanted to go with a leaner less muscular Tarzan and so cast Jock Mahoney to play the Ape Man this time around and who funnily enough actually played the primary villain in the previous film Tarzan the Magnificent. Also returning is director John Guillermin who helmed Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure which is arguably one of the best of the Tarzan movies. Sadly this entry is not even close to being as good as the two previous installments.

The plot of Tarzan Goes to India is a simple one but unfortunately also a rather tepid and boring one. Tarzan (Jock Mahoney) is called to India by the dying Maharajah (Murad) and is informed by Princess Kamara (Simi Garewal) that about three hundred elephants are endangered by the construction of a hydroelectric dam. Once the dam is completed, and the other end of the valley is sealed off, all of the elephants will drown. Having Tarzan being an ecological warrior is certainly nothing new and as some of his best friends are elephants this is certainly something close to his heart but as plots go “Must get elephants out of valley before dam is built” isn’t all that thrilling, and hey maybe it could have been made to be thrilling but they certainly fail to do it here.

 

Tonight’s villain…progress!

One thing that bothered right out of the gate was that Tarzan flies to India at the behest of an old friend but he fails to put on pants or a shirt. Now we all know Tarzan runs around Africa in just a loincloth but if you are going to visit a Maharajah you think he would have dressed for the occasion. This is not the simpleton Tarzan from the Johnny Weissmuller days who may or may not know what pants are, this is an intelligent and articulate man who understands the conventions of the civilized world. So if Tarzan wants to run around the jungles of India in a loincloth that is fine, but if you are visiting the palace put on some goddamn pants!

 

“I’m sorry Tarzan, no shoes, no shirt, no service.”

When the Princess introduces Tarzan to O’Hara (Mark Dana) the project manager we learn that the main problem is that there is currently only one way out of the mountain pass and it will be soon closed by O’Hara and his men because monsoon season is coming and the project must be completed before then. The elephants could be driven out of the valley in time but Tarzan is informed that the herd is being led by a rogue elephant. Say what? I’m not sure if the writers of this movie are clear on what rogue means but I’m pretty sure that by definition it certainly does not mean leader.

 

He’s a rogue elephant who doesn’t play by the rules.

A construction timetable and a rogue elephant is not Tarzan’s only worries he also has to deal with Bryce (Leo Gordon) the chief engineer who has had past dealings with Tarzan on a similar project in Africa. It seems that Bryce has a thing about shooting elephants and poaching ivory as a hobby.

 

“I’ll be your stock cartoon villain today.”

Bryce is your standard two dimensional villain whose acts are not based on any notable character trait other than he’s evil. When he is told that there is an area of the construction site that needs more support he ignores it and when some workers die because of this his response is as follows, “Life is the cheapest commodity we got.” Yep, he’s evil or at least a Republican. In this film he shoots at elephants, chains up Tarzan so that he can be threatened by a leopard, and kidnaps a small boy for some reason. All the film was missing was him tying the Princess to some railway tracks while twirling his moustache. Even worse is that he is killed by an elephant at the hour mark leaving us with only corporate douchebag O’Hara as a villain for the remaining thirty minutes.

 

Ironic deaths are big in the jungle.

So the villains suck but how does our hero stack up in this outing? Now Tarzan is in India so he’s a bit out of his element so when he tries to eat some inedible berries I cut him some slack but when he is treed by a cobra and then saved by a mongoose that is just unacceptable. I’m also not sure if animal cruelty laws apply in India because I’m pretty sure they just let a mongoose loose to kill that cobra for real.

 

“Don’t worry Tarzan; I Rikki-Tikki-Tavi will save you.”

Even worse is that as Tarzan flees from that life or death struggle he immediately steps into a tree snare and finds himself caught by a young boy and his elephant.

 

“Anybody tells Jane about this day I’m having and I’ll feed them to the lions.”

It is here that we are introduced to the other key player in our little drama, Jai the Elephant Boy (Himself) who wants to be a man and with Tarzan’s help and the help of his elephant friend Gajendrah he just may do that.

 

Or maybe he can just go hang out with Mowgli instead.

The film is horrible paced and the threat of drowning elephants never feels that imminent or real. When Bryce is killed we are still told that O’Hara will not let the elephants through the pass because you know, “Fuck elephants!” O’Hara creates a bamboo barricade, because that is known for being elephant proof, but he also places explosives to blow up Tarzan and the elephants. I’m assuming in the sixties companies didn’t have to worry about things like bad press after blowing up 300 elephants.

 

“Rogue Leader to Rogue Five, come in Rogue Five!“

Of course the day is saved by Tarzan’s classic go to problem solver “The Elephant Stampede” In the Johnny Weissmuller days an elephant stampede was Tarzan’s go to response for any crisis ranging from a kidnapped Jane to running low on peanut butter.  Also Tarzan equipped himself with a dynamite arrow because, why not?

 

“Take that, Duke Boys!”

This movie was certainly a step back after such excellent entries as Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure and Tarzan the Magnificent. Jock Mahoney makes for a decent Tarzan I just wish he’d had a better script for his first outing.

The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) - Review

When one thinks of Hammer Films, images of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing stalking gothic hallways leaps to mind. Hammer Films first dabble in horror was actually way back in 1955 with The Quatermass Xperiment; a fantastic horror/science fiction hybrid that captured and terrified audiences of the time.

If one thing we can take away from early science fiction movies, it’s that space is a very dangerous place and going out into space will either kill you or that something from space will come down here and kill us. In the case of The Quatermass Xperiment it’s a little bit of both, as man’s first foray into space brings back a horrible entity that could doom all of mankind.

 

How many alien invasions start in some farmer’s field?

Professor Bernard Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) is the head of the British Rocket Group. The movie begins with him rushing to the scene of a crash. It seems that a rocket they launched and since lost contact with has finally returned, crashing in a local farmer’s field. When the ship is eventually opened only one survivor staggers out alive as the other two occupants are missing, with just their two empty sealed pressures being the only evidence that they were on board. Thus the mystery begins and Quatermass is going to get to the bottom of it, and god help anyone who gets in his way.

 

“Back off man, I’m a scientist!”

The sole survivor, Victor Caroon (Richard Wordsworth), is whisked away to Quatermass’s lab instead of a hospital where Judith, Carron’s worried wife (Margia Dean), Doctor Gordon Briscoe (David King-Wood), and Quatermass endeavor to find out what happened on that ill-fated flight. Unfortunately, Caroon is in some kind of catatonic state and is unable to talk or communicate in anyway. It’s clear that something strange had happened aboard the craft, as Carron’s body has undergone some horrifying changes.

 

Space Madness?

Due to the three men going into space and only one returning, Scotland Yard is put on the case to find out if Victor Caroon possibly murdered his shipmates. Leading the investigation is Inspector Lomax (Jack Warner) who at first butts heads with Quatermass, but who quickly comes to realize that this case may be stranger than even he can imagine. The two become quite the team. The one person who is not a team player is Judith, who hires a private investigator to sneak her husband out of the hospital. This leads to the poor man’s death, as Caroon absorbs his life force leaving his husked out body for a nurse to find.

 

P.I. found D.O.A.

With Caroon on the loose it becomes a manhunt to find him, as whatever happened to him in space has altered his physiology to the point where he absorbs organic matter while further mutating. After crushing a cactus with his hand he absorbs its properties, as his hand becomes all bulbous and thorned like a cactus. A hapless drugstore clerk tries to help Caroon and is killed for his troubles.

 

“Sir, I don’t think a simple allergenic cream is going to help you.”

There is a nice moment where Caroon encounters a little girl who is playing with her doll by the river. She wants him to join her for tea, but lucky for the girl he is able to resist the urge to absorb her and settles for smashing her doll and running away. Note:  Though Brian Donlevy get’s the showier part as Quatermass, the mute and tragic figure of Caroon is beautifully portrayed by Richard Wordsworth and reminds one of Boris Karloff’s pathos driven monster in the original Frankenstein.

 

“Would you like to toss dandelions into the water with me?”

After discovering that that the local zoo is now full of dessicated animals a city wide manhunt is begun, and bit by bit our heroes start to realize the true extent of the danger mankind is in. Finally, the authorities track Caroon to Westminster Abbey where it is discovered that Caroon is far from being a man anymore but is now some horrible creature. If allowed to spore, it could spell the end of mankind. Lucky for us, Quatermass is on the job.

 

“Feed me Seymour, feed me all night long!”

What makes this a great movie to me is the portrayal of Quatermass by Brian Donlevy. In the BBC serial written by Nigel Kneale, that this movie was adapted from, Bernard Quatermass was originally depicted as your typical effete British professor seen in countless science fiction movies. Brian Donlevy gives us a brash, arrogant, take no prisoners type scientist that I’d never seen before. He bullies his subordinates, steamrolls over authorities to get the job done and to hell with anyone that disagrees with him. Whether he is in the right or wrong is totally beside the point as there is just “his way or the highway.” At one point he berates the distraught wife who is rightfully concerned with the condition of her husband, “There’s no room for personal feelings in science, Judith!” And that kind of sums up Quatermass, it’s all about the science. The movie ends brilliantly with Quatermass leaving the Abbey stating, “I will start again.”

 

“Lomax, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful franchise.”

Shows like Doctor Who and The X-Files owe a lot to director Val Guest as his cinéma vérité shooting style used in this movie made the fantastic more believable. Treating an invading alien being as a police procedural was genius and opened the flood gates for more serious minded films. This is a must see for any fans of good British filmmaking, great science fiction, and terrifying monsters. Basically The Quatermass Xperiment is just damn awesome and led to making Hammer Films one of the premier horror studios of all time.

The Voices (2014) - Review

Is it odd that Ryan Reynold’s first truly likable character in years is a serial killer? We most often find Reynold’s playing arrogant douche bags in lame comedies, the less said about Green Lantern the better, so it was for me a nice surprise to see him playing such a quiet and immensely likable character and doubly surprising to find it in a movie like The Voices, a wonderfully dark comedy.

Jerry (Ryan Reynolds) is a sweet and genial worker at a small town bathtub manufacturer; most of his co-workers find him a bit odd but as he is new in town no one has really got a chance to get to know him yet. Lisa (Anna Kendrick) in accounting finds him charming and would definitely like to know him better but Jerry only has eyes for office hottie Fiona (Gemma Arterton), the one dissenting voice in all this is Mr. Whiskers who happens to be Jerry’s cat.

 

“Did you fuck the bitch?”

You see Jerry hears voices with his cat Mr. Whiskers and his dog Bosco kind of working as the angel and devil of Jerry’s consciousness. Bosco thinks Jerry is a “Good Boy” while Mr. Whiskers wants Jerry to embrace the joys of being evil and it’s these two opposing viewpoints that are the crux of Jerry’s problems. Now this isn’t Look Who’s Talking Now or Dr. Dolittle as there is nothing magical or whimsical about this, Jerry is seriously mentally ill and has a court appointed psychiatrist (Jacki Weaver) and regimen of medication he is supposed to be taking. Unfortunately when Jerry takes his meds he sees how horrible his life really is but when he’s off his meds it’s almost like living in a Disney cartoon. It’s no surprise that the cat is all for him not taking his medication.

 

When you live above an abandoned bowling alley reality kind of sucks.

Things take a dark turn when one night ends with Jerry “accidentally” stabbing Fiona to death in the woods. Under the advice of Mr. Whiskers he retrieves her body, cuts it up into little pieces and stores them in Tupperware containers. I’ve seen some pretty disturbing images in my years of watching horror movies but this wall of bloody body parts was truly chilling.

 

And I’m betting Tupperware didn’t offer any product placement money for this.

The balance of horror and dark comedy is handled brilliantly by director Marjane Satrapi as is the performance by Ryan Reynolds who manages to keep the viewer caring for this poor sap even after the bodies start piling up and the fridge starts filling with severed heads.

 

I don’t think even Arm & Hammer Baking Soda will help with this.

The Voices is a true gem chock full of well-rounded characters and solid performances by everyone involved with a special shout out to Ryan Reynolds for providing all the “Voices” which I certainly didn’t realize until I watched the end credits. This movie was released On Demand as well as in theatres on Feb 6 2015 and it’s just a shame this movie wasn’t given a more traditional release. It would have been a nice opposing choice of Valentine’s Day films to 50 Shades of Grey.

Tarzan the Magnificent (1960) - Review

In this sequel to Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, producer Sy Weintraub continues to make gritty character driven stories starring Tarzan that really capture much of the tone of the Burroughs books. Although this Tarzan doesn’t run into any lost cities, he is more in keeping with the intelligent and honorable hero from the books, as opposed to the “Me Tarzan, you Jane” of the earlier Johnny Weissmuller years.

  The notorious Banton Family rob a mining company of their payroll at a local settlement, killing some people as they escape. One of the gang members tears off a wanted poster with his picture on it, stating there is a $5,000 bounty on Coy Banton (Jock Mahoney). Inspector Wyntors (John Sullivan) tracks down the Bantons and is able to capture Coy while the rest of them are asleep. He attempts to take Coy in but they are quickly ambushed by the now awakened and angered Bantons, resulting in Wyntors getting shot and killed. Why Inspector Wyntors came alone and only tried to bring in one of the criminal family is never fully explained other than there being no reward mentioned for any of the other Bantons. So this guy was clearly in it for the money.

 

Sadly the only bank he gets to has crocodiles sun bathing on it.

The Bantons have to postpone their victory party, because it just so happens that Tarzan (Gordon Scott) was right in the vicinity and is able to re-capture Coy and kill Ethan Banton (Ron MacDonnell) with some well-placed arrows. Once again it is nice to see Tarzan using a bow and arrow which, along with his knife, was his primary weapon in the books. Turns out that Wyntors was a friend of Tarzan and so he decides to bring Coy Banton in so that Wyntors’ widow can get the reward. This does not sit well with Abel Banton (John Carradine), the patriarch of the Banton Gang who vows to rescue Coy and avenge the death of Ethan.

 

The Bantons.

Tarzan arrives at the town of Mantu where he plans to wait for the riverboat to Kairobi where Coy Banton will stand trial, but there is a slight hitch as no one in town is willing put them up for the night, as helping Tarzan against the Bantons is considered a death sentence. And by no one I mean none of the white people in town, as an old black native is not afraid to die and offers Tarzan sanctuary.

 

High Noon in Mantu.

Abel Banton isn’t about to let anyone take his son to jail, so along with his other sons Martin (Al Mulock) and Johnny (Gary Cockrell), they ambush the riverboat before it reaches Mantu, killing the boat captain and forcing the first mate and passengers to shore before torching the boat.

 

Four passengers set sail that day, for a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

The interesting thing here is that after killing the boat captain, Abel orders the passengers off and when rich white dude Ames (Lionel Jeffries) offers him money to let them stay on the boat, he refuses the money as destroying the boat is his only goal here, not robbery. This family gang is shown having no problem killing, yet they spare the life of several witnesses, then turn around murdering more people and destroying property. They even offer to give the group a gun to keep them safe from the local wildlife. Later, when they arrive at Mantu and ask the outpost doctor to tell them where Tarzan went, Johnny Banton kills the doctor after he gives in to their threats and tells them that Tarzan is heading to Kairobi on foot. As villainous groups go, they have quite the widely varying morality.

 

There’s got to be a crazy one.

On his trip to Kairobi with Coy Banton, Tarzan is saddled with Ames, his much younger wife Fay (Betta St. John), Conway (Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell) a young man on his way to a job interview, and Lori (Alexandra Stewart), a pretty blonde woman. The only reason Tarzan allows this group to tag along is because Ames claims to be in charge of a huge dam construction that will mean many jobs for the locals. This is another clear example of Tarzan as not just a guy who can wrestle lions, but one who can think of the big picture when it comes to helping people. Of course this means Tarzan has to keep a bunch of ill-equipped foreigners alive while being chased by the murderous Bantons. At least he has Tate (Earl Cameron), the riverboats first mate who happens to be competent, and wants to avenge his dead friend.

 

“Do you think Tarzan packed any Smores?”

The trip is interrupted when natives capture them, as they recognize Coy as one of the men who raided their village earlier, killing one of their people, and are very keen on administering their own justice. Lucky for the group the Chief’s wife is in the middle of a difficult labour, but it turns out Conway used to be a doctor and is able to aid with the poor woman’s breach birth. Being that they saved the Chiefs son, a life for a life is offered and the group is allowed to leave with Coy.

 

No nasty cannibals in this film, just rightfully pissed off natives.

During their long trek through dense jungle, burning hot savannahs, and deadly swamps, Coy Banton has worked his rugged charms on Fay who has become seriously disillusioned with her husband’s utter cowardice, racism and tired monologues about being the best. This leads to her dropping clues for the following Banton clan and to eventually helping Coy escape, kind of like a reverse Stockholm syndrome. While everyone is asleep, Fay somehow gets the handcuff keys from around a sleeping Tarzan’s neck, and the two sneak off together. I do have to call bullshit on that, as Tarzan could never be that deep a sleeper and have survived all those years in the jungle.

 

“Pssst, Tarzan, they’re getting away.“

The movie has some pretty dark elements as well as quite a few decent action scenes; Tate is killed saving Ames, much to the racist Ames surprise, and when the Bantons first catch up with our intrepid group, Johnny tries to sexually assault poor Lori who made the mistake of wandering off, but luckily her screams alert Tarzan. After a brief struggle, Johnny gets his face shot off in a struggle over his gun. Fay learns that Coy wasn’t all that great a choice, for when she gets too tired to carry on he just abandons her to the mercies of the jungle.  I was quite shocked that a character who was not intrinsically bad, but who just made poor choices, met such a gruesome end.

 

Fay loses this cat fight.

When Abel and Martin come across the graves of Tate and Johnny we get one of the finest moments in the film, where Martin tells his father that he’s had enough, “You turned us into murderers by the time we were sixteen. You taught us to cheat, lie, steal, and kill, what did you expect?” he then turns and walks away. Abel raises his rifle to shoot his son but finds he is unable to, and that is the last we see of Martin, which is another nice surprise.  Shades of grey abound in this jungle.

 

“What I’m saying is that you’re not father of the year material.”

When we finally get the showdown between Tarzan, Coy, and Abel, the movie goes into full badass mode; Coy and Abel lay in ambush for Tarzan, but someone should have told them that when hiding and shooting amongst large rocks you may want to be careful, as one of Coy’s rounds ricochets off a rock and kills his father.

 

“Sorry Dad, my bad.”

What follows next is a knock down drag out fight that rivals the one from They Live. Coy runs out of ammunition so he tosses down his gun and, in response, Tarzan puts down his bow and arrow so the two can go at each other mano e mano. Both men are clearly already exhausted from all they’ve gone through over the past few days so this is more of a brutal slug fest than a choreographed fight sequence as they continually and mercilessly pound their fists into each other, and unlike many of the films in this genre, Tarzan holds off killing him in the end and hands him over to the authorities in Kairobi.

 

“I’ve… had enough… of you!”

This is a great follow up to Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure as director Robert Day mixes well rounded characters in a crime thriller plot located in Tarzan’s Africa, and what’s not to love about any of that? The whole cast is great with Gordon Scott, who is quickly becoming my favorite Tarzan, and it will be interesting to see Jock Mahoney who played the villainous Coy Banton here, but will don the jungle man’s loincloth himself in the next film as the 13th person to play Tarzan. And of course the great John Carradine brought great depth and gravitas to what in many pictures of this kind would have been a two dimensional villain. Lionel Jeffries also brought his “A” game as the cowardly Ames who starts out as a yellow racist with wife problems but who becomes a bit better of a person by the end. This is not the kind of thing one usually gets in a jungle adventure movie.

 

And once again the filmakers gleefully introduce Cheetah and then leave him behind at the beginning of the film.

If you haven’t seen Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure or Tarzan the Magnificent and you are a fan of the Ape Man, I urge you to track these films down as they are well crafted, well-acted, and just damn fun.