Actress Jane Randolph dead at 94

Jane Randolph, who starred in the two "Cat People" horror films and several film noir classics of the 1940s, died May 4 in Gstaad, Switzerland of complications from a broken hip. She was 94.

Happy May Day!

Hilarious video from Eminem

"We Made You" is a hilarious new song and video from Eminem that skewers trashy celebs while even poking a little fun at himself. The song itself is pretty funny and the tune catchy, but the great video truly makes it. He comes across like a mean-spirited Weird Al in the video and song.

Dave Arneson dead at 61

Game designer and co-creator of the original Dungeons & Dragons game, Dave Arneson, has passed away on April 7 after losing a battle with cancer and a brief hospitalization. He was 61.

Arneson co-created the most popular RPG in history with Gary Gygax in the early 1974, during which time he also created the very first setting for the game, Blackmoor. He remained active in the game design field until 2002 when a stroke forced him into retirement.


The news of Arneson's death makes me sad, as he's yet another of my idols to pass away in recent years. He is one of the few figures in the hobby games biz who influenced my career path by inspiring me to write in the field.

Double Feature: Two Tales of Trinity

They Call Me Trinity (aka "My Name is Trinity") (1971)
Starring: Terence Hill, Bud Spencer, Farley Granger, Steffen Zacharias, Dan Sturkie, Remo Capitani, and Riccardo Pizzuti
Director: Enzo Barboni
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Trinity (Hill), a shiftless drifter so lazy he has his horse tow him on stretcher instead of riding, arrives in a town where his his horse-thieving half-brother Bambino (Spencer) is pasing himself off as the new sheriff while looking for the best way to rustle horses belonging to the evil Major Harriman (Granger). Trinity has a habit of spoiling Bambino's plans and otherwise complicating his life, and soon the two find themselves protecting a group of pacifist Mormon settlers from both the Major and Mezcal (Capitani) and his banditos.


When I was a kid, my friends and I loved to rent Bud Spencer and Terence Hill videos. Whenever we spotted one of their movies we hadn't seen, it became our next rental. We also rushed to see them in the movie theater when they'd run them during the summer, or when new movies with either or both of them would be released. They never dissapointed, and the Trinity films were our favorites.

It was for this reason that I was a bit hesitant to watch "They Call Me Trinity" when I noticed that it was included in "Mean Guns", a 20-movie collection of westerns that the folks at Mill Creek Entertainment were kind enough to send me. I feared the film would not hold up to my very fond memories of it.

I am glad to say that, 25+ years later, this first Trinity movie is every bit as hilarious as it was when I was a kid. The comedy in this spaghetti western spoof--made by filmmakers who understood spaghetti westerns the best: Italians--is a fabulous bit of filmmaking from beginning to end.

With humor and satire that ranges from subtle to the basest of slapstick, good acting, excellent set and costuming, and the over-the-top fights and gunplay that we loved so much (not to mention Bambino's imperviousness and his trademark "fist-to-the-top-of-the-head" knockout blow) this film is a near-perfect western and action-comedy. It's the sort of film that "Shanghai Noon" and all three "Rush Hour" movies desperately tried to be, but none of them come even close.

If you like western and comedies, I think you'll enjoy the heck out of "They Call Me Trinity". I think you'll enjoy it even more if you watch "For a Fistful of Dollars" or "The Magnificent Seven" first, as both are poked fun at with great effect.



Trinity Is Still My Name (aka "All the Way Trinity") (1971)
Starring: Terence Hill, Bud Spencer, Yanti Somer, Emilio Delle Piane, Harry Carey Jr., and Pupo De Luca
Director: E.B. Clucher
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Shiftless drifter Trinity (Hill) and his short-tempered brother Bambino (Spencer) promises their dying father (Carey) they'll do something with their lives, so they set out to become successful bandits. It seems however that every robbery they try to commit ends up becoming a good deed (and costing them money instead of earning them any), and when they are mistaken for Federal Agents because Trinity wants to impress a beautiful farmgirl (Somer), they find themselves protecting a Catholic mission that's fallen under the thumb of smugglers and a frontier crimeboss (Piane).


"Trinity Is Still My Name" was a favorite of mine when I was a kid, and it's every bit as funny as I remember it. A sequel to the classic Spaghetti Western spoof "They Call Me Trinity" it's not only as funny as the original, but it also has an identity all its own as it's less concerned with lampooning other films than it is with offering up a unique film.

Hill and Spencer give their usual excellent performances, and they are ably supported by the gorgeous Yanti Somer and a whole host of regulars from the Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s and 1970s. The film is also remarkable for the excellent dubbing and the voice actors who did the work. It is so well done and the voice actors so talented that you can hardly tell the film wasn't originally done in English.

"Trinity Is Still My Name" is another near-perfect action-comedy set in the wild west. The script may meander a bit at times, but the jokes are all top-notch--the scenes where Trinity and Bambino go to a fancy French restraunt, and the one where Bambino goes to confessional will have you laughing so hard you'll have to watch those parts of the movie again to catch everything--and the final free-for-all fight where Trinity and Bambino take on dozens of thugs in a fight over $50,000 in ill-gotten loot tops the one at the climax of the original Trinity film.

I recommend this film highly to lovers of light-hearted westerns and quirky comedies.

Oscar and Me

I think I've only seen two of the films nominated in any of the main Academy Awards categories this year, and only three even held any interest for me. ("Frost/Nixon" is a movie I intend to see, and now that it has opened in a theater near where I live, I may have a chance.)

Usually I am indifferent toward the Oscars. It's been over ten years since I actually watched them, and it's been at least three years since I gave the list of winners even a casual glance. They haven't interested me much in a long time, and I don't understand all the handwringing I've been observing about the lack of "Oscar Bump" for films this year. Is there similar handwringing with the Hugo Awards?

I will be very, very glad when this year's Oscars have come and gone. Maybe, just maybe, EVERYONE WILL SHUT THE HELL UP ABOUT HEATH LEDGER!


Or maybe they'll start an application with the Vatican to have him declared a saint. Given some of the worsphipful statements I've seen over the past year about him, I'm sure there's someone out there who will claim that Heath Ledger cured his blindness when he asked him for the time in the subway, or that he cured her cleft palette when she handed him his burger and fries at a fast-food joint.

The Complete 'Transporter' Series

The Transporter (2002)
Starring: Jason Statham, Qi Shu, and François Berléand
Director: Louis Leterrier and Corey Yuen
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Frank Martin (Statham) is the underworld's chief courier, and he can deliver anything and anyone to any place, no questions asked. But when one particular package turns out to be a bound and gagged Chinese girl (Shu), Frank is forced to take on the mantle of hero.


I think I saw something in this movie that most reviewers did not, and I think that caused me to have an even more favorable impression of this film than they did.

Frank Martin and everything about him reminded me of Bean Bandit from the classic "Gunsmith Cats" graphic novels, and the film felt like an unauthorized live-action version of a Bean Bandit adventure. That character, too, is a hard-bitten rogue with his own never-compromised code of honor, drives a ultra-costumized car, will deliver anything anywhere against any odds, and can kick the ass of those he can't outdrive. In every detail that matters, Frank Martin is Bean Bandit. And like "Gunsmith Cats," this movie is more concerned about guns, fast cars, and action than about tight story logic.

The echoes of "Gunsmith Cats" and Bean Bandit aside, this is also just a fun ride of a movie. Frank Martin is a cool action hero in the mold of an Old West cowboy or an 1980s/1990s Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger character. Unlike the characters portrayed by them, however, Frank is a man of style and refinement--his car is always spotless and his black suits and ties are always crisply pressed. Even after an extended fight, Frank looks sharp.

The biggest flaw with this picture is that I had the sense that filmmakers didn't have the guts to take the film where it needed to go. The film occupies a middle-ground between an early 1980s action film with a bit of a Dirty Harry vibe coming from its detatched-yet-heroically minded central character, and the over-the-top crazy comic-book-action rampage... and more than once is swings to one extreme or the other. The end result is a film that's mildly frustrating to watch, because it ends up being neither fish nor fowl. It's got action and plenty of it, but it's so inconsistent in its tone that it's hard to sit back and enjoy it.

And this is a shame, because Jason Statham plays a very good Bean Bandit... sorry, Frank Martin. If the vehicle had been just a little more soundly constructed, he could have taken us for a spectacular ride instead of a merely okay one.


Transporter 2 (2005)
Starring: Jason Statham, Katie Nauta, and Allesandro Gassman
Director: Louis Leterrier
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Frank Martin, a worldclass driver and killer (Statham), is hired to chauffeur and protect the son of a high-placed US government official. The boy is kidnapped, but that's only a prelude to a far more devious and far-reaching plot that only Frank (and a whole lot bullets and fancy driving) can stop.


When I saw the original "Transporter," I viewed it as an unauthorized movie based on the Bean Bandit character from the "Gunsmith Cats" graphic novel series. Its only real flaw was that its creators couldn't make up their minds whether they were making a serious, down-to-earth crime drama with fast cars, or an over-the-top comic-booky action film.

With "Transporter 2," the filmmakers came to a decision, and we are treated to one outrageous, thrilling, and waaaay over-the-top action sequence after another. What's more, the plot is clever and complicated enough that it keeps delivering unexpected twists almost up to the very end. (This is another step up from the first film, I suppose... the plot there was pretty straight-forward.)

Jason Statham is great as the always calm and coldblooded Frank, but, as someone once said, a hero is only as good as the villains he fights... and in "Transporter 2" Frank is up against some very nasty bad guys. The lead heavies are played by Allesandro Gassman (a druglord who puts every letter in EVIL) and Katie Nauta (a psychopathic sex-kitten who fires more bullets in 30 seconds than are fired in the entirety of most major wars), and they are both a joy to watch. The actors, the plot, and the action sequences all blend together seamlessly to make this a great movie experience.


So, why am I only giving it 8 Stars? Well, that is because there are two major flaws that made me sigh with irritation.

First, there is a pretty nifty scene where Frank uses a firehose to beat the living tar out of a bunch of gun-toting bad guys. It's a Jackie Chan sort of scene, although I suspect much of it is done with computer animation and clever editing rather than actual props. Unfortunately, the climax of the scene completely breaks continuity with the entire fight that proceeded.

Second, there is the final dispatching of Nauta's character. It's too easy and too coincidental for a character that has been built up the way she is during the film. I'm not spoiling anything by stating that she dies--if you've seen more than two of these kinds of movies, you know she's too evil to make it through the story alive--and it needs to be mentioned because that character's death is badly done both from a storytelling and a action movie staple perspective. There isn't even a touch of irony in the way she dies... it's just an "oops... she's dead" ending.

Nonetheless, I think this is a move worth seeing if you love over-the-top action films (doubly-so if you're a fan of "Gunsmith Cats".)


Transporter 3 (2008)
Starring: Jason Statham, Natalya Rudakova, Robert Knepper and François Berléand
Director: Olivier Megaton
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Professional driver Frank Martin (Statham) is a man with a reputation that he'll deliver anything to any place a road will take him and his souped-up Audi, so long as his clients accept a few simple conditions that Frank insists upon. However, when a would-be client won't abide by Frank's rules nor take no for an answer, Frank finds himself forced to drive a mysterious package and an equally mysterious and totally obnoxious young woman (Rudakova) across Europe toward an ever-shifting destination... and if he tries to abandon the job, he'll be blown to bits by an explosive bracelet he's been fitted with.


"Transporter 3" is a step below the wild comic book action of the film immediatetly preceeding it in the series... and even a step below the film that started it all.

I suspect the filmmakers thought they were being topical with a half-assed environmental theme and oh-so-global-community-relevant-and-respectful with the films villains. They are eeeeeeevil American industrialists who are using any means necessary to force a righteous and pure-hearted Ukrainian politician to let them turn his nation into a chemical dumping ground. The truth, however, is that I don't think I've seen an environmentally-themed action flick this stupid since Steven Seagal's "On Deadly Ground". At least this film never gets preachy.

It's also not particularly logical or even intelligent in the way it's executed. The bad guys have grabbed the daughter of the pure-hearted politician in order to force him to do their bidding and they somehow feel the need to move her across Europe using a guy who doesn't work for them. A stupid plan that is doomed to fail. Why even move her anywhere in the first place? And why do the eeeeeeevil industrialists insist on having their cargoships full of toxic waste unloaded in the Ukraine? Why not just let Somali pirates hijack them? Or just dump the waste in Somalia where no one will be able to oppose them? (Or some other equally corrupt and disorganized hell hole... the world is full of them.)

But being stupid isn't the worst aspect of this film; I can forgive a certain level of stupid in a movie series that's evolving into a small-scale James Bond-type deal. The worst aspect of this film is that it never gets really exciting. It features some nice car chases, some okay fight scenes where Frank opens many cans of whoop-ass on hapless mooks, and a couple of cool action set-pieces, but the material that exists between them is poorly written. Not even Frank is very interesting in this film.


This is one of those pictures where the cast is let down by a weak script and a less-than-talented director.

Statham plays his usual laconic I'd-as-soon-kick-your-ass-as-talk-to-you character, but the lines he does have lack punch and the fight scenes he is placed in are ineptly choreographed.

Natalya Rudakova has a different look to her than most actresses that appear in films like this, and I think she might be an okay performer... but it's hard to tell because her character was so annoying throughout the movie. I can't for the life of me understand how the romance that developed between her character, Valentina, and Frank was supposed to have come from. (I was further annoyed by her character's tendency to wear too much eyeshadow. One of the evil characters did it in "Transporter 2" and now we have the heroine doing it in "Transporter 3". Will this become a signature of the series?)

All the flaws present in "Transporter 3" make this a movie that all but the most hungry-for-an-action-film viewers can skip.