Murphy's Law (1986)

1st View
Format: VHS
Venue: Rivendell (Bronsothon)

The Good: Murphy's Law is more of the good old fashioned Bronson we know and love. He is crass, drunk, and extremely punchy. I especially love the scene wherein he interrogates a gangster with the ol' Russian roulette trick only to confess as he's walking out the door, "there were no bullets in there." But what really steals the show here is the villain. Bucking tradition, the villain of the film is a psychotic, vengeful old woman. The thing that makes her so captivating is her unflappable rage and her hesitation-free blood lust.

The Bad: I suppose Murphy's Law is a bit generic, but in a perfectly acceptable and endlessly fun sort of way. The theme song at the end is a special kind of terrible.

The Weird: I love Kathleen Wilhoite as the foul-mouthed young sidekick, but some of the insults that jettison from her angry lips are incomprehensible...and hilarious. "Go suck a doorknob!" "Booger bits!" "Donkey fart!"



Rating: 7/10 Atkins

Dead to Rights (1993)

1st View
Format: VHS
Venue: Rivendell (Bronsothon)

The Good: Jenette Goldstein is in it briefly...that's all I got

The Bad: This thing just reeks of the 90s. Watered-down story, score-in-a-box, and hammy, hollow performances. The family drama stuff is hackneyed and flubbed and Charles Bronson only kills one person. Fail. He also looks inches away from death throughout the film despite the fact that he lived for another 10 years after it was released. Worst film of Bronsothon thus far.

The Weird: Why is it necessary to make Bronson's 7yr old grandson an abstract painter?











Rating: 2/10 Atkins

Cold Sweat (1970)

1st View
Format: DVD
Venue: Rivendell (Bronsothon)

The Good: Some decent kills, the best involving a flair gun.

The Bad: The screenplay was apparently written by a drunk 8yr old also suffering from ADHD. It never really settles on anything and wanders around in the dark until the runtime is acceptable enough to allow for Bronson to kill mofos.

The Weird: James Mason's accent is atrocious. It strives to, and fails, to hide his Britishness and ends up sounding like a bad impression of Quint from Jaws.










Rating: 5/10

Violent City (aka The Family) (1970)

1st View
Format: DVD
Venue: Rivendell (Bronsothon)

The Good: Stunning cinematography that far exceeds the quality of the rest of the film and a pair of killings at the end that are just phenomenal.

The Bad: Waaaaaaaay too long. Someone needs to take a machete too it and edit it down with extreme prejudice. Once Telly Savalas shows up, the movie becomes an exorcise in poor storytelling. They would flash back to exposition stories for characters who weren't even in the film.

The Weird: This version, the Blue Underground release, had restored footage never before seen. But the restored footage was in Italian with English subs whereas the rest of the film was in English. So it was funny to watch the characters slip in and out of Italian at the drop of a hat.

Rating: 4/10

Death Wish (1974)

Revisit
Format: DVD
Venue: Rivendell (Bronsothon)

*The pic is a gif of one of the many fine shirts created by the geniuses over at Dutch Southern. If you don't own a dozen of their shirts, RECTIFY!

The Good: Great revenge film, the blueprint for multiple imitators that followed. Also has the first onscreen appearance of Jeff Goldblum. The first film of my Bronsothon project. 3 days of Charles Bronson movies, stopping only to sleep, charting the best kills.

The Bad: It does have overly long interludes between the killings.

The Weird: Not many films have the courage to include a montage of land surveying and general architecture work, much less one that's supposed to be about vigilante justice.

Rating: 8/10 Atkins

Black Belt Jones (1974)

1st View
Format: Netflix WI
Venue: Rivendell

 The Good: Decent martial arts sequences, more cohesive story than Black Samurai (though that isn't any great feat), and loads of fun. Black Belt Jones has quickly climbed the list of my favorite blaxploitation films.

The Bad: It's still a low budget blaxploitation martial arts film replete with all the glorious flaws therein.

The Weird: I don't know if my favorite part was the rapping gangster, (I'd rather be dead than have no bread) or the character that comes out a phone booth and triumphantly suggests, "let's go to McDonald's!" Awesome!

Rating: 8/10 Atkins

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) & Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

Revisits
Format: Blu-ray & Netflix WI
Venue: Rivendell

Revisiting a couple of my favorites of the last couple years. In a bad mood after the Colts lost in the playoffs but, like clockworks, these films were able to lift my spirits. Movies are awesome.