home of Vern, critic and author
I know we’re supposed to be cynical about i.p. and remakes and what not, but I am a child of Freddy, so to my mind franchising has always been one of the elements of horror. It doesn’t have to be the main one, it could be low on the totem pole, like beatboxing in hip [ ] <p>The post Faces of Death (2026) first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS of CINEMA .</p>
There’s a scene in SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY where Peter Parker (Tom Holland, THE ODYSSEY) sees his high school best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon, THE WRECKING CREW) at the bodega. Ned doesn’t remember him due to a spell Dr. Strange had to do to save the world from multi-dimensional doom (long story, and I don’t [ ] <p>The post Spider-Man: Brand New Day / The Punisher: One Last Kill first appeared on…
July 24, 1996 SKYSCRAPER is a DTV movie that nobody would’ve missed if I d skipped it in this retrospective. But it’s DIE HARD in a building, starring Anna Nicole Smith, and I hadn’t seen it, so I thought I felt I had a responsibility. Smith had been Playboy Playmate of the Year in 1993, but [ ] <p>The post Skyscraper (1996) first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS of CINEMA .</p>
July 19, 1996 (U.S. release date) It’s not exactly a bold statement to say that TRAINSPOTTING was a phenomenon. A low budget Scottish counterculture movie that made $72 million around the world, made stars out of most of its cast, internationally launched a director who has since won best director and best picture Oscars and [ ] <p>The post Trainspotting (plus some notes on The Frighteners) first…
THE ODYSSEY. Good movie. Christopher Nolan (executive producer: ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE) gives us his take on the ancient poem, as filtered through his heavy duty filmatism, shot on IMAX film, with some of his beloved non-linear structure, a ridiculously stacked cast and a weird Ludwig Göransson (THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN) score. It’s classic [ ] <p>The post The Odyssey (2026) first…
July 19, 1996 As you can see I’m lagging behind on this summer retrospective, struggling to catch up. But it doesn’t feel like it while watching FLED, because this is the kind of mediocre movie they used to dump off in August. Perfectly competent, nothing more. A lesser work from two actors I was excited [ ] <p>The post Fled first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS of CINEMA .</p>
July 17, 1996 MULTIPLICITY is the Michael Keaton clone movie. I remembered it being okay at best, but Keaton being very good at playing multiple characters who are distinguishable from each other just based on his mannerisms. Yes, I was correct about all that. It’s directed by Harold Ramis, who I hold in high regard [ ] <p>The post Multiplicity first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS of…
KAZAAM is one of those movies we all know as a punchline because “Shaquille O’Neal as a rapping genie” sounds more like a fake movie inside another movie than an actual thing that exists. The only one that’s guaranteed less existent is the other genie movie starring Sinbad that somehow became a shared delusion of [ ] <p>The post Kazaam first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS of CINEMA .</p>
July 17, 1996 WALKING AND TALKING is the debut film from writer/director Nicole Holofcener (the warden in MI VIDA LOCA). Like the last movie I reviewed, DON’T LOOK BACK, it opens with its protagonists as little kid best friends, but this is a much more female perspective of the world, so instead of establishing their [ ] <p>The post Walking and Talking first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS…
July 13, 1996 DON’T LOOK BACK is a straight-to-HBO movie, but I thought it might be worth watching because it’s directed by Geoff Murphy (THE QUIET EARTH) between his two great sequels, UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY and FORTRESS 2, and it’s written by Tom Epperson Billy Bob Thornton William Petrowitch. The latter [ ] <p>The post Don t Look Back (1996) first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS…
JACKASS: BEST AND LAST is the name of this year’s JACKASS motion picture event (currently leaving theaters), because it’s a reunion mixed with a “best of” compilation as a finale to the series. New sequences are mixed with highlights and previously unseen footage from more than a quarter century of Johnny Knoxville and pals doing [ ] <p>The post Jackass: Best and Last first appeared on VERN S…
July 12, 1996 I know why I didn’t watch COURAGE UNDER FIRE in ’96. I was very anti-war, in a country that had generally accepted the Gulf War as a good thing, and I didn’t want to sit through more bullshit about how proud we should all be about it. And also, let’s be honest, [ ] <p>The post Courage Under Fire first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS of CINEMA .</p>
“You’re an individual, and you know something? That makes people nervous. And it’s gonna keep makin’ people nervous your whole life.” July 10, 1996 HARRIET THE SPY is a theatrical motion picture offering from Nickelodeon, television’s foremost purveyors of double dares and super-sloppiness. It does in fact include green slime splashing on the face of [ ] <p>The post Harriet the Spy first appeared…
You know me I Iove Sam Raimi, I love THE EVIL DEAD. Nobody will ever make an EVIL DEAD the same as Raimi did, but as far as horror franchising goes I think he’s got a good set up here. We have his original classic trilogy (1981-1993), which he was able to legacy-sequelize surprisingly [ ] <p>The post Evil Dead Burn first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS of CINEMA .</p>
Big Willie Weekend, 1996 I was hesitant to watch PHENOMENON again, but it’s fine. It’s a corny but harmless drama/romance with sci-fi elements, directed by Jon Turteltaub (3 NINJAS, COOL RUNNINGS, WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING) from a script by Gerald Di Pego (SHARKY’S MACHINE). It stars John Travolta in his post-PULP-FICTION I’m Back period. GET [ ] <p>The post Phenomenon first appeared on VERN S…
ALL YOU NEED IS KILL is a 2025 anime movie that just came to blu-ray. Do I know what the title means? I do not. But if it sounds familiar and you can’t place it, it might be because EDGE OF TOMORROW was based on the same 2004 novel by Hiroshi Sakurzaka. Director Ken ichirô Akimoto [ ] <p>The post All You Need Is Kill first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS of CINEMA .</p>
July 2, 1996 (in video stores) Until now I had never seen THEODORE REX. Obviously I always intended to see it I’m not a heathen. But I took my time, and also I always got it confused with TAMMY AND THE T-REX. Thankfully this Slam Evil Summer series gave me motivation to finally see [ ] <p>The post Theodore Rex first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS of CINEMA .</p>
June 28, 1996 While the recently-minted superstar Jim Carrey was challenging himself (and getting paid well) with THE CABLE GUY, his ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE director was remaking Jerry Lewis’s 1963 movie THE NUTTY PROFESSOR. A challenge of a different sort, I guess, because it s a big special effects movie. It was a huge hit [ ] <p>The post The Nutty Professor (1996) first appeared on VERN S…
June 28, 1996 STRIPTEASE was one of the most derided movies of 1996, and the winner of six Razzies including Worst Picture. There is no question in my mind that that particular distinction can be attributed to the Razzie’s usual misogynistic and puritanical hatred of sexuality. The winners of the previous three years were INDECENT [ ] <p>The post Striptease first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the…
June 21, 1996 LONE STAR is the summer of ’96 joint from John Sayles, a limited release but made $13 million on a budget much lower than that, and well reviewed. Roger Ebert called it “a great American movie, one of the few to seriously try to regard with open eyes the way we live [ ] <p>The post Lone Star first appeared on VERN S REVIEWS on the FILMS of CINEMA .</p>