12 to Midnight (2024)

This is one Ty and I covered on episode 210 of the podcast, and I figured with the Bronzi factor, it was worth covering on the site as well. I don't know how true that is actually, but I'm going with it.

12 to Midnight has nothing to do with the 10 to Midnight that it's cribbing its title from--thought that would be an interesting idea for a prequel, no?--but it seems like it might when we find out early on that Bronzi's wife was murdered by serial killer who's still on the loose, and could kill again. But this thing ain't shaping up to finish with Bronzi confronting a nude dude, oh no, it's a backdoor werewolf movie! Fortunately Bronzi's of Eastern European descent, and as such, this isn't his first werewolf rodeo--which, for an animal lover like myself, that may be the best kind of rodeo and the only kind worth supporting--so he's onto what's happening pretty quickly. Well, not quickly enough to spare myriad other victims from the werewolf's wrath, but if he didn't have that Eastern European background, this could easily be a 150-minute slog, so I'm not complaining. It's going to take everything in Bronzi's bag of tricks to bring this werewolf killer to justice.

This wasn't half-bad. You take the concept of Robert Bronzi having a career based on being a Charles Bronson look-alike, which is bonkers enough on its own, mix in Tito Ortiz and werewolves, and I think you have yourself a fun 90 minutes. To be honest, this is doing a lot better than a lot of modern DTV. It knows what it is, doesn't try to be anything it isn't, and the result is something that's pretty fun. That all being said, this is bonkers, and if you're looking at the cover expecting a hard-boiled actioner, you don't really get that. Bronzi has some cop on the edge in him, but once we add in werewolves, all bets are off. Sadie Katz, who we've seen before, looks like she could add in her own "sheriff on the edge," which would've been a fun twist on that premise, but, again, werewolves throw all that out the window. Sometimes you need that though. I don't know how many rough-sit Randall Scandals we've seen that probably would've been more palatable with the inclusion of werewolves. At least half the Bruce Willis ones anyway. 

We've now seen Bronzi twice on the site, which is four behind the actual Bronson's six. It's possible he could catch him, because Bronzi has a bunch of other stuff out there, and we don't really have anything more DTV-wise for Bronson--I'm a little less lax on what I consider DTV than I was in the past, and I don't know that any of the six we've already reviewed for Bronson qualify as DTV by the standards I have now. Anyway, everything, including the title, is meant to evoke Bronson. Throughout the film, characters tell Bronzi he looks familiar, so they're leaning into it, but I don't know how much I like that part. I almost would rather they act like we don't get what's happening, right? "Wait, what? You think Bronzi looks like Charles Bronson? That's crazy! I don't see it though... no, we cast Bronzi because he was the right man for the picture." "A picture about a cop from Eastern Europe living in Pennsylvania who kills werewolves? Bronzi's perfect for that?" "Exactly!" I don't know how many movies we'll see just for Bronzi, but he has enough listed on IMDb that I think we'll see him again, and considering how this one was pretty fun, it might be sooner than later.

Speaking of doppelgangers, Tito Ortiz has a name of his own from his time in the UFC, but he also fills a Vin Diesel niche if you need too. He needs to practice his Diesel yell ("The buster kept me out of handcuffs!"), but the rest is there. He's also a big guy, which helps too for action movies. We don't get to see much of any of that here, because he's down the list on supporting characters, more here to be a face they can add to the tin, which is fine, because he does have some films with bigger parts, like another Ty and I covered, Operation Black Ops. (Yep, that's right, technically "Operation Black Operations.")The other thing is, how much do we need movies with him as the star? Give me a Michael Jai White movie where Ortiz plays the leader of a biker gang or something. Either the kind of biker gang White needs to take down, or the kind where they and White have a common enemy, so Ortiz helps White bring down the baddie. As long as he's living his life .4 kms at a time, I'll be happy.

Another name we're seeing again is Sadie Katz. She plays a hardo police sheriff, who has a change of heart when she sympathizes with Bronzi's personal motives. The characters in the movie used a different term than "hardo" to describe her, which may have been a bit much, but she also came in hot in a way that made her character off-putting to start, so she was really working uphill to become likeable by the end. I think there's a happy medium between Lt. Chapman on Rockford Files and instantly friendly that her character could've existed in to start with, because when she does warm up to Bronzi, it's hard to believe it, no matter how well Katz can sell it. Since we first reviewed one of her films in Nipples and Palm Trees over ten years ago, she's amassed a great genre career, which would make her a big get for a film like this. That's one of the things about doing the site this long that's really cool, to see names that are just starting out grow into something bigger.

Finally, this film features a railroad connecting areas of Pocono County, PA, which as it exists in reality is something just for tourists, and doesn't function as a passenger rail service like it's depicted in the film. It's funny how the concept of rail is great in movies in America, but we can't fund them in real life, so for people watching outside the US, we can add a functioning, robust intercity rail service to the other myths movies perpetuate about us, like we're all pretty and speak region-free American English. And it looks like rail service in Pennsylvania is only going to get worse. Republicans in the senate here are blocking a budget that would help fund not only SEPTA, the Philadelphia transit system, but transit systems in other PA cities as well. It's part of this whole "us folk in Pennsyltucky want to make life difficult for those Liberal Elites who like riding their hoity-toity subways--plus oil companies give us a lot of money to attend Super Bowls and stuff, so there's that." The thing is, they're not very bright, and don't understand that properly functioning, robust transit systems are the engines that power cities, and for those Pennsyltucky senators whose own districts rely on tax revenue from cities like Philadelphia to keep their dead coal communities afloat, it means their communities will suffer too, perhaps even more, when Philadelphia isn't generating enough tax dollars to prop up their failing infrastructure. (Also, coastal elites don't ride the subway here in Philly.) But that's America for you, the country where passenger trains are more likely to exist in Robert Bronzi DTV werewolf movies than in reality.

And with that, let's wrap this up. IMDb lists this to rent on Prime, but as of this writing, you can also stream it free on Xumo too. Despite the bevy of commercials Xumo loads into its movies, I think that's the best way to go with this one. And also check out the podcast Ty and I did, number 210 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21913192

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

A Hard Place (2025)

Filmmaker J. Horton reached out to see if we could cover his newest film, A Hard Place, and I was more than happy to oblige. Trap is one of his I really enjoyed, and his most recent film before this, Craving, came out really well, so I was excited to see how this one did. 

A Hard Place follows a group of criminals who, after a big score, need to lie low for a bit, so they find their way out to the country to wait for their contact to show up and help them get out of dodge. Unfortunately, as they're waiting, these green tree monsters show up and start eating some of them. Fortunately though, a group of locals are all too willing to help, which is nice, except, could these nice locals have ulterior motives? It's getting to where you can't trust anyone anymore! Among the criminals there's Fish (Rachel Amanda Bryant) who doesn't seem like a criminal as much as someone caught up in a bad situation, and among the locals there's Naja (Ashley Undercuffler) who may not be as untrustworthy as the others. Will they manage to survive all this when the shit hits the fan?

This was a great time. A nice mix of gothic horror and zombie/monster movies, with some offbeat dark humor that manages to work tonally with the rest of the film and doesn't feel out of place--not an easy needle to thread, but Horton and company managed to pull it off. There were a couple elements that didn't work for me though. I thought there were too many characters to keep track of, and I would've preferred if the story focused more on Bryant and Undercuffler's characters, but I think those are more personal tastes on my end, and I get why Horton decided to go in a different direction. And with all those characters, we got some great performances beyond Bryant and Undercuffler. Felissa Rose delivers exactly what you want when you see her name on the tin, and I think the same could be said of Lynn Lowry; Scott Alan Ward is great as the creepy, silent type; and Natalia Santacoloma has a small part, but came off really strong, especially for someone her age. Beyond all that, the locations add a lot of atmosphere, and the practical effects all looked great, which was refreshing to see. This is just a fun horror movie, you can load it up on a Saturday night with your friends, and also support indie creatives at the same time, it's a win-win.

Out of the J. Horton films we've reviewed, of which this is now 5, I think Trap is still my favorite, but this is up there. It's one of those movies where a lot of things get thrown at you, but in a way that made me want to see what was coming next. That's not easy to pull off, because the audience can get lost or overwhelmed, but here it manages to keep the intrigue up and the confusion down--though a little confusion is good, I think. And then out of these five films, I think Monsters in the Woods had the most comedic bent, and while A Hard Place isn't a comedy per se, it injects a lot of off-beat, comedic elements, yet still keeps the tone of the film where it needs to be, and maintains the film's stakes even with the moments of levity. The best might be the educational films on human reproduction, that are like dystopian creepy but hilarious too. It's just really great stuff.

On our Invasion Force review we talked about the term "meta," and how popular a term that is with the kids. We get a little of that here, as we have a zombie movie within this movie, starring Bai Ling, Glenn Plummer, and Sadie Katz. It has that meta element, where it sets the vibe for what the actual movie is going to be about--and speaking of being confused, early on I wasn't sure at points if I was watching the movie or the movie within a movie, which I think is one of those times where a little confusion is good, it added to the overall feel of the movie for me--but it's also a creative way for a filmmaker like Horton who may have names like Bai Ling and Glenn Plummer for only a day, to have them in the film throughout, but they don't have any impact on the story itself, allowing him to make changes as they shoot the rest of the film without worrying about whether or not he can get them back for reshoots. We've actually seen this done before, with Welcome to Willits and Dolph playing a cop on a police procedural that Bill Sage is watching while the drugs are turning on him. It just adds another layer to the film, and is more fun than the usual one-scene cameos with names like these. Before we end this paragraph, I need to mention Sadie Katz, whom we saw in Nipples and Palm Trees back in March of 2013. That was another indie screener, and she turned in a fantastic performance in that film, so it's great to see her back on the site all these years later, mixing it up with Bai Ling and Glenn Plummer.

As I said above, one area that this didn't work for me was the number of characters we had, and how those characters caused us to lose Rachel Amanda Bryant and Ashley Undercuffler's characters for portions of the film, as they were the two most compelling for me. The end of the film teases that there might have been more of a connection between them, but it wasn't fleshed out enough for me, so when that tease happens it made me feel like we missed out. I don't know what I would've cut out though to make their scenes more substantial, I think it's just one of those realities when you have a big cast, people will connect with some characters more than others.

Finally, anytime I think of the title of this film, A Hard Place, the Rolling Stones' "Rock and a Hard Place" gets stuck in my head. I remember it was off the Steel Wheels album, which I bought the tape of back in 1989 as a ten-year-old. I played the video on YouTube before I wrote this paragraph, and realized I probably hadn't heard the song since 1989, but also had heard it so much back then, that I still knew all the words, and remembered the video playing on MTV. Also, Mick Jagger was 46 when that album came out, guess how old I am as I'm writing this. And yet all these years later, and however many songs I've heard in between then and now, when I see "A Hard Place" written somewhere, or I think of the title of this film, that's the song that comes into my head--and I still mishear "put on a clown face" when Jagger sings "put on a kind face." Don't ask me what I thought Jagger would've meant by "put on a clown face," I was ten, it made sense then.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently rent A Hard Place on Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime. This is worth your rental money, and you get to support indie creatives, so you get to enjoy a fun movie and do a good deed. Does it get much better than that? And thank you to Jason Horton for sending the screener for our review, I really enjoyed this.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10555668

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Nipples & Palm Trees (2012)

Here is another director submission, this one coming from director Dylan Reynolds for his film Nipples & Palm Trees, which was written by and stars Matthew James, who had a reoccurring role on Angel as Merl. I checked out the trailer (which I embedded on the image page, because it wasn't on their imdb), and it looked like a lot of fun.  Let's see how it turned out.

Nipples & Palm Trees follows Jackson, a struggling artist with a bad job who is in love with a woman named Harmony.  Unfortunately, Harmony can't commit to him, so in the periods of time when she's absent, he searches for love and sex in LA with varying degrees of success-- or really no success.  Will Harmony come back to him?  And if she does, will she finally stay with him?



I really enjoyed this.  The info packet that Dylan e-mailed to me included some notes on what the director and writer were going for, and Dylan said he was trying for a French New Wave/70s New Hollywood combined with 80s/90s sex romp vibe.  I'd take it a step further.  For me it felt like those great 90s indie flicks that were like an echo effect of the French New Wave and 70s New Hollywood from new directors who grew up in the 60s and 70s with those as their influences.  Being born in the late 70s and really coming of age as a moviegoer in the 90s, I loved that time, when it felt like every flick at the local indie theater or every Neo-Noir or character-driven comedy I picked up off the video store shelves was a gem.  This leaned on the strengths of its two leads, who felt natural and nuanced; plus a script that was funny without overdoing the irony, yet had the ability to move me too; and direction, cinematography, and editing that, while it could've been heavy-handed and too much for this film, instead really did it's job in bringing out the things that made this enjoyable, whether it was off-the wall comedy or some serious dramatic moments.

On the DVD, one of the reviews (LA Weekly), described this as aspiring "to Bukowski-like heights".  The thing is, how many movies have we seen try to do that, and fail miserably?  As I was watching this, I realized what made this one work was the lack of irony.  We see too much irony in these kinds of episodic sex romp type deals, where we just can't make these women and these situations and conversations crazy and zany enough.  And then when the craziness does happen, there's this wink-wink nudge-nudge factor that makes it even worse.  Nipples & Palm Trees never makes that mistake.  Even when the situations seem like they could go in that direction, the film maintains its humanity, which was refreshing.



As I mentioned above, Matthew James wrote and played the lead, Jackson.  He really typified that New York or Northeast I-95 Corridor transplant in LA vibe, which is why I think the title, Nipples & Palm Trees was so apt, because that's really all we in the Northeast think of LA.  Even though according to Wikipedia I live in the Greater Metro Boston Area, I'm a little north of Boston to fully have that mindset, but really there's a sense that people from about Boston to Philadelphia have, this angry, uptight, ready to argue mindset, that when they go out to LA and encounter the laid-backness, it's like a utopia.  And then there's the weather.  And then the women.  I've only been to LA a couple times, but I've had this feeling too, like the world is my oyster.  But from people I've talked to who are transplants out there, a shift occurs after a certain time, when you realize that the LA you thought you knew no longer makes any sense, and while you hated the Northeast, there's a part of you that longs for it because at least you understood it.  Jackson is in this liminal space, and his Northeast sensibilities are under attack throughout this film-- one of my favorites scenes came when a girl he wanted to bed has a surprise for him, and he tells her "this is wrawng," as opposed to "wrong".  Lawng Island trapped in the absurdity of the City of Angels.

Then we had Sadie Katz as Harmony, who has lived a tough life, doesn't know if she can trust Jackson, and is afraid of what it would mean for her if she finally does.  Jackson has no ability to communicate with her, all he knows in coming from the Northeast is to fight and make up, and Harmony doesn't do that, she runs away and comes back.  Even when she's with Jackson she doesn't know what she wants-- does she want to talk, does she want to fuck; does she like the way Jackson makes her feel, does it make her uncomfortable.  And the thing for Katz is, unlike James who is on-screen the entire film, she doesn't have as many moments for us to get a sense of who her character is, and she makes the most of that limited time to give us as complete and well-rounded a character as Jackson.  Part of that is the writing and the directing, but there's also a lot in her performance, those subtle touches, that really make it work, and as a result, make Jackson's character work better too.



One of the problems with doing a smaller-budget indie film is that a lot of the actors are just starting out, and as a result, when I go to the imdb page, they often don't have a picture up, which makes it harder for me to attribute credit to the right people.  I know we had Dallas Malloy, who was great as Jackson's philosophical landlord; The Human Centipede's Akihiro Kitamura as Jackson's co-worker (and don't ask, I'm not planning on reviewing that one any time soon) and co-sufferer in heartbreak; Vanessa Rose Parker plays a woman Jackson picks up at the grocery store, and Cary Thompson (who was in the Albert Pyun flick Invasion) plays another woman he tries to get involved with to get his mind off of Harmony.  All of these characters do their job in both being uniquely memorable, but also giving us more perspective on Jackson, which just made the film that much better.

The one area where this film had the most potential to seem over the top or overly ironic was in the sexual interactions with the other women, and I got a sense from some of the other reviews that they felt like that was the case with them.  I don't know, they didn't seem that unbelievable though (maybe because I've had some interesting interactions with women as well-- and no, I won't be getting into them here).  And the thing about them too is that, while they were out there, they weren't so out there that a guy like Jackson who's looking to get over a woman he's in love with, and also assuage his sexual frustrations, wouldn't be faced with a dilemma as to whether or not he'd just go with it.  In that sense it made it easier to relate to, made me feel like "hmm, if I were Jackson, would that be a deal breaker, or would I stick around"-- and having had to make that decision myself, it's all the more relatable-- again, I'm not getting into my own experiences.



For this last paragraph I want to get on my soapbox a bit here and rant about something that I really dislike in the American movie industry.  While Nipples & Palm Trees has a lot of sexual situations, and it is definitely for adults, there's really nothing that bad in it.  No one gets killed, raped, has his or her life threatened, and other than some boobs, there isn't much nudity; yet this would easily be an R rating, and maybe an NC-17.  At the same time, The Dark Knight, where people are given bloody smiles, have their faces half-burnt off, sit tied to a chair helplessly while a timer counts down a bomb that blows them up, and are murdered left and right, is PG-13.  Am I the only one who thinks that's ridiculous?

All right, I'll come down from my soapbox and wrap this up.  Nipples & Palm Trees is fantastic.  A throwback (I can't believe I'm saying throwback in talking about the 90s) to the character-driven indie comedies of the 90s, well-written, well-acted, well-shot, and well-directed.  I want to thank Dylan for sending me a copy, I really enjoyed it, and think everyone should check it out. You can pick it up on Amazon.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1630052/