Jasper (2011)

I first got wind of this film when I watched Jay Harangue's interview with Nathan Hill, the film's star and director, and Nate told Jay this is the one he needed to see. Considering I've now seen three of Hill's movies, Lady Terror, Revenge of the Gweilo, and Alien Love, and I enjoyed all three, if he was recommending this one, I needed to check it out too. In addition to us, Jay Harangue has covered this on his YouTube channel, and Romey Norton covered it on Film Focus Online.

Jasper has Hill as the eponymous hero, a private dick who was just about to retire, when a lady of the night (Sandy Greenwood) calls in his services to find her kidnapped son. No sooner do they get it on, when a couple of baddies show up, take her, and give Jasper a knock upside the head. When he comes to, he realizes he's the only one who can save her and her son, so he loads up on Red Bull and gets after it, going from hooking up with women every place he goes, to getting beaten up every place he goes, but at each stop, he gets clues that bring him closer to the truth. The question is, will there be anything left of him when he finds it?

Like Nate's other films, this was a ton of fun. I like Gweilo best, but this is pretty close. It plays on all the tropes of the Noir-ish thriller, and almost hits you over the head with them, but there's still the right amount of playing it straight that makes it work. A big part of that is all of the women who play opposite Hill, they're all in, and if they weren't, the veneer of playing it straight layered over the goofiness and tongue-in-cheek vibe that makes this whole thing so much fun would break down. I also like how Hill mitigates the low-budget limitations of the film with the goofiness that everyone is playing straight, because it sets Jasper in this surreal world that's just real enough to be believable--and this surreal aspect is furthered by the video game animations of the character in the opening credits. 75 minutes, free on Tubi, and a fun time, it's a perfect combination.

I could say Nate's done it again, but this is actually the oldest of his films that I've reviewed, so the other ones were more doing it again. Either way, I just love how he nails this spoof of hard boiled detective films, but in a way that no one but us as the audience is in on the joke. I also loved that as the hero, he both gets all the girls, but also gets beaten up the whole time. In many cases his attempts to hook up are interrupted by the baddies coming to beat him up, which makes it all the more fun. Because he's directed many films, he has a clear voice and tone in his films, and with this being the fourth one I've seen, I can tell early on that I'm watching a Nathan Hill film. When he was on the podcast, more to discuss his latest film, Alien Love, he did get into this one some too, and mentioned that because he's an actor himself, as a director he's able to get a lot of buy-in from the cast, and that's something I think really comes through in the finished product.

Of those many performances, I think my favorite was Sarah Howett, who played Sara the Boxer. Obviously as a professional in real life, she was really skilled, but the screen presence was solid too, especially for her not having acted as much. It looks like she hasn't done much since this, and what she has done haven't been big parts. One name that comes to mind when seeing her is Mimi Lesseos, who had a nice career in the 90s with a few leading roles in DTV actioners. I don't know how much DTV action is shot in Australia, but I think some of the ones coming out of England right now could use her, especially since she also does stunt work. Another name that stood out was Candice Day as Coffy, who's actually played a few Coffys in her short film career, but on the pod Nate explained that in this instance it was an homage to Pam Grier's Coffy, which Tarantino was also a fan of, and as a fan myself, I thought that was really cool. It was a short, but fun scene.

As you're watching this, you might notice there's a lot of Red Bull. Jasper drinks it a few times, it's conspicuously sitting on a tray of food in a hotel room, and a bar has stacks of it in a cooler. I asked Nate about that, and he said he asked Red Bull about them helping to fund the film with product placement. The product came, he placed it, but the money didn't follow. It's a lesson to filmmakers trying to get funding this way, that if the product comes, the money isn't guaranteed. A film this brings to mind is Deadly Prey with the New York Seltzer product placement. Considering the van that the baddies drive had a crack in the windshield, I wonder if the same thing happened. David Prior or David Winters were like "sorry fellas, we wanted to fix the cracked windshield, but the New York Seltzer money hasn't come yet!" The Red Bull product placement does end up being a fun element to the movie, just too bad the money wasn't there for them.

Finally, speaking of Red Bull, I have a thing for energy drinks. I don't exactly love the energy or the crash after, but I love how they taste. If I go in the store and see a new flavor of Red Bull, or Monster, or Ghost, or whatever, I have to get it, even if I've already had coffee that day. This might sound like a problem, but luckily energy drink companies don't release new flavors that often, so I can go through the refrigerated case at 7-11 and say "oh, I've already tried the Red Bull Winter Edition," or the Monster Guava Paradise, or the Ghost Sour Apple Sour Patch Kids. You might think that all of the Red Bull in this movie would be right up my alley, but it's just regular Red Bull, I've had that however many times before. It's when I see that they have a new flavor that I get geeked up. Just talking about this makes me want to run to 7-11 to see what other flavors they have.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream Jasper, along with many of Nathan Hill's other films, on Tubi here in the States. It's well worth it, this is a lot of fun, and streaming free on Tubi is a great way you can support indie at no cost to you. And for the podcast episode where Nathan talks about this and his other films, you can find that in our podcast archives, episode 183. It was a great conversation, and well-worth checking out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1691862

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Wild Things 2 (2004)

For the second of our 2000s DTV sequels of 90s thrillers, we have this sequel to Wild Things, the late 90s flick featuring Neve Campbell, Denise Richards, Matt Dillon, and a full-frontal Kevin Bacon. Unfortunately, because this didn't have Kevin Bacon, we know going in we're at least not going to get that full-frontal action, so at best this will be a three star film. In addition to us, Mitch at the Video Vacuum and Tars Tarkas have covered this as well.

Wild Things 2 has Susan Ward as a star beach volleyball player for her local high school, and the step-daughter of a rich guy, meaning she stands to inherit a lot of money now that her mom is no longer with us. The fly in the ointment is Leila Arcieri, who doesn't like Ward, and when Ward's step-father bites it in a plane accident, she comes forward and says she's his illegitimate daughter, meaning she should get the inheritance. Turns out, after a DNA test, she is the daughter? That's when insurance investigator Isaiah Washington gets involved, and he has a hunch something's fishy about the whole thing. But can he resist the allure of the money and these two beautiful... high school kids?

While this isn't a Gus Van Sant shot-by-shot remake of Psycho-style remake, it is pretty much a remake of the first movie. What do you do with that then? I means we know what's going to happen at every stage, every twist, especially at the end when you need your eye protection as the loose ends start flying together and the twists come fast and furious (Vin Diesel style). It's too bad, because I think as a guilty pleasure DTV thriller, this could've worked if they'd decided to try some new stuff with the story. The Ward-Arcieri interplay loses its intrigue when it devolves into the same relationship Campbell and Richards hard; and Isaiah Washington's character becomes too one-note when he starts to turn from insurance investigator who smells a rat, to guy who just wants the money. And in that sense, the same way that people were like "why would you make a shot-by-shot remake of Psycho, Mr. Van Sant?" we can't help watching this and thinking "why couldn't you have zagged just a bit from the first film?" With so many Noir-ish thrillers to pull from, like Double Indemnity, that would've been perfect for this, it's a shame they didn't go there. Just the same, as a free streamer and a 90-minute time killer, this does fit the guilty pleasure bill.

This is our first time seeing Susan Ward on here, which was surprising, until I saw that she'd retired from acting in 2012, which, between then and now, would've been prime DTV movie making for her. I first remember her as the innocent girl from Kansas, complete with the Rachel haircut, on Sunset Beach, and while I think she would've been looking for more from that, sometimes Soap Opera to DTV/TV movie isn't a bad deal. It's interesting, because in our last review we were talking about the ecosystem that Wild Things helped create, and Cruel Intentions helped make a staple of the late 90s, and Ward was in The In Crowd, playing a role Sarah Michelle Gellar turned down, and unfortunately it was at that moment where that kind of thing had hit its saturation point--which seems crazy considering it was only a year after Cruel Intentions, but no one saturates the market like Hollywood does. And sometimes it's that simple, the role Sarah Michelle Gellar turns down ends up being a dud, and four years later you're doing Wild Things 2, and eight years later it's not getting better, you have a choice to make. Robin Dunne chose to lean into it, and Susan Ward chose to retire. As far as this film, she wasn't bad here, and I think would've good been in a Robin Dunne-esque career, but I also don't blame her for calling it a day too.

Unlike Ward, who hadn't been on the site before, this is the fourth time for Leila Arcieri, even though I didn't remember the other three times. The first one was the PM flick Hot Boyz, which, with all the names in that, I could be forgiven for missing her there; and the other two were Death Toll and Supreme Champion, and considering those were both so unremarkable, I could be forgiven for forgetting she was in either of those too. But like Ward, she's also retired from acting, in her case two years earlier in 2010, and I can't blame her either based on the kinds of roles she was getting. According to IMDb, she won an award at the Brooklyn Film Festival for Buffalo Bushido in 2009, and as far as I can tell, that film wasn't released, at least not widely enough. Couple that with having to take a film like Supreme Champion right after that, and that's probably enough for an agonizing reappraisal of the situation. And I don't know that a movie like this helps either. She did have a body double for the topless scenes, but even without that, overall her character is written as this one-note, "ethnic" antagonist to Ward, and as much as she tried to punch it up in her performance, there was probably also a sense of "this is what Hollywood thinks of me?" And it's too bad, because even a slightly more imaginative script could've given her more to work with, and I think she would've rewarded that imagination in her performance.

We always joke about how old the high schoolers are in movies like this, and this film is no different, with Ward 28 and Arcieri 31 when the film came out. I get why they do that--if they have a love scene with 41-year-old Isaiah Washington, you can't have an actual high school-aged actress in that role. But the thing is, even if the actors are that much older, they're still playing high school students, and which makes the whole thing kind of weird. At least in Cruel Intentions, other than the assistant principal or whatever who was hooking up with Amy Adams's character--and that was fully depicted as a bad thing--at least the characters who were adults playing high school kids were only hooking up with each other, as opposed to here. And I think the only reason why they set this in high school was because the first one was, which to me isn't enough of a reason to do it again--in fact, it would've been a better zag on the first one, right? Make them college students instead of high school students, and then add in some of those other elements I discussed, and we could've had something more than just a 90-minute DTV guilty pleasure time killer.

Finally, as I mentioned above, we had some beach volleyball in this. It was the most haphazard, cobbled-together, after-thought beach volleyball, where the kids in the high school just run across the street to the beach and play the game, with no coach or anything--it was almost surreal in its goofiness. I think this is the fourth time we've had beach volleyball here on the site. The first was the C. Thomas Howell classic Side Out, which if you haven't seen, it's a must; the second was Beach Kings aka Green Flash, where David Charvet plays a college basketball star who decides to try his hand at beach volleyball, a film that also had The Hills's Kristin Cavallari, which dovetails nicely with the third film, Into the Blue 2: The Reef, which had some beach volleyball in it, and featured another The Hills star, Audrina Patridge. While I do enjoy watching volleyball and I have fun playing it at a cookout, it's not like I'm a fan to the point that I can name famous players or anything, so I'm not sure why beach volleyball keeps coming up on the site. Do I need to start tagging it?

We'll leave that question for another time and wrap this baby up. Currently you can get this on Tubi, but between when I saw this and wrote the review, it was already taken down once, so who knows how long it'll stay. It's too much of an unimaginative remake of the first one to be really great, but it could get you to the church on time if you need to kill some time for 90 minutes.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365270/

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Cruel Intentions 2 (2000)

For the first of our DTV sequels to 90s thriller films, we're looking at this Cruel Intentions sequel from 2000. I don't know that any of them typify this paradigm more, from the movie it's a sequel of, to the fact that it has Robin Dunne; but the interesting quirk here is the addition of a pre-star Amy Adams. Let's see how it did.

Cruel Intentions 2 is something of a prequel to the original, with Robin Dunne as Sebastian Valmont moving in with his father, his father's new wife Mimi Rogers, and her daughter Amy Adams, as Kathryn Merteuil. As he tries to adjust to his new life in New York, he falls for the headmaster's daughter Danielle (Sarah Thompson). At the same time, we learn that Kathryn is the head of a secret organization of most elite among the elite students, and her task is to get newly arrived freshman Cherie (NH's own Keri Lynn Pratt) laid. As all this is happening, a rivalry is brewing between the new step-siblings. Adams is trying to maintain her hegemony, but Dunne is ready to mix it up with her and carve out his turf while pursuing love interest Danielle. Which of the two will prevail?

This was originally intended to be a TV series on Fox based on the first movie, but word on the street is Rupert Murdoch got wind of it--and saw the scene where Pratt, a 22-year-old at the time playing a 14-year-old, giving herself an orgasm by grinding on top of a horse's saddle in Central Park--and pulled the plug. At that point three episodes had been filmed, so they decided to cobble those together and add some new, racier footage--including nudity--and market it as a DTV sequel. If there's anything wrong with the film, it's that, that it feels cobbled together and reworked--like if it's a prequel, why does it look like it took place after the first film? Once you get passed that though, this is everything you'd want from a movie like this, from the trashy fun, like when Dunne and Adams are hooking up and Adams says "The Bradys never had it so good;" to the Robin Dunne factor; to the plot with all its twists and turns; to the mix of names we barely know to names like Mimi Rogers, who would've anchored a show like this; and names we know now like Amy Adams who would've just been getting her start. I don't know if I'd watch this and the first one together, but if you were doing a night of these DTV sequels, this would be a fun addition.

The Robin Dunne element maybe works most in the film's favor, and can't be understated. We're going to see him again this month when we look at Skulls II, and originally we were going to do American Psycho 2 in that spot, which also has Dunne. The first thing I saw him in was The Big Hit, where he plays a bungling white rapper sort who's trying to break into the assassin industry, and meets a bad end at the hands of Lou Diamond Phillips for his troubles. We've also seen him on the site before, when he was in the Roddy Piper flick Jungleground, which makes sense considering Dunne is also Canadian. And it's that mix of good looks, off-beat charisma, and Canadian-ness that makes him perfect for these movies, and now as the market has transitioned and he's gotten older, perfect for the Hallmark Christmas movies he's been doing--I count eight Christmas movies and one New Year's movie on his IMDb bio. It's quite a career when you think about it, and other than maybe Brandon Routh, there isn't anyone I'd rather have leading my Christmas movie now, or my 2000s DTV sequel then.

One year removed from her film debut in Drop Dead Gorgeous, Adams probably thought she'd made it when she was cast on this network TV show, only to see it dumped by Fox and cobbled together into a DTV sequel with nudity added in. What would the big break be then? Catch Me If You Can? Talladega Nights? I think the one that puts her on the level she's on now was The Fighter, which then leads to blockbusters like Man of Steel. What's fun about our site though is we can go back to films like this and see roles from when big stars were just starting out. Even with her character being cobbled together and edited the way it was, you can still see the star that was there, but it's interesting to think about what would've happened had the show been allowed to continue. She and Dunne could've created something really interesting, and maybe Dunne would've gone on to have more of a Joshua Jackson-esque career than the one he has now; but would Adams have been able to carve out the superstar career she has? Or would she have been known for more TV stuff? Was the show being canceled before it even started the best thing that could've happened to her, while it hurt the careers of almost everyone else involved? Maybe. She does have a couple more DTV films, so we may see her again on here, but if we don't, this film is an interesting one in her filmography.

I tried to bring myself back to the early 2000s as I was watching this. I haven't seen the original since it came out, but at that time we had this new Brat Pack forming from a group of twentysomethings who were slightly older than me or my age, all born from the mid-to-late-70s and playing high school students. I think the movement started with WB--now the CW--shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson's Creek, and Felicity. Then we had movies like Scream and Wild Things that featured more of an older set of young stars, like Neve Campbell and Denise Richards, but were emulated with this younger set in films like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Cruel Intentions. It's interesting, because I think the ones that emerged out of that group to become the biggest stars were the ones that were younger, like Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling; or the ones that were more adjacent, like Amy Adams. Reese Witherspoon probably had the most success into the 2010s, followed by Paul Walker with the Fast and Furious movies, but that's about it for that top level of stardom. Either way, for a time between the late 90s and early 2000s, they ruled, and they were our Brat Pack. And now they've all fallen into comfortable roles on not-so-prestige TV shows and Christmas movies. Maybe 20 years later, that's actually not a bad deal.

Finally, the soundtrack has some Smithereens songs, which brings me back to the early 90s, but it also had a couple songs by Thin Lizard Dawn. You'd be forgiven for not knowing who they are. I think their biggest hit was 1996's "Sucks," which at the time I think was called "Sucks Like Oasis," and was probably only a hit because it called out one of the biggest bands of the time. 1996 was also the year I saw Oasis in concert at the Worcester Centrum, now the DCU Center--I still have the T-shirt I bought there. My buddy had the album that had "Sucks" on it when I was in college, apologizing because he knew I was a big Oasis fan. Here's the thing though, I listened to the song for the first time in like 25 years, and realized it's not very good. "Weed," which was used in this film, is a bit better, but you can see why Oasis was an all-time band, and no one remembers Thin Lizard Dawn.

Kinda though, right? Because this movie is currently on Tubi, so you can stream this free and hear all the Thin Lizard Dawn you want while you get your fill of Robin Dunne, pre-stardom Amy Adams, and fun DTV sequel/prequel guilty pleasure. So while Oasis is planning a massive reunion concert, Thin Lizard Dawn lives on as well.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0196267

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Showdown at the Grand (2023)

The Babe Ruth of DTV action, Dolph Lundgren, celebrates his 67th birthday today, so we had to celebrate with this film, which came out in 2023 and has been sitting in my watch list all this time. With now 74 films on the site, he's the only one with more films than years on the planet--though Gary Daniels is close, with 60 films at 61 years old.

Showndown at the Grand features Terrence Howard as the owner of a small, struggling indie theater. In an attempt to boost revenue, he invites famed low-budget action star Claude Luc Hallyday (Dolph) to visit. While that sounds great, it may all be in vain, as a real estate conglomerate wants to buy the theater and tear it down for a massive apartment development. But Howard won't go down that easily, and with his friend and local pawn shop dealer John Savage, and new intern Piper Curda, fresh from earning her PhD in film, they keep things together long enough for Dolph to arrive--which is the exact moment that the real estate developers unleash their army of masked goons on the theater. Will Howard and company be able to fend them off?

This was definitely a fun time. It's a bit over the top (Stallone style), but that's by design, so you're either okay with it or you're not, and while I think there were moments where I wasn't, once we got to the end I just went with it, which I think was the right approach. The Dolph that you wanted was there, both in the footage of the fake films he did--which all look fantastic and would be great if they were ever made--to the shy, reclusive former star that he is, uncomfortable being in front of a crowd again after all these years, and then when he finally gets in front of the audience, extolling the virtues of Estonian saunas. Howard was also great as the lead, he plays the theater owner in a very believable way to start, so when he has to turn into a de facto action hero, I wouldn't say we believe it too, but at least we're willing to go there with him. The one area I thought this was lacking was in developing Piper Curda's character. It feels like they liked the idea of her, but didn't do anything with her, which was a waste. Overall though I appreciated what they were going for, and enjoyed myself.

At 67, Dolph plays a 67-year-old character here, which I thought was great. He leaned into his age, but also showed off his fitness level to be his younger self in the fake movie clips. He also leaned into his low-budget/DTV career, and that was something as a longtime fan really I connected with. It was almost like he was giving us this role as a gift to us. We always talk about his larger-than-life presence, which we see in the clips of the fake movies, but to then pull that back when the character is unsure about talking in front of a large group after all this time, only to find some of that old magic when the theater is under attack, was all great stuff showing his range as an actor. He makes this movie for me, and while it's not an all-time favorite of his--if you look on my Letterboxd list for Dolph, it just cracks the top 40--for a new Dolph film, it's a nice addition to his filmography.

This is our first time seeing Terrence Howard on the site, which I was surprised about, because I thought I reviewed The System, a film Ty and I did on episode 147 of the podcast, all the way back in February, but I guess I never got around to it. As I said above, the best part of his performance is how well he nails the struggling indie theater owner. The personality he gives that character feels so spot on. But then he's got to sell it when the thing goes over the top (Stallone style), which to be honest I think is easier to do that than it is to authentically nail the quirks of the indie theater owner earlier on. It looks like DTV is where he's living right now, so we'll definitely see him again, but the level of this performance also shows DTV is not where he should stay. There's gotta be a prestige TV show on a streaming network that could use him, where his talents could be better utilized.

As "The DTV Connoisseur," movie theaters don't come up as often in conversation, but seeing an old movie at a small indie theater is always a fun experience. Here in Philly there's the Ritz, which is now owned by Landmark Cinemas, but it has enough of that feel, and a few weeks ago I got to see Blade there. The problem is, the consolidation of the studio side of the film industry has had a similar effect on theaters, with this smaller pool of more powerful studios wanting to work with the major chains that can give them more screens and better amenities. One way that the smaller theaters used to compete was by showing older films on special nights--like Blade--which gets people in the door so they come back for other films. What Disney has done to hurt that market is vaulting their films--of which they have a lot more now that they own 20th Century Fox's catalog too. For example, this year's the 35th anniversary of Say Anything, which was a 20th Century Fox film, and in the past Fox was good about giving the rights for indie theaters to show it. Now, Disney often won't let them, because they don't want a Say Anything keeping people away from a Deadpool and Wolverine. It's one of the many ways Disney is trying to kill the film industry--while still pulling in almost $3 billion from two films this year--which I think from Disney's standpoint may seem like the right play, but in the long run has the opposite effect, as fewer people overall go to the theater over time.

Finally, before we get into our second Dolph paragraph, I wanted to mention that guy above. That's Michael Oblowitz, father to the film's director, Orson Oblowitz. Why is that important? He's directed Steven Seagal in two DTV classics, The Foreigner and Out for a Kill. How do you not love that?

Anyway, this is probably it for Dolph for a while. I know I've said that before, but at this stage we only have Small Apartments and Fat Slags for DTV flicks; Sharknado 5, which he has a small appearance in near the end; and then Expendables 3 and Expend4bles as two theatrical films that are fair game because I've reviewed the first two. I don't know that any of them are real priorities though. It looks like he also has a BondIt Media film in post production that also has Michael Jai White, so that will be a priority whenever it comes out. In the meantime though, even taking a hiatus, I don't see anyone catching him for most tags all time. Gary Daniels is the closest, and he's still 14 behind. So as he celebrates his 67th birthday, and 74th film on the site, we celebrate him too, as the best to ever do it, especially in the DTV world. Grattis på födelsedagen, Herr Jundgren, du är störst.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Right now you can get this on Pluto TV here in the States. It's probably your best bet, though Pluto is much worse on commercials than Tubi is. As a Dolph fan, I think this is a must see--even though, as a Dolph fan, aren't they all must sees?

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18115690

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/