Machete directed by Robert Rodriguez

This movie is FANTASTIC. It gets a lot of flack for a lot of stupid reasons - it's goofy plotline, it's supposed political motivations (HAH!), it's grindhouse tone and the nudity (which isn't bad compared to most hollywood blockbusters), but for what it is, Machete is simply AMAZING.

Conceived originally as a joke trailer for the Grindhouse double feature (Death Proof and Planet Terror), it keeps up this tone and gives us a movie that is cheesy, violent, sexy and all around bad-ass. Danny Trejo commands the screen in this film, and every moment with him in it is fantastic. He fits the film's tone perfectly, and he immerses you into the genre immediately. The film's violence is so completely over the top (at one point, Machete spins in a circle and decapitates six people) that even my normally-squeamish wife was laughing along side my at the computer generated blood spurts and the decapitations.

This is definitely not a movie for small children, but it IS a movie that taps into the man-child inside all of us. Don't go in expecting some deep Quentin Tarantino film that's secretly some loaded political message. This is schlock for the sake of being schlock. It's the kind of movie that you just have to separate yourself from the stupidity of it, and just enjoy the ride.

Andre van Heerden's Deceived (Not that you know who that is...)

So, just watched Deceived by Cloud 10 pictures (the people who made Left Behind). Well, it wasn't... great. Wasn't exactly bad either. 

I don't mind films with religious storylines at all, and if done right these movies can be really good. But this film crosses the line from a compelling story about a person whose lost his faith and then finds it again, to a film that is preachy and overbearing.

The movie is made-for-TV quality and seems like something that would get broadcast on the Christian Life Network or some sort of evangelical Christian version of Space. That said, it wasn't that bad. Honestly if they just cut down the diatribes and showed us way more than just spilled exposition all over our laps, it wouldn't have been a half bad sci-fi story with some religious underpinnings. The main problems come from the complete lack of characterization for the supporting cast, making their eventual possessions much less noticeable. We don't really get a chance to know much about them before they turn 'evil', so it becomes tough to really understand what the big change was.

Judd Nelson saves this film. He plays the main character, a technician named Jack, and he's the only one who really sells his character. The other actors were definitely trying, they just lacked Judd's skill. My biggest issue was not in how Jack was played, but in how everyone talks about Jack as being a "geek" and unattractive. This was made in 2002, people, geeks weren't that uncommon back then! Also, I don't care how geeky he is, Jack was not an unattractive character!

If you recognize the name Judd Nelson, that's because this is the guy who played John Bender in the Breakfast Club in 1985, and he was also in St. Elmo's Fire. 

Overall? It had flaws, definitely. But if you can find it for cheap somewhere, might be worth picking up for a corny movie night.