Movie Review: Sushi Girl (2012, Magnolia)

...before gleefully and dutifully engaging this review, let's start off by saying that this viewer is a sucker for a good movie trailer. Beyond the generated hype & publicity of a movie, the advance viewing & review by critics, the suggested star power & creative hand...both behind & in front of the camera, the leaked footage & behind-the-scenes video commentary...it is a stand-out, well crafted movie trailer that quite literally grabs me by the shirt collar, slams me resoundingly up against the wall, and insistently commands my utmost attention. Granted, as does happen from time to time, some movie trailers DO exclusively feature what is best about a specific movie, with the movie itself, on a whole, proving to be something less than what the trailer promised; that's part of the gamble, I suppose...the nature of the beast...when one gets irresistably and invariably pulled in by the suggested content of the movie trailer, and as the result, committedly lays down one's hard earned samolians for the feature film, itself. However, when a movie carried through on the promise...'walks the walk', rather than merely 'talk the talk', via it's intendedly influential and compelling movie trailer, one cannot help but praise that artfully creative little two-to-two-and-a-half minutes of tease...that eye-and-mind-catching vanguard of great things to come...in the same light as the film itself proves to be...the trailer, being merely a tantilizing taste at the bottom of the shotglass...and the film, harboring the numbing contents of the whole bottle...

Movie Review: The Victim (2012)

Michael Biehn's has always put on some very solid performances as an actor over his 25 year plus career. Most notable in his supporting roles in numerous James Cameron classics (Aliens, Terminator and The Abyss), the genre has taken to directing recently. First, with his debut The Blood Bond and now with the backwoods thriller, The Victim, starring Jennifer Blanc-Biehn and the always lovely Danielle Harris (Halloween 4, Hatchet 2).

When a couple of promiscuous party girls hook up with some crooked cops in the woods for some blow and sex, things are bound to end badly. For one girl, Mary (Danielle Harris), it does. During some rigorous screwing next to some rocks, one of the said cops, Harrison (Ryan Honey), decides to snap her neck mid-coitus. Was it accidental or something he's done before? Mary's friend, Annie (Jennifer Blanc-Biehn) witnesses the aftermath and decides to take a run through the forest away from the two men.