COOP COOPER is an independently syndicated film critic with a split personality. His “Southern Side” prints mainstream reviews that appear in various print publications across the mid-south. His “Dark Side” from Los Angeles befouls the site with reviews of horror and grindhouse flicks. Welcome to the site where COOP’s two halves (and his contributors) review and debate the latest film/DVD releases…

by Coop Cooper

I was a little bummed that my favorite major network, primetime show “Last Resort” got cancelled before Christmas. It was like “Battlestar Galactica” inside of a U.S. nuclear sub and was set up to be the most intense action thriller of the season. Instead it got lost in the sea of mediocre primetime entertainment and sunk before it could reach a first season resolution. But that’s the nature of the TV network biz and with each passing year, the competition gets more brutal. With the traditional TV season coming to a close, the word has come down and over 20 primetime shows on the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) have been unceremoniously cancelled. Here is a list of the primetime shows getting the ax so far…

by Coop Cooper

Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Rose Byrne, Ray Liotta… That’s a pretty decent cast for a wide-release Hollywood blockbuster. But that’s not what “The Place Beyond the Pines” is. Audiences might expect a tense thriller in the vein of “Heat” or “Drive” but if that’s the impression the previews and commercials are giving you, I’m going to stop you right there. “Pines” is a slow and plodding indie effort that wants to be something meaningful and point out a big problem plaguing American society. It doesn’t quite cut it, even though it features some fine acting.

A traveling motorcycle stuntman/carny, Luke (Ryan Gosling), discovers a fling he had a year before with a waitress (Eva Mendes) produced a son He feels guilt and a desperate obligation to provide for his unexpected family so he quits the circus and resorts to robbing banks. His brash actions and violent nature begin to strain his relationships. Eventually his increasingly risky scores puts him on a collision course with a police officer, Avery (Bradley Cooper), who himself is in cahoots with a band of corrupt cops…

by Coop Cooper

The first disappointment of the summer season, “Iron Man 3” suffers from similar trilogy woes in which films like “X-Men 3” and “Spider-Man 3” diverged too far from the canon and fell flat with fans. I’ll blame some of this on writer/director Shane Black who took the reins from Joss Whedon to add his “Lethal Weapon” flair to the story, but obviously didn’t have enough respect for the original “Iron Man” comics.

Shaken after the Avengers vs. aliens battle in New York, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) barely sleeps and spends every waking moment designing new Iron Man suits for every dangerous situation imaginable…

by Coop Cooper

Amazon.com is taking a cue from Netflix and has launched over a dozen of their own TV show pilots exclusively online. They plan to utilize user ratings and comments to determine which shows they will produce full seasons of which will air on the Amazon.com website.

Paired with the ‘Amazon Prime’ service, the first episode of each of these shows is free for all users, but subsequent episodes will be available only to Amazon Prime subscribers. Like Netflix, Amazon Prime also offers many free online movies to watch, but nowhere near as many as Netflix. It does however come with free 2-day shipping on anything ordered from Amazon.com which is a huge bonus for frequent online shoppers (and frankly, the only reason I have a subscription). As an added bonus you can rent some ebooks for free instead of buying them, but Amazon intentionally makes this perk difficult and confusing to execute as they would rather you buy them.

by Coop Cooper

“People make mistakes.” Those are the words of Robert Redford’s character, Sloan, in “The Company You Keep.” Sloan is a fictional member of the real-life Vietnam War era group the Weather Underground. Dissatisfied with peaceful protesting, this radical group decided to ‘officially’ declare war on the U.S. Government by bombing government buildings and attacking domestic targets. Normally they would warn of an imminent bombing in order to facilitate the evacuations of citizens, but it didn’t always work out that way. The “mistake” in question is the murder of two police officers and a security guard when the organization robbed an armored truck in 1981. This actually happened and serves as the catalyst for the characters in this story…

by Coop Cooper

The original “The Evil Dead” (1981) was a little horror picture that could. Despite its ultra low budget and goofy acting, it earned rave reviews from Stephen King and achieved cult status for its relentless carnage, groundbreaking camerawork and sly comedic touches. It’s official sequel “Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn” (1987) – which was actually more of a remake – topped the original in every way and is considered one of the greatest horror comedies ever made. Its final sequel “Army of Darkness” (1992) eclipsed the cult status of the first two as a fantasy action comedy that owed just as much to “The Three Stooges” as it did to the horror genre…

by Coop Cooper

One of my favorite sections in Blockbuster Video when I was growing up was the ‘Extreme Action’ shelf. Sort of a mixture between superhero stories and shoot-em-up action blockbusters, extreme action films are usually R-rated ‘B’ movies or big-budget PG-13 popcorn films. With a heavy emphasis on martial arts and/or sci-fi, they feature over-the-top scenes which escalate in intensity over the course of the film. The Asian market perfected this type of film in the 90’s after America invented it in the 80’s. “G. I. Joe: Retaliation” fits squarely in that category and after seeing it, I had two thoughts: 1. It was a horrible movie. 2. I may have outgrown the extreme action genre…

by Coop Cooper

I haven’t seen a good, original ‘Go America!’ movie in a long time. They were such Hollywood staples during the 80’s and 90’s, but they eventually gave way to superhero films, tepid remakes and R-rated comedies. The best, recent example of this sub-genre done right was “Battle: Los Angeles” in 2011, but it was eviscerated by critics, much to my dismay and many other movie-goers who liked it and made it a minor box office success. Can an ultra-patriotic action film like “Olympus Has Fallen” succeed where “Battle” did not?

Disgraced Secret Service agent turned cop, Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) watches the White House from afar after losing a member of the First Family to a tragic accident under his watch.

by Coop Cooper

I never thought I would care about “Masterpiece Theater” on PBS, but it seems even stuffy British period TV dramas can be compelling under the right talent. With three seasons completed, “Downtown Abbey” has slowly but surely become the talk of the internet and entertainment circles.

“Abbey” follows the lives of the Crawley family, lead by the Earl of Grantham and their servants at a wealthy English estate in the early 1900’s. The highborn family follows strict traditions and the servants work hard to maintain their positions until word comes down the family heir has been killed during the sinking of the Titanic. This throws years of tradition to question as both family and servants are subjected to modernism, social changes and World War I…

by Coop Cooper

Can a high-budget TV series produced exclusively for a streaming web service like Netflix become a huge success and a model for TV/internet entertainment to come? If the original web series “House of Cards” is any indication, we may be looking at the end of traditional TV as we know it.

Based on a popular British series, “Cards” stars Kevin Spacey as Francis “Frank” Underwood, a South Carolina Rep. and Majority Whip who is passed over for a promised Secretary of State appointment by a new president he helped get elected. Enraged, Underwood concocts a plan to manipulate and usurp power using an ambitious young reporter (Kate Mara) and a disgraced a freshman Congressman (Corey Stoll) to game the system…

by Coop Cooper

The thought of having your identity stolen is a frightening and all-too-real possibility for any honest citizen. With the sprawling bureaucracy that goes hand in hand with modern life, it’s surprisingly easy for an opportunistic sociopath to steal someone’s personal information and go on a shopping spree, doing damage that is difficult to reverse. This type of crime can ruin reputations and lives. Strange that someone would think that kind of scenario it would make a passable mean-spirited, R-rated comedy…

By Coop Cooper

Vince Vaughn, Matthew Perry, Harold Lloyd, Daryl Hannah, Telly Savalas, Christian Bale, Buster Keaton, Lee Van Cleef, James Doohan, Danny Thomas, Denzel Washington and Megan Fox all have something in common… They went through great pains to disguise their missing or deformed fingers from their fans.

In order to film the famous [...]

The 85th Academy Awards (aka ‘The Oscars’) will air Sunday the 24th at 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific. Here are The Small Town Critic’s predictions for the winners of the major award categories…

Best Picture nominees: Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty

Prediction: Argo. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” looked to be the favorite at first but the outrage of Ben Affleck’s omission from the “Best Directing” category has openly energized support for “Argo” and many predict it will run away with “Best Picture” simply for this reason. I’m partial to the highly original “Beasts of the Southern Wild” but it has no chance. Although I think it will lose the Oscar, I think “Django” is the most memorable movie of 2013 and will persist in history as a popular one…

With all of Hollywood focusing on the Oscars which is a week away, why not talk about something completely unrelated, like comedy classics from the 1970’s? Here are a few of the best and now is a perfect time to get acquainted (or re-acquainted) with them since there is absolutely nothing new in the theaters worth mentioning…

“Where’s Poppa?” aka “Going Ape” (1970) – George Segal plays a man desperate to have a life and find romance if it weren’t for his senile mother played by Ruth Gordon who blocks his chance for happiness at every turn. This edgy dark comedy shocked audiences back then but is now considered a cult classic. Funniest moment: Rob Leibman’s inability to take a shortcut through Central Park without getting his clothes stolen…

by Coop Cooper

One of my favorite films of 2011, “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” dealt with characters under the influence of cults and gave audiences a glimpse into the psychology of members who are under the control of an influential individual. It also offered clues to the techniques these individuals and groups use to exact control. Loosely based on the life of L. Ron Hubbard and the rise of his Scientology religion, “The Master” also explores these ideas of control, influence and self discovery in the package of an exceptional film…

“The Collection” – A sequel to the 2009 horror thriller “The Collector,” this film franchise was initially supposed to be a prequel to the successful “Saw” film series. Arkin (Josh Stewart) who survived the first film is inadvertently freed when the serial killer known as ‘The Collector’ pulls off a mass killing, the likes of which has never been seen in cinema. During his escape, he misses the opportunity to save Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick), the daughter of a powerful political figure (Christopher McDonald). Enforcers working for this figure force Arkin to help them locate locate and guide them into the Collector’s base of operations to save Elena, but inside the raiders find more danger than they bargained for…

“Robot & Frank” – Set in the near future where robot caretakers are commonplace, Frank (Frank Langella) is a retired cat-burglar in a small New York community whose Alzheimer’s symptoms are steadily increasing. His son (James Marsden) insists that Frank accept the latest model of robot caretaker (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) much to the ire of Frank’s daughter (Liv Tyler) who thinks robot labor is ruining society. Frank hates the robot at first but as the automaton begins to improve his day-to-day life, he soon realizes the robot could help him revive his former career. In an attempt to keep his waning brain sharp, Frank begins to teach the helpful robot the art of picking locks and casing marks. However, Frank’s renewed hobby begins to strain his relationship with the kindly librarian (Susan Sarandon) he is courting…

“Silver Linings Playbook” – Bradley Cooper plays Pat, a severely bipolar ex-teacher who has been released from a mental health facility which he was in for assaulting his wife’s lover. He goes home to live with his soft-hearted mother (Jacki Weaver) and his beleaguered bookie dad (Robert De Niro), and he immediately begins to make their lives miserable. Obsessed with reconnecting with his ex, he alienates everyone around him until he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) who is just as damaged and overbearing as he is. The two form an unlikely friendship as Tiffany ropes him into a dance competition which becomes a form of therapy for them both…

by Chris Moore

The Stepfather opens with a bearded man (Terry O’Quinn) washing a whole lot of blood off, trimming his beard, putting in colored contact lenses, and casually strolling out of his home, leaving the grisly corpses of his family (and his former identity) behind. A year passes and we learn the same man has now become Jerry Blake, a charming small town real estate agent. With new wife Susan (Shelley Hack) and stepdaughter Stephanie (Jill Schoelen) in tow, Jerry seems to have it all, but as his new family begins to disappoint him, Jerry starts having those murderous thoughts again…

Traditionally, TV midseason (usually in January/February) was a dumping ground for TV pilots initially rejected from a fall season premiere. Networks would take an early ax to their lowest-rated fall shows and transfer the budget to these substitutes in the fat-chance hope that a sleeper hit would emerge. This usually results in a turkey Now with around-the-year programming, networks are seeing the midseason as second opportunity to launch some of their A-list shows. The most hyped show of midseason 2013 is “The Following” on the Fox network…