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

The story takes place in near future America that is now virtually crime and poverty free. The credit for this golden age is given to the annual “Purge” in which for one 12 hour period out of the year, all crime – including murder – is legal. This cathartic moral hiatus allows citizens to release pent up rage, frustration and perceived revenge upon society so that the survivors might live the rest of the year in peace. Security salesman James Sandlin (Ethan Hawke) provides protection systems for his entire neighborhood and with his business booming, he is at ease with the annual event, especially since the system on his house is top-notch. His wife (Lena Heady), son and daughter become less at ease as the beginning of the Purge grows closer. When James’ naïve son witnesses a homeless man (Edwin Hodge) being chased by a bloodthirsty mob, he puts his entire family at risk to let him in. The dangerous gang tears through the house’s security measures to get at them while James and his family fight to survive the night.

It’s a preposterous, yet fascinatingly simple premise that begs for analysis on a ‘what would you do in this situation?’ kind of level…

by Coop Cooper

M. Night Shyamalan has been one of the most celebrated and reviled filmmakers in the last 15 years. While his first three Hollywood-caliber films (“The Sixth Sense,” “Unbreakable” and “Signs”) gained high critical and popular praise, his last four have been disastrous box-office flops. If the box office returns from the past weekend are any indication, you can add “After Earth” to his growing list of flops. However, while Shyamalan bears the brunt of the burden of these failures, I believe he is still a misunderstood, if not highly flawed cinematic savant.

by Coop Cooper

While there are many famous actors technically born in Mississippi, not all of them grew up here or have a strong connection to the state. Here are a few who do…

10. M. C. Gainey (Jackson) – This prolific, gruff character actor often plays crooked cops, cowboys, bikers and convicts in films and is recently most recognizable as the scripture-spouting, whip-wielding slave overseer Big John Brittle in “Django Unchained”. He appeared in 20 episodes of the hit TV show “Lost” as character Tom Friendly and is also notorious for his bizarrely hilarious full-frontal nude scene in the movie “Sideways” (2004)…

by Coop Cooper

After the last “Star Trek” film was released in theaters, I saw it numerous times on DVD and cable and with each viewing, it held up less and less. Eventually, I got really down on it and would probably downgrade my original rating if I ever resorted to that kind of thing. “Star Trek: Into Darkness” is an improvement over the last film and although it suffers from many of the same problems, at some point you have to stop counting all the plot holes and enjoy the ride.

While bungling the rescue of a primitive race from extinction, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) breaks Starfleet’s number one rule in an attempt to rescue Spock (Zachary Quinto) from certain death.

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.

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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…