TheRetroCritic

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Director Robert Rodriguez concluded his El Mariachi trilogy back in 2003 with yet another ultra-violent, over-the-top actioner following Antonio Banderas' seemingly immortal mariachi-turned mythical Mexican hero. Once Upon A Time In Mexico also starred the likes of Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe, Eva Mendes and regulars Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo. The plot involved a planned coup whereby Dafoe's drug lord and some villainous General would take over from the President. In the middle of this whole thing is Depp's unconventional CIA agent who hires El Mariachi to do his thing, something he agrees to seeing as he has his own score to settle since his beloved Carolina (Salma Hayek) was killed. What follows is a lot of lovely guitar tunes playing over action-packed carnage: people get shot and fly 8 metres into the air, that kind of thing. Clearly the film doesn't take itself too seriously, which actually adds to the fun of it. CIA guy Sands (Depp) is cons

Is Sin City: A Dame To Kill for a sin? Or to kill for?

Turn a corner in Sin City ... Wait about 10 years... Then turn another. Too little too late? The box-office seems to think so. But what of the film itself? Was Robert Rodriguez's sequel to his own Sin City , arguably one of the best comic book movie adaptations of all time, worth the long wait? This time, the film is mostly based on the Sin City stories "A Dame To Kill For" and "Just Another Saturday Night", though the latter is used more as an amusing prologue than anything else. The other two stories were put together by Frank Miller for the film specifically. One of them involves Joseph Gordon Levitt's gambler and the other continues Nancy's (Jessica Alba) story from the first movie. The problem with making a sequel this late is that you'll only be able to gather about a third of the cast from the original at best. And with the sad losses of Brittany Murphy and Michael Clarke Duncan a few years ago, this was never going to be easy. Es

Nearly 10 years after Sin City , Robert Rodriguez finally brings us this long-awaited sequel. And, you know what? After seeing this brand new trailer...   Sin City: A Dame To Kill For might just be worth the wait.

With sequel A Dame To Kill For coming soon, there's no better time to revisit Robert Rodriguez's (mostly) monochromatic film noir comic book thriller. Lately, Rodriguez has been focusing predominantly on tongue-in-cheek Grindhouse flicks so going back to Sin City was something of a breath of fresh air. Now, don't get me wrong, Machete and Planet Terror are tons of fun but there's a refreshing seriousness to Sin City which makes it feel that little bit more substantial. You can tell that the director was putting a lot of heart into this project and wasn't taking Frank Miller's works lightly, not only visually but tonally also. There is, of course, the odd burst of humour and absurdity in there but it somehow doesn't feel forced amidst the semi-earnest way in which the story is being told. There's always jokey touches in Miller's comics, usually rather dark one, and that comes through really well here, Rodriguez never letting Sin City get too

Better late than never!

Written by none other than Quentin Tarantino, From Dusk Till Dawn was Robert Rodriguez's follow-up to Desperado and was further proof that the director was indeed one the most fun, rock n' roll filmmakers around. The film is one of two halves. The first hour is dedicated to George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino, who play two brothers, criminals on their way to Mexico. After leaving carnage behind them, they take a family hostage in a winnebago and finally make it through the border. The goal was to spend the night in some dodgy trucker bar beautifully called "The Titty Twister", wait for Cheech Marin (who plays like 3 roles in this) and go their separate ways come dawn. Unfortunately, and this is a pretty big spoiler if you've never seen the movie and you're planning to watch it, the bar turns out to be packed full of blood-thirsty vampires. The second half of the film is basically all about our heroes (and anti-heroes) fighting off vampires in the blo

Some of the currently released posters for Machete Kills :

Taco time!