Peter Frankfurt Movies
Wesley Snipes returns as legendary vampire hunter Blade in this, the third film inspired by the popular Marvel Comics character. A fearless warrior immune to vampires, Blade (Snipes) has become a hated enemy of the bloodsucking community, and as they gather in their desert compound, a group of vampires is plotting to eliminate Blade once and for all by turning the mortal community against him. The vampires have concocted a misinformation campaign that paints a picture of Blade as a ruthless murderer and has sent the FBI on the vampire hunter's trail, led by the relentless agent Cumberland (James Remar). At the same time, the vampires have brought their founding father, Dracula, back to his undead state, renaming him Drake (Dominic Purcell) and investing him with special powers that allow him to walk unharmed in daylight. After a dangerous encounter with Cumberland, Blade and his ally, Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), form an uneasy alliance with a scruffy team of human vampire slayers, the Nighstalkers, led by Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds), and Whistler's daughter, Abigail (Jessica Biel. While Sommerfield (Natasha Lyonne), a biologist working with the Nightstalkers, researches a scientific answer to the vampire problem, Blade and his comrades take a more hands-on approach against Drake and his minions, including Danica Talos (Parker Posey), Asher (Callum Keith Rennie), and Grimwood (Triple H). Blade: Trinity was directed by David Goyer, who also wrote the screenplay for this film, as well as the first two movies in the series. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, (more)
In between the big-budget Blade and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, British filmmaker Stephen Norrington directs the straight-to-video crime drama The Last Minute. Told in flashback, the story follows the rise and fall of Billy Byrne (Max Beesley). With a determined goal to be famous, he lands his first big show with the help of his slick agent, Walsh (Anthony Higgins). Fame comes quickly as he travels the globe and gets invited to hip clubs, becoming the darling of the London art scene. Due to his excessive, self-centered behavior, his girlfriend Janey (Kate Ashfield) leaves him. His fame fades away and he falls into a life of crime, drugs, and gangsters led by Grimshanks (Tom Bell), where he meets Anna (Emily Corrie). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Max Beesley, Emily Corrie, (more)
Four years after scoring a box-office touchdown with Blade (1998), actor Wesley Snipes returns to portray the Marvel Comics character again in this sequel that teams him with Mexican horror director Guillermo del Toro. A half-vampire, half-human hybrid, Blade (Snipes) is a merciless vampire hunter bent on destroying the bloodsuckers that feed on humanity. The keys to Blade's success are a serum that allows him to resist the urge for blood and an array of inventive, deadly weapons, both of which were once supplied by his mentor, Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). Since Whistler's death, Blade has relocated to Prague and recruited the pot-smoking slacker Scud (Norman Reedus) to take the place of his father figure, but then he discovers that Whistler's not dead after all: He's been infected with the vampire virus. Reunited with Whistler, Blade is dealt an even bigger surprise: His greatest enemy, vampire leader Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann), wants to make peace with him. It seems that the vampires are facing a greater threat than Blade and hope to persuade him to fight the Reapers, a mutated super-race of vampires on a rampage of murder, indiscriminately killing both humans and their fellow bloodsuckers while sucking their victims dry. Blade agrees to a truce and joins the Bloodpack, an elite squad of commandos originally formed to fight Blade himself. Soon, the vampire soldiers discover that the virus responsible for creating their enemies is spreading rapidly and can be traced back to a mysterious "Patient Zero." Blade 2 (2002) co-stars Ron Perlman, Leonor Varela, Donnie Yen, and Matt Schulze. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, (more)
British director Stephen Norrington helmed this David S. Goyer adaptation of the Marvel Comics character created in 1973 by scripter Marv Wolfman and artist Gene Colan. In the Tomb of Dracula comic book origin, just before Blade's mother gave birth to Blade, she was bitten by a vampire, which made Blade immune to vampires. Now a vampire hunter, Blade, joined by vampire detective Hannibal King and Dracula-descendent Frank Drake, stalks vampires. In the 1990s (in Marvel's Nightstalkers), Blade teamed with Drake and King in an agency created to fight a variety of supernatural beings. The Marvel origin is retold in this 1998 Norrington film, with Blade's mother dying as he is born. Thirty-some years later, Blade now exists somewhere between the two worlds, not human but not fully vampire. He has become a relentless and superhuman vampire hunter, out to avenge the death of his mother and protect the rest of humankind from the evil vampire race. In this pursuit, Blade storms a notorious vampire nightclub and in a virtual bloodbath manages to wipe out most of the blood-lusting denizens. But the burnt corpse of vampire Quinn (Donal Logue) is reanimated at the hospital morgue and bites hematologist Karen Jenson (N'Bushe Wright). Blade magically appears at the hospital just in time to whisk Karen to his hideaway, a machine-shop run by his mentor Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), who once rescued Blade and who now produces a antidote to keep Blade from turning into a full-fledged vampire and who builds custom weapons for Blade to use against his evil foes. Meanwhile, Blade's vampire arch-nemesis Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) uses computers to translate the Book of Erebus, with the ultimate aim of bringing down the old-guard vampire council, headed by Dragonetti (Udo Kier), and triggering the Blood Tide -- an event in which everyone in the world becomes a vampire. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi
- Starring:
- Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, (more)
- 1996
- PG13
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Boys is a coming-of-age tale about an addled prep school student who nurses a woman back to health after an accident and becomes involved in her cryptic past. John Baker Jr. (Lukas Haas) is a tormented high school senior outcast who's weary of his upper-crust boarding school life and dreads his future as a supermarket chain manager. When he finds Patty Vare (Winona Ryder) unconscious in a field after being thrown from a horse, Baker sees this as an opportunity to break out of his humdrum existence, and he smuggles her into the school to take care of her. The relationship blooms into a somewhat bizarre love affair, as John discovers that Patty is concealing a mysterious secret involving a missing baseball player and a stolen car. Although the film takes a little time to get started, what originates as an analysis of guarded youths making foolish judgments evolves into a celebration of adolescent insurrection. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
- Starring:
- Winona Ryder, Lukas Haas, (more)
Cinematographer Ernest R. Dickerson directed and co-wrote this crime drama about a group of friends who get involved in a robbery. Bishop (Tupac Shakur), Q (Omar Epps), Raheem (Khalil Kain), and Steel (Jermaine Hopkins) are four Harlem friends who spend their days skipping school, getting in fights, and casually shoplifting. The only member of the group who has plans for the future is Q, who dreams of becoming a deejay. But one day Bishop happens to see James Cagney in White Heat and the film inspires him to buy a gun. His plan is to rob a corner store and split the money. Everyone goes along with the plan except for Q, who is competing that night in a deejay contest. At the club, Q is a rousing success, but he spies the stern faces of his friends through the cheering crowd and realizes that he has to go along with the robbery, which goes completely wrong. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Omar Epps, Tupac Shakur, (more)
Lethal Weapon 2 re-teams Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as, respectively, "loose cannon" L.A. detective Martin Riggs and his partner, the cautious family man Roger Murtaugh. The villain this time is a South African diplomat (Joss Ackland) who doubles as a drug dealer. Though Riggs knows what's going on thanks to characterless character witness Joe Pesci, he can't touch the villain because of "diplomatic immunity." After perils too numerous to mention, Riggs and Murtaugh shoot it out with the heavies on the deck of a South African cargo ship. Lethal Weapon 2, of course, contains as one of its comic high-points a now famous suspense scene: Mel Gibson agonizingly attempting to extricate a terrified Danny Glover from a booby-trapped toilet seat. Director Richard Donner, Gibson, Glover, and Joe Pesci would be reunited three years later for Lethal Weapon 3 and in 1998 for Lethal Weapon 4. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, (more)
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