The Accidental Spy (2001)

Equal parts Rush Hour and Rumble in the Bronx, Jackie Chan stars in The Accidental Spy as a mild-mannered fitness equipment salesman thrust into a world of espionage after he foils a bank robbery. He’s then recruited by an impressed government to play spy games involving drugs and chemical agents, and learns his dying father — whom he never knew — was quite the secret agent himself.

Like father, like son … except the son is Jackie Chan, so one can expect a heaping side of shenanigans with that derring-do. Therefore, there’s a great scene where Jackie escapes from the bad guys all while rigging their fortress to come tumbling down. This is one-upped by the climactic tanker-truck-on-fire set piece.

But the highlight has him running naked from a spa through a crowded outdoor market, trying to fight off a horde of pursuers while attempting to protect his modesty. The mix of humor and pathos isn’t always an easy one, as if the globetrotting Spy can’t decide which way it should lean. However minor in the grander scheme of Chan’s career, it’s still a solid homegrown effort that showcases his aging form ably. —Rod Lott

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Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines (2012)

Early into Wrong Turn 5 — the opening credits, to be exact — a great visual joke is delivered: The first two words of the title plop onscreen over a shot of leaf-covered forest grounds, but the numeral portion is represented by an open hand freshly chopped from the arm of a female jogger. If only writer/director Declan O’Brien (who also helmed the previous year’s Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings) had displayed more of that wit.

Instead, he settles right in to a rote tale of five college kids you won’t care about, much less be able to tell apart — until they’re torn apart, in which case knowing who’s who is made all the easier. They’re camping out at a West Virginia town hosting the annual Mountain Man Festival, a music fest that rivals Coachella, according to the TV news reporter on assignment in the small town’s obvious backlot set. Of course, they’ll never get there.

Wrong Turn 5 assumes you’ve seen every entry of the franchise — all but the 2003 original made expressly for home video — so it need not introduce you to its trio of inbred, mutilated hillbillies who feast on their human victims: Saw-Tooth, One-Eye and Three-Finger, so named for their individual deformities. (Cleft Palate, it appears, was too much of a line-crosser.) Well, I have seen the entire series, and just a smidge of catch-up each time would be appreciated. This installment throws a Pinhead into the mix: Hellraiser icon Doug Bradley, as the killers’ normal-looking father figure.

One can’t complain too much about its economy; this is, after all, a franchise that exists solely to showcase gruesome deaths. In that department, this fifth go-round offers two gloriously gory demises. The best involves one tow truck, two legs and three sledgehammers; the other, a guy buried up to his neck in a soccer field, and a big ol’ piece of farm equipment bearing rotating blades. O’Brien scores by choosing practical effects over computer-generated ones. —Rod Lott

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Stuck on You (2003)

I figure any movie that begins with a Pixies song can’t be all that bad. And Stuck on You isn’t. It’s another funny, sweet and politically uncorrect (but never demeaning) film from the Farrelly brothers, still best known for hanging semen from Ben Stiller’s ear in There’s Something About Mary.

The joke is that brothers Bob and Walt Tenor (Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear) are Siamese twins. They seem fairly well-adjusted and are popular around Martha’s Vineyard, where they make a living flipping burgers. But Walt is a budding thespian, currently putting on a one-man show about Truman Capote. When the acting bug bites hard — despite Bob’s penchant for on-stage panic attacks — the boys move to Hollywood so that Walt can chase his dream.

Unfortunately, the market for conjoined twins is limited in Tinseltown, and they’re the laughingstock of every agency they set their four feet in. Through luck and sneaky circumstances, Walt lands the male lead in a new detective series opposite Cher (playing herself), and although the director has difficulty keeping Bob out of frame, the series becomes a hit. Success has a price, however, taking a toll on Bob’s relationship with his Asian Internet girlfriend while limiting Walt’s acting opportunities. Eventually, Bob and Walt wonder if separation is the answer to their problems or just another problem to add to the list.

The Farrellys know how to mix outrageous humor with an endearing sweetness. Whereas most comedies just play mean, they can generate big laughs that often originate in the heart. They have a genuine love for their characters, whether they be conjoined twins, mentally handicapped busboys, sleazy Hollywood managers or — most frightening of all — Cher.

Damon is good, but Kinnear is terrific, with a semi-smarmy presence and expert comic timing. He’s really underrated as a comic actor. In the eye-candy role, Eva Mendes shows a real flair for playing a hot, dumb babe with a bosom with mesmeric powers. Seymour Cassell does an amusing turn as Walt’s two-bit agent, who lives in a retirement home, rides around on a motorized scooter and sports one of the lamest toupées ever seen onscreen. —Rod Lott

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Sisters of Death (1977)

Seven years after their pledge sister died during an initiation-ceremony round of Russian roulette — hey, shit like that’ll get you kicked off campus — five sorority sisters are invited to attend a mysterious reunion in a seemingly empty ranch house in the middle of nowhere, in Sisters of Death.

Now let’s see: a reunion for just five people? Seven years later? In a far-off locale, with no apparent host? And not one of them bats a fake eyelash to find this the least bit suspicious?

As they soon learn, the host with the most is the flute-playing father of the dead girl, and he wants the life of the trigger girl as repayment. But which of the girls — Playboy Playmate Claudia Jennings among them — did the deed? Oh, well, if he has to kill them one by one to find out, so be it.

So the girls run helplessly around the cavernous house, rooms of which house all kinds of creepy crawlies, like spiders, snakes and Beverly Hills 90210’s Joe E. Tata. The shock ending comes out of nowhere, really, but I have to admire it. —Rod Lott

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