Archive for June, 2000

The Free Vacation

Monday, June 26th, 2000

Sometimes the biggest adventures come in suitcases, stashed in ditches, handcuffed to severed arms. I mean that’s how we found this one anyway. Me and Rich Boy Robbie Lamont, driving his beamer down a gravelly road behind a construction site his dad owned, on our way to a cocaine pickup. Robbie’s deal, I had nothing to do with it, but he wanted me for backup and he bribed me with an expensive leather jacket. He’s driving along telling me this long story about why the best leather you can buy smells horrible. I interrupt him as we get close to the rendezvous point.

“So what are we, uh– what’s this Fat Anthony dude look like, then?”

“Whattayou think, Vern? He’s a fat guy,” Robbie laughed.

“Well, I don’t know. How’m I supposed to know? Some of these nicknames they got these days, you never know.”

“Well Fat Anthony is a fat guy. Real fat. In fact I don’t know how he stays in business, you’d think he’d have to run from the cops at some point.”

Now you may not know this if you haven’t met me, but I am kind of the visionary type of dude. You know, the type of dude that comes up with a lot of innovative ideas and fresh approaches, and I am always looking for a chance to propose them. And this was one of those chances for me.

“You know, I always thought if a fat dude wants to be selling blow or, you know, whatever, and he’s worried about cops, at least cops on foot, this is what he should do. You get a pair of rollerskates, right? And do all of your transactions on the top of a steep hill. ‘Cause I mean a guy that size, the momentum-”

And suddenly, a loud ass thump on the bottom of the car. The type of unexpected noise that scares twice as much shit out of you when you work in this particular business or associate with this type of individuals. So a second later it was a relief to realize it wasn’t a gun shot, all it was was this asshole Robbie had driven us right into a ditch. (more…)

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Vern’s summer preview

Monday, June 19th, 2000

Well, tomorrow is the first official, scientific day of summer, and you know what that means – time to go to the beach, and it will be sunny, and you go on a vacation, and all that crap. Well in between all those summer activities, you can go to the movies as well, as far as I’m concerned anyway. I know if you go to a matinee you will come out of the movie and it’s all sunny and your eyes hurt like fuck, but sometimes it is worth it. Let’s face it gang being a movie watcher is a year round job and who the fuck likes sand castles that much anyway.

So in honor of that notion here is the first ever annual Vern’s Summer Movie Preview column, a guide to what movies come out and my asinine predictions about which ones will be good and what not. I know this is a weird idea for a column but you will get the hang of it after a few paragraphs. (more…)

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Shaft (2000)

Friday, June 16th, 2000

Going in I didn’t know WHAT to expect. A remake? A sequel? The ads made it look silly and ridiculous. Like not so much a remake as a big screen addaptation of the Shaft theme song.

But then I never thought Shaft was the god damn word of the lord or anything. He’s a cool character and I like his work and what he accomplishes with the ladies but I never thought his pictures had the same emotional depth of Superfly or The Mack or Blacula. Maybe it’s because those are movies about outlaws instead of a law enforcement figure like a private eye. Or maybe not. I think you kind of had to be black at that time to know what it meant to finally see a black James Bond character like John Shaft. But at the time, just as now, I was a white man.

So I was open to some noodling and fiddling with the Shaft character, but to my surprise it is a surprisingly faithful update with hardly any shenanigans. It is a pretty serious story of Shaft trying to catch a racist murderer rich boy bail jumper played by none other than the American Psycho from the film American Psycho starring Patrick Bateman. The tone of the picture is a very strange and enjoyable cross between gritty police stories like Clockers and the Homicide television program and the more corny ’70s tv shows like CHiPs. So the violent scenes are grim and disturbing but you still got a foot chase or two with Shaft chasing a dude up and down fire escapes fueled only by wah wah guitars.

The reason I like this picture is mostly the ’70s feel. The only Isaac Hayes song they used is the main theme, but the score is all extrapolated from the style of that piece. And Shaft is a character with a combination of qualities you just don’t see all at once anymore. He is the guy who always looks cool, always knows how to trick somebody or kick somebody’s ass something good, is single and open to sharing his charms with many ladies, and who also is sensitive and supportive to the point of sainthood. During the court room scene, he is sitting behind the mother of the victim, rubbing her shoulders and telling her everything is gonna be okay. You almost think he is a guardian angel. (more…)

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11 movies I saw about Dracula

Monday, June 12th, 2000

Well I bet the one or two of you who actually care about me are wondering, what the fuck happened to Vern. Where is his column. Why is he late. Did that Jet Li movie really make him so sad. What a puss.

The truth is I have been doing alot of soul searching, alot of introspective type work, alot of thinking, and all that type of garbage. You might say I am on a journey to find myself, or I am on an exploration of my past, or I am depressed, however in my opinion all of those things sound kind of fruity.

Whatever you want to call it, watching My Father Is a Hero really made me sad, especially when I found out this is the same picture the motherfuckers at Dimension or whoever have released as The Enforcer. The picture on the front shows Jet kicking a dude and although his son, Little Vern, is mentioned on the back, they really make it sound like he’s not in it that much. And I’ll tell you what folks that made a motherfucker even sadder to see my fellow americans pulling this kind of garbage on Jet and Little Vern.

Plus, what in fuck’s name does The Enforcer mean? It doesn’t make any damn sense. And I am afraid in this case I’m gonna have to assume whoever is responsible is retards and not dadaists.

It just hasn’t been a good couple a weeks for ol’ Vern. For one thing I finally decided to take my stand and dump the reel.com banners. These fuckers have been jerkin my dick around for more than half a year now. I e-mailed them probaly ten times tellin them that not a single cent had shown up on the reports for their affiliate program. Every time they explained that they were gettin to the bottom of it. As a positive individual I was willing to give them a second, third, fourth and tenth chance. Then I finally gave up, took off the banners, and the next day heard that the fuckers are going out of business. So not only will I not get my money, not only will I not be able to take away business from them, I also will not be able to buy my dvds at affordable prices. Shit. Teach me to be passive. (more…)

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the two Ps

Monday, June 5th, 2000

Last week in my pornographical critiquery of the works of Radley Metzger, I offered the theory that all america needs is alittle bit of god damned ELBOW GREASE for crying out loud.

But you know what, in the week that has past since I wrote those words, I feel that I have really grown up alot, due to some experiences I had in a movie theater watching Shanghai Noon and the Mission Impossible Part 2. And that is why I now believe that last week’s column was superficial and immature.

The truth is, everybody needs a little elbow grease but it goes deeper than that. If you want to use elbow grease you first have to have two things. You have to be in it for two things. The two Ps. And I’m not talking about paper and pussy, sorry guys. I am talking about passion and perfectionism. Although pussy is also a worthwhile goal it should not be your number one priority in my opinion.

And I really do believe, at least this week, that that’s what it all boils down to, is the passion. There are alot of individuals that have ambition, or even talent, but they don’t have passion. And that is why their art works is lacking. I am talking about individuals like Michael Bay, etc. People who could hook up a digital editing contraption blindfolded on top of a tree in a windstorm but couldn’t shed a tear to save their lives.

You can have all the technique in the world, all the know how and make do. You can have the special effects, the big stars and the $300 million budget. But if you don’t have passion you have jack squat in my opinion. You don’t have a legitimate work of Cinema.

Then the second step is the perfectionism. This is what marks the true masters of the form. Yours truly, I am an individual with passion, but not perfectionism. For example, read my column, I am obviously not a perfectionist. 90% of my writings are garbage. I don’t have what it takes to be a master. (more…)

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