Archive for December, 2000

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Thursday, December 21st, 2000

My friends, you may think I have been neglecting you. In the past month or two I have abandoned all my discipline and stopped doing the column weekly. I haven’t been reviewing all that many movies. I’ve been staying pretty much away from the computers of the internet except for Writing the occasional Ain’t It Cool News joke talk back message under the name “Darth Superman.”

The truth is I’m doing you a big fucking favor. I’m cutting down on my Writing. Focussing it. Putting my emphasis on what matters to me most, like honor, respect, and breaking a motherfuckers legs. I’m hoping less Writing = less crap, and therefore, better Writing. So you get to waste less time reading it, plus it’ll be better. That’s the theory, anyway.

But my friends this week I come to you with news on a great movie which happens to not be a Badass movie in my opinion. I know some of my colleagues in Badass Studies will disagree since this is a movie made up of many excellent fighting scenes and since one of the stars happens to be Mr. Chow Yun Fat star of the best action movie of the ’90s. But to me the highly acclaimed picture Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is not so much about fighting as it is about love and woman empowerment and graceful movement. It’s more like a musical or one a them tapdancing movies they made back then with all the singing and umbrellas and what not. And I ain’t making excuses like the other critics, because I’d RATHER say it was a kung fu movie, and I loved it. But facts are facts, and this is a tap dancing movie. I ain’t complainin though cause it’s the best tap dancing movie I seen in years.

My man Fat gets to perform stunts like I never seen him before, because he’s doing all kinds of kung fu and great swordsmanshipping. In case you don’t know not all chinese dudes know kung fu, and I never seen Fat do it before. Always using guns. Maybe a punch now and then but very rarely kicking. Here he’s flyin around like a god damn superman, flippin the swords around like WHISH WHISH WHISH and who the fuck even KNOWS what some a those weapons are called that he’s using. These guys know how to USE the things, we americans can’t even NAME them. That’s how far ahead of us Fat is. (more…)

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A low down dirty fucking god damn shame in a pile of filth and evil

Thursday, December 14th, 2000

Traditionally I like to start out every column with an apology for the garbage that you are about to read. This week the apology is directed mainly at the non-americans out there who get bored every time I start talking about some kind of American shit, like presidents, etc. Presidents are what we have here instead of the Queen. We have states instead of provinces or islands, and we have astronauts instead of cosmonauts. If you have any other questions I would be glad to explain. We call them french fries for example instead of chips. Chips here are just potato chips, and we don’t have ketchup flavored or pickle flavored like you freako canadians do. Just Cool Ranch, Cheestacular, etc. They say some of our snacks are dangerously cheesy.

Now I know you guys think of americans as a bunch of fucking morons, but I want to be the first to point out that it’s NOT ON US this time. Our hands are clean. The american people had nothin to do with electing that illiterate oil shiek frat boy, black man executing son of a Panama-Iraq invading CIA madman. Everyone knows the other motherfucker won the popular vote. And as far as anybody can tell he probaly woulda won the electoral vote if they were allowed to count the votes that people turned in. I mean anybody’s guess I suppose but let’s assume the best from americans here all right.

You wanna blame somebody for the giant assfucking some of you countries are about to get – and that’s a god damn promise with this kid needing more than any president ever to prove his manhood by invading some poor bastard of a foreign country – blame some judges. I’ve had some trouble with judges in the past so it’s no surprise that five out of nine of these motherfuckers gave the republican that glorious presidential mandate that boils down to “Well, there just isn’t enough time to count the votes.”

Real, ordinary citizens, in theory, value the right to vote between the lesser of two evils. Of the minority of americans who vote, many think very seriously for months about which one of the two is going to be the least painful to vote for. Ordinary citizens would NEVER give up the right to vote, as meaningless as it would be even if all of the votes were allowed to be counted. Unless you count those retards they interview on the news saying, “Well, one way or the other, I’m glad to see it over.” Jesus you people, you’re so bored of the election coverage that you’re willing to throw away the power of voting? Can I have your absentee ballot next time? I’ll probaly just write in Dolemite, but I’m still taking democracy more seriously than you.

Still, I blame the judges for this. Because it was their political bullshit that made it all final. And do I look like a fucking judge? Am I wearing a black robe? Hell no. Am I wearing a wig? No. (I threw that one in for the brits, although our judges don’t wear wigs.) No, I am not a judge so don’t look at me, man. I’m clean on this one.

Plus, check out my new bumper sticker:

Don’t blame me, I’m a convicted
felon and am not allowed to vote.

By the way, you guys want something else to complain about from the americans, look no further than our cherished national symbol of baseball. What this is basically is a sport similar to cricket or pachinko, I believe it is called football in some countries although here it is called baseball. What it is is a version of stickball which takes alot longer, that kevin costner made a movie about once. Hard to explain but picture a sport on the boring meter somewhere below curling and just above solar car racing.

As I’ve said before I’m not a sports fan at all, unless you count bowling or cockfighting. But the local press here won’t leave it alone so I couldn’t help but find out about this Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez who was the popular player on the seatle mariner baseball team. Apparently the dude’s contract ran out or whatever and it was time to convince him to stay. The owners offered him what would have been the most money ever payed to an athlete. To give him an idea what kind of sickening richness this little bitch was about to receive, they also arranged for him to go golfing with Bill Gates and get a tour of the Boeing 747 plant. Their way of saying, “With this money, you could buy three of these jets. And crash them ON PURPOSE. I don’t fucking care, you can do ANYTHING you lucky son of a bitch, and just because you’re pretty and know how to hit a ball with a stick.”

But that kind of money is simply not enough when it comes to offering a young child of 25 years old more money than any human being could ever legitimately earn by doing anything that involves the manipulation of a small round object. I don’t care if it was the Lord Jesus Christ’s brain this kid was throwing around, you just don’t deserve those kind of riches for throwing a round thing around, ever. Anyway, the Texas Oil Shieks or whatever their team is called offered him even MORE money, so he took it.

Now look, I don’t blame the young man for taking the money. You get your dick sucked enough, you’re gonna start thinking it’s a Tootsie Pop. What I’m offended by in this scenario is the way “A-Rod” held a press conference to say hey guys, I really wanted to stay in Seattle, and I was disappointed that they only offered me a mere 180 million dollars or whatever. I felt saddened and betrayed. But they offered me no choice. This hurts me more than it hurts you. I came THIS CLOSE to slitting my wrists. THIS CLOSE.

These baseball kids have been fucking us for years now and we keep letting it happen. Couple years back the mariners threatened to leave if the city didn’t demolish their current stadium and replace it with a newer one. The taxpayers voted overwhelmingly against this scheme, and the city did it anyway, using a different set of taxes than originally suggested but of course not putting it to a vote this time.

The next year, their star player left for more money. So they got the new one, and this year he left. And these kids of course are going to go to other cities where they will help their new teams pull the “we need a new stadium” scam again.

More and more we are becoming a country that replaces beliefs and soul and heart with piles of cash. Real passion and conviction has no monetary value and has become obsolete. Nobody hits a ball or makes a movie because they want to anymore, they do it because they want to buy coke and get their dick sucked. Not that those things are unpleasant or nothing but there was a time when those were considered maybe the #2 or #3 thing in life, not #1. We let a rich kid usurp the presidency because of the rich dudes that run the courts and the election committees and one of the two clubs liked his dad. I mean jesus people what in fuck’s name, I mean christ, I mean I’m about to burst a vein here people. There doesn’t seem to be much hope for us.

Thank god america has some exciting new cinematic offerings on the horizon like the new Chow Yun Fat picture Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Takeshi Kitano’s Brother and… wait a minute.

oh jesus people. Give me SOMETHING. please tell me Clint Eastwood is working on something.

please americans I’m dying here.

help me.

vern.

[ratings]

The Return of the Vern

Monday, December 4th, 2000

Well friends it looks like ol’ Vern has some explainin to do. And the sad thing is I don’t have jack shit to say for myself. Sometimes a man just has to do what a man does when he has to do it, or whatever. There comes a time in a man’s personal journey, that is to say in man’s life, that that journey must take a break, or sojourn, in that journey, is what I’m trying to say. A hiatus.

Okay some of you motherfuckers are looking at me real blank eyed and what not. I haven’t written a column for a couple weeks, jackasses. I guess you didn’t miss me, then. It was supposed to be mysterious. Like – what is Vern up to? Where has he gone? What personal discoveries has he made? Will we ever be the same? Oh I do hope he comes back. And soon!

So here I am again.

By the way for those of you keeping track, I been gone for a while, and I came back, and in that time we still haven’t picked a new president. Looks like the texas oil shiek will take the belt on a technicality but you never know who might jump in the ring at the last second. (Wrestling analogy explained later.)

I guess a motherfucker can’t expect the american people to learn anything from this whole fiasco but at the very least I hope it gets drawn out long enough that both candidates and their entire staffs have nothin but white hair and blood pressure.

Anyway first and last order of business here is the art of the fuckin Cinema. That’s the movies, for you lay men out there who might be reading. I gotta be honest I haven’t gotten a chance to see Bruce’s new picture with Samuel L. Jackson. And other than that there’s about jack shit or less movies out there. I believe there is one about the dalmations, and the one with the green ape from christmasland. Well sorry but Vern doesn’t do that. (more…)