Archive for the ‘Bruce’ Category
Saturday, June 3rd, 2006
Some of you may be wondering why the Bruce icon would adorn a review for some corny movie about an ancient war between leather clad vampires and werewolves, especially since Bruce does not appear in the film and probaly hasn’t even seen it, unless maybe on a plane. But some of you know what I’m getting at. According to recent reports, Mr. Len Wiseman – whose sole accomplishments in Hollywood so far are directing the two Underworld pictures and marrying Kate Beckinsale – will be directing “Die Hard 4.0.”
Now, I got a history with this movie, sort of. A while back, an Ain’t It Cool talkbacker named IAmLegolas begged me to review Underworld Evolution. I said I couldn’t because I hadn’t seen the first one and considering how boring I’d heard that was it might be more research than I was willing to do. As soon as I read this Die Hard news though I realized that Legolas had been ahead of his time and that the research would have to be done. And he was sure to point this out to me too. Good job YouAreLegolas, hats off to you.
I was already skeptical of this Len Wiseman individual due to a lawsuit that was filed over UNDERWORLD. Some company accused the movie of copying all its ideas from their vampire and werewolf role playing dungeon and dragon playtime games that they have. Now, I’m not gonna be judgmental about copyright infringement, and I’m gonna assume they’re innocent until proven guilty because the case never went to trial and this is America. But buddy, when your ideas can be confused with a fuckin role playing game about werewolves, you got a problem. That is the type of smear on your record that, back when we had accountability in America, would’ve kept you from even saying “John McClane” 5 times into a mirror, let alone directing the new DIE HARD. I hope you know you got a whole fuckin lot to prove to us, Wiseman. Don’t fuckin blow it. (more…)
2 people like this post.
Tags: Len Wiseman, vampires, werewolves
Posted in Action, Bruce, Fantasy/Swords, Horror, Reviews | No Comments »
Sunday, March 12th, 2006
It pains me to deliver this news, but Bruce’s new one is not too hot. It’s not terrible, it’s mediocre, which of course is usually worse.
The premise of the movie is that Bruce is a washed up, alcoholic cop who’s been up all night and before he can go home he has to deliver a witness sixteen blocks from the jail to the courthouse. He really looks like he could use a nap, but that never comes up in the movie. It would be cool if there was a suspenseful scene about whether or not he could take a nap without getting shot.
But despite the tiredness, this doesn’t sound like a hard mission. Right away you’re figuring geez, sixteen blocks is all? This is gonna be a short movie. You figure maybe 2 minutes to walk a block (that’s probaly being conservative), plus a couple minutes to get him signed in, it’s not gonna be longer than 40 minutes. You start thinking maybe there should’ve been a discount on the movie tickets. BUT THERE’S A CATCH. He drives him the 16 blocks instead of walking, and the traffic is bad. So it’s alot slower than walking. Also, he stops at the liquor store, so that causes a little delay. And also the witness is gonna bust open a huge police corruption scandal so all the cops are trying to kill him and Bruce’s character Detective Jack Moseley decides to do something right for a change and get this guy to his destination. Remember, he was a cab driver in THE FIFTH ELEMENT and maybe he has a little of that work ethic still in his sense memory. Anyway, because of shootouts and hiding and what not it takes longer than expected and it seems like they end up travelling alot more than 16 blocks overall. (they should probaly tell you in the corner how many blocks they are from the courthouse, kind of like EIGHT BELOW keeps telling you how many days the hero dogs have been alone in the snow.) (more…)
Only 1 person likes this post. Kinda sad.
Tags: Bruce, David Morse, David Zayas, Mos Def, Richard Donner
Posted in Bruce, Reviews, Thriller | 5 Comments »
Friday, April 1st, 2005
There’s alot of comic strip books turned into movies but usually they Hollywood em up alot. They change the story and the super hero clothes and turn brits into americans and alot of the fans are fundamentalists so they get pretty upset. Batman doesn’t have nipples because bats don’t have nipples, Super-man isn’t supposed to wear that shade of blue it is actually a different shade of blue, that kind of thing.
So what Robert Rodriguez did for this comic strip SIN CITY, he actually brought in the writer/cartoonist from the comic, made him co-director, and apparently pretty much used the comic as storyboards and script. He used his cool digital movie cameras and convinced a great cast to come in and fuck around in front of green screens and used computers for almost all the backgrounds. According to my team of expert nerds, there are scenes and lines from the funny pages that they cut out here and there and they mixed things together a little bit at the beginning in order to combine three stories into one. But for the most part the shots are based on the drawings and everything written on the page is said out loud in the movie. An obsessive level of faithfulness never thought possible even by Harry Knowles himself. Maybe the most faithful movie adaptation of anything ever, including plays, novels and trading cards.
So what this is is a very ballsy and ridiculous experiment, like Gus Van Sant’s PSYCHO. Like most experiments in science, it’s a big failure. But you gotta fuck up in order to invent cancer or whatever. I’m glad these guys did it anyway even though it really doesn’t work.
Based on my detailed research beforehand, I was a little skeptical going in, and I think my hunch was right. See, the comic strip is drawn in stark black and white in order to look like film noir. But then the movie is done with high tech digital effects and makeup in order to look like the comic. Not like film noir. You see the problem here? It’s like a snake eating its tail, or I guess probaly a tail shitting out a snake’s head. The whole concept don’t make sense. (more…)
4 people like this post.
Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Bruce, Carla Gugino, Clive Owen, Frank Miller, green screen, Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Robert Rodriguez
Posted in Action, Bruce, Comic strips/Super heroes, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Monday, March 14th, 2005
Legend has it that the times we’re in create the movies we watch. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes subconsciously. I mean who the fuck knows how it happens but the fears and the turbulence and the shittiness of troubled times somehow soaks into the celluloid and poisons the screen. So Vietnam and racial unrest soaked into the PLANET OF THE APES pictures, for example. The atomic age bred giant crabs, Hiroshima gave birth to Godzilla, Ronald Reagan caused ROCKY 4 and RED DAWN, AIDS made THE FLY.
Well, HOSTAGE is not a political movie but it is a Bruce Willis action thriller for the fucked up age we are currently being sat on by. In the DIE HARD pictures he fought terrorists, so now that terrorism is more of a realistic threat, he’s going back to fighting criminals again. But because it’s the Bush era, this is a dark, ugly, sometimes gorey thriller. A story about a bunch of psychotic, sadistic, greedy assholes terrorizing each other, and all the rest of us who get caught in the middle. A movie that wears a mask and has your wife and daughter tied and gagged in the back of a van and forces you to break your moral code and risk your life to get what it wants. It’s a real intense, well made thriller but what I’m saying is, this is 2005. Don’t expect to get blown through the back wall of the theater and have a good time and all that.
The movie opens a year ago, when Bruce had long gray hair and an ugly beard, and liked to absent mindedly comb his beard to show off that he really grew it for the role. After one bad day on the job as a hostage negotiator in Los Angeles, he decides to throw in the towel, shave his hair, move out to the suburbs and become chief of police. He wears glasses though so you know he’s a small town chief of police, not some asshole chief that yells at you and wants you in his office NOW. He’s buddy buddy with everybody. He’s a cool boss. (more…)
Tags: Ben Foster, Bruce, Florent Emilio Siri, Kevin Pollak, Rumer Willis
Posted in Action, Bruce, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
This is a cartoon but its not for kids and its not Japanese. If you don’t know in japan the cartoons are not only for kids, there is also demon raping, etc.
Bruce plays Muddy Grimes, a scruffly dude not unlike myself who tries to con two dumb heavy metal kids into smuggling a powerful weapon for him. Bruce does not have as much screen time as you would like but the story of these two little pricks Butthead and Beavis is pretty funny. Kind of reminds me of the old pink panthers how they go around and get chased by the FBI and then save the day and have no clue any of this shit went down.
What this has is a lot of dick jokes and masturbating but in my opinion there is a bit more going on then that. This film uses the satire when various law enforcement branches strip search and violate innocent bystanders and make fun of them for invoking the constitution. There are sly cultural references and what not with Chelsea Clinton, a psychedelic sequence, a ridiculous Engelbert Humperdinck tune called “Lesbian Seagull,” etc. The cartoonists are very observant about the values of various social classes – ex-hippie teachers, retired Texan couples, Motley Crue roadies and whatnot. Also I like when they stand in front of the automatic flushing toilets with their eyes full of awe and wave their hands around.
okay is that enough
[ratings]
2 people like this post.
Tags: Bruce, Mike Judge
Posted in Bruce, Cartoons and Shit, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | No Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
Shit man I really can’t believe nobody told me about this movie! I’m out of the picture for most of the ’90s and all the sudden Bruce is in a classic film that is NOT a Die Hard!
This is the story of Butch Coolidge, a boxer who gets mixed up with a crime boss named Marcellus Wallace. Marcellus pays Bruce to throw a fight. Word spreads that the fix is on and the odds get out of control. Butch and his buddy in Tennessee make huge bets on the fight and then instead of throwing it, he beats the other dude to death.
He flees to a hotel to hook up with his lady friend Fabian who is French I believe. This scene is a study in contrasts because we see that this bad motherfucker who beats a man to death comes home to his lady and gets all cute on us. They’re all baby talking, rolling around on the bed snuggling and talking about “give me oral pleasure,” “will you kiss it,” etc., It’s so true to life it’s embarrassing to watch.
Well needless to say Marcellus is not happy about the whole not throwing the fight thing, and Bruce knows he’s gotta get out of town. One problem though: when Fabian got his things out of the apartment she forgot the antique watch that his dad gave him after hiding it in his ass for five years while in a POW camp. I think he wants it for sentimental value because the ass smell probaly makes it not worth that much financially. (more…)
Only 1 person likes this post. Kinda sad.
Tags: Bruce, John Travolta, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Ving Rhames
Posted in Bruce, Crime, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
In this movie Bruce plays Leo, a drunk rich dude calling his wife on a cell phone. It’s a small part but this is Bruce we’re talking about and he makes it fucking SOAR. He’s hanging out in a hotel room with this spoiled celebrity jerry lewis fan and they decide to re-enact a bet from an alfred hitchcock episode and if they lose the bet a man loses his finger which is kind of a dumbass bet to make in my opinion but hey man, free country.
Well Bruce doesn’t have a whole lot to do with all that, he mainly has this conversation with his wife he’s going to be home late and it’s funny. But this is only the last of four “rooms,” little stories about what goes on in this hotel even when Bruce is not there. (more…)
Tags: Antonio Banderas, Madonna, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Tim Roth
Posted in Bruce, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | No Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
starring Bruce Willis
So let’s say instead of being John McClane or somebody, Bruce was Joe Hallenbeck, a washed up, slightly overweight, cigarette loving, booze-sucking, wife-and-daughter-arguing, disgraced secret service agent turned low-life asshole private detective. Also, for the sake of argument, let’s say that Damon Wayans is Hallenbeck’s one-time favorite football player but his career was ruined in a gambling scandal and now he’s a drug addict dating a stripper (Academy Award winner Halle Berry, in a step up from her role as a crack ho in JUNGLE FEVER) who Hallenbeck was hired to protect by his former friend who he just found out was screwing his wife then saw get blown up by a car bomb and now Halle Berry has been murdered because she knew too much about a football team owner trying to blackmail a senator that Hallenbeck used to protect but punched out because he was torturing women and now they’re trying to legalize gambling. Also I forgot to mention that Hallenbeck once saved the president’s life, and some dudes are gonna set off a bomb at the football game, and there was this fucked up part at the beginning where an NFL player pulled out a gun on the field and started shooting everybody then said “Ain’t life a bitch?” (to be or not to be, that is the question) and blew his brains out.
Well shit, I really don’t know WHAT the fuck is up with this movie, but let’s just go with it. The director is Tony Scott, who you can always count on to make a movie that’s either not that bad or, more often, actually that bad. But the real auteur in this case is Shane Black, the disgraced former hotshot screenwriter who was the first to make $4 million just for writing a Renny Harlin movie. I feel like an asshole even bringing this up, but it’s probaly relevant to mention that this guy was between 26 and 29 when the movie came out (depending on which articles you trust) and he got paid $1.75 million for the screenplay. In other words, more money than you and I together earn in 15 years. In his twenties. For this. (more…)
Tags: Bruce, Damon Wayans, Shane Black, Tony Scott
Posted in Action, Bruce, Comedy/Laffs, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | 4 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
In this one Bruce plays a cop from a long line of cops. Which of course means his uncle is played by Dennis Farina. You also got John Mahoney as his dad and Tom Sizemore and Robert Pastorelli as his knucklehead cousins. All cops. Sarah Jessica Parker is the love interest, also a cop but not related, so they can fuck in one part. The movie takes place in Pittsburgh and I guess they even got local people to work on the movie, because I recognized the editor’s name, Pasquale Buba, from watching DAWN OF THE DEAD a thousand times. The director also has a familiar name, Mr. Rowdy Herrington of ROADHOUSE fame.
Unfortunately the bad guy is a serial killer – always a bummer. Terrorists and robbers and CIA agents are a good time a the movies, but some asshole that gets a boner tying up women? Not really as fun, in my opinion. Anyway they keep getting real close to catching the fucker, even chase him in a good over-the-top car chase at the beginning. I mean there’s a pretty serious maneuver the killer pulls when completely surrounded. Excellent use of the extreme Y-turn.(The new rule is, always put the best action scene at the very beginning.)
Bruce insists that the killer has to be a cop, but then they convict a guy who’s not a cop. Also his dad dies. Not to mention he recently testified against his partner/cousin Robert Pastorelli and sent him to the joint for police brutality. This of course has never once happened in the entire history of the universe and never ever will, but that only shows how fuckin cool Bruce is, he could pull something like getting a cop put in jail for police brutality. His cousin doesn’t want to go down though so instead he jumps off a bridge. Splash. No body shown. Who knows what this could possibly mean. Forget it, it’s probaly nothing. (more…)
Tags: Bruce, Joe Pantoliano, Rowdy Herrington, Sarah Jessica Parker
Posted in Action, Bruce, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
I have seen a lot of talk about Jean Claud Van Damme on this news group so what i did was I decided to go out and rent some of his movies over at a “Blockbuster video” that they have here. i made a night out of it actually and so here’s what i think about this much discussed karate man.
First of all, body. Small but not that bad. The way he does the splits and everything kind of makes him look like a fairy but I bet he could kick a guy pretty hard. I’m still skeptical how long he would last inside but he’s not as weak as some of the pretty boys i’ve seen in movies. Put it this way I was surprised.
Secondly the movies though. These were actually some pretty decent flicks and which at times take a few tips from one of my favorites, Die hard. Die hard is a movie where Bruce willis (moonlighting and a lot of movies that are out now) is in a building to kill a group of terrorists. Bruce is on his own and, importantly, has bare feet. However he is able to take on all of them by himself. I believe this has been a great inspiration to a lot of inmates and to hollywood as well judging from Van damme’s films. The true influence of Die hard will probably be studied in a few years by academics as far as I’m concerned.
Surprisingly bruce is pretty tough in the movie. i’ve seen much badder but i wouldn’t neccessarily try to bend this guy over. He’s originally from comedy which is part of why it goes over so well as a character, there are jokes all the time where he insults the guys he’s killing. I think Van damme is also funny although please don’t get offended but i think sometimes it’s not on purpose! Though i’ve had a lot of hand to hand in real life obviously so i may be pickier than the average movie watcher. (more…)
Tags: JCVD
Posted in Bruce, Vern Tells It Like It Is | No Comments »
