Archive for the ‘Vern Tells It Like It Is’ Category

Interview with director Scotty JX on Actiongirls: Soldiers of the Dead Part 1

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

Ladies and gentlemen,

As an individual who tends to write about movies on the internet I get a few emails.

And every now and then those emails are about some low budget undistributed independent movie somebody made, asking if I would check it out. I usually say sure, if you want to send it to me I’ll take a look. But then I say that I can’t guarantee I will review it. And so far I never have. If it doesn’t blow me away there’s no point in reviewing it. I feel bad because these are all nice people and they’ve worked hard on these things, but usually I’m not patient enough to watch. If there are people who are good at watching those things to look for hidden talent then I’m not one of them. I like a good low budget movie, but to me low budget is EL MARIACHI or above. BAD TASTE maybe. Preferably TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. I’m not the best guy to appreciate what you shot on video with your friends, no matter how good a job you did.

So when I got an email from a guy called Scotty JX about his movie ACTIONGIRLS: SOLDIERS OF THE DEAD PART 1 I was kind of surprised. Because he included pictures, and it looked like a real action movie. There was a fiery explosion or two. Some sweaty babes with guns. Some evil musclemen and bloody Nazis. And they looked like people that would really be in a movie, not just somebody’s buddy they had to settle for because they had no money. In some dusty closet I have an old VHS tape I bought at Woolworth’s or Fred Meyer or somewhere called THAT’S ACTION!, and it’s nothing but clips of explosions and shootings from low budget 1980s commando movies I never heard of before or since. And this ACTIONGIRLS looked like something that would be on that tape.
When the package arrived there was a disc, some printed information and some glossy promo shots printed off from a computer. I was looking over the stuff and some of the names on the credits sounded familiar. Susanna Spears for example, I think I’d heard that name. And Adriana Zarcova too. There was somebody named Lilian Tiger in it. And a guy named Mr. Haleek, that’s kind of an odd– HOLY SHIT, this is a porno! No wonder the director’s name is Scotty JX! I know people give McG shit for his name, and mink (Steven Seagal’s INTO THE SUN), but I don’t think any director would be called Scotty JX unless there were butts and boobs involved. With that realization it seemed to make a little more sense why I hadn’t heard of this movie. All the pieces of the puzzle were coming together like a bunch of penises sliding into a bunch of vaginas. (more…)

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The pansy-assing of the 4th DIE FLACCID movie

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007

A reader named Ed Wilson tipped me off to the following outrageous lunacy:

“In June’s VANITY FAIR, it states that Bruce Willis was initially  disappointed that his fourth DIE HARD film will likely be cut to get a PG-13 rating rather than an R. ‘I really wanted this one to live up to the promise of the first one, which I always thought was the only really good one.’ And he’s not happy about it. ‘That’s a studio decision that is becoming more and more common, because they’re trying to reach a broader audience. It seems almost a courageous move to give a picture an R rating these days. But we still made a pretty hardcore, smashmouth film.’”

Dearest 19th Century Fox:

Howdy. Name’s Vern, nice to meet you. I am writing to ask you one question. WHAT IN GOD’S NAME ARE YOU JOKERS TRYING TO PULL?

Before you blow me off to go bathe in that champagne/money/panda blood mixture you have in your hot tub, please be aware that I am not speaking as a member of the internet community, or associate of the nerd community. I think ALL communites agree with me on this, except maybe the Amish, who don’t watch movies and are therefore neutral. I am speaking as an American, and as a citizen of the world. You can’t fucking do that to DIE HARD.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the movie was called LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. But from what Vanity Fair is saying here, it sounds more like LIVE FREE OR DIE– WELL, LET’S NOT DIE TOO HARD, THERE ARE CHILDREN PRESENT. Which, in my opinion, is not as good of a title.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. If we make a horrible movie for babies and make it PG-13, it will make lots of money. The movies that make money these days are worthless garbage intentionally designed to be of a low quality, intelligence and entertainment value, in order to lower standards, make people stupider, destroy our culture and make short-term, tainted money for our evil corporation. Okay, fair enough. You know your business, I can’t argue with your money piles. (more…)

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Book Review: Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

Monday morning I heard a phrase on the radio that surprised me: “men, women and chain saws,” said in a somewhat dismissive voice.

What the hell? This was a weird coincidence. Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Berkeley professor Carol J. Clover is a very academic book exploring gender issues in slasher, possession and rape-revenge films, mostly from the ’70s. I read the book years ago and it really affected my view of slasher movies. I paraphrase it alot when defending these kinds of movies (a pretty regular past time these days).

I think it’s been an influential book, but I don’t know anybody else who’s read it, so it was a surprise to hear it on the morning news. I had read it mentioned recently in the Fangoria horror magazine, when Quentin Tarantino mentioned it in an interview about Death Proof. It’s not surprising he read it. In the first half of Death Proof he uses alot of the slasher movie conventions discussed in the book, setting up Butterfly as what Clover calls “the Final Girl.” The biggest clue is that she has “the investigative gaze,” she’s the one who notices Stuntman Mike’s car and keeps eyeing him, and is scared of him. No one else realizes anything is wrong. Ordinarily this would mean that she would go on to survive and defeat, escape from, maybe even kill Stuntman Mike. But, well, maybe some other time. (Of course, he ends up making what is more obviously a feminist movie, not having to even have the women tormented too much before they want to spit on somebody’s grave.)

After Tarantino’s interview reminded me I thought I should read the book again, so I ordered a used one online. There’s alot more Freudian shit in there than I remembered, but it holds up. Clover’s main argument is that the slasher genre in general is not as misogynistic as its critics would have you believe. The book seems to be a response to critics like Siskel and Ebert who had crusaded against slasher movies in the wake of the Friday the 13th movies. She argues — and I think she’s completely right — that when an audience watches a movie like Texas Chain Saw Massacre or Halloween, or their lesser cousins and nephews, their sympathies lie with the victims. Although they may cheer when Jason squeezes a skull just right so that an eyeball pops out in 3-D, they will cheer louder when the Final Girl gives him what’s what. Many critics condescendingly assume that horror fans are crazed sadists popping boners from the torment of women. But Clover shows example after example after example of how the movies are specifically designed for the viewers, despite being mostly males, to put themselves in the woman’s shoes. (more…)

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G’House and the Secrety of the Missing Bees

Saturday, April 21st, 2007

Okay, I got a new column for the first time in a couple months, so everybody’s gonna assume it’ll be about the recent tragedy in our country, the school shooting where some crazy asshole doubled the body count of the previous worst gun massacre in our history. It’s true, whenever something like this happens you feel like you sort of should say something, not just pretend like nothing happened. Even if right after it happens somebody else kills 150 people in Iraq.

And I have to admit, I looked at those pictures the killer sent to NBC, and as soon as I saw him posing with a claw hammer I thought, “Oh great. Now somebody’s gonna blame it on OLDBOY.” People are already talking about that (not that anybody’s buying it) and I think it’s only a matter of time before some dipshit politician starts talking Korean cinema on the floor of congress. When something like this happens that hits everybody in the gut you gotta try to make politics out of it, but it’s gotta ignore any actual causes (poor treatment for mental illness, easy access to guns) and blame everything on movies, video games, maybe ringtones. The old “in serious times, give them nothing but moronic horse shit for babies” technique. Also known as Liebermania.

But you know what, that dude put together a fuckin portfolio of publicity stills and promotional clips. To him those Columbine kids were some cool symbol like James Dean or Che Guevara on a t-shirt, and now he’s made himself into that for some future fucked up individual. Of course NBC is gonna use the photos, they’re not gonna throw them away. But now that asshole gets what he wants, we’re all talking about him. And future murderers are gonna send in their press kits too. That’s just fuckin great. So that’s it, I don’t want to write about that asshole anymore. Let’s talk about, uh, Tarantino.

(sorry. I was working on this topic before.) (more…)

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Can Jane Fonda Be Outdone? The Barbarella Remake…

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

So the rumor now is that Kate Beckinsale is the frontrunner to play Barbarella in the new Dino De Laurentiis production. I’m pleasantly surprised if that’s who they’re going for. She’s not perfect, she’s no Jane Fonda, but I can imagine her doing a pretty good job. And I’m relieved to see they’re putting a few years between Barbarella and the Paris Hilton generation of actresses, the ones they got now that carry portable dogs and wear giant novelty sized sunglasses. You can’t have a Barbarella like that.

This might be saying too much, but nerve.com is some kind of sex magazine isn’t it, so I’m gonna go for it. Barbarella is, in my opinion, the sexiest movie of all time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for hardcore pornography, etc., and Barbarella is very tame. It only has a few teasing glimpses of boobs and the sex often involves pills or machines. (I know some people get off on watching girls screwin machines in pornography now, but that’s not my thing.) But something about the whole world of Barbarella, the crazy space costumes, the shag carpeting in her ship, the groovy psychedelic music… Shit, I’m not one of these sci-fi geeks, but if the technology was available I would consider running away with Barbarella. We could go ride around on that little ski sled thing, shoot some arrows together. I don’t think the leathermen are all that tough, and I could definitely kick away those fuckin killer dolls. I can’t fly, like Pygar, but eyesight… that’s gotta count for something. I think I could cut it in space. I could be a pretty decent space boyfriend, if I worked at it. Although I would feel pretty self conscious flyin around in a spaceship shaped like a dick. I might have to rethink this. (more…)

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Tribute to Filmmaker John Flynn

Monday, April 9th, 2007

Last night I was reading Harry’s GRINDHOUSE review and was taken off guard by his reference to John Flynn having died this week. I can’t find any news articles or obituaries, but the source of this news seems to be the people at The Grindhouse Film Festival who have reported that Mr. Flynn died in his sleep on Wednesday.

Flynn is not a director that has been intensely studied, you’re not gonna find a whole lot of information on him (although Shock Cinema did an interview with him a couple years ago.) I really know nothing about John Flynn the man, but since I’m very fond of three of his movies in particular Moriarty asked me to write up a little something.

Mr. Flynn’s most famous movie, the one every one of you should see, and my number one “FOR GOD’S SAKE WOULD YOU PEOPLE PLEASE PUT THIS OUT ON DVD?” pick since POINT BLANK came out is ROLLING THUNDER. Written by Paul Schrader, this movie is in the vein of TAXI DRIVER if it was a little more of a straight ahead revenge movie. William Devane plays a Vietnam vet who comes home to a hero’s welcome, but becomes very distant and feels nobody understands him. Things get worse when he gets robbed and loses his hand to a garbage disposal. He definitely has more to complain about than John Rambo in FIRST BLOOD. So later there is revenge.

I don’t really know a way to describe the plot without making it sound cheaper and dumber than it really is. This was one of the first movies to deal with Vietnam vets coming home to find that things just aren’t the same anymore, a theme that is unfortunately still pretty potent today. But that’s just one level. More importantly, it works as pure badass cinema. And that’s just about my favorite thing in movies: a real effective tough guy film that underneath also has something to say about the world. (more…)

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Vern Gives Up on Entertainment Weekly

Thursday, April 5th, 2007

I’m gonna come right out and admit it: I used to have a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. Recently. It’s cheap, it comes every week, it keeps you company. Sometimes you read some tidbit in there that you didn’t catch on a web sight yet. They can actually interview directors and actors without having to go to a junket, so they got a leg up. Not too long ago Owen Glieberman said nice things about Under Siege 2: Dark Territory in his column, I liked that. Every once in a while they even hire actual writers to spend time on a feature article, I think they did one on the history of Police Academy one time. (I didn’t read it but that must’ve been interesting.)

But you know when a balloon has a tiny prick in it, and the air slowly, almost imperceptibly leaks out until the thing looks all lumpy and shriveled? That’s what reading EW does to my soul. A man can only abide by so many American Idol cover stories arriving in his personal mail box before he wants to leave the country and never come back. And I know, everybody says Lost is a good TV show, I’m sure I would enjoy it if I watched it. But for God’s sake would you sonofabitches PLEASE stop writing about it? How many god damn secrets could there possibly be for you to exclusively reveal? Even if it was my favorite show of all time I think I would feel like you guys were taking it too far. You talk about Lost more than the kids in Jesus Camp talk about the Lord.

The killing blow took place a little while ago, I don’t know if you can remember this but there was a child star named Britney Spears who many years ago had a prefabricated music album that made alot of money for some corporation somewhere. Now she’s somewhat grown and crazy and I’m not sure if anybody remembers why, but cameras are required to surveil her wherever she goes, to keep the public up to date on her movements. At some point she married some dipshit with a soul patch who announced that he was now a rapper. I believe he debuted his song and dance on the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice and Slime Awards, released his album, and then got a divorce. Well, there was an Entertainment Weekly issue in between there, just before the divorce, and before the memo got out that everyone was gonna hate this asshole. In this issue, they had a full page long interview with the guy, treating him as if he was an actual music artist, and not just some moron who a corporation sunk money into because he had stuck his dick in a woman that many years ago made a terrible album that somebody might still have in a box in their garage full of the stuff their kids left behind when they moved into the dorms.

It was when I turned to that page that I decided to stop getting Entertainment Weekly. And since that day life has been beautiful. (more…)

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Long Live Dolemite! Vern on Rudy Ray Moore

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

Friday night I saw Rudy Ray Moore perform at The Funhouse in Seattle. If you’re not familiar with Rudy, he’s a legendary comedian, maker of x-rated comedy records, who paved the way for his contemporaries like Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx to do their thing by carving words like pussy and motherfucker about ten thousand times into vinyl. But it was his string of self-financed, low budget blaxploitation comedies like Dolemite, The Human Tornado and (my favorite) Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law that put him on the map for most of us. Those movies are built around his persona, the arrogant, unbelievably shit-talking chauvinistic badass with a knack for hilarious insults and rhymes. Like his movies, his act is mostly built around the traditions of the dozens and toasting. He tells stories in rhyme and picks out people in the crowd to talk shit about (which most people take as a great honor).

I never saw Rudy Ray in his hey day, but I did see him here a few years back. That was a polished, old fashioned show with a band of local musicians who he probaly hadn’t met, but he handed them sheet music and they knew what to do. He did all his classics (Dolemite For President, Signifyin’ Monkey, Shine, Petey Wheatstraw, etc.) to the music and even sang a few songs. At first the pure filthiness and sexism of the whole thing was almost overwhelming, it kind of felt like he had gone around slapping people at random, everyone was in shock. I remember there was a young woman playing in the band who didn’t look too happy at all this talk about pussies and dicks. And there’s a joke he does about “a deaf and dumb bitch” that is about the worst thing anybody ever said. But then slowly it seemed like that woman in the band started to get to a point where it was so ridiculous she started to laugh and by then most of the audience couldn’t stop laughing.

This show was pretty different. The Funhouse is a weird place for Dolemite to show up. It’s right across the street from tourist central at the Space Needle, but they say it’s “Seattle’s oldest surviving punk club.” It looks like a shithole from the outside, with a big, ugly evil-clown head on the front. But inside it looks like a ’50s diner, complete with stools and checkered tiles. The stage is maybe a foot tall, probaly less, with a small area to crowd around and do whatever you do as a card carrying member of a punk club. (more…)

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Vern Goes on John Carpenter Remake Watch

Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

In my last post about Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake I mentioned MTV’s report that Zombie wouldn’t be using John Carpenter’s theme music in his version. Well, on his MySpace Teen Friendship Page, Zombie reveals that the MTV writer misunderstood what he was saying about the theme music, and that he actually plans to use it.

But don’t let your guard down yet, Carpenter fans. While you were busy boarding up the windows in case of Zombie attack (get it, that is some kind of a pun I believe) Fast and the Furious producer Neal H. Moritz was planning a remake of another Carpenter classic, Escape From New York. As reported earlier by Bilge, the remake may star 300’s Gerard “SPARTAAAAAAA!” Butler as Snake Plissken. It would be written by the guy who wrote Black Hawk Down.

Now, I’m not gonna lie, I can see how some of the elements of the original movie could be juiced up and re-imaginated and what not. In fact, the idea of the government turning Manhattan into a maximum security prison takes on a little more punch in the age of Camp X-Ray and the USA PATRIOT Act, so they could treat the politics a little more seriously if they wanted to. And it would be interesting to see the dark model city world of the original given life by the bigger budget and the digital technology.

But let’s be honest, Neal H. Moritz is not trying to do an intelligent take on this material. The most serious movie the guy has ever had his name on was Juice, and that was his first theatrical movie. Since then he has specialized in goofy lowbrow PG-13 movies for teens. If you take a look at his credits, this is honestly the cream of the crop: Cruel Intentions, Torque, and Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. (more…)

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Rob Zombie’s Halloween Remake

Friday, March 9th, 2007

I don’t think I’m gonna surprise anybody by saying that Halloween is one of my favorite horror movies. Like alot of people I watch it once or twice a year. Usually the regular version, sometimes that TV version where John Carpenter shot extra footage of Dr. Loomis dealing with young Michael Meyers in the sanatorium.

So I’ve watched this movie with alot of different people and more often than not, when it gets to the part where Michael steals a car to bust out of the joint, somebody laughs and says “How does he know how to drive? He’s been locked up since he was a kid!” I love it because they think they’ve outsmarted the movie, but they’re wrong. Later when Loomis is told Meyers doesn’t know how to drive he says, “Well he was doing very well last night!”

Turns out Rob Zombie (born Robert Puppydogsandbutterflies) disagrees. He’s the writer-director of the Halloween remake coming August 31st, and he just told MTV that his Michael Meyers doesn’t drive. “[Meyers in the station wagon] always bothered me. They always play that off like someone must have given him lessons, but you know no one gave him lessons! He’s in a maximum-security prison! So, no, he doesn’t drive.”

Sounds logical, if you’re into logic. But it means we lose that mystery and the whole tense section of the movie about Laurie seeing a mysterious car follow her around. You never get a look at him inside the car, but a careful use of the pause button shows you that when he’s walking around in broad daylight he’s wearing the mask. So he’s probaly wearing it while driving too, and that freaks me out. I will miss it.

The MTV article reveals many other changes from the classic story. Original Michael Meyers stole his mask from a store off camera, this one apparently has had it since childhood. Original Dr. Loomis was the guy cursed with knowing what Meyers was up to so he had to figure out a way to stop him, this one is in it to sell books. Original Laurie Strode was the most uptight of her group of friends, the new one is not quite as conservative (maybe a good idea since “sex kills” has become such a cliche since the original Halloween). (more…)

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