Posts Tagged ‘Ang Lee’

Brokeback Mountain

Saturday, December 17th, 2005

For God’s sake man, when I go to see a western there are certain things I expect to see, and certain things I don’t expect to see, and one of the things I don’t expect to see–

Nah, I’m just fuckin with you. Everybody knows that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is “the gay cowboy movie.” Or that’s the hype anyway. So first thing’s first, I gotta tell you that the “gay cowboy” description is utter bullshit and if that’s what you wanna see you’re gonna be just as disappointed as I woulda been if I went in expecting THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES. Because this is not about gay cowboys. It’s about gay sheperds. They herd sheep. They shepherd. They are gay shepherds. Get it straight, America. Cowboys are dealing with cows and cattle and whatnot. If they herd sheep, they are shepherds. In this case, gay shepherds.

Second thing to say is, this really is a good movie, they are not lying. Ang Lee knows his shit when it comes to gay shepherds in 1963 Wyoming, or giant green radioactive mutants contemplating lichen in the desert, or some guys in a tree fighting over the green sword of destiny, or whatever the fuck he wants to make a movie about. Ang Lee is a guy, you could just toss movie ideas at him and he would hit them out of the park with his eyes closed. Mafia epic. Opera based on the life of Malcolm Jamal Warner. Peewee football tragedy. HAMLET acted out by racoons. If you can describe it, this motherfucker can make a good movie out of it. Don’t even try it. You can’t beat him. It’s like fighting gravity.

Now, I don’t want to be one of those chumps that emphasizes “ALTHOUGH I AM STRAIGHT, I liked this movie, BUT I AM NOT GAY THOUGH” or that type of shit. So sorry if you think I’m a chump for saying this. But the simple fact of the matter is, I like vaginas. I don’t like buttholes. The protruding butt area on a woman is an excellent area, I am not so interested in the actual hole, male or female. That’s just the way I do things around here. And I’m not all that hot on romance movies anyway, or cowboys for that matter, let alone shepherds. (Although Joseph, Jesus’s dad, was probaly a good guy, and a good shepherd.) What I’m saying is, I did not necessarily expect to like this movie on more than an intellectual level, even if it is Ang Lee. (more…)

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Posted in Drama, Reviews, Romance | 2 Comments »

Vern’s Amazingly Late Summer Preview

Sunday, August 31st, 2003

Well friends I’m back after a few months of travelling around the world learning every martial art known to man, or maybe just not being inspired enough to write. One of the two. I would like to thank the people who wrote me nice e-mails to make sure I was okay or encourage me to Write again. Also I would like to thank the people who sent me advice about paying my mortgage, penis enlargement, the hot new mother and daughter pictures, my details and especially the wicked screensaver.

As usual, it is hard to write about politics these days because holy jesus, where do you even start? I have noticed that there were a whole lot of us who were right, and a couple people on tv who were wrong, and yet I haven’t seen anybody saying I told you so. Thanks alot assholes, for taking the fun out of “I told you so.” It sucks to be right when being right means that all those troops you supported so god damn much are left rotting in the desert with no mission, no welcome, no desire to be there, and no hope for coming home any time soon, unless they run over a bomb and lose a couple limbs. Every once in a while you see one of them on tv looking sad, and you have to imagine a little thought balloon over their head that says, “4 more years!?” Oh well, it’s a volunteer army, I guess you can’t really complain that you got shipped off to your doom by the same assholes who turned around the very next day and cut your benefits and your pay. I wonder how many of those congress bitches were still wearing their american flag pins when they signed that into law? No biggie, when we’re done arguing about gay marriage and the ten commandments maybe we’ll look into bringing them home. IF there’s time. I doubt it but maybe. Keep your pants on, troops. Go USA.

But hey, you already know how I feel about that so for now, FUCK THAT SHIT. This is a web sight about the god damn Films of Cinema, is it not? So what exactly is the deal here, Vern? The last summer movie I reviewed was THE MATRIX RELOADED and I believe that was before summer technically started. So today what I want to do for you my friends is go back and review all the big summer movies I didn’t bother to review before. So put on your shorts and get ready for a nostalgic journey WAY back to the beginning of summer. (by the way, just because every fucking day was DO THE RIGHT THING this summer doesn’t mean there’s global warming. that’s all a big coincidence.) I want you to close your eyes, well not actually close your eyes because you should be reading this, but anyway I want you to open your eyes and remember a time when all anybody was talking about was a hulk, and not just any regular hulk but an incredible hulk. I guess maybe technically speaking he is not called an incredible hulk he is just HULK, however the incredibleness of this particular hulk goes without saying. (more…)

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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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Posted in Action, Drama, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts, Reviews, Vern Tells It Like It Is | 1 Comment »