Posts Tagged ‘Powers Boothe’

Rapid Fire

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

tn_rapidfireAlthough THE CROW is what most people remember Brandon Lee for, it was this 1992 urban martial arts picture, his next to last starring role, that made the most serious attempt to turn him into an action icon. It positions him to continue his father’s legacy but in the context of American action of the early ’90s. John Woo and Jackie Chan movies were catching on huge here at that time, and this movie took plenty of influence from the shootouts and choreographed fights that excited us from those.

But it starts out on a Bruce Lee note. The opening credits have Brandon Lee in a white tank top like his dad sometimes wore, doing martial arts in front of a black void. His character is raised in Hong Kong, and sometimes speaks Chinese, and is living in the shadow of a father everyone admires. In an interview included on the DVD Lee mentions that the movie was written specifically for him, which isn’t surprising. (more…)

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Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 31 Comments »

Sudden Death

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

There are about three kinds of Jean-Claude Van Damme pictures in my opinion. There are the real experimental, artsy type like Double Team and Knock Off (the best kind), the real cheap and crappy ones like Cyborg and Double Impact (the worst kind), and the more expensive ones where he’s trying to become a more respectable mainstream action star (the kind that Sudden Death is).

I have a hard time reviewing this picture since it is an unofficial sequel to Die Hard. For those of you who don’t know I am a HUGE fan of the Die Hard pictures (starring Bruce Willis, look it up if you haven’t seen it) because, as a fan do I want to support this as part of the die hard mythos or should I not support it since it is unofficial, it is hard to say.

For legal reasons, McClane’s name has been changed to McCord, and he is being played by Van Damme instead of Bruce. He is now a fire marshall and instead of saving Hollie he has two kids going to the hockey game while he’s on duty. Hans Grueber (now played by a different guy) has planted bombs in the arena and has taken over the vice president’s VIP box seats. He’s gonna blow up the whole arena with everybody in it if the feds don’t transfer a whole assload of money to his bank accounts and what not.

Van Damme does not do the smartass oneliners that Bruce does, but he does a pretty decent job and he wears an undershirt like Bruce does. One complaint I think they should have shaved his hairline to make him look more like Bruce. (more…)

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Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »

Southern Comfort

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

Okay, this group of National Guardsmen (Peter Coyote, Powers Boothe, Keith Carradine, Fred Ward, others) are on one of them training exercises, right? Basically, they gotta go out into the Louisiana swamp with a map, try to locate this one particular place. To practice their navigation skills. Most of them aren’t taking the job too seriously, paying more attention to their plans to hook up with some whores when they’re done. I mean they’re carrying guns, but with blanks, because who are they gonna shoot at anyway. There’s no enemy in this exercise.

And then they get to some water, and they realize either they’re reading the map wrong or the water has shifted and the chunk of land they’re supposed to find is now a chunk of underwater.

They come across somebody’s camp site, where there’s some flayed animals hanging around, and a couple of canoes. And after some debate they decide, against Peter Coyote’s better judgment, to borrow the canoes. But they leave a note.

When they’re out in the water they look back and see some “indigenous” Cajun dudes on the shore, apparently the owners of the canoes. While they’re trying to yell to them to read the note, one of these soldiers decides to be a wiseguy, shoots a bunch of blanks in the Cajuns’ direction with a machine gun. Ha ha, very funny. (more…)

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Posted in Drama, Reviews, Thriller, War | 22 Comments »