Posts Tagged ‘Samuel L. Jackson’

xXx: State of the Union

Friday, April 29th, 2005

When Rob Cohen, the director of the original XXX first talked about a sequel, it was still gonna star Vin Diesel. And I read some interview where he said one of the ideas he had took place in Washington DC, and it would have a scene where Vin rode a mountain bike up the capital dome.

Well it’s a low down shame we didn’t get to see that but otherwise XXX2 (which ended up being made with Ice Cube instead of Diesel and Lee Tamahori instead of Cohen) is more fun than the first one in almost every way. I’m not saying it’s a good action movie or even a great bad movie, but as an honest individual who tells it like it is I gotta cop to enjoying the fuckin thing.

It’s almost like they read my mind, or at least my review of the first one. They dumped the whole “action sports” angle completely and even make a joke or two about it. They got less of the standard action (skiing, motorcycles) and more of the over-the-top (flying boats, cars, tanks, trains, etc.). They made it more American – no fuckin dreary, snowy european villas, no boring greasy haired euro-trash villains, no shitty German heavy metal music. This one’s in Washington DC and the villain is Willem Dafoe as the secretary of defense. In my review of the first one I pointed out that the NSA has a “break a few eggs to make an omelette” philosophy while Vin Diesel’s was “never leave a man behind.” This time they shifted it so that the good guys are the people within the government who want peace and getting along and saving innocent lives, the bad guys are the warmongers who don’t mind killing people to get their way. Ice Cube’s character is tied to Sam Jackson’s big cheese Augustus Gibbons with an Above-the-Lawian backstory where Dafoe was their general who was burning down civilian homes, and they were the guys who went in and tried to save the civilians.

One positive I didn’t ask for in my review: there’s way more Sam Jackson in this one. (more…)

3 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 10 Comments »

Pulp Fiction

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.
Unlike

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Bruce, Crime, Reviews | 2 Comments »

xXx

Friday, August 9th, 2002

Well you know me, I’ve been talking about the badass presence of Vin Diesel just as long as anyone has, anyone except for him. I’ve been looking forward to this moronic concept of a Vin Diesel star vehicle, figuring anything this stupid starring Vin Diesel would have to be a good time. You saw my epic dissertation on THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS so you know how I enjoy Vin’s egomaniacal charisma combined with Rob Cohen’s pathetic zeitgeist-chasing high conceptualism.

XXX is completely asinine. And I loved that about it. For about half an hour. Then it just got boring in the exact same way all the modern James Bond movies are boring. It takes a special type of standard lowering to enjoy ANYBODY driving around dreary european villages on motorcycles shooting machine guns and blowing things up in the usual ways. You can only watch a henchman shot into the air by an explosion so many times before you start to ask for more from your badass cinematists. I don’t care if you had a young Clint Eastwood riding piggyback on Steve McQueen, you’d still get bored with this movie before it got to the climax.

Vin Diesel plays Xander Cage, an “action sports” legend on “underground web sights.” In the opening he steals a Corvette from a senator at a country club. While the cops chase him he makes a video saying that the senator tried to ban rap music and video games. Then he jumps the car off a bridge and parachutes out. So he’s a terrorist folk hero to all pudgy 13 year old suburban kids in Slipknot t–shirts. Those kids who you see on the bus wearing big headphones to hide from the world until they are physically capable of growing their first soul patch.

The movie is obvious about playing to the fantasies of these kids. He mentions Playstation at least once, and knows how to use a gun from playing “first person shooter games”. The extreme sports angle is as humorous as you’d expect. My favorite touch is the scene where he is pointing at a map going over tactics with a team of special agents, and he’s holding a can of Amp. (more…)

3 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Action, Reviews | No Comments »

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones

Thursday, May 16th, 2002

STARWARS VOL. II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES

a.k.a. YODA VS. DRACULA

This is a picture that most people already have an opinion on, that will never change, whether they’ve seen it or not. This is only one of those opinions.

First of all, I enjoyed this picture. I laughed at some of the cornball speeches, the sometimes stiff acting, and a couple bad puns. But you know, I can get into this space ‘n robots shit sometimes, and for one main reason: Dracula. As you know from my review of Lord of the Rings Part 1, I enjoy any picture where some dude has a duel with Dracula. This one raises the bar by making the dude be a little green space-elf/Shaolin monk.

There are some good action scenes in here. The story is fun, starting out like some kind of space detective movie, with a murder mystery, an attack in the night, a chase through the big city. Obi Wan even goes to a space-cafe to get information from an old connection. Then it turns into a romance and then a full-on political picture, but more on that later.

There are lots of nuggets for the trekkies. Even ol’ Vern here enjoyed that feeling of the puzzle pieces starting to fit together, connecting this one to the other ones. You’re finding out where Darth Vader came from, where the empire came from, the stormtroopers, the helmet guy, etc. But most of all it answers that question that all americans have asked since the early ’80s: if Yoda is a jedi then where is his space sword?

And he fights Dracula. (more…)

Unlike

Tags: ,
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 35 Comments »

Unbreakable

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2000

BRUCE WILLIS’S UNBREAKABLE

Starring Bruce Willis

If you know Vern then you know I am not the kind of Film Writer who avoids giving away surprises or “spoilings” in movie reviews. The dude from Felicity is the killer in Scream 3 to name only one example. Apparently the girl in the Crying Game has a dick but I haven’t seen that one. I can verify that it does happen in one of the Sleepaway Camp pictures though so keep your eyes peeled for that one as well. Anyway point is if you want to go into a movie fresh you shouldn’t read my review first is the point. Especially when it comes to the films of Bruce Willis.

Now I am not saying this is some big surprise ending movie. There is a twist or two along the way but it’s not the Whole Point of the movie or nothing. I’m just saying, they are advertising this without telling you jack shit about what it is about. Holding back, for once. And sometimes it’s nice to sit back in that padded multiplex seat and not know what to expect, and you say Bruce, tell me a story. I was able to come in to this one fresh.

So I gotta say I was kinda surprised when the picture started and the words come on the screen that say, “There are 132 pages in the average comic book. The average page has 16 panels. In 1998 alone, over 100 adults admitted to reading comics. Some extremists even believe comic books are a legitimate form of literature.” or something along those lines.

Turns out Unbreakable is about more than just the reteaming of two film greats, Die Hard With a Vengeance’s Bruce W. Willis and Samuel L. Shaft 2K Jackson. Turns out it’s about comics. That said, some adults will still like the movie. (more…)

2 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , ,
Posted in Bruce, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »

Shaft (2000)

Friday, June 16th, 2000

Going in I didn’t know WHAT to expect. A remake? A sequel? The ads made it look silly and ridiculous. Like not so much a remake as a big screen addaptation of the Shaft theme song.

But then I never thought Shaft was the god damn word of the lord or anything. He’s a cool character and I like his work and what he accomplishes with the ladies but I never thought his pictures had the same emotional depth of Superfly or The Mack or Blacula. Maybe it’s because those are movies about outlaws instead of a law enforcement figure like a private eye. Or maybe not. I think you kind of had to be black at that time to know what it meant to finally see a black James Bond character like John Shaft. But at the time, just as now, I was a white man.

So I was open to some noodling and fiddling with the Shaft character, but to my surprise it is a surprisingly faithful update with hardly any shenanigans. It is a pretty serious story of Shaft trying to catch a racist murderer rich boy bail jumper played by none other than the American Psycho from the film American Psycho starring Patrick Bateman. The tone of the picture is a very strange and enjoyable cross between gritty police stories like Clockers and the Homicide television program and the more corny ’70s tv shows like CHiPs. So the violent scenes are grim and disturbing but you still got a foot chase or two with Shaft chasing a dude up and down fire escapes fueled only by wah wah guitars.

The reason I like this picture is mostly the ’70s feel. The only Isaac Hayes song they used is the main theme, but the score is all extrapolated from the style of that piece. And Shaft is a character with a combination of qualities you just don’t see all at once anymore. He is the guy who always looks cool, always knows how to trick somebody or kick somebody’s ass something good, is single and open to sharing his charms with many ladies, and who also is sensitive and supportive to the point of sainthood. During the court room scene, he is sitting behind the mother of the victim, rubbing her shoulders and telling her everything is gonna be okay. You almost think he is a guardian angel. (more…)

Unlike

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »

Die Hard: With a Vengeance

Wednesday, January 5th, 2000

DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE

My first time

Well I have found that a lot of my readers have also come to love the films of the Bruce Willis Die Hard series. But I wonder how many of you are in the same situation as me. Die Hard comes out in 1988, you love it. Die Hard 2 comes out a couple years later, pretty fucking good. Die Hard part 3 comes out but wait a minute, you are incapacitated and/or incarcerated at the time and are not able to ever get around to seeing the thing until letterbox video in the year 2000.

So yes, this is my first time for Die Hard With a Vengeance which is what they call part 3 for whatever reason, not sure about that one get back to me on that one later.

The other Die Hards took place in a limited setting – part 1, they take over a building. Part 2, they took over an airport. Part 3 opens by montaging New York city to the tune of “Summer in the City” by the Lovin Spoonful. You got the cars, you got the people, you got the stores and then oh yeah you got a big explosion. So right away you say wait a minute, these terrorists, these motherfuckers are working on a bigger canvas this time. That canvas, in my opinion, is called New York city. So it’s a whole different thing we’re dealing with here McClane.

Now the second difference here is that McClane doesn’t just happen to be there by coincidence. In fact he’s on suspension and he’s out drinking and they have to find him, because the mastermind who calls himself Simon asks for McClane specifically. (Not to give anything away but he is Hans Grueber’s brother out for revenge.)

In my opinion the opening is the best part of this piece. This one harkens way the fuck back to Bruce Willis’s Die Hard 1 (1988) in which John McClane was introduced as Hollywood’s most fucked up action hero. He’s separated from his wife, he fucks up bad and starts arguing with her, I mean the guy’s falling apart so much he’s walking around without shoes on. (more…)

4 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Action, Bruce, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »

Page 2 of 212