Posts Tagged ‘Seagalogy’
Monday, April 17th, 2006
Hello, my name is Vern and I am currently rated one of North America’s top three or four practicing Seagalogists, as well as one of the top two Verns on google. I am the man to come to for the inside dope on every new Seagal picture. However for the last one, BLACK DAWN, the guy who gets me the early screeners fell through and I had to rent it after it hit the shelves just like anybody else. No big deal, I can take my lumps, but there’s a few guys out there – I remember Fat Paul was one of them, and a few others – they’re asking me if I can hook them up with the early review. And as someone who strives for excellence, I got no choice but to come through.
I missed my screener for MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE too but I managed to score the actual DVD just 48 hours before they hit the streets, and I’m here to share my preliminary findings. It’s an Easter miracle.
MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE is the most convoluted Seagal picture in a while. Seagal, obviously, plays a mercenary (for justice) and his best friend Radio Jones (no relation to Cuba Gooding Jr.) has convinced him against his better judgment to take a gig fighting against the French in a small island nation in southern Africa. They’ve been hired by the two main villains of the movie, and for the first time in a long time they got actors I like (and have heard of) to play the heavies. First of all you got “CIA Dirty Deeds Man” Dresham, played by Luke Goss. I don’t have to explain to Ain’t It Cool Newsies who Luke Goss is, because we all loved him as Jared Nomak in BLADE II.
The more impressive casting coup though is Roger Guenveur Smith. You might not know who that is but you’d probaly recognize him. He’s in six Spike Lee movies, most famously as Smiley in DO THE RIGHT THING. If you saw GET ON THE BUS, he was the cop on the bus. If you saw that Soderbergh show K STREET he was Francisco Dupré, the mysterious new guy at the firm. I guess he was in OZ, too, as well as KING OF NEW YORK and DEEP COVER. He plays alot of different types, but especially slick smooth-talker types with gentle voices. Here he does all that but goes more over-the-top and evil than usual, and seems to change his mind about what accent he wants constantly throughout the movie. Like at the end of TERMINATOR 2 when Robert Patrick gets fucked up and starts going through all the different forms he’s shapeshifted into before. (more…)
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Tags: DTV, Seagalogy
Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews, Seagal, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 3rd, 2005
Shit, it seems like just a few weeks since I saw TODAY YOU DIE. In fact, it just came out last month. But here I am with an early review of another straight to video Steven Seagal picture, BLACK DAWN, which comes out a couple days after Christmas.
Seagal plays Jonathan Cold, “ex-CIA, current freelance operative specializing in covert operations and nuclear weapons intelligence.” He seems to be a bad guy because he’s hired to bust a guy out of prison and help him acquire the parts for a suitcase bomb. I never got the chance to realize this before but Seagal makes a good bad guy, always standing around, narrowing his eyes and grimacing like a henchman. He should look into that.
Meanwhile, a group of young, hip Chechen terrorists have been performing robberies, saving up enough money to buy the bomb and detonate it in Los Angeles as revenge for the CIA assassination of their leader. Also they probaly hate freedom. Whatever the motive, it’s gonna suck if they nuke L.A., so fuck this Jonathan Cold guy for helping them. What an asshole.
Or is he? Actually, it turns out he’s super top secret undercover for the CIA, “dedicated to doing work that’s probaly considered by most people to be immoral or illegal, nonetheless it’s stuff that we have to do in the interest of United States security around the world.” Usually Seagal plays something like an ex-CIA doctor or an ex-CIA firefighter, but now he’s an ex-CIA CIA officer. It’s good news for the citizens of the world that these terrorists are stupid enough to hire a guy they know is a tricky double, triple, quadruple backflip agent and then be surprised when he turns on them. Stupid terrorists. (more…)
Only 1 person likes this post. Kinda sad.
Tags: DTV, Matt Salinger, Seagalogy, Tamara Davies
Posted in Action, Reviews, Seagal | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 19th, 2005
It goes without saying that TODAY YOU DIE is Steven Seagal’s greatest movie title since at least OUT FOR A KILL. So I won’t bother to say it. Isn’t it awesome though? The movie itself is worth the time of any Seagalogist, but at least on my first viewing here it’s not one of the more crucial ones. It’s more competent than most straight to video movies (especially Seagal’s, lately) but not legitimately great. So, without anything really special or truly ludicrous, it ends up kind of forgettable. But it has its moments.
SUBMERGED flirted with being Seagal’s first monster movie (they cut out the CGI mutants before finishing the movie) and this one threatens to be a rare supernatural storyline. I won’t say his first because he did have some voodoo and shaolin magic in BELLY OF THE BEAST. There were also voodoo curses used by the villains in MARKED FOR DEATH, but it came off more like some cold mafia threat type shit than actual working magic. Anyway the opening scene here is a tarot card reading. I expected the card reader to say “Today you die,” but no dice. In fact, she had a surprisingly honest explanation of the DEATH card, which she said can mean different things. You gotta admire a straight shooting tarot card reader.
Then we get some nightmares. Seagal’s young, beautiful girlfriend and/or wife Jada is some kind of psychic who’s having dreams of him holding a gun and having some kind of vague trouble. He consoles her and offers to do some dream interpretation later. (Unfortunately we never get to see this.)
It turns out Jada’s worries aren’t that farfetched because Seagal is a professional Robin Hood. He rapels into a drug dealer’s mansion and cracks the safe. When some hoods try to interfere, he explains that he gives the money to the poor. Of course this is followed by some broken wrists, some broken furniture, etc. And it will surprise nobody that this is one of those drug dealer mansions decorated with many antique Japanese swords, which end up being used. That’s why you’re supposed to lock up your swords, dope dealers. Come on. (more…)
Only 1 person likes this post. Kinda sad.
Tags: DTV, rapper-turned-actor, Seagalogy, Treach
Posted in Action, Reviews, Seagal | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 4th, 2005
Boys–
I wish I could review a new Steve Seagal picture for you fellas every day, but unfortunately he only comes out with them every 5 months. Looks like you ran my review of INTO THE SUN (click to read Vern’s comments on that particular movie) last New Year’s Eve, and now after nearly half a year of stumbling through life an empty shell, going through the motions, a movie called SUBMERGED will end the drought later this month. Harry, I assume we’ll be seeing this one on your DVD preview. You got fuckin SPLASH and NATIONAL TREASURE on there man I don’t see how you can justify dismissing this one. Not that I’m recommending this piece of shit, except to the most dedicated Seagalogists.
“At 20,000 fathoms the only creature more dangerous than a biological mutant is…man”
That’s the tagline for SUBMERGED according to IMDB, and it makes a good point. There are no biological mutants in the movie, there are only a bunch of dudes. But a bunch of dudes (i.e. “man”) are MORE DANGEROUS THAN A BIOLOGICAL MUTANT! Imagine how scary a movie could be if it was all about… man.
Actually, I guess the movie used to be about “biological mutants” which would’ve been new territory for Mr. Seagal, who has never faced a sci-fi or horror threat other than voodoo attack in BELLY OF THE BEAST. But at some point they dumped the premise of mutants-on-a-sub and turned it into MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE ripoff. Now it’s about terrorists using mind control to turn American soldiers into assassins. They are triggered by a series of weird images (a windmill in front of a red sky, a woman standing on a cliff, a naked CGI chick) which makes for an unusual opening credits sequence for a Seagal picture, at least. (more…)
Tags: Anthony Hickox, DTV, Gary Daniels, Seagalogy, Vinnie Jones
Posted in Action, Reviews, Seagal | 7 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
I don’t know how to explain my fascination with Steven Seagal, but you can read my review of ON DEADLY GROUND and maybe you’ll understand. I don’t think the dude is exactly advancing the cause of Badass Cinema with his works, but I still enjoy every new chapter of his saga.
This time around we find Seagal working with a young rapper named Ja Rule, stealing cars for some European guy. BUT NEVER FEAR. Although Seagal may SEEM to be a mere car thief (or I guess, since he’s Steven Seagal, an ex-CIA black ops car thief), it is heavily implied in the opening scene that he MAY actually be some kind of undercover FBI agent. I don’t want to give anything away though, who knows if he really is undercover or not. Nobody really knows until they themselves have seen the movie.
Of course, as soon as we’ve introduced the idea that Seagal MAY be FBI, he fondles his wedding ring and stares meaningfully out the window, so we know that he is still mourning the death of his wife. And in the very next scene he has a job that goes wrong and he gets shot and he and Ja Rule end up in prison.
By the way I forgot to mention that Seagal’s name is Sasha, and he leaves his hair down instead of the traditional ponytail. Sorry, no fringe coat or beads this time around.
At this point in the picture we realize that this takes place in the near future, when Alcatraz has been reopened under the futuristic name “New Alcatraz.” It is supposed to be a top of the line maximum security joint but since it’s new they make a few mistakes. For example when they’re loading the convicts in the screws don’t mind that Seagal gets out of line and just starts having a conversation with Ja Rule. Also, as soon as they get through the metal detector they start boxing one of the screws, and throw him through a bookshelf, and they don’t get punished. (more…)
Tags: Don Michael Paul, Ja Rule, Kurupt, Morris Chestnut, Nia Peeples, Seagal, Seagalogy
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews, Seagal, Thriller | 20 Comments »
Friday, December 31st, 2004
Howdy boys,
It’s been a while since I wrote anything for The Ain’t It Cool News. But the time has arrived. Once or twice, maybe three or four times a year, however often it is that Steven Seagal comes out with a new straight to video picture, it is my sworn duty to give you boys a holler. As you know I am one of North America’s leading Seagalogists, and I have found that your place is a good forum for sharing my initial findings as the new works are rolled out for study.
The new one coming February 15th is INTO THE SUN, a Yakuza thriller set in Japan, which is often a good place for Yakuza thrillers in my opinion. This is by no means a comeback for Seagal (he’s been here for years, etc.) but it does have a couple things that make it rise above the recent batch of OUT OF REACH, OUT FOR A KILL, and THE FOREIGNER (also BELLY OF THE BEAST but I won’t lump that in since it’s probaly the craziest and most entertaining of them):
- Production value. It feels more like a real movie. The opening scene alone has five elephants and a helicopter. Just 3 elephants probaly cost more than that whole pen pal movie OUT OF REACH. It’s filmed on location in Japan and Thailand and some of it even looks good. There’s one real good shot of Seagal walking through a pachinko parlor and also a real artful overhead shot of a sword fight.
- Decent cast. Most of them speak horrible English, but they’re better than the euro-trash cheeseballs he’s been fighting in some of the recent ones. Ken Lo is one of the bad guys. William Atherton is in there, for whatever that’s worth. And there’s kind of a Seagal’s Angels thing going on here with a trio of hotties – a young sword fighter that for some reason volunteers to be his “shield,” a CIA/FBI/orsomething covert operative named Jewel, and Seagal’s strip club owner fiancee (more on that later, that’s good). Chiaki “Gogo Yubari” Kuriyama is also in it as the governor’s daughter. Her part is, she is standing on a balcony next to the governor for about 15 seconds. (At least they didn’t put her on the cover.)
- Speaking of which, this is his best cover in years. Okay, so it has nothing to do with the movie at all. There is no scene in the movie where Seagal struts cockily away from a gigantic fiery car explosion with a novelty oversized machine gun strapped to his back. But it’s a nice badass gesture, better than those generic collages with the CIA logos in the background. Good to see some yellow in there, anyway.
- Seagal seems to have his heart in it more. He wrote the story and co-wrote the script (his first story credit since his very first movie, ABOVE THE LAW) and he puts some of his favorite things in there. In the opening scene he blows a big CIA drug smuggler bust to stop a woman from being assaulted, just like in OUT FOR JUSTICE when he blew a bust to stop a pimp from beating a hooker. His character sells Japanese swords (something Vanity Fair says he is actually an expert in), he gets to speak more Japanese than ever before, and he gets in a good swipe at CIA disinformation (another ABOVE THE LAW similarity). There’s even a reference to his daughter, Ayako Fujitani, when he slaughters a roomful of gangsters while they’re watching one of her Gamera movies. And it took me a minute to figure it out but on the end credits, sure enough, that’s Seagal singing! I mean I gotta be honest, there is alot of focus on the Japanese characters, and long stretches that are completely Seagal-less. So he is probaly still only working part time. But at least he seems like he’s trying when he’s on screen, and I didn’t notice any parts dubbed over by other actors.
- More energetic, less gloomy. The director is mink, who if anybody had ever heard of him would be known for his lower case letters and for directing the Busta Rhymes movie FULL CLIP (Check my review here!!!). IMDb says Christian Duguay directed it but what do they know, anyway. Point is, the look and feel are much more involving and professional than, well, mainly the last one.
(more…)
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Tags: DTV, mink, Seagalogy
Posted in Action, Reviews, Seagal | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 3rd, 2004
Hey boys, it’s Vern again, sitting out the film festival for a few days or weeks because something much more important came up. Today I managed to get my hands on the video screener I wanted more than any other. You guessed it: Steven Seagal’s new picture, OUT OF REACH.
So obviously, you know, FUCK the Seattle International Film Festival. As one of North America’s leading Seagalogists, I will be watching this many more times as part of my research. But I thought it would be good to share some of my initial thoughts with you and your readers.
Seagal may be at a crossroads in his career right now. As you have no doubt read, he is planning to do a comedy, parodying himself with the help of one of those Zucker brothers. I shoulda known that Mountain Dew commercial was a harbinger of doom. I’m sure this comedy will be one of the least funny pictures of his career, but still, the fact that he is trying to make fun of himself is probaly some kind of a landmark. Once he has acknowledged the ridiculousness of his persona, will that mean he can no longer make serious movies anymore? Because I don’t see Leslie Nielsen doing any movies where he doesn’t dress up like characters from other movies and then that’s supposed to be funny, I guess.
Well luckily Seagal has an assload of serious movies already in production that he’s gonna dump on us before the comedy. This could be the last stretch of true Seagalogy and I intend to enjoy it. This new one OUT OF REACH, you might think from the title that it could be a return to form, going back to his roots. After all, it is his first three word title since, well, since HALF PAST DEAD two years ago, but that was his first 3-worder since FIRE DOWN BELOW in 1997. And unlike either of those pictures, this one has the word ‘OUT’ in the title, like one of his best pictures, OUT FOR JUSTICE. This is his first picture with ‘OUT’ in the title since 2003’s OUT FOR A KILL. But that one’s four words I believe. (more…)
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Tags: DTV, Seagalogy
Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews, Romance, Seagal, Thriller | 4 Comments »
Friday, November 14th, 2003
Boys -
I know you are fans of the hong kong cinema, martial arts, karate, and etc. So I bet you probaly know who Ching Siu-Tung is. Or maybe you know him as Siu-Tung Ching, or Siu-tung Chin, or Tony Tung Yee Ching, or Xiaodong Cheng, or Tony Ching Siu Tung, or just plain Tony Ching. I don’t know, the dude has lots of names. But the point is not what the dude’s name or names is, the point is what the dude does. He may not be as well known in the united states of america as your John Woos or your Yuen Woo Pings or your Tsui Harks. But I bet you’ve seen some of his works before.
This is the man who directed A CHINESE GHOST STORY 1, 2 and 3. This is also the man who directed the SWORDSMAN 1, 2 and 3. And ROYAL TRAMP 1 and 2. He choreographed the fights for Johnny To’s fucked up super hero movie HEROIC TRIO and then went on to direct its sequel, a dark little postapocalyptic fucker we call EXECUTIONERS. He also directed NAKED WEAPON, NEW DRAGON INN, THE DUEL, MAD MONK and DR. WAI AND THE SCRIPTURE WITHOUT WORDS.
Not that I’ve seen most of those movies but I bet you have. Good shit, right?
Well now Mr. Ching, or Xiaodong as some call him, or Siu-Tung, but he lets me call him Tony– well Tony has directed BELLY OF THE BEAST, a Canadian/UK/Hong Kong co-production in the language of English. It will be released here on the DVD type format on December 30th, the eve of the futuristic year 2004. Although it is in a bit more of an americanized style, Tony was able to do the kung fu choreography and include many of his usual motifs and themes: magic and mysticism, stylized martial arts with wirework, swordplay and even androgyny/gender confusion (the main theme of the SWORDSMAN trilogy). (more…)
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Tags: Ching Siu-Tung, DTV, Seagalogy
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews, Seagal | 1 Comment »
Friday, July 4th, 2003
Boys -
Well I think it’s been a real good movie summer so far with RETURN TO THE MATRIX and THE AMAZING HULK and CHARLIE’S ANGELS GO FULL THROTTLE and JOHN ASHCROFT VS. THE X-MEN and etc. But now we’re at that crossroads of summer where it could go either way. Now it’s the more iffy movies and the sequels you’re not sure you want or you know for sure you don’t want. Okay, sure, people always wanted TERMINATOR 3 but did they want it if it had to be directed by the guy who made that submarine movie that they never bothered to see, even though they heard Bon Jovi got his head chopped off? A more extreme case is BAD BOYS PART 2. Oh yeah, I always wanted to revisit those great characters, officer (insert will smith’s character name) and officer (guy from big momma’s house). It will be great to find out what has happened to them since that bank robbery, murder, drug deal, kidnapping or whatever the fuck it was that they stopped back in that other movie. I wonder if they still like to sing the theme song from “COPS”, which was already a dated reference when the first movie was made like TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO. Maybe this one will be more up to date and they’ll get some Judge Ito jokes in there. Maybe throw in a “Is that your final answer?”
So fuck that shit, we need something that will bring us all together in unity and togetherness and what not. So what I have for you today is a review of something we all can agree on, and that is a new Steven Seagal straight to video movie. With the release of this movie, everybody wins: Seagalogists like me can study his new works in the privacy of their own homes, everyone else can pretend Seagal does not exist since they do not see his name on a marquee.
With that in mind… what do you call it when you’re not really OUT FOR JUSTICE, and you’ve already said you were HARD TO KILL, and you want to come up with something else to call yourself? Well, how about OUT FOR A KILL? That is in fact the name of the new picture. (more…)
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Tags: DTV, Seagalogy
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews, Seagal, Thriller | 3 Comments »
Monday, October 14th, 2002
Boys–
I know how you feel about film festivals. You’re for them, right? I think one of you said you were. I’ve seen a couple good pictures at the Seattle International Film Festival but that’s about it for me. Until today, when I decided to venture south to the Olympia Film Festival. And I’m real glad I did.
Usually I avoid Olympia. I know it’s our state capital, it once had a fine brewery and they got lots of college kids who brag because the rock band Sleater-Kinney was named after a street they still have near there. But I mean come on. The street isn’t even that good. In the downtown area the buildings are too far apart, and everything is closed. At least on Sunday. Anyway today they finally got a reason for me to go there: ON DEADLY GROUND.
Now if you know me, you know I wasn’t gonna miss ON DEADLY GROUND showing in a film festival, even if it was on the other side of the god damn planet. ON DEADLY GROUND is a unique specimen among ’90s action movies, with an admirable spirit of cornball politics you don’t usually see anymore, if you ever did. I think of it as a loose remake of BILLY JACK, transported to an oil rig in Alaska, and without all the hippie girls strumming guitars. The protagonist, Forrest Taft, is an ex-CIA badass who puts out fires for an oil company. Like Billy Jack, he is a white guy who has appointed himself as the defender of Native American culture and dignity, and he preaches non-violence but always finds himself having to throw guys through windows and shit. The movie also has BILLY JACK-like unruly town meeting scenes where natives angrily yell about various outrages, but to quote Senator Robert Byrd, they “might as well be talking to the ocean.” And like Billy Jack, Forrest Taft is injured and taken in by Native American healers who perform a ritual with him and tell him what his spirit animal is. But in this case they are eskimos and – here’s the twist – instead of a snake, he’s a bear.
See, that makes it totally different. Also there’s a scene where he gets bit in the balls by a dog. (more…)
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Tags: Billy Bob Thornton, Joan Chen, John C. McGinley, Michael Caine, Mike Starr, R. Lee Ermey, Seagalogy, Sven-Ole Thorsen
Posted in Action, Reviews, Seagal, Thriller | 5 Comments »
