No man, I don’t got a problem. I just watch Michael Bay movies recreationally. I don’t gotta watch them when I wake up or nothin. It’s just every once in a while. I only watched PEARL HARBOR ’cause I was doing all the summer of 2001 movies. And TRANSFORMERS 3 because I thought it would be funny. Then people said I should watch this one. It’s not a big deal, man. That’s not that many. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Posts Tagged ‘William Forsythe’
The Rock
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Savage Dawn
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
SAVAGE DAWN is a post-apocalyptic-town-harassed-by-bikers movie very similar to STEEL FRONTIER except way crappier looking and without all the great cars and car stunts. I’d almost give it a very, very lenient semi-pass just because Lance Henriksen, with bleach blond hair, gets one of his rare leading man roles, except… no, I wouldn’t want anybody to think I sort of recommended this movie. The best thing I can say is I’ve seen worse.
But if you insist on seeing it the DVD is #3 on a triple feature with CAGED FURY and DRUG TRAFFIKERS. Don’t say I or the cover didn’t warn you.
(more…)
Dead Bang
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
I didn’t have time to do a countdown for MACHETE like I did THE EXPENDABLES, but it is almost like a holiday today so I figure it deserves some kind of commemoration. Obviously Seagal is the supporting player I’m most excited to see on the big screen again, but in second place I think would have to be Don Johnson. So I marked the occasion by checking out a Don Johnson movie I always meant to see, John Frankenheimer’s DEAD BANG from 1989.
(more…)
The Substitute
Friday, September 11th, 2009
Since Labor Day was last Monday I figure the kids are either back in school or about to go back to school, so I might as well do VERN’S BACK TO SCHOOL SPECIAL. And if I’m gonna do that there is one movie that I would have to be a fuckin moron not to start with. And I’m not talking about BACK TO SCHOOL.
THE SUBSTITUTE is not necessarily a great action movie. It doesn’t have any particularly memorable action scenes or anything. But I really like this movie for the simple fact that the idea behind it – combining a mercenaries/drug gangs action movie with a DANGEROUS MINDS style white-teacher-makes-a-difference-in-the-big-city movie – is flat out brilliant, a once-in-a-cinematic-history opportunity. Seriously, I sit around trying to think of genre combinations this absurd and yet this natural. There aren’t many left. (more…)
Stone Cold (DVD)
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007Ladies and gentlemen, the day has come. The eagle has landed. Brian Bosworth’s 1991 film debut STONE COLD is finally available on Region 1 DVD. We’re through the looking glass, people.
As a DVD this is kind of a bust. There isn’t even a trailer on the thing. They did spring for interactive menus, that’s about it. They even labeled the disc wrong, the widescreen is actually on the standard side and vice versa. The movie is about a biker gang, but the cover seems designed to make it look like a current DTV espionage thriller – there’s not a single motorcycle pictured on the front or back.
But you know what, even that can’t stop STONE COLD. I’ve been recommending this movie to people for a while now but it was only on VHS so it got tricky. As of this week they will find it in finer movie stores and gas stations for around ten or fifteen bucks. What a year for DVD, man. First HOLY MOUNTAIN, now STONE COLD.
Let me be clear: this is a cheesy action movie. This is not a legit classic like DIE HARD. This is more along the lines of a ROADHOUSE, a really ridiculous movie where you start out watching it because it’s goofy but by the end, whether you have the balls to admit it or not, you know deep down in your soul that the movie kicked your ass. You pointed at it, you laughed at it, but it turned the tables and defeated you fair and square. If you have any sense of sportsmanship you will admit that this movie is awesome. Even if it was kicked off of its college team for using steroids. (more…)
Firestorm
Sunday, July 30th, 2006This is a pretty enjoyable, totally forgettable action movie directed by Dean Semler, a cinematographer who also directed Steven Seagal’s historic first DTV picture THE PATRIOT. The star is Howie Long, formerly of the Oakland Raiders, currently of the Radio Shack commercials. After a supporting role in BROKEN ARROW they tried to give him the football-star-to-action-star transition like they did to Brian Bosworth. The Boz never caught on big, but he was able to continue starring in DTV movies for several years after STONE COLD. Things didn’t work out that way for Howie, and this is his only starring role. I was gonna say he was more comparable to Lyle Alzado, but I just looked up Lyle and he’s starred in more than I realized. So I don’t know who he’s comparable to.
Anyway, Howie’s movie career was not a success, that is if you define success as “the ability to make enough money that they can keep making action movies starring this particular football player.” That never happened, but as far as I’m concerned he is successful in this movie. He’s square but likable and I guess it’s just nice to see a capable hero you haven’t seen a million times before.
Another thing that makes the movie unique is that it’s about fire fighters instead of cops. It makes for a movie somewhat less violent than you might usually want (his talent isn’t for killing, it’s the opposite), but it works. Howie is part of an elite team of fire fighters who parachute into the middle of forest fires. The overly serious text at the beginning tells us that there are 400 of them total and that “These elite men and women are called smokejumpers.” They don’t have water hoses or anything (too bad, I wanted to see an action scene where he blasts people with water) but they have axes and chain saws and they just run around and help people who are trapped. Or they start other fires to strategically control the already burning fire. Or whatever. I suppose they are colleagues of Seagal’s character Forrest Taft from ON DEADLY GROUND. But they can fly. (more…)
The Devil’s Rejects
Tuesday, July 26th, 2005
If you ever saw THE HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES, there’s one thing you probaly remember. It’s this montage set to “I Remember You” by Slim Whitman. It’s got lots of slow motion and you can’t hear anything but the music as the cops discover a couple of the house’s thousand corpses unexpectedly, then get gunned down by the Firefly family. The montage ends with Otis (Bill Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 Moseley) holding a gun to a cop’s head and it sits there with 20 full seconds of complete silence and stillness before he executes him.
That movie was pretty good, I liked it overall for it’s spunk and what not, but it was real sloppy and uneven. And that “I Remember You” scene was the one part where the director, a guy named Rob Zombie (yeah I know, I think it’s Hungarian or something), seemed like a real filmatist. Well good news, Mr. Zombie’s new one THE DEVIL’S REJECTS is not as much a sequel to HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES as it’s a sequel to that scene. It’s about the brother of the first cop killed in the montage hunting down the Fireflies for revenge. And all the sudden the Zombie guy knows what the fuck he’s doing: real good framing, way better acting, expert use of slow motion and effective montagings edited to old country music, blues and classic rock. Very dirty and raw, lots of ’70s techniques like Peckinpah slo-mo and fancy wipes. Kind of what Jim Van Bebber was going for with THE MANSON FAMILY. Maybe not quite as authentic but way better thought out and more involving. It’s almost changed genres – now it’s less straight up horror and more of one of those sicko ’70s serial killer/crime/road pictures, or a revenge picture like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. It’s just as sick and inexcusable but more fun. (more…)
Stone Cold
Saturday, January 1st, 2005As you know I have a professional interest in the old B-action pictures. I like your Seagals, your Swayzes, and your etceteras. That’s why somebody asked me Vern, do you know about this guy Brian Bosworth though. I said are you kidding me? Let me answer your question with a question. Did I live in Seattle in the year 1987? Of course I know who the damn Boz is. He was on the Seahawks and the local media acted like he was Jesus Christ Hisself, coming down from Heaven with a sacramental football and a new haircut. The haircut of course was a bleach blond mullet with designs shaved on the side, sometimes a full color Seahawks logo. It was called the Boz cut. I guess you could say he was the Dennis Rodman of his time. Known for his calculated outrageous fashion and In Your Face Attitude, he was a phenomenon with the kids. The white Mr. T. People copied the haircut, they had pro and anti Boz t-shirts, they even had this poster that said “Land of Boz” and showed him going down the yellow brick road with a bunch of kids dressed as him (Bozkins, probaly). He was a real big fuckin deal for all us retards here in Seattle.
Only one problem was, he never played that good. He kept getting injured and retired after three seasons. But his career was insured so he got rich off it all. After that score he figured, what the hell, maybe you can pull this same shit off in movies. Moved to L.A. and made STONE COLD. And it should’ve been obvious just from that background that this was gonna be a real good bad action movie.
The movie opens in a grocery store where a group of Troma-style insane biker criminals are robbing the joint and terrorizing the shoppers with machine guns. But they start to panic when they realize some dude (Brian Bosworth) is just ignoring them and continuing his shopping. Remember after 9-11, everybody was all scared and they told us the one way we were gonna show these terrorists what fucking time it was, was we were gonna go back out there and shop, buy products, etc. This is the same exact thing, the fuckers just freak out. They send guys after him but he uses canned food to foil them. He acts real cocky and he’s wearing a leather trenchcoat with big shoulder flaps like a samurai or an evil space villain would wear. I mean, Seagal must’ve been so jealous when he saw this coat. When the cops show up they’re sayin shit like, “Oh jesus, what did you do this time Joe, you’re still on suspension!” So you know he’s a Cop Who Plays By His Own Rules. In these type of movies it is heroic to be a self absorbed asshole who everybody at the workplace hates. (more…)
