Hey friends, Vern here to update you on the winners of the video-making contest that Titan Books had to promote my new review collection, Yippee Ki Yay, Moviegoer: Writings on Bruce Willis, Badass Cinema and Other Important Topics. (Just to warn you, some of the “other important topics” include Mary Poppins, the movie “Garfield” and a painful medical procedure I once had. But it’s a pretty good book. You should read it.) To be frankly honest it looks like there was a little less elbow grease put into this contest than into the similar one we had for Seagalogy. Most of the videos were obviously things people had already made and decided to enter. Fair enough though, because the book is a collection of pre-existing reviews. People obviously put alot of love and care into the videos when they made them in the first place, so I enjoyed watching them. The winner though was one of the few that I think was made just for the contest (I could be wrong), WOMB TO TOMB by Patrick Newman. I believe Titan will be sending him a Playstation part 3 video game machine and the “Red Dead” cowboy game.
I like this one because it pays loving tribute to the kind of action movie tropes I enjoy. I chose it for the following reasons: subtitles, hand exerciser, helicopter, pizza boxes full of guns, and mainly for the twist that the bad guy knew the agency would send someone after him some day so he developed a way for men to give birth so he could use a baby as a human shield. I like villains who plan ahead. The five runners up will receive the incredible prize of my book. They are:
http://youtu.be/rOk5F5YFLWY
RESCUE, which has impressive production values and some dudes fighting over some coffee. I chose it because I like ninja stars, and this has an exploding one.
INSTABILITY – I didn’t really understand exactly what was going on, but something to do with stealing blood. And there’s a SWAT team. Also I like any movie where somebody kicks a chair and it slides across the floor. It’s just a thing I have.
http://youtu.be/8A2pWfpns1E
KEEP THE CHANGE – I like the joke of a dude paying ransom money in coins, and the kidnapper calling him a dick.
HARDBALL 2: DEADLY STRIKE ZONE is one of these comedy fake trailers they make. I like how the one-liners don’t make any sense. Especially, “Hey scumbag – hit the showers.”
TOP DRAGUN was especially obvious that it wasn’t made for the contest, but I really enjoyed these cartoony special effects and the ridiculous concept. It’s basically TOP GUN with dragons as the bad guys. One of the heroes is code named “Dragon Raper.” Hopefully this will be expanded into a feature and nominated for best picture like DISTRICT 9.
Anyway, thank you everybody who entered the contest, your creativity and uploading skills are top notch. I really appreciate it.
–VERN
author and contest host
Originally posted at Ain’t-It-Cool-News: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/45357
