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Archive for the ‘Blog Post (short for weblog)’ Category

Vern Predicts: Jodorowsky Fever

Monday, June 23rd, 2014

vernpredicts150It was 2007. The Year of the Dolphin. The Scouting Centenary. The year of the last Harry Potter book. The year that Anna Nicole Smith and Bam Bam Bigelow passed. The year that DIE HARD turned PG-13. Amidst all that turmoil and unrest I wrote about an Alejandro Jodorowsky DVD box set for the famous The Ain’t It Cool News websight. And in that review I prophesied a day when the then-mostly-forgotten underground filmmaker of the early ’70s would become a mainstream pop culture phenomenon:

“This thing is gonna spread across the globe like airwaves. Rappers will start quoting HOLY MOUNTAIN; on CRIBS they’ll have THE FILMS OF ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY next to their SCARFACE dvd. Bono will buy a thousand copies and pass them out to world leaders, so they can begin their journeys of enlightenment…” etc. I went on for a while.

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Vern’s Cinefamily Journal

Friday, June 20th, 2014

tn_cinefamilyWell, it happened. Last Saturday, after 15 years of admittedly weird dedication to anonymity, I went and stood unmasked in front of the Cinefamily theater to publicly share my love of the action films of S. Seagal. A couple of you who were there kindly told me not to worry, that I looked exactly like Lee Marvin, but on the internet I saw my looks compared to two different comedians. I won’t say which ones, so go ahead and assume Roddy Piper and Chopper Read. But now there are a couple blurry Loch Ness Monster type photos of me out there, and Griff says I am not buff and I look like his dad. Giving my reputation a hit like that was not what I had planned for my summer vacation.

But I got no regrets and the reason why can be summed up with one frame of film:

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The Expendables III Official Trailer I: The Hopening

Tuesday, June 17th, 2014

Now’s the part where we get excited despite ourselves.

Notes:

1. the action in this trailer is all shot clearly and steadily. This suggests a higher ACR than the second one and of course the first one, which I was hoping for from director Patrick Hughes (RED HILL). This could still be screwed up by bad editing, but if not it will go a long way toward winning me over more than the other installments.

2. I like that Snipes’s character seems to be just getting out of lock up. Or possibly cryo-freeze.

3. I noticed that one of the credited writers is a woman. Just for those mooks who tried to hype the other two as some sort of chest bumping bros only affair.

Seagalogy Goes Hollywood

Friday, June 13th, 2014

tn_seagalpaintedWell everybody, I’m off to the land of dreams and what not. Pretty sure it will be a great time although I will also be terrified, like a sasquatch with a police helicopter spotlight on him. The show is 5 pm Saturday at Cinefamily. Last I heard there were still a few tickets left.

Be sure to introduce yourselves. I’ll have some of my books on sale at the concession stand I believe. I’ll try to sign for anybody that wants it, although there’s not a time set for that on the schedule. We’ll see what happens. The important thing is seeing ON DEADLY GROUND and its three excellent prequels in 35 mm.

So, thanks for the support everybody, I’ll see some of you Saturday and the rest of you during the week when I’ll have lots of new reviews I’ve been working on.

your pal,

Vern

Internet v. Goyer

Friday, May 23rd, 2014

tn_she-hulkShe-Hulkgate, Day 3. As founder and president of the Motherfuckers Act Like They Forgot About BLADE Society, I feel compelled to weigh in on this mounting controversy.

A few days ago David S. Goyer, writer of the upcoming movie BATMAN V. SUPERMAN AND THE CASE OF THE DAWN OF JUSTICE, was one of several guests on a live panel of the Scriptnotes screenwriting podcast. Alan Kistler, a writer on “Girl Geek Culture” websight The Mary Sue, wrote a post objecting to comments Goyer made about the comic book characters She-Hulk and Martian Manhunter. The complaints were picked up by other websights (I first saw it on Badass Digest), the torches and pitchforks came out on Twitter and in long comment threads, and it snowballed so much it ended up covered by secular news outlets such as The Hollywood Reporter and Slate. The Washington Post actually got Stan Lee to respond. For fuck’s sake, Time Magazine (the web version at least) had a not-joking “The She-Hulk Scandal Explained” item, like they probly had to explain the Clarence Thomas hearings back in the day.

What did Goyer say that was so offensive? That the character was created to be a sex fantasy for male comic book fans.

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The Mark Chase Dog

Saturday, May 3rd, 2014

I don’t know if I mentioned this or not, but I recently wrote a little crime novel called Niketown. Check it out. In the book, the protagonist, Carter Chase, invents a recipe for hot dog which he names “The Mark Chase Dog” after his missing brother, and the ingredients are described in loving detail.

Well, Michael Taylor of Paducah, KY decided to make himself some Mark Chase Dogs and was kind enough to send me photographic documentation:

markchasedog

Now I feel lazy because I never got around to making Casey Ryback’s salad recipe from UNDER SIEGE 2, even though I put it in Seagalogy. Michael also reports that he once read one of my greatest works, my GARFIELD review, at an open mic night. That warms my heart. Thanks Michael!

All purpose Star Wars post

Wednesday, April 30th, 2014

tn_maxreboI noticed everybody’s writing about the latest Disney’s Star Wars news on an old post that has about ten billion comments on it and takes six hours to load. We don’t yet have the technology to create a forum, so out of the kindness of my heart I am giving you this fresh new post for any Star Wars related commenting.

I also have an ulterior motive. This is a good place for you to dump all of the bile, negativity and Ewokphobia associated with Star Wars fandom, if need be. I’m going to have a Star Wars related post pretty soon where whining and complaining in the comments are specifically prohibited. We’ll see how that goes I guess.

Anybody remember C3POs it was a cereal they had.

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trailer for White Tiger starring Matt Mullins, Don “The Dragon” Wilson and Cynthia Rothrock

Tuesday, April 29th, 2014

http://youtu.be/_OuU2oRmh6Y

This looks like it has more potential than I expected, and if not I think we can all at least enjoy the narrator on this trailer. He’s working overtime to explain the plot to us. Although I’ve heard of this for a while it does not seem to be listed on IMDb, and I can’t find any mention of who directed it. I did find an article that notes that Rothrock is playing one of the bad guys.

In unrelated news, my IMDb research did lead me to discover that Wilson is listed as being in an upcoming SCORPION KING (something)quel, also alleged to feature Royce Gracie, Michael Biehn, Lou Ferrigno and Rutger Hauer as “King Zakour.” The director did BLUE CRUSH 2 and was in SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE II.

(hat tip to Felix [I am not actually wearing a hat, that is internet slang I believe])

Note to Los Angeles area readers

Sunday, April 20th, 2014

tn_seagalpaintedI wanted to point out this calendar item at your local Cinefamily theater in case anybody needs to get tickets and get the day (Saturday, June 14th) off. Must be open to viewing four of Steven Seagal’s greatest movies on 35 mm while being disappointed by the demystification of a previously enigmatic writer and Seagal expert.

More details/explanations later this week.

Niketown: a novel (that I wrote)

Monday, March 24th, 2014

tn_niketownI wanted to let you guys know I wrote a new book and I’m back in the lone wolf publishing game. It’s called Niketown: a novel. The “a novel” part is to make sure you know it’s a fictional novel, not a collection of reviews of different Nike stores or something. You can get the actual book version HERE for about thirteen bucks, or many electronical type versions HERE for about five bucks. It should be in the Kindle store soon, I’m waiting for it to process. But I believe you can also get a Kindle format from the Smashwords sight for now.

You can read a big sample chunk of it on there too if you’re concerned it’s gonna suck. Hopefully you’ll decide it doesn’t, but it’s a free country.

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