Hello friends, and welcome to my annual preview of the Oscars. They happen on Sunday and I’m anticipating them in the very rare-for-me position of my actual personal favorite movie of the year (EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE) being the clear favorite for many categories, including best picture. It makes me a little nervous because, for example, in 2015 I wasn’t expecting MAD MAX: FURY ROAD to win an “obviously this is the best picture, how is this even a discussion?” trophy, so I wasn’t let down when it didn’t. So I’m trying to keep in mind that whatever happens it’s amazing that this small, weird, unlikely movie managed to catch on so big and already won a bunch of the other awards. It doesn’t need to win everything. Though it would be cool.
This year for my preview I’ll go ahead and go through each of the categories, though I’ll have less informed opinions on some where I haven’t seen all the nominees. And of course I encourage following the links to my reviews of the ones I’ve seen.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Archive for the ‘Blog Post (short for weblog)’ Category
Oscar preview 2023
Friday, March 10th, 2023New Patreon exclusive: my NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER commentary track!
Friday, February 24th, 2023
Well, I’ve been thinking about it for far too long, but I’ve finally gone and done it: my first home brew, play along commentary track. This is designed to sync up with the US cut of NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER (the shorter of the two included on the Kino Lorber DVD and blu-ray) but I think it would also work okay if you just want to listen to it like a podcast. I try to explain my love for this intersection of Hong Kong cinema and ’80s American pop culture, with my usual goal of being informative and wise but also funny, sincere, and occasionally stupid. Lots of talk about little details of the movie and the people in it, the Seattle locations, the history of action movies filmed in Seattle, the worldwide phenomenon of Bruce Lee worship, some stupid stories about me, and of course plenty about Van Damme. (Sorry for slagging Chuck Norris for the same reason two different times, but I say some nice things about him too.)
I hope you enjoy this and that it shows some of my gratitude to my supporters on Patreon, who have truly improved my life by making it possible for me to only work part time at the day job and focus on writing more and better reviews for free here on outlawvern.com. If you haven’t done that and you’re able to, please consider it – I didn’t set support levels, so even if you just do a dollar a month you get this and all the exclusive reviews that are on there.
Thanks everyone! Let me know what you think and what other types of things you might enjoy as Patreon exclusives.
CLICK HERE TO SAY NO TO RETREATING/SURRENDERING!
Talking TOOLBOX MURDERS on ‘F This Movie!’
Wednesday, December 14th, 2022
Is everyone here familiar with Patrick Bromley and ‘F This Movie!’? The latter is a websight and a podcast and I know the name sounds negative but really Patrick is all about sharing his passion for the things he loves, including his favorite director Tobe Hooper. (He even did a commentary track on that beautiful new TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 from Vinegar Syndrome.) And kind of like us ‘F This Movie!’ has a whole community of similarly-minded movie lovers talking about the shit they’re into.
Patrick knew I shared a love for Hooper and he was kind enough to invite me on to talk about it. I chose TOOLBOX MURDERS as the focus since I’m high on it again after the Halloween rewatch. I had a great time and I think I’m feeling better about the less successful time I tried to talk about Hooper on a podcast (the Kingcast incident discussed in my TOOLBOX MURDERS review). Don’t worry, we don’t dwell on that. It’s a good talk with lots of interesting tangents.
VIVA LA COFFIN BABY!
LISTEN HERE
New Patreon post: Lana Wachowski’s Clive Barker comic books
Friday, October 14th, 2022Last December when I was revisiting all the MATRIX movies I started thinking about the trivia that Lana Wachowski had written some comic books before becoming a filmmaker. It caught my attention not only because I’m interested in the evolution of her interests and ideas, but because all of the comics she wrote were based on characters created by Clive Barker, and I’m into that shit.
Other than a little bit of HELLRAISER in the battery farm I never made much of a connection between THE MATRIX and Barker until watching for it this time through. I noted some connections in the reviews, but stayed fascinated enough with the subject that I tracked down and read all 17 Barker comics credited to Lana Wachowski (under her previous name). I thought I could write about it for a Patreon bonus, but I was slow to capitalize on interest in THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS.
But hey, now there’s a new HELLRAISER! It’s timely again! So check out my findings on each of the comics, in approximate publication order.
CLICK HERE TO READ IT ON PATREON
The piece explores all of Lana Wachowski’s Hellraiser, Nightbreed, and (my favorite) EctoKid comics. To unlock it you just have to sign up for any amount of money, and then you can also read all my reviews of the TWILIGHT series, other exclusive pieces about TV specials and books, some early reviews, and most importantly your contribution keeps me only working part time at the day job so I can keep doing all the good shit here. Thank you, I have such sights to show you because there is no spoon, etc.
Talking SECTION 8 on the Dolph podcast
Sunday, October 9th, 2022
I just made my second appearance on “‘I Must Break’ This Podcast,” where I seem to go to discuss movies that Dolph Lundgren is briefly in. The first time it was for the excellent Amy Johnston vehicle FEMALE FIGHT SQUAD, and this time it’s for SECTION 8, the new one starring Ryan Kwanten, Dermot Mulroney, Mickey Rourke, a little bit of Dolph and a great guest appearance by Scott Adkins. I’ll probly do a written review soon with more detailed thoughts, but it was a good discussion with Sean Malloy and a good excuse to talk about the current state of the genre, since this movie is pretty representative of where we’re at.
I MUST BREAK THIS PODCAST!
The 400 Death Blows
Saturday, September 10th, 2022
Back in 2016 I did a review series where I alternated between Francois Truffaut’s five Adventures of Antoine Doinel films and Cannon Films’ five AMERICAN NINJA films, trying to keep the same open mind toward both, look for parallels, etc. I referred to it as Antoine vs. Ninja at the time, but now I like to think of it as The 400 Death Blows. Although I’m way more of a ninja guy than a French New Wave guy I think it’s good to try out a broad spectrum of art and not be put off by some other dip shit’s perception of what is supposed to be high or lowbrow or too trashy or too arty for little old you. Fuck that guy. You’re not that simple. You can appreciate all kinds of things.
The premise of this review series alone is just such a good encapsulation of what I aspire to be as a film critic and viewer that I wanted to make this post linking to all of the reviews so I could share it easier. Enjoy!
1. THE 400 BLOWS (1959)
2. AMERICAN NINJA (1985)
3. ANTOINE AND COLETTE (1962)
4. AMERICAN NINJA 2: THE CONFRONTATION (1987)
5. STOLEN KISSES (1968)
6. AMERICAN NINJA 3: BLOOD HUNT (1989)
7. BED & BOARD (1970)
8. AMERICAN NINJA 4: THE ANNIHILATION (1991)
9. LOVE ON THE RUN (1979)
10. AMERICAN NINJA 5 (1993)
Out of office message
Friday, August 12th, 2022
On Monday I’m leaving on a trip, so I won’t have any new posts for about the next two weeks. I’m sure I’ll be posting on Twitter occasionally about my adventures, but hopefully I’ll be able to unplug a little, recharge, relax, reboot, rebuff, re-animator, etc.
When I get back it will be September, and yet I will continue and complete the Weird Summer series and try to catch up on whatever I missed while I was gone. Everybody be good, have fun, etc. Parties are okay, but don’t bother the neighbors. I’ll see you all soon!
sneak peek of ALIEN 3 on Patreon now
Friday, June 17th, 2022
There are really two specific movies that were released in the summer of ’92 that were the primary reasons I wanted to do this Weird Summer thing. One of them is David Fincher’s audaciously anti-crowdpleasing ALIEN 3. I’ll be posting the review here on Monday but I thought I would give Patreonites a chance to read it early if you want. (It’s nearly 6,000 words, so it might take the weekend.)CHECK IT OUT HERE
New Patreon exclusive: “TEXAS CHAINSAW Re-Massacred”
Friday, June 10th, 2022
READ IT ON PATREON
I MUST BREAK This Podcast
Saturday, June 4th, 2022
I was shamefully unaware of this until recently, but there’s a podcast called I MUST BREAK THIS PODCAST that’s all about the films of Dolph Lundgren. And it’s up to episode #87!? That’s the one where I got to come on and talk about the 2016 film FEMALE FIGHT SQUAD starring Amy Johnston. Dolph plays her dad. I’m glad I had an excuse to watch it again because I remembered it being good but it was still better than I thought it was gonna be.1. Patreon
Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!
2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody
click here for my Amazon author page (NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)
EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.
4. My exciting line of fashion and leisure products
(I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt, mug or lifestyle item)
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