I mean, who am I trying to fool? Of course we’re gonna discuss this. We already started, so let’s make it the official exploratory committee. We have been through 2 (two) Expendastallments, we know how it works. Knowing what we know now, who do we want to see in part 3? Any new ideas of who should direct?
Furthermore, there is this producer of THE GREY who is working on what is described as “a female riff on THE EXPENDABLES” – let’s figure out who they should put in that.
I wrote a piece for this week’s Village Voice, it’s about (hold onto your butts) the current state of action movies. Of course I wasn’t able to be as long-winded as I usually like to, but I think I managed to give a good explanation of my concept of Post-Action (with specific examples), the importance of action geography, how THE EXPENDABLES could be better, the renaissance in DTV (mentioning Florentine and Hyams), and favorite topics like that.
Thank you to film editor Alan Scherstuhl for giving me the opportunity to spread the word to a new audience, and printed on paper I believe. I like paper.
If you’re joining us here after reading the piece please say hi in the comments and stick around or dig through the archives for more detailed discussion of Badass Cinema and other topics.
Well, I’m sure we’ve all heard the shitty news by now. (I heard it here first, from Fred.) Director Tony Scott took his own life today.
I’m afraid I’ve written some not-nice things about Mr. Scott’s movies during my time here. DOMINO was one of my most hot-headed reviews ever, and after that I sort of used him as a symbol of directors who get carried away with the show-offy editing and lose all sense of filmatism. I don’t fool myself that Mr. Scott ever read that review or knew who I was, so I got nothing to feel guilty about there. But I just want to say that I certainly never meant anything against the man personally and I’m sorry that whatever he was going through pushed him to do what he did. Obviously a talented man who we all thought would be around longer and get more chances to win us back.
Hey, that’s nice. To celebrate the occasion of Expendables 2 we have trailers for upcoming Schwarzenegger and Stallone pictures, both from great directors. If you haven’t seen them I’ll show them to you.
First up we got THE LAST STAND from the director of BITTERSWEET LIFE, THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD and I SAW THE DEVIL. I was hoping for something a little quieter and less Johnny-Knoxville-in-a-funny-hat than this looks, but I still thing it looks beautiful and appropriately absurd. I’ll take it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEMmL0uQYeY
Next up is the Walter Hill buddy movie. Keep in mind that Hill hasn’t directed a theatrical movie since UNDISPUTED in
For a minute I thought that was Shannen Doherty as his daughter. That would’ve been weird. Also I see Falsone from Homicide: Life On the Street is in there. And I didn’t know it but I guess I always wanted to see an ax fight between Rambo and Kal Drogo.
Can John Hyams live up to our expectations with his sequel to the greatest DTV movie of all time? Well, it sure looks like he came up with something interesting and different. He’s go Van Damme looking like Captain Spaulding, Dolph making a speech and Scott Adkins kicking ass. Looks good to me.
But something tells me I won’t get a chance to see this in a theater. (Something = that narrator.) Hopefully Magnet Releasing will prove me wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USxQDDPwJ8Q
UPDATE: John Hyams contacted me (namedrop) to assure me that it will play in theaters. It will lay at Fantastic Fest in September, then will be on the video-on-demand October 26th and in theaters in the US November 30th. (Don’t worry, they’ve done that with other movies too.)
This trailer was cut when they thought it would be DTV, before Magnolia/Magnet picked it up. There will be another one cut by Hyams himself. I’ll try to contact the narrator to see if he’s working on his own cut.
Just in time for my 13ish year on the “internet” I have decided it’s time for a new look. This is mainly because as I get older my eyes are having a hard time reading the red/grey on black, and partly because a couple years ago a friend of Drew McWeeny wrote and told me he had a seizure while reading one of my reviews. I don’t want to be responsible for any major medical events. Also, I’m trying to be more professional as Christian Bale once suggested was a good thing to do and he is a good actor.
Please thank Clubside Chris for all his work creating this look based on my pain in the ass suggestions, plus the previous fake Geocities look, which will be available in the dropdown menu at the lower right for those who want to stick with it (it might need some fixing but will be operable soon).
Anyway, I hope people and eyeballs enjoy it. We will be trying out some new features too. Suggestions welcome but don’t be an ass.
thanks for reading, everybody
This is a blog (short for web-log) post about the trailer for BATTLE OF THE YEAR 3D. The movie is not about the type of battles that are in the movies I normally write about here, but bear with me.
Whether you know it or not, you are anxiously awaiting my review of STEP UP REVOLUTION. I’m working on it, but I saw this trailer before the movie and I had to share it with you guys right away. At first I was just laughing because it’s a dance movie following a sports movie formula, so the characters keep talking about “the sport” of breakdancing. That is a very anti-STEP UP attitude. Dancing is an art, right? W the F.
But as I kept watching I realized something else. See if you pick up on it too:
Well, I’m not gonna pretend this looks good. It seems to have all the most joyless aspects of DTV action. It happens to star two of my favorites, but both of them look bored, and it makes it look like they might only have one scene together. Director Keoni Waxman did THE KEEPER, A DANGEROUS MAN and many True Justice episodes with Seagal, plus the pretty-good-not-great HUNT TO KILL with Stone Cold. Writer Richard Beattie wrote PROM NIGHT IV, NO CONTEST II and episodes of True Justice. I’ll try to keep an open mind, obviously. If anybody’s gonna figure out a way to like this one it should be me, right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yosoQ8HkmLQ
Don’t worry, no Batman spoilers here. In today’s episode of VERN PREDICTS I will brag about the time I sort of foresaw a stupid little thing that happened. Also let’s lay down a few rules about discussion in case a new Batman movie comes out this week.
The Mad Dog and the Latin Dragon:
The news comes in an Indiewire article about 2 new Indonesian action films in the works from the producers of THE RAID:
“ONE GOOD THING will star [Yayan] Ruhian and Marko Zaror as a mob enforcer and a policeman who reluctantly try to protect a young girl caught between rival gangs warring with a clutch of dirty cops. MACABRE filmmaker Kimo Stamboel… is set to direct.”
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!
(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.
