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

NEW! The Viva Val Verde t-shirt

Monday, August 27th, 2012

Even if you’ve never adventured in the fictional South American country of Val Verde yourself, you may be familiar with its history from such films as COMMANDO, PREDATOR and DIE HARD 2. I know I am. And with my keen sense of observation and the power of high definition blu-ray technology I have spotted the Val Verde flag on the side of two planes in DIE HARD 2 and had it re-created by my crack team of t-shirt artisans.

click here to shirt up

VIVA VAL VERDE is not only an obscure reference and slogan of fictional national pride, but a rallying cry for fans of the larger-than-life movies of the Joel Silver/Arnold/Bruce era. Long live Val Verde and long live Old School Action.

This extraordinary t-shirt (also available in mug) is the inaugural product for my new project Vern’s Flea Market. This is probly classier than most of the other ones I’m gonna do, though. I want to take us all back to the late ’80s, early ’90s when you could go to the parking lot outside the 99 Cent store and young entrepreneurs would sell you such great t-shirts as Black Bart Simpson and Batman Symbol Except It Has Eyes. My designs will be even better. Collect ’em all, like pokeymans or whatever.

The internet’s only discussion of who should be in Expendables 3 and Expendables: The Women

Friday, August 24th, 2012

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.

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Village Voice piece

Tuesday, August 21st, 2012

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.

Tony Scott

Monday, August 20th, 2012

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.

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Two more trailers: The Last Stand and Bullet to the Head

Friday, August 17th, 2012

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.

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning trailer UPDATED

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

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.

new look

Tuesday, August 7th, 2012

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

Battle of the Year 3D trailer

Sunday, July 29th, 2012

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:

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MAXIMUM CONVICTION trailer

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

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

 

Vern Predicts: Bane vs. Bain Capital

Wednesday, July 18th, 2012

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.

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