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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

 

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Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 13 Comments »

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.

(read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 269 Comments »

How’s this for an unexpected team-up?

Saturday, May 19th, 2012

The Mad Dog and the Latin Dragon:

maddog-latindragon

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.”

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Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 175 Comments »

Adkins honored with star on Hollywood Wa– oh wait, no, Expendables 2 poster

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

tn_e2adkinscountdown2disappointmentOur boy Scott Adkins got dissed recently when they put out a set of character posters for this summer’s EXPENDABLES 2: YOU’RE EXCITED EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW BETTER. Even Liam Hemsworth and Nan Yu got their own posters, but not Boyka (who apparently plays Van Damme’s knife-expert henchman Hector).

I guess we weren’t the only ones that noticed, because (as reported a couple days ago on Twitch) Lionsgate has now released an Adkins as Hector poster.

(read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 131 Comments »

Ah, shit. Rest in peace James Isaac

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

tn_jasonxI’m sorry to have just read that James Isaac, director of one of our favorites around here, JASON X, has passed away at only 51. Isaac was an effects guy who got his start working on creatures on RETURN OF THE JEDI and GREMLINS. After working on THE FLY and NAKED LUNCH for David Cronenberg he wound up running shit special effects-wise for eXistenZ, which is something to brag about. That’s how he got Cronenberg to cameo in JASON X.

Isaac also directed THE HORROR SHOW, SKINWALKERS and PIG HUNT.

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Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 27 Comments »

Song of the day: “Way Back Home” by the Jazz Crusaders

Friday, May 4th, 2012

tn_crusadersFor some reason I was thinking of this song the other day. Like others of the 21st century, I got one of these iPods, although I got it specifically to drown out the sound of people talking on cell phones on the bus when I’m trying to read or write. Somehow I got “Way Back Home” going through my head but I didn’t have it on my iPod so I couldn’t listen to it.

At home I didn’t have it on CD, but I had it on a “the Crusaders at their best” LP that I tracked down after I first fell in love with the song. I’d been meaning to get it into my iTunes but I hadn’t figured out how to hook up the turntable since finally getting a new computer last year. But today I decided it was time to do it.

See, I never knew about the Jazz Crusaders back in the day, but I started trying to find out about them when I heard this song on a documentary in 2006. Specifically, it was AWESOME, I FUCKIN SHOT THAT, the Beastie Boys concert doc directed by Adam Yauch, who died this morning.

(read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 34 Comments »

Talking DTV action with Movie Morlocks

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

tn_morlocksToday I’m interviewed on Movie Morlocks, the official TCM blog, about DTV action. This kicks off 3 weeks (!) of DTV action coverage by writer R. Emmet Sweeney “in the hopes of bringing more appreciative eyes to this last bastion of  the B-movie spirit.” If you read me regularly you already know what I’ll be talking about (Isaac Florentine, John Hyams, Scott Adkins, Steve Austin, the prestigious WWE Studios, action filmatism, etc.), but I’m happy to be able to share this important information with a wider audience.

A couple notes:

1. I don’t necessarily endorse the intro’s implied swipe at THE AVENGERS, which I’m excited to see this Friday

2. Whenever I see “TCM” I first think “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” before I remember it’s “Turner Classic Movies”

3. UNDISPUTED III and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION are now legally classified as Classic Movies due to their number of mentions on TCM’s blog.

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Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 99 Comments »

EL GRINGO trailer

Thursday, April 26th, 2012

Since we all enjoy the works of Scott Adkins let’s take a look at the trailer for EL GRINGO, his entry in the After Dark Action playing some theaters and VOD May 11th. Vlad M., who sent me the link (thanks bud), says that Isaac Florentine was brought in to help out with some of the action scenes, which seems believable considering some of the stuff in this trailer. And no, it is not a prequel to GET THE GRINGO, it is a re-imagining of EL CID.

http://youtu.be/utA-nPWRPDg

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Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 31 Comments »

Required reading: Movie Studios Are Forcing Hollywood to Abandon 35mm Film. But the Consequences of Going Digital Are Vast, and Troubling

Thursday, April 12th, 2012

digital-projectionYou gotta read this LA Weekly article. It explains in fascinating detail how the conversion to digital projection is yet another area where technology threatens to wipe out an entire chunk of our culture forever in exchange for some convenience.

For old time’s sake I dug up this logo I made back when Seattle’s historic Cinerama theater first converted to digital for ATTACK OF THE CLONES. It looked like shit, but they realized it and switched back to 35 mm. For years we were safe, until the 3D boom left them as the #1 choice only for people who insist on seeing the 2D version of AVATAR. After struggling for a while they changed management and remodelled so they could start playing 3D movies. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 60 Comments »

a couple reviews of Seagalogy Updated & Expanded Edition

Thursday, April 12th, 2012

tn_seagalpaintedThere have been a couple reviews of the new edition, so I thought I’d link to them. I have read that internet social media, for promotion, etc.

Crave Online compared my completist approach of analyzing Seagal movies to the way scholars study Shakespeare. Therefore, OUT FOR JUSTICE = King Lear, I believe. But what if I were to tell you that Steven Seagal never starred in a single movie? (ANONYMOUS 2: STEVEN SEAGAL IS ALSO ANONYMOUS coming soon.) I also like this review because it’s the only one that says the later DTV chapters are more interesting than the ones on the better known movies.

(read the rest of this shit…)

Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 47 Comments »

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