By special request, here is a fresh new place for you commenters to write about whatever the fuck you want to write about. For example various topics that come up, and other things also. Because of freedom, etc.
thank you for your interest
Archive for the ‘Blog Post (short for weblog)’ Category
Potpourri 2: Miscellaneous
Friday, December 10th, 2010“Life can be mega”
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
Good ol’ Fred Topel just did an interview with Nicolas Cage for Screen Junkies, and he was cool enough to ask Cage about the concept of mega-acting:
SJ: I’ve been reading Outlawvern.com and he’s coined the phrase “mega acting” with regard to your work in films like Bad Lieutenant and Face/Off. The idea is it’s not overacting, because it’s intentionally extreme. Do you feel that’s accurate?
NC: Yeah, I think that makes sense. I often refer to it as outside the box, as opposed to over the top. The two things mean the same thing on one hand but one sort of celebrates the idea of breaking free and going into other forms of expression, whether they’re abstract or extreme or as this friend of yours calls mega acting. The other sort of implies you’re not being truthful to the part, but see, I don’t know how you measure something like that because life can be extreme and life can be mega. I wouldn’t do that to somebody in another art form. Not to compare myself to someone like Francis Bacon but just as a point of explanation, I wouldn’t say, “Hey, you can’t paint a screaming pope like that because a screaming pope doesn’t look like that naturally.”
When Cage is interviewed most of the time he’s probly sitting in front of blownup movie posters talking bullshit with local news people who still watch Entertainment Tonight every night. What’s cool about Fred’s interview is he comes from appreciating the odd sides of Cage’s work, so that’s what he asks about. Check out the whole thing for some more interesting insights.
thanks to Fred for doing the interview and Tommy S. for sending me the link
Important Book Alert #2: THEY LIVE (DEEP FOCUS #1) by Jonathan Lethem
Saturday, November 27th, 2010
One day several years ago I was waiting for a bus near a book store, and in the window there was a book about the philosophy of THE MATRIX. There’s more than one book like that, and I can’t remember which one it was that I saw that day, but it got me thinking: there should be a book like that, except it’s entirely about THEY LIVE.
There’s a long-running series of books called 33 1/3, little pocket-sized book length essays about classic albums. I have one for Stevie Wonder’s Songs In the Key of Life, for example. And I’ve long thought there should be a series like that for movies, and I should write the one about THEY LIVE.
Well, too late, buddy. Soft Skull Press is starting a series just like that, although if I understand correctly they’re all gonna be written by novelists. #2 is on DEATH WISH, #4 is gonna be LETHAL WEAPON. THE STING, HEATHERS and THE BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING are also coming up, but it all starts with THEY LIVE by Jonathan Lethem, author of the novels Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude. His approach is very different from what I would’ve done/could still do some day, but it’s an interesting, quick read and makes plenty of points that I hadn’t thought of before, making it a good first book about this particular subject. (read the rest of this shit…)
Seagal in Australian beer commercial/contest
Friday, November 26th, 2010http://youtu.be/9c60bcgBGyw
This is probly the funniest commercial Seagal has done (beating out the Orange telephone thing with the golf cart chase and the Mountain Dew one where he accidentally beats up a convenience store robber Mr. Magoo style). It fits into a modern commercial cliche of the Exaggeratedly Awesome Guy Who Likes This Product (other examples: Bruce Campbell for Old Spice, the more recent Michael Jai White-ish Old Spice uberman, the rich Russian guy with the baby giraffe who drinks some product or other, the “most interesting man in the world” who says “I don’t normally drink beer, but when I do I drink” whatever it is). But it also has a little Seagalogy in there because of his reputation for having an entourage of hot women and his love of Asian things (the bridge in the background, the dress on the girl to the left tending his zen garden). I actually wouldn’t be surprised if that was filmed in his actual backyard.
thanks to Chris A., Geoff C. and Mitchell H. for sending this, and stay tuned for upcoming overdue Seagalogical reports involving the last four episodes of LAWMAN and his new one BORN TO RAISE HELL (out in the U.K. but not U.S.).
Important Book Alert #1: DESTROY ALL MOVIES
Friday, November 19th, 2010
I want to tell you guys about a new book I got called DESTROY ALL MOVIES: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO PUNKS ON FILM, edited by Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly. I guess you might’ve already heard about it because some of the other movie websights beat me to posting about it, but you know what? The tortoise ate the hare, the boy who cried on the wolf, etc. Anyway I’ve been looking through it for a few days and I want to discuss it with the ladies and gentlemen of the outlaw community or whatever, because this is one of those passion project books printed with special blood sweat and tears based inks, and those deserve recognition.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Time For a New List
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010Remember how I posted about ROLLING THUNDER coming to DVD and how that means John Flynn’s never-on-DVD Parker adaptation THE OUTFIT was “now officially #1 on my list of Shit That Needs To Come Out”?
I guess the Warner Archive people saw that and their response is:
It’s not clear yet when ROLLING THUNDER can be ordered, but THE OUTFIT is already available here. Says it’s widescreen and newly remastered, too, so it shouldn’t be the version I heard played on some HD channels.
It’s all happening so fast, I haven’t had time to formulate a new list. There are two Parker adaptations that have never even been on VHS (at least that I’ve ever heard of). Those are THE SPLIT and MISE EN SAC. The first one I’ve seen and it’s good, the second I haven’t but I’ve heard it’s good and it’s based on a real cinematic book where Parker and crew try to take down an entire mining town.
I’m not sure what should be number one on the list though. I know THE WOMAN CHASER is on there somewhere, and I’d like people to be able to rent PENTATHLON and LAST NIGHT AT THE ALAMO, but what’s left with the same urgency as ROLLING THUNDER and THE OUTFIT?
I usually think it’s corny when a blog (short for weblog) post ends with “What do you guys think?,” but I guarantee sincerity here. I wrote this post first to let everybody know about THE OUTFIT and second to ask what movies you love or are dying to see still haven’t made it to a legitimate DVD at all.
So, uh, what do you guys think?
Guess who’s in comics books? (answer: em) (hold up to mirror for answer)
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
The internet belongs to the nerds. Or to the geeks, I forget which one. I always get alot of grief for getting the lingo wrong, I mix up “nerd” with “geek” and I say “comic strips” instead of “illustrated graphic novels for grown adults” and I say “Ziggy” instead of “Tom Wilson’s Ziggy.” I’m either confused or sometimes just jokin around but I mean no harm and people still get upset. Especially if I do it on The Ain’t It Cool News everybody acts like I yelled out the n-word or something. I would write several paragraphs of detailed and thoughtful analysis laying out a series of arguments and backing them up with examples but if I chose “comic strip” instead of “comic book” to describe a stapled together pamphlet of non-comical drawings then that would be all they would respond to and declare my input invalid.
And I used to try to be polite and apologize to these people but no more, because now I AM IN A FUCKING COMIC STRIP. Or at least between some of them. My cool British publisher Titan is publishing a comics magazine called “CLiNT,” and I have a column in it starting with issue #3. So if you want to read “Nemesis Chapter 2” and “Mahatma Gandhi presents Space Oddities” you will have no choice but to flip past the words that I wrote. WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS? (read the rest of this shit…)
Holy shit, ROLLING THUNDER finally hits DVD!
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
Has everybody here seen ROLLING THUNDER? Written by Paul TAXI DRIVER Schrader, directed by John OUT FOR JUSTICE Flynn, starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones, this is one of the hall of fame badass revenge movies, a must-see classic. Yet it’s never been legitimately released on DVD, and fairly hard to come by on VHS. When it played in a small theater in Seattle a few years back the only known print had to be borrowed from Quentin Tarantino’s collection, and I hear it was not in good shape. Tarantino loved the movie so much he named his short-lived theatrical re-release label after it, and yet even he didn’t get it a re-release. So I always figured there was some weird deal with the rights, or an ancient Egyptian curse of some kind. At one point I even got a chance to ask John Flynn’s daughter if she knew why it hadn’t been released, and she had no idea. (She says he was a great dad and a real cool guy, by the way.)
Vern’s Underrated Horror A-Z
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
More horror movie recommendations than you can shake an ax at
This one cool movie criticism type blog (short for web log) called ‘Rupert Pupkin Speaks’ started a thing of everybody doing their lists of top ten underrated horror movies. They got HOWLING director Joe Dante, Alamo Drafthouse guy Zack Carlson, and Ain’t It Cool’s Mr. Beaks in on the action, among a whole bunch of others. Everybody’s doing it. So I got jealous and tried to outdo them with not a top ten list, but an entire ENGLISH LANGUAGE ALPHABET of underrated horror. Let’s see if I can do it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Van Damme is okay
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010
Yesterday it was reported that Jean-Claude Van Damme suffered a mild heart attack while in New Orleans filming for WEAPON, a movie where he’s co-starring with Scott Adkins. Van Damme is reportedly okay and has returned to Belgium. If you need any more reassurance, LIONHEART director Sheldon Lettich posted on thevandammefans.net and from what he says it sounds like it was a few days ago and he’s long since back to normal.
But of course you gotta worry about a guy with a physical job like that having those type of health issues, and I know many of us here are fans of Mr. Van Damme (who by the way turned 50 on Monday). Not only has he made many of our favorite cheeseball American martial arts movies (KICKBOXER, BLOODSPORT, HARD TARGET, etc.) but in my opinion he’s on a hell of a roll right now. First he had a surprisingly good dramatic performance in UNTIL DEATH, then his best (and most) martial arts in years in the Isaac-Florentine-disowned THE SHEPHERD: BORDER PATROL, then of course a big breakthrough with his best acting ever in JCVD and the best DTV movie to date UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION. And since then he’s directed THE EAGLE PATH so we’ll have to see how that turned out when it gets released.
So my hat is off to Mr. Van Damme for his hard work and I think I speak for all of us in wishing him good health. Take care of yourself bud and don’t do the splits too much.
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