"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

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

We told you so

Monday, April 19th, 2010

florentineI have a hunch the bigger movie websights are about to catch up with us DTV action scholars re: the films of Isaac Florentine. Over there at Actionfest in North Carolina they gave best picture to MERANTAU (which recently got a rave review on kungfucinema.com) but the much anticipated (by us) UNDISPUTED 3 got best director for Florentine and best choreography for Larnell Stovall (that’s Florentine kicking Stovall in the picture there – no joke). According to this article on twitchfilm.net (thanks GoodBadGroovy for posting that in the comments) U3 wasn’t originally intended to be in competition, but the jury felt so strongly about it that they chose it anyway. That jury included Mr. McWeeny of Hitfix, Devin Feraci of Chud and Todd Brown of Twitch, so maybe those websights will start talking up Florentine the way we’ve all been after seeing UNDISPUTED II, NINJA, THE SHEPHERD: BORDER PATROL, US SEALS 2, BRIDGE OF DRAGONS and SPECIAL FORCES.

Feraci tweetered, “UNDISPUTED III is the future of low budget action – amazing digital photography, crisp and exciting fight choreography and personable leads.” He probly hasn’t seen UNDISPUTED II, BLOOD AND BONE or UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION if he thinks that’s a new development, but I’m glad he’s on board. Now we gotta introduce those guys to John Hyams.

The other big news is that apparently Chuck Norris declined his lifetime achievement award and gave it to his brother. That’s sweet and also kind of hilarious since it was already goofy for Aaron Norris to found a film festival to give an award to his own brother. Now he gave an award to himself!

Anyway, sounds like it went great and will hopefully continue to grow.

Okay, okay. Let’s get this over with.

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

tn_seagalpaintedI didn’t think this was a big deal and didn’t want to say much about it, but I keep getting emails and comments making sure I know about this lawsuit against Chief Seagal. So, fair enough. Alot of people seem to be interested in my thoughts so I will address the situation here.

First of all, I will cop to being an expert on Seagal’s movies. But that doesn’t mean I have any more insights into this than anybody else. I don’t know the man and I’m not even a biographer or anything, I just analyze the movies. (And albums. And beverages.)

Also, it doesn’t really change anything. Of course I would prefer that he was a nice guy, or at least a non-sex-slaver. But my interests are in his movies. Steve McQueen did some foul shit, I wouldn’t give him a humanitarian award, but he’s still awesome in movies. (read the rest of this shit…)

Justified is still good

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

tn_justifiedWell, you guys know I’m not much of a TV watcher, but I have managed to keep up with JUSTIFIED, the FX show starring Timothy Olyphant as badass deputy marshall Raylan Givens, a character who originated in Elmore Leonard’s Pronto (although it’s credited to the later short story “Fire In the Hole,” since that’s what the pilot was adapted from).

This week we finally got to meet Raylan’s much referred to pops, who was a bastard as promised but luckily in a small-timer way. Some of the previous references to him made it sound like he was some international super-crook, but in this one he’s mostly an old man who smashes things with a bat. I was hoping somebody recognizable like Robert Forster or somebody would turn out to be the dad, like a surprise casting coup type deal. Instead it’s Raymond J. Barry, who is perfect. What they went for is much better than what I wished for. It’s a great character and great relationship.

My favorite episode so far was last week, though. Raylan went to L.A. after a mob accountant turned dentist played by Cameron from FERRIS BUELLER (looking alot like Anthony Bourdain these days). That was a great Elmore Leonard feel because they get you rooting for this dentist in the opening scene when he removes gold fillings from a rich asshole in the parking lot for yelling at his secretary.

Anyway, I want to point you to this article posted on elmoreleonard.com which reveals that Leonard likes the show so much he’s working on ideas to give them for season 2. Also, the comments here is a good place to discuss new episodes if you ever feel like it.

The Dream That Made Me Sell Out

Friday, April 9th, 2010

tn_rapsnacksMy friends,

You might’ve noticed there’s an Amazon.com deal over on the sidebar there. I wanted to say a few things about that.

Number one, Steven Seagal’s Lightning Bolt Energy Drink is not currently available at Amazon, nor are Dirt McGirt Sour Cream and Onion Rap Snacks (left). So you will have to get your food somewhere else.

Number two, you guys know I’ve been doing this websight for ten years now, and other than what I get for my books I don’t make any money off of it. And I’ll keep doing it for free until I die if I have to, but I figure if I ever do make some money off of it it could help me to do the day job less and spend more time on this, do a better job of striving.

(read the rest of this shit…)

Breaking news

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

pandas1Variety is reporting that, I don’t know, something about Twilight. James Cameron is gonna direct Twilight or whatever.

Oh, I can’t keep a straight face. APRIL FOOLS!

Actually the purpose of the post is to fulfill a request by “loucifer” to put up a link to that April Fool’s blog thing I put up a couple years ago. I wish I could do something like that every year, but I don’t have the time or inspiration. I worked on that thing for months and it was satirically unloading alot of the things I wanted to say about commercial movie websights and a bunch of other topics. I dare somebody to top that shit.

Anybody in North Carolina?

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

tn_actionfestYou’ve probly all read about this already but I figure it’s my duty not to ignore the existence of ACTIONFEST, “the film festival with a body count,” which is probly the first film festival dedicated just to action movies. It’s taking place April 15-18 in Asheville, North Carolina.

The websight is a little weird because it has a huge collage of movie posters for classic action movies (SHAFT, ROBOCOP, ENTER THE DRAGON, MAD MAX, BULLITT, DIE HARD, DIRTY HARRY, HARD BOILED…), not a single one of which is playing at the festival or has in the past, since this is the first one. Also they use a shot of that awesome car jump in DEAD END DRIVE-IN, which isn’t playing either. (read the rest of this shit…)

Pretty badass, as far as stickers go

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

I got some new reviews on the way, but I figure as in-between conversation material it couldn’t hurt to post links to some odd Badass Cinema related materials like that Clint Eastwood letter. Today’s item is these Japanese Charles Bronson stickers.

click to see the whole sheet
click to see the whole sheet

If anybody knows where to get ahold of some of these fuckers, let me know. I have not historically been a sticker-user but if it ever did come up I would want these to be the stickers I would use. These would be good for if you were committing a series of vigilante murders and a police officer who looked like a young Christopher Guest identified you but decided to let you go, then you would send him a thank  you card and decorate the envelope with a few of these for flair. But be careful about fingerprints in my opinion.

The Young Eastwood Chronicles

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

This websight called Letters of Note recently posted a letter they got ahold of from 24-year-old Clint Eastwood to Billy Wilder. Eastwood was trying to get the role of Charles Lindbergh in THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS and wanted to let him know that he wasn’t happy with the quality of his screen test. It’s cool because it’s so polite and modest and also shows a young man striving for the excellence that we always see him achieve seemingly so effortlessly. This was 1954, before he’d done anything, including that lab coat wearing bit part in REVENGE OF THE CREATURE.

eastwoodletter

Click on it to see the original post which is more legible and includes a transcript.

–thanks to Laird

“Shot Me In the Heart” video

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

I’ve mentioned before my love of Wax Poetics magazine. So when they email me and ask me to post the video they made for a song from their 45 series I do it. (Well, this is the first time it’s happened. But so far that’s how it’s worked.) The song is by Adrian Younge and the Black Dynamite Orchestra. You may recognize it from the original score album.

The video doesn’t have Black Dynamite in it or anything, but it continues the movie’s dedication to period authenticity and could be said to be a film that exists within the world of BLACK DYNAMITE. You may notice that it is sponsored by Converse, but in my opinion it is better than THE SPIRIT.

http://youtu.be/mZHgvCQU6G8

link

Justified

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

elmoreleonardshowsI know some of you were planning to watch that new FX show JUSTIFIED – what did you think? I thought it was a good first episode, taking advantage of that good side of Timothy Olyphant that we enjoyed in A PERFECT GETAWAY and other things, the opposite of the one that was in HITMAN. The pilot was adapted from an Elmore Leonard story that I haven’t read, and the moronic neo-nazi villains are definitely very Leonard. So we’ll have to see how much of that flavor they can retain with their original stories. But they’re definitely off to a good start with Olyphant’s character, a marshal who’s tougher and smarter than everyone around him, and who gets sent back to Kentucky after his Old West mentality causes trouble in Tampa.

Favorite conversation: when he tells the Jamaican priest about going to a Peter Tosh concert (he wasn’t into it). Favorite scene (easy): when he not only steals the neo-nazi’s shotgun and puts him back in his car, but suddenly bangs his head against the horn.

The pilot reminded me of KAREN SISCO, a surprisingly good Elmore Leonard based show they had on ABC in 2003. Sure enough both are by the same director, Michael Dinner (Mad Magazine’s hilarious parody character of DEATH WISH director Michael Winner). I thought they could never replace Jennifer Lopez as that character from OUT OF SIGHT (still my favorite Leonard movie I think, although JACKIE BROWN is a contender), but after watching a few episodes Carla Gugino became the definitive Karen Sisco for me. It helped that they had Bill Duke as her boss and Robert Forster as her dad. And they did a good job of supplying the criminal-of-the-week characters with personality.

Every time Carla Gugino has another TV show I think “hey, maybe it’ll be a hit and they’ll finally release KAREN SISCO on DVD.” But it didn’t work for THRESHOLD and whatever other shows she was on that got cancelled. So now we’ll just have to hope this one hits big and causes a demand for other Elmore Leonard TV shows. Rights holders please note that Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow directed one episode. Let’s see that DVD.

And while I’m at it I never saw that MAXIMUM BOB show either. That was supposed to be pretty good, wasn’t it?