Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
Well, shit. I’ve had this review done, but I was letting it sit and simmer or something. Or being too lazy to send it in. But now poor Isaac Hayes has died, so I better address that. Black Moses isn’t shown on the cover or in the trailer for this upcoming Steven Seagal DTV event, and that’s fair because he’s barely in it. But Hayes does in fact appear in a few scenes as “Coroner.” Seagal’s homicide detective character is buddies with Isaac, so Isaac is pretty liberal with letting him check the dead bodies for clues. I call him Isaac because that appears to be his name – Seagal’s character refers to him as “Is” (or “Eyes”). My theory was that Hayes was playing himself and that this is what he’s been doing in Memphis since quitting that snot-nosed cartoon you guys are so fanatic about. But maybe not.
At the time I thought it was cool to see Isaac Hayes in a Seagal movie. He did so many types of B-movies, from TRUCK TURNER to UNCLE SAM, it was about time he showed up in a Seagal picture. But now it’s kind of sad because really he doesn’t do anything in the movie, it’s too bad they didn’t give him a better role. I hope Seagal at least got out the guitar on set and got Isaac to sing “Walk On By” or something. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, Seagalogy
Posted in Action, AICN, Reviews, Seagal | 6 Comments »
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
Racially questionable double feature:
John Ford’s PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND
and
Karl Armstrong’s NINJA VENGEANCE
(bear with me here)
After my recent Lincoln assassination phase (which mostly just consisted of reading Manhunt by James L. Swanson) I found out about this PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND movie. It’s about Samuel Mudd, the doctor who treated the leg John Wilkes Booth broke by jumping out of the balcony after shooting Lincoln (fuckin ham). Mudd was convicted as part of the conspiracy but instead of being hung he was sent to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. He tried to escape once, but failed, and had to stay in a dungeon for a while. But when a brutal yellow fever outbreak killed the prison doctor, Mudd agreed to take over and won the approval of 300 soldiers in the fort, who signed a petition for him to be pardoned. Sure enough he was later pardoned by Andrew Johnson. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, ninjas
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, August 4th, 2008
I’ve been sort of looking forward to this new STARSHIP TROOPERS, and if you got a problem with that too bad because I’ve gotten enough “are you gonna review Starship Troopers 3?” emails to know that we can take you. Ed Neumeier takes over as director this time, which means the satirical tone remains since this is the guy who wrote all three STARSHIP TROOPERS as well as ROBOCOP. And, uh, ANACONDAS: THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID. I didn’t know that, I just found that out on IMDB. Hmmm. I had not considered watching that one. This changes everything. This could be the big one.
If you saw STARSHIP TROOPERS 2: HERO OF THE FEDERATION you may or may not remember that it was pretty different from the first one. They scaled it down for DTV, making it into mostly a one-location siege kind of story and incorporating smaller bugs that implant themselves in people’s brains or something. The good part is it was directed by the effects legend Phil Tippett so it ended up having the best effects I’ve seen in a DTV movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Australian cinema, Casper Van Dien, DTV, DTV sequels, giant crocodiles, Sam Worthington
Posted in Action, AICN, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 31 Comments »
Sunday, July 27th, 2008
Recently I was discussing the upcoming James Bond movie with some buddies. I was joking that the trailer should say “from the director of FINDING NEVERLAND.” That dude’s movies are all over the map, but nothing ever hinted that he would end up directing a 007 movie. One of my buddies said that it didn’t really matter that he didn’t do action because usually the action in Bond movies is shot by a second unit guy named Vic Armstrong.
(I looked it up, and Armstrong actually hasn’t worked on the Daniel Craig ones, but he was stunt coordinator and/or 2nd unit director for DIE ANOTHER DAY, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, TOMORROW NEVER DIES and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN and stunt double for 3 other Bond movies.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Al Leong, Dolph Lundgren, DTV, Geoffrey Lewis, George Segal, Ken Foree, Nick Chinlund, Steven Pressfield, Vic Armstrong
Posted in Action, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
DELTA HEAT is a somewhat entertaining buddy movie from ’92. It’s kind of like RUSH HOUR but instead of Chris Tucker as a wiseass LA cop it’s Anthony Edwards as a wiseass LA cop, and instead of Jackie Chan as a Hong Kong inspector it’s Lance Henriksen as a crazy ex-cop New Orleans swamp rat. And instead of doing kung fu he has a hook hand (bitten by a gator, of course). Actually it’s kind of like RUSH HOUR 2 but instead of going to Hong Kong they go to New Orleans.
Edwards gets into town just in time to find out that his par†ner who got there before him is already dead and even got his heart cut out. So so far this investigation is not going well. They had followed a “designer drug” to its source which, according to the partner in his last payphone call, was a guy named Antoine something. Turns out the name belongs to a killer who Henriksen burned alive the same day he got bit by that gator and decided to leave the force. So Edwards is sent to him for tips and after the customary period of buddy rejection they team up to solve the case. Lance cuts his swamp dreadlocks and rejoins society with a leather jacket on his back and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Lance Henriksen
Posted in Action, Reviews | No Comments »
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
I got an email from Scott L. requesting a review of THE DARK KNIGHT, because he’s seen all these HYPERBOLIC!!!!!!!! reviews that have been springing up on all the websights and thought I might be a good outsider perspective to temper his expectations. I was happy to oblige because I liked the BATMAN BEGINS movie so I was already planning to see this one at a midnight show with a bunch of kids dressed up as the joker and jacked up on Monster and Mountain Dew High Voltage.
This story is about Batman, the caped vigilante of Gotham City, who is trying to stop some crime. There are many other characters such as Bruce Wayne, etc. I won’t give away who is Batman because I’m gonna try not to have spoilers. Also if you were a little confused because “Batman” is not in the title you are not alone. I kept wondering “is this a Batman movie?” Pretty weird. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christian Bale
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 112 Comments »
Monday, July 14th, 2008
Here’s a VHS only action piece from director William Lustig, who I got some respect for due to the sleazy horror movie MANIAC and the badass Robert Forster revenge thriller VIGILANTE. (whoah, I never realized how similar those two titles are.) This one is closer to VIGILANTE although it was a work-for-hire deal for Lustig and not his usual New York-based independent filmmaking.
Basically this is the story of a regular guy whose kid is mistakenly kidnapped and he tries to get him back. I thought because of the title that he would have a list of people to get revenge on, but really he’s just going after this one guy who has his kid. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Jan-Michael Vincent, Lance Henriksen, revenge, William Lustig
Posted in Action, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Take one part THE MATRIX, one part FIGHT CLUB, two parts THE MATRIX, one part EQUILIBRIUM (one part THE MATRIX, one part straight to video), and one part THE MATRIX, but not as good, and you have the new motion picture WANTED. James Macavoy (the British Zach Braff) plays an unhappy office drone who out of the blue has his world turned upside down when a super hot asskicking gun babe in leather tells him he’s destined to be a super warrior and whisks him off to a secret organization of gun-obsessed rebels who teach him how to bend reality, do super gun tricks and martial arts in various showoffy camera-rotating slo-mo special effects action sequences, killing enemies without feeling bad because they have complete faith in the righteousness of their mission.
But there’s no computer world involved so on second thought this is not at all like THE MATRIX in any way. I doubt these filmatists even know about THE MATRIX. This is probaly one of those “yeah, people told me afterwards it was like THE MATRIX, but honestly I never heard of it, it’s just a weird coincidence” type deals. Plus Morgan Freeman plays Morpheus instead of Laurence Fishburne. Totally different. 100% new and original creation.
Okay, I have to admit that I somewhat enjoyed this dumb ass movie, but I think I’m still within my rights as an action fan to bust its movie balls, because there are rules. Once again I must refer to my “action movies are like the blues” comparison. In the blues there are traditions, there are standards, you don’t have to be shockingly original, you can follow a traditional sound and then put your own spin on it, express yourself from within that framework. But you don’t blatantly copy one specific person’s unique style. You don’t copy Jimi Hendrix’s approach to blues, for example, or if Muddy Waters’ ‘Electric Mud’ had caught on you would’ve looked like an asshole if all the sudden you came out with your acid rock blues album. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, matrixy, Morgan Freeman, Timur Bekmambatov
Posted in Action, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Monday, June 16th, 2008
Listen up Hulkamaniacs –
This new Hulk remake/sequel/do-over/all new adventure starts out with an opening credits montage of flashbacks and headlines to explain his Incredible origin. It’s like the opening to a TV show, setting up what you need to know. So I’m gonna do a TV show opening for this review to: I don’t know the comic strips, vaguely remember the TV show, still love the Ang Lee movie no matter what you say, but was open to and kind of excited about the notion of the goofball director of fucking TRANSPORTER 2 taking over to do the flip side of that coin.
But I got a little worried when I read that Edward Norton had rewritten the script. Uh oh. That means he thinks he’s making the serious Hulk movie. Did he not know about the Ang Lee one? I think he did, because I read that he turned it down. I guess he regretted that maybe. It’s true, Louis Letterier is not in TRANSPORTER 2 mode here. He’s more in DANNY THE DOG aka UNLEASHED mode: a movie with elements of crazy action fun, but that is trying really hard to be a serious drama. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cyril Raffaelli, Edward Norton, Hulk, Louis Letterier
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 13 Comments »
Monday, June 9th, 2008
MY SUMMER VACATION IN THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
or
AH, FUCK IT, LET’S GET THIS OUT IN THE OPEN: I LIKED INDIANA JONES AND THE LEGEND OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLS, AND I DON’T REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT EVERYBODY IS GRIPING ABOUT
Last July this thing happened called TRANSFORMERS. It was one of the biggest movies of that summer, but I thought it was a terrible one. My main problems were the characters, the story, the comedy, the action sequences, and (this is a first for me) especially the design of the characters. The CGI characters were so overcomplicated and indistinguishable from each other that they actually made Michael Bay’s notorious camera placement and editing beside the point, because even if it was two robots in front of a stationary camera in one continuous shot you still might not have any clue which one is which, what they’re doing or which direction they’re facing. That’s actually the biggest problem of many big problems in the movie and I’m pretty sure it’s a cinematic first – using the latest technology, Michael Bay invented a completely new way for a movie to suck. So I figured it was a bad, bad movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Steven Spielberg, summer movies
Posted in Action, Reviews | 86 Comments »
