Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Thursday, June 9th, 2005
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here… Now, of the three main editors of the Movie News of AICN, only one hasn’t seen this movie yet… Yeah, me. So, who’s the one dealing with all these spoiler-ific reviews? Yeah, me… At least I was having fun running around Chicago’s dastardly and evil O’Hare airport, missing connections and having good times while the Austin screening of BATMAN BEGINS was rolling… Anyway, this is all to say that I haven’t seen the movie. I didn’t read the script. I want there to be some surprises in the movie for me, so I haven’t read any of the below reviews. I’m sure they’re great, but I’m gonna be selfish on this one. If BB’s as good as everyone and their mother is saying it is, I want to be as fresh as possible come next week. So, be warned. There could be tons of spoilers below.
We have a couple regulars to start off. Our main man Vern and Ghostboy. Vern is first up to bat! ZING! He also has some personal information to share with his mass of fans! Enjoy!
I got two thrilling stories for you today boys. First up is my review of this new Batman picture. Second is an unrelated, earth shattering movie scoop that you have not seen on access hollywood, E.T. – The Entertainment Tonight, the Michael Jackson trial re-enactments, or any of those shows. Possibly it was in some newspaper column in a city called Rochester, but I have not confirmed that yet. Anyway enough preamble let’s get down. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, David S. Goyer, Gary Oldman, Katie Holmes, Ken Watanabe, Liam Neeson, Mark Boone Junior, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, prebootquels, Rutger Hauer, Tom Wilkinson
Posted in Action, AICN, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 15 Comments »
Wednesday, May 25th, 2005
Pretty much every day, somebody comes up to me and asks, “Vern, what in your opinion is the greatest badass ensemble cast of all time?” They expect me to go for a big cast like THE GREAT ESCAPE or THE DIRTY DOZEN. But I throw em a curve ball with the best possible answer: HELL IN THE PACIFIC. There are exactly two actors in the whole movie, and they’re Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune. That cannot be topped. The technology just doesn’t exist.
Here’s a cast that comes pretty close though: Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune and Alain Delon. I mean, that’s pretty fuckin good, right? You could argue whether or not Bronson + Delon > Marvin. But there’s other people in this movie, not just those three, and that lessens the impact. The minimalism of HELL IN THE PACIFIC is part of what makes it so great. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alain Delon, Charles Bronson, samurai, Terence Young, Toshiro Mifune, Ursula Andress
Posted in Action, Reviews, Western | 30 Comments »
Thursday, May 19th, 2005
STAR WARS PART 3: REVENGE OF THE SITHS
Here’s a couple topics I never want to hear about ever again: Star Wars started the era of the blockbuster. Star Wars was the first movie I ever saw and made me fall in love with the films of Cinema. I camped in line for thirty two days to see Star Wars. Empire Strikes Back is the greatest sequel ever made, and also better than any non-sequel ever made. George Lucas earned ten billion dollars on merchandise. I hate Ewoks. I love Jawas. (or is it the other way around.) Originally there was a part where Hans Solo shot Jabba the Hutt with a harpoon but now they changed it so a robot bit Luke Skywalker on the leg. George Lucas ruined my life. I have a tattoo of Hans Solo. I had all the star wars dolls now they are worth one hundred and sixty two dollars on E-bay if somebody would buy them, which they wouldn’t. The first time I ever jerked off was to Princess Leah in a metal bikini. I have nightmares about the part where Jar Jar stepped in space shit. George Lucas touched my childhood in the bathing suit area. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christopher Lee, Ewan McGregor, George Lucas, Hayden Christensen, Jimmy Smits, Natalie Portman, Samuel L. Jackson
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 9 Comments »
Friday, May 13th, 2005
(or DANNY THE DOG if you’re in Europe)
This is just your typical martial arts vehicle where the star (in this case Jet Li) has been raised like an animal in a cage and wears a collar and he’s trained by Bob Hoskins so that when the collar comes off he goes ape shit and beats the holy living fuck out of people that owe Bob Hoskins money. But then obviously he meets a blind piano tuner played by a respected Oscar winning actor (in this case Morgan Freeman) who teaches him about music and then the piano tuner’s stepdaughter teaches him to eat ice cream and then she gets her braces taken off so he becomes non-violent and refuses to fight in high stakes death matches.
Actually come to think of it this is not a typical martial arts movie at all, it’s pretty fuckin weird and that’s what I liked about it. Despite HERO I’m still pretty skeptical of new Jet Li movies, especially when he’s speaking the english type language. This is a good not great movie, but it’s a great move for Mr. Li because he plays a distinct character, he really gets to act, he fights in a different style and he even gets to put a sincere anti-violence message in there. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bob Hoskins, Jet Li, Louis Leterrier, Luc Besson, Morgan Freeman, Pierre Morel, Scott Adkins, Yuen Woo-Ping
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Romance, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Sunday, May 8th, 2005
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with everybody’s favorite outlaw, Vern, a bloke that has a certain way about him… a certain quality in his written adoration of action stars and their direct-to-video adventures. I can’t get enough of this guy. You tell me Steven Seagal or Van Damme or now Snipes has a new direct-to-video actioneer out I don’t think I’d bother to read the whole title, but damned if I wouldn’t read a 2,000 word review on it if it were written by Vern. I have a feeling that Vern’s reviews (negative or positive) are better than most movies he’s reviewing. Anyway, here’s the man himself. Enjoy!
Dear Quint –
Or whoever’s home. I got an important dispatch for you from direct-to-video land. This one is regarding one called 7 SECONDS which I only care about because it stars Wesley God Damn Snipes.
That’s right, Wesley’s gone DTV. This is actually his second. The first one was called UNSTOPPABLE which is a good title for a Wesley Snipes film, except in that one his character really was pretty stoppable. Or at least nobody was really trying to stop him from doing anything, as far as I could tell.
[Before I go any further, I want to say upfront that this is gonna be an essay about Wesley Snipes as much as a review of 7 SECONDS. So I don’t want to see any wiseasses asking where the review is. But I probaly will.] (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, Simon Fellows, Wesley Snipes
Posted in Action, AICN, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 4th, 2005
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with Vern, at his hilarious best when picking apart Steven Seagal’s hilarious worst… Below, Vern pitches a new Seagal masterpiece to the studios, shames New Line for changing the title of SNAKES ON A PLANE and coins the term “Avid fart” which is brilliant. Enjoy!
Boys–
I wish I could review a new Steve Seagal picture for you fellas every day, but unfortunately he only comes out with them every 5 months. Looks like you ran my review of INTO THE SUN (click to read Vern’s comments on that particular movie) last New Year’s Eve, and now after nearly half a year of stumbling through life an empty shell, going through the motions, a movie called SUBMERGED will end the drought later this month. Harry, I assume we’ll be seeing this one on your DVD preview. You got fuckin SPLASH and NATIONAL TREASURE on there man I don’t see how you can justify dismissing this one. Not that I’m recommending this piece of shit, except to the most dedicated Seagalogists. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Hickox, DTV, Gary Daniels, Seagalogy, Steven Seagal, Vinnie Jones
Posted in Action, AICN, Reviews, Seagal | 7 Comments »
Friday, April 29th, 2005
When Rob Cohen, the director of the original XXX first talked about a sequel, it was still gonna star Vin Diesel. And I read some interview where he said one of the ideas he had took place in Washington DC, and it would have a scene where Vin rode a mountain bike up the capital dome.
Well it’s a low down shame we didn’t get to see that but otherwise XXX2 (which ended up being made with Ice Cube instead of Diesel and Lee Tamahori instead of Cohen) is more fun than the first one in almost every way. I’m not saying it’s a good action movie or even a great bad movie, but as an honest individual who tells it like it is I gotta cop to enjoying the fuckin thing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ice Cube, Lee Tamahori, Samuel L. Jackson, Scott Speedman, Simon Kinberg, Willem Dafoe, Xzibit
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 11 Comments »
Friday, April 22nd, 2005
Under the opening credits you got these beautiful shots of small town life. Some tractors moving around. Some people working. Interesting looking old dudes watching suspiciously out screen doors.
I figured it was just a regular day in farm country until the end of the sequence when the two huge bulldozers lowered their shovels right next to each other, making a giant, shallow v-shape right in the middle of the highway. A roadblock.
I guess that explains all these media people and cops showing up right in the middle of nowhere. The natives stand around and watch. This might be the end of a long journey, at the beginning of the movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: car chases, Charlotte Rampling, Cleavon Little, Richard C. Sarafian
Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Sunday, April 17th, 2005
In this movie Christopher Walken plays Frank White who is the King of New York. He is not literally a king but actually some sort of crime boss of New York. He’s fresh out of the joint and unlike certain heroic individuals who choose to turn their life around and follow a path of Positivity, making the world a better place through art and culture, he decides to be king of new york. But he says he’s gonna build a hospital so that makes it okay.
The director is Abel Ferrara, an asshole director who I sort of like. I mean I never met the guy obviously but he’s one of those greaseballs like Vincent Gallo where, before you even see an interview with the guy, you just get the feeling he’s an asshole. In his movie DRILLER KILLER I didn’t even realize he was the star (he used a pseudonym) and I kept thinking this star really thinks he’s hot shit, it’s not just the character. What a fuckin asshole. But then I listened to the commentary track and heard Ferrara say the same exact thing about himself. So I had to like him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abel Ferrara, Christopher Walken, David Caruso, Giancarlo Esposito, Laurence Fishburne, Paul Calderon, Roger Guenveur Smith, Steve Buscemi, Theresa Randle, Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 13th, 2005
In this one Bruce plays a cop from a long line of cops. Which of course means his uncle is played by Dennis Farina. You also got John Mahoney as his dad and Tom Sizemore and Robert Pastorelli as his knucklehead cousins. All cops. Sarah Jessica Parker is the love interest, also a cop but not related, so they can fuck in one part. The movie takes place in Pittsburgh and I guess they even got local people to work on the movie, because I recognized the editor’s name, Pasquale Buba, from watching DAWN OF THE DEAD a thousand times. The director also has a familiar name, Mr. Rowdy Herrington of ROADHOUSE fame.
Unfortunately the bad guy is a serial killer – always a bummer. Terrorists and robbers and CIA agents are a good time a the movies, but some asshole that gets a boner tying up women? Not really as fun, in my opinion. Anyway they keep getting real close to catching the fucker, even chase him in a good over-the-top car chase at the beginning. I mean there’s a pretty serious maneuver the killer pulls when completely surrounded. Excellent use of the extreme Y-turn.(The new rule is, always put the best action scene at the very beginning.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce, Bruce Willis, Joe Pantoliano, Rowdy Herrington, Sarah Jessica Parker
Posted in Action, Bruce, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | 3 Comments »
