Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Saturday, April 9th, 2005
DONALD WESTLAKE DOUBLE FEATURE:
THE HOT ROCK and THE STEPFATHER
Most of you fuckers probaly think Donald E. Westlake is just the creator of your precious Father Dowling Mysteries*, but actually he’s got a whole big resume behind him. In fact, in these parts he’s more famous as Richard Stark. I’m not sure which one is the real guy and which one is the alter ego but Richard Stark is the hard motherfucker who wrote the Parker books I love so much. Twenty Parker novels so far and also four about Parker’s part-time actor, part-time thief associate Grofield. Stark’s books inspired POINT BLANK, PAYBACK and several not as memorable but pretty good movies. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Garfield, Donald Westlake, George Segal, Joseph Ruben, Moses Gunn, Peter Yates, Robert Redford, Terry O'Quinn
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Crime, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Friday, April 1st, 2005
There’s alot of comic strip books turned into movies but usually they Hollywood em up alot. They change the story and the super hero clothes and turn brits into americans and alot of the fans are fundamentalists so they get pretty upset. Batman doesn’t have nipples because bats don’t have nipples, Super-man isn’t supposed to wear that shade of blue it is actually a different shade of blue, that kind of thing.
So what Robert Rodriguez did for this comic strip SIN CITY, he actually brought in the writer/cartoonist from the comic, made him co-director, and apparently pretty much used the comic as storyboards and script. He used his cool digital movie cameras and convinced a great cast to come in and fuck around in front of green screens and used computers for almost all the backgrounds. According to my team of expert nerds, there are scenes and lines from the funny pages that they cut out here and there and they mixed things together a little bit at the beginning in order to combine three stories into one. But for the most part the shots are based on the drawings and everything written on the page is said out loud in the movie. An obsessive level of faithfulness never thought possible even by Harry Knowles himself. Maybe the most faithful movie adaptation of anything ever, including plays, novels and trading cards. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Bruce, Bruce Willis, Carla Gugino, Clive Owen, Frank Miller, green screen, Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Robert Rodriguez
Posted in Action, Bruce, Comic strips/Super heroes, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2005
starring Bruce Willis
So let’s say instead of being John McClane or somebody, Bruce was Joe Hallenbeck, a washed up, slightly overweight, cigarette loving, booze-sucking, wife-and-daughter-arguing, disgraced secret service agent turned low-life asshole private detective. Also, for the sake of argument, let’s say that Damon Wayans is Hallenbeck’s one-time favorite football player but his career was ruined in a gambling scandal and now he’s a drug addict dating a stripper (Academy Award winner Halle Berry, in a step up from her role as a crack ho in JUNGLE FEVER) who Hallenbeck was hired to protect by his former friend who he just found out was screwing his wife then saw get blown up by a car bomb and now Halle Berry has been murdered because she knew too much about a football team owner trying to blackmail a senator that Hallenbeck used to protect but punched out because he was torturing women and now they’re trying to legalize gambling. Also I forgot to mention that Hallenbeck once saved the president’s life, and some dudes are gonna set off a bomb at the football game, and there was this fucked up part at the beginning where an NFL player pulled out a gun on the field and started shooting everybody then said “Ain’t life a bitch?” (to be or not to be, that is the question) and blew his brains out. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce, Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans, Shane Black, Tony Scott
Posted in Action, Bruce, Comedy/Laffs, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | 14 Comments »
Monday, March 14th, 2005
Legend has it that the times we’re in create the movies we watch. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes subconsciously. I mean who the fuck knows how it happens but the fears and the turbulence and the shittiness of troubled times somehow soaks into the celluloid and poisons the screen. So Vietnam and racial unrest soaked into the PLANET OF THE APES pictures, for example. The atomic age bred giant crabs, Hiroshima gave birth to Godzilla, Ronald Reagan caused ROCKY 4 and RED DAWN, AIDS made THE FLY.
Well, HOSTAGE is not a political movie but it is a Bruce Willis action thriller for the fucked up age we are currently being sat on by. In the DIE HARD pictures he fought terrorists, so now that terrorism is more of a realistic threat, he’s going back to fighting criminals again. But because it’s the Bush era, this is a dark, ugly, sometimes gorey thriller. A story about a bunch of psychotic, sadistic, greedy assholes terrorizing each other, and all the rest of us who get caught in the middle. A movie that wears a mask and has your wife and daughter tied and gagged in the back of a van and forces you to break your moral code and risk your life to get what it wants. It’s a real intense, well made thriller but what I’m saying is, this is 2005. Don’t expect to get blown through the back wall of the theater and have a good time and all that. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Foster, Bruce, Bruce Willis, Florent Emilio Siri, Kevin Pollak, Rumer Willis
Posted in Action, Bruce, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 12 Comments »
Saturday, March 12th, 2005
Hey folks, Harry here… I should rename Vern, Gunga Din, cuz with what he watches and writes about… he’s a braver man than I am. Case in point. WILD THINGS 3. Behold…
Dear Blue Bay P.D.:
Please stop me before I kill again.
No, just kiddin bud, actually I am writing to warn you guys about a growing threat to your wealthy Florida community: a new breed of scheming young nubile con artists known as “wild things.” There have been at least six of these wild things wreaking havoc in your area to date and could be more on the way if you’re not careful.
These wild things first hit spectacularly in 1998 and in two less inspired copycat cases since. Don’t worry though, they should be easy to catch if you would start paying attention. I’ll give you the profile for typical wild things to help you out. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, DTV sequels, sequel
Posted in Action, AICN, Drama, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 24th, 2005
Hey folks, Harry here with another wondrous piece from the mangod we collectively worship named Vern. This time, he’s tracked down a sequel to John Carpenter’s VAMPIRES. Now I love that film. That came out back in Europe back when I had crazy PLANET HOLLYWOOD writing money – and I flew to Paris just to see it cuz it looked as if it was going to end up butchered in the U.S. Great trip, and had a wonderful time with the film. “That’s it padre, FUCK WITH EM!” Heh. Let’s see what Vern thinks of the sequel…
ATT.: HARRY DEPT.
RE: VAMPIRES: THE TURNING
Warning: this is a long and overly detailed review of a straight to video sequel to VAMPIRES. Do not read.
It all started in 1998, in the Mexican desert. A Vatican sanctioned SWAT team of ultra-macho, leather jacket wearing vampire slayers faced down a Euro-trash “master vampire,” wiped out his nest and shut down a prophecy. Much shit was talked, at least one innocent naked woman was degraded, many many heads were cut off, and quite a few vampires were dragged screaming by tow cables into the desert sun. JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES is a sleazy, amoral good time, maybe his most underrated, and definitely his most successful mix of western and horror. And gorey. I remember one scene, the master vampire crashed a hotel party full of drunken vampire slayers and jiggling whores, walked right up to Mark Boone Junior and tore him in half using one hand. Much fun was had by all. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, DTV sequels, Roger Yuan, vampires
Posted in Action, AICN, Horror, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
Hey folks, Harry here in my geek recovery ward. Been getting a lot of reviews of CONSTANTINE in and it seems the more familiar with the comic the reviewer is, the more they dislike the film. Personally – other than seeing a lot of the covers, I’ve never been a big HELLBLAZER reader, and I found myself liking the film quite a bit. Almost exacly like Vern here, only less literate. Here he is…. on your knees, for he speaks…
Dear Harry,
Here is a review of a movie I saw starring Keanu Reeves (guy from the Matrixes)
Okay, first I got a warning for some of you comic strip wise guys out there. If you like the comic strip this movie is based on, DON’T WATCH THE MOVIE. It’s just not worth it, man. You’re gonna be mad because, according to my sources, in the comic strip the dude is British, and even if he wasn’t British, he wouldn’t be Keanu Reeves. Hey man I’m a purist too sometimes, I understand this. I’d be pissed if they made DIE HARD into a comic strip, but they got John McClane wearing shoes or something. Or playing a guitar. It’s gonna be hard to get past what they did here so forget it man, save your time, save the stress. Go get a massage or something. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Djimon Hounsou, Francis Lawrence, Keanu Reeves, Peter Stormare, Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf, Tilda Swinton
Posted in Action, AICN, Comic strips/Super heroes, Horror, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Friday, February 11th, 2005
I always dug the Billy Jack pictures. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re low budget independent movies about a half white/half native ex green beret badass with hippie values. He and his wife (the director and producer of the movies, respectively) run “The Freedom School” where they teach kids to be themselves and stand up for minorities and strum guitars and crap. Billy Jack lives one of those lives where, you know, he’s always out trying to ride a horse or a jeep or something, just minding his own business, but inevitably he’s gonna see some racist assholes picking on an indian or some rapist assholes picking on a girl or something along those lines. And he’s gonna walk over quietly and interject himself into the situation. This sometimes means beating some ass, but also sometimes means getting his own ass beaten and ending up in jail. But the important thing is he stands up for the downtrodden. That’s his primary interest and hobby, I guess. He stands up to rich kids, corrupt cops, even the energy industry in the last one, Billy Jack Goes to Washington, where he becomes Senator Billy Jack and makes his stand in an exciting filibuster climax.
(if you REALLY haven’t heard of Billy Jack you probaly assumed that last part was a joke, so I should make it clear that it is not.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: bikers, Tom Laughlin
Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Friday, February 4th, 2005
As you know I have a professional interest in the old B-action pictures. I like your Seagals, your Swayzes, and your etceteras. That’s why somebody asked me Vern, do you know about this guy Brian Bosworth though. I said are you kidding me? Let me answer your question with a question. Did I live in Seattle in the year 1987? Of course I know who the damn Boz is. He was on the Seahawks and the local media acted like he was Jesus Christ Hisself, coming down from Heaven with a sacramental football and a new haircut. The haircut of course was a bleach blond mullet with designs shaved on the side, sometimes a full color Seahawks logo. It was called the Boz cut. I guess you could say he was the Dennis Rodman of his time. Known for his calculated outrageous fashion and In Your Face Attitude, he was a phenomenon with the kids. The white Mr. T. People copied the haircut, they had pro and anti Boz t-shirts, they even had this poster that said “Land of Boz” and showed him going down the yellow brick road with a bunch of kids dressed as him (Bozkins, probaly). He was a real big fuckin deal for all us retards here in Seattle.
Only one problem was, he never played that good. He kept getting injured and retired after three seasons. But his career was insured so he got rich off it all. After that score he figured, what the hell, maybe you can pull this same shit off in movies. Moved to L.A. and made STONE COLD. And it should’ve been obvious just from that background that this was gonna be a real good bad action movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Bosworth, Craig R. Baxley, The Boz, William Forsythe
Posted in Action, Reviews | 20 Comments »
Thursday, January 6th, 2005
but not the John Woo one though
this one is 1972, aka L’INSOLENT
Sometimes in a man’s life a man finds an oversized vhs box with a weird painting of Henry Silva jumping out at him holding a gun. If you’re not familiar with Mr. Silva, he is the scary mafia don in GHOST DOG, the scary crooked CIA guy in Seagal’s ABOVE THE LAW, etc. He’s one of those guys, if he shows up in a movie, you know he’s a fuckin bad guy. Because you have eyes. That’s all you need to figure this guy out.
So I was surprised to find out that when he was younger he didn’t look quite as scary. I mean sure, he looks like a bad guy, but that whole thing improved with age. In this one he almost looks like Chevy Chase, if his head grew bigger literally instead of figuratively. Or maybe he is like the evil android of Wayne Newton. I don’t know. Still, he’s a cold motherfucker and from beginning to end he doesn’t have a kind thought or a moment of hesitation. He’s got his eye on the prize, the prize being to get all the money and fuck everybody else over without a look back. Because he’s Henry Silva. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Henry Silva
Posted in Action, Reviews | No Comments »
