Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Tuesday, March 8th, 2016
In REDEEMER, Marko Zaror plays The Redeemer, a mysterious, drifting avenger with a thing for Catholicism. He used to be a cartel hitman, now he’s fulfilling a big time penance. He’s got a full back tattoo of the crucifixion, carries a portable altar and various idols and penants of the saints, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wears socks sewn out of a corner of the Shroud of Turin. For 95% of the movie he keeps the hood of either his sweatshirt or his jacket up. It’s not raining, so I think it’s to make him look like a monk. And every day he kneels and does a prayer ritual. The weird part of it is when he rubs a bullet with a scorpion painted on it against his forehead, then plays Russian roulette. Kind of a quirky thing to do every single day, right? I guess maybe that’s a thing though. I wouldn’t know, I was raised Presbyterian.
Anyway this individual The Redeemer is wandering through Chile on foot when he comes across some jerks beating up a fisherman. He watches for a while before he saves the guy. He’s real good with guns, but he’s Marko Zaror, so he’s also got some incredible kicks and punches. By rescuing the guy and taking shelter in the nearby home of a single mother they all end up involved in the man’s troubles: he found a bunch of money in his fishing net, he took it, it turned out to belong to gangsters, they are not real understanding about it. So The Redeemer and friends hide in a cave while he broods and prays and doesn’t talk and makes plans to clear all this up.
Plan A: Get the gangsters to promise no harm in exchange for their money back.
Plan B: Kill them all and use the money for the mom’s kid’s operation. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chile, Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, Marko Zaror, Noah Segan
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 14 Comments »
Monday, March 7th, 2016
LONDON HAS FALLEN is the sequel to 2013’s OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, that one where Gerard Butler (GODS OF EGYPT) plays Secret Service agent Mike Banning, protecting President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart, I FRANKENSTEIN) when the White House is attacked. It is not to be confused with WHITE HOUSE DOWN, the one where it’s Channing Tatum protecting Jamie Foxx.
Who am I fooling though? I get them confused so much I sincerely mixed up the titles when I wrote the first draft of this review in my notebook, and when I fixed it I started to type OLYMPUS DOWN. I was thinking I’d found the Tatum one to be the more passable 2013 half-assed excuse for a DIE HARD rip-off, but then I went to the tape. My review of that one is a little harsher, and ends by saying “If you see only one UNDER SIEGE IN THE WHITE HOUSE movie this year, see… ah, who gives a shit? Nobody will remember either of these movies a year from now. Of the two I think I preferred OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN. I forget why though. Something about Melissa Leo?”
In my day a movie had to excite somebody’s imagination to get a sequel. Now it just hast to be the one of two similar bad movies that gets more money because it came out first. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron Eckhart, Alon Aboutboul, Angela Bassett, Babak Najafi, Gerard Butler, Jackie Earle Haley, Melissa Leo, Morgan Freeman, Radha Mitchell, Robert Forster
Posted in Action, Reviews | 128 Comments »
Tuesday, March 1st, 2016
“This film is one I refused not to make.” –Jamaa Fanaka
STREET WARS is a 1992 movie about drug gangs, with a rap soundtrack, but it feels more like blaxploitation than BOYZ N THE HOOD. That’s because it’s, as the credits say, “A Jamaa Fanaka Picture Show.” That’s the director best known for the PENITENTIARY trilogy, but before that he did some weird blaxploitation movies like the killer dick picture SOUL VENGEANCE, aka WELCOME HOME, BROTHER CHARLES. So here he kinda takes the themes of SUPER FLY and stirs them into early ’90s black culture with some of his own weird seasonings.
It definitely falls into the outsider art type category. The awkward home-made filmatism combines with some truly strange ideas to create a surreal experience, a movie that transcends competence. The climax really doesn’t work as action or drama, but it’s so weird I forgave it. The shootouts are always confusing but enthusiastic. There are guns that blow soccer ball sized holes in the sides of cars, and send victims flying through the air looking suspiciously like dummies being sloppily tossed from off screen. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Wone, blaxploitation, Bryan O'Dell, Clifford Shegog, Jamaa Fanaka
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Monday, February 29th, 2016
DEADPOOL is a smart-ass, hard-R super hero revenge movie for the 14 year old boy in every man, woman and child. The feature directing debut of FX artist Tim Miller (who designed the opening credits for Fincher’s THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO) has show-offy digital camera moves, fourth-wall-breaking narration, meta and self-referential humor, frequent jokes about dildos and other things going up butts, gun fetishism, jerking off, juvenile homophobic name-calling like “cockgobbler,” and is convinced that it’s hilarious to know the names of different gross sex acts and talk about doing them with old ladies. Sounds exactly like a Neveldine/Taylor style headache. But I really enjoyed it.
I saw commenters here predicting I would hate DEADPOOL like I did KICK-ASS. I understand the comparison, but here’s why I think it’s different: it has a different personality. Both are trying to push buttons with foul-mouthed costumed characters going overboard with the violence and seeming real proud of themselves for it, but to me KICK-ASS seems like it’s trying to shock and outrage some hypothetical prudes and squares that would never watch the movie anyway, while DEADPOOL seems like it’s trying to win everybody over with its obnoxious charm. There are tons of childish jokes in the movie that didn’t make me laugh, but they felt less like jokes failing and more like me smiling and shaking my head at a dipshit friend trying to make me uncomfortable to amuse himself. And the X-Men seem to feel kind of the same. He’s basically a bad guy but they keep going easy on him because they want him to be a good guy. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brianna Hildebrand, Ed Skrein, Gina Carano, Junkie XL, Marvel Comics, Morena Baccarin, Paul Wernick, R-rated comic book movie, Rhett Reese, Ryan Reynolds, Stefan Kapicic, T.J. Miller, Tim Miller, X-Men
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 56 Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2016
A great historical epic could be made about the Tuskegee airmen, the all black squadron of American fighter pilots in WWII. That’s what George Lucas thought back in ’88 when he started developing RED TAILS. He put together a script that he compared to LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (or NED OF ARABIA to Young Indiana Jones), a three-parter about their training, then their heroic battles, and then coming home to a racist country and Jim Crow laws that don’t give a shit that they’re heroes.
Eventually he decided that was too much for one movie and, like with STAR WARS, chose the middle chapter to focus on. But he also decided that he didn’t want it to be serious grown up drama. He thought it could be a fun movie for black teenagers. It’s an approach he had trouble selling to director Anthony Hemingway (The Wire), but even more to critics, who rejected the movie wholesale, often with some shaming about the movie they thought it should’ve been. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron McGruder, Andre Royo, Anthony Hemingway, Bryan Cranston, Cuba Gooding Jr., David Oyelowo, Elijah Kelley, George Lucas, John Ridley, Lucas Minus Star Wars, Method Man, Michael B. Jordan, Nate Parker, Ne-Yo, Terrence Howard, Tristan Wilds, WWII
Posted in Action, Reviews, War | 6 Comments »
Thursday, February 11th, 2016
BANGKOK REVENGE is a story about, yes, some type of revenge that takes place in or near Bangkok. It starts out almost like a Thailand-set remix of HARD TO KILL where the good cop attacked by the corrupt cops is not that hard to kill, he dies instead of going into a coma, so it’s his son who has to set things straight years later. The kid, Manit, got shot in the head, but he survived, and like Sonny Storm (or the Skywalker twins) he was hidden away from the bad guys. In this case it’s a kind nurse who sneaks him to a friend who, reluctantly at first, gives him shelter and martial arts training.
Actually, at this point it switches to KICKBOXER. Young Manit trains on roped posts and hanging coconuts, aging to adulthood (and the actor Jon Foo) during a montage. They even do the scene where the teacher takes him to a bar and convinces a bunch of toughs that he talked smack about them so he’ll have to fight them off. The fight is done in an interesting, partially successful handheld POV type approach. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Caroline Ducey, Jon Foo, Thailand
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, February 10th, 2016
or OUTLAW VERN AND THE ENJOYMENT OF THE FORBIDDEN SEQUEL
“What exactly am I being accused of besides surviving a nuclear blast?”
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL is the one movie in this Lucas Minus Star Wars survey that I actually reviewed on its original theatrical release, so you can see what I wrote about it at the time. I had already picked up on everybody hating it, but didn’t realize it would become one of those movies that is only ever brought up as an example of what is wrong with George Lucas, Hollywood, America, capitalism, technology, civilization, human life, etc. When people mention it they have to spit, like Indy when he mentions Victoriano Huerta in the movie. It is a universally agreed upon milestone in the degradation of our culture and past.
Well, almost universally. I really liked it at the time, as you can see. But it’s been a few years, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I encountered someone who thought it was any good. Watching it now, maybe I could finally be one of them. One of the beautiful people. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cate Blanchett, David Koepp, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Jeff Nathanson, John Hurt, Karen Allen, Lucas Minus Star Wars, Ray Winstone, Shia LaBeouf, Steven Spielberg
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 170 Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2016
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was an ABC TV show that ran from 1992-1993. I never saw an episode. I still haven’t, because the version that’s on video is called The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones and it’s re-edited. According to legend (as well as Wikipedia) the Chronicles were hour long episodes about Indiana Jones as a young man having adventures and/or chronicles in different exotic locations. The stories would jump around in time, so sometimes it would be Sean Patrick Flanery (BOONDOCK SAINTS) as teen/early-twenties Indy, sometimes it would be Corey Carrier (school band cymbal player in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK) as 8-10 year old Indy. And the episodes would be bookended by George Hall (BIG DADDY) as 93-year-old Indy (with eye patch) remembering the stories.
Wait a minute – that would mean in the then-present day? I always think of him in the WWII era, but it turns out he stuck around a while. Think about that. Indiana Jones was around for Woodstock, for disco, for “We Are the World,” for “Baby Got Back.” If he had grand kids there might’ve been an Indiana Jones and the Elusive Cabbage Patch Doll adventure one Christmas. None of this is covered in the show though.
The first season (1992) was 6 episodes, the second season they made 22, but only aired 18 before cancelling it. Then from 1994-1996 they followed it up with four TV movies for the Family Channel. Finally, in 1999 they paired up the hour long episodes, plus a couple new ones, and re-edited them into movies, which came out on VHS and later DVD. One major change was to remove all the segments with 93 year-old Indy, so you never get to see Indiana Jones in contemporary situations, like the one where he tells the story of his teenage love of cars after seeing a monster truck at the gas station.
(Do you think they said if Indy went to movies when he was in his 90s? Do you think he saw UNDER SIEGE?) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: adventure, Ben Burtt, Carrie Fisher, Frank Darabont, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Jeffrey Wright, Jonathan Hales, Lucas Minus Star Wars, Nicolas Roeg, Sean Patrick Flanery, Simon Wincer, TV, Vic Armstrong, WWI
Posted in Action, Reviews, Uncategorized, War | 34 Comments »
Monday, February 1st, 2016
CLOSE RANGE is the new one from the DTV action power team of star Scott Adkins and director Isaac Florentine. That’s an event because it’s been two years since NINJA 2, and it seems like longer.
I think this is Adkins’ gruffest performance without a Russian accent (he plays American). This time his character Colton MacReady is
1) an ex-Special Forces guy who’s
2) now on the run because he
3) “disobeyed an order that would’ve disgraced him and his uniform” and then
4) “put his superior officer in the hospital” so
5) “He’s been on the run ever since.”
That’s a backstory that could’ve been created with a refrigerator magnet set of action movie cliches, but I’m not against that. Those are good magnets. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Caitlin Keats, DTV, Isaac Florentine, Jake La Botz, Jeremy Marinas, Madison Lawlor, Mexican cartel, Nick Chinlund, Scott Adkins
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 32 Comments »
Thursday, January 28th, 2016
I’ve watched and enjoyed all the movies made about Ip Man so far, but IP MAN 3 is the first one I’ve seen on the big screen. A really big screen at a multiplex with only four other people in the audience. I feel like I should send AMC a thank you card.
After three years Donnie Yen returns to what has become one of his greatest roles, the real life Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man, most famous here as a guy who taught Bruce Lee. Director Wilson Yip (SPL/KILL ZONE) and writer Edmond Wong (DRAGON TIGER GATE) also return, but the great fight choreographer Sammo Hung has been replaced by the also great Yuen Woo Ping. The weird thing about that is that Yuen did Wong Kar Wai’s rival Ip Man movie THE GRANDMASTER.
Part 2 took place in the early ’50s, with Ip Man and his family moving to Hong Kong, where he set up a Wing Chun school. Now it’s ’59 and he’s still living humbly in a small apartment with his wife (still played by Lynn Hung) and youngest son. We don’t really see him teaching anymore but apparently he is because he still has all his fiercely loyal disciples, and he’s getting into trouble with the wife and the kid’s school (math and reading type school, not fighting) for always working too late.
Once again this story involves a public challenge by another martial arts teacher trying to prove superiority over the local legend. This time it’s not a different style against Wing Chun, it’s a guy saying that he has pure Wing Chun and Ip Man is peddling some bullshit watered down autotune Wing Chun. This guy shouldn’t be fuckin with Ip Man, but he’s a sympathetic enough character that I didn’t initially realize he was gonna be the antagonist. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce Lee, Donnie Yen, Jin Zhang, Mike Tyson, Wilson Yip, Wing Chun, Yuen Woo-Ping
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 17 Comments »
