I, ROBOT is a movie that I had low expectations for when I saw it that summer, and it exceeded them, so it seemed pretty good. Re-watching it now it’s still pretty good but maybe a little less pretty good now that I expected it to be pretty good.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s a mystery story in a sci-fi world of 2035 where helpful robots are a common household appliance. Will Smith plays Detective Del Spooner (Spanish for “Detective of the Spooner”), an arrogant, trenchcoat-wearing Chicago cop who is horribly racist against robots and always trying to accuse them of crimes, even though they’re programmed to always protect humans and have never in history committed a crime. His boss (Chi McBride) is constantly embarrassed by this fucking idiot working for him but must have an old friendship with him and feels sorry for him enough not to fire his ass like would probly happen to anybody else fucking up as bad and often as this fuckin guy does and always acting like a total crazy person in front of numerous witnesses both at work and in public. (read the rest of this shit…)
VAN HELSING is a pretty cool idea for a horror-adventure type movie. The slayer of Dracula continues his saga, a supernatural expert who goes on to encounter other classic monsters like Mr. Hyde, the Wolf Man (or some werewolves, anyway), Frankenstein’s monster, and probly Blacula if they had made a part two. To make it extra fun he’s not just a doctor like in the book, now he’s a badass in a Solomon Kane hat, with an eccentric friar as his Q/Lucius Fox, building him preposterous weapons that fire stakes like bullets or have spinning saw blades or whatever. And this Van Helsing likes to swing around on ropes. And he gets bit by a werewolf so before he turns he has super hopping powers, like all wolves do. Wolves are known for their hopping.
Okay, admittedly some parts of the idea are not that cool. Also it turns out his name is Gabriel Van Helsing, not Abraham Van Helsing, and he actually has nothing to do with the character from the book. He did however apparently kill Dracula, but that was before Dracula was a vampire (I think), and Van Helsing (no relation) doesn’t remember it. Also he might be the angel Gabriel.
WRITER/DIRECTOR STEPHEN SOMMERS: Hey guys, I’ve had alot of fun doing these AMAZING The Mummy movies, but you know what I’ve always dreamed of is to make a movie about the character Van Helsing from Dracula, only the thing is it’s not about that character at all though, it’s about a different guy than that! Wouldn’t that be AWESOME?
UNIVERSAL PICTURES: My friend, you have yourself a god damn GREEN LIGHT!
As you know I am a scholar of the Big Summer Popcorn Movie, or whatever you want to call it. And I not only like to review the new ones but I like to look back at the old ones and figure out what’s what. We’re getting to the end of the summer movie season (which I consider to be May through August) but now that I’ve finished The Super-Kumite I think it’s time to start a new summer movie project. Fuck you, September. You don’t scare me.
This is what I’m gonna do. For each summer from 2003 until last year I’m gonna pick two movies to review: one that I never saw before, one that I’m revisiting. And as you can see I’m starting with THE CRADLE OF LIFE as the one I never saw before.
release date: July 25, 2003
It turns out I dig these LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER movies. Maybe if I’d seen them at the time, on the big screen, as if they were gonna compete with the A-list summer blockbuster type movies, I would’ve been more critical of them. But ignoring them for ten years and then deciding to watch them out of curiosity really pays off I think. Sometimes you gotta let these things age in the cellar for a while. (read the rest of this shit…)
This is the magic of the prestigious WWE Studios banner: it can force a franchise into existence. 12 ROUNDS was one of their better theatrical releases, a straightforward but solidly executed take on a well-worn gimmick: the hero (WWE Superstar John Cena) is forced to play a deadly game by a devious mastermind (The Wire Superstar Aiden Gillen) who blames him for the death of his wife. The game is of course divided into 12 rounds (if the villain was into video games it would be 12 LEVELS) where he has to drive around town doing things before a timer winds down and something blows up or something. The action is largely handheld but still clear and exciting because the director is Renny Harlin. And that gives you the handiest description of the movie: a rip-off of DIE HARD 3 by the director of DIE HARD 2.
I liked it, but did anybody else? It looks like it didn’t make much more than half of its budget in theaters. I’m sure it did better on video, but it’s not all that well known, is it? Luckily that doesn’t stop WWE Studios from DTV-sequelizing like they did with THE MARINE. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If there’s a part 2 then part 1 must be significant, right? And you don’t have to watch both because it’s not connected. It’s some other wrestler playing some other character and some other villain with some other grievance, playing some other deadly game. But coincidentally with 12 rounds again. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE KUMITE is the stupid American title for the 2003 Hong Kong film also known as STAR RUNNER. Thankfully there is a tournament in it, but if you’re wondering, it’s called “Star Runner,” not “The Kumite.” The word “kumite” is never used in the movie, unless you count the BLOODSPORT trailer they included on the DVD. Also, the guy in the cover is not the hero, that’s the guy he has to beat at the tournament. And the tagline “To die is an honor” has nothing to do with the movie at all. Nobody dies. (read the rest of this shit…)
“I’m not interested in champions of the ring. I’m interested in champions of the heart.”
When I found BARE KNUCKLES I wasn’t sure it would even be watchable. It’s recent (2010), I’d never heard of it, it’s not from an established action star or director, and the box mentions serious matters: “Women will go to extreme lengths for those they love, and single mother Samantha Rogers is no exception, being the sole provider for her daughter Mila, a child in need of special care.” That kinda sounds like a recipe for an indie drama about a fighter that’s not really about fights. Then I put it in and the menu and opening credits both of terrible fonts and music, and they put the obviously bogus claim “inspired by a true story” right after the title. This just looks like amateur hour from the get go.
What I’m saying is BARE KNUCKLES was an underdog. A Cinderella story. Cinderella Man, but with a lady… and it makes us all proud. It’s a little ragged and cheesy at times, but it’s a really likable take on alot of the genre tropes, feeling a little different without ever reinventing anything. (read the rest of this shit…)
EXTREME CHALLENGE (2001) is a movie that didn’t come up in any of my extensive internet searches for fighting tournament movies, but I happened to come across it in the Hong Kong section of the video store. Another victory for human browsing. This is a Hong Kong production, a Golden Harvest presentation even, but it’s in English (non sync). Director Tung Wei was usually more of a stuntman and choreographer. He did action direction for HERO and appeared onscreen in HARD BOILED (which character is “Foxy”?) (read the rest of this shit…)
Round 2, Bout 2, Red Fist Club vs. The Men From Hong Kong
When I started The Super-Kumite I was alot greener than I realized, a soft-handed hayseed fresh off the turnip truck, walking through the streets of Manila wearing my Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt, just askin to get my bag stolen. It was naive, but I assumed at least this BLOODFIST series, which always impressed me by having 8 installments on the shelf, was gonna stick with being about fighting tournaments. They have this whole mythology of the Red Fist Club and their Ta-Chang tournament, they have a star who was a real life kickboxing champion, of course they’re gonna keep exploring that, is what I figured. But that’s not how it works in the real world.
BLOODFIST 2 (which I will review separately) continues the story of Jake and his treacherous mentor (or actually the same guy playing basically the same character but with a different name because I think maybe he died at the end of part 1), and it has a great premise where the best fighters of various styles are tricked into coming to Manila, then abducted and forced to fight on an exotic private island. It should be a tournament – his own reworking of the Ta-Chang – but instead it’s just gladiator-style matches. Fun movie, but not eligible for The Super-Kumite. And from what I’ve read it looks like none of the other BLOODFISTs have tournaments until the last one, the Dragon-less BLOODFIST 2050. So that’ll be the round 3 movie if we get that far. In searching for a round 2 substitute I found out that in 1993 director Rick Jacobson (BLOODFIST VI and VIII) directed two different BLOODFIST rehashes (both using basically the same script?). I ordered the one starring Jerry Trimble (FULL CONTACT) but it hasn’t shown up yet, and I was able to rent the other one, DRAGON FIRE. (read the rest of this shit…)
ANGELFIST is kind of a rehash of FIRECRACKER, an earlier Cirio H. Santiago joint I tried to use for the Super-Kumite, but this one has an actual tournament in it, so I didn’t have to disqualify it. It’s also kind of the same plot as BLOODFIST, but with ladies. A competitive martial artist in Manila (Cat Sassoon) gets murdered. Her sister Kat in L.A. (also Cat Sassoon) gets the news, flies in and joins the Kubate International Women’s World Karate Championship tournament in order to get closer to everybody and figure out who did it. The guy who vouches for her, stickfight-spars with her and acts as her cornerman (Roland Dantes) is not as intimately involved in her training as Xian in BLOODFIST, but ends up having the same purpose in the story if you know what I mean, spoiler spoiler. (read the rest of this shit…)
Remember Darren Aranofsky was gonna do this new Wolverine movie? He’d done THE WRESTLER and he was the original director on THE FIGHTER and then he named it THE WOLVERINE, but he had to drop out to deal with The Child Custody. From the roll he was on I bet he would’ve made a hell of a movie, but his replacement James Mangold (COPLAND, 3:10 TO YUMA) came up with something pretty interesting too. For his movie the title is representative of the whole approach: strip away the convoluted series-connecting business indicated in the title of the last one (X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE) and just focus everything on this character, this Wolverine. The Wolverine. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Dooley on The Brothers Grimm (20 years later revisit): “I have never seen this, despite worshipping the three cited 80’s Gilliam movies when younger, but I’m not in a…” Sep 12, 22:56
Plastiquehomme on Sovereign: “Also, I’d totally forgotten Lady Sovereign. I really got a laugh out of her track Tango” Sep 12, 03:00
Plastiquehomme on Sovereign: “I was quite excited for this, but it hits close to home for us Kiwis this week. A guy who…” Sep 12, 02:59
Glaive Robber on Sovereign: “Wow, Lady Sovereign! I had her on a couple of mixtapes back in the day, that takes me back. Anyway,…” Sep 11, 17:35
jojo on Sovereign: “Lady Sov! That’s when there was this huge bidding war over all these English rappers–Lady Sov, The Streets, some guy…” Sep 11, 14:34
CJ Holden on Sovereign: “We have our own versions of “sovereigns”. They are called Reichsbürger, who believe that our laws and current form of…” Sep 11, 13:29
CJ Holden on Sixty Minutes: “Not gonna lie, LEXX can be at times a real drag, but it’s the most punk SciFi show ever made.…” Sep 11, 03:12
Simon Underwood on The Brothers Grimm (20 years later revisit): “Haven’t watched this in years (have the DVD) though I def should revisit at some point, not least for the…” Sep 10, 18:43
Muh on The Brothers Grimm (20 years later revisit): “This one ain’t great and this is pretty much when I stopped paying attention to Gilliam who was never one…” Sep 10, 18:12
Muh on The Toxic Avenger (remake): “Haven’t seen this but when it comes to discussing budget vs no budget…when Lloyd was spending millions on a film,…” Sep 10, 18:05
Birch on The Brothers Grimm (20 years later revisit): “This one really did get memory holed. I don’t think I’ve thought about it once since it came out. Had…” Sep 10, 18:00
wmjahn on Angst: “Awesome. 1967 there was IN COLD BLOOD, 1983 there was ANGST and 1997 there was FUNNY GAMES. HANEKE, who seems…” Sep 10, 16:33
Bert on The Brothers Grimm (20 years later revisit): “I will forever love The Brothers Grimm because it gave me one of my favorite cameos of all time…Matt Damon…” Sep 10, 13:42
As you know I am a scholar of the Big Summer Popcorn Movie, or whatever you want to call it. And I not only like to review the new ones but I like to look back at the old ones and figure out what’s what. We’re getting to the end of the summer movie season (which I consider to be May through August) but now that I’ve finished The Super-Kumite I think it’s time to start a new summer movie project. Fuck you, September. You don’t scare me.
This is the magic of the prestigious WWE Studios banner: it can force a franchise into existence. 12 ROUNDS was one of their better theatrical releases, a straightforward but solidly executed take on a well-worn gimmick: the hero (WWE Superstar John Cena) is forced to play a deadly game by a devious mastermind (The Wire Superstar Aiden Gillen) who blames him for the death of his wife. The game is of course divided into 12 rounds (if the villain was into video games it would be 12 LEVELS) where he has to drive around town doing things before a timer winds down and something blows up or something. The action is largely handheld but still clear and exciting because the director is Renny Harlin. And that gives you the handiest description of the movie: a rip-off of DIE HARD 3 by the director of DIE HARD 2.
THE KUMITE is the stupid American title for the 2003 Hong Kong film also known as STAR RUNNER. Thankfully there is a tournament in it, but if you’re wondering, it’s called “Star Runner,” not “The Kumite.” The word “kumite” is never used in the movie, unless you count the BLOODSPORT trailer they included on the DVD. Also, the guy in the cover is not the hero, that’s the guy he has to beat at the tournament. And the tagline “To die is an honor” has nothing to do with the movie at all. Nobody dies.
“I’m not interested in champions of the ring. I’m interested in champions of the heart.”
EXTREME CHALLENGE (2001) is a movie that didn’t come up in any of my extensive internet searches for fighting tournament movies, but I happened to come across it in the Hong Kong section of the video store. Another victory for human browsing. This is a Hong Kong production, a Golden Harvest presentation even, but it’s in English (non sync). Director Tung Wei was usually more of a stuntman and choreographer. He did action direction for 
Remember Darren Aranofsky was gonna do this new Wolverine movie? He’d done THE WRESTLER and he was the original director on THE FIGHTER and then he named it THE WOLVERINE, but he had to drop out to deal with The Child Custody. From the roll he was on I bet he would’ve made a hell of a movie, but his replacement James Mangold (COPLAND, 3:10 TO YUMA) came up with something pretty interesting too. For his movie the title is representative of the whole approach: strip away the convoluted series-connecting business indicated in the title of the last one (X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE) and just focus everything on this character, this Wolverine. The Wolverine.
