REVENGE is a 1990 film directed by the late Tony Scott. REVENGE is called REVENGE because it’s based on a novella called Revenge (by Jim Harrison) and because both are partly about revenge. But don’t let the stripped down title lead you to expect a pure revenge tale. Or at least not one that’s in a hurry to get to the revenge part.
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Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Revenge
Tuesday, September 11th, 2012Flying Swords of Dragon Gate 3D Imax
Thursday, September 6th, 2012
Wait a minute, you’re telling me that a Tsui Hark/Jet Li movie is showing in 3D Imax in my town? Shit, that’s something I gotta experience, something I gotta support. I managed to squeak it in on the next-to-last day of the 2 week limited engagement, so I’m sorry that I failed to give some of you a heads up.
Apparently this is a remake of DRAGON GATE INN (1966) which was already remade as NEW DRAGON GATE INN/DRAGON INN (1992), neither of which I’ve seen. It is not a remake of DRAGON TIGER GATE, which I have seen. Donnie Yen was offered the lead in this, but he turned it down because he was already in the ’92 version and thought that would be weird to do another one. Or maybe he was confusing it with DRAGON TIGER GATE and didn’t want to revisit the goofy hair style he had in that.
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Tougher Than Leather
Thursday, August 30th, 2012
TOUGHER THAN LEATHER is a unique specimen – a time capsule movie vehicle for a musical act at their height, but a legit act with street credibility that they did not lose by being in a movie. This is not the Fat Boys or Meth and Red making a comedy. It’s Run DMC in a gritty action movie made independently by the same people they made their records with. Maybe a good comparison would be Isaac Hayes in TRUCK TURNER or Jimmy Cliff in THE HARDER THEY COME, except they weren’t playing themselves.
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The Dragon From Russia
Tuesday, August 28th, 2012
Researching my review for CRYING FREEMAN I found out there was this five-years-older adaptation of the same comic. This one’s actually a Hong Kong action movie for real, but it’s not the moody John Woo type that influenced the 1995 version. This is the frenetic wire-fu style that was also big at that time.
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Crying Freeman
Monday, August 27th, 2012
CRYING FREEMAN (1995) is a pretty cool movie that I went back to hoping it would be better than I realized before. I did a brief write-up of it in a column years ago, but I’m not gonna link to it right now because most of the column is angry rants about what was going on in the news at the time and it makes me cringe. Based on a Japanese comic book (or “Japomic Book”) by Kazuo Koike, the same writer as Lone Wolf and Cub, CRYING FREEMAN is a moody, serious assassin movie with Yakuza, mind control, a witch, romance and tragedy. It takes place in 4 different countries (U.S., Canada, China, Japan) with the most convincing, of course, being the part that takes place in Vancouver, B.C.
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The Expendables 2
Sunday, August 19th, 2012
THE EXPENDABLES 2 is a sequel to THE EXPENDABLES. It is the second one. And all that that implies.
Like part 1 it has an incredible cast of action stars that you never thought could all be in a movie together, making a movie that is not worthy of all of them being together but does get by on the strength of, you know… those guys are all in it.
Black Eagle
Friday, August 17th, 2012
Jean-Claude Van Damme is the most important new Expendables cast member. Even not having seen it yet we know this because he’s the main villain, because he gets an “also” credit and because he’s Jean-Claude Van Damme. So to honor his new role I was excited to go back and watch one of his early movies that I haven’t seen. I was surprised to realize BLACK EAGLE was the only 20th century Van Damme movie I hadn’t seen. I’d have to go up to some of the DTVs starting in 2002 to get to anything else new to me. I was better versed than I realized, but I didn’t know anything about this one.
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Eraser
Thursday, August 16th, 2012
When we think of Arnold Schwarzenegger we think of the TERMINATOR movies, PREDATOR, the CONAN movies, COMMANDO… movies that came out in years before, say, 1995. I don’t know if the crazy action/sexism combo of TRUE LIES used up everything he had, or if it was playing a pregnant man in JUNIOR that pushed him over, but by the time he made ERASER in ’96 the salad days were over. There was only some slimy lettuce left.
But I kinda enjoyed watching this one again. I’d say I like it better than THE SIXTH DAY, COLLATERAL DAMAGE and END OF DAYS (although that last one has more distinctive weirdness in it). (read the rest of this shit…)
Lone Wolf McQuade
Tuesday, August 14th, 2012
“Forget it, kid. I work alone.”
You guys know I’m not really big on Chuck Norris. I know, Chuck Norris is so powerful that blah blah blah, something something beard something fist. Good job, internet. Hilarious. He’s famous enough to be considered one of the iconic action stars, but in my opinion he is not on the same level as other Expendables such as Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, Van Damme or non-Expendable Seagal. He doesn’t have as much charisma or as many watchable movies. But I did really dig INVASION U.S.A. and I always heard LONE WOLF MCQUADE was his best or one of his best, so I thought I should watch it in the lead up to his appearance in EXPENDABLES 2: ALSO VAN DAMME.
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Silent Trigger
Monday, August 13th, 2012
I hoped this would be one of the better Dolph Lundgren vehicles, because it’s directed by Russell Mulcahy, who used to be so good. This was ’96, his next movie after ’94’s THE SHADOW. I guess this is his punishment, but THE SHADOW is more fun. SILENT TRIGGER is at least watchable, but so are other things that are actually good.
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