"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Archive for the ‘Comedy/Laffs’ Category

Vern is down with BLACK DYNAMITE

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

tn_blackdynamite1I’ve missed some potential good ones at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival, but I was not about to miss the midnight show of BLACK DYNAMITE. If you don’t know what this is, it’s a retro blaxploitation movie where Michael Jai White (also co-writer) plays the title character, an ex-CIA, Vietnam vet, kung fu practicing, five-women-at-a-time-fucking badass motherfucker trying to find out who killed his brother.

Doing a blaxploitation homage in 2009 sounds good on paper, because there are a finite amount of authentic movies of this genre. At a certain point you run out of blaxploitation to watch, and you need more. It never hurts to have backups. But when you think about it there are a million ways for a movie like this to be disappointing or worse. BLACK DYNAMITE has great posters and trailers, but that doesn’t prove anything. For my tastes it’s a fine line to walk. I didn’t want to see something too jokey or spoofy, something that was mocking these movies more than paying tribute to them. And there’s no reason to assume an independent film out of nowhere from filmatists without that much of a track record will capture a vintage blaxploitation feel. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

tn_fordfairlaneWhat the fuck is this? is a fair reaction to the existence of FORD FAIRLANE. All you can really do is try to set your mindclock back to 1989 and picture it from the perspective of the people setting it up.

I mean you got the hottest action producer, Joel Silver of DIE HARD and LETHAL WEAPON fame. He’s got the rights to this “rock ‘n roll detective” character taken from some magazine column or Herfy’s tray-liner comic strip or something. To rewrite the script he hires Daniel Waters, hot shit young writer of HEATHERS in his first for-hire job. But who can we get to direct? Who is rock ‘n roll enough? How about that Finnish guy who did NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4? His hair is practically to his ass, I think he could do it. Renny Harlin had been toiling away on a version of ALIEN 3 that never got made, and this was kind of his entry into the world of action. In fact, Joel Silver hired him for DIE HARD 2 after seeing the dailies for this one. (read the rest of this shit…)

Any Which Way You Can

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

At first I was a little concerned about this sequel. Sondra Locke comes back, and that seems pretty fishy because she totally screwed Philo over in the first one. She was not a good person and nobody in their right mind would think “why didn’t those two crazy kids work it out?” So I was a little disappointed in Philo for forgiving her, and maybe in Clint for casting her. It smelled like girlfriend nepotism.

But by the end I realized that this letting-bygones-remain-in-their-original-state-of-being-bygones business is the central theme of the movie and the reason why it’s so enjoyable. It’s about friendship and bonding and forgiveness, about enemies becoming buddies. When mustache-sporting tough guy William Smith shows up in town and goes jogging with Philo you know right away that he’s gotta be the big mafia-sponsored underground fighting opponent Wilson coming to spy on Philo. That’s easy to predict. What’s not as expected is that they instantly like each other, and it stays that way. They help each other out and there’s alot of talk of owing one and being even, but it seems to me that’s all a front. There’s just no animosity between them, nothing but professional respect and a shared disgust for the people they’re working for. I didn’t pick up on that at first. I thought Philo would outsmart Wilson and show him up. Maybe he could if he wanted to, but he respects him too much. When they finally do have their fight you’re not rooting for one side like you traditionally do in a fight movie. They’re not fighting for any kind of grudge or to prove anything, but just out of love for their sport of bareknuckle boxing. (read the rest of this shit…)

Every Which Way But Loose

Friday, February 13th, 2009

Clint Eastwood is Philo Beddoe in…
EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE

Don’t you hate it when you and your orangutan are driving somewhere in your pickup truck minding your own business and some fuckin biker assholes pull up and start harassing you about there being an ape? Why can’t a man and an ape travel together as equals without getting stared at and made fun of? And also, does someone who wears a viking helmet really have a leg to stand on in making fun of your choice of animal companion? And no wonder those morons put swastikas on everything, going around harassing different races and species.

Well when and if this happens to you you might get fed up and try to chase those fuckers down, possibly steal a street sweeper and tail them until they hop a train, at which point you will at least get to steal their bikes. This is a worthwhile option and one that works out for trucker/mechanic/bareknuckle brawler Philo Beddoe in this movie, but it also begins a war that leads to many fights and the destruction of more than a dozen motorcycles. So just know what you’re getting into here is all I’m saying. (read the rest of this shit…)

An American Carol

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

Okay, first of all, there’s no foolin here. You and I both know there was no way in hell I was gonna like David Zucker’s right wing satire about how liberals hate America and Michael Moore stuffs his face with food all the time. So this is not a review, this is more like a report for other people who, like me, were curious as hell what this movie was like, but unlike me could not stomach sitting down and watching the whole thing.

Chris Farley’s brother plays Michael Moore (they call him Michael Malone), the famous documentarian (his movie is called DIE YOU AMERICAN PIGS), who is hired by 3 Arab terrorists (Robert Davi, two others) to direct a movie, but also to help them get into a Trace Adkins concert so they can blow themselves up, or something like that. But also Michael Moore is planning an anti-4th of July protest, so the ghost of Patton brings him around Dickens-style to show him how the world would be different if America didn’t believe in war, for example Gary Coleman would be his slave and Detroit would be nuked. Obviously. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern sees TROPIC THUNDER! The horror! The horror!

Monday, July 14th, 2008

SPOILER ALERT !!

TROPIC THUNDER pretty much won me over only a few seconds in when I realized that the rapper character played by Brandon T. Jackson called himself “Alpa Chino.” Completely ridiculous and totally plausible. So many rappers are obsessed with SCARFACE, CARLITO’S WAY and THE GODFATHER, and so many name themselves after notorious figures: Capone, Noreaga, Moriarty, Scarface, Rick Ross, Freeway, 50 Cent, Beanie Sigel, Irv Gotti, Young Gotti, Daz Dillinger, Kenn Starr, Jim Jones, Hittler. And I seriously only made up two of those names. So the possibility of Alpa Chino’s Booty Sweat Energy Drink actually existing is so likely that I think most of the crowd really wasn’t sure if the movie had started or if this was a real advertisement. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern Peels THE ONION MOVIE!!

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

I know what you’re thinking. THE ONION MOVIE? Are you fucking kidding me? They’ve run out of ’70s slasher movies, TV series, action figures, video games and board games to turn into movies, now they’re moving on to the fucking produce department? Well to be fair onions are a vegetable with a rich history. In Caananite Bronze Age settlements, traces of onion remains were found dating back to 5000 BC. There is Biblical evidence (specifically the Book of Numbers) indicating that onions were grown in Ancient Egypt. In fact, to the ancient Egyptians (SPOILER) their concentric rings represented eternal life. So I think with a visionary artistic team behind the camera and a decent budget an onion movie could be a real eye-opener. Unfortunately this movie has nothing to do with vegetables at all, it is based on that websight The Onion with the fake news articles and the movie reviews and what not.

I watch more direct-to-video crap than the average citizen, but even I usually draw the line at direct-to-video comedy. If MEET THE SPARTANS can get a theatrical release and you can’t then I’m not sure I trust you, even if a renowned institution such as a National Lampoon’s or an American Pie Presents is willing to put its name on the line on your behalf. In this case The Onion is only putting its name on the line due to contractual obligation. Some of their former editors wrote this thing back in 2003 but they and the directors disowned it years ago and it was sitting on the shelf until recently when somebody was moving some boxes around trying to find some of their old yearbooks or something and their ass bumped it off the shelf and it lands in stores Tuesday. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern’s Got His Review Of WAR INC As Well!

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

THE FOLLOWING IS A CORRECTED INTRODUCTION, REPLACING THE INCORRECT INFORMATION ORIGINALLY HERE:

WAR INC may have hit theaters in Canada last week, but it’s actually opening in New York and LA on May 23. It played the Tribeca Film Festival a few nights ago as well.

What Vern saw was, evidently, not a screener for the DVD release, but simply a screener for this theatrical release. John Cusack’s on the publicity trail for this one now, too, doing everything from Jimmy Kimmel to Al Jazeera. I’m hoping to take a look at this release from First Look ASAP.

Are you guys as curious about this one as I am?

As an aficionado of DTV I’ve exposed myself to many works from the Millennium Films library, films starring the likes of Van Damme, Seagal, Snipes, Jai White, Timberlake, etc. I’m talking about movies like THE ORDER, UNDISPUTED 1-2, OUT FOR A KILL, UNSTOPPABLE, TODAY YOU DIE, EDISON FORCE, MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE, UNTIL DEATH and the DAY OF THE DEAD “remake.” They’re the kings of crap – kind of like the new Cannon Films except they don’t have as many fluke good ones under their belt as Cannon did. They’ve made it to the big screen every once in a while which is how we got THE BLACK DAHLIA, THE WICKER MAN and some of those shitty Al Pacino movies that have been coming out lately. I’m obviously biased on the Seagal pictures so let’s just say the closest they’ve ever gotten to a great movie is RAMBO. (read the rest of this shit…)

Enchanted

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

I like to think I’m a pretty tough individual, even on a cellular level. So I don’t usually watch movies like this and I don’t usually get sick. A year or two ago I got some crud that really knocked me out, so while I was laying there a useless husk of my regular self I decided that God had opened a window – a window of opportunity for me to watch KILL BILL VOLUME 1 and VOLUME 2 in a row. The movie seemed even better in one sitting and I was healed the next day. Thanks God. You got good taste in movies.

So the next year when I got real sick I did the same thing, with the same success. Only trouble is when I got sick again this month and it was the worst I had in years. My KILL BILL treatment had been too recent, I didn’t know if it would work and I didn’t want to overdo it and create a KILL BILL-resistant supervirus. So I watched a bunch of other DVDs I had laying around. (read the rest of this shit…)

48 Hours + Another 48 Hours

Friday, April 11th, 2008

the complete 96 hour saga

48 HOURS is a well made and highly influential movie, but I think you sort of had to be there. Today about 30-42 hours of it holds up.

Coming 5 years before LETHAL WEAPON this is the father of the ’80s interracial buddy movies. The premise is that edgy cop Jack Cates (Nick Nolte), in a desperate ploy to stop a killer, manages to get custody of convict Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) for two days to help him with the case. Of course they hate each other until they slowly earn each other’s respect. It’s cop vs. criminal, white vs. black, etc. Part of the fun is watching them flip each other shit and get in fights, although it gets uncomfortable because Nolte uses most of the racial slurs he knows – yes, including the N-word. He later apologizes and says he was just doing his job of keeping Reggie down – I’m not sure what that’s meant to say about cops but you can interpret it how you want. (read the rest of this shit…)