Archive for the ‘Drama’ Category
Thursday, December 21st, 2000
My friends, you may think I have been neglecting you. In the past month or two I have abandoned all my discipline and stopped doing the column weekly. I haven’t been reviewing all that many movies. I’ve been staying pretty much away from the computers of the internet except for Writing the occasional Ain’t It Cool News joke talk back message under the name “Darth Superman.”
The truth is I’m doing you a big fucking favor. I’m cutting down on my Writing. Focussing it. Putting my emphasis on what matters to me most, like honor, respect, and breaking a motherfuckers legs. I’m hoping less Writing = less crap, and therefore, better Writing. So you get to waste less time reading it, plus it’ll be better. That’s the theory, anyway. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ang Lee, Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh
Posted in Action, Drama, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts, Reviews, Vern Tells It Like It Is | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 19th, 2000
As you know my favorite type of picture is the Badass picture. But not all pictures can be Badass pictures, that is just a sad fact of life that sooner or later each and every one of us must face. So if I was gonna make a list of the other types of pictures I like, and in what order, somewhere on there would be the ol’ sad ‘n funny. The picture that is so sad it’s funny or at least it’s sad and at the same time a little funny but maybe a little more sad than funny, really.
Anyway this one Chuck and Buck is one of those pictures. What it’s about is this poor schmuck named Buck who is I believe 27 years old but he lives with his mom in a room full of toys and sucks on lollipops all day. Then one day his mom dies and at the funeral he sees, for the first time in years, his childhood best friend Chuck. He tries to hang out with the dude but it’s really uncomfortable because Chuck is grown up now and some kind of record industry bigshot living in LA but Buck is like some kind of retard and all he wants to do is have sleepovers and talk about the stupid shit that happened to them when they were like 8. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Miguel Arteta, Mike White
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, December 4th, 2000
Well friends it looks like ol’ Vern has some explainin to do. And the sad thing is I don’t have jack shit to say for myself. Sometimes a man just has to do what a man does when he has to do it, or whatever. There comes a time in a man’s personal journey, that is to say in man’s life, that that journey must take a break, or sojourn, in that journey, is what I’m trying to say. A hiatus.
Okay some of you motherfuckers are looking at me real blank eyed and what not. I haven’t written a column for a couple weeks, jackasses. I guess you didn’t miss me, then. It was supposed to be mysterious. Like – what is Vern up to? Where has he gone? What personal discoveries has he made? Will we ever be the same? Oh I do hope he comes back. And soon!
So here I am again. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: biopic, Donal Logue, Janeane Garofalo, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Kevin Pollak, Vincent D'Onofrio
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Romance, Vern Tells It Like It Is | No Comments »
Monday, October 30th, 2000
This week friends ol’ Vern has a few things he has to get off his chest. A little bitchin and moanin is what I gotta do. So let me run through a few of these points about how, you know, everything is all a bunch of horse shit, etc.
1. HALLOWEEN
First off, last Tuesday was Halloween. And I want to know why you motherfuckers decided it was cancelled. I’m driving along at 7:45 pm, it’s been dark for more than hour and I don’t see a jack o’lantern, I don’t see a trick or treater. I don’t even see those little fuckers smashing my pumpkins. All I see is churches and schools with signs that say “Harvest Festival. Games and Food. October 31st.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cameron Diaz, Darren Aranofsky, Drew Barrymore, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Lucy Liu, McG
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews, Vern Tells It Like It Is | 10 Comments »
Wednesday, October 11th, 2000
Sometimes at my age a fella has to admit he’s not exactly up on things. Not exactly with it. Specially when it seems like every other weekend I’m writing a review for a sequel to some movie where I never even saw the first one. Hell I never even HEARD of the first one half the time how the fuck I’m supposed to seen it already. Cut me some slack buddy.
But I picked up the dvd for this one because of a certain powerful force – the force of young Chloe Sevigny’s eyes staring out at me from the cover. I think most of you know how I feel about this gal, ever since I first spied her in the Last Days of Disco picture where her eyes were able to cut through seven layers of postmodern bullshit spewing out of the mouths of the pretentious yuppies in the movie. This girl is a hell of an actor but the main thing I’m talking about here is the presence. She has the presence of a real movie star. In my opinion. So I’ll see any movie she’s in even if it has her with her hair slicked back, wearing a tie, like in this one. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anne Heche, Chloe Sevigny, Ellen DeGeneres, Martha Coolidge, Michelle Williams, Sharon Stone, Vanessa Redgrave
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Romance | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 27th, 2000
So the big movie right now is Almost Famous. A nicely crafted ’70s epic about a 15 year old kid named William who writes music reviews, and ends up having Rolling Stone magazine foot the bill for him to go on tour with a major rock band, to write an article. Written and directed by Cameron Crowe, for whom most of this shit REALLY went down, it is obviously a movie that is very close to his heart.
In a way it’s kind of a pisser that THIS would be the cherished personal project for a director. This guy is saying hey everybody, when I was fifteen I fell in love with one of the many beautiful groupies I had sex with on the national tour I went on with a famous rock band. But then we didn’t get together. Bummer, eh?
It’s kind of like on that radio talk show Loveline, when they get what they call a “my dick is too big to ride my bicycle” call. Where it is really more bragging than questioning. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy Crudup, Cameron Crowe, Jason Lee, music, Zooey Deschanel
Posted in Drama, Music, Reviews, Vern Tells It Like It Is | 8 Comments »
Sunday, September 10th, 2000
You know what, I got me a new theory. Look out people. If this theory pans out its gonna be in the textbook for Badass Cinematical studies for now on. It is about the difference between ’70s Badass filmmakers and ’90s Badass filmmakers.
The difference is, the ’90s boys went to college. Or read alot of books. Studied alot of movies. The ’70s boys traveled the world, drank alot of whiskie, got in fights and drag races. The ’70s boys had a natural knack for the poetry of Badass Cinematics, while the ’90s boys had a great knowledge of technique and equipment and approaches to witty dialogue. Now obviously there are many exceptions to this rule, but it is a good sweeping generalization to ponder. The ’70s masters like Peckinpah and Leone and Siegel and Mr. Eastwood had an effortless feel to their films, like it was just something that came out of their pores. The ’90s ones, even the really good ones, usually seem like they put a whole fucking lot of thought into it. Drew alot of schematics and diagrams. And figured out how to do it just right. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Christopher McQuarrie, Geoffrey Lewis, James Caan, Ryan Phillipe
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 5 Comments »
Monday, July 3rd, 2000
First off I would like to thank the two (2) of you who complimented me on my column last week, an autobiographical work which I have been working on for months as a piece of my memoirs but decided to post in my column. Of course I am not abandoning my home, the world of film Writing, however this is an example of the works I hope to pour my blood sweat and etc. into in the coming months and years. This is very important to me and yes there were two of you who mentioned this to me, this important new step in my life, and I do mean that literally. As in, one more than one, but two less then four, if my calculations are correct. thanks alot guys.
Second off there is the whole fourth of july deal. Not one of my favorite holidays actually, but what are you gonna do. The first thing I think of when I think of the fourth of July is Benji, the dog I had in the ’80s. Not one of your better dogs, he was only a cockapoodle, but the little guy was loyal, his breath was above average and his house breaking was above reproach. Except on the 4th of July. This motherfucker didn’t know what fireworks were, and no matter how many years he lived he just couldn’t remember “Oh yeah, that’s right, I remember that last year.” no, he runs all over the house peeing and shitting on the carpet like a god damned invalid. (except running.) I mean, at a certain point you just get embarrassed for a dog he keeps doing stupid shit like this. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Charlton Heston, vampires, Vincent Price
Posted in Action, Drama, Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Thriller, Vern Tells It Like It Is | No Comments »
Monday, June 12th, 2000
Well I bet the one or two of you who actually care about me are wondering, what the fuck happened to Vern. Where is his column. Why is he late. Did that Jet Li movie really make him so sad. What a puss.
The truth is I have been doing alot of soul searching, alot of introspective type work, alot of thinking, and all that type of garbage. You might say I am on a journey to find myself, or I am on an exploration of my past, or I am depressed, however in my opinion all of those things sound kind of fruity.
Whatever you want to call it, watching My Father Is a Hero really made me sad, especially when I found out this is the same picture the motherfuckers at Dimension or whoever have released as The Enforcer. The picture on the front shows Jet kicking a dude and although his son, Little Vern, is mentioned on the back, they really make it sound like he’s not in it that much. And I’ll tell you what folks that made a motherfucker even sadder to see my fellow americans pulling this kind of garbage on Jet and Little Vern. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Hopkins, Billy Campbell, Cary Elwes, Francis Ford Coppola, Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves, Richard E. Grant, vampires, Winona Ryder
Posted in Drama, Horror, Reviews, Romance, Vern Tells It Like It Is | 8 Comments »
Monday, May 29th, 2000
Well if there is one thing I’d like to see more of coming out of Hollywood, it’s #1: Billy Jack movies, and #2, elbow grease.
Now I don’t want to be too controversial here, but in my opinion, some of the things Hollywood makes these days is garbage. And to me, that signals laziness. Remember when making a good picture meant something? Now it’s not about making a good picture that you like to watch. It’s about making a big picture that you can release in a theater.
If this young guys running Hollywood knew about elbow grease, they would know to get off their ass and think through an idea before they decide to make it into a movie. Any one of us might of came up with the idea, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we have John Travolta acting real funny and crazy, and he has dreadlocks and a big head, they are flying around in spaceships, the space ship type of movie that the nerds like?”
But then if we took the time to think it through we’d say, “No, no it wouldn’t be.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: porn, Radley Metzger
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Vern Tells It Like It Is | No Comments »
