I’ve been writing Expendables-related reviews for weeks because to me that was the movie event of 2010. That’s just the way I was raised. But according to The Internet the most important and historic release last weekend, possibly this year, possibly in our lifetime, most likely within this epoch, and almost for sure within whatever is a hundred times bigger than six epochs, or at least since KICK ASS… is this movie for the youths called SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD. It’s based on a comic strip of some kind, which explains why it’s so historically inaccurate. They don’t even mention the Mayflower once, and it’s a total whitewash of what we did to the Native Americans. To be fair it does take place in Toronto. Maybe their pilgrims were different, I don’t know that much about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Thursday, August 19th, 2010Still Bill
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
After all that EXPENDABLES business, how ’bout a musical interlude?
STILL BILL is a sweet, intimate reunion with Bill Withers, the great singer and songwriter known for songs like “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean On Me” and “Just the Two of Us.” Withers has a great voice soaked in emotion, but what I love most about his music is his honest and down to earth lyrics that cover topics dear to his heart that aren’t usually covered by other singers. Take for example “Grandma’s Hands,” about his love and gratitude for everything his grandma did for him and others when he was growing up, and ultimately how much he misses her. Or “I Can’t Write Left Handed,” about a wounded war veteran. He had more on his mind than “baby I love you” type of business. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Expendables
Sunday, August 15th, 2010
My friends, I write this review with a heavy heart. I know you’ve been waiting patiently for me to review THE EXPENDABLES, but first I had to process it, and what it has done to us. Sometimes a man must go on a journey to find himself before he can rise in the morning and face others. Ever since I was a young (read the rest of this shit…)
Over the Top
Friday, August 13th, 2010
Wrestling – and I’m talking about real deal wrestling, like Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling, not WWE – is a sport of skill and stamina as well as strength. It’s a series of offenses and defenses, attacks and responses, takedowns, holds and escapes. Strength and size are a huge advantage, but they’re not everything. A great wrestler always has to know how to find an opening to control his opponent and also how to slip away when he’s made a mistake. It can look like two brutes rolling around on the ground, but at times it can be as much of a battle of wits as a chess game. The winning wrestler has to perform the correct sequence of moves, and perform them well, to get the other guy where he wants him for the win.
Also there is arm wrestling. (read the rest of this shit…)
Fist of Legend
Friday, August 13th, 2010
You know how people are always saying “Man, there really oughta be more kung fu movies set in the Shanghai International Settlement during the Second Sino-Japanese War”? Well in 1994 director Gordon Chan and star Jet Li heard your cries. They love a good Second Sino-Japanese War picture as much as anybody so they came up with FIST OF LEGEND, a remake of Bruce Lee’s FIST OF FURY. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Italian Job (2003)
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
THE ITALIAN JOB circa 2003 is a standard issue studio ensemble heist movie, and a really enjoyable one. The director of FRIDAY and the writers of DEEP BLUE SEA put together a good group of likable actors to play the team of expert thieves, they came up with some clever gimmicks for an elaborate heist, and they executed it well with good pacing, light humor, a sense of fun but also a reasonable enough sense of danger. So it’s closer to OCEAN’S 11 where they obviously know what they’re doing but have to put in some elbow grease than OCEAN’S PART 13 where they seem to have super powers and can do absolutely anything at a moment’s notice with no trouble at all. (read the rest of this shit…)
Lucky Number Slevin
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN is slick, clever, full of gimmicks and smart-alecky dialogue somewhere between ’90s post-Tarantino and some old Fred MacMurray in DOUBLE INDEMNITY type banter. All of these things can really rub you the wrong way, and the more of these qualities present at any given time the more likely the wrongness of the rubbing. For me personally the rubbing was aligned properly for most of this movie, but it often seemed on the verge of pulling a 180 at any moment. So I can definitely see how you could watch this and just hate it if you were facing the wrong direction. (read the rest of this shit…)
Street Kings
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
Although welcomed into THE EXPENDABLES with open arms by action fans, Terry Crews is one of the cast members with the least experience in straight up action movies. He was brought in late in the game to replace 50 Cent shortly after 50 Cent was brought in late in the game to replace Forest Whitaker. (Or at least that’s how it was reported, but I thought Whitaker was supposed to be playing CIA agent Will Sands, and Crews ended up playing Expendables team member and excellent-name-haver Hale Caesar.) (read the rest of this shit…)
“The Unit” episodes 2.23 and 3.6 featuring Randy Couture
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
Part of the reason for my Countdown to The Expendables was to expand my action movie horizons. I didn’t want to just revisit movies I’d seen before, so I gave myself some rules: for each major EXPENDABLES cast member I wanted to review a movie I’d never seen before. Not just one I hadn’t reviewed or hadn’t seen in a long time, but one I had no experience with at all.
But with Randy Couture this is a problem, because he doesn’t have 50 movies to his name like Gary Daniels. (read the rest of this shit…)
Damage
Monday, August 9th, 2010
When I saw the terrible WWE Films theatrically released post-action movie THE CONDEMNED I said that I liked “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s screen persona, “his gravelly voice and his Plissken-esque don’t-give-a-fuck attitude,” and predicted that “If he was given an actual character to play in a movie by people who knew how to make a real movie, he could be at least as good as Roddy Piper.” I was probly thinking a lowbrow studio movie like a DEATH RACE or something, but this’ll do: a surprisingly compelling DTV underground fighting movie from Jeff King, the director of Seagal’s KILL SWITCH and DRIVEN TO KILL (which it just occurred to me oughta be the name of a movie where Seagal plays an ex-CIA NASCAR driver or Tokyo drifter. Coulda woulda shoulda). (read the rest of this shit…)
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