Archive for the ‘Thriller’ Category
Monday, April 10th, 2000
Well ladies and gentlemen I would like to thank all of you who responded to my last column, letting me know about some of the Badass pictures and the Badasses of the world that I should study. That’s right I would like to personally thank each and every one of the two motherfuckers that helped me out. Jeff and Brian you know who you are.
Jeff gave me some tips on some more Lee Marvin, Billy Jack and Charles Bronson pictures to examine in the near future. Jeff I will definitely be on the lookout and keeping my ears peeled for Mr. Majestyk, Born Losers and etc. Brian didn’t go into the specifics about the pictures but he told me about a couple foreign language Badasses who he felt had bodies of work worthy of study. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: George Clooney, Richard Dreyfuss, Takeshi Kitano
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller, Vern Tells It Like It Is, War | No Comments »
Monday, April 3rd, 2000
First off folks I would like to apologize from the deepest recesses of my big ol’ outlaw heart for getting this column in late. I know some of you really count on the punctuality of this particular column Vern Tell’s It Like It Is and if it is not ready for you on monday morning it throws off your whole damn week. Without my artistical Cinematic musings, my down to earth stories and advice, you are not ready to begin your week.
Oh who the fuck am I fooling, nobody knows this but this column usually goes up early Monday morning, but this time it was late. If anyone noticed then sorry bud. Remember it comes out on monday gang please read it regularly. jesus.
Anyway, the reason why I was late can be blamed on one individual named Ghost Dog and his picture Way of the Samurai. You see ever since seeing this picture I have been trying to be more open to the different ways of the individuals in different parts of the world, cultures, etc. I think Ghost Dog has a very good point that it is time people started learning from people who are different from them, from the chinese circus acrobats who swing from their hair to the dude in El Topo who has no legs who is strapped to the back of the dude with no arms.
We as americans must stop taking everything so literally man. Just cause a guy is a shaolin monk or a guy with blue hair does not mean you can’t exchange tips on how to live life. I think a cowboy or an astronaut could go out for a drink with say a ninja or a ballerina, and could learn from their ways. This does not mean the astronaut starts wearing a tutu underneath the astro-suit, or even that he does ballet moves while floating through outer space. What I’m talking about is they can get to the core of the thing, the understanding. They can learn from the philosophy or the attitude and figure out how to apply it to their own life. I mean imagine if Clint Eastwood in the westerns had learned how to look at life the same was as a ninja. I mean jesus he would be unstoppable, that motherfucker. I almost don’t even wanna think about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: arthouse badass, code of honor, Forest Whitaker, Henry Silva, Isaach De Bankolé, Jim Jarmusch, RZA, samurai
Posted in Crime, Drama, Martial Arts, Reviews, Thriller, Vern Tells It Like It Is | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2000
This is the latest Jet Li picture, his last in the US was 1999 Outlaw Award Winner for Best Picture – Karate Black Mask. That was weird type of comic book story where there is karate, masks, lasers and all that sort of garbage, which is why it is good. Jet Li is an amazing type of action star as far as the kicks, the punches and etc. Legend has it that he is so fast they have to ask him to slow down so the camera can pick him up properly. In fact this guy is faster than Superman in my opinion, and he can also fly although only with the help of cables that are removed using high tech electronic computers that they have today. But the real thing about Jet Li is that he is a very charismistic and good looking dude, maybe a little feminine but in a “I’m gonna kick your ass and the girls will still think I’m sensitive, sucker” type of way.
What’s historic about this one is that it’s the first picture ever made in English with Jet Li as the star. The only English language picture he’s done in the past is I believe Beverly Hills Cop 4 or one of those type of movies, where he played the bad guy in a couple scenes and then the good guys make fun of him for being chinese. But he was so much more popular in that movie than the movie itself that now he is being groomed to join the pantheon with Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Rudy Ray Moore and other martial arts superstars who have made it big in the states. And what better to story give this motherfucker than one by the bard of writing, Mr. William Shakespeare himself, the genius behind Titus and other hits.
Well, that’s what they WANTED us to think. I’ve been reading about this piece for a long time and every single time they call it an update of Romeo and Juliet. I knew they wouldn’t talk like Shakespeare, and obviously there is gonna be some liberties as well as possibly some karate. But I thought it was gonna be a serious, modern karate type of picture which coincidentally happens to be about the warring capulets and whatsits and how Romeo and Juliet meet and fall passionately in love and then the shit hits the fan if you know what I mean, as far as a bunch of karate scenes happen and what not. Of course that would be totally ludicrous. I think it would be very enjoyable. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andrzej Bartkowiak, DMX, Jet Li
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Martial Arts, Reviews, Romance, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Saturday, February 12th, 2000
This is a movie that looked pretty promising, but shit if I even liked it at all. It is hard to come out with a Fight Club type of picture in the same year that Fight Club came out and not end up looking like a bunch of garbage. But that is what these folks did.
Yes, this is the Fight Club type of movie. You know, the type of movie that is released by Fox, based on a popular novel, crammed full of first person narration criticizing the culture. These type of movies have really beautiful widescreen photographical techniques as well as little showoffy computer camera gimmicks and wall to wall techno music. They are generally about a character who is fed the fuck up with American consumerism and superficiality who wants to leave it all behind and push himself to the limit and seek out danger and blah blah blah. Then they get involved in a secret counterculture which at first is fun and utopian and represents everything they want out of life. But there is always a hint of danger and then one of the colorful supporting characters gets some kind of injury – usually a gunshot blast to the head or shark bite – but the counterculture handles the situation in a heartless bastard of a manner which signals the turning point when you start to realize WELL FER CRYIN OUT LOUD, the counterculture is just as fulla shit as the culture itself. At this point in these type of movies the character either goes crazy or finds out he’s been crazy all along, and then they start having delusions about the founder of the secret counterculture, who is some kind of intensely charismatic wacko, who starts to take on sort of superhuman powers, and blah blah blah. You know the type of movie I’m talking about. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Danny Boyle, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Carlyle, Virginie Ledoyen
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, January 18th, 2000
Well ever since Scream 3 I have been trying to see bad sequels to movies I haven’t seen in the first place. And this one holds a particular specialness to me because it is a part 3 and I am a scholar of part 3s.
Actually, this one isn’t all that bad, for one thing it can get away with not being in 3-D. Unlike Scream 3 it has an excuse because it’s straight to video, and I mean who the fuck wants to sit at home by yourself wearing 3-D glasses. I mean give me a fuckin break.
Anyway this western doesn’t really “hang together” as the famous shoplifting critic Rex Reed might say but it does have its moments which is a hell of a lot more than you can say for most straight to video part 3s in my opinion. The opening to be specific is very strong, with an obvious Sergio Leone influence. It’s in the desert with bright, bleached out photographication and lots of heightened sound effects. You hear the wind and the rattlesnakes and the incessant clicking of guns like you just hooked your hearing aid up to a car battery. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, DTV prequels, Michael Parks, Orlando Jones, P.J. Pesce, Rebecca Gayheart, Robert Rodriguez, Sonia Braga, Temuera Morrison
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 3 Comments »
Sunday, January 16th, 2000
Well I don’t know if any of you saw this but there was a gal in my guestbook who Wrote that I shouldn’t date gals in their late teens and early 20s which I believe she said was disgusting on account of my age. Well the more teen movies I get hoodwinked into seeing by these young gals the more I agree with that sentiment. The latest is an embarassing load of shit by the name of Teaching Ms. Tingle.
Let me give you motherfuckers an analogy here. When I was in the joint there was a talent show they would do sometimes. And alot of times some dumb motherfucker would sign up, “Yeah, I’ma do some tap dancing” or “Yeah man I got a monologue you know, what you didn’t know? Yeah I’m an actor bud, gotta monologue here nahmean?” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barry Watson, Helen Mirren, Jeffrey Tambor, Katie Holmes, Kevin Williamson
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, January 5th, 2000
DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE
My first time
Well I have found that a lot of my readers have also come to love the films of the Bruce Willis Die Hard series. But I wonder how many of you are in the same situation as me. Die Hard comes out in 1988, you love it. Die Hard 2 comes out a couple years later, pretty fucking good. Die Hard part 3 comes out but wait a minute, you are incapacitated and/or incarcerated at the time and are not able to ever get around to seeing the thing until letterbox video in the year 2000.
So yes, this is my first time for Die Hard With a Vengeance which is what they call part 3 for whatever reason, not sure about that one get back to me on that one later.
The other Die Hards took place in a limited setting – part 1, they take over a building. Part 2, they took over an airport. Part 3 opens by montaging New York city to the tune of “Summer in the City” by the Lovin Spoonful. You got the cars, you got the people, you got the stores and then oh yeah you got a big explosion. So right away you say wait a minute, these terrorists, these motherfuckers are working on a bigger canvas this time. That canvas, in my opinion, is called New York city. So it’s a whole different thing we’re dealing with here McClane.
Now the second difference here is that McClane doesn’t just happen to be there by coincidence. In fact he’s on suspension and he’s out drinking and they have to find him, because the mastermind who calls himself Simon asks for McClane specifically. (Not to give anything away but he is Hans Grueber’s brother out for revenge.)
In my opinion the opening is the best part of this piece. This one harkens way the fuck back to Bruce Willis’s Die Hard 1 (1988) in which John McClane was introduced as Hollywood’s most fucked up action hero. He’s separated from his wife, he fucks up bad and starts arguing with her, I mean the guy’s falling apart so much he’s walking around without shoes on. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce, Bruce Willis, Jeremy Irons, John McTiernan, Samuel L. Jackson
Posted in Action, Bruce, Reviews, Thriller | 18 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2000
Well ever since I got out I’ve been trying to catch up with all the pictures I missed while I was out of the picture. But the truth of the matter is I never saw all that many pictures before I got in either. So I figure why only review new and recent movies, if I want to be a real film Writer I gotta study the classics.
So I turned to the American Movie Classics channel where my first classic was X directed by Roger Corman. This is the story of Dr. Xavier, who invents eyedrops that would kill a monkey but would make a man have x-ray vision. Yeah so Superman has that power plus he can fly but what the hell man, one power is pretty impressive too. Xavier uses the drops on himself, does some surgery, kills a man, and goes on some x-ray adventures. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ray Milland, Roger Corman
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Saturday, January 1st, 2000
WARNING: This unfinished review here was written in the year 2000 when I was young and stupid. I’m leaving it here for the comments, for historical purposes and for my own accountability, but please if you’re just looking for a review of HARD TARGET read the one I wrote 16 years of wisdom later.
Well as you can see above, I reviewed John Woo’s HARD BOILED long ago. In that review I was obviously right about a bunch of crap that I said. For example, HARD BOILED is still a masterpiece. And as I predicted, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON was a masterpiece that blew away the combined artistic merit of every American Chow Yun Fat movie times ten. But I was wrong that after the success of CROUCHING TIGER my man Fat would never do an american movie again. Back then I would’ve been happy to hear that but that’s because I never saw fucking BULLETPROOF MONK. Oh for crying out loud, what is the man doing? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arnold Vosloo, Chuck Pfarrer, JCVD, John Woo, Kasi Lemmons, Lance Henriksen, Wilford Brimley, Yancy Butler
Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 25 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2000
Well this is not a good movie in my opinion. In fact WHAT the fuck is my man Bruce doing in this piece of garbage. I bet when he watched the premiere for this shitpile he started feeling nostalgic for those baby movies.
Now right away I knew something was a-fucking-miss when it opens with a picture of the earth and you got Charlton Heston talking about the dinosaurs. Is there a stupider way to start a movie about astronauts? I mean make up your mind is it dinosaurs or astronauts. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. WHAT THE FUCK in my opinion.
What this movie is about is not dinosaurs but a group of tough, sweaty oil drillers who like to run around and shoot at each other, or go on motorcycle chases or whatever. Okay so far so good. Then the government says look you oil drillers, we’re teaching you how to be astronauts so we can send you up on a space shuttle to land on an asteroid and drill a hole in it because to save the world from asteroids, yunnerstand. The oil drillers say only if we never have to pay taxes again, ha ha ha, see, everyone can relate because you hate to pay taxes. Funny.
Now I think personally the asteroid part is enough to know this movie is nonsense but just in case. We got aerosmith songs with people playing with animal crackers on a gal’s belly. We got a singalong before they take off into space. We got this magic boots that make convenient to help them walk on asteroids instead of float. We got motherfuckers driving around in moon cars going off jumps like the dukes of hazzard, with an iron skull on the stickshift. I mean in my opinion that’s cool but NASA should not be wasting money on this shit. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce, Bruce Willis, Michael Bay
Posted in Action, Bruce, Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Thriller | 7 Comments »
