So nice they named it twice for some reason? I actually was always curious to see what this BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER movie was all about, so those of you who voted it up in the SUGGESTIONS gave me that nudge I’ve been needing for years.
Antonio Banderas plays Jeremiah Ecks, an ex-FBI agent who went deep undercover and faked his death but also thought his wife was dead but she wasn’t but now he’s retired but they come to him and say his wife is actually alive and he should help them go after this kidnapper Sever (Lucy Liu) because she knows where his wife is. She took the son of innocent Talisa Soto (MORTAL KOMBAT) and rich asshole Gregg Henry (PAYBACK) and she keeps him in a big metal cage in a Batcave type underground lair but she seems to like him because she brings him cafeteria lunch trays loaded with good food like home made macaroni and cheese, Jello and Ding-Dongs, and he says “Thank you” politely. (read the rest of this shit…)
DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE is the name of a tournament where the best fighters from around the world are invited to come stay on a remote island where they are pitted against each other in un-refereed fights with few rules. It’s like Mortal Kombat except not interdimensional, no monsters, during daylight, and not to the death. So they probly could’ve picked a better name. Maybe just “A.”
They’re wedded to this DOA title, though. They got the logo on parachutes, computers, signs, even a volleyball. That’s the kind of island we’re dealing with here, it has custom made non-tournament related sporting gear. These are professionals. (read the rest of this shit…)
Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie)’s trade is a “tomb raider,” which is like an asskicking archaelogical adventurist. It’s just like whatsisdick, the guy with the hat from that other movie that also used the word “raider” in the title – but don’t worry, that’s a coincidence. Lara’s introduced in what looks like some sort of an ancient crypt. She’s wearing short shorts, a The Phantom belt, spinning two pistols. Her crotch and her large, pointy boobs are somewhat emphasized, in my opinion. Might just be me.
Wouldn’t you fuckin know it, her search for treasure is interrupted by a large robot. Cue the electronical music and the wire-assisted acrobatics (remember we’re just two years after THE MATRIX). The fight is too forced to be very exciting in my opinion, but it ends on a nice touch: after killing the robot Lara takes a breath, then laughs to herself. (read the rest of this shit…)
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…)
Timothy Olyphant (the bad guy from LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD [aka the killer from SCREAM 2 {SPOILER FOR SCREAM 2}]) plays a gentleman by the name of Forty Seven, who is a super badass hitman who does nothing at all in life except kill people for a secret organization that has something to do with the church and that raises orphans to be assassins and tattoos bar codes on their heads and makes them stay bald and dress like Dick Cheney. And although the movie has some enjoyable moments I feel like a movie that’s about that should really be more enjoyable than this is. And I’m sorry to say it but I think I have to throw some of the blame at the casting of Mr. Olyphant.
He’s a pretty good actor and I usually like him, but there is a major problem here: he doesn’t look good bald. I really believe that when they had him all signed on and were excited and then started fitting him for his costume and shaved his head and looked at him they must’ve thought oh shit. What have we done? There are plenty of people who can pull off bald: Samuel Jackson, Jason Statham, Telly Savalas, Patrick Stewart, Louis Gossett Jr., Montell Williams, Isaac Hayes, Gordon from Sesame Street, etc. And then there’s everybody else. I’m not saying Olyphant looks like a freak or anything, but he doesn’t look cool, it doesn’t look natural. This is a guy who should not be bald until God or cancer tells him to. And every time he’s sneaking away from an assassination, trying not to be captured or killed by Interpol, the Russian Secret Service and everybody else in the world you keep wondering how it is that nobody can spot this weirdo with the bald head and the tattoo on the back wearing a spotless black suit with a blinding red tie. I know it’s based on a video game and that’s where they get the look from, but come on. Super Mario would have an easier time not getting spotted. (read the rest of this shit…)
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
And so has Quint and, to my great pleasure, so have I. I’m not sure when Quint’s going to write about it, or even if he is, but I’ve got some things to say, and I’ll do my best to get them on paper before I head to bed. For now, though, here’s the one and only Vern, and he and I are really in tune today, since he seems to have reacted much the same way I did:
I’m not gonna lie. If you’re reading this, you probaly shouldn’t see this movie. I’m betting 95% of you who do are gonna hate it. At the screening I saw it at, people were laughing and loudly criticizing (and for some reason one crazy dude was naming the makes and years of the cars parked on the streets). The people I saw it with, who were more polite, said it was a huge pile of shit.
And in some ways they got a point. The dialogue in this movie is terrible. (Apparently that wasn’t Roger Avary’s job on PULP FICTION). It’s best when it’s just about running around facing creepy obstacles. The more it gets into plot and conversations, the more it loses its momentum. It’s pretty muddled and confusing and has an awkward explanatory narration near the end and like most of the movies by this director, the frenchman Christophe Gans, it’s probaly too long. (By the way, I looked it up and Christophe Gans is NOT Chris Gaines, that famous singer who looked exactly like Garth Brooks but with a soul patch. I know, I thought so too but let’s clear up that misconception right here.) (read the rest of this shit…)
There are three very clever sequences in this movie. First, it opens with narration over a starfield, and then pans over to show Mars. Suddenly the familiar UNIVERSAL logo letters spin around Mars. So it’s just like the usual studio logo except the red planet instead of the globe. Then the letters go off screen and the camera zooms into Mars and into a space colony where the movie takes place. It’s like there’s not even time to bother with a studio logo, our only option is to work it into the plot. That is how urgent it is to get to the motherfucking DOOM.
Yeah yeah, I know my movie history, so you don’t have to flood me with emails pointing out that the great visionary McG already connected the first shot of C’S As 1 to whichever studio logo it was. But this is a different thing because the movie has already started, and then we get the logo within the movie. If we are to follow our understanding of standard cinematical language, there may really be giant letters orbiting around Mars within the reality of DOOM. It all takes place indoors, so there’s no way to know if there are giant UNIVERSAL shaped shadows dripping across the landscape. (read the rest of this shit…)
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
What a pleasure. Reviews this morning from Elaine in Rotterdam, Cbabbitt in LA, and of course, the one and only Vern. Good reading all the way around, but I don’t think anyone turns a phrase the way our buddy Vern does, and certainly no one else stepped up to battle such a potentially deadly foe as HOUSE OF THE DEAD 2. I’m impressed at Vern’s moxie. Let’s see how well he held up:
Hey boys,
I know you guys follow Dr. Uwe Boll around all the time so you’re interested in all his movies and their mysterious sequels. I know alot of people like to talk shit, but I will say this for Dr. Boll. The medical profession is a noble one. If he healed somebody some time in the past that is to be commended. If he is one of those pervy doctors that drugs ladies and feels them up or something like that, I’m against that. And if he makes bad movies like everybody says, I’m not gonna defend that either. George Miller M.D. heals people, that didn’t stop him from making MAD fucking MAX. So it’s been established that you can be a doctor and still direct great movies. Anyway that’s not important because this is not by Dr. Boll, but it’s a sequel to his movie HOUSE OF THE DEAD, I guess. I never saw any of his movies or played video games so I am uniquely unqualified for this review. (read the rest of this shit…)
Apparently this one’s based on a video game that’s kind of based on the night of the living dead movies. So it turns out real crappy like a xerox of a xerox. And apparently the machine needs servicing. The video game is probaly better because after three of your pac-men get eaten by zombies, the game is over. The movie lasts, like, more than an hour.
The plot isn’t that bad. Milla Jovovich, who is still gorgeous even after leaving Luc Besson and becoming integrated into society, plays some kind of security agent or something in a dress. (Not sure.) She wakes up naked in the shower of a mansion with no memory. Some army goons rush in and bring her along with them into a secret underground chamber to investigate, even though she doesn’t remember how to help them.
Okay so I am not really backing my claim that the plot isn’t that bad. Well it turns out that before she lost her memory (I never understood how) she was undercover, living in the mansion to guard the secret entrance to this underground facility “the hive” where a realistically sinister corporation performs illegal genetic experiments. But somebody let loose a deadly virus, the computer put the place in lockdown, and all the scientists and dogs inside were turned into zombies. Also some monster comes out at the end. (read the rest of this shit…)
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THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
CJ Holden on Mortal Kombat Annihilation: “You guys. I was in the mood to watch this thing last night again and I really don’t wanna convince…” May 16, 23:53
Alex R on Mortal Kombat II: “Is there… a difference? Haha sorry for pushing the envelope, I just can’t help but show people how twisted this…” May 16, 11:46
renfield on Dead Man: “Man that detail on how Neil Young made the soundtrack is so cool. I also heard that RZA tricked out…” May 16, 08:54
Mr. Majestyk on Risky Business: “This is a really edgy argument, Guy Who Time Traveled From 1978.” May 16, 05:07
Mr. Majestyk on RRR: “I’m sorry, the batteries in my sarcasm detector must be dying because I’m not getting a reliable reading on this…” May 16, 05:05
Curt on Mortal Kombat II: “(Other countries, not companies)” May 16, 04:31
Curt on Mortal Kombat II: “Zed, that was an interesting essay, but I was depressed by the author’s assumption that movies are made by “empires”,…” May 16, 04:29
Dan on Risky Business: “I began reading the article and stopped after about the second paragraph. The person that wrote the article made a…” May 16, 03:44
Timo on Mortal Kombat II: “This was so disappointing. It’s not terrible, but not enough of a course correction from the first. McQuoid is just…” May 16, 03:39
Neddy Smith on RRR: “Bollywooders have been making these fight and shoot actioneers ever since the first “Agneepath”, but traditionally Bollywood has excelled at…” May 16, 03:14
Zed on Mortal Kombat II: “Unrelated to MK2 but related to the summer of ’96 series: Vern, I’m not a fan of Independence Day either…” May 15, 23:32
PJ on The Stunt Man: “I couldn’t disagree more about Railsback. He was by far the worst part of the movie. He just simply wasn’t…” May 15, 21:26
Wolfgang Jahn on Talk To Me: “Nobody mentions Colin EGGLESTONs LONG WEEKEND (1978), an abolutely fantastic Aussie outback horror thriller, which remake done in the early…” May 15, 14:01
Wolfgang Jahn on Talk To Me: “Nobody mentions Colin EGGLESTONs LONG WEEKEND (1978), an abolutely fantastic Ausie outback horror thriller, which remake done in the early…” May 15, 14:00
VERN on You Can’t Win (2026): “Thank you! I’m glad to know those IMDB external links are still worth submitting. At the time I posted this…” May 15, 13:32
So nice they named it twice for some reason? I actually was always curious to see what this BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER movie was all about, so those of you who voted it up in the SUGGESTIONS gave me that nudge I’ve been needing for years.
DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE is the name of a tournament where the best fighters from around the world are invited to come stay on a remote island where they are pitted against each other in un-refereed fights with few rules. It’s like Mortal Kombat except not interdimensional, no monsters, during daylight, and not to the death. So they probly could’ve picked a better name. Maybe just “A.”
released June 15th, 2001
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. 
Timothy Olyphant (the bad guy from LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD [aka the killer from SCREAM 2 {SPOILER FOR SCREAM 2}]) plays a gentleman by the name of Forty Seven, who is a super badass hitman who does nothing at all in life except kill people for a secret organization that has something to do with the church and that raises orphans to be assassins and tattoos bar codes on their heads and makes them stay bald and dress like Dick Cheney. And although the movie has some enjoyable moments I feel like a movie that’s about that should really be more enjoyable than this is. And I’m sorry to say it but I think I have to throw some of the blame at the casting of Mr. Olyphant.
SPOILER ALERT !!
There are three very clever sequences in this movie. First, it opens with narration over a starfield, and then pans over to show Mars. Suddenly the familiar UNIVERSAL logo letters spin around Mars. So it’s just like the usual studio logo except the red planet instead of the globe. Then the letters go off screen and the camera zooms into Mars and into a space colony where the movie takes place. It’s like there’s not even time to bother with a studio logo, our only option is to work it into the plot. That is how urgent it is to get to the motherfucking DOOM.
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
Apparently this one’s based on a video game that’s kind of based on the night of the living dead movies. So it turns out real crappy like a xerox of a xerox. And apparently the machine needs servicing. The video game is probaly better because after three of your pac-men get eaten by zombies, the game is over. The movie lasts, like, more than an hour.
