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.
So like I said I have been learning from the different cultures, reading from the books, traveling to the churches and synagogues, bowling alleys, ice skating rinks, airports and bus stations. I have been going to the slums and the country clubs, the farms and the cities, the ghettos and the international districts, both the mens bathrooms and the women's bathrooms. But most of all I have been going to the Halls of the Cinema, from the smallest rathole wind tunnel of a mall theater to the largest plane hanger of a THX Dolby Digitalized gigantiplex. I have been watching movies on both the VHS and the DVD formats, except for Star Trek Phantom Menace which is only available on video, so I rented the version that was dubbed into spanish and pretended it was a dvd.
You see I believe very strongly that if you are to understand one form of Badass, you must understand all form of Badass. The true phenomenon of the Badass Cinema is worldwide, and it is my mission to gain a true understanding of that world and that history. How can I understand bad if I only know Clint Eastwood bad, and not Chow Yun Fat bad? You see just as a diamond of the earth has many facets, just as a gal's tits come in many sizes with many different type of nipples, the Badass comes in many forms and styles, and I am studying them all. If you know any Badasses from around the world who I have not mentioned, please let me know so that I may continue my journey and gain more knowledge.
And all this knowledge and worldly culturalism has led me to think of one particular Badass, and that is Billy Jack, from the movie Billy Jack. Billy Jack is the story of a mysterious mystical "halfbreed" badass who lives with the indians and protects a progressive mutliple cultural hippie school. The townspeople fear and hate Billy Jack just as they do the long haired and dark haired kids of the school, who sing their songs and stand their ground and try to eat in the ice cream shop with the white kids.
Billy Jack is a very good folk hero type of Badass. He was a Vietnam vet who hated the war, so he came back and lives in some ruins where he learns from wise Indian elders. Whenever he is needed he seems to sense it and he shows up, on a motorcycle or in an old jeep, on a horse or on foot. He always seems to come across some motherfuckers that are poaching stallions, or picking on kids, or raping somebody, and then he just stands there rubbing his mouth. He takes off his hat and starts playing with his hair. He talks real quiet, making a little righteous speech, and then he blows up. Sometimes that means punching a guy, scaring a guy, shooting a guy. But in the best part, it means taking off his cowboy boots and doing some karate. And it's pretty good karate, not quite Jet Li but more convincing than Rudy Ray Moore.
Billy Jack is like Ghost Dog because his Ways come from many different cultures. The green berets, the american indians, the japanese karate masters, and the pacifist american hippies. The most badass thing this motherfucker ever does is he gets a special indian ceremony where he becomes blood brother to a rattlesnake by letting it bite him four times and then just letting his body fight off the poison. This causes him to have a vision where he does a big speech for an ancient indian leader. Not everyone can get to do this ceremony, or even survive it, but I would like to see more motion picture Badasses taking these type of risks.
Alot of this Freedom School hippie business is pretty corny, but what I like is this is not your typical formula revenge type of action picture. Billy Jack doesn't seem to like violence, but he believes in it anyway and implements it regularly. Even still the picture does not let him necessarily be right. I am used to the pictures where bruce lee or Steven Seagal or whoever says they don't believe in violence, but then they end up kicking a guy's ass to solve the problem and everything is okay. And you are supposed to think, "Well, it's too bad but it was necessary and it saved the day and he would have been a pussy if he didn't kill the guy." In Billy Jack the morality is more complicated, and his old hippie lady girlfriend actually convinces him sometimes that violence will make things worse. Then at the end, she questions whether she was right - if Billy Jack had killed this one motherfucker, the school would be closed down, but one of the students wouldn't have been murdered. So which is better? There really isn't an answer.
The students in this movie are mostly pacifists too, they use street theater or protest songs instead of karate. This unfortunately makes the picture have less action scenes but it is still a good feeling that is arguably worth the sacrifice. Billy Jack is part of a small but important tradition of Badass pictures which use many of the conventions of the action genre but with a more lefty type of value system. I am talking about classic pictures like the Roddy Piper piece where all the republicans turn out to be evil alien skeleton men.
I think outlaws like myself prefer these type of heroes who don't necessarily follow the law or the status quo but who have righteous pure hearts and follow what they know is right. I mean who the fuck wants to watch another movie about a cop breaking the rules and getting all worked up, veins popping out of his head he wants to throw a dude in jail so bad. "DAMN IT I'm gonna NAIL that asshole!" I don't wanna watch that shit, I wanna watch a movie about an indian karate man who fights the racist cop's rapist kids.
In the end, Billy Jack sacrifices himself in a way I don't remember ever seeing in an action movie before. This dude lets himself get arrested for what he believes in. I never seen Charles Bronson doing no civil disobedience type shit. This movie was made in a more naive time when people could believe the dude who says that if Billy Jack goes to trial, it will have to be fair because the media will be watching. I have not seen the sequel Trial of Billy Jack yet but I can't wait to find out what happens and I will keep you updated on my thoughts. Don't give away what happens though asshole.
Anyway buds, I would like to ask you, please follow me on my journey through the Badass Cinema of many cultures, and together we will share knowledge about asskicking, snakebiting, eye narrowing and everything else. Ghost Dog, power equality or whatever the dude says.
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.
First off hailing from Japan, Asia is Mr. Takeshi "Beat" Kitano. Beat is one of the category of artist I most admire, the Badass Laureate, or the action star who also directs his own pictures, like Clint Eastwood. The guy that can kick ass AND make the movie to prove it.
However, I will require further studies before I can truly understand the Way of Beat Takeshi. So far I have watched his second picture as a director, Boiling Point. What I figured was this - Hard Boiled is the greatest action picture of the '90s. And the word "boiled" is in the title. You see where I'm going with this? That is why I thought Boiling Point would be the best Kitano piece.
Well, turns out Beat is only a supporting character in this, and a funny one too, so it is hard to scientifically gauge his level of Badass integrity and what not just based on this one piece. The direction here is very real and cinema verite as the French would call it, not sure what the Japanese would call it. But it kind of reminded me of The Reservoir Dogs and Tree's Lounge, you hear the cars driving by on the next street over, you get a feel for the setting and you kind of think you are there. The humor is very dry and quiet. There are lots of jokes like when some guys crash into a parked car, and the owner of the car is standing on the side of the road taking a piss. (You know how it is.) What's funny is the way he just stands there and looks at the accident, no emotion on his face, like he's not sure how to react. Well, I mean, you'll understand when you see it.
But Beat, I mean in this movie, this is one crazy motherfucker. Not just in the sense that he breaks bottles over people's heads for no reason and what not. Also in the sense that he takes on a younger guy into his gang, tells him to fuck his girlfriend, then gets mad at both the young guy and the girlfriend.
"But you told me to!"
"Yeah, but you shouldn't have done it."
Or when he says, "Let me do it!" and pushes the girlfriend off the bed and starts cornholing the guy and smiling. He just pulls the craziest shit but the whole time with this attitude like there's nothing unreasonable about it, so much so that everyone just seems to accept it.
In this movie, he is like the Hunter S. Thompson of film badasses. He is some kind of criminal but he spends most of the time partying in bars and hotels before he even gets around to the crime. Then he hides a gun in some flowers and blows some people away, but unlike the Terminator he doesn't dump the flowers to reveal the gun. No, he is confident in his masculinity enough that he can hold the flowers the whole damn time.
The other Badass artist brian suggested was a chilean dude out of Mexico, North America by the name of Alexandro Jodorowsky. He is the director, writer and star of El Topo which is that fucked up cowboy movie all the hippies used to like. Well I don't know about this one brian this might be stretching it a little. Sure this guy is evil as hell when he rides in in his black cowboy outfit,holding an umbrella and a naked kid, and then says, "Son, you are 7 years old. Today you are a man," and then drags the kid around a just-massacred town to kill a bunch of rapists. I mean yeah, I'll give you that, the dude is bad to the point of satanism.
And okay, I admit it, later on when his lover tells him that if he wants to prove he loves her, he will have to kill the four masters of the desert, this motherfucker doesn't even hesitate! He accepts it as logical and says, "In order to find the four masters of the desert, we must travel in a spiral." And then he actually goes and kills them!
Come to think of it, okay, El Topo is a Badass. But that does not mean Alejandro in general is a Badass, since this is not representative of his primary persona and what not. Being a true Badass is more than just one movie. It is more than an outfit, it is more than killing alot of people, it is something that comes from the soul. And in this dude's soul, deep beneath the the grim face, the black hat, the shaggy beard and the whole cold-hearted killer thing, lies not a Badass, but an artist concerned with the mystical, the archetypical, the mythical, the psychedelic, the surreal. I mean don't get me wrong, the man is a great artist, even a genius, but he is not a Badass in my opinion. He is some kind of skinny yoga dude.
Still, I can learn from his Ways, and although I will not take yoga classes I will indeed study his movements on film which he learned from marcel marceau by the way, a famous mime.
Anyway, to change the subject, this week I would also like to talk about Mr. George Clooney who I would like to congratulate for his live black and white production of Fail Safe on the tv last sunday. Clooney was very good in a small but important role. I am giving him the credit because it was him that convinced CBS to do a live, black and white version of this story, set in the '50s. I know CBS doesn't count as a real TV network but still, I mean who the fuck ever does anything like that anymore? I would like to point out that this dude deserves praise for using his clout to do something unusual and interesting instead of, say, doing some serious drama where he plays a retarded guy who teaches kids from the ghetto how to drive race cars or that kind of thing.
Fail Safe for those that don't know is the classic book and movie about how soldiers and politicians deal with it when they have accidentally started a nuclear war that will destroy the world. Whoops. Unfortunately Fail Safe is not half as funny as Dr. Strangelove, or How I blah blah blah etc. by Stan Kubrick. Still, it is gripping, suspenseful, dramatic and all that business. This version was done completely old fashioned, with an introduction by Walter Cronkite, scratchy stock footage of planes, and even a narrator saying the names of the actors at the end.
And need I mention again, this thing was 2 hours and LIVE ON THE AIR. Does that take balls or what? It's like doing a play in front of the whole damn world. I don't know HOW the hell they know all their lines. Plus you never know when some naked guy is gonna run onto the set or something, and then they would have had to improvise a reason for it, like, "Oh, Lieutenant Nicholson has snapped from the pressure, he's gone nuts! Take him out of here!" I mean you never know, you just have to be prepared.
There was an all star cast including Harvey Keitel from Taxi Driver and The Reservoir Dogs. His performance was a little awkward but you know who really stood out was Richard Dreyfuss as the president.
And I can't tell you how good it is to see this motherfucker back again. He has been out of the picture longer than I have. I mean he does an occasional movie but it's pretty much always unwatchable crap where he plays some high strung prick that blows up whenever the other characters do something wacky and then you laugh at him and go, "Ha ha, he is so uptight, that Richard Dreyfuss, what a fucking prick! Ha ha!"
But lest we forget this dude used to be a major player. Most of the kids now probaly don't know this but he was one of the stars of Jaws, Steven Spielberg's best film to date. And let me mention something about Spielberg. You may not know this but Spielberg used to be a different dude. This was before he was some slick sentimentalist CEO executive producer type who represents the height of artistry for middle of the road mainstream feel good movies. This was not the Spielberg who has to push buttons to make powerful movies. I mean he didn't even know where the World War 2 button was located. This was a kid so full of energy and Cinematic prowess that he could make a movie about a giant shark and it comes off like a god damned epic. This was a dude who felt, why make some Oscar bait historical drama when you can make a movie about a guy being chased by a truck?
And that's what Jaws was. Not a movie about a guy being chased by a truck, that's what Duel was. But Jaws was a crisp, vibrating epic. It had great characters, great suspense, great atmosphere. And Dreyfuss was a Spielberg regular who gave great performances in this and the UFO movie. Here he plays a whiny scientifical shark expert who comes along with the sheriff and professional shark hunter to slay this motherfucker, Jaws the giant shark. It is a great, three dimensional type character because he's kind of annoying, but he obviously knows what he's talking about. And throughout this boat trip, you see that he desperately wants to fit in, and he has a macho side where he shows off his scars and sings drinking songs and all. And by the end you really feel like he's your buddy. I mean what better way to bond than this? Like that scene when they've blown the shark to smithereens as they used to call it in the cartoons, and there are pieces of shark meat scattered all over, and their boat is destroyed and they're floating in the middle of the ocean on little shards of wood and they're tired and exhausted and their friend was killed and they just look at each other and start laughing.
It's like when some friend of a friend goes on a trip with you, and you hate him, but at the end you've been through so much with him that you feel like what the hell he's my friend anyway, the fucker.
President Dreyfuss in Fail Safe isn't THAT good of a character, but it's a dignified, dramatic role and it is entertaining to see him deal with the moral conflicts and great pressure of what the hell he's gonna do about all these nuclear bombs about to kill everybody. The prick.
Anyway welcome back Rich good to see you.
--Vern
VERN TELL'S IT LIKE IT IS #27 - American Psychos
This week I decided to take the day off from my World Badass Studies to give a nod to my boys in the horror community. You see back when many of the movie type newsgroups rejected me on account of my harsh language and telling it like it is, etc. I posted a review of the "Sleepy Hollow" over there in the horror newsgroup and you know what happened? Those motherfuckers welcomed me with the openest arms you ever seen on the internet. Those were some of the nicest motherfuckers ever in my opinion. I don't know what the deal is, they watch the gals getting their tongues ripped out and zombies eating a guy's balls or whatever, then when they're ready to call it a day they go online and there's ol' Vern and they treat him like just one of the boys. Bunch of sweethearts if you ask me.
So I got this notion the other day that it's been a long time since I've reviewed the horrors and whattaya know, suddenly this week there is a new horror picture in the theaters, American Psycho. This is a gorey picture based on the hated killer yuppie novel by Bret Easton Ellis, which brought up an assload of controversy at the time even when there were no plans for it to be published. Imagine writing a book and just the fact that it's been written causes everybody to get all worked up and bust out the pitchforks. Ellis was attacked by everyone from feminists to right wing bible christians, to probably even drug addicts in superman costumes as well as the media who you would think would enjoy the american rights of free speech. Only a handful of critics and authors even noticed that the book was supposed to be a dark satire of yuppie values.
Now ten years later American Psycho is a major motion picture so what I decided to do was rent some horror DVDs and maybe I'll see American Psycho later.
The first one I saw was Maniac and to my surprise this is some kind of a minor classic or what not. I don't think this one has much of a reputation as far as, "this movie is good" however, let the reputation start now. This is a gritty picture made in New York around the time of the Son of Sam murders. It is made in the tradition of the chainsaw pictures and what not that try to push the envelope of what is acceptable in a horror piece, and make everybody get uncomfortable and hopefully piss their pants or at least leak a few drops without realizing it. The movie is VERY fucking sleazy and gorey, but what makes it work is that it also has heart.
You see the protagonist, an abstract artist named Frank Maniac who looks more like some kind of truck driver or maybe television repair man, really is a maniac - but as played by the late great character actor Joe Spinnell, you start to have a bit of empathy for the poor bastard. I mean, a real small amount, but more than you'd have for a Jason or a Freddy or even a Chucky.
I mean yes, this motherfucker does blow a dude's head off, stalk and kill some gals and staple their scalps to mannequines, and etc. I am not justifying all that business. But Spinell doesn't play Frank as some cackling evil man like Freddy, he plays him as a lonely, vulnerable bastard who was beaten as a kid and still suffers from delusions about his mother that cause him to have a BIT of a problem with women. I mean this dude is like Norman Bates, except fatter and sweatier and he moans alot and is a landlord in a small apartment building instead of a hotel manager in a big scary house at the Universal Studios theme park.
Most of the picture is from Frank's point of view, forcing us to live the life of the maniac. One of the best parts requires some suspension of the disbelief, because it's in the part where Frank starts dating a glamorous fashion photographer. While a bunch of models strut around and the cameras flash and the disco music plays, our man the maniac sits on the side waiting for his gal to get off work. And he's all dressed up, his hair combed and he's holding a teddy bear. I mean this motherfucker looks so out of place. We know what he's like underneath, we've seen what happens when he hires a hooker, we've seen him cry and handcuff himself to a mannequin and moan, "I'm so happy." We know this maniac's secrets and now here he is wearing hipster clothes trying to fit into the social scene.
The setting is really important too, this really is a realistic take on the scary side of the "big apple" as they would say on entertainment tonight. What the fuck is that all about? Anway apparently the picture was shot real cheap on the 16 millimeter film and I think having to stretch the budget and not make it so slick is part of why they came up with something so good.
This is a very well made movie, with lots of grit and dread and disturbing ideas. If you like the raw '70s horror classics do not miss this piece. Also the DVD has a good commentary track with the director William Lustig, special effects guy/guy who gets killed in the movie Tom Savini, the producer, and some guy who was friends with Joe Spinell. Plus a whole pile of other crap.
From the same director Lustig comes Maniac Cop made ten years later and somewhere in those ten years the magic has gone. I guess it's along the lines of how all the soul music and what not, they made good music in the seventies but then in the '80s with the invention of the casio keyboard it all turned to crap, including Return of Bruno, sadly enough. The Lustig pictures apparently are the same way because this one oughta be gangbusters but it's not.
I mean this picture has alot going for it. Number one, it stars Bruce Campbell. Number two, it makes fun of cops. Number three, and I think most of the "internet geeks" will agree with me on this one, it stars Bruce Campbell. But somehow, the picture still isn't very good.
The idea is that there is this big tall maniac who kills people, who is wearing a police uniform and white gloves, and he keeps killing people. Nobody knows who he is, or if he is a real cop or just a guy who wants to be a cop and dresses up like them and acts like them.
Well there is this other cop played by Bruce Campbell, and I guess you're supposed to wonder at first if he's the Maniac Cop, but give me a fucking break do you think we're retarded? Turns out he's been framed and he has to prove he's not the Maniac Cop, and then the Maniac Cop turns out to be a zombie or some stupid shit like that, I forgot exactly what it was. If I was a film critic I would check the press kit and find out for sure but actually I am a Film Writer, thank you very much. There's a pretty big difference and don't you forget it.
I have seen worse movies than this that's for sure, and it does have a good point about how cops are maniac zombies that kill people. But it's not scary, it's not funny, it doesn't have any of the gritty look or atmosphere of Maniac and it definitely doesn't have any character (including Bruce's) that is anywhere near as interesting as Frank Maniac. It's pretty much by the books cop movies combined with by the books killer movie, with no twists or extra special touches worth mentioning. And the look is much to slick and full of cliches. I mean what kind of a jackass puts in a special effect lightning strike in to make a movie scary? This is 1988 pal not an Abbot and Costello movie. Why don't you go back and study a little picture called Maniac starring Joe Spinell.
Bruce is on the commentary track on the DVD though so it's worth listening to, and I like hearing this guy Lustig tell stories.
Then there is Henry the Portrait of the Serial Killer. This picture was made in 1986, two years before Die Hard, but was not released until 1990, two years after Die Hard. It was released unrated because the MPAA censorship board said that there was no way it could be given an r-rating, there was nothing that needed to be cut, it was just the whole mood of the film.
And I gotta admit the bastards have a point, this is not a movie you will want to watch on your birthday. I mean this is a pretty gloomy story. It is just like the title says, Henry is a serial killer and you follow his life as he teaches his buddy Otis how to get away with and enjoy murder, and as Otis's sister unknowingly gets close to these crazy fucks.
Henry is played by Michael Rooker, who is kind of a scary dude who plays cops and villains alot, but this was his breakout role. He is very good, his eyes are dark and his soul really seems empty. The movie has kind of a realistic, documentary feel that is extra disturbing when these fucks steal a video camera and start making home movies of their killing spree. You thought "blair witch", "man bites dog" and all this was fucked up, wait until you see THE ORIGINAL fictional video tape murder. It's like clockwork orange meets america's disturbing police chase videos.
Like I said man, don't watch this one with your grandma. It is not a pretty sight and it is not something you are going to have fun watching unless you're some kind of inbred leatherface type who masturbates to faces of death videos and reads books about snuff movies and satanic cults. But for the rest of you if you like a really well made movie that stares into the ugly blackness of the dark human heart of blah blah blah or whatever, well... have at it boys.
On the DVD, you got a trailer for Henry Part 2. I mean, gimme a fucking break. Actually it doesn't look as bad as you'd think, but there's some other dude playing Henry. In other words, it is not Michael Rooker. It's some other guy. Sorry bud, but forget it. I'm out.
Anyway let me know how the american psycho is guys thanks
--Vern
VERN TELL'S IT LIKE IT IS #28 - The Vern has risen
First of all, before I get into the holy religious holiday of Easter and all, I want to say WHO THE FUCK is this jackass Chris Gore, and how many times should I stab him? If I was a violent person. You see today I was watching the FX channel over there on the cable, minding my own business, when suddenly I see this ad for The Man Show or whatever his thing is called. Now I have seen this show before and the less I say about it the better. So I will tell you a lot about it. It is shit. I will get into that in a minute.
Let me just mention as an aside, a dude in the guestbook says I was featured in a british dancing music magazine called Jockey Slut. Was Chris Gore ever in Jockey Slut? I don't think so. Was Harvey S. Karten ever in Jockey Slut? I don't think so. Was I? According to this guy, yes. If somebody could please send me a scan of this or something I would REALLY fucking appreciate it.
Anyway back to this motherfucker on FX. What got me mad is not that this show is even worse than Access Hollywood. It is that on the ads, the dude says, "Finally, a critic who tells it like it is."
Now does that remind you of anyone? Can you think of any other critic (or, in this case, Film Writer), who Tell's It Like It Is? Has there ever been one before? One who has written a new column every week for 28 straight weeks, each with one hundred (100) times as much insight into the Artistic Works of Cinema as an entire season of Chris Gore's moronic TV show?
I mean, jesus.
(I'm talking about me, by the way, if you didn't catch that. I am the one who "tell's it like it is." That is the name of my column.)
The trouble is, to tell it like it is you gotta be an Outlaw like yours truly. You gotta not care what anyone thinks about you. I mean your talking to a motherfucker who would piss on himself in public if he felt like it. I don't care what anybody thinks. Chris Gore would not piss on himself. Because it's not "cool" to piss yourself.
Chris Gore is a dude who cares what you think, he wants to be the rebel version of Siskel and Ebert. The trouble with rebels is they're always reacting to try to get a reaction. They think they are standing up against the conformists, by conforming to what the conformists don't do. So this bitch and his panelists, they just sit around and give two sentence joke reviews of the movies where they try to say something cynical, like, "this movie is good because it has explosions, ha ha ha let's admit it, we like explosions. Take THAT establishment, HA!"
On Roger Ebert's show, I always wish it was longer because they have two people and like 5 movies to talk about in 22 minutes. You do the math - it doesn't divide up too well. They say some good stuff but they don't really get to go as in depth as the Art of Cinema requires. Chris Gore's The Man Show has this problem much worse because now it's five people, and all of them are nitwits. If any one of these retards made an intelligent point on the episode I saw, it must have been edited out.
And like entertainment tonight, they spend half the episode talking about what they're going to talk about later. "Later on, we'll discuss nudity in the movies." I thought it was going to be some kind of report. Discussing the Issues. But no, they just spend about a minute talking about how horny Fast Times at Ridgmont High used to make them.
These are the kind of people you used to hang out with when you were younger, the guys who always thought they were alot more rebellious than they actually were. The guys who work in little comments that are supposed to sound self-deprecating but at the same time make them seem cool, like, "Dude, that movie is REALLY fucked up and TWISTED. But that's how I like 'em!"
Or...
"If you've got a TWISTED sense of humor like me, 'American Psycho' could be the year's best COMEDY!"
(Actual quote from Chris Gore.)
Despite all the show off rebel cynic business, these guys are still from the box office is king school of movie criticism. Here is an example of one of Chris's "tellin it like it is" reviews from his web site:
"And while the box office won't be huge, keep an eye out for potential sleeper hits like 'Love and Sex.' This smart romantic comedy's story is enough for me. This is definitely one to check out even without a big explosion at the end."
That's not an excerpt. That's the whole review.
Anyway, screw that bastard. Now let's talk about the Lord. At easter time I think about a couple of different things. The first one is The Wicker Man with Christopher Lee. This is not a Batman movie or an X-Man movie, it is about a cult that does human sacrifices.
I don't know if you remember that movie. It's been a while for me. I'm not sure if it takes place at Easter or not but I think it might. What I do remember is this dude flies to a pagan commune island to investigate a dead girl. When he digs up her coffin, I think there was a rabbit inside it. Then they make all kinds of pastries and play music and a naked gal is dancing against the wall. They dress up in masks and march this motherfucker to his death. "You have an appointment.. with the Wicker Man!"
The other thing I think about is Jesus Wormwood from back in the can. Not Jesus like Hey-Soos, the mexican name, although there were a few of those in there. This is Jesus like Geezus. His christian name was Eric I think, but he got the name Jesus on account of an incident involving being resurrected from the dead and what not.
See Wormwood got in a fight over property rights I believe, one of his punks or something, don't want to bore you with prison politics. Point is, P-Dog and some of that whole clique beat Wormwood flat into the concrete, and crushed his larynx with the side of a lunch tray. Wormwood coughed up blood for three days straight, and didn't stop until old Dog Dick Bronson shanked him over an unrelated grudge. Dog Dick wanted Wormwood to apologize for something (prison honor thing - hard to explain). God knows if Wormwood would've apologized but the important thing is, he COULDN'T. Like I said his larynx was crushed and he couldn't even say, "help, I'm on fire!" let alone "I'm sorry, Dog Dick."
It was a lunch tray that made him mute and ironically it was a lunch tray that killed him as well, for Dog Dick had cut out a triangle from a lunch tray about 3 inches long and sharpened it by scraping it against the walls and holding it to flames. Poor bastard had been bleeding already for 72 hours and this shanking business was too much to take. Still it took another day and a half before he finally passed out, and another day before he passed on.
Word spread around the yard, poor Wormwood. Rookie motherfucker was just too soft. And they buried him out back.
Exactly 7 days later, or 2, or whatever it is in the Bible, everybody's out in the yard and there's Wormwood lifting weights.
"What the FUCK!?" everybody asked.
I mean there were a couple different possibilities of what could've happened. Number one, he didn't really die. He was pronounced dead too early, and since he couldn't talk he couldn't argue with them. When they went out to bury him, he started wiggling or something, they figured out their mistake, and threw his ass back in jail.
Number two, it was a failed escape plan. Dog Dick, and maybe even P-Dog was in on it. They hurt him, but didn't kill him, and he did some kind of transcendental yoga meditation to make his heart stop beating so they would bury him, and then somebody would dig him up later and he would be a free man. But the guy who came to dig him up was a narc, and threw his ass back in jail.
Number three, he was resurrected like Jesus or a vampire and scratched his way up from underneath.
"What the fuck, Wormwood? What happened?" We were dying to know.
And he said, "hhh.... .... ee..... hrrrr." The motherfucker still couldn't talk. So we never found out what happened, but we called him Jesus from that day on.
Happy easter, motherfucker.
--Vern
Well shit guys I don't know what to tell you, I have trouble keeping up with the column anymore. That is why I am a day late. I am old and out of touch but to be frankly honest I think I can still take on most of the younger movie critics, not only physically but even writing wise. I challenge for example any of the motherfuckers from entertainment weekly, people magazine, etc. Except Mike D'Angelo, he is pretty good in my opinion, not sure about the fighting skills but I will keep you posted.
Shit listen to me talking about I'm a day late. I sound like your girlfriend.
If you get what I'm saying. It's a joke bud.
Anyway here's the good news. My bud David Peter over there in the united kingdom, he sent me the clipping from that magazine jockey slut. Not bad if you want my opinion:
Anyway, that is the real reason I am so exhausted, I have been spreading myself to other mediums. This is the first time I have been in the print type of medium, so it is an exciting time for me to think about all the trees they cut down just so some dancing british guy can read about me while he's on the john.
Anyway if any of the americans want to follow the lead of the british, you can do an article about my sight too. I am talking to you entertainment weekly, hustler, national geographic, etc.
But enough about me. I want to talk about me watching a movie. In this case it is a movie that hit very close to home for me. Although it is about individuals from a different type of background from me, it happens to be about a dude who uses poetry to overcome the Negativity of prison. The name of the picture is SLAM and it is maybe a classic.
This is a movie that comes out of the rapping music type of scene, the reading poetry type of scene that the young black guys have. The main character is Raymond Joshua played by Saul Williams, who is a poet. Not only the kind who writes, this is the verbal type of poet where the way he says it is so important. But he's not even pretentious about it, he even says he doesn't really think of himself as a poet, he's just someone who writes. And he walks around with all the kids in the neighborhood and they make up rhymes. Then he gets caught selling weed and goes to the can.
This is the most authentic picture I have seen about the topic. It is shot in a documentary style with real inmates in almost all of the roles, in a real prison with mostly improvised dialoguing. The poets in the movie are VERY fucking talented and passionate and there is alot of talk about the hypocrisy of the drug war, the impossibility of escaping a rap, the lack of individuality in a prison type setting and many other topics which have never been treated honestly in a cinematic motion picture before.
There is also a character called Hopha, a very realistic character of the prison bigshot who wears a white hotel bathrobe and has a huge collection of soap and Kool Aid. He tells Raymond the reality of prison life, how things work, what you have to do. And in a way he's right. But Raymond is so talented, so right, that he is able to do things his way anyway, and make a little change in the can, and in a way that's completely believable.
The dude in this role of Hopha is one of the best and most likable actors I've seen in a long time. Well then I listened to the commentary track and it turns out this dude is one of the writers of the movie, and he really was in the joint and improvised most of what he said. In fact he is another individual like myself who came out of the joint and used Writing to turn his life around.
But that isn't even why I liked it, the prison stuff. I mean hell this could take place in a garden show I would still like it if it was this powerful. What I like is that these people are obviously the real thing. They really believe the shit they are saying and doing. There is a character in the movie who is a gangster who gets shot in the head and is thought to be dead, and shows up alive and blinded. He is played by a guy who in real life was a gangster who got shot in the head and was thought to be dead, and showed up alive and blinded. There is a scene of a writing class for inmates, and all of them are real inmates reading their own poetry about their own lives. There is a scene where Saul Williams explodes into this poem about violence in the middle of the yard, and everybody looks at him like, what the hell? They filmed this by having him really do the poem in the middle of the yard. I mean that is asking for it. But it worked.
Now, I think many of you come from the same type of background as me, of the old white guy. So I never really liked the rapping music that they have these days. I remember when I first went in, rapping was a fad everybody said. It's just a fad, it's not even music. Ten years later, it just won't go away. I mean how long do these fads last these days, its ridiculous, its been around what, twenty years. Well to me, this movie explains why. I never thought it was music before because it is just talking. But when I saw it in this movie I realized that HOLY SHIT is that some TALKING!
I mean there is this scene where Saul hears some dude doing the rapping in the cell next door. He is banging a brush on a table and talking these rhymes about his violent life in the cocaine trade. And Saul jumps in and starts doing the rhyming about his heritage and his belief and what not. ANd they just keep going, and they are just talking off the top of their head and they have some great images and wordplays and most importantly ALL OF IT RHYMES.
I mean I can't emphasize that enough, there are white guys who sit around all day writing a poem and at the end of the day, I don't care how good your motifs and thematics is it still doesn't rhyme one fucking bit. I mean for example, "icy cold heart" and "shadow of my desperation" or something like that - those don't rhyme. That is not a rhyme. That is for pussies.
But these rappers, they are guys who everything they say rhymes. I mean that's what rapping is. Right in this scene is two individuals, one of them an 18 year old behind bars in real life, and in one scene they are taking just about every important talent to the extreme. It is a powerful blast of poetry, rhythm, prison culture, african american culture, improvisation, and verbal dexterity. I mean how the FUCK do they even come up with this stuff let alone make it sound good. "And I miss my mother / fuckin sanity." There are some good lines.
That is a real music and a real talent. We don't got no time for the poems that don't rhyme, you can stick it up your ass with a shard of glass. When you watch this scene you can see the real power of it. I mean good job you guys holy shit. I'm convinced.
I saw another movie that I forgot to review before when I put up all those other reviews. I thought I was putting up a whole assload of reviews the other day but it was a mistake, I forgot Running Time, so there was only about 75-80% of an assload of material there. Sorry about that guys. Anyway this picture kind of picks up where Slam leaves off. In this one the guy gets out of prison, but instead of being a poet he is Bruce Campbell. Which is almost the same thing in a way.
Now the gimmick here is that it's all supposed to look like one photographing shot, which is coincidentally exactly what Mr. Al Hitchcock did in his picture Rope. Only here it is more fakey and in black and white. It stars Bruce Campbell.
The name of the picture is Running Time.
Now in the movie, Bruce is playing a character who is much more Negative than myself, but you gotta admire his conviction. Because what he does is walk out of prison, off on parole, and drives straight to his next robbery. If he stopped to get a burger, change his clothes or whatever, that would be one thing. But no, he goes straight to the robbery. I mean that's pretty cool in my opinion. Even if the guy can't rob worth a damn.
His ride to the robbery is an old high school buddy, and these two are the core of the movie because they are good actors with good chemistry. Don't get me wrong, Bruce's buddy is a total asswipe but he's good at playing an asswipe. And then everything goes wrong and Bruce falls in love with a hooker who he also knew in high school.
Actually high school is the theme of the movie and also kind of the problem. When Bruce keeps talking about high school relationships, looking through the yearbook, and when we see that the hooker still has his letterman jacket hanging in her apartment, I mean these people start to seem a little too pathetic. Get over it. I mean how old is this dude, and he's still hung up on what happened when he was 17. Maybe it should've been junior college or something.
But still I think this is one of Bruce's better movies outside of the Evil Dead and Army of Darkness pictures. The running time gimmick is fun and it has a nice old fashioned feel with black and white photographing and Bruce wearing the timeless Night of the Living Dead just got home from work type outfit, the white shirt and black tie. Unlike Rope this takes place in many locations, mostly outdoors, and the camera follows them all over the place. I think that is part of why it works better than most of these straight to video type pictures, because the concept forces a raw documentary type feel that's just much better than what happens when they try to be all slick, like say on Maniac Cop. One complaint, when are these straight to video dudes gonna learn to use a real drum set and not a keyboard if they have to have so many drum beats on their music. I mean jesus. Listen to that dude in Slam and what he comes up with just using a hairbrush. Get with the program bud, no offense.
thanks guys
Vern
Well here it is, the big three oh and I'm sorry to say boys, I'm gonna have to say something that some of you won't like. Although the gals probaly won't mind. What I have to say is that Ridley Scott is not that fucking great, jesus fucking christ.
I mean it seems like I've been reading about Gladiator over there on the Ain't It Cool News and in the newsgroups since I was a young man and these motherfuckers will NOT stop drooling about Ridley Scott. Ridley Scott's gonna bring back the gladiator movies. Ridley Scott's gonna direct a vampire movie. Ridley's Scott's gonna come to my Red Dwarf marathon blah blah blah. Like the man was Clint Eastwood personified.
Now I admit, there are some good pictures this guy made about twenty years ago. One of them is Alien, a scary space movie which takes Yaphet Kotto's character from Blue Collar into outer space. The other is Blade Runner, which is the one about the robot detective.
But I mean, there are alot of people who did something good twenty years ago. I remember I gave my old lady a ride to church one day, for one example. But that don't mean my shit don't need flushin and I feel the same can be said for Ridley Scott and his shit in my opinion.
To be fair I guess I don't fit into the usual demographic of the internet movie fan, or "movie geek". For example I do not like hobbits. Ridley has another picture called Legend, which is about hobbits. So that is one of the reasons why the boys like him better than I do. Hobbits.
I guess I'm not a big fan of gladiating either because Ridley's new picture Gladiator really isn't as hot as everybody's saying as far as I'm concerned. This is a picture about the fall of the roman empire and fighting a tiger. Russell Crowe plays Maximus, a heroic general in the roman army who is famous and loved because he is very good at committing the genocide against barbarians.
After 20 years of war, the old Caesar is near death, and feels kind of bummed about having killed everybody in sight and taken over their land in the name of peace. He wants to go back to a democracy and to peace, so he chooses general Maximus the renowned killer to become the next emperor. This is supposed to be a good choice over Caesar's son Caesar, jr., the natural successor, because he is a puss who wants to fuck his sister.
There is alot of scenes there to show you that Caesar jr. is a puss so that you will hate him. First, he is gone for the entire war! Maximus is cutting dudes heads off right and left and this puss is out on vacation. Junior also wears makeup and blinks his eyes all girly like bugs bunny wearing fake eyelashes. And whenever Maximus gets the upper hand, he start to pout and whine and it seems like he's gonna cry.
But then there is also one scene where he has his shirt off and practices his sword. This is because there will be a sword duel at the end of the movie so you have to show that he is only a puss enough for you to hate him, but not a puss enough for him not to have a sword duel at the end. This doesn't give away the ending though because the idea is, that won't be for a good 2 and a half or 3 hours so you'll have forgot about the shirtless scene by then. Movie magic.
Anyway what happens is, after about half an hour, Junior finds out that Maximus is going to be the new emperor, so he kills his dad and has Maximus's family killed and has his henchmen take Maximus out to some place to kill him. But he doesn't even check up on Maximus enough to find out that he escaped, and just assumes he's dead. So I guess it proves he is not a good leader. Then some guys capture Maximus and sell him as a slave to a guy with a pet giraffe. So now Junior is the emperor and General Maximus is a slave. You see?
Basically, this would be the first ten minutes of any other movie. In Blacula, it takes ten minutes to show how Dracula turned an African prince into a vampire in the ghetto. In the zorro movie, it takes ten minutes to show how the old Zorro lost everything and got locked up, and then into the real story.
But Ridley Scott doesn't want just one ten minutes. He wants three or four of them. You're just gonna have to be patient.
So eventually Maximus is a slave, and they make him fight as a gladiator. He fights real good, because he is not a puss. That is why you like him. He is supposed to get killed off in the first match but he becomes so popular that Emperor Junior has no choice but to turn him into a good guy. Then he gets more popular than Hulk Hogan and he tries to start a revolution for revenge and then he has the sword fight with Junior, etc.
The basic story is good in the same way zorro is. Everybody likes a good slave getting revenge on the faggy emperor story. That is what americans like. But the problem is, this is a movie about fighting, where there is no good fighting.
Now believe me, I have been in alot of fights. And in my opinion, fights are exciting. When you break a bottle over a man's head, or stab a man in the balls with the sharpened edge of a pudding can, or whatever, you get a certain adrenaline rush. I would think sword fighting or tiger fighting would be the same. But in this picture, I don't know WHAT the fuck is going on. So it is hard to get excited. You almost wish the motherfuckers would stop fighting and start talking about politics again.
For example, there is a scene where some guys come out on chariots. And Maximus says, "Gang, we gotta stick together! We work together as a team and we can defeat these bitches!" Or whatever.
And then, I don't know WHAT the fuck happened. The chariot flipped over and I thought, "I wish I knew how they did that." There was a tall guy, and a black guy. Then they were fighting (?) Not 100% sure what happened in that scene. Something having to do with gladiators, if I understood correctly.
This is how I explained it over on rec.arts.current-films. Remember in Enter the Dragon, there were two main guys, Bruce Lee and John Saxon. Bruce Lee was a real life karate master, and John Saxon was just some white actor.
Well when Bruce fights in the movie, they go all out to show how amazing he is. They show all his kicks, his punches, they get all the movement and the dude looks great.
But John Saxon, that white motherfucker can't fight worth shit. So all the photographing is in real close, you can't see his arms or legs hit anything and you just have to assume he's doing some good fighting out there past the edges of the screen.
Gladiator is a whole three hour movie of John Saxon fights, so you can only give it the benefit of the doubt that there is some kind of good action scene going on there somewhere. For all I know these motherfuckers aren't even holding swords.
I guess this is what the kids like in action movies, such as Armageddon. It is a more abstract type of deal where you can't tell who is standing where or what in fuck's name they are doing, so you can interpretate it more like a poem or painting. It goes back to that old deal that people say about Psycho, that it is scarier because the violence is off screen. Now they do the same thing with action movies, it is more action packed because you can't make out any of the action.
But jesus, that don't mean I have to like it.
Not that the movie is totally lacking. I kind of liked the big stick it to the man scene where Maximus got to reveal to the emperor that he was still alive and plotting his revenge. Also there is a scene when he wiped his snot on his dead wife's toes.
But gimme a fuckin break pal, this movie is not the best thing since sliced bread or Ghost Dog and it will not stand the test of time. Maximus is not a great Badass because as far as I know he didn't even do anything badass. In order to be a great Badass you gotta have one or more of these qualities: extraordinary fighting skills, unbearably powerful presence such as Clint Eastwood, cocky attitude and quiet but with occasional excellent comebacks, or just look really intimidating even while holding a violin or umbrella.
The only one Maximus has is (I think) the fighting skill, but I can't tell what exactly he does so it's not that impressive. I mean for all we know the guy is cheating. If the camera's not gonna show specifically what he does then I'm not gonna get excited. Send us a better demo reel bud maybe we'll talk.
Then there is junior, the bitchy tyrant villain. Alan Cumming played this exact same character better in Titus. He was funnier, eviler, and had better costumes. He was more faggy AND got more pussy. He's a way better villain, and he's not even the best villain in Titus! It would be one thing if Junior was supposed to be more realistic, but he's not. He's just a hammy villain like the rest of them. And he is no the guy from Titus. Sorry bud.
So - there's not great characters, there's not great action, add those two together in a gladiator picture and what you get is not a great gladiator picture. No offense to my boys Harry and Mo over there at the ain't it cool news but the chances of them still thinking this is better than Alien two years from now is the same chance of me getting to meet Abraham Lincoln.
What I mean is there is no chance. (Abraham Lincoln is dead, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Boothe I believe, in a balcony.)
I guess gladiating is pretty cool though if you think about it, thanks guys.
--Vern