"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

First Reformed

FIRST REFORMED is another Paul Schrader broken-man-slowly-boiling-over character piece in the tradition of TAXI DRIVER and ROLLING THUNDER. This time his subject is Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke, DAYBREAKERS), the very nice and thoughtful reverend of a small 250 year old church in upstate New York that still exists because it’s a historical landmark. He sermonizes to about half a dozen people on Sundays, but his duties also include being a tour guide and stocking the gift shop.

He cares about the job, but it seems like it’s one of those transferred-to-Antarctica type situations. We slowly piece together some of the problems he has, the things he’s punishing himself for and how his life went south after the death of a son in the military. He writes journal entries in a spiral-bound composition notebook which we hear as calm, reasonable sounding voiceover, but sometimes he’ll casually drop in some bit that makes you do a double take, like when he laments, “If only I could pray.” Uh… you seem like a guy who would pray, is all I’m saying. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 26th, 2019 | 30 Comments »

Rest Stop: Don’t Look Back

I remember REST STOP (2006) being a decent DTV horror movie. I remember nothing else. I thought maybe it was about a slasher who hides in a rest stop restroom or something. I don’t know. So the opening of the sequel, REST STOP: DON’T LOOK BACK (2008) was a little befuddling. It starts in 1972 on “The Old Highway,” when a “Yes Jesus Loves Me” singing family picks up a hitchhiker in their RV. Weirdo mother Diane Salinger (CREATURE) ends up seducing him and then screaming in delight when her husband (Michael Childers, SOUTHERN JUSTICE) catches them together and kills the guy. The family – also consisting of twin sons and a disfigured dwarf – delightedly bury the body at a (the) rest stop, but suddenly the guy they’re burying appears, chops them all up, and buries their bodies.

Okay, so it’s a ghost movie, I don’t remember this at all. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 25th, 2019 | 10 Comments »

Pre-Oscar thoughts 2019

Okay, time for my traditional pre-Oscars post. As you have probly gathered by now, I enjoy watching awards shows, I do not think they are too long, I do understand that they don’t represent the best of cinema, and that it doesn’t really matter that much, and I’m not offended if you don’t care about the Oscars. It’s fine, we all do what we want to do. And here’s my piece about my favorite movies of 2018, which only slightly overlap with the things that were nominated.

For those who are interested though I wanted to gather links of my reviews to the nominated movies along with who I’m rooting for in some (not all) of the categories and some other related thoughts. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 22nd, 2019 | 54 Comments »

Nightshooters

NIGHTSHOOTERS is a low budget 2018 UK action movie that starts out feeling like a broad indie comedy but turns deadly serious when its regular non-warrior characters start getting killed. It takes place over one night as a small guerrilla film crew shooting without permission in an about-to-be-demolished office building happen to witness gangsters setting a guy on fire and have to fight for their lives.

Like so many movie-within-a-movie movies, it opens with their horror movie in progress, a zombie action film called DAWN OF THE DEADLY. It’s interesting because there are plenty of horror movies about people making a horror movie and encountering real horror (DESTROYER, SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, DIARY OF THE DEAD, CUT, THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING, FURRY NIGHTS), but I don’t know of any other action ones. And this very much has the feel of a homegrown horror movie, from the type of characters (a little overly dickish, but eventually turning sympathetic) to the references to favorite movies. In this case, though, they’re not tipping the hat to horror movies – they talk about wanting their cinematography to look like JOHN WICK, and their star brags about being in a scene with Scott Adkins. It’s a weird feeling to see movie characters who know who Scott Adkins is. Even in the real world you gotta run in the right circles for that. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 21st, 2019 | 5 Comments »

Happy Death Day 2U

HAPPY DEATH DAY was a well-executed take on a fun premise: a slasher GROUNDHOG DAY where mean sorority girl Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe, LA LA LAND) has to keep reliving her birthday until she figures out who the fuck keeps stabbing. As she investigates everybody around her she starts to understand their lives better and be nicer to them. Except the one who killed her, who she kicks out a window. I wished it had been Rated-R to take gory advantage of the “heroine dies repeatedly” gimmick, but they made it work, largely because Tree is such a compelling character. Like Bill Murray in that other time loop movie she gets to be a fun asshole, which is so rare for a female lead.

In the sequel we get to see a little bit of the creepy baby mask, but the mystery of who’s stalking her is pretty much irrelevant. Sure, they revisit it in alternate timelines where it’s different people behind the mask, but there’s not as much suspense to be wrung out of it, so it shifts a little away from the horror comedy and more into sci-fi comedy, again made fun by the character of Tree and the performance of Rothe. If anything she’s even a little better in this one. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 20th, 2019 | 10 Comments »

Alita: Battle Angel

Man, we’ve been hearing about James Cameron doing this manga/anime adaptation since 2005, well before AVATAR. We’re talking Obama’s first year as a United States Senator, Christian Bale’s first year as a Batman, three live action Spider-man actors ago, before the Marvel Cinematic Universe even started, when Chris Evans was still The Human Torch, George Lucas was still making Star Wars movies, Saddam Hussein was still alive, the word “sexting” was just invented, Youtube was just starting, and Twitter didn’t exist yet. A long time ago.

So I can’t say I was thrilled when, after that decade plus of hopes, Cameron announced “Just kidding, Robert Rodriguez is gonna direct it.” Fresh off of SIN CITY 2. But also I wasn’t stupid enough to scoff at it. Cameron co-wrote and produced the thing. The only other time he did that was STRANGE DAYS, and that turned out pretty good. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 19th, 2019 | 51 Comments »

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

In CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?, Melissa McCarthy (CHARLIE’S ANGELS) plays Lee Israel, a writer (this is based on her memoir) who’s maybe hit a rough patch. She’s had a book on the New York Times bestseller list, which she figures has gotta be worth something, but now her agent (Jane Curtin, CONEHEADS) tries to avoid her and has no interest in her planned Fannie Brice biography.

Lee gets fired from her day-going-into-late-night publishing industry job for being an asshole and for drinking, two of her defining characteristics. But her only friend – her cat – is sick, the vet won’t help until she pays her previous bills, and the used bookstore doesn’t want what she’s offering any more than the magazine editors want what she’s pitching.

So it starts in desperation. She figures out she can get money by selling a nice letter that Katharine Hepburn sent to Lee to thank her for a profile she wrote. Next she swipes a Fannie Brice letter from a research archive and tries to sell that, but the content is bland, so nobody offers her much. In a fit of frustration or smart-assed boldness she pops the letter in her typewriter and adds a witty postscript. And sure enough when she tries to sell it that raises its value. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 18th, 2019 | 8 Comments »

The Girl in the Spider’s Web

It’s fair to say that earlier in the century The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was a pop culture phenomenon. Stieg Larsson’s three novels, posthumously published starting in 2005, were worldwide hits. I enjoyed the stories through their 2009 Swedish movie adaptations (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST) which launched their star Noomi Rapace (PROMETHEUS, PASSION, DEAD MAN DOWN, THE DROP, CLOSE) into international movie stardom, and their leading man Michael Nyqvist into spending his last years playing bad guys in Hollywood movies including ABDUCTION, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL and JOHN WICK (where he delivers the best syllable: “Oh.”). David Fincher’s 2011 English language take on the first book was pretty great and even got Rooney Mara an unlikely but well-deserved Oscar nomination.

But it wasn’t a big enough hit to justify a sequel budgeted for Fincher, Mara and Daniel Craig, so after years of haggling they went with plan B: a lower budget sequel with new director and cast, based not on the next in the trilogy but a continuation written by new author David Lagercrantz. And nobody really seemed to be waiting for that.

Except me! Selling point #1: director Fede Alvarez, who really impressed me with EVIL DEAD and DON’T BREATHE. Selling point #2: less grim and rapey, more fun and actiony. You still got the trademark fucked up and fetishy shit of the snow-bitten Larssonverse, but in this one our heroine is never sexually assaulted, but does have high speed chases on multiple vehicle types. Hot move: ditching police cars by jumping your motorcycle onto a frozen lake. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 14th, 2019 | 36 Comments »

Hostiles

Scott Cooper is an actor-turned-writer/director who seems slightly under the radar to me. He made a splash with CRAZY HEART ten years ago, a movie that somehow seems overshadowed by Jeff Bridge’s Oscar-winning performance in it (and that I thought of a few times watching A STAR IS BORN). His followup, the gloomy crime drama OUT OF THE FURNACE (2013), teamed him with Christian Bale (POCAHONTAS) for the first time, and I have to admit that I have not seen his poorly reviewed BLACK MASS (2015). But he didn’t write that one. I only watch the ones he directs and writes, obviously.

2017’s HOSTILES (based on a manuscript written by Donald E. Stewart [JACKSON COUNTY JAIL, DEATHSPORT, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, PATRIOT GAMES, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER] in the ’80s) reteamed him with Bale for what might be categorized as a Real Serious Western – the kind where the director is hesitant to call it a western (“I don’t think in terms of genre… If anything it’s a psychological western in the vein of Anthony Mann…I don’t think it’s a western, it has more in common with Joseph Conrad or Larry McMurtry or Louis L’Amour” he told Moviemaker) and you want to grab them and tell them “all right cool it buddy, just admit you made a really good western.” (See also THE REVENANT.)

But I guess I sort of get it. A completely traditional western is not very marketable in this day and age. Most people don’t really want the genre without a little bit of a new spin on it, and HOSTILES has one. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 13th, 2019 | 12 Comments »

Vice

When I heard writer/director Adam McKay was doing a movie with Christian Bale (TERMINATOR SALVATION) playing Dick Cheney, I couldn’t picture what that would be, but I assumed I would love it. The former Saturday Night Live writer has much more experience in beloved Will Ferrell comedies than in Serious Important Movies, but I enjoyed THE BIG SHORT‘s novel and audacious attempt to make entertainment out of explaining the early 2000s housing bubble. Many worship ANCHORMAN or STEP BROTHERS, but for me it’s TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY that makes me laugh no matter which part I rewatch for the one-thousandth time on cable. Maybe people don’t think of it this, way, but to me it’s the best pop culture portrait of what was going on in our country during the Bush years. So I figured McKay had good instincts about this stuff. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 12th, 2019 | 35 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
  • Hey bud, thanks for reading.

    Don't feel obligated, but here are some

  • WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHIT OUT OF VERN & OUTLAWVERN.COM

    if that's your thing:

  • 1. Patreon

    Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!

  • 2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody

    click here for my Amazon author page

    (NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)

    EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.

  • 3. If you ever buy from Amazon, go through my links or search engines



    (you pay the same amount you were gonna pay anyway they cut me a little slice)

  • I also have an Amazon UK one:

    (I can't get the search box widget to work anymore, so click on MOONWALKER and then search for what you want.)

  • 4. My exciting line of fashion and leisure products

    (I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt, mug or lifestyle item)

  • 5. Spread the word

    Tell your friends about my reviews and my books and everything. Only cool people though please, we don't need a bunch of suckers and/or chumps around here.

    THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN

    * * * *

  • Recent commentary and jibber-jabber

    • Aktion Figure on Jurassic World: Rebirth: “@KayKay Please sit down and take a breath. Acid Burn apologized to you even if it wasn’t the manner you…” Apr 2, 12:07
    • Muh on Jurassic World: Rebirth: “I have been noticing a trend now, where if someone sees something that triggers them they tend to accuse the…” Apr 2, 09:36
    • Tytus, Romek & A'Tomek on Primate: “How does this modern take compare to the Murder Monkey Classics’ Club – “First Born”, “Shakma”, “Link”, “Monkey Shines”, and…” Apr 2, 09:20
    • Cancelled A.L.F. revival on The Smashing Machine (2025): “I told you so.” Apr 2, 08:52
    • KayKay on Jurassic World: Rebirth: ““But if KayKay is using AI why would that be wrong?” Wouldn’t be wrong, I guess. Except I’m not…but therein…” Apr 2, 08:45
    • KayKay on Jurassic World: Rebirth: ““I do find it pretty odd that PetrosMT showed up out of nowhere to pat you on the head and…” Apr 2, 08:20
    • daniel on Jurassic World: Rebirth: “I would sort of think that if someone is foreign and would like to post a comment here with the…” Apr 2, 06:49
    • Alex R on Jurassic World: Rebirth: “Besides the existential frustration of talking to a person without actually talking to them, cheapening all communication by making you…” Apr 2, 05:45
    • Festering Tsar on Send Help: “Personally, I loved Linda’s darker choices towards the end. Though her motive seems to be a romantic one with her…” Apr 2, 05:17
    • daniel on War Machine (2026): “Actually the PREDATOR comparison also intrigued me. I haven’t saw this movie yet, but i’m interested. That kind of flip…” Apr 2, 05:04
    • Willard on War Machine (2026): “I liked the Predator comparison – you can definitely feel the influence, but the approach is different. That comparison really…” Apr 2, 00:58
    • daniel on Jurassic World: Rebirth: “Eh, I guess, why not have a little dance about AI? This comment section is pretty wacky anyway. Not that…” Apr 2, 00:03
    • daniel on War Machine (2026): “I’m not trying to be smug or something, I really thought that after watching MAVERICK.” Apr 1, 23:24
    • daniel on War Machine (2026): “@VERN “The movie kind of has a message of “we can all step back from politics and just admire the…” Apr 1, 23:21
    • VERN on War Machine (2026): “It seems pretty simple to me. The movie kind of has a message of “we can all step back from…” Apr 1, 22:52

  • Recent Commented on Posts

  • Most Comments