"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Tony Scott

Well, I’m sure we’ve all heard the shitty news by now. (I heard it here first, from Fred.) Director Tony Scott took his own life today.

I’m afraid I’ve written some not-nice things about Mr. Scott’s movies during my time here. DOMINO was one of my most hot-headed reviews ever, and after that I sort of used him as a symbol of directors who get carried away with the show-offy editing and lose all sense of filmatism. I don’t fool myself that Mr. Scott ever read that review or knew who I was, so I got nothing to feel guilty about there. But I just want to say that I certainly never meant anything against the man personally and I’m sorry that whatever he was going through pushed him to do what he did. Obviously a talented man who we all thought would be around longer and get more chances to win us back.

(read the rest of this shit…)

August 20th, 2012 | 139 Comments »

The Expendables 2

THE EXPENDABLES 2 is a sequel to THE EXPENDABLES. It is the second one. And all that that implies.

Like part 1 it has an incredible cast of action stars that you never thought could all be in a movie together, making a movie that is not worthy of all of them being together but does get by on the strength of, you know… those guys are all in it.

(read the rest of this shit…)

August 19th, 2012 | 311 Comments »

Black Eagle

Jean-Claude Van Damme is the most important new Expendables cast member. Even not having seen it yet we know this because he’s the main villain, because he gets an “also” credit and because he’s Jean-Claude Van Damme. So to honor his new role I was excited to go back and watch one of his early movies that I haven’t seen. I was surprised to realize BLACK EAGLE was the only 20th century Van Damme movie I hadn’t seen. I’d have to go up to some of the DTVs starting in 2002 to get to anything else new to me. I was better versed than I realized, but I didn’t know anything about this one.
(read the rest of this shit…)

August 17th, 2012 | 44 Comments »

Two more trailers: The Last Stand and Bullet to the Head

Hey, that’s nice. To celebrate the occasion of Expendables 2 we have trailers for upcoming Schwarzenegger and Stallone pictures, both from great directors. If you haven’t seen them I’ll show them to you.

First up we got THE LAST STAND from the director of BITTERSWEET LIFE, THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD and I SAW THE DEVIL. I was hoping for something a little quieter and less Johnny-Knoxville-in-a-funny-hat than this looks, but I still thing it looks beautiful and appropriately absurd. I’ll take it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEMmL0uQYeY

Next up is the Walter Hill buddy movie. Keep in mind that Hill hasn’t directed a theatrical movie since UNDISPUTED in

For a minute I thought that was Shannen Doherty as his daughter. That would’ve been weird. Also I see Falsone from Homicide: Life On the Street is in there. And I didn’t know it but I guess I always wanted to see an ax fight between Rambo and Kal Drogo.

August 17th, 2012 | 47 Comments »

Eraser

When we think of Arnold Schwarzenegger we think of the TERMINATOR movies, PREDATOR, the CONAN movies, COMMANDO… movies that came out in years before, say, 1995. I don’t know if the crazy action/sexism combo of TRUE LIES used up everything he had, or if it was playing a pregnant man in JUNIOR that pushed him over, but by the time he made ERASER in ’96 the salad days were over. There was only some slimy lettuce left.

But I kinda enjoyed watching this one again. I’d say I like it better than THE SIXTH DAY, COLLATERAL DAMAGE and END OF DAYS (although that last one has more distinctive weirdness in it). (read the rest of this shit…)

August 16th, 2012 | 53 Comments »

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning trailer UPDATED

Can John Hyams live up to our expectations with his sequel to the greatest DTV movie of all time? Well, it sure looks like he came up with something interesting and different. He’s go Van Damme looking like Captain Spaulding, Dolph making a speech and Scott Adkins kicking ass. Looks good to me.

But something tells me I won’t get a chance to see this in a theater. (Something = that narrator.) Hopefully Magnet Releasing will prove me wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USxQDDPwJ8Q

UPDATE: John Hyams contacted me (namedrop) to assure me that it will play in theaters. It will lay at Fantastic Fest in September, then will be on the video-on-demand October 26th and in theaters in the US November 30th. (Don’t worry, they’ve done that with other movies too.)

This trailer was cut when they thought it would be DTV, before Magnolia/Magnet picked it up. There will be another one cut by Hyams himself. I’ll try to contact the narrator to see if he’s working on his own cut.

August 15th, 2012 | 87 Comments »

Lone Wolf McQuade

“Forget it, kid. I work alone.”

You guys know I’m not really big on Chuck Norris. I know, Chuck Norris is so powerful that blah blah blah, something something beard something fist. Good job, internet. Hilarious. He’s famous enough to be considered one of the iconic action stars, but in my opinion he is not on the same level as other Expendables such as Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, Van Damme or non-Expendable Seagal. He doesn’t have as much charisma or as many watchable movies. But I did really dig INVASION U.S.A. and I always heard LONE WOLF MCQUADE was his best or one of his best, so I thought I should watch it in the lead up to his appearance in EXPENDABLES 2: ALSO VAN DAMME.
(read the rest of this shit…)

August 14th, 2012 | 57 Comments »

Silent Trigger

I hoped this would be one of the better Dolph Lundgren vehicles, because it’s directed by Russell Mulcahy, who used to be so good. This was ’96, his next movie after ’94’s THE SHADOW. I guess this is his punishment, but THE SHADOW is more fun. SILENT TRIGGER is at least watchable, but so are other things that are actually good.
(read the rest of this shit…)

August 13th, 2012 | 42 Comments »

The Specialist

THE SPECIALIST was Sylvester Stallone’s 1994 offering, a present-day palate cleanser between the futuristic DEMOLITION MAN and JUDGE DREDD. It even says “present day” onscreen after a prologue taking place in Colombia in ’84.

That was when black ops explosives expert Ray Quick (Stallone) had a falling out with his partner-mentor Ned Trent (James Woods). They were trying to assassinate a drug lord but Quick tried to pull the plug when he saw that a little girl was going to get blown up with him. Trent of course doesn’t care, and he gets his way (drug lord and girl both blown to kingdom come) but then the two of them fight about it.
(read the rest of this shit…)

August 12th, 2012 | 96 Comments »

New features: questions and suggestions

Thanks to the great Clubside Chris, outlawvern.com proudly unveils two new features which I encourage you to try out by clicking in the bar above the post, below the stunning new logo.

1. Suggestions.

This is a thing some of you guys have requested, a way to suggest movies for me to review. It has a weird voting system where you get 10 votes per month to spread between however many suggestions you want. I’m not sure I understand it yet but I think I will once you ladies and gentlemen of the internet start messing with it.

Don’t think I’m gonna be constantly reviewing all of these, ’cause I follow my whims and try to find stuff nobody’s heard of. But I promise I’ll keep an eye on it and do some of the more popular ones or ones that catch my eye.

2. Questions?

This is a thing where you ask a question and other people answer it, and… to be honest I don’t totally understand. I know it’s related to that thing I come across during Google searches where idiots with cartoon avatars ask questions and get terrible advice from other idiots with cartoon avatars. But we’re gonna do a better job, hopefully, with our badass cinema related questions. I’m not sure. But I’m trying it out because Chris’s suggestion to try Twitter seemed stupid at first but turned out to be a good one.

Please try these out if you have a minute and we’ll see if they’re worth keeping.

August 10th, 2012 | 40 Comments »

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