HEROES SHED NO TEARS is not just a great phrase to tattoo on your back or use as an adult recreational softball team name, it’s also a messy pre-A BETTER TOMORROW John Woo picture. We always talk about how the Hong Kong film scene that Woo thrived in was the Wild West compared to the Hollywood that ruined him. Well, then this was Rome or something. This is Woo when he was a straight up exploitation director. He was filming in Thailand, and shit must’ve been even crazier then than in the Tony Jaa era, ’cause they say they were using live rounds in some of these shootouts. Just shoot at stuff behind the actors. Squibs are too much trouble.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Heroes Shed No Tears
Vern Predicts: Bane vs. Bain Capital
Don’t worry, no Batman spoilers here. In today’s episode of VERN PREDICTS I will brag about the time I sort of foresaw a stupid little thing that happened. Also let’s lay down a few rules about discussion in case a new Batman movie comes out this week.
Friday Foster
I didn’t realize this until recently, but the Pam Grier movie FRIDAY FOSTER came from a comic strip. It ran from 1970-1974 and was the first syndicated comic with an African-American woman in the lead. It was created by a journeyman writer named Jim Lawrence who also wrote for radio shows such as Green Hornet and comic strips based on James Bond and Dallas (!). The artist was a Spaniard named Jorge Longarón until the last year, when it was taken over by Gray Morrow, co-creator of MAN THING.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
When last I saw Garfield and friends, I was in a Bush-re-election-induced mania, the type that would cause a man to watch the movie GARFIELD. Now I decided to watch part 2 as part of our nation’s celebration of the comic strip going on in San Diego. That shows you how tolerant we, as a society, have grown toward Garfield. It’s like the whole thing about a lobster in a pot and the burner turns on and it gets slowly hotter and the fuckin thing doesn’t notice ’til it’s too late because it’s so gradual. Somehow I went from being horrified by the bizarre digital abomination that stars in this movie to not really being that bothered by it when I choose to watch part 2 of my own free will.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Popeye
Alot of people think, just because of movies like THE FANTASTIC FOUR and THE CROW, that comic strip books are only for kids. Well I’m here to tell you that actually they’re for everybody now. How else do you explain Robert Altman, the director of NASHVILLE and QUINTET, doing a movie based on the early-twentieth-century comic strip Thimble Theater by E.C. Segar? POPEYE is I guess the bizarre movie you’d have to expect when a set of weird old comic strip and cartoon characters are turned into a live action musical by the auteur of M.A.S.H. It uses cartoon physics but with muted colors (except for red or blue clothes) and dirty, lived-in settings. The plot is very simple, most of the funny lines are mumbled, it’s hard to figure out exactly what they were going for, and I sort of love it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Brenda Starr
Face it everybody, the nerds won. They had their revenge and then they burned down the village and took a shit on the throne and built a statue of some Japanese animation robot in the capital and made everybody bow to it and make offerings of Firefly episode guides. This week is Nerd History Week as well as the annual San Diego International Comics Con. I have never been to it but I know all about it because of Entertainment Weekly magazine and all of the other coverage. I do remember the zoo in San Diego was pretty good, that was not mentioned in the articles, that’s just a bit of personal experience, you know? The kind of thing you gotta live.
Anyway as a writer and reader on the films of cinema I cannot escape hearing about the convention, as most of my internetting colleagues attend every year and write about their favorite halls and panels and how much they hate their hard job of going to some crowded place and waiting in lines. I know I probly don’t have the salt to do it myself and that’s why I have chosen instead to stay at home at a regular job for low wages.
Three Outlaw Samurai
I never heard of this one until the good ol’ Criterion Collection put it out a few months ago. I was intrigued by the title, which seems to indicate that it is about a trio of samurai who are each outlaws of some kind. And it’s a well-chosen title because that is exactly what it’s about.
It’s a Japanese picture from 1964, so it’s shot in beautiful black and white. It’s the directational debut of Hideo Gosha, whose next movie SWORD OF THE BEAST was also released by Criterion. The story involves three elderly peasants who kidnap the magistrate’s daughter and keep her hostage in a mill. Shit is real bad for the 8 clans in the area and the magistrate won’t listen to their appeals so they got desperate. Some JOHN Q type shit. (read the rest of this shit…)
Django Strikes Again
“Hey shithead. What’s the big idea, bringing this coffin here?”
So there are around 30 spaghetti westerns (and one Tarantino movie) that use the name “Django,” but none of them are official sequels except 1987’s DJANGO 2: IL GRANDE RITORNO, aka DJANGO STRIKE AGAIN or DJANGO RIDES AGAIN or D2ANGO. Franco Nero returns as Django. Sergio Corbucci was supposed to return as director, but backed out and just got a story credit. The director is Nello Rossati, who doesn’t seem to be a big name director but did direct a movie called DON’T TOUCH THE CHILDREN!
(read the rest of this shit…)
Django
Django is a little more demonic than most of your spaghetti western anti-heroes. Obviously those guys are never fuckin Roy Rogers. They’re dirty and scary and sometimes even the titles of the movies are trying to warn you about them (GOD FORGIVES… I DON’T!, RUN, MAN, RUN!, IF YOU MEET SARTANA PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH, GO AWAY! TRINITY HAS ARRIVED IN EL DORADO, etc.). But this guy Django…
(read the rest of this shit…)
Savages
SAVAGES is the new crime film from Oliver Stone, about two young idealistic pot entrepreneurs taking on a ruthless Mexican cartel (which is one of the most common types of cartels). The tale is narrated to us by O (GREEN LANTERN’s girlfriend Blake Lively) who is the shared lover of botany genius/philanthropist Ben (Aaron KICKASS Johnson) and Iraq vet/muscle-of-the-operation Chon (Taylor JOHN CARTER Kitsch). The two grew up together as surf bums in Laguna Beach and then one day decided to bring home marijuana seeds from Afghanistan and create a new strain. And the shit blew up like Apple. (read the rest of this shit…)
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.
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)
-
