Okay, I know I’m not supposed to like a movie like this, I know I’m supposed to feel guilty if I get any pleasure from it, but I am a man with honor and I cannot tell a lie and all that shit so I gotta tell you that I fucking loved the cheesy dance competition movie STEP UP 3. Returning-from-part-2 director Jon M. Chu steps up (all puns are coincidental) the energy and inventiveness like he did before, but this time about tenfold. It’s stupid and hilarious and stylish and there’s more great dancing just in the deleted scenes than there was in all of part 1. (read the rest of this shit…)
Step Up 3
Step Up 2 the Streets
STEP UP 2 THE STREETS is one of those impressive sequels that re-invents the whole thing and gives it new life. Because the main character is a girl, instead of a guy. Totally different.
No, seriously though, first time director Jon M. Chu had to deal with an all new set of characters except for a torch-passing guest appearance by Channing Tatum, hooking up a Maryland School of the Arts audition for his old family friend Andie (Briana Evigan [daughter of the guy from My Two Dads that’s not Paul Reiser]) to avoid her frustrated legal guardian (Sonja Sohn from SLAM and some TV show) sending her to live in Texas, where fewer people step up. When she gets to the school she has to put together a REVENGE OF THE NERDS super team of the school’s most talented outcasts. They’re frowned upon because they have big teeth or don’t speak very much English or are weirdos but they have unique styles that haven’t been properly displayed to the world. Together they just might be able to win the legendary underground (somehow illegal) dance competition called, uh, “The Streets.” Yeah, I think the title came before the screenplay on this one. But it was worth it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Step Up
The opening credits of STEP UP had me laughing and remembering everything I hated about BREAKIN’ and knowing I made the right decision to rent this shit. A Petey Pablo song plays over a series of shots contrasting two worlds: ballet tippy toes in a well-lit dance studio; Timberlands and high-heeled boots dancing on dark concrete. Then it’s the legs of the ballet dancers hopping around; some dudes in a messy warehouse with chain link fences, loose tires and ladders jumping over each other’s shoulders and pumping their fists in unison. And it continues to alternate, comparing and contrasting the moves of the delicate ballet dancers and the people in their oversized hoodies, sideways hats and gold chains. (read the rest of this shit…)
Valhalla Rising
VALHALLA RISING is a slow, quiet mood piece about back in the day when Christians had “pushed the heathens to the fringes of the earth.” Mads Mikkelsen, the bad guy from CASINO ROYALE, plays one of those heathens and he starts out the movie in those fringes, locked in a cage, then tied to a pole like a junkyard dog, forced to beat other warriors to death. Not in a cool action type of way but in an upsetting “oh shit, he just exposed that guy’s brain” type of way.
Before long he’s free and traveling toward “home,” wherever that is. He tells people he came from Hell, and he’s such a scary motherfucker they tend to take that literally. Actually, he doesn’t say a word, but a little boy accompanies him, speaks for him, and names him “One Eye.” “Well, you need a name,” he explains. “And you have one eye.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Stallone has confirmed Van Damme and Norris for EXPENDABLES 2
Thank you for tuning in to outlawvern.com, your headquarters for the very latest in linking to other websights that have the very latest on EXPENDABLES 2: TRY TO BE OPEN-MINDED, GUYS. A new article at Entertainment Weekly dot communications has confirmed some of the rumors and might start a couple new ones too. The short of it is that Stallone is going to pretend to go toe-to-toe with Van Damme in a fight. But it gets better. More summarizing and paraphrasing after the clicking thing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Kull the Conqueror
KULL THE CONQUEROR is the story of Kull (Kevin Sorbo) but in my opinion it is kind of unfair to call him a conqueror. Honestly it’s more of a right-place-at-the-right-time kind of deal, like the end of CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK or like winning on Cash Cab. Let me explain how it all goes down.
At the beginning Kull is in a big battle with a bunch of knights. But it turns out to be a test. He’s trying to earn his way into the king’s elite army. He almost passes the test of a blindfolded flaming-sword duel with Thomas Ian Griffith (EXCESSIVE FORCE, Valek in JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES) but then Griffith finds out Kull’s from Atlantis and says forget it, we don’t work with barbarians. Destroyers maybe, barbarians – no fucking way. And this was the Hyborian age, so it was before they had laws about employment discrimination. (read the rest of this shit…)
Red Sonja
Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) is a warrior gal with red hair. Like all fantasy heroes her village was burned down and her parents were killed and she has to go on a journey where she will eventually save the world from the bitch that did it and throw her into some lava. Because she was a girl she also got raped (so we hear, luckily this is not a I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE type approach) and that adds an extra dimension to the revenge.
So some ghostly spirit lady appears to her and tells her she’ll give her powers so she can get revenge. The only catch is she has to vow not to be “had” by any man that doesn’t defeat her in battle first. That’s kind of some fucked up magic small print, isn’t it? She got raped so she has to keep getting raped, basically? I’m against it. (read the rest of this shit…)
early review: Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown
Two years ago give or take a couple days I wrote about NEVER BACK DOWN as part of some back-to-school themed reviews. To commemorate the historic second anniversary of that review they have decided to make a part 2.
If you never saw the first one I forgive you. And I think you’re gonna be okay without it. Of the many mixed martial arts/underground fighting movies of the last few years it’s the slickest and most Hollywood. It’s the standard teen subculture movie but with MMA instead of breakdancing or BMX bikes or whatever. Troubled new kid in town wants girl, she belongs to popular rich bully who also is the king of a notorious underground fighting tournament. I can’t recommend it when BLOOD AND BONE, DAMAGE, UNDISPUTED II–III and FIGHTING have all come out in recent years, but I did sort of enjoy the absurdity of these allegedly high school age dudes having their own Kumite Lite.
NEVER BACK DOWN 2 is the DTV sequel and it happens to be directed by the star of two of the above-mentioned better underground fight movies, Mr. Michael Jai White. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec
Luc Besson might be back. For a while there he was doing those ARTHUR movies for kids, then he said he wasn’t gonna direct anymore. To be fair I haven’t watched the ARTHUR movies, because in the U.S. the Weinsteins own them and only released them in a version where the characters are dubbed by Snoop Dogg and Madonna – I’m not joking about that, that’s for real. Besson also directed that black and white movie called ANGEL-A, which I haven’t seen and don’t even know which way to pronounce.
So I probly shouldn’t say Luc Besson is back. I guess it would be more fair to say that I’m back to Luc Besson. Point is he has this one now, based on a Belgian comic book. It came out April 2010 in Belgium and France and has rolled out everywhere from Argentina to United Arab Emirates since then, just not here so I had to get an import. It’s fine, I’ll watch it again if it comes out dubbed by Nicki Minaj or somebody. (read the rest of this shit…)
What we know about THE EXPENDABLES 2 so far
All the comment threads keep getting eaten up by every new crumb of EXPENDABLES 2 news. I don’t really mind because it’s interesting to me too, but I figured I’d do another post about it so this can be the spot to add up-to-the-minute info in the comments and leave the other threads pure. We all pretty much know the basics of what’s going on but I’m gonna sum it up here, pose a couple of action-nerd questions and then we can discuss if applicable.
(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)
-
