"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

ON DEADLY GROUND: Still ahead of its time

I’m sure I’m not the only one this has occurred to. In the end of his directorial debut ON DEADLY GROUND, Steven Seagal did a speech and slide presentation about the environment that seemed to predict Al Gore’s Oscar and Nobel Peace Prize winning AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Seagal was mocked and ridiculed (admittedly partly because the movie is hilariously absurd) but the essential truth contained in the movie can’t be denied. And now, with this disastrous oil spill, his points seems more relevant than ever.

I was thinking about that when I came across this article from the Huffington Post about a whistleblower in the Alaskan oil industry who talks about oil workers faking test results for “preventers” similar to ones that failed to do their job of preventing the explosion in the BP spill. This whistleblower could almost be Seagal’s late, lamented buddy in the movie. He told Forrest Taft about the “faulty preventers” that were being used despite the danger of causing something like this. In the movie, Taft snuck onto the rig and heroically imploded it. We weren’t so lucky in real life.

http://youtu.be/X94EcTZBg_8

Jaws

tn_jawsBrucethesharkiconWith IRON MAN 2 in theaters and on Slurpee cups I’d say Summer Movie Season 2010 is officially underway. And I thought a good way to welcome the season would be by watching some movies I haven’t seen before: the JAWS sequels. Only thing is, as much as I love it I never actually wrote a review of JAWS. And I’d feel like an asshole reviewing the (I’m gonna guess possibly crappy) sequels and ignoring the original masterpiece.

But wait! There may be an answer contained within the Outlaw Vault. I knew I had written something about it, I just hadn’t posted it before. Back when I was considering a book about summer movies I wrote a rough draft for part of the ’75 chapter. So even though I’m still alive I’m gonna clean it up a little and package it as new material, like a posthumous B.I.G. guest appearance. (read the rest of this shit…)

Legion

tn_legionI thought DAYBREAKERS was much better than the dumb B-movie I expected, but if I needed one of those in my diet it’s a good thing LEGION also came out on DVD this week. It’s a cheesy but sort of interesting movie about a group of stock characters trapped at one of those old timey diners that if you’re a character in a movie you will drive out into the middle of nowhere and happen to be at when some shit goes down. In this case it happens to be ground zero in God’s plan to wipe out humanity because, according to the narrator, “He got tired of all the bullshit.” (read the rest of this shit…)

Daybreakers

tn_daybreakersMan, DAYBREAKERS was not what I expected. I heard some good things (all of it from commenters here) and I had high hopes for a dumb-but-fun B movie. But I’d also seen pictures of Willem Dafoe with a crossbow so I thought maybe it had a pretty cool concept of a world populated by civilized vampires, but that it would then go into a familiar vampire hunting drill that hopefully wouldn’t pale too bad in comparison to BLADE and VAMPIRES.

But it’s not that type of movie at all. The crossbow is strictly for self defense. I was even wrong about who the main character in the movie would be. (read the rest of this shit…)

Iron Man 2

tn_ironman2I never reviewed IRON MAN, because I just didn’t feel like I had anything new to say about it. I enjoyed it just like everybody else did, for the same reasons, and every websight I read had examined the shit out of it, so I just let it go.

Now part 2 is out and I almost did the same thing (tradition is very important to me) but as I was thinking about writing up an explanation of why I wasn’t writing up the movie I realized I did have a couple things to say, so what the hell. Review time. (read the rest of this shit…)

Harry Brown

tn_harrybrownMICHAEL CAINE IS… HARRY BROWN, a pensioner with two things left in the world: his wife (but then she dies) and one friend (who is murdered after complaining that he wants to stab the dumb assholes who keep dropping dog shit through his mail slot). So it’s about an old dude becoming lonely and deciding to hammer down on the hooligans that are ruining his neighborhood (not soccer/football hooligans, just regular unaffiliated hooligans. In fact an interest in sports or arts of some kind, such as graffiti or beatboxing, might be good for these particular hooligans, give them more of a productive focal point for their hooligannery).

Harry is one of the very best categories of badass: the type with a PHd in killing but who chose to go into another field. The war was a long time ago and he doesn’t even like to talk about it. But he told his friend to go to the police, he already had, and they were no help. And Harry is an old man in the same neighborhood, he has to walk past these fuckers too, and he’s always taking the scenic route to avoid them which wastes his time and causes him to miss out on opportunities (little things like being there with his wife when she died). (read the rest of this shit…)

One proud American will win an Xbox or PS3 in the Yippee Ki Yay Moviegoer Youtube Video Contest!!

Attention people who like being creative to try to win some free shit: It’s your ol’ pal Vern here to tell you about an INCREDIBLE OFFER! Like they did a few years ago to promote my acclaimed film studies book Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal, my esteemed publishers Titan Books have put together a video-making contest to promote my new one. They would like to be entertained by your videos and in exchange they will give one of you knuckleheads a free video game machine + video game, and five others the far superior runner up prize of my new book Yippee Ki-Yay Moviegoer!: Writings on Bruce Willis, Badass Cinema and Other Important Topics. To be more specific about the video game machine, it’s a choice between “Xbox Elite” or “PS3 Slim,” whatever the hell that means. You guys remember Asteroids? Anyway who cares, obviously you’re going for the book. (read the rest of this shit…)

Survival of the Dead

tn_survivalofthedead“Hey, I didn’t think SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD was all that terrible. Just not very good.” That’s what I told my buddies who had seen it before me. They were surprised and appalled.

The word was abysmal on George Romero’s latest, especially from the guy I saw DIARY OF THE DEAD with. He agreed with me that although that one was an embarrassing  failure at least it had some good parts. He offered no such mercy for the new one. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern has witnessed WILD THINGS FOURSOME (get it, it means part 4)

tn_wildthings4Didn’t get a chance to link this earlier, but The Ain’t It Cool News is running my review of the new straight to video WILD THINGS sequel. It really is called WILD THINGS FOURSOME. It’s easy to assume they only made the movie in order to use that title, but it actually kind of seems like the 4th person in the foursome (not pictured) was added in at the last minute. She’s barely in the movie at all.

By the way, two or three of the talkbackers there remind me how cool you guys are. Good job being cool, everybody.

Hey fellas,

I think we can all agree that WILD THINGS is a unique gem of the ’90s, right? A straight-faced but knowingly hilarious, amped-up take on the sleazy erotic thriller. It has everything you’d expect in a movie like this, except Shannon Tweed. It’s got murder, staged death, false rape accusations, a swimming pool cat fight, a threesome, big boobs, Kevin Bacon’s wang, Bill Murray, and the most convoluted series of double-crosses ever on film (so complex that it flashes back during the end credits to show that you still don’t know who was in on what with who). It found the perfect use for Denise Richards, showed that director John (HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER) McNaughton could have a laugh and taught me that Florida is a humid battleground for wars between the swimsuit-wearing super rich and the jealous “swamp trash.” This was helpful to know around then because they elected Jeb Bush governor, then it was Elian Gonzalez, butterfly ballots, Bush v. Gore, Terry Schiavo media frenzy, etc. Maybe WILD THINGS was trying to warn us. (read the rest of this shit…)

Chains of Gold

tn_chainsofgoldJohn Travolta plays Scott Barnes, a social worker who plays by his own rules. He was a rich investment banker or something until 4 years ago his son died of a drug overdose. He blamed himself and his alcoholism so he quit drinking and took this job. Of course, you know how it is: red tape, the fuckin bureaucrats, etc. He has to break the rules and defy orders from his asshole boss just to help out sad old men and endangered kids and stuff. Nobody else seems to give a shit and his boss is always looking for an excuse to take away his gun and badge, or whatever. “BARNES! IN MY OFFICE. NOW!” (read the rest of this shit…)