"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Game of Death

tn_gameofdeathbruceleeiconMan, I hadn’t seen GAME OF DEATH in a long time. I forgot it was this ridiculous. It’s known for the yellow jumpsuit (homaged in BERRY GORDY’S THE LAST DRAGON, SHAOLIN SOCCER, KILL BILL VOLUME 1, etc.) and his fight against Kareem Abdul Jabbar while wearing it. But that’s only 11 minutes at the end, taken from the unfinished movie Bruce started directing before he took the opportunity to star in ENTER THE DRAGON. The other 90% is a bunch of filler bullshit trying to stretch those scenes out to feature length, with an entirely different plot that sleazily exploits the mystery surrounding Lee’s death.

But you know what, some of Lee’s friends and students are in it, so they must’ve approved. For example, Chuck Norris. Oh wait, that’s just clips from WAY OF THE DRAGON. Well, what about Kareem Abdul Jabbar? Oh wait, that’s some other tall black dude in sunglasses, because Kareem didn’t want to take part in the new scenes. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 25th, 2010 | 39 Comments »

Jaws of Death

tn_jawsofdeath(aka MAKO: THE JAWS OF DEATH – but I got no clue who Mako is)

I rented JAWS OF DEATH because the cover and the title made it seem like a JAWS rip-off. But actually it’s more in the tradition of the weirdo-with-attachment-to-unpleasant-animal movies like WILLARD. The director, William Grefe, also did STANLEY, about a guy who uses rattlesnakes to get revenge. In this one it’s sharks.

Richard Jaeckel (THE DIRTY DOZEN, also the crappy TV sequel to THE DIRTY DOZEN) plays Sonny, a guy who lives alone on an island and his only friends are the sharks, who he talks to, feeds every day, and even swims with. They won’t harm him because he wears one of those magical medallions that give you a psychic connection to all sharks. Like many of us, he got his during the war from a dude sitting in a throne shaped like a shark (there’s a flashback). (read the rest of this shit…)

May 24th, 2010 | 22 Comments »

The stupid argument that will not die

shakespeareMan, I thought I had made peace with this thing. Today I came across this comment on collider.com that’s the purest version of the “what kind of an asshole has basic competency standards for movies? it supposed to go BANG!!!” argument I’ve seen in a while:

LOL @ all the people expecting Transformers to be art house Oscar caliber films. And I really don’t think those twins were racist caricatures. They were just stupid. I also don’t think anybody really hates Michael Bay. It’s just trendy to say that you don’t. Films are escapism, folks, did you all forget that? Michael Bay does what does best: makes escapism movies, and makes them well. If you like “real-life” so much, stay out of the theater and go watch History Channel, and stop being pretentious film-scholar-wannabe’s.

And as you can see if you follow the link I couldn’t help myself, I had to go off on the poor guy. It just infuriated me for some reason. This is not a burden I should try to shoulder. People will always say stupid shit like this, I can’t patrol the internet trying to set them straight. I gotta let it go. Or we need to come up with a way to rebut it that’s as succint as “what u expect, shakespeare lol.” The shortest I can come up with is “okay, you take ‘Batman and Robin’, I’ll take ‘Dark Knight.'”

May 22nd, 2010 | 179 Comments »

Seagal Predicts: Rand Paul’s Armed EPA agents

seagal-predictsFor the second time in a week I was reading the news and the current headlines reminded me of something Seagal put in a movie years ago. So just in case this becomes a regular occurrence I decided to call this topic Seagal Predicts.

This one comes from that guy Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul (BRUNO) and winner of the Kentucky Republican Senate primary on Tuesday. Now that he’s in a senate race he’s having to live down all the outside-of-the-mainstream opinions he’s mouthed off about in the past, which it turns out is gonna be a hefty task because he’s a regular guest on the Alex Jones radio show. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 22nd, 2010 | 9 Comments »

The Loose Canon: Way of the Dragon (aka Return of the Dragon)

tn_wayofthedragonThere are a few people walking the earth, or in our memories, who are so good at what they do, so unique in their talents, that we almost mistake them for gods or super heroes. You could be born a prodigy and practice all your life, striving for excellence with every breath you take, and still not match Muhammad Ali, James Brown, Mozart or Michaelangelo. It takes more than training, more than talent. It takes a whole lot of both of those things, plus a drive to be the very best, plus… something else. If we knew what that something else was then everybody would dance like Michael Jackson.

Well, I think we can all agree that Bruce Lee is one of those individuals. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 20th, 2010 | 27 Comments »

The Loose Canon

loose-canon1I’ve had this idea for a while that I wanted to figure out what are the classics and most important pictures of Badass Cinema and write them all up, almost like my version of a primer or a film studies class on this particular type of movie. I guess this would overlap with the BADASS 100 project, but it would be my personal choices for works of Badass Cinema that I think every fan of the artform should see and if not love at least have an opinion on. And I’m gonna call them THE LOOSE CANON. That is why there is a logo that says that. You might’ve figured that out, not sure. Also it’s a pun, not a misspelling. (I know with me it could be either one.)

They do this type of shit for art movies, but you don’t usually see Charles Bronson’s name on those lists. So I’m gonna try my version. I think it will cover some movies that the mainstream agrees are classics, some that only the type of people who hang out here consider classics, and maybe a few more unexpected or controversial choices. And we’ll see what happens but I think my essays will be a little more in the academic vein like the acclaimed film book Seagalogy.

So the review to follow this post will be the first in an occasionally-ongoing series. But I’m making this explanation a separate post because I look forward to the thousands of suggestions of what deserves to be loaded into the Canon. If possible try to keep that discussion to this thread so the comments for the reviews can stay fairly on topic. Because they wouldn’t be on the list if they weren’t worth discussing.

May 20th, 2010 | 108 Comments »

Report: Seagal “awesome” in MACHETE

seagal-macheteHarry has an interview with Robert Rodriguez about MACHETE and some swordfighting cartoon he’s gonna remake in his greenscreen warehouse. Of course my favorite part is this comment about Seagal in MACHETE:

“Seagal was so awesome we kept expanding his role on the set. The big final battle is Machete vs. Seagal and it’s amazing.”

I was hoping this would be the case. The script I read had Seagal’s character only in two scenes, but they were crucial ones. I’m also happy to hear Rodriguez refer to the character as a “Mexican drug lord.” I knew he’d take advantage of Seagal’s talent for rolling his Rs (see, for example, how he pronounces “Geraldo” in HARD TO KILL).

The interview also makes vague reference to controversy over the trailer’s glorification of illegal immigrants. I don’t know if any media people have really tried to make an issue out of it, but it’s funny if they have because I requested that in my script review over a year ago, saying, “By the way, Machete is portrayed as a mythical protector of illegal immigrants. I hope somebody on Fox News gets riled up about that. This whole thing where we laugh every time they say ‘teabagging’ can’t last forever, they’re gonna need some new material.”

More good Rodriguez news: I forget where, but somewhere I just read an interview that said there was only one greenscreen shot in PREDATORS.

May 20th, 2010 | 53 Comments »

Pronto

tn_prontoI always enjoy Elmore Leonard, and I got no excuse for why I haven’t read his book Pronto . But I did just check out Jim McBride’s Showtime TV movie version of this book that introduced Raylan Givens, the cowboy-hat-wearing U.S. marshal that Tim Olyphant plays on the show ‘Justified.’ It’s a very different take on the character and feels very TV-movie, but I thought it was an enjoyable one with a funny, laid back Leonard feel. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 18th, 2010 | 43 Comments »

Jaws: The Revenge

tn_jaws4BrucethesharkiconLet’s say you’re a huge great white shark. I mean, just enormous. You’re gonna need to eat, right? Sometimes you can eat orcas, but you try to avoid those because sometimes they’ll eat you back. And little tiny fish won’t do it. A guy your size, it’s hard to find a meal that’s filling.

So you come across this nice little joint called Amity Island. Wide open, not much competition from other sharks or orcas. (There was one smaller shark, but some people killed it, mistaking it for you. Suckers!) So it’s a good set up. Just little pink morsels wiggling around, as far as the eye can see. Which is not that far actually, because sharks don’t have very good vision. But they do have a weird thing where they can sense the electromagnetic pulse of even a heartbeat. And these heartbeats feel delicious. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 16th, 2010 | 107 Comments »

a little clarification about UNIVERSAL SOLDIER “4”

tn_usregeneration(an outlawvern.com fucking exclusive)

The other day the internet was set on fire and punched in the face with reports from Cannes that John Hyams (UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION) would probly be returning with Van Damme and Lundgren for another UNISOL picture, and in 3-D. This is of course great news for people like us who have seen REGENERATION (currently my pick for best DTV movie ever made) and are anxious to see Hyams direct something else, anything else. And of course we’re happy to see more of Van Damme and Lundgren, especially if they can be as great as they were in that movie.

But 3-D? Does that mean they expect to release it theatrically? Couldn’t Variety have explained this more? I’m not trying to be a journalist but since I’m more interested in this than the journalists and I happened to have contact info for John Hyams I decided I had to ask him about it. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 14th, 2010 | 45 Comments »

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