"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Ninja Assassin

tn_ninjaassassinI’ve finally seen NINJA ASSASSIN, produced by the Wachowskis, directed by James McTeigue, their second unit director and the director of V FOR VENDETTA. The bad news is it’s not the instant classic or genre reviver I figured it would be when I first heard they were making it, the good news is it’s not the unwatchable trash most of the reviews have told me it was. The Scott Adkins movie NINJA could top it (I just ordered a Thai DVD of it) but that’s okay, I still had a fun time at the movies. Here is the ticket stub:

ninja_ass

Get it? Ass. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 5th, 2009 | 124 Comments »

Steven Seagal: Lawman episodes 1 and 2

tn_lawman2For 20 years we have known the legend of Steven Seagal. He was the aikido teacher, the white man who ran a dojo in Japan and later impressed people in Hollywood so much they made him a movie star. He wrote and produced many of his movies, directed one of them, created a unique persona. He got more and more into Buddhism and Zen, sometimes working them into his movies, eventually being declared by somebody as a reincarnated Tulku.

During this decade, suddenly, we learned that he was a bluesman too. It seemed ridiculous at first, but it was true. It seemed so out of the blue that you could assume it was just a new phase he was going through, but looking back over old articles I found references to him playing guitar even back in his youth in Japan. And I heard and saw him with my own ears and eyes, and he could play, and his band was tight.

So we got used to that, now all the sudden you’re telling me he’s been a cop for 20 years? In his spare time, like in between the 37 movies he’s filmed? Man, I have trouble working a day job and writing movie reviews, this guy is filming several movies a year, recording albums, going on tour and chasing carjackers? (read the rest of this shit…)

December 5th, 2009 | 102 Comments »

Steven Seagal: Lawman premieres tonight

tn_lawmanSeagal’s new reality cop show begins on A&E tonight. I haven’t seen it yet. I’ll have my analysis for you when it’s ready – these things take time. But feel free to discuss the episode here.

(And man, I have no idea how I’m gonna handle this if I update Seagalogy some day. Complete episode guide might turn it into a phone book.)

December 2nd, 2009 | 40 Comments »

Warner Home Video Hates America

Terminator Salvation Target ExclusiveI’m not sure how they released it in other countries, but my fellow Americans will remember that TERMINATOR SALVATION followed the LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD pattern of cutting it to a PG-13 rating in hopes of getting a wider audience (they weren’t interested though – I’m pretty sure it made less money than its three R-rated predecessors).

Not too big of a deal, because the problems that sunk the movie for me had nothing to do with them cutting out the boobs and death, and now that it’s out on DVD I can see what the R-rated cut would’ve been, right?

Well, shit. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 2nd, 2009 | 156 Comments »

Love the Beast

tn_lovethebeastFrom the cover, LOVE THE BEAST looks like some indie movie starring Eric Bana, Jay Leno and Dr. Phil. What the hell? When did Bana enter Dolph’s co-starring-with-daytime-talk-show-hosts period? Well it’s not that, and it’s not THE COLLISION COURSE: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS. It’s actually a documentary about Bana’s love for the Ford Falcoln Coupe he’s had since he was young, and for the 4-day Targa race across the scenic roads of Tasmania. He directed it and it’s so clearly a labor of love that the enthusiasm is contagious.

Heavily narrated by Bana, but admirably low on talking head interviews, it shows Bana’s dedication over the years to his “beast” (nickname for the car) and his “mates” (Australian for “homeys” or “doggs”). One of his friends thinks it’s hilarious that he still works on that same damn car even though he has money to buy new ones. And it’s true – he might be the only Marvel super hero still driving his high school car. In ’05 though he decided to sink his money into rebuilding the whole thing into a top of the line race car, then raced it in the Targa for the first time since before he was Chopper. (read the rest of this shit…)

December 2nd, 2009 | 19 Comments »

The Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans

tn_badlieutenantpocnoWhen I wrote about Abel Ferrara’s BAD LIEUTENANT about 2 years ago I said that should be one of the movies they remake in BE KIND REWIND, or some kids should do a remake in their backyard, or you should use scenes from it for your monologue in acting class. So far I haven’t seen any of those, but it’s even better to see a remake starring Nicolas Cage. Sort of a remake, anyway.

What exactly is THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS? It’s not a sequel, not exactly a remake to BAD LIEUTENANT. Werner Herzog, who directed this new one, claims he hasn’t seen BAD LIEUTENANT. Ferrara claimed he was gonna stop this one from being made. (In my opinion he failed.) This isn’t about the same character and I didn’t notice any mention of the original screenplay in the credits. But it does have a little bit of a BAD LIEUTENANT vibe, and that’s all I can ask. (read the rest of this shit…)

November 30th, 2009 | 162 Comments »

The Road

tn_theroadTHE ROAD is a good movie, better book. If you’re thinking about reading it but haven’t got to it yet I’d say read it, then see the movie. The movie (directed by John Hillcoat, who did THE PROPOSITION) is very faithful to the book (by Cormac McCarthy, who did No Country For Old Men) and illustrates it well, but it can’t really do the same thing.

In case you don’t watch Oprah, the story is about a man and his son after civilization has been destroyed by some unnamed disaster. They’re cold, hungry and worn out and trying to push their little cart of belongings across the United States to the coast. They don’t even really know what they expect when they get there, they just don’t know what else to do. (read the rest of this shit…)

November 29th, 2009 | 25 Comments »

2012

tn_2012A bunch of actual good movies came out this week, and I’ll review a couple of them soon. First I have to catch up with this crap I saw last week…

As you know, and as the TV news in this movie will tell you, the Mayans predicted that the world would end on December 21st, 2012. So in this movie it does. Actually, that must be the fictionalized, eclipse-fearing Mayans of APOCALYPTO that predicted that, because the real Mayans didn’t. They just had a calendar which considered somewhere around that date to be the end of an era. They also predicted things that would happen after 2012, so obviously they didn’t expect the world to end. Let’s not hang all this doom and gloom on them. They invented chocolate. (read the rest of this shit…)

November 28th, 2009 | 89 Comments »

Big Fan

tn_bigfan(this review has more spoilers than usual because there’s alot to analyze.)

BIG FAN is the directational debut of Robert Siegel, known obviously to most Seagalogists as the writer of THE ONION MOVIE. He was the editor for The Onion comedy newspaper, then left to write scripts. This one caught the attention of Darren Aronofsky, who was gonna direct it for a while until he decided to have Siegel write a wrestling picture instead.

This one does have some things in common with THE WRESTLER. Both are smartly written, observant, bleak dramas about working class dudes in sports subcultures that don’t usually get much respect. The premise sounds like a comedy: an obsessive sports fan has to decide what to do after getting beaten up by his favorite player. I can imagine the Adam Sandler or Rob Schneider vehicle they could make out of that, but this is more of a drama with some squirmy, uncomfortable chuckles here and there, kind of a minimalistic TAXI DRIVER type character portrait. And for those of us who have written extensively about aikido masters it brings to mind some disturbing hypothetical scenarios. (read the rest of this shit…)

November 26th, 2009 | 14 Comments »

Filler

I got some important new reviews in the works, but for now all I have to offer is this video I found using the internet here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Oj0-splZw

 

November 25th, 2009 | 56 Comments »

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