"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Vern Throws A Kick At JCVD!!

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

By now, you most likely know what this is, and wheter or not you’re interested in it. I’m thrilled Vern got a chance to check it out, though, and if there’s any review of it I’ve been waiting to read, it’s this one.

This is one of those things that almost seems too good to really exist. Did a talented French director really convince Jean-Claude Van Damme to play himself in an arty hostage thriller, giving him his best production values in years, one of his best movies, and definitely the best acting performance and most personal artistic expression of his career (so far)? Okay, I can believe somebody would come up with the idea, I can sort of believe Van Damme would be interested, but it’s hard to believe that they really found the money, really made it, really executed it this good. 2008, I love you. (read the rest of this shit…)

November 26th, 2008 | 66 Comments »

Bloodsport

Okay, now that J.C.V.D. has polished Van Damme’s plaque in the action hero hall of fame I can’t keep running from the inevitable, it’s time to go back and watch those early Van Damme pictures I’ve always ignored. I’ve already seen NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER, his first major role, so I’ll start with BLOODSPORT, his first starring vehicle.

BLOODSPORT is from Cannon, and it’s very much in the vein (get it, vein, BLOODSPORT) as other Cannon chopsocky pictures like AMERICAN NINJA and ENTER THE NINJA, or other ’80s chopsocky movies like THE PERFECT WEAPON. These are stories of goofy white dudes mentored by Asians to take on ancient traditions and become great warriors. They lack charisma, presence and acting ability but are good at martial arts (or at faking them in the case of Michael Dudikoff). (read the rest of this shit…)

November 26th, 2008 | 24 Comments »

Vern Vs. TRANSPORTER 3!!

Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.

Vern is the greatest writer about film writing about film anywhere that film is written about. If you disagree, I will pay a big guy to punch you in a soft place.

I haven’t seen TRANSPORTER 3 yet, but thanks to this review, I feel like I have. Every word’s a gem, Vern. Thanks for the huge Friday morning belly laugh.

Check it out. Tell me I’m wrong.

Here’s a test for you. How many times did you rewind the part in TRANSPORTER 2 where he sees in a reflection that there’s a bomb on the bottom of his car so he drives the car off a pile of junk, flips, successfully hooks the bomb onto a nearby crane and lands the car safely? (read the rest of this shit…)

November 21st, 2008 | 30 Comments »

The Beastmaster

After watching the complete PHANTASM series I thought maybe it was worth re-evaluting this Don Coscarelli individual, so I looked him up on that one websight. Turns out he did this BEASTMASTER movie that every American male child of the 1980s always talks about – I had no idea he did that one and I didn’t have cable in the ’80s so I’d never seen it before.

THE BEASTMASTER stars Marc Singer as Dar, aka The Beastmaster, a shirtless dude who is friends with animals. Basically, he is the Aquaman of land, he can communicate with the animals and they help him out, but you won’t see any animals talking like a Dr. Dolittle picture or the later installments of the Air Bud saga such as AIR BUDDIES, SPACE BUDDIES or CSI – CANINE SPORTS INVESTIGATORS. No, it’s pure man-to-animal telepathy. So, you know, he basically hangs out with alot of different animals, they are his homies, they goof around together and then if he falls in some quicksand or something they help him. Come to think of it this is not that great of a power, if he just had human friends they would actually be better at pulling him out of quicksand than a couple of ferrets. I mean it’s simple physics, really. So maybe his real power is that he’s friends with John Amos from Good Times. (read the rest of this shit…)

November 20th, 2008 | 3 Comments »

Vern Trades Punches With James Bond In QUANTUM OF SOLACE!

QUANTUM OF SOLACE
(a particular amount of consolation)

You and me we’re movie nerds. So when we go out to a movie we try to see it on the biggest, nicest screen. We see it in Imax if we can, or we have our favorite theaters where we hope it will be playing. But you gotta wonder why we keep doing that when more and more movies are not designed to be comprehensible on a large screen. Increasingly, action movies are designed to be viewed on your phone or wrist watch or whatever silly shit they invent next. Why do I wait out in the cold for two hours to see this movie on the giant Cinerama screen when it’s just gonna guarantee that I will have no idea if James Bond’s car is in front of or behind the other car, which one went off the cliff, what James Bond is doing to the guy he’s fighting and also which one is James Bond? At the very least they should rope off the front 2/3 of all these theaters since Marc Forster, the director of QUANTUM OF SOLACE, apparently was not told that people may sit within 250 feet of the screen. (read the rest of this shit…)

November 14th, 2008 | 72 Comments »

Phantasm Oblivion

PHANTASM OBLIVION

get it, OBLIVION, and it’s part 4
If there are any Romans out there I think you’ll get the joke. Little numeral humor there on the part of the Phantasmers

I hate to be a tattle tale but PHANTASM part 4 here is a total fuckin cheater. If you saw part 3 you may remember the ending: Reggie is pinned against a wall by a swarm of metal balls. He tells the little HOME ALONE kid Tim to leave, that they’ve lost. But the kid won’t leave. Then I guess a dwarf might’ve jumped out and grabbed him or something, I don’t remember for sure. But the point is he was there. (read the rest of this shit…)

November 7th, 2008 | 6 Comments »

Phantasm III

There’s a built-in weakness with the PHANTASM series. A big part of the PHANTASM appeal is the reveal of the crazy fuckin weird ass shit (or CFWAS) that’s goin down, and not really being able to comprehend it all. So in the course of each sequel they end up having to do two things that are sort of problematic:

  1. explain more things, making it less mysterious and
  2. pile on more CFWAS, stretching the credibility more and more to where it’s not quite as easy to swallow.

So you got those things, but otherwise this is a very enjoyable and unexpectedly adventurous sequel. It picks up right where part 2 left off, except suddenly James LeGros has morphed back into A. Michael Baldwin, the original star of PHANTASM. And now I sort of get it, because he does not look like a movie hero, he looks like some dude. But the same some dude from the original, so it’s good to have him back. (read the rest of this shit…)

November 7th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Yes We Motherfucking Can

Tuesday night, downtown Seattle, heading home just after Obama’s victory speech:

As strangers pass each other on the sidewalks we see each other’s signs or pins, or just the smiles on our faces, and we shout and high five each other. “YEEEEAAAAAHHH!!!” Somewhere down the block someone is just yelling “OBAAAAAAAAAMA! OBAAAAAAAAAAAMA!”

At the Showbox, downtown’s best music venue, people are spilling out from the election party put on by the local alternative weekly. Some of them stand on the side of the road holding their Obama signs, waving to the honking cars. It feels good. How often do we get to celebrate something like this?

The sidewalk group has grown to a few dozen. Suddenly a rented “Party Limo” pulls up – a minibus covered in Obama/Biden signs. The door opens and some very satisfied African American gentlemen in oversized Obama shirts emerge spraying champagne, passing out cups. We pour into the street. I always said we would be partying in the streets. (read the rest of this shit…)

November 6th, 2008 | 15 Comments »

Pet Sematary

This month I’ve done a pretty good job of picking out the best mid-level Stephen King pictures, the INCBIS’s (it’s not CARRIE, but it’s solid). I didn’t think PET SEMATARY would hold up very well, but I was wrong, this was another good one. Good job, PET SEMATARY. Here’s a treat.

It’s a relief to see a Stephen King story where the main guy is not a writer and his marriage is not in trouble. This is the story of happily married doctor Louis Creed and his family of 2 kids and a cat moving to a new town in a house right along a popular trucking route. The road is so dangerous there’s a large pet sematary (sic) nearby, so they start worrying about their cat Winston Churchill. Their worries are not unfounded. But also they should keep an eye on their youngest kid in my opinion. (implied spoiler) (read the rest of this shit…)

October 31st, 2008 | 12 Comments »

Phantasm II

PHANTASM II: LORD OF BALLS

There’s actually not a subtitle on this one, I made that up. Anyway this is the first sequel, made 11 years later with the backing of Universal Studios. It’s the year after EVIL DEAD 2 but it’s the same kind of thing Universal did later with ARMY OF DARKNESS, taking a cult movie and its director, putting a little more money behind it and hoping to trick mainstream audiences into thinking they care. Nobody knows why they did it, but we’re kind of glad they did.

The advantage of the Universal money is that they have some pretty good special effects. The disadvantage is that they have to ditch the original star, A. Michael Baldwin (a rogue Baldwin brother not related to Alec Baldwin), and replace him with James LeGros of DRUGSTORE COWBOY. You know, for that guaranteed James LeGros demographic who will just go to any James LeGros movie over and over again, and get all of their friends to come, just to watch James LeGros. It’s like the old Hollywood saying goes, don’t ever make a movie that doesn’t star James LeGros. Trivia: no movie has ever made a profit without James LeGros, and vice versa. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 30th, 2008 | 6 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
  • Hey bud, thanks for reading.

    Don't feel obligated, but here are some

  • WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHIT OUT OF VERN & OUTLAWVERN.COM

    if that's your thing:

  • 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.

  • 3. If you ever buy from Amazon, go through my links or search engines



    (you pay the same amount you were gonna pay anyway they cut me a little slice)

  • I also have an Amazon UK one:

    (I can't get the search box widget to work anymore, so click on MOONWALKER and then search for what you want.)

  • 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)

  • 5. Spread the word

    Tell your friends about my reviews and my books and everything. Only cool people though please, we don't need a bunch of suckers and/or chumps around here.

    THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN

    * * * *

  • Recent commentary and jibber-jabber

    • CJ Holden on Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday: “Honestly, after finally being able to watch it…I kinda liked it. But here is the disclaimer: I don’t really like…” Feb 14, 11:14
    • VERN on Queens of the Dead: “That’s interesting so-and-so, I don’t fully understand what causes you to reject it like that, but it sounds like my…” Feb 13, 22:50
    • Skani on Heart Eyes: “Second watch verdict is in — it’s still very good! Boys liked it a lot, too, across the board. My…” Feb 13, 17:54
    • Mr. Majestyk on Heart Eyes: “I was not expecting it to be dead serious with that premise. I just don’t think they got the comic…” Feb 13, 12:33
    • Bill Reed on Heart Eyes: “Maybe I’m a sucker for anything that has a lot of quickly-delivered dialogue, but I liked this a lot more…” Feb 13, 12:33
    • Skani on Heart Eyes: “Majestyk, I already had plans to watch this with my boys this evening (their first watch, my second), so, I…” Feb 13, 11:14
    • Dave Chappelle's Emergency Code Word on Butcher Boys: “Maybe Swift’s refried idea is what the fourth-rate Hollywood producer Barry Josephson had in mind when he told Jeffrey Epstein…” Feb 13, 09:37
    • so-and-so on Queens of the Dead: “i appreciate the outreach that a review like this represents but i think if a straight co-worker were to recommend…” Feb 13, 06:50
    • Mr. Majestyk on Heart Eyes: “Would like to chime in that I have also cut off the SCREAM franchise on moral grounds. It was not…” Feb 13, 04:54
    • Simon Underwood on Heart Eyes: “As someone who had their life changed by Scream (among other things, it was one of the key films that…” Feb 13, 01:13
    • so-and-so on Send Help: “sympathy is reserved for and expressed to other human beings; the characters in a fictional narrative by definition cannot garner…” Feb 12, 21:59
    • Skani on Heart Eyes: “My friends at Rotten Tomatoes call this “ A mixture of gory slasher and sweet rom-com that ingeniously nails both…” Feb 12, 20:17
    • Alex R on Dragged Across Concrete: “This review was what made me start reading the site. I believe somebody linked to it on Letterboxd. Two things…” Feb 12, 19:26
    • Curt on Queens of the Dead: “Yes, it was VEGAS IN SPACE, thank you! I looked it up online and recognized the artwork immediately. Worth a…” Feb 12, 18:40
    • Mr. Majestyk on Heart Eyes: “I kind of hated this one. As a SCREAM-esque glossy slasher it’s, shrug, fine, but christ, do I hate this…” Feb 12, 17:44

  • Recent Commented on Posts

  • Most Comments