ZWARTBOEK
Paul Verhoeven has always been one of the top weirdo-pervert directors in my book. (Literally – in my book 5 On the Outside I had a review of THE HOLLOW MAN in chapter 9, “WEIRDOS, CREEPS & PERVERTS.”) Less pedophilic and more of a crowdpleaser than your Larry Clark, Verhoeven is a true original. Even making a studio movie about a cyborg he manages to tell a story with a strong point-of-view about the state of the world. Throughout his years in Hollywood, Verhoeven made many great popcorn movies that outrageously pushed the envelope of violence and sex and sneakily snuck in some subversive politics. And that’s pretty much my favorite type of movie in the world is one that does that. It’s like some poor sucker buys a box of Mike and Ike’s and doesn’t realize somebody tossed a couple MATRIX red pills in there. (read the rest of this shit…)
Until recently I was the guy who had never seen POINT BREAK. But the other day I busted my cherry on that matter, pardon my French, so I’m some other guy now.
I don’t know how familiar any of you are with Payback, the 1999 Mel Gibson-starring adaptation of Richard Stark’s The Hunter. That’s the same book that inspired one of the all time canonical works of Badass Cinema, Point Blank.
PLANET TERROR and DEATH PROOF
I am not going to be using the g-word in this review, because I am sick and fucking tired of hearing it. It’s a perfectly legitimate title for this concept, but here is the problem. Mr. Tarantino is a huge fan and expert on these types of movies, he is the human IMDb judging from some of those interviews. So I don’t mind seeing him talk about it in every article about KILL BILL VOLUME 1 and then 
Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here. As much as I hate ever having to write an obit, I love when the right person writes one. In this case, our very own Vern has sent me a really lovely piece to celebrate the memory of John Flynn. And if you asked “Who?” then this article is worth your time to read.
They got a real unique advertising campaign for THE LOOKOUT, they are trying this new thing where you don’t promote the movie at all, and nobody knows it even exists. So there is this mystery around it. I don’t know why it hasn’t blown up yet but so far this playing-hard-to-get approach does not seem to be capturing the public consciousness.
I’m gonna come right out and admit it: I used to have a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. Recently. It’s cheap, it comes every week, it keeps you company. Sometimes you read some tidbit in there that you didn’t catch on a web sight yet. They can actually interview directors and actors without having to go to a junket, so they got a leg up. Not too long ago Owen Glieberman said nice things about Under Siege 2: Dark Territory in his column, I liked that. Every once in a while they even hire actual writers to spend time on a feature article, I think they did one on the history of Police Academy one time. (I didn’t read it but that must’ve been interesting.)
(originally BANLIEUE 13)
THE HILLS HAVE EYES REMAKE II
Friday night I saw Rudy Ray Moore perform at The Funhouse in Seattle. If you’re not familiar with Rudy, he’s a legendary comedian, maker of x-rated comedy records, who paved the way for his contemporaries like Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx to do their thing by carving words like pussy and motherfucker about ten thousand times into vinyl. But it was his string of self-financed, low budget blaxploitation comedies like Dolemite, The Human Tornado and (my favorite) Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law that put him on the map for most of us. Those movies are built around his persona, the arrogant, unbelievably shit-talking chauvinistic badass with a knack for hilarious insults and rhymes. Like his movies, his act is mostly built around the traditions of the dozens and toasting. He tells stories in rhyme and picks out people in the crowd to talk shit about (which most people take as a great honor).
