"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Underworld

Some of you may be wondering why the Bruce icon would adorn a review for some corny movie about an ancient war between leather clad vampires and werewolves, especially since Bruce does not appear in the film and probaly hasn’t even seen it, unless maybe on a plane. But some of you know what I’m getting at. According to recent reports, Mr. Len Wiseman – whose sole accomplishments in Hollywood so far are directing the two Underworld pictures and marrying Kate Beckinsale – will be directing “Die Hard 4.0.”

Now, I got a history with this movie, sort of. A while back, an Ain’t It Cool talkbacker named IAmLegolas begged me to review Underworld Evolution. I said I couldn’t because I hadn’t seen the first one and considering how boring I’d heard that was it might be more research than I was willing to do. As soon as I read this Die Hard news though I realized that Legolas had been ahead of his time and that the research would have to be done. And he was sure to point this out to me too. Good job YouAreLegolas, hats off to you. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 3rd, 2006 | No Comments »

One Tough Bastard

ONE MAN’S JUSTICE aka ONE TOUGH BASTARD
from the director of Equilibrium
starring Brian Bosworth

This 1995 Bozploitation vehicle is on the more enjoyable end of the DTV action pictures I’ve seen. It’s not as awesome as Bosworth’s theatrical starring role STONE COLD, but director Kurt Wimmer’s slightly pretentious touch gives it the feel of an authentic ’80s action picture that Seagal or Chuck Norris might’ve made. Not the usual unwatchable crap you get on DTV, this is solid cable level filmatism.

The plot is a variation on a HARD TO KILL type of revenge deal. Bosworth is a drill instructor/hand-to-hand-combat teacher for the Army. Whether or not he will ever find a practical application for these fighting skills is anyone’s guess. He’s estranged from his wife but planning to work things out, and he has a little blonde daughter. Unfortunately, wife and daughter happen to be at a gas station where an ugly motherfucker named Marcus (Jeff Kober, the same guy who played Beserko in COYOTE MOON) is making a nefarious arms deal. The daughter witnesses the arms deal through the bushes so, under cell phone orders from a mysterious boss (all we see is the hoop ring on his nose) the bad guys massacre everybody at the gas station. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 1st, 2006 | 7 Comments »

My Review of The Steven Seagal Blues Band at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle

I’m not about to start writing concert reviews, but I think the Steven Seagal Blues Band tour is worth an explanation. From the moment I first heard about the show to the second I got there, I really had no clue what the hell was gonna happen. And I had many discussions with people about who was gonna show up, if anybody. Wouldn’t it just be young people going to laugh at him? Would it be embarassing? Would he have to break a dude’s wrist and throw him through a window? Or pull a decorative lasso or samurai sword off the wall and go to work? I even had an elaborate notion of how he could bring along a stuntman to pose as a heckler, then do a couple moves on the guy and throw him through sugar glass. That would be one hell of a show.

I know because of stevenseagal.net that there are some crazy female fans whose Seagal fandom is purely about lust. But the internet is a worldwide medium. The question is how many of these women there really are in the world and how many are within driving distance of Seattle. I figured 1 or 2 tops, probaly none. But I figured wrong.

The show sold out, and there were people outside with signs begging for extra tickets. It was a mostly older crowd inside. Lots of grey hair, also lots of bald heads and tattoos. Some tough guys, some ponytails, some nerdy old guys in leather jackets. I wondered if anybody was a serious blues fan. Was anyone here to genuinely examine his chops? There was a pack of crew-cutted frat boys hooting in the back, some young hipster types here and there, possibly for ironic purposes, possibly for Seagalogical study. Probaly more men than women but not much, seemed like lots of husbands and wives. Mostly white people, but all races were represented. I noticed a decent percentage of Native Americans, and a woman wearing a fringed jacket with beadwork like Seagal wears in ON DEADLY GROUND. That made my day. I figured if there was ever a Seagalogy convention you’d be seeing alot of those. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 27th, 2006 | 20 Comments »

Vern checks in to ROADHOUSE 2… No, Really… It’s a Real Movie…

Hey folks, Harry here with Vern’s latest review of something odd and amazing… namely ROAD HOUSE 2. Now I want to clarify something for Vern and lots of you. I honestly feel that if you are not of comic lover, there’s a very good chance you’ll like X3. And just because you haven’t read as much, or if you can divorce what you’ve read from what the film was… or however you approached X3… you’re absolutely right and valid in your opinion. There are no wrong opinions… unless you’re a Republican. Giggle. Anyway – here’s ROADHOUSE 2 and VERN – enjoy…

My dear readers,

Well hopefully you guys missed it but I guess I kind of blew it with my last review here. I did X-MEN PART 3 which I remember enjoying but it turns out I was incorrect. There was some sort of error involving a magic crystal and fire birds or something like that, it’s kind of over my head but the point is I didn’t know enough about comic book graphic novel funnies to really grasp the true meaning of that movie. They’re telling me I was mistaken. Sorry nerds.

Okay, so I don’t know the Darth Phoenix Saga from the Phoenix Suns. So sue me. But don’t be such a Magneto. The Ain’t It Cool News is big enough for comic book fundamentalists and infidels alike. We can live in peace and we can share our passion for the films of cinema and/or DVD. All I can do to make things right is return to an area I have more expertise in than children’s comic strip books: the area of straight to video sequels to ROAD HOUSE. I dare any one of you fuckers to question my credibility on this topic. You can’t. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 27th, 2006 | 4 Comments »

God help us… Vern has seen X3…

SPOILER ALERT !!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Vern has done it again. I gut-laughed at least 3 times during this review… It contains some spoilers, so be warned of that. All these positive reviews for X3 give me hope for the film, but I am worried about a common thread going through these reviews that seem to say that if you care at all about the comics or how these characters will be different from their comic book forms then you might not like the film. Is it wrong to be a geek about a comic book movie? I just know that I loved the Dark Phoenix Saga and I wish I could shake the original comic telling of her story going into the movie, but I know I can’t. I really hope I’m smiling as hard as Vern was when watching the flick. Sounds huge and fun. After Vern, I have another review that is from a fan that is very honest about the film, but is kind of a sad read. Enjoy the laughter and happiness first!

X-MEN 3: THE THIRD AND LAST STAND OF THE X-MEN

Fellas,

In the talkback for my review of last week’s big movie, SEE NO EVIL, Brycemonkey requested that I review X-MEN 3: X3 THE THIRD X-MEN. As someone who strives for excellence that puts me in a tough position because on one hand I want to make the newsies happy by reviewing the movie, but on the other hand I’m not sure they’ll like it because I don’t know jack and/or shit about the X-Men outside of these movies.

Ordinarily that would be okay, most movies you’re not expected to do twenty years of preparatory research before you are allowed to have an opinion about them. But X-Men is different. I don’t know if anybody else has ever noticed this before, but through my personal experiences here and there I’ve made an observation that some people take this comic strip shit VERY seriously. Don’t worry, I’m not talking about you. You’re cool. But those other guys are fuckin NUTS. what a bunch of nerds, am I right? ha ha we’re different though. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 23rd, 2006 | 12 Comments »

Urgent Breaking News! Vern Says SEE NO EVIL Is ‘Completely F#*king Awesome!!’

SPOILER ALERT !!

Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…

What could I possibly add to a review this good?

Boys–

This is kind of a weird question, but have you ever thought there should be a movie about a big bald retarded muscleman with extreme religious views running around an abandoned hotel banging people against walls and plucking their eyeballs out? If so, today’s your lucky day, and SEE NO EVIL is your movie.

The retarded muscleman is played by Kane, not the rapper Big Daddy Kane but apparently a famous wrestler of some kind, making his acting debut. According to the credits he is playing “Jacob Goodnight,” a name they unfortunately never say in the movie. Like the character, the movie is big, dumb, almost definitely using steroids, and also way more fun than you would think. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 19th, 2006 | No Comments »

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

As part of my striving for excellence I’m trying to strengthen my background in the filmatic arts. I’m always trying to catch up on the Badass Cinema that I’ve missed, but it’s also important to watch some of the regular folk movies that are considered classics. MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER is no THE GODFATHER or nothin but if you talk to film buffs alot of times they have a boner for Robert Altman, and this is one of the movies they all mention. Before POPEYE. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 16th, 2006 | 1 Comment »

Code of Silence

In 1985, a couple years before director Andrew Davis introduced the world to Steven Seagal in the classic ABOVE THE LAW, he did another, similar movie, sort of a rough draft, starring Chuck Norris.

They have the same setting (Chicago), the same villain (Henry Silva) and alot of the same supporting actors playing cops and criminals. They have the same type of cheesy ’80s scores by David M. Frank. (Get ready for cheesy slap bass and the whitest horn section you ever heard.) ABOVE THE LAW is about CIA corruption (inspired by the Iran-Contra affair) but CODE OF SILENCE sticks with corrupt cops. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 16th, 2006 | 9 Comments »

Art School Confidential

A while back I wanted to get a copy of the book Cockfighter by Charles Willeford. The one the Monte Hellman movie is based on. I found it in a collection with two other Willeford books, so I read those first. I knew what Cockfighter was about obviously, but the other two I had no idea, so from page 1 on the books had me guessing where the hell they were going, and usually being wrong.

The Pickup starts out with this guy spending his days drinking in bars and finding jobs at diners, who seems to have real bad luck and get in fights everywhere he goes. And he meets this rich girl. Of course you assume she’s gonna be a femme fatale, she’s gonna lead him on and trick him into killing somebody or stealing her father’s money or some shit, but it never happens. Instead they fall in love for real but they have this fucked up Sid and Nancy love. They are tormented and depressed and they bring the book spiraling down into the abyss with them. Before you know it they decide to slit their wrists, and end up in an insane asylum, and it keeps going from there. Even the very last sentence of the book makes you say, “Whuh?” and have to go back and reconsider everything that happened before. I like that. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 15th, 2006 | 4 Comments »

The Godfather Part II

aka GODFATHER: RESURRECTION

When last we saw The Godfather part II (Al Pacino, DICK TRACY), he was in a room, closing a door. Nobody knows what happened inside that room, probaly some gangster shit. But THE GODFATHER PART II picks up years later with Michael Corleone now living in Las Vegas. Remember, he sent poor Robert Duvall there to stake out some territory, well apparently that went well. It seems there is some mafia roots in modern day Las Vegas. Huh, go figure.

Now, part 2 is even more epic than part 1. This one actually has time travel in it. It skips back and forth between The New Adventures of Michael Corleone and The Young Vito Corleone Chronicles. Hell it goes all the way back to the motherland. Remember that villa where Michael hid out in part one, then he married a girl with no nipples and watched her get blown up? Turns out that’s Vito’s childhood hood, and that place Michael lived is where the OG Godfather lived, and killed Vito’s mom. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 11th, 2006 | 16 Comments »

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