"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

War of the Worlds

Sometimes for scientifical type purposes I try to predict what bad puns the hack critics will use in reviews of upcoming movies. For WAR OF THE WORLDS I was leaning toward an “out of this world” or “worlds away from E.T.” type thing. Somebody suggested “Bore of the Worlds” but I was saving that for “Fantastic Bore” and “Fantastic Snore.”

But then I saw WAR OF THE WORLDS and you know what this is? The scariest PG-13 movie of all time. Fuck dinosaurs. Fuck a guy eating monkey brains. This is as hard as Steve Spielberg is gonna get. This is a well put together piece of work in my opinion. Usually making a movie PG-13 when it could be R is a copout, but in this case it’s almost subversive. Sorry about taking the guns out of E.T., to make it up to you I’m gonna give your kids the worst nightmares from now until they turn 16.

So now I’m thinking the pun headline should be CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE KIND WHERE YOU ALMOST SHIT YOUR PANTS. Or maybe E.T. – THE EXTRA-WE’REFUCKED-STRIAL. (read the rest of this shit…)

July 1st, 2005 | 5 Comments »

Enter the Dragon

BREAKING NEWS: ENTER THE DRAGON is a classic and it’s mainly because of Bruce Lee’s performance. More on this story as it develops.

Okay maybe that’s old news. He’d been trying for years to become a superstar in the US (he only went back to hong kong after being dissed one too many times by the white man). So it was a big deal for him to have his big american co-production. And in the movie he has so much screen presence that they had to build a special type of camera to film him, after going through six different regular cameras that broke because of his power.

Actually that’s complete bullshit, I just made that up. That woulda been cool though. Anyway anything you need to know about why Bruce Lee is such an icon is in this movie: the arrogant persona (his character is actually kind of a dick), the perfect physique, the powerful moves, the cool nunchucks, the occasional philosophy, the greatest theme song of all time (thank you Lalo Schifrin). But everybody knows that. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know if I talk about that. So let’s give some credit to the rest of the movie. For example, co-star John Saxon. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 24th, 2005 | 49 Comments »

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

tn_36thchamberaka SHAOLIN MASTER KILLER

So you got these fuckin Tartars goin around oppressing people, right? No surprise there. Humiliating people, publicly executing people, fucking with innocent people’s seafood shops and all that kind of crap. I mean let’s be honest here, we all know how these fuckin Tartars are. And in a Shaw Brothers classic like this, we know Gordon Liu is gonna do something about it.

There’s this classroom of kids (played by adults) and they’ve been learning about the importance of their country and standing up to their enemies but they can’t figure out why they’re learning this in the classroom and then watching the Tartars pull this kind of crap. Are those lessons just words or are they concepts they should really live by? They decide on the second one and when they try to stand up and make a difference, they are rewarded with a serious assbeating.

But Gordon gets away, and you know what he always does when he gets away. He finds his way to the Shaolin Temple where the monks patch him up, then he demands to stay and become a monk, and then he asks to learn kung fu. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 24th, 2005 | 2 Comments »

Land of the Dead

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

I’m working on my review for this one now, having seen it earlier tonight. For now, I’ll leave it in the always-capable hands of Vern:

Fellas –

Well the Batman fans have their good Batman movie to get excited about, the Star Wars fans have their good Star Wars movie to complain and make rape metaphors about*, and now comes the actual, genuine most anticipated movie of the summer. In my opinion.

[*and no, this is not a license to talk about Star Wars in the talkbacks. you even THINK about mentioning Hans shooting whatsisdick the hutt or what have you, even in a relevant comparison to the works of George Romero, you’re fuckin fired]

There’s not much of a rumbling in the media, there doesn’t even seem to be as much excitement on the internet thing here as you’d think there’d be. But some of you out there know what I’m talking about. We’ve been waiting for this movie a long god damn time. I mean how many false alarms can you live through over the years, the guy saying he almost has the money to make another Living Dead movie? It starts to seem like a pipe dream. How many Resident Evils and 28 Days and Haunted Mansions can go by with us saying “fer chrissakes you morons, just give George Romero some money for a living dead picture and make the world a better place for all creeds, colors and stripes.” (read the rest of this shit…)

June 22nd, 2005 | 2 Comments »

Seattle: Vern indulges in a lil CRIMEN FERPECTO!

Hey folks, Harry here with Vern chiming in on the latest film from Alex De La Iglesia – who one day will be paired up with a perfect project that will launch him into world wide infamy – and goddammit, I wished it had been his FU MANCHU movie he wanted to make! Do yourself a favor and track down DIA DE LA BESTIA or 800 BALAS… then you won’t be able to stop tracking down all his films. Here ya go…

Boys –

Remember me, your friend Vern with one last review from SIFF, which is what I call the Seattle International Film Festival for short. That is the festival we have over here, in Seattle.

I didn’t see too many this year but the one I couldn’t miss was FERPECT CRIME because it was by Alex de la Iglesia. I went in knowing nothing about the plot or even the correct title. The schedule and tickets called it EL CRIMEN PERFECTO (THE PERFECT CRIME) which adds an extra THE and corrects a purposely incorrect spelling. So let that be a lesson to those who enjoy giving pointless and unsolicited advice about spelling to us artistical types. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 14th, 2005 | No Comments »

Vern takes a look at BATMAN BEGINS!

SPOILER ALERT !!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here… Now, of the three main editors of the Movie News of AICN, only one hasn’t seen this movie yet… Yeah, me. So, who’s the one dealing with all these spoiler-ific reviews? Yeah, me… At least I was having fun running around Chicago’s dastardly and evil O’Hare airport, missing connections and having good times while the Austin screening of BATMAN BEGINS was rolling… Anyway, this is all to say that I haven’t seen the movie. I didn’t read the script. I want there to be some surprises in the movie for me, so I haven’t read any of the below reviews. I’m sure they’re great, but I’m gonna be selfish on this one. If BB’s as good as everyone and their mother is saying it is, I want to be as fresh as possible come next week. So, be warned. There could be tons of spoilers below.

We have a couple regulars to start off. Our main man Vern and Ghostboy. Vern is first up to bat! ZING! He also has some personal information to share with his mass of fans! Enjoy!

I got two thrilling stories for you today boys. First up is my review of this new Batman picture. Second is an unrelated, earth shattering movie scoop that you have not seen on access hollywood, E.T. – The Entertainment Tonight, the Michael Jackson trial re-enactments, or any of those shows. Possibly it was in some newspaper column in a city called Rochester, but I have not confirmed that yet. Anyway enough preamble let’s get down. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 9th, 2005 | 15 Comments »

8 Diagram Pole Fighter

Well when it comes to the classics of the kung fu genre, who the fuck knows where to start? Not me, but a recent browsing of the book THE WU-TANG MANUAL BOOK 1 by outlaw award winning composer RZA gave me some tips. In one chapter he tells about the three kung fu movies that most influenced him, and this one sounded the best. He tells a story about getting high and watching it late at night with a gentleman named “Ghostface” and some other buddies from the Stapleton projects. Supposedly they all started crying because of its messages of brotherhood. It would be interesting to know which scene got them going.

The movie comes from our friends the Shaw Brothers and it’s apparently considered one of their best. And god damn if it isn’t one of the best martial arts pictures that I’ve seen, anyway. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 7th, 2005 | 5 Comments »

Seattle Film Fest: Vern tackles the new GODZILLA: FINAL WARS film… possibly the last one!

SPOILER ALERT !!

Hey folks, Harry here… I hate Vern… he see MAN IN SUIT first! I hate Moriarty… he see MAN IN SUIT firster! I wanted to see MAN IN SUIT firstest!!! ARGHHHHHHH!

Boys –

I don’t know if you’ve heard the news yet but apparently Godzilla is retiring. I know, I thought it sounded kind of sudden too, but according to the Toho Studios over there in Japan – actually they probaly never said this, but it was reported in magazines here so we’ll pretend it’s true – this is ABSOLUTELY gonna be the VERY LAST Godzilla movie. EVER. The final chapter. The final nightmare. I don’t see how they could ever go back on their word on something like that, so they will probaly just have to start making domestic dramas, or find some new young and edgy giant monster, start him off small and hopefully build him up until all the kids are like, who the fuck is Godzilla? Sounds lame to me, just a ripoff of (new more extreme giant monster from Toho studios). (read the rest of this shit…)

June 1st, 2005 | 10 Comments »

The Harder They Come

Believe it or not it took me this long to arrive in Jamaica on my ongoing journey through World Badass Studies. Sure, I saw that movie THIRD WORLD COP a while back, but I didn’t think much of it. This one is legendary, even has a Criterion Edition, and they say it’s what popularized reggae in the US and other parts of the world. Stars some guy named Jimmy Cliff, a reggae singer, but I didn’t know any of his songs so didn’t know what to expect.

Well sure enough it lives up to the reputation. Jimmy’s character has the topnotch name of Ivanhoe Martin, he’s a country boy that moves to the city. He’s got an uptight girlfriend who’s the daughter of a preacher, he sings in the church choir and he’s good at fixing bicycles, but one thing he doesn’t have is money. Can’t even get anyone to give him ten cents. The best thing about this movie is the music, but second best is the authenticity of the class differences in Jamaica. These are obviously non-actors and real locations. The director’s a white dude but he’s Jamaican so don’t worry about it. This is not exploitation. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 1st, 2005 | 2 Comments »

Red Sun

Pretty much every day, somebody comes up to me and asks, “Vern, what in your opinion is the greatest badass ensemble cast of all time?” They expect me to go for a big cast like THE GREAT ESCAPE or THE DIRTY DOZEN. But I throw em a curve ball with the best possible answer: HELL IN THE PACIFIC. There are exactly two actors in the whole movie, and they’re Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune. That cannot be topped. The technology just doesn’t exist.

Here’s a cast that comes pretty close though: Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune and Alain Delon. I mean, that’s pretty fuckin good, right? You could argue whether or not Bronson + Delon > Marvin. But there’s other people in this movie, not just those three, and that lessens the impact. The minimalism of HELL IN THE PACIFIC is part of what makes it so great. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 25th, 2005 | 30 Comments »

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