"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

SIFF: Vern on the John C. Reilly flick CRIMINAL!!!

SPOILER ALERT !!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with gobs of reviews from the SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, which seems to have been kicking all kinds of ass lately. Below you’ll find our man Vern’s look at a flick from Clooney and Soderbergh’s production company, Section 8, called CRIMINAL. I love me some John C. Reilly and Diego Luna is fast becoming one of my favorite young actors after his groundbreaking performance in Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN and his love-struck puppy dog character in THE TERMINAL… Not that I have seen that yet… ahem… Here’s Vern for more on this damn cool sounding flick!

Boys –

I’m sure you’ll get more reviews on this one so I’ll keep this one short. Also because I’m a chump and haven’t ever seen NINE QUEENS, the picture from the land of Argentina which this is a remake of. Anyway CRIMINAL is the americanized version which premiered tonight in Seattle. The movie stars John C. Reilly (who was there) and Diego Luna. It’s directed by this guy Greg Jacobs, who was assistant director on an assload of Steve Soderbergh movies, but this is his first as a non-assistant director. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 14th, 2004 | No Comments »

Deep Cover

This one’s from ’92 and I guess it’s most famous as the movie that introduced the world to Snoop Dogg. Not as an actor, but the young Snoop is “introduced” on a Dr. Dre song that plays on a stereo in the movie and then on the end credits. But this is a pretty good one, a serious undercover cop movie directed by Bill Duke, made memorable by a great performance by Mr. Laurence Fishburne.

Laurence plays one of those straightlaced cops whose dad was a junkie shot in front of his eyes and ever since he’s walked the straight path, stayed 110% clean and fought to clean up his community, stop the drugs, etc. Against his better judgment he signs up to become an undercover cop, working for a sleazy white fuck, looking the other way when people are murdered and selling drugs to kids and pregnant mothers – all because of the carrot at the end of the stick, the chance to bust a guy near the top of the pyramid bringing drugs into the country. But not the guy at the very top, a politician, because that guy’s off limits. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 10th, 2004 | 4 Comments »

Out of Reach

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

Okay, kids, this is the one you’ve all been waiting for, and only Vern’s got the goods:

Hey boys, it’s Vern again, sitting out the film festival for a few days or weeks because something much more important came up. Today I managed to get my hands on the video screener I wanted more than any other. You guessed it: Steven Seagal’s new picture, OUT OF REACH.

So obviously, you know, FUCK the Seattle International Film Festival. As one of North America’s leading Seagalogists, I will be watching this many more times as part of my research. But I thought it would be good to share some of my initial thoughts with you and your readers.

Seagal may be at a crossroads in his career right now. As you have no doubt read, he is planning to do a comedy, parodying himself with the help of one of those Zucker brothers. I shoulda known that Mountain Dew commercial was a harbinger of doom. I’m sure this comedy will be one of the least funny pictures of his career, but still, the fact that he is trying to make fun of himself is probaly some kind of a landmark. Once he has acknowledged the ridiculousness of his persona, will that mean he can no longer make serious movies anymore? Because I don’t see Leslie Nielsen doing any movies where he doesn’t dress up like characters from other movies and then that’s supposed to be funny, I guess. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 3rd, 2004 | 2 Comments »

Donnie Darko: Director’s Cut

SPOILER ALERT !!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a couple more looks at the Seattle Film Festival’s premiere of Richard Kelly’s DONNIE DARKO: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT. First up is AICN’s own bad boy, Vern. Now, Vern has brought it to my attention that not only was Jena Malone in attendance, but so was Drew Barrymore… Being as Vern was in the same general space as two of my dream women, I think it’s safe to say that he deserves nothing less than a slow and painful death at my hands. Some of you negative retards below can disagree with me about the radiance of Ms. Barrymore and that’s fine. Less people I have to fight against in my ongoing struggle to woo this vixen! Anyway, here’s Vern-o!!!

Dear Harry,

Hey bud this is Vern. I don’t want to be a squealer or nothin but fuckin Moriarty man, that dude put me on his spam list and keeps dumping my reviews. I wrote a review of Cruel Intentions 3 to name one example of a review that the world obviously needs to see but he threw it in the trash with the p.enis enlargements and the v~icodin. I mean I understand the guy is busy, but come on. I can’t imagine he’s staying up all night polishing the dialogue on that thing. I’ll give you a hint bud: Scorpion says “Get over here.” Don’t be writing any monologues for him or anything. And then you’ll have a few extra minutes for dusting your flatscreen and putting up my reviews. So anyway that’s not the point, the point is this. I’m not going to as many SIFF movies this year, but I did manage to see Donnie Darko’s Director Cut. The world premiere. NOT the press screening which was already reviewed by “Gooter.” I don’t do press screenings. I saw it with the people. That’s just the kind of guy I am. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 31st, 2004 | 7 Comments »

Ass pyramids in Abu Ghraib, “blowing off steam,” how Bush can save face by following the traditions of feudal Japan

Well I’ve been wanting to say something about this whole Abu Ghraib “prison abuse” (torture) scandal for a while, but what exactly can you say that is not obvious or that has not already been said by some other asshole? Well, hopefully I’ll come up with a few things.

First off, let’s get this out of the way: NO FUCKING WAY is this just the work of six or seven numbnuts soldiers. Yes, those people are scumbags who clearly enjoyed what they were doing and should go to (regular) jail for following unlawful orders. But I’m sorry, I’m not a fucking retard, I’m not buying this bullshit. No bottom of the totem pole grunt is going to be stacking up naked prisoners, raping people with glowsticks, setting dogs on people, attaching wires to people’s dicks AND posing for hilarious novelty photos next to the victim, if they are worried they might be found out. These people were comfortable. There were apparently intelligence people shown in at least one photo, and there were CIA people at the prison. I wonder which one of these six acting alone bad apples brought along the electrodes, hoods, whips and chains? And how did they know so much about the best ways to humiliate Arabs? (read the rest of this shit…)

May 19th, 2004 | No Comments »

Vigilante

I don’t know how familiar anybody is with William Lustig. The guy is no genius. He made the MANIAC COP series. He made the picture UNCLE SAM which is a decent holiday slasher picture with subversive Gulf War themes, but it’s kind of a bummer because there is almost no use of stilts after the initial appearance of the Uncle Sam costume in a parade. Anyway after many years of directing bad horror pictures this guy started that company Anchor Bay which put out alot of better ones on video and DVD.

But there are some pretty good ones in his filmography, especially the first one, MANIAC. That was a sleazy, brutal horror picture about a sweaty New York pervert who kills women, staples their scalps to a mannequin, handcuffs himself to the mannequin and cries. Then during the daytime he puts on shades and tries to make it as a hip fashion photographer. It’s a real sick movie with ridiculous gore effects by Mr. Tom Savini. Not recommended for anybody unless they like that kind of crap, which in this case I do. (read the rest of this shit…)

May 18th, 2004 | 4 Comments »

Rolling Vengeance

As long as I was renting ROLLING THUNDER I thought what the hell man, might as well also pick up ROLLING VENGEANCE which should be pretty fuckin good considering it’s the story of a man achieving the vengeance of the title by means of a huge monster truck with a drill on the front and flames coming off the top. I mean god damn if that isn’t a good premise right there. I am not at all surprised that somebody sunk their money into this pile of shit. Especially in 1987, when monster trucks like “Bigfoot” and what not were probaly about as close as a fucking truck could get to being a popular cultural type icon or whatever.

The one thing they failed to take into consideration, though – the killing blow that prevents this movie from being worth your time – is that they made it in 1987. I’m sorry, but 1987 was not a good year. 1980-1989, those were bad years. Sorry. I don’t care what cable television tells you about how great the ’80s were. Your mother and I have been meaning to talk to you about this, actually. The 1980s were literally the worst decade ever as far as American arts and culture. (read the rest of this shit…)

April 25th, 2004 | 3 Comments »

Rolling Thunder

This great overlooked revenge movie was one of if not the first movie to deal with the effects of the Vietnam War. With a script by Paul Schrader (rewritten by another dude) it works on two levels, as a raw exploitation picture and as a depressing statement about the mess our country was in at the time. Fortunately we never repeated those mistakes ever again so this movie is completely irrelevant now and only good as a curiosity.

The picture opens with corny music as heroic Vietnam POWs arrive home at an airport, among them William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones. Mr. Devane will be our protagonist this evening, and as he pretends to enjoy the ceremony honoring him as a great american hero, you can tell right off the bat that he’s not quite there. He’s got a wife and kid waiting for him, and the kid doesn’t even remember him he’s been gone so long. Some guy named Cliff is there to give them a ride home. “You remember Cliff?” the wife says innocently, and you fuckin know what that means. (read the rest of this shit…)

April 24th, 2004 | 7 Comments »

Kill Bill: Vol. 2

(another unused one for the ain’t it cool news.)

Harry and associates,

I am writing to inform you of an exciting new picture called KILL BILL VOLUME 2. Please forgive me if you already know about this one or have covered it already. Or if you have travelled to China to visit the set. I don’t usually read your sight except when my reviews are on it.

Just jerkin your chain bud but seriously here’s the deal. This has been coming on for a while but after seeing this movie I think today is the day. I would like to officially endorse the works of Mr. Tarantino as an important chapter in the history of Badass Cinema. VOLUME 2 is a very satisfying conclusion to that exciting saga of revenge we began oh those several months ago with The Bride. (read the rest of this shit…)

April 16th, 2004 | 62 Comments »

Richard Clarke, 9-11 Commission, the HUGE FUCKING ELEPHANT in the room

You’d think by now I’d learn to stop apologizing for not writing enough. But I am a polite type of individual so I say I’m sorry alot. It’s what I do man. I’m sure as fuck not gonna WRITE when I could be apologizing.

No, actually I am writing, just out of the public eye for now. I’m working on an ambitious project. I finally decided to bite the bullet and write me up a book. It’s not gonna be a collection of my works or my memoirs or nothing, although I want to do those too. This is gonna be a very scholarly type of study of the works of a specific iconic individual in the Cinematic type world. It’s somebody I’ve written about before, and I decided the topic deserved a whole book. All you film professors out there, I know you’re reading this, so leave a blank line on your syllabus. And if anybody out there 1) happens to be in the publishing industry and 2) has the balls to blow the lid off the world of film writing with me, then let me know. But right now the plan is a self publishing type deal. That means the book might be a little more expensive than I wish so save up your allowance kids. It’ll be worth it. (read the rest of this shit…)

April 11th, 2004 | 1 Comment »

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