"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Blade II

Earlier this week I saw a highly anticipated sequel, based on an old comic book character, a half man/half vampire who has become the best vampire killer there is. He travels the world, even during sunlight, cloaked in black, wielding a sword, slaying vampires. This time around he is after the same prey as a macho team of fighters who are both his rivals and reluctant allies. Their quest takes them to the seat of vampire royalty, and along the way – against his nature – he forms a tender friendship with a female on the rival team of fighters, and stays with her until the end.

That wasn’t Blade II though, it was some cartoon called Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Actually that’s what it says on the box, but the title screen just calls it Vampire Hunter D. (Just like the ticket stub for Blade II called it Blade II: Bloodhunt, but the title screen just called it Blade II.) This movie has rightfully been praised for its cartoon drawing, which is very detailed and elegant. Much more interesting than that blue hair, big eye japanese stuff certain musty smelling individuals can’t get enough of. But what surprised me though, I thought the story was real good. (read the rest of this shit…)

Resident Evil

Apparently this one’s based on a video game that’s kind of based on the night of the living dead movies. So it turns out real crappy like a xerox of a xerox. And apparently the machine needs servicing. The video game is probaly better because after three of your pac-men get eaten by zombies, the game is over. The movie lasts, like, more than an hour.

The plot isn’t that bad. Milla Jovovich, who is still gorgeous even after leaving Luc Besson and becoming integrated into society, plays some kind of security agent or something in a dress. (Not sure.) She wakes up naked in the shower of a mansion with no memory. Some army goons rush in and bring her along with them into a secret underground chamber to investigate, even though she doesn’t remember how to help them.

Okay so I am not really backing my claim that the plot isn’t that bad. Well it turns out that before she lost her memory (I never understood how) she was undercover, living in the mansion to guard the secret entrance to this underground facility “the hive” where a realistically sinister corporation performs illegal genetic experiments. But somebody let loose a deadly virus, the computer put the place in lockdown, and all the scientists and dogs inside were turned into zombies. Also some monster comes out at the end. (read the rest of this shit…)

Corruption Fun featuring Tri-State Crematory, hit and run driver, Enron, 9-11 coverup, and our hero Billy Jack

Wow, is this really my first VERN TELLS YOU WHAT’S WHAT AND DOESN’T TAKE NO FUCKING SHORTCUTS of the year 2002? Or whatever this column is called. I can’t believe I’ve been neglecting my baby for that long. Jesus, I feel terrible. That’s what they call a “deadbeat.” Imagine – if instead of not Writing a column I was not fixing a broken crematory, and if instead of it being for 3 months, it was for 15 years, and instead of just not having anything here to read the end result was having hundreds of dead bodies pile up. Then this would be just like that thing in Georgia!

And that’s not even close to the scariest thing going on in the news today. 300+ dead bodies piled up – that’s comic relief! Just like that nurse’s assistant who accidentally hit a homeless man with her car, breaking both of his legs, then (not sure what to do) parked the car in her garage, leaving him there for 2 days until he bled to death, occasionally coming in to apologize. (More on why cars suck in my upcoming unabomber manifesto length review of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS.) (read the rest of this shit…)

Shaolin Dolemite

Every so often a picture comes along that is so good as a concept, who the fuck cares if it works as a picture. This is a type of picture that may not be that great to watch, or may even get boring as hell by the end, but you are so happy it exists that you want to own it, memorize it, hang it up on your wall, make it into a t-shirt. You want to tell everybody it’s your favorite movie even though you’d be lying your ass off, because you fell asleep at the end and didn’t even feel compelled to rewind and see what you missed. But still, you loved it.

That picture is, of course, Shaolin Dolemite. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern Reviews the new EVIL DEAD: BOOK OF THE DEAD Limited Edition Dvd starring Harry Knowles!!!

Harry here with that drunken hillbilly bastard named Vern. Now this Vern fella went and got himself one of those new fangled rubbery editions of EVIL DEAD. Now ordinarily I would be all against rubbery editions, but this is a rubbery edition that looks like the Book of the Dead… and cooler still, I’m apparently contained inside the Book Of The Dead as is the beer room of the Alamo Drafthouse, beneath the projector room…. whilst showing EVIL DEAD 2! That’s a mighty freaking cool feature to contain in a special rubbery edition. Anyway, I just ordered mine Click here to order your The Evil Dead (Book Of The Dead Limited Rubbery Edition)!!!!

Dear Harry and Moriarty,

Have you ever had a dvd that smelled kinda like rubbers? I have and it was called EVIL DEAD: BOOK OF THE DEAD EDITION from Anchor Bay. What this is is a new fancy ass, show off type version of the old Elite edition of THE EVIL DEAD. It comes in a mooshy rubber Necronomicon package sculpted by Tom Sullivan, who also made the book you see in the movie. You flip it open and it has pages from the Necronomicon (also drawn by Mr. Sullivan) and of course the dvd inside a nice little padded sleeve. (read the rest of this shit…)

Rollerball (2002)

Well once again the conventional wisdom turns out to be right. You would think that as dumb as a movie like this would probaly be, it might be enjoyable. Well, I would think that. But I would be wrong.

I’ve never seen the original, and I always meant to. I understand that it is kind of a satire of sports and american society’s thirst for violent entertainment. The great DEATH RACE 2000 was made to cash in on the same themes but is generally considered to be better. Anyway the approach that John McTiernan, the director of DIE MOTHERFUCKIN HARD 1 & 3, took was to set it in pretty much the present, since wrestling and ultimate fighting become more ridiculous and lurid than anything filmatists of the ’70s could’ve imagined. But there really aren’t new points to be made here. (read the rest of this shit…)

Slackers

I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. Here I am battling the IMDB for a prestigious award, I’m trying to prove myself worthy and this is all I have to offer you. Fucking Slackers.

I couldn’t tell you how it happens. Every time I set out to see a particular movie. I mean there are three movies in particular I want to see right now. There’s Little Otik, the Czechoslovakian cartoon about some folks raising a tree stump as their baby. There’s Brotherhood of the Wolf, where the frenchy who directed Crying Freeman mixes French history with kung fu and, I guess werewolves maybe. Who knows. And there’s also Storytelling from the pervert who made Happiness. (read the rest of this shit…)

Bully

You wanna REALLY outrage your parents, kids? Take them to see Bully. Don’t ask me how you get them to go to the arthouse theater to see an unrated movie, that’s your job.

“Mom, this movie is what my generation is about, and I want you to understand.” Trust me, that’s what you should say.

This kind of seems like a love it or hate it movie, except I’m not sure which side I’m on. It’s an ugly, violent, nihilistic, pornographic, cynical story about unsympathetic, idiotic, pot smoking, acid sucking, trick turning, nymphomaniac, sadomasochistic teens in Florida who decide to kill their asshole friend. (read the rest of this shit…)

Storytelling

I don’t know what you’ve heard about this one, but I keep hearing that it’s a pile of shit. That Todd Solondz has gone from a visionary manipulator of our deepest taboos and human flaws, to some kind of shock value asshole just trying to get a rise out of people. That this is just a big fuck you to the audience with no sense of humanity and etc. etc.

Well none of that is true. I’m not gonna say this is a perfect movie. It feels a little short (apparently they cut out one of three stories, and that seems like it mighta been a mistake). But if it weren’t for all the shit I heard from contrarians waiting to pounce on their former hero, I would say that anybody who liked HAPPINESS would like this one too. Because it’s the same kind of feel – a deep probing of the things that make individuals the most uncomfortable. It’s not as sad as HAPPINESS but it has that same feeling that it is daring you to laugh. Come on motherfucker. Laugh at this. I fucking dare you. Remember, you’re in public here. Do you have the balls to let everyone else in this room know that you think that’s funny?

Do you? (read the rest of this shit…)

Konga

Now days people are always going ape shit over a movie that they think is too amoral. Rosie O’Donnel busted a few veins over 1999 Outlaw Award Winner for Best Picture since I got out of prison Fight Club, and this American Psycho deal is already getting people up in arms. They think that your average joe on the street is some kind of retard who can’t see somebody do something in a movie and make their own judgment of whether or not it’s the right thing to do. At the same time these pricks are all cock of the walk, thinking they’re immune to the might powers of the Cinema. They saw fight club and THEY didn’t go out and blow up a building but GOD SAVE US if any of those subhuman cavepeople who DON’T have their own tv shows or politician husbands ever see the movie. We’ll all be in for it.

Somebody told me that when Payback came out, the slogan was “Get ready to root for the bad guy,” as if that was some new technique. These motherfuckers don’t remember that it’s okay to make a movie about a guy you wouldn’t necessarily want to leave alone with your daughter. Everbody has to be a damn boyscout unless they’re a cop, and then it’s okay for them to torture people and play by their own rules because they’re a “good guy.” (read the rest of this shit…)