I wonder if they considered Leslie Nielsen for THE BOONDOCK SAINTS?
FROM THE OUTLAW VAULTS: I never get to take Martin Luther King Day off at my job, but I’m gonna simulate taking a day off here on outlawvern.com by posting an old review of a Leslie Nielsen movie you never heard of. This is a review I came across on my hard drive that I wrote two years ago shortly after Nielsen’s death, but never quite finished or posted. It’s not a movie I’m gonna go back and rewatch in order to complete the review, but I didn’t want to waste all that typing, either. So here it is.
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Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t find myself renting some 2001 Leslie Nielsen movie I never heard of. But the poor guy died recently and I happened to notice this one was written by Billy Bob Thornton (with his partner Tom Epperson and some guy who was in SPIDERBABY), so I wanted to see what the deal was.
Before seeing SAVAGES I wanted to catch up on some of the recent Oliver Stone pictures that I’d skipped. It turns out this one is 15 years old, so you could argue that I’m a little behind on Stone. Do you guys know if JFK is any good? What about PLATOON?
This is his most straight-forward crime genre picture before SAVAGES so I figured it was a good one to check out. Based on the book Stray Dogs by John Ridley (RED TAILS, UNDERCOVER BROTHER), it’s about this dirtbag Bobby (Sean Penn), an ex-tennis player in debt whose fancy-ass car breaks down in the middle of Tiny Desert Town, Hell (actually Superior, Arizona) on his way to delivering a bunch of cash to the guy who cut off some of his fingers, and then things get way worse. But he fucks Jennifer Lopez at least. (read the rest of this shit…)
God DAMN I’m excited for FAST FIVE. It’s only April and that’s my most anticipated movie of the summer by far. But I gotta wait a couple more days, so in honor of Dwayne “The Rock is a registered trademark of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.” Johnson’s addition to the series I decided to finally catch up with his last movie, which I never saw because when I went to see it the showing that I chose turned out to be an “open captions” deal, and I decided to bail. (Ironically there’s so much mumbling in the movie I had to turn the subtitles on a couple times anyway. But at least it was my choice. It’s about freedom.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Well I seen this picture a while back when it was in a theater. I remembered it was pretty good so I wanted to watch it again for Christmas. Because it’s about Christmas. It’s called Bad Santa. (I mentioned that above so you probaly know that already)
Well I watched it about a week too late so this review is not very timely. But since this review will still be here to read next christmas I feel this bad timing should not count against my 2005 New year’s Resolution, A Commitment To Excellence. If you disagree take it up with the magic new year baby.
Anyway what this BAD SANTA one is about is Billy Bob Thornton is a character called Willie, a self loathing alcoholic safecracker who every year gets a job as a department store Santa. His partner Marcus (Tony Cox from FRIDAY) is a dwarf who is his elf. Then after closing time on christmas eve Marcus will be disguised as a snowman decoration or something, he runs and turns the alarm off and they rob the place. (read the rest of this shit…)
Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Wow. Bob and David are everywhere right now, and it sounds like they’re having a great time. I still don’t know if I’m going to be able to get into the insane benefit show they’re part of in a few weeks, and I missed this. Still, if we had to have anyone cover it for us, thank god Vern was the one who went. You’ll see why when you read this…
Boys–
I know how you feel about film festivals. You’re for them, right? I think one of you said you were. I’ve seen a couple good pictures at the Seattle International Film Festival but that’s about it for me. Until today, when I decided to venture south to the Olympia Film Festival. And I’m real glad I did.
Usually I avoid Olympia. I know it’s our state capital, it once had a fine brewery and they got lots of college kids who brag because the rock band Sleater-Kinney was named after a street they still have near there. But I mean come on. The street isn’t even that good. In the downtown area the buildings are too far apart, and everything is closed. At least on Sunday. Anyway today they finally got a reason for me to go there: ON DEADLY GROUND. (read the rest of this shit…)
Hey folks, Harry here with the latest from that insane man… VERN. Vern comes from another planet…. or so I’ve heard. They apparently herd sheep into trailers there. He’s using this grazing ability to sum up the cornstalkability of this latest film from the Coens…. Here ya go…
THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE
by Vern
Monday I saw the new movie by the Coen Brothers.
First I gotta say, I am not exactly familiar with these brothers. The hughes brothers I know. The wachowski brothers. The Maysles brothers. The doobie brothers I know a thing or two about. For example, they have two drummers don’t they? I don’t know. The point is, you know more about the coen brothers than I do. Are they twins? I don’t know. Maybe they aren’t really brothers, it is only a stage name like the blues brothers, the smothers brothers or the isley brothers. The point is, I wouldn’t know. Because I know jack shit about them, if jack shit was two things. (read the rest of this shit…)
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if that's your thing:
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(NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)
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Tell your friends about my reviews and my books and everything. Only cool people though please, we don't need a bunch of suckers and/or chumps around here.
THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
PetrosMT on One Last Shot: “Our favorite Martial Artist / Thespian has been let down for years now by the dwindling of his movies’ budgets.…” Sep 25, 17:53
Alex R on Resident Evil (2026): “Nice shout out to Inside, maybe my favorite video game. I didn’t make the connection but I can see it.…” Sep 25, 16:09
MaggieMayPie on Resident Evil (2026): “****SPOILERS SPOILERS ENDING SPOILERS**** I would normally have hated that ending. It would have really pissed me off. And, like…” Sep 25, 14:26
Bill Reed on The Weight: “Dying to see this, but like CAMP MIASMA before it, it’s the type of movie that only plays at one…” Sep 25, 13:37
RRA on Resident Evil (2026): “This was really good but it says something about 2026 horror that it’s so stacked in quality that this wouldn’t…” Sep 25, 13:01
VERN on Resident Evil (2026): “Well – SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER – I was really rooting for the guy to undo this bizarre transformation. And when…” Sep 25, 12:20
Franchise Fred on One Last Shot: “I saw them far enough apart I didn’t realize they were supposed to be cumulative so maybe I need to…” Sep 25, 11:33
Bill Reed on One Last Shot: “Did not know this existed until this review dropped, so good lookin’ out! The second one improved on the first…” Sep 25, 08:49
Acid Burn on Resident Evil (2026): “Ea-Nasir catching strays in the comments on a horror movie review in 2026; poor guy’s gotta be the most dunked-on…” Sep 25, 08:45
CJ Holden on The Weight: “I don’t know. Recently I am in such a “Just start walking and walking and see where you end up”…” Sep 25, 00:13
pegsman on One Last Shot: “Saw this one last night, and while I agree with Charles in that ONE MORE SHOT is slightly better, I…” Sep 24, 22:48
VERN on The Weight: “I almost included the badge but RESIDENT EVIL and HOPE were so good too!” Sep 24, 22:23
Franchise fred on The Weight: “Where’s the Best Thing I’ve Seen badge? I loved this at Sundance. The Wages/Sorcerer is sort of with the explosiveness…” Sep 24, 20:20
KayKay on One Last Shot: “Nice. Will need to rewatch the 1st 2 to get refreshed. If this lands, then Mr. Adkins can proudly lay…” Sep 24, 17:36
jojo on The Weight: “The Good Lord Bird was one of the rare instances I gave a TV show (limited series or whatever) a…” Sep 24, 15:01
God DAMN I’m excited for FAST FIVE. It’s only April and that’s my most anticipated movie of the summer by far. But I gotta wait a couple more days, so in honor of Dwayne “The Rock is a registered trademark of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.” Johnson’s addition to the series I decided to finally catch up with his last movie, which I never saw because when I went to see it the showing that I chose turned out to be an “open captions” deal, and I decided to bail. (Ironically there’s so much mumbling in the movie I had to turn the subtitles on a couple times anyway. But at least it was my choice. It’s about freedom.) 
Well I seen this picture a while back when it was in a theater. I remembered it was pretty good so I wanted to watch it again for Christmas. Because it’s about Christmas. It’s called Bad Santa. (I mentioned that above so you probaly know that already)
SPOILER ALERT !!
