a survey of summer movies that just didn’t catch on
Big Willie Weekend, 1999
Two summers after their hit film MEN IN BLACK, director Barry Sonnenfeld (d.p. of BLOOD SIMPLE) and star Will Smith (SUICIDE SQUAD) tried to bring a similar comedy/special-effects/adventure mix to the old west. It’s like a western in that there are cowboy hats, guns, railroads and occasional horses, but also not really because it’s about two top agents for the president going undercover and then having a big battle against a giant mechanical spider that’s on a rampage and headed for the White House. Not a type of story I’ve seen done with John Wayne or Clint or anybody.
The basis is The Wild Wild West, a western-meets-spies TV show that lasted four seasons, ending thirty years prior to the movie. It was actually cancelled not due to a lack of popularity, but controversy over violence on television, and did have two followup TV movies. But the last of those was in 1980, and nineteen years later it was at best a cult show, and not yet available on DVD. So this is another expensive blockbuster based on characters that most of its intended youthful audience had never seen, or in this case even heard of.
But they didn’t have to know it was based on anything. Waning interest in westerns may have been a bigger problem, but that could’ve been overcome by the popularity of Smith, or the fun gimmick of the gadgets and steampunk type robotics, or the energetic style and cartoonish humor of the director of the ADDAMS FAMILY movies.
I’m excited for the impending release of Sofia Coppola’s new version of THE BEGUILED, but I had never actually seen the 1971 version starring Clint Eastwood, and what am I, an asshole? So I made sure to finally see it.
Right before DIRTY HARRY, Clint and Don Siegel made this one which is less action packed than DIRTY HARRY because Clint is bedridden or hobbling on crutches for the entire movie. Also he’s confined to a girl’s finishing school, and it’s not a DIE HARD type picking-off-terrorists-one-by-one situation either. It’s mostly just flirting.
Clint plays Corporal John McBurney, a.k.a. Johnny, McBee or Mr. Yank, a Union soldier badly wounded on Confederate territory and rescued by 12 year old girl’s school resident Amy (Pamelyn Ferdin, CHARLOTTE’S WEB, THE TOOLBOX MURDERS). Initially headmistress Martha (Geraldine Page, THE RESCUERS, THE POPE OF GREENWICH VILLAGE) intends to hand him over to the Confederate soldiers who stop by periodically on patrols, but she decides he’ll die in their prison if she doesn’t help him heal first. (read the rest of this shit…)
Back in 2013 I started a new old wives tale that it is good luck for a critic’s first review of a new year to be a Clint Eastwood movie. I continued the tradition for 2014 and I ended up having a really intense year that was not fuckin around when it came to either highs or lows. It was a year that included a funeral, way too much time spent hanging out in hospitals and job-related fears like losing my health insurance. But on the other hand I finally published that damn novel and I had a great trip to Tennessee and of course my TED talk or whatever at Cinefamily was a great blessing and the highlight of my career so far. It was also just an evolutionary step for ol’ Vern because I learned I could actually make a public appearance without ruining everything, as far as I could tell. So in honor of my miraculously retained Outlaw status let’s start off 2015 with THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES. I haven’t seen this one in forever and a day and a half.
What we have here is a badass western revenge story. Clint directs and plays the titlational Josey Wales, who at first is just a regular non-outlaw family man. Then “redleg” raiders come through raping and pillaging, kill his boy and his wife, burn down his house, scar his face. Who knows how many days later he’s still just sitting there brooding on his patch of land when a squad of Confederate guerillas come by, tell him they’re at war with the bastards who did this. “I’ll be comin with you,” Josey says. (read the rest of this shit…)
After the election on Tuesday, which brought us 4 historic gay rights ballot victories, the first openly gay Senator and the most women in the Senate ever, it was a no-brainer to spend Friday night watching Spielberg’s movie about Abraham Lincoln and his people’s fight to eke together a coalition to pass the 13th amendment to the Constitution, ending 400 years of slavery. Also, SKYFALL was sold out. (read the rest of this shit…)
From the time I heard about the book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter until the second before I saw the trailer for the movie version, I had no interest in the concept. Yeah, I get it – history and horror cliches moosh-up. Wocka wocka wocka. But one second later I saw that trailer and I realized that I hadn’t gotten it at all. As far as you could tell from the trailer, this movie was gonna be treated dead serious. A historical drama that for some reason is also a horror action movie. It looked amazing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Time for a little history lesson. Not about the American post-slavery period known as Reconstruction (which is what this movie is about) but about TV movies. It’s hard for young people to wrap their heads around now, but there was a time when TV movies actually could be big events, a major shared element of our culture. This was when there were only a few channels, and none of them were SyFy, and movies about giant komodo dragons or snakes were not yet common. Believe it or not there were even sometimes TV movies where the people making them actually tried to do a good job. In fact, there were honest to God movies on TV that put some theatrical films to shame, like Spielberg’s DUEL and Carpenter’s SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME. Of course, most of them weren’t as good as that, but alot of them were at least memorable. In the ’70s and ’80s there were true crime movies to creep the shit out of us, like THE HILLSIDE STRANGLERS, THE DELIBERATE STRANGER, I KNOW MY FIRST NAME IS STEVEN. Or if you want to get real frightening there was the nuclear war movie THE DAY AFTER.
1979’s 4-hour mini-series FREEDOM ROAD fits into the Important Historical Epics category like ROOTS or SHOGUN or I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER or some James A. Michener type shit. It’s about a man who goes from a slave to a soldier to a delegate to an educated black man to a senator and freedom fighter uniting former slaves with lower class whites to stand up against racist politicians and thugs and create a stable life for themselves. But the main reason to watch it is the star: Muhammad Ali. (read the rest of this shit…)
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THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
Aktion Figure on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Nah Vern, this is all on me. I’m trying to parse out why I had that knee-jerk reaction to a…” Apr 18, 07:41
Mr. Majestyk on Legend of the Eight Samurai: “Solid review. What got me about the ending was how it recontextualized what up until then I had thought was…” Apr 18, 05:37
renfield on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Glad you caught this one Vern. Chapo Trap House did a cool interview with the filmmakers… the details about how…” Apr 17, 23:11
Adam Caka TaumpyTearrs on Legend of the Eight Samurai: “I finally got my epic Bastard Swordsman write-up done, and Maj I linked your remix in my review! https://adamsoverduereview.wixsite.com/adam/post/bastard-swordsman-1983 Still…” Apr 17, 22:36
VERN on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “I mean, maybe it’s a spoiler, but the fictional characters aren’t poseurs. They do blow up a pipeline. I guess…” Apr 17, 21:59
Mr. Majestyk on Cosmopolis / Maps To the Stars: “Miguel: Thank you for bringing GINA to my attention. I loved every second of it. A sleazy exploitation thriller, a…” Apr 17, 21:00
Glaive Robber on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Oh, a little off-topic… has anyone heard about this new martial arts movie Absolute Dominion? Directed by Lexi Alexander, with…” Apr 17, 20:31
Glaive Robber on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “@Vern, hadn’t heard that Legendary was upset with it, but I’m not surprised. PIPELINE is pretty straightforward, but “Cam” gets…” Apr 17, 20:29
Aktion Figure on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Vaguely heard of this one. You make it sound alright but, man, I dunno. It gives me (from the outside)…” Apr 17, 20:03
KayKay on G20: “Am with Petros. Am always down for some Viola Davis and the DIE HARD template never ever gets old for…” Apr 17, 18:15
VERN on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “JTS – Whoops, thanks for the correction. Glaive – Oh wow, I didn’t know that. The article I found said…” Apr 17, 14:21
Glaive Robber on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Very frustrated about that Faces of Death redo/reimagining. Supposedly that thing wrapped two years ago, and no distributor will touch…” Apr 17, 12:29
JTS on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Great review. I also really liked this one. Lukas Gage wasn’t the villain in the Road House remake, though, that…” Apr 17, 10:59
VERN on G20: “Petros, I think my “it’s fine I guess” review was much more damning than your exaggerations of how bad it…” Apr 17, 10:13
Big Willie Weekend, 1999
I’m excited for the impending release of Sofia Coppola’s new version of THE BEGUILED, but I had never actually seen the 1971 version starring Clint Eastwood, and what am I, an asshole? So I made sure to finally see it.
Back in 2013 
After the election on Tuesday, which brought us 4 historic gay rights ballot victories, the first openly gay Senator and the most women in the Senate ever, it was a no-brainer to spend Friday night watching Spielberg’s movie about Abraham Lincoln and his people’s fight to eke together a coalition to pass the 13th amendment to the Constitution, ending 400 years of slavery. Also, 
Time for a little history lesson. Not about the American post-slavery period known as Reconstruction (which is what this movie is about) but about TV movies. It’s hard for young people to wrap their heads around now, but there was a time when TV movies actually could be big events, a major shared element of our culture. This was when there were only a few channels, and none of them were SyFy, and movies about giant komodo dragons or snakes were not yet common. Believe it or not there were even sometimes TV movies where the people making them actually tried to do a good job. In fact, there were honest to God movies on TV that put some theatrical films to shame, like Spielberg’s DUEL and Carpenter’s 
