It always seems to surprise people when I admit stuff like this, but until now I had never seen WYATT EARP. And when I was getting ready to watch it and do this review I worried I was gonna get myself into trouble because it came out six months after TOMBSTONE, and lived and died in its comparisons to TOMBSTONE, so I know everyone in the comments is gonna want to talk about that. And the thing is I still haven’t seen TOMBSTONE either. Yeah, I know. I’ll get around to it.
Initially I thought I should do that first, but then I realized it was a unique opportunity to be the one guy watching WYATT EARP on its 30th anniversary with zero instinct to compare and contrast to TOMBSTONE. I have been preparing three decades to be this specific guy. (read the rest of this shit…)
You remember Rambo, John J. Vietnam vet, Green Beret, POW camp survivor, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. In ’81, as a homeless drifter, he waged a one-man guerrilla war against the police department of Hope, Washington, wounding several officers, killing police dogs, blowing up buildings and causing one officer to die from falling out of a helicopter. But they let him out of prison for a secret POW rescue mission. Though he earned a presidential pardon, he decided to live in Thailand, living off odd jobs such as stickfighter, temple-builder, snake-catcher or river guide, with occasional missions to help the Mujahideen in Afghanistan or rescue missionaries in Myanmar. But eventually he came home to his dad’s place in Arizona.
It doesn’t seem like it, but that movie was 11 years ago. Rambo has short hair now, wears cowboy hats and runs his (now deceased) dad’s horse ranch. He lives with a woman named Maria (Adriana Barraza, AMORES PERROS, DRAG ME TO HELL), who I guess the photos on the wall indicate was his parents’ maid, and her granddaughter Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal from the El Rey show Matador), who calls him Uncle John and who he says he thinks of as his daughter. (read the rest of this shit…)
Right now, in 2019, people sure do love a good TV series. Some claim that the premium cable and streaming shows are actually better than movies. As TV shows become more cinematic and cinema becomes more serialized, the two mediums seem to be growing into each other like a very respectable rat king. Big name real deal movie stars can star in TV shows or limited series and collect acclaim and awards instead of scorn for slumming it.
At the same time the industry is obsessed with “intellectual property” and franchises, so naturally we’re getting TV shows that prequelize or sequelize a popular movie/movie series. In recent years they’ve done Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Tremors, Taken, Transporter: The Series, Training Day, Limitless, Ash vs. Evil Dead, Cobra Kai, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp and Wolf Creek, and soon we’ll be getting new Star Wars and Marvel tie-ins and maybe Undisputed and all kinds of shit.
That wasn’t how it worked in the early ’90s, though. There had been a few genre shows connected to movies: Planet of the Apes (1974) (and the animated Return to the Planet of the Apes [1975]), Beyond Westworld (1980), Blue Thunder (1984), Starman (1986-1987) and Alien Nation (1989-1990). None of these ran for very long, few are well remembered. TV was lesser than movies, you could never carry over the cast or the production value, and extending a movie series onto the small screen was not really a good bet.
But shit, HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING wasn’t a good bet either. And producers Davis and Panzer, stinging from that loss, weren’t ready to leave the blackjack table. Maybe a TV-sized saga of the Immortals could be more than the Starman of the ’90s. Maybe it could be the M.A.S.H. of the ’90s! (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
Aktion Figure on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “Paint me all colored by this conversation but I just finished Steven Seagal IS Out For Justice in VHS. It…” Oct 9, 13:09
Aktion Figure on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “@CJ I can’t remember, did he also hate Laserdiscs? I mean, talk about inferior, overly expensive, break the movie up…” Oct 9, 12:55
Aktion Figure on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “And speaking to Von Trier, I mean, is there any more proper way to watch The Kingdom than on a…” Oct 9, 12:47
Aktion Figure on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “Again, Bats is NOT Breaking the Waves. I don’t know that we should get all Dogme about our preferred format…” Oct 9, 12:35
Aktion Figure on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “@CJ, funny. I have a VHS of The Howling I’ve owned and watched for 20+ years but the one time…” Oct 9, 12:32
Aktion Figure on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “I’ve actually read the article you are referring to but if we take the stance of the “auteur knows what’s…” Oct 9, 12:23
CJ Holden on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “Over 10 years ago Joe Dante wrote an article about how much he hated video cassettes, not just because of…” Oct 9, 12:01
Aktion Figure on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “I also found a copy of Friedkin’s The Guardian on VHS last week, watched it once, was appropriately bat-shit, tape…” Oct 9, 11:49
Aktion Figure on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “Sorry guys, I wholeheartedly disagree on the “inferior” when it comes to VHS. It’s different, for sure but c’mon, it’s…” Oct 9, 11:01
Mr. Majestyk on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “Yeah, I have nostalgia for the VHS era, but none for VHS itself. I like watching the movies of that…” Oct 9, 08:14
Aktion Figure on Speed (30th anniversary revisit): “Just chiming in to say I found a shrink-wrapped VHS of Speed yesterday at a thrift shop. Now, I have…” Oct 9, 04:58
Juliana Divas on The Crow (2024): “I want to testify to what Dr Ughulu did for me. I did everything I could do to bring my…” Oct 9, 04:24
Cannabis Waynesville on Bonnie and Clyde: “Hi there, You have performed a great job. I’ll certainly digg it and for my part recommend to my friends.…” Oct 9, 02:32