"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘Joel Silver’

Lethal Weapon

Tuesday, December 24th, 2013

tn_lethalweaponFirst of all, I would like to extend my deepest and most profound apologies for the first time I wrote about LETHAL WEAPON and fixated on Mel Gibson’s Swayze-esque hair and David Sanborn’s Smooth Cop Jazz saxophone. I know my comments hurt alot of people and put alot of negativity into the world, and that is something I simply never wish to do. I would especially like to apologize to Gibson’s hair stylist Paul Abascal, who not only did hair on many Swayze, Stallone and Willis (?) classics, but also went on to direct PAPARAZZI and the reshoots of PAYBACK. I know now it was a different time and place that cannot be held to a newer era’s standards of taste and style. In the years since that review I have changed alot, I have learned, I have grown as a man, as a critic and as a spiritual being. I have looked at pictures of JCVD in HARD TARGET and realized Mel’s mullet coulda been worse. So to get ready for Christmas I decided I was ready to try LETHAL WEAPON again.

It’s hard to separate LETHAL WEAPON from the litter of movies it spawned. In the sequels Murtaugh (Danny Glover, PREDATOR 2) and Riggs (Mel Gibson, MAD god damn MAX) are great buddies and there’s wisecracking and everything and I mix it up in my mind with the cliches of interracial buddy movies. But really the first LETHAL WEAPON is not about race and it’s pre-buddy. It’s about the formation of their buddyship. It’s about this regular working family man cop who, on the day after his 50th birthday, is forced to be partners with a younger crazy guy. Like, not just a loose cannon, a guy that we’ve actually seen wake up in his trailer, put a gun in his mouth and start crying and almost pull the trigger. While watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. He’s been suicidal since the death of his wife in a car accident, even has a special hollow point set aside for the job. (read the rest of this shit…)

NEW! The Viva Val Verde t-shirt

Monday, August 27th, 2012

Even if you’ve never adventured in the fictional South American country of Val Verde yourself, you may be familiar with its history from such films as COMMANDO, PREDATOR and DIE HARD 2. I know I am. And with my keen sense of observation and the power of high definition blu-ray technology I have spotted the Val Verde flag on the side of two planes in DIE HARD 2 and had it re-created by my crack team of t-shirt artisans.

click here to shirt up

VIVA VAL VERDE is not only an obscure reference and slogan of fictional national pride, but a rallying cry for fans of the larger-than-life movies of the Joel Silver/Arnold/Bruce era. Long live Val Verde and long live Old School Action.

This extraordinary t-shirt (also available in mug) is the inaugural product for my new project Vern’s Flea Market. This is probly classier than most of the other ones I’m gonna do, though. I want to take us all back to the late ’80s, early ’90s when you could go to the parking lot outside the 99 Cent store and young entrepreneurs would sell you such great t-shirts as Black Bart Simpson and Batman Symbol Except It Has Eyes. My designs will be even better. Collect ’em all, like pokeymans or whatever.

El Gringo

Monday, May 14th, 2012

tn_elgringoThe first After Dark Action Fest started Friday. Five action movies that I’m gonna have to qualify as pretty-much-DTV since they’re only playing 10 cities for 1 week. Maybe if one of those cities was Seattle I would feel different. But they have the “same day video-on-demand” option, which I’d never done before, but I decided to do it. I demanded it. I oughta upgrade my cable, it probly looks better for most citizens of the 21st century, but for me it looked okay. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

tn_fordfairlaneWhat the fuck is this? is a fair reaction to the existence of FORD FAIRLANE. All you can really do is try to set your mindclock back to 1989 and picture it from the perspective of the people setting it up.

I mean you got the hottest action producer, Joel Silver of DIE HARD and LETHAL WEAPON fame. He’s got the rights to this “rock ‘n roll detective” character taken from some magazine column or Herfy’s tray-liner comic strip or something. To rewrite the script he hires Daniel Waters, hot shit young writer of HEATHERS in his first for-hire job. But who can we get to direct? Who is rock ‘n roll enough? How about that Finnish guy who did NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4? His hair is practically to his ass, I think he could do it. Renny Harlin had been toiling away on a version of ALIEN 3 that never got made, and this was kind of his entry into the world of action. In fact, Joel Silver hired him for DIE HARD 2 after seeing the dailies for this one. (read the rest of this shit…)

Die Hard 2

Tuesday, December 21st, 1999

MCCLANE. JOHN MCCLANE. THE WORKING MAN’S JAMES BOND

BRUCE WILLIS’S DIE HARD 2

Well hell man I guess for those of you who read the title there’s no point in explaining my premise here. You see I just watched Die Hard part 2 for the first time since you know what and I realized that John McClane is a James bond for OUR people. The people who AREN’T rich and who don’t always get the breaks this motherfucker james gets.

Bond is the ultimate secret agent, who the government agencies go to for help. McClane is just a badass that happens to be there when the shit goes down, and the government agencies try to STOP him from helping but they can’t do it cause like the title says this mother fucker is HARD.

Bond has connections everywhere and can go anywhere and do just about anything he wants, but McClane has to save the whole fucking airport just to get these motherfuckers to let him out of a parking ticket. Bond drives snowmobiles and sports cars provided by the government and jumps off of them and blows them up. McClane steals the snowmobiles he uses but also jumps off of them and blows them up. Even when he drives a car at the beginning, its a piece of shit borrowed from his mother in law, and that one gets impounded.

Bond wears expensive suits and dapper uniforms. McClane wears a dirty maintenance man snow jacket he BORROWS from somebody else. If McClane was EVER in a casino, he’d be wearing a sleeveless undershirt, it would be on the Indian reservation, and he’d be losing. My man john doesn’t know the MEANING of the word dapper. He’s a rough and tumble type dude, and if I didn’t know he was a cop i’d swear he done time, cause this is the type of motherfucker that knows how to bite a guys hand during a fight. thumbs up for that one mcclane. (read the rest of this shit…)