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Posts Tagged ‘Kurt Russell’

Breakdown

Friday, April 30th, 2010

tn_breakdownBREAKDOWN is a highway suspense thriller starring Kurt Russell. He’s got his wife asleep in their fancy new truck, going on a trip, he takes his eyes off the road onto his coffee thermos for a second, almost nails some gentlemen of the rednecked community who back out into the road in front of him. When he stops at a gas station those guys show up and start puffing their chests out, commenting on his truck. So it’s got that class tension, that tourist guilt that I always dig in a horror or suspense type picture.

That’s good, but on the other hand I definitely prefer Russell as the sardonic working class type. I’m not so sure about him driving a fancy truck like in this one or wearing a tuxedo like in EXECUTIVE DECISION. I still like him on the right side of the tracks (he was still Elvis, after all), but not as much. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 83 Comments »

Tango & Cash

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

tn_tangoandcashI don’t know if you can sense it in the air or anything. It doesn’t really come until the end of the year, but this is the 20th anniversary of TANGO & CASH. To be honest I don’t think I ever saw this one before, but I wanted to see it and review it a little ahead of all the hoopla. As much as people like you and I are will to talk about TANGO & CASH all the time I’m sure eventually we’re gonna get a little worn out by all the retrospectives and parades and everything that I’m sure they’ve been planning.

So now I’ve seen it and I know TANGO & CASH is a fun but not all that great 1989 action movie that personifies (moviefies?) the excess of the ’80s, and not just because it has a monster truck in it. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Action, Reviews | 36 Comments »

Soldier

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

After seeing Paul Not Thomas Anderson’s remake of DEATH RACE 2000 and finding it surprisingly enjoyable, I decided to finally go back and see that Kurt Russell movie he made more than ten years ago that I wanted to see but didn’t because everyone said was garbage. And maybe the lowered expectations helped, but I thought SOLDIER was a good one.

The movie begins in the ’90s with a group of babies being taken out of a hospital into military custody (wonder if the parents noticed?) where they will be raised to be super soldiers. The opening is a montage of these soldiers from infancy to their 40s, being indoctrinated, training and participating in various intergalactic conflicts. I was impressed that I could immediately tell which kid was supposed to be Kurt Russell. I thought they did an amazing job of finding a kid who looked like him, but then I found out they just cast his son, which is kind of cheating. Anyway this character’s name is Todd, but don’t worry, if you forget that it’s tattooed on his face, they all have their names and numbers tattooed on their faces. (I honestly think it would be cool if the movie was called TODD.) (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 10 Comments »

Big Trouble in Little China

Monday, April 7th, 2008

Here’s a John Carpenter movie I somehow never reviewed before. Kurt Russell plays Jack Burton, a loudmouthed truck driver who stops in Chinatown to gamble with an old buddy, and ends up stuck in the middle of a gang war, an ancient prophecy, magic powers, monsters, etc.

The opening scene of the movie is classic. It fades in on Egg Shen, the driver of a tour bus in Chinatown, being interviewed by a lawyer about “what happened.” We know that something big and crazy happened, that a whole block erupted into “green flames,” and that people want to know where “Jack Burton and his truck” are. Shen admits that he believes in Chinese black magic and when the lawyer asks why he should believe in it Shen holds up his hands and shoots bolts of green lightning between them. “See?” he says. “That was nothing. But that’s how it always begins. Very small.” Then it cuts to a shot of a truck as the opening credits begin, and you realize “okay, a truck. This must be that Jack Burton they were so concerned about.” Classic! (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Martial Arts, Reviews | 24 Comments »

Vern Reviews The DEATH PROOF DVD!

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Since this showed up at my house, I’ve screened it three times. I hate that they are not putting out GRINDHOUSE together, but I really like the international cut of DEATH PROOF, and I know that sooner or later, I’ll be able to own the same thing I saw in theaters this spring. It’s just not right now, and I guess that’s just the way it fucking goes.

Vern’s got a typically strong write-up of the disc for you today, and it was nearly as much fun to read this as it was to watch the disc:

For me GRINDHOUSE was one of the great theatrical experiences of 2007. A rare modern instance of filmatists trying to put on a real show, and giving you more than your money’s worth. Two movies for the price of one, plus fake trailers – an affordable night or afternoon out. Yeah, I read about how it failed to make money for the Weinsteins, but guess what? That’s what happens when you spend decades buying other people’s movies so you can cut them, dub them, retitle them, sit them on a shelf for years, and then only allow them to be rented at Blockbuster. When you spend that long doing that many cruel and unusual things eventually your bi-yearly good deed will fail for you too. Because you are an asshole. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in AICN, Crime, Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 75 Comments »

Grindhouse

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

PLANET TERROR and DEATH PROOF

PREAMBLE

Here in the US these two movies were designed and released as a double feature with trailers for fictional movies in between. They were released under one unifying name that starts with a ‘G’ that is a word used to describe the shitty theaters that used to churn out sleazy horror, sexploitation, kung fu and blaxploitation movies back in the day.

I am not going to be using the g-word in this review, because I am sick and fucking tired of hearing it. It’s a perfectly legitimate title for this concept, but here is the problem. Mr. Tarantino is a huge fan and expert on these types of movies, he is the human IMDb judging from some of those interviews. So I don’t mind seeing him talk about it in every article about KILL BILL VOLUME 1 and then KILL BILL VOLUME 2 and then when they announced this g-word movie, and then while he was filming it and now to promote its release. Tarantino can use the g-word all he wants, he has earned it. So I don’t mind him and the trailers for his movie trying to explain to the kids what the g-word means. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Action, Bruce, Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 2 Comments »

Escape from New York vs. Escape from L.A.

Thursday, September 7th, 2006

Recently some joker spread a phony story on the internet about how Kurt Russell had tricked Paramount into greenlighting ESCAPE FROM EARTH, a third Snake Plissken movie, as part of a three picture deal. I knew it was too good to be true, but I also know that Russell always says Snake is his favorite character he’s ever played, and he clearly loves working with John Carpenter. Carpenter could use a return to the big screen, and I wouldn’t be surprised if after Tarantino’s DEATH PROOF comes out next year (starring Kurt Russell as a killer stuntman and scored by Carpenter) there is a rise in popularity and nostalgia for the classic Kurt Russell badass roles. I think it would actually be smart to make a new Plissken movie right now as long as it wasn’t a huge budget and it wasn’t a rehash of the other two. So, their loss I guess. And the world’s.

Of course, reading this horse shit got ME nostalgic for the old John Carpenter badass movies, so I watched THEY LIVE again, because that’s my favorite (sorry Kurt). And then I did something I never did before, I watched ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and ESCAPE FROM L.A. in a row, to get a better comparison. It’s sort of like one of those puzzles where there’s two similar drawings and you have to pick out what’s different. Hey, wait a minute, that baseball player is holding an ear of corn instead of a bat and shit like that. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a doctor’s office, but they have Highlights there sometimes. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 30 Comments »

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