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Posts Tagged ‘Mark Kerr’

The Smashing Machine (2025)

Wednesday, October 8th, 2025

THE SMASHING MACHINE (2025) is one of those movies that comes along every once in a while that’s so geared toward my niche interests that it seems like a prank. How the fuck is there a movie where

1) The Rock finally does what I’ve been saying he should do for years and chooses a movie based on the director, artistic merit and acting challenge rather than its potential to be the highest grossing, most universally seen and least memorable generic middlebrow cinematic porridge ever squirted out of a tube

that happens to be

2) a remake of an obscure and now impossible to find sports documentary I watched and became obsessed with because it was from the director of the greatest DTV movie of all time?

If I was stupid and dumb instead of savvy and wise this would be one of those “this proves life is a simulation” moments for me. The new version is written and directed by Benny Safdie (actor from HAPPY GILMORE 2 who directed GOOD TIME and UNCUT GEMS) and released as a hip art movie by A24. Original director John Hyams is credited as a consulting producer, and man I hope he got paid because this is entirely built on his movie. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Smashing Machine

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

tn_smashingmachineTHE SMASHING MACHINE is a documentary about Mark Kerr, at the time an undefeated fighter in UFC, Pride and other mixed martial arts competitions. The director is John Hyams, whose UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION was so unexpectedly great I felt compelled to watch everything else he’s directed. In fact, Van Damme’s admiration of this movie is apparently what got Hyams the gig on the ol’ UNISOL.

The opening got me right away because it’s a voiceover on top of fight footage, and something seems wrong. The gentle, almost nerdy voice that’s talking to us doesn’t seem to match this muscleman we’re watching use his bare hands and feet to take flesh that God shaped in His own image and reconfigure it into an ugly pile of of bruise and injury. If Mark Kerr called you on the phone and said, “I’m the Smashing Machine,” you’d hear his voice and you’d never believe him. You’d hang up. But it’s true, he’s the Smashing Machine. And also a nice, thoughtful guy. (read the rest of this shit…)