"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘Richard Kelly’

Domino (18 years later revisit)

Thursday, September 28th, 2023

When I saw DOMINO on opening day in 2005, I really thought it was the worst shit ever. In fact, at some point I earnestly added a “the worst shit ever” tag to my review of it. Tony Scott’s most chaotic ever visual style and editing just scraped against me and took me out of the story (to the extent that there was one), and I fixated on that and raged against it in my review. This had happened to me only a couple of times before: first with CON AIR, then ARMAGEDDON, and later it would happen with TRANSFORMERS and DOOMSDAY. But DOMINO is the most stylistically aggressive of any of those, and arguably the most pretentious.

In my review I said Scott was trying to seem young and edgy, compared it to getting his ear pierced. In my mind at that time he was the guy who directed TOP GUN, and TOP GUN was a movie for jocks, military lovers and top 40 listeners. When that one came out I didn’t notice that its style was revolutionary, I just knew everybody loved it including my entire sixth grade class, which meant it was the height of mainstream popular culture about a year or two before I would start kneejerk rebelling against such things. So to have the TOP GUN guy, almost 20 years later, trying to do what screenwriter Richard Kelly calls on the commentary track “punk rock,” was just a joke to me. (read the rest of this shit…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Reviews, Crime | 15 Comments »

The Box

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

tn_theboxPUSH – BASED ON THE SHORT STORY BUTTON, BUTTON BY RICHARD MATHESON

Late in THE BOX somebody asks, “Can I be forgiven?” The character is talking about a lapse in moral judgment that caused harm to others. But you kind of hope it’s also writer/director Richard Kelly talking about his last two movies, SOUTHLAND TALES and DOMINO. Both are more like drugged out brainstorming sessions than actual finished movies – a couple funny ideas wrapped in a thousand, uh… other ideas, then chewed up and spit onto the screen with no second thought given to concepts like planning, timing, restraint, coherence or entertainment value. To me those are two of the most tedious, headscratchingly ill-conceived disasters of modern film, and the motherfucker did them in a row. With only one pretty good movie under his belt to hang his hat on*.

No. Not if this is an era of accountability. You can’t be forgiven.

So it’s in the spirit of forgiveness and Christian redemption that I say I thought THE BOX was pretty good. His best, for what that’s worth. (read the rest of this shit…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 59 Comments »

Domino

Monday, October 17th, 2005

I probaly never woulda known this if there wasn’t a movie, but it turns out Laurence Harvey, who is a guy in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (but not Frank Sinatra), had a daughter named Domino. But wait, there’s more. This daughter supposedly tried to follow in the footsteps of her super model mother, but then got bored and became a bounty hunter. Rich girl model becomes bounty hunter – sounds like a good story, and apparently director Tony Scott was friends with Domino and spent 12 years trying to bring “her story” to the screen. Tragically, she died of a drug overdose last summer having only seen parts of the unfinished movie. I just watched the whole god damn thing so believe me, I can relate. (read the rest of this shit…)

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Action, Reviews | 14 Comments »

Donnie Darko: Director’s Cut

Monday, May 31st, 2004

SPOILER ALERT !!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a couple more looks at the Seattle Film Festival’s premiere of Richard Kelly’s DONNIE DARKO: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT. First up is AICN’s own bad boy, Vern. Now, Vern has brought it to my attention that not only was Jena Malone in attendance, but so was Drew Barrymore… Being as Vern was in the same general space as two of my dream women, I think it’s safe to say that he deserves nothing less than a slow and painful death at my hands. Some of you negative retards below can disagree with me about the radiance of Ms. Barrymore and that’s fine. Less people I have to fight against in my ongoing struggle to woo this vixen! Anyway, here’s Vern-o!!!

Dear Harry,

Hey bud this is Vern. I don’t want to be a squealer or nothin but fuckin Moriarty man, that dude put me on his spam list and keeps dumping my reviews. I wrote a review of Cruel Intentions 3 to name one example of a review that the world obviously needs to see but he threw it in the trash with the p.enis enlargements and the v~icodin. I mean I understand the guy is busy, but come on. I can’t imagine he’s staying up all night polishing the dialogue on that thing. I’ll give you a hint bud: Scorpion says “Get over here.” Don’t be writing any monologues for him or anything. And then you’ll have a few extra minutes for dusting your flatscreen and putting up my reviews. So anyway that’s not the point, the point is this. I’m not going to as many SIFF movies this year, but I did manage to see Donnie Darko’s Director Cut. The world premiere. NOT the press screening which was already reviewed by “Gooter.” I don’t do press screenings. I saw it with the people. That’s just the kind of guy I am. (read the rest of this shit…)

Tags: ,
Posted in AICN, Drama, Mystery, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 7 Comments »

Donnie Darko

Sunday, October 28th, 2001

I gotta admit I was surprised by this picture. It is about a young man (named Donnie Darko [that is why the movie is called Donnie Darko, it is the dude’s name]) to whom all the weird shit happens. Like for example a demonic rabbit lures him out of bed to a golf course, whispering mysterious type business to him in a spooky voice. In the morning he comes home and, you know, a plane engine has fallen onto his bedroom. Only one thing is, nobody knows what happened to the plane the engine fell off of. And it would be bad enough to have a plane engine fall into your room in the first place, then you gotta throw in all this mysterious bermuda triangle type business too. I mean he has a hard enough time just with school work now he has to deal with this shit.

This movie didn’t get much of a release and I don’t know, maybe it’s because it’s coming out in a time when Donnie Darko’s life doesn’t seem all that different from ours. Engines do fall out of the sky. I mean they have ax fights on planes now. They have shoe bombs and shit. They’re gonna have baboon attacks pretty soon, the way things are going in my opinion. Pilots gored by elephants after that. I mean why do they allow elephants in the cargo hold anyway is what they’re gonna say. We shoulda seen that loophole. (read the rest of this shit…)

Tags: ,
Posted in Drama, Mystery, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 1 Comment »

  • Hey bud, thanks for reading.

    Don't feel obligated, but here are some

  • WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHIT OUT OF VERN & OUTLAWVERN.COM

    if that's your thing:

  • 1. Patreon

    Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!

  • 2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody

    click here for my Amazon author page

    (NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)

    EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.

  • 3. If you ever buy from Amazon, go through my links or search engines



    (you pay the same amount you were gonna pay anyway they cut me a little slice)

  • I also have an Amazon UK one:

    (I can't get the search box widget to work anymore, so click on MOONWALKER and then search for what you want.)

  • 4. My exciting line of fashion and leisure products

    (I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt, mug or lifestyle item)

  • 5. Spread the word

    Tell your friends about my reviews and my books and everything. Only cool people though please, we don't need a bunch of suckers and/or chumps around here.

    THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN

    * * * *

  • Recent commentary and jibber-jabber

    • S on War of the Worlds (20th anniversary revisit): “Great review of a movie I love. One nitpick though – it’s not Brooklyn, it’s New Jersey. Presumably as a…” Jul 1, 18:55
    • JTS on War of the Worlds (20th anniversary revisit): “You don’t need to answer that, actually. This was a great review! I saw this when it was in theatres…” Jul 1, 17:54
    • JTS on War of the Worlds (20th anniversary revisit): “Vern, do you no longer subscribe to Amy Nicholson’s view that Tom Cruise jumping on a couch is an odious…” Jul 1, 17:48
    • Dtroyt on Dangerous Animals: “Not sure why that posted three times. Guess I’m even happier than I realized.” Jul 1, 09:32
    • Dtroyt on Dangerous Animals: “I’m so happy that you wrote this. I saw the trailer in the theater and thought it looked like something…” Jul 1, 07:38
    • Stu on Dangerous Animals: “Saw this in UK theatres too, and I really enjoyed it. The teaser trailer that was all Jai Courtney was…” Jul 1, 07:23
    • Bill Reed on M3GAN: “Success! The trailer made the sequel look bigger and insane and therefore up my alley. So of course it’s not…” Jul 1, 05:42
    • Pacman2.0 on M3GAN: “M3GAN 2.0 has got some convenient showtimes in my local next week despite its well-publicised Box Office woes, so I’m…” Jul 1, 05:26
    • Pacman2.0 on Dangerous Animals: “I saw this on its UK release earlyish last month, which appears not to have been listed on IMDB, but…” Jul 1, 05:20
    • Toxic on M3GAN: “Also, and sorry for 3 comments in a row about the same movie, but I’m guessing Gerard Johnstone is a…” Jun 30, 14:58
    • Toxic on M3GAN: “Which means they sort of stole Bill Reed’s idea!” Jun 30, 14:57
    • Toxic on M3GAN: “Just saw M3GAN 2.0, I thought it was fun. I mean, it’s very silly, but I kind of admire them…” Jun 30, 14:55
    • Max K. on Dangerous Animals: “I had a lot of fun with this one. It’s honestly pretty great pulp. None of the characters do anything…” Jun 30, 11:23
    • Glaive Robber on Dangerous Animals: “Wish I liked this one more. It didn’t do enough for me, and no, I really still don’t enjoy Jai…” Jun 30, 08:49
    • Tuukka Tiensuu on Dangerous Animals: “I really like Jai. So I have to watch this.” Jun 30, 07:32

  • Recent Commented on Posts

  • Most Comments