VICTORY is a 1981 John Huston film that combines a LONGEST YARD type game-between-prisoners-and-guards story with a GREAT ESCAPE type story about escape greatness. It all begins when Sylvester Stallone, a Canadian prisoner in a German WWII labor camp (I thought American, but apparently he has a maple leaf on him somewhere), loses control of his soccer ball. It rolls over to Max Von Sydow, a Nazi officer who starts showboating by foot juggling it even though he’s wearing his big Nazi boots, and he kicks it over to Michael Caine, a British prisoner who was a pro footballer/soccerer before the war.
That one casual sporting exchange is historic because it starts up the conversation that leads to the deal: the best players from among the Allied prisoners will play an exhibition game against the German national team. For the Nazis it’s good propaganda at the end of a war that, let’s face it, did not improve their country’s image on the international stage. For the prisoners it’s an opportunity to plan an escape. (read the rest of this shit…)
How are you gonna get em back on JUDGE DREDD with Sylvester Stallone when they’ve seen DREDD with Karl Urban? The new version is lower budget and streamlined and way better. It’s dedicated to the purity of this fascist character and the ugly world he lives in, and doesn’t worry about commercial considerations. (And sure enough did not do well commercially.) The new version is cool because it’s just about this larger than life character on one day doing one job. The old one, of course, had to be the story of the biggest thing that ever happened to Judge Dredd. It has all the weaknesses of calculated blockbuster type filmmaking, and only some of the strengths.
But you know what, it’s pretty fun to watch. There’s alot of good shit in here anyway, especially at the beginning. It’s a little better than I remembered. (read the rest of this shit…)
Here’s a movie that brings a new angle to my Badass Auteur Theory. If this starred Ben Affleck or Ewan McGregor or somebody it would just be a mediocre stalker thriller from the director of I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. But since it stars Sylvester Stallone we can only see it in the context of his body of work. It forces us to look at it as a Sylvester Stallone vehicle and compare it to CLIFFHANGER and stuff. So it has the advantage of being an interesting tangent in his filmography.
Stallone plays Jake Malloy, former city cop turned FBI agent. The wikipedia entry makes me think he was supposed to be a Seattle cop, but I didn’t pick up on that from the movie and it wasn’t filmed here. Anyway, he’s on the trail of a serial killer who targets cops. He’s been chasing this guy for 6 months but he’s not in so deep he doesn’t have a personal life. He buys an expensive ring so he can propose to his girl (Dina Meyer), so I think you know what that means. He better own a black suit.
We all know Walter Hill is one of the greats of Badass Cinema, but it’s been a while, at least in theaters. Somebody told me that because he was a writer on ALIEN he gets so much money that he only works when he really feels like it. And what he’s felt like working on for the last decade was made-for-cable westerns: BROKEN TRAIL and episodes of Deadwood. His last theatrical release was UNDISPUTED in 2002. As much as I love the Wesley Snipes performance and the DTV sequels I don’t like the movie very much. Before that Hill took his name off of SUPERNOVA and before that he did the mixed bag that was LAST MAN STANDING. Like I said, it’s been a while.
I wasn’t sure about Sylvester Stallone in this either. I’ve enjoyed the EXPENDABLESes okay and RAMBO a little more, but each took away some of the faith I had in Stallone after the comeback of ROCKY BALBOA. His last starring role that wasn’t from one of those series was also in 2002, it was AVENGING ANGELO.
I never thought that in 2013 these two would collaborate on a buddy action movie. And yet here we are. And I’m happy to report that it’s a respectable effort for both, especially Stallone. (read the rest of this shit…)
I always thought COP LAND was a sequel to WESTWORLD, but I guess it’s actually a police drama about a small town in New Jersey set up by the mob to shelter corrupt New York cops outside of the city limits. Could use some out of control robots obviously but otherwise it’s a good movie.
As the movie opens Freddie (Sylvester Stallone) is in a small diner where cops hang out, playing a cop-themed pinball machine. That’s how he spends his birthday. He’s drunk and can’t stop playing, is so into it he takes his sheriff keys to go open up a parking meter and get more quarters. This is him, playing a game at being a cop, watching the city cops talk, they get mad that he’s looking at them. And he can’t even hear what they’re saying anyway because he went deaf in one ear saving a drowning girl when he was young. It keeps him off the NYPD and makes him have to keep having people repeat things to him. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE EXPENDABLES 2 is a sequel to THE EXPENDABLES. It is the second one. And all that that implies.
Like part 1 it has an incredible cast of action stars that you never thought could all be in a movie together, making a movie that is not worthy of all of them being together but does get by on the strength of, you know… those guys are all in it.
Hey, that’s nice. To celebrate the occasion of Expendables 2 we have trailers for upcoming Schwarzenegger and Stallone pictures, both from great directors. If you haven’t seen them I’ll show them to you.
First up we got THE LAST STAND from the director of BITTERSWEET LIFE, THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD and I SAW THE DEVIL. I was hoping for something a little quieter and less Johnny-Knoxville-in-a-funny-hat than this looks, but I still thing it looks beautiful and appropriately absurd. I’ll take it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEMmL0uQYeY
Next up is the Walter Hill buddy movie. Keep in mind that Hill hasn’t directed a theatrical movie since UNDISPUTED in
For a minute I thought that was Shannen Doherty as his daughter. That would’ve been weird. Also I see Falsone from Homicide: Life On the Street is in there. And I didn’t know it but I guess I always wanted to see an ax fight between Rambo and Kal Drogo.
THE SPECIALIST was Sylvester Stallone’s 1994 offering, a present-day palate cleanser between the futuristic DEMOLITION MAN and JUDGE DREDD. It even says “present day” onscreen after a prologue taking place in Colombia in ’84.
That was when black ops explosives expert Ray Quick (Stallone) had a falling out with his partner-mentor Ned Trent (James Woods). They were trying to assassinate a drug lord but Quick tried to pull the plug when he saw that a little girl was going to get blown up with him. Trent of course doesn’t care, and he gets his way (drug lord and girl both blown to kingdom come) but then the two of them fight about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Isn’t DEMOLITION MAN a weird one? Sci-fi/action moosh up, Sylvester Stallone plays cryogenically frozen supercop Jack Spartan, cryogenically unfrozen Captain America style to capture his arch-nemesis Simon Phoenix (Wesley G.D. Snipes) in a jokey future society of wimps.
Spartan is a typical non-iconic Stallone character – mumbly, down-to-earth, see-through-the-bullshit everyman, except when he goes into battle, then he’s so prone to blow shit up that he’s nicknamed Demolition Man against his wishes.
By now most of us have seen the teaser for next summer’s EXPENDABLES 2, directed by Simon “the remake of THE MECHANIC was okay at least although the action scenes sucked” West. Of course it’s a teaser, it doesn’t show much, and it’s a movie that most of us feel guilty for having any glimmer of hope that it might be good. But those are not good enough reasons to stop my from going through it pretty much shot-by-shot so we can discuss it. Sorry.
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
(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
Aktion Figures on Hellboy: The Crooked Man: ““Mignola was never too highly regarded for his distinctive art style.” I honestly cannot tell if this is sarcasm or…” Dec 23, 10:04
jojo on Hellboy: The Crooked Man: “I don’t know, I can’t say that personally the first Hellboy movie looked all that different from Spawn or anything…” Dec 23, 07:43
CJ Holden on Hellboy: The Crooked Man: “I do think it goes a bit further than that. The comics were successful because they were a hell (no…” Dec 23, 06:15
jojo on Hellboy: The Crooked Man: “So we’re now four films deep into the Hellboy-verse, and I still have the same nagging question The comics were…” Dec 23, 03:46
CJ Holden on The Christmas Spirit: “Happy Holidays to you and everybody else who might not post here in the next few days!” Dec 23, 01:40
Jan Bobrowitch on Kimi: ““completely strip, then dye your hair? In what? The kitchen sink?” Um… yeah. Every time I’ve had blue hair, I’ve…” Dec 22, 20:43
pegsman on The Christmas Spirit: “As this might be my last post here before the holiday week starts, I would like to take the opportunity…” Dec 22, 07:28
Skani on Black Christmas: “No idea why I just invented the term “feministic,” but I’m gonna stand by it.” Dec 21, 08:46
Skani on Black Christmas: “Caught this on the big screen yesterday. Probably my third time watching, and it gets better every time. This is…” Dec 21, 08:45
Dreadguacamole on Hellboy: The Crooked Man: “It was released theatrically here in the UK in September, and there were trailers for it before other movies in…” Dec 21, 04:54
CJ Holden on Hellboy: The Crooked Man: “I might remember it wrong, but I think it was indeed supposed to be a theatrical release and it raised…” Dec 21, 02:31
Franchise Fred on Hellboy: The Crooked Man: “But like, Mignola wrote it. When it was in development I assumed it was still for theaters but you know…” Dec 21, 01:19
VERN on Hellboy: The Crooked Man: “Yeah, good question. I mean, it’s honestly a good idea to make it a lower budget franchise, but you’re right,…” Dec 21, 00:52
Franchise Fred on Hellboy: The Crooked Man: “I knew they were making this. Had no idea it already came out let alone on VOD, and it’s kind…” Dec 21, 00:24
VICTORY is a 1981 John Huston film that combines a LONGEST YARD type game-between-prisoners-and-guards story with a GREAT ESCAPE type story about escape greatness. It all begins when Sylvester Stallone, a Canadian prisoner in a German WWII labor camp (I thought American, but apparently he has a maple leaf on him somewhere), loses control of his soccer ball. It rolls over to Max Von Sydow, a Nazi officer who starts showboating by foot juggling it even though he’s wearing his big Nazi boots, and he kicks it over to Michael Caine, a British prisoner who was a pro footballer/soccerer before the war.
How are you gonna get em back on JUDGE DREDD with Sylvester Stallone when they’ve seen DREDD with Karl Urban? The new version is lower budget and streamlined and way better. It’s dedicated to the purity of this fascist character and the ugly world he lives in, and doesn’t worry about commercial considerations. (And sure enough did not do well commercially.) The new version is cool because it’s just about this larger than life character on one day doing one job. The old one, of course, had to be the story of the biggest thing that ever happened to Judge Dredd. It has all the weaknesses of calculated blockbuster type filmmaking, and only some of the strengths.
aka D-TOX
We all know Walter Hill is one of the greats of Badass Cinema, but it’s been a while, at least in theaters. Somebody told me that because he was a writer on ALIEN he gets so much money that he only works when he really feels like it. And what he’s felt like working on for the last decade was made-for-cable westerns: BROKEN TRAIL and episodes of Deadwood. His last theatrical release was 
Isn’t DEMOLITION MAN a weird one? Sci-fi/action moosh up, Sylvester Stallone plays cryogenically frozen supercop Jack Spartan, cryogenically unfrozen Captain America style to capture his arch-nemesis Simon Phoenix (Wesley G.D. Snipes) in a jokey future society of wimps.
By now most of us have seen the teaser for next summer’s EXPENDABLES 2, directed by Simon “the remake of THE MECHANIC was okay at least although the action scenes sucked” West. Of course it’s a teaser, it doesn’t show much, and it’s a movie that most of us feel guilty for having any glimmer of hope that it might be good. But those are not good enough reasons to stop my from going through it pretty much shot-by-shot so we can discuss it. Sorry.
