The Action Effect

Fistful of Awesome

2011-11-14T15:16:00.001-08:00

Becky and I have combined our efforts and created a new blog. Please check it out! :) Fistful of Awesome!

Our mission:

The internet can be a negative place -- full of snarky hipsters, nihilistic critics, and spiteful media junkies. A Fistful of Awesome is a refuge from the mean-spirited and soulless landscape known as the world wide web of haters. Come celebrate the best in movies, music, food, books, and anything else that's awesome.

You will like this blog if...

You remember blowing into SNES game cartridges
You liked Chuck Norris before he could cure cancer
Your idea of dinner and a movie does not involve expensive wine and Hugh Grant
You've entertained the idea of hiring H.R. Giger to design your house for at least a minute
You think an over-the-top gorefest is funnier than a Judd Apatow movie
Your musical tastes in no way align with the selections of an MTV award show
You've discovered that the best restaurants usually don't have valet parking
You'd rather talk about your favorite band than make fun of American Idol contestants

Drop by Fistful of Awesome today and have a hell of a time! :)

We are also looking for writers. Let us know if you are interested.

Vengeance: Or Why I Love Johnnie To

2011-01-07T19:21:00.001-08:00

Johnnie To's Vengeance hinges on the edge of perfection. Like most films by To, there is a flawless mix of action, comedy, and brotherhood. Vengeance not only exposes To's cinematic prowess, but shows that he can direct characters with rich complexities with minimal dialogue. With every glance or subtle twitch of the eye the audience already knows what the character is thinking. Vengeance relies on this because the protagonist is in a predicament. His daughters family is killed by a hit squad and he is charged to avenge them.

There is a problem though: his memory works in spurts of a few hours and sometimes minutes. Costello, played by Johnny Hallyday must take polaroids of people and write notes about them like Nolan's Memento. For a while Costello even forgets why he is even in China, which calls into question what is vengeance for? Costello doesn't even remember his daughters family being slaughtered. So why should he avenge them?

To's Confucian themes of brotherhood and fatherhood answer this question throughout the movie. Vengeance is not a personal vendetta or selfish action, it is an action which carries the weight of justice. Whether one remembers why they must avenge matters not. The importance relies on the fact that debt must be paid. Johnny To could have taken a nihilistic approach like most Hollywood films and had the thirst to kill be inspired by a relative and emotional based sense of justice. Instead To reminds the audience that our actions carry weight in the world and vengeance in a sense needs to be done to balance the world. A sort of blow your brains out karma.

Watching Vengeance is yet another breath of fresh air in contrast to the state of action films coming out of Hollywood. Instead of over budgeted messy action sequence's, To gives the audience a graceful dance of well thought-out shots and perfect visual storytelling. To trades the frantic, hand held nauseating style of y2k's action films for a reserved style, which holds on shots and lets the audience react instead of constantly guess what they just saw. In Vengeance there is a gun fight in a park which seems like a violent ballet with mixed slow motion, extremely wide shots, blended with a dance of bullets, and mist filled exit wounds. To's visual style continues to evolved and inspire awe in those who watch at his craft.
Overall I must say get out there and buy all of Johnnie To's films, skip the rental, but they are hard to find so please rent them and support pure and true action at its finest.

Valhalla Rising

2011-01-04T07:05:00.000-08:00

Valhalla Rising could have been a great film! The first fifteen minutes are violent, enthralling, and visceral. The beautiful Norse/Celtic landscapes are contrasted with the scarred face of One-Eye, a slave, gladiator, and kill-your-ass-for-looking-at-me-wrong kinda guy. Being a history and religion nut, this film immediately grasped me with conversations about the Christ God taking over and how abnormal Christians were to the "heathens." I mean they do devour the flesh and drink the blood of their "god", which seemed abominable to most pagan religions.

But the religious discussion of the film turned out to be very base, favoring a nihilistic note. This nihilistic tone took the (perfection of the) first fifteen minutes and turned it in the longest hour and a half I have ever spent watching a movie. With drawn out boring sequences where the audience is supposed to "get something deep" out of pretty shots, long stares, and senseless character development. Then when director Refn throws random things in the film such as good ol' male on male viking rape it proves to be an exposè into crappy themes of "indie" filmmaking more than an exploration of Norse (vs Christian) religion, culture, and violence.

By the end of the film if you aren't bored you must be into cinematography, because the film is beautiful (save the constant CGI blood that looks like shit). The film was shot with the RED camera, which is the best showcase of its prowess I have seen to date (F U Book of Eli, bleh). Overall I'd say if you are only mildy into Vikings or history then skip this movie. If you want to have a so called ultra-violent movie as a bedtime story go for it.

And I really wanted to say this movie was Refn Awesome! Instead it was Refn boring...

Die Hard

2010-08-25T09:56:00.001-07:00

Format: Bluray

This old classic can't be beat. Everyone has seen it so I won't waste time on a regular review. Some details I have picked up over the past few views of it are the subtle humor.

A SWAT guy runs through a thicket of roses and gets poked. He stops in his tracks and says OUCH.

The un-kept Asian bad guy (Al Leong) holds up behind a snack food counter. He can't help himself so he grabs a Crunch Bar.

A drunk guy randomly kisses McClane on the cheek. McClane laughs to himself and says "California." I don't know how many times I also laughed to myself about how Californians act or almost committed hari-kari in the car when watching them drive.

Apart from those small revelations on this viewing the movie is still outstanding.

A further note on the bluray: The DVD is just fine. Sure some of the anamorphic shots look better on bluray, but overall it is not a very good upgrade. Sadly Fox is in the business of spamming out second rate blurays for first rate movies.

Blood on the Border: A look at Lone Star and No Country for Old Men

2010-08-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

The Mexican-American border film interests historians because of the racial and social nuances that can be exhibited from a particular time and period. Lone Star is a film which delves into the racial complexities of a fictional border town. Director John Sayles explores a history of violence and a town-wide cover-up of this history. The protagonist, Sheriff Sam, works though this bloody past and the mythic images of his father, to eventually recognize the reality of a history filled with racism and violence. Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men also revolves around a lawman, by the name of Ed Tom Bell, who also struggles with violence and a counterfeit history. No Country for Old Men differs from Lone Star because it chiefly focuses on the violence of the drug trade and leaves little room for racial context. Both films follow sheriffs struggling to understand tumultuous worlds and both men must eventually come to terms with the changing borderland. Sayles' Lone Star confronts the social flux by attacking the very concept of a border, while No Country for Old Men utilizes violence to dispel any romantic notions about the riches of the drug trade. Lone Star's conclusion gives the borderland an indication of hope amidst a dysfunctional society, but there is no hope at the end of No Country for Old Men when death and greed conquer any semblance of courage and justice.

No Country for Old Men is a fictional tale set in the 1980's when the drug trade became a serious plague of life in border cities. Mexican cartels established "economic motivation to develop and organize relatively sophisticated distribution systems across the Mexican border and into all parts of the United States."[1] No Country for Old Men is only broadly historical in its depiction of a changing culture of violence in the eighties within a context of the increasingly prominent drug trade. Sheriff Bell must manage the volatile carnage on the border when the "bloodshed and brutality that followed the booming illegal drug industry" haunted his county.[2] Throughout the film, Bell reflects upon a time before the cartels, unable to grasp the scope of the greed and materialism that came with illegal trade. Bell trembled before "the bloodshed that orbited around the maintenance and control of illegal drugs," which "became the context for all other legal and illegal activities along the [Rio Grande]."[3] The violence that haunted Bell in No Country for Old Men is very much a part of Mexican-American history.

Lone Star explores a different type of violence on the border—violence divvied out by Anglos in the early 20th Century. Just like No Country for Old Men, Lone Star is a fictional account of social phenomena in a changing border town. Sayles shows that past hostilities between the Anglos and the Mexicans is still damaging their cultural relationships today. Charlie Wade, Sam’s father, is the film's phantom antagonist, haunting characters in the past and in the present. He represents a time when "abuses of the local Anglo citizenry against undocumented workers" was commonplace.[4] In this era, the "farmers and the ranchers treated these men and their families... like serfs," indicating a distinct Anglo dominance.[5] The film’s scenes which take place in present day reflect a much different time, one where Mexicans have forged social standings and are quickly becoming the majority. Sayles addresses a post-NAFTA border, exposing the myth that "transnational capitalism" effects "immigration, birth rates, and other demographic[s]," which challenges "the notion of a nation's singular identity."[6] Lone Star accurately portrays the racial and nationalist identities falling into a state of interconnection.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in No Country for Old Men and Sheriff Sam in Lone Star both struggle with the history and violence of their lands. Sam faces the old, idealized vision of his father set against the tyranny of old-timer Sheriff Wade. Sam investigates the skeletal remains of who he correctly believes is Sheriff Wade. The town is invested in a legend that Sam’s father, Buddy, courageously ran the crooked Sheriff out of town and brought the community to peace. Retired deputy Benton exclaims that “Buddy Deeds said a thing; he damn well backed it up. Never be another one like him.” Everyone else in the town seems to have the same view of Buddy. However, Sam is hesitant to romanticize his father’s memory and commits to uncovering the truth. In his search to defuse the historical myth of his father, he uncovers a history of violence—a history where folks had to succumb to bullying “if you were colored or Mexican and wanted to stay breathing.” Sayles utilizes flashbacks to reflect upon the racial and economic-driven brutality administered by Wade.

               Charlie Wade is the vehicle Sayles uses to communicate an old way of thinking about racial classes and material wealth. The philosophy of “might makes right” is Wade’s paradigm. Every time Wade commits an act of violence, it is usually motivated by a person choosing not to cut him in on some cash. At one point, he beats young Otis, who is African American, nearly to death and attempts to execute him for running a gambling operation without giving him any of the exploits. Wade also executes Eladio Cruz because the “little greaser son-of-a-bitch been running a god darn bus service. Thinks he can make a fool out of Charley Wade!” Lone Star is more subtle in its connection to violence and materialism, while No Country for Old Men’s chief focus is in the interplay between blood and greed. Sam comes to the conclusion that even after Sheriff Wade was killed, the town still faced the same identity crisis with Buddy as their Sheriff. In a predominantly white bar, the bartender points out an interracial couple and says “Buddy woulda’ been on them two warning. Not ‘cause he had it in for the colored but just as a kind of safety tip.” Buddy still revealed traces of the same racism found in Wade’s aggression. Yet, Buddy did not resort to the same violence and thirst for power, preferring to conduct himself more akin to a politician. Buddy also required material wealth and political support, but instead of sweating down the town’s people, he would offer them services. This is why Sam wanted to spoil the mythic symbolism of his father being a shining example of what it means to be a Texan. Sam believes his father to be more of a hypocrite than hero when he "uncovers his father's graft, the shady real estate deal, illegal uses of prisoners for private work, and infidelity."[7]

Sam recognizes that the town is in conflict because of the historical myths people fabricate. The older Texans exclaim that “we were here first” and make their displeasure with all the Spanish street names known. They fail to see the reality of history. Mexicans were in Texas first and “19 outta’ 20 are Mexicans” in their town, as Bell says. Sayles makes his point clear at the teacher’s meeting, where the townspeople protest the teaching of the Mexican perspective of the Alamo. The town cherishes a mythical view of the Alamo, where brave white Texans defended their land. A furious Caucasian mother says, “You're just tearin' everything down! Tearin' down our heritage, tearin' down the memory of people that fought and died for this land.” A white male adds, “Winners get the bragging rights, that's how it goes.” Sayles is highlighting the ignorant argument that the oppressors and assassins who come out on top get the right to record history as they see fit. The Anglos see "Mexico as a defeated foreign country, lacking political and economic might."[8] Sayles associates the legends of Wade and Buddy with the Alamo, then uses the new generation of children to conquer this myth. This is accomplished through the interracial relationship of Pilar and Sam.

The relationship of Pilar and Sam is a metaphor of the two cultures on the border. Sayles illustrates that Sam and Pilar were destined for love since they were children. Flashbacks are used to reveal that they had a romantic relationship in their teens. Sam’s father, Buddy, and Pilar’s mother, Mercedes, stop at nothing to keep the young lovers from seeing each other for reasons they cannot begin to comprehend. As adults, Pilar and Sam gravitate towards each other again and their passionate relationship resumes where it left off. This is accented when Pilar says, “It feels like it used to,” referring to their childhood relationship. Even as adults, town politics and Sam’s investigation seem to tax their romance. The separation between them cannot be sustained though, because they feel a connection that transcends petty politics. This is reminiscent of the divide between Mexicans and Americans. The two are married together by a connection neither can understand, but the cultures mix in a beautiful manner when they ignore political that historical obstacles. Ideally, the two countries would live without the border like siblings. In essence, Pilar and Sam were supposed to live as brother and sister, but past politics disrupted the natural order of things.

In the end of the film, Sam regretfully tells Pilar that they are brother and sister after they had become lovers all over again. The conundrum created by their forefathers has turned their relationship as brother and sister into something dysfunctional. The forefathers of the Mexicans and U.S. citizens in Texas created a mess of the Alamo, which placed a divide between the two cultures. The children of those who believed in myths about history and built their identities upon them arrived at an impasse. Sayles’ solution to the impasse of ethnic separation is felt in the words of Pilar: “All that other stuff, all that history? To hell with it, right? Forget the Alamo.” For a torn culture fighting over historical myths to move on, it must give up a history that divides. Pilar and Sam are siblings yet lovers. The most they can do is remain lovers because their parents' lies and deceit forced them to evolve this way. The relationship between U.S. citizens and Mexicans carries this dysfunction. The border that separates the cultures is a historical illusion to Sayles, a dying myth proven by the cultural collisions in border towns because "everyone is involved in the mix, and it is almost impossible to separate oneself completely."[9]

Sayles communicates this message when Sam visits the Tire King, Chucho, and he puts forth his view of the nature of a border. Chucho tells Sam that a "bird flying south…you think he sees that line? Rattlesnake, javelina—whatever you got—halfway across that line…they don't start different. So why should a man?" The border is a creation of nations and something abstract—not concrete and visible. Sam thinks he can be clever and turn the conversation around on Chucho, saying that the Mexican government has invested the same amount of ideology into the border as the States. Chucho replies, "My government can go fuck itself, and so can yours. I'm talking about people here, men." Sayles professes that "the natural world holds to no boundary,"[10] and neither should humans with their interpersonal relationships. Chucho then tells Sam the story of the violent execution of Enacio Cruz by Charley Wade, blaming the brutality on the border and separation in general. Sayles believes that "the symbolic and physical borderline has bred a malevolence that" is "poisonous" to the cultures on either side of it.[11] The separation and collisions in Lone Star are sometimes violent. No Country for Old Men seizes this violence and makes it the focus of the film.

At the start of No Country for Old Men, Sheriff Tom Bell reminisces upon a history of myth and legend which he believes in. Unlike Sam in Lone Star, Tom Bell is caught up in the past, which prevents him from being an effective hero in the story. Throughout most of the film, he is hemming and hawing about a new violence he cannot understand that is taking over the borderlands. Bell recalls that “some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun… I always liked to hear about the oldtimers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the oldtimers. Can't help but wonder how they’d have operated these times.” By these times, Bell is referring to the budding violence created by the emerging drug enterprise on the border. The new explosion over drugs and money make Bell feel small and ill-prepared to confront the type of bloodshed characteristic of the border.

               Anton Chigurh represents this new type of violence. Beyond being an embodiment of violence, he is also racially bewildering because he looks Latino, sounds Eastern European, and acts like a Texan. He terrifies everyone who he comes into contact with. He is the manifestation of a nihilistic and murderous force. He lives by an obscure code where remorse and sympathy are negated by cold fate and a killer’s logic. He is hired by the cartels to find the missing 2 million dollars, but quickly kills the men who hire him. His motive is never quite clear. It could be that he wants the 2 million for himself, or it could be simply because he is a psychopathic killer. Sheriff Bell sees this man as a new breed of killer than he cannot comprehend. When Bell and his partner investigate the scene of the cartel shootout, he cannot handle the layers of violence that being to compile. The first layer is the cartel standoff, where bodies were bloated by time and riddled with bullets. The second layer is Llewelyn Moss’ escape from the scene when he brings a wounded man water, but is chased by dogs and men with guns. The third layer is the execution-style murder of the cartel’s henchmen by Chigurh. The entire thing has Bell “feel[ing] overmatched”.

At the center of the film is Llewelyn Moss' exodus from everyday life after he steals a satchel of money. Every violent entity on the border is looking for him, including the police and cartels. Chigurh is presented as the primary antagonist and Moss as the film's hero. Moss is likeable and can hold his own against the powers after him. This is proven to viewers by the film's reference to his Vietnam experience. He is established as a normal guy thrown into extraordinary circumstances that everyone in the audiences can cheer for. Throughout the first two acts of the film, the viewers want Moss to get away with the money and kill Chigurh. The Coen Brothers and author Cormac McCarthy have something different in mind for Moss. In movies, the everyday human can often hold his or her own against violence, but on the border, not even a protagonist in a Hollywood film can escape the violence. One would think that Moss would meet his end in a battle with Chigurh of climatic proportions, but that is not the case. Moss' undoing is off screen and the audience is simply shown a body laying in the entrance to a hotel room. He does not even die at the hand of Chigurh; he is simply killed by anonymous Hispanics with uzis who are seen driving away.

Seeing Moss' body pushes Sheriff Bell into a state of defeat. At the end of Moss' story, the audience never knows who obtains the satchel of money or where it is. Now, with the main hero dead and the enemy on the loose, the audience is left defeated just as much as Bell. The Coen's and McCarthy purposely craft this subversion to express the madness that is created over drugs and money. Roscoe illustrates this madness when talking to Bell in a diner: "It's all the goddamned money, Ed Tom. The money and the drugs. It's just goddamned beyond everything. What is it mean? What is it leading to?" Moss is the example of what happens when an everyday person becomes entangled in the viscious border. Sheriff Bell even explains the death of all the men involved in the drug trade as being "natural to the line of work they was in."

Sheriff Bell’s nostalgia for past reflections upon "old timers" not needing to carry pistols and creating law and order just because people wanted order is obviously idealistic. To Bell, times have changed and like Sam in Lone Star, Bell has trouble coping with it. The broken sheriff states, "I used to think I could at least some way put things right. I don't feel that way no more." This hostility seems far too great for him to do anything about it. He does not understand the nihilistic void left by the drug trade—a void where human life means nothing and psychopathic killers can roam with no worries of the law. Also similar to Lone Star, Bell's sense of history is corrupted and shown as myth. An old friend of Bell informs him that he is not dealing with anything new:

...Shot down on his own porch there in Hudspeth County. There was seven or eight of 'em come to the house. Wantin’ this and wantin’ that. Mac went in and got his shotgun, but they was way ahead of him. Shot him down in his own doorway. Aunt Ella run out and tried to stop the bleedin,’. Him tryin’ to get hold of the shotgun again. They just sat there on their horses watchin’ him die. Finally one of 'em says somethin’ in Injun and they all turned and left out. Well Mac knew the score even if Aunt Ella didn't. Shot through the left lung and that was that. As they say. ...What you got ain't nothin’ new. This country is hard on people. Hard and crazy. Got the devil in it, yet folks never seem to hold it to account.

Bell believes his old friend, but simply shrugs off the violent story. The fact that people have been killing on the border since cultures began clashing and that money has been changing hands does not alter Bell’s feeling of being "discouraged." This is discouraged in the truest since of the word, where it sparks a negation of courage. The film ends on this note, with little closure and no real victory on any side.

Lone Star concludes similarly, but with a small hope for the future. Pilar and Sam can move forward, even with the past in their memory. Bell, on the other hand, is rendered useless. In the closing scene of No Country for Old Men, Bell tells his wife that he will help around the house now that he is retired and she says he "better not." Even in his wife’s presence, he is unable. To Sayles, the social and racial situation on the border has hope and life within it. To McCarthy and the Coen Brothers, the border is a cesspool of violence with little meaning other than selfish greed. Bell fails to live up to the ideal he establishes at the start of the film when he says, “I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, ‘O.K., I'll be part of this world.’” In the end of the films, both sheriffs retire: Sam with closure and Bell with dissonance.

No Country for Old Men and Lone Star highlight a turbulent culture on the border. No Country for Old Men uses a distraught sheriff to show the disconnect between idealism of the past and a new type of violence brought into the south of Texas by drug cartels in the 1980's. Lone Star is set apart from No Country in that it focuses on the interconnectedness of cultures on the border. Deep within Sayles' film is the notion that borders and division creates a state of hostility. No Country for Old Men has no solution for the violence. It merely serves as a literary piece to strip away any romantic notions of the border, utilizing gruesome violence and the failure of courage and justice. Lone Star, on the other hand, presents the social situation on the border as dysfunctional, not hopeless. Sayles uses metaphor and flashback to show that borders are national constructs, which create a state of violence and social alienation. Each film is a snapshot of prevalent issues in Mexican-American history, encapsulating specific time periods as well as ongoing quandaries along the border.

Bibliography

No Country for Old Men. Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. 2007.

Gordon, Rebecca M. "Psychic Borders and Legacies Left Hanging in Lone Star and Men With Guns." In Sayles Talk, edited by Diane Carson and Heidi Kenaga, 215-237. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006.

Maril, Robert Lee. Patrolling Chaos: The U.S. Border Patrol in Deep South Texas. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2004.

Rotella, Sebastian. Twilight on the Line: Underworld and Politics at the U.S. - Mexico Border. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.

Ryan, Jack. John Sayles, Filmmaker. London: McFarland & Company Publishers, 1998.

Lone Star. Directed by John Sayles. 1996.

[1] Maril, Robert Lee. Patrolling Chaos: The U.S. Border Patrol in Deep South Texas. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2004. Pg. 148.

[2] Ibid. Pg. 149.

[3] Ibid. Pg. 150.

[4] Ibid. Pg. 145.

[5] Ibid. Pg. 145.

[6] Gordon, Rebecca M. "Psychic Borders and Legacies Left Hanging in Lone Star and Men With Guns." In Sayles Talk, edited by Diane Carson and Heidi Kenaga, 215-237. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006. Pg. 215.

[7] Ryan, Jack. John Sayles, Filmmaker. London: McFarland & Company Publishers, 1998. Pg. 225.

[8] Ibid. Pg. 223.

[9] Ibid. Pg. 226.

[10] Ibid. Pg. 224.

[11] Ibid. Pg. 226.

New Pre-Alien News

2010-04-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

Scott says:

"It's set in 2085, about 30 years before Sigourney [Weaver's character Ellen Ripley]. It's fundamentally about going out to find out 'Who the hell was that Space Jockey?' The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer's chair ... Our man [Tom Skerritt as Captain Dallas] climbs up and says "There's been an explosion in his chest from the inside out — what was that?" I'm basically explaining who that Space Jockey — we call him the Space Jockey — I'm explaining who the space jockeys were ... [The film] is about the discussion of terraforming — taking planets and planetoids and balls of earth and trying to terraform, seed them with the possibilities of future life."

Read it all Here

Amazing fight scene.... HITLER was a STARFISH

2010-03-25T17:12:00.001-07:00

Predators Trailer: In case you haven't seen it yet

2010-03-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

EXPENDABLES: ARE YOU F'N READY?

2010-03-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

This is one of the coolest posters I have seen since the golden age of posters in the 80s.

This could be the best cast in a flick ever. THREE THE HARD WAY

2010-03-15T08:36:00.001-07:00

Wolfman

2010-02-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

It was a bit of fun! I liked it more than my friends. Not much for story and acting, but keeps you interested with posh British style and some funny gore. Some flashback scenes seemed like they were shot but a made for tv 2nd unit director, but it was all apart of the flicks charm. If you are looking for a Wolfman reboot or something ground breaking look elsewhere. If you wants a silly British flick with gore and cool werewolves kicking ass then check it out.

Holy shit a movie about Larping!

2010-01-30T00:05:00.001-08:00

Joe Lynch the genuis behind Wrong Turn 2, (I know you horror hounds all love him!) is doing a hardcore asskickin flick coming up called Knight of Badassdom! Here is some buzz.

"After being dumped by his sexy girlfriend Beth, Joe reluctantly decides to join Eric and his Larping friends in the woods rather than stay behind and feel sorry for his newly single status. There he meets hot, ass-kicking, intimidating huntress LARPer Gwen, and finds himself a surreal adventure wilder than he ever imagined when a make-believe wizard casts an all-too-real spell from an ancient book he bought on EBay, releasing an actual demon with a taste for human blood — and souls — that starts systematically decimating the players in this suddenly deadly “game.” Will our guys become the heroes they have been pretending to be before time runs out?

I seriously can't wait for this being a huge nerd who knows what LARPING is and consulted a larping group in high school that was based on the Alien Legacy... Keep an ear and eye out for this one :D

w00t

2010 in Video/Computer games...

2010-01-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

2010 has some damn good games coming out! Here are some game trailers to get you ready! There's stuff for everyone this year... Inferno and Splatterhouse for horror fiends, then theres Crackdown 2 and AVP for our action fans.

AVP: The next AVP game is a simple reboot of one of the greatest multiplayer games ever. Aliens and Predator are two of my favorite films so I am fucking ready! I will chomp all of your heads off as an alien... My friends and I all have it preorder on steam... so if you would be so kind as to challenge us... Its on. This would be my #1 awaited game of the year :D w00t.

Star Craft 2: Will it come out or not... Who the hell knows... This is one of the most anticipated games ever... And I will be lining up to get a copy.

Splatterhouse: is a remake of an old school side scroller brawler that was fashioned so the gamers could kick some ass as a Jason Voorhees knock off. The reboot looks like its filled with interesting creatures to kill and brutal ways to do it... This game hasn't got much press but it is a must buy for me.

Dragon Age: Awakening. The expansion to one of the highest rated and most popular expansions on PC and Console will be released in March. If you got addicted to this game like I did, then this is one of your most anticipated titles of the year. I cannot wait for it. My Grey Warden mage, Elgyn is eager for battle!

Bioshock 2: Not much to say... Just check out this cool trailer lol. Fucking creepy kids...

Red Steel 2: Is a game with sword wielding ass kicker with a gun. With the somewhat recent Wiimotion plus release this game will prove to bring me back to the wii for a while. (apologizes to the wii for giving its buff ass kicking brother the PS3 too much attention).

Splinter Cell Conviction: I played the first two and got a bit tired of the franchise, but now I think I will return!

Dead Rising 2: Hell its about time! Looks okay.. not a fan of the trailer but here you go!

Alan Wake: Very cinematic and mysterious. I will decide on it when I see some more gameplay. Does look interesting... Prolly alien abduction!

Final Fantasy 100 Billion: A new final fantasy is coming out! I put this here for nerds who like this crap... Enjoy or skip.. I will not be buying this game.

I Am Alive: Not much is know about this, but the games teaser caused the gaming community to obsess over it. It looks like a post apocalyptic survival horror game. Should be sweet.

Dante's Inferno: Play through the classic poem, but not as a wandering philosopher type... as a muscle bound crusader ready to kick some ass. The Demo is out to check it. There ultra violence and excessive nudity...

Aliens Vs Predator: Kill trailer... HELL YA

2010-01-22T17:48:00.001-08:00

Wow this is gonna rock. Whose down? Hit me up on steam!

Predators' set photos

2010-01-17T15:50:00.000-08:00

Everything looks by the number. Exciting :D Predators are cooler than in AvP films where they were over sized and dumb looking.

Avatar Sequels and The Dive

2010-01-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

We all knew this was coming. Sounds interesting. I hope Cameron does something between them that is more grounded in reality like True Lies. The Dive seems interesting. Another underwater type flick.

"After muttering about how an AVATAR franchise would make sense and hinting that there could be a trilogy of AVATAR films, James Cameron has confirmed that there will be an AVATAR sequel, fueling speculation about how it might top the original.

Things we do know: There are two planned sequels but they won't be one continuous story, they'll be self-contained. They'll also follow Jake and Neytiri. It could take place around a different moon of Polyphemus this time, although producer Jon Landau has already hinted about exploring Pandora's interior. Some bloggers guess that James Cameron, famously obsessed with water, has an amazing underwater environment mapped out for Pandora. There are also different Na'vi tribes that call the planet their home and we never really got a sense of how intra-species politics work between the different tribes. Cameron confirmed he’s mapped out what will happen in the sequels, although he hasn’t written any scripts yet.

The good news? The sequels won't take four years to make. Cameron has said he can get them out faster than the first AVATAR.

Underwater, inside Pandora, another planet - what's your favorite idea for the sequels?" - Avatar Blog

Spiderman4 got pwned

2010-01-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

I am sure you have all heard the Spidey 4 is getting canned along with Raimi and the rest. I hope the make Maximum Carnage. I can't say I am too upset considering I like Raimi's non-spidey films a lot more... I just hope he returns to horror or reboots Darkman.
Full story here

Check out this amazing old school sega game I used to play... which should be the next spiderman flick :D

AVATAR

2009-12-24T12:45:00.000-08:00

Avatar

James Cameron set out to create an epic that rivaled Star Wars. He succeeded. Avatar already has the largest opening for an original film (not a sequel or adaptation), and will keep climbing through the holiday season. I got to see it in IMax 3D, which was phenomenal being that the picture was crystal clear and sound was explosive.

The Story:

The story was a mix of Dances with Wolves and Aliens. There is a colonial force trying to subjugate a population of natives for a resource. A few people start to see the evil and destructive nature of colonialism and imperialism and side with the underdog. Enter Aliens where it becomes about the failures of human technologies against a so called "primitive" weaponry. Despite the technology difference the Na'vi (alien race) have something to fight for. By today's standards the story nothing exciting, but that's not what the film is about. Its about taking a universal story, (sadly the horrors colonial rule are universal now) and bringing it to life with spirit and heart.

The heart and spirit:

I have been beat into a stupor over big budget action films. None of them have heart. Michael Bay's take over of mega-budget films (to my demise) has been a scar on cinema for the past decade. Even Lucas and Spielberg have been making heartless garbage. Look at the latest Indiana Jones or the last three Star Wars films. The only success in moving the human psyche besides something violent or sexual was Lord of the Rings. Avatar has a heart and soul unlike Bay's films. When one watches Avatar they can feel Cameron's love for the story and characters. The love story was beautifully done between Jake Sulley and Neytiri. Even though they are animated you still feel the emotion and nuances in their performances to pull off the exposition of love between the two. I was surprised about the many spiritual themes in the film. They used the Zen story of a person being like a filled cup so nothing else can be taught to them. The cup thing was a little too much for me since I have been exposed to Zen quite a bit, but others who don't have that experience won't think it is as corny as I did. The real spirit comes through in another Buddhist theme (also Hindu) which is the interconnectedness of all things. Cameron uses a beautiful way to communicate this truth through metaphor in the film. I won't give away how things are bound and what role it plays, but it takes a seemingly "eastern" idea of ecology and makes it easy for audiences in the west to understand. Overall it's not a hollow in your face spamfest of special effects.

The Effects:

Wow. If this film takes an Oscar it will be in effects! There is just nothing to compare it to. The bio luminescent plant life on Pandora is fantastic. The environment was computer generated, but was photo realistic. I was blow away. The lighting was perfect, the trees and leaves swayed naturally, and movement never looked unnatural. The na'vi facial expressions were better than any motion capture work I have seen. As I mentioned before you can FEEL their performances behind the animation it is hard to explain since there is not much to compare it to. The end battle is one of the most epic and dynamic fights in film history. There are giant lizards dog fighting with huge gunships. 6 foot long arrows smash through the glass of cock pits, while machine gunners tear down Na'vi from the top of a flying aircraft carrier. On the ground mech suits rip the jungle apart with machine guns and flamethrowers, while na'vi and native animals are trying to destroy the human invaders. Its magnificent.

The Actors:

Worthington did a great job as usually. I was impressed with Weaver and Joel David Moore. The best performance came from Stephan Lang, playing Quaritch. He will go done as one of the biggest hard-asses in cinema. He drinks coffee while he slaughters na'vi. He doesn't realize hes on fire for at least 40 seconds then with little effort bats it out. He goes into Pandora's atmosphere to kick ass without an o2 mask... and holds his breath. He means business and wants to kill everything that moves. By no means it he a hero, but you have to hand it to the guy he know how to play a bad ass.

The music:

Meh.... Horner recycles his work on Titanic, Aliens, and Wolfen, which wasn't anything special. Don't expect to see trailers cut together using Avatar music in the future. I wish he wasn't so lazy. Cameron really should have got a different composer. The song at the end of the credits is full of cheese and felt out of place. Maybe just thrown in to put Avatar up for another "best song" nomination... I guess. They should have ended it with rock music or something cooler than a Celine Dion sound alike.

The Score:

GO SEE AVATAR!!!! YOU WONT BE SORRY!

Kilometre Zero: My first Kurdish film related to Iraqi history

2009-12-12T12:53:00.001-08:00

Kurdish filmmaker Hiner Saleem's Kilometre Zero is a tale about a Kurdish man's journey across a war-torn Iraq. Zero takes place weeks before the chemical bombings in Iraqi-Kurdistan in the culmination of the al-Anfal operation. The film exposes the fission between Arabs and Kurds in Iraq through the relationship of the protagonist, Ako, and his Arab driver. This relationship is portrayed in a comical manner, showing that the disconnect between the two ethnic groups is much-a-do-about-nothing. The exposition of historical events in the story is sometimes executed through radio reports, but most of the history is insinuated as the narrative unfolds.

Saleem's story is experienced through Kurdish eyes. The Kurds are located primarily in the North of Iraq, which was "created by Britain," with "an enormously diverse population."[1] This diversity among the population was ignored since Iraq's creation, leading to a Kurdish striving for an independent state separate from the Arab majority. The Iraqi government saw this as a problem because they wanted a centralized state, which would exist under the banner of "Arab nationalism."[2] Conflict erupted between the two groups throughout the 1970's. The conflict usually ended in stalemates because Iraqi forces could do little against Kurds in the mountainous regions. The militants were also receiving significant amount of support from Iran. The Kurdish relationship with Iran would become a chief reason for Saddam Hussein to conduct ethnic cleansing through a reign of chemical terror on Iraqi-Kurdistan. This relationship was put on hold by a deal brokered between Iraq and Iran over the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which caused Iran to shut its borders to the Kurdish peshmerga, or militia, which caused the Kurds to be "decimated by the Iraqi air force."[3] A ceasefire was later forced on the Kurds and Hussein "uprooted as many as 250,000 Kurds" then "forced large numbers of Arabs to move to Kurdish territory" to dilute the population.[4] Despite Hussein's attempts, the Kurds were able to organize small pockets of resistance and keep the peshmerga in operation until the Iran-Iraq War, which dealt a devastating blow to Iraqi-Kurdistan.

The film focuses on the weeks before the Iraqi destruction of the Kurdish communities in the North. In 1987, Hussein became nervous about his stalemate on the Iranian front so narrowed his forces on the Kurdish territories. Hussein did this because he wanted to crush the peshmerga for sharing intelligence with the Iranians.[5] Ako, the main character, is introduced as a reluctant army reservist afraid of being sent to fight Iran for a country he cares little about. His feelings towards Iraq are illustrated by an early scene of the film where Kurdish men are rounded up and taken to a fortress for no reason other than to humiliate or kill. An obese man, Sami, is stripped to his underwear and told to run around and dance for the pleasure of Iraqi officers. Furthermore, there is an impromptu interview process where Kurds are asked about their profession and what they thought of President Hussein. If the answers are not sufficient, they are walked to a steep ledge and executed. This highlights the culture of fear the Iraqi government used to dominate any dissenting factions. This is accomplished by reinforcing an Arab identity and turning the Kurds into the binary opposite of Arabs. One way the Iraqi state achieved this state of fear can be seen in the film when Kurds are lined up and proclaimed agents of Iran, which is an agent of Imperialism. They are then shot in front of the predominantly Arab troops.

The binary is expressed in Ako's relationship with his Arab driver. Ako is sent to deliver a body in Iraqi-Kurdistan, only after a few days of fighting near Basra in the South. The driver and Ako rarely talk and when they do, it usually expresses an aggressive, yet comedic, disdain for each other. The driver does not hide the fact that he thinks Kurds are the source of Iraq's problems throughout the entirety of its national history. The filmmaker sets this hatred up, then has it climax when the two men get out of the truck in the middle of streets to talk about "Iraqis and Kurds." This is meant to finally set the story straight and explain the hatred between the two. Ako and the driver both tell each other to "say something," but neither says anything. This is the writer/director's way of saying the hatred is nonsense and irrational, because neither man can create a rational argument and make sense of the fractured relationship.

Another historical nuance in the film is expressed when the Iraqi check point officers want Ako to keep off the road during the day to hide the amount of causalities wreaked by Iran. This was characteristic of Hussein's policy during the war. He wanted to hide failures far away from the people, because he was afraid of losing support when his subjects saw the amount of loss inflicted by the Iranian neighbors.[6] The losses are seen when Ako's makeshift hearse pulls behind a wall and over fifty other cars carrying coffins are revealed. This exposes the extreme number of casualties that Iraq was experiencing during the war—a war that Hussein mistakenly thought would be a quick success.

By the end of the film, Ako returns to his beloved Kurdistan, which was deserted as a result of Kurds trying to escape the Iraqi bombings. After Ako is reunited with his family, director Hiner Saleem tries to paint the screen with terror. Ako and his family run for their lives as a jovial afternoon is turned into a war zone. The Iraqi jets pound the region without pause. The excessive bombing was commonplace in the al-Anfal operation. This is translated as the "spoils of war," which was largely a scorched earth policy against Kurdish territories.[7] In 1988, this culminated in the chemical slaughter of Halabja, where 5000 people were killed. The attack is referenced when Ako listens to the radio by an abandoned home.

The film ends on a positive note for Kurds. Ako and his wife, Selma, listen to another radio report in the 2003 at the time of Baghdad's fall. When they hear this, they exclaim, "We are free, our people are free!" The celebration is justified because Hussein's al-Anfal and ethnic cleansing of Kurds resulted in 80% of Kurdish villages destroyed and countless dead.[8] After Iraq's war with Iran, the Kurds constantly experienced forceful treatment and oppressive laws. One law even outlawed the Kurds from farming. This destroyed any form of self-sufficiency for the Kurdish population. With Saddam Hussein gone, Ako believes the Kurds are finally free.

[1] Cleveland, William L., and Martin Bunton. A History of the Modern Middle East. Fourth Edition. Philadelphia: Westview Press, 2009. Pg. 410.

[2] A History of the Modern Middle East. Pg. 410.

[3] A History of the Modern Middle East. Pg. 411.

[4]A History of the Modern Middle East. Pg. 411.

[5] Maher IV, Liam. Kurd's In Iraq Lecture (December 2, 2009).

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

Aliens

2009-12-03T23:39:00.000-08:00

Aliens is my favorite movie. There is too much I could write about it... Instead of doing a small review I will just post a paper I wrote about Aliens and how it has inspired me. Please enjoy.

Next is the Abyss in the countdown to Avatar.

Sweat surges from my forehead, as I huddle in a gloomy corner like a prey awaiting the opportunity to escape. My only salvation is the pulse rifle pressed against my chest—held with white, trembling knuckles. I want to close my sagging eyelids, as I see the glossy-black, banana-shaped head round the curved corridor. My adrenaline swells, as my brain becomes a piston.

Thump! Thump!

I snap the rifle to my shoulder and discharge a burst of molten-cased rounds. The ammunition dives through the creature’s exoskeleton, as skin-shredding acid sputters from its body.

Thump! Thump!

“Nick, come get something to eat,” my mom yells as she pounds on the door. The claustrophobic corridors melt away, revealing a ten-year-old boy’s cluttered bedroom.

Every child fantasizes about hunting a fearful beast or adventuring with a favorite superhero. My enemy just so happened to be the extraterrestrials from the film Aliens, and my heroes were of course the elite squad of United Space Marines featured in the movie. After seeing Aliens at the age of ten, I felt more than an urge to become an Alien-fighting marine—I wanted to capture these dreams and create my own films.

What makes the film Aliens great enough to influence my future? Every aspect of this phenomenon of cinema inspires me, so much that I could write a doctorial thesis on the infinite qualities that make this movie special. When I was younger, the atmosphere, characters, and creatures intrigued my adolescent mind. Now, with a wiser eye, I see what a true prodigy in film Aliens is, as it has not allowed time to deplete its worth.

The atmosphere for the science-fiction masterpiece follows the intimidating, claustrophobic ambience of its predecessor, Alien directed by Ridley Scott. James Cameron, the writer and director of the sequel, takes Ridley Scott’s terror tactics and perfects them by creating an environment even more menacing. With a feeling of ultimate seclusion, an alien creature brings down a marine transport, leaving the troops with very little exits from the planet LV426. For me, the setting alone created tremendous tension. As a child, I was terrified by the images of marines cramming inside a small corridor, only to become reproductive necessities to a bug-like, yet perfect organism.

The design of this ultimate organism also inspired my love for science fiction. No movie monster can out-scare or out-battle H.G. Giger’s basic design of the majestic, biomechanical alien. The elusiveness of the creature stirred curiosity and an obsession with its every feature. What is more mystifying than an eyeless, elongated, ebony head resembling more of a shield than an animal? What is more terrifying than a silent killer creeping across ceilings and walls with soundless speed? What is more threatening than a thrashing, daggered tail and a vicious second mouth, ready to cocoon victims who will become hosts for another ugly alien?

A unique feature of Aliens is the patient method of revealing the space monster; the viewer cannot see it, but he or she feels the presence of an Alien army ready to destroy. Cameron’s greatest display of skill was his ability to foreshadow the ominous Queen Alien. When filming the original Alien, Ridley Scott used a deliberate pace, building up to the alien’s first appearance. Cameron, however, hinted at the Queen throughout the entire movie. He tricks the audience into forgetting the Queen when the human characters seize the forefront of the story. Then, abruptly, a character finds herself standing inside an egg-scattered nest, as the Queen leers over her. It is this ingenious writing that continually places Cameron as a leading member of the film industry.

The characterization in Aliens has influenced much of the ways I reveal the strengths and weaknesses of characters in my writing. The character Private Hudson, played by Bill Paxton, is one example. Hudson begins as a cocky, smart-mouthed joker, but when the aliens begin attacking, he becomes a whining pessimist with little hope for survival. In contrast, Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, enters the film as a woman broken by nightmares of her first encounter with the beast. By the end of the movie, she demolishes the Queen Alien with a piece of warehouse machinery. Through the skillful building of Ripley’s character, Cameron demonstrates a person’s ability to transition from fragile to strong. When she finds an orphaned girl with tattered clothing and dirt-smeared skin, Ripley acts as her protective mother and valiantly faces the aliens that once petrified her in order to protect the child. With Hudson and Ripley, Cameron realistically portrayed the positive and negative human reactions to unthinkable situations.

Aliens is the first movie that taught me to notice atmosphere, detail, and dramatics. Aliens’ influence has increased with my age, rather than becoming obsolete over time. With advancements in computer graphics and special effects, older films seem outdated and “corny” at times. Aliens, though, is still an amazing piece of cinematic history because its effect is comparable to the films of today. Aliens inspires me to create motion pictures equally as timeless so that someone else can write an entrance essay for a film school, hailing my movie for its inspiration.

Today, another marine stoops with a rifle in his clutch, awaiting the assault of a gruesome beast. Meanwhile, I capture frames of drama, as the alien rounds the corner.

Thump! Thump!

“Nick, you need to get ready for work,” my wife yells, as I stop envisioning the future and smile.

Rocky II

2009-12-03T23:24:00.000-08:00

It took me a while to get into Rock II. Compared to the first film it seemed to lack heart and motivation. The vanity of Rocky leads to his downfall, so he ends up having to get a shit job. The personal story in all this wasn't really communicated. I just didn't care. There are a few heart warming scenes (like those that made the first film) but they are two few to count. It is most likely because Stallone was budding as a young director and hadn't had much experience in the craft.

The high point of the film is of course the end fight. I wouldn't say it is as vicious the first Rocky v. Apollo, but it was shot pretty cool. There is a priceless hit for hit slowmotion sequence that should be revisited on youtube if you can find it. They also an interesting thing for the end of the fight where Rocky and Apollo both fall down and the fight is won by who can get up first, instead of who gets knocked down.

Overall I would say this one did very little for me. Rocky IV's shitty 80's feel at least kept me entertained.

Trailer

Some Cool Avatar Videos

2009-11-25T10:15:00.000-08:00

IGN Video: Avatar Movie Clip - Thanator Chase

Check this one out for sure. The effects and mocap animation blow me away. Its crazy how far they have come even since Beowulf.

Terminator

2009-11-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

Terminator is slowly making it's way into my top ten films of all time list. The atmosphere, tone, effects (at the time were fucking crazy), and story are all top notch. The only thing that is silly is the sex scene, which was referenced in Planet Terror sex scene with hilarious music and editing. Check out the action sequences and look up how much Cameron actually had to work with, it wasn't much.

On another note, I have a thought that has to do with the latest film; Salvation... The best part of the Terminator films is the flash forwards to the future war with the machines. It was dark as hell, barren, and brutal. All of these things were omitted from the atmosphere in McG's lame installment into the series. The potential for a great film was there, but there was also a lack of concern for this potential in Salvation. Just a sad thought.

I would rather have this film :D Back to the Future fusion with Terminator

Next is my favorite film of all time. Aliens.

Countdown to Avatar with Cameron films!

2009-11-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

Alright, Avatar comes out December 18th. There is about 6 weeks until then and each week I will be watching a Cameron film. Sorry to say I will be skipping Xenogensis and Piranha 2... I just don't have the time for those ones. Please if you want to have some fun do this countdown with me.

Week 1 - Terminator (this week)
Week 2 - Aliens
Week 3 - The Abyss
Week 4 - Terminator 2
Week 5 - True Lies
Week 6 - Titanic

And I leave you with some Scream 2 :D

Mickey: It's Bullshit generalization. Many sequels have surpassed their originals.
Randy: Oh yeah?
Cici: Name one.
Film Class Guy #1: Aliens. Far better than the first.
Cici: Yeah, well, theres no accounting for taste.
Randy: Thank you. Ridley Scott Rules. Name Another.
Film Class Guy #2: No way. Aliens is a classic. "Get away from her, you Bitch!"
Randy: I believe the line is "Stay away from her, you Bitch." This is a film class right?
Film Class Guy #2: Got you. Whatever. You know what I mean.
Randy: Name another.
Mickey: T-2.
Cici: You got a Hard-on for Cameron.
Randy: A big one.

Clash of the Titans teaser out!

2009-11-10T20:53:00.001-08:00

HELL YES!!! CHECK IT OUT. Exactly what I wanted in this film!

Rocky IV

2009-11-08T17:11:00.001-08:00

So, my friends came over and saw my Rocky bluray boxset, then opted to "see what Rocky IV looked like." Of course this turned into watching the whole film. I have never been the biggest fan of IV, but the more I see it the more I warm up to it. Although, I will never come to terms with that goddamn robot...

The overall structure of the film is pretty amazing. Its like a huge montage with little 2 minute spots of drama to "push the story". The fights in this one are pretty damn good. In Drago VS Apollo the hits hurt. Every time Drago smashes Apollo's head you feel it in your bones. There is one point when Apollo's head is slammed into minced meat and sweat explodes off of his fro in slow motion. An excellent reason to see it on bluray.

Rather than focusing on the Rocky Vs Drago fight I am more impressed by the preparation for it. Here's some things you can do to get ready to fight a roided out Russia hard ass:

Travel to Siberia

Lift stones

Lift stones with a rope

Lift a cart filled with people, dead man style

Pull a cart like a horse

Lift a downed carriage

One armed push-ups

Shadow boxing under a rope

Out run Russian spys and make them crash in the snow

And RUN TO THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN!

In case you forgot...

Another Enter the Man Cave Give Away!

2009-11-08T02:07:00.000-08:00

If you go to this post and be one of the first 7 to comment you get a Boondock Saints 2 poster! Check it out and spread the word about the Enter the Man Cave blog!!!

Thanks Geoff!!!!!

Another Machete Poster Out

2009-11-05T21:39:00.000-08:00

For the Alba fan boys.....

Rocky

2009-11-05T19:44:00.000-08:00

Just watched Rocky on bluray! Forgot how damn good of a movie it is. I will be moving through the Rocky Collection this month and posting some thoughts on the series as I do. I picked up the bluray collection and so far the transfers are looking excellent. In Rocky the HD shines when Rocky is jogging in the early morning and it literally shines off Carl Weathers' chest in the last fight.

Everyone has seen this movie so there is not much I can say. I don't remember it being so raw (it has been 8 years since I've seen it though) and I don't remember Paulie being so awkward about his sister's virginity. Other than that it was the same old ass kicking movie I saw when I was a kid. We shall see how the next five films do in comparison.

Favorite Lines:

Mickey: You're gonna eat lightnin' and you're gonna crap thunder!

Rocky: Don't smoke that. It makes your breath like garbage.

Rocky: I think we make a real sharp couple of coconuts - I'm dumb, you're shy, whaddaya think, huh?

Hard Asses of Horror

2009-10-31T08:55:00.001-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I haven't post much this month, because it is the month of the horror film and Becky and I have been spending most of our movie watching time on horror films. So I'm going to bring some horror to the Action Effect, with my top Hard Asses of Horror. Enjoy.

Ripley

Ripley has been my favorite character in the world of film since I was nine years old (when saw Aliens for the first time). In the first Alien she loses an entire crew to a nihilistic star beast, which terrifies me to this day. The second film her maternal powers and clumsy use of a pulse rifle keep her alive, where a unit of seasoned marines couldn't hack it. She even has a futuristic forklift (power loader) battle with the huge alien queen. This lady is a force to reckoned with. Ripley is the essence of hero in my book. A normal space trucker thrown into the grinder against aliens, all the while she keeps the things that matter ahead of her to survive. Like getting Jonesy (the cat) out alive in Alien, it's the simple human things that drive her and keep her thinking instead of being rash. That's what a true life hero experiences. They aren't products of screenwriters. They are products of keeping it cool in impossible situations saving the things that matter in life.

Hard Ass Lines: "You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage," and obviously "Get away from her, you *bitch!*"

Ash

Ash in housewares is almost at divine status in my life. Sure in Evil Dead he's kind of a little bitch and whines a lot, but by Dead by Dawn he is ready to rockin roll with a chainsaw, a maniac laugh, and no fear of the Necronamican scum spawns. But the hard ass comes to full fruition in Army of Darkness. How many goddamn amazing one liners does he have in that movie? From being a scared little bitch to commanding a castle against a deadyte army, this guy really kicked some ass. Well there is the fact that no matter how much of a hard ass he becomes, he still is a coward and loud mouth braggart, but hell who wouldn't be? Cause it's good to be king.

Hard Ass Line: "Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun."

Peter in Dawn of the Dead

The ultimate HNIC (if don't know what that is look it up). Ken Foree pulls together what I think is the best performance in all the ___ of the Dead movies. Peter never shy's away from a fight, even against an army of raiders. The only thing he can do is make it harder on them to rob the mall. This man is also the king of zombie head shots, which seals him as an ultimate zombie killin hard ass. But what really brings him to the top of the series is when he stays behind to hold the zombies off and is about two seconds away from blowin his brains out.... Then has a change of heart and melee's his way through zombies to get on a helicopter just in time to escape.

Hard Ass Line: Something my granddad used to tell us. You know Macumba? Voodoo. My granddad was a priest in Trinidad. He used to tell us, "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."

Jack Crow in Vampires

James Wood's masterfully pulls off a Carpenteresque hard ass in the vein of Russel and Piper. This south westerner hunts vampires while they sleep for the papacy, because he had to kill his own father after he turned into a vampire. Bad blood. In one of the cooler moments in cinema he uses a charred vamp skull to strike a match on. Then there's the issue of padre's wood, where Crow constantly gives shit to a young priest about getting wood from seeing him kick ass.

Hard Ass Line: " Can I ask ya somethin, Padre? When I was kickin? your ass back there... you get a little wood?"

Sex Machine and Frost

From Dusk Till Dawn is filled with hard asses, but two men seal the deal; Tom Savini as Sex Machine and Fred Williamson as Frost. Sex Machine not only has vampire killing prowess, he has a cock canon revolver that only God knows how he fires. When the gore starts to flow Sex Machine gets his and becomes one of the few who make it... but not too long. Frost, the other pinnacle of hard ass muthas, is an old Vietnam vet who uses his sheer size to rip through vampire scum. This is fully manifested when he tears the heart out of the biggest vampire in the famed Titty Twister with his bare hands (or bear hands one could say), then Sex Machine kindly gets the assist with a number 2 pencil. That's hard ass synergy if I've ever seen it. Frost is such a hard ass that not only does he have a Nam story to tell, but also when he becomes a vampire, within moments he is commanding the entire flock of vampire bats.

Hard Ass Line by Frost: "I came to my senses. I realized I killed the entire V.C. Squad singlehanded. There was blood... and chunks of yellow flesh clinging to my bayonet. To this day, I don't remember..."

Hard Ass Line by Sex Machine: "Now, let's kill that fucking band."

Loomis

Dr. Loomis comes off as a little crazy sometimes, but what do you expect from the man who single handedly takes on the essence of evil? AND I am not talking about the egotistical Rob Zombie Loomis, who comes off as completely mad and self serving. We are talking about Pleasence, who by the end of the series (at least his time in it) is a scarred seasoned hard ass, who totes a snub-nose revolver ready to blow Myers away any chance he can get.

Hard Ass Line: "You've fooled them, haven't you Michael? But not me."

Express Elevator to Hell: Aliens as Apocalyptic Literature

2009-10-21T01:55:00.000-07:00

Introduction:

An oblong skull beneath the texture of a cold, obsidian exoskeleton. Eyes enwrapped in a shroud of darkness that renders them invisible. A snake for a tail with metallic daggers. The vision of the alien beast is as fearsome as the images found in John’s Revelation. James Cameron’s Aliens is a modern apocalyptic film that warns against the world falling to the mercy of greed. The science-fiction film’s sense of hopelessness is weaved with the apocalyptic themes of menacing symbolism, pessimism, a cataclysmic end, and optimistic dualism. In place of material lust, Cameron promotes duty as a means of confronting the beast.

In a post-Vietnam world, Cameron wrote with great pessimism to illustrate a parable to a war he thought was about “protecting American business interests in South East Asia.”[1] In his day, Cameron saw major corporations filling global power gaps and the most technological nation in the world failing to defeat a far more primitive enemy. Cameron alludes to Vietnam when he pits a technologically-advanced force against a primal beast with only its numbers as a weapon. In the end, the Marines fail and Ripley must confront the monster herself.

Cameron sets up Ripley, the female protagonist, as a savior of the innocent, as she forges a maternal bond with an orphaned child named Newt that represents a vision of humanity uninfluenced by avarice. The opposite side of human potential, inclined towards malice and greed, is emulated by Burke, the corporate entity who observes the Marines. The outgrowth of such greed is the alien. This creature melds morbid mechanical imagery with the human figure to create a beast that serves as a 20^th-century terror imbedded in any viewer’s conscience. This terror can only be wiped from existence in a cataclysmic explosion, which is a strong apocalyptic theme found in many of Cameron’s films.

Dualism is imbedded into the storyline: good versus evil, innocence opposed to corruption, and duty against survival. These conflicting ideas galvanize the conclusion of the film, as two maternal figures—one a destroyer and one a savior –battle over Newt. Cameron has no intention of creating an absolute dualism because in every situation, the good triumphs. The evil force that is smashed is the aliens, which are awoken by Weyland Yutani Corporation’s voracity.

Cameron’s Apocalypses:

Aliens was released in 1986 as a sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien. Alien was primarily a horror film, where the stakes of failure only resulted in the characters’ phenomenal destruction. Cameron escalates the risks by endangering all of humanity at the hands of a giant corporation, Weyland Yutani. The evil corporation’s scheme in the first film is to capture an alien organism at the expense of the crew. Their ploy is not only unsuccessful, but it is responsible for the deaths of the entire crew save Ripley. At the climax of the film, she shoots the alien beast into oblivion. Aliens begins where Alien ended, but it is no longer just a horror film. Cameron transforms his sequel into a “Vietnam metaphor,” filled with military power and war-like violence.[2] The reception of Aliens was outstanding, garnering two Oscars and seven nominations. The success of Aliens and its director could be because of the apocalyptic themes in his films. Being the director of the quintessential apocalypse series, the Terminator films, James Cameron has sealed himself as the powerhouse in the apocalyptic genre. In an analysis of apocalypse in popular culture, biblical scholar Jon Paulien says Cameron “has shown considerable interest in biblical scholarship and may” intend using “the themes of the Apocalypse.”[3] Even though Paulien is referring to the Terminator films, Cameron is sure to continue these themes in other films.

Cameron uses revelatory themes to create a story about Ellen Ripley--the sole survive of the first contact with the destructive and valueless alien species. After discovering that hundreds of people may have been in contact with the creature, Ripley must return to the dreaded planet, LV.426, to face her greatest fear, the alien. When on the planet, the motley squad of Marines realizes they are underequipped to handle the aliens. The stakes rise when Ripley takes Newt, a lone survivor on the colony, under her wings. The incorporation of Newt elevates the scope of the series to include those typically seen as safe from danger. Cameron made the alien threat real to all humans, not just Marines and space truckers. By putting a little girl in danger, Cameron stabs audiences in the gut with an attack on their protective nature over children, saying that this little girl could be anyone’s sister or daughter and she can be killed any second by an alien. The threat could not be any closer, as Newt is snatched by the alien, leaving only Ripley to rescue her. Cameron takes the guns from the Marines and gives them to Ripley, because he trusts her maternal duty more than the aimless power of the Marines. When rescuing Newt, Ripley runs into her antithesis, the queen alien. This is the mother of all the creatures who have haunted her dreams and killed her friends. The final conflict between the two mothers is the last thread Cameron knits in his extremely successful film, Aliens.

The Maternal Savior: Ripley

Aliens is filled with stark symbolism, which Cameron mends together into a master tapestry that warns against what the powers of greed can unleash. The symbol for a maternal prophetic archetype is Ripley. At the start of the film, she is encased in a hibernation pod floating through the void of space. A salvage crew finds her derelict ship and she is awoken from her slumber. While she is asleep, Ripley’s peaceful face is juxtaposed over the contour of Earth as it fades to a new scene. Cameron is not only establishing Ripley as the heroine, but as a last hope for Earth. Her awakening is like a call from God. As she tells her story of survival, she is unrelenting. Ripley foretells of a fall, predicting the destruction wrought by the beast she previously encountered in the first Alien film.

RIPLEY: Look, I can see where this is going. But I'm telling you those things exist. Back on that planetoid is an alien ship and on that ship are thousands of eggs. Thousands. Do you understand? I suggest you find it, using the flight recorder's data. Find it and deal with it –before one of your survey teams comes back with a little surprise...
VAN LEUWEN: Thank you, Officer Ripley. That will be...

RIPLEY: ...because just one of those things managed to kill my entire crew, within twelve hours of hatching...
VAN LEUWEN: Thank you, that will be all.
RIPLEY: That's not all, Goddamnit! If those things get back here, that will be all. Then you can just kiss it good-bye, Jack! Just kiss it goodbye.[4]

Her foretelling and insight into the dangers of the aliens is equivalent to apocalyptic writers using their narrative to forecast a fall of the current system as a result of its own sin and ignorance. Ripley tells them they need to “deal with” the alien planet or “you can kiss” everything goodbye, which purports that they will “experience the consequences of their own sinful actions.”[5] Ripley’s words fall on closed ears because the corporate gurus have already colonized the planet. Instead of recognizing her bravery and learning from her experience, she is demoralized with the revocation of her status as a flight officer. Comparable to the plight of ancient prophets, the powers in control are often threatened by prophetic messages and as a result, prophets are persecuted. When Ripley’s foretelling is later solidified and the company loses contact with the colony, she is asked to return to the planet as a technical advisor.

At the colony, Ripley expresses her full potential when she is converted into the maternal figure for Newt. Cameron uses Newt as a strong symbol of human innocence to show what is at risk if the aliens are ever let loose on all of humanity. The scars on Newt’s innocence are already seen as she stares off into nothingness, while Ripley tries to clean her smudged and worn face. The dirt is fully cleansed upon the conclusion of the film when the aliens are dead and the corporate influence is defeated. Innocence is no longer polluted by those evil forces. However, it is not by the force of the brash Marines that good conquers. It is by the courage of Ripley who faces the beast alone.

Survival and Duty:

Cameron creates two types of soldiers in this film: the Marines, who are there as violent force, and Ripley, who fights to save an innocent girl. The Marines symbolize a type of violence that is strictly for violence’s sake. They are sent in for one reason: to destroy anything that moves. This does not separate the Marines from the aliens. The aliens are an infestation; they need hosts to perpetuate their species and survive. To acquire hosts, they violently steal human beings and cocoon them until they can be impregnated with an alien. The Marines are not as infectious, but their survival depends on raw firepower to destroy enemies. These men do not fight for duty or valor, but because they thrive on aggression and military carnage. Ripley, on the other hand, is a reluctant soldier. Her maternal duty sends her into hell against an alien queen and numerous beasts in order to save Newt. Ripley succeeds because Cameron believes that violence for the sake of force is always going to result in failure. Yet, when the fight is for the good, success is sure to come.

Burke: The Great Whore of Weyland Yutani

If Newt is a symbol of human innocence, then Burke is a symbol of human pollution. Cameron renders Burke the “great whore of aliens.” The imagery of a “whore” was used by Hebrew prophets and apocalyptic writers as a “graphic [metaphor] for spiritual unfaithfulness,” because whores tempt those around them into sin.[6] In every situation, Burke tries to persuade others into wrongdoing. He tempts them not to destroy the aliens, because of his desire to profit from the discovery of the alien. When Ripley suggests nuking the entire colony to exterminate the alien, Burke can only say, “this installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it… this is clearly an important species we are dealing with and I don’t think that you, or I, or anybody has the right to arbitrarily exterminate them.” Burke’s true intentions come out when Ripley confronts him about trying to save alien specimens for the company. Burke argues, “[t]hose two specimens are worth millions to the bio-weapons division. Now if you’re smart, we can both come out of this as heroes and we will be set up for life.” Using the temptation of money, Burke cannot persuade Ripley because she understands the great threat of the alien falling into the hands of the Weyland Yutani Corporation. His treachery is revealed to be even deeper when the viewers find out he is responsible for purposely sending colonists to the derelict ship in order to be infected by the aliens. Burke defends his sins by claiming that he did not want to make a “security situation” out of dooming the colony, because when “administration steps in” there will be “no exclusive rights for anybody.” By acting out of greed to obtain the alien species for the “company,” he has unleashed a beast that is the potential downfall of all humanity. Simply put, greed unleashes an infestation upon humanity that takes people and turns them into a beast.

This beast is Burke’s demise. Just when he thinks he has escaped from the angry Marines, who have finally uncovered his sins, he meets his end. He runs away and locks everyone in a room with the aliens, only to put himself face to face with another alien. This parallels the demise of the great whore in Revelation, who is riding on a scarlet beast. The very scarlet beast she rides on “will strip her naked, eat her flesh, and burn her remains with fire.”[7] While Burke’s death is not as explicitly gruesome, the viewers are left to imagine his pain, learning that “evil has within itself the seeds of its own destruction.”[8]

A Beast for the 20^th Century :

The fruits of Burke’s evil prove to be one of the most iconic horror images ever: the alien. The alien was designed by Swiss artist, H.R. Giger for the first film, and expanded on by Cameron in Aliens. Cameron wanted to maintain the creature that the director of the first film, Ridley Scott, described as“[c]radled between dead flesh and sexuality.”[9] The alien is a biomechanoid, which is a menacing blend of biology and machinery. By making a monster half biological and half mechanical, and by draping it in sexual imagery, Giger constructed an apocalyptic beast for the 20^th century. The “Book of Daniel” explained one of four beasts “like a lion with eagles’ wings.”[10] Later, in John’s Revelation, he makes his beasts more menacing, because it “looked like a leopard, but had the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion.”[11] To attack the sensibility of the modern mind, alien designers fused a post-Vietnam sexual obsession with a mechanically dead monster.

Cameron utilizes the imagery created by Giger to terrify the audience. When he juxtaposes a horrified child with the ominous figure of the alien, he uses this beast as a threatening symbol of the rotten fruit of greed. The alien’s life cycle also provides insight into what the filmmakers thought to be the nature of greed. The alien must find a human host, which it impregnates through the mouth, with a Facehugger. The gestated alien grows until it rips its way out of the host’s chest cavity. Eventually, the alien develops in size and must collect hosts to infect and to propagate its species. Cameron sees the products of greed such as materialism, selfishness, and anything that perpetuates insatiable hunger, as a beast. This beast is viral. It will lay an egg in the innocent person’s chest and replace their heart with a growing monster that will soon destroy its incubator. Cameron’s tapestry of symbolism is not easy to watch. When viewers see an alien ripping out of a woman’s chest that is cocooned to the wall, it is a disturbing sight. Cameron’s use of the beast to explain the nature of greed coats the film in a pessimistic tone.

Pessimism runs rampant in Aliens, much in part due to the time in which Cameron was writing. As child of Vietnam Era politics and the age of corporate growth, Cameron’s outlook on the forces in power throughout the world was distrustful. He explains:

If you look at places of major corporate culpability, let say the Bhopal disaster in India, where 3000 people were killed because a major international corporation cut corners on safety. There’s many many instances through history just by kind of negligence corporations have been responsible for many many deaths, but always kind of off the radar always in distant remote places. If it’s gonna happen it’s gonna happen on a colony.[12] [sic]

This pessimism manifests into subtle symbols, such as the colony’s name. When the colony of LV. 426 is revealed, the viewers see a barren and ashen planet that seems to be in the belly of a storm. Soon the name of the colony, “Hadley’s Hope,” is revealed. Cameron illustrates that the only hope on the barren world is a small colony of terraformers. As the Marines enter the atmosphere, Private Hudson yells “[w]e're on an express elevator to hell; going down!” Cameron prepares the audience for the hellish planet that he introduces in his script as “godforsaken.”[13] Cameron is pointing out that a Godless environment invites the evil that soon ensues by the pens of corporate monsters and the claws of parasitic beasts.

A terraformer best explains how the aliens reached Hadley’s Hope: “[s]ome honch in a cushy office on Earth says go look at a grid reference in the middle of nowhere, we look. They don't say why, and I don't ask.” This “honch” is later revealed to be Burke. With the infestation of Hadley’s Hope, Cameron paints a desolate picture with two elements. The first element he sees as the destruction of the smallest strands of hope is greed, which is embodied by the Weyland Yutani Corporation. The corporation tries again to captures this nihilistic beast by destroying all hope on LV. 426. The second element that destroys hope is the byproduct of greed, the alien.

The cynical Marine, Lt. Hudson, embodies the pessimistic outrage of the audience. Gale Hurd, the film’s producer, says, “Hudson is the voice of the audience.”[14] Cameron wants the audience to be as outraged and pessimistic as Hudson. Every time a situation goes awry, Hudson’s glum comments make him the loudest of the Marines. When the drop ship crashes and the Marines are trapped, Hudson cries, “[t]hat's it man, game over man, game over!” This is not the end of Hudson’s ranting. He continues with famous one-liners such as, “[h]ey, maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, pal,” and “[s]eventeen days?! Hey man, I don't wanna’ rain on your parade, but we're not gonna last seventeen hours.”[sic] The loudest voice among the Marines is the one of a coward. In fact, the only thing Hudson is optimistic about is nuking the planet and escaping.

Shaking the Foundations: “The only way to be sure”

In Aliens, most of the evil forces (save the queen) are destroyed in a cataclysmic explosion. The premise of shaking the foundations was used by apocalyptic writers, because they saw a world enveloped in evil. Cameron expressed a world where evil has infested and all hope is lost. Ripley draws the same conclusions that most people would, “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.” In fact, “It's the only way to be sure,” that the evil unleashed on LV. 426 is destroyed. As the colony is starting to explode, Cameron utilizes the film’s score as a countdown until the crescendos as the entire site erupts into flames. The scene not only shakes the foundation in the narrative but it leaves the viewer in a battle-fatigued state, asking “what just happened?” The film creates a climatic emotional catharsis for the audience, which leaves them wanting the experience to end. It does not end though; Ripley still must battle the queen.

Ripley’s function as a mother pitted against the queen’s motherly role is one of the many dualisms in Aliens. Dualism is a backbone of many apocalyptic stories, because it illustrates a storyline where good is an underdog and evil forces are in control. Ultimately, the good will overcome the evil. Cameron establishes the film’s dualisms without making them absolute. Human innocence overcomes human greed, when Burke is killed and Newt lives. Military violence fails against the aliens, but maternal duty defeats them. Ripley, the symbol of motherhood, fights the queen alien, who is the mother of all the beasts. In the end, Ripley prevails and saves Newt from one last peril. The epic battle concludes with Ripley tossing the queen alien into the endless black void of space. Cameron utilizes the dualistic storyline to show the audience that the forces of good are in constant peril, but in the end, they will overcome evil.

Conclusion:

In Cameron’s Aliens, the forces of good are greater than those of evil. Because the piece is essentially pessimistic, the evil appears to dominate most of the film. It reflects upon an anti-military and anti-corporation sentiment that was held by many people during the decades after Vietnam. Cameron sees a world where a giant corporation can unleash a destructive force (aliens) so horrid that all of humanity (Newt) is at stake. LV. 426 is destroyed by this manifestation of evil and Cameron hints at Earth’s possible destruction as well. Cameron’s solution to the alien and the forces of greed is Ripley. Within the film’s framework of dualism, annihilation is Cameron’s choice of the method in which good overcomes evil. This can be seen when Ripley throws her antithesis, the queen alien, out of the ship’s airlock, successfully annihilating the entire alien race. Aliens proves to be an entertaining yet substantial film, filled with the apocalyptic themes that audiences have gravitated to since Biblical times.

Bibliography

Alien. Dir. Ridley Scott. 1979.

Aliens Special Edition. Dir. James Cameron. 1991.

Aliens Special Edition: Commentary Track. Dir. James Cameron. Perf. James Cameron and Gale Hurd.
1991.

Cameron, James. "Aliens Script by James Cameron." 28 May 1985. Daily Script. 10 11 2008
.

Cameron, James. Interview with James Cameron Don Shay. 1986.

Farmer, Ronald L. Revelation. Chalice Commentaries for Today. St. Loius: Chalice Press, 2005.

Giger, H. R. Giger's Alien. Beverly Hills: Big O Publishing, 1979.

Holy Bible: New Living Translation. Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004.

Paulien, Jon. "The Lion/Lamb King: Reading the Apocalypse from Popular Culture." Ed. Barr, David L.

Reading the Book of Revelation: A Resource for Students. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003. 151-161.

Scott, Ridley. Alien Evolution Mark Kermode. 2001.

[1]Aliens Special Edition: Commentary Track. Dir. James Cameron. Perf. James Cameron and Gale Hurd. 1991.

[2] Cameron, James. Interview with James Cameron Don Shay. 1986.

[3] Paulien, Jon. "The Lion/Lamb King: Reading the Apocalypse from Popular Culture." Barr, David L. Reading the Book of Revelation: A Resource for Students. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003. 151-161. Pg. 152.

[4] Cameron, James. "Aliens Script by James Cameron." 28 May 1985. Daily Script. 10 11 2008 .

[5] Farmer, Ronald L. Revelation. Danvers: Chalice Press, 2005. Pg 82.

[6] Farmer, Ronald L. Revelation. Danvers: Chalice Press, 2005. Pg. 112.

[7] Revelation 17:16.

[8] Farmer, Ronald L. Revelation. Danvers: Chalice Press, 2005. Pg. 116.

[9] Scott, Ridley. Alien Evolution Mark Kermode. 2001.

[10] Daniel 7:4.

[11] Revelation 13:2.

[12] Aliens Special Edition: Commentary Track. Dir. James Cameron. Perf. James Cameron and Gale Hurd. 1991.

[13] Cameron, James. "Alien Script by James Cameron." 28 May 1985. Daily Script. 10 11 2008 .

[14] Aliens Special Edition: Commentary Track. Dir. James Cameron. Perf. James Cameron and Gale Hurd. 1991.

Law Abiding Citizen

2009-10-19T08:51:00.001-07:00

LAC was a fun movie. It wasn't too heavy and got the ball rolling quick. In the first 10 minutes Butler's wife and child are murdered and the killer has already cut a deal with Foxx to get a short prison sentence. The film takes on the classic revenge story of Death Wish and adds a Saw twist. Butler is basically and action version of Jigsaw. He builds machines and other things to kill people without being in the room. Like cell phones that blow your head off or ties that strangle you to death. GOOD CLEAN FUN.

The first two acts of the film were excellent, but by the third act something had gone missing... They turned Butler into a maniac, which doesn't jive because you are set up to root for him. Then protagonist is switched from Butler to Foxx, who was previously shown as a thin skinned, no back boned, slimy lawyer willing to cut deals to win a case. Well hes not that bad, but it is to close for comfort.

All in all if you want to see a decent movie with some good action and cool deaths check it out.

A very short assessment!

Real Men Don't Look at Explosions: Proved here.

2009-10-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd share.

Expendables leaked trailer!

2009-10-14T13:30:00.000-07:00

http://film-book.com/stallones-expendables-promo-movie-trailer/

Check it out!!!!!!!!!!!

Machete just got even cooler

2009-10-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

Check this out.

This is another movie I have been waiting years. There has been little fruit to satisfy my excitement until lately. First of all Steven Seagal that man who brought us so many great action films will be in it (I think hes a drug cartel lol). Then there was the news of Di Nero and Don Johnson! With Trejo this cast is looking almost as good as Sly's Expendables.

I will leave you with this picture of Tom Savini.

Expendables: These Pics say it all

2009-10-08T12:18:00.000-07:00

I can't contain how excited I am...

Everywhere Sly is in this film he looks pissed.

THEY HAVE YOUR FAMILY!

PWND

Vigilante

2009-10-07T23:43:00.000-07:00

Check this trailer out!

A Gamers Request: LEFT 4 DEAD 15 BUCKS ON STEAM

2009-09-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

Alright guys I have been a gamer since I was 9 years old and not much has changed other than I can't play them all day long.

The game I have been playing is Left 4 Dead. Becky also is a avid player. I need more friends that play so we can get some good Infected Vs Survivors games going. If you have thought about getting the game cause you love zombie films NOW IS THE TIME. It is only 15 bucks. If you already have it post your SteamId in the comments.

Add me with: bruenorbattlehammer85@hotmail.com

Add Bmovie Becky with : BeckySayers

I also play some ps3 games online like Zombie Apocalypse and Turtles in Time Reshelled... So hook it up with your ps3 name

My PS3 Name: Game_Over_Hudson

Thanks all and hope to game with you!

Best Action Music Video of the 80's

2009-09-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

Just saw a great show last night. Chickenfoot, which is comprised of Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, Chad Smith, and epic guitarist Joe Satriani. This is one of the best shows I've seen in a while and most likely the best or second best Hagar show I've seen. Check out Chickenfoot's cd by the same title.

Seeing Sammy reminded my of two 80's gems in the music video cosmos.

VOA

And for an epic bonus Sammy and Stallone team up for Winner Takes It All from the film Over the Top.

Death Wish Remake Rumor

2009-09-24T20:00:00.001-07:00

HOW DID I MISS THIS???????

This is exciting to me, especially with Stallone interested. Gonna watch Copland again and see what the total potential is! Check it out.

All from Variety.

"After a recent resurgence with sequels "Rocky Balboa" and the upcoming "Rambo," Sylvester Stallone is taking aim at an MGM remake of the 1974 Charles Bronson starrer "Death Wish."

Stallone is in talks to direct and star as an ordinary man who goes vigilante after his wife and daughter are attacked. Set to write the script are Michael Ferris and John Brancato, whose credits include "Terminator 3" and "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins."

Paramount Pictures controls some "Death Wish" rights and has an option to partner. MGM will make the pic whether or not Par opts in, and if a writers strike is settled in short order, MGM will try to start production before March. Stallone's partner, Kevin King, will be a producer."

""We are looking at our library to determine which potential franchise properties make the most sense for us to produce, and 'Death Wish' was clearly one of that jumped out," said MGM chief operating officer Rick Sands. "We hope to get a deal done with Sylvester Stallone to direct and star, and like the 'Rocky' and 'Rambo' films, we see this as another potential franchise for him.""

Amazing Foreign Poster: Death Wish 3

2009-09-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

In ancient times some believed that words and symbols carried the power to reveal the essence of a named thing.

This poster fully expressed the essence of Death Wish 3.

Alien Prequel: Alien Origins?

2009-09-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

There is some mystery around this rumor ridden project. First it was that revealed that a talented music video/commercial director was going to direct it. I went through his work a while back he has some talent.

Check it out.

So about a month and a half ago it was released that Fox wants Scott to direct.

Of course I am happy that the latest rumor is that Scott will direct another installment in my beloved Alien saga. But does he still have it in him? The first Alien coming from Scott is almost a fluke of a young man's desire to shock and blow audiences away. His style has changed so much that it worries me.

He has also become more hit and miss as time moves on, with more misses than hits.

Tell me what you guys think.

Should Aliens just be left alone after the atrocious AVP's or should Scott come back do a what looks to be an Alien Origins?

Scariest trailer ever: Alien

2009-09-19T21:36:00.000-07:00

Scariest trailer ever. And my second favorite movie :D

Dogs of War

2009-09-15T22:53:00.000-07:00

Walken at his best here. Sadly it is a forgotten gem in action.

The Good: At the start of the movie we see Walken driving a jeep full of hard asses through explosions. This just sets the stage for the end fiasco/coo that Walken stages with a small band of mercs to over throw an African country. He goes to scout the country and ends up getting beat half to death, then like a man's-man he comes back to overthrow it. Of course he has fellow hardass Tom Berenger to come with him and let loose the DOGS OF WAR.

Oh yeah and Walken keeps a pistol in his fridge. I hear lead has the same effect as baking soda...

The Bad: Oppressive African governments and dipshit neocolonialists trying to take advantage of them. Walken has it in for both of them.

The Badass: EXPLOSIONS! The entire end sequence is a chain reaction of cowboy mercs with automatic grenade launchers blowing the shit out of a military base. Rambo 2 is really the only thing that can compete... AND ITS CLOSE AT THAT.

The Food: I suggest getting some meat filled tacos from a street vendor and bring it home or something to the extent. Anything meaty with flour around it... cooked on a flat grill. Gyro? I dunno.

Check this one out for some fun. It's not as trashy as my review for it believe me. It actually has more than action and explosions. Commentary on neocolonialism in African.... ect.

This trailer should entice you to rediscover this gem.

9

2009-09-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Not going to spend much time on this one, but I really loved this film. The action was good and the animation even better, but what really shined was the themes. Too many times are we plagued with apocalyptic looks at the world, that express a horrible futility of the human spirit. I think people have an obsession with the END OF THINGS, because their lives are mundane and boring. It is badass to think of sawing off a shotgun and killing zombies or hunting down a leather clad gang of petrol pirates, but people just obsess about this to avoid the simple fact that every day they will get up and go to work and nothing exciting will happen. No wave, no epidemic, just the same thing over and over again. So we get films focused on fantastical elements of the end of things, (upcoming 2012) which are usually fun, but people take this shit too serious. What makes 9 different is that it doesn't focus on the end but tells a story of creation. It is more than an apocalyptic film it is a creation story. Sure humans create war, famine, death, and disease (we are the 4 Horsemen). "So what," 9 says. What does this mean for the human spirit? Have traded it for cold technology? It means that we need to keep the spirit, soul, or whatever you want to call it, because that is humanities creative agent. That is what 9 is saying. It is not just saying "here is the end look how scary it is... oh no." It's something deeper. So check it out.

To Live and Die in LA

2009-09-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

I had always seen this in my local video store when I was a kid and always wanted to see it. Finally got to seeing it and it was pretty damn good.

The Good: William Petersen plays our "hero," who is a secret service agent cracking down on counter fitting. Being a Friedkin flick the main character is a hard ass who knows how to do his job, but is a complete dick(see Hackman in French Connection). Petersen uses a stripper for information and sex. Then when she butts heads with him, he threatens to revoke her parole if she doesn't do what he says.

The Bad: DAFOE! I mean if you split up his last name it is Da Foe, so he was born to play a bad guy. He doesn't disappoint as an eccentric LA artist who has a knack for printing money and killing secret service agents.

The Ugly: Weird 80's sex scene between DAFOE and some theatre chick... So modern and vogue... oh and disgusting.

The Badass: Petersen's verbal ownage of his new partner who keeps bitching out on taking down DAFOE. "You ain't my partner! You ain't even my fucking friend. In fact, let me give you a little piece of advice: you better get your ass into protection, baby! Because you ain't shit on the streets! You understand that? You ain't got the nuts! Kiss my ass! Pussy motherfucker!" After the new asshole he receives, he gladly helps.

The violence is sparse in this film, but when it goes down it is raw and real. They did some great shotgun make up effects and head shots.

The Food: Get some mexicali food for this like some chalupas or nacho's with all the fixins (jalapeno, Monterey jack, black olives, beans, corn and some carne asada.

I recommend this movie if you liked the French Connection and badass 80's technotronic soundtracks.

Gamer

2009-09-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

Given the title and the macho trailers that Gamer had, it really lacked on the action side. Most of the action in the trailers was in the first sequence of the film. Just as the film feels like it's going to get exciting it slows down again. After almost coming to a halt Gamer dupes us into a anti-climatic ending. Maybe they ran over budget and couldn't kick some ass because these are the guys who did Crank, which really didn't slow down for much. Obviously there is some cool stuff about the film, but it's really not worth seeing (at least in theatres) for the few shining moments.

The exciting thing about the film is directors Neveldine/Taylor's style is being refined. Sure the script and pacing didn't work, but N/T's exploitative digital style filled with cuts that shouldn't work (but always do), an odd sense of pornography, and action sequences shot on roller blades really exploded on screen. If these guys ever make a bigger name for themselves spotting their films just based on style will be like a horror nerd spotting a Dario Argento film. They just bring something unique to the screen, granted half the people don't like it, but they don't get how badass it is to have two directors who used to shoot extreme sport making a movie. So I am still looking forward to their next project (may they write something better this time).

Oh almost forgot, Gerard Butler is badass as always in this film.

Enter the Man Cave and Win Asskickin Ash

2009-09-01T12:22:00.000-07:00

Alright guys (EDIT) and GALS.

If you haven't been over to the Man Cave now is the time, becaue Geoff is giving away a kick ass and certified (with photo) signed Ash action figure. So Bruce Campbell fans get your ass over there!

Click Here to go directly to the post.

Here's his rules if you want to check it out before clicking.

"So the rules are simple. I am going to use True Blood's bye week this Sunday (9/6) to announce the randomly selected winner of this autographed figure. The best way to win is to gain the most entries into this lottery and you can do so by following the requirements below:

1) Get one entry for commenting on this post

2) Get another by becoming a Follower or should I say Cave Dweller. If you already follow me, let me know and you get an entry.

3) Get one more entry for posting about this giveway on your blog

4) Get another entry by adding me to your site's Blog List

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I can give you more entries as well. But I don't want to sound like an attention whore or anything like that, so only follow me on these networks if you would like to. They are just bonuses.

DEADLINE TO ENTER IS 6PM ET THIS SUNDAY (9/6)!!!!

At first I was thinking of doing something like a $25 gift card, so the giveaway could be spent without limits by the winner. Ya know like J. Astro could buy some cheap DVDs for the Bin, Frog Queen could buy some materials for creating her Halloween art, Allison could use it for something at school...et cetera, et cetera and so forth.

But since this is ETMC's first giveaway, I want it to be the party to end all parties, a pajama jammy-jam...and what better way than to leadoff things with something signed by BC himself. A figure of Ashley J. Williams no less!"

Inglorious Basterds

2009-08-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

QT's Inglorious Basterd's is in my opinion his best film. This by no means is an objective analysis. When I was a child my dad had a knack for old school ww2 films. Every weekend that we didn't go to the cinema, we would throw on The Longest Day, Kelly's Heroes, Dirty Dozen, Tora Tora, ect (you get the point). My dad in his infinite wisdom would say "the Nazi's were a worthy adversary." This film reminded me of the old times watching people kick Nazi ass with my dad. So nostalgia plays a huge part in my love for IB.

First off, most the old ww2 films that QT is post modernizing were clocking in at over 2.5 hrs. Dirty Dozen is long and only has one small action sequence at the end, but the movie is phenomenal. IG is also long and most people I talk to think he should have cut a half hour out. For audiences today he might have considered it.

The Good: There is two stories with good guys, but my favorite "good" guy is Eli Roth, who wields a baseball bat when it comes to Nazi torturing. I never really like Roth, but him playing a pissed off Jew with one goal: KILL NAZI, really brought out the mandom in him.

The Bad: The single best performance in this film is by Christoph Waltz, who plays a Jew hunting Nazi. The first sequence of the film sets him up as one smart, sick, and villainous Nazi. "Where does the hawk look? He looks in the barn, he looks in the attic, he looks in the cellar, he looks everywhere *he* would hide, but there's so many places it would never occur to a hawk to hide. However, the reason the Führer's brought me off my Alps in Austria and placed me in French cow country today is because it does occur to me. Because I'm aware what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity." Col. Hans Landa.

The Badass: Brad Pitt is one BAMF. "I think you show great talent. And I pride myself on having an eye for that kind of talent. Your status as a Nazi killer is... still amateur. We all come here to see if you wanna go pro... "

The Beautiful: Our heroine played by Melanie Laurent is a pissed French woman, who wants to kill Nazi's (who would have thought). It's hard to talk about her character without spoilers so I'm just gonna say she looked stunning in the end sequence.

Over all this film proves to be a funny trip down Nazi killin lane, that we all need to take again, so please go check it out.

15 Minutes of Avatar

2009-08-23T22:37:00.000-07:00

So after the teaser trailer of Avatar was released there was mixed reactions. Most people I know didn't understand the teaser because it didn't really say what the film was about. *explains concept of a teaser* okay it's all good. I think the folly was on the people who cut the teaser, it should have been shorter and have ended on a "what the fuck was that" note, not a "holy shit this is epic" note.

There was a 6 and 645 showing of Avatar footage, I managed to catch both. The first time I didn't know what to expect, when James Cameron came out in 3d to tell us to enjoy, my eyes didn't agree with the 3D. Maybe it was just in awe at having to have a 100 foot James Cameron head talking at you. Either my eyes adjusted quicker than any other 3D film I've seen or the technology they developed for the film works that well.

The first bit of the preview is a badass dude with a facial scar, which communicates he's been in the shit, explaining that the world of Pandora is vicious and deadly. The scene is all live action with the new camera that uses two lenses to simulate the focus and depth perception of the human eye. It is the best 3D live action ever produced. The camera worked.

Next we see Sam Worthington's character, a wheel chair bound soldier who gets put into a Na'vi body. Which is accompanied by a cool wormhole sequence when his mind takes over the Na'vi. The Na'vi stuff in the preview is some of the most photo realistic CG out to date. Although it is hard to judge given they're texture is nothing like a humans. Some people had trouble with the Na'vi in the 2d internet trailer, but they really come to life in the 3D experience.

There is another sequence at night on the alien planet where everything lights up like some tripped out acid dream. It looks absolutely breath taking. The depth that the 3D gives to the jungle while its lit up like a stoners bedroom creates a hazard because you find yourself not blinking (us with contacts get all dried up) so you don't miss a second of the world Cameron has created.

I don't want to talk too much about the action sequences shown because they were spectacular and should be watched before read about. Let's just say the best part was Sam Worthington's Avatar facing off with a huge dino looking beast, which turns for the worst for him. They also have a phenomenal sudo horse breaking scene with a drake (flying dragon type creature) that Worthington must pin before he can use it for a mount.

This isn't going to be like anything we have seen from Cameron it is more fantasy than anything he has done, but it has the dark Aliens/Terminator feel in the back drop at all times. This film won't be in league with 2001 or Aliens, more like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Expect that change.

The story looks like it will be a classic, good guy starts with the bad guys, some stuff happens then he sides with the oppressed good guys and helps them achieve victory. Universal storyline. From the dialogue and tone of the scenes, Cameron is trying to get at something by literally putting our main character along with the audience into another culture. From the 15 minutes I saw Cameron's hearts in this project and that's all I could have hoped for.

Try to avoid the naysayers and give it a try when it comes out. People can call the Na'vi smurfs, say it is a Turok vs Halo fan film(both are quite funny analogies), and say any other pompous things they want, but when it comes down to it, the film already shows potential for changing the entire industry and pushing the standard of digital filmmaking. This is exciting since we have been watching recycled garbage since the late nineties. How many remakes do we have sit through in the 2010's? Let's hope this bring new life into the cinema as I think it will.

Boss

2009-08-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

First of all Fred Williamson is one of the greatest actors in the history of the line of cinema we call "BLACK ACTION." Hell he is on the cover of the 9.99 dvd set called Black Action. Boss Nigger (now pc'd out with the title Boss) is about two black men who are bounty hunters catching white bandits. They run across a some paper work that basically makes them sheriffs of a town, which is in the clutches of a bandit group led by a son of a bitch named Jed Clayton.

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The Good: Boss Nigger is Williamson's name in the film (a sequel to the Nigger Charley films) and he is as badass as they get. Dressed in black from head to toe, he whips an ignorant town into shape by enforcing "black man's law," which is about the same as basic old western laws, but if you say "nigger" you pay money or do time. They end up hustling a lot of money out of the white folks in town. Williamson even gathers up the poor Mexican community, walks them into town and makes the shop owners give them food and supplies. Sounds like High Plains Drifter.

The Bad: Jed Clayton's gang. Senior Clayton reminds me of my days growing up in a small town in Washington, because he looks like the loggers you would see walking into the bar every night, then drives home drunk past the local grade school only to force sex on his wife after a nice beat down. Needless to say this white trash is a coward who always stands behind his gang. But the gang is great fodder for Williamson to beat down so never a dull moment.

The Ugly: Racism. Just like many movies subverting cinematic race roles, there is something sobering behind them. The comedy usually defeats the forlorn feeling that racism creates, but in the end an innocent woman is shot in the back for being black and a Mexican child is trampled by a horse. Williamson gets his man in the end, but racism is still there.

The Badass: Williamson is alone with a posh white woman who has been craving his mandom, so he just grabs her and kisses her hard then says "that's just to satisfy your curiosity."

The Food: I was eating some crinkle cut frys and bbq sauce. This is a hamburger movie though. Get a good one going a double hand packed patty with some creole seasoning and a shit load of cheese that will get you through this kick ass movie.

A quick note for white looking honkeys like me. The theme song is very catchy but the word nigger is all through out it, so be careful if you find yourself singing it in public.......

Avatar Day!!!

2009-08-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

EDIT: THE TEASER IS OUT HERE IS THE LINK: CLICK ME FOR "HOLY SHIT THIS LOOKS AMAZING"

Avatar Day The 21st. Get Ready!

Okay so I dealt with the site crashes and frustration with trying to get into the special 15 minute Avatar extravaganza going on at Imax. Finally after an hour of website fatal errors I got my tickets! Here is an ICQ convo with a friend I am Nick, during the fiasco.

Nick - Magic Dragon ‎(12:07 PM):

is cameron fucking wiht us right now lol

152 ‎(12:07 PM):

it would be funny if it refreshed

and just said

GO NOW OR YOU WILL MISS IT

Nick - Magic Dragon ‎(12:07 PM):

lol id be on the road

152 ‎(12:08 PM):

i'd be in the sky

this music is sucky

152 ‎(12:09 PM):

haha the ticketing page just went completley down

Nick - Magic Dragon ‎(12:10 PM):

ya fuckers

152 ‎(12:10 PM):

you would figure they could afford to pay for a little extra bandwidth

since it comes out like really freaking soon

152 ‎(12:11 PM):

lazy bastards wont even release a trailer untill the end of august when the movie comes out in mid december i guess they're going for the opposite of the starwars episode 1 effect lol

152 ‎(12:16 PM):

i'm gonna go punch james cameron for wasting my time

then i gonna punch his wife cause she's only been in one movie as a supporting actress

Nick - Magic Dragon ‎(12:16 PM):

lol ITS ALL HIS FAULT

152 ‎(12:16 PM):

yes

and after that I'm blaming jesus

Nick - Magic Dragon ‎(12:16 PM):

lol well of course

Nick - Magic Dragon ‎(12:17 PM):

Jesus and Cameron have alot in common. but in the end Cameron will be nailed on the cross by nerds not jews lol

152 ‎(12:17 PM):

Then i'm taking a hack saw to the president of 20th century fox

nerds are rich and greedy too

HAHAHAHA

152 ‎(12:18 PM):

its great to be an asshole

152 ‎(12:18 PM):

An HTTP error occurred while getting: http://www.avatarmovie.com/

Details: "connection failed".

FUCK YOU

thats what it should say

FUCK YOU NO MOVIE FOR YOU NERDS

GET A LIFE

152 ‎(12:23 PM):

No M Night is hacking this

for his movie

Nick - Magic Dragon ‎(12:23 PM):

LOL AIRBENDER FOR LIFE

152 ‎(12:23 PM):

AIRBENDER 4 LIFE DOGZ

As you can see it was intense.

So what do you have from Avatar thus far. Some stills:

We don't know much about it except there is a marine (Sam Worthington) who is stuck on an alien planet during some sort of occupation by humans. At E3 Cameron gave clues that the alien race and humans would be having a nice and long smack down, so some shit goes wrong.

Cameron is hands down my favorite director/write/all of the above. So basically this is panning out to be the greatest year of my life. Married + Cameron's triumphant return. Yup.

So stay tuned for a exclusive blog post of Avatar Day and how mind blowing Cameron's new film really is going to be!!

District 9

2009-08-14T23:51:00.000-07:00

First off I will avoid saying too much about this film, because really everyone should go out and see it. As the movie hit its second act I was totally engrossed in the world of a South African reinstatement of an apartheid-like policy dealing with the aliens. It is probably my favorite movie of 09 thus far, (Avatar and Pandorum still coming though).

The Good: The down in the dirt style that South African director Neill Blomkamp weaves with his half narrative half documentary style. It feels like it was shot in a slum in South Africa.

This movie could only be spun by a gamer in love with Half-Life and Halo (which jacked a lot from half-life). For instance the Mech-suit (which can be seen in the trailer) is just like Dog in the Half-Life 2, but has a shit load of weaponry.

Speaking of weaponry all the guns in the movie kick ass. The alien rigs literally tear people apart. This film is not PG-13 so there was no pussy copout cutaway bullshit. In your face cherry pie gibbbbbbbbbing (gamer term for blowing another player into pieces).

This guy knows how to tell a story with details. I'm sure I will catch a lot more in a second viewing, but you have to be able to appreciate the amazing amount of detail, which really brings an oppressed alien culture to life.

The Bad: The excessive use to military force was the real enemy in the film. Of course there is other stuff but I hate spoilers sooooo. That's all you get.

The Ugly: In this film the aliens are pretty ugly... But Blomkamp somehow puts you in the main character's shoes enough to where you kinda dislike them at first and think they are gross, but as the story moves you find yourself thinking the crustacean looking things are cute (especially the children).

The Badass: There is some all out battles in this movie. People get torn up by alien guns and human guns alike. There is one random part where this guy is holding an alien up for integration the alien out of nowhere just kicks him and all you see is a limb explode from somewhere and the guy fly like a rag doll. That is tame for this movie. Heads get torn off, lots of people explode, and many aliens get blown away too.

MANDOM: A reason to like Bronson

2009-08-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

Friends over at Tower Farm made a comment on another blog about how much I like Bronson. Well let me post these small Japanese commercials to show you how much class, mandom, sex appeal, and pure amazingness Bronson (God bless his soul) really has. I wanted to save this until I scammed more people into reading my crappy reviews, but I couldn't wait. Just watch and enjoy!

This is the long one where you see the the sex appeal and class and even some gun slinging.

Bronson catching a fish with his bare hands. The stuff of heroes.

MANDOM!

GI Joe: Rise of "What Just Happened"

2009-08-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

GI Joe wow what's to say? Well if you liked the corny cartoon you will love the movie (I hope), because the movie is probably a little more corny than the cartoon. So basically I sat down thinking wow this is gonna either be amazing and shitty. It was AMAZING.

Since no one likes to read extensive reviews on movies they haven't seen I will just trick everyone into actually giving it a chance. You can flame me later :D.

I am just gonna hit a few key points one should know before seeing.

Jet pack flying into a spaceship thing.

Ninja fights.

Shitty dialogue.

Flashbacks of a long lost love.

A submarine dog fight.

Laser or plasma guns(not sure).

Workout/training sequence.

Threat of nanobot world holocaust.

The line "We lost a lot of Joes out there today."

Really shitty CG mixed with some of the coolest CG of a ninja dodging flying cars.

Snake Eyes is still the most legit mofo in ninja history.

So that should get your ass to the theater to see a goddamn action film that should have been made in the 80s it's so good. I must say though some times the action would be so much I would find myself asking "what the fuck just happened" out loud. This isn't a bad "what just happened" more like the feeling of seeing your best friend get abducted by aliens or your cat spontaneously combusts.

Exiled

2009-07-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

So my soon to be wife sees this trailer on one of her Asian horror flicks and adds it to my netflix. Probably one of the best things she has ever done for me. It opened me to the world's new and improved John Woo; one of the coolest directors ever, Johnny To. I quickly added all To's films to my queue and let the Hong Kong asskicking commence.

Exiles is still my favorite film by To. It's about a guy who returns to a gang infested town with a bad past with all factions. So of course they send some goons to kill him. Well when the killers show up they have a show down that ends in a meal and sleep over. Reason being, they don't kill him yet because they want to help him do some jobs to get money for his soon to be widow and bastard child. The film is filled with this Confucian sense of duty, which makes these men's brotherhood top notch.

The Good: This group of badasses.

They know how to work together to get some killing done and they are pretty funny too.

The best part of To's Exiled is how its shot. It's not like half the franticly handheld crap that comes out of America in our current "action realism" age. No this film has finesse. Beautiful dolly moves and steadycam work that could make a first year film student rethink shooting his action scene handheld. This guy is a solid filmmaker. He's not quite the Asian version of James Cameron yet, but he is on his way.

The Bad: Asian gang stereotypes! Yes that's right there is a dude they call Boss and he's the bad guy. He actually doesn't come off as that bad of a guy, just a guy who wants shit done.

The Beautiful: There is a scene in a blackmarket hospital, which explodes into a Mexican standoff at point blank. To works the scene perfectly and it is one of the most beautiful dances of death I've ever seen. Slowmo dolly shots with 12 guns blaring as a room full of curtains dance to the hail of bullets.

The Badass: This guy here is a complete badass. He gave me that feeling I got when Chow Yun-Fat slides down the banister with two pistols and a tooth pick in his mouth in Hard Boiled. It's that HOLY SHIT AM I REALLY SEEING THIS? feelin. Basically the guy has a sniper rifle, aviators, and a cigarette. I don't want to ruin how incredibly cool this dude is and what he does, but you have to see it.

Basically find this movie, buy it, rent it, download it. It's a must see.

Dirty Dozen

2009-07-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

I saw it on bluray at target for like 10 bucks so I had to grab it. It's a pretty damn good movie. It's been a while since I've seen an old World War movie so I had to get back in the mode of long movies with lots of pissed off officers always yelling at each other, but after that I was game. So check it out if you don't have a Transformers 1 or 2 movie attention span (IE a brain). Thank god for old action movies, when explosions were real and so were the men.

The Good: Lee Marvin is a our good guy. He has to whip some prisoners (the badddddest bad asses) into doing a top secret mission. There is only one man who can do this and that is Marvin, he kicks their ass, throws em around, and laughs in their face all the time.

All the training stuff is filled with old school comedy that actually has some class (not like robots humping Megan Fox's leg). They do funny shit like capture an officer that is messing with them just to show how much they rock.

There is one great scene where there are 8 "girls" hired or something to go spend the night with the dozen and there is a good 3 minute awkward silence where they are just staring at each other. All the girls get chosen then Charles Bronson (resident god of action) in his infinite class dances with the ugliest and oldest one with a huge grin on his face. Thats MANDOM.

The Bad: ZEEEEE GERMANS. Yup they are made fun of, look dumb, and killed like pigs when the mission starts. I guess that's what happens when your Nazi scum. Being that the movie was made in mid sixties they didn't explore the PC bs of "the Germans were just following orders." They just whoop their ass hardcore prison rules style.

The Ugly: There is a fat ass prisoner named Maggot who kills women and would be the ugliest and sickest POS in the movie. Good thing he gets his.

The Badass: Jefferson is this huge black dude (played by football star Jim Brown) who does a mad dash while throwing grenades down holes into a shelter where the pesky Nazis are hiding. The guy can fuckin move and completes the mission with zeal. = BADASS. Or what we call in movies the HNIC (head nigga in charge).

The Food: Eat some Sausage and laugh about how much fun 12 prisoners have blowin up Nazis.

Death Hunt: Bronson Vs Lee Marvin + Carl Weathers + A Guy Who Looks Like The Guy Who Played Coach

2009-07-06T17:29:00.001-07:00

My action enthusiast friend Dustin recommended this movie to me because the pure manness of the cast. Bronson being one of my favorite actors; is gonna appear on this blog a lot.
The Beginning: You can tell a hell of a lot about a movie by the opening credits. This one is filled with landscape helicopter shots of mountains leading you to the conclusion that its gonna be a wilderness run and gun extravaganza.

The Good: Bronson a wilderness man who has barely any dialogue and a soft spot for dogs. We find out later he has a past full of military experience and a future of running from the things he once did. Some people call this cliché I call this ESSENTIAL. We know he's one humble bad motherfucker this way.

Lee Marvin is a broken down drunk mounty who is stuck by fate in chasing a man he knows isn't guilty. So one can guess the display of man to man comradery when Marvin has Bronson in his sights.

The Bad: The Coach Lookin Guy (refered to as Coach from now on) is a dog fighting dick head who runs into Bronson when Bronson takes away one of his fighting dogs and nurses it to health. Let the EGO enter. Coach in his infinite douchness attack Bronson's cabin and one of his bickering lackeys is killed so... long story short Bronson has to run from authorities (Mounties) and Coach's team of morons.

The Ugly: Coach's gang is a buncha ugly morons with lines like "your so dumb I could sell you dirt."

The Weird: This is Carl Weathers' weirdest role. The usual muscle flexin mad man we know as Action Jackson is kind of a pussy in this. He does bang some fat ugly first nation (Canadian for Native American) chick. Then says to his young buddy "you wanna piece of this buffalo woman?". Warrants the Weird title...

The Badass:
THE CAST

The baddies dynamite Bronson's hand built cabin with him inside and he flies out of it after it explodes with a semiauto shotgun with god knows how many shells. He blows away some cronies and scares the shit out of them so he can get away.

For a western it also had pretty damn good squib and blood effects. One is so gruesome they throw in the line, "son of a bitch shot his scalp off".

The Food: Most people should eat to match their movie. I recommend a medium t-bone with a baked potatoes side. Throw some Tony's Creole on the whole damn dish and you got a night of wilderness ass kicking.