A horror-ble mess

Here's the thing about introducing Danny Trejo to the post-modern Summer of Action: despite being indisputably awesome, he's pretty much only been used as a character actor. Something about not a lot of leading parts for a burly, craggy-faced Mexican who has been in not one, not two, but, yes, three different prisons. So perusing the netflix inventory for Trejo movies is kind of a frustrating experience: it's not Gary Daniels or Eric Roberts where you find a lot of stuff that looks perfectly terrible and is likely direct-to-video but where at least Gary is one of the two 'stars' of the film. And its certainly not like pretty much any of the other Expendables where you clearly know the movies they're in and their faces are slathered all over the posters.

However, in Nightstalker, I thought I'd found one. Here's the cover:

Whoa. Creepy looking mexican dude is half of the cover. In the little 2000 px preview on netflix, I figured that was DT, and that I would get to watch a movie where big, scary Danny Trejo plays a crazy serial killer with some mysterious pale skinhead side. Or maybe he'd be a cop who hunts down a skinhead killer.

Well, the second option was clearly wrong: the movie is described as being about Agent Martinez (played by Roselyn Sanchez who a) is rather attractive and b) you might recognize from Without a Trace, not that I do but I knew her face from somewhere), an LAPD cop on the tail of a dangerous serial killer who 'girds herself when she learns the killer is coming after her' or something like that... bottom line is that the netflix summary actually used the word "gird" so that was fun.

It took only a moment to see that the first option was also wrong: early in the movie we learn that DT is Martinez' partner. Bummer. He does get to be a great 80s cop: he's of Mexican heritage and from LA so he's blatantly racist, just like the city was back then (now its just overtly so). Also, he gets to do coke. Go Danny.

So here's how the movie goes: it sucks. The killer is some kind of schizophrenic. You see that pasty, toothy freak in the right half of the poster? Well, thats the guy who makes our antagonist want to kill. Are the murders grisly? Are the images disturbing? Is there a dark subtext to everything that's being depicted? Nope. Does this crummy director go to the stupid lazy horror tradition of going to jumpy images and rapid, awkward, screechy transitions to 'elevate tension', causing the viewer to have no idea what the hell is going on and also making a short, marginally climactic scene supposedly very scary and dramatic? Yup. Does this ruin what is otherwise a perfectly good 'chick on the case kind of as an affirmative action thing chases down the killer and shows the white and black guy what's what' story? Well, if that story was any good I'd say yes.

Well, no greatness here. But it was fun to see DT snort some coke off his hand and wonder if maybe, just maybe, it actually was coke...

It Won't Stop

I was worried about seeing The Expendables. I was worried because it meant that the Summer of Action would be over. I was worried because it meant I'd have to reorder my queueueueueueuequeueueue and choose from amongst the 300 things in it that I kind of sort of want to see- with the Summer of Action my choices were drastically reduced. They had to star an Expendable. And hopefully be awesome.

Anyway, I was worried. Then, just before the glorious feature began playing (oh man it was fucking glorious), this happened:

(also, the trailer for Devil happened and JAY!! is right, it looks terrible. The audience scoffed when "FROM THE MIND OF M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN" came up. Audibly scoffed. Not good.)

So, in honor of Danny Trejo, THE SUMMER OF ACTION LIVES ON until Labor Day weekend for this muchacho. I knew I'd regret leaving Con Air in Chicago...

!!!

You're goddamn right we did

The Viceroy is so badass

Wish I'd worn black

Day 0 Marathon: Part II

Herein lies the second installment of my SoA-day marathon. If Viceroy would get back to me already I'd buy my ticket and guarantee that I was going to see the action sensation of the decade at midnight tonight, but at this rate it might be sold out (or I might be passed out) by the time I hear from him. Anyhow, in this edition I do a semi-liveblog/stream of consciousness thing as I watch Commando.

Well, thanks to JAY!! and his disappoint about how we didn't become an international phenomenon (hey, is the day the movie comes out too late for it to happen? Couldn't the movie spurn a heightened national interest in reading snappy blog posts about 20+ year old movies?) I missed the opening sequence to Arnold's Commando. But I made it in time to learn this: its a good thing the Gov and The Skeleton of Something That Used To Be A Kennedy never procreated. First, Arnold nearly axes his teenage daughter in half after catching her sneaking up on him in his ax blade. Then he's the father in The Most Awkward Father/Daugher Montage in Cinema History. Now it doesn't help that young Alyssa Milano (here in only her second big screen appearance- well before blossoming in Who's The Boss?) wasn't nearly as cute as mature (but reputedly very short) Alyssa Milano, but most of the blame falls on Arnold for being too big and muscular to be a believeable playful dad.

Actioned Out. Almost. Almost Actioned Out.

When we started this blog, I had huge, realistic hopes. Here's what I figured: similar to an 80's action hero, this blog would start with meager beginnings--the occasional post, the occasional reference to porn, the occasional picture of Jean Claude in a frighteningly small mankini--but through sheer force of will we'd develop a small but loyal Following. The Following would obviously include all the pretty girls at our high schools. Then a bigger, stronger blog would get so mad at us it'd embarrass us by posting mean comments or something. The pretty girls would walk away from us. We'd be a disgrace. Then Dave, clearly our weakest link, would come out of nowhere with a Judo Chop blog about something awesome. He'd probably put in some pictures too, because that's Dave. Then the Goob would wipe off the sting of his comment slap and write an epic recap of First Blood. People would cheer. We'd regroup. We'd do so much better than the bigger, stronger blog that we'd win back the pretty girls, and the patsies from the other blog would end up being embarrassed in front of their high schools. They'd probably have food and drinks spilled on them. Jerks. The nation would rejoice.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. We did not develop our grass roots following. Also, I ran out of steam. It turns out action movies are good in small doses. Unless Jean Claude is in them. Then they are awesome in all doses but zero. Zero is an unfortunate dose of Jean Claude. I think I last wrote about Scorpion King 2. Since then I've watched two movies, but oh such glorious plans I had:

Day 0 Marathon: Part I

I'm following last night's post and doing one last SoA mega-marathon in anticipation of probably going to the big flick at midnight tonight. This first entry captures my experiences with The Specialist, my first top on the August Adrenaline Tour de Force. Expect me to get a little more out of focus and jaded as the evening goes along.

I love pre-dated opening scenes to movies. They're the perfect way to say "watch out for these two, they have a history together" or "something might happen with the character involved in this scene" or, in the case of A Simple Man, "here's a story that's pretty much entirely unrelated to the rest of this very fine movie." The opening scene of The Specialist features Sly and James Woods as Army dudes who rig a bridge in Bogota to explode, thereby killing some manner of political target. Problem is, the target is driving with an innocent child- so Sly, the munitions specialist, wants to abort the mission. James Woods pulls rank though, so the best Sly can do is hope to diffuse the bombs in time. Of course this doesn't work, so Sly ends up getting exploded off a dam into some water.

Suddenly its roughly ten years later and Sly is holding up a creepy, moderately seductive relationship with a woman who, as a girl, watched her parents killed by Miami crime bosses (one of whom is Eric Roberts!). He uses the latest technology (a fancy pager which connects to the 'Weekend Warrior' BBS, minidiscs recordings of all their conversations, a bizarrely sophisticated intruder home alarm system) to carry out a distant relationship with this woman, played by Sharon Stone. Well, its distant for her but somehow he manages to basically follow her 24/7 while listening to the minidiscs to provide the backdrop of the story.

Here's whats great about the rest of the movie: Sly gets involved, and since he's an explosives expert, a lot of shit gets blown up. Here's something else that's great: Sharon Stone had pretty much no sense of personal boundaries back then, so much like in Basic Instinct she gives a glimpse of the shapely goods in The Specialist.

Here's something that's perfectly expected about the movie: Sly and James Woods (with SS in the middle) play a lot of double crosses on each other while trying to kill the other guy. But it all happens in sunny, sexy Miami so I won't complain too loudly.

Since the entire nation is finally catching Expendables fever, Bill Simmons discussed Sly at some length in a podcast earlier this week. He said he wasn't a big fan of The Specialist. As far as dumb action movies go, I disagree. This was a pretty classic edition of Sly being a bad ass and throwing around some lame dialogue. Also, I love it when James Woods gets snarky.

Its been so long

I have so much to catch up on. I've not checked in in quite some time, partially because my SoA intake has slowed to some extent, and partially because writing about ludicrous action movies gets a bit repetitive. Here's a rundown of the fun I've been having without the rest of you:

I watched The 6th Day. This stars Arnold and Terry Crews also makes an appearance. I will take this opportunity to say it's a joke that Terry Crews is a featured name in The Expendables. He is not an action star. You don't even really know who he is. Anyway, I also feel compelled to discuss the scientific veracity of a movie in which cloning is a central topic. Here's what I have to say: there is no biological reason for dots to appear in the eyes of people who have been cloned, but it could probably be arranged. Just like real life working trolls could be arranged. Anything is possible through genetics! I must also mention one of Arnold's greatest one-liners ever is in this movie: "You better hurry and clone yourself again so you can go screw yourself!" or something to that end. Bravo.

Visiting Chinese PM Presents Obama With 'The Expendables' On DVD

Via The Onion

They Are Promoting The Expendables Exactly as They Should.

Finally... Greatness!

Demolition Man is, in a word, fuckingawesomeashell,man. If you haven't seen it... You should.

It is the future. The year: 1996 (the film came out in 1993, so 1996 was the future back then). The city: Los Angeles. America is in chaos. Sylvester Stallone is John Spartan, a super-duper cop. He plays by his own rules, but GOD DAMMIT, HE GETS RESULTS. Wesley Snipes is Simon Phoenix, ultra-mega villain. He has neon hair.

Stallone attempts to rescue some hostages from Snipes, and in the process, blows up a building. Whoops, the hostages were inside! So both Stallone and Snipes are cryogenically frozen (this technology briefly existed in 1996), because that is what future people do to criminals instead of imprisoning them. Stallone is frozen buck-naked (butt cheeks!).

It is now the more-future. The year is 2032. Snipes was unfrozen by some dumbass for some reason, and because the future is all peaceful and wussified, they have to unthaw Stallone to take him (Snipes) down. "Send a maniac to catch a maniac," Stallone says. Indeed. Sandra Bullock plays Sly's fellow officer, and Denis Leary plays the Hobo-Messiah.

Now, the most interesting part of this movie is its (seriously) awesome vision of the future. Of course, as Nostradamus would tell you if he weren't both insane and dead, predicting the future is a tough racket. As such, some of Demolition Man's predictions are more realistic than others. Here are some of those predictions, and how likely they are to play out in the future.

Things Unlikely to Happen in the Future
The world becoming a safe and peaceful place, and Rob Schneider being gainfully employed. He plays a police desk jockey in the movie. Sorry, Rob. Not gonna happen.

Toilet paper becoming obsolete, replaced by the three seashells method. Seriously, I'm with Sly on this one-- how DO you use the three seashells? (In one of my favorite scenes, Sly swears over and over, and then makes use of the paper fines in lieu of proper toilet paper).

Oldies stations that play only commercials. This might happen, but I can't allow myself to believe it, because then I'd have to kill myself.

Arnold Schwarzenegger leaving Hollywood to become a famous politician. Ha! Outrageous!

Taco Bell winning "the Franchise Wars" to become the only restaurant in existence. Never gonna happen. I still feel that Taco Johns, and the mighty potato ole, will prevail in the end.

Things Likely to Happen in the Future
Tons of shit will blow up. Seriously. This movie rules.

People will go back to wearing loose robe-like things instead of pants. Pants are just too binding, and there's all those difficult zippers to navigate.

People will be fined for swearing.

Wesley Snipes will stab out someone's eye in order to escape from prison.

Everyone will be tracked, at all times, by microchips implanted in the skin. The future will suck.

We will all be able to have sex with Sandra Bullock by placing a reverse Virtual Boy on our head.

Sylvester Stallone and Denis Leary will share a ratburger.

Something so Awesome I Wish It Would Happen in the Future
Remember the scene where Sylvester Stallone crashes his car, and then it turns to foam, which is weird, but then it turns out that the foam is a futuristic and entirely kick ass replacement for air bags? Yeah, I remember it too. That was sweet.

Verdict: This movie rocks hard. Stallone is in full-on action star mode and at his 1990s peak (Cliffhanger came out the same year, so let's be honest, 1993 was Stallone's only 1990s peak). Wesley Snipes plays the bad guy like the Joker from the Adam West Batman, only he gets to murder lots and lots of people. Sandra Bullock is Speed-era adorable, and adorably screws up 1990s lingo ("You really licked his ass!").

The action is well choreographed and memborable, including one particularly awesome fight scene in a museum. The script is hilarious, what with Stallone's constant swearing and the "man out of time" jokes. Watch it. Cherish it.

Cliff Notes

Gabe is a cliffhanger. He’s one of the best in the world. All of his friends are cliffhangers too. They love it more than anything—except each other. The movie Cliffhanger starts out with a majestic shot of a mountain chain hanging as long as the eye can see while an orchestra swells with the panoramic view. We see Gabe cliffhanging (of course!) 4,000 feet up in the air. Some of his cliffhanging friends wait at the top of a precipice to be rescued by Gabe. They are his friends Tucker and some girl that looks like Jennifer Grey but isn’t. A helicopter manned by Frank (more on him later) and Gabe’s main squeeze, Jessie, comes to pick them up. The only way the stranded cliffhangers can be rescued is to have them shimmy across a cable from the cliff they are on to the one Frank parked his chopper on.

Tucker gets across to the other side no problem. Jennifer Grey goes next, only to have her harness break. Then she drops the teddy bear she had in her backpack. This is not Jennifer Grey’s day. Gabe scurries out on the line to save her. He grabs her by the hand just in time. Things are going great until Jennifer Grey’s hand comes out of her glove and falls to her untimely death. Gabe couldn’t be more riddled with guilt. Tucker couldn’t be more upset at his friend for letting his best girl plummet to aforementioned death.

Distilled Awesomeness of Sly

I was very enthused to watch "Paradise Alley" starring Sylvester Stallone. My anticipation only heightened when I had to wait an extra few days because it wasn't available at my nearest netflix shipping facility.

Why was I excited? Because the netflix teaser says this:

Stallone makes his directorial debut and even sings the theme song.

Was it sufficiently awesome? I'll let you decide





Other brief points of note:
- Dennis and Sweet Dee's mom plays one of the female leads.
- There are two climactic physical scenes, one is an arm wrestling match that seriously lasts for about three minutes, the other is a body wrestling match in an outdoor ring so everytime someone gets slammed (which is frequently) there's a great splash effect.
- Largely forgettable plot aside I was actually pretty impressed with what a good job Young Sly did at creating a very genuine 1940s Hells Kitchen atmosphere. Not that I was ever a working class dago in the 40s, but it didn't feel like 1978 either so congrats, Sly.
- I'm beginning to think Sly might have some weird repressed sexuality. There's a throwaway gag in Paradise Alley where the villain is revealed to be wearing a thong and stockings. Couple that with the Nighthawks drag-fest and I'm on the edge of being weirded out. If there's drag in The Expendables I may have to walk out.

You Can Change Your Face, But You Can't Change Your Evil

HERE'S THE SKINNY ON THIS PHAT BLOG: The Good and Jay!!! enjoy regular communication via email. Through this electronic mail they've discussed the ending of LOST (which was good--haters), the Wire (which was awesome--haters), and the need for cheap Mexican robot labor (just kidding).  Below are excerpts from that communication focusing on Sylvester Stallone's 1981 classic, "Nighthawks."  

The Goob: I'm going to lay it out there right away: my favorite thing, retrospectively, was that the opening scene featured Sly in drag conducting a sting operation.


Jay!!!: My favorite part about the opening drag sting operation is that it actually paid off in the end. I would have never guessed that such a throwaway scene would ultimately end up helping Sly stop terror. I also love that the movie had a really dark late 70s feel, yet Sly dressed as a woman twice. Good for him.  You know what else this movie made me miss? When the go to terrorists in movies were the IRA or knock offs of the IRA. Why did we ever fear the Irish or anyone from Britain?

Dear Boy, You Aren't The Rock and It's Called Acting

There's a famous Hollywood story about a conversation between Dustin Hoffman and Sir Laurence Olivier when they were filming the movie Marathon Man back in the 1970s.  Dustin Hoffman was/is a "method" actor, meaning (sort of) that he does in real life whatever his character does in the movie to help him "feel" the character.  Sir Laurence Olivier was an "actor" actor, meaning he understood it was make believe and actually acted his scenes and acted them well.  At one point during the movie (SPOILER) Dustin Hoffman's character doesn't sleep for something like 48 straight hours.  That meant real life Dustin Hoffman stayed up for something like 48 straight hours before shooting.  When Dustin showed up on set, disheveled, tired, and near useless, Sir Laurence, disgusted, told him, "Dear boy, it's called acting."  Sir Laurence Olivier, sometimes called the greatest actor to ever live, thought actors should act.  I wonder what he would have thought about Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior if he was still alive? He probably would have thought this: I wish I were dead, so I could spin in my grave. I wonder what Sir Laurence Olivier thinks now that he's dead. Probably nothing. I don't think the dead can think. It's sort of part of being dead.

That was a good paragraph. I don't really know what it means, but it was good. You know what isn't good? Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. Full disclosure: I, Jay!!!, was a professional wrestling fan.  A HUGE professional wrestling fan. I loved every minute of Monday Night Raw. I was very passionate. If I didn't like the scripted outcome of a match, I would say, "These people don't know anything. Clearly the other combatant should have one the fake battle of supremacy because it's so important." I wanted them all to have nice leotards. One of my favorite wrestlers was the Rock. He was the best. He's still the best. He makes movies now. His movies are for kids and are sort of stupid but not bad. He's actually an okay actor. ANYWAYS: when Scorpion King 1: No Tagline Needed came out it starred the Rock, a professional wrestling god, in his first big-screen starring role. He had previously appeared in Mummy Returns as the Scorpion King…a selfish, evil king who sold his soul to some strange devil creature, so he could obtain unlimited power only to be taken down by Brendan Fraser thousands of years later. Classic yarn.

Batman Ruins Everything? Batman Ruins Everything.

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-talk-sylvester-stallone-blames-batman.html

Universal Soldier 3 (or 1.5?): Regeneration (Whatever That Means)

Okay, so, um, this movie was really good? I did not expect that, like, at all.

This franchise makes absolutely no sense. The first movie comes out and is your spectacular late 80's/early 90's actioness (that's how you describe a female lion action movie). The second and third movie come out on TV and are reportedly so awful that they are erased from existence, so a new second movie is released with Jean Claude, the star of the first movie. The second movie was awful, but evidently not as awful as the first second movie, so it "counted." Then they needed to make a new third movie to replace the bad third movie but it was really the fifth movie, and it is AWESOME but also ignores the second second movie completely even though that one was supposed to count dammit! Also, this movie advances time like sixteen years and pretends that we are still at war with Russia.

Like I said, this movie once again decides to ignore pretty much everything that has happened before it. The second movie, where Jean Claude was inexplicably no longer a zombie robot shoulder but now a father and a man, either didn't happen or hasn't happened yet. I don't know. In this movie, Jean Claude is in a secluded Russian house being coached on how to become human. I don't think he has a daughter. Nor does he like boobs that much. He's indifferent towards them. He has a problem: he doesn't know how to become human because that would be way too much of a stretch for Jean Claude, so he beats up a guy in a restaurant for some reason. Then the US Army kidnaps him and says, "No human for you!" and makes him a zombie soldier again. This was good for Jean Claude (who, as it happens, has really done a decent job in the two "post-cocaine-addiction" era movies I've seen him in).

The Deadly Chemical Medley part II

After reading this and watching this, how could I read the tease for Crank: High Voltage ("After surviving the brush with death that ended the first Crank film, top assassin Chev Chelios returns in this action-packed sequel to track down a ruthless Chinese mobster who has stolen his most prized possession: his heart.... he must continually jolt the mechanical ticker that beats within his chest") and not just plow ahead with the double feature? Per the blurb, its not exactly a chemical situation in this case, but the jist is the same.

It seems most appropriate to present my review in the same format as Dallas did. Plus that saves me having to come up with yet another way to vary my incessant posts. ONWARD!


1. Ridiculous Premise. After falling out of the sky (literally) some chinamen abscond with Chev to a mysterious back room where his heart, amongst other organs, are removed for transplant. Keeping Chev alive: a mechanical heart designed only to support minimal human activity for a couple days until the subject gets a transplant. Perhaps not as outlandish as the original, in this one Chev is constantly in search of some batteries or other clever way to get a shock. Naturally getting his electrical fix won't be enough for Chev; he's  going to get revenge on the motherfuckers responsible for stealing his heart while he's at it. Given the limits already set out, not a bad storyline. At the same time, given the limits already set out it probably wasn't too hard to say "lets take his heart".
Other plot notes of interest: Amongst the side characters: a guy with "full body tourrettes" (apparently the brother of the gay guy in Crank) (like they needed a reason for more jerky camera work and ridiculous spasticity) and some skinny asian bitch who just won't die, even when she's run over by a car going 50 mph. For some reason in the midst of a bunch of transformers, Chev and his Chinese nemesis grow to 50 feet tall and battle like King Kong, replete with bizarre facial prosthetics and building smashing. It's a hysterical scene. The buxom chocolate-skinned lady riding Doc's lap at the start of the movie helps Chev find the guy with his heart by playing a prostitute. A true hooker with a heart of gold story. At one point Chev comes face to face with the disembodied but still living head of one of his prior victims. This happens just before the gay guys come kill the ferret and save Chev from a super homoerotic cat-o-nine-tails lashing.
2 Stallones and a Statham for the storyline.
2. Earnest over-acting. One of the ways Doc tells Chev to get revved up is to use friction ("the rubbing of two like objects causes the transfer of electrons"). For some reason it takes him the better part of seven minutes to figure out that this can be accomplished not just by dry-humping an old lady, but also by sex. As he's about to lose it before the redemptive sex scene, he throws us a gloriously over-acted "Friiiictioooon" as his body wilts from his failing heart. Generally though, Statham's breed of grimace-and-run is just a different kind of action from the Stallone "It's like a switch" school of acting. 1 Stallone, 2 Stathams.
3. Ka-blooey! We open with Chev falling from the sky onto a Cadillac. It doesn't explode, but the peeling-his-body-off-the-cement sound effect was pretty swell. The rest of the movie, sadly, follows a very similar path. Lots of fighting, lots of jolting, lots of running around, but the ka-blooeys are few and far between. What it lacks in splosions it tries to make up for in blood, like when they cut off the tip of a guy's elbow, or when a failed cronie is forced to cut off his own nipples. However, this does not make up for the lack of explosions. Its just terribly disturbing. Yech. 2 Stathams.
4. Ka-boobie For some reason or another, Chev pops into a strip club. So, boobies abound, especially when the Mexicans come in and startle the strippers into bouncing their jubblies all over the place. Importantly, he also hooks up with Amy Smart there, and this time there's no doubt at all about the fact that she spends the next fifteen minutes with nothing but electrical taped X's covering her nips. So, incidental tits + leading character breasts (minus nipples) + occasional frontal nudity during the final poolside shootout gives us an upgrade over the original: three Stallones. However, minus one Statham for the scene later where Chev and Amy do it on the horse track in the middle of a race and expose nothing but Statham's buttcheeks. Net: 2 Stallones, 2 Stathams. It is a pretty awesome protracted ridiculous sex scene though.
5. Cheesy one liners. They're not one liners, but the film's repeated use of little graphical ploys is at least thematically entertaining and accomplishes what it sets out to do in making the film feel like a comic book. Chev tries a one-liner once with "Chicken and broccoli" after he kills a bunch of Chinese, causing their limo to crash, but that really doesn't make any damn sense. One Stallone.


It's certainly no Over the Top; its pretty much just a shadow of Crank. What do you expect though? It was a hell of a lot more entertaining than War or Death Race; they're all foregone conclusions but at least this one gets from A to B by way of breasts, flaming dream hugs, Journey, and SoA-approved awesomeness.

The Deadly Chemical Medley part I

At the beginning of the Summer of Action, I had no idea who the hell Gary Daniels was or why he was being included in The Expendables. I'm still not sure who the hell he is or why etc. etc. I did find out, however, that in 1995 he was in a movie called Rage, in which the netflix blurb describes him as a school teacher who is "forced to consume a deadly chemical that causes extreme violence in those who ingest it." Since this sounded a lot like the premise of Crank I decided it would be fun to pull a "dangerous chemical which causes unruly, SoA-approved behavior" marathon. However, I already watched the original Crank because of this technically convincing piece on a site I dabbled with doing some writing for. Also, Dally-Wally and I, like all of my co-conspirators here, had a very detailed plan of who was going to watch which movies. Right. That's it.

So, here in part I of The Deadly Chemical Medley I will discuss Rage. Wasn't Dally-Wally's flambeing of Crank part I? you ask. Well, he didn't call it The Deadly Chemical Medley part I now, did he? DID HE? If you're that worried about continuity, just think of it as the prelude.

It's clear from the outset of RAGE (starring Gary Daniels) that his character, Alex, is a little too happy with life for things to go well for him. He appears to be happy with his job as a 2nd grade teacher wherein he gets to hold forth with bizarre, winding discourses all day. At the start of the lesson it appears as though he's teaching the children to read by writing the word "Monkey" on the board.

Universal Soldier 2 (or 4): The Return (Unfortunately)

Let’s be frank, the first Universal Soldier movie is one of the greatest movies of all time. It ranks with the Godfather 3s and the Star Wars Episode 1s of the world. I mean, a guy makes a necklace out of ears. Honest to goodness: human ears! That’s great. I know that guy is bad. I know he is bad because of the necklace of human ears he made and wore.

Let’s be henry, the second Universal Soldier movie is one of the worst movies of all time. It ranks with Shakespeare in Love and Slumdog Millionaire. I mean, the bad guy is bad just because. I don’t know why. Also, the bad guy is really a computer. He’s a computer because it’s the nineties. We were all so scared of computers back then. We thought they’d eventually get smart and take over the world. Little did we know computers wouldn’t get smarter. They’d become a place where people post videos of themselves dancing to pop songs and making fart noises.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? -OR- Statham v. Stallone

When I first saw the cast listing for the Expendables, my first thought (other than Oscar bait!) was Jason Statham? Wha tha fuh? I was aware of him from Snatch and from the Italian Job, but somehow I had missed each and every one of his (I'm sure) adrenalin pumping, action-esque epics. So, long story short, I rented Crank, because it was a much dumber title for a movie than "Transporter," though I'll admit both are pretty dumb. Here's how Crank performed in the five most important action movie categories. For grading purposes, three Stathams equals one Stallone.

1. Ridiculous Premise. Oh my, yes. Statham plays an unlikable ass that is (probably justifiably) poisoned before the first scene of the movie. The poison will kill him unless he keeps his adrenalin up, so he's forced to snort coke, chug Red Bull, and instigate one senseless action scene after another to keep from dying. In a sense, it is a fairly genius premise in that it justifies the lack of rationale behind every scene in the movie. In a more real sense, however, it is just lazy screen writing.

Lost opportunities

Why have I never seen Riot before? Because it was never made directly available to me. What situatino would have made it directly available to me? If TBS was always showing it in the middle of the afternoon so I could watch fights while taking a nap or recovering from a hangover. Why did TBS not buy the rights to it? Apparently the budget of showing Very Funny reruns all the time did not allow them to spend $120 to purchase the rights to show Riot.

Here are the great in a Saturday-afternoon-as-a-child-or-adult-drifting-in-and-out-of-consciousness-great way things about Riot:

• Importantly it stars Gary Daniels, who, when he appears in The Expendables, will make everyone 90s action movie fans say, "Hey it's the 17th biggest action draw of the 90s! I'm so glad he's in this movie and not Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal!"

A hypothetical situation

If I was to tell you that Jason Statham, a brooding tough action hero, and Jet Li, a quick, flashy, talented martial arts hero, were to make a movie, and to give it a title which implies combat and put them face to face staring at each other on the poster, what would expect the movie to be like?

Conan the Barbarian – The Director's Commentary Commentary

I’m a little late to the summer of action party, but I thought I would kick things off properly with a running commentary of the director’s commentary of Conan the Barbarian.

If you are unfamiliar with Conan the Barbarian you really should go watch it. It’s a legitimately good film and is considered to be the acting breakthrough of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s also got a creepy looking James Earl Jones in it and a lot of boobs and violence. I’d recommend never watching the sequel (which is on the other side of my Conan disc) as it is terrible.

Tiger Hi-Line Entertainment Review: Tango & Cash

Now this is it! When Mrs. Timmons gave us the information on this summer internship, watching movies like Tango and Cash is exactly what I wanted to do! I don't know why they had me watching some namby-pamby thing for my first review, or why they wouldn't give me a contributor account of my own. But now I'm here, and I'm here to talk about STUFF BLOWING UP!

Sylvester Stallone plays Ray Tango. Randy Feldman, the writer of the movie Tango & Cash, did a really clever thing there- turns out that TANGO is in his own way obsessed with CASH- he dresses like a businessman with geeky glasses and trades stocks! Cash marches to his own drumline a little more; he's played by Kurt Russell. I've heard some crazy stories about how much Kurt Russell used to drink!

Well, these two make like Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in the recent smash Cop Out. Actually its not much like that because unlike Monroe and Hodges, they don't like each other too much. Well, they're the best cops in LA, which really bugs the bad guys who set them up and put them in general population of a prison. You can't keep a good man down though, so Tango and Cash one-line their way right out of jail. Then the figure out who put them behind bars in the first place, and go kill him. Revenge is a cold dish!

I'm really glad Mr. Feldman wrote this movie. It was probably a good training point for people who wanted to write buddy movies in the future so they could learn from his script about having the characters speak only with awesome cliches that I can't wait to use if I hopefully get into a fraternity when I get to move out of my parents and go to school far, far away from Mr. Deines. I'm just kidding, I love my school! But being in college is going to be awesome. Like Ray Tango says, Rambo is a pussy!

The guys wanted me to tell you this: this fall I'll be a junior at Cedar Falls High School in Iowa. I'm going to watch some movies during summer break and tell you all about them.

Joe Santo Hits the Jackpot

This two month-ish movie quest began as I got inordinately excited about it while engaged in a typical stream of consciousness email to JAY!!. As will be revealed in some short order, we econverse pretty much on the daily. Hooray technology! The summer of action was spawned out of a number of factors:

• The Expendables is coming out, which is awesome. I don't know how the movie is going to be, but just that it's coming out, that's awesome right there.
• Since I moved 2000 miles from the Exquisite Brigitte and my fat and becoming-fat cats, I have a considerable amount of free time. During my nightly free time I watch a lot of movies. After six months of watching a lot of movies I was starting to get to a pretty weird place in my quqeueueeeueueue where I was watching a lot, I mean, A LOT of foreign movies. So I was open to suggestions, shall we say.
• I thought it would be fun to collectively produce some form of entertainment with my fellow contributors, as we are downright hilarious any time we're together. However, aside from Jay and Joe, none of us technically live in the same city. (Yes, Jay and Dream Joe, you win the proximity contest. The Viceroy and I are a mere 5.9 miles from each other, but in are governed by different local agencies.) So the web, and a loose theme, seem a good place to start a collaboration.
• I was really excited to watch a bunch of classics that I shamefully hadn't seen, to make fun of Sly's awful acting, Arnold's terrible accent, and the lame plots of Jason Statham movies, and I was excited to see a lot of people get kicked in the face and have stuff gloriously blown up.
• And as I built my SoA ququeueueuwueuuwwue, I was tickled every time I added an early-career movie by Sly or Arnold. I like quality films, but as evidenced by my crush on Best of the Best 2, I'm 100% game for camp as well.

I have no idea where the Viceroy gets this "Son of Hercules" business, as from my trusty interweb sources Arnold's first credited role is "Hercules in New York." I saw part of this movie in college. It included the line "Hey, stop that chariot!" being yelled in the middle of New York. It was spectacular. However, due to his thick accent, Arnold's voice was dubbed right out of the film. The first Arnold movie available on netflix was "Stay Hungry". So under the guise of my last bullet point, I was elated to add it to my queueeeueueueue, and aside from some mid-week work fatigue and the after effects of laboriously recapping "The Fist of the North Star", delighted to receive it and throw it in my video disc spinner.

With so much to offer, you can't afford to miss it!

Ever wanted to know who Gary Daniels, costar of The Expendables, is? Watch The Fist of the North Star!

Ever wanted to know what happened to Rufio after Hook? Watch The Fist of the North Star!

Ever wanted to see another Chris Penn movie during the Summer of Action? Watch The Fist of the North Star!

Ever wanted to see how 90s filmmakers would do at making adaptations of graphic novels? Watch The Fist of the North Star!

Ever need a Downtown Julie Brown fix and can't get your hands on Club MTV tapes? Watch The Fist of the North Star!

BEST OF THE 5Qs 2

As promised at the tail end of BEST OF THE 5Qs, the touching conclusion of Best of the Best inspired me to immediately queuuequequeqeeueueueueueueue up its imaginatively titled sequel, Best of the Best 2. It came in on the very same day that the good viceroy of West LA leant me the footage of the goings on at The Party at Kitty & Stud's. Having already expended quite a bit of energy getting all erotic'd up with Italian Stallion, I was having second thoughts about rocking another SoA double feature. However, when the netflix envelope told me this:

My fate was obviously sealed. And so I partook of the fantastical revenge of Alex and Tommy...

Universal Soldiering is an Imperfect Science

Soldier on soldier!

Inspired by Sean's near nude picture of Jean Claude, and inspired by Dolph Lundgren's gripping performance in Rocky IV, and inspired by my love for ear necklaces, and inspired by everything awesome that ever existed, I decided to Netflix (is that officially a verb now?) Universal Soldier.  I used to love this movie.  According to wikipedia, it is a trilogy now.  This excites me a great deal. They are also making a FOURTH Universal Soldier starring the original leads and set in a "more modern setting" than, um, the early 90's?  The first Universal Soldier was not a period action piece.  It was awesome though.

Here's pretty much what happened:

The movie starts with Jean Claude standing in a rain-soaked Vietnam. That war had so much rain. Then, Jean Claude tells everyone to leave.  Except they can't leave because they are all dead.  Dolph Lundgren killed them.  He then cut off their ears and made a necklace out of them.  His ear fetish was not explained.  Nor was his hysteria.  We just needed to know he thought everyone was a traitor, and that he was CRAZY.  His craziness was accentuated when he shot two innocent Vietnamese people.  Similarly, Jean Claude was not crazy because he wanted the Vietnamese people to live.  Unfortunately both Jean Claude and Dolph killed each other three minutes into the movie.

WHAT!?!?!  The leads can't die.

Hell, the Viceroy told me this was gonna be an art movie

The subheading of this blog, "Men across the nation search for greatness in action films" was penned as a sweeping and dramatic nod to the fact that the contributors are far flung. More realistically it should say "Men in the central time zone plus two in the western part of L.A. get giddy about shitty movies". This would more accurately reflect the identities of the participants (until we acquire a friend in the east) as well as the purpose of the quest.

So, anyway, I'm not sure where Sean lies his head after drinking a cube of delicious Old Mil Light, but the Viceroy and I may be the most closely located pair of contributors to this blog. This offered me the opportunity to snag "Italian Stallion" from him this morning before it need be returned to Cinefile. I won't belabor many points, as he covered it all quite nicely just a couple days ago, and the movie hasn't changed aside from perhaps being more grainy and poorly lit than it was when he put it on the spin cycle in his video-playing machine. In the interest of full disclosure of my habits, and further discussion of a momentous piece of film, however, I record here some supplementary thoughts.

* I would update "panty hamster" to "panty chinchilla". That, or those are some very ferocious hamsters.

PREDATOR 2010

What would happen if the loaded cast of the original Predator were to get back together today, knowing what they know? In what direction would the all-star, power-packed cast lead a sequel if it hadn't been handed to Danny Glover, Gary Busey, and Bill Paxton? How would they govern the downfall of the wicked-mouthed alien/reptile thing if it hadn't been spun off into a weird nostalgia-grab/FX orgy co-starring those scoop-headed Aliens?

Arnold: As the governor of America's most populous state, I hearby declare dat in Predata 2010 zere vil be seven times the asplosions and ve will hunt down seven of dose ugly motherfuckers! Ve vill flip da script of the original. I wanted to vork only with my team in zat one- in dis one we will have teams from all over ze world. A team from Mexico to cut off all ze tree branches so when he wears dat invisible suit it won't be zo trippy to see! A team of da Japs who vil be well educated by a state education system dat is bleeding money like za stuck goats in Austria!

“I’ll Be Velvet Mouthed On Your Shank of Love”

A conventional wisdom of the people of the United States of America is that action stars are born, not made. They believe the likes of Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone came out of the birth canal with a headband already tied around their head and a chip already planted firmly on their shoulder. Their state of affluence was sitting there next to the curl bar just waiting for them to claim. To which I say, “Hark!” This is America. No one rides for free. Van Damme, Lundren, Statham—all God-fearing Americans—had to start out on the bottom rung and pick themselves up by their bootstraps while doing a chin up to get to where they are today.

Arnold Schwarzenegger started out his storied Hollywood career in a feature called, Son of Hercules. The previously mentioned Jean-Claude Van Damme has an uncredited but crucial moment in the critically acclaimed prequel to the groundbreaking film, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, titled Breakin’. Heck, even Ronald Reagan started out as a humble B-movie actor before becoming an action hero.

Sylvester Stallone is no different. Broke and homeless, the Man That Would Be Cliffhanger took a gig that paid $200 (US) for two days work (ET). The final product was, The Party at Kitty and Stud’s. And it was the start of Stallone’s storied career.

BEST OF THE 5Qs

Tonight: The Best of the Best

Who: Eric Roberts. You know him because Chet did such a fine job introducing him yesterday.
Also: James Earl Jones, you know him as the black dude with the awesome voice; Phillip Rhee, you know him as the guy who made his career out of "Best of the Best" movies; Chris Penn, you know him as Sean's fat younger brother, or from Reservoir Dogs, Corky Romano, Mulholland Drive, Footloose, shit I don't know it depends on your viewing habits; various Korean actors.
What: The preparations for and action of an international karate tournament between the American and Korean national teams.

Sean Watches Universal Soldier 2

I'm not what you would typically call an 'action movie' type of guy. My netflix que is usually filled up with silly romantic comedies featuring amy adams and involve this lady somehow?

"Buzz's Girlfriend.....woof."

It's either that, or old episodes of Gossip Girl. (I wish I was half as funny as Videogum)

Tiger Hi-Line Entertainment Review: The Pope of Greenwich Village

If you are looking for an 80s drama about guys who accidentally get themselves involved with the mafia, "The Pope of Greenwich Village" might be for you! I recently attended a screening this movie. Here is what you would be getting your self in to.

Some of you may have heard adults talk about Mickey Rourke's resurgence. You know Mr. Rourke as the big ugly guy from Sin City and also the wrestler in The Wrestler. Well, your mom and dad were right about resurgence, because once upon a time Mr. Rourke was younger and much prettier! Once upon a time he looked a little like Kiefer Sutherland (but not Kiefer Sutherland from Lost Boys. Older than that.) He will also feature in this summer's movie The Expendables. This is one of his early movies, and he plays Charlie a down-on-his-luck wannabe restauranteur with a smoking hot aerobics instructor girlfriend. She gets pregnant! That's sure to make things complicated.

But his buddy Paulie is going to make things complicated enough. Paulie is a waiter who gets Charlie fired at the start of the movie for not selling enough steak. And later, Paulie gets them in even more hot water by crossing up the mafia. Paulie is played by Eric Roberts, who was Salvatore Maroni in The Dark Knight and will also be in The Expendables. It was weird that they cast Eric and Mickey in this movie because the characters are supposed to be Italian. Except neither of them are very good at acting Italian. Especially Mr. Roberts whose facial expressions and accent would make Heath Ledger roll over in his grave. It was fun to see Mr. Roberts with a haircut my parents called a 'jerry curl' though.

The Pope of Greenwich Village suffers somewhat from being long and ambling, but it is a well made and interesting movie so you should consider watching it.

Chet Germilla is a junior at Cedar Falls High School. We are happy to have him as the official Summer of Action intern.

So who's the baked potato?

There are two Death Race films, which conveniently both feature an Expendables star. I was going to compare and contrast, in a very concise and not overly verbose manner, producer Roger Corman's original 1975 film starring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone and the 2008 adaptation starting Jason Statham. But about ten minutes into DR2K I realized you needed to come on the (preposterously verbose) journey with me. Enjoy it now because I'm not sure how many more of these I'll do.

So, without further ado, real time thoughts, analysis, and description of three-plus hours of tantalizing action, starting from the start.
*edit I'm trying the fancy jump break because Jay had the brilliance to reveal the button to me. This way this post will take up less front-page real estate. I assure you you should still read it though. It's brilliant.

Communism Meets Its End Because of Change (Not Really)

Rocky IV confused me like it has never confused me before. It's been years since I've watched any parts of the movie except for the epic battle between Ivan Drago and Rocky Balboa and Rocky's corresponding speech that united two nations, tore down a German wall, banned Cuban cigars from the US of A, and, of course, caused China to start growing their future Olympic athletes in labs and train them to cheat in gymnastics.

Okay, before we get into the whole fall of communism, which is what everyone knows about this movie, I think it's time we talk about how truly awful of a movie this is. Everyone says Rocky V is the worst. Um, no. Rocky V is awesome because Rocky is all of a sudden mentally retarded (twist!), his son aged ten years between movies when all Rocky did was fly back from Moscow (also, his son started to hate his now retarded father when the fourth one ends with them mouthing their love to each other via television), and their is a street fight with a real life AIDS victim. AIDS is bad and people who have it should be beat up in alleys by Sly Stone.

But Rocky IV. No, Rocky IV is the worst Rocky. One is a legitimately great movie. Two is just sort of there. Three had Hulk Hogan and Mr T before they were Hulk Hogan and Mr T. Five had everything I just mentioned. Six finally killed off Talia Shire (off screen) and gave Rocky a love interest that wasn't awful. Talia Shire is so awful.

This is getting too intense

Surgeon. Soldier. Arctic fisher. Oil driller. Rene Zellweger's personal assistant. No. These are not the toughest jobs. The toughest job is trucking. Trucking puts you on the road, all to yourself. For so long. You have to drive treacherous mountain passes and groom yourself in the reflection from your truck's chrome. Trucking makes your toy-empire-wealthy father in law cut you off from the family. Or it makes you desert them to deal drugs. It's not entirely clear, but it definitely has a profound effect on your family life in one of those ways.

Grounding. Spanking. Forgetting a piano rehearsal. Diddling his girlfriend. No. These are not the most difficult transgressions for a father to atone to his son for. The most difficult transgression to atone for is deserting your family and never writing your son. Or writing your son and having your sonofabitch toy magnate father in law keep your son from getting your letters. Hundreds of letters! It doesn't help either if you're a trucker and therefore on a completely different social scale. Muscles aren't everything, after all.

Darts. Pinball. Drinking. Getting VD from truckyard hookers. No. These are not the most hardcore passtime of truckers. The most hardcore passtime is arm wrestling. It's the true test of just how enormous your triceps have become. The true test of how effective your in-cab weight pulley is. And thankfully, when they have big arm wrestling tournaments, you get a second chance to be harcore, because the tournaments are double elimination.

But if one hardcore trucker dude spends enough time with his alienated son, Lincoln Hawk might just be able to teach him a thing or two about muscles. About competitive fire. About believing in yourself. About being a better person. He might be able to begin to atone for being gone for twelve long years and driving his rig so slowly that they miss the passing of his son's mother. He might even be able to teach his son how to drive, which could theoretically come in handy. And by being hardcore and patching things over with his son, he might find the will deep within him to be the best at the most hardcore trucker passtime, to beat Survivor's Rupert at the table, and to win a critically needed new rig in the process. He might find a way to go

OVER THE TOP

May I remind you that arm wrestling tournaments are held in a double-elimination format.

Uh oh

(pardon the terrible photoshopping)

Action is Exciting

Similar to the movie Expendables, this blog is genius and totally called for. I love me the action. Last night I watched a very exciting action movie with "Broken Arrow" star John Travolta and "Die Hard" star Bruce Willis. It was about a talking baby, and oh boy the apartment almost burned down, but John Travolta saved the Bruce Willis baby. I didn't even know babies had telepathy, but they do. They have a lot of telepathy, but they only use it to talk to other babies and, in awesome sequeles, to cats and dogs. It is as adorable as it is adrenaline-rush enducing.

Yippy Kay Ya Mother Baby. I need a nap.

After watching that holy trinity of movies last night (Kirstie Alley is the epitomy of hot action movie star lady*), I've reordered my q (the word queue is needlessly long, similar to the spelling of my name. Henceforth, I am J and my queue is q and all that oil should be picked up please and Arizona should repeal their ridiculous legislation and John Travolta should apologize to all of us for almost everything he's ever done except for Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction, and Battleship Earth--that was so cool).

Below are pictures of my q. Rocky IV should be required viewing for everyone for featuring MIT scholar Dolph, Sylvester, and the fall of communism.




I do have some very important thoughts about the Expendables. It looks awesome, but I fear it lacks too much Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal. Who will save us from reprogrammed, reanimated soldiers and/or help unhijack our boats? Also, I hope Wesley Snipes stops by. With all the whitey here, someone will need to jump. I'm worried I'm going to watch too many Bruce Willis films, and that he'll hardly even be in the movie. He's probably busy hanging out with Tracy Morgan and laughing so hard.

Tonight I plan to watch a hilarious send up where Arnold Schwargenegger and Danny Devito are fraternal twins and almost opposite in every single way except for the fact they just miss their mom. What's funny is they then marry fraternal twin sisters who are just like them but opposite from each other. Who knew? Also, in this movie a car drives on only two wheels and heavy chains fall on people. It's unbelievable!

True to my word

A screen cap of my queue as of 1 p.m. 6/17/10. I am jazzed.

Mission Statement

I hereby declare July Classic ~80s Action Month in anticipation of The Expendables. I will be filling my netflix queueequeuqueeuw with things like Universal Soldier, Die Hard, and Death Race. I'll watch The Minion, Death Race 2000, and Rambo, which I own, on waiting days.

My rule is thus: it must star at least one cast member of Expendables and must not be "Look Who's Talking" or "Twins". It needn't be from the 80s as that would make Jason Statham and Jet Li movies difficult, and thats why the ~ is in the title of the event.