Samuel L. Jackson @ MindSay

Yes, I have been watching Afro-Samurai, and I'm compelled to add "featuring Samuel L. Jackson" just because.



Oh, I nearly forgot... Music by "The RZA".

Thanks for the 1sties and the storm warning, silverlinings!

Because its looking like there is a curse on his new movie Soul Men what with his co-stars Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes dying within days of one another.
I want an update on Sam's condition every 15 minutes so I can sleep at night.

I saw the new resi film on friday and was suprised to find that it was actually quite enjoyable. If you ignore the fact that it completely fucks up the plot of the games. Worst thing about it was that we were ambushed by spazzy sarah. (What is this political correctness? I'm not a politician)

 

Bought resi 3 for the gamecube on saturday after work before going to my friends to RPG. I've been playing it loads is very fun. I got some new furniture for my room now that it's been painted. Got a day of college yesterday because i thought it was a sunday. Other than that i decided to end each new blog  with a quote from a film/book/game/song/[other source].

 

Anyway,

 

"AK47 when you absolutely, positively have to kick the ass of every mother fucker in the room. Accept no substitute"

Much like Col. XkachoojiX, I too have been indulging in some cinematic "brilliance" of late. My Netflix account is currntly up to full speed again so on Saturday, I got The Mad Butcher via Something Weird. So yeah, when I get something from the Something Weird catalog of films, I have a certain standard of expectation. While their sexploitation movies leave a massive amount to be desired, the horror/slasher films are among the best in terms if payoff in the gore department. With the high watermark being The Wizard Of Gore, I am expecting The Mad Butcher to deliver. The concept is genius — a German butcher is finally released from the mental hospital to return to normal life after 3 years in the rubber room. As her returns to his shop, he is in a bit of conflict between staring at the silhouette of the naked woman across the way and his irritating, nagging wife. After a scuffle, he chokes his wife to death and decides that he can turn his wife into sausage to hide the evidence. He does so and the sausage is so beloved by his customers, he keeps killing people and turning them into sausage. Sounds amazing? Yes.....but no. One question — WHERE IS THE GORE?!?!?!?!? There is none. Zero. Zilch. Nadda. Nothing. Even the moments of violence are no more brutal than anything you've seen on a rerun of Andy Griffith. Everything is implied. The thing that really ruins this movie is that it is just an uncomfortable mix from the outset. The lead, played by Victor Buono, is cast well enough but the problem lies in that this movie is schlock, it knows it is schlock but Victor Buono was an actual actor, not a Z-Grade hack. So, aside from the obvious lack of gore and hilarity, you have an actual actor surrounded by talentless dopes in an obvious Z-grade film. Total disappointment, especially considering that, given the context, The Mad Butcher had a TON of potential to rock the proverbial house.

So then, on Monday night, we watched Crank on Blu-ray. First off, despite my slandering it in the beginning, Blu-Ray really is impressive beyond mere words. If you have an HDTV, it's worth buying a PS3 for because the picture quality is ridiculous. As for Crank itself, I'm a pretty big fan of Jason Statham so I'm REALLY forgiving when it comes to his movies. I think that trailer was a dead giveaway that this movie would be big budget schlock but despite this fact, the movie was pretty darn entertaining. Jason Statham is actually a great actor so he has the ability to take a movie of this type and make it better. That is not to say that Crank sucked aside from Statham because it was actually a good movie for what it was. All I'm saying is that Jason Statham made it better. He has the ability to act and have his personality shine through while still being believable in an action role. Sorry Steven Seagal and Arnold fans. Jason Statham is the action king now, even though I still believe his best roles are ahead of him.

So last night, we walked in in time to see Snakes On A Plane. I hadn't seen it in about 8 months now and initially, I was kind of like "Man, I'm not in the mood for this movie right now." but those feelings quickly dissipated because again, the movie holds enough entertaining moments to be a fun movie. Besides, Samuel L. Jackson can carry pretty much any movie from the depths of idiocy. Take the snakes out and replace Jackson with any other actor and this movie is the worst thing ever. Add him back in and have an extreme antagonist such as hundreds of poisonous snakes.....comedy gold. If I ever make a movie, I thinking Sharks In A Submarine. Me thinks that Snakes On A Plane could be this generation's Escape From New York. Just watch.

Yes...I've been indulging in cinema schlock again. Sue me, I'm a guy. As much as I like artsy indie movies and movies that make me think, I am still equally excited by tons of gore and destruction.

On a side note (sort of), watching Snakes On A Plane made me ponder this question: Who has the best movie "fuck"? What I mean is in all of cinema history, who has the most effective on-screen use of the word "fuck"? To get us started, here are my top 5 movie "fucks".

1. Samuel L. Jackson (duh)
2. Joe Pesci
3. Dave Chappelle
4. Robert Deniro
5. Vinnie Jones
Honorable Mention: Alan Ford (otherwise known as Brick Top)

As per usual, I've been slothing it up to the hilt the past few days. So that, combined with my recent membership with Netflix means more movie watching than normal. This blog brings forth the description of two good'n's, I tell you.

First...Snakes On A Plane. You know it's loaded with cheese. I know it is loaded with cheese. Snakes On A Plane is the greatest kind of cheese. It's the equivalent of eating an entire crate of Velveeta and not getting sick at the end. I can't think of a title in recent history that has been so blunt. When I first saw the title, I thought it was metaphorical. I was thinking maybe "untrustworthy men who inhabit a small farming community" or something along those lines. Instead, it actually was literal snakes on an airplane. There can be nothing more straight forward than that but even knowing that, it still had the potential to just suck oh so bad. In my opinion, it was the exact opposite. Snakes On A Plane rocked in that "don't feel like using my brain" sort of manner. If you are looking for intellectual stimulation, this movie fails miserably. If you just want to see a bunch of people die in hilarious ways, this is perfect. I really don't know what else to say. There are no intricate plot points, no complex character developments, no mysteries to solve, no brilliant dialogue. Just a plethora of dead bodies, babies crying and people dying. There's even another classic Samuel L. Jackson moment!! I learned in my earliest game development classes that the key to any story is three-fold: get your main character(s) up the tree, hit them with everything you can while they are stuck in the tree and finally, have them figure out how to get down the tree alive. Snakes On A Plane gets the passengers "up the tree", blasts off on them with hilarioous results and the few remaining survivors live to go surfing. Perfect.

Next...Phenomena. I'm getting ever closer to having seen the entire Dario Argento catalog of work. Phenomena seems to be somewhat of a weird entry as it gets closer to the end of his run of "classic" movies but seems to be mentioned less often than others like Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebre. Since my hunt for a copy of Phenomena has been a complete failure to this point, I added it near the top of my rental que. The basic Argento plot points are all here: mysterious killer on the loose, young girls getting whomped, protagonist girl searches for killer. While it might seem a bit formulaic to some, Dario Argento is a wiz at taking these basic framework settings and going into different directions every time. In Phenomena, the basic framework is even loose at best. Of all of his movies that I've seen, the first 5 minutes of Phenomena are by far the best and possibly creepiest I've seen. I won't ruin it because it's probably also the best opening 5 minutes in horror movie history, certainly as memorable as the opening of Night Of The Living Dead. Anyway, the girl is Jennifer Corvino, daughter of a famous American actor and new student at an all-girls boarding school in what's been called "The Swiss Transylvania". While there, she discovers that she has telekinetic powers and can effectively communicate with animals, mainly insects. Not to make it sound that she has conversations with them over coffee but more that she can attract them and control their behavior. This is pretty integral to the plot as Donald Pleasance's character explains throughout the movie how his studies of insects has taught him of their own telekinesis and has helped him determine the time of death after the body has been discovered. While the movie calms down some in the middle, the last 20-25 minutes are probably the best in Argento history, maybe even Italian horror history (so far as I've seen). Daria Niccolodi plays the "Mommy Dearest" role to near-perfection and without giving it away, the final 10 minutes were completely unexpected and quite gory. So many amazingly memorable moments throughout this movie, it's hard to write this much without giving them all away. Phenomena just has to be seen. This might be my new favorite of Dario Argento's films.