action movie freak
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action movie freak
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From the
ActionFest site, here is the
list of AWARDS: ACTIONFEST JURY
AWARDS ACTIONFEST AWARDS
Here are TRAILERS, REVIEWS of the movies
I saw, plus my NOTES on the PANELS:
Release Date
10 Apr 2011
Director:
Takeshi Miike
A group of samurai warriors come together to assassinate the Shogun's evil
son for the greater good. It's a suicide mission of a dozen
men against hundreds. A remake, it also brings up issues of duty
conflicting with personal integrity when one jealous, competitive,
and inferior samurai stubbornly defines himself through his duty
versus what is right.
What can one say about such an
excellent film? It was a triumph for
Director
Takashi Miike
on every level. It gave us a
glimpse into another society, another world, in another time.
Personal sacrifice for values and the greater good, and nobility of
character are too seldom given this reverential treatment. The
acting was superb. The fighting . . . well, words are not enough to
do justice to the imaginative scale and the (filmmaking) effort. You
can appreciate that only by watching it. By contrast, the story was
simple yet so well arranged, it never dragged and it never felt
rushed.
The plot had interesting twists
and they didn't give away the battle preparations, which made it
more fun for the audience. It was almost too much to take
in—so many actors, and so much stunt choreography and sword work.
I said almost. The ending battle was, as ActionFest Programmer
Peter
Kaplowsky
described it when he introduced it, "a
full-on 40-minute action sequence that never lets up".
When it came to the woman who
was maimed, I thought about whether it was necessary to show her
naked, or if it would have had the same impact if she was covered
but they showed just her limbs. In the end, to anyone normal, I
think her being naked really drove home how sick a man must be to do
that to a woman and then keep her around to have sex with. Maybe if
she were Carmen Electra with lots of makeup and fake boobs, some
guys would have thought "Hey, yeah" but at least this
particular actress didn't create that reaction (I can only hope),
instead, she was just pitiful. The overwhelming sentiment
against the villain, Naritsugu, carried me past the discomfort of
the further degradation of that female character. (If it was a real
life situation and not a film, I think the last thing they would do
is strip her like that. But, artistic license.)
As far as the experience of
seeing it at ActionFest, there was a reverential tone in
the auditorium when the movie began. The tense excitement of so much
positive anticipation, and then one guy to my right
ruining it by laughing
at the seppuku! I can't imagine and don't want to know what
he found funny. I had a little trouble reading the subtitles
because the person in front of me shifted his head a lot so I felt
like a bobble head in reaction, and felt sorry for the person behind
me.
I would love to see this movie
again. It won the 2011 Asian Film Award for Best Production Designer, and 4
Awards from the Award of the Japanese Academy for Best Art
Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Lighting, and
Best Sound. Although it was nominated for 2011 Best Picture from
the Japan Academy Prize, it did not win. It's coming to the U.S.
to the
San Francisco Film Festival
with a release date of 1
May 2011. I hope I get to see it again here in Miami (in
IMAX!).
9 Apr 2011
Director:
Julian Gilbey
A group of five mountaineers are
hiking and climbing in the Scottish Highlands get caught up in a
terrifying game of cat and mouse.
Link to Movie Short
The screening of the movie was followed by a Q&A with Director
Julian Gilbey who co-wrote the script with his younger brother,
Will. Mr. Gilbey also did the 2nd Unit Direction and Edited
the picture. He advised the audience on keeping their scripts
to 86 pages (the standard 1 min. per page) because you always go
over. His 86 min. film came out to 98 min. They had the
biggest stunt budget ever for Carnaby
International.
They kept the crew on location to a minimum for
the difficult shoots after a near-death experience with a falling
boulder slightly larger than a milk crate. The crowd thanked
him for not using too much shaky cam.
Director:
Patrick McBrearty
Seven-time WWE Women's Champion
Trish Stratus
leaps from the ring to the silver screen with her debut
performance
as the member of a crackerjack team of bounty hunters who hit the
jackpot when they pick up an informant with a hundred thousand
dollar bounty on his head. Before they can claim
their reward, they'll have to fight the entire mob underworld, and
match skills with a trio of deadly assassins. While the film's
trappings are distinctly lo-fi, Stratus impresses with an undeniable
screen presence and not to mention her badass stylings of the
intense Israeli martial art style Krav Maga!
Trish Stratus
(7-time
WWE Women's Champion) delivered the best beatdown of
Actionfest so far in
Bail Enforcers. I'm just saying that 'cause I'm a girl. You
betcha!! It was what I was waiting for. She undresses :( to
change, in a strip club :( where she works as a bartender, with
strippers (boobs) :(, but she is clothed when she fights :D!
And what fighting! From the movie: "Don't let her good
looks fool you, she can kick some serious ass!" They made it
look very convincing. The movie seems like the kind that will
definitely benefit from word of mouth, meaning regardless what
the critics say, audiences will love it and tell their friends it
was good and they have to see it.
The audience particularly loved the limited-space fight in the
bathroom between Trish's co-stars
Andrea James Lui
and
Boomer Phillips. (I bet this scene will be nominated or
Best Fight Scene on the MTV Movie Awards.)
For me, Boomer
Phillips was a mashup in the looks and comedy of Ashton Kutcher and
Dane Cook, and add the cliche: on steroids. (He was really
squeezing comedy gold out of playing the big dumb thing. He got beat
up a lot despite his size, and after the (hilarous) outtakes, I
would say he almost stole the show—Doesn't take away from
Trish, I think it only adds to the movie. Trish also had a big
finale fight with Andrea "When I get the cuffs off, I'm gonna
show you how a real bitch slaps." Yeah, with her fist!
Maybe in her next movie, she could be a bouncer at a MALE strip club
in Vegas, keep her clothes on (I can hear the men booing LOL), and
also feature "The Rated R Superstar" Edge!
Trish's co-stars
Frank J. Zupancic, Andrea James Lui, and
the Director
Patrick McBrearty
came up front
to introduce the film and stayed afterwards for Q&A and to take
photos with fans in the audience. Oh yeah . . . and her
WWE friends "Edge" and "Victoria" showed up to support
her (squealing). Fred asked if the WWE is supporting the movie
or if she was being pressured to work with their movie company
instead. Trish said the WWE was supporting it and would even be
showing clips of the movie to promote it.
The Director said that he wanted to do
something with a female lead (hooray!) and this was written with
Trish in mind. Q&A included a question about o mo versus real time
and how the fight scenes were shot. I believe the cinematographer
was in the audience to field that question,
Justin G. Dyck,, and he said it
was all shot in slo mo and then the normal speed parts sped up
later. There was also a question that led to the Director saying the
film was done on? "red camera" with an m/x upgrade and shot on 4K.
That's all Greek to me but he said it was an accessible ($) camera.
They also promoted the TV show
"Tough
Enough". When asked what else she had been in, Andrea
promoted her comedy work on
asiansploitation.com.
Check out
BailEnforcersMovie.com, and
they're on
Facebook, and follow them on
twitter:
@bail_enforcers (and
@trishstratuscom).
Help spread the word to go see it: It's everything
Action Movie Freaks
crave! A group of 'fight
club' pals whose styles vary from Muay Thai and Capoeira to Kung Fu
and Tai Chi must fight for their lives when one of their friends is
kidnapped.
There was so much fighting going on in this
movie, so many characters, it all went by so fast—They kept getting
more and more complicated and dangerous, and impressive. The flaming
ax! . . . I remember thinking "the Thai are crazy." They
switched from hand to hand, to swords, to pipes to guns, to
motorcycles, to cars (at one point someone almost got run over), to
fighting under a moving semi (and that's not the half of it). I
wrote so quickly I can't even read my notes, except these:
"somersaulting kick" "slo-mo grand
finale fight-holy holy!" and "love me some rock throwing!" The most impressive thing to
me (besides the huge fight at the end) was the fight inside the
chain link fence cage. If you've ever tried to climb a chain link
fence, you know how hard it can be on the hands, and how the holes
are just a little too small to jamb your foot in, so you can only
get the big toe. It's not easy, yet they were doing crazy
acrobatics. Even if it was sped up, it was gravity-defyingly
awesome. The athleticism of these young actors (and a few
older) was the best I've seen so far. The cast included a kick-ass
female character who was part of the fighting team!
It was incredibly
entertaining and looked so dangerous, that a couple times "Oh my
God" slipped out; I couldn't help it. There were other people in
the audience more astonished and more vocal than me. I think
everyone held their breath then let out a collective groan of relief
when the female lead was hanging off the side of the moving semi.
(Forgive me that there are no credits but there are none as yet on
IMDB.) In
that scene in the first picture at top right (the one that was used
to promote the film) where they seem to be jumping from one side of
the building to the other: EVERYBODY FALLS at
least one story onto the concrete floor! It didn't even looked
padded (no bounce). The movie started out fairly slowly but then it
built momentum as each fight scene was a little more over the top
than the last. Almost the entire movie (with little breaks
here and there) was fighting. Don't believe me? Watch the
1:10 preview, and
then imagine 107 minutes of that. It kind of felt like this:
_\m/ THAILAND, F--- YEAH! \m/_ In the
future, the Japanese government captures a class of unruly
ninth-grade students who boycotted class, and forces them to kill
each other under a government-sanctioned "Battle Royale" Act.
They are isolated on a deserted island, released with weapons, and
the last teen standing wins.
BATTLE ROYALE
(2000)
The kids are given a backpack
with certain supplies for survival for 3 days (there's a clock on
the killing/hunt), and each of them is given a different weapon,
some more lethal than others. One kid gets a pot lid. I think they
could have had a little more fun with how they used what they got.
The movie could have been a little longer for me because I didn't
feel invested in their survival. Maybe I missed something but this
was presented as a justifiable thing to do to the kids without
showing why they were so awful, besides boycotting class. If
they had shown the teens fighting/bad behavior in the classroom
first, and there was a power struggle going on among them,
then dumped them into a real-life battle to magnify their conflict,
as long as there were clearly 'good' kids and 'bad' kids, I think I
might have cared. Here they all seemed not so bad. I
found out there are books that go into more detail and I am
wondering if there was a bigger or more smaller morality lessons
here.
The killings were pretty graphic and overdone a little which took
the seriousness out of it a bit and added to its 'campy' feel. 2 friends venture
out into the world to begin their adult lives. All their free time
is spent building flame-throwers and weapons of mass destruction in
hopes that a global apocalypse will occur and clear the runway for
their imaginary gang "Mother Medusa". One of them meets and falls in
love with a charismatic young woman and and new group of friends.
They set off on a journey of betrayal, love, hate, infidelity, and
extreme violence.
Black Dynamite is the
greatest African-American action star of the 1970s. When his only
brother is killed by The Man it's up to him to find justice.
The story of a a
young man who has spent his life searching for revenge only to find
himself up against a bigger challenge than he originally bargained
for.
I really love
Josh
Hartnett. (I would have liked to see him instead of
Shia LaBeouf
as Indiana Jones' son.) There was one scene in particular where he
smiled, but only with his eyes. He was awesome! (I loved him in
Black Hawk Down,
40 Days and 40 Nights,
and
Hollywood Homicide
too. I think he is underappreciated.) The fighting was incredible
and deserves another look. I am sure I will buy this movie. I love
to escape into a movie where they have created a different world
from costumes to sets. The gangs and their outfits, the landscape
origami; there's just too much to take in the first time.
Kevin McKidd
fighting with his cane and scarf was a real tribute to the
creativity of Fight Coordinator Larnell Stovall, and Mr.
McKidd's stunt double
Chris Brewster III
(pictured at left). Thanks to Actionfest for inspiring me to
credit the "unsung heroes". Far from Las
Vegas, in sweat-soaked gyms and low-rent arenas across America, the
big lights are but a dream. Here, men fight to test their mettle,
fortified with the mythic promise that an ordinary man can transform
into a champion.
Framed by the
Saturday-morning-cartoon-style antics of an oppressed peasant
seeking kung fu wisdom from an anachronistic Shaolin Temple video
store clerk, Films Of Fury
delves into the rich, exhilarating and frequently hilarious history
of kung fu movies.
Written by renowned kung fu
film scholar Ric Meyers (author of Great Martial Arts Movies)
and featuring hundreds of bone-crunching, blood-squirting, and
bamboo-shooting excerpts from the kung fu cinema canon, this doc
will have its audience of fight-click converts furiously scribbling
down every movie title that gets mentioned. From the heyday of
the Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest, to the pioneers Chuck Norris,
Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan, to the cinema of the West's newfound
respect for the ancient arts — with Kung Fu Panda and
Kill Bill
— Films Of Fury has it covered!
Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie
MOVIE
Mr. Meyers, the author, who introduced the
film and stayed for Q&A (and was selling
Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie BOOK
for just $10, autographed and
free poster too!) said this was a "workprint sneak preview",
and asked us to give him our comments and suggestions afterwards. It
did as Mr.
Geddes said above "have its audience of fight-flick
converts furiously scribbling down every movie title that gets
mentioned". I scribbled only the ones I really wanted to
see or watch again (buy). Scribbled is right because they come at
you really fast. It was an entertaining way to present a ton
of material. Since the movie seemed finished to me and I had
no suggestions, here's
the list of movie I scribbled and any notes: I just wish I
could see them with Mr. Meyers! Maybe he could do a Audio
Commentary and they could release these in box sets by
fighting style, country, or just chronological. (Hope I
got the titles right and chose the right links on IMDB. If you're
reading this and notice anything wrong, please email me: gynell@gmail.com)
JOHN
WOO WUXIA
(woo-sha)
SAMMO
HUNG KAM-BO ("hard-hitting brawls") How nice to
have so many people at ActionFest who are SO enthusiastic and knowledgeable about Action Movies
(like 2010 Festival Director
Matthew Kiernan
and,
new this year: ActionFest Festival Programmer Man In Hat
Stephen
Kuplowsky.] 2011 Festival Director
Colin Geddes
seemed to be everywhere at once, moving like "The Mask". He did a
great job at pumping us up, and at communicating the focus of
ActionFest ("the unsung heroes"), the mission, and the sponsors. A homeless
vigilante (Rutger Hauer) blows away crooked cops, pedophile
Santas, and other scumbags with his trusty pump-action shotgun.
(This was my initial reaction. It stayed with me
and I watched it again about 6 months later and
wrote about it in depth.)
Oh. My Heavenly God. I
must be jaded because after the first time I thought They are
not going to go there it didn't phase me. I realized
Okay, it's going to be off the charts. The look of it was astounding! The costumes and the color, and
definitely all the violence . . . Story wise the
hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold was all that made any sense to me.
Everything else seemed so unreal. I guess I was rooting for them
(the Hobo and the Hooker), but that 'hit the fan'. I don't
know what I was expecting. I think, maybe, that he would go around
killing criminals (which he did) but 'normal' criminals. Is there
such a thing? The fact that I'm asking reveals the height or depths
this movie goes to, and the boundaries it pushed/smashed. The crimes
were so crazy: burning a busload of schoolchildren, mutilating
people just to film it, eating glass, ripping people's heads off
with a barbed wire 'necklace' tied to a car, the iconic manhole
choker (made me think of Scrat and the ice chunk in Ice
Age), dancing in a stream of blood, even the retaliations were
extreme like the one pictured here (ripping off? his penis and then
showing what's left). But is any of this any worse than the
violence in Ironclad or 13 Assassins? Is it that that
violence could be 'justified', this cannot. So is that what makes it
so shocking? The random cruelty of it. Violence for the sake of
violence? Violence for the sake of film? Violence as 'art' *? It
was like the hobo was on drugs and this was his crazy vision.
Director:
Hal Needham
Sonny Hooper (Burt
Reynolds)
As a
Burt
fan, how could I not see
Hooper (on the big screen again) with ActionFest 2011 Lifetime
Achievement Award winner Buddy Joe Hookerer in the audience! So
I wore my Hooper T-shirt and ended up in the row right in front of
Buddy Joe and his entourage as he jokingly called them.
Colin Geddes, Festival Director, introduced the film and its
place in stunt history: With this film, Buddy really set the
bar for a new generation of stuntmen. Director Hal Needham
started out as a stuntman and was Burt's double (hope I got that
right). It also starred a favorite of mine, Brian Keith as
Sally Field's father, and yes! that was Terry Bradshaw
(and Adam West!). Love how Burt's movies have that
family-and-friends feel of the stunt industry.
With Buddy Joe was
Tom Elliott, the current President of Stunts Unlimited.
Before the movie began, they showed Buddy Joe the (2-minute?) clip
ActionFest put together of his body of work and it was beyond
impressive.
. . . and all in the name and spirit of the real
Hooper, Buddy Joe Hooker.
Director:
Jonathan English
Ironclad is a bone-crunching medieval
action film that graphically depicts the real-life siege of
Rochester Castle in 1215, and stars
Audiences with the same kind of
bloodthirsty-ness that satisfies the soul of a 'foam fighter' will
love this movie! There were pockets of boisterous vocal appreciation
throughout a packed auditorium. The crowd seemed to love
Paul Giamatti's King John and his fitting short-man's-disease
performance, and cheered when bad ass Brian Cox appeared.
James Purefoy's understated and resigned performance held me,
and all the actors seemed to command compassion. This movie
is the first I've seen where the audience's seeming awareness of the
sum total of all the actors' previous roles added to their
appearances here. They fit so well as a rag-tag lot, and this made
their plight and their efforts more compelling and relatable.
Director:
Sheng Ding
An old soldier kidnaps a young general of an
enemy state, and takes him on a long journey to collect the reward.
Screenplay by
Jackie Chan.
After
being set up and betrayed by the man who hired him to assassinate a
Texas Senator, an ex-Federale launches a brutal rampage of revenge
against his former boss. Pop tarts
abound.
"Documentary: A fast-moving odyssey into the subterranean world of
the rarely explored province of Filipino genre filmmaking."
(The first verison of the video I had here was
removed: "This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube's
policy on nudity and sexual content.")
I am not a fan of grindhouse
movies, and feel strongly that they created a legacy of violence toward
women in the interest of sexual gratification. Four fighters from
different backgrounds come together to train under an ex-MMA rising
star, and then ultimately have to fight each other and the traitor
in their midst.
After the show, Mr. White returned for Q&A and spoke of the actors
as the "Hard to Defeat" cast: (pictured L-R)
Scottie Epstein (the traitor) is a Jiu-jitsu expert and
Chuck Lidell's coach,
Todd Duffee ("the big guy") is a UFC fighter,
Alex Meraz (Twilight werewolf)
is a Jui-jitsu phenom,
Dean Geyer is a black belt in
Karate, and the DJ was a cameo by Jiu-jistu expert
Eddie Bravo.
Director:
Takeshi Kitano
PANEL: A Tribute to BUDDY JOE HOOKER
Buddy Joe told us about the stunt in Hooper with the smokestack and
filming that whole sequence. I loved the expression he used
"We couldn't 'gas it and go'" when speaking about the muddy
condition of the road. They were 1/4 mile back before the smokestack
blew and had 4 seconds to make it underneath. I would say they had a
second and 1/2 to spare. [At that speed, and seeing it falling, what
goes through your mind as you drive straight for where it looks like
it's going to hit any second!?]
Background History they told us: When Buddy Joe started in the
industry there was only one Stuntman's Association,
The Stuntmen of Motion Pictures.
14 guys got together in 1970, including Hooper Director and Burt
Reynolds original double Hal Needham and started Stunts
Unlimited. They wanted to do something new. [Back then
there was only one group, now they have Brand X, ISA, and even
Women's Groups.] Also, back then a stuntman had to do
everything. In order to be in Stunts Unlimited, you have to be
invited by more than one member. Criteria for consideration
includes: be in the business for a few years, make "x" number of
(box office?) dollars, and they watch your work (will have seen your
stunts in movies and be familiar with what you've done). They said if you are not family
or friends, it's a hard business to break into.
Buddy Joe Hooker
started in the business at age
12. His family is from Texas. They raised horses and decided
to move to Hollywood in the 19502. Back then Hollywood was making
lots of Westerns. The Lone Ranger's white horse was one of
Buddy's Dad's horses (Hugh
Hooker
He passed away in 1987). His father became a
stuntman and then a stunt coordinator. Buddy Joe said his
first fall was as a kid into a pile of horse manure. The family also
owned dogs that doubled for Rin Tin Tin.
Discussion of CGI versus real
stunt work: that you can't "live it" when you watch (not
relatable). Example:
Deathproof
stunt work included
a real car crash. Buddy Joe Hooker was Kurt Russel's
Stunt Driving Double. In a discussion of new techniques,
James Cameron came up. Other films mentioned included:
Drive Angry 3D
(2011),
Final Destination 4
(link to YouTube video of Buddy
Joe Hooker car crash for Final Destination 4 but couldn't find 4 on
IMDB) (found
5?
2011),
The Wraith
(1986) [When
someone yelled out "Charlie Sheen!" Buddy Joe said "Yeah, Charlie
Sheen was in it
(laughed) . . . so we had a lot of 'background stuff'. He was
'cool' then too.",
White Line Fever (Jan-Micheal
Vincent),
and
To Live and
Die in L.A.
(1985) [Buddy Joe said
"Billy dkin said the car chase had to
be better than
(The) French Connection."
They would talk about what
he wanted each day over lunch. The reason for them deciding to use
the opposite side of the road for filming, switching left and right,
was that Friedkin wanted the industrial look / smokestacks in the
background. He said no one would notice they were driving on the
wrong side of the freeway. He was right! All we noticed was
they were driving against traffic!]
Now,
if all that wasn't already over-the-top cool, Buddy Joe doubled Stallone in
the fall off the cliff into the forest for
First Blood
(BAM!)! And why weren't you at Actionfest?!? He explained
how the stunt was done. He said he never says no to anything, instead he
sometimes has to find a different way to achieve the things the Director wants
(same end result). The first step was to put a little ledge on the cliff
for the (!) 98-foot fall into an airbag. Then the cut 40 feet off the top
of some trees so they could pre-saw some limbs to break and Buddy Joe could try
to plot out a plan of how he was going to fall through the branches. They
put 2 rows of cardboard boxes all the way around the base of the trees because
they coudn't know for sure where Buddy Joe would land. Step 3: A fall of about
20 feet through the bottom part of the trees from a cherry picker, then
Sylvester Stallone would do the fall from about 12 to 15 feet up.
The fall included dropping from one limb to another, falling 4 feet with a hit
to the chest, then 6 to 8 feet into a port-a-pit. Buddy Joe said Stallone
ended up cracking 2 ribs because he insisted on doing the fall from 3 to 4
feet higher.
The Panel hosts asked questions but the
audience got to as well throughout. At the end they showed a couple clips
of ridiculous (ridiculous meaning incredibly great) stunts by Buddy Joe. It was the perfect
finish!
"We could jump a car to the moon
if they gave us the proper rockets."
Professional martial artist, action star,
including (Spawn,
Black Dynamite, The Dark Knight), and
director (Never Back Down 2), Winner
of the Actionfest 2011 Man of Action Award:
Recipient of the 2010 ActionFest Award for Best Stunt Choreography for
Undisputed III: Redemption, he is the Stunt Coordinator for
(showing this year) Bunraku:
PANEL: The Art of
Fight Direction
The Panel began with showing videos made of each of their work
(except Meyers) that included clips from their films and other
things. I was having so much fun I almost forgot to take notes
:D so here are the few I did take. The Panel was asked about
their ACTION
MOVIE INFLUENCES
growing up. Michael said "Bruce Lee, once he showed up,
changed lives." Larnell said Bruce Lee as well, and that
he was influenced by
Dongi Yang combining MMA with
realistic gritty fighting. Richard Ryan spoke of flow, and stuntman
Dave Garrick. Then some
volunteers brought in trays of mini muffins. This was an inside joke
between Larnell and Michael. They have a little brother/big
brother relationship and Larnell said that Michael gives him a hard
time so he found a video of an early Burger King mini muffin
commercial starring Michael and this was a great practical joke.
Michael said something about everybody eating "cupcakes" and when he
was told "They're actually mini muffins" it hit him and he turned to
Larnell to ask "Did you set this up." Larnell got him good and
he laughed it off, while a lot of us got to eat mini blueberry
muffins.
A question was asked about their
MARTIAL ARTS TRAINING
and each of the Panel gave their 'qualifications' or martial arts they
studied.
When asked about RECENTLY
COMPLETED and UPCOMING PROJECTS,
Larnell Stovall mentioned
Mortal Kombat
2
(video
game) (2011) having a 3-robot fight. "Imagine 3 Iron Mans
fighting" he said. Also, he just finished working on
Medallion with Nicolas Cage,
and he's working on
Universal Soldier: A New Dimension
(3D) (2011) with JCVD, Dolph Lundgren, and
. . . (maybe Michael?)
Michael is going to be in The
Moor
(couldn't find it on IMDB but found this video on YouTube) and is
excited about getting to use his knowledge of
Wuxia. He told the audience to watch for
him in the
Mortal Kombat: Legacy
TV series
on Tuesday (see
Michael in Episode 1).
Their advice was given about
BREAKING INTO THE STUNT
INDUSTRY.
Larnell said he's a voracious researcher and web hunter and looks
for inspiration from multiple sources: He reads comic books,
looks at video games, Animae, and YouTube, and he recommended
everyone to find him on
Facebook
and
twitter. He was very
forthcoming with advice and suggested people make a YouTube video to
demonstrate what they can do. He even said they could email him.
Richard
Ryan encouraged the audience to accept anything you can get just to
be involved. Accept being an apprentice. He was Stunt
Coordinator for
Sherlock Holmes 2 (unreleased),
and Ironclad (which we got to see).
They discussed/mentioned
Capoeira, and the fascinating
Keysi Fighting Method.
They
finished with asking them what their
DREAM PROJECT
would be. Larnell said
Black Panther
(based on the
comic book). Michael said one of his dream projects would be
starring as Black Panther and he also wanted to do the
Paul Robeson
story.
Largo Winch, the newly appointed
CEO of the W Group, is accused of crimes against humanity on the
very day he announces his intention to sell his corporation and use
the proceeds to create a humanitarian foundation. Jake
(Charlie
Sheen) is killed by neighborhood thugs, and returns as a
mystical figure ("The Wraith") to gain revenge. I took no
notes in Tomorrow, When The War Began. It was fun to watch but
it seemed aimed at an audience the same as the stars. ("Not
that there's anything wrong with that.") The acting was good in
general.
Phoebe Tonkin played the
dumb, pretty, rich blonde girl who is so typically a bitch in
teenage movies, but in this one she was innocent and sweet and that
was very endearing. The story had an after-school-movie feel, but I think they
spend so much time camping that I almost forgot something else was
supposed to happen. It suffered a little by having too
many characters and too much introductory background, and then it
didn't really have time to develop their story lines that much,
which made me feel like I had
just read only Chapters 1 and 2 of a really good long book. The
scale of the
backdrop of the Australian countryside and a glimpse into the
apparently privileged yet rural lifestyle was impressive. Like
"Dallas" the TV show. The action was good. The chase scene won the
ActionFest Award for Best Stunt Sequence. When the chase scene was
described to me I thought the garbage truck would be dragging a dune
buggy attached by a cable, and the dune buggy bouncing around behind
it then getting airborne and spun around in a circle striking
things. What actually happened happened so fast I'm not sure
how the dune buggy got caught on a cable (electrical wires?) and was
in the way when the garbage truck drove by, struck it at full force,
and tethered, it went flying into the second story wall of a (very)
nearby building. This was spectacular and I wished no one had
told me about it because my anticipation of it made it a little
anti-climactic. Sisters Myra and Ellie have finally had
enough of their miserable, dead-end lives. When their step-father
Charley (The Bonnie from the title being long dead) tried to rape
Myra, Ellie ventilates him with a shotgun, and the pair run off to
their wealthy uncle's mansion in El Paso. From that point on, the
two undergo a transformation in their personalities, and start to
enjoy living their lives on the wild side. After one too many encounters with The
Spiders (a rival gang), The Ravens' leader's girlfriend tells him to
quit the gang or it's Splitsville. He does so, but the leader of The
Spiders is hellbent on revenge and arranges the murder of the
girlfriend. That ticks off the boyfriend, who wreaks havoc with the
two gangs, who have joined forces in order to pull off a security
truck heist.
Ricco: The Mean Machine
(1973) The members of a Vietnam veteran's old Army
unit start turning up murdered. The police soon begin to suspect
that he is in fact the killer. He knows he isn't, and must find the
real killer in order to clear his name. He soon realizes, however,
that the real killer is now hunting him.
A bounty hunter (John
Saxon)
is offered $20,000 off the record for the capture of a very large
man who dons body armor and steel-plated gauntlets for his regular
beatings of some unfortunate individuals.
An Interpol agent turned restaurateur, out for
revenge against the gangsters that cut off his arm and killed his
bride. This tragedy left him deeply depressed, and his battle with
depression has to be won first before he can be thoroughly trained
in martial arts. After his training, Ortega hunts down his
adversaries for a final reckoning.
Singapore's top
policewoman, Miss Cleopatra Wong, who heads the Seasian Interpol
Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.), teams up with her
Filipino counterpart to bust a counterfeit currency operation that
threatens several Asian countries with bankruptcy.
Color-Coded
Film Schedule
Apr 1 Can
it be April 2011 already? wow. Actionfest is in 6
days. After thinking about the fact that there will not be another
'feminist' action fan there to write about whatever I think should be
written about, I decided to go. Only 2 movies are probably only going to
offend
me (5%) and the other 95% will be fricking AWESOME! Trish Stratus
is probably what did if for me. I'm so excited they're going
to have a kick-ass female action star there and hope it's not a man's
idea of a female action star like in Sucker Punch. I
couldn't find a trailer for Stratus' movie Bail Enforcers but I
put I could find. I have a lot of work to do before Wednesday on
the film list, etc. (below). I
wanted to do the color-coded chart again (like last year)
so I could try to see as many
movies as I can (all of them if possible). I missed a couple good ones last
year and wasted time on District B13: Ultimatum. If you can go, you should because it's Action Movie heaven.
Michael Jai White
will be there too! (BAM!)
Mar 24
More
films announced . . .
list above.
Mar 11 I
wrote this and then decided to go anyway . . .
When I saw the horror movie My Bloody Valentine (3D) (which came before Machete's charming opening with the naked girl) I thought, please don't let this be a trend (and Crank and Crank: High Voltage): A totally naked girl running around . . . lingering close ups of bloody dead female genitals . . . COME ON! Anyway, It's one thing to have these movies be a semi-popular fad and another thing to glorify them at an Action Movie Film Festival. Really, Actionfest?! This is the state of Action Movies?! Here is a collage of the images from the 'documentary' (snicker) Machete Maidens Unleashed (being shown at Actionfest). All these images are from a 2-minute, 30-second trailer that your 10-year-old son is probably watching because he lied about his age on YouTube (I added the black bars!):
In the trailer's collection of clips from multiple movies, women are kicked, slapped, stabbed, pissed on, hit with a water cannon, shot in the back, run around everywhere boobs out, are tied up and naked while snakes are dangled to bite them, hung by the hair, and have their clothes ripped off and their 'maidens' unleashed . . hence the title (see artwork below) while 'experts' Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Sid Haig, John Landis (who says with glee: "the crassest, most exploitive, sexist, racist films" and "never before have you seen material so ripe for masturbation"), and Eddie Romero talk about how awesome these movies were because of "the big three": "Blood, Breasts, and Beasts." Here's a great quote: "If his camera could talk, he'd be in jail for statutory rape." They flash "No Safety", "No Money", "No Boundaries", and that hallmark of film raunchiness (midgets): "No Height Restrictions" on the screen like they are things to be proud of. This is what was wrong with these movies over 30 years ago and made them crap. Now they are being glorified as what is right and cool!? And here we find ourselves again, no further along in women's rights, with ActionFest pulling this crap out of some misogynist's ass for glorification and public consumption! All I have to say is "Where's the donkey?", and, this crap is STRICTLY for men, which brings me back to the fad vs. trend.
Fads come and go. Trends indicate where something is headed—Please God, no. The unfortunate thing is that men will never tire of blood, breasts, and beasts, and it's a man's world. That's where I interject: HELL NO! Real-life violence against women is so rampant that I find it dismaying nothing is being done. It's hardly being talked about unless you watch Nancy Grace (no thanks) or Jane Velez Mitchell who have a new story of the death or abduction of a girl or woman daily. Where's the public outrage? Where's the female outrage? If hardly anyone's upset about the real thing, why am I making a fuss while Writer/Director Mark Hartley (to quote Pauline Kael) "plays with camera"?1 Because THIS is what CAUSES violence against women! While this crap is promoted as masturbatory gold, sexual dysfunction is born with the need to see women degraded and destroyed just to get off. Like this is some kind of elevated sexual experience?! Yeah, let's go strip, hurt, and then kill a woman! Actionfest's endorsement of this 'cute-and-campy' treatment of the kind of stuff that makes boys and men think of women as objects to laugh at, strike, rape, torture, mutilate, and kill is beyond disappointing. It feels like a betrayal. I had hoped Grindhouse was a fad because, thankfully, it's not for the mainstream. I never expected Actionfest to headline these type of images at what I hoped would be, and what started out the first year as, the Hero-type's Movie festival. This tanked any desire I had to go and smeared shit on the face of my much-loved genre, and most dismaying of all, elevated this crap to the status of a trend by glorifying it! This is really important because this glorification fosters acceptance. This is the opposite of what should be. This is increasing the 'cool' factor of this fad/trend by endorsement.
Here's an image from Machete Maidens Unleashed I
liked.
What's the solution?
The mainstreaming of female Action Movie heroes who don't take any shit
(while FULLY CLOTHED) is long overdue, and don't tell me it won't sell
or be popular: look at the
Alien movies. If Grindhouse is the
direction Action Movies are headed in, it will splinter the genre.
Maybe already has. While I am older and female, I know some guys
who feel the same way I do about the misogyny and write about it on
their website. Action Movie Fans and
Freaks are not all the immature horny male audience this sick shit is aimed at.
Guess what? Women like action movies too, and there are more of us. And
surprise!—When we watch them we identify with the hero, not the 2-dimensional bimbo who is
there to titillate the men. We need strong female role models, not pop tarts. We ignore them as dumb 'playthings'
just like you do. Speaking of which . . . actresses like Jessica
Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Michelle Rodriguez, and Mayra Leal [who
played "Chica (Naked Girl")] who all agreed to make Machete are hurting
women by holding themselves up as role models, and young impressionable
women will look up to them because they are models of beauty. We all
know beauty = cool, and therefore, being treated like an object is
somehow supposed to be okay because they're hot enough to play
that role. This is playing into the hands of men. When will
women realize they have to stop endorsing this by participating. I guess this is my
stand. I am refusing to go to Actionfest because I don't want to endorse
the glorification of this type of movie. I will miss out on all the rest of it, but it's who I am to
fight this. I think the genre is better than this and I hope we get back
to the positive, take-no-shit 'hero' type movies that made Arnold, Sylvester
Stallone, and Steven Seagal's movies so popular. Better yet, put a
strong woman in Expendables 2. Women will never be treated like people
until they start acting like people and stop dressing, or undressing
for men. If you haven't seen "Robert Rodriguez's Machete", and you think I'm overreacting, read my review, here's a shot from the movie of "Chica (Naked Girl)" Mayra Real pulling a cell phone out of her vagina.
My
Actionfest Fairy Tale vs.
. . . My 2010 Actionfest Odyssey
My 2011 Actionfest Odyssey:
Eclipsed? I can't help but think that Actionfest is pandering to a certain younger, heterosexual males-only market that is desensitized by too much porn and needs more sensationalism. And I can't help but hope that the overwhelming numbers of the total of the rest of us, including baby boomers, will counteract this trend. It's like an embarrassment to have this LOW ROAD represent the genre that used to be about the good guy (not an immature loser's fantasy who has to exploit women to prove something about himself). I wish they had honored The A-Team instead of Robert Rodriguez's Machete. I loved Machete and hated it, but the action was really great, so I'm glad it's being recognized for that. _______________________________________ 1 This is from her scathingly awesome review of Kevin Coster's Dances With Wolves.
Mar 8
First 6 Films for
ActionFest 2011!
Mar
7
@StuntsUnlimited
seems ultra cool!
Mar 5 Next, the entertainment: They're having Roller Derby Girls?! (sigh) That's so lame. (That's why it's not that popular.) It's like Lingerie Football (that's probably next year). As a woman I don't want to see women exploited unless men are also being exploited but they never are. Boobs can bounce everywhere but you don't want anybody laughing at your penis bouncing around so . . . Meh! Nobody's reading this anyway . . . Goodnight Moon.
Mar 4
There's a month left and I must be oxygen deprived in
the brain since I've been holding my breath to find out who the honoree
is and what the film list is, and I have neglected anything and
everything else
Actionfest 2011! So here goes: First, THE
POSTER by
Gabriel Shaffer
who has a very Winning style (duh!). But I think black and white looked
cooler . . .
@Actionfest
has been leaking little teasers about the poster since . . .
They have updated the Actionfest site and the blog is frequently updated with new and old bites of the Action Movie Manwich! Stay tuned to ActionFest.com for details on 2011 • @Actionfest • See all the fun from 2010 on videos at actionfest.com/news VIP PASSES are now available for just $60 until Feb. 28th (after than $100).
Jan 2
Look who's got an ad on the new
ActionFest site :) (happy dance) . . .
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| Founders: Aaron Norris, Bill Banowsky,
and Dennis Berman
Executive Director: Tom Quinn @aloompanix Festival Director: Colin Geddes @colingeddes Production Director: Sheri Gibson Webmaster of Ceremonies: Roger Erik Tinch tweet from @Actionfest Nov 28 "Working on launching something new over at http://www.actionfest.com. This is long overdue and promises to be awesome, mark my words." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The
13 samurai vs. 200+ soldiers was realistically done. They
made the samurai look like the skilled bad asses that they
were (although the actors seemed a teeny bit soft and out of shape
when they showed them with their shirts off), but, in the end
(SPOILER) they were appropriately exhausted and bloody, and then
(realistically) killed. The epic effort of so few men tasked with
the assassination of a man (the villain Lord Naritsugu
Matsudaira) protected by a huge personal army, was balanced by the
smaller drama of the personal issues between the two leading
characters Shinzaemon Shimada (
Such
a suspenseful Chase movie, DO NOT watch the preview. It's that
good! Trust that you will enjoy the story and don't ruin any
of the surprises by watching or reading about it before you see it.
It will surely be compared to Deliverance as it is a kind of
long weekend gone wrong. The ActionFest Award winner for Best
Director and Action Movie Of The Year, A Lonely Place
to Die was beautifully shot. Filmed in the Scottish highlands,
around Glencoe, the cinematography
(
BKO:
Bangkok Knockout
Bunraku
consistently
shocking kind of neon in-your-face look of Hobo. There was a lot of
blue-purple, dark teal, lime, maroon, red-violet, orange, and olive
drab, but there were also scenes where it was just light yellow and
dark grey, and color was not the star. I found the changes in the
color scheme intensity to also be distracting. 
(Chow Yun Fat)
Of
course, he wasn't. I guess it was supposed to be kind of crazy he
was the only sane one. Babies cried. I lost count how many times I
thought That's just wrong. It's a really sick movie, not
Hostel sick, but sick. I was thinking it was an exercise in one-uppery.
We've seen it all, so they had to find more, push the envelope, like
our level of addiction to violence in movies has gotten so high,
we're immune, and this is what they thought they needed to do to get
noticed.
Buddy
Joe came up after the movie and spoke from the heart about how much
he loves what he does. In doing the big chase before the
bridge crossing, he said he was about 300 yards back, driving in
mud, when they blew the charges on the smokestack and he had 4
seconds to drive underneath. It was close. I mean really close
(a lot closer than this makes it look). I was lucky enough to see e
Hooper in a theater in 1978, and it just didn't get any cooler
than this. You already thought Burt was cool, but it seemed this was
his way of saying that there's somebody cooler.
The
movie had everything Burt fans love: the stunts, the car chases, the
cheesecake and beefcake, the cockiness, the camaraderie, the comedy,
and his laugh
It was the 99% complete package for a true
Action Movie Freak, and
the missing 1% actually worked in the movie's favor! (Nice
surprise to me.) I think (maybe it's just me), Action Movie Freaks
are always looking for an Arnold-type actor showing off his muscles
and physical prowess, barechested, at some point. Without big
beefcake (Rhys Perry Jones was unusually big compared to the
other men, but in a more human, less bodybuilder, way) we lost that
fantasy hero element, and it worked much better! James Purefoy
seemed strong enough. I think if he were any beefier it would have
taken away from our feelings of sympathy. He was a man first, and a
fighter second. Which brings me to the love story. It's funny but
the very little that female characters are in this movie are also
fitting and seemed realistic. If you don't show the breasts of the
woman Beckett is sleeping with, then it wouldn't seem like she was a
prostitute, and you'd wonder why she was being modest. They showed
them once, and then she covered up. The sex in this movie was
fittingly desperate and hot given their circumstances and I can't
say more without spoiling the outcome of the major love story. The
movie had nobility and that's a rarity these days. All Action Movie
Freaks, deep down, are looking for a cause to fight for. Ironclad
delivered that in spades, and cannonballs, axes, maces, longswords,
hatchets, arrows, pitch, fire, daggers, spears, trebuchet, and
(won't spoil the biggie)! . . . OH YEAH!
When asked about whether one
should be known for martial arts or for acting first, Michael said
that the refused to do any martial arts movies until he became known
as a dramatic actor first. He told a funny story about being
in a bit part in the first
a
Stallone belt buckle or a
The
reality was
Mar
6
My ActionFest BitchFest: I can't take the waiting anymore! OMG. And if they announce the honoree is JCVD, I'm not
going. Today they published the program pages, and STILL NO FILM
LIST! How do they expect people from out of town to go, or, to
build any excitement? My fear is this whole second year will be too
much in the vein of "Grindhouse" and geared to young men 14-28 instead
of Action Movie Fans (who come in all ages and BOTH sexes and they should
not discount the Baby Boomers). It's like waiting too long for
something just kills the excitement. WHO am I kidding?! I'm
dying to go!!! I'll just skip those movies and see the rest. 
