Happy Birthday Steven Seagal

It's easy nowadays to equate Steven Seagal with the words "douche" and "washed-up." But for a while there, he was a certified bad ass of action cinema. So, since it's his 61st birthday today (and I barely realized this in time), I'll just go ahead and give a small tribute to him on my blog alter and hope he one day answers my prayers by making me capable of knocking a man's teeth out with a pool ball wrapped in a sock.

Fire Down Below is the last Seagal movie I genuinely enjoyed. Not because it's a truly good movie, but because a lot of the scenes and dialogue are hilariously bizarre. Take, for instance, how the clip I'm about to show you begins, with Seagal pronouncing to a bunch of thugs "I was just taking a little Sunday stroll, I guess maybe it's not Sunday"; the brilliant retort being "You picked a fine time to take a walk in our marijuana field." If that's not entertainment, well, maybe the rest of the clip of him punching hicks in their huge belt buckles will be. After Fire Down Below, he did The Patriot and Exit Wounds, and thus began his slide into DTV. Still, I'll always have fond memories of him from the late '80s and '90s, and this movie puts a smile on my face every time.

"You could be an English teacher, probably, except you don't understand plain English, do you?"

Bonus: The entire movie is on YouTube. Enjoy (or don't).

Blogathon: Movie Jail Relay Race

Darryl from Morally Oblogatory has kindly passed the Movie Jail baton to me, and I can't tell you how excited I am to prosecute the sad sack of flesh you'll see below. But before I get to that, you should know that the Movie Jail Relay Race was started by Nostra from My Filmviews & The Focused Filmographer. The official rules are as such:

Finish Him! Or...Don't, or Whatever - Mortal Kombat (1995)

In this, the 4th installment of You Got Some Video Games in my Movies, I take a look at one of the biggest disappointments of my adult life, Mortal Kombat. As you'll see with this review, I was a big fan of the games growing up. Then, Paul W.S. Anderson decided to find what was most sacred to me and carpet-bomb it with enough stupidity to keep me far, far away from whatever enjoyment he thought he was giving me. The previous movie in this series, Street Fighter, actually has some entertainment value (albeit also stupid) to it. Mortal Kombat, on the other hand, plummets like Goro off of a cliff after getting kicked in the (presumably) four-testicled nutsack. Thanks, Anderson. Thanks for that one.

DVD case accolades:

"A rock'em, sock'em, action flick!"

-Anonymous(?)

You Killed my Family, Big Mista...Wait... - Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)

If any director deserves props for resurrecting a dead franchise, it's John Hyams for his recent work on the Universal Soldier series. The original is an interesting road movie/action flick from Roland Emmerich before he went all explosion crazy, but it all went straight downhill after that. The next two sequels are tv-movies without Van Damme, and 1999 saw his truly awful return to his character of Luc Deveraux in the equally awful Universal Soldier: The Return. Thank God for Hyams, though, because he saved the day and created a fantastic character arc for Van Damme to explore through (so far) two exceptional action movies.

This is Merely Superconductor Electromagnetism, Surely You've Heard of It - Street Fighter (1994)

For the third installment of You Got Some Video Games in my Movies, I take a look at Raul Julia's swan song, Street Fighter. This review will not go into very much detail when it comes to the differences between the characters in the games and the ones on-screen. While I've played a bit of the games, I wouldn't call myself a fan, exactly, so the extent of the comparisons will be limited to physical appearances. Fear not! Their appearances alone are hilarious enough to fill a lot of space with goofy pictures of everyone involved.

UGGG - LEE!! - Double Dragon (1994)

In this, the second edition of You Got Some Video Games in my Movies, I'll be looking at the masterpiece from the director of the 1992 (and '93!) Billboard Music Awards, Double Dragon. My history with the game series is pretty shallow, I'm sad to say. I remember playing the original a few times, but it's a generic memory. A lot of side-scrolling, button-mashing, and...that's about it. As for the movie, I'm a little surprised I hadn't seen it until now. Did I like it? Keep reading if you want to find out (spoilers: I didn't).

DVD case accolades:

"A double blast of fun...an entertaining high-energy mix."

- The New York Post

Only one year removed from Super Mario Bros. comes Double Dragon, which is surprising, because who the hell would want to make another video-game-based movie after that debacle? Apparently, the star power of Bob Hoskins proved to be too fruitful, so this time around, Scott Wolf gets his much-deserved time in the spotlight. He might be the worst bit of casting, but his inclusion isn't what genuinely makes me mad. Instead, it's the presence of someone who absolutely, positively, 100% should not be in this movie.

You Got Some Video Games in my Movies - Super Mario Bros. (1993)

I've decided to go the Nick Jobe route and review every video game movie ever made. I'll be watching them in chronological order, or at least that's the plan. If I can't get a hold of some of the lesser-known ones, I'll be sure to note that and move on to the next one. Keep in mind that I'm bypassing documentaries and animated features, focusing only on live-action movies. It's too bad that I won't get to watch Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie for this purpose, but that won't stop me from watching it on my own anyways. Although there are a ton of horrible, horrible movies based on video games, I assume I'm still going to have fun with this project. As I'm sure some of you know, I don't mind watching garbage, and while doing so, I'll be pleasantly surprised at least a few times. I hope. So, without further ado, I'll start things off with the grand daddy of video game movies, Super Mario Bros.

DVD case accolades:

"It's a blast!"

- The Washington Post

"Eye-popping special effects!"

- Sixty Second Preview

I was really hoping to start this video game movie project off with some sort of a bang, but it was not to be. Super Mario Bros. is exactly what you'd expect from the first attempt at adapting a video game from the '80s into a movie: It makes no sense and horribly sucks. I got what was coming to me, though, so I'm not complaining.

End of the World Double Feature: 2012: Doomsday (2008) and 2012: Supernova (2009)

I figured I'd have a little fun with the world ending and all, so what better way to do that than by having a doomsday double header? It's not with anything as fancy as 2012 or Deep Impact, but they passed the time alright. So, without further ado, the last paragraphs I'll ever write are as follows:

The Adventures of Snow Plisskin - Lockout (2012)

Going in to Lockout, I was honestly expecting a turd fest to some degree. I’d heard mostly negative things about it: It’s dumb, it’s obviously low-budget, etc. Well, it is both of those things, but they’re part of its charm. The difference between this and something I usually bag on is the film’s matter-of-fact nature and the cast. The film doesn't pretend to be something it's not, and even though the story is as straight as an arrow (for the most part), a solid cast and a director not getting in the way helps a lot. There’s nothing quite like a dumb, fun action movie.

Not Your Mother's Grandma - Shaolin Grandma (2008)

"Is this the police? There's a dead granny in this house."

And thus begins Shaolin Grandma. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I guess mailmen in Japan will just enter your house if you don't answer them when they scream out that you have a registered letter. At least the one in this movie does, and that's when he finds the dead granny. After calling the police, he sits down in her living room and finds a scroll written by her about her life and starts to read it. Great setup, or greatest setup ever?

Oh, Hey! It's Everything Bad About the '80s in One Movie - The Expendables 2 (2012)

God damn, if anyone is supposed to understand what made the '80s awesome, it should be Stallone, Arnold, and Willis. Or not, I guess. The thing is, I know Stallone gets it on some level. His last Rambo and Rocky movies are absolute proof of that. Neither of those movies were self-aware, but they still both had the '80s basically tattooed all over themselves. So I guess I just don't see why almost every single thing that happened in The Expendables 2 had to include giant winks, nods, awkward pauses and laughs, more winks, nods, and then more winks at the camera. I GET IT, DUDES WERE DUDES IN THE '80S, AND LOOK AT ALL THESE DUDES DOING DUDE THINGS, ISN'T IT HILARIOUS? *wink wink*

You Dirty Japs! - 1943 Batman Serial

While everybody and their mother is probably rewatching the Nolan Batman films in preparation for The Dark Knight Rises, I decided it was high time I turned on the 1943 Batman serial DVD set that's been sitting on my shelf for the past few years. I think I picked it up at the grocery store, of all places. I don't know why I never watched it; I think I forgot that I even had it. Man, I've been missing out. Fuck the Joker; fuck the Penguin; fuck Catwoman. In the first film version of Batman, he goes up against the sinister Jap, Dr. Daka, and his zombie minions. Yes, that sentence is correct, and yes, the things it points to are hilarious, if you couldn't already tell by that picture up there.

Totally Not Too Many Lincoln Movies - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) and Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (2012)

I haven't read much of the critical reception of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. These days, in general, I try to stay away from too much blogosphere talk before I've seen the films in question. From the little bits I've read on Twitter and various blogs, some people have a problem with the serious tone Bekmambetov kept up for the entirety of Abraham Lincoln. Yea, well, too bad. It's fucking awesome.

ATLANTAAAAAA!!!! - Cyborg (1989)

For no reason, really, I'm going to blatantly jack Brian Roan's writing device on this one. Call it an exercise in broadening my creative horizons if you wish. Or a total lack of such creativity. Either way, my writing cannot change the fact that I hated every minute of Cyborg except for that one boob shot, and I had to wait 29 agonizing minutes before it happened.

I'm Moving to Canada - Captain America (2011)

Of all the things that are wrong with this movie, the most glaring is the one I also just can't forgive: Captain America has no soul. Steve Rogers isn't a human being; he's America personified. And, man, America personified is boring and shitty.