Last month I ran an interview that david j. moore, author of the upcoming book World Gone Wild: A Survivor’s Guide To Post-Apocalyptic Movies, did with Jesse V. Johnson. Now he sent me an interview with Ben Ramsey, who has been an important figure in my appreciation of DTV because his first movie LOVE AND A BULLET I described as “SURPRISINGLY UN-BAD” in 2002, and for a while considered one of the more impressive DTVs (I’ll have to revisit that some day). In 2009 he earned his place in the hall of fame by directing an all-time DTV/martial arts classic, BLOOD AND BONE. In this interview he talks about making BLOOD AND BONE, why Hollywood is afraid of the DTV stars we love, and how one of my other favorite under-the-radar martial arts stars was supposed to be in BLOOD AND BONE. (read the rest of this shit…)
Archive for the ‘Blog Post (short for weblog)’ Category
an interview with Ben Ramsey, director of BLOOD AND BONE
Wednesday, June 19th, 2013The Super-Kumite Round 1, Bout 3, shocking results
Wednesday, June 5th, 2013
Who the fuck am I fooling, MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE is the winner of this fight. MORTAL KOMBAT: THE ANIMATED VIDEO: THE JOURNEY BEGINS is really, really, really not the winner. Video games go back to the arcade in shame and tears. Goro goes back to Outworld to apologize to his brother who he killed to steal a crystal or whatever.
My friends, this is an embarrassment. I want to apologize for this bout. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Super-Kumite Round 1, Bout 2 results
Monday, June 3rd, 2013
I’m pretty sure nobody’s reading these, but that’s okay because The Super-Kumite is an underground tournament. We don’t need the light of day shone on our activities. We do it all by torchlight.
But for the few of us in this elite circle of insiders it is time to announce the winner of the AMERICAN KICKBOXERS vs. THE WOMEN contest. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Super-Kumite Round 1, Bout 1 winner
Wednesday, May 29th, 2013This was a tough one. Already we can see that the competition will be fierce. Both BLOODFIGHT and BLOODSPORT II: THE NEXT KUMITE are solid takes on the formula. Both have some good fights, some good gimmicks, good laughs, good older mentor characters, good villains. This is gonna be a close call, but I know who the winner is.
Ladies and gentlemen, THE SUPER-KUMITE!
Tuesday, May 28th, 2013Friends, I am proud to announce a new outlawvern.com event, THE SUPER-KUMITE, tournament of tournaments. It is a 3-round tournament of fighting tournament movies, with only one victor.
I’ve been wanting to do this for a year or two, but it took me a while to figure out how to make it work. Even once I did I made some mistakes and had to do some adjustments. It turns out there are less straight-up tournament movies than I imagined, and weirdly little information about them on the internet.
Here’s how it will work: I’ve put together 8 teams of 3 movies each which will be pitted against each other in one-on-one match-ups. In round 1 the chronological first films from each of the eight teams will compete in four bouts. The four winning teams will send their second movie to round 2, to be whittled down to the two finalists, which will compete for the crown. (read the rest of this shit…)
Vern Predicts: Cheeto-sponsored movie news
Tuesday, May 28th, 2013
I am posting this not as an attack on the websight in question, which I sometimes read, and which I know at least one of the regulars here writes for, but simply as a presentation of the facts at hand and a demonstration of my powers.
On April 1, 2008, I posted a fake geocities.com/outlawvern redesign titled “Cheetohs Presents Vern’s Cinematic Movie Blog.” It was full of dumbed down and crassly commercialized content including, for some reason, a sidebar with the nutrition information from a bag of Cheetos:
by the way, Nothing Lasts Forever is back in print
Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013I meant to post about this months ago, but things came up or whatever. Just wanted to make sure everybody knows that Roderick Thorpe’s Nothing Lasts Forever, the long-out-of-print book that became DIE HARD, was re-released earlier this year by a company called Graymalkin Media. Of course I prefer the beautiful painted cover on the beat up version I bought on ebay long ago, but those got to be real pricey in recent years so I’m glad it has been made available again to the people.
For those who read electronic fake books instead of human ones there is a bonus, apparently the ebook includes Thorpe’s recently unearthed 11-page handwritten treatment for the book. So that’s probly pretty cool.
For a pretty in-depth book-to-movie comparison I wrote many years ago click here.
An interview with Jesse V. Johnson
Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
I don’t think I’ve ever posted something from another writer before, and I don’t plan to do much of that, but when david j. moore (all lower case, like e.e. cummings) asked if I wanted to run an interview he did with stuntman/director Jesse V. Johnson I thought it sounded good to me. Johnson is on my short list of DTV-directors-to-keep-an-eye-on, and I’ve written about his movies PIT FIGHTER, THE BUTCHER and THE PACKAGE.
Moore is a contributor to many websights and magazines, most importantly Fangoria (because I subscribe to that) and he has an awesome-sounding book coming out next year called WORLD GONE WILD: A SURVIVOR’S GUIDE TO POST-APOCALYPTIC MOVIES, where he reviews more than 800 post-apocalypse movies and interviews many of their creators. His second book will be even more up our alley because it’s all about action stars. And I know he’s going all out for that because he told me he interviewed Lorenzo Lamas and asked him about NIGHT OF THE WARRIOR.
Here he talks Jesse V. Johnson, who discusses working with everyone from Steve Austin to Steven Spielberg. It’s a nice talk that’s very frank about what it’s like making low budget movies for video or the SyFy channel.
Thank you David for the interview and the rest of you I hope you enjoy it.
gone fishin’
Saturday, May 4th, 2013Just a heads up to 
my outlaw friends, I’m gonna be off the grid for several days, taking a break from internet for a spiritual journey, training montage, vacation, etc. So please bear with me, it will be a bit before I watch and review the return of Shane Black and Iron Man, but I look forward to it when I get back.
I do have two reviews set to post for Monday and Tuesday, and should also have a new column on Daily Grindhouse one of those days. I could play it cool and pretend everything is normal, in case I need an alibi. “No, I couldn’t have been fighting in the Kumite, see, I posted reviews on those days.” But what if some horrible thing happens in the news and it looks like I’m insensitive for just posting reviews like everything is normal? That’s why I want you to know it’s pre-programmed. If a megasnake attacks or something don’t be offended by my just posting a review. But don’t you think if I let a megasnake stop me from posting two reviews of cult movies then the megasnake has won? fuck a megasnake.
thanks guys, have a good week and we’ll talk soon
Patrick Hughes to direct THE EXPENDABLES 3
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
Well, you know us, we like to talk about who should direct the next EXPENDABLES. Of course the answer is a John like maybe Hyams or Woo or McTiernan via satellite. But we knew those were not gonna happen. Recently Stallone twittered that he wanted Mel Gibson to direct it, but even he admitted that was unlikely to happen. It is not clear whether or not he asked Danny Glover as a backup.
A few days ago Stallone twittered about meeting with a “NEW BLOOD” director who he said most of us haven’t heard of. We now know for sure that he was not trying to hint at John Carl Buechler, director of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD. He has revealed that he chose the Australian director Patrick Hughes. I liked his movie RED HILL, which you can read my review of here.
I gotta say, it’s a surprisingly good choice. Who knows how much power Hughes will have (Stallone is often accused of choosing puppet directors so he can control the production without having to do all the directing), or how he’ll do with a bigger production, or what he’ll even want to do with this series. But if he brings any of RED HILL’s foreboding tone and western classicism to it that can only be a good thing.
Note that the FAST AND FURIOUS series is being taken over by James Wan, also an Aussie. Let’s get Greg McLean on a new TRANSPORTER or something.
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4. buy a bunch of t-shirts and shit
(I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt)
THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN
