"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘Pierce Brosnan’

Black Adam

Monday, June 19th, 2023

Call it super hero fatigue, call it The Rock mistrust, call it what you want, but for some reason I, a guy who has seen most comic book movies, including ones everybody says are terrible, did not bother with BLACK ADAM. Until now. I don’t know, I was trying to figure out something to watch, I knew I’d be seeing that THE FLASH movie soon, and I kinda wanted to catch up beforehand, just for the sake of completism, I guess. So I put it on.

There was a point early on when I honestly wondered, “Am I gonna be the guy who likes this movie?,” ’cause the set up kinda had me going. But it pretty quickly shifted to that feeling you get at the climax of a big wannabe blockbuster you’re not into. A bunch of loud noises and bullshit. Oh well. I will have some nice things to say about it. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Foreigner

Tuesday, December 11th, 2018

I’m more of an action guy than a thriller guy. But I can appreciate different stuff. Martin Campbell’s THE FOREIGNER (2017 – not a remake of the Seagal film) is definitely more on the thriller side, mostly seeking its excitement in a complex web of police, compromised politicians and terrorist groups all dealing with the aftermath of the bombing of a London clothing boutique.

At the center of it is Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Liam Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan, FINAL SCORE). He’s a former IRA member and seems to be pretty fucked over by this incident because he’s built a reputation as a moderating force, but behind the scenes still has relationships and understandings with the IRA. This bombing was done by some young upstarts calling themselves “The Authentic IRA,” and there’s alot of pressure, including from police captain Richard Bromley (Ray Fearon, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST), to find out who’s responsible. If another bomb goes off it’ll be the end of his political career, so he spends most of the movie desperately asking around and trying to set up traps to out the culprits and stuff like that. (read the rest of this shit…)

Final Score

Monday, September 17th, 2018

If VOD is where we must go to see rugged heroes run through solidly entertaining classical action formulas then I guess that’s what we’ll do. In FINAL SCORE, Dave Bautista (WRONG SIDE OF TOWN) proves that he can handily carry a wholly unoriginal vehicle that knows how to properly operate the machinery of the DIE-HARD-on-a-____ template. To be more specific, this time it’s the SUDDEN DEATH template – DIE-HARD-in-a-hockey-arena-but-in-a-soccer-stadium.

Bautista plays American ex-Marine Michael Knox, who comes to London to bring his teenage “niece” – actually the daughter of a war buddy whose death he blames himself for – to the soccer match. (Yes, he keeps not calling it football, but don’t worry, there’s a part where a guy gets punched out for that very offense.) Unfortunately Uncle Mike and Danni (Lara Peake, HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES)’s outing coincides with a plot by separatists from the ex-Soviet nation of Sukovia (on the eastern border of Sokovia, I believe) trying to find a former rebel leader in hiding and then blow up the stadium. (read the rest of this shit…)

Quest For Camelot

Thursday, May 17th, 2018

May 15, 1998

In the mystical past of summer of ’98, “animation” meant drawings. TOY STORY was the only computer animated feature that existed, so that was still just a novelty, not the entire industry. It wouldn’t be until the Fall that dueling bug movies kicked off the war for computer animation supremacy, so nobody wanted to be Pixar yet. They still wanted to be Disney.

The previous November, Fox Animation Studios had made their Don Bluth directed version of a Disney movie, ANASTASIA. In December Dreamworks would release their Biblical version, PRINCE OF EGYPT. And this was Warner Bros. Feature Animation debuting with their sword and sorcerer version. They took a little bit of the dark fantasy of THE BLACK CAULDRON and early Don Bluth, but mostly tried to make a musical in the vein of the ’90s classics like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and ALADDIN.

The operative word being “tried.” This is a terrible fucking movie. Nothing can compare to FOODFIGHT!, but as far as professionally completed animated features given a wide release in theaters, QUEST FOR CAMELOT (a.k.a. THE MAGIC SWORD: QUEST FOR CAMELOT in some countries) is one of the worst I’ve watched all the way through. The shamelessness with which they try to copy Disney, combined with the clear lack of understanding of why people like the stuff they’re trying to rip off, and the substandard execution of it, is honestly depressing to watch. Like any animated feature there are surely many talented people who worked on it, but it’s very obvious that the direction at the top came from a bunch of clueless executives who just had no respect for the audience or the art form, and no idea what the fuck they were doing. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Lawnmower Man

Monday, March 6th, 2017

I know you guys probly already have huge parties planned, but in case you’re in a part of the world that doesn’t celebrate, today is the 25th anniversary of STEPHEN KING’S THE LAWNMOWER MAN. And in March of 1994 we’ll be able to celebrate the anniversary of THE LAWNMOWER MAN, after King’s lawsuit made New Line Cinema remove his name from it.

(Weird detail from an Entertainment Weekly article at the time: King “hired a team of private investigators to check out video-store copies in five cities” to prove they were violating an injunction against using his name. Did he worry if he brought in four tapes from four cities New Line would say “Nah, it’s only the copies in those four cities, the rest of the ones we made don’t say Stephen King”?)

(read the rest of this shit…)

The November Man

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

tn_novembermanA quick word on THE NOVEMBER MAN. It’s the recently-released-on-video Pierce Brosnan spy joint directed by Roger Donaldson (SPECIES). Brosnan plays Peter Deveraux, an ex-CIA guy (not MI5, interestingly) who gets called in for one last mission for personal reasons, gets betrayed, has to straighten things out and make those motherfuckers wish December would get here real quick. The intrigue involves a brutal Russian general (Lazar Ristovski, CASINO ROYALE) on the verge of becoming president and various parties trying to find a woman who might have incriminating information about him or something. But to Deveraux it’s just about the fact that the agency had his old protege Mason (Luke Bracey, Cobra Commander in GI JOE’S RETALIATION, soon to be remake Johnny Utah) snipe his old girlfriend Natalia (Mediha Musliovic). What the fuck, CIA.
(read the rest of this shit…)

Nomads

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

tn_nomadsOne year before PREDATOR, two years before DIE HARD, John McTiernan wrote and directed this unusual thriller about ghostly demons or demonic ghosts. (Actually I thought they were ghosts, but the back of the DVD calls them demons. So let’s split the difference.) NOMADS stars Lesley-Anne Down as Dr. Flax, recently moved to L.A. One night after 32 hours on shift she sees a patient covered in blood, babbling in French, so crazed that they have to cuff him. He’s played by “Pierce Brosnan, the star of REMINGTON STEELE like you’ve never seen him before” according to the trailer narrator.

His name is Pommier and as he’s convulsing he whispers to her, then bites her ear, wounding her bad. After a few moments of shock she tries to cut the tension with gallows humor, saying “Well, looks like he got me there, didn’t he?” But then Pommier dies. (read the rest of this shit…)

HMSS Special Report: Outlaw Vern Reviews James Bond

Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

Editor’s Note:We first encountered Vern on the Usenet movie newsgroups, and from there onto his web “sight,” Then fuck you jack: the Life and Art of vern where we’ve spent countless hours reading his insightful film reviews and laughing our asses off. And, God forbid, learning something about the films of cinema.

Recently, Vern has collected some of the best of his reviews into his first book, “5 On the Outside: Vern’s Writings on the films of Cinema.” He’s a frequent contributor to the Ain’t It Cool News web site, and between these various outlets, he’s been picking up lots of new fans. Guillermo Del Toro, writer/director of The Devil’s Backbone and Hellboy, says, “Written in head-spinning Vern-acular prose, these reviews will have you rolling on the floor with laughter and, with lightning-bolt speed, provoke demolishing insights into the films they address. Equal parts HELL’S ANGELS and Pauline Kael, Vern is a National Treasure!!!” We couldn’t agree more.

After having temporarily lost his liberty in the correctional system, Vern tells us “I got out in august ’99 and since then have been 100% clean and sober as well as i do NOT get involved in crime and negativity. My love now is Writing, watching movies and getting blown out of my fucking mind high on life.” He’s been catching up on all the films he missed while incarcerated, but somehow James Bond had kept off his radar. We at HMSS decided to correct that oversight, and asked Vern to take a look at a couple of our favorite 007 pictures.

Here’s Vern’s report…

It wasn’t my idea to be here. I don’t belong here. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m gonna get eaten alive. But Tom Zielinski and Paul Baack thought it would be funny to get me – a Bond-ignorant action movie fan who once called 007 “a fucking baby” — to review Thunderball and GoldenEye. So here goes nothing.

First, the backstory. My disparaging comments about Mr. Bond came in the form of a review for Die Hard 2. In the review I called Bruce Willis’s character John McClane “the working man’s James Bond” and compared and contrasted him to 007. My argument was that Bond was a spoiled rich boy among action heroes. Bond gets an Astin Martin that shoots missiles, McClane has to borrow his mother-in-law’s beater, and it gets impounded. That kind of thing. Tom and Paul had written me a lot of nice emails, and I felt bad that I had been so harsh to their favorite fictional character. So when I was putting together a collection of my reviews, I thought it would be a nice addition to the book if they would write a rebuttal to the review. They graciously did me that favor, which brings us to today, when I owe them one. (read the rest of this shit…)