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Posts Tagged ‘Seagalogy’

Talking Seagal with The Suspense is Killing Us

Wednesday, May 17th, 2023

Some years ago I appeared on a podcast called The Suspense is Killing Us to discuss RICOCHET and two other Denzel movies. (Here’s the episode.) These are my real life friends but I think even if they weren’t I would endorse this podcast because it has the great goal of analyzing the kind of thrillers that were so big in the ’90s but don’t exist much anymore, and because they make me laugh out loud all the time.

That was episode 7, and 107 episodes later I’m finally returning. They do sometimes stretch the definition of what type of movie they can cover, and they wanted to do THE GLIMMER MAN (Seagal’s closest to fitting the type of movies they usually do). Tasked with choosing two other Seagal pictures for them to watch I went with one of the more definitively good ones (HARD TO KILL) and one of my favorite crazy ones (BELLY OF THE BEAST).

I really haven’t revisited Seagal’s movies much in recent years so it was great to have an excuse to do it and find that I can still enjoy them. Theirs is also the only podcast I’ve been able to do in person, which obviously is a different experience from calling in. I really recommend this podcast in general, it’s always a fun time, check it out.

THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING US EPISODE #114: FLOCK OF SEAGALS (with VERN)

 

I’m giving away two Blu-Rays of CODE OF HONOR starring Steven Seagal

Wednesday, June 29th, 2016

tn_codeofhonorOkay, everybody remain calm, I know this is fucking crazy but two of you lucky individuals are about to have your lives changed FOREVER. Some day soon, a CODE OF HONOR blu-ray will arrive at your home, and from that moment until the end of your life, you will never have not once been an owner of CODE OF HONOR on blu-ray. These sort of momentous events cannot be planned for. The best we can do is just take a deep breath and let destiny do her thing.

Here’s how to enter: in the comments, write me a sentence or a paragraph about a movie character you like that operates by a code of honor. It could be a Seagal character or otherwise. I will (somewhat arbitrarily, I suspect) choose two winners at noon on July 5th, which also happens to be the release date of CODE OF HONOR starring Steven Seagal as basically The Punisher.

Please make sure to use your current email when you sign in so I can get a hold of you if you win.

One catch: Lionsgate will only ship inside the U.S. Sorry about that my international friends. I don’t make the rules. That’s just how the lion’s gate swings. (read the rest of this shit…)

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory – celebrating 20 years of nobody beating him in the kitchen

Tuesday, July 14th, 2015

tn_us2us2-20I know the internet reminds us that every day is the 20th anniversary of something or other, and that’s not always a good thing. There is too much nostalgia, and too many factoids. We need to learn how to live in the present, otherwise what the hell anniversary are we gonna celebrate 20 years from today? But today, my friends, is an important one: July 14th, 1995 was the day the world was gifted UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY.

I think you know how I feel about this movie. It stands as one of Seagal’s best big studio movies, one of the great sequels in the history of action, and one of the best DIE HARD rip offs. It’s a cool, accessible Seagal with a great supporting cast (especially the villains) doing enjoyable special-effects-based spectacle action while also spreading the gospel of choking and wrist-snapping. I’m not sure I can write a new review of it, since of course I wrote a whole chapter about it for my book Seagalogy: The Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal and talked a little more about it in my Cinefamily Journal last year. So instead, to honor the occasion, let’s take a look at some of the key players and consider how much they’ve accomplished in the two decades since. (read the rest of this shit…)

Absolution

Wednesday, July 8th, 2015

tn_absolutiona.k.a. Mercenary: Absolution

ABSOLUTION is the latest from Steven Seagal, and his first to go straight to VOD before going to video this week. I guess it also played a couple theaters, although I have not heard any reports of anyone seeing it in one. I think this is more a sign of changing markets than of this particular movie’s quality. It’s not markedly different or better than his other recent works.

In ABSOLUTION Seagal faces a villain known only as “The Boss,” but I don’t think it’s supposed to be Bruce Springsteen. Either that, or there’s alot I didn’t know about Bruce Springsteen. Vinnie Jones (SUBMERGED, GUTSHOT STRAIGHT) draws upon his experience in BRADLEY COOPER’S MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN to play this tweed-wearing kingpin who works out of a professorial type office with globes and bookshelves and stuff, but his hobby is video taping himself in a fetish mask torturing and murdering prostitutes in a kitchen in the back of his 24-hour dance spot Club One.

Two things happen here. First, John (Seagal) and his life-debt partner of three years Chi (Byron Mann, BELLY OF THE BEAST, A DANGEROUS MAN, True Justice) have done a murder-for-hire on a  whore-loving, coke-snorting gangster called “The Afghani,” (a very good douchebag performance by Sergiu Costache, who’s actually Romanian) and are killing time before extraction by having some Johnnie Walker at the Danube Blues Club. Second, one of The Boss’s victims (Nadia, played by Adina Stetcu) escapes him, runs through the Club One dance floor, onto the streets, into the Danube, and literally into John’s lap, begging for help as The Boss’s underlings try to drag her away. (read the rest of this shit…)

Seagal related song of the week

Friday, September 5th, 2014

Yes, it’s true, there has been a new Steven Seagal film out for 2 weeks and I haven’t seen it yet. I hope to view and write about A GOOD MAN (and also Michael Jai White’s FALCON RISING) soon, thanks for asking about it. To hold you over, I want to share this song that a rapper named Gutta sent to me.

Seagal has been referenced in many rap lyrics, most notably when Inspectah Deck says “Bust this, I’m kickin’ like Seagal, Out For Justice” on Wu-Tang Clan’s “Bring Da Ruckus.” Here Gutta, who told me he read Seagalogy in the middle of working on this, blows away whatever was the previous record for most Seagal movies mentioned in one song. He goes deep. He mentions CLEMENTINE, for crying out loud (the Korean tearjerker where at the end the hero has to fight Seagal in a competition).

Enjoy, and have a good weekend.

 

Vern’s Cinefamily Journal

Friday, June 20th, 2014

tn_cinefamilyWell, it happened. Last Saturday, after 15 years of admittedly weird dedication to anonymity, I went and stood unmasked in front of the Cinefamily theater to publicly share my love of the action films of S. Seagal. A couple of you who were there kindly told me not to worry, that I looked exactly like Lee Marvin, but on the internet I saw my looks compared to two different comedians. I won’t say which ones, so go ahead and assume Roddy Piper and Chopper Read. But now there are a couple blurry Loch Ness Monster type photos of me out there, and Griff says I am not buff and I look like his dad. Giving my reputation a hit like that was not what I had planned for my summer vacation.

But I got no regrets and the reason why can be summed up with one frame of film:

(read the rest of this shit…)

Note to Los Angeles area readers

Sunday, April 20th, 2014

tn_seagalpaintedI wanted to point out this calendar item at your local Cinefamily theater in case anybody needs to get tickets and get the day (Saturday, June 14th) off. Must be open to viewing four of Steven Seagal’s greatest movies on 35 mm while being disappointed by the demystification of a previously enigmatic writer and Seagal expert.

More details/explanations later this week.

Force of Execution

Wednesday, December 18th, 2013

tn_foe“I think the streets are clean for a while. I’m a dinosau’. Ain’t nobody around like me no more, so…”

Steven Seagal’s new one FORCE OF EXECUTION isn’t really a movie I would recommend to most people, mainly because they would ask what “force of execution” means and I would have no idea what to say. I guess it means the same thing as “reservoir dogs,” but just doesn’t sound as cool or poetic.

However, as a dedicated Seagalogist (in fact, one of the West Coast’s most respected, if I do say so myself) I found plenty of things interesting about this one. In fact, I watched it without reading anything about it and it kept confounding my expectations for a Seagal picture. In the opening scene Seagal’s character Mr. Alexander has a guy tied to a chair and he’s threatening him, saying “You broke the code, Sasha,” and stuff like that. He gives him a knife and tells him to slit his own throat as punishment for being “a rat.” When the guy tries to defend himself Mr. Alexander beats him to death and complains about getting blood on his suit. I mean, Seagal characters are always kinda over the line, but they don’t usually capture a traitor, torture and kill him. (read the rest of this shit…)

Our buddy Fred’s interview with Andrew Davis

Wednesday, September 4th, 2013

tn_abovethelaw…which ends with Mr. Davis promising to look up my book Seagalogy, thanks to Fred telling him about it. It’s a good interview centering on THE FUGITIVE (on the occasion of its 20th anniversary) but also giving some background on the script of ABOVE THE LAW that I sure could’ve used when I wrote the book.

thanks Fred!

here’s the interview

Maximum Conviction

Monday, December 17th, 2012

MAXIMUM CONVICTION is one of these powerful action team ups we get now in a post-EXPENDABLES world. Second-billed Steve Austin is probly the most reliable DTV guy after Scott Adkins, with a bunch of pretty good ones under his belt (DAMAGE, RECOIL, HUNT TO KILL) and a durable persona as seen-it-all-skullcrusher-with-an-inherent-sense-of-decency. Headliner Steven Seagal is… a guy I wrote a book about.

To tell you the truth I didn’t have alot of faith in him for this one. He seems to have grown comfortable as boss man on his ensemble TV show and lost the DTV eye of the tiger he had a few years ago when he did the historic URBAN JUSTICE/PISTOL WHIPPED one-two punch. His recent efforts (although some might not call them efforts) have been worthwhile for my deep Seagalogical analysis, but not too inspiring as works of entertainment. And the trailer for this looked pretty crappy, I thought.

(read the rest of this shit…)