a survey of summer movies that just didn’t catch on
June 16, 2000
Just before a race of alien energy-beings called the Drej blow up the Earth, Errol Flynn looking scientist hero Sam Tucker tosses his towheaded son Cale on an evacuation shuttle with Tone Lōc and goes off to fly a ship called the Titan on a mission to save the human race. He gives the boy a ring and it’s obvious to the audience that it will be the key to saving humanity but jesus christ dude make it clear to the kid! All he says is “Take this. As long as you wear it, there’s hope.” it’s a god damn miracle that he still has it when we pick up 15 years later. What in the hell were you thinking you god damn idiot, don’t be subtle about this shit.
So, grown up Cale (Matt Damon, THE DEPARTED) is some kind of space-iron-worker, a roughneck working class dude from Colorado, gettin it done on the outsides of ships and stuff, but he still has the same dumb ’90s boy band haircut from childhood. Since most humans are dead he’s a minority living among a bunch of creatures who eat food that he thinks is gross. So when a square-jawed Earthling captain and contemporary of his father named Korso (Bill Pullman, CASPER) comes to find him, you can see why he eventually agrees to join him on a mission to find the Titan. (read the rest of this shit…)
a survey of summer movies that just didn’t catch on
July 22, 1999
MYSTERY MEN. Huh. There might’ve been room for a big budget super hero parody movie in 1999, if you’re into that sort of thing, but it needed better jokes than “ha ha, this would be a terrible super hero. What a dumb name and costume.” This is an impressive cast in a big, expensive comedy with very few laughs.
A group of amateur super heroes – shovel-carrying The Shoveler (William H. Macy, THE LAST DRAGON), fork-throwing Blue Raja (Hank Azaria, HEAT) and leather-jacket wearing Mr. Furious (Ben Stiller, NEXT OF KIN) struggle to find success or recognition. They’re definitely meant to be lovable underdog misfits, but I had trouble respecting them. It’s established that there’s an actual super powered guy called Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear, THE MATADOR) who’s a douche and wears corporate logos like a NASCAR driver but he’s made Champion City so safe that he has to get his arch-nemesis Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush, MUNICH) released from the asylum just to have something to do. Before that happens the unnamed Mystery Men couldn’t be little guys trying to make a different in a harsh world – they’re delusional losers trying to feel important by forcing themselves into a job that they’re not needed for, and are really, really bad at. I did not find them appealing. (read the rest of this shit…)
I always thought COP LAND was a sequel to WESTWORLD, but I guess it’s actually a police drama about a small town in New Jersey set up by the mob to shelter corrupt New York cops outside of the city limits. Could use some out of control robots obviously but otherwise it’s a good movie.
As the movie opens Freddie (Sylvester Stallone) is in a small diner where cops hang out, playing a cop-themed pinball machine. That’s how he spends his birthday. He’s drunk and can’t stop playing, is so into it he takes his sheriff keys to go open up a parking meter and get more quarters. This is him, playing a game at being a cop, watching the city cops talk, they get mad that he’s looking at them. And he can’t even hear what they’re saying anyway because he went deaf in one ear saving a drowning girl when he was young. It keeps him off the NYPD and makes him have to keep having people repeat things to him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Well friends it looks like ol’ Vern has some explainin to do. And the sad thing is I don’t have jack shit to say for myself. Sometimes a man just has to do what a man does when he has to do it, or whatever. There comes a time in a man’s personal journey, that is to say in man’s life, that that journey must take a break, or sojourn, in that journey, is what I’m trying to say. A hiatus.
Okay some of you motherfuckers are looking at me real blank eyed and what not. I haven’t written a column for a couple weeks, jackasses. I guess you didn’t miss me, then. It was supposed to be mysterious. Like – what is Vern up to? Where has he gone? What personal discoveries has he made? Will we ever be the same? Oh I do hope he comes back. And soon!
WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHIT OUT OF VERN & OUTLAWVERN.COM
if that's your thing:
1. Patreon
Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!
2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody
(NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)
EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.
3. If you ever buy from Amazon, go through my links or search engines
(you pay the same amount you were gonna pay anyway they cut me a little slice)
I also have an Amazon UK one:
(I can't get the search box widget to work anymore, so click on MOONWALKER and then search for what you want.)
4. My exciting line of fashion and leisure products
(I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt, mug or lifestyle item)
5. Spread the word
Tell your friends about my reviews and my books and everything. Only cool people though please, we don't need a bunch of suckers and/or chumps around here.
THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN
* * * *
Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
Mr. Majestyk on Top Gun: “I am willing to take everyone’s word for it, but it’s gonna take me some time to adjust to the…” May 28, 09:46
dreadguacamole on Split Second: “Ah, thanks – I thought maybe I was misremembering, since I always get this mixed up with other films. I…” May 28, 05:55
dreadguacamole on Top Gun: “The sequel is definitely worth gushing about, and I’ll echo what everyone is saying and plead for everyone to go…” May 28, 05:14
Stu on Split Second: “I saw some of this when I was a kid, and the “Didn’t you die?” “Haven’t you heard of bulletproof…” May 28, 04:02
KayKay on Top Gun: “Sorry, but this will be embarrassing. Cause I’m about to gush like the Nerdy, Pimply Geek just given a kiss…” May 28, 01:08
VERN on Split Second: “dreadguacamole – Yeah, I think you’re supposed to think he’s lying or exaggerating and then the joke of the deleted…” May 27, 16:53
Bill Reed on Split Second: “This is one of those movies on my Tubi queue I’ve been saving for a rainy day but haven’t gotten…” May 27, 13:53
Franchise Fred on Split Second: “I did indeed see it on vhs and then promptly forgot about it. Watched it again in the last year…” May 27, 13:08
dreadguacamole on Split Second: “Yeah, watched and enjoyed this back when it came out. That deleted scene, wouldn’t that be a payoff to the…” May 27, 12:55
Mr. Majestyk on Split Second: ““But I do have a sense that many readers here and other friends who saw it at the right age…” May 27, 07:46
Dan Prestwich on Split Second: “I dig this movie in general, but I’m also fond of it because brutal death metal luminaries Aborted used a…” May 27, 06:11
CrustaceanLove on Split Second: “Rented this movie by mistake. I thought it was WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE. I was disappointed, but not that much.” May 27, 04:21
VERN’S “I RECOMMEND THE SHIT OUT OF THIS PRODUCT” CORNER:
July 22, 1999
Well friends it looks like ol’ Vern has some explainin to do. And the sad thing is I don’t have jack shit to say for myself. Sometimes a man just has to do what a man does when he has to do it, or whatever. There comes a time in a man’s personal journey, that is to say in man’s life, that that journey must take a break, or sojourn, in that journey, is what I’m trying to say. A hiatus.
