"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘Jason Scott Lee’

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny

Thursday, September 14th, 2017

Okay, so admittedly it’s weird that 17 years after the acclaimed, Academy Award winning CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, The Weinstein Company up and made a sequel without the original director. And filmed it in English. And sold it to Netflix so it was barely released in theaters and may never be available on disc in most countries. It’s not surprising that people seem to have been disappointed, or just confused, or completely unaware of it. But if we think of it in terms of unlikely DTV sequels, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON: SWORD OF DESTINY is in the upper echelon.

No, the director is not Ang Lee, but it’s not nobody either – it’s Yuen Woo-Ping, whose choreography was the life’s blood of the first film. I wouldn’t say he tops it here, but he brings more graceful glides, spinning swords and nimble roof top skips and hops. It’s worth noting that today’s technology is used to create more elaborate magical realism, like when the two leads ride in on horses, block a barrage of spears, leap high into the air, land and begin a sword fight, all in one beautiful shot. (read the rest of this shit…)

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

tn_dragonWe here in Seattle are very proud of Bruce Lee. We claim him as our own. He’s one of our icons like Jimi, Cobain, and… well, I’m not gonna say Sir Mix-a-lot. I don’t know. Quincy Jones?

Of course, Bruce was born in San Francisco, raised in Hong Kong, filmed his movies in Hong Kong. He only lived here for about 5 years. But I think it’s fair to say they were important years. Any biography of Bruce mentions that he studied philosophy, right? Well that was right here at our University of Washington. He actually majored in drama, so give us partial credit for his acting too. He started his first kung fu schools here. He met his wife here. He married her here. When he died his family still lived here, so he’s buried here, and so is Brandon. We still don’t have a Bruce Lee statue, but Linda and Shannon Lee are trying to build The Bruce Lee Action Museum here. So we got a legitimate claim, I think. We are a Bruce Lee town.

That’s why it’s so embarrassing that some dumb motherfuckers dropped the ball and got us completely erased from this biopic. (read the rest of this shit…)

Soldier

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

After seeing Paul Not Thomas Anderson’s remake of DEATH RACE 2000 and finding it surprisingly enjoyable, I decided to finally go back and see that Kurt Russell movie he made more than ten years ago that I wanted to see but didn’t because everyone said was garbage. And maybe the lowered expectations helped, but I thought SOLDIER was a good one.

The movie begins in the ’90s with a group of babies being taken out of a hospital into military custody (wonder if the parents noticed?) where they will be raised to be super soldiers. The opening is a montage of these soldiers from infancy to their 40s, being indoctrinated, training and participating in various intergalactic conflicts. I was impressed that I could immediately tell which kid was supposed to be Kurt Russell. I thought they did an amazing job of finding a kid who looked like him, but then I found out they just cast his son, which is kind of cheating. Anyway this character’s name is Todd, but don’t worry, if you forget that it’s tattooed on his face, they all have their names and numbers tattooed on their faces. (I honestly think it would be cool if the movie was called TODD.) (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern Reviews CUBE 2: HYPERCUBE and DRACULA 2: HYPERDRACULA!!

Monday, February 17th, 2003

Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

Vern’s a good egg. If you don’t know that by now, then catch up to the rest of us and enjoy this new review by him.

Boys –

It’s me Vern. Remember me, I write articles, win awards, etc. Today I am returning to my old shtick of reviewing straight to video sequels nobody asked for. Enjoy!

Actually the first picture I’m gonna deal with here is not completely un-asked for. The first movie CUBE was one of those small time cult movies that nobody is really rabid about but everybody kind of likes. The premise is that a group of strangers find themselves inside strange, symmetrical rooms with vault doors on each side. When they go through a door, they find themselves in a room exactly like the last one. And when they go through one of the doors in there, it’s another room exactly like that one. And when they go through one of the doors in there, it’s another room exactly like that one. And I could go on man. There’s nowhere to go. So of course they get into a George A. Romero type deal where they each have a different background and they argue and what not by they try to put aside their differences to solve the puzzle of “what in fuck’s name is going on here.” There is math, etc. (read the rest of this shit…)

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

Monday, January 1st, 2001

As I have said before many times the Bruces are some of the best action stars in my opinion: Bruce Willis, Bruce Campbell, and in this case one Mr. Bruce Lee star of Enter the Dragon and The Chinese Connection etc.

There have been many fine biographies of this particular Bruce, among them Bruce Lee: The Man the Myth starring Bruce Li, who also starred in one called Dragon Story. In The Man the Myth Bruce is depicted as a nationalist always out to prove the superiority of chinese kung fu over thai boxing, japanese karate, and fat Italian-American guys. Bruce Li at times looks similar to Bruce Lee although the karate or kung fu I guess is not as good. He has a good haircut and pants in my opinion but still does not capture the essence of the man. (read the rest of this shit…)