There are 87 posts filed in The Vault (this is page 11 of 13).
In honor of Black History Month, this month’s edition of The Vault will be dedicated to Blaxploitation Cinema. It’s a genre I’ve never delved into so I’m going to start off with the basics. Later in the month I’ll cover a few of the more over-the-top entries (perhaps something in the vein of Blackenstein?). With such a wide catalogue of funky flicks it’s a shame that I’m only going to cover four. Still, I’ll do my best to give you my honest thoughts and opinions, cause I ain’t no Jive Turkey.
Man, what a piece of shit. Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection aka Delta Force 2: Operation Stranglehold is at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to action movies. Bad acting, no plot, and ultimately forgettable. I’m shocked DF2 didn’t go straight to VHS. If you’re curious, I have not seen Delta Force 1. Though had this not had “2” in the title I’d never have known it was a sequel anyway. I chose DF2 believing it would be one of those “So bad it’s good” movies. Though I’ll admit there are some memorable moments of mind-numbing stupidity, overall this was a huge waste of time. Everyone knows about Chuck Norris jokes, but after seeing this it’s clear that the biggest joke of all is his acting career.
Kickboxer was my first experience watching “The Muscles from Brussels.” If you don’t remember the 90s, Jean-Claude Vane Damme was a second-tier action star famously known for his ability to do extreme splits and speak almost unintelligible dialogue. He was No Schwarzenegger or Stallone, but I’m sure he’d of had no problem kicking Steven Seagal in his many chins without even breaking a sweat. Van Damme’s strength as an action star was that he actually had a background in professional martial arts and kickboxing. Meaning Kickboxer must have come from a personal place. Van Damme even co-developed the story. The only problem is that the story is basically Karate Kid in Thailand.
If there was ever a soulless, cash-in, it’s Cobra. “What’s the laziest possible vehicle we could give Sylvester Stallone?” At least that’s what I thought. Turns out Stallone wrote the screenplay himself. Apparently, he had the uncontrollable desire to tell a story about a police officer named Cobra who mercilessly guns down criminals on the streets of Los Angeles. Could there be a more generic setup for an action movie? Why would the police allow another officer to constantly kill human beings with no repercussions? Because crime is disease, and Cobra is the cure.
Marion “Cobra” Cobretti (that’s actually his name) is an officer who works for the LAPD in a division known as the “Zombie Squad”. What is the function of the Zombie Squad you ask? The Zombie Squad is who you call when a situation gets too tough and you just need a guy to go in there and kill someone. I mean, he drives a car with a license plate that says “AWESOME”. Bizarrely, the division appears to be made up of just Cobra and a guy named Gonzales (Reni Santoni). The division is put to the test when a group of Neo-Fascists led by a serial killer, the Night Slasher (Brian Thompson), unleash a crime wave across the city. How can Cobra end this violence? With more violence!
Manuary begins with the testosterone-fueled winner of the Academy Award for “Best Movie Ever Made.” Highlander is the legendary tale of Connor Macleod (Christopher Lambert) an immortal warrior who’s story spans from 14th century Scotland to 1980s New York. Connor is part of a rare breed of immortals that fight other immortals to achieve a power called “The Quickening”. The only way immortals can kill other immortals is by decapitation (awesome). The more immortals you kill the more powerful you become until the last immortal receives “The Prize’ which is assumed to be ultimate ass-kicking power.
What I didn’t know going in is that these immortals are not in fact called “Highlanders”. Connor is a Highlander because he was once a warrior from the Scottish Highlands. During this time he did battle against “The Kurgan” (Clancy Brown) a rival clan leader who is also immortal. After barely escaping battle from The Kurgan, Connor meets Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez (Sean Connery) an Egyptian immortal who teaches Connor the ways of combat. Connor trains and hones his skills for centuries until he is reunited with his enemy The Kurgan (now Victor Kruger) in the 1980s. What follows are scenes of Connor’s journey through the ages while Kruger gets closer and closer to becoming the most powerful of the immortals.
Relative newcomer Christopher Lambert plays the stone-faced Connor in a mostly disappointing performance. To start, his accent is incomprehensible. Reportedly, the French-speaking Lambert worked to develop an accent that sounded like an amalgamation of many accents. The result is a voice that is so bad you wish Lambert would’ve played the part mute. Lambert doesn’t do any better when performing a Scottish accent. Let’s not forget Sean Connery is playing an Egyptian. I’m not sure if Scotland ever recovered from this movie.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have Clancy Brown as the emotionless villain. Clancy Brown is a good actor, but you’d never know that from this performance. His character doesn’t say much aside from “There can be only one.” which he says all the f@*king time. Victor Kruger feels like a character that was written with Dolph Lundgren in mind; a tall, menacing, mostly mute killer that has absolutely no interesting qualities. Though I do like it when Kruger gets so mad in an alleyway that everything around him explodes for no reason.
Highlander is a man movie for many reasons. The plot is as simple as “Dudes need to kill other dudes to be more powerful” and there’s not much in the way of female characters. There’s the throwaway love interest, but whatever-her-face often takes a backseat to dudes being decapitated. The opening enough solidifies Highlander’s place as a manly action-movie. Connor is chilling at the most 80s wrestling match ever captured on film, where he then proceeds to the parking lot and chops of some guy’s head with a katana. Highlander may lack a good script and good characters, but it delivers on the action and that’s all I’m looking for this Manuary.
P.S. The Soundtrack is by Queen! It’s not very good but still… Queen!
This whole month is about man-on-man action… Let me start over. We’ve all heard about “Manuary” from places like college campuses and Urban Dictionary. Manuary is the time of year where men grow out facial hair and assert their masculinity to an almost homoerotic degree. Though it would make more sense to devote this month to nothing but “mustache movies” whatever that is. I’m going to focus on movies that just exude a memorable kind of manliness. Since there are so many macho action movies I tried to focus on a few things. One, it couldn’t be too obvious. No Rambo, no Predator, no Commando. Two, I only picked movies I’d never seen. Three, I tried to go with older movies, no particular reason. Four, most of the films I went with I assume most people haven’t seen, but have probably at least heard of. The four films I picked all exude manliness in different ways and though I’ll barely scratch the surface of this veiny subject I look forward to diving in and juicing up!
This is how Santa’s Slay begins: The dysfunctional Mason family is sitting down to a pleasant Christmas dinner. The family includes such stars as; Fran Drescher? Chris Kattan? Rebecca Gayheart? And James Caan as the family patriarch. Suddenly, Santa (Bill Goldberg) bursts through the brick fireplace, slides across the dinner table and stabs two forks into James Caan’s hands, pinning him to the table. Next, Santa knocks a woman over and she is impaled by a chair leg. Santa continues with a candle lighter and a mouthful of alcohol that he uses to light Fran Drescher’s hair on fire. Santa then kicks Chris Kattan into a cabinet. Next, he hits some chick with a chair leg, smacks another one, drowns Fran Drescher in a punch bowl and finishes off the family by jamming a turkey leg down James Caan’s throat and then slamming his head into the table, forcing the turkey leg into his noggin. Christmas has come early.
At 78 minutes, Santa’s Slay doesn’t fuck around. Right off the bat, Santa is brutally slaying the citizens of Hell Township with no explanation, it’s great. We are then introduced to Nicholas Yuleson (Douglas Smith), a cynical teenager working alongside his girlfriend Mary (Emilie de Ravin from Lost) in a deli for Mr. Green (Saul Rubinek). Nicholas lives with his eccentric, inventor grandfather (Robert Culp) who has been preparing for these “slayings” for a long time. Nicholas learns from his grandpa’s book that Santa is the son of Satan. Many years ago, Christmas was “The Day of Slaying” until in 1005 AD, an angel defeated Santa in a curling match. As a result, Santa was sentenced to deliver presents on Christmas for 1000 years. Now that 1000 years is up and Santa Claus has come to town.
Rather than having Santa continue his reign of terror every year, Nicholas decides he must stop him, extreme violence ensues. It’s not entirely clear why Santa has picked Hell Township as his slaying grounds. Or why he decides to single out Nicholas later on, but I don’t care. This movie is absolutely hilarious. Santa Claus is portrayed as a ruthless, Viking warrior that has a sled drawn by a “Hell-Deer” (which looks like a buffalo) and murders anyone in his sight just because he can. My favorite sequence is when Santa enters a strip-club, proclaims “Ho! Ho! Ho’s!” (like whores) and kills people with a stripper pole. What really gets me about these kinds of scenes is that everyone always fights back. Now if a violent, hulking figure approached you would you fight him? No, you’d probably run away. Yet everyone always challenges him and usually ends up with a candy cane stuck in their eye.
The film goes for a comedic tone, but there are few jokes that rise above the level of underwhelming puns. The kills are what make this movie so much fun. Though I was surprised by the acting. Santa’s Slay does show some genuine talent from its various ensemble of mostly TV actors. Unfortunately, Bill Goldberg is not one of those talented individuals. Goldberg looks scary and handles the physicality of the role well but he can’t act. Every time Santa speaks it sounds like an incredibly melodramatic WWF bit. Though I’m not watching Santa’s Slay to see Bill Goldberg display his acting prowess.
Santa’s Slay is the most fun I had watching a Christmas movie this year. The movie is just as ridiculous and hilarious as you would want it to be. If you’re not sold yet, let me add one more thing… Santa can shoot fireballs out of his mouth. Happy Holidays!
P.S. This movie is “Presented by Brett Ratner”.
