Posts Tagged ‘Kurt Russell’

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OUTGUNNED

by Tom on April 2, 2007 at 12:00 am
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(4 votes, average: 9.25 out of 10)
Grindhouse, Planet Terror, Rose McGowan, Cherry Darling, gun leg, argument, Kurt Russell

In honor of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse opening in theaters this Friday, I'm doing a series of strips detailing the advantages and disadvantages of having a girlfriend with a high-powered machine gun for a leg. I hope you find it enlightening.

Not much to say about Grindhouse right now except that I've heard Rodriguez's first half - the zombie romp called "Planet Terror" - is a hyper-violent, ultra-gory disorganized mess. Apparently production was thrown into upheaval when the crew reported back to Rodriguez's wife of 14 years that he was having an affair with Rose McGowan. On-set flings happen all the time and it's probably not the business of the crew to tattle on the director. That is, except when the director's wife is PRODUCING THE FILM!  That's 15 kinds of stupid. Talk about don't poop where you eat!

At any rate, I didn't have high hopes for "Planet Terror" anyway. I'm not a big zombie fan. Never was. I don't think people have to belong to a group of the walking damned to show great inhumanity to another man. Sure, they weren't eating brains on the sands of Iwa Jima, but comb through history sometime and you'll find a few close seconds.

Pretty much at this point Rodriguez's contribution to Grindhouse is the striking visual of Rose McGowan's leg having been replaced with a machine gun. I don't care how much the movie sucks - it's wormed it's way into geekdom's heart with that brilliant juxtaposition. Say all you want about these guys regurgitating content from the obscure recesses of pop culture's dark corners... You've never seen a girl with a machine gun leg before.

Tonight is another Triple Feature talk cast and I hope all of you who came to check us out last week as part of our Copying Beethoven DVD giveaway will come back to check us out tonight. This week we'll be talking about Blades of Glory, The Lookout and a funny little tale of woe from Joe Love's Crappy Movies's Joe Dunn about seeing movies for free. Oh, and Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex will be there, too.

Log in to TalkShoe tonight at 9:00 PM CST and we'll be taking your calls!

Oh, and don't forget - Copying Beethoven comes out on DVD tomorrow, April 3. I haven't received copies from Fox Entertainment yet, so I guess we're still accepting submissions! Just download last week's Triple Feature for the first half of the clue and then check out last Wednesday's blog for the second half!

By the way, you guys might have noticed that I've switched up my advertising options through Project Wonderful on the right hand side of the blog. I decided to give a little more prominence to the ads since there is usually a lot of empty space to the right. If you want to get your ad on Theater Hopper for the cheap, check us out through Project Wonderful!

That's about it for me tonight. Sorry, but I'm kind of dragging today. I spent pretty much all day Sunday cleaning out my basement and juggling Henry.

I'll catch up with you soon!

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MIRACLE ON ICE

by Tom on February 9, 2004 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Blog
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I totally forgot to mention it, but Cami and I ended up going to Miracle on Friday night. It almost didn't happen. Des Moines saw it's 3 huge snowstorm in two weeks that day and it dumped another 4 inches on us. I spent an hour and a half shoveling out drifts from my driveway when I got home. By the time I was finished, I didn't want to go anywhere!

But then movie geekdom got the better of me. I realized that if we didn't see Miracle Friday night, we probably wouldn't see it at all that weekend. Saturday night we were having dinner with friends and Sunday night is my all-important Simpsons/Sex and the City/Curb Your Enthusiasm entertainment block. I would go to a matinee... but I'm not 80 years old.

So, we caught the late show on Friday. By the way, did anyone else know that Miracle was over 2 hours long? Who would have guessed.

I really enjoyed the movie and that says a lot because I'm not usually one for sports movies nor do I know anything about hockey. Compound the issue with the fact that I already know how it ends and, well... that's one sticky wicket.

Still, Miracle hits all the right notes. Inspiring. Emotional. Poignant without being too over the top. You can tell it was made with great care toward the players and their stories.

Kurt Russell knocks it out of the park (to mix metaphors) with his portrayal of Herb Brooks. He spends most of the movie being a hard ass to his players, but there are moments where Russell disarms him so completely with only a few glances... it's amazing. It really is one of the best performances of his career.

I don't know if anyone is going to walk out of Miracle thinking it'll be a big Oscar winner. Most likely, we'll forget about it by June. But it IS a finely-crafted movie and probably the best one of the year so far. See it now before it drops out of theaters.

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