April 19, 2004



Head to Head
Now that the weekend is over, I'd just like to state, for the record, that, despite better actors, a bigger budget, and a major studio release, the 1989 Dolph Lundgren "Punisher" movie is still waaaaaay more fun than this year's version of "The Punisher" with Thomas Jane & John Travolta. While the two principles are pretty good and Laura Herring is quite bootylicious, but, there simply wasn't enough action in this movie for my tastes. Clearly, I'm a degenerate product of Reaganomics, but I like my action movies to have, well, you know, ACTION.

Somebody, anybody, please tell me why is it so hard to make an action movie that actually has action? I'm begging somebody. ANYBODY.

This gets back to my larger complaints about movies today. Now that everybody in this town has read McKee's Story a billion times, they're all so obsessed with character arc & development and seem to have completely forgotten the purpose of these movies. Who gives a crap if the characters are sympathetic, or even realistic, if the movie made me want to gouge my eyes out with a straw because I was so goddamn bored?

It's very simple. I don't care about how great a dad Hugh Jackman is in Swordfish. I don't care if The Rock is going to get to open his dream restaurant after The Rundown. If I go see an action movie, I want to see people running, people fighting, people shooting, and things blowing up. And I want to see them frequently and at regularly scheduled intervals.

Is that to much to ask, for fourteen dollars?!?!?


You tell me.