European premiere Transformers: Age of Extinction at Cinestar am Potsdamer Platz movie theatre in Berlin - Arrivals Featuring: Michael Bay Where: Berlin, Berlin, Germany When: 29 Jun 2014 Credit: Dave Bedrosian/Future Image/WENN.com **Not available in Germany, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, Slovakia**
Will ‘Six Underground’ Become Netflix’s New Action Franchise?
Michael Bay is back in a big way! The ultimate action movie director of such classics as The Rock and Bad Boys is teaming up with Deadpool darling Ryan Reynolds on a new actioner called Six Underground. Little is known about the project at this point besides the fact that it has Bay, Reynolds and is going to cost a butt ton as Netflix continues its quest to take over the entertainment industry.
$150 Million Dollar Budget
You read that right. Move over Will Smith and your fairy action flick Bright, Netflix is going to break the bank on Six Underground. The script is currently being penned by Deadpool writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese and is roughly abouts six billionaires forced into taking faking their own deaths to fight some bad guy (or bad guys perhaps?).
Netflix Continues to Gamble
It’s hard to call this project a gamble, per se, but for a straight-to-streaming release you never really know the full return on investment if you know what I mean. Ryan Reynolds is certainly as big of a draw as he’s ever been fresh off of Deadpool 2. Meanwhile Michael Bay’sTransformer franchise has continue to return billions off its huge budget productions, so it should work financially.
Commercially and critically might be a little bit more of a trick. Bay hasn’t quite enjoyed the best reputation since his early Criterion Collection hits, while Reynolds still relies heavily on his Van Wilder shtick pretty heavily even in his action roles. However, the vibe from the press seems to be that Six Underground will be action comedy-ish, so it should be a slam dunk.
A New Action Franchise?
The most intriguing part of the news about Six Underground would appear that Netflix may be building its very own action franchise. Bright 2 will be a big test for Netflix’s franchise-ability, but if Six Underground is even just par for the course for the names involved, there very well could be a Seven Underground, Eight Underground and Nine Underground: Welcome to Ground Town. Stay tuned, we’re sure more info will be updated soon. Hopefully a trailer will shed some light into the plot, style and just how serious an offering Six Underground will turn out to be for Netflix.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page!
UAMC Discussion on Sylvester Stallone’s greatest actioner.
Rambo: Sir, do we get to win this time? Trautman: This time it’s up to you.
Note: This post is a follow-up to a blog posted last year, entitled “The Top 5 Most Ultimate Action Movies of All Time.” While I wholeheartedly appreciate the author’s enthusiasm for the topic, I respectfully disagree with his top choice. Thus, I present my postulation regarding what I deem the most ultimate action movie of all time.
While many of the movies listed within that blog piece deserve serious consideration, for me there’s really only one movie that embodies every element of an ultimate action movie and truly earns the title of my personal ultimate action movie — 1985’s Rambo: First Blood, Part II, which starred whom I consider to be the ultimate action movie actor, Sylvester Stallone.
A One Man Army
Pitting “one man against an army of enemies” is an ultimate action movie sub-genre that is almost as old as movies themselves. Whether it’s a rogue cop, a wronged citizen, or an outlaw cowboy/Native American, there’s no shortage of action movies for viewers to choose from. Rambo: First Blood, Part II (henceforth shortened to RFBPT) held the record for the highest kill count of any movie in history — and the character wasn’t even supposed to engage the enemy!
I can’t imagine anyone reading this site has never viewed what many consider to be a cinematic action movie masterpiece, but just in case: the film picks up directly after 1982’s First Blood. John Rambo, a Vietnam veteran trying desperately to live life coping with post-traumatic stress disorder, is incarcerated in a federal penitentiary. His former commanding officer, Col. Samuel Trautman, approaches him with an offer: return to the Vietnamese prison camp that he has escaped from when he was enlisted in the Army and take pictures of any prisoners of war still held there. Then an extraction team would infiltrate the area, extract the prisoners and return them to America.
However, after an equipment foul-up during Rambo’s nighttime attempt to parachute into Vietnam, he is left to fend for himself with hardly any resources in enemy territory. The only weapons at his disposal are a compound bow (and a slew of arrows — some razor sharp and some explosive laden) and a survival knife. A meet-up with Co Boa, a local guerilla fighter, gives Rambo whatever other firepower he’ll have to work with. But after Rambo frees one prisoner of war to get a head start on the exfiltration process, the rescue helicopter is ordered to abandon him and the POW. He realizes there never was supposed to be a POW rescue team; he was supposed to just get in and out of an empty prison camp.
Never Forget John Rambo
The movie’s tagline sums its plot up perfectly: They sent him on a mission and they set him up to fail but they made one mistake: they forgot they were dealing with Rambo. After a grueling torture ordeal, Rambo escapes from the prison camp. It was then that American audiences got to witness what I truly feel is the greatest action movie montage of all time.
A literal one-man army, Rambo takes it upon himself to single-handedly right the wrongs of the Vietnam conflict. Whereas before, when the U.S. military forces were restricted by congressional edicts, Rambo has free rein to move around, stalk and kill dozens of enemy combatants. What ensues is a slew of guerrilla warfare (e.g., covering himself head to foot in mud, hiding in a maze of caves), hand to hand combat, stabbing, bow/arrow kills and explosions, and hundreds of rounds fired from an M-60 machine gun — only to be topped by a miraculous defeat of a Russian Hind (Mil Mi-24) helicopter via a shoulder-held rocket launcher.
The “Rambo Effect” in America
How impressionable was the movie upon American audiences? Itself a sequel, it was followed by two more cinematic sequels (with a third on the way!), a cartoon, toys (including knock-offs), comic books, novels, video games (both in-name and indirect, i.e., Operation Wolf), and merchandising ranging from party favors to posters to clothes. President Ronald Reagan even mentioned Rambo in a 1985 speech. Post-1985, movies were released that were clearly influenced by RFBPT, including 1987’s Deadly Prey and Steele Justice and 2003’s The Hunted, among other lesser-known foreign projects.
In addition, “The Expendables,” a throwback action movie trilogy starring Stallone, was a reference to this exchange in RFBPT:
Co: Why did they pick you? Because you like to fight? Rambo: I’m expendable. Co: What mean ‘expendable’? Rambo: It’s like someone invites you to a party and you don’t show up. It doesn’t really matter.
Final (Bullet) Points
As God is my witness, last night I saw a long red ribbon randomly laying in my children’s play room. I gave in to an uncontrollable urge to tie it around my head and mumble as I played with my kids. Granted, they had no idea what I was doing, but for a movie to have that much influence more than 30 years later, it speaks to how strongly it resonated with me.
I am fully aware there are other action movies which deserve to be in the conversation regarding “the ultimate action movie”, including but not limited to: Die Hard, Commando, Predator, Bloodsport, Taken, among more. But other than spouting a few lines of dialog from these films, you can’t make the claim they’ve had the same long-term effects on cinematic audiences, writers, actors and producers as RFBPT has.
When you factor in escalating movie ticket prices and how easy it is to view movies at home (including streaming services and DVDs), it’s a rare event for me to see a movie in a theater these days. But I can assure you I’ll be among the first to buy a ticket to see Rambo 5, a continuation to the story of what I feel is the ultimate action movie.
Murdock: Times change. Rambo: For some people.
Let us know what you what you think in the comments or on our Facebook page!
Not only did Lettich help the Belgian reach the big time in the Hollywood, but he also gave a relatively unknown Mark Dacascos one of his first starring roles. It’s a pretty impressive track record and one that makes Lettich someone well worth speaking to on the subjects of Bloodsport, Stallone and Van Damme, among other things.
UAMC: Was screenwriting something you always wanted to do?
Sheldon: I was initially interested in becoming a Director of Photography. I studied Photography in college, and then went on to work as a professional photographer for 11 years. At the American Film Institute, I was a “Cinematography Fellow,” not really focusing on writing or directing. But that’s where the writing and directing bug bit me.
UAMC: How much of your work has been influenced by your experience in the military?
Sheldon: Quite a lot. The short 16mm film that got me my first directing deals – titled “Firefight” – was based partially on my military experiences in Vietnam. My Vietnam screenplay “Firebase” is what convinced Sylvester Stallone to hire me to co-write “Rambo 3” with him. My military and Vietnam experiences became the springboard that helped launch my career.
Jean-Claude Van Damme in the Flesh
UAMC: Where did the idea for Bloodsport come from and what role did Frank Dux have in it?
Sheldon: Frank had been spinning all these wild tales to me back when I first met him, in the early 1980’s.
UAMC: Do you think there is any chance Frank Dux’s stories about the Kumite are true?
Sheldon: Dux convinced John Stewart, the editor of Black Belt Magazine, that the story had some veracity, which led to an article being published about Dux and the Kumite. The fact that the editor of a respected martial arts magazine was vouching for Dux validated the story for me, and for a lot of other people as well. This was back in the early 1980’s, before the Internet. There was no easy way to fact-check the claims that Dux was making.
UAMC: What was it like when you met Jean-Claude Van Damme for the first time?
Sheldon: Van Damme just had a movie star aura about him. I saw a hint of his potential when I first watched him on a movie theater screen in “No Retreat No Surrender,” but he had far more charisma and magnetism in person. People – especially women – could not take their eyes off of him
UAMC: How important a role did Van Damme play in the success of Bloodsport?
Sheldon: I think a good portion of what made that movie work so well was the fact that JCVD played the lead role with such charm and conviction. The fights were good and well-choreographed; they did not feel like the same fight repeating over and over. The various fighters had unique personas, and they were so very different from one another, both in fighting style and personality. But I believe the catchy title and the unique structure of the story had much to do with the movie’s initial success.
UAMC: From there, you went on to write Rambo III with Sylvester Stallone – how did that experience differ to your work on Bloodsport?
Sheldon: “Bloodsport” was an original screenplay, based in large part upon Frank Dux’s “recollections,” which I was hired to write by producer Mark DiSalle. The hard part for me was sorting through the clutter, deciding what to keep and what to throw away, and then structuring it into a coherent story that had a beginning, middle, and ending. I did this by deciding that the movie should be structured around the tournament itself. The story begins with the various fighters preparing to travel to the Kumite event, and next goes to them arriving at the venue. Then the tournament begins and we see the fights, the various winners, and losers, progressing towards the climatic fight that determines who will be the overall champion. The movie ends when the character named “Frank Dux” gets on a plane to go home. The tournament is over, and the movie is over.
I don’t think there had ever been a movie before with a similar structure. Interspersed there was the story of how Frank Dux came to participate in the tournament, his previous training with Tanaka, his vow to bring honor to his Shidoshi, etc. Then for some additional jeopardy, I threw in the two government agents who were pursuing him, and for some spice I added the “love story” with the reporter. All of these stories are running concurrently with one another, and all are coming to a head near the end of the movie. The sub-plots with the agents and with the reporter were not recounted to me by Dux; I totally made those up.
“Rambo 3,” on the other hand, was a sequel to a couple of very successful movies. “Rambo: First Blood, Part Two” was, in fact, the most successful box office hit of 1985, and Sylvester Stallone at the time was the number one box office star in the world. I felt very honored to be personally chosen by Stallone to co-write the screenplay with him.
That said, the writing process itself was somewhat difficult. Because there was so much riding on this movie, so much in the way of expectation that it would be an equal or even bigger success than the previous Rambo movies, there was a lot of nervousness and indecision with both Stallone and the producers. I had pitched the idea to Stallone that the third Rambo movie should take place in Afghanistan, which at the time had devolved into the Soviet Union’s version of the Vietnam War. Stallone had the same idea. I came up with the idea of Rambo rejecting Trautman’s initial offer to help him on a mission in Afghanistan. Then Trautman gets captured by the Soviets, which leaves Rambo feeling like he lets his mentor down. So now Rambo’s mission becomes to rescue his mentor.
This story was the basis of my first outline and the first few drafts I wrote. But then Stallone and the producers began to worry that Afghanistan was too much of a political hot potato, and also that the Soviets might pull out of Afghanistan before the movie was released (which actually did end up happening). So for a while, I ended up writing a couple of alternate versions, one of which took place in Siberia and entailed Rambo rescuing a downed American pilot before the Soviets can get their hands on him.
UAMC: What are the key ingredients of a good Jean-Claude Van Damme movie in terms of plot, action, and character?
Sheldon: Most Van Damme movies are basically structured like old Fred Astaire movies. Astaire’s movies employ a very simple plot (“I have to convince her to marry me before she can marry that rich guy who doesn’t really love her”) which Astaire uses to hang his dance numbers on. Similarly, in Van Damme movies there’s a simple plot (“They killed our parents, we must get revenge”) which we can then hang a number of fight scenes on. In an Astaire movie, it all leads to the big crucial dance number at the end (where he wins over the girl). In a Van Damme movie, it all leads to the big fight at the end (where he kills the guys who murdered his parents).
UAMC: Lionheart (AWOL) is about to get a sequel. How was working on that film different from some of Van Damme’s other projects?
Sheldon: First of all, Van Damme told me just a few weeks ago that the sequel is not happening.
What was different about “Lionheart” was that we tried to structure it so that it did not follow the usual template for action movies which were being made at that time. For example, Lyon doesn’t track down and wreak vengeance on the guys who killed his brother at the beginning of the film. And then his nemesis for the final fight is someone neither he nor the audience has met before. There’s no personal tie-in to anything that transpired earlier. Attila is not one the guys who killed his brother; he had nothing to do with it whatsoever. That was a pretty radical departure from the storylines that the typical action movies were following in the 80’s and 90’s. “Lionheart” broke some cardinal rules, and yet it still worked; audiences still loved it, and they still love it today.
UAMC: Do you think Van Damme gets enough credit for his acting abilities? What’s your secret for getting a good performance out of him?
Sheldon: I got good performances out of Van Damme simply because I believed in him, and in his potential. And he knew that. I wasn’t treating him like a mere “karate guy” who could simply kick and punch but was otherwise unable to deliver an acting performance.
UAMC: Steven Seagal has trashed JCVD a few times. Could Van Damme take him in a fight?
Sheldon: I’ve met both of them in person, and I’ve watched Van Damme spar with some world-class fighters. I’m quite sure he could drop Seagal without too much effort.
UAMC: Just how in shape was Van Damme on those films?
Sheldon: I believe he was in the best physical shape of his life on “Double Impact” and “Universal Soldier.”
Discovering Mark Dacascos
UAMC: How did you first discover Mark Dacascos?
Sheldon: Mark’s manager at the time, a woman named Cathryn Jaymes, heard I was getting ready to make another martial arts movie, and that we were looking for a leading actor (who was not going to be Van Damme). She called me, told me about Mark, and he drove over to my house and introduced himself.
UAMC: Only the Strong disappointed at the box office but has enjoyed a cult following since and remains the only martial arts movie to showcase capoeira. Where did it go wrong for that movie?
Sheldon: That same manager, Cathryn Jaymes, got Mark signed to do another movie almost immediately after we shot “Only The Strong,” which was to be based on the video game “Double Dragon.” That film was a disastrous train-wreck, running way over budget with a schedule that was completely out of control. On top of that, it ended up being a terrible movie and a flop at the box office.
The reason I mention that movie is that Mark was stuck on it for weeks and weeks beyond their scheduled completion date, and was therefore unable to do any promotion for ‘Only The Strong.” Which was a pity, because the movie went through the roof when 20th Century Fox tested it with a live audience. As I recall, the number of people in the audience who rated it either Very Good or Excellent was around 98%. As a result, the Fox executives were very high on the movie, and they had scheduled me, Mark, and Paco Prieto for a three-week promotional tour, in 12 cities across the USA. But Mark was inextricably stuck on “Double Dragon,” so the tour had to be postponed. And postponed again. Eventually, the tour had to be cancelled altogether, and this was all because of Cathryn’s misguided decision to stick Mark on this terrible train-wreck of a movie before “Only The Strong” had even been released.
20th Century Fox was looking to turn Mark Dacascos into a movie star, headlining studio films for them. Apparently, Rupert Murdoch himself had been impressed enough with Mark’s screen tests to envision him as a replacement for the recently deceased Brandon Lee (who had starred in “Rapid Fire” for Fox). But because there had been no advance promotion for the film, with a new star who nobody had ever heard of before, Fox dropped the ball when it came time to actually put the film in theaters. Had Fox been able to promote the film the way they’d originally wanted to, then I think we would have had a far bigger opening and a far more successful run at the US box office. And Mark Dacascos might have become as well-known as Van Damme and Seagal.
Looking back on Action Past
UAMC: How have action movies changed since the days of Bloodsport and Double Impact?
Sheldon: A lot more CGI, a lot more stunt doubling, and quicker cuts (so you can’t see the stunt doubles).
UAMC: What’s the one project you’ve turned down and ended up regretting not working on?
Sheldon: The “Hercules” TV series. Sam Raimi offered me the pilot.
UAMC: If you could go back and change one thing from your career to date, what would it be and why?
Sheldon: I would have taken that “Hercules” pilot and directed a few episodes afterward. That would have given me an entree into TV directing, which would have been a great way to keep my directing skills sharp between feature films. To this very day, I would still have been collecting residuals from that show.
Tom Cruise as the new action genre hero in Mission Impossible (1996)
The year was 1996 and the action movie was in not in good shape. At the box office all the great action franchises seemed to have fallen silent. The great action movie titans seemed to have had their heyday. The Die Hard franchise starring Bruce Willis was, for a time at least, finished. Stallone – although staring in great action movies in the early 1990s like Demolition Man (1993) – couldn’t seem to land on a hit franchise like he did with Rocky and Rambo and the massively underrated Judge Dredd (1995) was unfairly destroyed by critics and that in turn hurt at the box office.
Schwarzenegger was making movies like Kindergarten Cop (1990) that appealed to a more family orientated audience and the VHS market had changed massively. Low budget movie makers like the awesome Cannon Films were largely out of business come half way through the decade and the video distribution business model was more focused on distribution of successful blockbusters like Disney films and big summer films like Jurassic Park (1993) than offering a wide variety of cheap action movies. Being an action movie fan in the mid 90s wasn’t a whole lot of fun until…
Mission Impossible came to the public’s attention in a big way. Based on the television series of the same name, which was already pretty iconic around the world. The story follows a team of the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) who are in Paris to apprehend an enemy spy with an incredibly sensitive list of secret information. The operation goes incredibly badly and we follow the story of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his mission to uncover the mole who has framed him for the murders of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF) team.
Mission Impossible was released to great fanfare. Unlike now where publicity for a movie starts before it is even in production those pre Internet days of movie promotion meant that there was an assault on the senses, magazine, radio and television adverts, interviews on chat shows and the news all a few weeks before the movie came out. Mission Impossible was supported by a range of merchandise, a tie-in novelization, action figures and the promise of a cutting edge computer game plus two members of rock band U2 putting together a surprisingly listenable remix of the famous Mission Impossible theme tune. As well as all this the movie had a 15 million dollar promotional deal with Apple computers. The hype was real… the high octane advertising definitely got the attention of this action movie fan.
A Hero Rises
Paramount Pictures had the rights to make a mission impossible movie for some time but couldn’t develop anything. That was until iconic Hollywood star of the 80s Tom Cruise, who had been a childhood fan of the T. V show growing up, grabbed the opportunity to make a film version. It was the first project for his new production company and he negotiated with Paramount on a budget of 70 million dollars.
It’s increasingly easy to forget how radical, fresh and revolutionary adapting an iconic TV series into a big budget movie was in an era where audiences almost expect franchises to have sequels, reboots, spin offs and second lives. It was only the most venerated franchises with cult followings like Star Trek that would get the silver screen treatment. It was a huge risk bringing Mission Impossible to a new generation and Cruise would need to assemble the best of the best in Hollywood to make this mission possible. (Editor’s note: an ultimate pun!)
Directing Chaos
In many ways Mission Impossible could have been a by the numbers, mid budget, largely forgettable chapter in action movie history but Cruise genuinely wanted to create the best possible movies he could. The foundation of creating a franchise that redefined the action movie was to pick a great director. Cruise hired Hollywood legend Brian De Palma. De Palma was a perfect choice to direct, with a reputation for producing classy, tension filled, complex action films such as Scarface (1983) and The Untouchables (1987). Da Palma had problems with the script when he came to Mission Impossible and would actually devise many of the action sequences that go into the movie.
He expertly navigated the shady world of espionage with great ease. His direction creates a hyper reality where every shot of the movie is full of atmosphere and European class. Location filming in Paris and London give what would have been quite a unique setting at the time for a big budget action movie. In typical Da Palma style he ups the tension and for film that could of had quite a complex plot everything is explained to the audience in a way that draws you in. The cast are also framed beautifully and you really feel every part of Hunt’s quest for justice.
A Stellar Cast
The other real merit of this movie is its cast. One major criticism of action films of the 1980s and 1990s was a lack of character development and emotional connection with the audience and that the action movie stars of that era gave wooden performances (which is massively untrue). Mission Impossible could not be further from those critical accusations. The cast assembled for this move is almost perfect. Tom Cruise’s performance is maybe one of his best, absolutely commanding the screen, communicating with the audience. His foil Jim Phelps (the only character to come from the original series) is played by Jon Voight, a veteran of action thrillers such as the Odessa File (1974) who plays the role with cunning and skill.
The supporting cast is excellent including Emilio Estevez who gives a fun performance, the stunning Kristin Scott Thomas who has made a vocation of playing sophisticated and shady powerful women and was last seen doing just that in Tomb Raider (2018), great performances from Jean Reno and Ving Rhames and a particularly entertaining performance from acting veteran Vanessa Redgrave. The only really weak link in the chain is Emmanuelle Béart, although she smolders as a femme fatale she maybe doesn’t deliver the same level of performance as the rest of the cast. Interestingly the kind of performances on show here define the kind of acting that can be found in action movies to come.
Your mission if you choose to accept it
All in all Mission impossible was a huge success. Grossing over $457 million worldwide at the box office, it smashed box office records set by Jurassic Park(1993) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991). It got generally positive reviews from the critics and had action sequences that caught the popular imagination.
It changed the way action movies could be presented. It helped, with Goldeneye (1995), to bring back the high octane action espionage movie to a mainstream audience, a genre which had been out of favor for some time. Its legacy is massive and the movie has aged remarkably well. A sequel will of course follow but that is for part two.
Blind Fury is, hands down, one of the oddest action movies ever to come out of the 1980s. Rutger Hauer, who is still perhaps best known as the creepy cyborg bad guy from Blade Runner, stars as a blind Vietnam vet. He returns home to strike up an unlikely relationship as the protector of a young kid who is up against a drug syndicate.
While the premise is unique, the style is just strange. It’s not quite a pure action movie, rather it tries to be family friendly and fun – but comes off as just goofy. Not that it’s bad, quite the contrary, it’s very entertaining and unpredictable. One-liners reign supreme and the fight scenes are great. So, let’s look at some certain moments stand which stand out as odd, funny and downright ultimate!
1) His Vietnam Training Montage
To start the flick, we find our hero Nick Parker (Rutger Hauer) left blinded and stranded in Vietnam. While his situation would seem hopeless to most, to an ultimate action movie hero he simply turns it into an opportunity for a training montage. However, as far as training montages go, his lessons in swordsmanship are non-traditional to say the least.
2) The Bar Fight Scene
In our first introduction to the ultimate warrior which Mr. Hauer has now become, some local punks quickly learn just how daft the man is with his walking stick sword. Hauer also shows off his odd sense of humor which undoubtedly comes from spending the last several years of his life having snakes shoved in his face as a training technique.
3) Putting Up with a Whiny Kid
The crux of Blind Fury comes from an odd father and son relationship (or mentor / guardian I guess) with an absolutely annoying kid which Rutger has to keep alive while he goes and gets revenge on his behalf. You should feel sorry for the kid, his dad did just up and leave him to go live in Reno, Nevada for no reason, and his mom was just murdered – but, he wears that out quickly.
4) Ultimate Swordplay
A lot of crazy misadventures happen as Hauer brings the kid to Reno to find his dad (and stop drugs from being made). Most of the mishaps come from Hauer being blind, but then are solved by him being good at smacking people in the face with his walking stick sword. That is until this ultimate fight scene, deep in the ski resorts of Reno, where he absolutely annilates a group of thugs with his Vietnamese swordsmanship skills.
5) Sho Kosugi’s Fight Scene
And finally, in one of the most surprising (and arbitrary) cameos in action movie history, the bad guys literally put down their guns which they have placed squarely on Hauer and invite him to sword battle a ninja which they brought in. (Sho Kosugi, it seems, is their backup plan once they learned Bruce Lee was dead.) The fight scene is truly one of the greats and makes excellent use of the set and props by creating a sparklingly deadly hot tub jacuzzi as the place for Kosugi’s ultimate demise.
All told, Blind Fury is absolutely insane movie that probably never should have been made, but we’re all very glad that it did and it exists.
What do you think about Blind Fury? Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook page!
What is the true most ultimate way to watch UAMC classics?
The Ultimate Action Movie Club is meant to cover ultimate action movies from the 80s and 90s, and there are no hard guidelines on what constitutes an ULTIMATE ACTION MOVIE, but let’s get some things straight.
Judging from comments from those in the UAMC Facebook Community, there seems to be two distinct schools of thought as to what is the true proper form for watching UAMC classics. Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of both retro VHS viewings versus modern DVD / Blu-Ray and streaming) options.
Video Home System (VHS) Viewing
From a purist perspective, pulling a hard plastic video cassette from a faded paper sleeve is the most ultimate way to start an ultimate action movie club viewing. VCRs may be harder to find and upkeep these days, but it doesn’t mean that any ultimate action movie clubber shouldn’t have at least one ancient machine at the ready to whir up at a moment’s notice.
There’s just some something tactile pleasure from smashing a VHS into a VCR to fire up the action on screen that is lost from the clean and quite DVDs and the soulless online screening. Also, as vinyls long before them, VHS has become a sort of collectors hobby where buying and selling at trade swaps has become a new American pastime.
The drawbacks are obviously decay, as VHS printed sometimes 30 years ago begin to fade and taper out. However, for those who appreciate authenticity, the faded image quality and sliding wails of 80s action soundtracks can make the experience all the better.
DVD / Blu-Ray
The other option for the ultimate action movie collector is to invest not in relics of the past, but in the recent future technology of DVDs and now Blu-Rays. With Blu-ray technology now pushing 4K resolutions (and TVs finally made to match), what was once only cinema quality images can be lit up in bright LEDs on your home entertainment system.
Yet, while your image may be pristine, a timelessness could be lost with 4K restorations and director’s commentary by aged stars looking back with listless remembrance. These new Blu-Ray releases may be the clearest version of themselves, but will likely be gloss over of any imperfections or blemishes in post-production.
Bonus: Laser Disc
There’s also a small, wonderful window of time where laser disc technology, a large version precursor to the DVD was the medium in vogue. While definition was promised at unparalleled resolutions, technology caught up and burned past it quite quickly.
Yet, while VHS and DVDs are roughly the same surface size, Laser Discs were the size of vinyls and had poster-level cover art to bask in before, after or even during viewings. From a collectors perspective, if you’re lucky enough to have retained a laser disc player, all the power too you, but for holding onto some of your favorite UAMC classics for display, nothing beats a large format laser disc to show off to friends and family.
Online Streaming
Nowadays, even DVDs and Blu-rays seem to be on their way out as people become content to not even own physical copies of their favorite flicks, instead to have them available in an endless cesspool of entertainment content for them to click on at their purview. With online streaming, any tactile goodness is lost along with any appreciation for things like cover art or display – instead choices are governed by thumb and star ratings and coded algorithms to decide what you’d like to binge next.
Is there a future in this medium for appreciating the classics? That remains to be seen. It does offer potential for communities – like the Ultimate Action Movie Club – to serve as a hosting ground for specific niches or genres fans to gather to keep their favorite films alive and relevant. However, it also closes off most avenues for find new fans and limiting the possibilities of reviving genres as anything but nostalgia factories, which depending on who you ask – may or may not be a good thing.
What’s your favorite format to view ultimate action movies? Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook page!
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films
It’s a great day in DVD watching when you come across a documentary made with as much love as the movies it represents as Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014). For those of us alive in the 1980s, this upstart movie studio run by two crazy Israelis with visions of grandeur, kept us glued to our seats in theaters anxiously their next feature and kept many a star and director gainfully employed or gave others their start.
Menahem Golan was the king of the domestic Israeli film market who churned out over 40 films including the most successful film Israeli history over a short time span. He teamed up with his cousin Yoram Globus as the money management man with the goal of making movies that would be seen by American audiences. They bought out an existing company with a library of existing films called Cannon Films and the rest, as they say, is history as these lovers of making movies went ventured forth to take on Hollywood. They initially concentrated on low budget fare such as horror movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, teen movies containing lots of nudity, such as The Last American Virgin and historical epics with a lot of sex such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Their pitch was to go to investors with nothing more then a poster or a recognizable name, get the financing, make the movie as cheaply as possible. Release it in theaters. Repeat.
Enter the Ninja
Luckily for this site it 1981 they discovered the action genre and broke into the market with a little movie that started a craze called Enter The Ninja, starring a lead with no martial arts experience. Around this time, Chuck Norris also came calling stating he wanted to move on to make bigger action movies. He was signed to a five picture deal for five million and true martial arts died in cinema until Steven Seagal came along in 1988.
They also signed the other Chuck at the time named Charles ‘Chuck’ Bronson and revived the Death Wish franchise. Michael Dudikoff was cast as The American Ninja after Norris passed on the movie. Does anybody remember one of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s first roles was as an extra getting his groove on in the movie Breakin? But did you know when he immigrated to the United States, JCVD used to sleep in the lobby of the building Cannon was housed in to get a meeting with their executives.
When he came across Golan walking out one day, he did a jumping split kick mere inches from his face. Cyborg and Bloodsport soon followed. All of this made Cannon the greatest action film juggernaut in cinema history and paved the way for their expansion into more mainstream films.
The Beginning of the End
Yet despite all of this box office success, Hollywood still considered them schlock-meisters. So they decided the new business model was to become a full fledged studio. Buoyed by a cash infusion of 300 million brokered by junk bond king Michael Miliken, they adopted the old studio model of signing big name stars and directors to multi picture deals.
Directors were given autonomy to make art house movies that returned no box office – Othello or Barfly, anyone? Directors loved them because they were given complete autonomy. The truth was Cannon had so many movies in production across so many continents, they couldn’t even keep track of what was coming out. And this was the beginning of the end for our beloved Cannon Films. They lost their economies of scale and box office.
They were churning out 40 to 50 movies a year, when the big studios were only releasing 6 to 8. Among the whales they landed was Sylvester Stallone for an arm wrestling movie called Over The Top for 12 million at a point in his career his biggest payday was four million, completely inflating the pay scale on Hollywood. But they later atoned for that with the release of Cobra.
Paved the way for the Future
So there you have it. Cannon should have been Miramax Pictures had they cared more about quality. Or it could have been the predecessor to Marvel Studios, as it did have its own Captain America movie released in 1990 and a Spider-Man movie starring Michael Dudikoff in development. They did give humanity Superman IV,Masters of the Universe and Hercules. Or it could have been the studio that brought 3D back to theaters. Instead it collapsed under its own weight as the American Security and Exchange Commission moved in, and they had to sell off large parts of the company to stay solvent. The cousins then left Cannon and went on to form competing production studios. They eventually decided to both make different movies about lambada dance, even releasing them on the same day, effectively killing the box office. This turned out to be the perfect metaphor for Cannon Films and the cousins who became brothers that ran it.
Remembering The Go Go Boys
But the tale doesn’t end there! When they heard this documentary was in production, they decided to to a documentary of their own, on themselves and called it The Go Go Boys. They beat this one to the market by four months but I have yet to meet anyone who has seen it. Sadly, Menahem Golan has died of cancer.Yoram Globus is still at large, giving all of us alive in the 80s hope!
It also has trailers for over three dozen of Cannon’s finest films. This was a fun trip down memory lane that we all need to take. After all, how will we know where we are going unless we remember where we came from.
Cannon Films Forever
Let me recount two of my favorite stories that perfectly capture the insanity that was Cannon Films. In the first, Golan was casting the female lead for King Solomon’s Mines. He began yelling in rapid fire Hebrew “Get me the Stone girl”. So they signed Sharron Stone and so began her career. When watching the dailies, Golan asked who the fuck was she? It turns out Golan was talking about Romancing the Stone’sKathleen Turner. Apparently Ms. Stone was so unpopular on set, when she had to film a scene where she is lowered into a cauldron to be boiled alive, she complained about the smell. Apparently, the crew had pissed in the water.
The other story has Clyde the orangutan from the Clint Eastwood movies showing up for a meeting with Golan and Globus with his agent in tow. He was signed for a movie called Going Bananas on the spot, but was had to be replaced mid shoot by a midget in a monkey suit after he bit one of the child actors. They crew thought even the animals in the wild were lining up to laugh at them by the end of production. Then there’s the one where Golan pointed an Uzi at an Israeli soldiers face to get him to do another take. Or the one when they took a secretary’s lunch to give it to an actor during a pitch meeting. Or the one where…Ah, eff it, Just see this movie. I guarantee you won’t regret it. Or your money back.
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One ultimate bright spot for action movie fans in today’s modern pop culture has been the surprisingly well-received Lethal Weapon TV series. The show, which is on network television station FOX, has found a space for Shane Black’s buddy cop classic – Lethal Weapon – to live week in and week out to the tune of 40 episodes over 2 seasons so far.
But, as the entertainment world continues its seismic shakeup from both the #MeToo movement and plores for new decency, it appears that Lethal Weapon’s showrunners have made the tough decision to remove their Martin Riggs and replace him with Seann William Scott.
Clayne Crawford’s Downfall
While all things might have appeared to be rosy on the screen between Clayne Crawford and co-star Damon Wayans as they reprised Mel Gibson’s and Danny Glover’s iconic partners Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh, Clayne Crawford’s dismissal has apparently been a long time coming.
Not unlike his character’s predecessor Mel Gibson, Crawford had reportedly been disciplined by the series’ management several times for “emotional abuse” and “creating a hostile environment” on set. His pay had be docked with fines but issues kept rising causing cast and crew to call for a change citing “a history of bad behavior.”
However, while Lethal Weapon may have been hinting at a change with their suspenseful season 2 finale, their choice to replace Crawford seems a little odd to say the least. Perhaps best known as Stifler in the American Pie franchise, Seann William Scott has not been much of a name since his early 2000s teen comedy heydays.
Not to criticize the fella, his immature jock schtick was done well. He’s dabbled with starring roles before in some features like Dude Where’s My Car, Mr. Woodcock and The Dukes of Hazzard, but hasn’t really been out of the confines of pure comedy. Lethal Weapon could be a nice step for him though as its source material has always had comedic undertones – especially parterned with a similar crossover genre star Damon Wayans.
Lethal Weapon Season 3
All this is a pretty big shakeup but shouldn’t take away from the fact that FOX has picking up Lethal Weapon for a third season is a pretty good sign of the show’s action quality. Crawford, for his part on screen at least, held up pretty good but didn’t quite have the same dynamism as Gibson. Same for Wayans in Glover’s role, it works about as well as any TV spin-off can despite coming from such a rich franchise.
What is to be seen is how much Scott will change the show, perhaps making it more tongue-in-cheek than pure action drama. But as long as he channels a solid devil-may-care attitude and cracking wise in deadly situations, it shouldn’t rock the boat too much. and you never know, maybe it’ll give the show enough of a boost to get another season or two – or heck, maybe even a movie to revive the franchise full circle.
Now I am sure that some of you reading this are thinking… Hang on… There wasn’t an original Equalizer movie… And you would be absolutely right… No big screen one anyway… Blood and Wine was a TV movie originally aired as a season 3 opener. The Equalizer: Blood and Wine, was rereleased just before the remake on disc, The Equalizer (2014) was released. It is still available and is well worth the visit if your not familiar with the original series that inspired the movies or absolutely worth the re watch if you saw it first time around.
Dark Days And Obsidian Nights
The plot of Blood and Wine concerns itself with McCall (Edward Woodward) hunting down a killer for hire, with a fetish for the sacrilegious, named Alpha (William Atherton) As the plot of the movie continues we are introduced to Brother Joseph Heiden (played by action movie legend Telly Savalas) who was once a former freelance terrorist and one time adversary of McCall’s. He teams up with McCall and the authorities to hunt this mad dog down.
One of the movies many strengths is its writing and the moral complexity that the characters have to deal with. In the world of The Equalizer ducking out of the way of gun fire is easier than not compromising your integrity and remaining true to justice. The writing by Equalizer regular pen man Coleman Luck still feels fresh, edgy and as engaging as it did in 1987.
A Gritty And Corrupt World
One of the most intriguing and enduring elements of The Equalizer is its setting. It bucks the trend of glamorous sleaze of so much of 1980s action genre. The show is one of downright urban decay. If Miami Vice (1984 – 1989) was all about sun, sea and suits the world of Equalizer was about the very opposite. The very honest way the show is filmed paints New York in a really grubby way… You can almost smell the rot and breathe in the smog.
Setting The Trend
The Equalizer was well ahead of its time. In terms of many elements of that we now take for granted. One of those things was getting big movie star names on the small screen… It’s easy to forget in a post big budget television world that we live in that getting a legitimate movie star on a show was a big deal. The Equalizer had stars from the movies (and the world of music… Yes that was Adam Ant in that season 1 episode !!!) in abundance and Blood and Wine is no exception.
As mentioned earlier in the article, the cast assembled in Blood and Wine is absolutely stellar, Savales’ performance as the conflicted monk is maybe one of the greatest guest starring roles I have ever witnessed. Edward Woodward carries the leading role of McCall with an amazing sense of authority and integrity. In a way a retired CIA man bucked the trend of young, muscle bound Kings of 80s action Cinema which just helps to demonstrate how innovative The Equalizer was…
In preparation for the release of McCall’s next big screen adventure go back and enjoy this future length and (re) discover the brilliantly crafted, brilliantly executed original Equalizer movie Blood and Wine!
Cynthia Rothrock is the Ultimate Queen of Action Movies!
Cynthia Rothrock kicking ass as usual
Women have always played roles in action movies, but in this testosterone fueled genre they mainly took a backseat to the men. They were sidekicks, eye candy, victims who needed saving. Cynthia Rothrock was the first to punch and kick her way through those stereotypes with the force of a category 5 hurricane.
Cynthia Rothrock is no novelty, she is the Queen of Kicking Ass. Need proof? Keep reading:
1) She’s got legit skills
Scranton, PA has never been known as the Kung Fu Capital, but it’s where Rothrock got her start. According to her website, she started martial arts training at age 13. By 1982, she was one of the premiere Kata (forms) and weapon competitors in the United States and from 1981-1985 she was the undefeated World Karate Champion. She holds 5 Black Belts in various Far Eastern martial disciplines. These Arts include; Tang Soo Do (Korean), Tae Kwon Do (Korean), Eagle Claw (Chinese), Wu Shu (contemporary Chinese), and Northern Shaolin (classical Chinese).
2) Her action movie career began in Hong Kong
In the 1970s and ‘80s, Hong Kong cinema was dominated by one company – Golden Harvest. They introduced the world to Bruce Lee and later Jackie Chan. But in the early 1980s they were searching for a new star when they found Cynthia Rothrock – who was part of Ernie Reyes’ West Coast Demonstration Team. She made her first movie for Golden Harvest, Yes, Madam!, starring alongside Michelle Yeoh in 1985, then seven more movies before returning to the states.
3) She’s got that sweet-but-deadly personality
Cynthia Rothrock’s deadliest weapon was always that she looked too sweet to kick that much ass. But, as we all know, looks can be deceiving. One second, she’s innocently taking money out of an ATM, and next thing you know she’s kicking the crap out of three robbers twice her size with weapons. All with a smile on her face.
4) Small package, big power
If action stars were batteries, Arnold Schwarzenegger would be a D cell, and the likes of Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme would be C cells. At 5’3”, Cynthia Rothrock would be a AAA. That said, she packs a lot of power and speed – something that should have rivaled that of her male counterparts. Just for fun, who would win in a fight between Rothrock and Van Damme? Discuss in the comments below.
5) She is nobody’s sidekick
Rothrock may have starred along side the likes of Richard Norton and Chad McQueen, but she relied on no one to save her. She was always in charge of her own destiny, fought her own battles and heck, even looked good while she was doing in. Which is a nice segue into …
6) She makes mom jeans hot!
OK, I’m having a little fun here. Back in the early 1990s, they weren’t called mom jeans, they were unfortunately just jeans. Unflattering, run-of-the-mill blue jeans. Today, women have better choices when it comes to denim, but back then, oooof. Somehow, by some unexplainable miracle, Rothrock made these awful, awful jeans look good. Confidence and strength can be sexy, but who knew they could overpower mom jeans?
7) She still kicks ass – at 61!
Rothrock officially retired from acting in 2004 after appearing in Xtreme Fighter to teach private martial arts lessons. Apparently, retirement didn’t last long. She had a small role three years later in the Spanish film, Lost Bullet, then for some reason playing Nanna in 2012’s Santa’s Summer House along with Gary Daniels. In 2017, she returned to her true form in Death Fighter with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson.
Today, there are lots of women in action movies – especially in the superhero genre. Still, while big action flicks now star actresses like Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence, Gal Gadot, Charlize Theron and Kate Beckinsale, they all owe a debt of gratitude to Cynthia Rothrock. She is a trailblazer, the original female ass kicker, she inspired Mortal Combat’s Sonya Blade, and, at an age when most people would be slowing down, she isn’t. It’s why Cynthia Rothrock will forever be the undisputed Queen of Kicking Ass.
Article by Eric LaRose – a Wisconsin-based connoisseur of action, horror and sci-fi movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s. A former journalist and podcaster, Eric wrote the ending to the Toxic Avenger Part 4, but the only person who will back up that claim is his wife.
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