Carano's acting was fine for the genre.  Is she better than Lee Marvin, Sonny Chiba, Sean Connery in the first three Bond films, or Michelle Yeoh in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, TOMORROW NEVER DIES or POLICE STORY 3: SUPERCOP?  No.  But she's better than Cynthia Rothrock in anything, better than Yeoh in MAGNIFICENT…

Carano's acting was fine for the genre.  Is she better than Lee Marvin, Sonny Chiba, Sean Connery in the first three Bond films, or Michelle Yeoh in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, TOMORROW NEVER DIES or POLICE STORY 3: SUPERCOP?  No.  But she's better than Cynthia Rothrock in anything, better than Yeoh in MAGNIFICENT…

ADHD?  Really?  All those long takes, the medium shots, THE FACT THAT THE DP ACTUALLY USED A FUCKING TRIPOD?  That looks liek ADHD to you?  Either you're being a deliberate troll, which means you might as well have a sign stapled to your forehead reading "I'M A GREASY LITTLE BUTTPLUG, or there's some missing synapses.

ADHD?  Really?  All those long takes, the medium shots, THE FACT THAT THE DP ACTUALLY USED A FUCKING TRIPOD?  That looks liek ADHD to you?  Either you're being a deliberate troll, which means you might as well have a sign stapled to your forehead reading "I'M A GREASY LITTLE BUTTPLUG, or there's some missing synapses.

Jesus Fucking Christ, Welles HAD NO CHOICE about casting Heston as a Mexican.   Heston was the one in control of the film.  His casting in the role was a done deal (although he could presumably have insisted on playing the cop as a gringo with a Mexican wife, as in the novel it's based on).  Welles was originally…

Jesus Fucking Christ, Welles HAD NO CHOICE about casting Heston as a Mexican.   Heston was the one in control of the film.  His casting in the role was a done deal (although he could presumably have insisted on playing the cop as a gringo with a Mexican wife, as in the novel it's based on).  Welles was originally…

Kipling was undoubtedly racist, but he wrote brilliantly about India and was often more sympathetic than you might expect (although sometimes not).  And unlike the majority of British Colonialist writers, he had a good eye for the landscape and wrote with sympathy about the animals.  Most 19th century British writers…

The brilliant Russian cartoons that adapted a bunch of the Mowgli stories the same year the Disney film was made (I've posted clips upstream) depart from their source in only one significant way (well, other than Bagheera being female and having a sexy voice, but that's because the Russian word for "panther' is always…

As I said in the GRAVEYARD BOOK thread, the truly brilliant adaptation of Kipling's stories isn't Disney's, but the ones the Russians did the same year. The stylized animation is gorgeous, the animal designs are compelling, and the violence is unstinting.  Here's the most brutal of them, "Red Dog," which pits the…

The ideal adaptation of THE JUNGLE BOOK has indeed already been done, but it wasn't Disney's crap.  That goddam film offended my purist's sensibilities when I was 8 years old, and while it doesn't inspire as much murderous rage in me today, it still bugs me.

James Hong is a fucking pimp.  I met him at the Mad Monster Party in Charlotte, NC a few weeks ago.  He travels with an entourage of busty belly dancers who perform in "the Lo Pan Show" with him.  He hit on a hot friend of mine.  He dominated a panel about Blade Runner that he did with Rutger Hauer and Joe Turkel, in…

I completely agree, and the AV Club's continuing blind spot regarding this masterpieces (a year or so ago somebody on staff claimed there's never been a memorable version of the Dumas novel) is bizarre.

Hence the much-quoted "fact" that Ian Fleming once suggested "Jimmy Stewart" for the role of James Bond.  He did, but he meant his old family friend who was born James Stewart but had changed his screen name to Stewart Granger for obvious reasons.

I believe the name was either a Haggard reference or eventually became one.  When Scorpio popped up on the show, he made some reference to the Quatermain family originally having made their fortune in South African diamonds.

Here is the entirety of The Long Tomorrow, the hard-boiled SF private eye (more Mike Hammer, than noir) story that Moebius did with Dan O'Bannon while they were in Paris working on Jodorowsky's abortive Dune.  It was published in Metal Hurlant and then in Heavy Metal, and proved hugely influential, not just on…

The only realistic movie about the Yakuza that I know of is Juzo Itami's MINBO, OR THE GENTLE ART OF JAPANESE EXTORTION, which portrays as a bunch of vulgar louts and bullies (and which got Itami stabbed, and possibly killed or blackmailed into suicide, for making it).   Real-life yakuza don't look or act much like…

@avclub-c54c561b74163f70a5572998e3955227:disqus , Card's views are complex.  He strongly dislikes a lot of local Republicans like the loathsome Billy Yow, who had t-shirts made depicting himself peeing on the NAACP while wearing a Confederate flag.  He despises Obama but seems genuinely terrified of Santorum, Perry…

As far as films by Powell alone, I'm very partial to Age of Consent.  I mean, no, it's not a masterpiece, but 22 year old Helen Mirren (playing a girl going on 18) is naked for, what, almost a third of it?  And she's great, turning her character into so much more than a Lolita-esque nymph.

Mine is probably I Know Where I'm Going, but A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, and Colonel Blimp come close.  And I love A Canterbury Tale,  Such a stunning opening, when the camera tracks the falcon and it turns into a warplane on maneuvers, then tracks back down to reveal the travelers are now WW2…

I guess using the wonderful John Barrowman/Ruthie Henshall version would have been tipping the scales too far in favor of the Doctor.  Damn she's hot.