The Expendables

Thinking about watching The Expendables?

Don't.

Just read this bit of the script:

Now stick your head between two pneumatic drills and stare at this picture for 90 minutes:

You'll thank me for this one day.

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The Bravest Actor In The History Of Cinema

Who would you say is the bravest actor in the history of cinema?

Is it Robert De Niro, who bravely gained 60 pounds to play lardy punchbag Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, valiantly had his teeth ground down for Cape Fear and selflessly agreed to star in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle?

Is it Christian Bale, who courageously ate real worms during the filming of Rescue Dawn, heroically lost 63 pounds for The Machinist and willingly agreed to be in a film directed by McG?

Or is it Sylvester Stallone, who has fearlessly endured the pain of a broken neck filming The Expendables, the agony of a compressed heart caused by a good whack from Dolph Lundgren during Rocky IV and the derision of the entire world for playing a helmet-free Judge Dredd?

Nope. It's Ilan Mitchell-Smith, who, at the age of 15, wore a ludicrously cropped t-shirt and a pair of barely visible pants in Weird Science.

As if that wasn't plucky enough, Mitchell-Smith gave up acting shortly afterwards, ensuring that it would be the image for which he would always be remembered, and went into teaching, the bravest move in the world for someone world-famous for flouncing about in ladies' skimpies.

All this and he still got billed below Anthony Michael Hall and Kelly LeBrock.

Ilan Mitchell-Smith, The Incredible Suit salutes you. You are officially the bravest actor in the history of cinema.

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John Rambo And The Inconsistently Named Sequels

I filled a Stallone-sized gap in my film knowledge the other day by watching Rambo. Well actually it wasn't Rambo, it was First Blood, the first film to feature John Rambo, although in countries like Austria, France and Italy it is called Rambo. Not to be confused with Rambo, the fourth film to feature Rambo (also called John Rambo), or Rambo: First Blood Part II, the second First Blood film to feature John Rambo (called Rambo 2 in some territories). Rambo III obviously comes before Rambo (unless you're in Austria, France or Italy, where it comes after Rambo but before John Rambo). Where Son Of Rambow fits in is beyond me.

Even the guys who made the DVD box set were so confused they didn't know what to put on the spine, so they just left it blank, irritating carefully-arranged DVD shelf lovers everywhere:

Anyway, First Blood, for both of you who haven't seen it, is daft. A man is arrested for smelling bad, escapes police headquarters and hides in a small cluster of trees. The cops over-react by trying to kill him, so he over-reacts back by punching some rats in the face and blowing up an entire town. Then he has a cry and is arrested again.

Even the poster tagline is daft. "This time he's fighting for his life" implies that we've seen him fighting before, which we haven't, and for something other than his life. Maybe for control of the telly remote or something. Perhaps it's a reference to his time in Vietnam, although I strongly suspect his life was at least in the top two things he was fighting for there.

It's the highest-rated of all the Rambo / First Blood / Over-Reacting Rat-Punching Cry-Baby films on IMDb, so I look forward to seeing the rest over the next few weeks courtesy of ITV4, which is so called because it is four times better than ITV1.

Now if that doesn't get me a job reviewing films for a bestselling newspaper or magazine then I don't know what will.

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The Expendables & The A-Team: No Sissies Allowed

The Expendables

Global testosterone levels were reported to be dangerously depleted over the weekend when it was discovered that almost every last sweaty drop of the stuff had been crammed into the new trailer for The Expendables, Sylvester Stallone's latest attempt to convince the world that he's not some kind of sissy.



In case you couldn't quite make out what Stallone was saying in that trailer, here's a few snippets of his soon-to-be-classic dialogue:

"Rurrrnurrrr Muurrrrrrnnuurr."
"Nnnnmm. Rrrr. Rrrnnnmm."
"Rrrrrrmmmrrrrnnn."
"MMNNRRNNNRRRR!!!"

You'll note the trailer advertises its stars using only their surnames, because that's the manliest way you can possibly do it. After all, Jet, Mickey, Dolph, Steve, Bruce, Randy, Jason, Arnold and Sylvester just sounds like some kind of gay porn cabaret.

The A-Team

And then, summoning the very last reserves of macho juice and piddling them into another two-and-a-half minute clipgasm, came these guys:



"This court is rendering guilty verdicts for this Alpha unit... OR A-TEAM"
"I'm BA... you gonna B unconscious"
"Good morning!"
"It's payback time"

Anyone else think this might work better as a silent film?

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A Poo In A Teacup

Imagine walking into your bathroom and finding a load of toenail clippings in the sink. Pretty grim, right? But imagine if the sink was the interweb, and the toenails were actually little nuggets of noteworthy movie news. Now you’ve turned a revolting imaginary scenario into one that’s almost worth blogging about. Hooray for you! Well, hooray for me actually, I wrote the thing. All you do is sit there and read it while shovelling chocolate digestives into your face.

Here are the toenails I found in my sink today which I thought share-worthy:

Nicolas Cage won’t star in Green Hornet!
While it’s hardly news to say that somebody isn’t going to be in something, unless it’s “Shia LaBeouf will not star in anything ever again,” it’s always good to know Mr Cage and his wig of the week won’t be in a movie.

I’ve been alternately interested by and apathetic about Green Hornet since it was announced. My thought process went something like this:
Michel Gondry's making a Green Hornet movie: That sounds good. Seth Rogen’s in it: Oh. Not so interested.
Stephen Chow will play Kato: Groovy. Stephen Chow was ace in Kung Fu Hustle.
Stephen Chow won’t play Kato: Oh for heaven’s sake.
Cameron Diaz will be in it: Well that’s slightly better.
Nicolas Cage might be in it: That’s it, I’ve had it with all these Green Hornet shenanigans.
Nicolas Cage won’t be in it: Right, good, but just make the film and stop announcing who isn’t in it! This is becoming tedious.

Alex Garland is writing a new Judge Dredd movie!
I thought I was excited about this but then I realised I was just mildly curious about a new Judge Dredd film. After all a poo in a teacup would be better than the 1995 Sylvester Stallone version. I mean, hello, he takes his helmet off! Wrong, just wrong.

Alex Garland has only actually written half a good movie, The Beach. The rest have been a bit rubbish, so this particular toenail goes in the ‘Wait And See’ cupboard.

The A-Team movie has found its BA Baracus!
Liam Neeson is Hannibal. Bradley Cooper is Face. And now it appears the ludicrously named (although I probably wouldn’t say it to his face) Quinton Ramone “Rampage” Jackson is BA Baracus. I’m still looking forward to the film but I can’t help feeling like the best BA would have been Blighty’s own Matt Lucas:


And the big toenail in the sink is…
The announcement of the programme for the 2009 London Film Festival, on which I am duty-bound to report now that I run an award-winning blog*. There are about 20 films I want to see so it looks like I’ll have to resign from my job for the last fortnight in October. I’m sure they’ll cope without me, all I do is use their facilities to write my blog. Ssshh!

*Blog not actually award-winning

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