Expendables 2

EXPENDABLES 2 IS PERFECTLY BALLISTICALLY FUN
by Reymundo Salao

A good sequel is one that takes notes from its previous mistakes and consciously and obviously improves on it. Expendables 2 does just that and more. This sequel is like a billion astro-fireworks far above the previous film. This movie makes the other one look extremely dull, tastelessly bland, and utterly joyless. EXPENDABLES 2 does it right this time and manages to be more than just a better movie. It’s Incredibly and Ballistically Fun!

Whatever happened to the Terminator Franchise? Will Justin Lin be the one to reactivate it?

We all thought the Terminator Saga would have ended after McG's Terminator Salvation did not turn out to be the grand epic success that it was expected to be.

Just a little more than six months after the release of Terminator Salvation, its production company auctioned off the rights of the Terminator film franchise [read about this report here], it was a deal that tests Hollywood intellectual property valuations at a time when film industry profits are under pressure from falling DVD sales. After Sony Pictures & Lionsgate bid frantically for the rights, neither movie studio came out the winner. Halcyon accepted a $29.5 million bid from a Santa Barbara-based hedge fund Pacificor, the debtholder which pushed the company into bankruptcy.Of course, this is subject to the approval by the bankruptcy court. As stated in reports, “Sony and Lionsgate dropped out at just under $29.5 million when it became clear that Pacificor was willing to pay almost any amount of money for Terminator.” As part of the deal, Halcyon will keep the revenue streams from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Terminator Salvation, and will receive $5 million for every Terminator movie produced in the future. [source: LA Times]

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gale Anne Hurd, who produced the first three Terminator movies,  discussed the madness surrounding the rights to the series and said, if everything worked out, she’d love to do another one: "It’s very sad. You feel like you gave birth to something and it’s been adopted and those adoptions haven’t worked out. Of course I’d be interested in doing another one. I’d love it."

Now it looks like Justin Lin, director of the upcoming Fast Five is interested in reviving the Terminator franchise. Lin says he has a take on Terminator he would like to see and that he’s spoken with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Lin says: 
"I think one of the great things is that when I got started, no one would return my calls, and now I get a lot of phone calls, which is good.  I have options.  Terminator was one of my favorite films growing up.  And I feel I have a take that I would love to see, and I’ve talked with Arnold and we’ve talked and we’ll see.  Again, I would love to do it, but it has to be the right circumstances.  It has to be the right people.  And there’s other projects too.  But I’m in a position now that I can choose more than I could a year ago, two years ago.  So that is something that is potentially in my future, but when I get home I will sit down and look at my options and choose what I want to do."

If you ask me, I personally think that the Terminator franchise has a messy storyline up from the very first movie. Stories involving time-travel & fate alteration is a very complex storyline material to work around with, ESPECIALLY if its a film series; everything has to weave together flawlessly. Once it shows some sign of inconsistency, it could easily dissolve from both its fandom and from the box office profits. When box-office fails, the last thing that can save the film is its hardcore followers that 'get it'. I actually loved "Terminator Salvation" but there's no denying that it was still a mess. Let's just hope that somebody will finally make a Terminator movie that will give this saga some order.



Check out this funny short video about a Terminator begging in the streets

TOTAL RECALL to be Recalled and Remade

The classic sci-fi movie TOTAL RECALL which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger is up for a remake. This remake, which is in development over at Columbia Pictures, will be directed by Len Wiseman (Underworld & Diehard 4) and will star Colin Farrell as Quaid, the leading role once made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Bryan Cranston – three-time Emmy-winning star of AMC’s Breaking Bad – is in negotiations to star as the villain. It is not yet known to who exactly Cranston will be playing. The first movie had two primary villains: Corrupt Mars administrator / evil mastermind Vilos Cohaagen (Ronny Cox), and his ruthless henchman Richter (Michael Ironside). Whether Cranston will be playing the bad guy with brains or brawn has yet to be announced.

The first TOTAL RECALL movie which was directed by the director of Robocop, Basic Instinct, and Starship Troopers director Paul Verhoeven. It was an adaptation of the short story, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” which was written by the famous sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick.

It has been revealed that the screenwriter of the upcoming remake, Kurt Wimmer (Salt, Equilibrium) will be more faithful to Dick’s original story than what the first Total Recall did. Here is the synopsis of “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”

Douglas Quail, a simple and ordinary man, wishes to visit Mars. Unable to afford it, he visits a company, Rekal, Incorporated, that offers implanted memories (“extra-factual memory”). The attempt to implant some racy Mars memories of Quail as a secret agent reveals that Quail actually is an undercover government assassin with a mind full of dangerous secrets. The Rekal staff quickly get Quail out of their office; he heads home and finds certain physical evidence to support his new old memories.

The government initially seeks his death but instead Quail manages to make a deal. He returns to Rekal to have his Mars memories once more suppressed, and is offered by way of compensation a set of heroic wish-fulfillment false memories. The Rekal staff begin the memory-implanting procedure — and uncover a different and older set of suppressed memories revealing that the unbelievable memories they are about to insert are already there and are true.

The first TOTAL RECALL movie was primarily an action vehicle for Schwarzenegger. Personally, I am hoping that this remake will be a better, more thought-provoking movie that will have the same kind of mood as Inception. The only problem here is that Len Wiseman is best known for his being a visual action director. His Underworld movies are best known for its John Woo-like style, and stylish character designs. At least, we should be thankful that it's not Brett Ratner or Michael Bay.

Total Recall is slated for release on August 3, 2012.

The Expendables

THE EXPENDABLES: A GLORIOUS Orgasm of Action Junkie Bliss!
By Reymundo Salao

The EXPENDABLES is about a group of unstoppable mercenaries taking on an evil oppressive general and his American allies. This is simple ballistic good versus evil; a movie created as a grand homage to the action movies of the 1980’s and 90’s.

I confess up front that I am going to be biased about this review. I love action movies. Good action movies (even the dumb ones). I basically grew up watching action movies, and so, because The Expendables is an all out explosive movie which is an homage to the classic action films of the 80s and 90s, it’s no surprise that this is something I surely will enjoy from start to finish. And surely I did enjoy it.

Commercially and creatively, it is a fabulous idea to combine all these legendary action icons into one movie. Of course, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Bruce Willis, and Stallone, all action movie heroes, Randy Couture on the other hand is himself an icon of the Ultimate Fighting sport, and so is Stone Cold Steve Austin for the field of wrestling. Then there’s Dolph Lundgren who, despite being cast in B-movie projects over the recent years, still remains an active action movie actor (his 1989 movie Red Scorpion and the 1989 Marvel movie The Punisher are his two movies that I really loved when I was a kid), and also Mickey Rourke, who is more of a ‘man’s man’ icon rather than an action hero. And to top it off is the action movie villain icon Eric Roberts as the main baddie (alongside Steve Austin as his henchman). Terry Crews was also a great addition to the team because he's one of those actors that do look like a bad-ass but is often used on comedies and minor roles in action movies, in this one, he gets to be one of the main heroes. Of course there’s a minor appearance from Arnold Schwarzenegger alongside Willis whose appearance is minor also. But it’s a scene that I loved; the exchange between Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis was just something I really adored. I can’t really ensure if it's also something ladies will enjoy with much giddy enthusiasm as I did. But yes, this movie made me feel like I was in GRADE 6 again, with ...matching childish cheer & machine gun sounds from my grade 6 teeth.

Stallone's style in action is, by definition, violent, but never gory. Stallone's treatment in gore is pretty much hit, get-to-the-point, and then run; it does not exert any effort to focus too long on the gore as much as Neveldine & Taylor's direction in Crank 2 or the torture porn of the Saw movies.

Unfortunately, Stallone has the same major flaw typical American directors are plagued with; they do not know how to shoot a good martial arts sequence. I think the film failed to really let the audience see the usual martial arts majesty of Jet Li. Even Stallone's, Steve Austin's and Randy Couture's major fight sequences lacked an impressive fight-sequence orgasm to it. The shots of the fight scenes feel shaky and too close. With martial arts and fight scenes, the static should be on the body movements of the characters fighting, a good steady focus should capture every detail of the body static. Especially with a superior martial artist like Jet Li, you need to focus each and every impressive stunt he creates onscreen. This is also very similar to editing; a good fight sequence should not be divided into tiny bits to meld with a grand all-out action mix-up with the other characters doing other separate things as well. If it does become part of a mix-up, make the sequences longer.

With what he has achieved in directing John Rambo (Rambo IV), and with his achievement here in The Expendables, I feel that Stallone's forte is more on the military action. It's just grand, wild, ballistic, and merciless. There is one scene (which involves a plane escape) where I literally even clapped my hands (yeah that's not a usual thing here in our conservative city, but hell I just loved it).

What I like about this movie is that even though his main characters are scary when in battle, their character arcs are that they are never a-holes or arrogant vain dicks. That seems to be what sets them apart from the protagonist in movies by Michael Bay or Neveldine & Taylor whose heroes are too cocky and sometimes break too many “hero” rules to the point that you get tired of rooting for those kind of heroes.

Just because you have characters that are wickedly bad-ass, doesn’t mean they have to possess nasty personalities as well. At one scene, we see Mickey Rourke riding in on his bike with what looks like a hooker on his back, yet, the next time we see him, he delivers this soulful lamentation of how an experience in the battlefield, when he neglected a civilian, has bothered his conscience. As I said, they look demonic on the outside, but they reveal sheer goodness inside. Maybe to younger audiences this appears to be an old school approach to action hero archetypes, but if you ask me, this is THE BEST approach to an action hero archetype.

THE EXPENDABLES is full-price movie for me and for many action-loving audiences out there. Sure you should not expect this to be a smart “thinking” movie. But at least it’s not as dumb as, say the “Charlie’s Angels” movies or that dumb G.I. Joe movie (personally this is what I wanted that GI Joe movie to look like). THE EXPENDABLES earns a solid thumbs up; along with wishes that there should be a sequel! Next Mission PLEASE!!!