One of the things that people love in films, especially action movies, is ridiculousness.  One of the most ridiculous things that’s made its way into our action films of today is every once in a while when we get a character, usually the leading man, who just never seems to miss the target.  Here’s my top ten list dedicated to those characters:

10. Arthur Bishop – The Mechanic (1972) (dir. Michael Winner)

It definitely isn’t my favourite Charles Bronson film, but who can dispute it’s qualifications for the list.  Here Arthur is a cold hard and calculated assassin that never seems to get his kills wrong.  He may make it over elaborate but when it comes down to it he’s a professional that you don’t want to be on the wrong side of the contract with.

9. Bullseye – Daredevil (2003) (dir. Mark Steven Johnson)

Say what you will about this movie, I actually liked Colin Farrell as Bullseye.  In a world where going blind gives you super powers why can’t we believe in a character that just never misses his target.  No matter what he throws; be it knife, dart or the occasional baton it’s going to hit it’s target.

8. Robin Hood – Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) (dir. Mel Brooks)

So now we’re talking about a character that pulled out a Patriot Arrow which changed direction about a half dozen times just so that it could nail the bullseye.  Cary Elwes nails the role of Robin Hood in one of my favourite Mel Brooks comedies of all time.  How can you hate him, he even has a real British accent, ‘unlike those other Robin Hoods’.

7. Fox – Wanted (2008) (dir. Timur Bekmambetov)

In a world where all the heroes have been killed off all we have are a bunch of bullet curving assassins to take care of the really bad guys.  It seems almost impossible for Fox to have a weapon in hand and not hit the target, even when there’s only one bullet and a circular room filled with targets on the edge.

6. Pvt. Daniel Jackson – Saving Private Ryan (1998) (dir. Steven Spielberg)

When you’re a sniper in WWII it’s kind of a given that you can’t miss.  If you miss you die.  He spends mission after mission planting himself in the vantage point and taking out the opposition so to make sure that his team can continue to move forward to their objective.

5. Melvin Smiley – The Big Hit (1998) (dir. Kirk Wong)

In, what some consider, Mark Wahlberg‘s best performance of his career he gives us the emotional range of a tree bark.  However, with that said he plays a hitman who is actually good at his job, except for the thinking part.  He takes on entire rival gangs and security teams and wipes them out in a matter of minutes.  He’s a one man army you don’t want to mess with.

4. Sundance Kid – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) (dir. George Roy Hill)

He probably doesn’t deserve to be on this list, because you actually see him miss in the film.  However, he’s a lot better when he moves.  So like the referee from Celebrity Death  Match ‘I’ll allow it!’.  One of the most lovable outlaws in the west that you’ll ever meet Robert Redford plays friend to bank robber extraordinaire, Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman).  We follow them across the great states and even to someplace like Bolivia.  He’s more than a crack-shot, but he’s a great character.

3. Hit Girl – Kick-Ass (2010) (dir. Matthew Vaughn)

When an eight-year-old girl can take down a room full of drug dealers without breaking a sweat that’s when you know that you have a girl not to be fucked with.  She slices, she dices and she can come up with really foul mouthed quips that will put you in stitches.

2. Smith – Shoot ‘Em Up (2007) (dir. Michael Davis)

If a guy kills his enemies with a carrot then you may not want to get on his bad side.  After seeing some random pregnant lady getting chased down by a nefarious type individual he decides to step in.  For the next few days he’s on a murdering rampage killing everyone in his way in order to figure out the truth about why the guy was harassing this nice lady and trying to save her baby.  There’s actually a scene where Smith is having sex with Monica Belluci and kills off a SWAT team attack while never actually pulling out.  ‘Nuff said.

1. El Wray – Planet Terror (2007) (dir. Robert Rodriguez)

It’s probably useful during the zombie-apocalypse to have a crack-shot like El Wray on your survival team.  He actually never misses.  If you watch the movie and pay attention to all of El Wray’s action scenes he literally hits every target that he aims at; and I can’t stop laughing at his last moment where he holds Cherry’s stomach and says “I never miss” only to find out two seconds later that he impregnated her when they had sex earlier that night.  It’s so over the top that I can’t forget it.

As Douglas is sent to kill Andrew so to save Damion from a hanging on Christmas Day in 1800s Australia as we discuss John Hilcoat’s 2005 film The Proposition

Show Notes

What We Watched:
Douglas [00:01:17]: It’s Complicated, Whip It
Damion [00:04:00]: Serious Moonlight, Book of Eli
Andrew [00:09:33]: LOST, Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Up In The Air, Antichrist, A Serious Man

News
Zooey Deschanel in HBO Groupie [00:23:23]
Reboots: Daredevil, Mr. and Mrs. Smith [00:25:35]
Ben Stiller’s 5th Directed film to start in April [00:32:31]
24 the movie [00:35:30]

Trailers
The Last Airbender [00:39:10]
Cop Out [00:47:09]
The Losers [00:52:45]

Review: The Proposition (2005) [00:59:34]

Thanks for listening and feel free to let us know what you think either through the comments below or email us here.  You can subscribe to the podcast via our RSS, The Podcast Alley or iTunes.  It would be awesome if you would rate/review us on iTunes (we’ll read your reviews on the show.  You can also catch us broadcast the show live every Wednesday night at 9PMEST on ustream.

You can also become a part of the decision process of what we talk about in the show by joining us on the Google Wave here.  If you want to become a Google Wave user and need an invite email me here and I’ll invite you (I have a good amount just sitting there).

This week our fearful guests are continuously shoved out of their apartment by their pretend podcasting boss that they hope to impress Mel Valentin.

Show Notes

Guest: Mel Valentin from SFStaion.com and eFilmCritic.com

What We Watched
[00:02:02] Mel: The Blind Side, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Everybody’s Fine
[00:07:47] Andrew: Cabaret, Watchmen [The Ultimate Cut]
[00:14:30] Douglas: Thirst, The Squid and the Whale, Precious, Modern Family
[00:36:57] Damion: Funny People, State of Play, Daredevil [Director's Cut], 10,000 B.C.

News
More Sequel Nonsense – Zombieland 2 in 3D and Shining 2? [01:02:04]
JJ Abrams Producing Samurai Jack Movie [01:10:00]
TDK get beat by New Moon [01:13:57]
Chris Weitz enters into retirement by agreeing not to retire [01:16:14]
Hangover for Best Picture? (are there 10 movies?) [01:20:45]

Trailers
Greenberg [01:28:52]
The Last Station [01:36:12]
Remember Me [01:43:24]

Review: The Apartment (1960) [01:50:36]

Additional Notes
Top Ten Bad Parents in Film
R2D2 is found in Star Trek

Once again I’d like to thank all you for listening and feel free to leave me any feedback in the comments or via email at unnamed[AT]gmanreviews[DOT]com.  You can subscribe to the podcast via the RSS, The Podcast Alley or iTunes.  We broadcast the podcast live on ustream every Wednesday night at 9PM EST, feel free to tune in and chat with us live there.

I’ve been constantly attacking myself for placing so much emphasis of movie reviews and shying away from movie news and previews. For the main reason that if you read any of the sites that I read [FilmSchoolRejects, /Film, FirstShowing.net, among others] the amount of news articles that they post in a day probably exceed the amount of reviews I’ve posted to date here since my inception in February of this year. So finally I have come up with the solution to my problem. I will every Friday [or at least this is the plan for now] post an article called “The News Roundup” where I will highlight some of the new articles I find most interesting [linking to the original article from one of the blogs I read] and make a small commentary on each article. This will save me loads of time typing a page for every news piece and lower my guilt for not bringing you the information. So here we go.

In the news this week we found out that :

Pixar may be pursuing a sequel to “Monsters, Inc” which I think may be a good idea when you think of all the films they have made so far and the potential each has for a sequel. If you asked which Pixar film would make the best sequel it would have to be “The Incredibles” because it lends itself to be the most episodic of all the Pixar films, but overall I would also have to include “Cars” and “Monsters, Inc.” One thing is for sure, if a sequel will be done, I’m sure that a wonderful studio like Pixar won’t be the kind of people who will mess it up by rushing the process or starting without completely fleshing out a great story to fit the characters.

Robert De Niro stars alongside Mel Gibson in “Edge of Darkness”. Here is another police drama starring Robert De Niro, and Mel Gibson’s first time in a leading role since 2002, and last time he was a cop was in “Lethal Wepaon 4” [1998]. I’m not a huge fan of these movies, because they really have become one of the most overused genres in Hollywood. Let me tell you exactly what’s going to happen. A murder occurs, police officer [Mel Gibson] will investigate, a few car chases and shootouts later we get to the leader of some huge conspiracy/drug ring/crime ring will get caught, and a friend [possible partner of police protagonist] will get shot and injured [but not die] the end. It’s so boring and I hope that they lay off this one for a while, unless of course they actually do something completely different with it here.

Magneto spin-off may start filming in 2009. With the rise of popularity in comic book based films in recent years I don’t see why this isn’t understood. Whenever, Hollywood takes from a source material with a wide fanbase it’s very easy for them to make their money back. Even the bad “X-Men : The Last Stand” third part of the X-Men trilogy made over two hundred million dollars in the American Box Office. Personally I’m not ready to pass judgement on this project just yet, but I would like for them to recast the role of Magneto [was Ian Mckellen] and take me to a different interpretation of the character than is normally seen [not necessarily a Nolan real-life interpretation, but something different].

Morgan Freeman was in a car crash. Now it is reported that he has not sustained any life-threatening injuries. He was driving a ’97 Maxima when it flipped several times. He had to be airlifted to the hospital along with his passenger [the owner of the vehicle, Demaris Meyer]. With all that sounding horrible and all, it doesn’t look as bad as that since it also mentions Mr. Freeman making many jokes with the rescue team and being highspirited. My thoughts are with Mr. Freeman and his family while he recuperates.

Ben Stiller updates on “Night at the Museum 2”. Apparently they’ve decided to expand the scope of the film for the sequel where Ben Stiller’s character is transferred to the Smithsonian. Now I’m not sure if this means anything to you, but it doesn’t mean that much to me. The article doesn’t really explain why the Smithsonian would be so much more interesting than the first movie. I thought the movie was dumb and not that funny. But with that said I know exactly what it was trying to achieve and it definitely did. I took a star, put him in a PG movie so that people will go and take their children and then they will learn one or two things about history which every once in a while is a good thing, especially with the lack of interest in learning about history these days among youth [inclusive of myself I guess]. A lot of the cast from the previous film will return, including Robin Williams, Steve Coogan, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais [my favourite part of the first movie] and Dick Van Dyke [doesn’t make much sense since he was basically the villain in the first movie]. And also new additions to the cast include; Christopher Guest [as Ivan the Terrible], Hank Azaria [as Kah Mun Rah], Amy Adams [as Amelia Earheart] and Bill Hader [as General George Custer].

Warner Brothers adapting the book “Drink, Play, F@#k”. Now even though it isn’t new to Hollywood to be adapting novels into movies [maybe rare these days with all the comic book movies] here is one with a title that might just get your attention from the get go. It is apparently about a man who’s wife leaves him, and he decides the only way to console himself is to go off on a drinking binge in Ireland, followed by a gambling run in Las Vegas and then a sex filled tour of Thailand. With a movie like Choke about to be released I think that can be the indicator of how well a film like this will be received. I’m somewhat interested [for all the superficial reasons], but I guess what is the most interesting fact about this story is that the novel hasn’t even been released yet. The novel [written by Andrew Gottlieb] will be released January next year.

Justice League and Wolfenstien movies are back in the works. Justice League was a project that was to begin filming this year and was to be one of the biggest most ranged superhero films since “The Incredibles” I guess. However, [for whatever reasons] it was shut down. Apparently the production of that film has restarted with George Miller busy trying to cast Wonder Woman. On the other side of the river the movie adaptation of the video game “Return to Castle Wolfenstein” is also back in the works, with writers working on a script. They claim the writer’s strike for the hold-up. My opinion on both of these projects are just about the same, none at all. I’m not interested in seeing either of these in my theatre as it stands now, and I hope “by the power of greyskull” I don’t have to.

Afro Samurai will be live action. Afro Samurai is a popular anime-style series that was released on Spike network a couple years ago starring Samuel L. Jackson. Sam Jackson announced at Comic – Con this year that they have plans for a live action interpretation that may come to life within the next two years. When questioned whether he would play the lead role [knowing how much of acting whore he is] he said no, he would rather be the father of Afro, and commented that he thinks Andre 3000 would be suited for the role of Afro. I always have a problem with anime style shows being done live action since personally the visual style is always what will separate them and without it the movie will lose so much of that awesomeness that the show has. However, it still sounds good to me and I will wait for anymore production news to debate the suckiness/amazingness of it.

Kevin Smith is rated R. Kevin Smith’s latest project [“Zack and Miri make a Porno”] which is due to be released October 31 of this year, was having a tough time with the MPAA. It was given an NC-17 rating, which would prohibit anyone under the age of 17 to enter the film [even with an adult’s supervision], which of course means doomsday for any marketing of the film, and it’s release would immediately be cut down to a limited screening. After Kevin Smith appealed to the rating board this week they downed the rating to a R which is what I think it probably should be. Personally I have not seen the movie [of course] but knowing Kevin Smith’s style of comedy/storytelling and also in our day of films like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” where we are given full frontal nudity and no one cares or things like “Descent” which had some really hard rape scenes and still got an R rating. I think the movie [from what I can muster] deserves an R rating.

Eagle Eye will be in IMAX in September. With The Dark Knight popularizing IMAX this summer by breaking almost every box office record, it’s to be expected that some studios would make this move here and try to enter the IMAX market with their movies. Here in lies the difference here, Christopher Nolan [when shooting The Dark Knight] intentionally filmed some scenes using IMAX cameras. Therefore, everyone who went to see it in America in an IMAX theatre got IMAX quality movie. In this case however they will be taking the 35mm standard film that they shot the movie on, and converting it to IMAX film for the theatres. Now I’m no film specialist, but when you try to make a picture bigger than the original you usually end up with some pixilation and degrading the original image quality. I think this is a bad move and if studios want to be doing this they should go the route Nolan did, and possibly investing in how to make IMAX filming cheaper and more accessible to filmmakers.

Eli Roth is a Bastard. Quentin Tarantino’s newest project [promised in time for Canne’s Film Festival next year], inglorious Bastards, is in production and been casting for the last few weeks now. Eli Roth has been named as a cast member of the film. Everyone who is paying attention by now will know that these two are good friends and fans of each others work. Eli Roth was in Tarantino’s “Death Proof” and I wasn’t too impressed with his acting in that movie. However, as always Tarantino deserves the benefit of the doubt, especially since he tends to mould characters to the actors strength that he casts to play them. Personally I’m hyped for this movie no matter what news comes out about it, even if a bad trailer debuts in the future, it’ll still be a must see for me, but I have to say, I hope that Roth plays a minor role in the movie.

Jason Statham likes Daredevil. Frank Miller and Jason Statham were caught at the Hard Rock Café during Comic – Con by Geoff Boucher of the LA Times. Statham mentioned how he would love for the opportunity to play the character of Daredevil and Miller was there to agree with the idea. Frank Miller was a writer for the comic in the 70s and he created the character Elektra. With something like “The Incredible Hulk” which was able to reboot that franchise after a horrible start five years ago, are we ready for a reboot of the “Daredevil” franchise after the horrible movie we had to watch starring Ben Affleck, and would Miller/Statham do well in that project?

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