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Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Thomas Jane "Too White" to Star Opposite Sly Stallone in 'Headshot'? 'Hollywood in Blackface' in Action
Did I enjoy this movie? Only in a dumb mindless way. It has whatever made the original "XXX" entertaining, but a little less of it. Does it make the slightest sense? Of course not. Its significance has nothing to do with current politics and politicians, the threat of terrorism, and the efficiency of bullet trains. It has everything to do with a seismic shift in popular culture.
Once all action heroes were white. Then they got a black chief of police, who had a big scene where he fired them. Then they got a black partner. Then they were black and had a white partner. Now they are the heroes and don't even need a white guy around, although there is one nerdy white guy in "XXX" who steps in when the plot requires the ineffectual delivery of a wimpy speech. So drastically have things changed that when Ice Cubeoffers to grab the president and jump off a train and grab a helicopter, all the president can do is look grateful.
The transformation is discussed at length in Hollywood in Blackface. Knowing that there are no white American action stars under the age of 40 being cast as legitimate bad-asses, and that Hollywood is actively emasculating white guys in film by constantly portraying them as weak and callow (as compared to excessively bellicose, full of machismo, and highly desirable Black guys) you begin to understand the whole concept of what Hollywood in Blackface means.
Now comes news that Thomas Jane, a guy who was on track to be that next white American bad-ass in film, is "too white" to play opposite Sylvester Stallone -- though Stallone handpicked him -- in the new film Headshot:
Back in April, it was reported that Thomas Jane (The Mist, Punisher) has signed on to star alongside Sylvester Stallone in "Headshot" crime thriller, to be directed by Walter Hills (48 Hrs, The Warriors).
Filming was set to begin this month, but Warner Bros is now looking to replace Jane with a more "ethnic" actor. The studio believes that with a minority in the role, the film will be able to reach a wider audience, which results in bigger box office. Both Stallone and Hill would like to keep Jane, but that may not happen.
In "Headshot," Stallone's character teams with a young NYPD detective (Jane) in a high-stakes investigation that leads from the back alleys of New Orleans all the way to Washington, DC. The unlikely duo, brought together by two vicious murders, take on all who stand in their way, and are willing to sacrifice everything to exact revenge.
Thomas Jane has the worst luck when it comes to movies and being "too white" when the studio is looking for an ethnic guy to help carry is a hilarious realization of the entire concept ofHollywood in Blackface. Here is more on the story:
It was announced last moth that Sylvester Stallone and director Walter Hill had handpicked actor Thomas Jane to co-star in the upcoming action thriller Headshot, which finds a cop teaming up with an assassin to take down a shared enemy. But that was before the film landed at producer Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment.
Reports are suggesting that Joel Silver is actively looking to fire Thomas Jane because he is white. That's right. Even though Sylvester Stallone and Walter Hill want Thomas Jane on the project, Joel Silver thinks that the script would be better suited, and should be changed so that it resembles the white guy/black guy buddy formula that was so successful in his previous movies Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout.
This is what Thomas Jane had to say about the decision:
""No comment, but I can tell you this, we have a classic with me & Sly & Hill. Script is tailor made for us all."
Joel Silver is looking for other potential actors to take over for Thomas Jane, but none of those names have been released. According to sources close to Headshot, Thomas Jane hasn't walked yet. He is officially signed on, so there will be some negotiating before he leaves the project. It is unclear when the movie will start production.
Our guess is that Joel Silver tries and casts one of the Black actors from Takers, a 2010 film starring Idris Elba that played well with ethnic audiences.
Jane has been so close to becoming a big Hollywood name, only to be the beneficiary of bad luck, bad scripts, and - obviously - blatant discrimination because he's 'too white'. Zack Snyder wanted him to play The Comedian in 2009's Watchmen, but he passed on that opportunity. The role went to Jeffery Dean Morgan who has gone on to make forgettable action flicks.
Now we find out that after being personally cast by both Stallone and Hill, Thomas Jane is being removed from Headshot because he is 'too white'.
No greater representation for Hollywood in Blackface can be found then this, as the guy Hollywood was preparing to make the next big white American bad-ass action star - his depiction of Frank Castle at the end of 2004's The Punisher was awesome stuff - has now been relegated to the 'too white' territory.
Just as Ebert said in his review of XXX: State of the Union:
Now they are the heroes and don't even need a white guy around, although there is one nerdy white guy in "XXX" who steps in when the plot requires the ineffectual delivery of a wimpy speech.
That's all white people are now in Black-Run America (BRA).
Here are two of Thomas Jane's best roles in Thursday and The Punisher. My favorite scenes in both films are linked.
43 comments:
Hirsch
said...
Director Walter Hill has always been something of a negrophile. He pioneered the buddy-cop genre in "48 Hours," wherein Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte get to trade politically incorrect barbs (a more softened version of the same motif was seen in the "Rush Hour" franchise). When Hill made "The Warriors" he wanted the gang to be all-black, but the studio balked and demanded some of the cast be white. Oh the irony.
To be fair, Hill is one of a small handful of real men left in Hollywood. Like John Milius (Conan, Red Dawn) he's a cinematic descendant of John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. He's responsible for the best Charles Bronson movie (Hard Times) and the worst Bruce Willis flick ("Last Man Standing").
Punisher MAX is possibly the best comic title ever written. I was extremely disappointed with the 2008 movie, it was butchered. Thomas Jane's is still the best of the 3.
Have you ever read Punisher Armory? If you ever wanted to hear frank talk weapons and tactics on every page, then you will love it.
And if you ever want to read a thread that shows comic book guys at their best, google "batman versus the punisher"
No mention of The Other Guys? You slammed that movie pretty thoroughly...I thought about your posts as I watched it and realized how wrong you got the movie (i.e. Will Ferrel's "emasculated" character is actually a former pimp, married to Eva Mendes and has gorgeous women fawning over him the entire movie...)
You seem to criticize these movies without actually WATCHING them...
"The Other Guys" was a comedy, not a real action movie.
Comic book movies are pretty much the last place you can go to be guaranteed to see a white action star. I bet the upcoming Captain America movie drives BRA nuts, just like Thor did.
Why can't black people create compelling black characters?
I guess I should care since I believe pop culture is such an important aspect of the liberal assault on America, but I can't muster up any anger for this.
As for action movies, hands-on I always really liked Arnold and he's about as foreign as they come. I did love Stallone's Rocky movies, but not much of his other stuff.
Hollywood is in crisis because DVD sales are way, way down, streaming is not making up the slack, and they are now dependent on ticket sales for the first time since the dawn of the VCR era in the late 1970's. That's a crisis. Ticket sales were temp bumped up by 3-D, but that's faded now. The current crop of 3-D movies is doing poorly. So they MUST MUST MUST appeal to Mexican audiences wanting stupid thrills and ... NO WHITE GUYS. Black guys are OK (though Mexicans ala Azuza 13 gang have been charged with ethnic cleansing of Blacks in Azuza CA by the US Attorney in LA). But Mexicans prefer Black NBA stars and movie stars, to White guys. Because Black guys encapsulate the aggressive, and stupid, machismo that pervades Mexican culture.
Of course, the danger for Hollywood is that the White audience just tunes out in favor of more "White" stuff like Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America, etc. [Yes I know about the stupid Black Norse God sigh.]
I also thought that the last Punisher movie was quite good. The guy who played Frank Castle was excellent, and the character NEEDS to be in NYC because NYC is a central character the Punisher plays off.
Gotta disagree with "anonymous" (really, how difficult is it to create an internet handle and consistently use it?) about X Men FC: there was only one token black, and they killed off the character before the climax.
Over last Memorial Day weekend, I watched John Wayne in the starring role of the 1968 movie "The Green Berets" on Turner Movie Classics channel. It brought me back a bit, because I loved watching this movie on VHS when I was a kid in the 1980's, unlike that shitty Oliver Stone Vietnam movie that came out back in the 1980's - Platoon. I saw that piece of crap Platoon movie back when I was kid also, but even back then I could tell that it was made by some America-hating crypto commie cocksucker. On the other hand though, I never had a doubt that John Wayne loved America back in the day just as much as I did, however.
Moving on - As this blog site has already illustrated, there are so few American-born and white action movie stars left now - definitely none of them now are like John Wayne and are still in their prime. Matt Damon as Jason Bourne? Or Ben Affleck? No thanks, I'll pass on seeing anything either of those two libtards star in.
Even though this John Wayne Green Beret movie seemed to realistically portray the Green Berets in Vietnam as being all white guys, which I am rather certain that they all were, there was still a token black male actor in the cast anyway, which was surprising to me for a movie which was filmed in 1967, I guess. This black guy, whoever he was, played the Green Beret doctor, which in of itself seems dubious to me, since I doubt that there were any affirmative action doctors in the US Army back in the middle of the 1960's.
Regardless of Vin Diesel's mysterious racial background, if you ask a random person on the street what race he is, they'll most likely answer white. In the Fast & Furious movies he plays a man with an Italian name and his sister is played by a white woman. Seems pretty white to me. I don't think there's anything multiracial about his character, at least, in Fast Five.
Thomas Jane is 41 or 42 and made a monumental mistake in turning down Zack Snyder's offer to play The Comedian in "Watchmen" back in 2008.
I'm a big fan of Patrick Wilson, who played Night Owl 2 in that film and who played the only interesting character in 2010's flop "The A-Team" (he was a CIA agent in the movie).
Stallone is still an A-list guy, judging by the worldwide box office reception to Rocky Balboa, Rambo IV, and The Expendables.
Jane was on track to be a star, but waiting for the script for "The Punisher 2" to come out hurt his career from 05-07.
To the person who said Punisher MAX is the greatest comic ever - I agree. I've read them all, including the ONE-Shots.
No disrespect, but John Wayne could have gone off to fight in WW 2 and elected not to. He was making good money playing war hero on celluloid. Oliver Stone, whether or not you agree with him, is a Veteran and recipient of the Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster. He is a former infantryman, three times wounded.
"The Green Berets" is one of the most comical movies ever made. There were no pine trees in Vietnam. Gustav Hasford, marine and author of "Full Metal Jacket" said that guys would go into the USO theater in Vietnam to watch "The Green Berets" and end up laughing their ass off. Most Viet vets consider "Platoon" to be the benchmark for Nam movies. That's good enough for me. Sorry to bust your chops.
Platoon is the benchhmark? Sad man. That movie may have gotten points back in the 80's when the wounds of nam were still fresh but looking at it now its pretty average, Stone blares the sad music too often and pounds his points home with his usual trademark coke-nose subtlety (not to mention the current of homoeroticism running through the whole thing....suck & blow my gunbarrel and all that). Full Metal Jacket beats the shit outta Platoon & Apocalypse Now beats the shit outta both (though its the least realistic in the sense of charting the nut & bolts of the thing instead of general mind-fuck atmosphere).
John Wayne was a pampered studio boy who skipped out on serving. Yeah, he really loved america, making money off of suckers who actually lived the stuff he only play-acted.
Though i can see the vet's point, on second thought. Platoon is told from the grunt POV through & through, Full Metal Jacket is standard stanley kubrick god's eye view & Apocalypse Now is just acid on film.
Platoon is probably the easiest to relate too if you were actually there
I watched Green Berets recently again too with my son. I had also thought it was a joke, but having just finished 5 or 6 special forces bios recently I was surprised at the technical elements and strategy shown in Green Berets that were on the mark (yards, isolated camps, use of mike forces dropped behind attacking NVA etc). The one thing that bugged me the most was how Wayne carried around his M16 like an umbrella, upside down. The sun setting into the east at the end is lame too, I can see why grunts would laugh, the combat scenes were more like WW1 and the raid to capture the NVA general was hokey, but my favorite part, bar none, is when Mr. Sulu, the big VC hunter says, "First kill all stinking Cong, then go home". We've been saying that around the house the last 2 weeks. They had the black special forces doctor too that seemed out of place, but then one of the special forces bios I just got done reading (blackjack 33) featured a black special ops guy that from the description was a dope VC slayer in the field. That action was from 1967. The books written from 69 onward talk alot about the black power BS and the racial tension that was building in the ranks. That was around that time that the bait and switch started happening with blacks, as they stopped pretending to act white and started being themselves.
"Most Viet vets consider "Platoon" to be the benchmark for Nam movies. That's good enough for me. Sorry to bust your chops."
Uh, no, Hirsch, nope, that is so not the case with the two Nam vets in my family - My pop and my uncle. Sorry to bust your chops, but neither one of them, nor myself for that matter, cared much for the way that Oliver Stone chose to script his Platoon movie to portray your average typical grunts and NCO's in country as just some insubordinate and dope-smoking rapists of underage South Vietnamese girls. These same shitbag grunts and NCO's in the movie were ones who nobody else in the chain of command seemed to have much of any objections to. If the Platoon movie truly represents Oliver Stone's service in Nam, then he either must have been with the most fucked up infantry company in country, or it was just what Oliver Stone wanted gullible fans of his to believe about the war itself, thereby besmirching the reputations of everyone else who served honorably. I would prefer to believe the latter of these two.
We all also thought that Oliver Stone's other Vietnam movie - Born on the Fourth of July - also was a total piece of America-bashing unpatriotic crap when it came out.
Now, as for Oliver Stone getting the Purple Heart with the oak leaf cluster, to that I would say this: big fucking deal. In Vietnam, even getting skewered with a punji stick could get you one of those medals. Getting a bronze star or silver star would have been much more impressive by comparison. The oak leaf cluster on a Purple Heart is just added on after the first combat wounding anyway. My pop got a Purple Heart as a door gunner with the 1st Air Cav - a piece of shrapnel from a rocket tagged him in the thigh on the approach to the LZ. John Kerry got the Purple Heart too, also with the oak leaf cluster if I am not otherwise mistaken, but it was later revealed by his own USN shipmates who served with him aboard the swift boats that John Kerry was giving himself superficial flesh wounds and writing fibbed incident reports about it, all so that he could get out of his 12-month tour in country 8 months early. For all we know, Oliver Stone(d) could have done a similar type of thing to himself as a dope-smoking infantryman in Vietnam at least once, being that both he and John Kerry have since revealed themselves to be total crypto commie, traitorous, and America-hating pieces of crap.
My pop thought that Full Metal Jacket was actually okay for a Nam movie. The Gunny drill sergeant character in Full Metal Jacket was a bit like my own boot camp DI when I joined the army in 1988. (This is back when the military was generally not quite so PC, or faggot-friendly, like it is today.) I never asked my uncle what he thought of Full Metal Jacket though, but I never heard him bitching about it like the way he did with Oliver Stone's piece of shit Nam movies.
A movie must make about 2 1/2 times it's budget to be considered a success. This because the exhibitor (theatre) takes half of the ticket sales and there are marketing costs, ads, trailers, etc. Rambo (4) made 113 million dollars at a budget of 50 million, it lost money in the theatres, and MIGHT have turned a profit in DVD.
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=rambo08.htm
Rocky Balboa was a definite hit with a 124 million gross and 24 million budget:
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=rambo08.htm
The Expendables was another smash hit, but was hardly a Stallone film with every action star in Hollywood.
Original movies that Stallone has carried over the past decade, Get Carter, Driven, Shade...have gone straight to the toilet in terms of box office:
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=shade.htm
The Punisher grossed 54m and cost 33m. Flop, there was no reason for Jane to wait for a sequel. They were so dissappointed, the made the sequel with someone else. Other Jane Films:
Under Suspicion: Gross $260,000 Cost 25m; Bomb Original Sin: Gross $35m cost $42m; Flop The Sweetest Thing: Gross $68m cost $43m lost $ Dreamcatcher: Gross 75M cost 68m lost $$ Stander: Gross a whopping $31,000 Cost not given Bomb
The Mist Gross 57m, Cost 18m Success (not hit) Kill Shot Gross 2.9 million Cost Not Given Bomb The Mutant Chronicles Gross 2.9 million Cost, not given Bomb.
Hollywood is about making money, and they did not want spend money putting a straight to video actor in a movie with and old man for good reason: It wouldn't work.
Your pick of a laughable, sub-sub-Tarantino piece of dogshit like Thursday as one of your favorite films says more about your pathetic taste in cinema than I ever could. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be unaware that there are other types of films besides bloated, big-budget mainstream Hollywood fare.
Stick to discussing real life. You're nobody's idea of an aesthete.
Anon @ 9:51 is absolutely correct. Thomas Jane, whatever his talents as a thespian, has consistently proven over the course of his career that he couldn't open a fucking can of tuna fish, let alone a big-budget Hollywood production. Paul, I know you've got a hard-on for the guy because he called some black drug dealers niggers before blasting them into oblivion in Thursday (never mind the fact that his character was also a scumbag drug dealer) -- but let's get real.
Nobody -- apparently, not even our people -- gives much of a flying you-know-what about Mr. Jane in a movie. This is to take nothing away from his talent (I do enjoy his acting) but reality is reality and, to paraphrase Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs, "some fellas are lucky and some ain't."
Well anon, to fisk your last post, my sample, which is no more scientific than yours, arrived at a different conclusion. After I got out of the Army I worked at the VA (regional and local) and the conversation would sometimes come up when I was dealing with vets from the Indochina conflict. They generally (but not always) liked Platoon more.
Kubrick had some criticisms for Stone, and Stone reciprocated.
It's true that not everyone in the war participated in "war crimes" but Stone's account of war is substantiated by many others (read Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War). I thought Platoon did an able job of showing how the stress of combat can lead to atrocity. While Stone is far left of center, the "Taylor" character says in overvoice that "these boys who come from towns you've never heard of are the best men" he's ever known. The end of the film reads with a dedication to the men who fought and died in Vietnam.
"Fourth of July" is a very faithful adaptation of Kovic's novel. Kovic was and will remain in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, as a result of his service. Whether or not I agree with him, he sacrificed more than enough to speak his piece.
As for the relative worth of a purple heart vs. a bronze star, you are talking out of your rear on that one. I only have an ARCOM (Army commendation medal) but my entire NCO support structure helped themselves to bronze stars, fudging paperwork and sitting in an orderly room for a full tour in Iraq.
As for Stone perhaps giving himself superficial wounds, he pulled multiple tours and volunteered for the bush. Why wound yourself if you're volunteering for the most dangerous duty? Sounds counterproductive to me.
If you want to see what in my opinion is the best film ever about the war, go to Youtube and watch "First Kill." It's a documentary featuring Michael Herr, who co-wrote both "Apocalypse" and "FMJ."
Your pick of a laughable, sub-sub-Tarantino piece of dogshit like Thursday as one of your favorite films says more about your pathetic taste in cinema than I ever could. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be unaware that there are other types of films besides bloated, big-budget mainstream Hollywood fare.
Stick to discussing real life. You're nobody's idea of an aesthete."
I watch a lot of movies. Big studio productions, independent films, foreign flicks and those that earn the Criterion Collection selection status.
That I'd rather watch and talk about a good action flick then some art house drama is because MOST people would rather do the former instead of the latter.
Give me "From Paris With Love" or "Taken" any day over some boring Indy flick. And yeah, I like "Thursday"... Ebert bashed it and I'm a mark for Thomas Jane.
He reminds me of Christoper Lambert and one of my earliest memories is watching a VHS copy of "Highlander" and thinking to myself how an immortal white guy would fit in if the world was all Black or all Chinese.
I've never claimed to be an aesthete, nor would I desire such a term to be used to describe me. I know beauty, but I don't go searching for pleasure in art houses hoping to find levity in a film 10 people will see.
I'd rather watch Rutger Hauer in "hobo with a shotgun" or Dolph Lundgren in one of his direct to DVD movies.
That I'd rather watch and talk about a good action flick then some art house drama is because MOST people would rather do the former instead of the latter.
Most people? Did you take a poll around the country on this one?
And, granted, I'd rather sit down and watch Taken over a boring indie flick also -- but it depends on what kind of "indie flick" you're referring to. Don't get me wrong: obviously, a film being of "independent" origin is no automatic guarantee of quality. There's just as much cliched garbage pouring out of Sundance as there is coming off of the Paramount or Warner Bros. lots these days.
But you seem to hold the belief that all indie films automatically equal a cure for insomnia. Also:
I don't go searching for pleasure in art houses hoping to find levity in a film 10 people will see.
So you're willing to dismiss something outright simply because it's not immediately popular with the masses? Popularity is what determines quality now?
Anon wrote, "Most people? Did you take a poll around the country on this one?
And, granted, I'd rather sit down and watch Taken over a boring indie flick also -- but it depends on what kind of "indie flick" you're referring to. Don't get me wrong: obviously, a film being of "independent" origin is no automatic guarantee of quality. There's just as much cliched garbage pouring out of Sundance as there is coming off of the Paramount or Warner Bros. lots these days.
But you seem to hold the belief that all indie films automatically equal a cure for insomnia. Also:
I don't go searching for pleasure in art houses hoping to find levity in a film 10 people will see.
So you're willing to dismiss something outright simply because it's not immediately popular with the masses? Popularity is what determines quality now?"
I don't need to take a poll to see what the American public likes. I look at Netflix rental information, available here:
Pretty simple to determine the cinematic tastes of Americans by doing both, and since Netflix is the future, being able to ascertain what movies are popular in which cities and area codes goes a long way in deciding where I would want to live and raise a family.
Where I live, there is a popular cinema that shows indie (indy?) flicks. I've seen a few, and the quality of the theater means that watching it from my home theater is a far more pleasing experience.
Hollywood loves a stereotype, in this case the brash athletic black male. This is bad news all round; bad news for white actor action hero types like Thomas Jane, bad news also for black actors who are not brash and athletic, and bad news for black males not in the acting profession but who would like to escape the stereotype more generally.
Platoon was presented as being ''what it was like'' day to day.But he presents his characters as complete cliche's!And because they are,the performances are over the top.Sheen is laughably bad(say what you want about modine,he was far FAR more convincing).The film is TRYING to be serious,but when your laughing at moments that intended to be moving?That's a problem.It also has the most obvious,predictible plot in war film history. Full metal jacket on the other hand,has so many genre aspects to it.Drama,documentary,horror,thriller,black comedy.And the interesting thing is,is kubrick made an anti-military satire,but presents characters who seem like far more believable than anyone in platoon.Platoon has not aged well at all.Full metal jacket just gets better and better.And if you know nothing about the plot twists in full metal jacket,no war film can be as suspenseful.To quote jack torrance''Go CHECK IT OUT!''
Another post from SKIP> First, Green Berets was a pretty good movie, far from real, but real entertainment. Most all the SF guys I knew, including ME, didn't give a fuck about the Vietnamese (the one SF dies saving the VN kid) though we respected them as a fighting force (anyone that denies they were good, didn't fight them) Platoon is just plain silly, but again, decent entertainment. Full Metal jacket was also nonsense, the battle of Hue is breezed through in a few days apparently when in fact it took the Marines a few months of ruthless fighting to take the city. One thing lots of fire bases had in common we Long range types saw was that you could generally hear Jimmi Hendrix (or Janis Joplin..I didn't like either one) blaring from 5 kliks away and after 68' you could smell the pot 1000m away from their trenches. Relative to the comment about John Wayne not serving, I read some long while ago that he had a hip problem that precluded military service, I could be wrong, but his manner of walking lends credibility to my aged memory.
To Anonymous,it wasn't breezed through,it was showing a certain battle,through the eyes of one small platoon.Where does the movie imply that after killing the sniper,the battle of hue was won?Incredibly weak arguement,and totally and completely failed observation.
43 comments:
Director Walter Hill has always been something of a negrophile. He pioneered the buddy-cop genre in "48 Hours," wherein Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte get to trade politically incorrect barbs (a more softened version of the same motif was seen in the "Rush Hour" franchise). When Hill made "The Warriors" he wanted the gang to be all-black, but the studio balked and demanded some of the cast be white. Oh the irony.
To be fair, Hill is one of a small handful of real men left in Hollywood. Like John Milius (Conan, Red Dawn) he's a cinematic descendant of John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. He's responsible for the best Charles Bronson movie (Hard Times) and the worst Bruce Willis flick ("Last Man Standing").
Now, if only ethnic folks pay to see this movie we would have poetic justice for Mr. Silver and his flick.
I fervently hope to see no white dollars make their way to Silver's pocket.
Careful what you wish for Joel.
I think Thomas Jane is one of the sexist White men alive.
Yum yum :)
Paul,
Punisher MAX is possibly the best comic title ever written. I was extremely disappointed with the 2008 movie, it was butchered. Thomas Jane's is still the best of the 3.
Have you ever read Punisher Armory? If you ever wanted to hear frank talk weapons and tactics on every page, then you will love it.
And if you ever want to read a thread that shows comic book guys at their best, google "batman versus the punisher"
Keep up your great and necessary work.
No mention of The Other Guys? You slammed that movie pretty thoroughly...I thought about your posts as I watched it and realized how wrong you got the movie (i.e. Will Ferrel's "emasculated" character is actually a former pimp, married to Eva Mendes and has gorgeous women fawning over him the entire movie...)
You seem to criticize these movies without actually WATCHING them...
Did anybody see the Xmen first class movie?
I thought I might get out of it without seeing a token black Xman but no, and wow, what a goofy name and power.
Forced diversity aside, the movie was awesome.
"The Other Guys" was a comedy, not a real action movie.
Comic book movies are pretty much the last place you can go to be guaranteed to see a white action star. I bet the upcoming Captain America movie drives BRA nuts, just like Thor did.
Why can't black people create compelling black characters?
I guess I should care since I believe pop culture is such an important aspect of the liberal assault on America, but I can't muster up any anger for this.
As for action movies, hands-on I always really liked Arnold and he's about as foreign as they come. I did love Stallone's Rocky movies, but not much of his other stuff.
Hollywood is in crisis because DVD sales are way, way down, streaming is not making up the slack, and they are now dependent on ticket sales for the first time since the dawn of the VCR era in the late 1970's. That's a crisis. Ticket sales were temp bumped up by 3-D, but that's faded now. The current crop of 3-D movies is doing poorly. So they MUST MUST MUST appeal to Mexican audiences wanting stupid thrills and ... NO WHITE GUYS. Black guys are OK (though Mexicans ala Azuza 13 gang have been charged with ethnic cleansing of Blacks in Azuza CA by the US Attorney in LA). But Mexicans prefer Black NBA stars and movie stars, to White guys. Because Black guys encapsulate the aggressive, and stupid, machismo that pervades Mexican culture.
Of course, the danger for Hollywood is that the White audience just tunes out in favor of more "White" stuff like Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America, etc. [Yes I know about the stupid Black Norse God sigh.]
I also thought that the last Punisher movie was quite good. The guy who played Frank Castle was excellent, and the character NEEDS to be in NYC because NYC is a central character the Punisher plays off.
Hmmm, "Joel Silver"... sounds Italian.
Sexiest WHITE man alive Mary?
I don't think that came out the way you meant it...or maybe it did.
Maybe this explains why he lamented being white in his May 27 twitter post.
Gotta disagree with "anonymous" (really, how difficult is it to create an internet handle and consistently use it?) about X Men FC: there was only one token black, and they killed off the character before the climax.
Definitely enjoyable.
Hilarious. I remember when Sly was considered "ethnic."
Over last Memorial Day weekend, I watched John Wayne in the starring role of the 1968 movie "The Green Berets" on Turner Movie Classics channel. It brought me back a bit, because I loved watching this movie on VHS when I was a kid in the 1980's, unlike that shitty Oliver Stone Vietnam movie that came out back in the 1980's - Platoon. I saw that piece of crap Platoon movie back when I was kid also, but even back then I could tell that it was made by some America-hating crypto commie cocksucker. On the other hand though, I never had a doubt that John Wayne loved America back in the day just as much as I did, however.
Moving on - As this blog site has already illustrated, there are so few American-born and white action movie stars left now - definitely none of them now are like John Wayne and are still in their prime. Matt Damon as Jason Bourne? Or Ben Affleck? No thanks, I'll pass on seeing anything either of those two libtards star in.
Even though this John Wayne Green Beret movie seemed to realistically portray the Green Berets in Vietnam as being all white guys, which I am rather certain that they all were, there was still a token black male actor in the cast anyway, which was surprising to me for a movie which was filmed in 1967, I guess. This black guy, whoever he was, played the Green Beret doctor, which in of itself seems dubious to me, since I doubt that there were any affirmative action doctors in the US Army back in the middle of the 1960's.
Regardless of Vin Diesel's mysterious racial background, if you ask a random person on the street what race he is, they'll most likely answer white. In the Fast & Furious movies he plays a man with an Italian name and his sister is played by a white woman. Seems pretty white to me. I don't think there's anything multiracial about his character, at least, in Fast Five.
Oh puh-leez - they just don't want to team up a 50 year old "C" list actor with a 65 year old "B" list actor.
Thomas Jane is 41 or 42 and made a monumental mistake in turning down Zack Snyder's offer to play The Comedian in "Watchmen" back in 2008.
I'm a big fan of Patrick Wilson, who played Night Owl 2 in that film and who played the only interesting character in 2010's flop "The A-Team" (he was a CIA agent in the movie).
Stallone is still an A-list guy, judging by the worldwide box office reception to Rocky Balboa, Rambo IV, and The Expendables.
Jane was on track to be a star, but waiting for the script for "The Punisher 2" to come out hurt his career from 05-07.
To the person who said Punisher MAX is the greatest comic ever - I agree. I've read them all, including the ONE-Shots.
@ Anon June 8, 2011 1:52 PM
No disrespect, but John Wayne could have gone off to fight in WW 2 and elected not to. He was making good money playing war hero on celluloid. Oliver Stone, whether or not you agree with him, is a Veteran and recipient of the Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster. He is a former infantryman, three times wounded.
"The Green Berets" is one of the most comical movies ever made. There were no pine trees in Vietnam. Gustav Hasford, marine and author of "Full Metal Jacket" said that guys would go into the USO theater in Vietnam to watch "The Green Berets" and end up laughing their ass off. Most Viet vets consider "Platoon" to be the benchmark for Nam movies. That's good enough for me. Sorry to bust your chops.
Platoon is the benchhmark? Sad man. That movie may have gotten points back in the 80's when the wounds of nam were still fresh but looking at it now its pretty average, Stone blares the sad music too often and pounds his points home with his usual trademark coke-nose subtlety (not to mention the current of homoeroticism running through the whole thing....suck & blow my gunbarrel and all that). Full Metal Jacket beats the shit outta Platoon & Apocalypse Now beats the shit outta both (though its the least realistic in the sense of charting the nut & bolts of the thing instead of general mind-fuck atmosphere).
John Wayne was a pampered studio boy who skipped out on serving. Yeah, he really loved america, making money off of suckers who actually lived the stuff he only play-acted.
Though i can see the vet's point, on second thought. Platoon is told from the grunt POV through & through, Full Metal Jacket is standard stanley kubrick god's eye view & Apocalypse Now is just acid on film.
Platoon is probably the easiest to relate too if you were actually there
I watched Green Berets recently again too with my son. I had also thought it was a joke, but having just finished 5 or 6 special forces bios recently I was surprised at the technical elements and strategy shown in Green Berets that were on the mark (yards, isolated camps, use of mike forces dropped behind attacking NVA etc). The one thing that bugged me the most was how Wayne carried around his M16 like an umbrella, upside down. The sun setting into the east at the end is lame too, I can see why grunts would laugh, the combat scenes were more like WW1 and the raid to capture the NVA general was hokey, but my favorite part, bar none, is when Mr. Sulu, the big VC hunter says, "First kill all stinking Cong, then go home". We've been saying that around the house the last 2 weeks. They had the black special forces doctor too that seemed out of place, but then one of the special forces bios I just got done reading (blackjack 33) featured a black special ops guy that from the description was a dope VC slayer in the field. That action was from 1967. The books written from 69 onward talk alot about the black power BS and the racial tension that was building in the ranks. That was around that time that the bait and switch started happening with blacks, as they stopped pretending to act white and started being themselves.
Says Hirsch:
"Most Viet vets consider "Platoon" to be the benchmark for Nam movies. That's good enough for me. Sorry to bust your chops."
Uh, no, Hirsch, nope, that is so not the case with the two Nam vets in my family - My pop and my uncle. Sorry to bust your chops, but neither one of them, nor myself for that matter, cared much for the way that Oliver Stone chose to script his Platoon movie to portray your average typical grunts and NCO's in country as just some insubordinate and dope-smoking rapists of underage South Vietnamese girls. These same shitbag grunts and NCO's in the movie were ones who nobody else in the chain of command seemed to have much of any objections to. If the Platoon movie truly represents Oliver Stone's service in Nam, then he either must have been with the most fucked up infantry company in country, or it was just what Oliver Stone wanted gullible fans of his to believe about the war itself, thereby besmirching the reputations of everyone else who served honorably. I would prefer to believe the latter of these two.
We all also thought that Oliver Stone's other Vietnam movie - Born on the Fourth of July - also was a total piece of America-bashing unpatriotic crap when it came out.
Now, as for Oliver Stone getting the Purple Heart with the oak leaf cluster, to that I would say this: big fucking deal. In Vietnam, even getting skewered with a punji stick could get you one of those medals. Getting a bronze star or silver star would have been much more impressive by comparison. The oak leaf cluster on a Purple Heart is just added on after the first combat wounding anyway. My pop got a Purple Heart as a door gunner with the 1st Air Cav - a piece of shrapnel from a rocket tagged him in the thigh on the approach to the LZ. John Kerry got the Purple Heart too, also with the oak leaf cluster if I am not otherwise mistaken, but it was later revealed by his own USN shipmates who served with him aboard the swift boats that John Kerry was giving himself superficial flesh wounds and writing fibbed incident reports about it, all so that he could get out of his 12-month tour in country 8 months early. For all we know, Oliver Stone(d) could have done a similar type of thing to himself as a dope-smoking infantryman in Vietnam at least once, being that both he and John Kerry have since revealed themselves to be total crypto commie, traitorous, and America-hating pieces of crap.
My pop thought that Full Metal Jacket was actually okay for a Nam movie. The Gunny drill sergeant character in Full Metal Jacket was a bit like my own boot camp DI when I joined the army in 1988. (This is back when the military was generally not quite so PC, or faggot-friendly, like it is today.) I never asked my uncle what he thought of Full Metal Jacket though, but I never heard him bitching about it like the way he did with Oliver Stone's piece of shit Nam movies.
A movie must make about 2 1/2 times it's budget to be considered a success. This because the exhibitor (theatre) takes half of the ticket sales and there are marketing costs, ads, trailers, etc. Rambo (4) made 113 million dollars at a budget of 50 million, it lost money in the theatres, and MIGHT have turned a profit in DVD.
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=rambo08.htm
Rocky Balboa was a definite hit with a 124 million gross and 24 million budget:
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=rambo08.htm
The Expendables was another smash hit, but was hardly a Stallone film with every action star in Hollywood.
Original movies that Stallone has carried over the past decade, Get Carter, Driven, Shade...have gone straight to the toilet in terms of box office:
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=shade.htm
The Punisher grossed 54m and cost 33m. Flop, there was no reason for Jane to wait for a sequel. They were so dissappointed, the made the sequel with someone else. Other Jane Films:
Under Suspicion: Gross $260,000 Cost 25m; Bomb
Original Sin: Gross $35m cost $42m; Flop
The Sweetest Thing: Gross $68m cost $43m lost $
Dreamcatcher: Gross 75M cost 68m lost $$
Stander: Gross a whopping $31,000 Cost not given Bomb
The Mist Gross 57m, Cost 18m Success (not hit)
Kill Shot Gross 2.9 million Cost Not Given Bomb
The Mutant Chronicles Gross 2.9 million Cost, not given Bomb.
Hollywood is about making money, and they did not want spend money putting a straight to video actor in a movie with and old man for good reason: It wouldn't work.
It's not all about N-s and Honkies all the time.
Paul -
Your pick of a laughable, sub-sub-Tarantino piece of dogshit like Thursday as one of your favorite films says more about your pathetic taste in cinema than I ever could. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be unaware that there are other types of films besides bloated, big-budget mainstream Hollywood fare.
Stick to discussing real life. You're nobody's idea of an aesthete.
Anon @ 9:51 is absolutely correct. Thomas Jane, whatever his talents as a thespian, has consistently proven over the course of his career that he couldn't open a fucking can of tuna fish, let alone a big-budget Hollywood production. Paul, I know you've got a hard-on for the guy because he called some black drug dealers niggers before blasting them into oblivion in Thursday (never mind the fact that his character was also a scumbag drug dealer) -- but let's get real.
Nobody -- apparently, not even our people -- gives much of a flying you-know-what about Mr. Jane in a movie. This is to take nothing away from his talent (I do enjoy his acting) but reality is reality and, to paraphrase Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs, "some fellas are lucky and some ain't."
Well anon, to fisk your last post, my sample, which is no more scientific than yours, arrived at a different conclusion. After I got out of the Army I worked at the VA (regional and local) and the conversation would sometimes come up when I was dealing with vets from the Indochina conflict. They generally (but not always) liked Platoon more.
Kubrick had some criticisms for Stone, and Stone reciprocated.
It's true that not everyone in the war participated in "war crimes" but Stone's account of war is substantiated by many others (read Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War). I thought Platoon did an able job of showing how the stress of combat can lead to atrocity. While Stone is far left of center, the "Taylor" character says in overvoice that "these boys who come from towns you've never heard of are the best men" he's ever known. The end of the film reads with a dedication to the men who fought and died in Vietnam.
"Fourth of July" is a very faithful adaptation of Kovic's novel. Kovic was and will remain in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, as a result of his service. Whether or not I agree with him, he sacrificed more than enough to speak his piece.
As for the relative worth of a purple heart vs. a bronze star, you are talking out of your rear on that one. I only have an ARCOM (Army commendation medal) but my entire NCO support structure helped themselves to bronze stars, fudging paperwork and sitting in an orderly room for a full tour in Iraq.
As for Stone perhaps giving himself superficial wounds, he pulled multiple tours and volunteered for the bush. Why wound yourself if you're volunteering for the most dangerous duty? Sounds counterproductive to me.
If you want to see what in my opinion is the best film ever about the war, go to Youtube and watch "First Kill." It's a documentary featuring Michael Herr, who co-wrote both "Apocalypse" and "FMJ."
"Paul -
Your pick of a laughable, sub-sub-Tarantino piece of dogshit like Thursday as one of your favorite films says more about your pathetic taste in cinema than I ever could. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be unaware that there are other types of films besides bloated, big-budget mainstream Hollywood fare.
Stick to discussing real life. You're nobody's idea of an aesthete."
I watch a lot of movies. Big studio productions, independent films, foreign flicks and those that earn the Criterion Collection selection status.
That I'd rather watch and talk about a good action flick then some art house drama is because MOST people would rather do the former instead of the latter.
Give me "From Paris With Love" or "Taken" any day over some boring Indy flick. And yeah, I like "Thursday"... Ebert bashed it and I'm a mark for Thomas Jane.
He reminds me of Christoper Lambert and one of my earliest memories is watching a VHS copy of "Highlander" and thinking to myself how an immortal white guy would fit in if the world was all Black or all Chinese.
I've never claimed to be an aesthete, nor would I desire such a term to be used to describe me. I know beauty, but I don't go searching for pleasure in art houses hoping to find levity in a film 10 people will see.
I'd rather watch Rutger Hauer in "hobo with a shotgun" or Dolph Lundgren in one of his direct to DVD movies.
That I'd rather watch and talk about a good action flick then some art house drama is because MOST people would rather do the former instead of the latter.
Most people? Did you take a poll around the country on this one?
And, granted, I'd rather sit down and watch Taken over a boring indie flick also -- but it depends on what kind of "indie flick" you're referring to. Don't get me wrong: obviously, a film being of "independent" origin is no automatic guarantee of quality. There's just as much cliched garbage pouring out of Sundance as there is coming off of the Paramount or Warner Bros. lots these days.
But you seem to hold the belief that all indie films automatically equal a cure for insomnia. Also:
I don't go searching for pleasure in art houses hoping to find levity in a film 10 people will see.
So you're willing to dismiss something outright simply because it's not immediately popular with the masses? Popularity is what determines quality now?
Phalluster said...
Hmmm, "Joel Silver"... sounds Italian.
=====
LOL!
DGB
Paul did my comment get the ban hammer???
Steve,
You've been around long enough to know the rules! No need to go in that direction. I appreciate the comment though.
Anon wrote,
"Most people? Did you take a poll around the country on this one?
And, granted, I'd rather sit down and watch Taken over a boring indie flick also -- but it depends on what kind of "indie flick" you're referring to. Don't get me wrong: obviously, a film being of "independent" origin is no automatic guarantee of quality. There's just as much cliched garbage pouring out of Sundance as there is coming off of the Paramount or Warner Bros. lots these days.
But you seem to hold the belief that all indie films automatically equal a cure for insomnia. Also:
I don't go searching for pleasure in art houses hoping to find levity in a film 10 people will see.
So you're willing to dismiss something outright simply because it's not immediately popular with the masses? Popularity is what determines quality now?"
I don't need to take a poll to see what the American public likes. I look at Netflix rental information, available here:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/10/nyregion/20100110-netflix-map.html
Or I go to boxofficemojo.com
Pretty simple to determine the cinematic tastes of Americans by doing both, and since Netflix is the future, being able to ascertain what movies are popular in which cities and area codes goes a long way in deciding where I would want to live and raise a family.
Where I live, there is a popular cinema that shows indie (indy?) flicks. I've seen a few, and the quality of the theater means that watching it from my home theater is a far more pleasing experience.
Hollywood loves a stereotype, in this case the brash athletic black male. This is bad news all round; bad news for white actor action hero types like Thomas Jane, bad news also for black actors who are not brash and athletic, and bad news for black males not in the acting profession but who would like to escape the stereotype more generally.
I wonder if the wildings will effect this if the news gets out in a big way.
That's why people are so sick and tired of the media and Hollywood. Always promoting that cancer aka diversity!
Platoon was presented as being ''what it was like'' day to day.But he presents his characters as complete cliche's!And because they are,the performances are over the top.Sheen is laughably bad(say what you want about modine,he was far FAR more convincing).The film is TRYING to be serious,but when your laughing at moments that intended to be moving?That's a problem.It also has the most obvious,predictible plot in war film history. Full metal jacket on the other hand,has so many genre aspects to it.Drama,documentary,horror,thriller,black comedy.And the interesting thing is,is kubrick made an anti-military satire,but presents characters who seem like far more believable than anyone in platoon.Platoon has not aged well at all.Full metal jacket just gets better and better.And if you know nothing about the plot twists in full metal jacket,no war film can be as suspenseful.To quote jack torrance''Go CHECK IT OUT!''
Another post from SKIP> First, Green Berets was a pretty good movie, far from real, but real entertainment. Most all the SF guys I knew, including ME, didn't give a fuck about the Vietnamese (the one SF dies saving the VN kid) though we respected them as a fighting force (anyone that denies they were good, didn't fight them) Platoon is just plain silly, but again, decent entertainment. Full Metal jacket was also nonsense, the battle of Hue is breezed through in a few days apparently when in fact it took the Marines a few months of ruthless fighting to take the city. One thing lots of fire bases had in common we Long range types saw was that you could generally hear Jimmi Hendrix (or Janis Joplin..I didn't like either one) blaring from 5 kliks away and after 68' you could smell the pot 1000m away from their trenches. Relative to the comment about John Wayne not serving, I read some long while ago that he had a hip problem that precluded military service, I could be wrong, but his manner of walking lends credibility to my aged memory.
To Anonymous,it wasn't breezed through,it was showing a certain battle,through the eyes of one small platoon.Where does the movie imply that after killing the sniper,the battle of hue was won?Incredibly weak arguement,and totally and completely failed observation.
and it looks like they may be starting to edge out white heroines ---beginning with "Columbianna."
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