Postal
Unrated Edition
Directed by Uwe Boll
Starring Zack Ward, Dave Foley, J.K. Simmons, Verne Troyer, Erick Avari, Seymour Cassel
Vivendi Entertainment
Release date: August 26, 2008

Of all the filmmakers that have had cults spring up around them, from M. Night Shyamalan apologists to people who think Michael Bay is the savior we’ve been waiting for, none have deserved it any less that Uwe Boll. He found out one day that he had talent in the negative integers, and tried turning THAT into a marketing ploy. But even at this level of self-awareness, he gets all bent out of shape and starts fights (both verbal and physical) with people who don’t automatically agree with the sub-amateur shit he opts to pump out. At the drop of a hat, he turns into a kind of Teutonic Yosemite Sam.

So, sure enough, a bunch of quasi-retarded, uber-ironic film geeks have surrounded him, calling him “honest” and “a rogue.” In the Cult of Boll, the actual movies he makes become secondary. Wow”¦ I guess you can’t underestimate the power of stupid people in medium-sized groups, either.

So now we have Postal, which is Boll’s first (intentional) comedy. Needless to say, Postal is not funny in the slightest, as Boll fails at everything he sets out to do. He’s quite splendid at being rancid and boring the living shit out of me, but I don’t think that was the plan.

Fortress
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Starring Christopher Lambert, Kurtwood Smith, Loryn Locklin, Clifton Collins Jr., Lincoln Kilpatrick
Lions Gate
Release date: August 5, 2008

In the annals of movie cheesedom, when all is written and the score is tallied, a special place in heaven (or hell) must be reserved for Christopher Lambert. Much like Robert Englund or Michael Dudikoff, his name on a DVD case is either a glaring sign of promise or a huge warning light, depending on how your movie bent on a Friday night is. Because after looking over his profile on IMDB, he has 58 credits to his name as an actor. Nothing in English is good. And yes, I am including Mortal Kombat and Highlander in this estimation, and you can’t change my mind on this.

I for one don’t hold much stock in watching a movie just because it looks cheesy or horrible. If I want to laugh, I’ll watch a comedy. If I want to watch someone make an unholy debacle out of decent intentions, I’d watch Fox News. But at least I stand by my taste and will say that I like Freddy Vs. Jason or Primeval because I honestly think they’re good. I won’t hide behind the “So-Bad-It’s-Good” bullshit.

Doomsday
Blu-ray edition
Directed by Neil Marshall
Starring Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, Alexander Siddig, Adrian Lester, Sean Pertwee
Rated R
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Release Date: July 29, 2008

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the concept of the Guilty Pleasure, right? It’s something that we like because of its faults and in spite of ourselves. If you were to ask me what my biggest Guilty Pleasure when it comes to motion pictures, my simple and stately three word answer would be Bride of Chucky.

Come on now… Dolls fucking each other? That’s the cinematic equivalent of Ben and Jerry’s, man. Good for the soul but bad for the body.

Now there are Guilty Pleasures and then there are GUILTY FUCKING EPIPHANIES! The former entail that you like a movie but don’t say so around certain people like your parents or the friends of that girl you’re trying to date. You know, the ones who like Animal Collective and wear tweed ironically and listen to NPR even though that one simple act is like listening to nails on a board, only underwater. Those people will look at you funny if you say you liked the movie where John Ritter got “Pinheaded.”

But the latter? The GUILTY FUCKING EPIPHANY!? It knows no sense of decorum. You tell your parents you love a GUILTY FUCKING EPIPHANY! You tell your Rabbi you like a GUILTY FUCKING EPIPHANY! even though you ain’t Jewish. And those friends of the girl you’re trying to date? You actually start a fight with them if they say negative word one about your GUILTY FUCKING EPIPHANY! And you will so fucking win against some NPR listening hipster anyway, as they’re most likely vegan, and scrawny as all hell.

So needless to say, Doomsday is a GUILTY FUCKING EPIPHANY!

Weeds
Season Three
Starring Mary Louise Parker, Kevin Nealon, Elizabeth Perkins
Lionsgate Home Video
Release Date: June 3, 2008

Everyone gets all their panties in a bunch about how HBO is the end-all-be-all for cable, and now that Sex & The City made more bank than the Catholic Church last weekend, there’s gonna be no abatement. Don’t get me wrong, I like the shows just fine (and would kill for a Deadwood movie), but they seem, at times, to beat you over the head with how slick as shit they think they are. If David Chase pulled his pretentious stunt with the Sopranos finale at any other network, they wouldn’t have let it air, with everyone asking “How do you think it ended?” I don’t know, I’m not the writer. That’s HIS fucking job. HE was supposed to tell ME.

But the ballyhoo around Home Box Office cannot stand under one simple question”¦

Isn’t Showtime where all the cool kids are?

I mean think about it. They’re risky entertainment first and production marvels second. I find that with a pot dealing suburban mom, middle-aged lesbians, horny English royalty and Agent Mulder with his dick in a nun’s mouth, their only family friendly show is Dexter“¦ And Dexter tortures and kills people.

Seagalogy
A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films
of Steven Seagal
Written by Vern
Titan Books
Cover Price: $14.95; On-sale June 10, 2008

I’m gonna go on record right now in saying that I am not the biggest fan of Ain’t It Cool News. I appreciate what it means and what it’s done and how it’s provided a direct line for filmmakers to communicate with their audience. But as for actual skill in the area of writing? And having to read ALL of a given review or story? It’s pretty difficult to sit through. On the one hand you have Harry Knowles, who only writes a movie review if he likes it, which makes it come off as though he likes everything. And on the other, you have this guy Moriarty, who at least writes well, but is so fucking boring that I don’t think he even has a pulse anymore. No I don’t care where you went to eat before you hit the screening, and no, I don’t want to know what toys your kid is playing with.

When it comes to news and reviews, I either come here, or go to the AV Club over at The Onion. I only go to AICN about once a week.

It was on these once-weekly trips that I came upon a guy named Vern. To be more specific, I came across his review of Transformers. It was, for lack of a better word, fucking amazing. Six pages of withering contempt for the movie, the people who made it, and the people who liked it. I eyed it with the same kind of dreamy envy that Dexter Morgan eyed the bloodless and diced victims of the Ice-Truck Killer. I will never forget this quote”¦

“And ever since I heard Michael Bay was hired for this job I thought it was tailor made for him. The dude is obsessed with sports cars and has never felt a human emotion”¦”

I say all this to provide a reason as to why I jumped at the chance to review a book about Steven Seagal movies.

For it was Vern who wrote Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal. He has reviewed both early Seagal films and the later, dinkier DTV stuff for AICN in the face of mainstream indifference, and has compiled his opinions into an exhaustively researched 400-page tome.