We’re back with Episode 104!

Karl Urban Looking Bored

The pic of Tom Cruise and Kelly as promised!

Trailer for the 7500

Red Lights Trailer

God Bless America Trailer

Number 1 Action Film 2012

Number 1 Action Film 2012 #2

“Fuck it, I’ll do it myself”. These are the words of Liam Neeson’s character Ottway after calling out to God for help but receiving no answer.

“The Grey” is full of this kind of contemplative dialogue and manly bravado. Director Joe Carnahan, the uber-hyper director behind “Smokin’ Aces,” this time slows things down to give us an intense dramatic thriller. As the loner Ottway (Neeson) and a group of fellow survivors of a plane crash try to outwit the wolves stalking them, there are moments of heartbreaking silence and beauty.

The film begins with Neeson’s Ottway narrating from a letter given to him by the woman who left him and then promptly putting the barrel of a gun in his mouth. He’s clearly in a bad way. Ottway is security, and by security I mean it’s his job to kill wolves, for an Alaskan oil company. After a horrific plane crash Ottway must band together with the other survivors to brave the elements and ultimately wolves.The film sags a bit at the halfway point when some of the less well developed characters dispatched in a “by the numbers” sort of way, but Neeson’s performance holds your attention well enough.

It’s always a mystery to me when a good film like “The Grey” gets dumped in cinema wasteland of January or February. I understand that this struggle for survival tale may be a bit too ponderous for the mega-plex crowd, after all it is marketed as a tense action thriller. The fact is this film shares more in common with “Runaway Train” than “First Blood”. If you’re looking for high action and over the top stunts look elsewhere. “The Grey” is a dark, contemplative, intense action drama that occascionally navigates existential territory. It might not be a film for everyone, but it is a damn good movie.

3.5 out of 5

We’re back! We talk unemployment, Oscar snubs and surprises,talk about the Justin Bieber remake of “Fear”, review Man on a Ledge, debate the hotness of Helen Hunt, and Disco gets hosed into drinking Steel Reserve. Dig in and give a listen.

* To win the Drive blu-ray you have to like us on facebook here and tweet the link to this show @johnnyvengeance. Tweet as many times as you like. Each tweet will count as an entry.

**Show open provided by In Isolation – The Wrong Girl. Find it HERE
***Musical interlude from Brodyquest. Watch it HERE

Cinemapocalypse Episode 101 – The Best of 2011

Episode 101

1. We will record the first episode next week.
2. We will run down our best/worst of 2011
3. We will bring the awesome.

This is it. Actually I know more…a lot more. I’m just not going to share. I’m going to sit over here, drink my beer, and you’ll just have to wait a week to find out the awesomeocity that is in store.
Until then. – JV

Now that Noam Murro has moved on to the 300 Sequel “Xerxes”, Fox has hired John Moore (Max Payne, Behind Enemy Lines) to bring the Skip Woods’(Wolverine, The A-Team) script to life. Word is that the story takes him to Russia where he and his son, John McClane Jr, will take on baddies together.

Skip Woods hasn’t written a good film yet. Don’t believe me? Check out his track record HERE. If they’re really going to make another Die Hard it needs a few things so it won’t suck. My list of demands is:

1. It needs to be rated R. PG-13 just isn’t going to cut it. Was Live Free or Die Hard good? It was better than I expected and certainly better than Die Hard 2, but it’s by no means anywhere near the original or Die Hard 3. We need an R rating to ensure a solid body count and at least one “Yipee Ki-yay, Motherfucker!”

2. Don’t bring his son into the equation. I’m sure the idea is to get some “hot young IT” actor to take the role and possibly carry the torch after Willis is too old. It’s a bad idea. We don’t want that.

3. Throw out Woods’script and start over with a different writer. No, I haven’t read the script, but I have seen Woods’other 7 films and I know that he hasn’t shown me anything I’d like to see in a Die Hard film. He lacks originality, sticks firmly to genre cliches, and his characters are 1 dimensional. I know Shane Black is busy with Iron Man 3, but he’d be perfect to tackle a Die Hard sequel if he could find the time.

4. This is possibly the most important demand…make the bad guy charismatic and awesome. I like both Timothy Olyphant and William Sadler as actors, but they didn’t live up to the awesomeness of Alan Rickman or Jeremy Irons. A Die Hard bad guy needs to suave, funny, and a tiny bit crazy. If we’re going to Russia why not use Gary Oldman? He played Russian pretty well in Air Force One?

5. This is more of an idea and less of a demand. Why not bring back Mary Elizabeth Winstead? She and Willis had good chemistry in DH4.

What say you peoples? Any more demands? Thoughts on Gary Oldman for villain in DH5?

The official synopsis:

Shamoto runs a small tropical fish shop and leads a boring, but stable life. His second wife, Taeko, does not get along with his daughter, Mitsuko, and this worries him. He also feels somehow unfulfilled and dissatisfied with what his life has become.

In the end, the conflict between Shamoto and Murata will result in murder, insanity, and an ordinary man being driven to the edge of the abyss.

If you’re lucky enough to have a region free DVD player you can find this available on Amazon in R2 DVD. If not you’ll have to hold out for an American release TBA.