Look At My Briefs -- 9/9/10

I've been lazy this week what with taking Labor Day off and, save for one joke, taking yesterday off too. I figured I could either work extra hard today or be consistent and present to you all a completely half-assed edition of my brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs. Is that what I did? I'll let you be the judge.

A write up in Cinematical led me to this Denver Post article about female action heroes. If this were written by an old man, I'd dismiss it as misogynistic concern trolling made by a guy who doesn't like his mindless action movie violence polluted by the presence of those messy, smelly vaginas. That narrative falls apart, however, when I see it's written by Post Film Critic Lisa Kennedy who, judging by her picture, is neither old nor a man. I could assert that there's nothing saying definitely that she did not have several face lifts and a sex change but I'll take her at her word and agree that she's genuinely concerned that women may see Evelyn Salt or Lisbeth Salander and figure that they, too, could enter a bar and singlehandedly clean the place out. I don't see any more danger here than I do in the presentation of any other super human action hero. One of the summer's biggest hits gave us Sylvester Stallone leading a group of mercenaries but no one's worried about groups of sixty year olds invading foreign countries.

Speaking of action chicks, the remake of Nikita premieres tonight on The CW. I've heard mostly good things about it so I guess it's worth a look. It stars Maggie Q who, as you can see here, must be a really good actress. But I kid the hot woman. Actually, she was pretty good in a small role in Mission Impossible 3 which, sadly, is the only time I can remember seeing her. IMDB swears she was in the last Die Hard movie but, as I'm struggling to remember if that even had Bruce Willis in it, I'll have to take their word for it.

Liam Neeson is the new Michael Caine in two ways. The first is that they are both extraordinary actors who seem to have no limits on their talent. The second is that Liam will do damn near anything if the check clears. Let's hope no one is making a Jaws 5 and, if they are, that it doesn't have a role for a British man in his 50s.

This image of a sandworm from a now-scrapped new version of Dune is decent enough but I'm still happy that the movie is no longer being made. Dune is one of my favorite books. It's also unfilmable. I think the over-the-top David Lynch film and the under-the-top TV miniseries prove my point. If you've never read Dune, do so. It truly fits the definition of the overused term "epic".

In my Machete review, I theorized that the true reason a social issue like immigration was front and center in the movie was because the old time exploitation films that inspired Machete often showcased burning issues of the day. As you can see in this link, I'm always right. Except when I'm not. But this time I am.