Taken 2

Badideas.com

"They want revenge, They chose the wrong guy."

Now there is a true Tagline. Hi folks, welcome to the Tagline, where I needed to take a break to actually watch some damned movies so I could go back to REVIEWING those same damned movies. Today I'm going to do what I do best, and talk about a movie where a guy kills a whole bunch of other guys. Think back a ways, to 2008, and you'll remember Taken, a film where Liam Neeson plays former CIA operative turned private security Bryan Mills. One fine day his daughter goes on an unsupervised trip to godless and lawless Europe (France specifically) where she is abducted by sex traffickers. That probably seemed like a great idea to them, but Bryan happened to be on the phone with her when it happened, and despite the taunts of her kidnapper (who only says "good luck") he DOES in fact have good luck. See sometimes you kidnap a girl and her father is a professional murder man. As a no frills action/vigilante revenge fantasy movie, Taken was wildly successful, grossing well over 200 million worldwide on its 25 million dollar budget. As such, they could hardly be expected to risk making a sequel (or two actually). Taken 2 brings us back into the world of Bryan Mills, trying to be a less shitty dad while still doing security on the side. This film opens as Albanian mobsters, relatives and associates of the MANY people Mills killed in the first film, commend what's left of their friends and family to the earth, and swear revenge on the man who put them there. Now, if you've seen the first movie, this probably instantly strikes you as a not awesome idea on their part, but hey, they're used to having it good and probably don't know any better. But they're going to learn.

Wayne's World Double Post

Party time, Excellent!! WOOWOOWOO

"You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hurl."

Good morning boys and girls. Today I'm going to do something a little different, but that is really not and is actually the same. Because that's what the game is all about, promising something new while delivering the same old bullshit as always! I decided over the weekend that I really wanted to watch Wayne's World, and then I realized afterwards that I also REALLY wanted to watch Wayne's World 2, so I did that also. I mostly wanted to write a review about Wayne's World 2, but I felt like that would be wrong, just focusing on the bizarre sequel and leaving out the movie that made it all possible. So I'm going to compromise and do a little bit about each film, and the ways that I liked them both. So let's start at the beginning! In the before times, long long ago, people watched Saturday Night Live, and Mike Myers was on it instead of being sentenced to play Shrek for literally the rest of his life (presumably this was some condition of the devil's bargain he made to become rich and famous). So Wayne's World was a recurring segment on SNL where Myers would play Wayne Campbell. a rocker guy who, along with his friend Garth Algar (Dana Carvey in maybe his all-time least hate-able roll) host a public access show where they basically do dumb stuff that is amusing in a public access kind of way, mostly talking about how much they like metal and hot babes, and tricking their local guests into saying gross and/or profane things. As a sketch featuring TWO SNL cast members who were going to hit the big screen (though obviously one a LOT harder than the other) it is not really surprising in retrospect that Wayne's World became a feature film. The basic premise of the movie is expanded on the sketch: Wayne and Garth do their show in Wayne's parents' basement, and attract the attention of a TV executive, Benjamin Kane (Rob Lowe, who decides he can make some money off of it and so sends one of his producers to try and figure out where the show is taped, so they do some sleazy contract signing, because 90s movies love to be about sleazy Hollywood guys. Wayne is on board, but Garth has doubts, but being the mumbly weirdo he is, he doesn't say anything about it. The two spend their new-found wealth the way you might expect, by going to rock concerts and buying expensive guitars and stuff.  It is at one such concert that Wayne meets Cassandra Wong (Tia Carrere) and starts spending a lot of time with her which causes DRAMA.

Man of Tai Chi

Get it because Yin and Yang.

"No rules. No mercy. Pure fighting."

Hello friends, it's magic hour again, time for more brilliance from The Tagline! While I was working on some stuff over the weekend I decided to take a peek into Netflix once again, and spin the big roulette wheel of garbage, just to see where it would land. While I was browsing I couldn't help but notice that there was a movie with Keanu Reeves on the cover, and then I saw that the movie was called Man of Tai Chi, which was somehow even more preposterous seeming to me than his roll in 47 Ronin. With the intention of ridiculing both Keanu and the movie he was in, I started Man of Tai Chi, and as is almost universally the case after I utter the words "there's no way this could be any good" I found myself watching a movie that was drastically different than I had presumed, and it was actually pretty decent. At least partly to blame was that I saw a movie with Keanu Reeves attached, and naturally assumed he would be the protagonist. I was wrong about that. Keanu, in addition to being the director (and I will talk more about that) is the primary antagonist  of the film, whereas the protagonist is Chinese stuntman Tiger Chen (who did stunt work for the Matrix movies, hence his acquaintance with Reeves) who plays a character of the same name. Tiger is shown to us as an honest and hardworking individual, and also the sole pupil of Master Yang, a master of Ling Kong Tai Chi. Tiger wants to prove the martial use of Tai Chi, and so is participating in a local Wulin tournament. Sounds like he's living a pretty normal kung-fu life right? WELL WAIT A SECOND.