The Expendables (2010) - A Fan's Dream Coming True

Now...the video that you see up above...it deserves a little explanation.

The short version? There's a new movie with an assortment of action stars called "The Expendables", which comes out in August of 2010. A 3 minute promo was released on youtube on October 13th, but Lion's Gate decided to take all of the promos/trailers off of youtube...day by day...which is strange. I say that because...it's a promo which = promotional...so isn't promoting the 'promo' a good thing?? But, in honor of this promo I decided to make the little tribute that you see up above. The song featured is "Not Ready to Die" by the band Demon Hunter.

It was deleted AND a strike was put onto my youtube account. Which is ridiculous. No money gets made off of this...so why all the trouble and drama about it? And Lion's Gate...I ask you...WHY have a god damn PROMO if you don't want ANYONE to SEE the fucking thing?? Doesn't promo mean 'PROMOTIONAL' as in 'to promote the shit out of something'?

I await your answer, Lion's Gate!

Now the long version...

The Expendables is a film that many on the Internet have been awaiting with baited breath. A film to feature the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and Stone Cold Steve Austin? And with the added bonus of cameos from mega-stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis? Like the title up above says...a fan's dream coming true.

Now some people have had problems and gripes about this flick. First off, they want to know why 'so and so' isn't in it.

*Van Damme - Stallone offered the part to him, but Van Damme said no because it 'didn't have enough story and enough 'meat' for his character'...this coming from the guy who starred in Street Fighter and Double Team with Dennis Rodman. It was a huge shame because Van Damme is actually my second favorite action star (Stallone being my first). So if Van Damme had said yes, this would have gone from an epic 10 out of 10 to a God-fearing and rare 11 out of 10. Huge mistake Van Damme...huge mistake.

*Wesley Snipes - Jail time for taxes (which more than likely also meant that when he got out, he couldn't travel outside of the country because of parole).

*Chuck Norris - Because Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer, too bad Chuck Norris has never cried (AKA I don't know).

But some also complain that Arnold and Bruce don't have bigger roles. Hate to break it to people out there, but Arnold is too busy running California and Willis has about 3/4 different movies (including the now-released "The Surrogates" as well as Kevin Smith's "A Couple of Dicks"...which might be changed to "A Couple of Cops" by the time you read this blog). Be greatful that we are at least going to see Sly, Bruce, AND Arnold on the same screen and in the same scene. Who HASN'T wanted to see that for the longest time?

Some complain that the movie looks "Direct to DVD". First, what the fuck? If you have the chance to watch the promo (or from seeing my tribute of it up above), then you can tell me what other Direct to DVD flicks look like THIS one?? Give me a list so I can hunt down those fuckers...cause I've seen a lot of shitty Direct to DVD action films (Seagal...I'm looking at you with your "Kill Switch", your "Driven to Kill", your "Attack Force", and a bunch more) and this doesn't look like one.

Big, old school explosions that have no CGI. Entire harbors blowing up. Tons of shoot-outs without the shaky cam annoyance, fisticuffs that aren't edited to 1/10th of a millisecond, big car chases, planes shooting the shit out of a harbor with Sly running away from it, and that 'one hell of a fucking' cast! In other words, Direct to DVD My ASS!!

Funny thing though...I remember that people said the same thing when the 3 minute promo of "Rambo 4" came onto AintItCoolNews...and "Rambo 4" proved to be a stellar, extremely fun and gory action movie. So maybe this is a good thing...

Some have complained that the 3 minute promo wasn't edited "wonderfully/terrifically/awe-inspiring" or whatever words or phrases that they use. It's a 'PROMO'...a selection of scenes (and really good ones) that showcase what the movie will contain. They have 10 MONTHS to fine tune and tighten a trailer for the masses. They have other sequences that they have not shown in the promo (for example, it's been confirmed that there is a 'Stallone vs. Lundgren' fight aka Rocky IV: The Rematch! Yes!), so they didn't show everything like some complain. Besides, if a movie is GOOD then it really shouldn't matter, now should it?

And one last thing, the humor. I could do without Stone Cold asking "Who sent you?" and Sly answering "Your hairdresser"...that's just bad. But I did enjoy the rapport among the Expendables, I liked Jet Li playing a different type who rides motorcycles/shoots guns/and offers a bit of humor for the flick, and a good friend of mine Efree reminded me that humor was a big part of a lot of action films of the 1980's.

And that's what director/writer/star Sylvester Stallone is trying to do. A balls-out, 'take you back to the 1980's' type of film. And I'm all for it. Without a doubt, this is the #1 film that I'm looking forward to and I trust Stallone. He gave Rocky the proper salute with "Rocky Balboa" and he proved once again that Rambo is a force not to be messed with in "Rambo".

So yeah...I have a little faith in Sly...he's earned it.

First Time Here

First time here with using the whole 'blog' thing. Just trying to feel things out, see how it all goes.

Basically, my name is Matt but I'm known on youtube as Ramboraph. As you can tell, the name's from both my love of the Rambo films (and the actor, Sylvester Stallone) and my love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since I was a kid (especially the character of Raphael).

My time on youtube has been a lot of fun. I've been able to talk to CK and Uncle Bill, who are the two guys who run the horror radio talk show Deadpit. You can find them at http://www.deadpit.com/ and they've done a lot of great interviews as well as entertaining shows. Plus they're just nice fellas, so to speak. They've interviewed John Carpenter, George Romero, Tom Savini, James Wan, Zach Galligan, John Carl Buechler, Tom Holland, Fred Dekker, Lloyd Kaufman, Charles Band, and many others.

These two guys have actually mentioned me on a few shows, and they've admitted that they are fans of mine. I even got a 'youtuber of the week' honor from them, and they offered me a part on their show called "Rambo's Rants". I did a few, which were fun, but there were some people (not all, just some) who really and I mean REALLY didn't care for it. Extremely hateful comments from some of those people. Not CK and UB's fault at all, it just happens. So I left (even though they wanted me to stay, and said that the position will always be open if I ever want to return to it).

I've made many great, wonderful friends (as well as fans).

*Sierra12 - Efree, who is a native of New York. Funny, laid back, extremely nice, respectful of people's opinions and has an infectious laugh. He loves Summer Glau and the Sarah Connor Chronicles. He does movie reviews and is great to watch. He also said that he was influenced to do videos because of me and Mike (OCP0004). One of my best friends, and proud of it. Efree, Me, and Mike are kind of like a 'band of brothers', as Mike had called it.

*OCP0004 - Mike. Uploads a lot of movie trailers on youtube. But occasionally he also makes reviews, tributes, and has a bunch of other channels including SonofHorrificCinema (uploads forgotten horror films), FilmSound0001, CheezyAsHell, among others. He's a big fan of Robocop (hence the name) and does a lot of rants on WMG, crappy DVD releases like the Poltergeist 25th Anniversary one, among other stuff. Said he started doing videos and tributes from watching my stuff. Another one of my best friends, and proud of it.

*Phantassm - Michael King. Awesome reviewer, very informative, and great videos. Did a Resident Evil 3 marathon which was gold, is a big Transformers fan, and is a big inspiration for reviews. I rememeber that it was a video "like or dislike: you decide" in which he mentioned that he respected me, liked my videos/reviews, and said yeah we have differences (and made a joke about skin color, he's Black and I'm White) but we both respect each other. And I have tremendous respect for that guy. Extremely nice and kind, and hope to get to talk to him one day via skype or whichever way.

*Wildmanbeyond, Annericelover (Eric), Actionfan89 (John), Blairwitch63 (Kim), Marioraidium (Mario), & Samfashion are among the others that I've met on youtube.


Now at this point, October 16, 2009, I have about 1,625 subscribers and about 930 uploads, which is pretty amazing for me. Especially for someone who just blows air out of his ass being reviewing movies, making tributes, and just doing randon stuff/videos in order to be entertaining. But I thank each and every one of them for everything they've done.

From youtube, I was also a brief co-host on a podcast called Fightrunner (which after a few episodes of talking with those guys, they pretty much shut things down due to equipment failure or time or something like that...but it was nice when it lasted).

There was one time when a woman (very good looking too :D) paid me about $100 just to rip footage for them so that they could use it for their reviews. Not a bad way to make money (and see movies that they would send to me via Netflix so I could rip it, and then send the footage to them via rapidshare or something like that).

I've been lucky to have people send me free movies. Nicklert sent me a copy of "The Perfect Weapon" with Jeff Speakman, Pizowell sent me a copy of "Brick" for winning a drawing from a contest, Efree sent me "Savage Streets" - "Running Scared" - "The Dark Knight" and others, and Jdog sent me some episodes of "I'm With Busey".

Plus it seems I've actually gotten comments from (kinda) celebrities because of my reviews or videos. A woman who acted in "Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go to College" sent me a comment, as did the writer to "Blood Diner" who enjoyed the review, and I might have even pissed off a guy who was writing the Prequel to The Thing (cause I ranted on the subject...it may have been a nut, but I hope it was cause I would love to piss that guy off, prequel to The Thing = Very Shitty Idea).

But anyway....so far it's been fun and hopefully it'll continue for a long time :)