The Wandering Minstrel

Digging through the old DVD pile is sometimes a lot of fun when you find one that showcases classic firearms. One such flick is “The Quick and the Dead,” starring Gene Hackman, Sharon Stone, Leonardo Dicaprio, Russell Crowe and Keith David.

The flick delivered on old firearms. I’m not sure the following IMFDB Gunography covers them all, but it’s a good start:

1. Colt 1873 Single Action Army Civilian Model
2. Colt 1873 Single Action Army
3. Winchester 1866
4. Winchester 1873
5. S&W 1875 Schofield
6. Lematt percussion revolver/single shot percussion shotgun

Overall, the plot was highly contrived and the special effects, although spectacular, were probably overdone. For example, consider the size of the hole in Sgt. Clay Cantrell’s head (Keith David). Ostensibly, the projectile came from a .44 or .45 caliber handgun. Where can I find some ammo that can do this?

Given the almost constant gunfights and the outrageous cartoon-like caricatures combined with effects like the one above and all the explosions near the climax, this is a fun flick to watch. I give it a four star (out of five) rating.

Sunday night anti-depressant action flick turns out to be not too bad . . .

I’m not going to recount the entire plot here other than to say that a bad dude turns out to have a streak of decency - only a streak, though - he’s still a son of a bitch in the long run.

The IMFDB has one of the best action flick illustrated accounting of the guns used in the feature of any I’ve seen there. Be sure and click over to IMFDB to see the impressive page on the guns used in 3:10 to Yuma.

Gunography:

• Gatling Gun
• Winchester 1873
• Winchester 1866
• Colt 1873 Single Action Army Cavalry Model
• Colt 1873 Single Action Army Civilian Model
• Spencer 1860 Carbine
• Spencer 1882 Shotgun
• Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver Richards-Mason Conversion
• Colt Model 1860 Richards-Mason Conversion
• Smith & Wesson Schofield
• Colt Model 1855 Revolving Rifle
• Remington 1889 Double Barreled Shotgun

Last night, I had the need for some Sunday night diversion from worrying about the Monday morning work funk. I looked through the DVD database (I wrote some on-line code for the better half’s extensive DVD collection) and found Swordfish, an action flick with lots of firearms and blowing shit up.

The movie stars Hugh Jackman (a computer ’super’ hacker), John Travolta (a ruthless operator in a secret Government anti-terror operation) , Halle Berry (works for Travolta’s character) and Don Cheadle (a cyber crimes lawman).

The first scenes are of a siege in a world bank where Travolta’s men have placed C4 explosives and ball bearings around a bunch of hostages. Rigged with proximity fuses, these human ‘Claymore mines’ are set to blow if they are taken outside of a certain area. At this point the worst thing happens when an insistent lawman drags a female hostage outside of the bank area - the ensuing explosion scene was nothing short of awesome.

The scene then flashes back in time to find Jackman living as trailer trash practicing his golf swing from the rooftop of his broken-down POS trailer. Halle Berry then shows up and more fun begins.

I won’t get into all of the details, but there was almost non-stop action, guns, intrigue, cyber hacking, a flying bus, missiles and plenty of other stuff to relieve the Sunday night blahs.

GUNOGRAPHY

• Heckler & Koch MP5
• Remington 700
• M40 sniper rifle
• Heckler & Koch UMP
• M16 rifle series
• Beretta M92F
• FN Minimi
• Sig Sauer P220 pistol series
• Heckler & Koch USP
• Heckler & Koch G36
• Z-M Weapons LR 300
• Walther PPK
• Smith & Wesson 4006

Oldies but goodies. Another good take-your-mind-off-of-Monday flick to watch some Sunday evening.

Miller’s Crossing, made in 1990, is a flick starring Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney and Marcia Gay Harden. It’s about two rival gangs fueding, where Byrne’s character plays both sides off each other and gets his ass kicked a lot - really a lot, but survives to get his ass kicked even more.

In 2005, Time magazine chose Miller’s Crossing as one of the 100 greatest movies ever made since the inception of the magazine. I’m not so sure it was that good, but the 1920’s costumes, decor and scenery were outstanding.

Here’s some of the plot (Wikipedia):

Tom Reagan (Byrne) is the long-time advisor and confidant of Leo O’Bannon (Finney), a gangster political boss who runs his Prohibition-era city. When Leo’s Italian rival Johnny Caspar announces his intentions to kill the crooked bookie Bernie Bernbaum, Leo goes against Tom’s advice and extends his protection to Bernie. Bernie is the brother of Verna Bernbaum (Harden), an opportunistic gun moll who shares a longtime relationship with Leo as well as a secret affair with Tom. Leo goes to war with Johnny to appease Verna.

Tom tries everything he can to convince Verna and Leo to give Bernie up to Johnny to end the war, but neither will budge. After an assassination attempt on Leo, Tom reveals his affair with Verna, causing Leo to beat him viciously and turn his back on both of them.

With no other alternative, Tom goes to work for Johnny, and is immediately commanded to kill Bernie at Miller’s Crossing to prove his loyalty. Bernie pleads with Tom to spare him, and Tom allows him to escape. The gang war goes well for Johnny and he quickly assumes Leo’s position as boss of the city. However, Tom begins sowing discord between Johnny and Eddie Dane, his most trusted enforcer. At the same time, Bernie returns and tries to blackmail Tom into killing Johnny.

I gotta say one thing about that assination attempt on Leo; one of the assasins gets killed by Leo who then gets the assasin’s Tommy Gun. Then, by some miracle, the magic 1,000 round magazine kicks in. Leo squeezes off at least 600 rounds in the scene where he offs all the other bad guys and one Ford Flivver. Amazing and fun stuff.

I couldn’t find Miller’s Crossing in the IMFDB, so I can’t give a gunography, even though there were guns aplenty.

Any body know where can I get one of those 1,000 round magazine Tommy Guns?

Last week, I wrote about watching an entertaining flick Sunday night to take my mind off of Monday morning’s impending trip back to work. Well, I did that again by digging out an oldie but gory - Kill Bill, both parts 1 and 2. Entertaining stuff - no brains required.

Another flick I recently watched, ‘Running Scared,’ claimed that ‘this makes Kill Bill look like Sesame Street.’ Wrong. While Running Scared, in it’s own right is a very good guns and action flick, it did not have the amputated heads, limbs, the blood spurting like oil gushers into cascading rivulets of blood and the animé cartoons.

Wholesome entertainment for the Sunday night blues.

I just got the DVD over the weekend and watched it last night. It’s weird, but very entertaining. I didn’t expect to see firearms (or props, I guess) in a flick about ancient times, even if it was a parody - but there were guns, which added to the overall wackiness.

Prerequisite: you definitely will need to have seen the movie 300 for sure, and it helps if you’re up to speed on all the stupid TV shows, celebrity morons and pop-tart bimbos out there. Some of that shit went over my head, and I had to stop the video to ask WTF?

I am usually tired from weekend activities on Sunday evenings and generally a bit cranky, given that Mondays follow Sundays. I have to say that this DVD made me forget about work and I slept like I had too many beers (or maybe I did).

Hedley Lamarr, aka Harvey Korman passed from among us today.

We all fondly remember Blazing Saddles, I’m sure . . .

“My mind is aglow with whirling transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor. My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thoughts cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.”

– Hedley Lamarr

“Golly, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue purdier than a two-dollar whore!”

– Taggart

We will miss you Harvey. Now go do that voodoo that you do so well.

This is not your normal gratuitous blowing-shit-up flick. Nor is it merely a fast-paced surrealistic animated comic-book horror flick. It is not just a blood-soaked, zombie-packed spectacle with dismemberment, decapitation and disembowelment.

It’s all of those and a lot more.

Synopsis:

In a rural town in Texas, go-go dancer Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) decides to quit her low-paying job and find another use for her numerous ‘useless’ talents. As she meets her ex-boyfriend El Wray at the Bone Shack, a restaurant owned by J.T. Hague, a group of military officials, led by the demented Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis), are making a business transaction with a scientist named Abby for a deadly biochemical agent known as DC2 (codename “Project Terror”), but when Muldoon learns Abby has an extra supply on hand, he attempts to take Abby hostage and Abby intentionally releases the gas into the air. The gas reaches the town and turns its residents into deformed bloodthirsty zombies. The infected people are treated by the sinister Dr. William Block and his abused, neglected anesthesiologist wife Dakota at a local hospital

Some special moments include, but are not limited to:

When Bruce Willis knocks a testicle-collecting madman into his own gonad collection and says “I’ve got you by the balls.”

When the main chick, having had her right leg amputated, gets a prosthesis installed, an automatic M4 rifle with grenade launcher, to hobble around on (and shoot zombies with).

When el Wray, the main dude, takes off in a helicopter and uses the main rotor to mow down hordes of zombies as they try to make their escape.

Lots of fun. Three stars. Keep a barf bag handy.