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"It's not the years...it's the mileage."
Though the novelty of The Expendables' all-star cast of '80s and '90s action heroes wore off somewhat by the time The Expendables 2 hit theaters, the resurgence of aging tough-guy actors continues with the success of Liam Neeson's Taken 2, which beat down the competition this past weekend. And there's more to come. Ah-nuld's getting back in the game with The Last Stand and Bruce Willis is dusting off John McClane for a fifth go-round in A Good Day to Die Hard. But, not all aging actors can continue to pull off the kind of tough-guy roles they played in their youth. Tell us which over-50 actors still have what it takes to beat up the bad guys and come back for more.
Rate the Top 10 Tough-Guy Actors Over 50 Still Making Movies >>
Posted 10.09.12 by BrentJS -
The body count is always high in Quentin Tarantino movies, but it's usually the characters who drop like flies and not the actors (idiomatically speaking) attached to play those characters. Tarantino's latest, Django Unchained, a revenge-fueled tale set in the South two years before the Civil War, lost both veteran actor Kevin Costner and hot up-and-comer Joseph Gordon-Levitt due to scheduling conflicts — some entertainment sites list Jonah Hill as a third dropout, but he never accepted a role — and now two more actors have left the movie.
According to a tweet by Jeff Sneider of Variety, Kurt Russell, who starred in Tarantino's half of Grindhouse, Death Proof, and who only accepted the role of sadistic slave trainer Ace Woody in Django Unchained after Costner dropped out, has also exited the movie without explanation. This is a significant loss for the movie considering the importance of the character as the major "heavy." A less significant, but no less disappointing, loss to the cast is Sacha Baron Cohen, who recently revealed on the The Howard Stern Show that the press tour for his new movie, The Dictator, has forced him to relinquish his cameo role in the movie. It's unclear how these losses will affect the production schedule.
more about Django Unchained >> Posted 05.10.12 by BrentJS -
Dimension Films, the genre movie division of The Weinstein Company, has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to director Jonathan Sobol's (Everything is Connected) latest movie, The Black Marks. The comedy, which will star Kurt Russell, Matt Dillon and Jay Baruchel, will go into production in Canada later this month. Nicholas Tabarrok, who produced Sobol's last movie, A Beginner's Guide to Endings, is producing for Darius Films, with Jeff Sackman (Sacrifice) executive producing.
more about The Black Marks >> Posted 01.05.12 by BrentJS -
It appears as if writer-director Quentin Tarantino is going back to the well once again to flesh out the cast of his latest movie, Django Unchained, a "Southern" about a freed slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) who attempts to rescue his wife (as-yet-uncast) from the plantation of Calvin Candie (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a sadistic slave owner who enjoys watching his slaves fight to the death.
The cast already includes Tarantino alumni Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) as a German bounty hunter who helps Django track down his wife and Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown) as a proud house slave named Stephen. Now, THR reports Kurt Russell (Death Proof) is in talks to play Ace Woody, the evil slave trainer that Kevin Costner was going to play before he dropped out due to scheduling conflicts, while Laura Cayouette (Kill Bill, Vol. 2) has joined the cast as the widowed sister of Calvin Candie and co-owner of the plantation.
more about Django Unchained >> Posted 10.02.11 by BrentJS -
Plans to remake John Carpenter's 1981 classic Escape from New York have been stuck in development hell for years now, but according to New York Magazine are back on track after a new rewrite from Allan Loeb, the man responsible for rescuing the Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps script.
Like the original, the Escape From New York remake will see the island of Manhattan become a prison after being ravaged by World War III, though Loeb's solution to keep shooting costs cheaper was to make Manhattan abandoned rather than destroyed. A source explained that the remake will be "an exposé of an ecosystem, if you put a huge wall around Manhattan and then dropped in the most f**ked-up, dangerous criminals on Earth. Another change for the remake was that war-hero-turned criminal Snake Plissken will not be attempting to rescue the President but rather a female Senator, which apparently created a better situation for dialogue.
What won't change is the character of Plissken himself. In order to get the rights to the movie, New Line had to sign a contract with Carpenter that maintains that the character "must be called Snake," "must wear an eyepatch," and, most importantly, "always be a bad-ass." How much Carpenter will be involved with the remake remains to be seen. Loeb told MTV that he wasn't sure how much Carpenter will be involved.
I don't know how much John Carpenter is involved. I don't think he's involved extensively. I know I did my work without his tutelage.
While a replacement for Kurt Russell is till ongoing — Gerard Butler was attached at one point but dropped out over "creative differences" — Loeb says he would like to see Russell return in another role.
The only reason I would think [he wouldn't be involved] is if Kurt didn't want to do it. I'd be the first to jump on my computer and find the cameo for [Russell]. If [New Line] asked me to, it would be a lot of fun.
Loeb says both he and New Line see "franchise" potential with the new remake.
Posted 02.15.10 by Ryan -
It's not just that this is the year for film reboots and sequels. Empire Online is reporting that that Universal Studios will re-release five classic movies in theaters. On deck for the digital big-screen treatment are Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus starring Kirk Douglas (June 9), The Blues Brothers with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi (July 28), Brian De Palma's Scarface with Al Pacino (August 25), Kurt Russell in John Carpenter's The Thing (September 15), and John Landis's Animal House (November 2).
Posted 05.11.09 by reelz -
And it sucked. And and I don't mean that it was one of those "good in a bad way" movies that Tarantino and Rodriguez claim to be going for. Nope, this movie is just plain lousy.
Rodriguez's Planet Terror is a passable enough genre flick. It's entirely too long, but it's got some clever moments. Still, stacked against similar recent zombie flicks such as 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, it pales in comparison.
Tarantino's Death Proof is a terrible movie. Yes, it's true that there are a few brief cool car chase moments thrown in,
but those briefly pleasurable moments in the middle and the end (the last 15 minutes are great)are sandwiched between some of the most painstakingly boring footage you could ever imagine. It's basically girls sitting around talking about cars and relationships. Tarantino's trademark dialogue is wooden and ridiculous. Death Proof is Tarantino's fantasy movie of the girls he wish existed. Well Quentin, they don't and no one actually talks like this. He actually re-uses dialogue from his other movies. Death Proof is the worst thing he's ever done. And yes, I saw Four Rooms.
And finally, Quentin, look, we've been saying it for more than a decade now.... STOP ACTING!!! Tarantino appears in BOTH of the Grindhouse movies, as cheesy and distracting as ever.
Tom used the word "excruciating" to describe Grindhouse when he saw it a week ago. I wanted him to be wrong, but he was dead on.
Check back for a more complete review of this highly anticipated and extremely disappointing flick.
Posted 03.31.07 by reelz