Vern - Yippee Ki-Yay Moviegoer

Hes so good. I wish he would review more often... Although he is so harsh... it always comes from disappointment. He wants movies to be great, you know? Patton Oswalt, comedian and actor (Ratatouille, Dollhouse), interviewed on Aint It Cool News

Written in head-spinning Vern-acular prose, these reviews will have you rolling on the floor with laughter and, with lightning-bolt speed, provoke demolishing insights into the films they address. Equal parts Hells Angels and Pauline Kael, Vern is a National Treasure!!!

Guillermo Del Toro, director of Pans Labyrinth and Hellboy

This book is an instant cult classic. bookgasm.com

We cant believe this actually exists, but the world is certainly a better place for it. New York Magazine

Uproariously funny... the film book I never knew I always wanted to read. Nerve.com

Its as enlightening as it is thorough. TIME

A new branch of academia. Entertainment Weekly

REQUIRED READING. [Vern] analyzes Seagals body of work including energy drinks he endorsed as if he were deconstructing the Bible. New York Post

One of the most compulsively readable film books ever published and Im not kidding about that even a little bit. Twitchfilm

A book that every human being on the planet should own. The Video Vacuum

As a frequent writer for Aint It Cool News, VERN has gained notoriety for his unorthodox reviewing style and his expertise in the films of Badass Cinema. As detailed in this book, his review of the slasher movie Chaos earned him a wrestling challenge from its director; his explosive essay on the PG-13 rating of the fourth Die Hard movie prompted Bruce Willis himself to walk barefoot across the broken glass of movie nerd message boards to respond. His previous book, Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal, did indeed shake the very foundations of film criticism, garnering rave reviews and featuring in TIME magazine. Guillermo Del Toro, the director of Pans Labyrinth, called Vern a National Treasure. He lives in Seattle.

WRITINGS ON BRUCE WILLIS, BADASS CINEMA AND OTHER IMPORTANT TOPICS

ISBN 9780857687371

Published by

Titan Books

A division of

Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark St

London

SE1 0UP

First edition March 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Yippee Ki-Yay Moviegoer: Writings on Bruce Willis, Badass Cinema and Other Important Topics copyright 2010 by Vern. All rights reserved.

Designed by Martin Stiff.

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Publishers Note:

This publication has not been prepared, approved, licensed or endorsed by Bruce Willis, or any entity that created or produced any of the films or programs discussed in this book.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, or by any of the actors who appeared in the original Die Hard including smaller supporting roles such as Al Leong or the guy who played Argyle, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Printed in the United States of America.

Aug 31 1999, 12:00 am

Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.current-films

From:

Date: 1999/08/31

Subject: WHOS SEEN DIE HARD?

anybody? vern

I f youre reading this you mightve heard of me from my book Seagalogy, or my contributions to the Aint It Cool News web site. More likely you never heard of me at all and are just now realizing that whichever book by an author beginning with V you meant to pick up, you got the one next to it. But please hear me out pal. Whatever nonsense you were looking for, this nonsense is way better. It is a collection of movie reviews that will make all other collections of movie reviews suffer from jealousy and low self-esteem. And I dont feel good about that because all of the books should get along and not go around backstabbing each other, but lifes a bitch, you know?

I am not a professional movie critic, Im just some asshole. Until publishing a book I never got paid a dime for any of these reviews. But for the last ten years, for some reason, Ive dedicated my life to writing about movies. I started with moronic scribblings on newsgroups (see above), expanded into a crude free website on Geocities.com, then became a regular on the aforementioned The Aint It Cool News and wrote the also aforementioned acclaimed book about the films of Steven Seagal.

This book is not Willisology. Yippee Ki-Yay Moviegoer is about the love of all types of movies, and I couldnt think of a better symbol for that than my man Bruce. When I first saw Die Hard I couldnt believe that comedian from Moonlighting had just starred in the greatest American action movie Id ever seen. (I still consider it #1). But by the time he was getting acclaim for his quiet performance in The Sixth Sense he was so associated with action movies that he surprised people again. The lesson is to be good at what you do, but do more than one thing. Bruce has been many things to many people: an iconic screen wiseass, a badass action star, an underrated dramatic actor, an inspiration to victims of male pattern baldness, a tireless advocate of Seagrams Golden Wine Cooler. I would like to be the Bruce Willis of film criticism. I dont play harmonica though just to be up front here.

You probably have some ideas about what a film critic is, either good or bad. I dont really see myself fitting in with most of those guys. Im not into the consumer reports type reviewing you see in newspapers and some commercial web sites. You know, the short little formulaic reviews where they give you a plot summary and tell you if its recommended or not. Im more in line with the long-winded New Yorker types and academicians who want to explore a movie in context with film history and American culture, who want to explore what makes movies work or not and examine the themes of genres and subgenres. But Im still kind of a weirdo in those circles because although I do like documentaries and that new wave they had in France that one time, I am more likely to fixate on, say, slasher sequels of the 80s or action movies starring former professional athletes.

Im not fuckin around here, I believe a well-rounded film lover oughta have something to say about Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Claude Van Damme. And okay, so maybe I have more expertise in the latter, but thats an area that has not been studied as much. In this book I will discuss the works of Brian Bosworth and Alejandro Jodorowsky and everything in between, and I will hopefully treat them with the same level of sincere respect. If you read my Seagal book you know what Im about hopefully these reviews will make you laugh, but not at the expense of legitimate insights into the films, and definitely not in some smarmy sarcastic kind of way. I might be writing about a type of movie that you think is ridiculous but please realize that I genuinely love these types of movies.