Geeks on Film: “Yipee Ki-Yay Moviegoer!”

The folks over at Titan Books were kind enough to send me a copy of their book Yipee Ki-Yay Moviegoer!: Writings on Bruce Willis, Badass Cinema, And Other Important Topics written by Vern. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because Vern is well known for writing reviews on the Aintitcool, one of the most popular movie sites out there.  The book is a collection of reviews and essays, many of them have been published online. But instead of digging around the internet, the best of the best have been collected for your reading pleasure.

Review continues after the jump.

The book is is split into 13 chapters ranging in topics such as  “Blow Things Up Real Good” featuring reviews and thoughts on Predator and Predator 2, and the chapter titled “Tangents” in which Vern starts off reviewing a film but takes a detour and discusses topics that happen to pop up in his head, ultimately returning back to the subject at hand. One chapter in particular that I found very interesting was titled “It’s Not Supposed To Be Hamlet”. This chapter is dedicated to discussing how people defend a movie from legitimate criticism by exclaiming “It’s not supposed to win any Oscars.” Vern obviously has a problem with this thinking as he believes a good film no matter what genre should be able to stand such criticism and while it is true it may not win awards, it’s a legitimately good, maybe even great film.

To kick off the chapter, Vern unleashes a scathing (which may be too nice of a word) review of  Transformers. What I enjoyed about this review was that I originally liked the film.  Reading the review I realized I was excusing the film’s shortcomings. Now I may not have as much  hate against Michael Bay as Vern, but I found myself  wondering how I even thought the first Transformers was any good. As much as I hated Transformers 2, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the first one really did lay out the blueprints for its sequel.  After that essay, Vern goes back and actually reviews previous summer blockbusters that didn’t sacrifice story for silly action.  Included in this list are Terminator and T2: Judgment Day, Aliens, The Dark Knight (which of course won Heath Ledger a posthumous Oscar for best supporting actor), and E.T: The Extra Terrestrial 20th Anniversary Edition which he criticizes for using a digital ET in some shots, and switching guns for walkie talkies. Otherwise he thinks ET is an okay film.

The Final chapter, titled “Bruce”, is dedicated to the work of, you guessed it, Bruce Willis. It starts with a discussion of the birth of Die Hard, which I had no idea was based off of a book called Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp. Vern compares the book to its film counterpart revealing that much of the action beats were in the book already. It is no secret even from the beginning of the book that Vern LOVES this movie and constantly uses it as a reference point for all the action films that followed. A good section of the chapter deals with Die Hard. My favorite is a collection of anecdotes that lead up to the review of Live Free Or Die Hard.  It begins with Vern’s passionate rant over the idea that Die Hard isn’t Die Hard unless it’s rated R.  This leads to Vern receiving comments from someone named “Walter B” that leads into an awesome revelation and a fairly positive review of the fourth Die Hard that doesn’t gloss over the shortcomings.

As someone who loves movies, I wondered why I hadn’t read many of Vern’s reviews prior to this book.  He’s sensible in his adoration of film while holding them all to his own guidelines. He’s the guy a lot of folks think they are when they review films. I can see Vern being someone you could sit around, have a few drinks with, and just spend hours discussing why Bruce Willis is so awesome or following up on his comparison of Mary Poppins to Batman. I very much enjoyed the book and was surprised at how quick the book was to read.  Clocking in at 420 pages, I think this weekend would be the perfect time to reflect on films of the past.  Memorial Day weekend is usually reserved for  a big tentpole summer movie, and this weekend seems to be lacking. Instead maybe read this book, and afterwards pop in your Die Hard dvd and hope we start getting more awesome movies once again.

Vern’s Website – http://outlawvern.com/
Titan Books Website – http://titanbooks.com/home/us