michael pare Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Well, what do you know? Here I was thinking I was one of the few people out there who actually had fond memories of Walter Hill's musical flop Streets of Fire, but you can now add Albert Pyun to the list of the film's dedicated fans. Reports have surfaced over at AICN that the B-movie director extraordinaire is planning a sequel of sorts to the 1984 cult classic. According to AICN, the title is The Road to Hell, and will bring back Streets' original star, Michael Paré, to star alongside Clare Kramer (Buffy) and Courtney Peldon (Boston Public).

If you haven't seen the original, then you are missing out on some prime '80s cheese. What other decade would feature a rock and roll musical set in an urban fantasy land with Willem Dafoe sporting vinyl overalls in a sledgehammer fight to the death? According to AICN, the film will not be a direct sequel to Hill's original flick, but instead a tribute film that will take "STREETS' mood and energy, infusing 50s styled "hardboiled" dialog and characters possessing "dark" shades of gray."

Now that we finally have confirmation from Pyun on that The Sword and the Sorcerer sequel, I guess we'll just have to wait and see which project Pyun makes first. So even though I'm not all that thrilled about a sequel to one of my youth's guilty pleasures, I can't say no to a plot description like this: "Consider it Moulin Rouge meets torture porn. A heavily torqued romantic fantasy where dreams still live but they carry very big knives. "

I'm sold. How about you?

So it's been a little while since I posted anything about Uwe Boll, but this rather excellent article from GameDaily was precisely what I needed to recharge my Boll batteries. With no less than six inevitably awesome projects in the works, I suppose we can get ready for 2007: The Year of the Boll. Ugh, let's just break this celluloid carnage down into bullet points:

• In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale -- The $60 million all-star action-adventure is, as they say, "in the can" and clocking in at just over two hours in length. Boll promises a nearly 3-hour version on DVD. The flick recently played at AFM and allegedly received ... praise! Awesome.
• BloodRayne 2 -- The $8.5 million sequel swaps Kristanna Loken for Natassia Malthe, but brings in Michael Pare to play Pat Garrett and Zack Ward for Billy the Kid. Yeah, it's a western -- and Billy the Kid is also a vampire. Yes, seriously. Regarding the subtler nuances of subtextual characterization, Boll says "We're going more bad ass in a way because BloodRayne does not have the internal battle of morality and integrity." Sounds like someone's been going to English class! Oh, and apparently there will almost definitely be a BloodRayne 3. Sweet!
  
• Postal -- Nearing completion and inevitably whacked. Guess who's starring? Zack Ward and Michael Pare. It's like DeVito/Douglas/Turner all over again.
• Seed -- Still coming somewhat soon: A horror movie. Michael Pare is starring. Yeah, Boll's found his muse in the Eddie and the Cruisers dude. IMDb says this movie is "completed," so keep your eyes peeled as you wander past that $5.50 DVD rack at Walmart.
  
• Far Cry -- Production begins in Hawaii this May, and Uwe seems pretty pumped about this particular project. Jason Statham may star, but apparently he's waiting to see how Dungeon Siege is received before he signs on with Boll again. (Statham must have a new agent.) Boll expects game company Ubisoft to be extra-helpful where the Far Cry movie is concerned, which hasn't happened on his previous projects ... for various and obvious reasons.
• Alone in the Dark 2 -- With his hilariously packed schedule, Boll couldn't possibly direct this (entirely unnecessary) sequel, so he's handing the franchise off to the guys who wrote the first Alone in the Dark -- which is sort of like leaving a lit candle in charge of 45 megatons of dynamite. Christian Slater might be returning for the sequel, but if not the director definitely wants someone "who looks like" the character in the video game. This guy's casting agents must have the world's funnest job.

...and when all this is over and done with, Uwe Boll wants to direct a movie about the Vietnam War. So which one will it be: Medal of Honor or Call of Duty? And how big will Michael Pare's role be?

Y'know, if Uwe Boll decides to off himself one day, we're all gonna feel pretty darn awful about it. Seriously, we will. No matter how earth-shatteringly ridiculous the guy's movies are (and dear jeebus are they), he's still a human being with thoughts and hopes and emotions and dreams -- plus, and I mean this, the modern movie landscape really is a whole lot more colorful with a little Uwe mixed in. If there was no Boll, who would we make fun of? Adam Shankman? Meh. Movie geeks like us need our Uwe Bolls. Plus I'll go on record right now with a semi-compliment for for the guy: His movies sure aren't boring. And nowadays Boll's flicks are funnier than Adam Sandler's. Intent be damned, laughs are laughs.

Having said all that, Seed, Dr. B's next movie is based on the following premise: "If a death row convict survives three full zaps in the electric chair, then legally he is allowed to go free." (What lawyer came up with that rule, and more importantly, what event predicated such a bizarre loophole?) As if a guy who survives 15,000 volts (times three) would be in any condition to "go" anywhere other than a well-staffed burn unit. But we're talking about Uwe Boll, most likely fresh from a VHS screening of Wes Craven's Shocker, so perhaps now isn't the time to be discussing things that make sense. So with the ultra-anticipated-by-me In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale somewhere on the limited-release-for-six-days horizon, Dr. B is now hard at work on Seed, evidence of which can be found at SKNR.net -- but don't be stealing those photos because they're extra-exclusive and whatnot.

Starring Ralf Moeller as the warden, Michael Paré as the detective, Andrew Jackson as the doctor, and Will Sanderson as extra-crispy bucket 'o' serial killer Max Seed, Seed is Uwe Boll's first non-video game production since the head-smackingly awful Heart of America, which I once referred to as "the Colombine tragedy as translated into coloring book form." Anyway, the quicker Uwe gets done with Seed, the sooner we'll have a new project to chuckle over. I hope the guy makes eight more movies in the next five years. (He's already started on this one -- and you thought you'd never see a movie starring Ron Perlman and Gary Coleman.)