Lotussan said:
He is very dertermined and admirable for his efforts, Glimmer has no right to say he's anything but, stop minimizing his work, anyones efforts deserve regognition, it's disgusting to cheapen his work that way... I don't know why some of these boys have to tie their egos to him so much, it's kind of silly... Get out and see if you can do better, and then throw the stones...
Lotus - first of all, I have every right to say whatever I want about Seagal. I am sorry if all this is making you 'very ill', but I am just about sick and tired of everyone kissing his ass! It's absolutely nothing to do with my ego (huh?), and it isn't about cheapening his work. I mean - let's face it - his current output of work couldn't really look much cheaper if it tried.
My words are not those of a nasty, bitter, vitriolic critic and I am really trying hard not to insult Seagal personally - I am just a terribly disappointed fan. From watching the trailers for every one of his last three movies, I have been really excited as from the trailers, the films looked genuinely good. However, each time I have been disappointed and each time I have thought: "Ah well - his next one will be better". But it won't be and I am starting to wonder exactly why I bother watching his latest movies at all, as it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that he will never again do another film that is as good as Under Siege, Marked For Death, Above The Law, Out For Justice or even Fire Down Below or Exit Wounds. Is it wrong to expect more?
Even you must agree that Out For A Kill was critically flawed. If I truly thought that it was a halfway decent movie, I would say so, but it isn't. That should be cool by you and we should agree to disagree. You like the movie and refuse to admit it is flawed and that's fair enough - I respect your opinion even if I wholeheartedly disagree with it.
I have said before that the best thing about the movie was Steven Seagal himself and the martial arts scenes were decent, but I expected a lot more from the movie than a couple of decent fight scenes - I expected a movie which I would watch and think "That was awesome". I thought those very words when I left the cinema after watching Terminator 3 and 2 Fast 2 Furious and Identity and a whole host of other movies that I have seen this year and even after Exit Wounds, after some initial scepticism, I honestly believed that Seagal had made an excellent movie and he was back on the road to stardom once more.
Even the likes of Fire Down Below, which again was a fairly low budget STV movie and wasn't generally well received by the critics - I thought (and still do think) that it is a very cool movie. But his latest ones seem to have no life - he looks old, slow, tired and bored and he doesn't seem to inject any enthusiasm into his characters anymore - he is just going through the motions and I think it sucks. My only hope now is that he slims down a bit, dons the whites once more and kicks some terrorist arse as Casey Ryback, be it in a plane, submarine, nuclear power station or whatever - I just want to watch a new Seagal movie that is genuinely good.
TDWoj said:
Lots of actors - in fact, most actors - in fact, some of the best actors ever - have done movies just for the money. You'll find a lot of truly awful movies on the resume of any actor you care to name that they would just as soon have the movie going public forget about. Why rag on Steven as being any different from those?
You know - TD - I just KNEW you would get on my back about this one, and the funny thing is that I agree with just about every one of your points. But the fact is that I am a fan of Seagal and I am pissed off that he doesn't seem to care about his fans any more. 3 sh*t movies (four if you count Ticker) pretty much back to back and he still can't get it right. The website is a fu*king joke and doesn't look as if it will ever come back online, so we have no more 'official' press releases from those close to him, we will have no more short clips of him thanking us for visiting his site, he never does interviews (mainly because nobody wants to interview him due to his somewhat 'difficult' relationship with the press in general) and the only information we ever get about him is either from unreliable third party sources, cynical fu*king reporters belittling him or badly written newspaper clippings from the Daily Beijing about him being in yet another former Eastern Bloc country and speaking about his Japanese upbringing or his Buddhist beliefs. Basically we, the fans and the people who put his bread on the table get fu*k all information about the things we really want to know about.
TDWoj said:
Is he doing it for the money? You bet. He's got 6 children, two (legal) ex-wives, and 8 security guards, not to mention that great big house and property in California (among others, I gather), a cook and a bevy of girls to pay expenses for. And if he's tired of making action movies and wants to do something else, he can't because his fan base insists he only ever do action movies. And if he makes an action movie where he does do his own stunts, he gets ragged on for not doing them exactly the way he used to do them 13 years ago.
I agree with this also apart from the fanbase thing. Since when has he really given a sh*t about what his fanbase thinks? Seagal has always done what he wanted to do in both his personal and professional life - why would he let his fanbase sway him? I honestly don't think he even cares anymore about what his fanbase thinks. Also - about the stunts thing - I understand about certain stunts that he wouldn't be insured to do, but I think it is pretty piss poor when an obvious stunt double is used for fight scenes, particularly when Seagal has based his entire movie career on fight scenes which he has done himself.
TDWoj said:
Of course, the biggest problem he is facing is that he can't get good directors or good scripts to work with any more. Those who want to make good movies won't touch him with a barge pole, because he's just got too bad of a reputation. So he's stuck with low budget films made with poor crews and bad directors and scripts that should never have seen the light of day, let alone be transferred to film.
I totally agree with this. So maybe he needs to take drastic action. Maybe he should partially fund a movie himself - the way he used to when he was in partnership with Nasso - that way it would have to be good in order for him to make any money from it. Think about it - he never did a single bad movie when he was with Nasso, and even the Seagal/Nasso scripts that didn't turn into Seagal movies sounded cool. Or maybe he just needs to put some life into his performances once more. Fire the fu*king crap directors and direct himself. He did a sterling job in On Deadly Ground for a first time director. Maybe his upcoming projects will see a reversal of fortunes for him, but I am not holding my breath.
TDWoj said:
I also think it's a cheap shot to suggest that he looks tired, ill or bored because he had to do the work himself in this film. I'll wait until I hear about it from him, himself. In the meantime, I can only hope that BOTB will be better. And I hope that the Yakuza/Into the Sun film is indeed the one I've seen the synopsis for, and not that awful Romeo-and-Juliet rubbish rumoured.
You are correct - it was a cheap shot and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself for being so unkind. But as for waiting until you hear about it from him, himself - I wouldn't hold your breath.
Like you - I am hoping against hope that Belly Of The Beast is better, but with a title like that, I only see more critics lining up to take cheap cracks at him. We have got Yakuza and The Rescue coming up and hopefully he will move back into big budget, good director territory with Under Siege 3. But again - I am not holding my breath.
Glimmer (off to watch Exit Wounds and lament for the days of old...)