You might think you’re above podcasts, but you’re not above ours. The Film Pigs take on an icon of B-movie action this episode when they examine the career of Steven Seagal! Plus, only the latest Movie News, a surprising-then-totally-not-surprising prosecution in Movie Jail, a truly incoherent Nic Cage Memorial Bizarre Line Reading, a special Cold Reading, an amazing fan-suggested game, and (not much) more!
This time, on a very special episode of The Film Pigs Podcast:
- 0:00:00 – Intro
- 0:00:33 – Movie News
- 0:05:21 – Host Stephen Skelton presents this episode’s theme: Steven Seagal
- 0:27:26 – Movie Jail
- 0:35:44 – The Nic Cage Memorial Bizarre Line Reading
- 0:40:04 – Straight to DVD Corner with Tonn Slingdog
- 0:44:23 – A Cold Reading from a medley of Seagal movies
- 0:49:56 – Three Word Seagal! You can play, too!
- 1:04:53 – The Bottom 5: Worst Things Steven Seagal’s Done
- 1:05:45 – A Moment Of Positivity
- 1:06:56 – Outro
Great show as usual. This week’s subject is one I’m quite fond of, too. I literally grew up watching these movies, some of my earliest memories are of seeing Seagal break a man’s arm before shoving him face first into a hutch or table or whatever is close by, or maybe of him throwing a guy down an elevator shaft so he could be impaled at the bottom. What were my parents thinking? “These are great movies” probably.
My favorite is Marked for Death, followed by Under Siege. All of his movies up until On Deadly Ground hold a special place in my movie memory. Sadly, most of the movies afterwards are pretty hit and miss to me. It seems that I’ve found more things I like in his late and most recent career than in the middle of it. No Exit Wounds for me.
One bit of a correction because I’m a bit of a MMA snob. Silva credited his kick knockout to Seagal in regards to his fight with Vitor Belfort. It was Lyoto Machida who knockout out Couture and his tooth with a similar front kick (he actually used a traditional Karate Crane Kick, it was really brilliant) and because he and Silva were from the same camp people were quick to ask him about Seagal’s involvement. Silva never got to fight Couture while he was still fighting, although I think the fight would have ended the same.
You’re right on the MMA, I mixed up my notes. Was Seagal involved in both of their training, or just Silva’s?
Seagal is special because he’s the last real martial artist turned movie star in Hollywood. Hopefully Soderbergh has brought that magic back with Gina Carano (Haywire is the closest thing to old-school Seagal Hollywood has produced). I know you can go to Asian cinema for tons of great martial arts actioners, but I have a soft spot for the combo of martial arts fights in locations like Chicago.
I enjoy Exit Wounds, but it’s clearly the last gasps of his theatrically released movies (how Half Past Dead got a theatrical release I’ll never know).
Seagal helped train Blackhouse, Silva and Machida’s camp which is also home to other top fighters from Brazil. There are videos of him doing drills with all kinds of camp members, Silva and Machida included.
Aikido was very different to action film audiences back in the day, especially considering that we were used to mostly punching and kicking. All of the sudden this Seagal guy was using joint locks to maim people and throws that looked like they should only be done in a Gi instead of spin kicks and the like, it helped to give a real world grit to his flicks. It really was Mr. Steven Seagal that got me into martial arts in the first place.
A funny thing about Aikido is — as Todd mentioned — it was a whole hell of a lot less violent before Seagal went America on its ass. So nonviolent that it actually had no offensive attacks at all, it was all about redirection of momentum and even PROTECTING your opponent from any real harm. Now I look back at the opening of Above The Law where Nico is rag-dolling all his students and just laugh.
I’m all for a renaissance of the legit style action hero. Carano is great, I’m still down for her in a Commando remake. I can maybe even see her in an Under Siege remake; hot unsuspecting but intimidating cook who is actually a Special Forces badass has to save the day from homegrown terrorists? I can dig (giggity) it.
This is the highpoint of my life.
So we’re cool for the Rapture later this year, right?
That depends largely on whether THE EXPENDABLES II is any good.
That thing about THE LAST SAMURAI is interesting to me. I don’t know if this is mentioned in the lawsuit but years ago, while promoting FACE/OFF, John Woo was talking up his next project which was a LAWRENCE OF ARABIA-style epic starring Tom Cruise called THE DEVIL SOLDIER, based on a true story about an American Civil War veteran who joins the Boxer Rebellion in China.
What happened was that Woo and Cruise made the awful MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 and apparently clashed a lot during the production. From that THE DEVIL SOLDIER was dead in the water, until a few years later when Cruise makes the middling THE LAST SAMURAI, which basically just transports the same story to Japan under the guise of being a fictional story.
I always thought that was interesting. I wish I could have seen Woo’s film. His recent RED CLIFF was an incredibly entertaining epic and it proved he could do more than gunfights.
I didn’t know about THE DEVIL SOLDIER. I guess Cruise really liked the concept. Probably for the best, Woo’s Hollywood films really aren’t his best.
RED CLIFF is streaming on Netflix, so I’ll check it out! (I fixed your spelling).
Just be sure to watch the full 4 1/2 hour version of RED CLIFF and not the cut down version.
But don’t be scared. The movie is so entertaining I have no trouble watching the whole thing from start to finish.
Funny show. Loved Above the Law when it first came out. Then Seagal continued to go downhill for me after that. He was the only action movie star that I would end up rooting against during his fight scenes! lol Am I alone in this? It just ended up becoming a natural progression after Above the Law because in all his fight scenes, he had ZERO competition. Even Bruce Lee played characters that looked vulnerable in a fight. I always respected his martial arts ability. But for me, Seagal became the most obnoxiously egotistical action star ever. He ended up becoming the only Hollywood star that other Hollywood stars would openly mock. I remember during interviews when stars were pressured into criticizing another star, Seagal became the go to punching bag lol
The combo of being basically invulnerable and always playing characters who are pretty much jerks to everybody is a legit criticism of Seagal’s movies. I’ve always found it hilarious that any characters in his movies like him at all, considering he acts like a condescending jackass towards everybody, bad guys and good guys alike. But I can certainly see how that could get tiresome.
You guys forgot to mention the classic Seagal device of having a character give a monologue about what a total bad-ass Seagal is.
I know that was in all his earlier movies.