Video of the Day. "Goddamn Dracula-black": No Finer Moment in American Cinema in 2010

“Serb bad boys.” Great. More harmful stereotypes. How useful.

He’s a fictional character in a fictional film, I’m not sure how it is harmful—look who it is coming out of!

Now I’m very sorry I missed this in theaters. Striking moment.

So do you mean fictional characters and fictional films aren’t loaded with ideology worth criticizing?

They totally are, you are right. I thought you were criticizing the clip, not the character or film.

Ok. No, I wasn’t criticizing your choice of the clip. I wanted to see this film but didn’t get a chance. Maybe I will if it’s still hanging around in theaters. I assumed it would be a semi-campy film, what with the collection of personalities in it. This clip makes me more curious as it seems more dark, introspective and brooding.

It’s not campy but it definitely is knowingly going for an 80s vibe, which pushes it towards pastiche. The action is actually very good movie making, and many of the actors are quite good, stand outs being Rourke and Dolph Lundgren, but Statham and Li have their moments as well.

“many of the actors are quite good, stand outs being … Dolph Lundgren” Well, I think we can go ahead and count that under the “things I never thought I would hear in relation to cinema” list!

Has anyone seen “Universal Soldier: Regeneration”? Further proof of Lundgren’s acting talents. I’m rather surprised that hardly anyone here at Mubi talks about this movie, what with all the praise for Van Damme and Lundgren pouring out. It’s a great movie. I implore you to watch it.

YES! I see from your profile that you live in Singapore, so I gather you were able to see the film theatrically? It’s a shame that it went straight-to-DVD in the US, especially since it happens to contain some of the year’s finest use of the ‘scope frame (and who’d have thought? The movies Peter Hyams has actually directed all look pretty anemic…).

Take a little bit of Camus’ The Fall, add a backstory with a few more murders in it, make it less subtle by making the situation less ambiguous, and there it is! I’ll take the Camus, though.

Truly inspiring performance from Mickey Rourke. I remember seeing this for the first time months ago and finding my mouth wide open and nearly drooling, haha.

That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking – Friedrich Nietzsche