Authors — R. Emmet Sweeney
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“This Industry is Crumbling Like a Nature Valley Bar”: Dan Licata on For the Boys
Dan Licata has come a long way since high school, where he shattered both of his legs by jumping off the roof of a Buffalo church. A ferociously funny comedian, he has written for Saturday Night Live and Joe Pera Talks with You and recently performed stand-up on Late Night with Seth Meyers. His chaotically brilliant new stand-up special For the Boys (available on YouTube) was shot at his high school alma mater in front of a crowd of 15-year-old boys, the perfect audience for his arrested pubescent persona—a blustery Jackass-fueled manchild who desperately wants to connect with the youth but […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Jun 24, 2024 -
Kill the Piano Player: Composer Sean Murray on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Call of Duty and Jesse V. Johnson
You’ve probably heard Sean Murray’s music without knowing it. A composer for nearly 40 years, his work has appeared on dozens of soap operas, action movies and cultural touchstones like TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Call of Duty video game series. His most fruitful collaboration has been with his longtime friend Jesse V. Johnson, a director of low-budget/high intelligence genre movies—the latest of which, Chief of Station, a spy thriller starring Aaron Eckhart, was released in May. Both Murray and Johnson are students of old Hollywood, and their films and scores honor the spirits of their idols. Filmmaker: […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Jun 17, 2024 -
Renny Harlin on The Strangers: Chapter 1, China and Don Siegel
Renny Harlin is closing in on 40 years in the movie business and still committed to his craft. He has worked all over the world on films at the top and bottom of the box office charts, but still gets a twinkle in his eye when discussing how a score can tweak the tension of a scene. He dreamed of being a Hollywood action movie director since childhood, and is best known for his bombastic 1990s blockbusters like Die Hard 2 (1990) and Cliffhanger (1993). But after Hollywood ejected him for younger models, he maintained a furious productivity elsewhere, working […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on May 23, 2024 -
“I’m a Little Bit Sick in the Head”: Scott Adkins on Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday
Scott Adkins is a proselytizer for the art of Hong Kong action films, receiving his baptism as a bit player on Jackie Chan’s The Accidental Spy in 2001. He has been trying to bring Chan’s level of craft and creativity to English-language action ever since, climbing the ranks of the direct-to-video market with gravity-defying kicks until his picture on the box could sell units alongside those featuring Van Damme and Lundgren. Though he has made memorable spin-kicking turns on big Hollywood productions like Doctor Strange and Day Shift—even landing a role in next year’s John Wick: Chapter 4—his bread-and-butter remains […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Oct 13, 2022 -
Makuta VFX’s Pete Draper on Working with RRR Director S.S. Rajamouli
The culmination of director S.S. Rajamouli’s bombastic use of visual effects, RRR is on its way to becoming the biggest Indian blockbuster of 2022. Starting with the vengeful CGI fly in Eega (2012) through the mythical landscapes of Baahubali (2015-2017) and the jungle cat revolutionary warfare of RRR, Rajamouli has overseen some of the most jaw-droppingly creative spectacles of the 21st century. He was able to do this thanks to the help of Makuta VFX, who’ve worked on all of Rajamouli’s films in some capacity since Magadheera (2009). I spoke with Makuta VFX’s Division Head & Chief Technical Director, Pete […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Apr 18, 2022 -
“I Was Directing, and I Ripped My Bicep”: Dolph Lundgren on Castle Falls, On-Set Gun Safety and Fighting with Scott Adkins
At the age of 64 Dolph Lundgren remains as busy as ever, alternating between Hollywood mega-productions like Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and small-scale action movies like Castle Falls, which he produced, directed, and co-starred in (alongside Scott Adkins). Castle Falls, which opens December 3rd in theaters, on demand and digital, is a compact crime film in which millions of dollars are hidden in a derelict hospital slated for demolition. A prison guard (Lundgren), an ex-MMA fighter (Adkins) and a desperately violent gang converge on the crumbling edifice hoping to strike it rich before everything explodes. I spoke with Lundgren […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Nov 30, 2021 -
My Job During a Pandemic: Producing 100+ DVDs and Blu-rays in 2020
When I left Kino Lorber’s office on Friday, March 13th, I was expecting to return on Monday. I was wrapping up the DVD and Blu-ray of Jia Zhangke’s I Wish I Knew (2010), getting final proofs of Adam Nayman’s booklet essay and waiting for the test molds (the final check disc the replicator sends for approval before the title goes into manufacturing) to come in. But then the lockdown hit, and the scramble to improvise and adapt to the situation. One of my colleagues lives nearby our office, so he shipped the I Wish I Knew test molds to our […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Feb 10, 2021 -
Yuen Woo-Ping on Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy, Dave Bautista and Martial Arts Cinema
Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy (2019) closes out Yuen Woo-ping’s fifth decade in martial arts filmmaking. It is an astonishing run in which he helped launch the careers of Jackie Chan (Drunken Master, 1978) and Donnie Yen (Drunken Tai Chi, 1984), while shaping the style of Hollywood action for a generation with his fight choreography for The Matrix (1999). Master Z is a spinoff of the Donnie Yen-led Ip Man franchise, following Cheung Tin-chi (Max Zhang), a kung fu master humbled by a loss to Ip Man who tries to rebuild his life as a grocery store vendor. Of […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Apr 11, 2019 -
“You Have to Make Money. It’s a Business”: Jesse V. Johnson on Accident Man, Scott Adkins and the Logistics of Fast DTV Shoots
For over 15 years, Jesse V. Johnson has been a reliable craftsman of action movies for the wildly unreliable DTV market. Born in England, he moved to Hollywood to work as a stunt performer in the 1990s, working on everything from Total Recall (1990) to The Thin Red Line (1999). He has bounced back and forth between stunt work and DTV directing ever since — whatever it took to pay the bills in an unpredictable career. One predictable thing over the last year has been the presence of Scott Adkins as his leading man. Adkins may not have the name […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Feb 6, 2018 -
Isaac Florentine on Acts of Vengeance, Antonio Banderas’s Mastery of Fight Choreography and Making a Movie in the Wake of His Wife’s Cancer Diagnosis
Isaac Florentine is one of the stalwart direct-to-video directors of the last decade, making fluid fight films on microscopic budgets, usually with the miraculously athletic Scott Adkins in the lead. His latest film Acts of Vengeance has heightened visibility, and an honest-to-goodness theatrical release, thanks to the casting of Antonio Banderas as a slick defense attorney who takes a vow of silence before taking his revenge on his family’s killers. I spoke by phone with Florentine about the development of the project, the personal losses he sustained during its production, and his philosophy of screen fighting. Filmmaker: How did you first […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Oct 30, 2017
