Paid Members John Matrix Posted August 5, 2014 Paid Members Share Posted August 5, 2014 So yeah, been wanting to post this all day, but seemed a shame to do so without the photos to back it up. Just managed to get them uploaded, so here we are. As you probably guessed, yesterday I went along to the Expendables 3 premier – first time going along to something like that and had no idea what to expect other than a long wait and the feeling of a strangers flesh pressing against me for 7 hours. As it goes, the time flew by, a thoroughly enjoyable experience – I couldn’t just go along to any one, but being amongst likeminded fans for the most part, you soon get chatting to people as it becomes clear that 11am till 5pm will drag severely if you don’t. It wasn’t without it’s share of nobheads mind, people dressing up as Rambo etc in the vain hope we’d all be impressed and the inevitable autograph hunters, who, whilst pleasant enough, can’t go 30 seconds without telling you about the time they met Roger Daltrey, or someone else I couldn’t give a toss about – my favourite was the guy who told me about his friend in the media who gave him all the details of who was coming and where they’d be weeks in advance of anyone else so he always got to meet people – after a bit of cross examination, he let his guard slip, turned out he was paying £150 a month to subscribe to some mailing list. The wait was made that little bit longer when they eventually announced the names of the people who’d be attending. Under normal circumstances, I’m sure you’d be happy to see anyone, but when the USP of a movie is how many people they’ve packed into it, when only a handful turn up, that’s a bit of a let down. No Arnie, no Ronda, no Crews. :-/ - it also had the worlds worst warm up guy, who I thought might be Mr G from the Russell Brand radio shows, but it can’t have been as he was funny as I recall. This guy just repeated “Who’s gonna rap for some sunglasses” and “Make some noise” over and over again. I’d been told Alex Zane usually hosted these things, but on this occasion it was Laura Whitmore, who I’ve only seen fleetingly on TV, but is stunning in the flesh although her involvement was pretty hit and mess and largely for the Yahoo stream. Anyway, after standing in the same spot for 7 hours and feeling the bones in my foot start to evolve in an attempt to adjust to their new surroundings, it all became worth it when the first car arrived and, despite having seem him from a mile away at the recent Q & A, Sylvester Stallone walks right up to me, literally a foot away. I had to make the decision pretty quickly, photos or autographs, I opted for the former and unfortunately, such was the frenzy, I never got the chance to snap Sly in close quarters although I did pick him up a little later from distance. I completely forgot he was married to Jennifer Flavin, who is STUNNING! I have no idea how old she is these days but jesus, absolutely smoking. I had a big thing for her and Kelly Preston back in the day, so if Travolta has any films coming out soon, let me know so I can compare. It’s worth pointing out he has 2 gorgeous daughters too, and without wanting to sound too-yewtree, a younger one who looks well on the way to being – lucky for them they got their mothers looks. Next out, and thank god they did him early as I’d have felt for the poor bloke if he’d had to follow the big guns, was Kellen Lutz. No idea who he is, doubt I’ll ever see him in anything else again, but even I’m not unreasonable enough to deny the man is a handsome bugger. Tall, chiselled, and a jawline you could build a house on. Impressive enough specimen, but not one I was overly arsed about – what was pretty alarming though, and representative of the people in the pen I was in, was that he seemed to get a bigger pop than this man… WESLEY FUCKING SNIPES. That’s teenage girls for you. Now in news that I hope will surprise absolutely no one, Wesley Snipes is the coolest man on the planet. Like I imagine Carl Weathers would have been if you’d met him during the Apollo Creed years. He signed for what felt like hours, took pictures, shook hands, repeatedly said “Yeoman” in a Jamaican accent, there was even a brief snippet of Simon Phoenix – suffice to say, like a truly gifted wrestler would, Snipes won over the crowd and was the only guy all day to get a chant of his name going, which is saying something when Sly was there. Antonio Banderas was next out, but he didn’t bother coming our way. So he can fuck off. Last, but by no means least and easily the most handsome, suave and charismatic man I’ve ever seen in the flesh. The Stath. When all you know is the stoic Statham he plays in almost every movie, it’s easy to forget there’s a man behind the character, and what a man. He must have shook ever hand, taken every selfie and signed every single thing put in front of him – while others did the rounds out of what felt like courtesy, Statham embraced the thing wholeheartedly and really got stuck in. It was funny, at one point what were clearly his family members turned up. I know this, because he hugged a man that was clearly his brother, and looked exactly like what one of those low rent celebrity lookalikes would look like. I imagined his name to be Graham Statham or something similar. And that was that really, it’s hard to describe how exciting it is to be in the presence of people you idolise, even for just a brief few moments, but I had a fantastic time, despite the waiting around and packed crowds which on any given day would be my sure fire kryptonite. There were a few other people turned up, Vinnie Jones almost inevitably showing up along with other british hardmen such as Tamer Hassan and David Haye, and that massive rugby player who presents the UFC coverage on BT sometimes, along with a variety of anonymous faces from TOWIE, Made in Chelsea and the likes. Oh yeah, and Amelia Lily of the X Factor for some reason, who had the crowd in the palm of her hands with insights such as “I love Stallone. His movies are great” and “My new album is out soon”. I almost forgot Wossy, who turned up looking like a tramp but who brilliantly didn’t mug around pretending it was his occasion and just waved and made his way in, which I respected him for. Oh yeah, and then one of the PA’s who’d been camped out in our area handed out a few comp tickets, and yep…Matrix landed one just to cap out an almost perfect day. We got to watch the movie, introduced by the guys on stage along with the produces and chairman of Lionsgate, which was nice. I’ll save my thoughts on the movie for another time as I’ve probably bored you all enough, but yeah. All in all, a brilliant day and an experience I wont forget in a long, long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Quentin Posted August 5, 2014 Paid Members Share Posted August 5, 2014 Awesome post. Totally jealous of you Mr Matrix! Cheers for sharing. Wesley Snipes has been one of the coolest men on the planet to me since Sidney Dean and he clearly still is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 Matrix, I'm also going to try going to the Arnie thing, so if we both manage to get tickets, let's hook up for a drink. You lucky bugger, meeting the Stath - a man so cool, even my missus watches all his films with me, even the shit ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members John Matrix Posted August 6, 2014 Author Paid Members Share Posted August 6, 2014 Awesome post. Totally jealous of you Mr Matrix! Cheers for sharing. Wesley Snipes has been one of the coolest men on the planet to me since Sidney Dean and he clearly still is! Thanks pal, and your spot on. White Men Cant Jump is one of my favourite films ever, another i'm going to have to re-buy on DVD because my VHS collection is in storage :-( Matrix, I'm also going to try going to the Arnie thing, so if we both manage to get tickets, let's hook up for a drink. You lucky bugger, meeting the Stath - a man so cool, even my missus watches all his films with me, even the shit ones. I tell you what pal, i'm about as heterosexual a man as you're likely to find, and even i see the appeal of that fucker - it's funny, i was showing/boring the missus with the pictures yesterday morning and amongst her disinterested "hmms" she goes "Didnt you say Jason Statham was going to be there?".. Smooth love, smooth. I read a great interview with Statham recently where, refreshingly he said.. "You can't have a sushi restaurant and then put cheese on toast on the menu, because they'd go 'Why did you do that? We came here to eat sushi.' The dilemma is that you have to do something that people want to see. So if you've got a story about a depressed doctor whose estranged wife doesn't wanna be with him no more, and you put me in it, people aren't gonna put money on the table. Whereas if you go, 'All he does is get in the car, hit someone on the head, shoot someone in the fucking feet,' then, yep, they'll give you $20m. You can't fault these people for wanting to make money. As for the Arnie gig, count me in fella. I'm up for that - i'm considering selling an organ or two, because i read yesterday that there's going to be meet and greet packages, and even a sit down dinner - cant wait to break it to Mrs Matrix when we re-mortgage the house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted August 6, 2014 Moderators Share Posted August 6, 2014 Ahh man. I think I need to be at that Arnie thing as well... Matrix - how was the film itself? Bloated mess / fun / stupid / all of the above? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members John Matrix Posted August 6, 2014 Author Paid Members Share Posted August 6, 2014 Ahh man. I think I need to be at that Arnie thing as well... Matrix - how was the film itself? Bloated mess / fun / stupid / all of the above? Hey fella, it's gonna be a hot ticket. I'm realistic though, if i get a seat in the bloody foyer i'll settle for that at this stage. I need to see the film again to give a proper opinion to be honest, having been stood up and penned in for around 8 hours at that stage, i spent the first 45 minutes desperate for a piss so it's safe to say my attention wandered a little, although that said, it's the films responsibility to stop that happening, so maybe that tells you everything you need to know. First impressions, i was dissapointed, and thats from someone that goes into these things with a completely reasonable set of expectations. There's too much time spent on the younger characters, it's an essential part of the plot, just not the movie i wanted to see. There's one cunt on the poster who looks like he won a competition. Conversely, there's not enough screen time for the guys i wanted to see the most, and in particular, criminal underuse of two standouts from the previous films. My biggest bug bear though is the action, which massive and impressive in scale is edited so chaoticly at times, it's almost impossible to follow what's supposed to be going on. For example, Statham has stand out fight scenes in both previous movies, and although he has a one on one again at the end of this one, it wasnt a showcase for his talents at all - you could say the same for almost everyone in it, there's so many people in black uniforms running around shooting half the time i wasnt even sure which character i was watching - again though, tiredness may have been playing a factor, but there's no smoke without fire. Also, the violence. I remember foolishly saying a few pages back that they get away with a lot more violence in low certificate films these days, we'll it's absolutely not the case here. Flash back to Dolph Lundgren blowing a Somali pirate in half at the start of the first thing, and what you get here is every shortcut in the book to avoid showing anything graphic, which results in a really frustrating experience, not because im a blood thirsty violence freak, but because you just always feel like you blinked at the crucial time and missed something. The positives, Snipes is to this film what Lundgren was to the first, a scene stealer every time he's on screen. They've abandoned the 'greatest hits' feel of the second film, and for its flaws, it feels the closest to a cohesive film as they've done so far and when people appear, there's generally a reason for it. Arnie gets two great nostalgia lines which are so telegraphed, it only makes them funnier becase you can see them coming a mile off. I'll definately watch it again, but i'm in no rush, so it'll probably be a DVD job the next time i see it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted August 6, 2014 Moderators Share Posted August 6, 2014 Cheers. That sounds a bit frustrating.. fingers crossed for a director's cut! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members John Matrix Posted August 6, 2014 Author Paid Members Share Posted August 6, 2014 Cheers. That sounds a bit frustrating.. fingers crossed for a director's cut! Yeah, in some respects, bringing the young guys in has just completely unravelled the whole original premise. I'd love one of them to turn up, do something incredible and inspire me check out their back catalogue. It just dosent happen. My younger brother suggested that if Jet Li can't be arsed with these movies anymore, they draft in the dude from The Raid which whether you agree or not, just proves there are young guys out there doing action movies i want to see, thus proving i'm not entirely blinkered in favour of the old guard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Maestro Posted August 6, 2014 Share Posted August 6, 2014 Great post. You've made me love Wesley Snipes a little bit more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted August 6, 2014 Paid Members Share Posted August 6, 2014 good work Matrix. I love Wesley Snipes but he hasn't been in a good movie or looked like he's been arsed for about 10+ years... will be pretty cool to see him back on the big screen though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members DEF Posted August 6, 2014 Paid Members Share Posted August 6, 2014 That is a awesome post. Good work Matrix. Must have been amazing. I'm really hoping for a return to form from Snipes. Simon Pheonix might be my all time favourite action movie villian. What's this Arnie sit down everyone's talking about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members John Matrix Posted August 7, 2014 Author Paid Members Share Posted August 7, 2014 Shat myself when i logged on this morning and saw this split out as a seperate thread! If you're wanting a Snipes fix, then it's absolutely worth a watch. Like everyone else with the exception of Stallone, his screen time is limited, but he's definately the star of the show. Thanks for all the nice comments too, i know it was a pretty self indulgent post, but that's me. I talk about this stuff all the time, so i thought i'd share that basically, what you see and read from me, is truly what you get. DEF, have a look back through the "Comments that dont warrant a thread" thread, someone posted details in there a few pages back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members DEF Posted August 7, 2014 Paid Members Share Posted August 7, 2014 DEF, have a look back through the "Comments that dont warrant a thread" thread, someone posted details in there a few pages back. Mate your post was well worthy of it's own thread. Clearly it's living the dream for many of us. I'm going to that Arnie show if I have sell a kidney. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Bettencourt Posted August 7, 2014 Paid Members Share Posted August 7, 2014 One more person to have to contend with to get a ticket... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Bettencourt Posted August 14, 2014 Paid Members Share Posted August 14, 2014 It's been announced that it's a black tie dinner event in Leeds with Arnie. Looking like tickets start from £150 working their way up to £1500. 14th November 2014. EDIT: Also on the 15th a theatre type event as previously mentioned in London. Probably gonna try and get to that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.