30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 8: Masculine vs Macho 50:30-51:00
I have this saying that I think is relevant to both Keanu Reeves and John Wick, and especially relevant in THIS thirty seconds of John Wick the movie. “A masculine guy knows he is a man; a macho guy is terrified he’s NOT.” (And let me be clear I don’t feel a man is defined […]
Prologue: Russian Nightclub 48:00-50:00
The Russian Nightclub “fight scene” in John Wick became almost instantly one of the greatest set pieces ever put on film. It’s the ultimate expression of what “Gun-Fu” should be. (Gun-Fu is a term from the Christian Bale movie Equilibrium that posits a kind of close combat martial art with hand guns involving an instantaneous, […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 6: Slasher (31:30-32:00)
This is the last segment of the Siege of Casa Wick, the first fight of the movie. And it’s the least dynamic, least athletic and most interesting bit of the fight. Because it’s here, in this moment, the audience first sees exactly what kind of movie John Wick is. It’s only superficially an action film. […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 5: Cleaning the Kitchen (31:00-31:30)
Our current sequence begins as John Wick shoulder throws the opponent he was grappling with onto the kitchen counter. He uses a variation of the shoulder throw we’ve seen before and will see again but this time he actually flips the opponent up over his head, from his right to his left to land him […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 4: Drywall gets in your eyes (30:30-31:00)
I think I’m going to alter the format here just a bit — rather than giving specific time markers I’m going to mark the beginning of each segment with the times and leave it there. This section is 30:30 – 31:00. This is another favored sequence, with two cinematically beautiful moments. John is waiting at […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 3: Grappling
We just got through thirty very gun heavy seconds of the first fight in John Wick. Now we move onto a smaller, more personal altercation with both grappling and wrestling. 30:00 on the nose and we begin with another moment I could parse better watching it back a few dozen times. John has just reloaded […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 2: Baba Yaga
Welcome back to 30 Seconds of Wick. We’re headed back to the beginning, to the first real fight of the movie. I call this fight the Siege of Castle Wick. It’s gun heavy but still very interesting for the (at the time) unusual way they integrated the gun work into the hand to hand combat. […]
30 Seconds of Wick Chapter 1 : Perkins Takes A Bite
Welcome to the first installment of Thirty Seconds of Wick — the blog breakdown of each thirty seconds of the fight scenes in the movie John Wick (2014) I’m beginning not at the beginning (the fight in John’s house) but a little over mid-way through the movie and a little more than mid-way through my […]
Oh, Captain ….
TW: Suicide Folks this one is a little harrowing. It was hard to write and I find it hard to reread. I apologize for any typos or format errors. I couldn’t go over it that many times. I was a lonely child in a house full of living things. Seven siblings, two parents, family friends, […]
The Loss Of Fear
(Reblogged from the WarpWorld blog Aug 2016 — http://www.warpworld.ca/on-loss-loss-of-fear/) I have been afraid my whole life. Afraid of sharks in the bathtub. Afraid elevator doors would close unexpectedly, crushing me to death. I was afraid that having two Christmas tress meant we would get carpenter ants in the house. I was–and still am–mocked by my […]
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