Tag: Jim Kelly

Martial Arts, Movies2 Comments

Enter the GTFOH

Shawn Taylor

On March 21, 2015 Ain’t it Cool dropped the mother, father, cousin, and incarcerated uncle of all bombshells: Brett Ratner wants to remake one of the most iconic films in cinema history, which starred one of the most iconic leading mean in the history of film. To even have the gauldacity to fix your imagination to entertain the idea is Greek tragedy level hubris. How could he even think that he has the talent, vision, heart, and narrative ability to remake Enter the Dragon? Who in our modern cinematic landscape has the charisma, charm, physique, sex appeal, and martial talent to even mimic Bruce Lee? I assure you neither Scott Adkins nor Ronda Rousey have it. No diss to them, but, no.

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Martial Arts, Movies, Roundtable12 Comments

NOCs of the Roundtable: Best Fight Scenes Ever

The Nerds of Color

As our friend Angry Asian Man broke the nerdtastic news this week that some fine fighters from The Raid would be joining the cast of Star Wars, it seemed as good a time as any to convene a roundtable of some of us martial arts film enthusiasts here at the NOC to talk about our favorite martial arts fight scenes.

Before we shared our favorite scenes with one another, we guessed there would be significant overlap, especially concerning the great Bruce Lee. Sure enough, each of us had picked at least one Bruce Lee scene on our individual lists. To avoid repetition, we decided not to double up, so as you can see some folks wrote about legendary Bruce scenes and the rest of us wrote about alternates — but please trust, we keep Bruce at the front of our fighting hearts.

Who’s not on the list, though? Uma Thurman. Just… no.

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Martial Arts, Movies, Origins4 Comments

Enter the Soya: A Nerd Origin

Eric S.B.

Two mysterious lands far away from one another — yet linked by seas of soybeans — birthed a child born of melody, harmony, rhythm, and the smell of soy sauce. The child was destined to become a musician… and a tofu-loving pescetarian. But first, between musical gifts, came dreams of Jedi knighthood, ninjas, and flying with a cape.

My dad says he took me to Return of the Jedi when I was 3. I don’t remember it, but judging from the reaction my mom gives when this is mentioned, it happened. What I do remember very well from childhood is becoming obsessed with Superman in the early 80s. It seemed about right being surrounded by farms in a Nebraska town 60 miles from Smallville (okay, the Kansas border). Superman links farmland Nebraska with farmland Goiás (Brazil). My dad and my tio Laurinho took me to Superman III a year later. Remember, it took a bit more time for movies to travel back then. After that, it was capes and the same tio, or anyone else I could get, making me fly in both Brazil and the U.S. while trying not to break stuff.

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