Tag: martial arts

Posted on

Yo… We are now on Tubi

A few months ago, I posted that I was interviewed by Tom Seymour for a documentary project. The film, American Expendables, is a deep dive into the impact that B-movie action stars like Bolo Yeung, Bill Blanks, and Cynthia Rothrock had on the martial arts genre.

Tom interviewed me because of my martial arts background and love of Kung Fu movies from the 1970s and 1980s. He worked on this project for several years. This was my third documentary collaboration with Tom, having previously appeared in VHS Massacre and VHS Massacre Too.

American Expendables, and both previous documentaries, are currently streaming on Tubi. The links to the films can be found below.

American Expendables
https://tubitv.com/movies/100022791/american-expendables-the-films-of-north-american-pictures

VHS Massacre Too
https://tubitv.com/movies/723878/vhs-massacre-too

VHS Massacre
https://tubitv.com/movies/655409/vhs-massacre

Posted on

Batman vs Vader: SPB Alternate Ending

The team at Super Power Beat Down just posted the alternate ending to the epic Batman vs Darth Vader battle that premiered a few months back. The first version caused a fairly big stir on the internet due to the ending in which Batman literally gets murdered by Darth Vader. The outcome was decided by a fan vote, which of course set Batman and Star Wars fans at each others throats. In order to appease the outraged Bat Fans, which I count myself as a member, an alternate ending was shot.

In the alternate ending version Batman is victorious. However, I must Continue reading “Batman vs Vader: SPB Alternate Ending”

Posted on

NY Cine Video: MMA and other Martial Arts

This is the most recent New York Cine Video podcast. The conversation began with us talking about the classic martial arts comedy “The Foot Fist Way” featuring Danny McBride of “East Bound and Down fame”. Then the gang and I got sidetracked discussing the current state of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

Posted on

First Workout of 2015

I completed a fairly intense workout to start the year off. I did 7.5 miles on the elliptical and followed it up with 30 minutes of bag work, rope jumping, and stretching/yoga. My only resolutions for the New Year are to just keep moving and to remove as much negativity from my life as possible.

Posted on

New York Cine Radio: East Bound and Down and UFC talk

1280-eastbound-and-down-season-3

I was fortunate enough to start the year off right with the team over at New York Cine Radio. The gang and I sat down and talked about Danny McBride’s East Bound and Down which Tom binged watched over the weekend. Ken and I sparred a bit over our impressions of James Franco’s and Seth Rogen’s controversial movie, “The Interview”. And finally our conversation took a weird turn as we veered into talking about Joe Rogan and Continue reading “New York Cine Radio: East Bound and Down and UFC talk”

Posted on

Super Power Beat Down: Batman vs Darth Vader

I am probably the world’s biggest Batman fan so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I didn’t agree with the outcome of the most recent Super Power Beat Down fan film pitting the Dark Knight against the Dark Lord of the Sith.  However one of the things that really ticked me off was how good the production was for the film. I was visually stunning. It was probably the best fan-film I have seen since Batman: Deadend.

One of the problems that I had with the video is that Bats had plans to the Death Star and the location of a lightsaber, but didn’t come up with a contingency plan on how to disrupt Vader’s force abilities. Keep in mind that this is a man so paranoid that during the JLA: Tower of Babel (or Justice League: Doom movie) storyline Batman developed contingency for neutralizing his closest allies in the Justice League. In the Vader scenario, Continue reading “Super Power Beat Down: Batman vs Darth Vader”

Posted on

No more excuses

1005012_10202353511177810_809184983_n

The other day I was talking to my old martial arts instructor, Kyoshi Giles, and musing over the fact that only fellow martial artists seem to understand how getting together with close friends to punch, kick, and stab one another over and over can be a beautiful thing. The camaraderie that can be developed by working out with other like minded individuals is not only fun, but also uplifting. I bring all this up because I had just returned from an early morning knife fighting class at the Krav Maga Federation and was feeling pretty good about getting back into the swing of training on a regular basis.

Over the past year or so I had made a number Continue reading “No more excuses”

Posted on

Straight out of a comic book!

305039_283407625098542_682707433_n

When I was a young child growing up in Harlem there were very few people that looked like me in the media. And when they were people that looked like me presented in the movies, or on the small screen, they were almost always portrayed as unintelligent or docile. This is the rare exceptions to these rules made a seismic impact on me and many other impressionable black children. Yesterday I saw that one of my earliest heroes as a child, James Milton Kelly, had passed away at the age of 67. He was better known to the world as Jim “The Dragon” Kelly and was one of the prominent stars of the 1970s martials arts and Blaxploitation film era.

Jim Kelly was a martial arts legend to many of the brothers that I grew up around. He inspired many of us to start training in the martial arts just as much as Bruce Lee, and maybe more in certain ways. Being a young Continue reading “Straight out of a comic book!”

Posted on

RIP Aaron Banks

21223_10151331921035771_1389815970_n

This is sad news for the martial arts community. Master Banks was a very popular figure in the NYC martial arts scene during the seventies. He helped to pioneer the dissemination of the martial arts by helping to promote the “Oriental World of Self-defense” shows that packed Madison Square Garden during that time. I remember meeting Aaron Banks back in 1973 as my father was signing me up for my first martial arts class. This must have been only a few weeks after Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” premiered in the US. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but in NYC, that movie had kids dragging their fathers to any establishment that offered instruction in the martial arts. Unfortunately for my father, he was no different.

Aaron Banks was sitting at the front desk as my father and I walked in to Continue reading “RIP Aaron Banks”