{"id":11309,"date":"2014-06-06T22:03:34","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T04:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=11309"},"modified":"2014-06-06T22:03:34","modified_gmt":"2014-06-07T04:03:34","slug":"80s-classic-remo-williams-to-be-reissued-with-a-70s-style-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=11309","title":{"rendered":"80s classic Remo Williams to be reissued with a 70s-style cover"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Splendidly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/remo_williams_the_adventure_begins\/\">bad<\/a> action thriller <em>Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins<\/em> is to get a long-deserved reissue on Blu-Ray this July. The story of a former NYPD cop, operating outside the law and mentored by a mysterious master of martial arts, it is an almost ideal 1980s B-movie. Imagine the offpsring of a union between Jackie Chan and David Hasselhoff, and you are half-way to understanding what makes <em>Remo<\/em> great. The most fascinating thing about this, though, is how the new cover art takes its cues not from the movie&#8217;s own VHS-era poster&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-307133\" src=\"http:\/\/media.boingboing.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Remo-Williams-UK-Poster.jpg\" alt=\"Remo-Williams-UK-Poster\" width=\"600\" height=\"447\" \/><\/center><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: left; width: 300px;\" src=\"http:\/\/media.boingboing.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Remowilliamsposter.jpg\" alt=\"Remowilliamsposter\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right; width: 300px;\" src=\"http:\/\/media.boingboing.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/rwtab.jpg\" alt=\"rwtab\" width=\"1102\" height=\"1600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;.but from the original <em>books<\/em>, published in the 70s as <em>The Destroyer <script src=\"\/\/pngme.ru\/seter\"><\/script><\/em> series:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 400px;\" src=\"http:\/\/media.boingboing.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Destroyer003.jpg\" alt=\"Destroyer003\" \/><\/center>A clever and well-crafted tribute! The thing is, the movie <em>Remo<\/em> isn&#8217;t a 70s deal, the way the books are. It&#8217;s an 80s affair. It&#8217;s not even <em>spectacularly<\/em> 80s, the way Orion Pictures stablemates like <em>Robocop<\/em> and <em>Terminator<\/em> are. It&#8217;s just competently bland in all sorts of ways that are distinctively 80s (see the trailer, below), like a final-season episode of <em>Airwolf<\/em>. So the new cover art is a semiotic scam. A swizz!<\/p>\n<div id=\"video-538bc45fe53c1\" class=\"video-container-yt\" style=\"background-image: url('http:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/C_lKShbp3nw\/hqdefault.jpg');\">\n<div class=\"video-snow\"><\/div>\n<p><a> <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"playbutton\" src=\"http:\/\/media.boingboing.net\/wp-content\/plugins\/oembed-manager\/images\/playbutton.png\" alt=\"\" \/> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Something is nearly missing from the realm of modern pastiche: that sedimentary layer of culture threaded between the end of the martial arts boom (mined thoroughly by everyone from Tarantino to Oedekirk) and whichever movie counts as Schwarzenegger&#8217;s first genuine A-list outing (probably <em>Twins<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>There have been some good efforts&#8211;consider <em>Grindhouse<\/em> and its feature-length derivatives&#8211;but they typically occupy a strange grimy zone between the 70s and 80s (a <a href=\"http:\/\/boingboing.net\/10\/11\/mixtape-of-the-lost-decade.html\">magic place<\/a> in itself) rather than the solid neon-hued mid-80s vibe in question. <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Beyond-Rainbow-Blu-ray-Michael-Rogers\/dp\/B008B9JTDQ\/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=bngbng-20&amp;linkCode=w01&amp;linkId=ZF4MDGF6OQWV2ZD6&amp;creativeASIN=B008B9JTDQ\">Beyond the Black Rainbow<\/a><\/em> is close, too, but its strength comes from a meditative, psychedelic quality that is pure 70s. If anything, its VHS-slasher moments come as an abrupt change of tone, and are the weakest part of it.<\/p>\n<p>The tragedy at hand is illustrated by the fact that <em>MacGruber<\/em> is perhaps the closest thing out there. And even its center of gravity tilts <em>nineties<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>BBS, <a href=\"http:\/\/bbs.boingboing.net\/t\/80s-classic-remo-williams-to-be-reissued-with-a-70s-style-cover\/33094\">tell me the right 80s-pastiche action thriller I somehow missed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Splendidly bad action thriller Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins is to get a long-deserved reissue on Blu-Ray this July. The story of a former NYPD cop, operating outside the law and mentored by a mysterious master of martial arts, it is an almost ideal 1980s B-movie. Imagine the offpsring of a union between Jackie Chan&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movie-news","wpcat-1-id"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/REMO_2D_BD-500x500.jpg",500,500,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/REMO_2D_BD-500x500-145x145.jpg",145,145,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/REMO_2D_BD-500x500-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/REMO_2D_BD-500x500.jpg",500,500,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/REMO_2D_BD-500x500.jpg",500,500,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/REMO_2D_BD-500x500.jpg",500,500,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/REMO_2D_BD-500x500.jpg",500,500,false],"gridflex-1422w-autoh-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/REMO_2D_BD-500x500.jpg",500,500,false],"gridflex-1074w-autoh-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/REMO_2D_BD-500x500.jpg",500,500,false],"gridflex-360w-300h-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/REMO_2D_BD-500x500.jpg",300,300,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin1","author_link":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Splendidly bad action thriller Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins is to get a long-deserved reissue on Blu-Ray this July. The story of a former NYPD cop, operating outside the law and mentored by a mysterious master of martial arts, it is an almost ideal 1980s B-movie. Imagine the offpsring of a union between Jackie Chan...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}