• I cannot lie to you, Enthusiasts: I am not flourishing.
  • Outside is trying to kill me, and it does not sit well.
  • Outside and I were never tight.
  • Always preferred Inside, personally.
  • You can adjust the temperature, and there are fewer insects.
  • And maybe a pool table.
  • Very strange to find a pool table Outside.
  • But it wasn’t actively lethal.
  • One could venture out at one’s wont, perhaps for breakfast meats, or to wander aimlessly around a bookstore.
  • Outside was there, if you get my meaning.
  • It was like Hunter’s famous case of Retsina.
  • Its presence was more important than its use.
  • But now: poof.
  • No more Outside.
  • Full of monsters and poison and keyed-up fools.
  • So I am staying Inside, and it’s fucking getting to me.
  • For example: tonight’s double-feature.
  • Maybe–MAYBE–I could defend watching the first Under Siege.
  • But not the second one.
  • There’s no excuse for that choice.
  • Torrented it, too.
  • I broke the fucking law to watch Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.
  • It involved a train.
  • The first one involved a battleship, and it’s a superior film in every way.
  • For one, it stars Tommy Lee Jones as the bad guy instead of Eric Bogosian’s White Afro.
  • That’s a downgrade.
  • That’s reserving a Mustang and finding out there’s only a broken skateboard available.
  • The first Under Siege also contains this shot at the end, which is one of my favorite images from all of cinematic history:

  • Now, I was never in the Navy.
  • Nor any other branch of service.
  • But I’m almost positive you’re not allowed to wear friendship bracelets with your uniform.
  • The Navy’s really uptight about what clothes people wear.
  • There’s a whole book!
  • Again: I have no personal experience with service, but I know these things to be true.
  • You can’t wear your Molly Hatchet tee-shirt on duty.
  • Or your flippity-flops.
  • And you certainly can’t pair a pink friendship bracelet with your dress blues.
  • It’s literally why they call it a UNI-form.
  • Only one way to wear it right.
  • This is at the end of the movie, after Steven Seagal has murdered everyone.
  • Despite being only a cook.
  • (Steven Seagal is only a cook. He used to be a SEAL or something, but was disgraced or something, and so he’s available to murder all the bad guys. You don’t need to concern yourself with the details. I didn’t, and I watched the movies, so why should you? “Steven Seagal pretends to be a cook, but is in actuality Steven Seagal” is the elevator pitch. He does a lot of his murder with knives, though.)
  • The only reason I could recommend watching the second of the Under Siege bilogy is to see for yourself how lazy it is.
  • Bilogy is a word.
  • One less than a trilogy is a bilogy.
  • Sure, it’s an unpleasant word, but so is war, man.
  • Embrace the bilogy.
  • Anyway, the first one was directed by the same guy who did Air Force One and The Fugitive, and the second one was not.
  • Like, at all.
  • There’s a train, and an evil satellite, and–as I mentioned–Eric Bogosian’s White Afro.
  • And teenaged Katherine Heigl.
  • “GET AWAY FROM STEVEN SEAGAL, TEENAGED KATHERINE HEIGL!”
  • I yelled that at the screen during several scenes.
  • “THE WORST PLACE TO BE IS NEXT TO HIM!”
  • But Katherine Heigl’s a pro, and so she acquitted herself, I suppose.
  • At one point, she does something with a grenade, and you’re like “Way to go, Katherine Heigl. Knew you had it in you, sweetie.”
  • Hey, pal?
  • Mm?
  • Remember when this site was about the Grateful Dead?
  • It was such a long time ago.
  • There’s been some drift.
  • I’m going to continue discussing the Under Siege bilogy.
  • That is not a word.
  • Ignoring you.
  • The point I’m trying poorly to make is this: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is a far worse movie than Under Siege, and this makes it much better.
  • The first one is well shot, and acted, and they had a real battleship.
  • Which just illuminates what a piece of shit the film is.
  • You can’t steal a fucking battleship.
  • It’s just dumb.
  • And even if a battleship did get stolen, the Navy could fix the issue quickly.
  • It’s a boat!
  • Sink it!
  • PROBLEM SOLVED.
  • The second one, though, was all shot in a studio on a fake train surrounded by rear projectors and no gave any shits at all.
  • In the first film, the fight sequences are tight and well-choreographed affairs full of force and violence, and in the second Steven Seagal waves his hands lazily at his opponents, which makes them fling themselves off the train.
  • It’s kinda like he’s playing a theremin.
  • The motions are languid.
  • Or he just shoots them noncinematically.
  • The bad guy is standing there with his pistol.
  • Steven Seagal sneaks into the frame, grabs the guy’s hand, and makes him shoot himself.
  • And the action is somehow hollow.
  • Where is the joy, Steven Seagal?
  • Don’t shoot a guy that way, man.
  • It is literally the murder of least resistance.
  • You can do it, put your back into it.
  • Okay, let’s not do this again.
  • Watch this and forget any of this happened: