![]() ![]() Most reviews of his early Marvel movie are less than generous, but it’s hard to find a critic who didn’t acknowledge a certain charm to the way he prioritized the melodrama of a fight. If anyone could make peanuts seem like a five-course meal, it was Captain America director Albert Pyun, king of the bargain basement, a title that barely covers the Hawaii-born filmmaker’s massive influence on the B-movie genre over a five-decade-long career. Made in the wake of Tim Burton’s Batman, this adaptation of Captain America has a beam of pre-VFX action-filmmaking vision sneaking through the bargain-basement entertainment façade. There’s an alchemy to the way the gunfire lights up a running figure, to how a close-up gives way to a panorama of combat. ![]() The camera dynamically tracks his body as it crashes through flimsy sets and practical explosions, Salinger’s wooden smile masking the utter effort required to pull it all off. ![]() In scene after scene, Salinger heaves an oversize Frisbee of a shield (that wasn’t yet the centerpiece of a billion-dollar franchise), flying to retrieve the thing when it mystically boomerangs back and logrolling behind it when enemies start shooting. Salinger’s son, Matt Salinger, strapped on a skintight red, white, and blue suit, pulled a matching rubber mask over his eyes and head, and fought a leather-trench-coat-wearing villain styled to look as though a thousand red crayons had melted over his head. Read about the winners of the inaugural celebration of stunt professionals here. Photo: Cannon Films/Courtesy Everet CollectionĪlbert Pyun is the recipient of Vulture’s first ever Stunt Award: Lifetime Achievement. ![]()
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