Archive for February, 2008

American Gangster

Monday, February 18th, 2008

I haven’t been big on Ridley Scott post-ALIEN, but when I saw he was doing the real-life gangster epic starring Denzel Washington – the one I already wanted to see when it was Antoine Fuqua that was supposed to direct it – man, I was excited. And the trailer looked great. And then it came out and without exception everybody I knew who saw it said “yeah, it was… pretty good.” Suddenly there was less urgency to see it, and I watched other movies, wrote some stuff, maybe took some naps, ate some food, and then it was gone.

Well, maybe it was for the best. Now I watched it with lower expectations, in its 20-minutes-longer UNRATED EXTENDED CUT (4 minutes shy of 3 hours) and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I see your “yeah, it was… pretty good” and raise you a “it was… pretty fuckin good.” I am proud to review it alongside such other great American films as AMERICAN PIMP, AMERICAN PSYCHO and AMERICAN NINJA.

In the opening, Harlem’s top gangster and folk hero Bumpy Johnson dies. Frank Lucas (Denzel) has been Bumpy’s driver for years, and takes over his operations, but nobody expects much from him. So nobody really knows what’s going on when he has this brilliant idea: hearing about all the soldiers strung out on heroin in Vietnam, he decides to go there to get dope straight from the source. He uses his connections within the army to use military planes to smuggle it in completely pure. Back home he has an operation to cut it up but makes sure his is twice as strong as the competition, for half the price. And he stamps a name on it: Blue Magic. “That’s a brand name, like Pepsi.”

Meanwhile, there’s this other story about a cop, Richie Roberts, played by Russell Crowe. He’s a tough guy, but a small timer, his life a mess. He’s in the middle of a divorce, he’s trying to get a law degree but having a hard time of it, he gets bit by Kevin Corrigan (a character actor who pops up in everything from GOODFELLAS to THE DEPARTED to SUPERBAD). Him and his partner are trying to bust a bookie, they open his trunk to try to get his slips, and they find a million unmarked dollars in grocery bags. So they turn it in. (more…)

2 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | 3 Comments »

Be Kind Rewind

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

You might know the premise. Mos Def works at an all VHS video store. Jack Black is magnetized (long story). (No, come to think of it, short story. He climbs into a power plant and gets shocked.) Jack Black’s brain erases all of the videos in the store, and Mia Farrow demands to watch GHOSTBUSTERS. So they dress up, go to the library and tape their own ridiculous home-made version of GHOSTBUSTERS directly onto the tape. Because they don’t want Danny Glover to know they fucked up. And it goes on from there.

The style of BE KIND REWIND is in the spirit of the subject matter. It’s real sloppy and cheap and mostly seems unscripted. But like Mia Farrow says of their crappy home-made remakes, this movie “has heart.”

I’ve enjoyed all of Michel Gondry’s movies including HUMAN NATURE. I don’t care if I was uncomfortable from laughing way more than everybody else in the theater, I still love that movie. The Charlie Kaufman-less Gondry is alot sweeter and more lighthearted, and BE KIND REWIND is his version of a cheesy lowbrow comedy. It’s not meticulously designed like his other ones, it’s more off the cuff. I think making DAVE CHAPPELLE’S BLOCK PARTY must’ve inspired him to do one that’s more spontaneous and is about creativity and community, and has Mos Def in it. (And I think he tried to get Chappelle for that role first.)

I would not recommend BE KIND REWIND to your more jaded talkbackers, or anybody who hates Jack Black, or who demands logic or realism in comedies. I’m not in those categories but I still think it’s Gondry’s weakest. The trailer already gave away most of the plot and the highlights of most of the movies they make. That’s not to say there’s not other good shit in there, though. Mos Def’s surprisingly successful tactic for imitating Chris Tucker in RUSH HOUR 2 is mostly to just say “Lee! Lee!” And I love when he timidly tries to explain that he doesn’t want to do DRIVING MISS DAISY because it’s “a little condescending.” And later when Danny Glover has to explain to Jack Black why he can’t wear black face. (more…)

2 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags:
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »

80 Blocks from Tiffany’s

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

This review might as well be part of an ongoing FOR GOD’S SAKE, SOMEBODY PUT THIS OUT ON DVD series. I found it for rent on VHS and before I was even done watching it I was so impressed I stopped it and went online to see if I could order a used copy. There was exactly one on half.com, but for $60. Only one copy on ebay, and it was $100. So most of you will have to see it some day in the future if it’s ever released on DVD, or chopped up into little files on youtube or something. But it will be worth it.

80 BLOCKS FROM TIFFANY’S is an amazing 1979 documentary about New York Street gangs The Savage Skulls and The Savage Nomads. I read somebody claiming somewhere that it was an influence on THE WARRIORS, and I believe it. It made me realize that as exaggerated as that movie was, it wasn’t as exaggerated as I thought. These are gangs who wear Nazi storm trooper helmets in public. There’s a guy with a cowboy hat and a bright red bandana over his face. They have names like Comanche, Fly and Crazy Joe. You see them practicing high-flying karate kicks, climbing up the side of buildings, jumping from fire escapes.
There’s a couple funny re-enactments showing how they steal TVs from apartments and hijack shipments from delivery trucks.

But mostly it’s just a movie where they leave the camera running for a long time and let these guys talk. In one or two spots it can get tedious as it illustrates the type of shit they are obsessed with (it wasn’t fair that we got arrested that one time, we didn’t do anything), but other times it’s great that the filmatists just let the film keep running. My favorite scene is where two guys have a long negotiation about the fight they plan to have. The bigger guy wants to fight now but the smaller guy refuses because his leg is hurt. The bigger guy promises not to hit the injured leg, but the smaller guy says he needs it “to dance around.” Then the big guy offers to wrap a belt around his legs to make the fight fair, but the small guy thinks that would be unfair to the big guy. They agree to have the fight two Fridays from now, after quibbling about whether or not that means the last Friday of this month. After the scene cuts we learn that their fight was punishment for the small guy allegedly trying to keep people’s change after going to buy food for them. (He swears he didn’t, and that he even showed them the receipts.) (more…)

2 people like this post.
Unlike

Posted in Documentary, Reviews | 3 Comments »

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Well, Michael Bay is going down the list of everything he can do to ruin the quality of my life. Destroy the language of action cinema – check. Produce a horrible remake of one of my all time favorite movies – check. Make one of the most moronic event movies ever imagined and convince most of America that’s the best you can expect from a “summer popcorn movie” – check. He also personally re-elected Bush, in my opinion, and invited all the yelling party kids to hang out outside my apartment every night after the bars close. So he’s pretty much set everything on fire already but just to add insult to injury he’s circling back to pee on my rose garden by having his rat fucking, no-account production company Platinum Dunes “relaunch” both Jason AND Freddy. And maybe I’m in a small faction here but I was patiently awaiting the JASON VS. FREDDY 2 they’ve been trying to get off the ground for a while and was not aware that those two troublemakers had been sent back to the docks yet.

So as much as I believe in forgiveness and second chances, I’m pretty sure I will hate this soul-less cokehead asswipe for all his days, even if he prevents world war 3 (unlikely) or gives all his Lamborghinis to charity (way more unlikely). But on the positive side he has so far failed to erase the existence of the movies he is working hard to destroy the legacy of. So to celebrate the silver lining on this toxic cloud I think I’m gonna go back and watch and review all the original NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies. Take that, Michael Bay. Game, set and match, motherfucker.

When people think of ELM STREET they usually think of wisecracking Freddy, making puns and calling women bitches. (Not only is he a child killer, he’s disrespectful to women.) You think of all those teens who have one hobby or fear and then they fall asleep and have an elaborate dream where that hobby or fear turns into their ironic death. So if they’re into comic books they will be killed by Super Freddy, if they’re afraid of bugs they’ll be turned into a roach and stuck in a roach motel. If Freddy haunted Michael Bay I guess he’d dream about driving around in his Lamborghini getting a blowjob but all the sudden the hooker turns into Freddy. Freddy sucks Michael Bay (played by Peter Horton) in through his mouth and shits out an animated film loop with Michael Bay’s head on it. The film screams “Noooo!” in a high–pitched voice as Freddy puts it into an old fashioned movieola with red and green stripes painted on it. Then he starts chopping the shit out of the film with his finger-knives and makes some quip about quick cuts making a scene more exciting. (more…)

2 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: ,
Posted in Horror, Reviews | No Comments »

Exterminator 2

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

The Vietnam Vet turned psychotic New York criminal assassinator is back, and still played by Robert Ginty, but now directed by part 1 producer Mark Buntzman. I was impressed that part 1’s very first shot was the hero flying away from a fiery explosion. No studio logos, even. Part 2 starts with the Cannon Films logo, but the opening shot is a good one: The Exterminator stepping out into an alley wearing a welding mask, he sprays his blowtorch into the camera and the title appears in the fire.

I didn’t enjoy part 2 nearly as much as part 1, but some bad movie aficianados may like it better. Part 1 is clumsy and raw, but part 2 is just cheesy and stupid. But it’s way more ridiculous. This time there’s no cop character, there’s just The Exterminator going around like a masked slasher killing criminals. In the first one I think he used a welding torch for a little American style perfecly legal and ethical interrogation techniques. In this one they act like a welding mask is his Jason mask and a blowtorch is his Freddy glove. The creepy part is he only appears after they’ve committed crimes, and it’s even said “it’s like he was waiting for us.” So you wonder why he doesn’t intervene before some gangsters murder an innocent elderly couple. Instead he just waits outside so he can light them on fire after they’re done. (Trivia: One of the first guys he lights on fire is played by Reggie Rock Bythewood, writer of GET ON THE BUS, director of BIKER BOYZ.)

Then when he’s in his daily life the movie just acts like he’s a great guy, and not crazy. Not even a little tormented. He doesn’t seem to have a job anymore. Not sure how he pays for his blowtorch fuel. (more…)

Unlike

Tags:
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »

The Exterminator

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

THE EXTERMINATOR is a crude but enjoyable vigilante action movie from 1980. It’s kind of in the vein of ROLLING THUNDER but closer to the quality level of THE PARK IS MINE. Robert Ginty plays a troubled Vietnam vet whose best friend (Steve James, more on him later) gets paralyzed by a gang so he kills them in revenge, then decides to declare himself The Exterminator and go murder various criminals. Now that I think about it this is actually in the vein of THE PUNISHER (either version), but it came before those movies.

You know this movie means business when the very first shot is the main character being tossed through the air by a huge explosion. There’s not even a studio logo before that, that is the very first shot. It starts out with a gruesome battle in Vietnam that explains why a dude would be troubled enough to become The Exterminator. There’s a very realistic and disturbing beheading in this scene. Stan Winston was one of the effects guys. It’s one of those action movie paradoxes because on one hand these things are what torments the main character, they are what cause him to go crazy and what he flashes back to when he’s murdering criminals. But on the other hand we think they are awesome. We want to see explosions and beheadings. As viewers, what’s worst for him is best for us. We are cruel gods.

(Not so, by the way, in most horror movies. In horror movies if they’re working you are hoping the person gets away. I mean how many beloved horror movies can you think of that show very little violence? HALLOWEEN, TEXAS CHAIN SAW, and many earlier classics. There are many. But an action movie is not an action movie if it doesn’t show the action. That makes it a drama. I don’t know why these “torture porn” people aren’t up in arms about action movies. I guess we’ll have to wait until they start making good ones again, then they’ll go after them.) (more…)

Only 1 person likes this post. Kinda sad.
Unlike

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 6 Comments »

Diary of the Dead

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

Dear diary,

I saw George Romero’s new movie DIARY OF THE DEAD. It’s basically “NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD meets BLAIR WITCH PROJECT” or “CLOVERFIELD with zombies” or “CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST – cannibal + zombies but not ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST.” It’s not a sequel to the living dead movies but kind of a do-over with the zombie plague beginning in the present day and depicted in documentary form. Some film students are working on a crappy mummy movie (come on George, this is 2008, only Rob Cohen makes mummy movies) when they start hearing news about the dead coming back to life, and their director is compelled to keep filming. We’re told at the beginning of the movie that his footage was edited by another character along with clips they downloaded from youtube, some news and security cam footage. Also she admits that she added music. And, I’m afraid, she narrates it.

I feel bad saying this but since nobody is reading this and it’s only a diary I will come out and say it: this movie isn’t very good. I enjoyed watching it and will list many of the good things about it right here on these pages, in the interest of balance. And in case Harry reads this because he got real mad at Quint for not liking it and I pretty much agree with everything in Quint’s review. But in my deepest, most personal secret opinion this is a failed experiment for old George.

This is Romero back doing low budget independent movies, but it looks real nice. Especially in the parts that show the larger world outside of the documentary, the clips from the news and youtube where there is total chaos going on, cars crashing into each other, zombies hanging on nooses from freeway overpasses, and various madness. In NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD the characters were constantly trying to listen to news reports to get some kind of information about what’s going on. In DIARY we see news reports (sometimes edited to hide the truth), we hear talk radio, CBs, all kinds of communication. All those different fuzzy broadcasts add a realistic texture to the movie and I think Romero is right that if something like this were to happen now (God forbid, because I bet it would be a huge pain the ass) the young people would in fact be the ones spreading information about what’s going on. Because they have all their god damn cell phones and little handheld video games and all that stupid shit they always play with, and they spell worse than me because they write in some kind of moronic gibberish from writing on phones and they also wear their pants too tight now and wear those white belts and they look almost as stupid as their older brothers did wearing those giant clown pants. (more…)

Unlike

Tags: , ,
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »

Rio Bravo

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

Recently a reader named David Lambert sent me a very accurate email:

“…I’ve loved your site for almost a decade now, but my one complaint is the almost complete lack of reviews for Westerns.

The Western is the most bad-ass genre out there and it’s a huge hole in your ‘reviewography.’

How can a guy calling himself ‘Outlaw’ Vern not represent the genre that the term ‘outlaw’ comes from?”

You got me, David. I knew he was right so I pledged to “at least review RIO BRAVO or something,” and he gave me a variety of other suggestions that could come in handy if I am to strive for this particular type of excellence.

You guys probaly all saw it already but just in case: RIO BRAVO is Howard Hawks’s 1959, 2 hour and 40 minute “last great western.” The opening 5 minutes or so is done with no dialogue, but with musical cues any time somebody gets punched or shot, so it kind of seems like a musical pantomime or something. It’s goofy but it’s a great opening because it establishes the basics about the three main characters. First you got Dean Martin as Dude, a pathetic unshaven drunk trying to get a drink at the saloon. Then you have Claude Akins as Joe Burdette, the asshole who throws a coin into the spittoon so that poor Dude will have to reach into a pound of spit if he wants his drink. And then John Wayne as Sheriff John T. Chance, who kicks over the spittoon before Dude reaches in, to save him some dignity.

The first shot of John Wayne is looking up at him from the ground, so even though this is a traditional western and not as gritty as the revisionist ones I prefer, you are definitely gonna get some badass in here. The spittoon incident turns into a fight. Chance gets in Burdette’s face, Dude hits Chance over the head with a board, Burdette is gonna shoot Dude, but some dude tries to calm him down so he shoots that guy instead. Then he goes to another bar. (more…)

Only 1 person likes this post. Kinda sad.
Unlike

Tags: , ,
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Romance, Western | No Comments »

Page 2 of 212