Archive for June, 2008

Wanted

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Take one part THE MATRIX, one part FIGHT CLUB, two parts THE MATRIX, one part EQUILIBRIUM (one part THE MATRIX, one part straight to video), and one part THE MATRIX, but not as good, and you have the new motion picture WANTED. James Macavoy (the British Zach Braff) plays an unhappy office drone who out of the blue has his world turned upside down when a super hot asskicking gun babe in leather tells him he’s destined to be a super warrior and whisks him off to a secret organization of gun-obsessed rebels who teach him how to bend reality, do super gun tricks and martial arts in various showoffy camera-rotating slo-mo special effects action sequences, killing enemies without feeling bad because they have complete faith in the righteousness of their mission.
But there’s no computer world involved so on second thought this is not at all like THE MATRIX in any way. I doubt these filmatists even know about THE MATRIX. This is probaly one of those “yeah, people told me afterwards it was like THE MATRIX, but honestly I never heard of it, it’s just a weird coincidence” type deals. Plus Morgan Freeman plays Morpheus instead of Laurence Fishburne. Totally different. 100% new and original creation.

Okay, I have to admit that I somewhat enjoyed this dumb ass movie, but I think I’m still within my rights as an action fan to bust its movie balls, because there are rules. Once again I must refer to my “action movies are like the blues” comparison. In the blues there are traditions, there are standards, you don’t have to be shockingly original, you can follow a traditional sound and then put your own spin on it, express yourself from within that framework. But you don’t blatantly copy one specific person’s unique style. You don’t copy Jimi Hendrix’s approach to blues, for example, or if Muddy Waters’ ‘Electric Mud’ had caught on you would’ve looked like an asshole if all the sudden you came out with your acid rock blues album.

In an action movie there are books and books worth of cliches that are open for the taking. But when a specific movie comes along and is really original, or has a big impact, you look pathetic when you imitate it. When the Wachowski brothers made THE MATRIX it was cool, because nobody had made THE MATRIX before. When you’re the fourth or fifth guy to make THE MATRIX it’s not as cool. Plus THE MATRIX had this subtext to it with this rebellious response to modern life. WANTED tries to do the same thing by hollowly aping FIGHT CLUB and OFFICE SPACE without feeling as sincere or authentic. It comes across more like “Hey, you kids like this nihilistic stuff right? Me too! Do you want to come over to my apartment and play videogames? I’ll let you smoke. Don’t tell your mom.” (more…)

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In the Line of Fire

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

Here’s a movie not directed by Clint Eastwood (it’s Wolfgang Peterson, the DAS BOOT guy) but like alot of his directorial works of the past 20 years it deals with him getting old. Clint plays a Secret Service agent named Frank Horrigan. He’s still working but he’s washed up – he was there when JFK got shot and is still haunted by his failure. After that he became a huge asshole, he started drinking and his wife and daughter left. But this is Clint we’re talking about so we still like him, and also he plays jazz piano.

This is a good example of those ’90s big budget studio action thrillers along the lines of EXECUTIVE DECISION and DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE, movies that depict the workings of a city and its various departments as they respond to an emergency. In this case it’s the Secret Service responding to a threat against the president. We see Clint and his new partner (Dylan McDermott, or possibly Dermot Mulrooney – I don’t know which is which so if it’s important to you check IMDb) making their rounds, so first they have to shoot some guys over counterfeit money, then they have to check out a report of “some weirdo.” It just so happens that this is the one in a thousand of those calls that really is a dude planning to kill the president. He’s not home but he sees Clint in his apartment from afar and the game begins.

If you can rent this without knowing who plays the villain then you should go ahead and do that right now. I’ll wait. But most of you already know that the villain is played by former WWF superstar Jake “The Snake” Roberts in a career-defining role. Actually that’s not true, that was a spoiler buffer, it’s actually John Malkovich. He’s a challenge for Clint because he’s real devious and smart. He hand makes his own metal-free zip gun and sets up a false identity to get into campaign rallies. He’s a master of disguise. He finds a way to scramble his phone line so he can call Clint untraced and taunt him about things he read about him in magazines, or to pretend like he thinks they’re buddies. (more…)

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The Enforcer

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

In the third Dirty Harry picture Inspector Callahan has become some sort of an enforcer, a guy who travels around enforcing things. Alot of people tend to dismiss the series after MAGNUM FORCE, and it’s true that this one isn’t as good as the two before it, but I gotta admit I like it.

Alot of the goofiest shit from ’70s and ’80s cop movies, the cliches that get made fun of all the time, might be traced directly to this movie. This is definitely a prime example of the cartoonishly out of line bureaucrats in the police headquarters who demand the police “clean up the streets” but get mad at them when they do. “I didn’t say to use violence.” It’s got the scene where he gets suspended and has to give back his badge, which is memorable because Harry calls it a “seven point suppository… you heard me, stick it up your ass!” And the opening section of the movie is about him driving around encountering different police situations unrelated to the plot just so they can show the funny/abrasive way he deals with criminals, like the guy supposedly having a heart attack in a restaurant who he kicks and tells to get up or the liquor store hostage-takers who demand a car, so he “gives it to them” by driving through the front of the liquor store. (Of course followed by a scene where the aforementioned bureaucrat yells at him with a tally of all the damage done.)

At first it looks like the politics of the series are gonna swing back hard to the right after the unexpected “you know what, maybe it’s not okay for cops to just execute criminals” questioning of MAGNUM FORCE. The villains are the People’s Revolutionary Strike Force, who seem to be some kind of SLA or Weather Underground type leftist extremist group led by a disgruntled Vietnam vet. The bureaucrats tell Harry that “the minority community” won’t stand for police brutality and we’re obviously supposed to consider that an unreasonable demand. And when the police force wants to start promoting women Harry gives voice to all the chauvinist concerns about how they might get their partner killed because they don’t know how to handle themselves. His opposition is an uptight middle aged scold of a feminist with hair and glasses like a librarian. (more…)

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6/16/08

Monday, June 16th, 2008

You know what, it’s no HULK, but I’d say THE INCREDIBLE HULK probaly is worth writing home about.

Dear Mother and Father,

This season has been a struggle and has dealt us many blows. In May my two youngest succumbed to the scarlet fever. But the Lord heard our prayers. Some of the neighbor boys helped out and most of our crops were salvaged. Also I thought THE INCREDIBLE HULK was pretty good. Not great, but worth watching anyway. Hope to see you at the reunion.

Sincerely, Vern.

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The Incredible Hulk

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Listen up Hulkamaniacs -

This new Hulk remake/sequel/do-over/all new adventure starts out with an opening credits montage of flashbacks and headlines to explain his Incredible origin. It’s like the opening to a TV show, setting up what you need to know. So I’m gonna do a TV show opening for this review to: I don’t know the comic strips, vaguely remember the TV show, still love the Ang Lee movie no matter what you say, but was open to and kind of excited about the notion of the goofball director of fucking TRANSPORTER 2 taking over to do the flip side of that coin.

But I got a little worried when I read that Edward Norton had rewritten the script. Uh oh. That means he thinks he’s making the serious Hulk movie. Did he not know about the Ang Lee one? I think he did, because I read that he turned it down. I guess he regretted that maybe. It’s true, Louis Letterier is not in TRANSPORTER 2 mode here. He’s more in DANNY THE DOG aka UNLEASHED mode: a movie with elements of crazy action fun, but that is trying really hard to be a serious drama.

And I didn’t see this coming, but it actually has the same weird story problem that UNLEASHED had: what the hero wants is diametrically opposed to what the audience wants. In UNLEASHED Jet Li played a martial arts expert who was raised as a dog by Bob Hoskins (long story). He wore a collar but whenever it came off him he was mentally programmed to go ape shit and beat the holy living fuck out of anybody in his path. (again, long story.) And then the movie is about how he sort of finds a new family and changes his life and learns to not beat the shit out of everybody when the collar comes off. And it’s kind of sweet and Jet Li gets to do way more acting than almost any other movie he’s been in. (more…)

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The Happening

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

Okay, you guys were right. I’ve been defending M. Night Shyamalan as a talented director based on how he moved the camera around in THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE. I didn’t like SIGNS as much, but alot of it worked. I didn’t see THE VILLAGE, which may have strengthened my argument through the ancient technique of “denial.” And LADY IN THE WATER was a hilarious disaster, which means he’s at least interesting even when he’s embarrassing himself and all of his ancestors and descendants and anyone who has ever known him or seen one of his movies.

But after this one I’m with you guys, I give up on Shyamalan. And it has nothing to do with twist endings (there isn’t one in this movie). This is just a bad movie that blows it from the beginning and gets more silly as it goes along, and there isn’t even much of the technical skill he used to display to make up for it.

The movie (loosely based on WHAT’S HAPPENING? I believe) is about a day when all the sudden everybody in Central Park just snaps and commits suicide. It’s assumed to be caused by a terrorist attack, but then it starts happening at other places, and not just in major cities. The story follows science teacher Mark Wahlberg and his wife Zooey Deschanel as they try to find somewhere safe to go, etc.

It’s a scary idea with some creepy death sequences and you’d think the Shyamalan of those two Bruce Willis movies would be able to make it, as they say on the covers of DVDs, “Scary as hell.” But to me the movie never, even at the beginning, feels real. The opening is kind of like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, two great movies to emulate. Except in this one, instead of taking a little time to establish everyday life before something odd starts happening, it takes about 3 sentences of conversation on a bench before everybody starts killing themselves. (more…)

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Magnum Force

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

DIRTY HARRY is probaly a better movie overall, but as far as sequels go I think MAGNUM FORCE is a work of genius, because it does two things.

ONE:

It does a good job of following the template of the original and delivering alot of what people liked about that one, for example the classic hot dog/bank robbery scene is replaced by a scene where he goes to get a hamburger at an airport cafe and ends up stopping a hijacking. You gotta love when he butts into the security pow wow at the airport, they tell him what’s going on, he asks “Can I make a suggestion?” and it cuts to him walking toward the plane wearing a pilot’s uniform. Classic!

I like to think Harry is still out there somewhere stopping crimes during lunch. On the other hand he deserves some peace, so I hope there is at least time to swallow his food first. The still chewing the food angle is what makes it so awesome, but I am not greedy. Harry Callahan has earned the right to finish his lunch.

The action in MAGNUM FORCE is real good. I especially like the motorcycle chase. There are lots of clever ideas like the big shooting competition which seems like it’s just there to show off the guns and have the cool visuals of shooting the wooden targets, but turns out to be an important element of Harry’s detective work that causes him to solve the case. And there are lots of funny lines and good character moments, like the way Harry seems so enamored of these guys who we already know are probaly the bad guys, and wants to put him on his team when he gets back to homicide. (more…)

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6/10/08

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

Guess what motherfuckers, today I’m a published author. If you missed my super rare self-published version of SEAGALOGY now you can finally stop regretting it and go pick up a copy of the Titan Books edition from your local independent bookseller, your monolithic chain store, maybe even your library if you’re poor.

In other words, my book “drops” today. I always wanted to say I had something about to “drop.” Also I got a really nice review over on Chud that validates all the work I put into it, makes me think most of what I was trying to accomplish with it might be successful. Y’all gonna make a motherfucker cry like at the end of BABE when he says “That’ll do pig.”

I’m very proud of this book, it is my masterwork so far, I hope it is the “Straight Outta Compton” of film criticism. And it’s gonna be a while before I figure out what exactly the “The Chronic” of film criticism is. So I may be promoting this thing a little more but I will try to stay conscious of the fact that some of you guys have got to be sick of hearing about god damn Seagal.

So to thank you for your patience here is a little review of DIRTY HARRY.

And if anybody reads the book please let me know what you think, outlawvern-at-hotmail-dot-com. Also tell your friends. Father’s Day is coming up. Not too early to stock up for Christmas either. You know how you always intend to start early, but then Thanksgiving comes and you forgot. That is why you should order 500 copies from Amazon right now. I’m trying to knock THE ART OF KUNG FU PANDA off the top movies/entertainment/genres sellers.

anyway thanks everybody

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Dirty Harry

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

Man, I’ve watched DIRTY HARRY so many times since I’ve been writing about movies, and it is clearly one of the classics of Badass Cinema (the Loose Canon, I recently decided it should be called. Get it it is a pun I believe.) But I just figured out that I never wrote a review of it. Weird.

This time I watched it on the occasion of buying the new DIRTY HARRY ULTIMATE COLLECTION box set, which totally made my day and I did feel lucky punk and it is so good it would blow your head clean off and is the most powerful box set in the world. That is not really puns but you know what’s going on there, I think you get it.

Anyway, I know I’m not talking to a bunch of rookies here so I’m not telling you anything you don’t know if I tell you this movie is awesome. Clint Eastwood is at his peak as far as just being a cool looking motherfucker, with his cocky hair do and his still handsome but already full of character early ’30s Clint face. There’s that shot when he’s eating the hot dog and just realizing that he’s gonna have to stop a bank robbery instead of finish lunch and he slowly turns around and it shows him in profile – you can tell that Don Siegel knew what a cool motherfucker he had in front of his camera there. The camera seems to be saying “holy shit, look at this guy!” Such an iconic profile. Put that fucker on the penny. Sorry Abe, you’re great, but look at this. I think you would agree.

That scene is one of my favorites, and obviously everybody in the world remembers that great “do you feel lucky” speech, but what I like best about it is definitely the hot dog. He foils a bank robbery while still chewing his hot dog. I do not know how you could be more casual about taking care of business. Maybe if he was wearing a bathrobe, or had curlers in his hair. Or was reading the newspaper, with bifocals. (more…)

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Monday, June 9th, 2008

MY SUMMER VACATION IN THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

or

AH, FUCK IT, LET’S GET THIS OUT IN THE OPEN: I LIKED INDIANA JONES AND THE LEGEND OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLS, AND I DON’T REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT EVERYBODY IS GRIPING ABOUT

Last July this thing happened called TRANSFORMERS. It was one of the biggest movies of that summer, but I thought it was a terrible one. My main problems were the characters, the story, the comedy, the action sequences, and (this is a first for me) especially the design of the characters. The CGI characters were so overcomplicated and indistinguishable from each other that they actually made Michael Bay’s notorious camera placement and editing beside the point, because even if it was two robots in front of a stationary camera in one continuous shot you still might not have any clue which one is which, what they’re doing or which direction they’re facing. That’s actually the biggest problem of many big problems in the movie and I’m pretty sure it’s a cinematic first – using the latest technology, Michael Bay invented a completely new way for a movie to suck. So I figured it was a bad, bad movie.

The internet begged to differ. As the writer of the only harshly negative TRANSFORMERS review on The Ain’t It Cool News I got my biggest and angriest talkback ever. They told me I went in expecting Hamlet or SCHINDLER’S LIST, this isn’t supposed to win Oscars (good, because it didn’t, not even for special effects) and what do I expect, it’s a big summer popcorn movie, it’s just supposed to have some explosions in parts, only some kind of snob would go in holding it to some type of standard of quality, fuck you you cocksucking faggot bitch, etc.

This was upsetting to me because actually I’m not a snob, I think you have me confused with somebody else. I’m Vern – remember, I wrote that book about Steven Seagal movies. I’m the dude who would seriously consider busting Wesley Snipes out of the joint if promised a greenlight for BLADE 4. I’m way more interested in PREDATOR than GONE WITH THE WIND. Summer popcorn movies and explosions are important to me and I couldn’t figure out why everybody had agreed on this fake story about how summer movies are supposed to suck and you have to like them no matter what and only an asshole doesn’t. I mean couldn’t you use that same argument for BATMAN AND ROBIN or LEAGUE OF THE EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN or etc.? Why aren’t you a snob for not liking those ones? Check your brain at the door, dude! Fun! Popcorn! (more…)

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