Friends, I don’t know if any of you are with me on this one, but just humor me for a minute and pour one on the curb for the video store. There are still plenty of them holding on and struggling, but the vultures are circling. More and more people prefer the instant gratification of download on demand or the not even close to instant gratification of ordering movies on a fucking websight and then waiting around for them to show up at some later date in your mailbox and then you will leave them sitting on your coffee table for two weeks and then remember that you got it and then watch part of it and send it back. But in my day, and still to this day, there was another part of the equation, the browsing. The hunt.
And it is only through this forgotten activity that you can have an experience like this one. You’re looking through the action section, trying to decide what you should watch:
I’ve seen alot of these. Not interested in a lot of these. Why is that one in the action section? I guess I’m not sure what section you would put it in. Oh, I forgot they did a remake of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13. That wasn’t very good. MR. AND MRS. SMITH? I never did see that one. Looked kind of good. Everybody said it was bad though. But there was that shot in the trailer, she was rapelling down the building and she had garters on, maybe I should– (read the rest of this shit…)
If you’ve seen anything by David Mamet then you know it’s kind of surprising (and awesome) that his new movie is about Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I even heard rumors that it was a straight ahead kickboxing movie like BLOODSPORT, and when the opening credits had Japanese drums like Christopher Lambert’s THE HUNTED I was about ready for the rebirth of action cinema. But this is really not an action movie. Anyone who goes in looking for that might be disappointed like the guy who wanted his money back when I saw GHOST DOG. Maybe not quite as much – there’s not alot of poetic shots of birds flying or long scenes of dudes driving around quietly contemplating. But this is not BEST OF THE BEST 2008, it’s definitely a David Mamet movie. Slowly unfolding plot that could go in any direction, narrative that respects the audience enough not to spell everything out for them, an intricate con, macho dialogue, magic tricks, Ricky Jay, Joe Mantegna, Mamet’s wife, songs by Mamet’s wife. I was hoping William H. Macey would show up as some retired kickboxing legend, but maybe next time.
The first and most important thing that must be said of THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE is that it has one of the most badass theme songs ever, and without even leaning on the crutch of wah wah guitar. A deep ominous BA-DUMP-BUMP-BUMP alternates with tension building horns and violins or something in a higher pitch… well, I’m dancing about architecture here but trust me, this theme song WILL kick your ass. The score is by David Shire, who strangely has done mostly TV movies but recently did ZODIAC. But it has that catchiness and strutting quality of the best Lalo Schifrin, like ENTER THE DRAGON or something, where after you see the movie you can’t help but walking around picturing it as your theme music.
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
Some individuals have been writing to me asking for me to “go on record” about Wesley Snipes getting sentenced to three years for not filing his tax returns. I don’t know, man. It seems to me like a bullshit sentence. You can skip down a couple paragraphs to get to BOILING POINT but I’ll say a few things here by request.
CHOPPER came out in 2000 and in the 8 years since I don’t think I’ve seen too many characters or performances as good as Eric Bana playing Mark Brandon Read, whose friends call him Chopper and he calls himself Uncle Chop Chop. I never heard of him before the movie but he’s a real Australian criminal who became a celebrity writing his memoirs while he was locked up. And the movie’s based on some of those.
How do you do an Australian version of JAWS? You can’t have a killer koala. Maybe a rogue kangaroo that goes around punching people or stealing babies in its pouch. In 1984 these guys went with a huge fucking boar. And that would’ve been a great headline for a review if the movie was bad, but actually I really liked it.
I try to watch alot of DTV movies, but I don’t always succeed. Most of you have probaly never watched them, and you may assume that they are very good and enjoyable, and capable of adding meaning to one’s life. However, this is almost never the case. In the world of DTV filmmaking it seems pretty clear that nobody gives a shit. Most of them are trying to just reach 90 minutes and throw the shit on a shelf. You could argue that more effort goes into pornography, since some poor girl has to take it in the ass. That’s elbow grease.
For part 3 Michael Winner stripped DEATH WISH down to its crudest elements. There was nowhere further to go within. So for THE CRACKDOWN new director J. Lee Thompson (GUNS OF THE NAVARONE, the last two PLANET OF THE APES movies, THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, tons of other shit) dresses it back up again. You know this right away from the opening which contains suspense, mood, atmosphere, build, surprise, and symbolism, all forbidden by part 3’s strict DOGME style rules.
In any earth-shattering journey you’re gonna run into some unanswerable questions, some intractable dilemmas, some jokes without punchlines or words without letters. In my case I have encountered a catch-22 like you would expect to find primarily during time travel. On one hand, I have vowed to myself that if I see a movie with plans to write about it, but then I don’t feel like I have anything very interesting to say about it, then I won’t write a review. On the other hand I’ve vowed to myself to try to review every movie on the 
