This is a movie where Ichabod from Sleepy Hollow teams up with a fat Mexican dude named Benicio Del Toro, and these two drive to Las Vegas on 700 different types of drugs to cover a motorcycle race for a magazine. I believe Bill Murray played this same Ichabod character back in the ’80s based on the real guy, Hunter S. Thompson who wrote the book.
Now as you know I’m sober as the Pope during Lent, but I can still appreciate a good drug movie at least as long as it’s this good. The filmatist behind this one, Terry Gilliam, creates a nightmare Las Vegas world where hallucinations of dripping floors and cocktail drinking lizards and nippled buffaloes becomes reality. And the real trip is in the last act of the picture when suddenly Ichabod wakes up in the most trashed hotel room of all time – it looks like a junkyard on top of a lagoon – and tries to remember what happened. All the sudden he has an alligator tail and he’s dictating to a tape recorder duct taped to his mouth. I mean I think we can all relate to that type of morning in my opinion.
The reason this picture works is because of the two actors, Ichabod and Benicio, who are both funny and crazy but likable. Well, at least Ichabod is likable. My favorite scene is when Benicio pulls a knife on some people in an elevator and later declares that the woman fell in love with him, he could tell by the eye contact. “It’s serious, man.” I mean these are two crazy motherfuckers, you can’t believe the shit they are doing, and it seems like they just don’t know how to be any other way. I like the part where Ichabod walks into a police convention and the movie does an x-ray number on his suitcase to remind us that it is filled with every illegal drug ever invented. (read the rest of this shit…)
January 1st, 2005 | 47 Comments »
There are many arbitrary ways to divide filmatists into two groups. Today I’m gonna separate out the ones who have an obvious vision/theme/style/obsession (good or bad) that can be seen throughout most of their works. For example you can look at your Alfred Hitchcock or your David Lynch or your Roger Vadim and you can usually tell who is responsible for this business. I mean even a Michael Bay or a Kevin Smithee, the lowest of the low, has a signature style. Or you can at least see what the dude was going for there.
Then in the other group we have the commercial or “hack” filmatist who goes from one project to the next just looking for something that might be successful, or that seems cinematic, or that might capture that fuckin zeitgeist thing the germans are always so interested in. Some of these guys might even be decent at the directation of films but they just don’t put that strong of a personal stamp on them. For example you got your John Badham (Saturday Night Fever, Dracula [1979], Short Circuit, Point of No Return) or your Randal Kleiser (Boy in the Plastic Bubble, Grease, The Blue Lagoon, Big Top Pee-Wee, Honey I Blew Up the Kid). Occasionally they make a good picture like Saturday Night Fever but you still have no idea what these clowns are trying to do artistic-wise. They’re just doing a job, like plumbing or washing windows or passing out pizza coupons and gum samples on the street corner. They punch the clock and then they go home.
I like Rob Cohen better than I like those individuals but I think he’s in the same category. He even produced three of John Badham’s movies. His best movie was DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY. That one’s about Bruce Lee. But he followed it up with crap like DRAGONHEART and DAYLIGHT. The ONLY thing these three pictures have in common is that they have the letter A in them. And MAYBE the letter D but even that’s being generous.
Now this dude seems to have suddenly hit a stride making commercially successful PG-13 movies with up and coming actors that are widely considered to be surprisingly entertaining at least on an unintentional level. The first in this series was THE SKULLS, and he hopes to continue in that vein with the Vin Diesel bungee-jumping-James-Bond movie XXX and of course THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS PART 2: THE FASTER AND THE FURIOUSER. (read the rest of this shit…)
January 1st, 2005 | No Comments »
FAR FROM HEAVEN is the lovingly crafted new film from Todd Haynes (VELVET GOLDMINE), about an upper class socialite house wife (the great Julianne Moore from JURASSIC PARK PART 2 and ASSASSINS) dealing with the shameful prejudices and social pressures of the time. When she discovers that her husband (one of the Quaids, I think Randy) kissing a man, she tries to be loving and understanding about it. Her friends joke about her liberalism and call her “Red” but she naively deals with it as a medical problem, and brings him to a doctor to be “cured”. Soon she strikes up a friendship with her black gardener (the president from that stupid tv show 24) and again tests the limits of her liberalism when she finds that both whites and blacks scorn their innocent relationship.
Part of what makes it work is that the styles of acting, the dissolve-heavy editing, and the music by Elmer Bernstein are all taken directly from the films of that time period. It’s as if Haynes had travelled back in time and created a movie that he wishes they could’ve made back then, dealing with issues no one wanted to face, ones that are still embarassingly relevant today. It’s all a perfect re-creation of the melodramas of Douglas Sirk.
Oh, who am I fooling. I would never have known that if everybody else didn’t already say it. I don’t even know what that means. I’ve never seen a Douglas Sirk movie. Have you? I don’t even know which ones he directed. There is a scene where the Quaid goes to see THREE FACES OF EVE in a movie theater. Hey man, I’ve seen that and I can prove it, I reviewed it a long time ago. So I figured hey, maybe that’s a Sirk movie. But no luck, I looked it up. I haven’t seen any of those movies, and haven’t even heard of most of them, or remember what they were now that I am not on imdb anymore.
To be fair, I bet half of these other clowns don’t know who Douglas Sirk is either. They probaly just read it in the press kit and then wrote it like they knew what they were talking about. At least I had to read other reviews to find out, I don’t get the press kits. (read the rest of this shit…)
January 1st, 2005 | No Comments »
In 1940 the Walt Disney animation company unleashed a bold new experiment, Fantasia, a collection of animated pieces inspired by classical music. Unlike say a Bambi or a Pinocchio this is a movie with no dialogue or traditional feature length narrative story. In a stunning display of craftsmanship and artistic achievement the animators listened to the music and created stories, sometimes retelling a fairy tale like The Sorceror’s apprentice or riffing on some goofball premise like dancing hippoes or mushrooms. At fantasia’s best moments it triumphs in bold flourishes, splashing abstract type shapes across the screen or depicting evolution and the rise and fall of the dinosaurs. My favorite is the night of the bald mountain king sequence in which a demonic demon comes out of the mountain and all the ghosts fly up, and then afterwards a whole bunch of people are marching along with candles I believe.
This film fantasia was Mr. Disney’s attempt at respectability for the Artform of the funny cartoons however everyone pretty much told him to go fuck himself on that one. The movie received poor reviews, was cut down to 81 minutes and used as a b-movie on double bills, and even 22 years later Igor Stravinsky described it as “unresisting imbecility.” But I mean the dude’s name is Igor how do you expect him to behave, go get me a dead body Igor you piece of shit.
Anyway it wasn’t until the 1960s that LSD hit the market and people were more willing to sit through the movie. Today many film academics and grown adults who watch cartoons everyday believe that Fantasia is the best of the Disney cartoons. They recognize the uniqueness of the concept, the way it respects the cartooning as an Artform and seeks to elevate its craft, as well as the fine work done by the animationists and the musicians on the many great sequences. However I think the whole idea of this being the disney movie they most enjoy to watch is a HUGE load of shit, i mean tell me do you have more fun watching the pinocchio movie or watching this fantasia. And how many times have you watched it all the way through without falling asleep, pal, seriously I’m asking. (read the rest of this shit…)
January 1st, 2005 | No Comments »
You might find this shocking. But I like Michael Moore. Fuck it man, I love Michael Moore. Not that I ever met the dude but I love his pictures and his TV shows. I think he is a great satirist who finds goofy ways to illustrate his points and make them sink in better (like the time on The Awful Truth when he hired an actual pimp to turn out the bitches and hoes of congress, or the time he handed out fluorescent orange wallets to black New Yorkers so they wouldn’t get shot by cops like Amadou Diallo did).
I have heard this story on the internet and what not about how Michael Moore is a dangerous dude, his movies are big scary manipulative propaganda lies. And he has these legions of loyal zombie followers who don’t understand humor, irony or the art of motion picture editing. They watch his movies and they think they are a direct uplink from objective scientific reality into their brain. They don’t know how to process the information for themselves. They take it all as literally as these numbskull republicans do, and they don’t ever read or hear about the topic again. They are permanently brainwashed to unquestioningly believe Michael Moore’s crazy, bizarre, venomous hate filled extreme left wing conspiracy theories. Like the one about how everyone deserves affordable health care, or that one from Bowling For Columbine about – get the tin foil hats ready man – I mean, this is almost too crazy to even say out loud – we should try to figure out why our society is so violent.
The only problem with this theory about people being so susceptible to the danger of Michael Moore is that I am having trouble tracking down any of these fuckers. The weird thing is I live in Seattle, one of the most liberal cities in the country and proud of it. I hardly even know any republicans. And I find myself CONSTANTLY trying to defend Michael Moore. From people who agree with him completely, but don’t like his movies. They have soaked up this media created reputation and they are afraid to embrace him. Even on Air America, the one existing outlet that could legitimately be called “the liberal media,” I heard a positive review of the movie that was full of hedges about Michael Moore, how you always have reservations about a Michael Moore film, basically portraying him as some crazy extreme nutball like the right wing chapter of the liberal media does. And that’s all over the place. Everybody doing “fact checks” where they have partisan republicans examine the movie with nobody representing the movie. (And they still don’t come up with anything, but try to spin it like there was some reason to be very suspicious of the movie.) (read the rest of this shit…)
January 1st, 2005 | No Comments »
I don’t know if you ever saw PITCH BLACK. It was a low budget ALIENS type movie about a bunch of space-people who get stranded on a planet where nasty monsters come out and eat everybody at night. And then if I remember right there is an eclipse, so it’s gonna be a long fuckin night. So they’re pretty much fucked except luckily they have this dude Riddick on board. He is a prisoner actually, a scary mass killer type, but he has surgically altered glowing eyes so he can see in the dark. So with him being good at killing and seeing in the dark, he is a good guy to let loose in this situation. So the murderer becomes some sort of a part time hero when faced with alien monsters, he saves some lives and possibly leaves his old self behind.
Personally I thought the movie wasn’t so hot. It starts out good but the aliens just aren’t all that convincing or scary and I lost interest after a while. But this Riddick character, played by the then unknown Vin Diesel, was a cool idea and memorably played by Mr. Diesel. The great Keith David is in there too playing a preacher named Imam, but I guess not as memorably, since I forgot he was in it until I saw him in this sequel.
I don’t know what the deal is with the title. It seems to refer to the whole series, like STAR WARS. They even re-released PITCH BLACK as THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: PITCH BLACK so I guess this one should be considered THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK. Anyway, what they did here is pretty admirable. Instead of making a traditional sequel where the same characters face the same monsters again, or different characters face the same monsters, or the same characters face the same monsters plus a thrilling new variation on the same monsters where they are much bigger or smaller or can take over human bodies or fly spaceships or something… instead, they took the main characters and put them into a completely different type of story, an epic fantasy type deal with multiple planets and races and armies and prophesies and all that sort of crap. And at the center of it all is Riddick, the notorious killer who Judi Dench (long story) wants to save the galaxy or whatever. (read the rest of this shit…)
January 1st, 2005 | 1 Comment »
I don’t know if you remember this movie, it’s about a haunted car. In other words, it’s based on a Stephen King book. And that also means it’s a 50’s car that plays old Little Richard songs and crap while it kills people. I know the filmatists today are bad, they gotta put references to all the TV shows and movies from their childhood, but Stephen King is the original. This guy has been cannibalizing his childhood for decades. And also he’s been making up stories about inanimate objects killing people. Killer laundry machines and shit like that. Remember in the TV movie version of THE SHINING, there was a haunted fire hose that killed a guy? It’s alot like that only a car.
Actually, it’s a better movie than I remember it being when I saw it back in the ’80s, and I’m going to give most of the credit to Mr. John Carpenter. I’m not saying this is HALLOWEEN or THEY LIVE but it’s a good straightforward haunted car movie. The movie stars Keith Gordon (the kid from HOME MOVIES and DRESSED TO KILL) as a nerdy kid whose jock buddy tells him he needs to get laid now that he’s a senior and who gets his ass kicked in metal shop. They stab his sack lunch to death with a switchblade and he suffers the humiliation of everybody seeing that his mom packed him yogurt.
So what he does, he finds this old piece of shit car that he buys from a crazy old coot in a shack (Roberts Blossom, who was fucking brilliant in DERANGED). The old man doesn’t tell him that his brother just died in the car but he does tell him it’s named Christine. And that’s what the kid always calls it, “Christine,” not “my car.” And everybody acts like that’s normal, for some reason.
His parents don’t approve of the car so he gets a space in a garage inside a junkyard and starts fixing Christine up. This was before the invention of Pimp My Ride, so he puts the elbow grease in himself and he gets the job done. As he does it he becomes less nerdy, more manly, wears darker clothes, slicks his hair back, even starts wearing his collar up like he thinks he’s in the ’50s. Suddenly he has a girlfriend and he has the balls to call his dad “motherfucker” but nobody can really stand him because he’s obsessed with the fucking car. I mean Christine. (read the rest of this shit…)
January 1st, 2005 | 1 Comment »
Well there might be some individuals out there wondering, wouldn’t it be cool if you took a director like the dude who did Romper Stomper, and had him do a slasher movie. Well those individuals it turns out are wrong. Sorry boys.
Cherry Falls is the story of a killer in a small town who kills only virgins. In a small town called Cherry Falls.
You know what I mean? Virgins. In Cherry Falls.
I’ll let that one sink in. Anyway this one is a bit different from the current crop of teen slasher type pictures. It is made by australians, for one. The tone is a little darker and less jokey. Most of the actors look like they are really high school aged instead of in their mid to late twenties. And instead of not killing virgins, the killer kills ONLY virgins. So of course the gimmick is that the kids decide to have a big orgy so they can all a) not get killed b) get laid.
Unfortunately not much of interest is made of this premise. And it’s not THAT different from your urban legend the final cut or your scream 3 or your I know what they did for the summer, etc. Just like those pictures it is all leading up to some stupid surprise ending where it turns out one of the characters you thought you could trust is actually the killer. what I’m getting at is that Jay Mohr is not just a teacher, he is also a guy who dresses up as his mom to kill virgins. (read the rest of this shit…)
January 1st, 2005 | No Comments »
For some reason I didn’t expect all that much from Martin Scorsese’s new picture GANGS OF NEW YORK. I’m not really a big fan of period pieces, I’m just as ignorant of history as anybody else who is ignorant of history and I don’t have any opinion one way or the other on “Leo” who plays the protagonist Amsterdam or “Danny” who plays Robert Deniro playing an early gang leader named Bill the Butcher. (You know, the same way Roddy Piper played Kurt Russel in THEY LIVE).
But I guess I forgot about that Scorsese, he knows how to make a fuckin movie. GANGS OF NEW YORK is an archetypal type story of some guy whose dad was killed in a gang battle, he escaped and hid away for many years and then came back for revenge. But you know he’s a cowboy or a samurai or a wizard or some shit so he plans for the perfect time to murder Bill in front of everybody at a big celebration of the anniversary of killing his dad. And in the meanwhile he befriends him, to make it all the easier and all the worse.
BUT WAIT! Along the way there is bonding. You know like a John Woo picture or what have you, of course he ends up having a sort of fatherly relationship with this guy, and this guy starts having a sonly relationship with him. So you got the scene where he saves the life of the guy he’s gonna kill, and the scene where the guy he’s gonna kill finds out he’s gonna kill him and thankfully yells something other than “I treated you like a SON and this is what you do to me, you FUCK ME IN THE ASS?” (read the rest of this shit…)
January 1st, 2005 | No Comments »
Right now a thing is going on where alot of Americans hate the French. I’m not talking about any Americans I ever met or saw in person, even from a distance, but I am talking about people I saw on TV. They can do alot with computers now but I think these were real people. It’s hard to explain this feud, it’s like you know, why did Andre the Giant turn evil against Hulk Hogan? I don’t fuckin remember, man. But this one can be traced back to an incident where those fuckin French, man, they were telling us we shouldn’t invade Iraq, that they didn’t pose a threat to us and it would be illegal to invade, etc.
So we were like oh yeah well what about those weapons of mass destruction that they have stockpiled over there, what about that Mr. auteur theory with the beret and all that? And they were like I’m not wearing a beret. And we were like okay, Mr. I love Jerry Lewis. And they were like, what are you talking about, that’s an urban legend, plus Jerry Lewis is an American who had a long and fruitful career in America, and still lives there. Not to mention Carrot Top, Jeff Foxworthy, Gallagher, Sinbad, Jay Leno, the Police Academy series, the traditional american sitcom, etc. And we were like fuck you man. And they were like seriously though guys I don’t think they pose a threat to you, and you will be stuck in this shit for years to come. And we were like yeah right Frenchie, we’ll get back to you in a couple years and you better fucking apologize then.
Well now it’s a couple years later and they won’t apologize, because they were obviously right from the beginning and it would be ludicrous for them to apologize for trying to stop us from making a huge mistake that we will be paying for for decades. Still, they felt bad, so they pretty much did the most pro-American thing possible: they had Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres honor none other than Mr. Bruce John McClane himself Willis as an officer in the Order of Arts and Letters. This is one of France’s highest honors for cultural achievement, almost on par with our outlaw awards and Badass Laureate status. One previous recipient was free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman. Also Robert Redford. So you see, Americans and Frenches are brothers. (read the rest of this shit…)
January 1st, 2005 | No Comments »
