Everybody loves Denzel Washington, including me, but I’m not 100% sure why. I mean, he’s a real good actor. Shoulda got an Oscar for MALCOLM X. Was good at chewing it up in TRAINING DAY when he did get the Oscar. He’s just so great at playing intelligent, strong, capable. But the weird part for someone as popular as him is that he’s not so big on playing likable heroes. His usual character is intense but mostly humorless. Kind of self righteous. Kind of a dick, if you think about it.
So it was pretty brilliant to cast him as a lone samurai walking through a post-apocalyptic wasteland on a mission of faith. The Denzel persona is much more endearing when he doesn’t just give verbal beatdowns, but full-on swordsman massacres. Actually he’s a little different in this one too – quiet and kind of crazy from being alone. (read the rest of this shit…)
I guess I got a nuanced view on these Robert Zemeckis “mo-cap” movies. I think he’s kind of delusional if he really thinks this is the future of movies, and I was complaining about the creepiness of attempted realism in POLAR EXPRESS (and earlier in FINAL FANTASY) long before it was a common complaint with the name “uncanny valley.” When it comes to being creeped out by dead-eyed computer animation, I’m NWA and mainstream critics are Ja Rule or somebody.
“From one of the writers of THE DARK KNIGHT” is David S. Goyer’s credit these days, but to me he’s still the guy who wrote the BLADE movies. Sure, he fumbled the ball as director of part 3, but it’s not as bad as everybody makes it out to be and definitely not bad enough to cancel his previous accomplishments. The first two BLADE movies are perfect badass storytelling. And he helped with those Batman movies, and with DARK CITY. I liked his BLADE tv show. I even liked his cheesy NICKY FURY tv movie starring David Hasselhoff. So I expect more good things out of him. I think he’s gonna do some good shit.
SPOILER ALERT !!
This is one of the ’90s crime pictures I had to catch up on. It came out in ’93, the year after Reservoir Dogs so it probaly just missed the raising of the standards. If it came out in the ’80s it would have seemed a little better but since then we’ve had a whole lot of far superior crime pictures and neo-noir type creations. This has the slick feel of a True Romance and the nihilistic attitude of a True Romance, but not the characterization of a Reservoir Dogs or the strong themes of honor and betrayal of a Reservoir Dogs.
Well I bet the one or two of you who actually care about me are wondering, what the fuck happened to Vern. Where is his column. Why is he late. Did that Jet Li movie really make him so sad. What a puss.
