Posts Tagged ‘Ice Cube’
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
chapter 12
One thing about JOHN CARPENTER’S GHOSTS OF MARS: it’s definitely John Carpenter’s GHOSTS OF MARS.
It has plenty of elements that could be perfect for one of his movies. It’s kind of a siege movie like ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, although the simplicity of that type of setup is mired in flashbacks and narration. It’s got a western motif – even though it’s in the future and on Mars there’s a train, and colonists possessed by angry Martian spirits take the place of the Natives defending their land. It’s got a ready-made anti-hero – Ice Cube as the bad-but-not-guilty-of-the-specific-crime-he’s-accused-of prisoner-in-transfer Desolation Williams. It has a pretty good soundtrack where Carpenter melds his style with a bunch of rock n roll dudes with electric guitars and drums, playing Martian tribal rock. It has Ice Cube, Jason Statham, Joanna Cassidy and Pam Grier in the cast! This shit should be great. (more…)
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Tags: Clea DuVall, ghosts, Ice Cube, Jason Statham, Joanna Cassidy, John Carpenter, Mars, Natasha Henstridge, Pam Grier, Summer of 2001
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 90 Comments »
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Okay, let’s say that hypothetically you went to the Paramount Theater in Seattle last night for the Ice Cube/Snoop Dogg “How The West Was One” tour, and were about ready to jump off a bridge after Ice Cube’s set. And we’ll assume that the reasons for this severe disappointment have to do with Mr. Cube not performing a single song from his classic solo albums ‘Amerikkka’s Most Wanted’ and ‘Death Certificate’, and only two obvious ones from ‘The Predator.’ This after playing a bunch of bullshit songs from his most recent album and then declaring “okay, that’s the new shit, now we’re gonna play the old shit.” To make matters worse he played a Westside Connection song, then said “But there was another group I was in…” and after a big build up performed… a song about N.W.A. Nothing by them.
I can’t imagine who this would be who would be in this hypothetical situation, but I have a remedy for him or her and it’s called waxpoetics #41, May/June 2010, The Hip-Hop Issue.
(more…)
Tags: Ice Cube
Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 72 Comments »
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
Didn’t Robert Zemeckis used to be a big deal for movie nerds? Right now he’s mainly looked at as a heretic because of his obsession with doing those creepy motion computerized movies that I seem to be pretty alone in appreciating. But there was another Zemeckis before that, a live action one. Everybody loved that BACK TO THE FUTURE and a couple of his other movies. It seems like people used to put him up there just below Spielberg as one of those worshipped All-American brand name mainstream directors of the ’80s. (more…)
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Tags: Bill Paxton, Bob Gale, Glen Plummer, Ice Cube, Ice-T, Robert Zemeckis, Tiny Lister, Walter Hill, William Sadler
Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 96 Comments »
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
Limp Biscuit singer Fred Durst, who makes his directorial debut with THE LONGSHOTS, turns out to be a natural born director. I was surprised when I read somewhere that David Fincher was mentoring ol’ soul patch, bringing him on the set of ZODIAC and showing him the ropes. I think Durst almost took over for Fincher on LORDS OF DOGTOWN before Catherine Hardwicke did. There were a bunch of false starts but now that he’s finally made one it’s clear that the man has some serious directational chops, it seems he was born to direct movies. Let me be very clear, this is what Fred Durst was put on the planet for. This much is certain now.
Now that I’ve said that I’m just gonna talk about what the plot is and stuff, things that Fred Durst already knows, so if he is reading this he can stop now.
Ice Cube plays Curtis Plummer, the un-employed brother of the loser deadbeat dad of a shy, unpopular high school girl named Jasmine Plummer (Keke Palmer). Jasmine’s mom is worried about her so she pays Curtis five dollars an hour to hang out with Jasmine after school. Curtis makes no effort to make it fun, doesn’t even bother to make her dinner the first time. She doesn’t like him hanging around and tries to run away.
But then one day Curtis gets her to throw a football. Much to everyone’s surprise she Okay, do you think Fred Durst has left yet? I hope so. Okay guys, I apologize for lying to you. Fred Durst is not a great director. Not that he’s terrible or anything, but this is not a very good movie. But I think Fincher was on to something with this “teach Fred Durst how to direct” scheme. Movies take a long time to make, like about a year. And that’s only the ones that get made, some directors spend years on movies that never even start filming. Fincher knows that more than anybody. That’s why he knew that by tricking Fred Durst into thinking he was a movie director, the world would be spared his unique brand of backwards hat rap rock. The more time he’s concentrating on setting up shots the less time he’s jumping up and down screaming “YO! YO! YO!” while some assholes go wocka wocka wocka on their guitars. This is an important service to America’s airwaves. I’m sure Fincher probaly did it for selfish reasons – no way he could’ve finished BENJAMIN BUTTON if he had to worry about a new Limp Biscuit song playing on the radio – but to my mind he is still a hero. (more…)
Tags: Ice Cube, rapper-turned-actor, sports
Posted in Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Saturday, July 22nd, 2006
and the rise of the American Furious Movement
TORQUE is the most spectacularly ridiculous movie I’ve seen in a while, making even 2 FAST, 2 FURIOUS seem pretty reasonable and down to earth. The movie opens with a shot of a tortoise standing between two street race cars at a starting line. The cars take off down a dusty road at impossible speeds. Suddenly, reflected in one car’s rear-view mirror, is some dude on a motorcycle. He has a hard time passing the cars but once he does he does a big wheelie and leaves them in the dust. A street sign spins uncontrollably in the wake of the motorcycle creating the illusion that it says “CARS SUCK.” And from there we cut to the opening credits.
You hear that, FAST AND THE FURIOUS? The gauntlet has been thrown down. Cars suck, motorcycles rule. Or own. Or whatever it’s called now. In case FAST AND THE FURIOUS came into the movie late though, because it was out in the lobby text messaging somebody, there is a part later on where the hero says, “I live life a quarter mile at a time,” and his girlfriend says, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” These movies may start some kind of deadly motorcycles vs. cars feud, but they’re both from the same producer, Neal H. Moritz.
The hero is named Ford, but Ice Cube (as Trey, the leader of Inglewood’s black motorcycle gang The Reapers) prefers to call him “the white boy” or “Dawson’s Creek.” I’m not sure what they were thinking having the blandest possible white man as the hero and asking the audience to root against Ice Cube, but that’s what they did. Martin Henderson, the Kiwi former soap star who plays Ford, makes Paul Walker seem like fuckin Al Pacino. He wears a Ramones t-shirt as some sort of a vague hint that he has a personality. Cube does all right, scowling and being pissed off all the time, though he doesn’t seem as tough when he’s wearing a leather biker jacket with sponsorship logos on it. He does have a dog named Dojo who he refers to by name alot. (more…)
Only 1 person likes this post. Kinda sad.
Tags: Adam Scott, Faizon Love, Ice Cube, Joseph Kahn, Martin Henderson, Matt Schulze
Posted in Action, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Friday, April 29th, 2005
When Rob Cohen, the director of the original XXX first talked about a sequel, it was still gonna star Vin Diesel. And I read some interview where he said one of the ideas he had took place in Washington DC, and it would have a scene where Vin rode a mountain bike up the capital dome.
Well it’s a low down shame we didn’t get to see that but otherwise XXX2 (which ended up being made with Ice Cube instead of Diesel and Lee Tamahori instead of Cohen) is more fun than the first one in almost every way. I’m not saying it’s a good action movie or even a great bad movie, but as an honest individual who tells it like it is I gotta cop to enjoying the fuckin thing.
It’s almost like they read my mind, or at least my review of the first one. They dumped the whole “action sports” angle completely and even make a joke or two about it. They got less of the standard action (skiing, motorcycles) and more of the over-the-top (flying boats, cars, tanks, trains, etc.). They made it more American – no fuckin dreary, snowy european villas, no boring greasy haired euro-trash villains, no shitty German heavy metal music. This one’s in Washington DC and the villain is Willem Dafoe as the secretary of defense. In my review of the first one I pointed out that the NSA has a “break a few eggs to make an omelette” philosophy while Vin Diesel’s was “never leave a man behind.” This time they shifted it so that the good guys are the people within the government who want peace and getting along and saving innocent lives, the bad guys are the warmongers who don’t mind killing people to get their way. Ice Cube’s character is tied to Sam Jackson’s big cheese Augustus Gibbons with an Above-the-Lawian backstory where Dafoe was their general who was burning down civilian homes, and they were the guys who went in and tried to save the civilians.
One positive I didn’t ask for in my review: there’s way more Sam Jackson in this one. (more…)
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Tags: Ice Cube, Lee Tamahori, Samuel L. Jackson, Scott Speedman, Simon Kinberg, Willem Dafoe, Xzibit
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 10 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
Well ol’ Ice Cube has put out some clunkers lately, even when he teamed up with one of my favorites, Mr. John Carpenter, for GHOSTS ON MARS. When he’s not making mediocre action movies he’s trying to recapture the magic of FRIDAY, or trying to do a mediocre action movie that also recaptures the magic of FRIDAY. And even when he’s taking a break from recapturing the magic of FRIDAY, you got DJ Pooh out there trying to recapture it with movies like THREE STRIKES and THE WASH. But he recaptures even less of the magic than Ice Cube manages to recapture during his recapturing. With all the attempted recapturing going on you start to wonder whether the magic is even available to be recaptured anymore. It’s probaly busy.
BUT, in my opinion Mr. Cube has some new magic now, some THE BARBERSHOP magic. This magic is not as powerful as FRIDAY magic but it’s still fairly magic, in my opinion. In a way.
Now as far as I as a white man can figure, there are two major movements in the African-American comedies today. First of all you got the “hood comedies” which is basically the recapturing the magic movies I mentioned before, including the upcoming FRIDAY AFTER NEXT. And then you got the higher budgeted, upper class romantic type comedies, which usually are about a wedding and star Taye Diggs. In those movies there is less poo jokes, the characters have more emotional issues to deal with and also have conversations about topics important to the community and american culture. But they’re not as funny and the music is cheesier, unless they put an old Stevie Wonder or James Brown song on there.
What Ice Cube has managed to do in this one is combine the two movements by getting the producers of SOUL FOOD to make an Ice Cube movie. He plays a young man who has inherited a barbershop. The story takes place on the day when he fails to get a loan he needs and decides to sell the shop to a loan shark played by the great Keith David, then changes his mind when he finds Keith’s gonna turn it into a barbershop themed strip club. (more…)
Tags: Anthony Anderson, Cedric the Entertainer, Ice Cube, Tim Story
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
John Carpenter is one of the most controversial directors of our time. Not because he gets into touchy subjects, like he goes and does some movie about jesus doing somebody in the ass or whatever it is that offends people these days. But because of his actual work. Because no one can really seem to agree whether he sucks with a few brilliant exceptions, whether he used to be brilliant and now he sucks, or whether he is really one of the great masters of the horror and Badass Cinema and that some of these new ones are just an off day.
The correct answer is c.
This new one follows many of the great John Carpenter stylistic motifs and thematic type themes. For example, if you ever read an interview or listened to his dvd commentary tracks, you know that practically every movie he ever did he claims is “really a western.” So he always has some stranger walking into town, or has some prisoner being transferred from a jail or a new sherriff in town or what not. In Assault On Precinct 13 he has the gangsters doing blood rituals like evil movie indians in a John Wayne picture. In They Live Roddy Piper strolls into town, walking down the middle of the street even though it’s LA. In Escape From LA he does the old jumping from horse to horse routine, except with motorcycles. Vampires takes place in a sunny Mexican ghost town even though it’s about fuckin vampires. Even Big Trouble In Little China and if I remember right the Elvis TV movie started as western scripts but were re-written to modern settings.
Ghosts of Mars takes this updated western routine to new heights by doing a science fiction movie on Mars that has 1. a train! 2. A prisoner being transferred from a jail by the sherriff, and on a train 3. A ghost town 4. primitive martian ghosts who act like the movie indians of John Wayne movies and/or the gangsters in Assault On Precinct 13, but with piercings. (more…)
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Tags: Ice Cube, Jason Statham, John Carpenter, Natasha Henstridge, Pam Grier
Posted in Action, Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 3 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
I really don’t have much to say about this movie, so instead I will rail against our modern consumerist society. thanks for your understanding.
I really feel old when I show up to a movie 10 or 15 minutes early. Sure I like to think I’m young in the heart and all that shit, but I still remember when moviegoing was a pleasant experience. Sure I am thankful for the innovations of digital sound and automatic ticket machines. But it’s time to dump the rest of the cineplex baggage. These chains are all going chapter 11 anyway, why not jettison the extra weight?
So I walk in there, the old man, and I let this CD pretending to be a radio station introduce me to the latest contemporary R&B products. I’m pretty sure they have a camp somewhere where they raise these kids to groom them into soul-less, personality-less test tube warblers with prefabricated sexuality. They keep them naked in cages until the cameras are ready, then they throw each of them a plastic bag containing 1 (one) wireless microphone headset (does not work), 1 (one) pair white leather pants (low riding), one (1) $200 boutique t-shirt (one sleeve only), and 1 (one) rhinestone cowboy hat.
Then they throw them in the studio with whichever mainstream hip hop producer has had the most #1 hits in this particular business quarter, spend 2 months of postproduction overdubbing and electronically altering their vocal tracks, and voila! Suddenly the little curly haired kid from In Sink has a song that exactly mimicks Michael Jackson. As soon as advertising, promotions, assistant promotions, corporate advertising, press relations and the payola department go over it, the single is ready. Quick, get this to the Cinematron Radio Network Popcorn Jam! We want Vern to have to listen to this garbage while he waits to see FRIDAY AFTER NEXT! (more…)
Tags: Christmas, Ice Cube, John Witherspoon, Katt Williams, Mike Epps, Terry Crews
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 1 Comment »
