Posts Tagged ‘Kathryn Bigelow’

The Loveless

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

tn_lovelessThe Oscars this year performed a courageous service: they taught the world who Kathryn Bigelow was. Or at least that she’s a woman, she won the Oscar, she directed THE HURT LOCKER, and that business about her ex-husband, whatsisdick. So now she’s pretty close to a household name, she’s not just that legendary female director of action movies who for a short time had the filmatic chops to match or better her testacled counterparts. Now she’s reborn with a great movie at the top of her IMDB profile and a place in history.

Don’t get me wrong, she still directed POINT BREAK. But there’s more to her than we paid attention to before. So in honor of that I decided it was time to go back and watch the ones I haven’t seen before. (more…)

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Posted in Drama, Reviews | 51 Comments »

Strange Days

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

tn_strangedaysStrange days we’re livin in, here in the futuristic year of 1999. Everywhere you go there’s people getting chased, cars on fire. I just saw 2 people beating up Santa Claus on the sidewalk. Can you believe gas has gotten up to three whole dollars a gallon? What a nightmare! And man, I almost miss junkies. They were so much better than these “wireheads” you got now, who plug into recordings of the brain responses to sex and bank robberies and stuff. Those guys make me sick.

Okay, you got me, this is actually late 2009 when I’m writing this, and that was a made up science fiction scenario that did not end up happening in ‘99. I would remember if it had. Isn’t that weird? In less then two months we’ll be at the 10th anniversary not of this movie, but of the future it takes place in. So it’s ironic that it’s about people stuck on re-living old experiences, and meanwhile we’re watching it comparing it to the actual New Year’s Eve 1999 we experienced. (more…)

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Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 42 Comments »

The Hurt Locker

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

tn_hurtlockerTHE HURT LOCKER is the best movie of 2009 so far excluding all movies about old men who fly around using balloons. It’s a tightly constructed action-suspense movie, but also a character piece and an acting showcase. It takes place in Iraq 2004 and it says something about war, but it’s not especially political. It’s more about a place and a time and a mindset. Nobody in the movie talks about why the Americans are in Iraq or whether they should be. They’re just there. It’s their job, they gotta survive until the end of their rotation (the days are counted down onscreen).

This is the story of a 3-man bomb disposal unit. They get a new team leader at the beginning, and he’s played by Jeremy Renner. I don’t know if his team recognizes him from DAHMER like I did, but shit man, look out. From the beginning he seems a little unstable and alot reckless, and they gotta worry if this will prevent them from getting safely to the end of that countdown. (more…)

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Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews | 107 Comments »

Blue Steel

Thursday, July 12th, 2007

This is a suspense thriller from Kathryn Bigelow, the director of POINT BREAK and NEAR DARK, and one of the few women directors to get much of a chance in these types of movies. This one stars Jamie Lee Curtis as a just-graduated cop who, on her first ever patrol, has to shoot a guy holding up a grocery store.

Now first of all I gotta ask – why are there so many grocery store robberies in these movies? A reader named Jared pointed it out too because I recently reviewed STONE COLD and COBRA, both of which open with the hero going in to foil a grocery store robbery/shootout. Now this one too (and the last book I read, SIDESWIPE by Charles Willeford, also revolves around a grocery store robbery/shootout, although it’s at the end instead of the beginning, because it’s literature). The result here is the exact opposite of those other movies though: instead of a rebel cop who plays by his own rules she’s a straightlaced rookie who tries to do it by the book. Instead of having no consequences the incident could end her career. Talk about a double standard.

Anyway, I don’t remember a wave of grocery store shootouts in the ’80s or early ’90s, but apparently that fear was in the air.

I also gotta point out that when you got Tom Sizemore and Ron Silver both in the same grocery store at the same time, you KNOW you got a fuckin problem. You can’t trust either one of these assholes separately, but together? Jesus Jamie Lee, better get your blue steel ready.

The story unfolds brilliantly because it takes its time telling you what’s going on. (I’m gonna give some of it away though, they never foresaw that would happen, suckers). Jamie has to shoot Sizemore. Silver is one of the witnesses, cowering on the ground. Sizemore’s gun lands next to him and he stares at it, and eventually takes it when nobody’s looking. (more…)

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Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 3 Comments »

Point Break

Tuesday, April 17th, 2007

Until recently I was the guy who had never seen POINT BREAK. But the other day I busted my cherry on that matter, pardon my French, so I’m some other guy now.

I’m sure you’ve already seen it but let me refresh your memory: Keanu Reeves plays the perfectly named Johnny Utah, college football hero turned fresh-faced FBI rookie teamed with Gary Busey (in one of the first roles of his Crazy Post-Motorcycle Accident Period) to track down a gang of bank robbers who Busey (correctly) theorizes are surfers.

So Johnny Utah learns how to surf, immediately meets the group of surfers responsible for the bank robberies, and then continues his undercover work without realizing at first that these are the guys. The leader is Bodhi, played by Pat “ROADHOUSE” Swayze.

This is not one of the greats but it is surprisingly effective, and that’s because it’s got all the pieces in place. The pre-SPEED/MATRIX Keanu is actually pretty bad in the movie, even undercover as a surfer, but everyone else is perfect for their roles. Busey is at his crazy best. John C. McGinley (ON DEADLY GROUND) plays the uptight FBI chief. Lori Petty is an unorthodox choice for the surfing instructor/love interest. The director is Kathryn Bigelow, the talented but mostly forgotten badass woman director, who makes it all look real nice and knows how to shoot some good chase scenes and what not. The movie is even produced by the famed Jesus graverobber and Titaniphiliac James Cameron. So this has a pedigree.

This is also one of those action movies of the late ’80s, early ’90s that has all the ridiculous macho dialogue full of quips and boasts. They don’t really make this kind of movie too much anymore. For example, McGinley is always saying shit like, “You’re a real blue flame special, aren’t you, son? Young, dumb and full of come, I know. What I don’t know is how you got assigned here. Guess we must just have ourselves an asshole shortage, huh?” (more…)

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Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Sport, Thriller | 7 Comments »