Thomas Jane plays Malone, a fedora-wearing, ‘52 Buick driving, ten thousand bullet firing, fake film noir style opening scene narrating, badass private eye motherfucker in a mostly empty city portrayed by Spokane, Washington. The movie takes place in the modern day (email is mentioned once) but obviously takes most of its cues from the cliches of detective stories/film noir, including the femme fatale client, the fast, back-and-forth quipping and, you know, his hat. He’s old fashioned enough that he keeps calling women “sister.” Also, alot of the score is that cheesy type of saxophone they always use in modern movies and TV as a code for “it’s like an old private eye movie.” (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Russell Mulcahy’
Give ‘Em Hell Malone
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
LikeThe Scorpion King 2: The Rise of a Warrior
Monday, August 18th, 2008THE SCORPION KING 2 RISE OF A WARRIOR is the story of a warrior who rises. In movies we’ve seen many people and things rise, including The Machines, Carlito’s Way, The Silver Surfer, Leslie Vernon, Taj, Cobra, the Lycans, Gator, Jack Johnson, and Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. But never before have we seen the RISE OF A WARRIOR.
In this movie there are actually a bunch of different warriors but in my opinion the specific warrior who is rising is the one who will later be called the Scorpion King, not in this movie but in the very end of a different, better movie called THE SCORPION KING. What I’m trying to say is that this is the prequel to the prequel to the sequel to THE MUMMY, a movie I thought sucked. So the fact that this one is above average for DTV is pretty impressive. If you met a guy whose great, great uncle by marriage was a Nazi or a serial killer, but the guy you met wasn’t that big of a dick or anything, you would think “Good for him.” Same goes for THE SCORPION KING 2 RISE OF A WARRIOR.
This movie is 100% Stephen Sommers free, in fact it’s directed by Russell Mulcahy, who at least was a really good director at one time (RAZORBACK). And to be honest I don’t hold its MUMMY lineage against it because I’ve been a really big fan of the original SCORPION KING ever since I first saw it, uh… 2 days ago. (more…)
Ricochet
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008I think I saw this movie back when it came out and I remember it just being ridiculous, but seeing it again I thought it was a good ridiculous. The movie begins with a melodramatic Hitchcock style credit sequence, but then cuts straight to Denzel Washington, Ice-T and Kevin Pollack playing very aggressive basketball on a playground. As far as I know this one is one of only a handful of movies in all of cinematic history that begin with those three guys playing street ball.
I like this scene because it very quickly sets up most of the major players in the movie while also establishing just why the movie is cool. For one thing, the director is Russell RAZORBACK Mulcahy, video director turned movie director who is fond of fancy hotshot camerawork. But this is 1991, still firmly in the naive days when a director followed a code of honor that they were expected to provide visual clues to the audience to understand what the fuck is going on. For some of you younger individuals it’s probaly hard to imagine, but the camera is flying around in such a way that it enhances your enjoyment of the movie, instead of pissing you off. This starts in the basketball scene with the camera somehow following right behind Denzel as he weaves through the other players and slam dunks.
In this one scene we learn that Denzel is a cop and law school student, Pollack is his partner, Ice-T is a childhood friend who he is distancing himself from because he’s a criminal, and Victoria Dillard is a girl Denzel has his eye on (who will become his wife). More importantly though what this scene establishes is that this is young, arrogant, show-offy, charming Denzel. It’s after MO’ BETTER BLUES but before MALCOLM X, so he’s got the chops but not the expectations. And he’s applying that talent to a character in an over-the-top b-movie thriller. His character is named Nick Styles, if that gives you an idea. (more…)
Razorback
Thursday, April 24th, 2008How 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 know this is the kind of movie people write off immediately. It definitely is a ripoff of JAWS and redoing JAWS with a huge pig seems even funnier than redoing it with an orca. But the movie doesn’t give a fuck what you think. It knows what it is and it has no shame. Go ahead, laugh at the razorback. Laughing is healthy and will make you taste better. As one of our heroes says, “It has two states of being. Dangerous or dead.” Mostly the first one.
The director is Russell Mulcahy or “the HIGHLANDER guy” as he is now known but at the time he was “Russell Mulcahy” because he was a rookie. He directed lots of music videos though, including the very first one ever played on MTV. Yes, video killed the radio star, and Mulcahy was the killer. Some other guy originally took the rap but was later exonerated by DNA evidence.
Music video directors making movies can be bad news. Or it can be some of our most creative filmatists such as David Fincher, Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. But usually you assume it means quick cuts and incoherent storytelling. In this case the transition from MTV to Australian cinemas was a good thing because they hadn’t figured out how to ruin editing yet. His experimentation in videos gave him a better eye for exaggerated visuals than your average movie director, and he used that to his advantage. He made a really great looking movie, kind of stylized, almost post-apocalyptic. Lots of orange outback skies, shooting stars, unnaturally fog-drenched nights, dirty shacks and weirdos with goggles and machetes. (more…)
