In other words it basically takes place in Tromaville, and the feel is similar to some of the better Troma movies, except without many laughs. One difference is that the punks who beat people up in Fuck City are obviously authentic punks. You can tell by their carefully riveted and band-logoed jackets. Troma dresses people up with face paint and blue mohawks and shit, they’re more like escapees from a ROAD WARRIOR ripoff attacking old ladies and robbing fast food restaurants. It makes more sense that way. I mean when was the last time you saw a modern day punk beating somebody up? I think alot of them are kind of smart and shy beneath the leather. They’re just a different type of nerd that’s into a specific genre of music instead of Lords of the Rings books or whatever. They wouldn’t hurt a fly or eat dairy. But post-apocalyptians can’t be trusted.

Another difference is that this is deliberately retro-styled, with a well-done ’80s style keyboard score, super-grainy film stock, and a scene in an old fashioned video game arcade. That’s because this came out of a promotion for GRINDHOUSE – this director Jason Eisener won a contest with a fake HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN trailer he made with his friends, and like MACHETE they expanded it into a real movie.

It was obviously harder for Eisener to do with his resources than it was for Robert Rodriguez, who can get Bruce Willis to come to his house and film on a green screen for a weekend any time one of his kids comes up with an idea for a movie. But in my opinion the novelty of MACHETE, as not-as-good-as-most-people-hoped as it ended up being, is more culturally valuable than HOBO. It has a better reason to exist. Now hold on, hear me out here, fellas. See, HOBO is imitating an old style of low budget filmmaking, but they’re actually doing it with less money, resources and skills than the people that made the real ones. MACHETE is doing similar but with more money and resources than the real movies, and that’s more unusual because you can do something different instead of a pale imitation.

I can imagine a “real” HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN made in the early ’80s, it might even have starred Rutger Hauer, and it would’ve been better than this because there would’ve been no irony, it would’ve meant it. MACHETE I feel like could not have existed, not with such a weird cast (Trejo, De Niro, Seagal, Lohan, Rodriguez, Johnson), probly not with him riding an explosion on his motorcycle, maybe not even with its emphasis on Mexican immigrants getting the shit end of the stick and wanting to kick ass. It took a Mexican-American dude building an empire on SPY KIDS movies to make that a reality.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no value in making HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN. It’s got some well done parts and some clever ideas, so I enjoyed it okay. The bad guys run around wearing ice skates just so they can use them as weapons. And Hauer adds something to it with his craggly-face and weird performance. It’s not like Kevin-Bacon-in-DEATH-SENTENCE dedication, it’s more like the guy is just a nut. He kinda seems like a crazy guy playing a crazy guy, if that makes sense. (In my opinion it does.)

Like in THE TOXIC AVENGER the criminals try to come up with the most repellant things to do, so they blowtorch a school bus full of kids and murder a reporter on live TV. I guess my favorite example of an over-the-top-sleazy villain is one that’s also in the trailer, it’s a guy dressed as Santa Claus in his car looking at kids and jerking off. The Hobo With a Shotgun spots him and does not feel St. Nick is owed a fair trial.

The scene where the hobo acquires the shotgun makes no sense, but it’s kinda funny. He’s in the pawnshop ready to spring for his lawnmower but the store is getting held up so he instead takes a shotgun that’s the same price off the wall (apparently already loaded) and uses it to blow the thieves away. He still insists on paying for the gun. Then he just goes around blowing people away and for a while it seems like it’s supposed to be a magic gun that doesn’t need loading, but then eventually they do show him putting some shells in. I know they’re not going for realism here, but I kinda think it would be more interesting if we found out how he was able to afford all that ammo.

I think the ironic distance of the movie causes me to be a little distanced myself. When I watch a DEATH WISH sequel or a WALKING TALL or VIGILANTE I feel like the people who made it really are mad and looking for justice through any means necessary, or (actually more often) believe that that’s what the audience wants to feel and is happy to give it to them. With this movie it’s obviously not serious and expects you to know that. Eisener does not believe the city is this bad and is not frustrated and wanting to strike back violently. With a real vigilante movie you can be passionate, but this is just a movie that nods its head knowingly at real vigilante movies, so the best you can do is nod your head knowingly back at it.

I gotta admit that I had a bit of a prejudice dealing with this movie that it doesn’t seem like most people have. When that GRINDHOUSE contest happened I remember alot of people loved the HOBO trailer and were talking it up. I never actually got around to watching it until now. Not that I didn’t believe it was good, but it did kind of bother me that they used the word “hobo.” There’s a thing in comedy, not as common now as it was several years ago, where people thought it was funny to refer to a “hobo,” often in the context of having a dark secret that they killed a hobo. I know they’re trying to use an old timey phrase to be wacky, but I feel a little uncomfortable about everybody deciding human misery is the latest cute thing to joke about. And it’s kind of an extra “fuck you” to not get the terminology right. I don’t think they’re usually talking about a hobo, they’re talking about a homeless person.

“Hobo” is not a synonym for “homeless person,” “bum,” “wino,” “tramp” or “beggar.” Hobos (more common during the Depression) are basically migrants or nomads. They’re people who travel around looking for whatever work they can get and then move on. “Bums” also were travelers, but tried to go without working when possible. Hobos believe in work but want to travel and see the world and be free. They have their own Hobo Code, both in the sense of a code of honor (they actually voted on a series of rules at a Hobo Convention, no shit) and in the sense of pictograms that they draw places to give tips to other hobos who might come through.

I’m not sure “Hobo With a Shotgun” is even a hobo. He does come into town on the back of a train, so he might be. And he does have that idea of mowing lawns. But that seems like more of a far off dream than an immediate plan for work. He doesn’t seem to look hard for jobs. He does beg for money. He also seems to be alcoholic and mentally ill, two things that tend to force homelessness on people, not giving them a chance to deliberately choose a hobo lifestyle.

His dream is not owning a farm or starting a business or something, but copping a fifty dollar used lawnmower at a pawn shop. I know they’re not trying to be mean, but at best it’s a little condescending.

I’m not saying I’m deeply offended. He’s supposed to be the good guy, obviously. And the actual Troma movies have way more questionable jokes about AIDS, hate crimes, retarded people, you name it. But it just seems a little weird to be so amused with “hobos,” when it’s such a depressing problem we see every day and try not to make eye contact with. Even living in a relatively small city like Seattle you got homeless people everywhere. Some of them you get used to like they’re your neighbors. There’s the guy who wears a plastic bag on his head and mutters to himself, the balding guy at the bus stop every night who says “Spare change, big guy?,” the guy with the afro pick and the little radio, the weird muscle flexing guy, although I haven’t seen him around in a couple years, he might’ve left, got busted or died.

There are the guys downtown who pretend they just got here from New Orleans and got their car impounded and need a specific amount of money. The guy, I think he’s from Haiti or somewhere, who asks you your name and uses the letters as the first letter in each line of a poem, then he asks for money. The guys who try to sell you batteries or razors. The ones who say they need money for the bus but you recognize them from asking you that for years and their eyes look more and more dead as time goes on.

In my neighborhood there are always different guys sitting on the corner by the liquor store or leaning up against the wall behind it. There was an old lady who carried a ridiculous amount of blankets and clothing in a shopping cart – not sure what happened to her. There are the kids here every once in a while looking real sad with their heads down, clutching signs about being stranded away from home with no money. Only a smelly dog. There are people that fall asleep in the doorways, people that just flop over and pass out on the sidewalks. I never want to be that asshole that just steps over a guy and pretends not to see them, I hope that if they were actually hurt I would notice and try to help them. But if they’re sleeping something off I don’t want to be the asshole that wakes them up either.

There was the lady that sold Real Change at a couple different grocery stores, I saw her on the bus for years. I never knew until after she died that she had been homeless since being kicked out of a building for filing a complaint against the landlord. Who knows what the story was there. I know there are definitely some shitty landlords out there. I’m sure some people would say well, she’s dumb, she should’ve known that filing a complaint against the owner of your building was gonna cause her some problems. So you’re comfortable saying that because somebody did something you think was dumb that means they should die on a sidewalk? See, I can’t agree with you on that one.

Alot of the spare-changers, if you tell them you don’t have any they still bless you or tell you to have a good night or something. Very occasionally they curse you out. Sometimes I’m being honest, I really would give them change but I don’t have any. So I get pissed if they do that. I’m not exactly rolling in the money myself, why do you act like I owe you something? I don’t even know you.

Then again there’s Jesus. He would say to help them. He was really into helping poor people. Easier for him though with his bread and fish multiplying powers and what not. But it’s obviously a good philosophy.

I wish I knew how to help these people. Instead I learn to get jaded and desensitized to their plight. But when I let my guard down, even if they’re messed up I got alot of sympathy for them. I think most of them are out-of-control addicted or mentally ill with no system in place to help them cope. They got no family, sometimes because their relatives are dead, sometimes because the family’s got good reason not to want to talk to them anymore. But whatever the situation they’re obviously in a shitty place in their life and if I could be Jesus and bring ‘em inside and feed ‘em and teach ‘em to fish I would love to do it. But I don’t know a way. There are probly some situations where giving them money can help them, but usually you figure it’s only feeding the habit. You tell yourself that, anyway, and you’re probly right. Also, you’ve seen the guy with the bag on his head throw his money in the bushes. Some of the other guys follow him around because they know he does that.

It’s just a shitty situation, and it gets worse in times like this. The economy’s doing bad, plus the politicians believe they gotta keep cutting taxes, so the various governments go broke, they gotta start cutting budgets. That means less homeless shelters, less women’s shelters, less city workers to look after the homeless people, bring them blankets during the winter. It means less mental health services, less social workers, less treatment for addicts, and therefore more people on the streets. And you know how bad our fuckin insurance situation is. If somebody is out of work because they’re crazy you can’t just tell them “hey, stop being crazy.” Or you can, but they probly won’t do it, or be able to do it even if they want to. You gotta have a good job with good benefits first, then you can be crazy. Otherwise it’s trouble.

So I see Rutger Hauer with his sun-hardened wrinkles, his dirty hat and layers of clothing, his callused hands, I got a hard time thinking “ha ha, hobo. Ha ha, he gives her a cup of shitty dandelions, ’cause he’s homeless, he can’t afford real flowers.” If it seemed more authentic it might be cool, but they do this cartoon version. I mean I think he could manage to steal something better than dandelions.

But I guess they’re trying. I do appreciate that they got basically a “Bum Fights” guy as a villain that gets a comeuppance. I hope some of you don’t know about this, that there really were some scumbags who paid homeless dudes to fight each other and sold video tapes of it. Widely, commercially distributed professional videos and DVDs, a whole series of them, until I think they got sued or something. It’s good to see a guy like that feel the wrath of Hobo w/ Shotgun.

If all that shit I brought up doesn’t interfere with your enjoyment of a movie like this (which for most it probly doesn’t or shouldn’t) maybe you’ll think the movie’s better than okay. But maybe not. I feel like it doesn’t have enough jokes but isn’t designed to be taken seriously either. So I can’t appreciate it on the level of THE EXTERMINATOR or something because it’s tongue-in-cheek, but also not on the level of BLACK DYNAMITE, because it only has a couple of laughs. It’s not serious enough to be drama and not funny enough to be comedy, like that movie THE WASH starring Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, except instead of a car wash it’s about a homeless individual and Snoop Dogg isn’t in it at all, or on the soundtrack. Bummer.

I will say this, it has a perfect ending. Not a joke, not a parody, just a fateful conclusion to the story of this character, a little poetic flourish and some of the ol’ dramatic synths as the credits roll. That goes a long way.

Actually, thinking about that ending I am prepared to say that HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN is probly better than THE WASH, from what I remember. But it’s no TOXIC AVENGER.

Most of the movie takes place in a white void, where clearly-untrustworthy scientist Dr. Wakeman (Hauer) teaches life lessons to a man-made human (Wil Wheaton, the main kid from STAND BY ME) covered from head to toe in weird white bandages with the texture of a shar pei. He speaks in a measured, intelligent tone and is very inquisitive. He isn’t allowed to read The Bible because the doctor says he’s not ready for fiction yet. He also has super strength, is followed around by a floating eyeball the size of a beach ball, and he seems to have memories from the body parts he’s made of. When they take his bandages off he’s a Leatherface type patchwork quilt with different races and skin tones spread throughout. The makeup is by Tom Savini (who also has a cameo) and it does a great job of being repulsive without any blood or guts.

The human jigsaw puzzle look makes no sense on a literal level. He even has a mix of different hair colors, and one of his fingers has a long, painted fingernail left over from the original owner. But it illustrates the clash of philosophies within the project. “The Outfit” funds him as a super soldier, but some of the scientists on the team are trying to do something more poetic, combining all races and genders into one perfect human. They gave him no genitals and balanced his parts between male and female so he wouldn’t have a gender, but he chooses to call himself a man, explaining that it makes people more comfortable to consider him one gender.

Even Wakeman must have interests beyond creating a killing machine, otherwise why would he teach him about books and music? But of course regardless of what they do or don’t want him to be, they can’t control it, and as the fox says, chaos reigns. As the creature learns more he becomes more curious, more rebellious, and makes more decisions about what he wants in life. He names himself Lazarus.

The story is mostly a series of conversations between Lazarus and Wakeman or Lazarus and the psychiatrist Dr. English (Nia Peeples of HALF PAST DEAD fame) as he begins to understand the world, piece together (get it? piece together?) his past lives and deaths, and question his situation. The minimalistic white sets are a smart way to keep the budget down, but don’t worry, the world of the movie expands eventually and there’s even some good action (although I question the skull-faced smoke plume after a car goes off a cliff. It’s like they tried to do show-offy 2000s type visuals on a $5 budget and a decade and a half too soon).

Alot of little touches go a long way to implying an interesting futuristic world. There’s the occasional weird biomechanical device full of Cronenbergian slime, the security guards drive dune buggies on and off road, American soldiers wear skeleton makeup like child soldiers in the Sierra Leone. In the building where Wakeman’s lab is housed ordinary people in suits and lab coats walk past identical, non-descript offices with doors matter-of-factly labelled with what goes onside, even if it’s “CHEMICAL WEAPONS.” Some viewers might find this laughable, but I think the mundane-ness is horrifying and all too believable.

The idea of Lazarus having flashbacks from his dead body parts is one of those sci-fi/horror things that clearly doesn’t make any sense but has been done to death anyway. But I like how it’s handled. It leads to some poignant scenes (I don’t use the word poignant that often, so please enjoy these two uses of it here) and some intense ones. There’s a great car crash scene shot from inside a rolling car. Pretty scary.

Hauer pretty much acts as you’d expect him to as a mad scientist. I didn’t notice any clues that there was trouble or that the movie was reworked around him getting kicked off. Ron Perlman also has a small role.

But the movie entirely depends on Wheaton’s performance, and I think he gets it just right. He sounds like a guy who doesn’t really know exactly what it’s like to be human, but in some ways is more thoughtful than somebody who does. So he’s both inhuman and humane, scary and sympathetic. He’s kind of a ticking time bomb because we know his strength and see his impatience with the way these doctors are treating him. But we definitely side with him. Get the fuck out of there if you can, Lazarus.

Nobody ever calls him Mr. Stitch, by the way. I’m glad, because that would be mean.

From what little I’ve been able to find about this movie it seems like its reputation is not good, but I gotta say I really enjoyed it. The article says it debuted on video and then played the Sci-Fi Channel. Compared to the movies that do that these days it’s CLOCKWORK ORANGE. I mean, nothing against Gatoroid, I’m sure he’s a nice guy. I’m just saying this has more smarts, style and entertainment value than the kind of thing they make now, in my opinion, although with less tendrils.

THE HITCHER starts off as a really good horror movie. Atmospheric shots of C. Thomas Howell driving out on the highway, drinking coffee out of a Thermos, trying to stay awake. Looks like he’s been up all night driving. It starts to rain. Maybe out of desperation to stay awake, maybe out of spontaneity, he picks up a hitchhiker, Rutger Hauer. He jokes about how his mom told him never to pick up hitchhikers. But when he tries to ask Hauer where he’s going the weirdo keeps not answering, changing the subject. Every time he does it it gets more uncomfortable. Then he starts talking about murder and dismemberment, making threats, pulls out a switchblade.

So it’s Howell vs. Hauer. Howell is in control of the car, but nothing else. You can understand why it’s not easy for him to make a move. He’s kind of a weiner, and Hauer is an intense guy. It just brings up all those feelings of being a young man, trying to be an adult but being afraid, not ready to handle everything yet. It was a big move for him to decide to move from Chicago to California by himself, he took the plunge and thought he could handle it but didn’t figure on this unstoppable psycho who may or may not really be named John Ryder.

I kind of thought it would be a confined-space threat, the two guys in the one car with constant driving threats, like SPEED. But actually he gets the psycho out of the car pretty quick. There’s a great moment of relief when he has shaken him out of his hair, will live, is a successful adult, can continue his trip relieved instead of in terror. He thinks. But Ryder has set his sights on him and keeps coming after him, and is supernaturally good at it. He’s successful enough in his stalking that I started to think maybe it was a PSYCHO deal where Ryder is this kid’s evil split personality or something.

Maybe the turning point though is when he gets arrested, interrogated, suspected of crimes he didn’t commit, wakes up and his cell is unlocked and all the cops are dead. I’m pretty sure he didn’t do that. And man, he’s fucked. What can you really do in a situation like that? I thought maybe I would go back in the cell and lock it and say shit, I was asleep, I don’t know what happened. But that’s not necessarily that much better than his plan of stealing a gun and running off into the desert.

I was a little iffy on Ryder’s abilities, it’s kinda ridiculous that he can kill all those cops and keep appearing wherever our weiner hero is. And to me it’s scarier if it seems like a real guy instead of some demon or x-man or something. Later on it turns into more of a straightup action movie as the cops are after Howell and Ryder starts killing the cops. There are great car stunts and a shot that literally made me say “How did they do that?” when it appeared that they crashed an actual helicopter.

This is a clever and well-directed movie that walks along the line between real and surreal, keeping you off balance and uncomfortable. But definitely its biggest strength is the performance by Hauer. He is so crazy and so pleased with himself and yet never goes over-the-top. His strangest moment is when he’s handcuffed and Howell spits on his face. He wipes it off but just sits there with a bit of a smile, like he’s happy about it, or proud of Howell or something.

By the way, do you guys think C. Thomas Howell could pass for a black guy? Not sure why that popped into my head.

The writer is Eric Red, who also wrote NEAR DARK but I guess is now best known for an unfortunate incident driving his car into a bar killing two people and then slashing his throat with a piece of glass (he survived and still makes movies). (and by the way I never knew about that until you guys mentioned it in my comments recently) I think this one is really well directed, but Robert Harmon didn’t do too many well known movies after this. He did do Van Damme’s NOWHERE TO RUN, the JESSE STONE movies with Tom Selleck and that Jim Caviezel movie HIGHWAYMEN which I plan to check out due to the HITCHER-esque subject matter.

I wonder about that remake too, did they make it a period piece? Hitchhiking is one of those things you can’t really hinge a modern movie on. It’s like how cell phones ruin everything in movies now, they always have to come up with the reason why the character doesn’t just use their cell phone to get help. In this case, kids wouldn’t understand why the hell C. Thomas stopped and let a stranger into his car. And they’re right. It’s not the same as other dying traditions like trick or treating or scary movies where you just shake your head in disappointment at today’s sissy, sheltered little kids. No, that’s one thing the new generation got right: you shouldn’t pick up Rutger Hauer. Let him get a cab. Shoulda listened to your mama, Howell.

[ratings]

Rutger Hauer plays Martin, the sort of leader of a rowdy group of soldiers who, betrayed by their captain, set out for revenge and riches. While burying a stillborn baby they find a buried statue of Saint Martin, so they take it as a sign from God and carry the statue around with them, travelling in whatever direction his sword ends up pointing.

Their revenge leads them to the accidental abduction of a Princess Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh, no relation to Jason Scott Lee) who’s arranged to be married to the son of the captain who betrayed them, so he and his inventor son come after the mercenaries, who are kicking it VIP style in a stolen castle.

In many ways this feels like the fantasy movies of the era. Even Basil Pouledaris’s score drops the usual Pouledaris bombast for some of that renaissance fair type medeival revelry type of shit, the magical tones that invoke images of dudes in stupid hats dancing around with a flute doing a jig and selling daggers and watercolor paintings of wolves. The difference is that this one never gets boring. Even without a typical quest or journey type of plot structure it’s just more captivating than so many bland movies of this type.

Part of the reason is Hauer as Martin. He’s clever and roguish, he gets out of some tight spots, he does things out of kindness, he’s casual in the face of danger. But he’s not some Pirates of the Caribbean type lovable scalliwag. A couple of the things he does you can’t forgive. For example he meets Agnes when his group decide to gang rape her. That’s not what they call “meet cute.” His idea of nobility is not to rescue her, but to first take his turn, then distract everybody else so they won’t take theirs. Real romantic. The two have a complicated relationship – she seems to start to care about him, but she might just be using him to protect her. She eventually goes back to her first guy, but you’re not sure who her heart is still with. The one guy is probaly a better person, because he’s not a rapist as far as we’ve seen, but as a movie character you don’t like him, he’s kind of an annoying priss.

Obviously this is more sexual than, say, BEAST MASTER or DRAGON SLAYER or even that part in LORD OF THE RINGS where they’re all jumping up and down on the bed. Agnes is discovering sexuality, experimenting, even seems attracted to her female friend played by the voice of Bart Simpson. Two of the knights are gay. Agnes loses her virginity under some rotting hung corpses, with a couple horses frollicking nearby. There aren’t co-ed showers like in ROBOCOP and STARSHIP TROOPERS, but there’s sex in a bath. (Wait a minute – like the pool scene in SHOWGIRLS! That’s a Verhoeven motif I never picked up on. Robocop never fucked anybody in a pool did he? I don’t remember.)

It’s also pretty gruesome at times, but to be honest not as much as you’d expect from the equation of Verhoeven + swords. There’s a pretty good firework eye impalement. But I don’t think at this point Verhoeven was as interested in pushing the violence envelope. He was more interested in messing with sexuality and religion. In fact it opens with the knights taking communion before a battle, because then if they die they go to a Heaven full of booze and whores. In my opinion they are sort of manipulating the biblical text to fit the results they’re looking for. Their use of the statue is also theologically questionable although clearly a cool idea.

The story leaves a couple things hanging – apparently an earlier script was more about the relationship between Martin and the captain, less about Agnes. That explains why they sut up this whole thing about the Captain looking ofter a schizo nun. It seems crucial at first and then never really amounts to much.

I definitely prefer the American Verhoeven movies that came soon after this, but this is still a good one. It really had me wishing he did that Schwarzenegger Crusades movie he used to talk about. That would’ve been some crazy shit. Maybe if he thinks Schwarzenegger is too old or unavailable he could try to get CGI Schwarzenegger from TERMINATOR SALVATION.

[ratings]

BLADE RUNNER is an amazing work of sight and sound, a groundbreaking depiction of future worlds, a gloomy cinematic nightmare, a unique approach to science fiction, and a complete fucking bore. Watching it on the big screen for the limited theatrical engagement of this “definitive cut” I was struck by how beautiful it looked and sounded, and also I wanted to take a nap. It’s like watching the greatest ant farm ever constructed.

Well, shit. I can’t believe I’m writing this. I know I’m only one paragraph in but I would like to extend my sincerest apologies. This is what you call a guilty un-pleasure. It’s easier for me to picture myself reading this review, written by somebody else, and pulling my hair out, than me sitting here writing it. But here I am. I always dug this movie. Never got why anybody would consider it Ridley Scott’s best (Motherfucker directed ALIEN. ALIEN! That’s his masterpiece, people. Let’s get this straight) and thought it was a little slow. But I always dug it and I was excited to see it on the big screen here. But facts are facts. I am a journalist, or whatever. I have to admit: this one time anyway, BLADE RUNNER bored the shit out of me.

Don’t get me wrong – everything everybody always loved about it is still there. The world of the movie is undeniably great, all the detail in that city, the sounds, the lighting. I’m not sure what they did with the effects for this new edition but it worked, nothing looked too dated but also didn’t look CGI-ified. I haven’t seen the movie for years and I have no idea what was changed in it (although obviously it’s like the director’s cut, no narration and the fuckin unicorn is in there).

But the thing that never bothered me before, but that I couldn’t get past this time, was the who gives a shit factor. The yeah but what about having a good story and characters dilemma. Of course the idea is cool, the replicants, the flying cars, the origami. But after all these years I was looking for something beyond that and I just kept wondering why I was supposed to give a shit about this blade runner dweeb, a guy too sissy to turn down an immoral job, not even that good at the job when he does it, not passionate about anything he does except in one part having forceful sex with a robot, a guy who dreams about a fuckin unicorn.

I repeat: he dreams about a unicorn, a magic fairyland horse with a horn that runs in glimmery slow motion. That is what inhabits this dipshit’s deepest inner thoughts. That is the character that is supposed to anchor us in this world. Harrison Ford, so cool and funny as Hans Solo and Indiana etc., has had every last drop of humor and charisma sapped out of his body for this role. They squeezed it into a mason jar and sealed it under 25 feet of solid concrete so none of it could seep out during filming. Fifteen years later Ridley Scott himself took part in a secret moonlight ceremony where they unearthed the jar. The charisma inside had dried up and shriveled into a tiny stone which Ford then began to wear as an earring.

Obviously this is supposed to be kind of like a film noir or a hardboiled detective story, but Deckard is no Sam Spade. Those stories have anti-heroes who are witty fast talking guys, or tough talking hardnosed bastards. Not this guy. This guy barely smiles, barely frowns. He’s not cool. He’s not exciting. The one part where he seems to have a sense of humor is when he puts on a cartoony “nerd” voice while talking to Zhora, at which point you wish maybe he didn’t have a sense of humor at all because that whole thing is pretty awkward.

The other bad news: his girlfriend is less interesting than he is.

Okay, I get it, they’re (maybe) robots. That doesn’t make them not boring. And besides, Roy and Pris are robots too, but they’re cool and funny, they have personalities and passion, anger and amusement. This time around, I honestly was not interested in what was going on in the movie until 2/3 of the way through when it was about Pris at J.F. Sebastian’s place and she says “Hi Roy.” That was when I realized the problem was Deckard. This is the longest stretch of the movie to not have Deckard in it and all the sudden it becomes a way better movie. If only the two lead characters were removed from the movie I could agree with everybody else that it’s a masterpiece. All the supporting characters are really good actually, it’s just that pesky central character who is the focus of almost the entire movie.

It’s hard not to root for the bad guys here. What they’re doing is no less immoral than what Deckard is doing. They’re escaped slaves. They’re trying to defend themselves. They’re programmed to die and they want to reverse that. They do kill a couple people, and that is wrong. But they are doing it for a cause. Deckard is killing them and not for a cause, he’s doing it for the money. Maybe not even for the money, maybe just because he’s too apathetic and wimpy to turn down the job. And it’s not even his job anymore. It’s his former job. So don’t give me that just doing his job shit. He knows it’s wrong. So if they’re both wrong, and the good guy is so boring he might as well be replaced by a paper plate with a smiley face on it taped to the back of a chair wearing a coat, of course you’re gonna root for the weird cute clown lady who does flips and the crazy passionate bastard who mutilates himself and recites poetry while crying in the rain but does not as far as we know ever think about a fucking unicorn.

Of course, that is a strength of the movie, that those characters are so strong. I just wish they appeared earlier in the movie to liven things up. Or at least let Brion James live a while longer. Or have Edward James Olmos be the main blade runner instead of Harrison Ford. Or have Billy Dee Williams play Deckard. Or go with the paper plate taped to a chair idea I mentioned, that was a pretty good idea.

I must admit, I have not gotten enough sleep lately. So it’s partly my fault. I implore you, be very awake when you watch BLADE RUNNER. This is especially important because of Vangelis, who apparently scored the movie with tunes he had leftover from a hypnotism tape he worked on. Or an illusionist’s act. When the end credits came up and he started doing some low down John Carpenter/THE WARRIORS type shit I thought where the fuck was he keeping that during the movie? Try to put everybody to sleep with your magic show soundtrack and then wake them up at the end credits so the ushers can clean the theater.

I guess people love this whole idea that Deckard is (maybe) a replicant too, maybe even one of the escaped replicants reprogrammed for some reason to think he has a past with the police department. I admit that it never occurred to me back in the day when I watched this, and I thought it was pretty cool when I heard about it. But watching it now (in a version that leaves you with the origami unicorn as the last thought, so either you’re supposed to think his stupid dreams are implanted or it’s just a reminder that this guy is a sissy) I’m not sure this whole idea holds water. It’s kind of stupid, actually. To kill these robots all he does is shoot them. One of them, the only one that was hurting anybody, he doesn’t even kill, the guy’s time just ran out. So really, he has not done anything to make anyone’s life better, he’s only killed two harmless robots shortly before their time. Any human could’ve done the same crappy job he did, and many could’ve done a funnier voice when interviewing Zhora.

(Actually, to be fair, by killing Zhora he may have created a job opening for a human snake dancer. So it may have had a positive effect on the economy, you could make that argument.)

If they wanted to do a good job, why wouldn’t they have gotten a robot that has super-strength and agility like the blades it’s hunting? And why would they have to trick it into thinking it’s human? Why not make it competent and aware of its abilities? Maybe there’s some kind of obscure union rules they need to follow or something but otherwise I can only assume these police are both incompetent and completely crazy. That is a horrible god damn plan. You’re never gonna stop runaway androids with this moronic approach to law enforcement. Shit, send Olmos out there on his crutches, give him a sock full of quarters, he would do a better job than ol’ Grumpy McUnicorndreams. I guess maybe dismantling replicants is too expensive so they just send a shitty one like this out on a useless mission to get him out of their hair.

For years I always heard how this movie was misunderstood at the time, and I always believed that. Well, undeniably it has been a huge influence on other movies and has stood the test of time. Its strengths are more than enough to justify its legend and I was happy to see it again even lacking the ability to fast forward it to the good part at the end. But I can’t help but think you know what, maybe they weren’t wrong at the time. Maybe the people who were ahead of their time were actually the people who said from the beginning that it was a brilliant failure, not an actual masterpiece. I don’t know.

I do know this: THE THING came out on the same day. Both movies got some real bad reviews and suffered from comparisons to lovable E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, which came out a couple weeks earlier. Of the two anti-E.T.s though, I gotta go with THE THING as the more powerful viewing experience. BLADE RUNNER is more innovative, THE THING is more watchable.

Oh well. Nice try though Ridley Scott, maybe your next cut will be the one that brings it home.

[ratings]

That Vietnam origin story, by the way, is all taken care of during the opening credits, which is admirable. No time wasted.

White Zatoichi goes to reveal his “alive” status to a war buddy played by “Terrance O’Quinn,” who people now call “so-and-so from LOST” but he is actually THE STEPFATHER. Before the swordsman gets there, O’Quinn gets kidnapped by the mafia and forced to use his chemistry skills to formulate a sea blue “designer drug.” The wife (creepy-eyed Meg Foster from THEY LIVE) gets shot right in front of White Zatoichi’s ears so he takes their son on the road to try to reunite him with his father.

This is a weird and enjoyable movie, but you know you’re in some trouble as soon as you realize this kid is gonna be in the whole movie. You can’t blame the poor kid, but he is not exactly a great screen presence. The movie was made in 1989 and he’s the usual type of spunky blond brat who starred in children’s TV at that time. Then every once in a while he gets emotional and starts crying. This is an enjoyable movie but probaly more for kids than for adults.

The movie leans a little too far into comedy for my tastes. The bad guys include cartoon redneck brothers who actually refer to each other as “Brother Lyle” and “Brother Tector” so you know they’re brothers. They have jokey dialogue like when they get into trouble and yell “Shit! Fuck! Shitfuck!” They are balanced out a little by the more legitimately threatening Randall “Tex” Cobb (the evil biker from RAISING ARIZONA). But then you got White Zatoichi himself (actually, his name is Nick Parker) always doing wacky shit like driving a car and when a guy yells “Are you blind!?” he says “Yes, what’s your excuse?” The original Zatoichi was always fucking with people too, but he was more dry about it. Nick Parker can’t really hide the amusement on his face. I guess I prefer the ol’ stoicism.

Also, he’s not a masseusse. Zatoichi was a masseuse.

But whenever Nick gets to use his sword-cane the movie picks up. I don’t know if Rutger Hauer is a trained swordsman or what, but he looks good in these fights, and very efficient. Since this is the modern world he gets to use the cane-sword in ways Zatoichi never did, like slicing off door knobs and wrecking machinery. Like Zatoichi or WALKING TALL he catches people cheating at gambling. Zatoichi was much more clever, he deliberately allowed the gamblers to think they were taking advantage of his blindness in order to con them out of their own money. Nick just figures out how they’re cheating him and reveals it using his sword. But it’s still pretty fuckin cool.

When the top bad guy finds out about this blind swordsman problem he tells his underling to “get Bruce Lee” to stop him. “Bruce Lee’s dead.” “Then get me his brother!” They settle for Sho Kosugi, the same mistake the bad guys made in ENTER THE NINJA. Maybe they figured Franco Nero was a ninja, this guy is more like a samurai, it’s a completely different type of white-man-trained-in-Ancient-Japanese art. Kosugi gets to wear modern clothes though (no ninja outfit) and they fight on the edge of a hot tub.

Maybe the weirdest thing about the movie is the fact that George Lucas seems to have borrowed one of the most memorable PHANTOM MENACE shots from it. The climactic villain death is an overhead special effects shot of the guy plummeting off a mountain, and after he flips over a couple times the body separates into upper and lower halves, revealing that Nick has actually cut him in half. A reader named Rob B. tipped me off to this, but I figured he was exaggerating the similarity. After seeing it I think it couldn’t be a coincidence. Either George Lucas likes BLIND FURY, or some storyboard artist saw it as a kid and had it ingrained in his subconscious. Or maybe both movies are referencing some samurai movie that Rob and I are not aware of. Anyway there you go, it was cool in PHANTOM MENACE but BLIND FURY was there first. If you liked PHANTOM MENACE you will love BLIND FURY. Randall “Tex” Cobb is Darth Maul, the kid is either Anakin or Jar Jar, and somewhere there are probaly hardcore Zatoichi fans who still can’t get over this one. May the force be with you, etc.

[ratings]

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STORY #1 starring Batman

You know how RAMBO 2 tried to help our nation get over Vietnam? Well this one is trying to help us get over Joel Schumacher. The idea of BATMAN BEGINS is to pretend none of that other shit ever happened and start over. And they do a good job taking a 98.9% different approach.

One thing they figured out, if you want a good comic strip type movie you gotta hire a great maniac to play the super hero. Take for example Eric Bana, who gave one of the best performances of whichever decade that was in CHOPPER. Absolutely brilliant as a lovable psychotic murderer who cuts his own ears off, so they cast him as (The [Incredible]) Hulk. Same thing with Christian Bale here, many of us are most familiar with him as a sadistic yuppie with perfect abs running around naked with a chain saw, biting women on the ass, etc. So he’s perfect for Batman.

This one’s pretty different from AMERICAN PSYCHO. His character (name’s Bruce Wayne I believe) is another rich guy but he wants to make the world a better place and that kind of crap. Not shoot women with nail guns. But at first we don’t know that, we first meet him as an american con in a hellish Chinese prison. He’s a bad motherfucker we know because 1. he’s probaly gonna turn out to be Batman I bet and 2. he purposely goes to Chinese prison to practice on criminals. Good stuff. (spoiler note: unfortunately we do not get to see some sort of badass escape from Chinese prison, a forgivable offense but also the first sign that this is not a perfect movie sent down from the Heavens like the internet would have you believe. Let’s have realistic hopes here, fellas.)

This is a smart idea to start out weird like this because everybody, even me, knows that Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed by a mugger or the Joker or Green Goblin or somebody like that, and that’s why he decided to dress up as a bat and get good at climbing ropes. So it’s nice to start out with something unusual before rehashing that material again. This does tell that old yarn again but what they do is they make it more in depth, more grounded in a halfway real world (not entirely real, let’s not exaggerate). They make you really like Bruce’s dad and get sad when he (spoiler) gets killed. And they show how and why Bruce Wayne builds the whole Batman operation from the ground up: how he learned to fight, how he got a cool cave, where his equipment comes from, how he avoids arousing suspicion when ordering strange items from overseas, who helps him cover his tracks, even why he has those little spikes on his gloves. And why he decides hey, you know what would be cool, I should go with a bat motif.

Like in the other movies, Batman wears an asinine armored scuba outfit with point ears, but they use a couple good tricks to make it forgivable. Number one, they don’t show it as often. There’s one part where he’s in silhouette and he looks really cool. It’s kind of like remember that movie ALI, I thought Will Smith really looked alot like Mohammed Ali when you either squinted enough or when they showed him from the back. This is the same way, he almost looks cool when they’re not showing him.

Number two, they show him building the suit, so you can understand why it looks so stupid. Just the body part alone cost $300,000 dollars. What’s he gonna do, start over because it doesn’t make him look cool? Bruce Wayne isn’t that petty. If they’re real friends they’ll judge him on who he is, not on his clothes. And think about this Batman, you look EXTREMELY fucking cool compared to Daredevil. (That little pep talk works on all super hero movies except Daredevil.)

And the third trick about the costume is, alot of the movie isn’t about wearing the costume, it’s about leading up to the costume. Travelling around the world training, fighting crime without a costume, pretending to be a drunk playboy. They make Bruce Wayne into more of a character, more of a methodical guy instead of just the weirdo who stares out the window and/or makes speeches about duality.

Not that there aren’t speeches. I liked how much the movie focused on story and character instead of the usual “comic book movie” stuff, but there’s a section there where it gets a little bogged down by too much dialogue of characters exchanging their views about justice. I wanted to say, “Hey, David S. Goyer who wrote this script, you know one of the reasons your character Blade is so cool? Because he knows when to shut the fuck up, which is most of the time.” David S. Goyer wasn’t there though and anyway before I got a chance to say it the movie really kicked in.

One thing I liked is how much they try to make it seem real. They shoot it more like a crime drama, not some gothic fairy tale. And most of the gadgets seem like semi-plausible experimental military type technology. Even the grappling hooks he uses they make seem sort of real, because they sound like equipment you kids use for your rock climbing or Road Rules. Also Gotham seems like a real city some of the time. Later on though, especially when the action gets big and out of control, they end up with some of the cheesy soundstage feel. Also the crime ridden areas of Gotham remind you of those ’80s New-York-is-hell movies like THE WARRIORS or CHAINS or a couple of the Michael Jackson videos. At least they don’t have dudes with mowhawks pulling switchblades on people.

The cast is great, especially Bale (SHAFT), Liam Neeson (DARKMAN) and Michael Caine (ON DEADLY GROUND). Katie Holmes is pretty good except she can’t pull off a couple chunks of exposition they gave her and they made her lecture Bruce Wayne enough that you wonder why he bothers with her. Nothing too bad though. As for the villains, the emphasis is much more on Batman getting things in place than on villains, but they’re good ones without much of a trace of that histrionic post-Jack-Nicholson-as-the-Joker comic book movie villainy we’ve seen from Tommy Lee Jones in that one movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger in that other movie, Colin Farrel in a different movie where his super power is flicking deadly peanuts and paper clips at people, or the other guys like that in the other movies.

A warning for action movie fans though: the action is this movie’s one major weakness. Its KRYPTONITE if you will. (little comic book reference for you guys, I bet some of you hardcores will get that one. [if not it's from superman I believe, don't quote me on that it might be spiderman but I think superman though]). In a movie that pretty much starts out with a dude going up to Shaolin Temple and asking to be trained, you want to see some good fights. To be fair, I just watched 8 DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER so my standards are temporarily high. But most of the action here is shot in a very Bruckheimery/GLADIATOR style where the camera is too close and shaky for anybody to really have any idea what is going on, except that it involves Batman in some way I believe, and possibly that guy who he is fighting. This is frustrating because Goyer definitely sets up what could’ve been some great fights, including more than one where our guy has to take on multiple ninjas with swords.

Hint to Christopher Nolan: in a ninja fight, there should be some shots that show their arms and legs. So you can see what they are doing. In my opinion. I’ll send you some ninja movies if you don’t understand what I’m talking about. Like I always say, think Bruce Lee in ENTER THE DRAGON, not John Saxon.

Honestly though, unlike hugely popular best picture winner that I didn’t like GLADIATOR, the badly shot action scenes didn’t ruin the movie for me. Because I really liked the story and characters, and never was waiting for another fight. I was thinking you know, I’m really enjoying this movie, I’m surprised how seriously it’s treating the story, how it expects you to care about character drama instead of guys in colorful costumes climbing around on giant statues and crap like that. Which means of course that most people will hate it and say it’s boring, like (The [Incredible]) Hulk. That’s what I was guessing but when the movie ended there was a huge, enthusiastic applause and people walking out with big smiles like they’d been smoking weed all day, which they hadn’t, because they were waiting in line for this screening. I’m not a psychic as far as I know, I have never touched an object associated with a crime and gotten visions to help solve the mystery. But my impression was that this was an honest to Christ applause, they really were excited about this movie. As far as I saw Batman was not in the audience so they weren’t just being polite. So hopefully alot of you will like it.

If not, there’s always life.

STORY #2 starring me

Okay, so BATMAN BEGINS was story #1 today, story #2 has no connection or similarity to story #1 at all except that it also concerns a Great American Icon. In this case, me. I don’t want to sound like I’m full of hot air, I know most of you won’t give a rat’s tail end about this, but for anybody that does it’s time to go public with the information that some young Hollywood hipster from Canada is trying to make a movie out of my web sight, life’s journey, etc. The script writer is named Skander Halim, and when he first approached me for this “option” business a couple years ago he told me he was a story editor for a TV show but “don’t watch it, it’s about a farting alien.” I felt sorry for the kid so I played along. I got ten bucks and a pack of Newports so it was a pretty good deal. Also his people sent me a script of his called PRETTY PERSUASION. Pretty good script I thought although yes, Skander, I saw HEATHERS too. Let’s move on with our lives now.

I’m still sure a movie about me is only a little more likely to happen than CATWOMAN RELOADED. But the twist I never saw coming is that his PRETTY PERVERSION script was turned into an actual movie, and a genuinely good one in my opinion. I saw it at the Seattle International type Film Festival last week. I’m not gonna review it obviously because I have a commitment to excellence so I watch out for the ol’ conflicts of interest there. But this sleazy and perverted, er I mean bold and uncompromising black comedy actually turned out great. It has a few elements I seen in WILD THINGS and yes, HEATHERS but it puts them together in a really smart, original and confident way. I laughed alot and only squirmed when I was supposed to. Like the part where James Woods gets caught jerkin off on the couch. Seeing triumphant scenes like this on the screen I realized it was a whole lot smarter than I caught on when I read the thing. I’m slow I guess.

My solemn vow not to review the movie almost seemed unneccessary because watching it I knew I genuinely liked it, not in a “that’s pretty good for some guy who actually reads my crappy web sight” kind of way. In my opinion. So if you can confirm that it is good from some objective third party or parties, please fly to New York or LA on August 12th to enjoy it in its limited release before it spreads like wildfire and becomes this generation’s DIE HARD. Or at least SPEED. Sorry there is no nudity but there is some cunnilingus so Harry will like it.

The movie Mr. Halim wrote about me is of course called VERN TELL’S IT LIKE IT IS and it is sort of a phoney baloney hollywood version of how I came to be and the great impact I had on the world through reviewing films on my TV show. (Don’t ask me, I didn’t write it.) He told me it was like a hard-R version of Pee Wee’s Baadasssss Song or whatever that first Pee Wee Herman picture was called. To be frankly honest it is not the sort of gritty and philosophical masterpiece that I would have written if I for some reason wanted to make a movie about myself. But I didn’t and his script made me laugh so I hope they will make it and share my laughter with the world. Also because I would get paid.

According to some rag called the Hollywood Reporter, Halim is about to direct a ghost movie he wrote. But if he is an honorable man of his word like you or I, he’s also working hard trying to get the story of yours truly into the right hands. Personally I think it’s his life long dream project, like GANGS OF NEW YORK, only with more prison, uh, scuffles. (I should mention by the way there are many unpleasant incidents in this script that are 100% fabrications. I don’t do shit like that anymore don’t believe the hype people.) It’s alot of lewd humor but also satire about internet film critics, high vs. low culture, and who knows what else, I only read it once. But I remember there was alot of stuff in there for people who really love the films of Cinema. Remember when you first started posting about how much such and such movie sucked, you did it because you mostly LOVED movies. That’s who this movie is for in my opinion, the old you. Also for ladies.

My role in the movie is to write lots of harsh notes to Halim which he will probaly ignore. I am trying to get him to change the title to BOILED HARD which promises all the action of HARD BOILED but with all the explosions of DIE HARD. Even if he doesn’t listen to me though I got some of me in there because the script faithfully adapts some stories from my columns and quotes some of my reviews. The other horse shit in there hopefully I’ll clear up in the novelization.

I’m hoping this will be the first movie in Hollywood history adapted from a geocities web sight. Then maybe those fucks’ll give me some more data transfer without making me pay $4.95 a month or whatever. And before you say anything, yes, Hulk Hogan should play Vern. Actually Roddy Piper would be better in my opinion. I sent this guy a list that started with Nick Nolte and ended with DMX. I’m just praying I don’t get Leslie Nielsen.

Anyway sorry for the self indulgence, but now it is off my chest and I am a free man. I don’t have enough money to fight crime though so don’t give me any shit about what I do with my life. I’m talking to you, Katie Holmes.

Originally published at Aint-It-Cool-News: http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=20410

[ratings]