“Viggo Mortensen is… AMERICAN YAKUZA.” That’s what it says on the trailer. This is a rare early Viggo lead role and it’s pretty much a straight up action/crime movie. In the tradition of AMERICAN NINJA, AMERICAN KICKBOXER, AMERICAN SAMURAI and AMERICAN BEAUTY, Viggo is an American white guy who earns the trust and acceptance of the Yakuza, complementing their traditions and rituals with his own American spirit. When they drink sake he drinks Bud Light or Wild Turkey. But don’t worry man, he’s cool. I’ll explain. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Viggo Mortensen’
American Yakuza
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
LikeThe Road
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
THE ROAD is a good movie, better book. If you’re thinking about reading it but haven’t got to it yet I’d say read it, then see the movie. The movie (directed by John Hillcoat, who did THE PROPOSITION) is very faithful to the book (by Cormac McCarthy, who did No Country For Old Men) and illustrates it well, but it can’t really do the same thing.
In case you don’t watch Oprah, the story is about a man and his son after civilization has been destroyed by some unnamed disaster. They’re cold, hungry and worn out and trying to push their little cart of belongings across the United States to the coast. They don’t even really know what they expect when they get there, they just don’t know what else to do. (more…)
Psycho (remake)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
In Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of PSYCHO they tried to recreate Hitchcock’s filmatism, they had Joseph Stefano only slightly re-word his old script, they re-recorded Bernard Herrman’s score and made it sound basically the same. So the success or failure of this version mostly falls to the one element Hitchcock claimed to not give two shits about: the actors.
That’s trouble though because it was easy to predict that nobody could withstand comparison to Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. It’s interesting to see someone else try to put a different spin on it, but I doubt you could find anyone who prefers Vince Vaughn or even thinks he comes a close second. I’m not sure who the miraculous casting choice who would work as Norman even though he’s not Anthony Perkins would be, but Vaughn ain’t the guy. (more…)
Appaloosa
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009APPALOOSA does have a little post 9-11 political relevance, but for the most part it’s a straight ahead western. I’ve talked to some people who thought it was too slow or needed more gunfights, so if that’s what you’re looking for, beware. It’s a character piece about two gunmen who’ve gotten real good at dealing with assholes and cleaning up small towns overrun with bandits and bullies.
If the cast was just nobodies it might not work, instead we got Ed Harris (also director) as Virgil Cole, Viggo Mortensen (not director) as trusty sidekick Everett Hitch. Virgil has aspirations to become a legitimate lawman, Hitch has an 8-gauge shotgun. They come into the town of Appaloosa to work for the elected officials who’ve been shoved aside by Jeremy Irons, a tyrant whose big shot status comes from claims he’s friends with Chester A. Arthur (come on, everybody uses that one). Him and his gang run the town, everybody’s afraid of them, the usual. So our boys become marshals and to everybody’s shock they have the balls to start arresting people, and the shit and fan quickly become intimates.
Now here’s the problem: Renee Zelweger. I don’t get it. I know she must’ve done some good performances at one time, but she’s usually not appealing. She has a pinched little face and an evil vibe, but tends to play characters who are supposed to be lovable beneath their cold, bitchy shells. To me this is not believable. I thought it was just me since she keeps getting cast in movie after movie and winning all kinds of awards, but an informal poll found that 100% of males hate Renee Zelweger in their movies. Because of this you lose respect for Virgil when he immediately becomes smitten with supposedly-innocent-seeming piano player Allison French. (more…)
Dark Age and Tripwire
Sunday, September 28th, 2008DARK AGE
In my ongoing tribute to the land of MAD MAX and CHOPPER I have come across another good giant crocodile movie that pre-dates ROGUE by a good 20 years. But this one actually has John Jarrat – the widower Russell in ROGUE, the fuckin maniac in WOLF CREEK – as the park ranger hero.
This one reminds me of RAZORBACK a little, because it reminds me of JAWS a little. The director, Arch Nicholson, was second unit director on RAZORBACK, but his movie is in a more realistic vein, less stylized and exaggerated. The crocodile never runs through the side of a house and steals a baby like the razorback did. The photography is pretty naturalistic, it’s by Andrew Lesnie whose name seems familiar because he did the LORD OF THE RINGS movies, the BABE movies, and I AM LEGEND.
There’s a scene that has to be a deliberate homage to JAWS where everybody’s playing on the beach and a woman spots the croc and tries to warn the kids to get out of the water, but one kid gets eaten in front of everybody. But it’s an Australian twist because half of the kids on the beach are aborigines. That’s what makes this story unique is the conflict between the “white fellas” who just want to kill the crocodile, and the aborigines who won’t let them. (more…)
Boiling Point
Sunday, April 27th, 2008Some individuals have been writing to me asking for me to “go on record” about Wesley Snipes getting sentenced to three years for not filing his tax returns. I don’t know, man. It seems to me like a bullshit sentence. You can skip down a couple paragraphs to get to BOILING POINT but I’ll say a few things here by request.
I got mixed feelings about taxes. On paper I believe in them strongly. I mean somebody’s gotta pave the fuckin streets so you hot shots can drive around on them. I like having electricity in the street lights. There’s alot of anti-tax sentiment here in Washington, there’s a rich prick who has made himself richer with a for-profit company that every election files a bunch of anti-tax propositions. They usually get shot down as unconstitutional but they’re popular so the state government ends up following them and the next thing you know the fuckin library is closed two months out of the year and the bridges are ready to collapse with no money to even tape ‘em up with duct tape and there’s twice as many homeless people sleeping on my street and everybody is confused. WHY is the soccer field by my house closed?! I demand justice! … What’s that? Lower property taxes? Of course, where do I sign?
But on the other hand obviously I hate sending in my tax return and especially because I know the money’s not only (or even mostly) going to those important things like infrastructure and helping people to not die. In fact I have noticed that especially over these last 8 years they have been using my money to actually MAKE people die, which is the opposite of what I like. From what I’ve read Wesley’s “tax protest” comes from not wanting to support the government’s activities, so I can relate to that.
But a wise movie character once said “Motherfuckers always tryin to ice skate uphill,” and telling the IRS that the language in the tax code technically means that nobody has to pay taxes definitely counts as ice skating uphill. So I’m a little disappointed in Wesley on this one. (more…)
Eastern Promises
Friday, October 5th, 2007Viggo Mortensen is a damn contortionist of the face. He stretches and twists that motherfucker from regular Viggo face into badass Russian gangster face. His eyebrows and the lines on his forehead turn into an arch. His mouth twists and curls into an arrogant smirk. The slash-like lines on his cheekbones suck extra deep into his skull. I could’ve sworn the motherfucker even created a dimple on his chin somehow, like through some weird breathing technique, but I checked photos and it turns out he already had that. But it fits his character well. That’s just the chin dimple a Russian gangster like that would have.
After all those years of great supporting performances, and then hitting the lottery by being the king that returned in RETURN OF THE KING, now he is getting the roles he was born for. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE is my favorite of his movies so far, so I’m glad he’s reteaming with Dave Cronenberg here. Hopefully they will continue to collaborate for at least one more movie, it could be known as “the Viggronenberg Gangster Trilogy.”
I think this is a really good, smart and original movie. But I don’t want to talk it up too much. Part of the appeal is the subtlety. It leaves alot of things unsaid, it’s pretty short and it’s small in scope. It deals with a family of Russian gangsters, but it doesn’t feel like an empire – they live in London, after all, and all the activity is centralized at one restaurant.
In fact I’m a little surprised that the reactions aren’t more divided. I heard nothing but good things from all the people I talked to who saw it before me, so I bet you’ll like it too. But still, you can’t go in expecting THE GODFATHER, which is what the critic’s quotes in some of the ads ask you to do. I heard a radio ad with a quote that was something like “Francis Ford Coppola. Martin Scorsese. And now David Cronenberg can be added to the list of directors of the greatest gangster movies of all time.” That’s kind of a cheating quote because it might be literally true but you fucking know it sounds like you’re saying this movie is as good as THE GODFATHER and GOODFELLAS. So you get to go into the hyperbole and then say you didn’t mean it. (more…)
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006As you’ve probaly figured out by now, I love THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. Hell, I’d go so far as to call it the DIE HARD of horror. The Mohammed Ali of horror. The Bruce Lee of horror. I also love part 2, not as fond of part three, hated part 4, fucking DESPISED the remake.
This week they got the prequel to the remake coming out. I’m sure I’ll probaly hate it, but who knows. In some ways it doesn’t sound as bad as the remake, and since it’s not a remake you can hold it to the lower standards of a sequel. And lucky for it, there have been two not so hot sequels already to lower the bar. So I came up with a plan. First, I devised a method by which I will see the prequel without Michael Bay getting any of my money. Then I rented parts 3 and 4 so I can have them fresh on my mind while watching the prequel. That way I will have the maximum possible open-mindedness when I see the new one and might be able to appreciate it. The only problem is I watched Part 3 here and it’s not as bad as I remembered.
LEATHERFACE (which is a dumb fucking title) is not really a disaster. More like a small accident, a minor fenderbender. Nothing to be proud of, but we’ll get it fixed. The beginning of the movie has Leatherface creating his mask, shot exactly like the opening of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET where Freddy constructs his glove. This is important because that’s the context this movie was made in. New Line Cinema had the rights to make a Texas Chainsaw sequel. They had just released A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD and it had done only okay. And they probaly knew that NINJA TURTLES shit couldn’t float forever, so they had to come up with a new Freddy. That’s why the title puts the emphasis on Leatherface. Leatherface is Freddy, the mask is his hat I guess, the saw is his glove. Give us money. (more…)
A History of Violence
Friday, September 23rd, 2005First of all Moriarty, to finish up that debate we were having over in your talkback, porn is not boring. At least not if you’re jerkin off to it. And if you’re not jerkin off to it you’re not giving the picture the respect it deserves. That’s like doing a crossword puzzle during a subtitled movie and then saying the movie didn’t make any sense. I know Alberto Gonzales recently declared a “war on porn” one of the administration’s highest priorities, but don’t write off the merits of hardcore porn without giving it a fair chance. Let’s show some class here, bud. That’s first of all. Second of all, I got a review of David (JASON X) Cronenberg’s excellent new picture A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE starring Viggo Mortensen.
This is basically a smart thriller, a simple one, nothing complicated, no crazy twists. It’s short and sweet although it moves at a somewhat deliberate pace (which is code for “some assholes will say it’s too slow but they’re wrong”). This is pretty much the most “normal” movie Dave Cronenberg has ever made. But it’s intense, intelligent and serious so it doesn’t feel like some kind of sellout movie. Just a rare moment where the guy is working on a wavelength that normal humans might be able to relate to. I’m sure his next movie will have vaginas growing out of people’s arms and machines made out of tongues and crap like that and you and I will enjoy it but I think it’s nice that once every ten or fifteen years he is willing to invite the rest of the neighborhood in for a show. Just tell them it’s the guy that did THE FLY and DEAD ZONE. But this one is less weird. Actually tell them it’s HIDALGO.
If you saw the trailer you pretty much know the first part of this movie: Viggo is Tom Stall, a family man in a small town, runs his own diner, beloved by the community, etc. Then one day some drifters try to rob him, he jumps over the counter and blows their fuckin heads off, etc. This makes him a local hero and media sensation, but you know, you don’t get moves like that from pouring coffee. That’s clear to Ed (KNIGHTRIDERS) Harris, a mobster from Philadelphia who shows up at the diner sporting a creepy fucked up eye and calling Tom “Joey.” I like Ed Harris, like in that Alex Cox movie WALKER. So I forgive him for stalking poor Tom and his family, seeking retribution on behalf of that fucked up left eye. (more…)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Saturday, January 1st, 2005Well I got my wish, they made a part 2. When last we left Merlin, Frodo, Viggo, Sam, Dwarf, and Elf, they were all split up. Merlin fell down a hole and there was no giant talking bird to save him this time. Everybody was separated or something. Frodo and Sam were going to go throw the ring in the volcano. I can’t remember what else.
Well part 2 picks up right in the middle of part 1, not where it left off. We find that when Merlin fell down that hole actually he did it on purpose to fight a demon in mid-air. It was awesome.
What this movie is about is they continue going to the volcano in three separate groups, and they never get there. But there are many wars. There are goblins that eat people’s legs and each other’s intestines. They ride on these monsters made out of computery animation. There are cameos by Dracula and Liv Tyler and the guy who did the voice for Chucky. As soon as you see him you go wait a minute, I think this guy MIGHT be evil. It’s just a feeling I got, I can’t explain it. You never shoulda trusted that guy just like you never shoulda gone to Dracula’s castle in part 1.
Merlin survives the extreme demon jumping but he starts dressing in all white and at first it seems like he lost his memory. So maybe instead of trying to destroy the ring, this one will be about him trying to remember who he was. He goes around and he finds out that he has these magic powers and he thinks maybe he was in the CIA. But then he remembers who he is so the story stays on track.
Also the invisible guys are back, but they don’t do as much. They’re on giant flying bat monsters. At the end there is a huge war between Viggo, a couple other guys, and 10,000 wet goblins. (more…)
