Archive for the ‘Crime’ Category
Tuesday, July 16th, 2024
July 15, 1994
MI VIDA LOCA (MY CRAZY LIFE) is the third film from writer/director Allison Anders. Two years ago I reviewed her 1992 release, GAS FOOD LODGING. That one was about a young woman growing up in a fictional desert town, this one is a fictional portrait of young cholas in a real neighborhood of Los Angeles.
I’ve heard of Echo Park, didn’t know its history, but as soon as they showed the picturesque little lake with swans and everything I thought “Oh shit! That’s the place from ALLIGATOR II: THE MUTATION.” The opening narration does not mention that actully-kind-of-good 1991 TV sequel about a giant alligator in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood under threat of gentrification, instead looking back to the silent era of film: “We have a lake that’s been here since the ‘20s, when movie stars had love nests in the hills.” I read that there were studios in the neighborhood then, and the 1914 Charlie Chaplin films TWENTY MINUTES OF LOVE and RECREATION were filmed at the park. That must be crazy to see your neighborhood in a movie from that long ago. Even from 30 years ago is cool, though. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Allison Anders, Angel Aviles, Danny Trejo, Echo Park, Jacob Vargas, Jason Lee, Jess Borrego, Julian Reyes, Los Lobos, Magali Alvarado, Marlo Marron, Nelida Lopez, Nicole Holofcener, Salma Hayek, Seidy Lopez, Spike Jonze
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Drama | 5 Comments »
Monday, July 8th, 2024
I hope everybody had a good Big Mia Weekend this year! For me, MAXXXINE was easily the most anticipated non-FURIOSA movie event of the summer.
In case you haven’t met Maxine Minx, she’s a character from Ti West’s X (2022). That’s a slasher movie set in 1979, when a group of amateur pornographers rent a farmhouse to shoot their first movie and are terrorized by the octogenarian owners (and an alligator). Mia Goth (A CURE FOR WELLNESS) plays both Maxine, the star of the porno shoot, and Pearl, the withered psychopath she runs over at the end. The prequel PEARL (shot back-to-back and released in the same year) is set in 1918, with Goth playing young Pearl growing up and losing her shit in the same farmhouse.
Now MAXXXINE completes the trilogy with Goth playing Maxine in 1985. Since surviving the massacre she’s had a successful porn career in Los Angeles and is now trying to move into “real” movies, like Marilyn Chambers or Traci Lords. But just when she seems to have her big break a sleazy private detective named John Labat (Kevin Bacon, FRIDAY THE 13TH, WILD THINGS) starts to harass her about her past, and also someone starts killing her friends and co-workers. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A24, Bobby Cannavale, Elizabeth Debicki, Giancarlo Esposito, Halsey, Kevin Bacon, Larry Fessenden, Mia Goth, Michelle Monaghan, Moses Sumney, Simon Prast, Ti West, Toby Huss, Tyler Bates, Zachary Mooren
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Horror | 21 Comments »
Wednesday, June 26th, 2024
THE BIKERIDERS is writer/director Jeff Nichols’ (TAKE SHELTER, MUD, LOVING) version of a biker gang movie. It’s loosely adapted from a 1968 book by Danny Lyon, who spent several years riding with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club of Chicago. Nichols incorporated Lyon as a character (played by Mike Faist of WEST SIDE STORY and CHALLENGERS) who’s spending time with the fictional Vandals motorcycle club, taking photos and recording interviews, and if you step back you can picture a version where he’s the lead. We would learn about this world along with him and then it would sort of become his story as he deals with the macho insecurities raised by trying to fit in with these guys. Eventually he realizes it’s bringing out a dark side of him but in the end he learns about himself or some shit. You know the drill. Like a sleeveless version of Matthew Rhys’ character in A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Austin Butler, Beau Knapp, Boyd Holbrook, Damon Herriman, Danny Lyon, Emory Cohen, Happy Anderson, Jeff Nichols, Jodie Comer, Karl Glusman, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, motorcycles, New Journalism, Norman Reedus, Toby Wallace, Tom Hardy, Will Oldham
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Drama | 12 Comments »
Monday, June 17th, 2024
June 17, 1994 was such a big day that in 2010 Brett Morgen released an ESPN 30 For 30 documentary called JUNE 17TH, 1994. It covered Arnold Palmer playing his final round at the U.S. Open, the commencement of the first FIFA World Cup hosted by the United States, a ticker tape parade for the New York Rangers after winning the Stanley Cup, Game 5 of the 1994 NBA Finals, Ken Griffey Jr. tying a Babe Ruth home run record, oh yeah and O.J. Simpson’s infamous slow police chase in the Ford Bronco. One important event of the day that it did not cover was the release of Mike Nichols’ WOLF starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer. And I will not be covering it either, despite its story of an older generation getting all macho to compete with a younger one stealing their jobs and women, because I already wrote about it in my Summer Flings series.
There is however one topic I will be covering that was far too provocative and/or non-sports-related to include in the documentary, and that’s the movie GETTING EVEN WITH DAD starring Ted Danson as Dad and Macaulay Culkin as the party getting even.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gailard Sartain, Glenne Headly, Great America, Hector Elizondo, Howard Deutch, Jim Jennewein, Kathleen Wilhoite, Macaulay Culkin, Sam McMurray, Saul Rubinek, Ted Danson, Tom S. Parker
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Family | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, June 11th, 2024
HIT MAN (2024) is on the more crowdpleasing side of Richard Linklater movies, a sort of comedy, sort of romance, sort of noir, sort of true story that’s good enough to sort of make me forgive the “based on a true story… sort of” disclaimer and related dad joke vibes. For me it doesn’t quite live up to the hype from the Toronto International Film Festival, where it apparently blew the roof off, but it’s definitely worth watching if you already get Netflix, where it ended up.
This is really a star vehicle for Glen Powell, an Austinite who worked with Linklater in FAST FOOD NATION, EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! and APOLLO 10 1/2 (an animated/rotoscoped movie that’s also on Netflix, and quite good) before blowing up in TOP GUN: MAVERICK and ANYONE BUT YOU. Now the two of them teamed up to co-write and co-produce this showcase for Powell doing more than just his usual cocky hunky guy thing (but also that). He plays Gary Johnson, a New Orleans psychology professor who lives alone with two cats, enjoys bird watching, and tucks his polo shirts into his cargo shorts. He’s a dabbler who moonlights as a tech guy for the police, recording undercover stings busting people who were asking around about putting a hit out on somebody. When Jasper (Austin Amelio, The Walking Dead) is suspended for excessive force, Gary is pushed into playing the hitman, digs deep to create a macho character, and turns out to be very good at it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, based on a magazine article, Evan Holtzman, Glen Powell, Retta, Richard Linklater, Skip Hollandsworth
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Thriller | 24 Comments »
Tuesday, May 14th, 2024
THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY is a new indie crime movie from rookie writer/director Francis Galluppi. I’d seen some good reviews, the trailer looked intriguing and I read that Sam Raimi saw it and hired Galluppi for an EVIL DEAD movie. The coveted Necronominod. So it seemed like a good thing to check out as soon as it hit VOD last week.
It’s a single location movie, and the location is a diner out in the middle of nowhere, Arizona on a sunny day in the unspecified past, probly early ‘80s. A traveling cutlery salesman (Jim Cummings, THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW) pulls up at the gas station next door, the owner Vernon (Faizon Love, BEBE’S KIDS, who’s very good in this) explains that they’re all out of gas, but the fuel truck is supposed to arrive soon. Also there’s not another gas station for 100 miles, but you’re welcome to wait at the diner next door. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Essoe, Barbara Crampton, Connor Paolo, Faizon Love, Francis Galluppi, Gene Jones, Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, Jon Proudstar, Michael Abbott Jr., Necronominod, Nicholas Logan, Richard Brake, Robin Bartlett, Ryan Masson, Sierra McCormick, single location
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Thriller | 13 Comments »
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024
ABIGAIL (2024) is the new humorous horror-crime movie from directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, a.k.a. Radio Silence, the team behind SOUTHBOUND, READY OR NOT, SCREAM (2022) and SCREAM VI. The screenplay is credited to Stephen Shields (THE HOLE IN THE GROUND) and the usual Radio Silence guy Guy Busick.
I enjoyed this one, it’s a fun movie, but it kinda seems like it was designed without considering how it would have to be advertised. In order to explain the premise the trailers had to reveal information you don’t get until surprisingly far into the movie. It feels weird how long it pretends we don’t know, and how much of a shock it seems meant to be when it happens. You can see how much more fun it will be for anyone who sees it by accident on cable or whatever other blind viewing opportunities may exist. So in case someone out there still has that possibility, I’ll follow the movie’s example in taking my sweet time with the set up and then I’ll warn you when to cut out.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alisha Weir, Angus Cloud, Dan Stevens, Giancarlo Esposito, Guy Busick, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, Melissa Barrera, Radio Silence, Stephen Shields, Will Catlett
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Horror | 28 Comments »
Friday, April 12th, 2024
A great thing about action movies as opposed to some of the other genres I get excited about is that they often have a chance to sneak up on me. I had no inkling of a movie called MONKEY MAN coming until the trailer dropped just a couple of months ago. And then all the sudden that morning I knew that the actor Dev Patel (THE LAST AIRBENDER, THE GREEN KNIGHT) had practiced Taekwondo since he was ten years old, had competed in national and international competitions, and grew into a passionate fan of international action cinema, so now he was not only starring in a violent martial arts revenge movie set in India, but also making it his directorial debut. And I read that Netflix produced it but Jordan Peele saw it and convinced them to sell it to Universal so it could play theaters. (Later we learned that Netflix was trying to get rid of it because it kinda seemed like it was criticizing the current right wing regime in India and might complicate their business dealings. Embarrassing for them, good for us.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adithi Kalkunte, Ashwini Kalsekar, Brahim Chab, Dev Patel, John Collee, Jordan Peele, Makrand Desphande, Paul Angunawela, Pitobash, revenge, Sharlto Copley, Sharone Meir, Sikandar Kher, Sobhita Dhulipala, Vipin Sharma, Zakir Hussain
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime | 17 Comments »
Monday, March 18th, 2024
LOVE LIES BLEEDING is an unusually cool lesbian neo-noir from director Rose Glass (SAINT MAUD), who co-wrote it with Weronika Tofilska. It’s vaguely in the tradition of all my favorite dusty desert town crime movies, and the ones about passionate young couples on the run from bad choices or circumstances, but it has its own secret recipe of transgression, poetry and lovestruck naivete.
It comes at you with a wave of atmosphere, opening deep inside a chasm, rising up to look at the bright stars in the sky above New Mexico, then craning down to the Crater Gym, a big rectangular warehouse of sweat and dirt that might as well be a barn. It’s surprisingly active at night. High concentration of muscle heads in this barren town, I guess. Kristen Stewart (CRIMES OF THE FUTURE) stars as the manager of the gym, Lou, who’s introduced reaching deep into a plugged toilet. I had to do that working at a grocery store as a teenager, ‘cause I didn’t have a manager like Lou. Mine wouldn’t do it herself, she called the new kid and said, “Sorry to say, sug, the only thing to do is reach in there and pull it out.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anna Baryshnikov, bodybuilding, Clint Mansell, Dave Franco, Ed Harris, Jena Malone, Katie O'Brian, Kristen Stewart, neo-noir, Rose Glass
Posted in Reviews, Crime | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, March 12th, 2024
Johnnie To’s BREAKING NEWS (2004) opens with a crane shot of a cool guy in a leather jacket (Haitao Li, VENGEANCE, GALLANTS, MOTORWAY) walking down a block into a building, and the camera floats up and looks into the window of the room where he tells his fellow armed robbers, led by Yuen (Richie Jen, EXILED), that it’s time to bring the money out to the car. Then the camera lowers back down to the street where hotshot inspector Cheung (Nick Cheung, AH KAM) and his loyal subordinate Sergeant Hoi (Hui Shiu-hung, ROYAL WARRIORS, NAKED KILLER, LEGENDARY ASSASSIN) are in a car staking them out. They’re concerned about two unwitting patrol officers stopping the thieves’ car for a traffic violation – could mess everything up. The shot will continue uninterrupted as one of the officers asks about a bag in the back seat and then the guns come out. The camera turns every which way to see the different sides firing at each other, the civilians fleeing, the backup police cars arriving. It cranes up to get a look at the guy hanging out a window firing a rifle down, then hopping onto a ledge and dropping to the street to run. It doesn’t cut until the thieves flee the scene in a stolen police van.
The only thing I knew about BREAKING NEWS was that people made a big deal about this long take at the time (it’s about 7 minutes). But since then we’ve had TOM YUM GOONG, CHILDREN OF MEN, HANNA, BIRDMAN, 1917, ATHENA, etc., so it not only is it a more common technique now, but this is a relatively subtle use of it . It certainly doesn’t seem like the point of the movie. It’s just a cool way to open it and show how these characters are tied together. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Haitao Li, Hui Shiu-hung, Johnnie To, Kelly Chen, Lam Suet, Nick Cheung, Richie Jen, You Yong, Yuen Bun
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime | 3 Comments »
