Archive for the ‘Crime’ Category
Monday, January 1st, 2001
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Paul Schrader. He is sort of a lesser known legend of independent film. Legendary because of the many screenplays he wrote for Martin Scorsese, including Taxi Driver, lesser because he went on to direct crap like the rock band movie Light of Day with Michael J. whatsisdick. And that sort of thing tends to lower people’s opinion of you. I mean, you don’t see the dude who did Satisfaction with Justine Bateman going on to inspire a new generation of filmmakers. That’s just the way it works.
But Paul Schrader did make sort of a comeback. After a really terrible Elmore Leonard/Tom Arnold picture called Touch he did Affliction with James Coburn and got some Oscars and what not. Now I am in favor of any picture that gets an Oscar for James Coburn just on basic principle, but I haven’t seen it yet so instead I will review Mr. Schrader’s first work as a director, and still maybe his best, Blue Collar. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ed Begley Jr., Harvey Keitel, Paul Schrader, Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Monday, January 1st, 2001
Shit man I really can’t believe nobody told me about this movie! I’m out of the picture for most of the ’90s and all the sudden Bruce is in a classic film that is NOT a Die Hard!
This is the story of Butch Coolidge, a boxer who gets mixed up with a crime boss named Marcellus Wallace. Marcellus pays Bruce to throw a fight. Word spreads that the fix is on and the odds get out of control. Butch and his buddy in Tennessee make huge bets on the fight and then instead of throwing it, he beats the other dude to death.
He flees to a hotel to hook up with his lady friend Fabian who is French I believe. This scene is a study in contrasts because we see that this bad motherfucker who beats a man to death comes home to his lady and gets all cute on us. They’re all baby talking, rolling around on the bed snuggling and talking about “give me oral pleasure,” “will you kiss it,” etc., It’s so true to life it’s embarrassing to watch. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce, Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Ving Rhames
Posted in Bruce, Crime, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Monday, January 1st, 2001
When I brought THE EXTERMINATOR back to the video store I went to the action section and grabbed part 2. But it was a VHS box and the cover was just a picture of Mario Van Peebles wearing a ROAD WARRIOR type outfit, so for a second I thought I grabbed the wrong one, so then I picked up the other one next to it with the badass painted cover that seemed more right than the Van Peebles one.
But wait a minute, this is THE EXECUTIONER PART 2, not THE EXTERMINATOR 2. Where’s THE EXECUTIONER PART 1? I didn’t see one. But I decided to rent part 2 anyway. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aldo Ray, Christopher Mitchum, James Ryan, vigilantes
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, January 1st, 2001
This is one of the ’90s crime pictures I had to catch up on. It came out in ’93, the year after Reservoir Dogs so it probaly just missed the raising of the standards. If it came out in the ’80s it would have seemed a little better but since then we’ve had a whole lot of far superior crime pictures and neo-noir type creations. This has the slick feel of a True Romance and the nihilistic attitude of a True Romance, but not the characterization of a Reservoir Dogs or the strong themes of honor and betrayal of a Reservoir Dogs.
Gary Oldman plays Jack Romeo (well they didn’t call him that in the movie but I’ve decided Romeo is his last name, you got a problem with that asshole? I didn’t think so) a police sergeant who, even if he wasn’t a police sergeant, would have almost no redeeming qualities. Now I think Gary Oldman is a great actor judging from what I’ve seen of him in the fifth element and the true romance. But I mean jesus. This is a guy who can play characters with no soul, no heart, pure evil. He is a great villain. But he is not a good anti-hero or everyman who you want to follow into the dark side. And we’re not going to feel sorry for him. If this movie was going to work it would have needed someone who could invest the character with some type of infectious charisma that would make you want to side with a fucking dirty pig asswipe like Jack Romeo. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gary Oldman, Juliette Lewis, Lena Olin, Peter Medak
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Monday, January 1st, 2001
This is another happy delighty type of business, or surprise, like Maniac. Because I hadn’t heard jack shit about this picture being good and it turns out to be something very special. You see it is a crime picture about some junkie thieves who train some young junkie thieves to steal stuff, and the twist is, they are a gang who shoots up and goes on heists.
Well, I guess special isn’t maybe the right word, because it is formula genre type stuff, but this is a good crime picture because the acting and photographical worksmanship and the music and what not are all top notch and this one just really holds together. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: James Woods, Larry Clark, Melanie Griffith, Vincent Kartheiser
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 1st, 2001
If you want a good picture about junkies this is it. This is not a western like you may think it is the story of Matt Dillon, his lady and another couple who travel the Pacific Northwest region knocking down drugstores to score various pharmaceuticals. As someone who has known these type of people I can GUARANTEE you they do not have prescriptions for these items. They are addicts.
What I like about this one in my opinion is that it is an anti drug movie that doesn’t stack the deck. It makes it clear that drugs are fun when you are doing them, they make the world happy and the cowboy lifestyle as they call it is exciting. So then after being honest it goes on to deal with the negative side. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gus Van Sant, James LeGros, James Remar, Kelly Lynch, Matt Dillon, William S. Burroughs
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Sunday, September 10th, 2000
You know what, I got me a new theory. Look out people. If this theory pans out its gonna be in the textbook for Badass Cinematical studies for now on. It is about the difference between ’70s Badass filmmakers and ’90s Badass filmmakers.
The difference is, the ’90s boys went to college. Or read alot of books. Studied alot of movies. The ’70s boys traveled the world, drank alot of whiskie, got in fights and drag races. The ’70s boys had a natural knack for the poetry of Badass Cinematics, while the ’90s boys had a great knowledge of technique and equipment and approaches to witty dialogue. Now obviously there are many exceptions to this rule, but it is a good sweeping generalization to ponder. The ’70s masters like Peckinpah and Leone and Siegel and Mr. Eastwood had an effortless feel to their films, like it was just something that came out of their pores. The ’90s ones, even the really good ones, usually seem like they put a whole fucking lot of thought into it. Drew alot of schematics and diagrams. And figured out how to do it just right. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Christopher McQuarrie, Geoffrey Lewis, James Caan, Ryan Phillipe
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 5 Comments »
Friday, September 8th, 2000
(released overseas as Soapdish 2000)
There has been alot of “buzz” and “Juice” as well as “acclaim” surrounding this picture. So, 
that I am, I decided to go see it BEFORE this week’s Badass release, Way of the Gun. I would like to apologize right now for my lapse in judgement and lack of support for the Badass movement. What in fuck’s name was I thinking. I must have been suffering from temporary trauma induced delusions like the gal of the title.
There are many surprises in the picture. For example, Betty is not really a nurse. I mean you go see a movie called Nurse Betty, you expect AT THE VERY LEAST this Betty gal is a nurse. But no, she is a waitress who wants to be a nurse, and is obsessed with a doctor on this one soap opera. Then Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman kill her fuckwad husband right in front of her, and she goes wacko and goes across the country thinking she has to reunite with her “ex-fiancee”, the fictional doctor from the soap opera. So Morgan and Chris follow her around and then she meets the actor who plays the doctor. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chris Rock, Morgan Freeman, Neil LaBute, Renee Zelweger
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, August 11th, 2000
What I like about this low key independent crime picture from 2000 is it’s small time in every way. I mean it’s got Chris Walken in the lead and he’s a big movie star, but everything about the story and characters goes against Hollywood’s idea of what’s exciting. The story is your usual “ex-con gone straight is running out of options and has to do one last score to survive” type deal but put in a more realistic, unglamorous, ungritty context. This is an unthriller.
Walken lives in suburban New York. I don’t remember ever seeing big buildings in this one. Here he’s a nice guy, almost timid, definitely not the King of New York. You could argue he’s a player because he goes between three places: a house with his grown up daughter, a tiny apartment above his girlfriend’s bar, and a trailer by the garage he rents out. But he’s embarassed of his past and never tries to be a tough guy about it. He’s a mechanic but he doesn’t seem to get much work and on this day doesn’t get the money because he fucked up the job. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christopher Walken, heists, Vera Farmiga
Posted in Crime, Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, June 16th, 2000
Going in I didn’t know WHAT to expect. A remake? A sequel? The ads made it look silly and ridiculous. Like not so much a remake as a big screen adaptation of the Shaft theme song.
But then I never thought Shaft was the god damn word of the lord or anything. He’s a cool character and I like his work and what he accomplishes with the ladies but I never thought his pictures had the same emotional depth of Superfly or The Mack or Blacula. Maybe it’s because those are movies about outlaws instead of a law enforcement figure like a private eye. Or maybe not. I think you kind of had to be black at that time to know what it meant to finally see a black James Bond character like John Shaft. But at the time, just as now, I was a white man.
So I was open to some noodling and fiddling with the Shaft character, but to my surprise it is a surprisingly faithful update with hardly any shenanigans. It is a pretty serious story of Shaft trying to catch a racist murderer rich boy bail jumper played by none other than the American Psycho from the film American Psycho starring Patrick Bateman. The tone of the picture is a very strange and enjoyable cross between gritty police stories like Clockers and the Homicide television program and the more corny ’70s tv shows like CHiPs. So the violent scenes are grim and disturbing but you still got a foot chase or two with Shaft chasing a dude up and down fire escapes fueled only by wah wah guitars.
The reason I like this picture is mostly the ’70s feel. The only Isaac Hayes song they used is the main theme, but the score is all extrapolated from the style of that piece. And Shaft is a character with a combination of qualities you just don’t see all at once anymore. He is the guy who always looks cool, always knows how to trick somebody or kick somebody’s ass something good, is single and open to sharing his charms with many ladies, and who also is sensitive and supportive to the point of sainthood. During the court room scene, he is sitting behind the mother of the victim, rubbing her shoulders and telling her everything is gonna be okay. You almost think he is a guardian angel. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Busta Rhymes, Christian Bale, Jeffrey Wright, John Singleton, Richard Roundtree, Samuel L. Jackson
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 16 Comments »
