Archive for the ‘Drama’ 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
This is kind of a misleading title because really it is about ugly drooling guys sitting around in their underwear getting drunk and wishing they could have violent sex with neighbors that won’t even talk to them and that kind of business. Which, in my opinion, is not all that happy. You know how Hollywood usually pretties everybody up? Like even the criminal element in motion pictures, most of the time they are a LOT better looking than anybody I ever worked with. And the same goes for stories, if it’s a true story chances are they’re gonna streamline it, water it down a little, gussy it up a little, make it look nice “for dramatic purposes.” But the truth is there are a lot of ugly motherfuckers in this world, and they do a lot of ugly things, like some of them call up women in the phone book and jack off while they talk about “I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’re gonna come out your ears” and what not, and coincidentally that is exactly what this picture is about, Happiness. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Dylan Baker, Jon Lovitz, P.S. Hoffman, Todd Solondz
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, 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
Here I am trying to better myself, trying to educated myself about the films of Cinema and I see that these two both get five star reviews from a lot of critics and hell they’re playing them back to back on AMC I’m thinking hey, the Eve series must be a pretty good series. And it is.
All about Eve is a very well made story about the New York theater type people – actors, producers, writers, columnists, wannabes. The Eve of the title is this young naive girl who’s a dedicated fan who goes to meet the famous actress Margot Channing. She doesn’t want to impose on her, she’s not some autograph seeker, but she’s seen every performance of this play so Margot’s best friend brings her backstage and before you know it she’s Margot’s assistant. And of course the movie depicts her rise from being this naive nobody to being an acclaimed but self centered actress like Margot. If you’ve seen Showgirls this is the same type of deal except without the swimming pool sex scene, otherwise it remains very faithful though. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bette Davis, Joanne Woodward, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Lee J. Cobb
Posted in Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
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 »
Monday, January 1st, 2001
As I have said before many times the Bruces are some of the best action stars in my opinion: Bruce Willis, Bruce Campbell, and in this case one Mr. Bruce Lee star of Enter the Dragon and The Chinese Connection etc.
There have been many fine biographies of this particular Bruce, among them Bruce Lee: The Man the Myth starring Bruce Li, who also starred in one called Dragon Story. In The Man the Myth Bruce is depicted as a nationalist always out to prove the superiority of chinese kung fu over thai boxing, japanese karate, and fat Italian-American guys. Bruce Li at times looks similar to Bruce Lee although the karate or kung fu I guess is not as good. He has a good haircut and pants in my opinion but still does not capture the essence of the man. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Jason Scott Lee, Rob Cohen
Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, January 1st, 2001
Now I don’t know if you remember last Valentine’s Day when I wrote a little bit about my man, the late Roger Vadim. Or maybe you already know about him. Personally I never met the dude, but he has always been a personal hero of mine ever since I read the title of his book, MY MARRIAGE TO THREE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN THE WORLD. This is an individual who was married to 1) a young Jane Fonda. 2) Brigitte Bardot. And others.
Now although Mr. Vadim is obviously one of the great filmmakers of our time, just based on those great accomplishments, I have not seen too many of his pictures. One I have seen is the Barbarella, which is about a gorgeous space gal going on adventures and etc. Excellent. Number two I have seen Dangerous Liasons 1968, a French version of that story which takes place in – you guessed it – 1968. And the music is jazz music by Thelonious Monk and Art Blakey. It stars Jeanne Moreau. Can’t remember if Roger married her too but it wouldn’t fucking surprise me. If not, I’m sure there was SOMETHING going on there, I mean think about it, this dude could accomplish anything he set his mind to. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brigitte Bardot, Roger Vadim
Posted in Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, January 1st, 2001
LONE WOLF AND CUB #1: SWORD OF VENGEANCE
Way back when when I first compiled THE BADASS 100 there were alot of individuals recommending for me to watch the LONE WOLF AND CUB, aka the BABYCART series. I sort of vaguely knew what they were talking about. Something about a samurai and a baby. I’ve seen the boxes before and they got kind of ugly design with some black and white pictures. I felt like, you know, I’m sure it’s good, I’ll get it some time, probaly. The truth is I get alot of recommendations and I always want to follow them but you know how it is. There are so many movies out there. You never get to watch all of them.
I gotta confess that it was the SHOGUN ASSASSIN reference in KILL BILL V.2 that finally reminded me to watch these fuckers. I knew SHOGUN ASSASSIN was a good old american style assfucking of the first two pictures in the LONE WOLF and I decided to pick up the first one, known here as SWORD OF VENGEANCE. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: samurai
Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews | 1 Comment »
