2
FAST 2 FURIOUS
I recently saw and enjoyed
THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS PRESENTS TOKYO DRIFT, part 3 in the FAST AND THE
FURIOUS saga. And it reminded me that it was time I got around to seeing part
2. This one is closer to a straightup sequel. They couldn't get Vin Diesel
to return so instead they just follow Paul Walker's character.
I know that probaly all
of you have seen that first movie over a thousand times and have it memorized
backwards, forwards and sideways, but in case there is one person out there
who may not be familiar with the story, I want to help that one person out.
In the first movie, Paul Walker is a new street racer in town who befriends
Vin Diesel, who is the charismatic leader of a team of racers, but is also
leading a gang of armed robbers or a chop shop or arms dealers or kidnappers
or something. And a ways into the movie you find out that Paul is actually
an undercover cop trying to bust Vin. But throughout the movie they have a
special sort of male bonding - the type that happens between an undercover
cop and his mark, or between two dudes obsessed with cars - so at the end
Paul purposely lets Vin escape.
At the beginning of part
2 we learn that Paul is in Miami, where he is the king of underground street
racing. And he's a fugitive because of letting Vin go. I guess he travelled
around helping people and racing cars, like the A-Team with a car instead
of a van. But after the spectacular opening race he gets caught by the pigs.
It turns out the FBI has a plan for him: if he will go undercover as a driver
for this drug kingpin guy, he can get a full pardon. The guy they offer as
a partner doesn't know shit about cars, so he convinces them instead to let
him use his childhood friend who now hates him because he blames him for his
jail time, Tyrese. Tyrese is not a cop and they would also have to give him
a pardon, so it is a good deal I guess, somehow.
Let me tell you, if you
like stupid fucking movies like this, this thing is pretty remarkable. I think
I enjoyed TOKYO DRIFT a little more overall because of Lucas Black, the Sonny
Chiba cameo and the Tokyo setting. But 2 FAST is a must see for connoisseurs
of ridiculous movies. And this has already been established during the studio
logo, when the Universal planet earth thing turns into chrome, and then starts
bouncing up and down on hydraulics. It's hard to believe, but the iconic Universal
Studios logo has been pimped.
Then we go right to shots
of people getting out of cars and setting up roadblocks, lots of round female
booties in tight shorts waving around like a carrot on a stick to get male
members of the audience involved in the movie. We soon find that future Screen
Actors Guild award winner Ludacris is some kind of P.T. Barnum of Miami street
racing, he's the promoter, the emcee, the referee and the mastermind who finds
exciting new ways to do the races. (Later we find out that he does the same
thing for jet ski races.)
Like in TOKYO DRIFT they
took my advice and made the races have actual turns in them, on account of
the fact that two cars going fast in a straight line is not cinematic. What's
great is Ludacris has some kind of connections or super powers so that he
can empty out a huge portion of the city to create an amazing course. He mentions
that there is a surprise, which turns out to be that he breaks into the control
room on a bridge and wires it to go up so they have to jump it. For some reason
the racers are not upset to have this life threatening obstacle thrown into
the race without warning, and Paul Walker manages to actually fly over the
guy in first place to take the lead.
Also I should mention that
the other racers are pretty funny characters, especially the character Suki
who is a petite girl who drives an all pink car and is lit in all pink, and
she has a little monitor in front of her that for some reason shows a cartoon
version of herself. When she has to deliver dialogue it's clear she has never
acted before, but she gets into it when she's driving and yells things like
"MOVE, BITCH!" When she goes off the jump she yells "SMACK
THAT ASS!" Alot of the movie, by the way, is people in cars pretending
to drive and saying things to each other that nobody besides them can hear.
Also there's a part where
Paul Walker skids around 180 and drives backwards in freeway traffic so he
can flip off Tyrese.
The director is John Singleton,
who has got to be the most formerly-acclaimed director to have ever made a
movie even remotely like this. Remember, when he directed BOYZ N THE HOOD
he was nominated for a best director Oscar. He was the first black director
ever nominated (Spike Lee still hasn't been, has he?) and I think the youngest.
And now he's doing a movie called 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS which he describes on the
commentary track as "Girls and cars. Girls and cars. Girls and cars.
That's what it's all about." He says he based the race scenes on Speed
Racer and video games. And he comes up with some sublimely ridiculous digital
camera moves from car to car surrounded by motion blurs, or through engines
into the circuitry of the GPS hidden in the car.
I like the plot because
it's mostly just a list of little missions they have to perform. To audition
as drivers for this criminal, all these guys have to race to a car lot to
steal a package from his impounded Ferrari. The biggest job they have to do
for him is also a race, but they are racing the police (who the FBI for some
reason can't call off) as well as trying to outsmart the criminals and steal
their money. Since the first one had a scene where Vin Diesel hung out the
side of his car and tried to catch a guy jumping from a truck, this one has
a scene where the cops shoot a futuristic electronic device into the side
of his car so Paul has to hang out the side and pull it out and throw it into
the front of a cop car just in time for it to go off and short out the car's
electronics. Also there's a part where they do "some Dukes of Hazzard
shit" and jump a car onto a boat. Which technically never happened on
Dukes of Hazzard I'm betting, since Hazzard county is, I believe, landlocked.
The climax involves something
like 100 or 150 tricked up cars flying out of garages and driving around to
confuse the police. It's one of those movies where everybody is willing to
come together and risk destroying their cars and getting arrested to help
out Paul Walker. And this you can understand because he seems like such a
nice guy. I didn't make a checklist but I suspect that at some point he calls
every single male character in the movie "bro" at least once.
Speaking of destroying their
cars, I gotta mention again that you can't help but be kind of disgusted with
these people for having cars like this. They try to establish them as low
income individuals at the beginning, by showing Paul Walker in his apartment
saying "you know I need the money" and another racer discussing
with his girlfriend that he needs to win the race in order to pay rent. Yeah
right motherfucker, your car is worth more money than I will ever have, I'm
having trouble feeling sorry for you on that one. And then none of them seem
too shook up about completely destroying their cars jumping off bridges and
shit. Luckily, Ludacris runs some sort of charity and has a garage where they
repair the cars. You never do see what happens though to the guy trying to
get the driver job who gets his entire car flattened under a semi.
The screenplay pretty much
makes no sense on any level. It is not clear why this kingpin guy needs good
drivers so bad. All they're really doing is delivering money, they're not
getaway drivers or anything. He is always suspicious of them, so it's not
clear why he doesn't just hire one of the other people who wanted the job.
Or why the feds couldn't find an undercover cop driver who did not have to
be pardoned. Or how it helped them to give him a partner who is also a criminal.
If it was a cop to look after him, that would make sense, but letting him
bring his friend along does not make sense. Also, for the big money delivery
at the end the bad guy says he can only get them a 15 minute window where
they won't have to worry about police. But after that they torture Mark Boone
Jr. with the old rat/bucket/blowtorch/it will chew through you to escape routine
and then they only ask him for a 15 minute window. They don't ask him for
more. So even though he is terrified of himself and his family being eaten
alive by rats, he calls in the cavalry as soon as the 15 minutes is up, because
that's the deal.
Also it's funny how much
of a "have the cake and eat it too" movie it is. Paul Walker is
edgy because he's a fugitive on the run but he's a good guy because he's working
for the police again. The authority figures are a pain in the ass because
James Remar from THE WARRIORS is always busting their balls, but on the other
hand the FBI guy always stands up for them and laughs at their outrageous
antics. The two thug guys who work for the kingpin are "stone faced killers"
who always follow them around and threaten them, but then after being exposed
to the magic of a high speed chase they all laugh and compliment each other
and Paul Walker calls one of them "bro" and you get the joy of male
bonding. But then right after that Tyrese still tosses one of them from his
car using a specially designed nitrous ejector seat. And at the end, Tyrese
is cool because he lies to the police saying there were only 3 bags of money.
But then he impresses you because even though he was set to get away with
it, he goes to his trunk and gets the other 3 bags and hands them over. But
then also it turns out that both he and Paul Walker set aside some of the
money anyway.
A few notes about the DVD:
it includes a "turbo charged prelude" which is supposed to be a
short film bridging the gap between the first and second movies. Strangely,
they did the same thing for xXx2, another Diesel-less sequel to a Vin Diesel
movie. Like the one on there, this one has all the professionalism of a porn
movie, but unlike that one it doesn't have a stunt double playing Vin Diesel
so it's not really funny.
Also, the menus are crazy.
First you have to choose one of three cars, and then they drive around in
computer animation. Then when you get to the actual menu part all the text
flashes and vibrates and you can't tell what you've selected, making it one
of the most annoying menus I've seen, and also completely faithful to the
tone of the movie.
Anyway, if you are the kind
of person who can enjoy the type of nonsense I mention above, I highly recommend
this picture. Another test: if you get a kick out of the title 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS,
this might be for you, if it just makes you groan, you should probaly stick
to some other, more tastefully titled movie.
5 MILLION YEARS TO EARTH
This is
a science fiction picture from the Hammer Studios over there in Britain, and
you know what that means: I saw it on American Movie Classics. The hero of
this story is a dude by the name of Quatermass who apparently stars in a bunch
of movies and TV shows over there like Quatermass and the Pit, The Quatermass
Experiment etc. No it's not one of those weird shot on video shows they do
marathons of on PBS when they need money. You're thinking of dr. who and the
red dwarf. What the FUCK is up with these college dudes that think that shit
is funny? You know how they repeat the jokes in a phoney british accent I
hate that man. Anyway I wouldn't try to pull that shit on you don't worry
this is a whole different thing here, this Quatermass.
Quatermass
is a college professor looking dude with the tweed suit and vest, bow tie
and beard. He is not an action hero, everything he does is completely with
the brains, I mean this guy is a real rocket scientist. And by rocket scientist
I mean he is the type of scientist who studies rockets.
You
see some of these British dudes find some apeman skeletons while excavating
for a subway tunnel. Then they find something metal and I have NO clue why
but they decide it must be a missile and call in famous rocket scientist Quatermass
to have a look. It turns out it's not a missile, it's some kind of alien rocketship.
Which is more his thing anyway in my opinion. This is what would be called
an x-file right now but they didn't have that word back then so they just
called it a rocket.
What
I like about this piece as compared to a modern science fiction horror type
picture is the pacing. In today's pictures you gotta have an opening scene
where an alien kills somebody, then you got about 15-20 minutes introducing
the various scientists, then you got the next alien killing, etc. But 5 Million
Years To Earth builds tension slowly by following the study of the rocketship
step by step. You see them digging up skeletons, finding the missile, uncovering
it, trying to get inside, and slowly unpeeling layer after layer, coming up
with new theories, looking for historical connections and clues. And the closer
they get the more freaky ass shit starts to happen and when you finally get
to the real good stuff it is a genuine payoff type event. You earned it.
Now
before I compliment the scientific nature of this picture you gotta understand,
I am not a fan of the science. I mean I have never understood these motherfuckers
with the scientifical criticisms of movies. "Batman couldn't really fall that
fast judging from the width of the rope and the weight of the mask divided
by wind speed, give or take atmospheric conditions. That is why I am boycotting
this piece of shit movie and unless you are a moron I suggest you do the same."
Thank GOD I went to a public school and never learned too much about that
shit, and can instead enjoy my true passion, the art and imagination of the
Cinema.
But
still this Quatermass and the other scientists in this picture, I like how
they don't have to do any silly action sequences. They just use the science
and the brains to save the day. In fact it is the warriors who are wrong -
the military - they actually think this thing is German propaganda and they're
dead wrong, the fuckers. This movie really glamourizes the power of the scientific
mind, the intelligence over the brute strength. Well except all this crap
wouldn't have happened at all if the scientists would've just left the rocketship
alone, but what can you do man.
The story isn't predictable.
The eventual catastrophe sure as fuck isn't the type of thing I expected when
I first saw them apeman bones at the beginning. I mean this is a good picture
in my opinion bravo to this Quatermass.
8
DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER
Well when it comes to
the classics of the kung fu genre, who the fuck knows where to start? Not me,
but a recent browsing of the book THE WU-TANG MANUAL BOOK 1 by outlaw
award winning composer RZA gave me some tips. In one chapter he tells about
the three kung fu movies that most influenced him, and this one sounded the
best. He tells a story about getting high and watching it late at night with
a gentleman named "Ghostface" and some other buddies from the Stapleton projects.
Supposedly they all started crying because of its messages of brotherhood. It
would be interesting to know which scene got them going.
The movie comes from our friends the Shaw Brothers and it's apparently considered
one of their best. And god damn if it isn't one of the best martial arts pictures
that I've seen, anyway.
Obviously this is one of the lush period picture kung fu movies. It starts with
a big battle between elaborately costumed warriors. I mean they got these colorful
robes and one of the squads are guys with bow and arrows wearing what almost
looks like Santa Claus costumes. All this color and choreography on a big soundstage,
it looks like a big song and dance number by that Bugsy Berkeley dude.
The good guys in this scene, who are not dressed as Santa Claus, are the 8 Yang
brothers and their dad. All but two of them are killed, betrayed by Pan Mei,
who I don't think is the same guy as Pai Mei, but I think he's their grandpa?
The queen's dad, anyway. I'm not sure but the important thing is, the guy is
a dick, getting all these Yang brothers killed. For fuck's sake your a grown
man, Pan Mai. You got a long beard. You should know better.
None of the Yangs have names, they're just numbered chronologically. Yang 6
comes back "a little bit demented" by the trauma according to mom. He comes
home to the temple and laughs like a nut while describing how all his brothers
got killed. He wants revenge on Pan Mei but, well, it doesn't work out.
Which leaves two Yang siters and the M.I.A. Yang the fifth. He deals with his
troubles by journeying to a monk temple on Wui Tan Mountain and trying to join
up. This is some funny shit. He can't hide that he's crazed and vengeful. And
these are monks, they don't believe in violence and they know he can't focus
on monk business, so they turn him away. The way he deals with it is, he threatens
all of the monks, storms into the head shaving ceremony, grabs the knife and
crazily cuts off his hair, leaving himself all bloody. Then he punches a shrine,
grabs two huge sticks of incense and burns six dots onto his head.
I mean how are they supposed to deal with that? They can't call the cops. The
next day, I don't know if they drew straws or something, but a couple of these
poor bald bastards have to tell him something like:
hey man,
no offense but the abbot says after you're, uh, feeling better, you know,
I mean maybe... well, what I'm trying to say is -- I mean not me, the abbot
is saying this -- he's saying that you should-- That you should leave.
(cough). Hrem. Excuse me.
I mean not right away or anything,
it's just... it's just... Hey, isn't pole fighting cool? I love pole fighting,
it's fun. What were we talking about? Well I better go.
Well, this doesn't go
over well.
From that point I knew the movie had me, and it never lets up after that. I
think where RZA's brotherhood thing comes in, not only is this Yang #5 torn
up by the loss of his family, but the monks end up becoming a new family to
him. And the real bitch is, the abbot secretly goes to talk to Yang's mom about
his troubles, and then Pan Mei kills him too. Is that fucked up or what?
(A: yes, it's fucked up.) Also, he kidnaps one of the Yang sisters. For
crying out loud is there no end to this fucker's villainy. There's only one
thing a fifth Yang brother could do, that's go save 8th sister and kill Pan
Mei, but that sort of goes against the monks' non-violent wishes. So his one
family needs vengeance, his other family needs peace. He's in a bind.
The final fight is one of the best ever. You got all kinds of guys with all
kinds of pole type weapons (not sure what diagram number they all are) and 5
is taking them all on. And there's a pyramid of coffins with guys in them and
he has to hop up to the top and kick the lids around and step on some guys and
pull out his sister, who's all tied up and then gets lifted up by the ropes
by about 8 guys with poles. The whole thing keeps escalating and then all the
sudden all the monks jump out of nowhere and start fighting!
This is a one-two punch here, one of my favorite things in badass cinema which
I have not yet coined a name for, but I first wrote about it in reference to
MY FATHER IS A HERO starring a little kid and Jet Li. What it is is when
the same scene is the action climax and the emotional climax. Action
climax because you got a whole pack of monks in yellow robes knocking the bad
guys' teeth out with poles, emotional climax because the monks have unexpectedly
changed their strict interpretation of religious law so that they can save the
fifth Yang, showing how much they care about this crazy fucker who moved in
with them against their will and bringing together the needs of his two families.
I would also like to make a special mention of the scene where Yang 5 has to
fight a wooden wolf dummy. This is an incredible scene although I must admit
it got me excited to see him fight a real wolf (which does not end up happening).
In addition to the wolf dummy this has everything you need in a great martial
arts picture: huge, detailed fights, many different weapons used in impressive
ways, a wide variety of fighting styles, beautiful sets and costumes, some philosophy,
a little bit of gore and even a really dramatic score, somehow reminded me of
CAPE FEAR a couple times. Most importantly this is the type of kung fu
where you care about the story and characters and yet they don't skimp on the
fighting at all. And all in just over 90 minutes.
On VHS you might find it as INVINCIBLE POLE FIGHTER but if you can play
the asian DVDs you MUST get the nice Shaw Brothers collection version which
has the whole beautifully remastered/widescreen Shawscope package. If you seen
any of those DVDs you know what I'm talking about. Americans never knew those
movies looked so good when they first came out.
I'm still not sure what that great title means but I do know this: 8 DIAGRAM
POLE FIGHTER is the best movie ever about diagrams and/or poles. It definitely
runs rings around STICKFIGHTER and 8 IS ENOUGH, to put it mildly.
HIGHLY recommended.
10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU
You know
with the year 2000 and everything maybe my new year's resolution should be
to cut down on sex with young women. now don't get me wrong 18 is my cut off
point, I'm not going down again and that's a fact, jack. But still this may
be too young for ol' Vern and let me explain why.
A lot of
gals 18-21, although they are not all teenagers or in high school they still
like movies about high school. that time period is still important to them
so they enjoy to watch the movies. At first it is just a joke and they watch
it with the whole irony type thing and everything but in the end they go "That
was actually pretty good."
Well the
problem I have with this is they bring the video over to my house and I have
to watch it and that is how I saw 10 Things I hate About You. The gal I believe
her name was Katie or Kelly or something along those lines, she says this
is based on a william shakespear play. It retells an old story in a contemporary
high school type setting and in this respect, according to kassie, it is trying
to recapture the formula of the movie Clueless.
Well I
don't know about all that but the story sure seems familiar to me. It is about
a guy who gets paid to go on a date with a cute young gal, but then he really
falls in love with her, but he doesn't tell her he got paid, but then she
finds out, but then he has to go explain to her so she knows he really loves
her. Now maybe I'm imagining it but i swear there is one other movie with
this plot. Although if I remember right the guy in the other movie had a bet
to date the girl, he didn't get paid up front, so maybe this is a new twist.
Anyway
maybe if your a teenage girl thats one thing but for an old ex-con like myself
this ones not too great. The stuff the characters say isn't usually as funny
as they think it is in my opinion. And come on man how many times has a dude
serenaded a girl in public to get her to stop being mad at him and it actually
worked? I know a lot of guys tried that whole Top Gun thing but lets be honest
its the last resort of a scoundrel and you have to be drunk off your ass and
she just gets more pissed anyway cause its embarassing as hell.
A lot of
this movie doesn't really make sense anyway. Like how many fathers in the
year 2000 really don't let their daughter go to the prom. And who would really
pay another dude hundreds of dollars to go on a date with some gal. And why
wouldn't he just take the money and split it with the gal if he likes her
so much. And if the dad doesn't let them date at all, don't you think they'd
be sneaking out with bikers and criminals every night? I mean, that's what
I think would happen, you know theoretically.
Carrie
liked the movie and I read some reviews that said it was "smart", but I thought
it was pretty bad. I'm sure there are better high schooler movies maybe the
original shakespeare one is better.
16
BLOCKS
It
pains me to deliver this news, but Bruce's new one is not too hot. It's not
terrible, it's mediocre, which of course is usually worse.
The premise of the movie
is that Bruce is a washed up, alcoholic cop who's been up all night and before
he can go home he has to deliver a witness sixteen blocks from the jail to
the courthouse. He really looks like he could use a nap, but that never comes
up in the movie. It would be cool if there was a suspenseful scene about whether
or not he could take a nap without getting shot.
But despite the tiredness,
this doesn't sound like a hard mission. Right away you're figuring geez, sixteen
blocks is all? This is gonna be a short movie. You figure maybe 2 minutes
to walk a block (that's probaly being conservative), plus a couple minutes
to get him signed in, it's not gonna be longer than 40 minutes. You start
thinking maybe there should've been a discount on the movie tickets. BUT THERE'S
A CATCH. He drives him the 16 blocks instead of walking, and the traffic is
bad. So it's alot slower than walking. Also, he stops at the liquor store,
so that causes a little delay. And also the witness is gonna bust open a huge
police corruption scandal so all the cops are trying to kill him and Bruce's
character Detective Jack Moseley decides to do something right for a change
and get this guy to his destination. Remember, he was a cab driver in THE
FIFTH ELEMENT and maybe he has a little of that work ethic still in his sense
memory. Anyway, because of shootouts and hiding and what not it takes longer
than expected and it seems like they end up travelling alot more than 16 blocks
overall. (they should probaly tell you in the corner how many blocks they
are from the courthouse, kind of like EIGHT BELOW keeps telling you how many
days the hero dogs have been alone in the snow.)
The witness is played by
Mos Def. We know from DAVE CHAPPELLE'S BLOCK PARTY and whatever the space
movie was he was in, this guy can be funny. You can't tell that from this
movie, though. He talks in a nasally cartoon voice for the whole movie that
seems like it's maybe supposed to be funny, but he only gets one or two funny
lines. He mumbles to himself alot and is obsessed with birthday cakes, and
I think he's either supposed to be shizophrenic or mildly retarded. But it's
not really funny or sweet and it feels like it's trying too hard to be both.
Mos Def's character is named
Eddie Bunker, but everybody refers to him as "the kid" for the entire
movie. I looked it up, and Mos Def is 31 years old. Maybe they shoulda gave
him a backwards baseball cap and a scooter to emphasize that he's playing
younger than he actually is.
The leader of the corrupt
cops is veteran prick actor David Morse, who chews gum for the entire movie.
You never see him putting gum in his mouth so I'm thinking maybe this is why
he's such a prick, his gum has no flavor.
Near the end Bruce and Mos
get trapped in a bus with hostages, and they cover the windows with newspapers
and then try to ram the bus through a wall of cops. This is the point when
you realize holy shit, this really is just like THE GAUNTLET, where Clint
Eastwood played a washed up cop who had to deliver a witness that other cops
were trying to kill, and he hid inside a bus that he had to drive through
all the cops with all the firepower in the world. Only difference is Clint
had enough smarts to rig the thing with hillbilly armor and that gave him
the extra edge over Bruce. But Bruce managed to get out and continue the chase
on foot which is also admirable. I guess when all you have is newspapers your
bus just isn't going to withstand as much damage, and you have to find a different
last stand.
I like Bruce's performance
in the movie but there's just nothing original or exciting enough about the
story and its execution to make this one stand out. Bruce is real stoic which
would be a good thing but it forces you to spend more time listening to Mos
Def's annoying character. None of the action is all that thrilling either.
Everything is only okay.
Now, this gives away the
ending of the movie sort of but I have to complain. What the fuck are they
thinking having Bruce secretly record the bad guy confessing what he did?
This shouldn't have to be officially declared, but I'll go ahead and do it.
ATTENTION ALL HOLLYWOOD SCREENWRITERS. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE THIS KIND
OF COPOUT ANYMORE. It's been done. It's over. Used up. If you use it now,
you look like an idiot. The audience feels ripped off. The babies cry. The
flowers die. You're ruining everything. I know it takes some smarts to figure
a different way out of a difficult situation, but that's why we're paying
you. We want to see Bruce find a cool way to solve his problems. If Bruce
can't figure it out, you have to. And recording the bad guy saying what he
did IS NOT a cool way. Stop it.
For now on, all Hollywood
studios that use the "bad guy makes incriminating speech that is secretly
recorded" device must pay me $100 emotional stress restitution for each
instance. You may signal your compliance with this agreement by releasing
new movies.
That's about all I have
to say about 16 BLOCKS so let me add an unrelated complaint. Because we don't
follow the rules around here, I'm gonna tag a different topic onto this review.
Before the movie there was a trailer for LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN, another Bruce
movie that comes out next month and looks more promising. So I'm all excited
for some Bruce Willis fun and then the next trailer is for UNITED 93, the
movie about the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9-11. Talk about a fuckin
bummer. I know this Paul Greengrass guy is supposed to be good, he did BLOODY
SUNDAY and I'm sure it's more tasteful than it sounds. But for god's sake,
Greengrass. Maybe you oughta retitle this shit TOO SOON: THE MOVIE. I'm not
the most sensitive guy in the world, I even watch serial killer movies now
and again, but even I don't want to see this shit. Seeing that trailer sandwiched
between a Bruce Willis trailer and a Tyrese trailer made me sick. I know this
guy is British so he's a little more distanced from it than us, but have a
heart, bud. This is a movie where you know that every character represents
a real person who really died just five years ago, and their relatives are
still alive having to see this movie advertised before 16 BLOCKS and on TV,
in magazines, probaly on the side of buses and crap. To me, movies are about
the most important thing there is and I defend anybody's right to make a statement
that maybe the rest of society is not ready for. But come on man, even if
the movie is fucking great, this might be a case where just doing it makes
you an asshole.
A friend of mine manages
a video store and told me FLIGHT 93 was on a list of upcoming movies they
could do a fun promotional tie-in for, like they did with HILLS HAVE EYES
and DATE MOVIE. No matter how respectful and classy the thing is it's still
pretty fuckin tacky just because it's a movie being released like a product.
And worst of all, Greengrass,
you don't know what happened on the plane. I don't think it takes a conspiracy
theorist to figure we don't know what really happened there. I'm sure they'll
go with the official story but what happens when the real story comes out,
whether the plane was shot down or who knows what, and then the family members
have to live with the extra burden of having to explain to people that the
awesome movie version was bullshit?
Or if it really is 100%
accurate, what business is that of ours anyway? At this point in history isn't
it okay for the family members to have to live with that horror without having
us enjoy it as thrilling cinematic drama? It's like EXECUTIVE DECISION, but
BASED ON ACTUAL EVENTS! And everyone dies instead of just Seagal.
Greengrass, for your insensitivity
and crassness I sentence you to having to watch 16 BLOCKS a bunch of times
in a row. Jerk.
28
WEEKS LATER
I never did write a real
review of the popular Danny Boyle picture 28 DAYS LATER, just a little blurb
in a summer recap column. To make a short story stay short, I liked it but
did not understand the hooplah. It seemed to me most of it had already been
done in Romero's movies, and I liked it better when it was a real movie instead
of a home video. So I was kind of annoyed by all the hype at the time that
Boyle had "reinvented the zombie movie." Even the controversial
running zombies were straight out of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. Somebody give
Dan O'Bannon some credit. When he did that in 1985 it was a clever
new take on zombies.
But I gotta tread carefully
here because there are people out there who will flip out if you use the word
"zombie" to describe the zombie-like people doing zombie things
in this movie that is clearly based on the zombie films of George Romero.
Zombies, it turns out, are people who die and then come back to life as zombies.
They are not people who are infected and become zombies, unless they are infected
to the point of death and then become zombies. In the case of these movies
they just get infected, they do not necessarily die as far as we know, so
they are something else. Nobody knows what it's called, but it's not a zombie.
It's just some thing that is exactly like a zombie and has every quality associated
with zombies, but you can't call it a zombie, that's like using the N word
almost. So I apologize to all the things who are not zombies but are exactly
like zombies in all respects but they have not died and therefore are not
zombies that I offended in my previous blurb. I will be more sensitive this
time.
(By the way, you zealots
on this issue better go after the supposedly fact-based book and movie SERPENT
AND THE RAINBOW, since they argue that real life Haitian zombies are people
who have been given a poison that slows down their heart rate to make them
appear dead, then they come back as zombies. They have not technically died
and yet they are using the word zombie, you better make some signs and get
down there.)
Anyway, 28 WEEKS LATER is
the sequel which is done by a different director but overseen by Boyle as
a producer (and even second unit director). In this one we see the longer
term results of the not-zombie diaster in London and also learn that significant
events in the spread of the virus happen to always come in increments of 28
time units.
The movie opens back around
the 28 days mark with a group of survivors holed up in a farm house, reminiscent
of both NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and some kind of hippie commune. Before long
of course the house is attacked by infected non-zombie-yet-extremely-zombie-like
individuals and the camera starts shaking and everybody screams and gets dizzy.
I'm no advocate of the shakycam,
but I understand the stylistic reason for it in this case. These movies are
meant to have a documentary-like look that theoretically would give the viewer
more of a feeling of reality than in a real zombie movie done carefully and
artistically on film. In theory it's a good idea but in practice I don't think
the "it's like COPS but you're running from zombies" gimmick hits
me in the gut like the existential dread of the characters hopelessly surrounded
by unstoppable hordes of lumbering former humans in Romero's world. Call me
old fashioned.
Still, like any potentially
dangerous technology, the shakycam can be put to good use or bad. 28 WEEKS
LATER demonstrates both. Later on there are scenes where I had to wait 2 or
3 minutes to find out who exactly it was that got killed earlier when the
camera was doing the watusi in a dark tunnel, but this opening escape from
the farm house gets my seal of approval. Either they planned it well or they
got real damn lucky, because they are able to have the panic and chaos of
the handheld camera but also visually communicate what is going on, clearly
showing Robert Carlyle hauling ass across a field and lines of, uh, angries
forming on all sides.
It's an intense scene that
kicks the movie off with a bang, but not just because of the action. Here
is a guy in a life or death situation who chooses selfishness over heroism.
But he's not the bad guy, he appears to be the protagonist. So instead of
being 100% evil or Ellis-like it seems more like a profoundly weak and human
moment. Here is Robert Carlyle, a likable guy, fairly handsome, capable of
escaping the attack, should be a good movie hero - but he abandons his wife.
He knows he should go back for her, but that he has a much better chance to
escape if he doesn't, so he doesn't.
Then we skip to the 28 weeks later. London has been quarantined, the people
who are like zombies have died off, the US Army has created a Green Zone type
headquarters where the surviving refugees are being flown back in. Here Carlyle
is reunited with his son and daughter. He's some kind of medical bigshot,
they stay in a hotel, they are happy to be together. You feel good for him
but then they talk about their mother and he lies to them, claiming he saw
her turn. Okay dude, we accepted that you were a coward but now you're lying
to your own children. You're pushin it, buddy.
This is one of the things
that made the movie interesting to me - he's just such a flawed and complicated
character. I think he really does love his family but he just can't get past
the fact that he's a god damn coward. Whenever there's a big disaster that
happens you hear all kinds of stories of brave and selfless acts, feats of
heroism. But what makes these stories news is that they are unusual. People
are usually afraid to do that kind of shit. Carlyle is playing one of those
normal guys who did not find it in him to become a hero, to do what he obviously
should do. He was defeated by his fear.
And then things get more
complicated for the family when the kids sneak out of the Green Zone, wander
through the abandoned city to their house, and find their mother, still alive.
Whoops. Dad had no way of knowing that she had a rare genetic trait that allowed
her to be a carrier of the virus while being immune to its symptoms. So his
story didn't really check out.
From there of course the
virus makes a comeback, the shit makes contact with the fan, and various zombie-like
mayhem goes down. There's alot of damn running in this world, it made me think
I oughta get in better shape, just in case. There's also a scene where a bunch
of infecties get chopped up by a helicopter blade, which is kind of funny
because 1. this also happened to the infected not-zombies in PLANET TERROR
and 2. a helicopter blade chopped up a zombie in DAWN OF THE DEAD, and other
elements of that scene were already lifted in 28 DAYS LATER. So the zombie
vs. helicopter motif lives on. Now let's bring back the zombie vs. shark from
Fulci's ZOMBI 2.
The movie stays intense
and interesting throughout, and I think I liked it better than the first one.
There are eerie scenes where our heroes run through the abandoned London streets
chased not by the infected but by soldiers who should be protecting them.
One minute you think they're alone, the next an ominous cloud of gas floats
from around the corner, and you know the faceless, masked soldiers are somewhere
behind it. Man, that took me back to 1999 and the WTO protests, I never had
a horror movie do that to me before.
That's actually one thing
I like better about this one and the thing that makes it more worthy of being
compared to Romero. I had to check to see if the first one came before or
after 9-11, because at least for me personally it didn't do much to tap into
the particular paranoia of the moment. (It came after, released here in the
summer of 2003). This one, though, has all kinds of echoes of recent turmoil
and in particular of the war in Iraq. The early scenes of American soldiers
on lookout duty passing time by spying on the hotel residents through their
rifle scopes says everything. These are good guys, they are there to help,
but they are in a bad situation and they end up disrespecting and dehumanizing
these people to the point that they don't even think about it when they aim
deadly weapons at them. It's creepy because it's true.
To me this was the most
interesting stuff in the movie, the flawed character of the people and the
operation they put in place. So as the movie goes along and by definition
has to get more involved in the mechanics of people running in terror trying
not to get bit it did lose a little bit of steam for me. Still, an intelligent
and worthy sequel. I will definitely watch 28 FORTNIGHTS LATER or 28 FRIDAYS
LATER (starring Ice Cube) or whatever they come up with for the next one.
30
DAYS OF NIGHT
You know that part of Alaska
you always hear about where the sun stops coming up for a month every year?
Well, wouldn't it suck if a bunch of vampires tried to take advantage of that?
That is the question posed by 30 DAYS OF NIGHT. And the answer quickly becomes
clear: yes, it would suck if they did that. Fuckin vampires. Basically this
is a remake of that Paul Walker movie 8 BELOW except instead of sled dogs
stranded in the snow it's people, and instead of a killer sea lion there's
vampires.
Although this has some of
the weaknesses that are common in modern horror, it's by no means your average
horror movie that you would expect to come out these days. The tone is much
more serious. The soundtrack is quieter. It is more about atmosphere and dread
than they usually bother with anymore.
And it has that great premise.
I think this is a good movie, and horror fans should see it. But it's a little
frustrating to me because it has some greatness in it. But only some. Little
drips of greatness here and there mixed in with some goodness and some mediocreness,
stirred together into a quality swirl.
To me the opening, especially
the second scene where they introduce the hero, is the best part of the movie.
Josh Hartnett, the sherriff of this small town of Barrow, Alaska (population
152 after people leave for the month of darkness - much less by the end of
the movie [SPOILER]) stands on a snowy hill with one of his deputies, staring
at a pile of melted cell phones, discussing why somebody would do something
like this. Since we in the audience have god like powers and know that this
is a vampire movie, we have a good idea of why somebody would do something
like this. But these cops don't, or if they have any sense of it they don't
want to say it out loud. The way Hartnett talks quiet and grimaces and is
shot in close-up looks just like another perfect opening to a modern vampire
movie, the Michael Parks monologue in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. But instead of
leading into a balls out action scene this leads to the two buddies reminiscing
as they watch the last sunrise before the 30 days.
I love the slowly building
dread as reports start coming in of strange acts of vandalism around the town.
Sled dogs killed, a helicopter destroyed. At first it's like a horror DIE
HARD, the villainous plan unfolding piece by piece. And Hartnett - who seems
like he would be bad at playing a sherriff, but actually I think he's the
best part of the movie - takes charge, while seeming to realize that something
fucked up is going down. He's not John McClane, he's a stoic type. He internalizes
it, he doesn't start yelling or swearing like alot of characters would do
to show that this is a dramatic situation.
The vampires show up before
too long. It's a small group of them, and they're some of the better vampires
of modern horror. They're probaly most like the ones from John Carpenter's
VAMPIRES, because they're these animalistic monsters, they are strong and
fast, vicious and cruel. But they aren't goth or Euro. The leader (who I guess
has a name, but they don't say it in the movie) is a grey-haired dude who
I bet usually plays businessmen, but he is great as a monster. You don't find
out much about their history or motives, what you do know is from them talking
in subtitled vampirese.
After the initial slaughter
the story should start getting even better, because now is when that 30 days
of night becomes important - the sherriff and the other survivors have to
figure out how to wait it out, stay alive until the sun comes back. But I
think this is where the movie should be better. Man, that's the bitch of telling
a story sometimes. You got this great beginning and ending but then you think,
fuck, I forgot to have a middle.
Well, I'm not saying they
don't have a middle, but I wish I could see a longer cut of this movie with
a way more detailed middle. Because the details are what's missing.
The survivors spend most of the month huddled in an attic. We know time passes
because facial hair grows, skin gets dirty, and every once in a while it says
on the screen what day it is. But you just keep seeing them in those same
coats and hats, it doesn't really seem like they've been there that long,
and we don't know exactly how they've been spending their days. In a story
like this I want to see the methods of the operation, the things you wouldn't
necessarily think of. We know they sleep in shifts (no shit). We don't know
how they find and prepare food, how they go to the bathroom, how they even
keep track of what day it is. We have the dramatic moments where there's a
sound outside or somebody gets too stressed and tries to run, but we don't
have the long stretches leading up to those moments. Sometimes things seem
to happen too fast, like when Hartnett goes into another room where everyone
knows he has to kill a friend, and there is not enough time to dread the clunk
of a guy being beheaded. It happens moments after the door closes. Like somebody
told them to just get the scene over with and not worry about making it dramatic.
We also don't have any good
shooting-the-shit-to-pass-the-time-and-while-we're-at-it-it's-cool-that-we're-bonding
type of scenes. Think about JAWS, the best scene in the movie is the three
guys sitting on the boat having a long, drunken conversation and sing-a-long.
It seems like there's some piece of bonding missing between Hartnett and Mark
Boone, Jr., who is the best supporting character and who does a better job
of vampire hunting than he did in VAMPIRES. And most of the other characters,
to be honest, I couldn't remember who was who. They kind of set up the people
of the town at the beginning but I couldn't keep track of all of them. I would
like to think they shot more character moments and some asshole cut them out.
More scenes like that opening with the cell phones, where Hartnett is able
to have a small laugh in the middle of the dread.
Also, it seems like the
vampires aren't doing much at this point. I like that they are not the focus
of the movie. I'm not saying to give them a speech explaining what they're
up to. But the way the story is told it seems like they kill everybody on
day 1 or 2 and then wander around with nothing to do for 29 days. I'm sure
it's cool that they don't have to worry about the sun, but it still makes
their whole scheme seem kind of lame. They should be living it up, man. This
should be the biggest vampire party ever. If I was one of them I would get
bored and leave.
But the real problem is
with the action, when it happens. At this time I have a personal message for
Danny Boyle. Danny, you've done some good movies, I enjoy your work, but FUCK
YOU for unleashing this shakycam bullshit on the horror genre. It's bad enough
they had to ruin action movies, why'd you have to do it to horror? All of
the attack scenes in this movie are blurry and chaotic. At first it makes
sense because it makes you confused like the characters are. But eventually
it starts to piss you off. When one character shows up for a big hero action
scene the audience should be thinking wow, this is awesome instead
of wow, this must be awesome.
ATTENTION DIRECTORS: You're
making a god damn movie! Not a radio play. We're supposed to be able to watch
things happen! You're blowing it! Go back to camera school. Those cameras
used to be used to tell stories by creating images. The whole implying-chaos-by-making-some-blurs-and-whooshes
thing is only to be used every once in a while, not every time something cool
happens. And what's the deal with skipping frames every time a vampire attacks?
I know that's supposed to tell us to be excited. But isn't that like admitting
that the scene on its own isn't exciting? There's one scene where some mayhem
happens and then as soon as it's over and everything is okay the camera goes
back to normal. And I thought wait a minute, why is this the part
you want us to be able to see? Wouldn't it be better if we could see that
other part?
Well, I've done alot of
criticizing here, but I am doing it in the spirit of an asshole dad who pushes
his son too hard at basketball, like Denzel in HE GOT GAME. I'm doing it because
I see the potential here, this movie could be Michael Jordan but sometimes
it gets lazy and acts like a Washington General.
In addition to VAMPIRES
and FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, there is alot that reminds me of Carpenter's THE
THING (obviously) and you've got some DAWN OF THE DEAD there with the holing
up. Some of the really great scenes are slightly diminished by being similar
to great scenes in other movies. The coolest shot in the movie is not unlike
the coolest shot in the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, and the most beautiful and
tragic scene in the movie is just like a scene in BLADE II. When it was in
BLADE II I thought only Guillermo del Toro would do that, but I guess
this guy would too, after he saw BLADE II.
But when it's reminding
you of other movies, it's mostly great movies, and as a whole it has a pretty
original feel. The style goes a long way toward making up for the other things
I complained about. I do think we're losing something with all the digital
color tweaking they do now. They get carried away with how cool they can make
something look and it gets further away from reality. And there is one quick
scene in a blizzard that looks almost SIN CITY phony and really took me out
of the movie. But that's the exception to the rule. The dark grey sky, the
strange glow of the snow on the ground, the vampires lurching around in the
shadows on the rooftops... the cold look matches the grim mood. It's a creepy
movie. You don't see that too often anymore.
The score is good, kind
of Carpenter meets Tobe Hooper. Its more drones and clangs than musical themes.
And it's not one of those scores that always has to call attention to itself,
like Pras and Wyclef saying "one two, one two" in the background
to prove they're still in the group when Lauryn Hill is singing. It will sit
it out for long stretches.
I wish this movie was more consistent, but I still gotta give it my seal of
approval. It's not all the way to being a great movie, but at least it tried.
Its bloody, torn-out heart is in the right place. And maybe it will work better
on a second viewing.
THE
36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN
aka SHAOLIN MASTER
KILLER
So you got these fuckin
Tartars goin around oppressing people, right? No surprise there. Humiliating
people, publicly executing people, fucking with innocent people's seafood
shops and all that kind of crap. I mean let's be honest here, we all know
how these fuckin Tartars are. And in a Shaw Brothers classic like this, we
know Gordon Liu is gonna do something about it.
There's
this classroom of kids (played by adults) and they've been learning about
the importance of their country and standing up to their enemies but they
can't figure out why they're learning this in the classroom and then watching
the Tartars pull this kind of crap. Are those lessons just words or are they
concepts they should really live by? They decide on the second one and when
they try to stand up and make a difference, they are rewarded with a serious
assbeating.
But Gordon
gets away, and you know what he always does when he gets away. He finds his
way to the Shaolin Temple where the monks patch him up, then he demands to
stay and become a monk, and then he asks to learn kung fu.
Most of
the movie is about Gordon learning lessons of kung fu, having to pass 35 "chambers"
before he has mastered shaolin kung fu. Most of them are not fighting, but
things like jumping across a bundle of sticks floating in water, then jumping
across just one of the sticks. We see him grow and build his powers until
he has finally mastered all 35 chambers. Then he has to defeat one of the
other monks in a duel in order to take charge of any one of the chambers.
This takes several tries and in the process he invents the 3-section staff,
one of the most badass kung fu weapons you're gonna see. It's like super nunchucks.
I would like to thank Gordon Liu for inventing the 3-section staff. Also could
you give me lessons is my next question, let me know Gordon, you got my email.
When he
finally earns the right to become a master, he requests that his chamber be
the non-existent 36th chamber, where he teaches shaolin kung fu to everyday
average joes or gordons who just want to live a humble life and defend their
seafood shop from the god damn Tartars. His request is rejected but he goes
anyway, shows back up at home with his yellow monk robe. Take that fuckers.
You kind
of expect everybody to be freaking out on their classmate coming back as a
shaolin master, but nobody seems to recognize him, they just call him master.
They do a real good job in this movie of showing a transformation. He really
has a poise and seriousness when he comes back that makes him seem like a
different person from the goofy kid he was at the beginning. And of course
the last section of the movie is about him recruiting a couple promising students,
teaching them a couple tricks and then launching an assault on the fuckers
who wronged him in the beginning.
All of
the fights in this movie are great, lots of different weapons and styles are
used. These are not big elaborately choreographed battles though for the most
part, which is why I like EIGHT-DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER (not the porno, the Shaw
Brothers movie) a little better. But some might prefer the simplicity of this
one. It depends on what kind of Gordon Lui going to the Shaolin Temple and
demanding to be trained so he can get revenge movie you are looking for.
I love
this one though because it's just a great, elemental type story of training
to become a master. I like the theme of bringing the knowledge to the people.
I think this movie is actually pretty deep, it's about toiling to learn the
great knowledge of the masters and then sharing that once elite knowledge,
empowering your people to overcome their oppressors. It could be applied to
so many situations besides kung fu. It's what we gotta do now, in fact.
On the
other hand this movie could just be about teaching people self defense, which
is like an episode of Oprah or something, so it's not as deep. When you're
going into the parking lot at night, hold your keys between your knuckles
in case you have to punch a guy, and that kind of stuff. I like my interpretation
better though. So lay off, Oprah, if you're reading this. (thanks for reading
though, let me know if you want to use my book for your book club.)
THE
40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN
I am no
expert on comedy or laughing, and you know that. But not too long ago I reviewed
a movie called "THE WEDDING CRASHERS" which I said was lazy formulaic
forgettable throwaway crap that will be forgotten forever about 20 minutes
after the last time they advertise the dvd on tv. The movie is already considered
a smash hit but I still stand by my evaluation. If you want to see Owen Wilson
lie to a girl to get laid and then really fall in love and go riding bikes
onbeaches and saying cutesey shit and then having his secret discovered and
being hated but then proving himself by going and making a long humiliating
speech about how much he really loves her and that other horse shit, please,
by all means, go watch it. You've never seen anything like it, unless you
have a TV or grew up in a country where there are TVs.
I wanted
to say a few words about STEVE CARRELL IS... THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN though
because in my opinion this is a movie that could be a good influence on WEDDING
CRASHERS and teach it how to grow up and become a man and contribute to society.
This movie
is about people who work at a The Good Guys type electronics store. They are
short one guy for their poker game so they decide to invite Andy, a nerdy
guy from the stock room. During the game they are exchanging sex stories and
Andy's story is so out of touch that it immediately becomes clear that he
is a virgin. So the other 3 guys make it their mission in life to help this
poor bastard stick his dick in something.
Of course,
there's alot about what a nerd this guy is (he collects action figure dolls,
plays video games, wears bad clothes, is apparently familiar with Baby Geniuses)
but the surprise is they make him a credible, likable person. His humiliating
secret becomes a symbol for whatever shame we have suffered in our life. Like
maybe you had a job where you were the only one who had a record. Or maybe
you accidentally let it slip that you have seen the first couple seasons of
Felicity. Who knows it could be anything. The sweet thing is that his co-workers
are not just laughing at him, they really want to help him. "For now
on, your dick is my dick," is how Romany Malco (who was in TICKER with
Seagal and played MC Hammer in a tv movie) puts it.
People
will hold it up to ANCHORMAN because Carell was in that one. ANCHORMAN made
me laugh but I liked this one alot better. ANCHORMAN had a sort of sketch
comedy type of randomness (suddenly they get in a huge battle to the death
with other news anchors) that alot of people liked but I thought kind of wore
thin at some point. This one has a different type of randomness more like
real life, where the characters can go off on tangental conversations like
real people do, but they don't ever start doing parodies of action movies
and don't start singing until the end credits. If I had to compare this to
another movie it would probaly be OFFICE SPACE, because both are sort of broad
and cartoony but are observant enough to hit on all kinds of fresh, non-movie
kind of moments that you recognize from life. And both have great casts of
lesser or unknown actors who do a better job than the marquee names. They
even managed to make a movie with no cameos by Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller,
any of the Wilsons or Jack Black, even though the filmatists are friends with
all those guys.
And everything
I hated about WEDDING CRASHERS is not represented in this movie. There are
no serious love montages. No relationship problems caused by stupid misunderstandings
or unneccessary lies. In fact, there's a part where the love interest, Catherine
Keener, gets mad because she finds a huge box of porn in The 40 Year Old Virgin's
apartment. He says it's his friend Dave's. And he's actually telling the truth.
And she doesn't believe him, so he lets it go.
He does
not make a speech to prove to her that it is Dave's porn! He just drops it.
You hear that, Owen Wilson?
It's only
at the end that you start to notice the formula underneath the story, and
by that time it goes by so fast it doesn't matter. It doesn't fuck around
with alot of "serious" moments. It's 99% laughs and by the time
there is a straightfaced cutesey moment (just one line near the end) it feels
more sincere than anything in your standard roman-comed (short for romantic
comedy). It's earned.
a couple
other things worth mentioning:
1. There
are pop culture references but instead of referencing things that are popular
or obscure in a hip way they are to bad or forgettable movies along the lines
of WEDDING CRASHERS. One of my favorite parts was when Seth Rogen said he
wanted Andy to "be like David Caruso in JADE" and Andy said "I
know exactly what you're talking about." It takes place in the real world
where alot of people watch bad movies.
2. I bet this will be a
huge hit but it is not bland crossover shit to take your grandma to like WEDDING
CRASHERS. It is closer to the "raunchy R-rated sex comedy" they
were hyping that one up as. Although I could've used some bush. I should probaly
erase that from this review but I will leave it in for now and come back and
erase it later is my plan
I would
like to see more like this. not a part 2 though please. The cherry has been
busted (spoiler) I don't think there's much you can do after that
48
HOURS - ANOTHER 48 HOURS
the complete 96 hour saga
48 HOURS is a well made and
highly influential movie, but I think you sort of had to be there. Today about
30-42 hours of it holds up.
Coming 5 years before LETHAL
WEAPON this is the father of the '80s interracial buddy movies. The premise
is that edgy cop Jack Cates (Nick Nolte), in a desperate ploy to stop a killer,
manages to get custody of convict Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) for two days
to help him with the case. Of course they hate each other until they slowly
earn each other's respect. It's cop vs. criminal, white vs. black, etc. Part
of the fun is watching them flip each other shit and get in fights, although
it gets uncomfortable because Nolte uses most of the racial slurs he knows
- yes, including the N-word. He later apologizes and says he was just doing
his job of keeping Reggie down - I'm not sure what that's meant to say about
cops but you can interpret it how you want.
I really like the look and
feel of this movie, very gritty, not at all a comedy. It's Eddie Murphy's
first film role and he gives a good performance as a two bit con man. Even
though he's the criminal he's kind of prissy compared to Nolte. They both
wear suits but he looks more like a yuppie. So it's not entirely convincing
when he beats up on Nolte a little. But when it's just them insulting each
other he can clearly hold his own.
Nolte's character Jack is
the text book burnt out cop. The boss is pissed at him, the other people on
the force are fed up with him, he has to lie to get what he wants, he carries
around a flask of booze, his girlfriend is about to dump his ass, and he's
always making Wimpy-from-Popeye style promises - I'll fill out a report
tomorrow. Obviously that's the perfect character for Nolte, because he's
dragged himself through alot of dirt and has the face and the voice to show
for it. He's definitely the highlight of the movie.
There's also a good team
of bad guys here, with James Remar (working with Walter Hill again after THE
WARRIORS) and Sonny Landham (PREDATOR) playing the two psychotic killers.
David Patrick Kelly also returns from THE WARRIORS even playing a character
with the same name, Luther. I'm not sure he's the same guy though, I can't
really reconcile that.
So it seems like there's
everything you need here for a great action thriller type of movie, but not
quite. I think the main thing missing is the action. I mean it's there, but
it's pretty generic. Not real big or intense, mostly just standard shootouts.
At least you can tell what's going on, but I don't know. Hard to get too thrilled
about.
And while Murphy does a
good job in the role you can see in retrospect that he didn't get as much
of a chance to be funny as in later movies. There really aren't many laughs.
Worse, he spends most of the movie talking about pussy. The joke is he just
got out of the joint, but it gets old fast. Plus I just do not buy the scene
where a woman he walks up to in a bar agrees on the spot to go across to a
hotel and have sex with him. I mean, the guy is not Usher.
ANOTHER 48 HOURS came 8
years later. Murphy was now a long since established movie star with many
hits under his belt. Nolte in real life was trying to stop drinking. Hill
was coming off the forgettable Mickey Rourke picture JOHNNY HANDSOME. Why
the fuck not take the buddy movie to the next level?
Well, this isn't a great
one either but I would argue that it's a little more fun than the first one.
Or at least a little less dated. The audience of 1990 expected a movie to
kick one's ass more and harder than it did in 1982. So part 2 has a little
more bang. Take for example the re-introduction of Nolte's Jack Cates. He
follows a suspect onto the site of a dirt bike race. When he tries to make
an arrest the suspect shoots at him, he shoots back and a gas pump catches
fire, barbecuing the guy alive. The other suspect runs and he tries to follow,
but ends up hopping back and forth dodging motorbikes. Now that's what we
want to see! Guns, explosions, motorcycles - these are elements you do not
get in a close quarters hotel hallway shootout. Pay attention, 1982. You could
learn something.
The villain this time is
supposed to be Remar's brother. He's played by Andrew Divoff in a role not
nearly as asinine as the one he plays in those stupid WISHMASTER movies. He
leads a trio of long-haired rock star-lookin bikers who seem more like cowboys
in THE PROPOSITION than actual bikers. And in fact the whole opening of the
movie is clearly played as a western, with a butch lady copy (the sherriff)
driving (riding) into the desert, strolling into a diner (saloon) and getting
shot by bikers (cowboys). You'd really think at least one of these biker's
would be played by William Forsythe, if not all three of them, but unfortunately
it's some other guys.
Reggie is just getting out
of the joint now, even though the other movie said he had two years. They
added on 5 years for another charge. Cates still has Reggie's Porsche and
his share of the money but tells him he won't get it if he doesn't help him
with his new case, finding a mysterious drug dealer called The Ice Man. The
Ice Man has hired those bikers to kill Reggie because, it turns out, the money
he stole was from The Ice Man and also because he knows what The Ice Man looks
like.
The great sleazeball-character
actor Kevin Tighe (rhymes with TODAY YOU DIE) plays an internal affairs officer
riding Cates's balls in a not-so-subtle manner. Tighe played a nice paramedic
on the old TV show EMERGENCY but in these types of movies he's always a grade-A
prick with only one dimension to his personality. The prick dimension. When
he tells Cates "I bet you think I enjoy this" he is smiling, to
show that he enjoys this.
Murphy does get to be funny a few times. I think the best part is when his
opponent runs out of bullets so he makes a big show of taking his time and
gingerly taking aim for his next shot. There's kind of an ongoing joke about
him having a bad day - when his car gets blown up Cates tells him "Ah
hell, you're havin a bad day" and later in a bar he pulls a gun and gives
everybody a lecture about everything that's happened to him on his bad day.
If any young people see this it will blow their fuckin minds to see Eddie
Murphy being kind of funny and dressed in male clothes of his own size.
Well I don't know man, I
kind of like these movies. But not all that much. Maybe if they do WHAT THE
HELL, ANOTHER 48 HOURS, WHY NOT? some day they'll finally knock it
out of the park.
52 PICKUP
So let's say you're an old rich dude who
runs an auto factory and lives off the patent money from inventing a latch
that they use on cars and spaceships. And you've been having an affair with
a girl your daughter's age, and you decide to call it off. But when you get
to her apartment the girl is not there and instead there are 3 dudes in ski
masks and they force you to watch a video of you and the girl fooling around
and they tell you how they are going to show this movie to your wife unless
you pay them 105 grand hush money.
So you figure no fucking way, I'm not paying, instead you tell your wife about
the affair and figure that's that. But next thing you know these fuckers drag
you into a warehouse and show you another video where they execute the girl
with a gun stolen from your bedroom and wrap her in a coat with your name
stitched into it. And they tell you now it's 105 grand a year or the cops
find the body and trace it to you.
Okay so it's not so easy to really picture yourself in that situation, especially
the part where you are rich and also invented something. Fortunately this
lean thriller by John Frankenheimer, based on the novel by Elmore Leonard,
doesn't try real hard to make you feel sorry for this fucker Harry Mitchell
(Roy Scheider). He never whines or justifies himself, he just stubbornly forges
ahead trying to find the anonymous three who are after him and fuck them up.
I read the book not too long ago and I wasn't sure how faithful this one would
be. And I got a little nervous about 1 second into the movie when it said,
"Los Angeles." (Like most of Leonard's books, it's a story about Detroit.)
Then when I found out his wife Barbara (Ann-Margaret) was running for city
councilwoman I thought jesus, this is gonna have nothing to do with the book.
False alarm though. The LA setting is just a convenient excuse to shoot in
LA. The political campaign is just a convenient excuse for Harry to keep his
situation secret and not go to the cops. The murder footage is on video instead
of film but otherwise the script (co-written by Leonard) stays real close
to the book. So it's tight and sleazy.
I do think they fucked up a little though. Even though Barbara's not a politician
in the book, she is a stronger character and their relationship is more compelling.
Here she seems like kind of a nutcase. But that happens in movies. They also
dumped a subplot about Harry dealing with a union guy and a series of fire
bombings at the car factory. I can understand why this was too complicated
for a movie, but since Harry ultimately deals with his problem by blowing
a motherfucker up, it works alot better in the book. (I did like that the
movie didn't explain things too much. There's a scene early on where Harry
oversees an auto test that involves explosions, so you can assume that's where
he gets the explosives, and they don't have to tell you that.)
Like all the older Elmore Leonard adaptations they just don't get his sense
of humor. This book isn't one of the funnier ones but there's a little bit
there, and I think Frankenheimer fucked it up. Like there's a scene where
Harry catches Clarence Williams III as Bobby Shy breaking into his house and
they beat the crap out of each other. When Harry has him at gunpoint with
blood dripping down the bridge of his nose, he asks him if he needs a Band-Aid.
In the book, I read it as a sincere question, the kind of overly nice thing
a guy like Harry might say because he's never had a guy at gunpoint before.
In the movie they made it sarcastic, he's taunting Bobby Shy like a prisoner
at Abu Ghraib. But I don't know, maybe I just read the book different than
Frankenheimer did.
I liked the movie overall. Just a simple amoral revenge thriller where a rich
dude's fooling around forces him to work his way through a sleazy world of
porn, coke, peep shows, snuff films and murder. Roy Scheider is perfect for
this type of role, John Glover is fittingly obnoxious as Alan Raimy, and Clarence
Williams III is pretty scary as the coked out Bobby Shy. The main Elmore Leonard
touch is that neither the victim or the victimizers really know what the fuck
they're doing. These guys think it's gonna be easy to blackmail the guy and
they quickly find themselves running scared. And Harry sort of charges at
them blindly and gets lucky.
Remember that scene in OUT OF SIGHT where George Clooney and Don Cheadle are
in Albert Brooks' mansion, they get in a scuffle at the top of the stairs
and some badass funky high speed percussion busts onto the soundtrack? I don't
know if it's a coincidence or not but this one has a similar scene with similar
music. When Scheider catches Williams in his house, they fight and roll down
the stairs. But here it's even more chaotic because it's only lit by Scheider's
flashlight, which is bouncing all over the place, so you can't tell WHAT the
fuck is going on.
Not a great one, but a good one. One of those rare high quality b-movies from
our old pals Golan and Globus.
80
BLOCKS FROM TIFFANY'S
This review might as well be part of an ongoing FOR GOD'S SAKE, SOMEBODY PUT
THIS OUT ON DVD series. I found it for rent on VHS and before I was even done
watching it I was so impressed I stopped it and went online to see if I could
order a used copy. There was exactly one on half.com, but for $60. Only one
copy on ebay, and it was $100. So most of you will have to see it some day in
the future if it's ever released on DVD, or chopped up into little files on
youtube or something. But it will be worth it.
80 BLOCKS FROM TIFFANY'S is an amazing 1979 documentary about New York Street
gangs The Savage Skulls and The Savage Nomads. I read somebody claiming somewhere
that it was an influence on THE WARRIORS, and I believe it. It made me realize
that as exaggerated as that movie was, it wasn't as exaggerated as I thought.
These are gangs who wear Nazi storm trooper helmets in public. There's a guy
with a cowboy hat and a bright red bandana over his face. They have names like
Comanche, Fly and Crazy Joe. You see them practicing high-flying karate kicks,
climbing up the side of buildings, jumping from fire escapes.
There's a couple funny re-enactments showing how they steal TVs from apartments
and hijack shipments from delivery trucks.
But mostly it's just a movie where they leave the camera running for a long
time and let these guys talk. In one or two spots it can get tedious as it illustrates
the type of shit they are obsessed with (it wasn't fair that we got arrested
that one time, we didn't do anything), but other times it's great that the filmatists
just let the film keep running. My favorite scene is where two guys have a long
negotiation about the fight they plan to have. The bigger guy wants to fight
now but the smaller guy refuses because his leg is hurt. The bigger guy promises
not to hit the injured leg, but the smaller guy says he needs it "to dance
around." Then the big guy offers to wrap a belt around his legs to make
the fight fair, but the small guy thinks that would be unfair to the big guy.
They agree to have the fight two Fridays from now, after quibbling about whether
or not that means the last Friday of this month. After the scene cuts we learn
that their fight was punishment for the small guy allegedly trying to keep people's
change after going to buy food for them. (He swears he didn't, and that he even
showed them the receipts.)
Most of the movie is spent with the current gang members, but there are also
interviews with former gang members (who seem more scary than the current ones),
members of the community who know them, and an anti-gang unit cop. He's an interesting
character because he seems to kind of like the gangsters and they kind of like
him. He even comes to the same block party as them and hangs out. He and one
of the gang kids have a fairly laidback conversation about their willingness
to shoot each other in a hypothetical scenario. I'm not sure about that guy
though, he's such a hotshot, it's hard to believe he's a clean cop. Like in
the scene where he introduces two of the former gang members he's laughing about
them never being convicted of murders and arsons and shit, saying "nothing
was proven."
The main thing I like in a good documentary is an interesting character, somebody
who is unusual but kind of relatable, maybe has a funny way of talking, maybe
surprises you in some way. That's everybody in this movie. One good one is the
older former gang member and club owner they talk to. The scene that really
cracked me up is when he's talking while driving around the neighborhood and
comes across a bunch of kids spraying the street with a fire hydrant. Suddenly
he pulls out an old fashioned microphone like he's gonna do a radio show. His
car has an intercom! He asks if somebody could do something about the water
because "we're filming here, I don't want to break the film."
The most unsettling part is that you like most of these guys, they're funny
and they're kind of cool with their silly outfits. You kind of laugh about them
robbing people and getting in fights, especially since they seem to go after
each other more than outsiders. But then they'll casually mention that they
got in trouble for "raping somebody," and there's a scene near the
end where one of the girl gang members has a cut on her face from her boyfriend
and tries to explain why it's okay.
It's only about 65 minutes long (the 72 minute running time listed on the label
includes all the commercials for ELEPHANT PARTS and THE PAUL SIMON SPECIAL and
shit) but it's a damn good 65 minutes. It's just a great slice of life and a
portrait of a particular place and time. And it proves that those shitty '80s
movies with the gangs in them at least weren't wrong about them wearing denim
jackets with the sleeves ripped off. Probaly should've given em helmets, though.
92
IN THE SHADE
This guy Don's been bugging me to review 92 IN THE SHADE since he nominated
it for the BADASS 100 update and nobody else had seen it. And it clearly sounded
worth seeing but I think the title had bad associations for me because it
reminded me of a porno this dude I used to work with liked to watch. That
one was called 92 AND STILL BANGIN'. Don's movie is alot better, in my personal
opinion. Your mileage may vary.
The title probaly could describe the heat in Key West where it takes place,
but the movie never really shows or mentions it being that hot. So it could
also describe the tensions between the young man (Pete Fonda) back in town
resuming his job as a fishing guide and his main rival (Warren God Damn Oates).
That's a hell of a '70s cast already, and then you also got Harry Dean Stanton
as another rival, Margot Kidder as Fonda's girlfriend, William Hickey as his
dad, Burgess Meredith as some other dude, even Joe "MANIAC" Spinell
as a client.
It's a meandering movie that doesn't build to a whole lot, but it's got a
nice feel to it. Kind of a tribute to southern eccentrics and working men.
Reminded me a little bit of my man David Gordon Green of SEAGALOGY introduction
fame. For example William Hickey is Peter Fonda's dad, he spends most of the
movie in a bed that's in his backyard, as some kind of protest against modern
life. And his dad is a rich guy on the lecture circuit, spends most of the
movie complaining about everybody else and being classist, but also talks
about his love for the word "pussy." Alot of the movie is just strange
conversations between weirdos, and you don't really know if it's a goofy script
or if they just left the camera running while crazy people were free to babble
about whatever came to mind.
There's a little bit of violence, but it always happens suddenly. At the beginning
of the movie Warren Oates is gonna shoot himself, but they talk him down.
Another guy makes fun of him for his suicide streak so Warren chases the guy
down with a pole. It seems all wacky like they're just gettng a little carried
away, but then he accidentally kills the guy. Or does he? I missed how exactly
Warren got out of jail later, and wondered if that whole incident was part
of the joke they play on Peter Fonda. Anyway, they play a joke on him so he
blows up their boats. (That's how they do it in Florida.) Then the rest of
the movie is about Warren Oates trying to figure out whether or not he should
kill Peter Fonda, and Peter Fonda trying to figure out whether Warren Oates
is gonna kill him or not.
I like Warren's character the best. He's kind of back and forth. He seems
understanding about Peter, even kind of bonds with him, and then he seems
like he's gonna murder him. He's a man struggling with his demons. Unfortunately
he's got Harry Dean Stanton there, and that guy is an enabler. Throws the
demons a bunch of demon nip to get em all worked up. Not a good friend.
It has kind of a novelistic feel, it doesn't have the momentum of a normal
movie. So I'm not surprised to find out that it's based on a novel, and the
writer of the novel also wrote and directed the movie. This is the only movie
he directed, but he did write the screenplays for a bunch of movies, including
RANCHO DELUXE, THE MISSOURI BREAKS and TOM HORN. I'm guessing he's not the
reclusive small town type of novelist, more like the hanging out with movie
stars and rock stars type of novelist. According to the IMDb trivia he at
various points was married to a direct descendant of Davey Crockett who later
married Peter Fonda, to Margot Kidder, and to Jimmy Buffett's sister.
I'm not sure what exactly 92 IN THE SHADE is supposed to be about. Maybe I
didn't really get it. But it's a nice little slice of life, and death. And
fish. And it's one of the very few movies I've seen that uses the word "skiff"
alot. Oughta be on DVD.
300
Make no mistake about it,
it's hard out here for a Spartan. Alot of these bastards, they're "baptized
in the fire of combat." They grow up having to fight their dad all day,
and I mean really fight him. You thought your dad pushed you too
hard at hoops, well at least he didn't beat on you until you fucked up. These
guys, the beating is the actual practice. It's their culture.
In some of the other neighborhoods,
like Arcadia for example, you can grow up to be a potter, a sculptor or a
blacksmith. In Sparta, you're a soldier. But you don't even get to talk about
it, like "What do you do for a living?" "Oh, I'm a soldier.
I'm baptized in the fire of combat." In Sparta, they ask you what your
trade is you gotta yell out "WHOO WHOO!" or something. You are highly
trained in combat and in grunting.
Basically, you're trained
your whole life to fight, and you learn that the best thing in the world is
to die "a beautiful death" in battle. If it's not that great of
a battle then forget it, it has to be a really good battle, and then if you
die, that's awesome. No mention of 72 virgins, or the afterlife at all, unless
"Tonight we dine in Hell!" is meant literally, which is debatable.
But then after all that
training they might not even let you fight. First of all, you have to have
a son. Not just a bun in the oven either, it has to be a born son to carry
on your name. Bloodlines are a big deal to these people. And then there are
body image issues to deal with. There are some serious pecs and six packs
on these Spartans. I don't know if shirts were invented yet or not, but they
don't wear shirts. You can imagine that if you didn't have pecs like that
you would feel pretty fuckin worthless. You'd look like a freak.
Even worse, what if you
literally are a freak. Like this one guy, I forget what they call
him, but he is Walt Disney's Hunchy, from the movie Walt Disney's The
Hunchback of Notre Dame. The guy looks like the Toxic Avenger after he
broke his spine in a car accident, and he's trying to fit in with all these
fuckin Adonises. He's a Spartan, so obviously he's trained his whole life
and he can fight like nobody's business, but because of his birth defects
he can't raise his shield to the proper phalanx height, so they won't let
him help. It's like those guys that wanted to help out in WWII but they got
rejected because of their eye sight or something. Except this guy can't get
laid either. And because of their whole macho culture he thinks he has to
redeem his father by killing. Everything in Sparta is about killing. He can't
open up a hospital and name it after his father, that wouldn't do it.
I really wondered during
the movie what exactly these Spartans do when they're not fighting.
If it's not a war, it's training the kids for war. Okay, so there's some sex,
but it's "I'm about to leave for war" sex. They definitely got some
great warriors in this joint but I bet there's not shit to do during peace
time. You can't even climb a tree because there's dead bodies nailed to it.
For women, I don't know,
it might not be as bad. They have to stay at home and they have to worry about
their husbands and sons dying, but they are given more human rights than in
some of the other cultures. A Persian messenger is offended when the Queen
speaks to him. More importantly, King Leonidas looks at the Queen and waits
for an approving nod before he sets off a war by killing the sexist bastard.
There is still room for advancement but at least there's a little bit of power
there, like Hilary Clinton when she tried to get us health care.
One thing that definitely
sucks about being a woman in Sparta: it's too god damn cold. You can tell
because their nipples are always rock hard.
And the worst thing for
both sexes: having to hear about Sparta and Spartans all the fucking time.
We are Sparta! Spartans, prepare to fight! In Sparta we do this, in Sparta
we don't do that. Spartans are like this, white people are like that. Sparta
Sparta Sparta Sparta. They NEVER fucking shut up. Half these guys, it's like
they don't even have names, the King calls them "Spartan." Not even
an occasional "buddy" or "pal" or "chief," everybody
is a nationality. "Hey Arcadian," or "Hey Persian." I
mean, I have a name, dude. I guess it's good that Sparta means so much to
the king, but jesus. ANYTHING you talk about that much, you're gonna get on
somebody's nerves. Get a hobby, dude.
I also get a sense there's
some bigotry going on here. I mean obviously King Xerxes and the Persians
really are planning to enslave Sparta, so the Spartans have every right to
fight back. But why does the first guy they kill, and the most joyfully evil
guy they encounter, gotta be the only two African-Persians they ever run into?
This one dark skinned guy cackles satanically and then his whole face digitally
turns ink black except for his eyes. And I'm sure it's an homage to the drawings
in the comic strip this is based on, but jesus.
I bet they're pretty progressive
about gays, though. True, some nationality or other gets called a bunch of
"boy lovers," and I'm sure it bugs some of these guys that Xerxes
has fruity looking painted on eyebrows. But I think most would agree that
this movie would make a good double feature with DREAMGIRLS.
It also reminded me a little
bit of APOCALYPTO. It has less pretense of being actual history (even though
it's based on an actual battle) because it's more stylized and has a couple
monsters in it. But it's another macho, balls-to-the-wall action movie. And
just like in APOCALYPTO, the invading army are a bunch of assholes sporting
more bling than Bishop Don Magic Juan. How do they go to the bathroom with
all that shit on?
From the looks of it everything
is better in Persia. They got more numbers, they got fancy boats, they can
cover their chests, they get to ride pimped out elephants and rhinos instead
of shitty old horses. They have crazy orgies and even hunchbacks are invited.
The King is such an asshole he rides around in a parade float carried on people's
backs. And he uses them as stairs when he wants to get off. Rich bastards
flaunting their Liberace lifestyle. Spartas don't like it. They grew up rough,
they're straight outta Sparta.
Another one this reminded
me of was the first CONAN movie. Because it's macho as hell, it's a good simple
story about brawn and not so much brain, and it takes place somewhere between
the real world and fantasyland. The people who look like monsters are supposed
to be inbreds, and there's no dragons or talking birds or nothing. Only seagulls
that snack on dead bodies.
Walking out of the movie
I heard some guys saying there was no story, it was just fighting. I don't
think they meant this as a bad thing. But they're wrong. This is actually
a very old and very good story, the story of the 300 Spartans and 6,700 of
their close friends who thought it was a good idea to fight hundreds of thousands
of invading Persians. It's a story, but it's a story freebased to its purest
elements. These guys are fighters, they fight. They got a good strategy. They
got a simple philosophy. And they kill some motherfuckers, actually alot of
them. Some of the battle sequences are pretty impressive, there are some long,
elaborate slow motion shots where Leonidas runs through a crowd chopping up
who knows how many Persian motherfucks in a row.
According to my sources,
300 is based on a comic strip by Frank Miller, same guy who did SIN CITY.
The comic strip is inspired by the movie 300 SPARTANS which is based on the
actual historical events of the battle of whatsisdick in 480 BC. I don't know
much about any of these things so I consulted my Nerd Issues Correspondent.
He hasn't read the comic strip (he doesn't like stories where capes are worn
in a legitimate historical context) but he says this is a landmark comic book
movie because it's the first one to credit a colorist (Lynn Varley) for creating
the source material. Man, that's progress. I wish Dr. King was here.
Anyway, my guy hasn't read
it but he heard the movie exactly captured the artwork from the strip, like
SIN CITY. If so I think they did a better job of making it seem like a real
movie than SIN CITY. This whole movie is stylized, right down to the blood
sprays that are animated to look like ink splattered on a page. But it has
more depth to it, it looks more like a real world that these people actually
live in. Even if it's really a blue screen. They got some more DICK TRACY
makeup in this one but it's not the main characters, the main characters are
real people.
And I have to give credit
to this Gerard Butler, who plays Leonidas. He's not like a Daniel Craig or
somebody who's gonna conquer the world with his charisma. But he's convincing
as the baddest motherfucker of the 400 BCs, the guy you'd follow on a suicide
mission. And with that pointy beard he sure looks alot like crazy fuckin Mel
Gibson. (Prediction: Gerard Butler in MAD MAX 4.)
I liked this movie. I'm
not gonna say I loved it, but it was very enjoyable. These days you don't
see this tone too often - it's an action movie that's dead serious, not a
bunch of wisecracking, but it's not at all pretentious. It's not trying to
trick you into thinking it's more than just a bunch of patriotic musclemen
throwing spears and trying not to get hit by arrows. There are numerous great
badass moments, including when the Spartans build a wall out of dead people,
and when they bury some suckers under the wall of dead people. There's some
good tough talking too, and at least some of it is taken from the accepted
historical accounts of the event. When the Persians tell the Spartans to hand
over their weapons and Leonidas says to "Come and get 'em," it's
not an action movie cliche, that's supposedly what he said.
To me it's kind of like
GLADIATOR except nicer to look at, with battles where you can follow what's
going on, and it's shorter and less pretentious so I had more fun and didn't
feel insulted by it.
The director is Zack Snyder,
his second movie after the surprisingly good DAWN OF THE DEAD remake. So we
know now that wasn't a fluke, this is a guy who can make a fun and cool looking
movie with some good violence for the whole family. ("ARE YOU ENTERTAINED?")
The question now is if he has a brain in his head, or if he's just working
on some really good filmatic reflexes. First he took probaly the most thoughtful
of all the modern horror classics and remade it as a movie about nothing.
Now he makes a movie that non-judgmentally tells about a society of nationalistic
killing machines. I'd say he's definitely a good director but can we call
him an interesting director before we know if the guy ever, like,
thought about stuff before? I'm not sure, but if the next one is
empty too I'm gonna have some suspicions. You can't eat cotton candy for every
meal of the day. But for breakfast and lunch, I guess that'll be okay.
1408
To be honest I had written
off the possibility of good Stephen King-based movies a while back. It seemed
like that whole thing had run its course, but then I saw THE MIST and that
was an enjoyable one. So I gave 1408 a shot, what the hell.
John Cusack plays a writer
of haunted places guidebooks travelling around to allegedly haunted rooms,
testing them, staying the night and writing about them. But he's kind of a
dick about it and doesn't even believe in ghosts. And it's indicated that
something tragic happened in New York that caused him to leave his wife. But
now he wants to go back to New York for the first time to stay in this room
he found out about, 1408 at the Dolphin, where a whole bunch of people have
killed themselves. And of course he gets in, the room terrorizes him for real,
he learns about himself and explores the traumas of his life and faces why
he left his wife. Spoooooky.
This is kind of off-topic
here, but over the last year or so I have found myself in strong opposition
to the sarcastic "really?" You know, let's say someone is riding
their bicycle on the sidewalk and they crash into you, and they say, "Hey,
watch where you're going!" You would turn your voice real snooty and
seay "Really? You're riding your bike on the sidewalk and you're
really gonna blame me for this?" That's the sarcastic "really?",
and in that case it's kind of justified. But more often than not the technique
is being abused, used to feign incredulousness at things that aren't that
extreme. It's overused. Some of my friends use it too much, John Stewart uses
it too much, Saturday Night Live Weekend Update even has a whole segment based
around it. Really? You're really gonna do a whole segment
called "Really?" I say quit it.
But if you were the type
to use that there would be a whole lot of Stephen Kingy elements here to use
it on. You would use it to turn your nose up at Cusack writing all these books
even though he thinks they're bullshit. At him having that one book he wrote
so long ago that was personal and meaningful. At Samuel L. Jackson, as the
manager of the hotel, being familiar with his complete bibliography and hassling
him about what the early book says about his relationship with his father.
About the hotel staff knowing the room is deadly but having it cleaned once
a month. And especially about them letting this guy stay in the room just
because his publisher threatens them with a lawsuit. Like they can't just
say it's being repaired.
Plus you got the usual Stephen
King shit: famous writer protagonist, marital troubles, alcohol, old pop song
that keeps playing in a spooky context (in this case "It's Only Just
Begun" by the Carpenters - a good choice if you must drag out this old
cliche). As part of my October viewing I also watched an episode of the King
mini-series NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES. It's the one called "Battleground"
where William Hurt plays a hitman whose penthouse is invaded by haunted army
men toys. At one point Hurt climbs out the window and carefully walks around
the ledge, high above New York City. I thought "Hey! That same thing
happened in CAT'S EYE!" Well, sure enough, same thing happens in 1408
too.
So, you know, there's some silliness you have to swallow even aside from the
Evil Hotel Room. But I think it's a pretty decent movie anyway. For one thing,
the construction of the story is pretty smart. First it sets up the character
in his normal life, including a signing at Borders attended by 3 people, which
seems pretty realistic for those types of books. He jokes around but you sense
he's unhappy, and in these scenes they drop a couple hints about things in
his life that will come up later, and give him a near-death experience so
you can wonder whether what we're seeing is reality or hallucination.
Then it gets to setting
up the horror, with special guest Samuel L. Jackson. He's the hotel manager
intent on talking this author out of staying in the room. In my Seagalogical
and other action studies I always talk about the "Just How Badass Is
He?" scenes where a military commander, a police captain or a villain
hypes up the hero, listing his medals and training, what countries he's fought
in, maybe some story about some incredible thing he did in the past. He
ripped off a guy's leg, only survivor of a poorly timed volcano expedition,
it's like he's a ghost etc. Well, this is the horror equivalaent of that,
Sam Jackson doing the "Just How Evil Is It?" speech to hype up this
room. Cusack's heard it, he recites along with the stats about how many people
killed themselves there. But Jackson starts telling him about the natural
deaths too. And the sick details. Showing him photos. Telling about the precautions
they have to take just to clean the room, and the tragedies that happen anyway.
None of this fazes him so Jackson sums it all up succinctly: "It's an
evil fucking room."
So by the time he walks
in there you're ready for some serious scares. It's a great buildup. The movie
does deliver, but maybe doesn't live up entirely to the buildup. Lots of weird
ghostly shit happens, and it stays pretty entertaining. But I think maybe
part of the problem is from me connecting it to this action movie formula.
We got this badass room and we got this guy trapped in a small area. What
we don't have is a strong physical goal for him to accomplish. In alot of
these stories the hero would have to figure something out, a way to escape
or something. There's a little of that but soon you realize that the only
thing he can do is wait it out. Try to sit around not dying for 12 hours and
then it will be the next day. That's cool and all but maybe recreating the
feeling of insomnia is not the most exciting use for a movie. Ultimately he's
not passive, it's through his own doing that the author vs. hotel room conflict
ends, but it's a pretty simple, not exactly clever thing he does all the sudden,
so it's not exactly John McClane material here.
But the other thing that
helps the movie overcome its weaknesses is Cusack. He seems angry and tormented
enough for you to believe the character but also he has a dark sense of humor
that comes through sometimes and livens things up. One of my favorite parts
is a little smartass comment he makes. He's stuck in the room and (again,
like a DIE HARD movie) tries climbing through a vent. But when he gets in
there he starts seeing other parts of his life through the vents into the
other rooms, and gets attacked by some freaky monsters and shit. He goes through
this whole long ordeal, doesn't make it anywhere and falls painfully through
the vent back into the same evil room he was trying to escape from. And he
says, "Well, it's good to be back."
1408 is
a pretty solid mid-level Stephen King movie. It's definitely no CARRIE or
THE SHINING but it's not a bad use of your time.
the
dolphin, room 1408, NYC
Posted Oct 14, 08 by ghostauthor22, 1 reviews
with a budget, traveling for business
nice room but fucking evil
i
stayed in room 1408 as research for a travel/supernatural oriented book.
the room is very nice with pleasant wallpaper and furnishings. very roomy
with plenty of light and a view of the city. staff is helpful although too
scared to enter room. there was a problem with the thermostat but they fixed
it. my only complaint is that the room is fucking evil, i kept seeing people
jump out of windows, my dead daughter, was frozen, burned, the room was
destroyed and repaired several times, i woke up from a near death experience
outside of the room and later was back in the room, the police could not
find me in the room, a weird zombie baby thing attacked me in the vent,
i cut myself, got weird phone calls from the front desk trying to get me
to commit suicide, an imposter called my wife on a webcam and told her to
come when really i didn't want her to, and i had to set the room on fire.
also the mirrors don't work properly and the items in the mini-fridge are
extremely overpriced. i am somewhat of a travel writer though so i am picky,
the layman would find room 1408 to be a charming and affordable place to
stay while visiting the big apple.
2001: A Space
Odyssey
Lately
I've only been reviewing current movies, but as you know, the Hollywood Reporter
had a story the other day that MGM has hired a first time director to do a
"re-imagining" of 2001 with "modern pacing and music" that will "take
full advantage of state-of-the-art digital effects." The director is not someone
I'm familiar with, but they say he is perfect for the job because he's done
alot of music videos and won a couple of Miss Clio awards for his commercials.
So before they ruin it I thought I would revisit Kubrick's masterpiece of
space ballet and shit.
No, don't
worry, I'm just fucking with you. They're not doing a remake, as far as I
know. But you almost believed it, right? Because it's so awful, so wrong,
so undeniably vile, that someone is definitely going to have to do it eventually.
They came for Hitchcock and Hooper and Romero and Carpenter and Walking
Tall and Amityville Horror and House of Wax and they
even tried Billy Jack. They already got Charade and Planet
of the Apes and Dr. Seuss. They burrowed into the brains of Lucas and
Spielberg and Friedkin and Scott and made them second guess their younger,
better selves. And now they've got their greedy bastard eyes on Kubrick. You
fucking know they do. They'll wait until his assistant is dead and his assistant's
grandchildren or whatever it takes, but the day it becomes possible, they
dig out the contracts and they sign them in blood and they will swallow one
end of 2001 and suck it down like one of those threads the yogis use
and pull the entire movie out through the ass and into a paper shredder. You
already know this, but I'm telling you this, because we need to get this out
in the open, for our own good. We need to face the inevitable.
Actually
I just saw the movie in 70mm at the 2nd Annual Cinerama "Reel" Film Festival
here in Seattle and that's why I finally decided to review it. Sorry to bum
you out. Actually it was a very positive experience. Imagine that opening
with the eclipse and the mighty dun... dun... dun... DUH-DUN!!!
as the curtains open... and open... and open, revealing
the giant curved Cinerama screen that is way w i d e r than
you expected. The movie is huge and the screen is huge. It gave the hairs
goosebumps standing up on my balls or whatever the saying is.
What this
picture is about is there are these monkeys during the dawn of man. There
are also warthogs and they are all scavengers who eat the meat of the dead.
But there is a cheetah who kills them sometimes and eats them. Also there
is a baby monkey. Later on they wake up and there's a big rectangle that they
touch. So then it occurs to one of the monkeys, what about tools. And he starts
to hit a bone against other bones. You know, tools. So then I guess he kills
a warthog and they all eat the meat and I bet it's more fresh than usual.
All because of tools.
Well I
fell asleep so I never found out how these monkeys get into space, but I guess
you could pretty much see where it would go from there. There is the moon
and Jupiter, for example, and a space baby that looks like Gollum. Dave gets
locked out of the ship, and HAL won't open the door. It's like when the kids
locked Bernie Mac out of the house for the whole episode and kept spraying
him with the hose.
No, I'm
just yankin your chain again, actually I didn't fall asleep but I trust my
readers to know what 2001 is without me having to explain it to them
like a bunch of fuckin space babies. What I will do here instead is try to
talk a little bit about what makes this picture so god damn amazing. And I
think the best way to illustrate it is to try to picture some alternate dimension
where Stanley Kubrick is a living filmatist without alot of clout, trying
to release this movie today. Can't you just hear what the executives would
say?
Mr.
Kubrick, we think you have a great picture here. The special effects are dazzling
and groundbreaking. You will be taking sci-fi fans to places they have not
seen before. However, we also feel that there are a few changes that could
be made to tighten the pace and to make the story more absorbing.
We know
you are very close to the material so it is hard to see, but there is alot
of unneccessary and repetitive information which slows down the story and
takes out the sense of adventure necessary to attract today's audiences. One
of the basic rules of filmmaking is this: if a character walks all the way
across the room after a scene, you don't have to show the entire walk. Just
show him begin to walk, then cut away. Cut out anything that is not absolutely
necessary to the plot.
With
that in mind, we would like to show you our new improved cut of 2001: A Space
Odyssey, which clocks in at 102 minutes, a running time that worked very well
for us on Agent Cody Banks. The picture opens with a short prologue about
Dr. Floyd arriving at the space station, going to the moon and investigating
the monolith. (We cut the Dawn of Man sequence, which we found confusing and
unneccessary to the plot.) The editing is tightened but we were able to leave
in some of the dialogue-free shots that you enjoy. We also improved the "monolith"
scene with an evil cackle and eyes to show that it is evil. Also we cut to
a quick clip of the cheetah jumping on the monkey from the dawn of man sequence.
We did
not understand the tangents about classical music but if they are important
to you we would be happy to include them as deleted scenes on the DVD. Also
we are very close to signing Seal and Beyonce for a duet on the end credits.
We'll send you a demo soon.
The
movie is really about Frank and Dave and HAL 9000, so that's the section of
the movie we have focused on. This section is very strong and we have been
able to spruce up the sound effects and music (we felt some scenes were too
quiet). Also we tightened the pace for more tension.
The
psychedelic sequence has been trimmed for brevity and retimed to a song by
Crystal Method. We have also taken the liberty of hiring Renny Harlin to direct
a new ending which ties all the threads together. Frank wakes up from his
"star child" nightmare to realize that he has been rescued by Dr. Floyd and
his team. They explain how they discovered just in time that the monoliths
were an alien device which was being used to control HAL 9000. This leads
into the thrilling climax where the star fighters destroy the monoliths in
a high speed intergalactic battle!
Okay, I
think you are bored with my point by now but you have to admit that it's true.
Everything that makes this picture so great is also everything that studios
say you can't do in a movie. You can't make long scenes where nothing happens
except movement and classical music. (it's like Fantasia in space!)
You can't make the movie about monkeys at first and then about space. You
can't make an ambiguous ending that people will still wonder about 35 years
later.
Yes, I would like to go on record as saying that this 2001 is a movie that
I think is good in my opinion thanks
10,000
BC
12,008 years ago this very day there was a man who, according to legend --
well, the legend on the poster and trailer for this movie -- was "the
first hero." He was part of a tribe that had been around long enough
to develop hunting techniques, fire, tools, language, religion, jewelry, and
eyeliner, but for some reason they hadn't gotten around to heroism until now.
This hero seems like a normal modern day white dude of average intelligence
and waxed chest, except he has mud all over his face and nappy dreadlocks.
Some time in the intervening years his people must have had a schism and split
off into two tribes - the modern "douchebag" took the basic look
and demeanor while the patchouli wearing, hackysack playing potheads took
the hair and lack of hygiene.
10,000 BC is the new movie from Roland Emmerich. With most movies you might
ask "Does it suck?," but Emmerich is like Schumacher or Bay, that's
a redundant question. "Suck" is the medium they work in, for them
that's the same as asking "Is it a movie?" So I can't complain that
it sucks, I can only report my observations.
I restrained
myself from watching Emmerich's last couple movies, but once he threw cavemen
and wooly mammoths into the mix I thought it might be worth a few good chuckles.
To be honest I dozed off a couple times but if you want a fairly harmless,
completely idiotic movie with no artistic or social value of any kind but
that some dipshits spent about 75 million dollars to make for some reason,
and if that movie has to have come out this weekend and have a part where
people get chased by ostrich/dodo bird monsters, this has got to be in the
top 5.
Before I get into the specifics of this movie let's take a minute to ponder
the mystery of Roland Emmerich. I hate Michael Bay's movies more than Emmerich's
because they are more mean-spirited, harder to follow visually and have poisoned
the well more, influencing other directors stylistically and lowering the
industry standard for minimum visual storytelling competence. But still -
I understand Bay's success more then I understand Emmerich's. As much as I
hate Bay's style, it is a style that he sort of developed and made his trademark,
and some people like that shit. They have a distinct look to them that some
people like. Emmerich's don't really have a distinct look - his trademark
is just an all-around corniness and stupidity, an agreement with the audience
that he is allowed to insult their intelligence, and not allowed to compliment
it. Like a really bad boyfriend. As far as I know the only people who like
Emmerich like him as a "guilty pleasure," going in expecting stupidity
like I did with this one.
So how did he get to that level of a guy who keeps getting to make big budget
effects movies every couple years? He started out doing cheesy German kiddy
movies like GHOST CHASE and American b-movies like MOON 44 and UNIVERSAL SODIER.
There are many directors who work with Van Damme and Lundgren, but almost
all of them stay struggling in DTV and TV. How does this guy end up being
the one that studios start burying in piles of money? Somehow he got to do
INDEPENDENCE DAY, somehow people loved that stupid movie, and now he gets
a life long free ride? Even after GODZILLA? I'm not mad or anything, I just
think it's weird. Maybe he's just a really nice guy. That would be cool if
this was his reward for being a good friend to everybody.
So anyway. As you have guessed, this is a fantasy movie with no connection
to real history or common sense. These aren't cavemen, they're eloquent, British-accented
hippies with spears. Like 300 they get a Preposterousness License by having
narrator Omar Sharif say at the beginning that it's a "legend."
The legend starts with a blue-eyed girl visiting an old witch lady who determines
her connection to a prophecy that "four-legged demons" will attack
their people. But never fear, a hero will rise, etc.
I had this idea, wouldn't it be cool if they made a fantasy movie where nobody
ever talked about any god damn prophecy?
Emmerich's brain doesn't have the capacity for original thought, so you can
tell he was watching 300 and APOCALYPTO while he wrote this one. From 300
he gets battles with elephants, a young warrior letting a beast fall onto
his spear, even the climactic shot of a long distance spear throw that hits
the weird, god-like monarch and proves that he's mortal. From APOCALYPTO he
gets the exotically dressed strangers that storm the village, abduct people
as slaves and bring them to a pyramid.
Of course, none of those things were startlingly original when they were in
300 or APOCALYPTO, but they were much better executed. The action scenes in
10,000 BC are fine, but the ones in 300 were better, the ones in APOCALYPTO
were way better. APOCALYPTO had an organic, realistic look to it that made
the ridiculously inaccurate historical details seem believable. 300 went the
other direction, making everything look like a painting, so it was nice to
look at and allowed for much more interesting exaggeration. APOCALYPTO had
a likable hero, 300 had a mythical one. 10,000 BC is content to just plod
along in the middle, looking cheesy and fake but not in an artistic way, having
characters but not making them interesting.
This one also has a sort of racist subtext, but I'm not gonna blame that one
on 300. It's definitely an Emmerich trademark. I think he is genuinely trying
to be a good guy and show different races and nationalities working together
like he always does, but you can't help but notice the girl is the chosen
one because she has blue eyes and the white guy with dreadlocks leads all
the Africans into battle like they never could've figured it out for themselves.
By the way, I am required by law to mention that Camilla Belle, who plays
the blue-eyed babe, played Steven Seagal's daughter in THE PATRIOT. She could
be the next Catherine Heigl (Seagal's niece in UNDER SIEGE 2.)
As far as moronic, crappy movies go, this is a watchable one. If I had seen
it with an audience that wanted that it might be fun, there is plenty of terrible
love story dialogue and silly turns of events to laugh and groan at. For example
when they show a wall carving of a UFO to imply that the bad guys are aliens
or their asociates. Or when a character offers the alternate theory that they
are from Atlantis. I was hoping they would work bigfoots and chupacabras in
there, but if they did I missed it.
The
most evil of the bad guys looks like Osama bin Laden reborn as a professional
wrestler. When he finally gets a spear through him look for the kid Bacu standing
in the background smiling in delight. If you see it, that is. Which I wouldn't
necessarily recommend. Why must we keep reliving the past? What about moving
forward into the future?
A.I.
OUTLAW CRITIC IS FIRST TO ADMIT, "I ACTUALLY
THOUGHT A.I. WAS PRETTY FUCKIN GOOD"
SEATTLE, WA-- Online film writer
and cult hero Vern admitted earlier today that he thought Steven
Spielberg's artificial intelligence drama A.I. was "pretty fucking
good, though." This makes the ex-con and recovering alcoholic the
first person he knows to admit liking the movie since its release
two weeks ago.
"A lot of motherfuckers said it
was too
|
sentimental," Vern wrote on his mildly popular
film "web sight". "But it's about a robot who wants his mommy, what
else is it gonna be like, asshole [punctuation his]."
Vern responded to pathetic accusations of studio
bribery by saying that he wishes it were true, because then he could
afford to buy the new dvd box set of Bruce Willis's Die Hard trilogy.
|
Hello,
my name is Vern X and I am the Vern of the future. Just the other day this
robotic tapeworm came out of my stomach and we were talking about early Cinema.
I was telling him how at the time A.I. came out nobody except Vern really
appreciated it. And he was like, no way, why? And then he shot a laser out
of his ass.
I explained
that the flesh flair part of the movie was considered pretty silly with bad
choices that dated the movie and that people didn't really enjoy the tragedy
and creepiness of the rest of the movie. He thought it was funny that people
would care about the flesh flair part being corny because, really, all movies
of the 20th-22nd century are so campy and laughable that it is ridiculous
that anybody even made a distinction. Ha ha the acting is so hammy and the
dialogue so crude.
Then we
watched a bunch of Martin Scorsese movies and just laughed. Ha ha what a bunch
of idiots they all were back then, ha ha. And then we went to shoot off death
rays. But they are the size of a grain of rice and you have them built into
your nostrils.
the end
from space,
your friend Vern X
ABSOLUTE POWER
Okay, so everybody in
their right mind loves the old Clint Eastwood pictures, and most people and
critics love the Serious Clint Eastwood Pictures like Unforgiven, Mystic
River and now Million Dollar Baby. But the period between Unforgiven
and Mystic River is kind of an ignored period. The in between period
is not as Serious or Important as those movies and they usually get mixed reviews.
Well I was busy at the time so I missed most of these but now I decided to catch
up starting with 1997's Absolute Power.
Now this is a suspense thriller and the way it unfolds, it almost reminds me
of a less flashy Brian DePalma. It even has the old DePalma voyeurism. But what
I'm talking about is it takes its time setting up all the pieces and giving
you the information you need a chunk at a time.
See, first Clint is in a museum sketching a painting. Right off the bat we know
something is wrong because aren't you supposed to make up your own picture,
not copy somebody else's painting? What the shit. Still, this is a clear indication
that Clint agrees with me on my Theory of Badass Juxtaposition, giving his character
a love of art.
Then we see Clint's house, where he has a lot of art hanging on the walls. But
some pretty fucking fancy art. Old stuff. Hmmm.
Then he drives out to a rich guy's house and breaks in. This is when we learn
that he is a burglar. Because of the fact that he is currently burgling.
Clint is not in a hurry at all, he seems to know for sure these people aren't
coming home any time soon. He's wrong though, so he ends up hiding behind a
two way mirror in the jewelry vault, watching as the lady of the house carries
on a drunken affair with Gene Hackman, that asshole from the movies. This takes
a while but eventually things get out of hand, Hackman slaps the girl, she slaps
him back, he starts to strangle her, she stabs him in the arm with a letter
opener, suddenly he yells "Help!" and a bullet goes through the girl and two
armed guards run in.
(oh shit.)
Then Judy Davis comes in and as Clint sits there wondering what kind of shit
he's in, they all try to figure out what to do about this dead body. Gene Hackman
is obviously an important pillar of the community type person judging by this
support team, but right now he's a pathetic drunk curled up on the bed whimpering.
Only later do we see him introduced as "Mr. President" and realize, oh shit,
that drunk's the president. (I figure Clint must've known this while
he was watching the murder, but he didn't say anything because he was hiding.)
The presidential team cleans up the scene and make up a cover story involving
a burglar, then as they're on the way out they realize they forgot the letter
opener (with Hackman's blood and fingerprints on it). Going back in, they spot
Clint rappelling out the window and realize that there really WAS a burglar.
Good guy to pin this all on, since he's the only one who knows the truth, etc.
It turns out the dead woman is the wife of the president's best friend, a famous
philanthropist who also funded the president's political career. This is not
usually how donors are treated in real politics but hey man, that's the magic
of cinema.
Clint is a great thief but he's also an old man, and he's never gone up against
some fucking president guy before. He figures he's out of his league, so he
makes preparations to leave the country. But in the airport bar he happens to
see a press conference where President Hackman puts his arm around the dead
woman's husband and pretends to be comforting him. And this pisses Clint off.
I mean look, every one of us has experienced this sort of thing at least 250,000-300,000
times since the year 2000 alone. You see the president saying some unbelievable
bullshit on TV and you can't believe that he somehow was able to top the one
he said yesterday, and you feel like either your forehead is gonna pop a vein
or you're gonna reach right into the set like a reverse Nightmare On Elm
Street 3 maneuver so you can throttle the motherfucker. It's a familiar
scenario to us, right? And all we do is we end up yelling at the TV or turning
it off. But that's us. We can't do anything. This is different. This
is Clint.
So it's at exactly this moment that the movie steps over the line from suspense
thriller to the territory of Badass Cinema. 'Cause Clint burns a hole through
the TV with his squinty eyes and says, "You heartless whore - I'm not running
from you."
Next scene, he's on the White House tour wearing a fake beard. I'm sorry, United
States Government, I regret to inform you that you chose the wrong motherfucker
to fuck with.
Because this is Clint's movie, there is also a whole subplot about his strained
relationship with his daughter, played by Laura Linney. She's still angry because
he wasn't there for her, always off stealing or in the can or something. But
then she discovers that he actually was there, sneaking around in the shadows
of her life, looking out for her, even checking her refrigerator to be sure
she's getting enough nutrients. This is one of many forgivably phoney elements
of the story. It's also hard to buy that the president doesn't have a bigger
security team, and alot of the press coverage seems fake, and when he gets what's
coming to him it's kind of hard to believe it could really happen that way.
But oh well.
I gotta say, I almost prefer this type of Clint Eastwood movie to the Serious
ones. By which I just mean I like it better than Mystic River. What they
do, they set up this clever old man disguise wearing thief, and the bad situation
he gets in when he just happens to see the president have rough sex and then
have his lady friend killed. Then they set up the secret service guy who wants
to silence him (Dennis Haysbert, from the tv commercials), and the other secret
service guy (some other actor) whose intentions are ambiguous, and the old man
who thinks Clint killed his wife, and the assassin hired to kill Clint, and
the cops (including Ed Harris, Knightriders) who are trying to catch
him because they think he did it. And then you watch all these different factions
line up and collide and you feel all suspensed and it's an explosive whiteknuckle
thrill ride or whatever.
Well I guess that's how suspense movies always work so I'm not telling you anything
new here. But when Clint does it it's something special.
ACROSS
THE UNIVERSE
Look man, I'm pro gay rights, pro gay marriage. I'm all for gays from A-Z,
Alan Cumming to Ziggy. So don't take it the wrong way when I say I'm not the
type of dude who intentionally watches a musical. It just ain't me. If I'm
gonna make an exception to that policy it's gonna take a hell of an extenuating
circumstance, something air tight. I haven't even watched that one with Clint
Eastwood and Lee Marvin, that's how strict I am. But for Julie Taymor I went
out and got a waiver.
Now, I have been accused of being sweet on Julie Taymor, but nothing could
be further from the truth. Actually I've seen interviews with her and I'm
afraid of her. If I had a chance to hang out with her I don't think I would
do it. About the only scenario where I would feel safe and comfortable would
be some sort of puppetry workshop in a neutral public place, but I'm not into
puppets so that's out. Despite these feelings, I also think Taymor is a genius.
This is based on TITUS and on a book I read about her. She's an opera-directing,
puppet-carving, globetrotting, volcano-climbing, secret-forest-ritual-witnessing,
visionary genius. So even though FRIDA was a mixed bag, and even though this
is a musical, and especially even though it's a musical where the actors sing
Beatles songs and are named after Beatles lyrics and their story illustrates
the turbulent political climate and cultural shifts of the 1960s (oh for cryin
out loud), I decided to give it a try.
I'm not gonna paint myself as brave though. I hesitated. I kind of put it
off and since it was a low profile movie it very well could've left theaters
before I got a chance to see it and then I could've waited for video and then
kind of forgot about it for a while before I got to it. And I would've gotten
away with it if it wasn't for those young girls who made it kind of a cult
hit and caused it to stick around longer than movies usually do these days.
I realize that this will lose me that feminism award I was about to get for
praising Julie Taymor's artistic vision regardless of gender, but ACROSS THE
UNIVERSE is definitely a girl movie. I mean, it opens with a doey-eyed, shaggy-haired,
English-accented dreamboat on a beach, singing about a girl! Let's
face it, only young girls are gonna be accepting of that type of behavior.
A guy might get hot watching a woman sing some sultry tune in a night club,
but not on a beach or a rooftop, or a street. There are limits. There are
rules.
So because of the singing, and because of this '60s/Beatles thing, you gotta
accept right away that this movie is gonna be as corny as Hell during Autumn.
You know how the movie TRON takes place inside a computer, this is kind of
like that if it took place inside somebody's collection of Beatles records.
So the characters have names like Jude, Lucy, Prudence, Jojo, Dr. Robert,
Mr. Kite, Dr. Octopus I believe, I forget what else. Luckily no Eleanor Rigby
and thank Christ no Sergeant Pepper. I actually read on IMDB trivia that they
had a Sergeant Pepper in an earlier draft but then I believe they changed
it to Dr. Pepper and then finally they took it out. I'm glad they backed down
but if it was me actually my compromise would be to have a sergeant in it
and have him played by Barry Pepper, but not ever say his name.
Early in the movie there are signs of rough waters ahead. The opening scene
has a bunch of animated newspaper headlines superimposed over breaking waves
as a deep voiced woman (who later turns out to be the Janis Joplin type character
Sadie) butchers "Helter Skelter." It's ironic that the Manson Family
painted "Helter Skelter" on the wall in blood after one of their
crimes, because that's exactly what she does to this song, she stabs it to
death and writes on the wall with its blood. That combination of imagery and
sound pretty much exemplifies everything you feared about a movie like this
being corny and about using Beatles songs but not the original recordings.
Also there's a scene early on where a guy says something about what's gonna
happen "when I'm 64" and you think oh jesus, that's what we're in
for here? Luckily most of the other lyric references I didn't notice, so they
must not have been too intrusive.
One thing I was glad about, they live in an apartment in the Village. They
do not all live in a yellow submarine.
Actually I think you don't have to be as forgiving of the Beatles stuff as
you do the sixties stuff. I mean, you could pretty much make a list of what's
gonna be in this movie, you would be right on most counts. You got the young
goodie two shoes with a military boyfriend, he dies in Vietnam and she joins
the student protest movement (she's played by Evan Rachel Wood of SKANDER
HALIM'S PRETTY PERSUASION fame). You got a guy who gets drafted, thinks about
dodging, goes to 'Nam. You got the Weather Underground making bombs. Cops
beating protesters. People travelling on a rainbow-colored hippie bus. A Jimi
Hendrix type. A Janis Joplin type. A Timothy Leary type and accompanying drug
freakout scene. Race riots. Watching a TV finding out about the assassination
of Martin Luther King. Square parents that don't understand your hippie lifestyle.
On the other hand, they don't waste alot of time with an experimenting-with-drugs
plot (Taymor's visuals get psychedelic even when there's no drugs involved).
When the character Max is in the veteran's ward, 5 sexy nurses all played
by Salma Hayek dance for him and shoot him up with a syringe that contains
a bright blue liquid and a miniature naked dancing Salma Hayek. I bet you
naked Salma Hayek juice is even harder to kick than morphine but fortunately
they don't waste our time with a plot about that.
And maybe the use of the Beatles songs has an advantage too because that way
all the songs are Beatles songs, they don't have a FORREST GUMP type Greatest
Hits of the 1960s soundtrack. Also I was happy that Daniel Stern wasn't narrating
it from the future, that would've been lame.
I guess I wouldn't know, but if you're somebody who digs musicals I'm gonna
guess this is a pretty decent one. It's got all the musical shit but it's
cinematic, puttng the people into real locations, giving it a visual reality
before it spins off into fantasyland. And I'm not completely sure why but
for me anyway this one was easier to stomach than most musicals. Yes, you
got dudes with big smiles on their faces hopping around and dancing and singing
to each other. But many times a giant puppet can and will show up. Or a crazy
animated circus show. If a guy is reporting to the draft office then the painting
of Uncle Sam is gonna reach out of the poster, point at him and sing to him.
Then he's gonna get strapped into a big metal machine that does medical tests
on him and next thing you know the draftees are gonna be in their boxers carrying
the Statue of Liberty across a miniature model of Vietnam. I bet they didn't
have that in CHICAGO.
Also, even if they're often bad versions of the songs, at least they are good
songs. To me alot of this type of shit they're singing songs that weren't
even good in the first place. So that gives this one an advantage.
I don't know, man. Everything about the movie screams lame, but I
gotta admit, I somehow enjoyed watching it, it kept my interest, I did not
groan too much. But every once in a while you do get a little chuckle like
when Evan Rachel Wood is upset with the British guy, she says "I can't
believe you would do that!" and what he did was he went into her protest
committee office and had a musical number.
It's nice that some of the
main emotional scenes of the movie don't really have to do with the '60s cliches.
For example the main character is dealing with immigration issues and with
meeting the father who abandoned his mother before he was born. So you can
get involved in that, or if not there's something cool to look at like when
a cheerleader walks through a football practice singing and the players keep
flying and flipping past her violently but she never flinches or gets hit.
There were some dance numbers in here that with their rhythmic
sound effects made me think of the good old days when Michael Jackson was
an actual guy who made incredible videos and not just a spooky ghost story
from the past who the young singers all try to dance like. I mean, no offense
to Justin Timberlake, Usher, Chris Brown and whoever else they got now, but
part of the reason it was cool when Michael Jackson danced like that was because
HE WAS MICHAEL JACKSON. So it made sense for him to dance like Michael Jackson.
He was Michael Jackson, you're some dipshit from the school talent show who,
because of low standards, Bush, etc., got millions of dollars and some blowjobs
and treated as a celebrity because you could copy those moves better than
the average person. But you're still a dipshit in a talent show and you know
it. It is your secret shame. Every time you slant your hat you feel it like
a needle in your heart.
Anyway the reason I bring this up is that ACROSS THE UNIVERSE made me think
of Michael Jackson videos, TITUS made me think of Michael Jackson videos...
I think it's obvious what needs to be done here. Julie Taymor needs a subject
that can truly suit her, Michael Jackson needs a kick in his freaky ass to
get him in gear again. These two need to hole up in a haunted temple on some
mountain somewhere with a live band, a team of dancers, some painters and
storyboard artists, a green screen, some digital cameras, Rick Baker's makeup
team, two shamans, a couple giraffes and a documentary crew and they need
to plan out the epic Imax 3-D musical that they ABSOLUTELY MUST make together.
Fuck THE LION KING. Fuck "Thriller." After this
nobody will even talk about those anymore, except as early works by great
artists. This is the movie where Michael declares I Don't Give A Fuck
and waves his freak flag so high it pokes out of Earth's atmosphere. And Taymor
announces - in images, not words - that TITUS was not a fluke and she really
was here to flip cinema over like a rock and reveal all the possibilities
squirming around beneath it. Michael will play a dancing, singing Phantom
of the Opera, an iconic screen legend somewhere between Vincent Price, Gene
Kelly, James Brown, Jodorowsky, E.T. and the Elephant Man. With Taymor's help
Michael will dip a quill straight into his pyramid shaped alien brain and
paint right onto the screen with it. Dance numbers like "Thriller"
and "Smooth Criminal" covered in acid, dipped in chocolate and fed
to one of those psychedelic toads.
I mean seriously. You can't tell me this wouldn't be a cult
classic for the ages. I am using The Secret now. I am visualizing it. Shooting
those white thought beams out there in the world to make this happen. Julie
Taymor, Michael Jackson, coming next summer. Imax people, get working on new
3-D goggles that have a lens for the third eye.
Anyway, I almost forgot I was talking about ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, which shall
forever be known as that one Beatles movie Julie Taymor made before she changed
the world forever with the Michael Jackson movie. Here's the thing about these
'60s nostalgia movies. For younger generations, the '60s doesn't have all
that much meaning. They can't feel the anger with the Vietnam War, the civil
rights struggle, the assassinations. They just know the symbols, the visuals,
the soundtrack. It might as well be the old west or the pirate age, it's not
something they can imagine being a part of their world. It's a Halloween costume.
And the more we use those images and sounds as shorthand for life in the '60s,
the more their meaning blows away and dissipates like smoke.
I'm sure part of Taymor's
goal was to show young people what was going on in the '60s so they could
draw parallels to today. To show them that they can fight against the war,
incite a revolution, sing Beatles songs to each other. But sadly I doubt this
connects with most young people on any level deeper than GREASE or HAIRSPRAY
(Travolta in a drag fat suit version). Young people in general do not have
a personal connection to the war. They don't know anybody that's in it and
they know there's no chance of being sent themselves. They don't see it on
TV because nobody's watching anymore and nobody's showing it anymore, it's
old news. They don't know the excitement of music because, see above, re:
Justin Timberlake. The kids that are passionate about real music are mostly
listening to a bunch of mopers in sweaters pouting through their guitars.
I'm not gonna say there's no great music right now, because I'm sure there
is some hidden somewhere in a vault deep beneath the earth where human ears
can't hear it. But 95% of kids today will never experience music like what
The Beatles were then, or what Hendrix was. If there is a modern equivalent
- and sorry, there isn't - it's not gonna be on TV or radio or their ringtones
so they'll never know. You say you want a revolution, well, you know - actually
you never said that, because you don't give a shit, and are not actually totally
clear on what a revolution is anyway. Wasn't that the civil war or something?
one of the like, way long time ago wars, maybe world war 1.
And the thing is, we don't
need to relive the '60s. Those good parts of the '60s that the movie celebrates,
those are like the first Michael Jackson. You can't have a second Michael
Jackson or a second '60s. I've been to more war protests than I can count,
and I've seen first hand people trying to direct lightning to strike in the
same place again. And it ain't working. We need to blaze new trails, crack
open a new world. Stop trying to walk backwards in footprints that are already
there.
So, nice try Taymor. I hope
this works as more than nostalgia for the old and a period piece for the young.
But I'm not convinced it does. But it's not too shabby. Seriously though think
about this Michael Jackson idea.
ACTION
JACKSON
Every once in a while I'll
get in a gentlemanly argument with a motherfucker about whether Michael Bay
single-handedly ruined the future of action cinema forever, or whether he's
just an asshole. And invariably a Bay-defender will claim that although his
movies are not fun to watch and you don't know what's going on while you watch
them, Michael Bay "blows things up real good." I think the idea
is supposed to be that Regular Folk like to watch a big fiery explosion with
no brains involved and if you got a problem with that you must be some kind
of snob.
Well I am not a snob and
I think you guys know that. The problem is that in my opinion he DOES NOT
blow things up good. He blows things up and then by the camera placement and
quick cuts forces us to wonder whether we are in fact watching an explosion
or a closeup of Billy Bob Thornton's shoe or perhaps the reflection off a
bead of sweat dripping down Josh Hartnett's adam's apple.
So let me tell you who blows
things up good: Craig R. Baxley. He's a stunt co-ordinator (he did THE WARRIORS)
turned director. He first directed on THE DUKES OF HAZZARD but ACTION JACKSON
is his first theatrical work.
Carl Weathers plays Jericho
"Action" Jackson, a Detroit police sergeant recently demoted from
Lietenant. Why was he demoted? BECAUSE HE RIPPED A GUY'S ARM OFF. That is
how you know this is gonna be at least an okay movie. Even better, he defends
his action by saying, "He had a spare." The bad guy is the one-armed
man's dad, Craig T. Nelson from COACH, and you know he's a bad guy because
he's got Al Leong (DIE HARD) as his limo driver. Just like you know Action
is a cop because he has Bill Duke as his boss.
The story is generic '80s
cop movie shit: Action thinks that the rich auto manufacturer father of the
sex maniac whose arm he ripped off is assassinating union bosses, so he teams
up with the guy's wife (Sharon Stone, ABOVE THE LAW) and his junkie mistress
(Vanity) to investigate. Then he gets framed for murder, etc. etc.
All that's kind of boring,
and it's a little disappointing that we never get to see him face down the
one-armed sex maniac. (Maybe they were saving that for part 2.) But the movie
is completely worthwhile for its peppering of pure Baxleyism.
My first exposure to Baxley
as a director was STONE COLD starring Brian Bosworth. I remember a part in
there where a motorcycle flies out a window. Alot of directors would've stopped
right there. But he has the motorcycle collide with a helicopter. That's awesome,
you can't get any better than that, can you? Well, yes, because then the helicopter
crashes and lands on a car, and the car blows up. That's Baxley for you, he's
a second unit director turned first unit. So he's always looking for ways
to juice up the action. In the opening scene of ACTION JACKSON some thugs
come to murder a union boss. In this scene alone there is more glass broken
than in any Seagal movie save for THE GLIMMER MAN. And at the end of the scene
they shoot the guy with some kind of explosive shell, and he catches on fire.
And then he falls out the window. And he plummets from a skyscraper, on fire,
and lands on a table where some people are having dinner below. (somebody
could've said, "Be careful, the plate is hot.")
Those type of touches aren't
non-stop, unfortunately. Action has to do some investigating and what not.
In fact, there was a point almost halfway through the movie where I started
thinking I don't know, for a guy called Action Jackson he sure doesn't see
alot of action. As soon as I thought it, Vanity asked him, "Hey, why
do they call you--" and just then a guy tries to run over Action in a
taxi cab.
This leads to what I believe
is the first ever high speed car chase where the guy chasing forgot to bring
a car. Action Jackson runs after the guy and manages to keep up for several
blocks. Then he climbs onto a parked car and does a spectacular flying leap
onto the taxi, leading to the standard T.J. Hooker "holding onto the
top of the bad guy car" routine. (Unlike T.J. Hooker, Action Jackson
states out loud that it was probaly a bad idea.) When the car finally stops
he shames the driver into trying to run him over instead of just shooting
him. That's a brilliant stroke because what he does is run up the front of
the car and do a flip off of the car. The driver takes his eye off the road
to figure out what the hell just happened and when he turns back he's about
to crash into a parked car. And like many movies of this type, instead of
trying to steer away or hit the brakes, he just holds his hands up to cover
his face. A total quitter. Anyway, his car launches into the air, spins, crashes
into the side of a garage, tears through the wall, and crushes a couple of
cars inside the garage. (Sadly, it does not explode. But I guarantee you Baxley
tried. There must've been a safety issue or something.)
The climax of the movie
takes place at a big party held at the bad guy's mansion. There is a guy swinging
on a string of Christmas lights. There is a guy impaled. There are some knifings.
Action finds out that Craig T. Nelson has Vanity at gunpoint in his bedroom,
so he has to act fast. Instead of wasting time by running up the stairs, Action
steals the Ferrari-like car that this guy manufacturers, and rams it into
the house. Then he drives the car up the stairs and into the guy's bedroom.
This is the closest we will ever see to a movie where a sitcom star is run
over in his own bedroom. But Action gets out and fights Craig T. hand-to-hand.
It's okay, because the car is still there the whole time. It's still weird
to have a fight in a bedroom if there's a car parked there.
Craig T. Nelson makes a
pretty good bad guy. He's mostly the rich asshole type but in order to have
a fight scene at the end there is one scene earlier to establish that he knows
how to fight. He's at home sparring with a young, muscular Asian guy, so you
figure he is having his martial arts lesson. But you figure wrong. After he
defeats the guy he says "Lesson's over" and walks away. I guess
you could argue that he is better than his teacher but I assume this is supposed
to mean that he actually is a martial arts teacher in his spare time. I guess
either way is pretty cool.
Sharon Stone is okay, she
gets more to do than in ABOVE THE LAW where she just whines and cries. Contrary
to what some dude said on IMDb, she does not get naked in this one. Vanity
does get naked and shoot up, if you're into that. She is more the female lead
in this one. She also performs a couple songs but one thing I have noticed,
she was not as good without Prince. I don't want to be controversial but in
my opinion Prince was the real talent behind that whole deal.
Alot of people enjoy bad
puns and one-liners in their '80s action movies and if that's what you're
into, there is plenty to offer here. And I mean I'm talking terrible
one-liners. The worst is probaly when Vanity's huge bodyguard appears out
of nowhere to rescue Action Jackson. He jumps down from a catwalk and says,
"Hello, I'm Mr. Ed!"
What the hell does that
mean? It doesn't make any sense as a pun, as a literal statement, even as
a reference. What does a big bodyguard dude have to do with a talking horse?
A total non-sequitur.
Another one I don't get,
in the same scene Action Jackson says, "Chill out," and then blowtorches
a guy. How does that work? You can't say the opposite of what you're doing,
that doesn't count as a pun. Later he does a better job when he says, "Barbecue,
huh? How do you like your ribs?"
(Alot of people catch on
fire in this movie, by the way. It's the kind of thing where if you bump into
some electrical equipment you will immediately burst into flames.)
Baxley was even better by
the time of STONE COLD (his third movie) but I liked this one too.
AILEEN WUORNOS:
THE SELLING OF A SERIAL KILLER
You know, there are alot of really spectacular
documentary type pictures out there and it seems like a common feature to
almost all of them is a really strange cast of characters that you couldn't
make up. Pictures like AMERICAN MOVIE, AMERICAN PIMP, GREY GARDENS, CRUMB,
SALESMAN, DERBY, BIGGIE AND TUPAC, PARADISE LOST, WRESTLING WITH SHADOWS,
BROTHER'S KEEPER, BEYOND THE MAT... these are full of these people that are
too real to be in a fictional movie and yet somehow more interesting and bizarre
than most of the people I ever end up hanging out with. Not that I'd want
to hang out with that maniac with the lopsided head in PARADISE LOST, or Jake
"The Snake" Roberts. The american movie dude seems kinds of cool, though.
But I mean how do they know it's gonna happen that way? What
if they zero in on a topic that in itself is fascinating but then it turns
out all the people involved are pretty regular and don't have anything funny
to say about it? How is it that guys like the Maysles and this Nick Broomfield
can have such high batting averages in this department?
I mean when you decide to make a documentary about the media
crowned "america's first female serial killer", for once a prostitute who
kills johns instead of the other way around, a woman who claims to have only
killed people who tried or succeeded to rape her (which, for a prostitute,
is not too far out a story), and the jury didn't believe her because they
didn't know the victim had spent ten years in prison for attempted rape, you
already know you got an interesting topic. And I guess you can assume this
Aileen is gonna be somewhat interesting.
But you don't necessarily know you're gonna get a spacey born
again Christian who legally adopts the 35 year old Wuornos "because Jesus
told me to." Or an author of a book on Wuornos who sounds absolutely disgusted
with Wuorno's lack of effort in marketing herself as a prostitute. Or a burnt
out longhair public defender who smokes seven joints on the way to prison,
puts Bob Marley on the answering machine at his law office, plays guitar and
sings for the camera and tries to make jokes to cover up his discomfort as
he accepts money on camera as Aileen's "agent".
If you just read a newspaper article about it, and you read
a couple quotes from her lawyer and from this author, you would assume they
were experts. I mean you figure somebody like that, they know what they're
talking about. But when you see them in a documentary like this I think you
get more of a picture of who they really are. They are more of a real guy.
They aren't just an expert in an article, they're some moron you know from
an old job, or you met at a bar, or you saw get in an argument with the clerk
at the 7-11 or something and you'd think, what is that asshole's problem?
If you haven't seen his other movies, Broomfield does the kind
of documentaries where he's a character. The movies are about the journeys
of making the movies, with him narrating the story unfolding in front of him,
and usually on camera with a headset and boom mic, interviewing the people.
Like with Michael Moore there are always scenes where he goes to get an interview
and gets the fuckin runaround. But he also finds a really satisfying and suspenseful
climax. In KURT AND COURTNEY it was his nervous hijacking of a microphone
at an ACLU event where he questions their choice to honor Courtney Love, who's
notorious for bullying journalists. (He gets shut down. At an ACLU event.)
In BIGGIE AND TUPAC it is the thrilling edge of your seat scene where he shows
up uninvited in a prison yard to interview Suge Knight, a gigantic ex-football
player known for hanging people off balconies and forcing people to drink
champagne flutes full of piss at gunpoint. In this one, it is the scene where
he finally gets to interview Wuornos in prison.
Now as you might guess, this is not a pretty movie. You see
footage of this gal's murder confession. You see a long clip of her testimony
where she describes in detail how she says the first victim raped her, before
she shot him in self defense. But the movie is about the way everybody around
her tries to take advantage of this horrible situation. The stoner lawyer
and the space cadet adopted mom are obviously in it for the money, but then
so are the cops. I read a couple articles on Wuornos and they portray her
self defense claim as a ridiculous lie, despite the later discovery that the
first guy really was a rapist. And it's easy not to believe her when she tells
Broomfield about a conspiracy of cops trying to cash in on a movie deal...
and then it turns out to be true.
The saddest thing is that what these people are trying to take
advantage of is a horrible tragedy. I mean first of all obviously you got
the seven individuals who were shot dead, naked in their trucks. And whether
they really were rapists or not, they all got families. Second you got Aileen's
past - her dad was a child molester, she was a prostitute, she's obviously
been raped at some point if not by all these guys, and now she's killin people.
This is not good. And then you got the whole system which is designed, especially
in a state where a fuckin Bush is a governor, to slaughter people like you
do rabid dogs. I know it's different here in america but in almost every other
part of the world, except in places where they cut off hands and shit, this
is considered caveman behavior. Anyway it's all such a circle of violence
and victimization, it makes you wanna fuckin puke. But these people, instead
of puking, they try to make money.
As portrayed in the movie, Wuornos is actually the most honorable
character in the story. She's fed up with people trying to make money off
her. She rails against politicians using her execution as an election gimmick.
She already has a death sentence, she says, why waste the taxpayers money
on giving her six more. How many fuckin times are you gonna kill her. And
she would rather just sit alone in her cell waiting to die than be with people
only pretending to care about her.
It's a real sad story, but it's a good one.
A NOTE ABOUT BIGGIE AND TUPAC: as I'm writing this Broomfield's
latest BIGGIE AND TUPAC is playing in some cities, and I don't think it's
a coincidence that some new so-called revelations appeared in the LA Times.
I am no expert on this business but I read the book LAbyrinth and I saw BIGGIE
AND TUPAC and with the piles of evidence implicating LA cops in both the murders(who
were later convicted of a bank robbery) it's hard not to smell a huge pile
of bullshit when you read that article.
The new article by Pulitzer Prize winner Chuck Phillips starts
out by dismissing these allegations as "conspiracy theories", without naming
the book or documentary by name so you can see for yourself. A conspiracy
theory is supposed to come from some nutball, but the theory that Suge Knight
arranged both murders and had cops help carry it out came from Russell Poole,
the lead investigator in the Biggie Smalls murder. He was harassed, threatened
and sabotaged every step of the way, and he's no longer a cop. Just like the
ex-cop in AILEEN WUORNOS, who, remember, turned out to be right.
But setting that all aside, the article is hard to swallow anyway.
The new story (with all information coming from that most reliable of witnesses,
anonymous sources inside the Bloods and Crips) is that Biggie Smalls paid
for it and Orlando Anderson did it. Biggie and Orlando were not available
for comment, because they were both murdered. Orlando was murdered immediately
after Tupac, before he could talk to police, and even in this article they
claim it was "an unrelated dispute."
The new story goes that the Crip Orlando got in a fight with
the Blood-affiliated Tupac after the Mike Tyson match. (This is true, but
most believe it was a setup fight to implicate gangs in the murder.) So Orlando
and the Crips decided to kill Tupac to get revenge for the fight. Kind of
a harsh punishment, but I guess they're gangsters, they do that kind of shit.
But then they said wait a minute, as long as we're gonna kill
Tupac, let's try to get money off it. I happen to know that Biggie Smalls
is secretly in town staying at a hotel which I know the location of, and nobody
else knows he is here and it's weird that he's not at the Mike Tyson fight
like everybody else but still. Let's go to his hotel and tell him hey, we're
going to kill Tupac Shakur, will you pay us $1 million since we are going
to kill him anyway. And then Biggie, according to the story, said yes, I will
pay you $1 million. But I will only do this if you will use THIS, my PERSONAL
GUN. And he pulled out HIS PERSONAL GUN from his pants. And he handed HIS
OWN GUN to these Crips and paid them ONE MILLION FUCKING DOLLARS for the service
of USING HIS GUN TO KILL A CELEBRITY, even though they were going to do it
anyway. And then he didn't pay them all the money, so they killed him too,
even though they were gonna do it anyway, and he paid part of it, and he gave
them a free gun and bullets which saved them probaly a few bucks.
I mean if 9-11 hadn't happened this would probaly be the biggest
pile of horseshit any respectable newspaper ever asked anybody to swallow.
you motherfuckers should be ashamed of yourselves. And I don't even like rapping
music.
The sad thing is, the article did the job. People all around
the world read the headlines, and don't know the facts, and will always believe
this asinine story, and the dude can't even say anything because he himself
was murdered, probaly by the same fuckin guy. That's how it works, if you're
powerful enough, you can lie in the headlines, and nobody will bother to read
the article. and that becomes history. thanks alot, assholes.
ALIEN
VS. PREDATOR
Judging by this title, we are dealing with a story about 1 (one) Alien facing
off against 1 (one) Predator. Maybe the Alien dripped acid blood on the Predator's
invisibility machine, so they start getting up in each other's face or something.
It is hard to predict what would cause them to fight, but it is easy to predict
the outcome. The Alien wins because the Alien is hands down cooler than the
Predator. Sorry Predators, just tellin it like it is. Of course, the title could
also mean the actual movie ALIEN is facing off against the movie PREDATOR. In
that case ALIEN will be defeating PREDATOR for tension, atmosphere, originality,
and artistic legitimacy, while being roundly defeated in the oneliner and gun
size departments.
But the title ALIEN VS. PREDATOR is misleading. It is actually MODERN DAY HUMANS
+ SOME CGI ALIENS AND TEENAGE PREDATORS. It turns out that the ancient Predators
built a pyramid in what is now Antarctica and it's still there under the ice.
Once every 100 years exactly, a Predator ship comes down, sets loose some Alien
eggs and has their Predator boys fight the Aliens as a rite of passage. Maybe
they are from the south of Predator planet and this is their equivalent of deer
hunting. Or Texas football.
You learn alot of new things about the Predator culture from this movie. Number
one, they have a pyramid. Number two, they look fat when they have all their
armor on. These teenage Predators would make pretty good bouncers, but not the
greatest movie monsters.
The movie stars Sanaa Lathan (Blade's mom), Ewen Bremner (JULIEN DONKEY BOY)
and unfortunately Lance Henriksen (everything). As always, Mr. Henriksen does
a good job and adds depth to the movie (taking it from negative depth to just
about sea level). But I say "unfortunately" because it's a crying
shame he has to say yes to a project like this and, worse, that this is probaly
one of the better movies he's gotten to do in recent years. (Not including ABOMINABLE.)
It's a crime that a guy with as much talent and unique presence as Lance Henriksen
is stuck being what I call a Paypal actor, meaning it seems like you can just
go onto his websight and order him using Paypal and then he has no choice but
to show up on your set and do your movie.
What makes his inclusion here worse than in some of the more inept movies he's
been in is that, by being in the same world as ALIENS, it kind of pisses on
his legacy there. As most of you remember, Henriksen played Bishop, the heroic
android ripped in half by the Alien queen in ALIENS. In ALIEN 3 he showed up
again as the leader of the Weyland-Yutani corporation, the Bishop robot supposedly
having been modeled after him. But the crazy way he ends up dying, with his
ear bending back as his head splits open, always made me think he was lying
and he actually was another robot. Most people don't seem to interpret it that
way, but I still stand by that version of ALIEN 3 events. Still, I gotta call
bullshit on the idea of Henriksen playing "Charles Bishop Weyland"
of the Weyland Corporation, an adventurer in the year 2004 who discovers the
Predator pyramid.
In fact, the movie already lost me when it opened and told me it was 2004. That
means if you accept this movie into your life then you have to reinterpret the
original ALIEN so that instead of just being in the wrong place at the wrong
time Ripley and friends were intentionally sent to the distress signal by the
Company because their eccentric founder had discovered Aliens and Predators
beneath Antarctica hundreds of years ago. Sorry asshole but I'm not reading
that corny bullshit into ALIEN thank you very much.
This Weyland guy is an unlucky bastard though, because the day he goes to the
pyramid happens to be the one day that happens only every 100 years when the
Predators come down from space to hunt Aliens in the pyramid. These explorers
know that everyone mysteriously disappeared from the nearby whaling town one
day but for some reason it doesn't occur to them that it was exactly one hundred
years ago to the day. That's just bad luck, man. Or poor planning. Who was in
charge of this expedition, Rumsfeld?
If you can get past the insult of the premise and the present day setting, the
movie is more competent than I expected. This is a director whose best work
is fucking MORTAL KOMBAT, so the level of mediocrity here is actually pretty
impressive. Maybe it helps that I was warned there would be bullet time shots
of facehuggers and Aliens jumping through the air. I was surprised there was
no dance music. It's shot pretty well. But other than the crappy parts it just
doesn't have an identity of its own. They came up with this pyramid concept
to connect the two alien races, then after that there's nothing else to surprise
you. It's internet amateur hour type writing where they just rehash the types
of things we've seen in the other sequels instead of trying to figure out a
new story to tell. If it was just a setup for them to fight each other that
would be fine, but the movie is mostly about the humans, and I honestly have
already forgotten who the different characters were and what their personalities
were supposed to be. You have no reason to give a shit about them. Sanaa is
I guess supposed to be the Ripley character, because she survives. She's a good
actress but she's not good enough to make something out of the nothing they
gave her here.
For the last part of the movie, Sanaa actually teams up with one of the Predators,
and they fight side-by-side. It's alot like LETHAL WEAPON only instead of an
anti-semitic guy with a mullet they have an alien with dreadlocks, and Danny
Glover couldn't do it because he was already in PREDATOR 2 so they got Sanaa
Lathan. And instead of cops they are in a pyramid. I guess it's pretty different.
Anyway, I kind of liked this idea of a human and Predator teaming up and I think
it fits with the end of PREDATOR 2 where Danny Glover earns the respect of the
Predator race by killing one of them. In that one they gave him a musket as
a symbol of his Predator-cred. For Sanaa, the Predator actually prepares a spear
made out of the Alien's tail and a shield made out of its head and Sanaa has
to carry that disgusting shit around and luckily it doesn't seem to have any
acid blood on it.
The only problem is, Sanaa must feel like a phony, because she really doesn't
do enough to earn their respect. Yes, she kills an Alien, but these are those
"we've already done three sequels so who gives a shit anymore" easy-to-kill
Aliens. In fact, she does the deed on accident by falling backwards and holding
the Predator's magic space spear of untold power. Really, the Alien pretty much
impales himself. If anybody should earn the Predator's respect for killing an
Alien, it should be the Alien itself. I don't care if she's Blade's mom, Sanaa
didn't do shit.
But if she had really earned it it would've been an idea I could get behind.
I think Ripley could've earned it. I know Beatrix Kiddo could've earned it.
I think the gal in THE DESCENT could've earned it, if the Predator had been
in that cave and seen her crawl out of a puddle of blood and beat a weird underground
fucker to death with a bone. He probaly would've proposed to her right there.
You know what would've been cool I think would be if the Predator was there
when Jamie Lee Curtis cut off Michael Meyers's head in HALLOWEEN H20. Because
think about it, in PREDATORS 1-2 these Predators felt that man was the ultimate
prey. So if that's the case then holy shit what about an evil unkillable man
wearing a William Shatner mask? ANY Predator would love to have that head in
his spaceship trophy case. So in exchange for the head maybe he would've hung
out with Jamie Lee Curtis and together they could go hunt down Freddy and Jason
so he could add the mask and glove to the trophy case. Think about it man, what
does Predator-vision look like IN THE WORLD OF YOUR NIGHTMARES? The possibilities
with this crossover shit are endless. Is Chucky human enough to show up on heat
vision? How would a fucking Godzilla head look tied to the top of a space ship?
I bet that would impress the girl Predators.
Shit, I never thought of that. What are girl Predators like? Do they have to
cook all this shit the boy Predators bring home? I'm not trying to say girl
Predators belong in the kitchen, but you know, this macho hunting shit is pretty
stereotypical for men. They probaly watch Predator football too. I'm sure at
least some of them make their women cook, say, a Jesse the Body Ventura head
when they bring it home. Make a nice stew or something. Whatever Predators eat
besides beef.
Man, I guess we don't really know what's up with Predators, do we? Are ALL male
Predators hunters? Or is this just the subculture that tends to vacation on
earth? Are they like paintballers? Or are they respected members of society?
I mean if that whole planet is dudes with invisibilty machines climbing around
in trees spearing each other, you wouldn't think the race would last long enough
to develop such high quality space ships. If they have space ships they must
have cities. Imagine one of those fucks walking to work in Predator City carrying
a briefcase. Would he be showing off his skull collection to his co-workers?
I don't think so. I think these are rednecks we're dealing with. I don't know
for sure. Unless there is some sort of Predator Jeff Foxworthy we can consult
with it's hard to really know.
Anyway, could've been (even) worse, but definitely shouldn't have been made.
After all the care over the years to hire interesting, visionary directors for
all the ALIEN sequels, there's no excuse for this shit. The only thing you can
really figure is they hired Paul W.S. Anderson (fucking RESIDENT EVIL) thinking
it was Paul Thomas Anderson (BOOGIE NIGHTS, PUNCH DRUNK LOVE, etc.). This is
just like that other George Miller who didn't direct MAD MAX, but did the Steve
Guttenberg picture about a dog riding on a dolphin's back. You know Hollywood
greenlighters, you have alot of responsibility to live up to there, you're our
last line of defense. You need to start checking IDs more carefully to make
sure this never happens again.
ALIENS
I've seen this movie many
times over many years, and I'm sure you have too. I don't think I need to
try to convince anybody to like ALIENS. Asking somebody if they like ALIENS
is like asking them if they like pizza or ice cream. You can assume the answer
is "yes" and if not it's just some weird quirk that person has,
you can't really make much of it.
But having noticed signs
that the BIG FUCKIN SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER POPCORN MOVIE may be ailing here in
2007 I decided to get nostalgic and watch T2 (theatrical cut, back to '91)
and I had such a good time with that I thought, jesus, where do I go from
here? Is there anything that big and yet at the same time that good? I wasn't
sure but I did know of one other James Cameron part 2 that I like even better
and that of course is ALIENS. So I watched the theatrical cut of that too.
ALIENS is the perfect sequel
to a perfect original. I always say I like ALIEN better, but that's just a
matter of personal taste and maybe the unavoidable fact that it came first.
But I don't really think one is better or worse than the other. Both are as
good as they ever made 'em.
Looking at it just as a
sequel it's incredible, one of the best ever, so much so that references to
ALIENS are the number one shorthand for a sequel that builds on everything
that was great about the original and takes it to a new level. Every director
of a part 2 now days seems to say he's trying to make ALIENS to the first
movie's ALIEN. Here is a movie that takes the main character, the world and
the premise of the original and expands on them, takes them in new directions,
elaborates on them, even puts them in a different genre. Ripley becomes a
warrior but also a mother. Her working class job is over so she gets another
one using a robot to load crates. We see the same planet again but also the
boring space station where people live, and what life is like for the military
(now part of a corporation). Instead of repeating the same horror movie structure
it goes into an action movie structure. Before it was one alien sneaking around
a ship, now it's a platoon trapped in hostile territory. Instead of just using
the same monster - or just multiplying it into a group of monsters - they
also expand on the life cycle of the monsters and introduce the Alien Queen.
Time for an ode to the Alien
Queen. There have been many bigger and more powerful monsters on screen, and
ones with more personality by human standards, but few as primally scary as
the Alien Queen. What I love about the Queen is that she seems like a real
animal, a dangerous fucking animal whose cave you would never want to walk
past. Like the other aliens she has no eyes and her mouth isn't expressive
and you're not sure she has emotions anyway other than anger. So you can relate
to her as much as you can relate to a wasp. All you really know about her
is she wants you the fuck away from her eggs. Unless you're cocooned in slime.
If you were Ripley and accidentally bumped into the Queen I think you would
feel a combination of the terror of running into an angry mama bear and the
"how is that possible?" I-can't-believe-what-I'm-seeing awe of seeing
a spider as big as your fist crawl across the living room floor.
I actually saw the Alien
Queen once, but not alive. It turns out it is all a special effect and the
puppet/suit/whatever is on loan at a museum here in Seattle. Even without
the lighting and editing it looks amazing. I stared at it for a good 5 minutes
before I noticed the velcro straps on the chest where people apparently climbed
inside to control the thing.
But as great a villain as
the Queen is this movie is all about Ripley. She's a great character in all
the movies but in this one she shines by far the brightest. Here for the first
time she plays the only person who really understands the danger and can't
convince anyone else to take it seriously. We know she's vulnerable because
we've seen her nightmares and we can hear the emotion in her voice, but she's
still tough enough to convincingly command the attention of a platoon of macho
space marines. And she cuts through the machismo without having to use a word
- check out that expression on her face in the cafeteria when she hears them
talking about "poontang." Also, watch and see who survives longer
- the tough talking warriors or Ripley. We don't need some scene where she
insults them. She wants to save their lives even though they're assholes.
And why does she willingly
go back there? They got spaceships, it's a big universe, why not go as far
away as she can and not look back? The movie's answer is that she's worried
about those colonists, and about the aliens getting to other planets, and
her experiences haunt her and she can't just keep running. But I think the
corporation's original idea for how to get her to go is convincing too. They
offer to get her flight officer license back so she can continue her career.
And you've seen that space station. That would not be a good life loading
crates all day and then going back to your little room. I'd want to get on
a space ship too.
Watching it this time I
was thinking that I can't imagine anybody pulling it off as good as Sigourney
Weaver did. Some of that dialogue might come across corny with somebody else.
But Sigourney really believes it. That is a great god damn performance. I
know they say you're not supposed to have great acting in a sci-fi action
movie, but nobody told them that when they were making this, so they fucked
up.
I also gotta mention sitcom
actor Paul Reiser (My Two Dads) who does an amazingly subtle version of the
sleazy corporate bad guy. Almost always in movies this kind of villain either
seems to know that he's evil or at least revels in being a total asshole.
This guy seems to believe his own bullshit. I don't think he knows he's a
bad guy.
And the movie just has so
many clever ideas in it. For example when the marines start exploring the
colony they have this gimmick of the helmets having cameras attached so the
people back in the ship can see what's going on. This was before COPS was
even on TV, long before reality TV and webcams and BLAIR WITCH. So you can
see it was an accurate prediction of future technology and a clever way to
stage the scenes. We are anticipating seeing one of these aliens, and from
those camera feeds we start imagining aliens in every little abstract squiggle.
We share Ripley's helpless perspective of not quite seeing what's going on
and being at a distance where she cannot help anyway. They keep us in suspense
with those ambiguous images but then they show us a clearer view. This helmetcam
thing has been tried in many bad movies since and never executed nearly as
well.
You know what is a classic
badass moment for the record books is when the door opens up and Ripley is
standing there in the power loader ready to kick the Queen's boney black ass.
She wouldn't even have to have that great line ("Get away from her you
bitch!") for this to be unforgettable. In fact, if this power loader
just showed up out of nowhere and she used it to fight the Queen, I think
people would laugh and it would be silly, but it would work. But the way they
set it up is perfect. It's that old trick of doing it three times. First they
mention that she has that job, tying it in with the working class "truckers
in space" thing from ALIEN. Then later they show her using the power
loader to help moving crates around, impressing the Sarge and making him laugh.
So then when it turns up as a weapon it's perfectly organic, we know she knows
how to use it, we know why, and we believe it. And it's gonna be better for
fighting Alien Queens than for moving boxes.
After this and especially
T2 there was a trend of making so-called feminist characters in movies, and
it just meant to give a girl a gun. If she kills some guys it counts as feminism.
But I think Ripley is the real deal. She uses a gun and a blowtorch, she kills
some aliens, she kicks the queen's ass. She's tough as hell. But her femininity
is still intact. In fact, the whole reason for the asskicking is her maternal
instincts. The Queen protects her eggs, Ripley protects her Newt.
It's too bad, Ripley sort
of gets a daughter but she never gets reunited with her cat, does she? Poor
Jonesy. Maybe instead of resurrecting Ripley they should've done part 4 all
about Jonesy, starting on that space station and he tries to go rescue Ripley
but never finds her and faces some aliens of his own. And maybe they have
breeded from some cats so they are more cat-like and closer to his size so
he can take them on using cat methods. By the way, you ever notice that cats
are afraid of aliens and dogs are afraid of terminators? It's true. And I
believe fish are afraid of robocops.
I could probaly write a
whole book about all the things I love about this movie, but even I
would never read that crappy book, so instead I will leave it at this review
and cut it off with one last observation. This is a sequel, a "franchise"
movie, a July release, sci-fi with action, special effects, from one of the
A-List blockbuster directors, the guy who later made the highest grossing
movie of all time. So I'm lumping it in with all these big loud summer movies,
but one thing I like is that it begins and ends quietly. In the opening Ripley
drifts through space asleep in her pod. And we see her sleeping face superimposed
with the earth (a place she hasn't seen in, what, more than sixty years? I
forget how long she'd been in space at the beginning of ALIEN, but it's been
57 years since then).
Then at the end she returns
to sleep and this time when her profile is superimposed with the earth we
also see the profile of Newt, the little girl she rescued. This is what she's
gained. She went through all that shit, but she's not back to square one.
The first time she went to sleep with nothing but her cat and her underwear.
This time she goes to sleep and she has a family. I didn't see ALIEN 3 until
long after everyone said it was trash, so when I finally saw it I kind of
liked it and the ballsiness of killing these characters offscreen during the
opening credits. Almost as if it should say "a film by David Fincher"
over a picture of him holding up two middle fingers. But watching ALIENS again
now and really thinking about what Ripley has gained in this movie I finally
understand why people were so pissed. She earned that new family. She should
get to keep it in a movie, not just in the between movies hibernation period.
She was asleep, they didn't even get to go on any family picnics or powerloader
races or anything.
Anyway, it's a great ending,
and then the music during the end credits lets you sit there and contemplate
it. It doesn't hammer you over the head with some thrilling adventure theme
as alot of movies would've done then, or drill a hole into your brain with
some horrible fucking garbage rock song by whichever shitty band the corporation
that owns the studio is trying to promote, as they would do now. It's a movie
confident that it can kick your ass and then leave you peacefully to consider
what has just happened.
SUMMER
BLOCKBUSTER SCORECARD:
ORIGINAL
RELEASE DATE
July 18th
IT'S NOT MADE TO GET OSCARS but it did win best
visual effects and best sound effects editing. Sigourney Weaver also got a
well-deserved nomination for best actress, but lost to Marlee Matlin in CHILDREN
OF A LESSER GOD.
BRAIN CHECK REQUIRED? no
STANDARDS THAT NEED TO BE LOWERED TO ENJOY:
none
ALL ABOUT EVE
and THREE FACES OF EVE
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.
Now the
problem with Eve is that she seems to be TOO nice. She apologizes for everything,
takes the blame for everything, tries to always be humble to the point of
being annoying as hell. I mean at first you can't help but like her she's
so nice but a little of her goes a LONG fucking way to be frankly honest.
It's no wonder people in show business are insane if they have to deal with
people like this. So it's almost a relief when she turns out to be a phoney,
she lied about her background and she's just pretending to be humble and nice.
By the end she's pulling soap opera style backstabbing shenanigans and scheming
like you wouldn't believe. I mean she came in there like some evil alien or
robot or alien robot programmed to become a star at any cost. This twist didn't
really surprise me though because I seem to remember this movie was released
overseas under the alternate title Lying Ass Bitch. But I don't know
I could be wrong don't quote me on that.
Margot,
played by Bette Davis, is also a bitch, but in a good way. She always has
some cold-hearted stab ready for somebody that gives her shit. She pretends
to be nice and then says something like, "Don't worry about your heart dear,
you can just put this award where your heart's supposed to be." There are
lots of good little quips like this, it's a well written piece in my opinion,
although there is a disturbing lack of violence in the confrontations, I would
have liked to see a little kickboxing or something at some point. But what
can you do man.
Three
Faces of Eve doesn't have any fighting either but it is one of those rare
sequels that is better than the original. It picks up right where All About
Eve left off but with a little bit of artistic license. Now instead of
a famous theater actress and lying ass bitch, Eve is a buttoned down housewife
who goes to see a psychiatrist about some bad headaches and blackouts she's
been having. Before long we discover that she has multiple personality disorder.
That's why she does weird shit like run up her husband's credit card at the
department store and then come home and think he bought her new clothes.
This piece
is much more intimate than the original. The best scenes are long ones in
the doctor's office where Eve goes through her two, and eventually three personalities
- Eve White, Eve Black, and some other gal. Joanne Woodward plays Eve in this
one and she did a MUCH better job than Anne Baxter in the original. Sorry
just tellin it like it is. While All About Eve had a humble Eve and
a self-centered Eve and both of them were totally unlikable, Joanne here has
three types of Eves and none of them are too shabby. She gives distinct
voice and mannerisms to each of the characters and she doesn't have to wear
a big fat suit to make you tell the difference like that fat fuck Eddie Murphy
does. I mean you can tell which one she is just by the expression on her face.
No wonder this gal won an oscar, she deserved it, and anyone who says different
better not say it to my fucking face.
Mrs. White
is her normal meek, scared housewife personality she's been living with, and
Eve Black is what she might have become if she'd never been married. She's
playful and flirtatious, likes to dress sexy and go out and drink with sailors.
I guess you could say she's Eve's dark side because she tries to strangle
her little daughter. I mean, that's not cool in my opinion, it's just a little
girl leave her alone. But other than that this personality is more likable
than Mrs. White and she becomes good friends with the doctor although she
outrages her possessive, conservative husband. Come on pal it's 2000, well,
I guess it was 1957 then, but still give a woman a break jesus. She can express
her sexuality if she wants to jack let it go.
Anyway
this movie is pretty sad, even the happy ending is kind of sad I think because
they have a sense that not all of the personalities will survive. You get
to think of them as separate people so it's kind of like someone gets killed.
I mean jesus what a downer. Anyway I hope showgirls 2 will be based on this
because it will be interesting to see how this plays in vegas.
ALL THE
REAL GIRLS
You probaly haven't heard of it but ALL
THE REAL GIRLS is the new one from the young man who made GEORGE WASHINGTON.
Maybe you never saw that one either, it was kinda weird because it wasn't
about President George Washington or peanut innovator George Washington Carver,
it was about some kid. Maybe he grows up to be George Washington, I don't
know, I don't get it. But it's a unique and effective movie made by a young
dude nobody ever heard of and somehow it got its own Criterion Collection
dvd and many nominations for Independent Spirit Awards. Now the kid got the
job of directing a movie of the book CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, which people have
wanted to do for years and years. We'll see how that turns out, I think the
kid can pull it off but who knows I only read half of the book.
This one is a little more intimate than G-dub. It is basically about one short
relationship and it is handled very realistically. Basically what this young
man Gordon Green did, he took out all the movie bullshit and put in all the
real life bullshit. So you don't get no speeches about star wars or about
how everybody feels deep down inside. You don't get no oldies singalongs or
elaborate romantic gestures. There are no cops or astronauts in this picture.
The main dude is not a hitman. He just works on cars.
The people in the movie seem real because they talk real. They say things
wrong and they don't have clever quips. They don't always know how to explain
their feelings. That is why most people would hate this movie, but they would
be in the other theater watching the one where Steve Martin dresses up as
Bulworth. And the people in this theater will probaly love it. So it will
all work out and afterwards they can meet in the lobby and still be friends.
At the same time we're not talking dogme or some shit. Mr. Green is showing
a pattern here. He has very strong atmosphere created by Mr. Tim Orr's photography
of interesting rural type settings and then he likes to put in lots of goofy
supporting characters that seem more like real people than movie people but
still funnier than your boring neighbors. In G-dub there was Rico who had
a funny line about a cat "going to the restroom all over the place." Now that
actor Paul Schneider (who looks like the older, less smug James Van Der Beek)
has graduated to the lead role and the funniest supporting character is a
goofball called "Bust Ass" who has a bad haircut and doesn't seem to know
how to make macaroni properly, and also calls himself "Bust Ass" which I guess
is worth mentioning. Anyway Mr. Green really sort of creates his own world
but it happens to be one that is more like ours than the one that you usually
see in these fuckin relationship dramas. Fuck all you fuckers that make those
movies.
[I don't think I ever
finished this review. I hope not. Anyway, sorry.]
To be frankly honest
I almost left off the review of sam mendes American beauty because it was
not really my personality in my opinion. Although i worked very hard on it
I also had a dude edit spelling errors, grammar etc. for me and looking back
it is really not me, it is really not VERN. Too slick, mainstream and hollywood
in my opinion. I had been gone from the newsgroup after an incident of hurting
a man's feelings and going in search of myself. I wanted to show that I had
really improved as a Writer however this was not very honest to have another
man's help. So please don't read this review in my opinion thanks.
AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999)
Directed by Sam Mendes
Written by Alan Ball
AMERICAN BEAUTY deals with the ugly sins and denial carefully buried
beneath the manicured green lawns of a typical suburban neighborhood. A failed
marriage, a daughter's distrust of her parents, a father's crush on her daughter's
underaged friend. The new neighbor (Chris Cooper) beats his pot dealing voyeurist
son and ignores his emotionally disfigured wife. A failing real estate agent
played by Annette Bening philosophizes about projecting an image of total
success, but an emotional breakdown leads to her husband Lester (Kevin Spacey)
quitting his job, taking up pot and systematically tearing down the perfect
image of suburban happiness that his wife has so carefully constructed. Soon
all hell breaks loose and a nasty splooge of anger and violence surfaces from
beneath the façade. This sort of subject matter has been tackled many
times before - we're not exactly blowing the lid off of suburbia here - but
it's well executed and draws you in almost immediately.
I think what really makes it work is its three dimensional set of characters.
A crucial scene in the film is when Bening strips down to her skivvies and
begins scrubbing and vacuuming a small, rundown house, chanting "I will sell
this house TODAY." She tries her damndest, pathetically bullshitting a series
of unimpressed clients, trying to pass off a kitchen that would fit neatly
into a jail cell as "any chef's dream," and suggesting to a young couple that
they might think of adding a skylight. She projects a ridiculous, cartoonish
optimism like a demented Avon lady, but no one's buying it. Especially the
lesbians who note that the filthy swimming pool isn't exactly "lagoon-like"
as described in the ad, and call her on it.
It's a funny scene, and Bening's shit eating saleswoman face is representative
of her entire lifestyle. But the important moment comes when Bening, having
failed to achieve her goal of selling the house in one day, carefully pulls
the vertical blinds closed and bursts into tears. Suddenly the real tragic
human comes tearing out of its cartoon shell. Instantly you can feel her pain
and root for her to pull her life together. (Fat chance.)
These are characters with tremendous flaws but you can feel sorry for
all of them. Even Cooper's ex-military character, a discipline freak with
a cold dead stare, turns out to have a human fragility beneath his scary exterior.
The film's frank handling of homosexuality (although this is a minor theme)
is admirable. Anyone who's been in the prison system can tell you that in
prison there are basically three groups of people you look out for - the blacks,
the white supremacists, and the fags - in that order. Gays have never been
the threat many people have made them out to be, even the bad ones. They are
people too and they should be accepted as such. It's nice to see a film with
the balls to admit that.
The director, Mendes, is apparently a sensation on Broadway, having masterminded
THE BLUE ROOM, the play made famous by Nicole Kidman's nudity. When I heard
about this, I assumed Mendes was a playwright, and the dialogue and subject
matter of the movie certainly fit those expectations. But the screenplay was
written by Alan Ball, and Mendes, it turns out, is a theater director, not
writer. This is his first film, but he's segued excellently to the silver
screen. The film takes place mostly in one neighborhood, but never feels claustrophic
or staged. The camera moves freely, even flying through the sky, and Mendes
creates many purely cinematic images, in particular a motif of brilliant rose
petals within Lester's sexual fantasies. Still, the movie lives up to Mendes'
envelope-pushing rep, dealing honestly with teen sexuality and even breaking
the law by including footage of underaged girl's tits. There are no pussy
shots, however.
I've heard some critics complain about Lester's death being foretold
in the opening narration, saying that it took away the surprise and mystery
of the story. I think the truth is just the opposite. By letting us know where
this is ultimately leading, Mendes and Ball are able to build suspense and
play mercilessly with audience expectations. First you think the daughter
will hire the neighbor kid to kill him. Then Bening starts firing off guns
to relax. And that homophobic ex-soldier neighbor thinks Lester is gay. There
are many suspects, and we don't even know for sure it will be murder. It's
not as if the film relies entirely on this gimmick, but it certainly works
to the film's advantage.
Another important moment in the film is when, after lusting over her
throughout the movie, Lester gets the opportunity to bed his daughter's flirtatious
friend from the cheerleading squad. The scene is very unnerving, because the
actress has enormous, child-like eyes, which are hard to ignore even floating
above her luscious nipples. But Lester ignores them until the girl admits
that this is her first time, she's always lied about her sexual experience.
Immediately Lester is knocked out of his childish fantasy. This is just a
little girl, a virgin, a peer of his daughter. I don't know whether it just
ruins the mood, or gives him a conscience, but he decides to call it off.
I think this is a scene most men Spacey's age or older can relate to, whether
they've had a similar experience with an underaged girl, or something experimental
such as a threesome (or both). The reality turns out to be much uglier than
the fantasy, and the experience is bogged down in fragile emotions and potential
life long trauma. Lester might be able to brag about it afterwards, but it
would be the wrong thing to do, and the girl would take the brunt of it.
AMERICAN beauty is a very good film, well acted, written and directed.
It is one of the year's best films, considerably better than MEN IN BLACK
although perhaps not on the level of a DIE HARD.
Well that's my review, thanks guys.
Vernon H.
AN
AMERICAN CAROL
Okay, first of all, there's no foolin here. You and I both know there was no
way in hell I was gonna like David Zucker's right wing satire about how liberals
hate America and Michael Moore stuffs his face with food all the time. So this
is not a review, this is more like a report for other people who, like me, were
curious as hell what this movie was like, but unlike me could not stomach sitting
down and watching the whole thing.
Chris Farley's brother plays Michael Moore (they call him Michael Malone), the
famous documentarian (his movie is called DIE YOU AMERICAN PIGS), who is hired
by 3 Arab terrorists (Robert Davi, two others) to direct a movie, but also to
help them get into a Trace Adkins concert so they can blow themselves up, or
something like that. But also Michael Moore is planning an anti-4th of July
protest, so the ghost of Patton brings him around Dickens-style to show him
how the world would be different if America didn't believe in war, for example
Gary Coleman would be his slave and Detroit would be nuked. Obviously.
This brings up a few questions:
"The
difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance
of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore
thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinese
or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular
desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron
it takes to kill them. In addition to his other amiable characteristics,
the Russian has no regard for human life and they are all out sons-of-bitches,
barbarians, and chronic drunks."
– George S. Patton |
#1. You
seriously want General Patton as your voice of reason? Are you sure you guys
thought that one through very much before making the movie?
#2. Isn't it kind of sad that the manliest actor willing
to play Patton in this piece of shit was fucking Kelsey Grammer from Frasier?
(To be fair I guess this does support Zucker's claim in interviews about there
not being enough conservatives in Hollywood.)
(On
the other hand, it can't be that bad, you got Robert fucking
Davi in this thing. That's a major coup, man. Chin up.)
#3. Why the hell would Michael Moore protest the 4th of July?
You guys really thought that made sense? The movie's explanation is that he's
"against the troops," which makes me wonder if they're thinking
of Veteran's Day. At no point do the filmatists appear to know that Independence
Day is about the anniversary of our nation's independence. I'm a liberal so
obviously I don't have as much money as Zucker, but I would bet him that Michael
Moore not only celebrates the 4th of July, but that he fucking knows what
it is, you god damn morons.
#4. What's up with this concept of liberals being against
WWII and the civil war? For a guy supposedly surrounded by liberals you sure
have some weird ideas about what they would be like if you theoretically ever
saw one close up. This movie is convinced liberals love Nazis. It even has
a scene where "Movealong.org" praises Leni Riefenstahl in introducing
an award named after her. If Zucker ever meets any real life liberals he will
learn they only ever mention Riefenstahl when calling movies like his propaganda.
By the way, you know who actually was kind of soft on Nazis? Your
boy Patton. After the war he was against denazification and compared post-war
Nazis to a political party that lost an election. Look
it up, Zucker.
-----
A WORD
ABOUT REVIEWING THIS MOVIE. Some of my colleagues tip-toed around
and tried to be "fair" and "objective" about it, trying
to separate it from its politics and then also being extra nice about its
lack of artistry so as not to appear biased. I say fuck that. If you make
a stupid point you should have the balls to face a rebuttal. Maybe if it was
a 
great
movie and I disagreed with the politics (see DIRTY HARRY) and because of that
I didn't give enough credit to the technical skills of the filmmakers, maybe
that would be unfair. But that simply ain't the case. The only thing more
poorly executed than the political arguments in AN AMERICAN CAROL are the
fucking "jokes." This is a terrible, unfunny and badly made movie
that would not be worth discussing if not for the novelty of the bizarrely
out of touch right wing slant. Even a great right wing actor - like, you know,
a Robert Davi - would have a hard time making it seem like he was laughing
much at this thing. The only reason for its existence is the politics - you
cannot tell me that without the right wing comedy gimmick it would've gotten
projected onto actual theater screens. I don't think it would've even gotten
a promotional slide shown in a theater.
Besides, politics
are one thing that makes me interested in movies. I wouldn't be so in love
with THEY LIVE if I tried to ignore politics. Shit, if I tried that I probaly
never would've written Seagalogy, because it was the surprising politics
of ON DEADLY GROUND that initially got me hooked on Seagal. So, sorry guys,
politics are on the table.
-----
Zucker's most
telling cheat is ignoring Iraq, pretending he never heard of it. Most of the
movie's targets - Michael Moore, Moveon.org, George Clooney, peace protests,
"anti-American" college professors - had to have come to Zucker's
attention by opposing the war in Iraq. But what's he gonna do, say they were
wrong? Instead he pretends to think they are against ALL wars throughout history,
that they wouldn't have wanted to fight Hitler, that they don't want to fight
terrorists. The Michael Moore character's catch phrase is "there is no
terrorist threat" - who the fuck is this based on? Does Zucker really
believe Michael Moore, or liberals in general, or fucking ANYBODY really believes
that? Or does he say that because he knows he's got nothing and has to make
up weird random nonsense to argue against?
In the beginning of the movie Moore says he wants to make a movie that's "against
everything America stands for, but not technically anti-American." They
probaly don't realize what a good description that is of AMERICAN CAROL. Some
of the things America stands for that the movie derides as foolish in a post-9-11
world include freedom of the press, the 4th amendment, civil liberties, and
college. ACLU lawyers - i.e. people who stand up for the rights America was
founded on (on July 4th, by the way) - are literally depicted as zombies who
Judge Dennis Hopper joyfully blows away in order to stop the 
separation
of church and state.
I always think it's funny what a boogeyman Michael Moore is to the right.
I get that they don't agree with him, but not why they obsess over him. Not
long ago when Republicans had the White House, both branches of Congress,
most of the Supreme Court, the highest rated news channel and the war they'd
been itching for since the early '90s, it still infuriated them that there
was one fat guy out there making a documentary they disagreed with
once every two or three years. They fucking HATE this guy. They want to commit
physical violence on him, as illustrated by the recurring "joke"
of everybody slapping Michael Moore throughout the movie. Seems weird to me,
he seems like a pretty small fish to fry. And the movie says the same thing
with a reoccurring joke that supposedly nobody watches documentaries. Everybody
falls asleep at the premiere of his movie, his award isn't televised, he wants
to do features, whenever he says he won an Oscar somebody clarifies "for
documentary."
Yeah,
exactly, who cares about some guy who directs documentaries? I mean, you know,
other than YOU motherfuckers, who spent your own money making a shitty comedy
personally attacking him as a guy who never bathes, eats pizza with mice in
it (what the hell?) and is embarrassed that his nephew is in the army.
Come to think of it, these guys seem somewhat fixated on documentarians, since
they also have a Rosie O'Donnell lookalike called Rosie O'Connell, who for
some reason is also a documentary filmmaker.
They apparently disagree with SICKO's portrayal of the Cuban health care system,
so you get to wrap your head around a comedic fictional portrayal of long
lines at a Cuban hospital being presented as the truthful alternative to actual
documentary footage shot in the real place.
| "It
must be weird, not having anybody cum on you." --Robert Davi
as Al Torres in SHOWGIRLS |
The attack on George Clooney
(played by Kevin Sorbo) isn't too harsh, but it's weirdly hypocritical. Instead
of GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK he's the director of THAT MCCARTHY SURE WAS BAD
and there's a joke about how he only attacks things that don't exist anymore,
like Nazis and McCarthy, instead of things that do, like Islamic terrorists.
Come on dude, don't play dumb, clearly you understand that GOOD NIGHT AND
GOOD LUCK was meant to draw parallels to the treatment of the anti-war voices
who were in the minority at the time. More importantly, didn't I read an article
about AN AMERICAN CAROL in the Weekly Standard, and didn't it say something
about McCarthy in there? Let's take a look:
"Until now,
conservatives in Hollywood have always been too few and too worried about
a backlash to do anything serious to challenge the left-wing status quo. David
Zucker believes we are in a 'new McCarthy era.'" Hmmm, doesn't that seem
to indicate that he does think it's legitimate to bring up Joseph
McCarthy as a parallell to modern events? Unless he was just saying Andrew
McCarthy is gonna make a huge comeback.
But of all the stupid arguments
made in the movie I think maybe the most embarrassing one is the dead serious
scene where the ghost of George Washington forces Moore to sift through the
ashes of the dead at Ground Zero. Moore asks why he's showing him this, it's
not his fault, and then he goes on to blame the CIA and other culprits for
9-11. Washington gives him a "you can't bullshit me" look and asks
if that's what he's gonna tell God on judgment day. And even Farley-as-Moore
seems to agree that yes, we all know 9-11 was caused by Michael Moore. (That
theory is never elaborated on.)
That's gotta be the weirdest scene, but maybe the weirdest joke is the very
first one. The movie opens with "Sweet Home Alabama" playing over
a shot of an American flag. The camera pans out to show a red white and blue
decorated outdoor barbecue. Leslie Nielson and his family are celebrating,
kids are running around. Somebody throws Leslie a frisbee. He catches it and
playfully throws it back - but it hits an old black lady in the face, knocking
her off her bench. Nielsen doesn't acknowledge that he has done this and the
lady is never seen again.
That's how clueless these weirdos are, that's what they thought would be a
good way to start out this movie. I honestly believe that it was meant as
a harmless slapstick joke (it is clear throughout the movie that they believe
falling down or getting hit with something = comedy). But why is it supposed
to be funny that random violence happens to the one black adult at the barbecue?
And set to the tune of a song talking about Alabama's support of segregationist
governor George Wallace? You really didn't see any problem with that?
 |
| In all seriousness
I really like Robert Davi (pictured here as part Merlin, part E.T.). He
is a great asshole in DIE HARD, SHOWGIRLS and many other classics. I was
honestly happy for him getting his name said out loud in the trailer for
AMERICAN CAROL and I hope it opens doors for him to have his name said
out loud in the trailer for something that is not idiotic garbage. |
Kind of funny, actually,
that they would use Lynyrd Skynyrd's defensive response to Neil Young writing
a song about racism and the legacy of slavery. This is kind of the same thing,
they get mad that somebody doesn't like something, but they bury their argument
in name calling. AMERICAN CAROL, though, will not be remembered as long as
"Sweet Home Alabama." It's not as catchy. Also, while the song seems
to defend segregationist George Wallace (they claimed it didn't, but I don't
buy it), AMERICAN CAROL does not have the balls to defend (or mention) George
Bush. They get Jimmy Carter in there though, I guess that's pretty current.
I'm sorry to get worked
up over an inconsequential movie like this. It's kind of infuriating to watch
because the movie is so full of shit but you can't stop it and make it back
up or explain its points. But that's fine, it doesn't hurt anybody (well,
it hurts the reputations of the people who agreed to be in it - you get the
feeling even Paris Hilton is slumming). I'm sure it probaly is kind of hard
to live in Hollywood as a conservative, and especially a crazy and paranoid
conservative who has bizarre delusions about what the people around him believe.
But then again, it's probaly
hard to be a liberal if you work in NASCAR, wrestling, country music, big
business or many other areas. If you really admire Patton so much maybe you
should learn to man the fuck up and quit whining about basic facts of life.
Isn't he the guy who slapped a hospitalized soldier and called him a coward
for saying he didn't want to go back into combat? If I were you David Zucker
I would quit worrying about not fitting in at parties and start worrying about
the fact that you haven't made a good movie in 20 years. That seems like the
bigger problem in your life.
On the positive side, this
is Leslie Nielsen's best performance since at least SPY HARD. (I
don't know what that means, just trying to say something nice.)
1/11/09
AMERICAN
GANGSTER
I haven't been big on Ridley Scott post-ALIEN, but when I saw he was doing
the real-life gangster epic starring Denzel Washington - the one I already
wanted to see when it was Antoine Fuqua that was supposed to direct it - man,
I was excited. And the trailer looked great. And then it came out and without
exception everybody I knew who saw it said "yeah, it was... pretty
good." Suddenly there was less urgency to see it, and I watched other
movies, wrote some stuff, maybe took some naps, ate some food, and then it
was gone.
Well, maybe it was for the best. Now I watched it with lower expectations,
in its 20-minutes-longer UNRATED EXTENDED CUT (4 minutes shy of 3 hours) and
I have to say I really enjoyed it. I see your "yeah, it was... pretty
good" and raise you a "it was... pretty fuckin good."
I am proud to review it alongside such other great American films as AMERICAN
PIMP, AMERICAN PSYCHO and AMERICAN NINJA.
In the opening, Harlem's top gangster and folk hero Bumpy Johnson dies. Frank
Lucas (Denzel) has been Bumpy's driver for years, and takes over his operations,
but nobody expects much from him. So nobody really knows what's going on when
he has this brilliant idea: hearing about all the soldiers strung out on heroin
in Vietnam, he decides to go there to get dope straight from the source. He
uses his connections within the army to use military planes to smuggle it
in completely pure. Back home he has an operation to cut it up but makes sure
his is twice as strong as the competition, for half the price. And he stamps
a name on it: Blue Magic. "That's a brand name, like Pepsi."
Meanwhile, there's this other story about a cop, Richie Roberts, played by
Russell Crowe. He's a tough guy, but a small timer, his life a mess. He's
in the middle of a divorce, he's trying to get a law degree but having a hard
time of it, he gets bit by Kevin Corrigan (a character actor who pops up in
everything from GOODFELLAS to THE DEPARTED to SUPERBAD). Him and his partner
are trying to bust a bookie, they open his trunk to try to get his slips,
and they find a million unmarked dollars in grocery bags. So they turn it
in.
That becomes a defining moment for Richie. There's alot of dirty cops in that
department, and they don't think a guy clean enough to turn in a million dollars
is on their side. So he gets a reputation as this impossibly straight arrow
and everybody hates him for it, but as his ex-wife points out he's only an
honest cop, not an honest person. He cheated on her, he hangs out with gangsters
he knew in high school. Frank Lucas gets married and as far as we can see
is faithful, while Richie bangs a long line of stewardesses and lawyers we
know little about.
Despite the title, the advertising, and the audience's inclination toward
anti-heroes, I think this is more a movie about Richie than Frank Lucas. I
was surprised to find myself more interested in the cop story than the gangster
one. Alot of the reviews I read that said this was good but disappointingly
not great were comparing it to gangster movies like THE GODFATHER and GOODFELLAS.
And no, it's not in that league. But it's not really in the same category
either, because those movies are about gangsters trying to run their empires
and not get busted. AMERICAN GANGSTER is partly about that, but at least half
about the cop that's going to bust him, and how he does it. If anything I
guess the bar it can't clear would be THE DEPARTED.
But the genius of the story is that Richie and Frank don't even know about
each other for most of the movie. It's 90 minutes in when Richie sees Frank
sitting in the front row at a Mohammed Ali fight and wonders "who is
that guy?" Frank has a wise rule about not dressing flashy because "the
loudest person in the room is the weakest person in the room." But (and
this is what happened in real life too, apparently) he makes the mistake of
wearing a ridiculous chinchilla coat and hat to the fight, and calls attention
to himself. He realizes his mistake and burns the coat in the fireplace, but
even then it's just because it brought him to the attention of a dirty cop
who wants a piece of his action (a William Forsythe-esque Josh Brolin, continuing
his 2008 revival I call "BROLIN THUNDER"). But Frank doesn't know
that he has also revealed himself to Richie. It's not until 2 hours into the
movie that he even has an inkling that anybody is following him around. And
it's not until the end that he actually sees Richie.
We watch the stories of Richie and Frank Lucas side-by-side - as Frank calls
in his relatives from North Carolina to build his drug empire, Richie puts
together an anti-drug strike force for the feds. As Frank buys a mansion,
Richie leases an old building to set up his office in. There's a great Thanksgiving
Day montage that contrasts Frank's turkey dinner with his family to Richie
making himself a tunafish and potato chip sandwich, then to Brolin in his
more-expensive-than-a-cop's-salary home, and then to various miserable heroin
addicts around the city. I love the construction of this story - they're all
the same story, but they're on separate tracks that only meet on occasion.
It's like Richie and Frank are these two trains speeding toward a crossover
where you know they're gonna collide. But you don't mind waiting 3 hours to
get there.
Denzel of course does a great job. He plays him kind of noble, and obviously
charismatic. You can imagine you would want him to say "my man!"
to you like he does whenever he is impressed by somebody. But mostly because
you wouldn't want him to kill you. I disagree with anybody who says they glorify
him too much. This is a scary guy. He doesn't even really start out nicer
and go downhill, he's pretty psychotic. When he brings his brothers to town
to work for him he doesn't even tell them what they're gonna do at first.
Then right after revealing that he's a dope kingpin he sits them down at a
diner, excuses himself, goes out and shoots one of his rivals in the head,
right on the sidewalk and at a window where his family can watch. They look
like they're gonna shit their pants. He comes back in and wipes his hands
with a napkin before eating. (He should probaly use a sink but I'm glad he
at least did something.)
Even before that though, the movie treats him as a bad guy. When he's taking
care of Bumpy's funeral he might by sympathetic, but the music already sounds
scary. And even if that didn't give us the hint we already saw the first shot
of the movie: a guy tied up, screaming for mercy, as Frank splashes gasoline
on him. It spills off the guy, mingling with blood from his wounds. Frank
lights him on fire. Then, without wincing, without even facing him, he unloads
his gun into him. Kind of overkill, in my opinion. But at least he didn't
let him burn to death. Anyway, that's your introduction to Frank Lucas. Not
a nice guy.
The whole cast is great, and it's one of those movies where you keep finding
yourself saying, "I didn't know he was gonna be in this!" Clarence
Williams III plays Bumpy Johnson (uncredited for some reason). Frank's brothers
include Chiwetel Ejiofor and the rapper Common, and I guess his nephew is
the rapper T.I. Joe Morton is one of his confidants. Armand Assante and Jon
Polito are some of his associates. Cuba Gooding Jr. is one of his rivals.
Roger Guenveur Smith (DO THE RIGHT THING, MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE) is his cousin
who hooks him up in Vietnam. Richie's ex-wife is Carla Gugino. He works with
Ted Levine. His strike force includes the clerk from the beginning of FROM
DUSK TILL DAWN and the RZA (who sports an afro and does a good job in a role
that's a little bigger than I expected). Norman Reedus (Scud in BLADE II)
is in one scene. Even Fab 5 Freddy has a cameo. And of course Ruby Dee is
in there, she got an Oscar nomination. Man, everybody is in this
movie. Why wasn't I in this movie? Were you in this movie?
Chances are you were.
One of the criticisms I've heard is that the movie is not very true to life.
Not only is alot of it Hollywooded up, but Lucas might've lied about some
of this shit. Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character) claims Lucas gives
himself too much credit, but I don't know if he can be believed. Lucas himself
said the movie was only about 20% true, but thought Denzel had him down perfectly.
I'm not sure even that part is believable because in the extras on the DVD
he comes off as way more of a hick than Denzel plays him. I've seen some people
claiming the heroin never really was hidden in coffins, or that Lucas at some
point said he only really did it once (which, to be fair, is how many times
he's shown doing it in the movie). And Richie Roberts I guess was mad that
they portrayed him as being in a custody battle. This part was probaly not
accurate considering that in real life Roberts doesn't have any kids.
The movie is supposed to be based on the article "The
Return of Superfly" from New York Magazine. Interestingly,
the article does not mention Richie once. It does mention a cop nicknamed
"Babyface" who seems to be the inspiration for Brolin's character.
There's a funny scene at the end of the movie where Frank laughs at the clothes
that gangsters wear in the '90s, and this comes from something that happens
as the author of the article is interviewing Frank. And Frank in the movie
has some lines that come from boasts he made in the article. So there's definitely
some truth in there, it's just mixed around.
But I don't know, after reading about it the reality or lack thereof doesn't
bother me too much. Yes it's movie-fied, but alot of what makes the story
interesting actually is true. And to me the most interesting truth is that,
just like the movie says at the end, Richie and Frank became friends. If you
watch the extras on the DVD you can see this with your own eyes - the two
of them are on set together as consultants, smiling at each other's stories,
patting each other on the shoulders. Frank gushes about what a good job Richie
did prosecuting him. Richie reveals that he's godfather to Frank's son, and
brags that the kid gets straight A's.
To me that's what the movie
is about really is these two dudes, opposites, adversaries, but in many ways
alike. Living these parallel lives, in opposition to each other, but not even
knowing that each other exist. And then eventually when their lives do intersect
they have their battle and when it's all over they look back and think, eh,
what's the point holding a grudge? Even if he did light that guy on fire
at the beginning.
AMERICAN
NINJA
This review is dedicated to Ryan Kenner,
who's been bugging me to see this for almost a year, and to the soldiers and
planners of the American Revolution, especially if any of them were ninjas
(not sure)
AMERICAN NINJA is not something
I consider a classic, but it is a solid, enjoyable b-movie and it finally
made me understand the Michael Dudikoff phenomenon. When I saw him in a much
later movie, BLACK THUNDER (a Stealth bomber thriller remade as Seagal's FLIGHT
OF FURY) I was surprised at his lack of fighting. I assumed he was some karate
champion or something like most of the '80s action stars, but when I looked
him up I found out he started as a model. No wonder.
But in this movie wouldn't've
noticed, because he does do plenty of fighting and makes it convincing. His
line deliveries are sometimes bad but they manage to make him not talk very
much. In fact, he doesn't speak for the first 15 minutes of the movie, it
almost seems like he's mute.
Dudikoff plays Joe who,
like Jason Bourne, has amnesia and doesn't remember why he has extraordinary
fighting skills. Unlike Jason Bourne he does not try to avoid fighting, he
joins the army. While a new recruit he saves the colonel's daughter from guerillas
who are trying to hijack a shipment of weapons, and in true '80s action movie
fashion this gets him labeled as a troublemaker.
It turns out some of the
higher ups are involved in the illegal arms trade, getting weapons to some
criminal dude who has a private army of ninjas. He even has a ninja training
camp where ninjas of all colors (black ninjas, blue ninjas, even yellow ninjas,
who I guess would be good at hiding in a banana tree or in a field of dandelions)
practice swords, flipping, climbing, and running between spiked punching bags.
They have a giant, maybe ten or fifteen foot tall diagram of the human skeleton,
maybe in case they have to fight a giant some day.
At the evil mansion where
this training takes place there is also a Japanese gardener who looks kind
of like Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. It is heavily hinted and later revealed that
this is actually the guy who trained Joe. This is kind of cool because it's
a nod to the original ninjas (O.N.s) who were the shogun's gardeners so nobody
knew they were the security. While he gardens he overhears all the criminal
plots and uses his inside knowledge to help Joe "fulfill his destiny"
of putting on a ninja costume and fighting the bad guys.
This is from our friends
Golan and Globus, and the director is Sam Firstenberg who also did NINJA II
& III. It's a full-on '80s ninja movie with stars, daggers and smoke bombs,
but they combine it with the Rambo era military movies. Joe actually spends
most of the movie in uniform and although he does use his ninja skills, he
also rides motorcycles and shit like that that was not necessarily used in
the protection of the shogun, in my opinion.
One funny part in the movie
is when an asshole named Jackson (Steve James, Kung Fu Joe from I'M GONNA
GIT YOU SUCKA) starts bullying Joe, calling him "karate boy" and
challenging him to fight. Of course Joe ends up tossing the guy all over the
place, but as soon as he whoops his ass he decides Joe is all right, and for
the rest of the movie they're best friends. Even at the end when Joe's in
his ninja costume Jackson shows up with a headband like Rambo, driving around
in a jeep firing a mounted machine gun. Remember, back then we always liked
that kind of shit to be in movies.
Another favorite scene is
when Joe meets up with the Gandhi gardener and starts to remember his past,
there is a training montage where he's a little kid learning to shoot arrows,
use a bamboo sword and fire blow darts. You don't see little kid training
montages too often. His origins are left mysterious, at least in this chapter,
because the guy just found him as a baby. So either he was an abandoned orphan
or the stork brought him. Later, he and the old man were "separated by
the explosion." It shows somebody detonating some TNT, possibly for construction
purposes, and somehow this caused the Japanese guy to not see li'l American
Ninja for years. It's a good reminder to parents that they should always tell
their kids a meeting place to go to in case of an explosion.
One reason why Dudikoff
works in the movie is because his character almost seems like Robert Patrick
in TERMINATOR 2. He just has a cold, blank stare and he barely talks. He doesn't
remember who he is but he has the ninja instinct, so he's kind of a heartless
killing machine. He has alot of good moves and old fashioned stunts like hanging
onto the bottom of a moving truck. It's actually kind of disappointing when
he finally puts on the ninja costume, because now only his eyes are showing
and he might as well be Franco Nero. I liked him better when he just looked
like a soldier but he would hide around the corner in a ninja pose or would
spiderman to the ceiling above the entrance to his jail cell and then run
out when the guard opens the door.
One thing that would make
this movie more entertaining would be if they got excited about the title
and tried to work a bunch of patriotic shit in there. I would like if American
Ninja was the Captain America of Ninjas, and had stars and stripes on his
costume. Or at least there should be a part where he does some ninja shit
in front of an American flag. Actually, there is a trailer on the DVD where
he does that, even though it's not in the movie. But at that time the movie
was called AMERICAN WARRIOR. In the movie he actually is referred to as "the
American ninja" at one point, which is good. Always good to have the
title in the dialogue.
They do have some good silly
stuff in the climax, too. The main evil ninja keeps escalating his ninja tricks,
he even has a four-barreled ninja gun built onto his knuckles. At one point
he shoots fire balls from his hand, which looks like ninja magic but I'm gonna
assume it's sleight of hand. You figure that's as far as it could go but then
in one part he actually fires a laser! It blows up a potted plant and then
he doesn't use it again. I guess it is one of those laser guns that has to
charge for an hour between each shot. I hate those.
Most of all, what AMERICAN
NINJA reminds us is that core American principle that we are a land of immigrants.
People can come from anywhere and become American. Even if you were raised
under the Bushido code in Japan before the explosion, you can come here, and
you will be an American, and America will combine with the power of Bushido.
We certainly have problems with xenophobia and what not right now but what
America is truly about is this melting pot idea, we need to accept ideas from
all different cultures and use what we like. That was Bruce Lee's idea too,
that's why he could come from China and go to school in Seattle and become
an American (I still think him and Jimi shoulda been on the Washington State
quarter instead of a damn fish). So whether you are bringing your food or
your philosophy or your music or your deadly art of stealth and assassination,
you are bringing what you love and it becomes America. God bless AMERICAN
NINJA.
AMERICAN PIE
What this
movie is about is pie fucking. There is a kid who fucks a pie in it. There
is also a guy who fucks a grapefruit apparently but you don't see that. But
this guy fucks a pie.
The version
I saw is the unrated DVD, which I guess has extra pie fucking footage. in
the original apparently it was a standing up with the pie position, wheras
here it is a missionary position with the kid mounting the pie. The cover
of the unrated DVD shows all the young gals on the cover but don't be fooled,
none of them do any pie fucking in the movie, it is only this one guy.
That is
only one part though, the rest is about four high school seniors who make
a solemn vow to lose their virginity by the night of the big prom or whatever.
Then they all go on a bunch of shenanigans trying to find a young gal to have
sex with, and they all screw up really bad, and then they decide that the
whole thing is stupid and there are more important things than getting laid
and just forget it. And then about thirty seconds later every last one of
them suddenly finds somebody and starts humping up a storm.
As you
can imagine this is pretty standard stuff, but the actors are all likable
and there are some funny jokes. There is some observant humor about how kids
use scrambled cable channels to get off. But is this kid stupid or what, there
is plenty of unscrambled porn right there on the internet. But then again
he's a pie fucker so who knows.
The main
thing I noticed about this movie is that kids today don't show any appreciation
for a blowjob. This little ingrate has a pretty gal sucking him off every
day and he's still desperate to "lose his virginity." Hell I am not saying
I wasn't lickin and moanin in my day but jesus when I was in high school most
kids would get down on their knees and thank the lord jesus christ every time
they got even a handjob. If they got to stick their finger in for a minute
that was an exciting month. And if they were DAMN lucky and did all their
rosaries or whatever then MAYBE they'd get a little poke - and only then would
it be even a REMOTE POSSIBILITY that they'd get to the oral business. Holy
christ, sliding it in a girl's MOUTH, that was more than they dared dream
of!
I'm serious
kids, if I had said, "Fuck this blowjob bullshit, I need to get laid!" like
the kid in the movie, the football team would've hog tied me and set me on
fire! I mean jesus, the nerve of these spoiled little brats to complain about
ONLY getting a blowjob - oh boo hoo, we're supposed to feel sorry for you?
You ONLY had a pretty girl's tongue sliding up and down your johnson until
you exploded with pleasure. You think you have it bad? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK,
PAL.
And if
this is really true about the horny foreign exchange students that come over
to your house and start masturbating on your bed, then good god have you kids
lost track of how good you have it. I never even HEARD of this kind of shit
in my day. You little brats don't know how lucky you are.
The movie's
not too bad though. There is some funny disgusting humor and I like the red
headed band girl. The cheerleader girl from American Beauty plays a choir
girl here, and I think her eyes are too low on her face but what are you gonna
do. Anyway compared to the ten things I hate about you and Mrs. Tingle this
is fucking die hard. I guess it's worth watching if you're into that sort
of thing.
AMERICAN PIMP
Those of
you motherfuckers who read me regularly know that my column this week is about
the great pimp novelist Iceberg Slim and the attempts by "hollywood" to turn
his autobiography into a major motion picture starring Ice Cube. Well shit,
if I knew about this movie I might not have been worried. Even if Pimp:
The Story of My Life: The Movie turns out to be a bust, we do got this
excellent documentary which also looks into the seductive, charismatic and
fucked up world of the pimping industry.
The film
is directed by the Hughes brothers. Now I can't remember if these are the
brothers behind Fargo, or the ones behind Dumb and Dumber, or possibly the
ones who did the Matrix. WHO the fuck knows. But whoever they are THESE are
the individuals who ought to be doing the Iceberg Slim movie! They are a-class
type filmmakers and obviously after this movie they know a thing or two about
pimps. Now in my opinion there are a LOT of directors in hollywood who have
intimate knowledge of the prostitution industry, however not necessarily the
pimp part. Yes it is important to understand prostitutes in order to do Pimp:
The Movie however please keep in mind hollywood these are street hoes
we are dealing with, not callgirls or escorts. The Hughses know these pimps.
Hell I'd like to see some of these individuals in small parts in the movie.
Philmore Slim would DEFINITELY fit right in in the world of the book.
Anyway,
let's talk about American Pimp. This is of course made up mostly of
interviews with real pimps, talking about their profession and their experiences.
Dudes with names like "Rosebudd, with two d's for a double dose of pimpin'."
There are many different types of pimps here. There's an old legend who must
be 70 years old. There's a short little guy who seems more like a graduate
student than a pimp, who talks about how his dad was a pimp but he didn't
ever push him into the industry.
There are
some amazing moments in this picture. There is one pimp whose mom has a picture
of him in his pimp outfit hanging on her wall. She's proud of him. She says,
"The doctor told me he was gonna be special."
There's
one pimp whose cell phone rings during the interview and he says, "Lemme see
which bitch this is." When he talks to her he breaks the world record for
most times saying bitch in the least time. It's like, "Hey bitch what's up
bitch, don't worry bitch everything's okay bitch just go get my money bitch,
thanks bitch." I mean even if her name was bitch, it would sound wrong. "Hey
Vern thanks Vern don't worry Vern go sell your pussy Vern."
Most of
these guys are very likable. The legendary Philmore Slim seems like a harmless,
nice old grandpa. These dudes have alot of charisma and flair and they have
the same kind of passion for their alternative lifestyles that those fuckjobs
in Trekkies have. But jesus you still gotta feel sorry for these poor
girls they are using. I mean there is this girl in the movie who must've just
turned 18, if that. She's going out on her first job and the motherfucker
is talking to her like he's training her to flip burgers.
I mean
nothing against friendly bosses. It's better than one of those assholes that's
always threatening to fire you if you're late for work one more time or whatever.
But this girl looks so dead in the eyes, she obviously doesn't want to do
it, and probaly wouldn't be if not for the drugs and molestation and etc.
How these fuckers can get off with a girl like that is beyond me.
And then
every one of the pimps admits that their hoes don't get a percentage of the
profits. Not even stock options as far as they mention.
This is
a real well made movie. There is lots of funky soul from the seventies on
the soundtrack. You get to see these boys on the job, or in retirement, or
in jail. They show off their photo albums of them wearing giant hats and gold
chains. There is even a giant gold ring shaped like a gal sucking a dude's
johnson. Which in my opinion is a little on the tacky side but then I'm not
fashion expert I tend to dress down a little and not wear jewelry so don't
listen to me. I guess it looks pretty nice as long as you don't wear it to
church or a job interview or something like that, that might be considered
inappropriate I don't know.
There are
also some clips of pop cultural representations of pimps which these pimps
don't take kindly to. They even brush off The Mack and Iceberg's book
as being unrealistic. There is a clip from Monkey Hustle which has
Rudy Ray Moore playing a pimp, but I can't find the fucker on video so please
send it to me thanks I will review it. I think it's funny how they always
interview the pimps while they're driving around, like it's that tv show COPS
or something.
I really
like how it is all put together, it gives a great look into why the pimp world
is so attractive to many people but also shows why the others are right to
be repelled by it. But even if you come out thinking these dudes are total
bastards, you will at least have a human face behind the giant sunglasses
and snake skin boots. You will understand where they are coming from a little
bit more. You might even feel a little sorry for them when they talk about
how sad it is when someone from your stable is murdered, although... I mean
you gotta put some blame on the pimp, I think. He sort of failed in his job
of protecting the poor gal.
I love
this picture. This is one of the best American movies I ever seen. Better
than American Pie, better than American Psycho, hell in my opinion it is better
than American Beauty although I think the Academy of Scientifical Motion Pictures
would beg to differ.I haven't seen some of the other American movies yet like
American Perfekt and American Movie but I'm sure it is better. in my opinion.
AMERICAN PSYCHO
I got mixed feelings
about this piece because it works on one level but then in my opinion it oughta
work on another level too. This is the movie version of the controversial
book about Pat Bateman, the yuppie who is obsessed with designer clothes and
mutilating women.
In the movie, Pat
says right upfront that he has no insides, but I don't think he really believes
it. I think some part of him believes that because he has this secret life
stabbing homeless dudes and chainsawing women, he is a little bit different
from all the soulless, materialistic businessmen he keeps getting confused
with. He has something that makes him stand out. And not to give anything
away, because I'm not sure I really understood the ending otherwise I would
give it away, but I think it has kind of an ironic Twilight Zone type ending
that all this may have been a delusion so he doesn't even have THAT to make
him unique. The sap.
Well unfortunately
I think the movie is kind of the same way. The surface is all real good, but
it is operating under the delusion that it has something underneath too. And
I mean it really makes a run at it. But in the end, like Pat, you realize
that maybe there really is no insides at all.
I mean let's be
honest folks, making fun of yuppies in the '80s is like sharpshooting the
side of a really big barn. Not that the movie doesn't do a good job of shooting
the barn. I laughed at alot of this stuff. I liked all the shots of the fancy
food that is too small for the plates. I liked how every restaraunt has it's
own oversized novelty menu. And I like how when all the yuppies discuss the
fonts on their new business cards, dramatic music plays and the intensity
of Pat's eyes tells us that he has been driven to murder.
Christian Bale,
the dude that plays Pat, is PERFECT. I can't imagine anyone else more perfectly
summing up the essence of this character, from his snobby ass conversational
tone to his toned abs. His pretty hair do, muscular body and smooth, tanned
complexion look so authentic that this movie can be hilarious just by showing
him run around naked holding a chainsaw.
And the little details
of Patrick's empty life are very funny, from his detailed monologue about
which facial cleansers he uses in the morning to the way he meticulously tapes
newspapers to the floor before a murder - not to hide evidence, I'm sure,
but to protect the carpet. Jesus, Pat. You're a real american psycho in my
opinion.
But when it comes
down to it, I mean, we all know that yuppies are a bunch of fucks. I mean
okay, maybe there's one or two individuals out there living in a rock in zimbabwe
that don't know that yuppies are a bunch of fucks. But even those individuals,
I would say there is about an 80, 85% chance they are either retarded or just
call it something else besides "yuppie," because the zimbabwe culture is different.
Anyway, this is
not new information, this thing about the yuppies. There needs to be a little
something more to connect this satire to ourselves or at least to '90s equivalents
of Pat.
So if you look at
this just as a slasher picture with a gimmick, it's a pretty good one. I mean
if you're thinking along the lines of Maniac Cop, Ice Cream Man, Uncle
Sam, Leprechaun, Jack Frost, Dr. Giggles, etc. then this is a pretty damn
good one. I mean REAL damn good. The attention to detail and what not goes
above and beyond the call of citizenship or whatever the saying is. But if
you want it to be Clockwork Orange or Fight Club or even Maniac
then you can for fucking get it.
It's not scary or an Important Satire of Our Times but yes, it is funny and
I look forward to American Psycho In the Hood or some other straight
to video sequel with Ice-T and Mario Van Peebles.
ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE
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.
The director
is Larry Clark, a known photographer which only directed the movie Kids
before this. I haven't seen that one yet but I think I speak for pretty much
everyone here when I say thanks Larry for introducing Chloe Sevigny to the
big screen. You're one of the good ones Lar. Anyway according to the commentary
track, Larry was a known junkie who hung out with armed robbers growing up,
and he took an unpublished manuscript by an ex-con (nope, not somebody I know)
and combined it with his own experiences to make the script. Like there is
a scene where James Woods tells an anecdote about a dude walking into a blues
bar carrying a severed head. And Larry claims it really happened to him. Lying
motherfucker in my opinion but still, you can be a lying motherfucker and
still be a good director.
This is
a story of James Woods and Melanie Griffith taking a young teenage couple
under their wings and forming sort of a robbery family. The teenage boy Billy
or Bobby or whatever is played by Vincent Cartheiser, who looks like a girl
and has only ever starred in kids movies like Alaska and Masterminds
and probaly some Benji movie or that type of thing. It's too bad nobody's
ever heard of the dude because if he was a big teen heart throb this would
be a god damn scandal. Here he is looking all pretty but he's shooting up,
shooting people, stabbing people, grunting like an animal, covered in blood,
having violent sex, getting sucked off, saying motherfucker alot and wearing
his pants so low you can see his pubic hair sticking out. I mean have these
kids today even heard of belts, that's all I'm saying.
Well the
kid is good, and so is the cute gal playing his girlfriend. But the real standouts
in this picture are James Woods and Melanie Griffith who both give some of
the best performings of their careers. I was especially surprised by Melanie
because to be frankly honest the gal can be pretty annoying. But here she
is perfect as a fucked up 40 year old who loves to shop and shoot dope into
her neck but also has a sweet, motherly side to her that is hard to resist.
I kept thinking it was a set up, and she was going to turn femme fatale, fuck
Billy and turn him and James Woods against each other. But the story, formulaic
as it may be, never seems to go the phoney hollywood route. It is true to
the characters.
And the
best part is when a deal goes sour and sweet motherly Melanie sticks up for
her boys, and blows away some motherfuckers with a big shot gun. She's wearing
a comfy red sweater and a hair do exactly like Tipper Gore, so it's a funny
juxtaposition. I'm not sure if looking like Tipper Gore while blowing motherfuckers
away qualifies her for my Badass Juxtaposition theory, but it is definitely
good Cinema. If you like the crime pictures then put this at the top of your
list guys, trust me. It is like Drugstore Cowboy, only different. If
anyone from the movie studio is reading this, you can quote me on that and
put it on the box or whatever. thanks.
THE
APARTMENT COMPLEX
It's October 1st, when I
like to start binging on horror movies to prepare me mentally and spiritually
for my annual wishing I had something to do on Halloween. But this time I'm
in a new apartment building so I decided to watch this Tobe Hooper picture
I never seen called THE APARTMENT COMPLEX. It's made-for-cable and only on
VHS but it's also the start of Hooper's recent "doesn't suck as bad as
you'd think it would" period. So it's historical.
Chad Lowe plays some dipshit
psychology student who becomes the manager of a weird apartment building with
strange goings on. It's not eerie, atmospheric horror but that goofy post-Twin
Peaks thing where all the characters are eccentric and it's supposed to be
dark and funny. There's some twins, a police psychic, a possible murderer
(Patrick Warburton), a shut-in, a crazy but possibly wise homeless man, a
pair of insane stuntwomen, R. Lee Ermey, etc. Also there's an ordinary young
black couple, I'm not sure where they fit in, except maybe to show that white
people are crazy. The previous manager was obsessive compulsive and he disappeared,
so Lowe has to dig through all the crazy shit he left to try to solve the
mystery. John Polito plays the sleazy slumlord who hires him and obviously
he's the right guy to play that character but then his name is "Dr. Caligari"
which is just stupid.
The problem besides the
guy being named Dr. Caligari is that in a story like this you're supposed
to empathize with the newcomer and experience this crazy world through his
eyes. But personally I wanted this asshole to get eaten by his precious lab
rats. I blame both the script (by TV writer Karl Schaefer) and Chad Lowe for
making this character such an annoying moron. He stumbles and stutters and
digs holes for himself by saying idiotic things, for example implicating himself
by the way he words things when talking to homicide detectives. Maybe he's
supposed to be a lovable bumbler, but he seems too proud of himself for that.
He's always well meaning and you still can't feel sorry for this guy.
They also hit one of my
pet peeves because there's alot of scenes where he's looking at the old manager's
journals and we can read what it says on screen but he still reads it out
loud, like we're babies. The worst is a scene with a pretty cool gimmick,
he has to deliver a package to apartment 17, but the numbering goes from 16
straight to 18 and he gets lost. But during this entire scene - even before
he realizes anything is unusual - he reads the numbers of every apartment
he passes! "Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Eighteen? Let's try this again.
Fourteen. Fifteen-"
You just want to punch the
fucker. If this was a guy I knew I would fucking snap after a while. GOD DAMN
IT DON'T READ EVERY WORD YOU SEE! KEEP IT TO YOUR GOD DAMN SELF! Can you imagine
being in a car with this freak? "Stop. Speed limit 35. Left turn only.
Arby's. Car wash. Half Price Furniture. Labor Day Sale." SHUT THE FUCK
UP CHAD LOWE! WE GOT OUR OWN EYES.
For a TV movie it's watchable
though, and has some pretty cool ideas here and there. One of the main threats
is a huge snake that gets loose, and I like how only two characters know it
exists (one only as he's being crushed by it. Unfortunately not Chad Lowe).
There's nothing that tells you this is the director of TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE,
but it does have a hell of alot in common with TOOLBOX MURDERS, which I'd
say is his best movie of the past 15 years or so. APT. and TOOLBOX are both
about weird old buildings with strange histories and bizarre architectural
anamolies that seem to attract or cause mayhem and insanity. In TOOLBOX he
treated it more seriously and took it much further, turning the apartment
into an occult object tied directly to the murders. I guess you could say
Hooper is a director obsessed with location. Could the Texas chain saw massacres
happen anywhere other than Texas? Those murders happen because of the land,
the invasion of property. In THE FUNHOUSE the actual structure seems to enhance
the madness and in these ones it is the madness. Also there's a part
where R. Lee Ermey wears a girly-looking bathrobe that looks like a dress.
I guess the ultimate destiny
for this movie is for some bored insomniac to stumble across it on cable in
the middle of night and feel their time was not wasted. So there's definitely
been worse.
MEL
GIBSON'S APOCALYPTO
by Mel Gibson
not anti-semitic
APOCALYPTO
opens with a wild pig being chased through the jungle. Eventually the group
of hunters on his ass lure him into a trap that impales him on a set of wooden
spikes. Victorious, the hunters step through the leaves and reveal themselves
to the camera. They're Mayan so they're half naked, covered in ritualistic
scars and tattoos, piercings through their noses and chins. We've seen guys
like this in movies before, they're called "savages." I just saw
a more fantastical version in the "300" trailer before this movie.
You see these type of guys, they might as well be bloodthirsty aliens, you
just can't relate.
But then
they drop down to the ground and start cutting up the meat, whoo-hooing and
laughing. And you realize, these are just some dudes. They could
almost be high fiving each other. The hero Jaguar Paw (who looks like Jada
Pinkett) cuts up the parts and distributes them, and he tricks his friend
Blunted (not a pot joke) into eating the balls. (see, that's why I knew I
could call the pig a he in the first paragraph.)
This is
a brilliant opening, because Gibson sets up what appear to be authentic ancient
Mayans, speaking their real language, but also portrays them as ordinary relatable
people. I can't think of many movies with Mayans in them, but if I could I'm
pretty sure you wouldn't see them joking and laughing too much. They'd be
serious, either angry or noble, speaking in mystical broken English. Of course,
Gibson ends up overdoing it a little. By the time you're 15 or 20 minutes
in and Blunted is screaming in pain, dunking his dick in a water trough because
of an outrageous POLICE ACADEMY style prank, you remember that this was made
by a talented man most people agree has lost his mind, and you wonder if he's
ever gonna get on with it. Luckily, the wacky hijinks pretty much disappear,
except for one "oh jesus, what were they thinking?" reference to
MIDNIGHT COWBOY's famous "I'm walkin here!" scene.
Eventually
trouble comes to Apocalypsia when an army of warriors with torches show up
and start killing and kidnapping. You can tell the bad guys from the good
guys because they've got way more Mayan bling. More scars, more tattoos, fancier
hair dos, alot of them wearing jawbones and skulls on their shoulders or heads.
It's kind of a class thing, these guys are hotshot materialists from the big
city coming and tormenting the laid back forest people. They take the adults
(including Jaguar Paw and Blunted) to use as slaves or human sacrifices. The
good news: Jaguar Paw manages to hide his pregnant wife and his little son
in a hole. The bad news: they'll be stuck there for the whole movie, like
those two whiny hobbits that were stuck in the tree for the whole lord of
the rings part 2.
Eventually
the captives get trotted to a big pyramid where a huge crowd watches the royalty
cut out their hearts and bounce their severed heads down the side of the pyramid.
There are dudes whose job it is to catch the heads in little nets, which is
kind of unfair. What if somebody in the crowd wants it? I guess if they were
unhappy with the beheading they would throw it back and that would cause problems,
so they need the net guys.
This is
an amazing scene. There's a giant crowd shot that looks very digital but when
they're just showing the front it's an impressive real crowd, and there's
so much detail in this pyramid and the jeweled faces of the royal family.
They even got a fat little spoiled brat prince. That's kind of a trip man,
think about a spoiled little bastard from a rich family, now imagine he gets
his entertainment by watching his old man cut out hearts and bounce heads
down the stairs. Think about the sense of entitlement this little porker is
gonna have. Makes ya sick.
Now, I don't
think it's too much of a spoiler to reveal that Jaguar Paw ends up not getting
his head bounced, instead he escapes. And the second half of the movie is
the great half of the movie. Because the rest of the movie is one long foot
chase. A group of elitist rich boy warriors keeps on Jaguar Paw's ass just
like he did on the pig whose balls he cut off. It becomes about more than
just one escaped dude because a sick little girl has prophesized that the
"man jaguar" will lead the warriors to their doom or some shit like
that. (one of the few superstitious parts in the movie.) Since there is no
media at this time, he does not become a folk hero with people all around
the Yucatan peninsula showing their support. Instead he jumps down a waterfall,
dodges arrows and spears, etc.
Because
it's Mel Gibson, it's a pretty brutal movie. You got people getting impaled,
a guy getting his head bit by a jaguar, a fuckin badass maneuver using some
kind of hornets or wasps, and poor Jaguar Paw running over a pile of about
a thousand rotting headless corpses. Not to mention the corresponding heads
bouncing down the pyramid. All this is good clean american fun, but some of
it is pretty emotional too. Like when all the adults are being led away in
bondage and the crying children stay behind on their own. (you don't find
out what happens to them, though. Maybe that's part 2.)
It seems
to me like there's a growing backlash against minimalism and simplicity in
entertainment. Everything has to be complicated and overproduced. Nothing
can be left ambiguous or unexplained. Characters have to fuckin talk and talk
and talk. Nobody wants to just see an expression on an actor's face that explains
more than words, because we're a bunch of fuckin babies that need to be spoonfed
baby food. At least that's what it seems like to me when I hear people complaining
about MIAMI VICE being boring or MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE 3 cleverly obscuring what
exactly the weapon is that everybody's fighting over or CHILDREN OF MEN not
wasting everybody's time by gratuitously explaining exactly how and why its
women can't have babies. I mean, I like all kinds of movies but I am especially
a sucker for cinematics like this where there's not much talking and not much
standing around. To me this is pure cinema. It's pictures and they're truly
in motion. Think MAD MAX. Except on foot. And with less clothes.
The movie
goes light on dialogue, light on subplots, light on backstory. The point is
for this guy to fuckin run and get his wife and kid out of a hole before they
get murdered by assholes or bit by monkeys. Everything else is beside the
point. I like it.
I should
mention, by the way, that alot of the portrayal of Mayans in the movie is
apparently horse shit. You would think if somebody was gonna go through the
trouble to make a movie in the dead language of the Mayans they would also
try to make it really accurate, but apparently not. I'm sure Mel probaly thinks
the Jews sabotaged his consultants, but... nah, just kidding. That was a cheap
shot. Let's set the anti-semite thing aside. I admire Gibson for being crazy
enough to make a movie about such an out of left field topic, and make it
in the Mayan language, and not really make it about the Mayan empire,
exactly. But I guess the historical inaccuracy here is what you should expect
when you got a crazy guy making a crazy movie like this.
Most of
us won't be bothered because most of us aren't scholars of Mayan history.
But those who are point out that the movie is combining art and architecture
from hundreds of years apart, giving the characters weapons that did not exist
at that time, depicting mass killings that historians don't believe ever happened,
showing them rounding up villagers for sacrifice when really they sacrificed
members of the royal family. And they even have the Mayans being spooked by
an eclipse, which if you think about it is pretty ridiculous. I mean, what's
the most famous thing about the Mayans? Their astrological calendar. The Mayans
knew their fuckin astro-shit. Now, if it was me - I could see me
getting spooked by an eclipse if I hadn't had the TV or radio on in a while
and didn't know it was coming. But the Mayans? No way. They calendared that
shit. They woulda known exactly when it was gonna happen, they woulda been
out there waiting for the eclipse with their little paper viewer things. So
alot of people knowledgeable about the Mayan culture have complained about
that.
I would
also like to add that MIDNIGHT COWBOY did not exist until the 1970s or so,
the Mayans did not have access to it and even if they did there was no electricity.
Also, the movie does not show that the Mayans maybe invented chocolate, which
is a pretty huge oversight. I forget where I read it but somebody once pointed
out that Robert Zemeckis has two movies where he has a white man inventing
black music. In BACK TO THE FUTURE Michael J. whatsisdick teaches Chuck Berry
everything he knows. In FORREST GUMP, Tom Hanks teaches Elvis everything he
knows, he doesn't actually learn it from black musicians. At least Mel doesn't
have a white man inventing chocolate, but still. Give the Mayans credit. Chocolate
is delicious. I know it, you know it, Mel Gibson knows it. Who are we trying
to fool here, Mel?
Anyway,
you gotta watch this as some fantasy adventure like CONAN THE BARBARIAN or
something, not as actual history. But if you can do that you got a good one
here.
Trivia:
APOCALYPTO's director of photography Dean Semler is better known as the director
of Steven Seagal's first DTV picture, THE PATRIOT.
APPALOOSA
APPALOOSA 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.
But never fear! This is not like LEATHERHEADS, which made the unfortunate assumption
that the audience too would be charmed by Zelweger. She quickly makes a pass
at Everett, among other activities that mark her as a despicable ho, and threatens
to become the less talented Yoko Ono of the old west. I would have to say the
movie is sexist (the only other female character actually is a whore) but as
a story it works. The best part is that the trailer, the DVD cover and your
experience as a person who watches movies all lead you to think this will be
a love triangle. Everett will fall for the girl too, or Virgil will think he
has, and this will break up the team. All signs point to that as the last act,
but the movie has other plans.
And that brings me to the political part. I don't know what the author of the
book (Robert B. Parker, creator of Spenser For Hire) intended, but
this story definitely plays to me like a commentary on the Bush era approach
to homeland security. Cole and Hitch come into town with a set of laws already
written up and tell the officials they either have to sign it now or forget
it. That's gotta be the USA-PATRIOT ACT, right? Maybe it could be called the
APPALOOSA-COWBOY ACT. The town officials are uncomfortable with the idea but
sign without reading it.
So the marshals pretty much run the town, they can do whatever they want. In
a way this is good, because they're the good guys, and can use this to stop
Jeremy Irons. But on the other hand, Virgil's judgment is not always the best
(for example, he's building a house with Renee Zelweger) and at times he could
be seen as abusing his power. And even worse, the guilty Jeremy Irons (SPOILER)
gets set free because his trial was unfair. It's Guantanamo Bay or Freddy Krueger
all over again.
I really liked that about the movie and I figure that's part of the reason why
Viggo would want to take the role (another part being that Ed Harris asked him
to). But it's not even the best part of the story - the best part is the camaraderie
between these two gunmen. Viggo is the rare superstar leading man humble enough
to play the quiet sidekick without it seeming like a stunt. He's smart enough
to know this can be a great character and talented enough to make sure it turns
out that way. He communicates more with his face than with words - the "oh
geez, maybe I should've told him his girlfriend was a ho" squint as Virgil
trades their prisoner for Zelweger, the uncomfortable stare at the dirt after
passing the binoculars so Virgil can see his girl frolicking naked in a river
with Lance Henriksen (long story).
If you would enjoy a quiet, simple western with Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen,
then you would enjoy this movie. Otherwise forget it.
THE
ARISTOCRATS
This is a whole documentary
about one single joke, so let me tell you what the joke is. I am not a good
joke teller but this is the joke.
Some guy walks into a talent
agency, says look mister can I please have a moment of your time, I got an
act here and I think you will agree it's gonna knock your fuckin socks right
off of your ass. It's a family act, I got my wife and my kids involved and
what not, real fancy, etc. So the talent guy says okay, you know I got a couple
minutes before I have to meet somebody, you got two minutes to give me your
pitch there asswipe.
So the guy says well you
know we come out, my wife is playing piano real soft, we got these matching
uniforms - I got some glossies in my billfold here if you want to see em,
they got sequins and everything. And I come out and I balance on one toe on
top of the piano while she's playing, right? And she's real good, kind of
a ragtime style but she puts her own spin on it you know? Then my kids come
out, they're teenagers but they're wearing diapers right, and this homeless
guy has them on a leash, and they're carrying magazines in their mouths, like
Motor Trend, The Economist, stuff like that. I got subscriptions to these
magazines already by the way, I don't expect you to provide anything, we have
all the equipment already. Just so you know. Anyway they put the magazines
down in front of me and I look at the pictures and I just start jerking off
all over my wife's hair. So then my wife stands up and just takes a shit all
over the keys of the piano and smears it all over, and smears the cum all
over it with her hair, and then the kids start playing a duet of the theme
from Rocky. Not Eye of the Tiger, the actual theme by Bill Conti. Then the
homeless guy pulls out this mason jar full of brown recluse spiders and lets
them loose, and they're trained to crawl all over us, right. And we all start
pissing all over each other, and shaving each other, and smearing the spiders
and hair around. And then you know, I don't know if you've seen that movie
My Neighbor Totorro. Well my wife has a costume of the neighbor Totorro, but
it has an asshole on it, and this shetlund pony comes in from stage right,
there's kind of a real classy sort of reddish orange lighting at this part,
very moody and atmospheric you know, so anyway the pony starts just fucking
away at the Totoro. And in the movie there's these little girls that are trying
to visit their mother in the hospital, well my kids make little sculptures
of the girls from the movie out of all the shit and hair and dead spiders
and everything. They're good sculptures too, I mean my daughter is better
at it, my son's actually looks kinda like a snowman or something but he's
getting better at it. Anyway we got the shit dolls on sticks and then they
act out the end of the movie except in this version the pony is fucking the
totoro up the ass. I mean don't worry, it's only a small pony, we're not talking
no Enumclaw shit. Well I guess medium sized because actually, I mean the pony's
name is Maximus, he's pretty large for a pony but, you know. Not as big as
a horse, it's not that bad. Anyway, point is we got it timed so exactly as
the pony cums, these red white and blue fireworks go off, and we dedicate
the whole thing to the victims of 9-11.
So there's kind of a pause
there and the talent agent looks at the guy, says, "Wow. I mean I never--
I mean, what do you call an act like that?"
And the guy says, "The
Aristocrats!"
I know, I don't get it either,
but that's the joke the movie's about. Some of the people in the movie make
it funny, some of them admit it's not a very good joke. Everybody has a different
variation on it. Only the setup and the punchline are the same, but everybody
makes up their own filthy, offenseve act, usually involving shitting, incest
and dogfucking. Because you're not supposed to talk about that stuff, so obviously
that means it's hilariously funny. Ha ha ha the guy from Full House is being
naughty. The premise of the movie is that different joke tellers "riff"
on this joke like a jazz musician or one of those new hippies they got that
noodle on a fuckin guitar all day at some outdoor campout musical festival.
"It's the singer, not the song" the movie argues. And nobody argues
back, because who the fuck cares. It's an interesting topic though and there's
alot of funny variations on this horrible joke, lots of laughs during this
documentary.
I don't think this is as
good of a movie as people will tell you it is, though. Although the laughs
eventually win out, the movie did get on my nerves at times. For example,
the opening 5 or 10 minutes are an extension of the obnoxious "Get in
on the joke!" advertising campaign. "There's this joke... the first
time I heard the joke... every comedian knows the joke... nobody has ever
told the joke to an audience... the first time Phyllis Diller heard the joke
she fainted.... the joke the joke the joke jokety jokety aristocrats aristocrats
aristocrats aristocrats look at us we know it you don't know the joke the
aristocrats aristocrats aristo--
So if you were at a screening
where some crazy guy yelled out FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST JUST TELL THE FUCKING
GOD DAMN JOKE then, well I never talk during movies but I wouldn't be surprised
if somebody did that. And the movie keeps that smarmy, insidery tone throughout.
Acting like they are doing us a big favor, letting us in on the elite top
secret comedian shit they learned from the Aztecs. And it has this reverential
tone toward any semi-recognizable comedian, from Robin Williams to Drew Carey
to that bureaucrat that almost gets Ripley killed in ALIENS. They get Chris
Rock on there for about 20 seconds but he doesn't comment on the actual joke,
he seems to be saying that only white people care about a stupid joke like
that. I think Whoopi Goldberg is the only other black person in the movie,
which is too bad because I bet Rudy Ray Moore could've told the joke better
than any of these motherfuckers.
Don't get me wrong, there's
alot of laughs in the picture and I'm being extra hard on it just because
I heard so much about it ever since it's been playing film festivals. But
at the same time, they do got a guy that makes wacky faces. They do got a
ventriloquist that says racial slurs and calls you a cocksucker - there's
an act with alot of dimension.
interlude
"So
you said you were a performer?"
"Yeah,
yeah, I'm a ventriloquist."
"Oh,
a ventriloquist. Hm."
"Oh
no, don't worry, I know what you're thinking. But I'm not like those regular
ventriloquists, like a magician or something. I'm an underground ventriloquist.
I'm part of the alternative ventriloquist scene."
"What's-
how does that work? Is that still with puppets?"
"Well,
not puppets. We call them dummies. But yeah, I mean it's totally different
though. See, my dummy is an asshole and says fuck and cunt and stuff like
that."
"OH!
Okay, ha that's funny. Cunt. I thought it was some lame vaudeville thing."
"Oh
no no no, not at all. Don't worry, I get that all the time."
"Ha,
'cunt.' But a puppet says it. That's hilarious. Let's go have sex now."
Anyway, so Sarah Silverman
is pretty funny, and George Carlin's in there, but it's not exactly a perfect
comedical pedigree in my opinion. I mean they end with fuckin Tim Conway.
I'm not joking. Emo Phillips also. Carrot Top. All the top guys.Yakov Smirnoff
is missing but I bet he'll be on the dvd. Him and Weird Al maybe do a commentary
track.
The most interesting part
of the movie takes place at a Comedy Central roast for Hugh Hefner. I think
I remember seeing this thing but what you see in the movie is the parts they
cut out. It was in New York, less than a month after 9-11, when people still
weren't sure what to laugh at or what to joke about. Gilbert Goddfried makes
a couple 9-11 jokes and the audience is pissed, they're apparently booing
and yelling "too soon" (we only hear a description of this part,
I guess the cameras must've been turned off) so suddenly he shifts gears and
decides to push it in a different way. He tells the aristocrats joke to the
audience, something that the movie previously said had never been done because
it was such super freemason secret higher echelon top secret black ops stuff
that only Drew Carey and the ventriloquist who says cocksucker know about.
And the guy from Full House. But strictly those guys, backroom top secret
off the record meetings in the basement of Giggles. And make sure you weren't
followed.
Anyway it's interesting
to watch Gilbert Goddfried win over this audience by speaking horrible obscenity
at a television taping. The movie kind of ruins it though by having an overly
reverential interview with some guy from the New York Observer or something
talking about watching the faces of the comedians who are in on this unbreakable
universal bond of comedian brotherhood. And for some reason, even though Gilbert
Goddfried is interviewed for the movie, I don't think they have him talking
about telling the joke. They treat it like it's the Beatles on Ed Sullivan
or the discovery of penicillin but they don't bother to ask the guy who did
it. (Unless I'm forgetting. Correct me if I'm wrong.)
Hopefully the DVD will have
the uncut performance. I'd like to see that.
At the beginning of the
movie somebody compares the telling of the joke to jazz musicians, and specifically
to John Coltrane. And not too much later, somebody else mentions Coltrane.
And I thought okay, that's
interesting. I wonder, would anybody else like to draw a comparison between
a. John Coltrane burning
through your soul with 'A Love Supreme' or "My Favorite Things"
and
b. the guy from Full
House telling a joke about shitting and fucking a dog and raping little
kids
?
Anybody? No? Nobody wants
to get to strike three? Okay, good. You know what's best for you, I guess.
So the movie didn't strike
out and I would recommend this picture. Unless it sounds bad to you, in which
case you shouldn't bother. I don't give a shit, man.
p.s. it is probaly better
with a large audience. I was at a sparsely attended matinee I saw where one
guy was laughing his ass off and kept clapping, making me uncomfortable. Is
it just me or is it kind of weird to clap when there's nobody there? I mean
it's not like the director is there, it's not like Tim Conway is there, it's
not even like the ventriloquist dummy is there. And it's not some big communal
experience where we have all been cold cocked by a surprisingly great movie
and we spontaneously explode into applause as an expression of our shared
delight.
or maybe we did and I just
missed it I don't know.
p.p.s. "What's the name of your
act?"
"G.G. Allin and the
Murder Junkies."
ARMY
OF ONE
Recently I was discussing the upcoming James Bond movie with some buddies.
I was joking that the trailer should say "from the director of FINDING
NEVERLAND." That dude's movies are all over the map, but nothing ever
hinted that he would end up directing a 007 movie. One of my buddies said
that it didn't really matter that he didn't do action because usually the
action in Bond movies is shot by a second unit guy named Vic Armstrong.
(I looked it up, and Armstrong actually hasn't worked on the Daniel Craig
ones, but he was stunt coordinator and/or 2nd unit director for DIE ANOTHER
DAY, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, TOMORROW NEVER DIES and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN
and stunt double for 3 other Bond movies.)
A couple days later I was reading an article by Moriarty about Rob Cohen and
THE MUMMY 3: DRAGON TOMB EMPEROR ETC. In this article he goes into a whole
thing about how Vic Armstrong was the stunt coordinator and stunt double for
the first three Indiana Jones movies, but didn't do KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL
SKULL for mysterious reasons, and is getting revenge by doing ROB COHEN'S
M3 instead.
I thought that was weird, I never heard of this Vic Armstrong before but he
comes up twice in a couple days. Indiana Jones's stunt double, huh? Pretty
cool.
Next day I'm browsing the films of Dolph Lundgren at the local video store,
as I often do, and I notice ARMY OF ONE is directed by one Vic Armstrong.
Went home and looked him up - it's the same guy, and this is the only movie
he has directed.
Dolph Lundgren plays a driver who in the opening is transporting a truckload
of unspecified illegal goods. He gets pulled over and his partner (original
DAWN OF THE DEAD's iconic Ken Foree) gets shot, then Dolph shoots the cop
and it fades to black. Next we see the word "HOSPITAL" stenciled
on a wall and a card says '9 months later.' I thought "what does Dolph
giving birth have to do with any of this?" but it turns out he's just
being transferred from the hospital to prison, a guard starts beating him
up, and he has no choice but to escape and steal a truck along with the gorgeous
model who owns it. So, you know how sometimes an army escapes from prison
and takes a hostage and goes on the run from the cops? That is the type of
army Dolph is only the catch is HE IS ONLY ONE MAN. An army of one.
So now Dolph is a fugitive, with a hostage, he's a cop killer, and a team
of cops led by George Segal in shades is organizing the manhunt. And I don't
usually pay attention to these types of things but I'm pretty sure Segal is
the most Jewish redneck sheriff I've ever seen. Anyway it's about ten minutes
into the movie and suddenly I start thinking wait a minute... is Dolph supposed
to be the bad guy? It started with him so I assumed he was the hero, but he
is not exactly doing good things here. This lady is obviously innocent, and
he keeps shoving her around. George Segal seems on the up and up. Maybe Dolph
is the villain and the packaging is misleading? Shit, maybe George Segal is
gonna get separated from the police force and he's gonna be the one
man army. Maybe Dolph is a one man opposing army to Segal's one man army.
It's gonna be two man warfare.
Well, later we find out more information and it turns out to be more what
you would expect, but I think that aspect of the script (by Steven Pressfield,
historical fiction novelist and writer of ABOVE THE LAW) is pretty clever.
Usually they don't trust you to stick with it unless they tell you from the
beginning "this guy was framed, he is actually a sweetheart, he takes
care of old ladies and nurses animals to health, don't worry that he's a criminal
because that's all a misunderstanding." This one takes its time doling
out information. He never really denies being a cop killer, but we find out
much later in flashback that the opening scene was misleading.
The hostage (played by Kristian Alfonso, who according to reports is from
Falcon Crest and Days of Our Lives) looks like a cross between Denise Richards
and Amanda Peet. If you had to guess her profession you would probaly say
model or sexy nurse in a Van Halen video. But secretly she's an asskicking
martial artist sheriff's deputy. She doesn't play it as stupid as many female
sidekicks like, say, Erika Eleniak in UNDER SIEGE, but she asks some dumb
questions. For example there's this scene where Dolph takes her to an old
shack in the desert and forces an old man to give him gas at gunpoint. At
first you assume it's just some random dude but then he says, "I see
you turned out how we all hoped you would," and Dolph says, "I'm
just following in your footsteps." She sees that the old man has an article
hanging in his shack that talks about Dolph winning a race. The old man refers
to Dolph's mother and Dolph gets mad and implies that the old man treated
his mother badly.
So, you know, maybe it is because of my expertise and deep analytical study
of action movies, but I sort of picked up on this idea that this guy is Dolph's
father. As they drive away Alfonso asks, "Who was that?"
Later she asks the same thing about a character played by Khandi Alexander
who based on the conversation they have in front of her is clearly the mother
of Dolph's dead partner. I don't know, maybe she's not a moron, maybe she's
just fucking with him by asking him stupid questions. Either way he is surprisingly
polite about it. He should get one of those "Snappy Answers to Stupid
Questions" books in case she starts doing it again, he could be prepared.
Anyway, we learn the backstory a little bit at a time and SPOILER it turns
out that Segal is a dirty cop who set up Dolph AND paid the prison guard to
kill him, so Dolph is going after Segal's wife and his stolen exotic car business
to demand his and Ken Foree's cut of the money from their job. Along the way
the cop lady does a couple kicks and there are a couple shootouts. In one
scene he shoots up a bunch of storefronts in order to scare cops without actually
hurting them. Like Craig Baxley's early work, Armstrong revels in some of
the stunt work, and this is the scene where he pays tribute to the art of
squibs and explosive charges. Dolph shoots a bunch of things including windows,
produce and a pinata. Then he drives away and you see a watermelon truck which
somehow goes unharmed.
In the best scene of the movie he gets to a warehouse full of Ferraris and
Lamborghinis and demands his money, saying "it's cheaper." His rivals
end up going with the other, more expensive option, which is that they don't
pay him and he smashes and shoots and explodes the living shit out of dozens
of Italian sports car that they say are each worth more than his life. (I
wasn't so sure and I looked it up - sure enough they're all Pontiacs with
fake bodies on them, not real Ferrarris or Lamborghinis. So I'm not sure what
that says about Dolph's value as a human being.)
I think this scene is meant as a
tribute to the warehouse shootout in HARD BOILED, and although it's not nearly
as epic it gets closer than most American movies. There are alot of god damn
bullets fired in this scene. He sets a guy on fire and then kicks him, which
as you know if you've read the Seagalogy chapter on THE FOREIGNER is something
I enjoy. But Dolph even takes it one step further by kicking the guy into
a stack of boxes which then explode.
(By the way there's some gag involving Die Hard car batteries, and I know
Al Leong of one-of-the-bad-guys-in-DIE-HARD fame is in that warehouse, but
I didn't catch if he was involved with the batteries or not. So that may or
may not have been an in-joke. I am not in enough to be sure.)
(Shit, more trivia for you. In this
movie Dolph watches HIGH SIERRA on TV and is inspired by it. In the last movie
I saw, RICOCHET, Denzel Washington watched WHITE HEAT and was inspired by
it [which actually directly affects how he deals with John Lithgow.] And that
reminded me of the movie JUICE where Tupac if I remember right was obsessed
with the same scene of the same movie. And then I realized that alot of dudes
in movies are inspired by old movies. They always pick one and obsess over
it. Kind of corny but better than I AM LEGEND where Will Smith is obsessed
with SHREK.)
This particular criminal enterprise is a good choice for a movie because it
means the big car chase at the end can logically be between a Ferrari and
a Lamborghini. There's lots of good high speed car footage as you would expect
from a movie directed by a great stuntman and stunt coordinator.
Think about it. Anthony Bourdain
is a famous chef, so when he becomes a crime novelist it's no surprise that
he has alot of cooking and restaurant business in his stories. Tim Burton
was an animator, so when he started directing movies of course he worked in
some little stop motion dinosaurs and large marges. And when a stuntman or
stunt co-ordinator starts directing movies he's gonna have pride, he's not
gonna have substandard stunt work. He's not gonna let those action scenes
just be mediocre. According to Wikipedia, the warehouse scene only had 5 deaths
in the script, but you can see that Armstrong came up with some ad libs there.
Giving him that scene is like handing Miles Davis a trumpet.
I would not say that ARMY OF ONE
reaches the level of STONE COLD when it comes to stunt coordinators dolloping
awesomeness onto a ridiculous action movie starring a big brute with blond
hair. But it's in a similar category of silly action with some clever ideas
and some impressive, violent action scenes.
This has been an excerpt from my upcoming book SEGALOGY: A STUDY OF THE
ASSKICKING FILMS OF GEORGE SEGAL.
7/27/08
ARMAGEDDON
Well this is not
a good movie in my opinion. In fact WHAT the fuck is my man Bruce doing in
this piece of garbage. I bet when he watched the premiere for this shitpile
he started feeling nostalgic for those baby movies.
Now right away I knew something
was a-fucking-miss when it opens with a picture of the earth and you got Charlton
Heston talking about the dinosaurs. Is there a stupider way to start a movie
about astronauts? I mean make up your mind is it dinosaurs or astronauts.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. WHAT THE FUCK in my opinion.
What this movie is about is not
dinosaurs but a group of tough, sweaty oil drillers who like to run around
and shoot at each other, or go on motorcycle chases or whatever. Okay so far
so good. Then the government says look you oil drillers, we're teaching you
how to be astronauts so we can send you up on a space shuttle to land on an
asteroid and drill a hole in it because to save the world from asteroids,
yunnerstand. The oil drillers say only if we never have to pay taxes again,
ha ha ha, see, everyone can relate because you hate to pay taxes. Funny.
Now I think personally the asteroid
part is enough to know this movie is nonsense but just in case. We got aerosmith
songs with people playing with animal crackers on a gal's belly. We got a
singalong before they take off into space. We got this magic boots that make
convenient to help them walk on asteroids instead of float. We got motherfuckers
driving around in moon cars going off jumps like the dukes of hazzard, with
an iron skull on the stickshift. I mean in my opinion that's cool but NASA
should not be wasting money on this shit.
This thing is apparently directed
by some kind of demented TV commercial director. You got sunsets, the different
people of the world looking up at the sky, explosions, all filmed in that
god damned corporate beauty look. Every single fucking scene in this god damned
movie has the camera flying around, whoosh whoosh whoosh, cut to different
camera, different camera, different camera. The directors yelling "Pump it
up! Pump it up! We don't wanna lose em! We only got 30 seconds! I want this
spot to be THRILLING!"
The lackeys go, "Uh, boss, this
is a picture, this is not a spot, it's three hours long."
Director: "Right, right. 3 hours.
Let's go. PUMP IT UP! We don't got all day! I WANT THOSE FUCKING CAMERAS TO
WHOOSH!"
Lackeys: "SIR YES SIR!"
So they never stop whooshing, they
never stop cutting, the movie never stops being shit. I got no idea what's
going on in this picture. You got explosion here, close up of a guy's foot
there, apparently a fellow named Grueber died at some point, something happened
with a rocket ship crashing or asteroid hits the earth or something, not sure
about that one. It makes no sense. At one point they even show a map of where
all the people are standing in the russian space station, I still don't know
what's what.
Yes it's only three hours long but
it seems twice that. You got like ten different characters, all of them saying
the same type of stupid shit. Bunch of fucking wise asses, everything that
happens they got some wise ass thing to say. And I'm not talking like John
McClane, I'm talking like a bunch of college pricks that get a little reference
or something planned for every occasion, and they sound like they got it memorized
but forgot what it meant exactly.
Now a word about astronauts. Astronauts
in movies are a big cheat, a fucking cheap shot in my opinion. Everybody loves
the fucking astronauts. Watching an astronaut movie is like eating grandma's
home made apple pie on a cool winter night, wrapped in Betsy Ross's original
american flag straight out of the dryer. You can't hate this movie it's about
the astronauts, the greatest american heroes, the men who mastered science
and gravity, conquered the moon and lived to brag about it. They're just like
firemen only THEY FLY!
So you put astronauts in a movie
and everybody likes it cause they don't know any better. It's taking advantage
in my opinion, and in my opinion taking advantage just ain't right. I mean
think about it. If a cab driver charges extra for retards just because he
knows he can get away with it, is that considered acceptable in our society?
Answer: No. If a blind man plays three card monty, can you tell him he didn't
get the card even if he did? No, you can't. If a mortician is alone with the
body of a really hot chick, is it okay for him to cop a feel just cause she's
dead? No, it's not okay, unless she gave him permission before she died.
Well I think filmmakers should be
held to the same standards as cab drivers, card hustlers and morticians and
that's why this Armageddon shit is unacceptable. They got not only the astronauts,
but they make them sweaty working class astronauts to try to get outlaws like
myself to fall for it. Then they have the americans saving the whole god damned
world from the killer asteroids, trying to make all us americans feel good
about ourselves.
Hell Bruce what were you
thinking holy jesus, all this America is #1 bullshit. We just want you to
entertain us, you don't have to tickle our balls. Good thing he went and made
that ghost movie afterwards otherwise I'd probaly lose all hope in the dude.
ART
SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL
A while back I wanted to
get a copy of the book Cockfighter by Charles Willeford.
The one the Monte Hellman movie is based on. I found it in a collection with
two other Willeford books, so I read those first. I knew what Cockfighter
was about obviously, but the other two I had no idea, so from page 1 on the
books had me guessing where the hell they were going, and usually being wrong.
The Pickup
starts out with this guy spending his days drinking in bars and finding jobs
at diners, who seems to have real bad luck and get in fights everywhere he
goes. And he meets this rich girl. Of course you assume she's gonna be a femme
fatale, she's gonna lead him on and trick him into killing somebody or stealing
her father's money or some shit, but it never happens. Instead they fall in
love for real but they have this fucked up Sid and Nancy love. They are tormented
and depressed and they bring the book spiraling down into the abyss with them.
Before you know it they decide to slit their wrists, and end up in an insane
asylum, and it keeps going from there. Even the very last sentence of the
book makes you say, "Whuh?" and have to go back and reconsider
everything that happened before. I like that.
ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL
kind of reminded me of that because this is some weird unexpected mix of genres
where you get to the end and realize you had no idea at the beginning that
this is the kind of movie you were going to be watching. It's kind of like
a movie and kind of like a dream. This is exactly what most of the reviews
I've read have criticized (one dude on CHUD even called it "a disaster"),
but fuck those guys. It's a strange movie, it's very dark and mean, it's laugh
out loud funny and then it slowly becomes creepy and depressing, and that
in itself makes it kind of funny. Which means it's not for everybody and their
Aunt Harriet. Although to be fair Aunt Harriet did like BAD SANTA, if I remember
right.
As you can tell by the title
this is pretty much a full scale assault on the institution of art school.
A young nerd named Jerome dreams of being a painter, so he goes to art school.
Right away we see that the place is a load of horseshit. Alot of the students
clearly have no talent, but bullshit their way through by using conceptual
gimmicks and pretentious gibberish explanations of their vision as artists.
At one point a professor, John Malkovich, asks a student why he isn't doing
the assignments. The kid makes some asinine explanation about how his work
has nothing to do with form or color it's about blah blah blah so assignments
are useless to him. Malkovich thinks about it for a second and says, "I'll
buy that."
The movie is not all about
laughs, but I sure laughed hard at it. The opening credits are a hilarious
montage of various art students being dropped off at school by their parents.
There is a shot of a barefooted girl stepping confidently out of the car,
right into a pile of broken glass, and yelling "FUCK!" This is such
a simple joke but it's still making me smile thinking about it a couple days
later because it's so true about a certain type of person who insists, I
am barefoot. I don't wear shoes. I don't care what they try to do to keep
me down, I don't care if I'm going to a school in the inner city where there
is jagged debris on the ground, I WILL NOT WEAR SHOES.
Alot of the humor is like
that, it's just a dead on observation about ridiculous things we recognize
in people we know or in ourselves, that we haven't seen too much in movies.
A few of the jokes are more obvious. Those are the ones that the bad reviews
say are the funny part at the beginning before the movie goes in another direction
and leaves them behind like a baby in a dumpster.
The writer Daniel Clowes
is obviously bringing the real experience of an artist into this story, and
he also has a great knowledge of bad art. My favorite bad painting in the
movie is one prominently displayed in the background but never commented on,
a shitty spray painted cityscape with the words "We are living in a police
state" crudely scrawled on it. A masterpiece.
Jerome sort of has a rivalry
with a hunky square guy named Jonah, who does paintings of sports cars and
tanks and shit like that, that look like they were made by a dude in high
school art class in the 1980s. There's a great scene where the class critiques
his painting and they all agree that it's brilliant because "it's like
he unlearned all the art school bullshit," which of course is the exact
bullshit their parents think they're paying money for them to learn.
I'm sure artists will love
the shit out of this movie (unless it hits too close to home) because it has
jokes about having to draw a dude with his schlong hanging out and crap like
that. But you don't have to be a painter. Anybody who has ever had a class
where people have to critique creative works, such as a Wednesday night writing
class of some kind to name one example, will recognize this stuff. After you
sit through enough of these discussions you will stop believing in freedom
of speech.
But the brilliance of ART
SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL is that it's not just about making fun of dumb people
at art school. The first half is full of big laughs mostly based on this stuff,
and I was surprised how few times it got too broad. (The stuff with Jerome's
filmatist roommate, who looks like the CLERKS guy but is based on the prick
from OVERNIGHT, could be more subtle.) But slowly as the movie goes along
it turns into kind of a creepy noirish type of picture. There is a strangler
loose on campus, and many of the main characters are potential suspects. They're
included but not limited to bitter failed artists such as the Malkovich character
(I don't think I have to tell you whether or not he's good at playing a jaded,
pretentious prick who teaches art) and an almost poisonous alcoholic graduate
played by Jim Broadbent, who Jerome's friend Bardo likes to go to just to
laugh at his hateful rants. At least one character turns out to be much more
interesting than you realized at first and your feelings toward him or her
might change. Or mine did anyway.
I mentioned The
Pickup before but the other Willeford book in that collection
is more obviously relevant, it's called The Burnt Orange Heresy.
That one's in the point of view of this egomaniacal art critic who tracks
down a reclusive artist and ends up killing him, making paintings supposedly
by him and then writing long essays critiquing his own paintings, and believing
he's completely justified. I guess Clowes shares Willeford's feeling that
people who take high art seriously might be fucked in the head. I think Jerome
is more sincere than the guy from The Burnt Orange Heresy,
but he's another character where you can't necessarily take what he says at
face value. I think he really does want to be a great artist, but from the
opening scenes on it's pretty clear that he thinks art might be a way to score
chicks. So his judgment is clouded. He becomes obsessed with a nude model
from his class. This is probaly what allows you to root for Jerome. You can't
blame a guy for liking a girl, and there's all kinds of uncomfortable courting
moments to make you squirm on his behalf.
But what's really smart
is that Jerome is not necessarily better than the other students. He only
sees through the bullshit some of the time. He soon tries to do what they're
doing and isn't even making his own paintings by the end. The movie might
be more of a crowdpleaser if it was just about "those guys are idiots,
I'm smarter than all them," but then it would just be a bitter essay
about what happened to this writer in art school. Instead it's a genuine story
with a very cynical take no prisoners view of human nature. Audrey, the girl
he has a crush on, is probaly the most sympathetic character, but she's also
on the wrong side of alot of things. She's not some idealized art school babe.
Jerome misunderstands some
of what's going on and does some stupid and mean things. We're used to seeing
that in romantic comedies, it's called The Affleck Cycle. Guy falls in love,
gets pissed off or does something stupid and fucks everything up, but then
the guy figures out a way to fix everything and prove he's sincere and everybody
lives happily ever after. ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL doesn't have that "but"
part, exactly. It's not that kind of party.
Anyway the point is this.
I personally like ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL better than GHOST WORLD. Most people
won't, but they got the right to think whatever kind of freaky shit they want
to think. We are all born free.
True, GHOST WORLD spoke
to a certain type of person that this one doesn't. And maybe if I went back
and watched it again I would change my mind. But my feeling is that ART SCHOOL
CONFIDENTIAL at least is a more accomplished movie. In some ways it's the
same but better: more involving story, more interesting world, stranger, creepier,
funnier. Zwigoff is getting better at directing this stuff, and he's definitely
starting to make it look better with the lighting and staging and what not.
Which is something more comedy directors ought to aspire to.
Normally I probaly wouldn't
review a teen comic strip picture of this type, however I got a history with
this writer and director team. I think I might've been the first person in
the world to review GHOST WORLD. I went to the world premiere anyway, and
was the first individual on the internet to put up a review. Before Gene Shalit,
before Mike Medved, any of these fuckers. All eating my dust on that one.
And to this day they hate me for it, I bet. Not to mention the director, Terry
Zwigoff, then went on to direct BAD SANTA. That is one of those movies that
got horrible reviews, all of them totally wrong, and is now a beloved classic
around the world. In fact after watching it a couple times I would even go
so far as to say it is, to me personally, the funniest movie of the 2000s
so far. I can't even think of any serious competition. Of course I have skipped
alot of Queen Latifah's pictures over the years so I might've missed one.
I never reviewed BAD SANTA
though so you'll have to take my word for it that I liked it in an actual
theater before it was "BADDER SANTA" on the DVD. But that means
I got a certain amount of credibility on this one, in my opinion. I'm not
saying ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL is necessarily as good as BAD SANTA, or HUMAN
NATURE, another movie that got horrible reviews comparing it negatively to
previous works by the same author, but that is to me clearly great even if
everybody hates it.
So I will continue to enjoy
these movies until some day everybody turns around and agrees with me. And
I promise on that day I won't pull some "heh, I used to like it but now
it's old" bullshit. I'll be right there to welcome you.
ATTACK
FORCE
ATTACK FORCE is Steven Seagal's latest,
where he takes on a bunch of sexy people given super powers by an experimental
military drug. But until recently it was listed on IMDb as HARVESTER, where
he takes on a bunch of aliens. After I savaged the last one, SHADOW MAN, I
got a nice email from Seagal's co-writer Joe Halpin, who I found very humble
and down to earth. Having his ear for a minute I didn't want to be rude and
bury him in an avalanche of questions, but I couldn't resist asking if this
HARVESTER movie would really end up being about aliens, or if they would chicken
out like they did with the "biological mutants" that ended up not
being in SUBMERGED.
His answer: "Who knows." He explained that they had shot it both
ways. It could be about aliens, it could be about European mobsters, the studio
and Seagal would have to come to an agreement in post-production. This of
course brings up alot more questions (the main one being "Shouldn't you
decide on the premise before shooting the movie?") but it also gives
a huge amount of insight into how Seagal's DTV movies end up the way they
do. I mean, if they don't even know who he's fighting until after they're
done, no wonder they end up with these weird overdubbed lines, randomly dropped
story threads, etc.
To no one's surprise, they went with European mobsters. But actually I don't
think they hacked up the movie as much as I had figured before hand. These
mobsters are treated pretty much as aliens (or actually vampires) - their
eyes do a weird CGI effect, they have super strength for throwing people through
walls, they use weird high tech weapons. It seems like they mostly left them
as is, but changed the explanation for their powers. (And probaly cut out
some bad CGI space ship shots here or there.)
In order to take on alien-like drug addicts, Seagal tries something he's never
done before: his former student/love interest gives him state-of-the-art "Nanographite"
wrist blades designed to even the score with his opponents' heightened strength
and reflexes. So when he comes face to face with the lead villain he hands
his rifle to his buddy Duane and takes out the wrist blades. The fights unfortunately
are mostly short and unimpressive, but I do like that they are constantly
throwing people through walls. Seagal's gal Tia even goes through two walls
in one toss - a great throw. This guy Duane is pretty tough, he gets thrown
through a brick wall and you think he's out of the picture, but a little bit
later he crawls back through the hole in the wall. It's mostly the drug aliens
that do the wallthrowing, but near the end Seagal shows them he is their equal
by pushing their drug queen through a wall. With one hand. And it's his left
hand.
There's a funny line where a trainee says that Seagal "walks with an
air of confidence rarely seen in this day and age." I think this might've
been meant as a parody of what I call the "Just How Badass Is This Guy?"
lines of Seagal's best movies, because his buddies immediately make fun of
him for saying it. The other biggest laugh is when there's an establishing
shot of the Eiffel Tower and then the screen tells as we are in "France,
Europe." This might be a new record for insulting the intelligence of
the audience.
My favorite part of the movie is the way it ends, which I'm guessing is not
the way poor Seagal or Halpin expected it to end when they shot it. Seagal
and his "attack force" track the drug addicts to a cathedral, where
they have a series of battles. Eventually eveyone on both sides is dead except
for Seagal and one of his teammates. Seagal helps his buddy up and carries
him out of the cathedral. There's a shot of a car driving away. Then it goes
to the credits.
There's no dialogue at all. No discussion of what's happened, no resolution
to any of the plot threads, no acknowledgement that earlier in the movie they
said that the water supply had been poisoned and 15,000 people would turn
into these alien druggies within 12 hours. And by the way, the shot of the
car driving off had already been used earlier in the movie.
I mean, it breaks every rule of common sense and good storytelling, but for
some reason I like the brutal simplicity of it. Fight, survive, leave. No
need to comment. It's kind of like that minimalism I liked so much in MIAMI
VICE, but I don't think these guys were doing it as deliberately as Michael
Mann was.
That's the thing, I can't really complain about the seat-of-the-pants moviemaking
methods they use for these, because without that approach we wouldn't have
alot of the weird touches that I like so much about the movies. But this resolution-less
ending is an example of the "ah, shit, just throw something together
so we can release it" mentality that alot of the fans are getting sick
of. In fact the very first thing you will notice about this movie is that
alot of Seagal's lines are dubbed by a different actor, probaly even more
than in SUBMERGED. You will notice because his first couple scenes you never
hear his real voice at all. There are some scenes just showing the exterior
of a car, with this other actor's voice over a radio, and we're supposed to
pretend we are watching Seagal.
And that makes me wonder something. For some reason I had always assumed it
was Seagal who was resisting doing movies about mutants and aliens. He has
a strong idea of what a Seagal movie is about, and that's part of what I like
about him. That's Seagalogy. Some people see it as repetitive, I see it as
badass auteurism. Putting his stamp on the movies. But after SUBMERGED and
ATTACK FORCE I'm beginning to wonder if actually it is the producers or the
studios who are preventing Seagal from stretching his legs out a little. Because
both movies have their original sci-fi elements removed, and both have many
scenes overdubbed by a different actor. Couldn't this mean that Seagal wanted
to leave the mutants and the aliens, and didn't want any part in redubbing
scenes to change the storyline around? It makes you wonder.
Before I was able to rent this one
I got two emails telling me it was the worst movie Seagal had ever made, a
real piece of shit. Both specified that they even enjoyed SHADOW MAN. Well,
I think I see where they're coming from. There's just not enough Seagal in
this movie. He does a bare minimum, the lowest amount he can get away with
and still seem like the star. Not much fighting, not always appearing (or
speaking) in his own scenes, no speeches. They don't even bother to give any
background to his character - not that I'm against that, but he just becomes
such a small presence in the movie.
And that's why the movie doesn't
work, but I don't agree that it's his worst. It's the same director as SHADOW
MAN but it's better directed - more atmosphere, more restrained editing, better
music, nice lighting. And somehow more cohesive than some recent ones such
as SUBMERGED. But most of all, the weirdness of the not-aliens, the wallthrowing,
the wrist blades and the abrupt ending give it a little bit of novelty. Still,
it's for serious Seagalogists only. Not for amateurs.
AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER
Well what
this movie is about is Austin Powers is a spy from the '60s who likes to have
sex and use different british slang, etc. He has bad teeth and a hairy chest
and because the dude who plays him, Michael Meyers, wishes he were a rock
star, he also has a band in one part. This is the third in a series of pictures
thought to be parodies of James Bond but obviously more like homages to Derek
Flint, but with dick jokes and one dude playing most of the roles.
The plot of
the first one was about Mr. Powers being frozen cryogenically because his
archnemesis Dr. Evil was frozen and sent into space. And then they both get
revived in the '90s, and they have trouble catching up with the different
changes. Also Mr. Powers has to pee really bad when he gets unfrozen, and
that type of crap.
There are
some good jokes in these movies and what makes them really work is the director
Jay Roach really tries hard to capture the type of cartoony visuals of the
movies these are a tribute to. So you got lots of nice lookin sets and devices
and colorful costumes. And in the second one what they did to make it catch
on, they copied one of the most brilliant ideas from the great underrated
John Frankenheimer version of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, and had Dr. Evil have
a midget lookalike as his sidekick. But then he thinks of him as a baby and
starts ignoring his real son, even though the midget is some kind of freaked
out monster that just says "eeeeeeek" all the time. The guy who plays "Mini-Me",
Verne Troyer, is not nearly as small as Nelson de la Rosa in Dr. Moreau but
he gives a great acting performance as a creepy little bastard who can seem
like a cute little kitty and then all the sudden try to bite your dick off.
Well by the
time they got to this third one they've lost all interest in telling a coherent
story. I mean this is the plot: Dr. Evil has a plan to team up with the Dutch
master criminal known as Goldmember, but then Austin Powers captures him and
brings him to the world court where he is imprisoned. But then Austin's dad
is kidnapped and Austin goes to Dr. Evil in prison to find out who it might've
been that kidnapped his dad, and he says Goldmember. But Goldmember is hiding
in the year 1975 using time travel. So Austin goes to 1975 and saves his dad
and brings back his ex-girlfriend Foxxy Cleopatra who (if you do the math)
must've been 12 when they were together. But then Dr. Evil escapes prison
and teams up with Goldmember to try to flood the earth, but all Goldmember
is good for is eating his own skin and painting people's dicks gold. But Dr.
Evil's son Scott starts trying to be more evil so Mini-Me defects and helps
Austin and Foxxy to come in and get Goldmember, or something. But then they
all become friends.
So it's more
of a collection of skits than a comedic spy movie, like the first one or IN
LIKE FLINT was. If you like this movie really depends on if you laugh at any
of the individual jokes. Dr. Evil does not get as much to do although I liked
how he reacted to the freakiness of Goldmember. Mini-Me has some good shit
in there in my opinion, Michael Caine (ON DEADLY GROUND) is a good choice
for Austin's dad and Beyonce Knowles from MTV music videos is likable as a
happy Foxy Brown type who calls everybody "suga". Most of the best jokes are
silly riffs on different movie conventions. You gotta admire a movie with
a whole scene based on how you can't read subtitles when there are white objects
on the screen.
But the whole
feel of the movie is kinda weird and forced. The extended celebrity cameo
opening is amusing but plays like an opening to the MTV Movie Awards. Later
there are scenes with improv between Dr. Evil and Goldmember and etc. and
since these are played by the same guy it starts to get this weird pasted
together feel like the "space ghost" talk show but without the same sense
that the awkward timing is intentional. In fact even when it's all different
actors in the conversation, they are obviously using different takes sometimes
to the point of incomprehensibility. They repeated the same scene from the
second one that was a repeat from the first one, where Dr. Evil says something
and his son says something back and then they start arguing and it is wacky.
I have no clue what either of these jokers are saying though because it makes
no god damn sense and it really isn't funny unless your idea of funny is recreating
the same thing you thought was funny five years ago, like when they repeat
the same line in every Saturday Nite Live skit and everybody goes "Ha ha,
I know that line! 'Isn't that special!' Ha ha!"
And that is
the whole problem with this comedian, Michael Meyers. Yes he is creative and
talented but he gets into too much of a mathematical type formula with his
humoring. All the characters have to have jokes that are reworkings of jokes
they did before. The new character has to have a different nationality and
accent, this time it's supposed to be dutch instead of scottish or british.
I think arguably this one has more new material than the second one but it
is still too much of a greatest hits type of sequel.
I will say
this though, there is alot of dancing. I don't know why but it can be refreshing
when people are just dancin all through their movies. DEATH TO THE SMOOCHY
was pretty dumb but it had a couple gratuitous dance numbers in there that
made it more enjoyable. This one has more. There are a couple of full fledged
dance numbers and then there are several characters who do a little dance
out of the blue for no reason. It is kind of infectious and actually before
the movie was over a couple people in the theater got up and started dancing
around. At first people tried to ignore them, then they started to laugh at
them, then with them, then they started to join them one at a time. Before
you know it everybody, even me, got up and started dancing together, all around
the theater, over the chairs, down the halls and back. People were tossing
their garbage around and into the garbage cans, passing around crumpled up
popcorn buckets like a bucket brigade, working together to clean up the mess.
The theater employees came in and started tap dancing, spinning their brooms
and dustpans around, tipping the garbage cans sideways and spinning them around
on their wheels. It was fuckin amazing. A genuine communal movie going experience.
Actually that
is kind of exaggerated, what really happened was during the credits everybody
got up and started to leave, even though obviously there was gonna be outtakes.
Then the outtake started and they stood there confused, then some of them
sat back down. Then the outtake ended so they started to leave again but then
a different one came on. These fuckers can't figure it out. Either stay for
the credits, don't stay for the credits, or learn to recognize the patterns
of what types of movies will have shit during the credits. Or dance. Those
are your choices assholes.
thanks
AVENGING
FORCE
A bunch of people have suggested this one to me over the years, so thank you
all. It's a Michael Dudikoff picture made one year after AMERICAN NINJA. Once
again Steve James is the sidekick, this time playing a senator whose family
is targeted by racists, so Dudikoff tries to help them and, when that fails,
becomes an avenging force.
The best thing about the movie is the bad guys. They're introduced at a big
martial arts demonstration/awards dinner type ceremony. At first it just seems
like some kind of weird overlap between a martial arts club and the Republican
party. They're these prominent businessmen and they keep talking about how
bad gun control is. But then all the sudden they start tossing the N-word
around. These guys are fuckin white supremacists! They also have a secret
"hunting club" where they dress up in Halloween masks and S&M
gear and shoot arrows at humans.
The hunting club decides to go after Steve James during the mardi gras parade,
but Dudikoff happens to be there, so he acts as a defending force. For a Cannon
film this is a surprisingly epic scene - it looks like it was mostly filmed
during a real parade.
We find out that despite his youth, Dudikoff is one of the best agents such
and such organization ever had, etc. The republicans are mad that he embarrassed
them at the parade so they go after him. Things escalate and eventually he
gets to fight them all one at a time in the swamp, and pull off their masks.
One thing that makes the movie stand out a little is that it goes a little
further than you expect. Steve James of course dies, but only after heroically
rescuing his son from a fire while dying of an arrow to the back. Next thing
you know Dudikoff is on the roof of the house holding the kid - and the bad
guys shoot him with an arrow. He falls on top of the kid, rolls off the roof,
lands on the ground on top of the kid again. It's one of those holy shit moments
where you just didn't expect it. But then the kid seems to somehow be unscathed,
so you're relieved. And then the bad guys shoot him. That's cold, man.
So you gotta like a movie like that. But on the other hand this is the best
example I've seen of the tragedy of Steve James. This guy was sidekick to
Dudikoff and Chuck Norris on multiple occasions but was rarely allowed to
shine on his own. And then he died in 1993. He's clearly capable and watching
this movie I can't help but wonder why Dudikoff's character should even be
there. Why does it have to be his white buddy who is an avenging force? Why
couldn't Steve James survive the arrow and fire and do it on his own?
It's weird. It's a movie that is obviously against racism, and allows its
lead black man to be a politician. But it still has to have the white friend
come in to save the day. Not cool.
Still, there's lots of good/goofy shit. One part that made me laugh was when
he was in the town of moonshine-swilling hillbillies and found his sister
enslaved by a drag queen madam in lingerie with no pants. I couldn't figure
out why the rednecks didn't seem to turn their ignorance on the female impersonator.
But then, right before Dudikoff knocks the guy through a window, he pulls
off his wig for no reason. I think the movie is worried that you think it's
really a woman, and that you would be mad at Dudikoff for hitting a woman.
That's my only guess.
To be fair there is a precedent
for small town rednecks not being able to spot a man in drag. For example
in TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING SIGNED YOUR FRIEND JULIE NEWMAR the
late Chris Penn played an asshole sherriff who pulls over Patrick Swayze and
sexually harasses him. And really believes he's a woman. I mean Patrick gave
a great performance and everything but I think in a more urban area people
would know what the deal was there, they would not fall for it like Chris
Penn did.
But back to AVENGING FORCE. The fights are pretty good. Even though Dudikoff
was a model, not a martial artist, he seems fairly convincing with all the
swords and knives and shit, and I approve of movies that use lots of crossbows.
It's kind of funny though - there are three fights in a row that take place
in a foot of swamp water. I guess they ran out of interesting locations after
they shot the parade scene.
AVENGING FORCE isn't a great action movie but it's one with enough weird twists
to stand out from the rest. If you're into the Cannon white ninja movies or
hate racist bowhunters in Halloween masks then it is worth seeing.
5/23/08
THE AVIATOR
In this new
movie from Martin Scorsese (THE KING OF COMEDY), Scorsese's young companion
Leonardo Dicaprio plays an aviator. I was surprised to find that it was not
just any aviator he was playing, it was actually Howard Hughes, the famous
rich guy who peed in jars, wore kleenex boxes for shoes, etc. It turns out
he not only grew his fingernails long and made a giant plane, he also was
a movie director and producer. Which is probaly why Scorsese is interested
in him.
After a brief
origin story (explaining how a childhood incident led to his obsessive compulsive
powers) the movie starts out with young rich boy Hughes, having inherited
his parents's drillbit company, making the world war one flying ace movie
HELL'S ANGELS. He actually bought "the world's largest private air force"
and after years of disastrous (3 fatalities, 3 million dollars spent) shooting
made a movie with the most spectacular aerial scenes ever produced (I guess.
I haven't really seen it. I am a phoney). THE AVIATOR gets alot of entertainment
mileage out of portraying him as this crazy rich boy with a vision. Everybody
thinks he's nuts including his right hand man John C. Reilly. But he's gonna
spend his money how he wants to and he's gonna make a god damn movie. This
part of the movie I was thinking it reminded me a little bit of that movie
where Johnny Depp plays Ed Wood. Then all the sudden Howard goes to ask a
favor from Mr. Mayer of MGM... and it's the same fuckin guy that Ed Wood tried
to get a movie deal from! Same exact dude. Plus both movies have a score by
Howard Shore. It's like all the stars are lining up or something. There is
no significance to it though in my opinion. Let's get off of this tangent
I guess.
Anyway there
are some amazing digitally enhanced shots of DiCaprio flying through the air
in a plane, holding a movie camera, waving his arms around to direct the swarms
of dogfighters swooping all around him. It really makes Howard Hughes seem
like a mad genius and then you start to wonder - how the fuck did the director
of MEAN STREETS and RAGING BULL end up bowing at the altar of the godfather
of the hulking, soul-less Hollywood spectacle? I know I know, independent
maverick filmmaker, etc., but still the whole point of HELL'S ANGELES is its
HUGENESS and the seeming impossibility of making a movie like that. It can't
be about the characters since they recast the lead after a couple years of
filming. So why is Scorsese so fond of this?
Then there
is a scene in the Coconut Grove restaraunt, with a big band playing, hundreds
of extras dining and dancing, and a big fancy crane shot as Jude Law playing
Errol Flynn gets in a stagey Hollywood restaraunt brawl. And then I realized
oh yeah, because that's what Scorsese makes now is big, fancy, expensive,
detailed historical epic spectacles. But he makes 'em damn good.
I'll be honest,
I don't really know what all to say about a movie like this, except that it's
good. I mean it better fuckin be, they put this much work into a movie, and
in this case it is. It gets you real involved in the character and rooting
for him and only later trying to figure out what he symbolizes. I am one of
the rare American individuals who is neutral on Leo D'Caprio. I don't hate
him like most men do but I don't like everything he does. But I will say that
this is probaly his most impressive performance. He makes this bottle-pee-er
charming at times but also very haunted and weird. Most of the movie he's
got these scary hungry like the wolf eyes, he looks like Benicio of the Bull.
I really like the way they portray his weird interactions with other people.
He is in this world of rich CEOs and Hollywood heartthrobs, but he has no
social skills. And they gotta put up with it because he's rich and famous.
He has these conversations where he gives one word answers or seems like he
doesn't even know anybody is talking to him. And that's before he starts going
nuts and repeating the same phrases over and over.
And they don't
hammer on the obsessive compulsive thing too hard, at least not in the dialogue.
It's almost all shown visually. He doesn't talk about that he has a special
fork for measuring the size of his pees, they just show it sitting there.
And then you see the look on his face when that fucking mustachioed slob Errol
Flynn has the nerve to put his grubby swashbuckler mitts on Howard's god damn
dinner plate. Ruining everything. Thanks alot Errol Flynn, you asshole.
And they don't
have him say, "Katherine Hepburn, you mean so much to me that I will drink
out of the same milk bottle as you, despite my crippling paranoid fear of
germs." They just show him doing it and let you do the math. Not bad.
One small
problem I had with the movie though was Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn,
who is his girlfriend for most of the movie. Most people seem to like her
performance and she probaly has a good shot at an Oscar for it but I thought
she was a little over the top at times. When they introduce her she goes golfing
with Howard and she's just obnoxious, spitting out a hundred wacky Hepburnisms
in a row, never pausing to breathe or let the audience hang themselves. To
bring this back to the Ed Wood movie, that one had the guy from MISSION=IMPOSSIBLE
playing Bela Lugosi, and he made it both a good celebrity imitation and a
sad, beautiful character. This one leans more toward the caricature side.
Later on she calms down a bit and seems more like a genuine person, but I
couldn't forget the golf scene. I would never want to be around this horrible,
annoying person. I don't care if she's Katherine god damn Hepburn, she should
go back to her hippie commune family and leave this poor nutball alone. The
guy is disabled, he doesn't need this kind of torment.
By the way
I just learned that Audrey Hepburn and Katherine Hepburn were not related.
Ain't that a bitch. How the fuck did that happen? And why doesn't anybody
tell me these things? Well anyway I woulda rather went golfing with Audrey
judging from this movie.
Anyway if
I had to guess why the movie works (and since I'm reviewing it I sort of do
have to) it would be because it's got the HOLLYWOOD BIOPIC deal (adventurous
shooting, cool vintage movie posters, celebrity lookalike cameos, glamorous
premieres) combined with the REBELLIOUS MAVERICK BIOPIC deal (doing the impossible,
Taking On the System, testifying to congress) but then instead of the usual
tragic degeneration into addiction, they have the more interesting degeneration
into madness. Sitting naked in a room, rocking a John Walker, or at least
a ruggedly handsome Ewan McGregor as Obi Wan look. I mean I've seen that drug
addiction crap a million times, but I have only seen a handful of movies where
a guy lines up about a hundred bottles of pee.
BUT THAT'S
NOT ALL! This guy is not just the bottle-pee-er, he's THE AVIATOR so you also
got several thrilling flight scenes including a horrible crash where he crawls
out covered in blood, screaming in pain, actually on fire. Now that's what
I want to see in a fuckin Leon De Caprio movie! Pleasing to both men and women.
Everybody loves that shit.
You do have
some of the usual biography movie problems, like having to throw the next
bit of biographical information into the dialogue here and there (Jet engines
are gonna be the future!) But they do it much more smoothly than in something
like FRIDA and because Howard Hughes is such a weirdo it's almost believable.
And I was happy to see that the movie not only didn't try to cover his whole
life, but didn't give us text at the end telling us what happened to who and
that he died in 1976 of heart failure, etc. They do kind of cheat though I
think, I don't think he really locked himself in a room until he was much
older, and then he pretty much stayed there for 20 years. But I don't really
know what I'm talking about so maybe I'm wrong. I guess it's possible they
were even leaving it open for a sequel so 30 years from now DiCaprio can do
another one where he is locked in a hotel for 20 years growing his fingernails
out.
I wonder if
anybody will do a biopic of that dude from the Guiness Book, the photographer
with the long curly fingernails on one hand. Maybe he was an unrecognized
genius, I bet. Somebody look into that.
Anyway this
is not my favorite type of movie, but of this type it is topnotch. I think
maybe the climax of GANGS OF NEW YORK was a little more satisfying to me personally,
but this one was more involving and entertaining overall. Mainly because although
I thought Del Caprio did a pretty good job in the GANGS one, he is much more
appropriate for the role. More convincing. And I noticed that not having any
U2 music thrown in there seemed to help. Real good music on this one, actually.
I walked out
with a strong feeling that DiCaprio would get best actor and the movie would
dominate all the other Oscars. That's not saying much though because I think
it's been a pretty weak year, this type of historic spectacle is the type
of shit the Oscars always eat up, and I'm usually wrong about this shit anyway
so by my track record it might not even get nominated. Still I gotta say,
it was a real good movie so if it wins I will not throw anything at the television,
in my opinion.