When you get two Oscar nominations for best director in the same year (for Erin Brockovich and Traffic) and you're at the commercial peak of your career, what do you do for a followup?
I think Steven Soderbergh has the right answer. Two Oscar nominations is nothing to commit suicide over. Sure it's embarassing, but it's not the end of the world. After all it was only one year earlier that his picture The Limey won Best Picture, Musical Comedy or Badass in the 1999 Outlaw Awards, and that magic could not be entirely faded. So Soderbergh packed up the political pretensions, left them out on the porch in a box marked for the retard center, and went and made a casino heist movie.
Storywise, Ocean's 11 is pretty standard. Pretty much what you'd expect from an ensemble caper picture. You start out with A) the introduction of characters, also known as the Cavalcade of Robbery All-Stars. You know, you start out in one city where George Clooney gets out of prison, then you zip over to LA where 1999 Outlaw Award Winner Tyler Durden is busy teaching teen actors how to play cards. And zip zip zip as you whoosh around to the different cities to meet different colorful characters with their specialties (explosives, pickpocketing, circus, etc.) George Clooney is Daniel Ocean and then you need ten others to be the eleven, so you go and introduce those people.
At the conclusion of Section A you get Section B, the Brian De Palma's Mission:Impossible maneuver, which is where you get a lot of diagrams and speeches about how impossible the security system is, how many lasers, how many high tech identification devices and what not, and you (the audience) get to enjoy waiting to find out how in fuck's name they're gonna get past all this. It's all about anticipation and problem solving.
The rest of the movie pretty much flows from there. A+B=C, the actual robbery, with a side order of D (the conclusion). How will this unfold? Let's watch and find out. This is a much bigger and less thoughtful crime picture than The Limey, closer to the tone of Out of Sight but with more emphasis on gimmicks and surprises and less on characters and relationships. But who cares about that shit anyway, huh? Well I guess in movies it's good but this is a pretty good picture without all that.
What makes this one work is the execution. It's like if you Write a poem - I mean who the fuck cares. I Write poems on the fucking john, it's not a big deal. You don't need to act all high and mighty just because you Wrote a couple of fucking sentences or phrases. (I'm talking to you, Maya Angelou). But then if you get the right person to recite the poem, like a Rudy Ray Moore for example, or a Petey Wheatstraw, then that's what matters. That's what makes the poem fly. You can ask T.S. Eliot, you can ask Ogden Nash, you can ask Edgar A. Poe, you can ask anyone. Most poetry is garbage unless it is read out loud real good. In our opinions. I mean, any of these guys would agree. You just make up a bunch of shit that rhymes, who cares.
This is the same thing. If Ridley Scott or somebody directed this script, it woulda been garbage. Just some boring casino heist crap. But this was directed by a 1999 Outlaw Award Winner. So we're dealing with quality here.
First of all you got top notch Cinematism from top to bottom. The photographical techniquery is brilliant. Somehow these individuals made Las Vegas casinos look beautiful. George Clooney and Brad Pitt are not Badasses, but they are slick tie-wearing cons in the tradition of your Fred Macmurray or your Carey Grant. They look great walking around in front of blurry blobs of color created by cameramatic trickery. The music is danceable, the editing is smooth, the performances are charismatic. Brad Pitt even seems like he knows what he's talking about. There is a small but memorable role by Bernie Mac who we know from The Original Kings of Comedy, Friday, The Player's Club, Get On the Bus, etc. etc. but the rest of the world knows from his tv show, I don't know what it's called. Let's call it The Bernie Mac show.
And then it's in the little touches. Like the scene where the kid from Traffic (playing himself) comes out of a club with George Clooney and Brad Pitt (playing some other dudes). Everybody outside the club screams and mobs the kid, as Clooney and Pitt, two of the most popular hunky dudes in all of hollywood, walk through undisturbed.
Or like the ending. Skip to the next paragraph if you haven't seen it yet. The idea that Julia Roberts would really want to get with him at the end is hard to buy, very hollywood and corny. And then Mr. Soderbergh throws in the shot of the henchmen following them. Somehow it still feels like a sugary sweet ending, even though you fucking know they're all gonna die horrible painful deaths, if not now than somewhere not too far down the line.
I liked this picture alot. Not a masterpiece of Badass Cinema like The Limey, but a good entertainment picture. I found myself wanting more. I'm ready for Ocean's Dirty Dozen.
OCEAN'S 12
OCEAN'S 12 is a sequel to OCEAN'S 11 (the 2001 version [not the movie 2001, I am referring to the year 2001, the year the movie OCEAN'S 11 was made {the remake, not the original, that is why I brought up this year thing originally}]) so this will be the sequel to my review of that movie.
It turns out that the eleven do NOT die horribly as I predicted. But their past (the other movie) does catch up with them, and the sequel is all about them doing various heists in order to pay back the money, plus interest, that they stole the first time around. So that means that Ocean's 11 actually have a net loss across the two pictures. I mean, think about that. That's terrible! What does that say about the current state of doing a job right? You want to do the impossible, so you bring in 11 of the greatest experts from around the world, you pull it off, you win back your ex-wife, and you have a fun time doing it. And your reward is horrendous debt and threat of life and limb. That's how this world rewards you for ambition, talent and dedication.
That's kind of a bummer in a caper movie where you expect each one to be a bigger and better heist. But it's nice to be able to have another ending that's not one of the standard caper movies endings (A: they get away with it and are last seen chilling on a beach somewhere; B: they almost get away but die tragically, probaly ironically.) At the very least this movie will probaly be a big inspiration to those of you with large credit card debts.
As you know from my original O11 review, I was already ready for a sequel. And I always pictured it as a tighter version of 011, maybe a little harder. As much as I enjoyed that movie it was no THE LIMEY or OUT OF SIGHT which are the movies that really told me this Steve Soderbergh was capable of a top notch crime picture. I thought they would follow the same basic formula of Part 11 but with the characters already introduced, they would be able to have a more detailed and realistic look at a heist, maybe some gritty everything-goes-sour type business, who knows. But with the same charismatic cast and bouncy sense of humor and funky David Holmes soundtrack.
The Part 12 they made is pretty different from the one I imagined. It actually doesn't follow the formula of Part 11, except that it starts out by introducing the various players in different cities (this time rounded up by the angry Andy Garcia, not by George Clooney). After that it goes into a complicated plot with multiple heists to cover the debt to Andy Garcia, plus a competition with "The Night Fox," the European Bruce Wayne of cat burglary, and trouble with Brad Pitt's ex-girlfriend, interpol agent Catherine Zeta Jones (The Phantom).
After the first one, they seem confident that they can get away with more. So it gets pretty silly, with scenes that are almost like sketches. Like there's a great scene where Matt Damon tries to sit in with the big boys Clooney and Pitt as they meet with investor Robbie Coltrane, but is confused as they talk in nothing but gibberish. A couple scenes like this and I started to think maybe this was gonna be like Ocean's 11 meets Schizopolis, but then it calmed down a little (unfortunately). Still, it's a sequel that takes itself even less seriously than the original. I mean I don't think the audience I saw it with was ready for the scene where the Night Fox uses improvisational dance to evade the moving motion sensors at the museum. There are some bits in here I could hardly believe I was seeing.
The movie also has the confidence to skip around in the timeline, with a few of the old "you thought this was what happened, but actually this flashback will explain that this is what happened" type maneuvers. Some of them are total cheats, and I'll be god damned if I can figure out why they would do what they did in the movie if what you find out later in a flashback actually happened earlier. But I still liked it. The personality of the movie fits the personality of the characters.
What's best about the movie of course is the cast. I mean I don't know how to say this right, but George Clooney and Brad Pitt in these movies are just real fuckin cool. They're a couple suave smartass dudes who look good in their suits and know how to carry themselves like they know what they're doing. Clooney of course is the more together one, since he's in the title. But Pitt is more memorable because he fucks up more. One of my favorite parts is when he realizes a major fuckup he's made and they freeze frame on the goofy look it puts on his face.
One problem though, obviously, there are so many characters. And then they add a bunch of new characters, so you don't get to see enough of the old ones. Even George Clooney seems like he doesn't get to do all that much. I was hoping we'd get more Bernie Mac this time around, but we got less. He spends most of the movie in jail! There better be plans for a spinoff about what happens while he's in jail, or I'm gonna be pissed. Also we need more of them Mormon brothers. Congratulations to Matt Damon and Julia Roberts for having their roles expanded a little bit, but come on. You guys get movies all the time. Quit hogging the screen.
I guess the one minor character that gets a little more attention is the chinese gymnast, whatsisname. Not that he gets a huge part but it's funny to see what he does with his money (he lives the lifestyle of a multi-platinum rap artist) and he continues his cross-language communication with english speakers, sort of like Chewbacca.
By the way, I have no clue who is included in the 12. Everybody from the first one, plus either Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta Jones, the Night Fox, or Bruce Willis.
Okay, I just
gave away the surprise, but Bruce Willis really does have a cameo. And Julia
Roberts gets to play Tess pretending to be Julia Roberts. I agree that this
kind of postmodern bullshit is old hat, but they do a good job with it. I like
how Tess seems to not be wearing makeup, making her look different from the
"real" Julia Roberts. I'm okay with this part, it has some good laughs. But
I have to say I was very disappointed to find out that Bruce was a fucking
snitch. I guess that's what you get idolizing a fuckin republican.My favorite aspect of the movie by far is the music by David Holmes. This is one bad motherfuckin score. I'm not ready to decide if he's topped his OUT OF SIGHT score, but this thing's got some scorching beats (lots of congas) and blasts of '70s soul horns. And then it goes into this psychedelic hippie rock vibe. Pick up the soundtrack album and put it on track 10 - HOLY SHIT. It sounds like the baddest fuckin blaxploitation opening credits sequence of all time. I wanna hear that shit next time I'm strutting down the street in slow motion. Then there's other parts, I played it to a guy, he says "it sounds like Klaus Kinski should be riding in on a horse right about now." I mean this is good stuff.
Well this wraps up the sequel. Not a bad review I hope, in some ways better than the review of the original although in other ways not quite as satisfying. it would be nice to come revisit this review in a couple years for Ocean's Lucky 13 or Ocean's 3-D whatever it would be.
OCEAN'S 13
It seemed like most of the world hated OCEAN'S 12. I always figured it was because it was too strange, but people say it was just too self-indulgent, they get mad watching all those guys having fun together and being cool. Which is weird because if that's the case I'm not sure why they liked the first one. I mean what else are they supposed to do? Not have fun and wear cheap suits?
Anyway I felt lucky they were making a part 13, like they were doing it just for me and the elite few who still give a shit. But I was mistaken - actually they were making this for the other guys to make up for part 12. This is the same shit but dialed back a little, so they are having a little less fun and are not quite as cool because Matt Damon wears a fake nose in one part. It's Steve Soderbergh's most mainstream movie since ERIN BROCKOVICH, but not even as satisfying as that since it's sequel number two and there's no surprise factor at all. And you get a little sick of all their con man lingo and code words. For example, faking an earthquake is "an Irwin Allen." I'm not sure what the name would be for making a fun but forgettable part 3, since most part 3s are widely hated except for Lord of the Rings or if it's in 3-D. And they are in the problem of being a part 3 only I asked for (see the end of OCEAN'S 12 review above).
I guess the mainstream have forgiven them though, or are willing to give them a second chance at a sequel, because this theater was crowded. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but because of my negative past I live with a curse - I am doomed to always have the most annoying person in the theater sitting directly behind me. It doesn't even matter if it's an empty theater, this guy will walk in during the previews, scope the place out and decide that the perfect seat is directly behind me. In this case he was a middle aged dude with his adult son, a guy who doesn't see very many movies. Throughout the movie he asked his son questions such as "What did he say?" and "I don't get it" and "Who's that guy?" and "I don't get it - is he supposed to be gay?" But at the end he seemed happy with it. So congratulations people, you have your Oceans back.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this movie too. But this is the last gas in the tank, this one's all burned out. They couldn't repeat the same structure so this time the plot is not planning a heist or series of heists, they plan a series of tricks to rig Al Pacino (new asshole character)'s casino so that gamblers (not even them, but random gamblers) will win all his money. With this story there is no discipline to it, they spend a ridiculous amount of the front end just standing around talking about what they're gonna do, because there is so much more to explain than if it was one heist. And there is no tension at all because at this point they are super heroes, there is nothing that will cause them to even break a sweat. Problems come up but they secretly already knew it was gonna come up and had the problem outsmarted, or if they didn't already see it coming they are able to figure out an alternate plan and set it into motion within a minute or two of screen time.
Which is fine, but all I'm saying is this is not a real heist movie, or a serious crime picture. The first one wasn't exactly either, but it had a realistic element of danger to it. Remember those thugs following them at the end? There are no serious threats like that here, it's more of a cartoon. Instead of "Oh shit, is this gonna work?" you ask "What will they do next! Ha ha!" and although it's usually funny there is alot of pretty obvious type of funny. We are talking funny fake mustaches more than actual cleverness.
But it's fun to see these characters again and find out what wacky shenanigans they're up to this time. The Ocean's Ladies do not return ("It's not their fight" Clooney says at the beginning) but everybody else is here, even a small appearance by The Night Fox. There is also a small element of loyalty and a code of honor at the core of the story, since they are doing this all to avenge Al Pacino for ripping off their buddy Reuben (Elliot Gould). And they all take it very personally. So that helps it go down better. Also, the funniest trick in the movie - not really a twist, just a joke - is at the end, so I couldn't help but leave with a smile on my face.
And of course David Holmes is back and has made another great score. This time there's not much '70s feel, it goes further back. I still listen to that OCEAN'S 12 CD all the time, it's all over the place like the movie is. This is one is more consistent to the point where I can forget what I'm listening to and think it's actually the score from an old movie. But really it just came out. I was tricked.
Also you get more of that Soderbergh camera experimentation. It is not as stylistically playful as the second one or as elegant as the first one, but it has some good stuff in it. I don't know if it was shot digitally or they just messed with it afterwards, but there is some great tweaking of colors. There's a shot near the beginning of Brad Pitt walking toward an airplane, and you just see his head with a dark sky behind it but the sky is such a bizarre color of blue it looks psychedelic. I was also impressed by what appeared to be a normal helicopter shot but featured a non-existent building in the middle of the real Las Vegas. Not sure how they did that one.
If you like these movies you should see it, but don't expect it to change your life. We all know Soderbergh is capable of more, so I hope he figures out another way to do successful mainstream pay-the-bills movies that are on par with his this-one's-for-me movies quality-wise. I would especially love if he could figure out some way to do a little more serious crime movie with Clooney and Holmes. Or if not, at least let Holmes keep making soundtracks for non-existent Ocean's sequels.
THE OLD DARK HOUSE
As you know I like to watch the classics but the only way to tell for sure if it is a classic is based on what channel it is on. This one was on American Movie Classics so that's how I know. If it was on TBS or especially USA that would be another story. Anyway it is an old one from James Whale the director of Frankenstein.
Boris Karloff from the Frankenstein gets top billing but let's be honest here, he's playing a mute butler for christ's sake. This is not a starring role it is strictly a gimp role in my opinion. I mean I know for a fact the man can talk, and can talk well. But you wouldn't know it the way he's typecasted in some of these pictures. Here he's just a big oafish brute who gets drunk and tries to grab the pretty ladies. He looks like they left the Frankenstein makeup on him and pasted a beard over it the poor bastard.
Charles Laughton the famous hunchback is also in it playing a jolly gay guy (and by gay I do not mean jolly, that would be stupid to say that, it would be like he plays a jolly jolly guy. What I mean is he is gay or homosexual). Gloria Stuart is one of the two pretty young gals in the picture. She strips down to her antique undies at one point so if you liked her in the titanic movie, get ready to hit pause.
Anyway this is the story where there is a bad storm and two groups of travelers stuck in a landslide go to this old dark house (see, remember, that is the title of the film, the old dark house) to ask for shelter for the night. They are all friendly and jolly and jokey and a couple of them even shack up and give each other foot rubs but it takes them a minute to realize this family that owns the place is a bunch of crazy bastards. And it will become more clear as the night goes on and they start setting things on fire and what not.
Now according to the AMC this is a "tongue in cheek classic" which in my opinion means a comedy. I understand the more recent comedy such as Mr. Richard Pryor (genius) but to be honest I don't get some of the older comedies, I don't know when you're supposed to laugh. So I was kind of concerned about this one.
At first I tried to laugh at pretty much anything but I think I was doing it wrong. By the end I started to get the hang of it though and I knew the right parts to laugh. The funniest part is when the lights go out and one of the guests asks if the family has a lamp. I mean all he wants is a damn lamp but these people keep acting all nervous, making excuses. Halfway up the stairs and "Well, let's not get the lamp. Nah, no, we shouldn't do it if we don't want to. We don't need a lamp."
Well upstairs the guests meet more of the family and there is some crazy shit. The patriarch of the family is Sir Roderick Thorpe, an old lady with a long beard who laughs as "he" explains that her pyromaniac son Saul is locked up in the attic and is liable to escape at any moment and burn down the house. Then when you meet Saul he is crazy too, he is a little dude that talks like Droopy dog on speed. At first it seems like he's harmless and not really the psycho his mom made him out to be but then he starts asking freaky ass shit like, "Are you interested in flame?"
Eventually the dude goes nuts, hits a guy on the head with a stick, sets everything on fire etc. There is a big struggle and a man almost dies but everything turns out okay. And then the next day the host Horace comes downstairs and tells the guests "Good morning" as if nothing ever happened. Yeah, you tell yourself that buddy. We're not coming back for Christmas that's for damn sure.
I'm not sure why but the other day I decided it was time to start The Great Asian Catch-Up Binge of 2005. You know how it is, some movie like HERO or something comes out in Asia, plays some big film festivals in the west, makes a big stir, comes out on region coded DVD and bootlegs, everybody goes nuts, I don't get around to watching it, then it gets shelved by Miramax for a couple years, almost comes out cut and dubbed with a new soundtrack by R. Kelly, they change the title to MAXIMUM FORCE or something, then at the last second they change their mind and do an actual theatrical release, and a couple months later if it's still playing that might be when I finally see it. But usually not.
Well people have been going ape shit for movies from pretty much every Asian country over these last couple years. I'm sure alot of them are good but I just can't keep up. So what I have decided to do, I am going to try to watch some of the ones people just won't shut their god damn yaps about. Get it over with so I know what they're talking about. I'm planning to watch ICHI THE KILLER from Japan and the INFERNAL AFFAIRS trilogy from Hong Kong. But in honor of the six party talks with North Korea going on right now I'm going to start with Korea and that movie OLDBOY that everybody couldn't stop talking about a year or two ago and then moved on leaving me in the dust. It finally came out on American DVD, so I rented the old region 3 import version.
No, this is not the red guy with the giant hand. THat's Hellboy that's a different movie.
After all the hoopla, somehow I managed to not even know what this one was about. the cover of the american version makes it sound like this guy just got out of prison and is gonna get revenge. A story we can all relate to. However it turns out to be something more surreal. This guy was kidnapped and locked up in what looks like a hotel room. He didn't know why or who or how long he was gonna be there. Turned out to be 15 years. Sometimes they would do weird shit to him. They would gas him to make him go to sleep and sometimes he'd wake up with a haircut or he'd get hypnotized. He planned his escape and then right before pulling it off they just let him out without explanation.
By the way the guy's name is Oh Daesu or something like that but let's call him Oldboy. Detective John Oldboy. So Oldboy gets out and yes, there is some revenge but first of all it's a mystery where he has to find out who in fuck's name did this to him and then when he does he has to figure out why. And also, why they let him out. Oh shit. Bad things could happen in my opinion.
In a weird way this reminds me of the great Dave Fincher picture THE GAME. The tone is totally different, but it has a similar paranoia and a world where these elaborate conspiracies can take place. Later there is a really great and ridiculous twist (actually way more preposterous and fucked up than what happens in THE GAME). This is from Korea though so it's much more sadistic than most americans would do. There's alot of torture, more mental than physical.
Well, physical too though. I guess the most famous thing about this movie is the way John Oldboy uses a claw hammer. To give you a hint, it is not for removing nails. Definitely the highlight of the movie is an elaborate scene where, in one long take, he fights through a hallway of gangsters using a hammer. About halfway through the crowd he falls down and when he gets back up he doesn't have the hammer but he has a knife sticking out of his back.
I think maybe even better than this whole scene though is one little moment earlier, where he walks into the office of the guy who watches over the hotel/prison. Oldboy holds up the hammer. Then there is a freeze frame and a red dotted line is drawn from the nail remover end of the hammer to the head of the sorry motherfucker that's about to feel its wrath. And that's all you need, they don't need to show it. (Don't worry though, you'll get your horrible hammer violence later.)
It's actually a very sad movie. Most of it's not fun. But I liked the part where he was sitting in his cell staring at three chopsticks and said, "All I can figure is the guy next door must be eating with one chopstick."
This is a stylishly shot and original movie. A good combination of exaggerated colors and silly comic book logic with realistic documentary type techniques like jumpcuts and what not. And the guy that plays Oldboy is really good, lots of good deadpan looks. I liked it alot. At the same time I'm not sure I do understand why this is the one that caught on so big. I guess maybe the hammer is all. Anyway I'm not saying it's overrated though. I'm glad I caught up with it and that when I did it was still called OLDBOY and not HOTEL VENGEANCE.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO
When last we saw the Mariachi, he had killed his drug dealer brother to avenge his lover's death and the career-ending injury of his hand. He had found a new love (Carolina) and had indirectly caused the shooting of a little boy he had given guitar lessons to. He decided to give up violence, but only a little bit, so he kept his guitar case full of weapons "just in case."
When we see him again in ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO he has become even more mythical than before. Instead of having to send Steve Buscemi to bars to make up stories about him, the bartenders themselves tell the stories. His hand has healed so he can play guitar better than ever, in fact he likes to just walk around playing guitar even when people are trying to kill him. Robert Rodriguez knows how to make a hand made guitar look like the most beautiful thing in the world, so it's good that the Mariachi is hiding out in a town of guitar makers who like him to test their creations.
In DESPERADO, Mr. Rodriguez really fucked around with the conventions of sequels and action storytelling. He put a large gap between DESPERADO and EL MARIACHI where we the viewers had to imagine how this guy went from a regular dude to Antonio fucking Banderas, how Steve Buscemi became like a brother to him, and how he picked up these other badass mariachi friends who will give their lives for him and fire rockets out of their guitar cases.
And remember how Rodriguez made a subplot about one of the villain's henchmen? You see this babyfaced guy's initiation into the family, where he proves himself by spinkicking a guy AFTER having his leg broken. You feel a connection to this guy and you know that you're following him for a reason... but you're wrong! He just gets an unspectacular death by bullet like any nameless, faceless thug. You never know what to expect.
In ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO there's an even bigger gap between the movies. So much has happened that there are flashbacks back to what happened since DESPERADO. I think Rodriguez is pretending this is Mariachi 4 and it is following up on the loose ends from part 3 (Mariachi 3-D). So the Mariachi breaks a vow that is probaly from part 3 and not part 2. He avenges a couple deaths from part 3. Maybe in part 3 we saw where he met these two more gunfighter mariachis who help him out.
That is one of the reasons I love these movies. They take place in a world where if you are a gunfighter mariachi, you will be able to hook up with others like you. I wonder if in DESPERADO those stories everybody heard about the guy with the guitar case full of weapons - well we know now that there are at least 5 people like that. Are these stories even about the same guy? Maybe there's a sixth one out there that really is the biggest Mexican you've ever seen.
One of the new mariachis is played by the singer Enrique Iglesias. I have a theory that his character could be the little guitar playing boy from DESPERADO now grown up. That is why he keeps the Mariachi's guitar case full of weapons. There is nothing in the movie to tell you that he is that boy, but there's nothing to prove otherwise. So to me, he is that boy, and you fuckers can't do a thing about it.
There are other connections to the other movies that are undeniable though. Like a CGId up remake of the bus stunt in EL MARIACHI. And a cell phone ring of 'Cancion Del Mariachi', the song from the opening dream sequence in DESPERADO.
Ah shit man, I'll just say it. This is a great fucking movie. Part of me was worried that Rodriguez was gonna let us down. It's been 8 years since DESPERADO and although he's never made a horrible piece of garbage, he hasn't really lived up to my expectations. Back then the guy had the blood of Leone and Woo pumping through his veins, he had Tarantino whispering in his ear and he still came up with this original vision that combined westerns with Mexican music and a cartoon sensibility and turned it all into, you know, whatever excactly DESPERADO is. After that he made movies that were amusing, like the first SPY KIDS, but you go back and watch DESPERADO again and you wonder what ever happened to THAT Robert Rodriguez.
Well turns out he's still in there somewhere. Like the title suggests this one puts the Mariachi (now nicknamed "El... as in 'the'") in a more epic situation. A nutball CIA agent named Sands (John Depp) hires him to kill a general who is planning a coup and who also happened to have ruined his life in the nonexistent part 3. (Man, this is the third fucking asshole that's ruined the Mariachi's life. Leave this fucking guy alone, people.) There is also a drug kingpin who's about to get surgery and a corrupt cop and an FBI agent played by Ruben Blades and Mickey Rourke always holds a chihuaha behind his back out of respect. It's real complicated, it would take too long to go into so I won't explain it.
Well actually also I really didn't understand what all these factions were trying to do exactly. But I don't think that's a bad thing. I was gonna see the movie again anyway. Give me something to look forward to.
Just the shots are more epic though. You definitely see the Leone influence with lots of wide shots, wind blowing, intense closeups of eyes. You see the Mariachi about a football field away playing guitar on top of a building. There's a big riot during a Day of the Dead parade. When El sits down and reminisces about Carolina, his flashback is a big action scene. You know this is a real action movie when the love flashback is a big chase scene with complimentary fiery explosions.
The music is more epic too. Rodriguez has been known to write, direct, edit and camera operate for his movies. Now he adds score composer to the list of credits. (He's also one of the guitarists.) DESPERADO had a great score by Los Lobos. This one adds an orchestra. Also many of the actors were involved in the music - Salma Hayek sings a song, Ruben Blades and Antonio Banderas apparently had some kind of involvement, and Depp recorded the great theme for his character.
If I had one single complaint about this movie, and I say that because I do have one single complaint about this movie, it's that there's not enough Mariachi. Like the man with no name in THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY, the Mariachi has to share the movie with other characters, in this case Depp's character Sands. So although he's still the hero, he doesn't get as much focus as he did in the other two movies. This is not really a weakness of the movie, it's just that I like that character and I've been waiting a long fucking time for this. Why can't you give me a 3 hour movie you bastards.
But the character of Sands is great. I know Mr. Depp hangs out with Marlon Brando alot, and I think he has some of the same kooky genius. Here he plays a CIA agent who wears tacky thrift store t-shirts and unneccessary fake beards and mustaches. He's not your traditional villain. He's a total goofball. There is an abrupt change in the movie where this manipulative CIA asshole gets his, well, I won't give it away but he loses a pair of round organs that are not testacles, that are used for seeing with. They get poked out by a mad bandaged ghoul. So he takes it in stride, he puts on a funny getup and walks around blind trying to shoot people. And suddenly, for no reason at all, we are expected to sympathize with this asshole. And better yet we go, okay man, we'll do it. That blind gunfighter thing, that takes spunk. There is a hint that this character will get his own spinoff movie, and let me just say I am already in line. Well actually I am not physically in line, but I left my coat in line to mark my place. That should count in my opinion.
If you were one of those people who thought DESPERADO was too silly, then you better stay home and hide under your blankets from this one. Except for the mariachi, there is more of almost everything the rest of us want. More violence, more atmosphere, more guitar playing, more guitars, more funny lines. Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo and Tito Larriva all died in DESPERADO, so no problem, this time they play different characters.
I don't know what anybody else will think, but I love this fucking movie. Congratulations Robert Rodriguez on your perfect trilogy. (not spy kids.)
ONE
MAN'S JUSTICE aka ONE
TOUGH BASTARD
from the director of Equilibrium
starring Brian Bosworth
This 1995 Bozploitation vehicle is on the more enjoyable end of the DTV action
pictures I've seen. It's not as awesome as Bosworth's theatrical starring
role STONE COLD, but director Kurt Wimmer's slightly pretentious touch gives
it the feel of an authentic '80s action picture that Seagal or Chuck Norris
might've made. Not the usual unwatchable crap you get on DTV, this is solid
cable level filmatism.
The plot is a variation on a HARD TO KILL type of revenge deal. Bosworth is a drill instructor/hand-to-hand-combat teacher for the Army. Whether or not he will ever find a practical application for these fighting skills is anyone's guess. He's estranged from his wife but planning to work things out, and he has a little blonde daughter. Unfortunately, wife and daughter happen to be at a gas station where an ugly motherfucker named Marcus (Jeff Kober, the same guy who played Beserko in COYOTE MOON) is making a nefarious arms deal. The daughter witnesses the arms deal through the bushes so, under cell phone orders from a mysterious boss (all we see is the hoop ring on his nose) the bad guys massacre everybody at the gas station.
To make it more personal though, the Boz happens to be driving by singing to himself and sees that the police (who of course know him by his first name) are in a standoff at the gas station and he figures out his wife and kid are inside. He walks in unarmed and tries to talk them down, then beat them up. Oh, I get it, that's what the fighting skills are for. He's gonna be fighting in this movie. Pretty slick the way they slid that in there. Anyway despite his skills he ends up slumped over with two bullets in his chest.
Like Seagal in HARD TO KILL he wakes up from a coma. He's one tough bastard, so it's hard to kill him with a mere two bullets to the chest. I think his coma is 8 weeks instead of Seagal's 7 years, and he looks freshly shaven instead of having a Rip Van Winkle beard. His daughter is still alive, but in a coma, and he wakes up just in time to see her die.
Earlier we saw him at work imitating R. Lee Ermey, but now apparently he's on mourning/coma leave, so he doesn't have to go to work and instead dedicates all his time to revenge. He remembers that the shooter had a bat tattoo on his neck, so he goes to every tattoo parlor in town and asks questions. (There are alot of montages in this movie, by the way.) On the trail to one man's justice he meets a 12 year old drug courier named Mikey. Mikey's a tough talking little kid who carries a piece and Marcus trusts him to carry an entire kilo bag of cocaine in his backpack. Actually it turns out to be rat poison (looks like powdered sugar to me) but still, it seems like he has made it high up the totem pole for a kid that young. The Doogie Howser of the drug game.
This seems to be a Wimmer touch, trying to show how bad the world is by making such a tiny little kid one of the main criminal characters and treating him almost like an adult. They might've gotten the idea from the movie FRESH, also about a young drug courier. But this kid reminds me a little more of Gary Coleman. Always saying adorably precocious things and pouting. While FRESH had a gritty and pretty believable look at ghetto drug dealers, this one takes place in a crazy multi-cultural movie world. In a montage that shows how Mikey has his ear to the streets and is able to spread a rumor for the Boz, he goes around giving pounds to mostly dorky white and Asian guys. One part he's talking to two white guys, one tall skinny guy with round sunglasses and a beefy, sloppy guy with a goatee and backwards baseball cap. For a minute I was convinced this was a pre-MATRIX Wachowski Brothers cameo, but if that was true I'm sure someone else would've picked up on it by now.
There are two other main villains besides Marcus. There's the drug lord Dexter Kane, played by MC Hammer (credited just as Hammer). He probaly filmed his whole role in an afternoon, but it's cool because he gets to act tough and say 'fuck' once or twice, a good afternoon for a reverend. Then the main guy (the nose ring guy on the phone) is Bruce Payne as Agent Savak. This guy is a funny villain because he's supposed to be an FBI agent but he has long hair and the nose ring. He always talks sarcastic-evil, drifting between some kind of Chicago and English accents. You know what he looks like -- imagine Vinnie Jones playing Michael Bolton in a VH1 biopic. In fact, alot of the bad guys in this movie look like they could be the ugly bass player for some shitty metal band from the '80s. And there's a rival gang with some kind of hippie leader who looks alot like Carrot Top.
The action is okay. Boz does lots of kicking and punching and flipping people over. Because he was in the NFL he gets to ram a guy through a wall. He kind of fights like a pro-wrestler with a little bit of martial arts training. Also he gets to do some running. I think there was a part where he kicks a guy in the balls but I can't remember for sure. If so he should've said "field goal!" Sort of in the tradition of DOUBLE TEAM, where Dennis Rodman makes random basketball references.
There is one exploding car in the movie, but not a car crash. Actually it's better. Savak lights the end of a gas nozzle on fire and then uses it as a blowtorch. Before he lets 'er rip his oneliner is, "How does Webster define 'inferno'?" This guy is a nut.
There's also alot of child endangerment in the movie. Mostly Mikey, who he gets involved in a fight with drug dealers, arms smugglers and corrupt federal agents. Then he talks to Mikey's mom and doesn't tell her anything about what's going on. As a father himself you'd think he'd want her to know. But you know, even in the opening credits when his daughter is still alive he leaves her standing on the edge of a cliff with a stopwatch while he runs. If she had fallen off the cliff who would he have gotten revenge on then? Gravity? The rocks below? Man's hubris?
During his quest for revenge Boz realizes that he's setting a bad example for Mikey, who also wants revenge for the death of his friend. So in front of Mikey he makes a point of not taking the chance to shoot Marcus in the head, and what that gets him is handcuffed by Savak, beat up and thrown in jail on bogus charges. Mikey also watches as Savak and his men decide to leave the Boz alive, which will of course turn out to be a bad decision too. So right there are two concrete examples to show Mikey why he should go ahead and exact savage vengeance (or One Boy's Justice).
Don't worry though, Savak does end up dying and this is a definite highlight. It's one of those slo-motion falling off a building deaths in the tradition of Hans Grueber. But Wimmer takes it to the next level by drawing it out longer than expected and showing it from multiple angles. The best is two businessmen smiling and joking with each other on their lunch break as this dipshit plummets in the background. Instead of the usual "landing on a car and smashing it, Wimmer has him fall through a glass ceiling into a yuppie cafe, where he lands on a piano and smashes it. There's also a good shot of his blood pouring out over sheet music.
Like Seagal's pictures do occasionally, this one has an odd use of animal sound effects. When he's about to (almost) kill the man who murdered his family, you hear a hawk sound effect, along with some lines of dialogue from earlier in the movie. This makes sense because in the opening he pointed out a hawk to his daughter. But then there is the sound of a tiger growling. There was no tiger earlier in the movie. At least, not literally. I don't know what the fuck that's about.
IMDb lists "ONE TOUGH BASTARD" as the title of the movie, so hopefully it was released under that title somewhere in the world. In the US it's ONE MAN'S JUSTICE and the cover just shows Bosworth's face and gun with an American flag background. (Not sure what the stars and stripes have to do with any of this.) If that's the original title it's a shame they didn't keep it, it's actually the main reason I wanted to see the movie. Also, I'm sorry to report that nobody ever refers to him as "one tough bastard" in the movie, even though he is one. I guess some things you gotta depict visually, not explain everything in dialogue.
ONG-BAK (aka MUAY THAI WARRIOR)
You see, there's this small town in Thailand somewhere (possibly called Ong-Bak, unless that is only the name of the buddha statue there, but the subtitles led me to believe it was the name of both). Anyway, there's a young man there named Ting (played by Tony Jaa) who is working hard to prove himself as a master of Muay Thai Kickboxing, or Thai Fist. That's quite enough bullshit for a young man to have on his mind but then some other asshole has to sneak in and cut off the head of their buddha statue so he can sell it. All the old ladies start crying that the town is not protected anymore so before you know it this little old country boy is headed for big bad Bangkok to get the shit back.
He teams up with Dirty Balls, a smalltime fuckup he thinks he knows from back in the day. This guy is a likable doofus who looks a little too old to be wearing hoop earrings and camoflauge pants, but what can you do. Also some teenage girl who rides motorcycles and cheats at cards, has a junkie sister, etc. I'm not sure what she contributes to the team other than scenes where people die, she cries and screams out how upset she is. Anyway they track the asshole with the head, get in some fights and chases and all that kind of business. There is this club that is kind of like a cross between Coyote Ugly and Fight Club. The sexy bartenders are all dancing and smiling and everybody's enjoying themselves, but right in the middle of the floor there are brutal kickboxing matches going on and everybody's betting on it. Of course, Ting accidentally gets involved and knocks out the champion with a single blow. (Bitch.)
I don't want to say more because I don't want to give away the story. It would be a shame not to be able to go into this thing fresh, because the real delight is in all the sly narrative twists and turns and-- No, I'm just jerkin your chain. There's nothing to give away. The story is just an excuse to string together a series of badass fight scenes and stunt sequences. And that's a good thing.
I mean when was the last time you saw a really impressive FIGHT movie? Where the plot and characters were about as imaginative as a drive to work, but nobody ever cared because the fights were so god damned great? Bruce Lee mastered these movies, Sonny Chiba made some, Jet Li and Jackie Chan used to make them all the time. Did you really care if Jackie caught the bad guys in Rumble in the Bronx, or did you just want to see him jumping through shopping carts and pinball machines and swinging around pool cues and shit? That's right the answer is B. This is that type of movie, although I also gotta say that it is a tiny bit less cheesy, the bad guys are a little less corny (except for a couple of those token english speaking kiwi cheeseballs), and thankfully it is not shot in Vancouver. It's slicker. A little bit. But not in a bad way.
But that's irrelevant. What matters is the fights, and these are real good ones. This is a style of fighting I have not seen in movies before. We've all gotten used to people dancing around on wires and doing all that flying kung fu shit, and sure that stuff is enjoyable when they do it right. This is the exact opposite though. There are no wires and no computers. This stuff is not elegant. This stuff is hard. It's all about quick, powerful, jerking movements. If kung fu is like swinging a sword, this is like swinging a sledge hammer. It just looks painful. Sure, there's a lot of flipping and jumping, but there's no flitting around trying to be quiet and nimble. This stuff is about WHAM and WHACK. It's blunt. They use their elbows and their knees. One of the fights is ended when Ting stands on a guy's shoulders and smashes his skull open with an elbow. Ouch.
There's a couple broken bones and windows, so Seagal would be proud.
In between the fights there's a little bit of plot, and in between the plot there are chases. One of them involves about 15 or 20 three-wheeled taxis. Because of their inferior design, almost all of them flip over immediately. Others end up driving off one of those pesky unfinished freeway overpass motherfuckers always leave open to traffic in the movies. I'm not a libelous person but man there ought to be a major class action lawsuit going on here in my opinion.
Maybe the best scene in the whole movie though is early on when a bunch of angry thugs chase Ting through an outdoor market. This is just an excuse for him to jump over and through things, sometimes doing the splits, other times curling himself into a ball or an arrow or some other flying object. He jumps over a crowd of kids, a rack of sharp objects, a pan of frying chicken. He somersaults on top of roofs and slides under SUVS and best of all leaps through a roll of barbed wire. And as far as you can tell, he really did that shit. (Though he doesn't rewind it and announce that, like Dolemite did in The Human Tornado.) It's the kind of rush you used to get from Jackie Chan movies before Hollywood fucked Jackie's brain with its evil alien genitalia and impregnated his brain with the filthy seed of mediocrity and laziness. Bastards.
I'm not saying that the other styles of martial arts movies are no longer valid. But I think most of us agree that the genre is becoming stale, with too much emphasis on special effects and pretty boy pop stars, and not enough on good old fashioned elbow grease and jawdropping physical feats. This is a good step in the other direction so hooray for Tony Jaa and the people of Thailand.
THE OPPORTUNISTS
What I like about this low key independent crime picture from 2000 is it's small time in every way. I mean it's got Chris Walken in the lead and he's a big movie star, but everything about the story and characters goes against Hollywood's idea of what's exciting. The story is your usual "ex-con gone straight is running out of options and has to do one last score to survive" type deal but put in a more realistic, unglamorous, ungritty context. This is an unthriller.
Walken lives in suburban New York. I don't remember ever seeing big buildings in this one. Here he's a nice guy, almost timid, definitely not the King of New York. You could argue he's a player because he goes between three places: a house with his grown up daughter, a tiny apartment above his girlfriend's bar, and a trailer by the garage he rents out. But he's embarassed of his past and never tries to be a tough guy about it. He's a mechanic but he doesn't seem to get much work and on this day doesn't get the money because he fucked up the job.
His aunt is in a catholic retirement home, but his check just bounced and they're threatening to move her to a hospital. He's behind on his rent, gonna get kicked out of his garage. Some Irish kid just showed up claiming to be his cousin. And Donal Logue from BLADE bugs him for half the movie until he finally gives in to do a safecracking job.
So we got the always enjoyable planning sequences, like Walken practicing on dummy safes until he cracks it fast enough to beat the alarm on the real thing. But like I said, the whole thing is small time. One of the fingers is a little league coach, and their first meeting is on lawn chairs during a game. There are no guns in this movie at all. There are no mafia guys. Definitely no car chases. There are cops putting on the pressure, but not for the reasons you think. One wants his car fixed, the other wants to buy a VCR from Donal Logue. This is one of them spoilers, but when they finally get into the safe all they get is one bag full of ones. And they don't seem disappointed.
Cyndi Lauper plays the girlfriend, and I know what you're thinking. Is she really Captain Lou Albano's daughter or was that just in her videos. Well I looked it up and it turns out her and Captain Lou were just friends. But it's a good question so I'm glad you asked. Also she has regular one colored hair in this movie. She's actually real good as the disappointed loved one who Walken oughta just straighten up and do right by, but doesn't. The other people in his life seem to be used to him being a fuckup, and don't say much about being disappointed. But you can see it in their eyes.
I guess the reason it's the opportunists is because the other criminals wait for the opportunity to work with a good safecracker, when he has run out of money. Don't worry, the gang doesn't call themselves The Opportunists or nothing. It's not that good of a title. Don't confuse it with The Harmonists, that was something totally different. Or The Choristes. I think those are both about singing, which is not what this one's about in my opinion.
I guess all the reasons I liked it were all the reasons everybody on the IMDb didn't like it. This is definitely not an action movie and it's not a comedy either, although you gotta laugh occasionally. But if you want to be not thrilled, this is a real good unthriller. I liked this one. Good small time job by small time director Myles Connell, best known as some guy who did an episode of Homicide once.
THE ORDER:
FROM CREMASTER PART 3
directed by Matthew Barney
written by Matthew Barney
based on characters created by Matthew Barney
starring Matthew Barney, Agnostic Front, Murphy's Law
and introducing Matthew Barney
produced by Matthew Barney
Matthew Barney Matthew Barney Matthew Barney
Synopsis: In this third installment in the popular slasher series, some guy wearing a pink kilt with a napkin in his mouth (Matthew Barney) is in a big white room, climbing around on shit. The Rockettes are there and also the bands Agnostic Front and Murphy's Law. But just when things seem to be going well, this lady turns into some kind of half cheetah lady. Will the napkin guy be able to still climb around and shit? Meanwhile, there are some little hammer things that he keeps fondling.
Review: Well there has been alot of talk about the Cremaster franchise which this guy Matt Barney plays in art galleries and he thinks it is not a movie but actually a statue. That is why he refuses to release any of them on dvd except for this half hour excerpt from part 3. Because it is a statue.
Stephen Holden said in the New York Times, "To my eyes, at least, the Cremaster films convey a sense of antic adventure and playfulness that all but vanished from the Star Wars movies beginning with The Phantom Menace." It's true, I was sitting next to him and during the pod race scene he kept mumbling, "this needs more of that Matthew Barney kind of vibe to it."
But Stephen's not the only one. Alot of people go crazy for this series but I guess you would have to see part 1 for the sequels to make sense. Out of context it doesn't even seem like a horror movie, it kind of seems like some pretentious asshole jerking himself off and dressing it up enough to look kind of like art.
Since I've never seen parts 1-2 or the first 3 hours of this movie it is a little hard to follow the plot. I'm not sure who this pink guy is (is he the Cre-Master?) or why he keeps climbing around. Also what is his relationship with the cheetah lady and why did she turn into a cheetah lady? If she bites him will he turn also? I bet there was a scene in part 2 where she goes please Cre-Master, I want you to promise me you will kill me if I start to turn. But he couldn't bare to do it. He would've said no but there was a napkin in his mouth so she thought he said yes. That is why she is so mad. Also because it's annoying that he keeps climbing around. And she still feels betrayed by what the Rockettes did at the end of part 2. (Remember that cliffhanger ending? That was the Empire Strikes Back of the Cremaster saga.)
Also there is no cremation in this one so it seems like it is kind of straying from the roots of the franchise. I guess that happens in alot of part 3s though like how Halloween III doesn't have Michael Meyers in it, it's just about those masks. I wonder why this one isn't in 3-D? If it's a statue it should be 3-D.
This excerpt is way too long at 30 minutes but there is one or two pretty good images in there so with a little work it could probaly be edited down into an above average music video.
SPECIAL FEATURES: The same boring crap replayed on a hundred different angles. I dare the artiest motherfucker in the world to make any sense of the multi-angle chapter deal on this disc. For future reference, this is how multi-angles works: There's two people fuckin, right, and you hit angle. So it changes to a different angle, but they're still fuckin. That's what multi-angle is. It's for porn. It's not for watching the raw footage of your self-obsessed garbage.
Look Matthew Barney, I was polite enough to watch your whole 30 minute climbing thing without pausing or fast forwarding. But I think you read too much into that. I just meant that I was willing to give it a chance. I didn't mean I wanted to watch 10 hours of your raw footage.
It also doesn't mean I want to watch the 3 1/2 hour version of Cremaster 3: Cream Warriors. But since we're on the subject, why the fuck didn't you just release that? I watched the trailer, and it had some good shots in it. That's another thing though man, I don't know if you know this but a trailer is supposed to be an advertisement. So like at the end it could say "coming soon" or "this summer" or whatever. But it wouldn't say "there are no plans to ever release this because it is not a movie, it is art." Because that would sort of defeat the purpose of a trailer. Does that make sense?
Newsflash dude: you just spent 8 years making 5 movies about the muscles that cause contractions in your balls. You described your work as "a sexually driven digestive system." I mean for fuck's sake THINK! You should be thanking the almighty lord that people enjoy this crap. I'm sure if somebody wanted to pay me to collect my boogers in a jar for ten years and then they wanted to put it out on dvd I wouldn't try to pull some primadonna shit. If people like boogers give them boogers.
There are apparently people out there who like your movies, so why don't you want them to be able to, like, watch them? That's what you do with movies, you watch them, sometimes on a convenient digital versatile disc type format.
Oh that's right, I forgot. This isn't a movie. This is art. Movies aren't art, this is something WAY beyond a movie. 2001 is a shriveled up little twig next to the tree that is the Cremaster franchise. It would be impossible to transfer Cremaster onto a dvd because the levels of Art are so high that it would probaly be dangerous. The disc would probaly melt any machine it came in contact with. If you watched it, you would turn into a pillar of salt.
Fine, whatever bud. I'm sure the guy that did Leprechaun 3 is pretty proud of himself too, but he still lets people watch his stupid statue on video. Get it together Barney.
THE ORIGINAL KINGS OF COMEDY
This is a new comedy concert movie directed by Spike Lee. Instead of having somebody good like Richard Pryor as the star, the gimmick here is that it's Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac.
Just kidding bud the truth is these guys aren't bad. I never even heard of the motherfuckers but apparently that's what all the white people say. Sorry boys. They are popular enough to fill up a god damn stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina so they must be pretty popular there, in my opinion. Unless they just let everybody in for free but I don't think they did.
Apparently a couple of these motherfuckers have shows on pbs or one of those type of stations that nobody watches. One is called the steve harvey show, the other is called d.l. Hughley presents The Hughleys. Now one thing I wanna know, if these motherfuckers are so funny why they can't come up with a real name for a show. No, it's gotta be The Steve Harvey Show. The Hughleys. The Wayans Brothers. The Jamie Foxx show. Martin. the Drew Carey Show. Seinfeld. Ellen. Roseanne. The Cosby Show. Norm. Titus. The Jeff Foxworthy Show.
I mean whatever happened to Mama's Family, or Leave It to Beaver. Even the fucking Jeffersons. At least they didn't call it the Sherman Helmsley Show. JESUS YOU PEOPLE, COME UP WITH A FUCKING TITLE. No more of this generic working title bullshit. Come on people.
Anyway this was a big comedy tour, Steve Harvey is the host which is kind of unfair, the dude gets to go three times, everybody else only gets to go once. I thought the best of these acts was Cedric the Entertainer. This is a big hefty dude wearing a fancy grey suit with the sleeves cut off. Not sure WHAT is up with that maybe that's the style now, there's no telling what some individuals will decide looks good. Anyway despite his size his act is very physical and it is surprising what the dude can do sometimes. He starts doing karate kicks or dancing for some of his jokes. He is good at miming shit, like pretending he's eating sunflower seeds and then spitting em out or showing different ways people smoke a cigarette. He's a funny dude and I gotta give him extra points for the name Cedric the Entertainer. It's quick and to the point and self-explanatory not like some of these rapper names like method man, the fresh prince etc.
Last up is Bernie Mac and I have read some of the reviews. Apparently he makes the white man uncomfortable. they all say he goes too far, I'm not sure why. he does joke about beating up little kids. But they're probaly more bothered by his big speech about all the different meanings of motherfucker. I like that one. This guy has a voice like Rodney Dangerfield, I can't understand what the dude's saying some of the time but he also has crazy eyes like Chris Tucker.
This movie is a pretty good time at the movies cause it's pretty funny. But I don't think it's among the great concert movies. For one thing it's fuzzy. I think spike lee did it on video and then tried to spruce it up a little or some shit like that. It looks ugly. There are also many techniques that take you out of the event. For example Cedric the Entertainer imitates the slow mo from the matrix, and instead of letting us see how he does it spike puts in a video blurring effect. Look bud I'm not retarded I know cedric didn't do THAT live. But I'd like to see what he did do seeing as how this is a LIVE CONCERT MOVIE.
There is also some backstage bits mixed in and they're kind of interesting but I think they take you out of the event of sitting in that theater watching the comedians. they take away the real time feel.
On the other hand there are a little more shots of the audience than you usually get and I liked that. Whenever they play music there are these ladies who jump up and start dancing. there is one dude in the front row named Boogie who Steve Harvey fucks with. also sometimes there will be a camera with a microphone right on some particular row and you hear that person laughing at the jokes and what not. or not laughing.
Anyway not bad but what we need is a new groundbreaking comedian. steve harvey looks a little like Richard Pryor with that mustache and everything, but that's not enough. let's get to work ladies let's have some babies that are gonna grow up into a new kind of comedian. thanks.
OSMOSIS JONES
This here is one of these live action/cartoon action combos. The live action portion is a story about Bill Murray gets sick from eating a dirty egg. The cartoons is represented by a story about a white blood cell cop (with the voice of Chris Rock) who teams up with Buzz Lightyear to fight off a virus in a city inside Bill Murray.
This is one of those clever ideas where it woulda took a normal person about five minutes to realize that wait a minute, this ain't clever enough for hundreds of people to spend a year of their lives working on it. And it DEFINITELY ain't clever enough for millions of innocents to sit through for 90 minutes. But the people of Warner Brothers Studio, Hollywood USA, they are not normal people. So they spent millions on this loser of an idea.
Okay, so the stomach is an airport, and the mouth is kind of like the docks, and viruses are criminals, and a flu shot is an informant, etc. They put some good thought into figuring out all this cleverness but then how are we supposed to invest ourselves in the characters of a cell and a pill? You have to because there's not much humor in the cartoon parts except for puns like on the flinstones, except instead of having to do with rocks they have to do with bodily functions. Like the mayor is named Mayor Phlegming, etc.
I got an idea for you fellas, how about a movie called Laundry Matt. It's about a sock named Matt who is looking for his lost twin brother. And all the different articles of clothing are people. And also the lint balls. There could be jokes about bras and panties too. Wouldn't that be hilarious? Ha ha ha. What a charming and clever idea for a movie!
No. It's not. That was a trick question. Show some fucking restraint. You gotta WAIT until you got a GOOD idea for a movie, before you start making it. That's the whole trick of it, in my opinion. And white blood cells is NOT a good idea, even if you get a black dude to do the voice, and then it's funny because he says he's white. That's not a good enough idea. You were supposed to wait.
To be fair, the live parts
done by the Hughes brothers or somebody are kinda funny. They are real disgusting
so little boys might like it, I guess. I just feel bad for all the cartoonists
wasting their lives away on a feature length cavity creeps movie. It almost
makes you nostalgic for those disney cartoons with all the singin and fartin.
OVERNIGHT
(or DUFFY: A PRICK AND HIS DREAM)
A few years back I used to always hear about this movie THE BOONDOCK SAINTS. Some kid told me his brother saw it in Boston and it was the shit, he was trying to find it on video but it wasn't out yet. People kept mentioning it, and after it came out pretty much straight to video (it played in 5 theaters apparently) a couple people e-mailed me and recommended it.
I felt bad though because here these people are trying to be nice and recommend this movie they think I will like, and I hated the fuckin thing. Maybe there was one or two clever sequences, I can't remember much, but my main impression was that it was another corny showoff movie with no heart or soul, just a bunch of unconvincing tough guy bullshit and show-offy camera moves. Looks like the general consensus was it was a Tarantino wannabe but I remember I was definitely leaning toward Guy Ritchie. More of that hollow and forced nonsense that wafted off the ass of LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS during its short window of popularity.
I remember one of the actors from the movie turned up in BLADE II but otherwise I pretty much forgot about it. Until I heard about this documentary here, OVERNIGHT, which is about the phenomenal asshole writer-director of BOONDOCK SAINTS and his hilarious, richly deserved plummet from overnight success to laughing stock.
I'm not saying he deserved it just because I didn't like his movie. Usually I would figure hey, the movie sucked but he could be a nice guy. But no matter how edited or out of context any of this documentary could possibly be, there is no getting around the fact that this guy is one of the biggest, most pompous jackass dickheads you have ever seen on film. A truly, undeniably horrible person that you would never, ever want to be around, unless it was for the same kind of masochistic, voyeuristic pleasure you get from watching this movie. The guy is so full of himself it's surprising that he's not down there sucking his own dick the whole time.
The funny thing is it's not a gradual decline, the story of how money and Hollywood gradually destroys a man's soul. No, it's more like the most toxic, horrible person you've ever met happens to be that one in a million that gets a shot at being Hollywood's new wonder boy. But karmically, cathartically, entertainingly, for the first time in memory, outside of fictional movies, the guy who really deserves it is the one who really gets it bad. This fucker gets his balls crushed and fed to him through a straw.
I never heard of him before but it turns out this Troy Duffy prick was a Big Deal at one time in 1997. He was working as a bartender and he wrote the Boonies script about some Edgy Young Hitmen killing people in the name of catholicism. Some important people thought the script was real good, including Harvey Weinstein, who made a show of coming to the bar where Duffy worked to negotiate a deal with him. He would get $300,000 for the script but he'd also get to direct the movie (with final cut and all that crap) and Weinstein would help him buy the bar. AND his band "The Brood" would get to do the soundtrack. So he thinks he's the new Orson Welles and a rock god.
He's on the cover of USA Today and Hollywood Reporter and everything, one of those inspirational Hollywood human interest stories about the Regular Guy Who Through His Unique Genius Hit It Big Overnight (or "Hollywood's New Hard-On" as he calls himself). And you see in the movie all these poor sucker actors believed the hype and started meeting him in the bar and at barbecues to talk about being in the movie (you see Pat Swayze, Mark Wahlberg, even John Goodman). And already this guy thinks he's the fuckin cock's walk. You gotta see the way this guy struts around and smokes his cigarettes and acts like these celebrities are lucky as shit to be hanging out with him.
This is one of those documentaries that almost seems like a Spinal Tap type fake, the guy is so ridiculous. If you enjoy the freak show type of documentary like I do, this is a damn good one. Almost every scene will make you either cringe, squirm or wince. Right at the beginning, he's going home to visit his family and he's laying it on real thick to them already about what hot shit he is, even talking shit to his mom about his own brother (who is in the band with him). He says, "I have created all the opportunities for this band, I have sweat and bled and... and... and died for this."
He sets up a production office and takes conference calls and it is clear that he not only believes his own hype but believes that it is a huge understatement. There are some hilarious clips of him shit talking on the phone, self righteously saying things like, "I hate Kee-no Reeves I think he's a fuckin punk I will never do a movie with him." Which it turns out he was right about that last part at least.
Then he starts thinking Weinstein isn't paying enough attention to him, starts leaving macho drunken rants and threats on the most powerful voicemail in Hollywood. Maybe hearing that description you might think this guy is cool, he's a rebel, he doesn't give a shit. But that's not it at all. He does give a shit... he wants Big Time Hollywood Success more than anything. The only problem is, he is convinced that he already has it. It's a done deal. He says he's set for two decades. He thinks that Weinstein needs him because his script is so god damn great. He starts to make big corny speeches like the melodramatic criminals would say in his scripts: "I'm just a fuckin poor kid from Boston never had a fuckin thing in my whole life and you were the first man to come up and take a vested interest in me and say, 'This kid's comin with me.' And you're a mentor of mine and I really appreciate it and I just wanted to get that off my chest... Nuff said."
The movie doesn't have Weinstein's side (the only time you see him is walking around like a doofus eating frozen yogurt in Cannes) but you get a pretty fuckin good hunch why he decided maybe he didn't want to make this stupid movie anymore. Or same thing with Maverick Records, Madonna's record company, who sign the band to a record contract but later stop allowing Duffy inside the building.
All the sudden Duffy is calling meetings with his band making tough guy speeches like he's Scarface or the fuckin godfather:
"I'm not afraid of this. Maverick Records doesn't scare me on this. As a matter of fact, we are scaring them shitless right now. They're the ones having little emergency meetings, and not letting me in the front door of Maverick. They're the ones calling up our lawyers feverishly trying to schedule somethin with me. They're on the fuckin run right now. Not us. Because they know that we're gonna be successful. And they know that on that day that we are successful they're gonna say 'Well we heard you had a fuckin record deal with Maverick Records.' We'll say, 'Yeah. They backed out and got cold feet the last second.' And that's what these motherfuckers are more afraid of than anything in the entire world."(The movie later tells us that when their album finally came out on Atlantic Records, it only sold 690 copies in six months. It doesn't say whether or not on that day they had a conversation with somebody about how Maverick Records got cold feet and backed out.)
You gotta feel sorry for almost everybody else in this movie. You see them wincing and trying to say something as he has yelling hissy fits at people over the phone. They want to make this movie and this album so it is important to them to get along with him and put up with his shit. But basically, he's their asshole friend who they could stand when they worked at the bar with him but now that he thinks he's God, every day is torture. He tells them at the beginning that they are his brothers who he will conquer the world with, then he turns around and treats them like peons and tells them they owe him everything. And they don't want to miss the opportunity and if everybody says he's so brilliant he must be so they hang on.
The movie leaves his bandmates mostly as blanks. Alot of the time they (especially his brother) look like they're pissed at the way he's talking, but are afraid to say anything because he's the one that got them these opportunities (as he reminds them constantly). But then, especially when they get an advance from the record company, they seem to go along with his bullshit.
After they get the real record deal, he refuses to pay the two managers of the band, saying they don't deserve it. He doesn't care that these two guys are also the ones filming this documentary about him that became Overnight. Probaly not the smartest move anybody ever made.
But the most powerful scene is probaly the one where his brother finally gets up the nerve to unleash all his feelings. He makes an impassioned speech about how much Troy is neglecting the band and how important the band is to all of them and how much they need him. The guy never seems to stand up to his brother, and it's finally gotten bad enough that he has to let it all out, and he's even crying. After sitting and listening and given the chance to think about it and figure how to smooth things over, Duffy instead yells at his brother, tells him he's full of shit and to fuck off.
(next scene, they're all taking band photos together.)
This is a movie with a sense of justice, because Duffy being an asshole gets him dumped by both Miramax and Maverick. When he makes the movie with someone else it is barely released and he can't get another job, when he makes the album with someone else it barely sells and he gets dropped from the label. When the movie does well on video he doesn't get a cut of it, he's spent all the money he got, and the bar he used to work at gets torn down. Shit, even this documentary about him, I tried to see it in a theater but it played less than a week. BLADE III came out on a Wednesday and replaced it. So even at getting negative attetion, the guy is a failure.
Because the filmatists were so involved in what was going on, most of the footage is more home movie than documentary. So sometimes it's not entirely clear what is going on or what somebody is saying. Some of the score is a little over the top (dramatic keyboard tones to emphasize that something bad is going on) and there's a quote at the end that uneccessarily explains the whole theme that "success" doesn't necessarily change somebody as much as bring out the true ugly self that was always there. This definitely leans toward what I call the category 2 of documentaries, where it is not so much a great documentary movie as it is a movie document of a great subject.
But on the other hand they put this stuff together real well and they were the ones that had the foresight and the intestinal fortitude to be abused by this egomaniacal asswipe for four years while they gathered the footage. What they have created is a horrifying document of everybody's worst nightmare of what they might do if all their dreams were suddenly handed to them on a platter out of the blue.
Now don't worry, there is almost a 100% chance that if you woke up tomorrow as the New Prince of Hollywood, you would not make as much of a horrible jackass of yourself as Troy Duffy did. Even if you tried, it would be nearly impossible. Even if you are a total prick.
But it still works as a cautionary tale. Because you don't want to be this guy even in some small way. If you're reading this you're probaly some kind of "film geek" or other and if you're that, then you probaly have some secret fantasy of how you would make a movie if you had the chance. I can admit it, I know if somebody said hey Vern, Hollywood calling to inform you you're writing On Deadly Ground 2, then I would thank the Lord one hundred times, get out a map of Alaska and start typing. And I bet there are alot of you out there who are actively pursuing that dream, writing scripts, going to film school, reading books about how to get your script read, maybe even getting desperate for it, trying to make connections, thinking about moving to L.A., wanting it so bad you can taste it, or maybe you just threw up a little bit in your mouth, you're not really sure because you were up so late working on that seventh draft, you're tired and confused now.
Sometimes I worry that I smell some of that desperation on some of my colleagues actually, some of these people with the movie web sights. They have a great thing going with their sights but if they had to they would throw it all away to make a real movie that would project on a screen in a real multiplex. Any movie nerd is gonna love meeting all these actors and directors and everybody, but what if you meet these people and instead of thinking "Oh shit, you were in Roadhouse" or whatever, you're thinking must get big break... must pass die-hard-in-a-mall-with-killer-bees script. You just gotta hope you won't catch Script Madness and lose all perspective. Like that guy from chud.com, he used to talk so much shit about the directors he thought were hacks, now all the sudden he has to rationalize fuckin Jan de Bont because he's producing a giant shark movie the guy is gonna direct. "He worked on Die Hard 17 years ago, he definitely could be great again I think."
Not that I blame anybody for this, it is an essential human weakness and we all have that potential. If you become the Hot Screenwriter that means you get a bunch of money, it means you get to express yourself creatively (you hope), it means you get to say you made a movie. You get to hang the movie poster on your wall. You get to meet Bruce Willis or somebody, maybe. Or at least Willem Dafoe. You get to go to your 20 year high school reunion and tell a funny story about the time you and Method Man got lit with Danny DeVito. You get to have an entry on IMDb, maybe even an impressive one. You get to quit that shitty job and your parents and your home town and everybody has to think you're cool because you Made It in Hollywood. And you get to do a remake of War of the Gargantuas emphasizing the Cain and Abel relationship of the two gargantuas. Or Die Hard 4. Or whatever it is you dream about.
For most of us it's a pipe dream but damn is it a beautiful, shiny, pipe dream. And we might find us lowering our standards of integrity when it comes down to it. Hey man I got a chance to write Bringing Down the House 2: Back 2 tha Hood. Hey man that's not so bad, the first one made alot of money. And Steven Martin has done some wonderful work. I think I could bring my unique voice to this one. This could be Steve Martin's return to form. This is the big one, this is gonna get me places.
We'd like to think we would never lower ourselves to that, but the Hollywood Career is a juicy bunch of grapes hanging up there lookin delicious, and it's hard not to find ourselves unconsciously licking our lips. So if we'd be tempted by that then who knows what would happen in this case, where we write our own script and they throw us the keys to the kingdom. If you think there's some chance of it happening then it is a temptation for you. And it can make you act crazy. This could be us, and we fuckin know it. We fear it, if we know what's good for us.
And if we don't fear it, and we happen to have a heart made out of used charcoal briquettes and an ego that could eclipse all the water from all the oceans and polar ice caps, we could become Troy Duffy. He is the flash in the pan boogie man, and this is his story.