Reviews: R, as in "R they behind us?"

'R XMAS

The two strongest feelings I have about Abel Ferrara's latest are "that was pretty good" and "what the hell?" I will cover these two feelings in order.

This is the story of Christmas for a rich couple in New York in 1993. We see them videotaping their young daughter's private school Christmas play, trying to get her the most in demand Christmas toy, and that kind of business. Then they put her to bed, some fellas come over and they start filling up baggies of cocaine.

So the idea I guess is that drug kingpins aren't that much different from any of the other rich fucks in new york. I mean you pretty much like these people. They really do care about their daughter and want to make her happy, even if they think they have to do it by buying shit. They have lots of old ladies sitting around the house and they hug and kiss them alot. When it comes down to it, their family life really is more important to them than their drug empire, although they don't know how to live like a regular working class individual. And one thing that's refreshing is that other than the fact that he sells drugs, the husband never shows a dark side. You never see him being ruthless. He doesn't only SEEM charming and innocent, but have a furious anger hidden beneath. As far as we see, he's just a sweet, romantic guy. Come to think of it, this guy is BETTER than the other rich fucks in new york, if a little superficial.

The plot turns out to be about the husband getting kidnapped and held for ransom, and how the wife tries to find enough money even though most of their organization went to Puerto Rico for Christmas. The wife turns out to be the strongest character in the movie and it's interesting to watch her try to handle the crisis, and how the family members try to support her the same way a normal family would handle a normal crisis.

This is not what you expect from a crime movie. There's not really action in it. It's more of a family drama. What really works about the movie is that it all feels real. The acting is perfectly naturalistic. I'm sure the cinemasters and people like that will remember these performances at end of the year listmaking time. Apparently both of the leads have been on either THE SOPRANOS or THE SOPORNOS, I don't know, I don't watch those shows.

But now for the what the hell. There are some things I don't understand about this picture. I thought maybe listening to the director's commentary track would help, but all it did was raise more questions. Ferrara's commentaries are always hilarious, and they made me like him even when I didn't like his movies. But he doesn't offer much insight into the movies. He doesn't even sound like he really made them. He mostly says "lookit this, lookit this" and "oopsie daisy" alot, and laughs at his filmatistic ineptitude. On this one, he just keeps talking about not having the color blue in the movie.

My first and biggest question is, 'R XMAS? What does this title mean. How is it pronounced. Is it a typo. You'd think this would come up on the commentary track, but they never say the title out loud. You do find out that Ferrara doesn't think there should be an apostrophe (or slash as he calls it) in the title, but the other guy does. But neither of them introduce themselves and the menu just calls it a director commentary, so you don't even find out who the other guy is. (I'm guessing cinematographist.)

How can I recommend this movie to people if I don't even know how to pronounce the title?

A less specific question is, what's the deal with the score? It is credited to the early gangster rapper Schoolly D. But it consists of one looped hip hop track, and several upbeat keyboard interpretations of "Silent Night."

My third question, what is this mayor of new york shit? There is a title card at the beginning that says:

In December of
1993 the
Honorable David Dinkins
was completing his
first and only
term as
Mayor of New York

Then at the end there's another one that says:

Less than one
month later
Rudolph Guiliani
is sworn in
as the 107th
Mayor of New York City.

To be cont...

Seriously, I didn't make up the "To be cont..." part. That's really what it says.

Now I really don't mean to say this like because I don't understand it it must be bad. All I'm trying to say is, I am real confused here people. I kind of feel like when you're in a dream and you try to read something but it doesn't seem to be quite written in a real language.

Obviously this is trying to say something about the way these mayors affected life in New York City, but maybe Ferrara is being too subtle for me on this one. Are the Dinkins policies supposed to be responsible for the police corruption we hear about in this movie? Or for the drug dealers getting away with it for so long? When the story abruptly ended with "To be cont..." I figured we really were gonna get another installment which would contrast their lives during Dinkins with their lives during Guiliani. I don't know what that means, all I know is that the dude was usually compared to Hitler and then on September 11th he became Jesus. At the same time, the NYPD became the fuckin Super Friends instead of the guys who put 47 bullets in an innocent, randomly chosen, unarmed black dude standing on his own porch. And stuck the toilet plunger in the guy's ass, etc. All that's in the past now. Clean slate, they said so on TV. But what effect did these people have on the lives of recently reformed Dominican drug dealers?

I don't know if we'll find out, because on the commentary track Ferrara and the mysterious unnamed man say things like, "If we really do another one, we should make it about this." Like they don't even know if they plan to make one, or what it would be about. And even if they are, maybe they should've just made one too long movie with two stories instead of one too short movie that may or may not ever finish.

I don't know. I don't get it, but I like it. When I figure out how to pronounce it, I'll tell people about it.

RABID and FAST COMPANY

I always wanted to watch all of Dave Cronenberg's movies in order, or at least the ones I haven't seen or don't remember very well, and I'm finally giving that mission a shot. This is only #2 and #3 here though so don't start congratulating me yet. But here's a look at some early Cronenberg.

RABID is typical of Cronenberg's early work, because it's about a girl who gets all worked up and bites people to death with the vagina she has in her armpit. FAST COMPANY is the least typical of all Cronenberg movies because it's about funny car racing. That wouldn't be a surprise if they were funny cars shaped like vaginas, but these are just regular funny cars with wheels and seats and everything. Driving fast. On race tracks. Etc.

RABID is alot like SHIVERS, an uncomfortably strange horror movie with a freaky venereal disease, and with a little bit of making fun of the Canadian bourgeoisie of the '70s. SHIVERS took place in a fancy highrise apartment complex, this one is at a plastic surgery clinic. Marilyn Chambers (whose work with John Holmes we are all very, very familiar with, obviously) plays a woman in a fiery motorcycle accident and she could die before they could get her to a real hospital so they bring her to the plastic surgery clinic, and those assholes try to show off and do some experimental business on her and it's a long story but basically it grows into the biting vagina armpit deal I mentioned earlier. No, they do not intentionally graft a vagina onto her armpit, but they do cause it to grow there. See, politicians always complain about "frivolous lawsuits" but in my opinion doctors gotta be accountable for this shit. You grow the armpit vagina, you pay up. Simple as that.

(By the way did you notice I looked up how to spell bourgeoisie correctly? Then I totally just dropped it in there. But now that I looked it up it turns out it doesn't mean exactly what I thought it meant, so I should've just said upper middle class. But that was so awesome when I dropped bourgeoisie in there, so fuck it, I'm keepin it.)

Marilyn Chambers is actually pretty good. She's known for movies like BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR and INSATIABLE 1&2 but this movie shows that she could work as a legitimate actress, with lines and without penetration. She didn't really pursue it though, I guess she figured once you worked with David Cronenberg and had an armpit vagina and whatnot there's nowhere else to go but to a gym where John Holmes is working out and one thing might lead to another.

If you like a bleak ending this one will float your boat (spoils) because the credits roll over a shot of some workers in biohazard suits finding her body in an alley and crushing it in the back of a garbage truck. Real casual, just your average afternoon for the working man.

You can see Cronenberg getting slicker with the cameras and shit, this definitely is a nice looking movie, much easier on the eyes than SHIVERS. But I think I still enjoyed SHIVERS a little better. I think it's because as weird as this one is it seems a little closer to a normal horror movie because it's mostly about young people and dangerous women that get picked up and then kill a dude. SHIVERS seems a little less traditional with its middle aged doctor as the lead, and not trying to kill anyone, just trying to survive. But they're both good if you're looking for a '70s horror movie that clearly needs therapy.

By the way I never mentioned that SHIVERS, and RABID too, are produced by Ivan Reitman. You know, that guy that did GHOSTBUSTERS. And now that I think about it that marshmallow man thing really didn't make sense, that must've been shoehorned in there in the eleventh hour. Obviously the Ghostbusters were supposed to fight a giant armpit vagina, which would've made alot more sense. One can only imagine how cinema history would've unraveled differently if they would've been allowed to do that movie up right. I think we'd be looking at a whole different landscape here. Stay puft, everybody.

If you're like me you were surprised when you found out about FAST COMPANY. Right between the armpit vagina and the killer little bastards he makes a completely normal movie. And not normal like THE FLY or the recent Viggronenberg period where it passes for normal on the surface but has some weird Cronenberg mutated DNA inside. No, this is a normal movie, for normal people. But it ain't half bad.

Maybe it's unfair but we always think of Cronenberg as a freak. If I had to guess what his hobbies are I would say collecting defective gynecology tools, filling up antique light bulbs with spider legs, and fashioning pocket-sized collage scrapbooks out of crime scene photos and medical diagrams. But in the '70s at least he was into motorcycles (that's why he did that motorcycle accident in RABID) and it turns out he was into race cars too. So don't worry, this isn't some movie he did for the money and is embarrassed of. On this DVD he says he considers it as much a statement of himself as his other movies and seems kind of confused about people thinking it's weird that he did it. You'd never guess it was his movie but it's important in his evolution because you see his filmatism getting more confident and he met alot of his longtime collaborators here. It's a nice looking movie with some exciting race scenes, some fiery accidents, and a climactic funny car vs. small airplane duel.

In a way it reminded me a little of Romero's KNIGHTRIDERS. It works as a parallel to independent filmmaking as the corporate sponsor (my man John Saxon) won't give enough money to make the engine they need, tells them it's not about winning but about selling his Fastco engine product, jerks around with replacing his racers, etc. But I don't think Cronenberg really had enough experience yet to be frustrated into making a movie about that. Those things just happen to be universal, they happen in movies and in racing.

The cheesiest part of the movie is the music, lots of montages to rock songs. But I guess they fit the subject matter. In fact, it could've been alot worse, I'm guessing some of the funny car drivers aren't exactly listening to the type of music I like.

The best part of the movie is the performance by William Smith as the aging, legendary racer Lonnie "The Lucky Man" Johnson. Smith is a character actor in a couple hundred b-movies and TV shows but I don't think he's played too many leading men like this. Here he even gets Claudia Jennings as his girlfriend.

It's an appealing story with what seems like an authentic feel for the scene and the bonding between the different racers, including the competitors, although things turn bad at the end. There's some pretty broad comedy, but not too bad, and it's hard not to like even the obvious stick-it-to-the-man button pushing like when the Lucky Man does an interview and claims to drink Fastco to keep himself regular. My favorite parts are smaller character moments like The Lucky Man giving advice to his rival The Blacksmith, or the team all giving their farewells before splitting up for a long drive to their next destination. But I also like the (sort of tacked on) action bits. John Saxon has established that he likes to travel by plane in order to keep a distance from the drivers he lords over, so it's only appropriate for the climax to involve a funny car going after the plane.

FAST COMPANY apparently never got much of a release back in the day, but just because it's Cronenberg Blue Underground put together a nice DVD. Since it's obviously for completists they also included Cronenberg's two early underground movies you always hear about, STEREO and CRIMES OF THE FUTURE. I would've reviewed those but I gotta be honest, I couldn't get even ten minutes into either one of them. Based on those early minutes they both seem to be pretentious amateur movies about dudes walking around on college campuses. A million artsy dipshits have made those exact movies on college campuses around the world for decades. Who would've guessed one of them would turn into David Cronenberg? That's good news for the world, but don't tell those guys that make movies like that because it will only encourage them.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: THE ADAPTATION

If you're on the internet (and I'm betting you are), maybe you heard legends about it. Or if you know how to read, maybe you saw the article in Vanity Fair a while back. The story is these kids who, from ages 11 to 17, took upon themselves the monumental task of remaking that movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was popular at the time.

Their movie has all the same dialogue, and they pretty much faithfully re-created the whole god damn thing, with the one exception being the scene where the big bald guy gets chopped up in the propellor blade, because they decided it was too dangerous. They're just kids, man, cut them some fucking slack. But they have everything else: jungles, caves, deserts, the giant boulder, real live snakes, a teenage Indiana dragged from a truck. And most of this was filmed in their basement, garage or backyard. A few times they had to be clever to be able to pull it off, so one plane chase was changed to a boat chase, and instead of a traitorous Nazi monkey on his shoulder, he carries a sieg-heiling weiner dog. But as the years went on and they got more on tape, they convinced more and more people they weren't fucking around and they were able to shoot on a real boat and submarine.

I was lucky enough to see this movie at a rare public screening last month (with the guy who played Indiana Jones in attendance) and I gotta say I was pretty impressed. It looks like shit of course, all shot on betamax cameras and dubbed onto other tapes in the editing process. But here is this movie that we all know, the steven spielberg movie, and we are reliving the whole thing as a no budget camcorder epic with kids playing adults. It's kind of like that weird deja vu feeling you get watching Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, except way weirder. Because you know they weren't conscious of anything, they weren't trying to say anything or get a reaction out of anyone, they just love Indiana Jones and they wanted to remake the movie. Because that's the type of shit that kids want to do. Either go on adventures, build a spaceship, feel up Daisy Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard, or remake Raiders of the Lost Ark. All of these are unachievable dreams for most kids, but this is the one time, the one group of kids that actually pulled one off.

Throughout the movie, the kids change ages and sizes. They go from pre-teen to teen and back. Their hair grows long and gets short again within one love scene. Their voices change. These kids were obsessive about the movie. According to the article they studied the comic book, made a tape recording of the movie (this was before the age of home video), made a script and painstakingly storyboarded every shot of the movie. So they didn't just do the fun parts, they did the boring parts too. The long scenes of dialogue at the college, where Professor Indiana Jones talks to a bunch of dudes about archaeology or whatever it is, I don't know, I don't pay attention to that shit. Well in The Adaptation these kids did those scenes, word for word, boring minute for boring minute, but they got kids saying the lines. This 9 year old kid wearing a tie and horn rimmed glasses, his hair painted grey - I don't know man, that shit cracks me up.

But they do the fun parts too. They got the boulder. They got kids getting lit on fire. They got the bar burning down by setting the kid's basement on fire! You see this shit and you start getting excited thinking holy shit, how did they do that, and oh man, how are they gonna do the guy getting chopped up in the propellor? (Uh, sorry, not at all.) Or everybody melting at the end? (They actually made dummies and melted them!)

Now, I am not the world's biggest fan of Steven Spielberg, or of Raiders of the Lost Ark, or home made videos, or obsessive nerdy fan films. Although I do kind of like the first two on the list, and the third one if you are talking only about porn. But this movie is amazing because it exists. If this was a tv show or movie (and they are trying to make a movie about it, with a script by Dan Clowes of Ghost World fame) you would never believe that kids (or adults, for that matter) would have the resources, or the energy, or the attention span to even finish half of this fucking thing. And these kids did the whole thing.

(You know I was thinking, it's lucky that it was Raiders of the Lost Ark that they were obsessed with, because it turned out to be pretty timeless. Everybody's seen this movie, everybody remembers this movie and most people like it. So it's still relevant. Plus, it was a movie good and not corny enough that they could still be into it when they were 17. I mean what if it was Mac and Me or something? Or Romancing the Stone? They would never have stuck with it for so long, and if they did you couldn't show that shit now. Nobody would watch it. So they picked their subject well.)

But this is not just some funny fan video, this is actually very inspiring. Because you think about how much shit these kids got. How many times in those 7 years do you think they had to explain to somebody, "Yeah, we're doing an exact remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark." I mean at that age it's hard enough to explain why you have a pony tail or got your ear pierced or some shit like that. They gotta explain why they've spent 7 years of their lives dressing up in hats and building paper mache caves and memorizing one god damn archaeology movie. How are you ever gonna achieve your life long goal of getting a handjob if that's your whole life? This is an important question for a young man growing up.

I mean I doubt anybody really believed in it other than this director and this Indy guy. I bet their parents didn't believe it, their classmates didn't believe it, their neighbors didn't believe it. And what were they gonna do with it when they were done? They couldn't sell it, they couldn't project it, there was no internet. I mean anybody besides them must've thought they were complete retards. And they still did it. They had to do it.

Now, I'm not trying to encourage people to go out there and do star trek movies or some shit like that (see Trekkies for more information). But sometimes you get an idea, and it's such a stupid idea that you know you should do it. You know that most people won't understand it, they might even make fun of you, but it is something you have to do. And if you have the nerves of a samurai or of these kids, you will do it, even if it takes seven years.

I mean there are things I don't understand. I don't understand those dudes that waited four months in a parking lot to see the last Star Wars movie. (And I have to take points away because they tried to call it an art project and especially because they didn't stay there after the corny human interest interview opportunities dried up, they just left a tent there and pretended they were inside). But those guys had an impossible idea and they sort of did it.

Sometimes I get those kind of ideas. I mean not as ambitious as The Adaptation, but sometimes you get an idea that makes you laugh and it's so stupid and would take so much effort and would maybe only amuse you. But that means you should do it! I got an idea for a book a while back, a book that would require watching and analyzing alot of bad movies, in chronological order. I've invested alot of time into the book and sometimes I feel good about how it's going and sometimes I don't. I go through phases where I work on it obsessively and then end up taking a long hiatus and then start to wonder if it's good enough that anybody will ever even want to read it. And then I watched this adaptation here and I thought shit, if these kids can finish this movie then I can definitely finish my stupid book.

And you can too. Go out there everybody, reach for your dreams, strive for excellence, and all that kind of crap. GO FOR IT!

RAISING CAIN

Like the character John Lithgow plays, this movie is fucking nuts. From the very beginning, you don't know where RAISING CAIN is going, or why, or how. Maybe it's headed in a straight path, maybe it's about to spin out on the side of the road, toss you out the window and back over you a couple times, then take off laughing. Or maybe it will go right to your house and drop you off just like you asked, but later you'll think you hear it jerking off outside your window. You'll take a deep breathe and you'll toss open the curtains but it will turn out RAISING CAIN is not there, instead there's some guy you've never seen before riding a unicycle, sporting a beard made of bees. Anything could happen. You don't really know.

Earlier in his career, Brian DePalma did a lot of "Hitchcockian thrillers." Yeah there were surprises and plot twists, and little tricks that he played on you, trying to get you to attach your sympathy to one character only to later find yourself lost and not knowing which one to follow. But it must not have been until RAISING CAIN that he decided to take that into overdrive. Take all the techniques and structures of your standard formulas, chop them all up and tape them back together William S. Burroughs style. Now there is no rhyme or reason to it and you get all confused and surprised and god damn if this isn't a great movie.

I mean this is a movie that really fucks with the audience. It's a kamikaze thriller. It is willing to be ludicrous just to get a reaction out of you. Just to see the look on your face. In the opening scene, John Lithgow is getting a ride somewhere from a lady friend, and there's two little kids asleep in the backseat. And Lithgow is saying how his father has this facility in Europe or somewhere and they are looking for gifted children to live there and be studied so that they can figure out how a child's personality is formed. The lady laughs in disbelief that this nut is trying to convince her to give up her child for scientific research, and Lithgow gets all upset trying to explain how important it is to science.

So you're thinking okay, this is one of these overeager scientist movies, the guy is a little too dedicated to his research, something is gonna push him over the edge and later in the movie he's gonna kidnap this kid and in his mind it will be justified but, you know, etc. etc.

What you're not thinking is that right now in the middle of this conversation Lithgow is gonna suddenly sneeze a big load of poison into the woman's face, chloroform her and then pretend to be making out with her to avoid the suspicion of joggers. And even if you did suspect that (you fuckin sicko pervert) you probaly didn't guess that another John Lithgow, one that smokes cigarettes and thinks he's a tough guy, would be the one to suddenly appear at the window to suggest the make-out maneuver, point out flaws in the other Lithgow's plan and offer to take care of the killing and disposal of the woman himself.

So it's like 2 minutes into the movie and you're already being tossed around but DePalma goes the extra mile, he has this Evil John Lithgow character, the Cain of the title, make some comment about them being twins. Just to fuck with you. Just to make you think wait a minute, does DePalma seriously expect me to believe that these are twins? Am I supposed to drop my drink later on when they reveal that they are actually split personalities? But a scene like that never comes. Of course you knew it. And he knew you knew it. But he didn't want you to know if he knew you knew it or not, just to make you squirm.

So the regular John Lithgow goes home, parks in the garage, leaves one kid in the backseat and brings the other one inside. His wife is laying in bed looking sexy and they have a conversation and you realize wait a minute, this nutball has a wife? And one of those was his kid? This guy passes for a regular family man but he has an imaginary evil twin brother and he has a dead woman in his trunk and a kidnapped kid locked in the backseat and he goes around sneezing in people's faces and shit. This is fucked up.

He gets turned on seeing his wife laying there and starts to get it on with her, but his daughter wakes up and starts crying. He says he'll take care of it so he pulls his pants up, then instead of doing what he said he would, he goes out to the car and drives off with the kidnapped kid.

Next day the family goes in town together and the wife happens to bump into her ex-lover. Next thing you know she's reviving her old affair and the movie shifts to being completely about her. How she sneaks out to her lover's hotel room. And bad things keep happening but then she keeps waking up and discovering its a dream. (Oh we're gonna go there are we DePalma? You tricky bastard.) The dreams start to blur the lines between reality and not reality so she's not really sure, did she really accidentally switch her husband and her lover's Valentine's Day gifts or was that a dream? And you really start to side with this gal because her husband is a fruitcake kidnapper and murderer so what's the big deal if she cheats on him. But then you find out that she was a nurse who was treating her lover's wife for terminal cancer and the poor gal died when she happened to wake up and see the nurse kissing her husband on New Year's Eve. Well, it's a long story I guess. And then all the sudden Lithgow smothers her with a pillow.

Before you know it he's apparently killed Gabrielle Carteris in a public restroom and a little boy comes out and tells him in an obviously dubbed adult voice, "I know what you're going to do and it's bad and I'm telling!" I couldn't fucking believe it. I haven't seen anything so freaky since that movie BURIAL GROUND where they have a grown man named Peter Bark playing a little kid and sucking on his mom's tit.

One thing I like about DePalma, he's willing to introduce you to a whole new set of characters when you're already halfway through the movie. It's a long story but soon after the pillow smothering, Lithgow has managed to frame his wife's lover for all his murders and kidnapping including the disappearance of his wife. So now we're in the police headquarters and all the sudden the main characters are the cops investigating the case, including Gregg Henry (Mal from PAYBACK) and his partner and some retired old guy that still hangs around and tells a crazy story about 20 years ago and Lithgow's father who looked EXACTLY like him. And that guy brings in an old lady psychiatrist who used to be Lithgow's father's partner and who we heard earlier had cancer and complains now about her wig and you have to just smile because you know that's gonna be important.

I won't give away anything else. Well, maybe one thing. Earlier in the movie, when the wife kept having dreams, one of them she was driving and talking on a cell phone about how she was going to lie to cover up that she spent the night with her lover. And all the sudden some bicyclists are in the road and she swerves and crashes into a statue of a knight, whose lance goes right through the windshield and impales her. Much later, during the classic DePalmian climax, where various factors are set up so that you can watch them slowly march toward each other until they inevitably intersect and cause horrible things to happen, there are these guys moving a pickup truck full of junk with part of a sundial pointing out the back. And one of the guy says, "You're gonna kill somebody with that sun dial!"

And what's so great is, they ALMOST kill somebody with the sundial, but ultimately they DON'T. Because DePalma was just fucking with you. He got you thinking about impalement in a meaningless dream sequence at least an hour earlier in the movie, just so you would expect somebody to get impaled on the sundial. And then nobody would get impaled on the sundial. And that's why it's so great.

Of course, DePalma is widely known for ripping off Hitchcock. Here there are obvious nods to Psycho but more than that to Peeping Tom (by Michael Powell, who is not Hitchcock). And the most obvious lift is actually a scene from Dressed to Kill, by Brian DePalma.

When I saw Femme Fatale I hadn't seen this one, so I had no idea that DePalma had already set a precedent for such a berserk thriller. I think that one's even better, and probaly a little more palatable to mainstream audiences. But this one's a keeper too. Good job DePalma. Way to fuck with us.

RAMBO: JUST RAMBO, NOT RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART 2

Poor John Rambo. Drafted into 'Nam, transformed into a killing machine, trained to eat things that would make a billygoat puke. He came home, butted heads with an asshole sherriff, fought a bunch of cops, got a pardon so he could rescue some POWs and "win this time," lived at a monastery I believe, real good stickfighter, made some allegiances in Afghanistan that in retrospect were not so hot but you know what they say about hindsight. Now he lives in a shack in Thailand where he catches deadly snakes for a living. His first line in the movie is telling a guy to go fuck himself. He's real cynical about the state of the world and the inevitability of bloodshed, but some Christian missionaries convince him against his better judgment to take them in his boat and drop them off in a war zone in Burma. You guys run along now, don't get raped or blown up. Then when they don't come back on time he has to go back and drop off the team of mercenaries the church hires to rescue them. I wish the team had a cool name like The Holy Rollers and had pictures of Jesus, Joseph and Mary airbrushed on their weapons, but no, they're just regular guns for hire, they don't give a shit about that stuff. They don't even care about the money that much, so they're gonna turn around when things look bad. But Rambo (to them "the boatman") changes their minds. Using a bow and arrow.

Rambo's changed over the years, at least physically. He no longer looks like he's chiseled out of stone. Now he's chopped out of wood. He's a fuckin tree trunk wearing a headband. Wide and thick and definitely not pretty anymore.

I like the character of Rambo, and I always like seeing him, but the mentally ill can make some bad choices. In his case that includes going on a rampage as well as making three ridiculous sequels to his classic original. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy that crap too, to a certain point, but FIRST BLOOD is a legitimately great movie that towers above them and tries to be polite about it but most likely would not want to hang out with the other ones if at all possible. The idea of the original book and movie was to "bring the Vietnam War home," but the idea of the sequels is just to send Rambo off to different wars.

FIRST BLOOD is great because you can get behind this poor bastard, even if he's crazy, because he's a vet and people shouldn't be treating him like that. But him and the sherriff are just so stubborn that their dislike of each other escalates into a fucking war! In the first one he's Travis Bickle, you're disturbed by what he's doing. In the sequels he's Michael Jordan, you're supposed to clap for him. The sequels are a bunch of gun battles, the original is an epic personality conflict that builds until the classic scene where Rambo breaks down and blubbers about what happened to his buddies. It's a better story and a better character and it offers you all that violence you ordered but still in the end is about emotions. It assumes you're a human and not just a sadist.

After the first blood though, what are you supposed to do for second blood? Is he gonna go on another rampage until he breaks down and cries about how guilty he feels for the first rampage? No, all they could really figure out to do is some more UNCOMMON VALOR type war and rescue movies that aren't as original or as meaningful as FIRST BLOOD.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed RAMBO. By which I mean the new one which is titled RAMBO and not the first sequel which is subtitled RAMBO. I'm talking about RAMBO: RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART 2 PART 3. Even while being confused by the title it's nice to see a serious old fashioned action movie in this day and age. Except for some gratuitous skipped frames (and digital touchups on the violence) it's pretty old school. No attempt to seem modern or hip or make jokes or even point out that it's old school. There's not some young wiseass character making comments about Rambo, serving as the voice for the younger viewers. Fuck the younger viewers. If they need a babysitter they shouldn't be here. The movie is very sincere so I had to kind of like it.

The action is very good and gruesome. Lots of limbs flying, people flying, blood flying. Rambo tears a guy's throat out. He shoots people into goo. He shoots alot of arrows. He turns an unexploded WWII bomb into a PREDATOR bomb. He's a little more down to earth than in part 2 and part 3. He has help from other badasses, he uses powerful guns as a crutch, his arrows do not have explosive tips, he runs around but he's not being a ninja or anything. The guy's in his 60s. The villains are hatable, though less than one-dimensional (and why does the main guy have to be gay?) The mercenaries are pretty tough, but not memorable characters.

And to be honest you gotta kind of wonder why Rambo hasn't learned more over the years. Maybe he doesn't have a TV out there in that shack but I'm betting somebody told him what became of his buddies in Afghanistan. He was fighting for the underdog there but it turns out the world is more complicated than just pick which side you think is the good guys and then kill and maim 500 people on the other side. Maybe he does understand that and that's why he tried to stay out of Burma, but the way he talks about not changing things if you don't have weapons, I think maybe he really thinks one of these wars he fights some day will actually work. He used to seem more aware, even kind of enlightened about his violence, he just didn't know how to turn it off. Your classic asskicking pacifist.

And it's kind of a problem that the movie is all about how bad this genocide is, and yet the high points of the movie all involve Rambo horribly murdering person after person after person after person after a whole bunch of other people that he just shot and blew up and arrowed and tore a throat out and knocked onto a landmine and blew up and etc. This is a movie that opens with a montage of real dead bodies and mutilated people in a real war and yet the audience is laughing excitedly at all the carnage that happens later. And you can't really blame them that much. They want fun even if the movie is sitting there moping.

If you ask me ROCKY BALBOA was a way better revisiting because it was all about a character. The boxing match is thrilling, but most of the movie is about what's left of Rocky's life and what he makes of it. I like watching the different ways Rambo can kill people, but I'd rather know about what else is going on in there. Will he ever get his humanity back? At the end of the movie he takes the advice of one of the missionaries and finally comes home. It's great to see him back in the U.S., walking down a road wearing the same clothes as in FIRST BLOOD. It's like a second chance at coming home, hopefully not going on a rampage this time. If some cop gives you a hard time just turn the other cheek, Rambo. Seriously.

Anyway it's a nice ending, probaly my favorite part of the movie, but to be honest I'm not sure how he got to that point. I'm not sure what lesson he learned or how he changed as a person. He just killed alot of people for what he thought was right. Again.

If they're not going to do a more involved character study then I hope if there's a part 5 they go huge. They gotta have Rambo at war in a city. What if in DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE Simon had said he wanted to talk to John McClane and they said McClane? He's suspended and he has a hangover. I'm gonna have you talk to this other guy, John Rambo, is that okay? If Rambo had to deal with some guys like that it might be new, but no more of these rescuing prisoners in the jungle stories, okay guys?

Also I was disappointed that he never ate anything that would make a billygoat puke, or even gag a little bit. Nice to see Rambo back though

RAW DEAL

This lesser-but-still-good Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle came in 1986, a breather between COMMANDO and PREDATOR. It opens with some mobsters shooting up a house where cops are protecting a witness. The first line in the movie is a cop reading a Trivial Pursuits question about how many Oscars John Wayne won. The correct answer is never given, but we get the idea: John Wayne is awesome, we're not in this for the Oscars, but John Wayne deserved Oscars, and so do we, etc.

(note: Marcel from Brooklyn points out that Wayne did get an Oscar for TRUE GRIT. So I guess RAW DEAL is supposed to be Schwarzenegger's TRUE GRIT or something. I haven't looked up if he got an Oscar for it or not.)

The introduction of Schwarzenegger's character is a classic: he's in a Jeep in the middle of a high speed chase with a motorcycle cop. He's chasing the cop. How often do you see somebody chasing a cop? It's beautiful! Of course it turns out that Schwarzenegger is a small town sheriff and he's chasing a guy who's impersonating an officer, but that's okay. It was clever to start off with that so you don't know what's going on. And it's a good chase.

We learn that Arnold's character Kaminsky was a New York cop who got busted for beating the hell out of a child rapist or somebody, so he had to leave town and was lucky to get this job. But his wife hates small town life, it's driving her so nuts that when he comes home from work she's baking a cake that says "SHIT" on it and throws it at him.

But one of his old pals had a son who was killed in that shootout in the opening scene so he offers Kaminsky reinstatement if he does a secret off the books undercover black ops psych out ninja black magic eastern promisekeeper death wish revenge mission (i.e. fakes his death, slicks his hair back, creates a new identity as a mobster, becomes a big time mob enforcer, and busts them from the inside). And why not? He doesn't like shit cake.

I have to admit I kind of took Schwarzenegger for granted for a while, and then when he became a politician I lost respect for him and started thinking less of his movies. But it's not really fair. The truth is other than his comedies and being a Republican and fucking over Lou Ferrigno in PUMPING IRON most of his choices have been good. You might argue he got lucky being THE TERMINATOR, but then there's CONAN THE BARBARIAN. And TOTAL RECALL. And PREDATOR. And in his early days he did some good ones too. COMMANDO is a great example of the sillier style of '80s action movie. RAW DEAL is not as consistently entertaining but it is a fun one. I recommend it.

I always enjoy Schwarzenegger playing a regular guy. Nobody seems surprised that a gigantic muscleman with a thick European accent is a smalltown sheriff. His lumberjack shirt makes him fit in. You'd think anybody who met him would remember him, but he's still able to go undercover. Hmmm... This European muscleman really reminds me of that cop who beat a child rapist to death five years ago. But no, I read in the newspaper that that guy died in a fiery explosion yesterday. Plus, they have different hairstyles.

His method of faking his death is pretty great, by the way. He drives into an oil refinery in his cop car, calls in that he is investigating a break-in there, then lights it on fire and drives out on a motorcycle. The explosion has got to have been half the budget of the movie. The damage he caused must've been ten times his salary for the entire five years he was sheriff there. The guy ain't subtle. Then, in the tradition of Zatoichi and Buford Pusser he starts a big fight in a casino, plays one side against the other, etc. And wears a tank top like John McClane, but two years earlier.

One of the writers is Norman Wexler. I don't know if you've ever heard about him but this guy was considered a brilliant writer and script doctor in the '70s. In 1971 he was nominated for an Oscar for JOE. In 1972 he was arrested for threatening to kill Nixon. In 1974 he was nominated for another Oscar for SERPICO. I don't know how good a writer Frank Serpico is but he oughta try returning the favor and doing a biopic of Wexler, because that would be interesting.

Wexler's mental illness was mostly unknown to the public until a guy called Bob Zmuda wrote about him (unnamed) in a biography of Andy Kaufman. Zmuda is the guy played by Paul Giamatti in the movie MAN ON THE MOON and he seems like a guy to spin some tall tales, but I've never seen anyone discredit his stories about Wexler. Zmuda claims he worked for three weeks as an assistant to Wexler. His job was to go around with his boss making audio recordings of his activities while playing him tapes of what happened exactly 24 hours earlier as well as music by John Philip Sousa. Wexler would go around barefoot with his feet spray painted black and cause confrontations with people (taking a shit in an airport lobby, paying old ladies to take off their clothes, etc.) in order to record their reactions to extreme situations and later transcribe them to inspire his gritty dialogue. When people got angry or would not do what Wexler wanted them to do Zmuda would open a case full of money and pay them off.

If that was really his method here is some of the dialogue it helped him write:

"You're under arrest."
"For what?"
"Impersonating a human being."

and

"Joseph P. Brenner... what's the 'P' stand for?"
"Pussy."

Hmm, not that great. Still, if you're a young writer trying to find your way it couldn't hurt to try shitting in airport lobbies.

4/13/09

RAWHEAD REX
This year they came out with a Clive Barker movie called MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN. Didn't play anywhere near here so I haven't seen it yet, but I did see the trailer and when they said the title at the end everybody laughed. Real mature, fellas, real mature. Well, this is an older Clive Barker picture and luckily nobody would ever be able to imagine a dirty interpretation of this particular title. I mean how would you even have a gay porno called that, unless you had a guy in it named Rex. But how many guys are named Rex in this day and age, I doubt something like that would happen.

Anyway this is your basic monster rampage picture but also with some of your typical Clive Barker themes. An American family is investigating their Irish homeland because dad's writing some book. While checking out an old church, lightning strikes an ancient stone statue, resurrecting an 8' tall monster-faced berserker bastard who we assume is named Rawhead Rex, although I don't think anybody ever calls him that and he definitely doesn't introduce himself. He is not so much a talker as a doer, he goes around mangling people, throwing people through walls, biting off people's heads and those sorts of activities. Let's say you're a woman standing indoors, he might bust through the window and grab you by the neck and tear your clothes off and carry you out the door. That's just who Rawhead Rex is, that's what he does. You can make your own judgments on his lifestyle, and if you're against it like I am don't worry, he eventually gets defeated by that glowing magic they had in the '80s that looked suspiciously like it was drawn on frame by frame.

The Clive Barker feel comes in with the priest who, after seeing Rawhead Rex, decides to change denominations. I think Clive has it in for priests and reverends, he always suspects they're phonies just talking Jesus until their first opportunity to worship an ancient monster god. Same thing happens in NIGHTBREED, I believe. We learn that Rawhead was a god who lived here long before JEsus. And he wants us off his lawn. With that in mind he's kind of lovable. Rawhead is one of those movie monsters like the yetisquatch in ABOMINABLE - so simultaneously cool and stupid looking that I laugh happily whenever they show him. His head looks like shiny plastic (because it's so raw, maybe) and his expression barely changes, but something about those crossed red eyes is very endearing.

In one scene the parents have to pull over and send their little girl out onto a field to pee. Suddenly the girl screams, the parents come running and... it's a bunny. She was frightened of a god damn bunny. Meanwhile, Rawhead goes over to the car and eats big brother. Let that be a lesson to you, girl: don't be a fuckin cry baby. And learn to hold it.

I don't want to start preaching or anything, but in my view the priest's actions put his credibility as a religious leader into question. I guess the idea is that he sees Rawhead Rex and knows FOR SURE he exits, and that seeing-with-your-own-eyes trumps mere faith in God. Plus he's giving Rawhead points for seniority, he's old school. But I'd like to think any priest would have a couple more things he liked about God that could compete with Rawhead Rex's existence. I mean even if they believe in a vengeful God, at least he's avenging sins or whatever. Okay, so maybe He's being kind of a dick going after people for eating lobsters or combining two kinds of fabric or being gay, but at least He's not running around willy nilly eating kids, pulling ladies through windows, carrying around a severed head like it's a designer handbag or a little Paris Hilton dog. If a priest chooses this beast over the Lord then in my opinion that priest was a poser in the first place. And good riddance. Give that old church to an Irishman who deserves it more.

And anyway what would this guy have done if a sasquatch ran past the church? Would he start worshipping bigfoot just for existing too? The bigfoot would probaly deserve it more than Rawhead, he probaly wouldn't be such an asshole. They're supposed to smell bad but I never heard of them eating anybody. Plus I bet Rawhead Rex doesn't exactly smell like a homemade apple pie in the oven himself.

Anyway I'm not trying to start any religious bigotry here, I just don't think this guy is thinking things through with his worshipping of Rawhead Rex. It wouldn't be a bad idea to hold our Gods to higher standards. And while we're at it, this movie is not all that hot either. But it treats things seriously, doesn't insult your intelligence too much, and has that funny monster in it so I'll give it a pass.

I mean, look at this mug:

I'd feel like an asshole completely writing off a movie with a star of this caliber. And really this is an origin story, it would've gotten much better if there were sequels. Imagine all the hilarious things that would happen in RAWHEAD REX LOST IN NEW YORK. I mean, the cab ride? All kinds of shit. I'm sure they still have that plastic head in a warehouse somewhere, they should bring this guy back.

10/11/08

RAZORBACK

How do you do an Australian version of JAWS? You can't have a killer koala. Maybe a rogue kangaroo that goes around punching people or stealing babies in its pouch. In 1984 these guys went with a huge fucking boar. And that would've been a great headline for a review if the movie was bad, but actually I really liked it.

I know this is the kind of movie people write off immediately. It definitely is a ripoff of JAWS and redoing JAWS with a huge pig seems even funnier than redoing it with an orca. But the movie doesn't give a fuck what you think. It knows what it is and it has no shame. Go ahead, laugh at the razorback. Laughing is healthy and will make you taste better. As one of our heroes says, "It has two states of being. Dangerous or dead." Mostly the first one.

The director is Russell Mulcahy or "the HIGHLANDER guy" as he is now known but at the time he was "Russell Mulcahy" because he was a rookie. He directed lots of music videos though, including the very first one ever played on MTV. Yes, video killed the radio star, and Mulcahy was the killer. Some other guy originally took the rap but was later exonerated by DNA evidence.

Music video directors making movies can be bad news. Or it can be some of our most creative filmatists such as David Fincher, Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. But usually you assume it means quick cuts and incoherent storytelling. In this case the transition from MTV to Australian cinemas was a good thing because they hadn't figured out how to ruin editing yet. His experimentation in videos gave him a better eye for exaggerated visuals than your average movie director, and he used that to his advantage. He made a really great looking movie, kind of stylized, almost post-apocalyptic. Lots of orange outback skies, shooting stars, unnaturally fog-drenched nights, dirty shacks and weirdos with goggles and machetes.

In the opening scene the razorback runs through a guy's house (and into our hearts). He goes in one wall, out the other, and suddenly the guy's grandson is gone. The story is so crazy nobody believes him and they try him for murder. He gets off due to lack of evidence and dedicates his life to hunting that thing. So he's our Quint or our Ahab. Or whoever it was that tried to hunt Benji in BENJI THE HUNTED.

But the story's about an American animal rights advocate who comes to investigate the kangaroo dog food factory and her husband who comes looking for her when she gets Marion Craned. Along the way he meets two hunters crazy enough to be in TEXAS CHAIN SAW or ROAD WARRIOR and ends up on a walkabout where he hallucinates a horse skeleton tearing out of the salt flats and coming after him. Eventually they find his wife's ring in some razorback shit and... well, you'd think it would be time for revenge but instead he tries to go home. Which is kind of funny because when you think about it that's what alot of people would really do. In movies nobody would ever do that. But in real life alot of people would not think to get revenge on a pig. Doesn't this thing already have it bad enough, being so big? I'm sure all the other pigs make fun of him. And we see that they're scared of him. It's gotta be hard making friends. It's hard out here for a razorback.

But don't worry, there will be revenge.

I know Mulcahy didn't turn out to be the most reliable director, but he did a great job on this one. I was surprised to see how good he was back then. Lots of dynamic camera angles and momentum to the way it's edited. I figure either he learned all the right lessons from his countryman George Miller or they just know how to make movies in Australia. This is one stylish horror movie with a touch of Tobe Hooper weirdness and some occasional detours into the surreal. And he does a good job getting a serious JAWS feel in parts. Like JAWS the killer animal is mostly an unseen force but when you get little glimpses of their fancy animatronic boar it's pretty great.

Unfortunately it hasn't been released on DVD in the US, you gotta get an import from Australia or the UK. But if you can track it down I think, like me, you'll find yourself saying, "That'll do, pig. That'll do."

4/24/08

THE READER
or
I WAS A TEENAGE NAZI-FUCKER (spoilers)

THE READER is the story of Michael Berg, a rich and successful German lawyer who is tormented that he cannot be emotionally open with the beautiful women he has sex with because when he was a kid he got sick and puked and a lady took him home and later he went to thank her but he accidentally saw her bush so he started to spy on her and then he helped her shovel coal and she gave him a bath but he got a boner so she got naked and they started to have sex every day and she liked him to read books to her but then she abandoned him and later when he was a law student he saw her in a war crimes trial and it turned out she had been a Nazi concentration camp guard who locked 300 people in a church and let them burn to death because she didn't want them to escape and she took the blame for writing the report on it but he realized she didn't know how to read but he was too afraid to speak up about it and she got a life sentence which made him feel guilty so decades later he started to send her tapes of himself reading books and she used those to learn how to read and then they were gonna let her out early anyway and he was gonna help her get a job but she hung herself so he took his daughter to her grave and started to tell her about it. the end. Best picture nominee, too.

This movie has many things to signal that it is important: the Holocaust, based on a book, multiple time periods, a trial, Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, the Weinstein Company logo, male nudity, female armpit hair, and about 45 minutes worth of tedious and gloomily shot scenes of an adult woman laying around naked with an actor portraying a 15 year old boy (David Kross - the German David Cross, I guess). But I have to admit, I could not figure out on my own what the movie was supposed to be saying or why somebody thought it was a story worth telling or watching.

The first section of the movie, the bathing and laying around reading section, looks at the affair with nostalgia, the way you only can get away with if the kid is a boy and the adult is a woman. This would not fly if it was a 35 year old man with a 15 year old girl (or boy for that matter). Admittedly, there is kind of a difference. Most 15 year old boys do dream of this sort of thing (except for the reading - how you gonna finish your homework if you also gotta read the classics of literature to your Nazi girlfriend?). But seeing poor Kate Winslet licking some gangly kid's belly gets old after a while and you can't help but wonder "jesus, is this supposed to be romantic, or erotic or something?" The marketers seem to think so, there's an ad saying "THE READER IS A SEXUALLY CHARGED FORBIDDEN AFFAIR."

The second section (the trial) replaces the laying around naked shots with many, many shots of the kid hunching over about to cry in torment as he hears the testimony, alternating with shots of his teacher looking at him wondering why he's so upset. In fact he's so upset he totally misses out on the '60s, which is visualized in a scene where he sits brooding by himself on the roof of a building, looking down into another building where college students dance in front of a peace sign poster and a couple make free love in clear view of the window. The only thing missing is the Daniel Stern narration. They use songs from the RUSHMORE soundtrack to represent the era, which is at least better than using songs from the FORREST GUMP soundtrack.

Every once in a while our little fascist-banger goes to class and they discuss the implications of the trial. In one scene a classmate rants about the trial being a sham because they're finding a few convenient scapegoats to blame for the Holocaust when in fact there were thousands of concentration camps and all of German society knew about it and failed to stop it from happening. I know it's showing not telling, but this is one of the few parts in the movie where I felt like I knew the point they were trying to make. Then that character is never heard from in the movie again and the protagonist continues to brood and cry, which I can only take to mean he feels sympathy for a heartless, murdering Nazi because he lost his virginity to her. I kept hoping that in a dramatic MATLOCK moment he would leap to his feet and yell "I FUCKED HER!" And the judge starts pounding his gavel angrily, "ORDER! ORDER IN ZEE COURT!" That would've been cool. And I was hoping one of the other guards would say she couldn't have locked the doors because her hand is paralyzed and she can't lock doors but then the kid throws her an apple and she reflexively catches it, and everyone gasps.

The third section of the movie is mostly about adult Michael (Ralph Fiennes) still obsessing over his booty call summer 30 years ago and apparently neglecting his daughter in order to spend all his time making tapes of reading books. At the end it explains that he was the inventor of the book on tape and made millions of dollars and this is based on a true story. Okay I made that last sentence up. But again I couldn't tell what the filmatists were going for here. Does he think he's in love with this elderly imprisoned Nazi lady he hasn't seen since he was a kid? Does he just do it because he feels guilty because he didn't reveal that she was illiterate, even though she didn't either? Or does he just have a strong commitment to adult education? And are we supposed to admire what he's doing, or feel sorry for him?

When he's just a stupid kid obsessing over his first vaginal contact you can understand (if not enjoy or be interested in) where he's coming from. But by the time he's an adult who looks like Ralph Fiennes it starts to be pathetic. I guess the idea is if you cast Kate Winslet then the character doesn't have to have any human qualities, we'll just empathize with her anyway. She's what they call a complex character: on one hand, she's a cold and unfriendly pedophile who's ashamed of not knowing how to read but not of letting 300 women and children burn to death. On the other hand, he fucked her. See? Multi-faceted. Look at all those layers!

Other than her Kate Winsletness there's no reason to like her, even before you know she's a Nazi. She's never friendly to him and is often cruel, even aside from the fact that she's a child molester. About the only thing nice she ever does is clean up his puke at the beginning, and even then she just dumps a bucket of water on it. If it was true love she'd use disinfectant. I guess in one scene they ride bikes together and she smiles, that must be the part where you understand why he would waste his whole life pining over this crazy bitch.

Note to Ralph Fiennes: there are other women who enjoy biking, some of them perhaps enjoy it even more than the first Nazi you bagged. Drop the nostalgia and get on with your life you fuckin loser. I'm sorry to put such a fine point on it, but it needs to be said. You need some tough love, and by that I do NOT mean you need to be molested by a Nazi. And by the way, I never saw an Ilsa movie before, but this has got to be the most boring of the entire series. I mean it would have to be.

If the idea was to show how a normal person can gradually slide into evil, I feel like they skipped that part. There's a pretty big leap from "I had to work at a concentration camp because if I worked in the office they'd find out I can't read" to "I couldn't open the doors on a crowded burning church because the people burning alive were my prisoners." If it means to explain that lack of a basic conscience, it fails. If the idea is to show that we are all human, that the good guys have flaws and the bad guys might have some good in them too, well, I think Paul Verhoeven did that much more effectively in his WWII movie BLACK BOOK - a movie that's both more fun and more devastating than this dull trip down the middle of the road.

If THE READER is actually a good movie then I sure as hell don't get why. But it's based on a book, so I went to wikipedia to find out what the deal is. From the detailed plot description it sounds like the movie is remarkably faithful, with one major exception being that the book is loaded with long interior monologues musing about all the implications of everything that's going on. In the movie, you just look at the dude pouting and crying. I could've watched the movie ten times in a row and while I would certainly have confessed to many crimes that I did not commit I would not have ever guessed that the book is about "the difficulties of subsequent generations to comprehend the Holocaust; specifically, whether a sense of its origins and magnitude can be adequately conveyed solely through written and oral media." I thought it was just about a dude who never got over that summer when he fucked that Nazi.

I'm sure there are some people out there who like this movie, and if they get something out of it then good for them I guess, I'm not asking it to spell out its themes for me to understand. But I just didn't find the story compelling. I guess I like my lurid trash to be more fun. Give me WILD THINGS over this shit any day. If this genuinely has something to say about the Holocaust or pedophilia or literacy or whatever then you guys better tell me about it later because I sure didn't get it out of the movie. Wikipedia says that those of us who weren't alive for the Holocaust can't comprehend exactly what it was like - no shit, Poirot. I'm sure the book has something more to say about it, but I don't think the movie does.

Now, some people might say it's not fair to bring up the fact that this was unjustly nominated for the best picture Oscar. But that nomination is the only reason I paid to see it, and in fact all the marketing since before it was even finished was based around the idea that it was an Oscar contender. I guarantee you that other than members of the Oprah Book Club, 99% percent of all viewings of this movie will be Oscar related. Therefore I think it's legit to bring this up.

True, this is the same award that went to CRASH, and you can't take them too seriously. I know that. But I think 2008 was a banner year for movies and it's sad to see such an uninspired bunch taking the honors. I mean look, I'm not surprised the Academy doesn't have the same tastes as me, I'm not gonna complain that they incorrectly failed to nominate REDBELT. That's normal. But there are a whole slew of 2008 movies almost universally considered to be better than this crap, two of them particularly obvious.

It's not like the greatness of DARK KNIGHT and WALL-E are a secret. WALL-E is a hit with audiences but it's also the best reviewed movie of the year. I have no doubt in my mind that it will be remembered as a classic for decades. I also have no doubt in my mind that nobody will have any idea what THE READER is in five years. But because WALL-E is a cartoon it's only worthy to compete with fucking BOLT and not with the grownups. Ghettoized like in Roger Rabbit.

Some skeptics say yeah, DARK KNIGHT and WALL-E are pretty good, but they're not Best Picture. Best Picture means IMPORTANT. Well, what is an important movie? I believe WALL-E and THE DARK KNIGHT are important just as filmmaking, because they transcend their respective genres and change people's ideas of what those types of movies are capable of. I also believe that the political subtext of both movies is more thought out and has inspired more discussion than whatever the fuck the more openly-trying-to-be-political THE READER is supposed to be about. And yet unlike THE READER they also manage to be incredibly entertaining. A mistake, maybe, I don't know. (Though BENJAMIN BUTTON and probable winner SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE are both mainstream entertainment type of movies, so I don't know.)

Maybe voters turned their noses up to DARK KNIGHT and WALL-E because they are commercial, blockbuster type of movies. Okay yeah, they made a ton of money, but if you look strictly at the artistry I think THE READER is the one that's the cynical Hollywood moneymaking exercise. We've all seen a million comic book movies and computer animation cartoons, we know the level of mediocrity you can get away with and still make a billion dollars. The respective filmatists behind DK and W-E rewrote the rules though. They challenged the notions of what you're supposed to do (or not do) in those movies and delivered far more than anyone ever expects or thought possible. THE READER does the opposite, it just sloppily hits on those notes you need for a movie you're gonna market purely as an Oscar contender and doesn't even excel in any of those areas. The fucking thing isn't even shot all that well and it has Roger Deakins' name on it. (I think he was replaced by a different guy, presumably out of boredom.)

To be fair, there is one scene that is very effectively uncomfortable. During the trial there is some emotional testimony from a Holocaust survivor. Suddenly in the theater, a phone begins to ring. A drunk lady paws through her bag trying to find the phone, which keeps playing a snippet of Lionel Richie's "Hello." How do you not laugh at that? But you can't laugh. Very intense. This probaly won't happen in other showings, but I will still give the movie credit for having made such a moment possible.

Anyway oh well, a snub is nothing new, puts 'em in good company. But you know what, things are getting better in this world, we don't need to just accept the same old bullshit just because it's always been that way. Didn't you Hollywood fuckers know we elected Obama? If we can elect Obama we can start ignoring this type of horse shit and giving awards to better movies, can't we? Maybe you haven't heard about hope and change? What about striving for excellence?

Oh well, I don't give a shit. Go fuck a Nazi.

IN 2002, MICHAEL BERG QUIT LAW AND INVESTED 3.5 MILLION EUROS WORTH OF BOOK-ON-TAPE EARNINGS TO BUILD A WATERSLIDE PARK IN HANNAH'S HONOR. HE HUNG HIMSELF BEFORE ITS COMPLETION AND NOBODY ELSE CARED SO THEY CONVERTED IT TO CONDOS.

1 IN 10 WORLD WAR II CONCENTRATION CAMP GUARDS COULD NOT READ OR WRITE. NATIONAL LITERACY HOTLINE: 1-800-228-8813

IF YOU ARE SITTING NEXT TO A CONCENTRATION CAMP GUARD PLEASE READ THIS PART OUT LOUD BECAUSE SHE'S FAKING READING IT TO HIDE THE SHAME.

1/29/09

THE REAL CANCUN

Well somebody loaned me a RUN RONNIE RUN screener and it happens to have THE REAL CANCUN on the same disc. Not sure what happened there but somehow accidentally I dropped the disc into the player and pressed a combination of buttons that caused it to play the movie and then also I watched the whole thing. It was weird.

What the movie is: the producers of The Real World tv show cast a bunch of rich kid morons in their early 20s and then paid them to go drink jagermeister and high five each other in front of cameras. I thought it was funny that they called this a "reality movie" since they apparently are going for an audience that does not know that there is such a thing as documentaries. But after seeing it I realize that it's actually better not to call this a documentary. A documentary you find real people who are already doing something (pimping, selling bibles, living in subway tunnels, living in a house infested by raccoons, etc.) and you attempt to follow them with minimal interference in their actual life. This is the opposite where you find people and make them go do something. For example I do not believe that these kids, if they had gone to Cancun on their own, would've paid money to go bungie jumping and have a dolphin encounter and that type of crap. That was for hollywood. The only major difference from The Real World is that they don't make them have a job and they use cameras that look more like film.

I wouldn't really recommend this movie but not because I'm embarassed or appalled, just because it's not all that exciting. If you're just watching it for titties and what not I definitely would recommend many fine pornographical works over this. But it does have some interest as a horrifying cultural artifact. Not of authentic american culture as far as I can tell but of that bizarre virtual culture that only exists in the matrix of cable television.

Let me put it this way. If it weren't for MTV and the teen movies of the 1980s I don't think I would know that you're supposed to go to an exotic beach somewhere on spring break to try to get drunk and laid. Of course I've seen this a million times on tv but I can't think of anyone I know who has actually done this before or even considered doing it. Maybe it's a regional thing, I don't know. But that seems like something you have to be especially rich and stupid to do. When I was that age and younger everybody knew how to get ahold of cheap wine and if they didn't have a car to fuck in there was always such a thing as the bushes. Maybe if we wanted to get REAL fancy we would save up for a shitty hotel room for a night. Nobody ever dreamed of flying to another country AND being able to afford a hotel.

But as far as this movie is concerned this is what 90% of all kids in their 20s do. Also the kids in this movie are young enough that they grew up watching The Real World and Road Rules and the various offshoots like Real World vs. Road Rules X-treme Bungie Jump/Obstacle Course Gender Challenge Reunion - Jamaica Stylee 2. So being somebody who tries to get laid on camera but not in porn is something they all aspire to.

My buddy Harry Knowles of The Ain't It Cool News made some good points about this picture and that "the real cancun" is something you have to work for. You don't get free travel and hotel and unlimited drinks and bungie jumps and dolphins and assigned roommates. I mean maybe some of these kids would (there is one guy who talks about how he doesn't go to college because his mom supports him in doing what he wants to do with his life, which is shopping) but even then they would have to produce cash or credit cards sometimes and worry about if they were going to overdraw for the day and get shut off by the bank. Not these kids.

Also to my surprise that nutball from tv Richard Roeper made an interesting point that apparently this was taped at the same time the US was invading Iraq. So while these little fucks were watching wet t-shirt contests and drinking liquor out of girl's bellybuttons their peers were off being freedom fried by depleted uranium and dropping bomblets on innocent people. Now it's a couple months later, the Cancun kids are back home sad that they have to work for a living and waiting nervously for the release of the dvd. And some of those peers of theirs are still in Iraq, guarding nuclear waste, getting picked off in the night one at a time, wondering why the fuck they can't go home yet and getting more and more impatient with the growing chaos and anger around them.

The reason why this is interesting is because there is no mention of the war or the outside world in the movie. That in itself could've been an interesting subject for a documentary if there had been at some point a tv on showing coverage of the invasion. Would the kids be interested? Would it interfere with their enjoyment of watching girls shaking their asses? Or would it not bother them? Since it's not mentioned we have no idea whether the kids even know what's going on or whether the filmatists purposely erased the deaths of thousands from their titties and jagermeister epic, but I guess either one is pretty emblematic of something or other.

It's hard to be specific about the movie because, in the tradition of ALIEN 3, I can't tell any of these people apart. It tells their names at the beginning, but how the fuck you expect me to remember that. You don't get much about their personalities, their backgrounds or their hobbies. I know one guy plays guitar and sings wacky songs. There is a girl who says she has a boyfriend back home. That's about it.

There are attempts to discuss many issues. For example, should you be faithful to your boyfriend? What size of dick do you like? Should you wear your bandana on your head or on your wrist? They also use the term "hook up" alot.

The closest thing to a main storyline involves the evolution of one kid, who knows what his name is so I'll call him Timmy. Timmy is the outsider to the Spring Break world, like us. Because he is from the Real Generation he is a postmodernist, and keeps referring to himself as "the good kid." He is very self-conscious of his role as the one guy who doesn't have giant muscles and a bandana. When he tells the other kids that he doesn't drink, they look at him like he just told them he masturbates to pictures of spiders. Completely bewildered. While trying to process this they don't say "Not even a beer?" or "Not even a wine cooler?" but "Not even one shot?" Because it's all about shots to them.

Of course, they immediately have bets about who can get him to drink a shot, and when they humiliate him into it, liquor suddenly becomes spinach to his Popeye. Or liquor to his Drunken Master. Literally seconds after he puts the shot glass down he announces that he needs titty. Suddenly he is more confident and has lots of fun. Women let him lick their cleavage and suck shots off their bellybuttons. When he didn't drink he got stood up and more than once punctuated a conversation with the awkward pronouncement "I want to see some booty!" Now that he's binging he's turning women down. He falls in love with a cute french girl and even wins "the hot bod contest" despite his skinny frame.

(To be fair, it kind of seemed like he won the contest in the same sense that Carrie won prom queen. So there should be an asterisk next to that. Also, when you see how sad Timmy is to leave it's hard to not imagine a painful return to the actual real world now that he knows the excitement of hard drinking. Welcome to the club, kid.)

There's another story about a blonde gal who bungie jumps into the water and gets stung by a tourist-hating jellyfish. This was a great move on the part of the subversive jellyfish because according to the local doctor the only cure is for the girl to pee on her own leg. But she doesn't have to pee so in the most romantic moment of the picture, one of the bandana guys sees his big opening, he pees in a cup and pours it on her leg.

Well of course they become close friends and the guy obviously has ideas. I hope he at least cleaned off her leg first. Actually they are just friends because she has a boyfriend at home and she wants to be faithful. But he keeps saying things like "I hope your boyfriend knows he has a great, great woman here." But on the next to last day of the vacation, she catches him fucking some chick in the shower and gets angry like she just caught him cheating. She yells "You had 24 hours!"

Maybe I'm just old but for me that brought up more questions than it answered. Was she testing him, and if he could go for one week with just being a friend then they would drop the boyfriend, clean off the pee and start fucking like dogs? Or was she just saying that if he had fucked a girl in the shower 24 hours later then it would've been okay because it would've been the last day? I don't get it.

At any rate he yelled back that he was hanging out with her all week and he couldn't wait any longer. Because god knows no kid can go more than 5 days without sex or their dick will explode. It happens every day.

Whenever there is fucking in this movie, it is under the covers. Whenever somebody says something, there is a high five. In one of the greatest moments in documentary film ever, a couple gets out of bed and high fives each other. Good game. Way to hustle.

You know the more I think about it maybe I actually did like this movie.

RED

Avery (Brian Cox) treats his dog Red like family. He doesn't talk to him in funny voices or make him wear a dog sweater. But he does apologize to him for making him wait while he gets his things together to go fishing. The movie gets rolling in about scene 2 when three teenagers show up, pretend to make small talk, try to rob him, and then shoot Red.

Going in I really thought this was gonna be the rural version of DEATH WISH 2. Instead of his housekeeper and daughter getting raped it's his dog getting killed. Instead of creeps infesting L.A. it's brats in the woods of rural Oregon. Avery tris talking to the boy's father, but the boy's father is Tom Sizemore. So that doesn't work out. He tries to go through the police, through the courts, but there's not enough evidence and the kids are too connected, so the system fails him. But he knows guns. He's a veteran. Time for revenge?

Not exactly. This isn't a revenge movie, it's a thriller in praise of honesty. Avery accepts that Red is dead. This has personal meaning to him more than just man's best friend shit. We learn about the tragedy that took his family from him before old Red was even fully grown, and why it gives him strong opinions about out of control kids. All he wants now is for the kids to admit they did it. He doesn't want money. When one of the kids apologizes he's sure to say that he appreciates it, but needs him to tell his father and the police what happened. Just clear the record.

For us revenge fans there's a pretty satisfying scene where he outsmarts the kid and gets to beat him up a little, but this only escalates the conflict and makes the problem worse.

Cox is good in a rare non-evil or pervert role, though with the kind of speeches he has to make he sometimes comes off a little more effete than the rugged man he's supposed to be. But he's a real good character, the kind who lives by a code and does not seem to give up. You never rooted so hard for a guy to get some kids to apologize to him for shooting his dog. Ever.

One thing that very easily could've killed the movie is the actors playing the teens. It's easy to imagine a movie where they're played too over-the-top or look too much like TV stars, or just are bad actors. Fortunately Noel Fisher (the shooter) and Kyle Gallner (the more remorseful younger brother) are both very convincing in their roles. Fisher is scarier than your usual movie juvenile delinquent because he isn't some tough guy, he's very believable as both the deeply fucked-in-the-head tormenter and the innocent nice guy face he shows to his dad. Also there's a good scene where he flips out at a baseball game.

This is not a horror movie by any means, but Robert Englund has a very small role as the dad of one of the three teenagers. If you're a horror fan you should also keep an eye out for Ashley Laurence, the heroine of the two good HELLRAISERs (1-2)

RED is based on a book by Jack Ketchum. And you may be wondering the same thing I was: "How does it compare to his work on Dennis the Menace?" Well it turns out that was Hank Ketchum, this is Jack Ketchum, which is the name he uses when writing. Or possibly a different person. Anyway it's not very much like Dennis the Menace, it's more like Marmaduke if Marmaduke died and then an old man tried to find justice. Maybe Crankshaft could be the old man.

There is some mystery about the director, because Lucky McKee started it out but had some kind of disagreement or duel with the producers and either quit or got fired or was kidnapped or forgot that he was doing a movie and went to do something else. At any rate the movie was abandoned. Later they hired a new director, Trygvie Allister Diesen, and somehow convinced Brian Cox to come back and finish it. I didn't notice much inconsistency except that the TV reporter played by Kim Dickens was a newspaper reporter by the end. I must've missed an explanation for that though because from what I've been able to gather Lucky McKee's version had his muse Angela Bettis in the Dickens role, so those scenes got reshot.

After all that it was good enough for a very small theatrical run, at least better than getting dumped straight to video. But somehow the screener still had no end credits on it. You'd think they would've figured out who made the movie if it already played in theaters.

I know there's alot of dog lovers out there. I'm not really one of them, I still don't understand why dogs eat cat shit out of a litter box, I have a hard time relating to that. But this movie is for you. Yes, you will have to endure the tragedy of a murdered dog (not gorey, until later) but the movie is sort of worshipful of dogs, at times portraying them almost as guardian angels. It has a great respect for dogs, but I suppose also for humanity considering the way Avery tries to help someone who has done him so much harm.

If you are the type of person who enjoys good stuff, please consider RED.

10/8/08

RED EYE
Under normal circumstances Wes Craven's new picture RED EYE would be nothing special. But his last one was that horrible werewolf travesty called CURSED so this is sort of an event. Wes Craven made a movie and it's kind of good.

I believe this is a first for Wes Craven: not a horror movie, and yet not about a white lady teaching inner city kids to play violin. What it is is a suspense thriller type deal that takes place on a plane. It is the first in the slew of plane-fear-sploitation movies that I guess are inevitable both in the aftermath of 9-11 and in the leadup to SNAKES ON A PLANE.

It turns out I wasn't the only one who hated WEDDING CRASHERS, because in this movie Cillian Murphy takes wedding crasher love interest Rachel Macadams hostage and torments her. She's the boss lady at a fancy hotel where the fictional head of Homeland Security is going to be staying. Cillian works for some kind of nefarious operation and his task is to get Rachel to change Homeland Security guy to a different room for more convenient assassination. All she has to do is make a phone call and if she doesn't, her dad gets it.

Before he tells her the deal though he adds an unneccessary flourish: he meets her in line at the airport, flirts with her, buys her a drink. Then "coincidentally" ends up sitting next to her on the plane. And she seems to be falling for him until the whole "I've been stalking you for weeks and right now there's a guy parked in front of your dad's house waiting for my command to kill him" thing comes up. Guys, remember, that's a dealbreaker for most women. So from this point on, they are enemies instead of potential lovers. But if he wanted to I think Cillian could make a big humiliating public speech at the climax where he admits that he was stalking her so he could force her to aid in an assasination plot, but then something happened that was never part of the plan: he fell in love with her. He fell in love with the way she smiles, the way she looks at him, the way she selflessly tries to help her employees at the hotel with a problem while she's about to miss a plane. And most of all he loves her because he makes her want to be a better man, to stop tormenting people on planes and do something good for the world. Yes, he lied to her. Yes, he coldcocked her on a plane and beat her up in the airplane bathroom and etc. And he's sorry. He knows he doesn't deserve her. And if she never wants to see him again, he'll understand. But he loves her. Rachel, will you marry me?

This isn't that type of movie though. So instead of apologizing and making amends he chases her off the airplane for some of the ol' cat and mouse. It would be great though if somebody somewhere got to see this movie thinking it was a romance. The opening 10 minutes or so acts like you haven't seen the ads and really think these two are falling in love. If it is possible I would suggest that you go into this movie not knowing what it is. So please don't read any of this review before or after this sentence.

The best thing about the movie is Cillian Murphy. I don't remember him looking weird in quite this same way in 28 DAYS LATER, but since this one's mostly on a plane there's lots of extreme closeups and you really get to study this freak. Put a mop of hair on the guy and he gets some kind of a weird handsome psychopath thing going. At first glance he looks pretty and on further examination he looks creepy and soul-less.

One nice touch: most of the details of the assassination plot are left to the imagination. There's a snippet of the victim in a press conference on tv that suggests there's gonna be some sort of point about the "war on terror" (pro, if I had to guess) but they don't really follow that. All you see is that he's a seemingly nice guy with a wife and kids and it would probaly be wrong to blow them all up. We don't ever hear any motivations or explanatory speeches for the assassination. Cillian is just doing his job, he doesn't give a shit about the politics and, even better, doesn't bother to brag about that he doesn't give a shit about the politics. And we don't learn anything about the people who attempt the actual killing. (There's a little bit of them talking in a non-English language. Russian maybe? I would've preferred they left that out to make it even more mysterious.)

Brian Cox is her dad and he's a total sweetheart. As far as we know he is not a child molester, a mutant hater or a cannibal. I guess it is possible that he is all three of these things but I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt unless further evidence turns up. He doesn't get to play a regular nice guy very often these days, so congratulations to him.

A certain amount of suspension of the ol' disbelief is required if you're gonna enjoy this one. I thought it was a little suspicious that this guy could threaten and torment her so much on a plane post 9-11 without anybody noticing. But it's possible. And when the chase comes to the airport, you wonder how anybody can get away with running through an airport these days. But then I've been in airports and it doesn't always seem like the security people are paying attention to anything other than making you take your shoes off. So I'll buy that. But then you also gotta buy his name, Jackson Rippner. He brings it up only to say that he doesn't go by "Jack" because it sounds like Jack the Ripper. But if his parents shouldn't have named him that then maybe the screenwriters shouldn't have either.

A good thing about RED EYE though: it doesn't fuck around. 87 minutes and that might be including the credits. Exactly the right length for something like this. Give or take 12 seconds. Myself though, I haven't learned that lesson, I still overindulge and overstay my welcome, so right after this double space down here I'm gonna go off on a tangent. sorry friends.

There is one reoccurring theme in the movie that you wouldn't expect: people having to put up with asshole customers in the workplace. At the beginning of the movie the flight has been cancelled and everybody's waiting in line to find out what to do. One guy gets all pissed off and starts yelling at a lady at the counter demanding to SEE YOUR MANAGER and all that type of shit. Both Rachel and Cillian stand up for the poor gal, knowing that she didn't personally fly up into the sky and stir the storm clouds around in order to cancel this guy's flight. But when faced on the phone with a fight between a hotel employee and some regular customers who are treating her like shit, she sides with the customers, comping them for their rooms and telling the employee "There are no asshole customers, just customers with special needs."

You see this kind of thing from time to time waiting in line at a store or a rental car office or wherever, and I gotta say that no, there are assholes. All over the place. There's a certain kind of people out there that live their life and do their job and whatever but as soon as they go into somebody else's place of business they get all full of themselves and think of the people working there not as people but as their servants. And as soon as something doesn't go their way they argue and start making demands and when the poor kid behind the counter doesn't give in right away, they get a devious smile and pull out that "Okay then, I want to talk to... YOUR MANAGER!" thing. Or, "Give me the address of your owner. BECAUSE I AM ABOUT TO WRITE A HARSH LETTER AND YOU WILL ALWAYS REGRET THAT YOU DID NOT GIVE IN TO MY CRAZY THREATS." People do this because they don't think reasonably, they have no perspective, they have no empathy for other people, they don't imagine themselves in other people's shoes and also, because they are just assholes. And they know that at most of these corporate places, if you complain about something - no matter how ridiculous - you're gonna get a free coupon or at least some manager is gonna come out and pretend that you have a good point and apologize and kiss your ass and you're gonna get to go off on some insane rant about how some minimum wage kid should be fired because YOU are the CUSTOMER and YOU are gonna pay $4.95 for a coffee and YOU should not be disrespected like that when you complain that there is too much hazelnut in your drink and you specifically stated that you think their hazelnut flavoring is too strong and asked that they only put a tiny bit of hazelnut but you can still taste the hazelnut and you are OUTRAGED.

Well Rachel MacAdams in this movie is the manager who does the asskissing and gives the free stuff. But then she has this whole the-plot-of-RED-EYE experience and that changes her. Maybe it's because in a way Cillian is doing the same thing, he's treating her like shit and bullying and threatening her, "I'm gonna kill your dad, give me what I want, whine whine whine I'm a litle baby." She learns to stand up to him and not cave in. So then when she comes home after all this horror and the same people giving her employee shit in the beginning of the movie try to pull the "we're regular customers and how DARE they mix up our reservations, DO YOU KNOW WHO WE ARE?" card on her, she tells them to go fuck themselves.

That is the real lesson to take out of this movie because really, how many people watching it are ever gonna get terrorized by Cillian Murphy on a plane? Probaly less than 10%. But of those others, many of them are gonna be working in jobs where they get treated like shit and have to eat it up. The type of job I'm sure this screenwriter was doing shortly before writing the script. So now he is sharing the RED EYE motto: the customer is sometimes right, the rest of the time they should go sit on a pole.

So anyway, decent thriller, pretty well made, not particularly memorable. But I'm going to say go ahead Wes Craven, let's see another movie, maybe this will work out after all.

RED SCORPION

The other day I was reading an article about Jack Abramoff, the notorious republican lobbyist at the middle of a bribery scandal that's dragging down Tom Delay and supposedly ties in to at least 30 other DC ho's. The whole thing is real complicated and the charge right now is for wire fraud but the investigation has brought to light all kinds of payoffs, exploitation of Native Americans, embarassing racist emails and a supposedly coincidental death that anybody with at least one eye will notice appears to be a mafia style hit. We're talking more corruption than even Senator Billy Jack probaly knew about.

Anyway, the particular article I read referred to Abramoff as a "former b-movie producer." Holy shit! I thought. I guess I hadn't been following this closely enough because I hadn't heard that before. The trusty ol' internet movie database explained that Abramoff had produced and wrote the story for the Dolph Lundgren picture RED SCORPION, not to be confused with RED SONJA, RED DAWN, RED SUN, RED EYE, THE RED VIOLIN, THE RED BALLOON, or Krysztof Kieslowski's THREE COLORS: RED. He's also credited as executive producer on RED SCORPION 2. That's it although his brother Robert went on to produce a bunch of other movies I never heard of.

Further research brought me to this article from Salon all about Abramoff and RED SCORPION. It's an interesting story, well worth clicking through the ads.

Now, I've always been real interested in action movies with a left wing subtext, because you don't get it too much. There's Billy Jack and there's some Paul Verhoeven and John Carpenter movies. But mostly in this genre, especially in the '80s, you had movies that bought into the Reaganite worldview, glorifying the blowing away of commies or inhuman street scum crooks. You got all the cop movies about those god damn liberals with their red tape, always going around and coddling serial killers, giving them a back rub and telling us we gotta be careful not to bruise their wrists when we cuff 'em. I always figured these attitudes came from copying the undeniably great DIRTY HARRY and the freakishly popular RAMBO 2, not from an actual political bias among creators of action movies. But here is one documented case of a right wing political operative deliberately using a Dolph Lundgren movie as propaganda for one of his pet causes.

Lundgren plays Nikolai, a Russian "killing machine" sent in to assassinate an anti-communist rebel leader in an unnamed (as far as I could tell) African country. To be frankly honest I was not entirely clear what was going on but I believe the Cubans are controlling this African country in conjunction with the Soviets and the African rebels are resisting.

I'm not sure what Nikolai's plan is exactly, but he storms into a bar already drunk. When he loudly kicks the door open nobody notices, but when he burps the whole bar goes silent. Then he goes around shoving people in the face, steals a soldier's machine gun and shoots the whole place up. (Property damage only.) He ends up in jail coincidentally in the same cell with an African rebel leader and a redneck American journalist played by the great M. Emmet Walsh. I'm not sure if he's supposed to kill the rebel leader or get in good with him but at any rate he sees his fellow communist comrades trying to execute him and suddenly decides to beat them up and help the two capitalists escape.

Right away we discover the weirdest motif in this picture: for some reason Little Richard music is like Kryptonite to commies. They hate the shit. All freedom loving Americans and African rebels like to play "Good Golly Miss Molly" and shit like that all the time. M. Emmet Walsh even plays it over a loudspeaker on a truck as they escape, which seems to help. The end credits plays Little Richard's "All Around the World," but they added in machine gun sounds and explosions. So it's a not so subtle warning that we are gonna import our rock 'n roll to every last corner of the earth. The rock 'n roll is a metaphor for capitalism and freedom, and the machine gun and bomb sound effects are a metaphor for actual machine guns and bombs.

Walsh plays an obnoxious character like usual but I think he's supposed to be your buddy because he's always talking about things like how you're allowed to fucking curse all the time in America because of freedom of speech. So he's a good American but as a journalist he seems a little suspect though, he goes around making recordings not talking about the facts of what's going on so much as stating his opinion that it's an outrage. God bless him for putting in 110% but you'd think maybe it would be smarter to stay at home if he's just writing editorials.

The African and the American don't trust Nikolai at first, even after multiple instances of running around Rambo style, killing entire platoons that are after him. Vast differences in marksmanship are always a key factor in these types of movies and fortunately it's the good guys who have the miraculous shooting skills and the bad guys who shoot like they got no hands and they can only use their stumps. It's not really explained why Nikolai is so fuckin badass, but his evil commie bosses expect alot of him, as if he's an android or something. I thought communism was supposed to be about the commune working together at the expense of the individual, but they always expect Dolph Lundgren to do everything by himself. And when he doesn't, they chain him up and beat him. Ironically, right wingers in the '80s imagined commies doing the same type of pervy shit that they themselves are known for now.

Of course I am a man who would be proud to enjoy a Dolph Lundgren picture, but I can't deny that this one is mostly a snoozefest. Most of the action doesn't have too much momentum to it, it's just spraying machine gun fire and various vehicles exploding. More importantly though there's just these long drawn out scenes where not much is happening. You have to see tired-eyed Dolph stumbling drunk, stumbling tortured, stumbling dazed through the desert, etc. Also one thing about Dolph, he doesn't have all that much charisma. I mean honestly, I bet this guy is fascinating in real life. He's highly educated with degrees in everything from martial arts to chemical engineering. It's gotta be interesting to talk to a guy that is actually smart but seems dumb enough that he could play Ivan Drago and Red Scorpion. And at the very least he's gotta have some good stories to tell about dating Grace Jones and maybe James Brown on the set of Rocky 4 and of course Jack Abramoff.

But on film he's just a real tall piece of meat. Especially when he has to fake a Russian accent. He does better than most of the other guys in the movie, though. How are you supposed to believe Brion James is Russian? And even he does better than the guys playing Cubans. Except for Walsh and some genuine Africans, EVERYBODY in this movie is badly faking an accent, and that can be tedious.

There's a couple good bits though. One part, he's acting all sexy taking his shirt off to go swimming and all the sudden a bomb drops behind him causing him to flip into the water. But silly shit like that is the exception to the rule. The movie only picks up about 2/3 of the way through when he has a Billy Jack experience in the desert. I figured RED SCORPION was just supposed to be a badass title, but then he literally gets stung by a scorpion and passes out in the desert, hangs out with some bushmen and then they trick him into drinking scorpion juice and carve a scorpion design onto his chest while he's passed out, possibly experiencing some sort of African vision quest. So I guess that's why he's the Red Scorpion, he comes from Russia and he drank scorpion juice once. I guess it is also possible that the actual scorpion who stung Dolph is the red scorpion, but if he is red I don't know why he would sting a fellow red like Dolph. Especially if he knew it was going to help Dolph undergo a complete transformation of morals and economic systems. Come to think of it neither the scorpion or Dolph are red by the end of this adventure. So it should probaly just be called Scorpion.

Also by the way, commies are also called pinkos, so it could also be called PINK SCORPION. I wonder if they ever considered that.

After his scorpionation, he emerges from the desert to lead a rebellion against the Cubans and Soviets and whoever else it is that is the bad guys. You're not really able to see his new scorpion scar but he is clearly a changed man because now he wears really short shorts. Who wears short shorts? Dolph Lundgren wears short shorts. One of the communists he fights is wearing no shirt, so it is really kind of tragic, I bet these two inappropriately dressed Russians have alot in common. But instead of sitting down in a bar together and telling stories about the battles they've fought and the strange juices they've drunk, they find themselves eyeball to eyeball in the battlefield, or actually in this case, in a hallway.

I should mention that at this point M. Emmet Walsh has driven in in a vehicle to lend a good ol' American helping hand in the battle, but he is not present during the short-shorts vs. shirtless fight. If he was I bet he would say some shit like "no shoes, no shirt - no mercy."

On the surface the movie is pretty harmless. We've all seen the overblown communist threat action movies of the '80s, and this isn't as over the top as RED DAWN or something. But the movie's subject matter is another example of short sighted foreign policy, obsessing over one bad guy so much that we end up supporting a different bad guy that will later come bite us on the ass. RED SCORPION doesn't have to be as embarassed as Rambo must be about working with the mujahadeen in part 3. But according to Salon the Abramoff brothers (who wrote the story and hired first time writer Arne Olsen, who would go on to write COP AND A HALF starring Burt Reynolds) based their fictional African country on Angola and their rebel leader on Jonas Savimbi. In the movie he's a straight forward hero, in real life he was blamed for murders and later for a civil war that cost thousands of lives. And really you've got to be suspicious of any black movement propped up by apartheid South Africa. Because that's fishy, in my opinion.

Which brings me to the truly sinister side of RED SCORPION revealed in the Salon article. No one disputes that the tanks and other military props in the movie were supplied by South Africa. The article also says that no one knows where the Abramoffs got the funding for the movie, but many (including members of the cast) believe it came from South Africa. Abramoff and guys like him worked with the South African government because they thought they were the last chance to stop communism from spreading through Africa. That's why Dick Cheney for example would vote against a resolution condemning apartheid. Not because he HATES black people. Just because he hates communism, and doesn't CARE about black people. So don't worry, he is not a bigot - just a horrible, heartless, inhuman sonofabitch with no soul or morals, who maybe saw Rocky 4 a couple too many times.

I think this story is worth remembering because looking back, it's hard to believe that even a piece of shit like Dick Cheney would've openly supported the South African government back then. But they did. They wanted to stop communism and they were willing to overlook fucking apartheid in their quest. If you can keep that in mind you can understand a little better why if he's really trying to stop the spread of Islamic fundamentalism he would do it by burning people alive with chemicals, raping children in prisons and other unorthodox/insane/counterproductive methods. Because you can't make an omelette without shoving electrodes up an egg's ass and throwing its son naked in the back of a pickup truck and driving it around town in the cold night. Well actually you can but remember this guy likes apartheid so he makes weird omelettes.

And that's how the making of RED SCORPION is relevant today. Somebody call the Criterion company, this is a behind the scenes featurette I need to see.

In the Salon article Olsen says of the Abramoff brothers, "They wanted to get a message across, but at the same time they were going for exploitation and of course trying to make some money." Which is also a perfect description of Jack's later career as a lobbyist.

Abramoff apparently had little to do with the sequel, and one IMDB reviewer claims it has a pro-communist storyline. It's only on VHS and my video store doesn't have it so I'm shit out of luck. Anyway, maybe if that fucker gets out of jail alive he'll come back to Hollywood and make part 3. I'm not sure the current South African government would warm up to him as much as the old one, though.

RED SUN

Pretty much every day, somebody comes up to me and asks, "Vern, what in your opinion is the greatest badass ensemble cast of all time?" They expect me to go for a big cast like THE GREAT ESCAPE or THE DIRTY DOZEN. But I throw em a curve ball with the best possible answer: HELL IN THE PACIFIC. There are exactly two actors in the whole movie, and they're Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune. That cannot be topped. The technology just doesn't exist.

Here's a cast that comes pretty close though: Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune and Alain Delon. I mean, that's pretty fuckin good, right? You could argue whether or not Bronson + Delon > Marvin. But there's other people in this movie, not just those three, and that lessens the impact. The minimalism of HELL IN THE PACIFIC is part of what makes it so great.

However, this one has something going for it: Charles Bronson is a cowboy. Toshiro Mifune is a samurai. In the same movie. I'll pause now for you to go rent the movie.

Thanks for coming back. In case you haven't watched it yet, I'll explain. Bronson and Delon are pulling a train robbery. On one car of the train is a Japanese ambassador guarded by two samurai. That's got nothing to do with the robbery but while they're poking around, Delon notices a ceremonial samurai sword the ambassador is bringing as a gift. So he takes it, and shoots one of the samurai that comes after it. Then him and some guys pull a doublecross on Bronson and take off with the boodle.

Things are changing in Japan, the age of the samurai is wrapping up, and this trip was gonna be Mifune's last mission. So now he's given 7 days to get the sword back and if he fails, he's gonna disembowel himself. Bronson of course is gonna go after the gold Delon stole, so, as much as Bronson doesn't like it, Mifune goes with him.

So it's really a buddy movie, the bandit and the samurai who hate each other but are forced together, eventually bond and are willing to make sacrifices for each other. There's even a joke I'm pretty sure they lifted for RUSH HOUR, where Bronson keeps talking shit to Mifune's face before he finds out that he speaks English.

So no, this is not related to RED DAWN or communism. It's red sun because of the japanese flag is a red circle or sun. What I'm saying is, Mifune comes from Japan. That is why he is a samurai. Since he's a samurai, there's some sword on gun confrontations. Bronson is able to keep Mifune at bay by pointing a gun at him. But when people are shooting at a samurai, a sword is gonna have to do. And Mifune shows that he can pull it off sometimes. I would like to see this explored in more detail but I'm not sure when it will come up again.

One complaint, I wish they coulda worked a shark into this somehow. I guess that is an unfair criticism really. But it woulda been cool.

Anyway, we're not talking Leone level of quality here (although I bet a remastered and letterboxed version would be more impressive than the versions available now). But it's a good gimmick. If you like spaghetti westerns, samurai movies, Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune, it's obviously worth watching. If you dislike those things, I don't know what to tell you. I think Kramer vs. Kramer is on cable right now.
REDBELT
If you've seen anything by David Mamet then you know it's kind of surprising (and awesome) that his new movie is about Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I even heard rumors that it was a straight ahead kickboxing movie like BLOODSPORT, and when the opening credits had Japanese drums like Christopher Lambert's THE HUNTED I was about ready for the rebirth of action cinema. But this is really not an action movie. Anyone who goes in looking for that might be disappointed like the guy who wanted his money back when I saw GHOST DOG. Maybe not quite as much - there's not alot of poetic shots of birds flying or long scenes of dudes driving around quietly contemplating. But this is not BEST OF THE BEST 2008, it's definitely a David Mamet movie. Slowly unfolding plot that could go in any direction, narrative that respects the audience enough not to spell everything out for them, an intricate con, macho dialogue, magic tricks, Ricky Jay, Joe Mantegna, Mamet's wife, songs by Mamet's wife. I was hoping William H. Macey would show up as some retired kickboxing legend, but maybe next time.

The best thing about the movie is Chewetel Ejiofor. He plays Mike Terry, the instructor at a small, struggling jiu-jitsu academy, and a total fucking badass. He has some ties to bigshots in competitive mixed martial arts (or "karate potpouri" I believe they prefer to call it) but he doesn't consider competition fights to be honorable, so he won't do that even when he needs the money badly. It's best to just let the plot fall into place, it's not exactly high concept. But I will say that it involves some coincidence, a broken window, some lies, and some sleeper holds.

I don't know how much training Ejiofor did. The fights are shot pretty close up, unfortunately. But the way he carries himself is very convincing. He's still intelligent and sensitive like some of his other characters, but also he could kick your ass. I always like this guy when I see him but this is his best performance and character that I've seen.

Give some credit to Mr. Mamet of course. He found a great alternative to the classic Steven Seagal "Just How Badass is He?" speech. As much as I love characters listing the hero's badass qualifications it's refreshing how Mamet leaves it at hints. Like when Mike runs into a tough guy friend of his training stuntmen how to knife fight, and they start talking about this movie producer. Mike's friend asks:

"Did he ask you if you were in the military?"
"Yeah."
"Did you tell him what you did?"
"He didn't ask."

Nothing more on the subject is said, or needs to be said.

There aren't too many fights and when there are they aren't take-your-breath-away showstoppers like in the best martial arts movies. They're more matter of fact and realistic. Two dudes grunting and trying to crush each other's throats. SPARTAN (which was Mamet's version of a special ops badass movie) did have a couple perfectly staged action moments, not so in this one. I think that's the one thing that could've made the movie better for me would be if it actually did go for a little more action movie thrills (without abandoning what they already have here). But oh well, I'm not gonna cry about it.

What I have not mentioned at all yet is the most important aspect of REDBELT, and the main reason I loved it. No, not Tim Allen. The most important part is the code of honor. The story comes entirely out of Mike and his students' code of honor. They make decisions based on their codes even if it's gonna get themselves in trouble or make their wives mad at them. The most important thing is not bringing shame upon the academy. One scene I love is when Mike and his wife (Alice Braga, the woman from I AM LEGEND) are arguing about something Mike and his student did to help a stranger that loses them some money. She asks if he thinks that's noble and he says "No, I think it's correct."

Man, I'm a sucker for a good code of honor story, and that theme in this movie is about as right-on as they come. Makes me want to stand up and cheer, like KNIGHTRIDERS. The story is about Mike sticking to his code in the face of the corrupt moneymaking behemoths of Hollywood and professional sports. Like most people these days he is surrounded by people who see nothing wrong with selling out ancient traditions and values for profits, who think doing something because it's "correct" is naive and silly. He sticks to his guns and he takes some losses because of it, but he has some victories too. The story also applies his jiu-jitsu philosophy to the dangers he faces outside of the ring. Listen to what he says in his classes, most of what he's talking about applies to more than just fighting.

I believe this is a truly great movie, and I know of five acquaintances and a few readers who saw it and so far it's unanimous admiration for this one. But Mamet's style is not for everybody, so I won't make any guarantees. That's why I believe now REDBELT should actually turn into an action/exploitation series like the KICKBOXER series or AMERICAN NINJA or something. That way we could all share REDBELT and enjoy it equally. Ejiofor should return and this time it's all about rescuing somebody that gets kidnapped or cleaning up the neighborhood of drugs or going back to Afghanistan to rescue his platoon who were left behind. And my buddy who I refer to in reviews as "Mr. Armageddon" suggests that he should only be referred to as Redbelt. "That's no amateur you're dealing with. That's Redbelt!"

Of course this would never happen but I'm not being sarcastic, I would honestly love if it did. The character is that great, you just want to see him in any adventure you can get. In REDBELT 4: CIRCLE OF JUSTICE I'm sure he would be played by Michael Jai White or Kirk Sticky Jones, but I'd still give it a shot.

Trivia: I swear to God, Jar Jar Binks himself Ahmed Best is listed on the credits as a stuntman. So look carefully, maybe he gets what they call "knocked the fuck out."

5/19/08

REEKER and NO MAN'S LAND: RISE OF REEKER

I'd been meaning to see REEKER since it was mentioned in the Fangoria magazine, then I was reminded by some list of recommended slasher movies. I seem to have pretty much squeezed the juice out of this genre but every year around Halloween I start scouring again just in case there's a couple drops I missed. And there probaly are still some good ones out there that I haven't seen.

I'm not sure this one counts, though. It's okay. It's about a group of older-looking college students carpooling to AREA 52 - THE WORLD'S BIGGEST RAVE! Two women, three men, and one of the men just stole a box full of ecstasy pills from a psychotic corpse-fucker. And that guy is sort of mad about it.

But the real threat isn't the psycho, it's some invisible guy in a gas mask with a weird drill weapon and a blowtorch. Sometimes you see flashes of him, but usually he appears as heat trails. He's like Predator except less stealthy, because he smells so terrible. Nobody ever comments on it, thankfully, but his victims always gag and puke from his presence.

This brings up some interesting questions. Is this really the first stinky killer? I'm guessing he's not. There's no way Jason smells fresh. As a kid I doubt he had the best hygiene. Living in the woods - definitely not. Then he started rotting. By JASON v. FREDDY he's been to Hell, probaly got a sulfur odor. Add freezer burn into the mix for JASON X and I'm surprised we haven't seen this gagging before. Also consider Leatherface - it is documented that Gunnar Hansen smelled terrible from wearing the same unwashed clothes for the whole shoot. But I bet Leatherface had been wearing it for years! Plus the mask.

There's one pretty likable character, a blind guy with a Paul Rudd-ish charm, played by Devon Gummersall. I didn't trust him because I heard on FELICITY he played a friendly Tarkovsky nerd who turned out to be a date rapist. Fortunately here he never violates anybody.

The movie's only okay, but it has some pretty good action sequences with Stinky attacking vehicles. I like the idea of PREDATOR as a slasher movie instead of a war movie. Of course it's not nearly as good, and the cast is not as impressive, although I was happy to see Michael Ironside as a tourist looking for his missing wife. He could've been in PREDATOR. But they would've given him more to do there.

I think the smartest decision of the movie is that - unless I wasn't paying enough attention (which is possible) - they went the admirable route of not explaining who he is. An alien? A demon? An interdimensional zombie? An eccentric inventor who smells like ass and likes to murder people? It was smart to leave that up to interpretation.

Except whoops, because now they made NO MAN'S LAND: RISE OF REEKER. In this one we find out that the Stinker was a serial killer called "The Death Valley Drifter" who heard voices telling him to kill, and he was destined to-- I don't know, I watched it last night, I forget exactly what it was, but the point is now we know. He's not a demon or nothin. He's a bald dude that smelled bad because of the dead bodies in his shack.

The opening of the movie (a prequel encounter with a slower-than-usual version of vehicular homicide) is cool, and the end is pretty cool. In between is pretty damn boring. The characters this time are some dudes who robbed a casino, the Jessica Simpson-esque waitress ex-girlfriend of one of the robbers, and the cops who are trying to catch them. They must've gotten bored with the cat and mouse stuff so there's less action this time and more supernatural weirdness. The victims slowly realize that they're trapped in some kind of ghost world or something, and they can survive some pretty bad mutilations. In a rare moment of mild interest a pair of legs walks around without a torso attached.

This time since this Reeker fellow isn't a mystery they show him alot more and he has sort of a herky-jerky skipped frames effect that I guess means he's skipping around between realities or something, I don't know.

In the end they try to have a big reveal and it seemed sort of clever although to be honest I was so bored in the middle of the movie that I kind of lost track of what happened to who, so when there turned out to be something more to their deaths than you originally realized I wasn't able to piece it all together. But there was one weird little touch that I really loved, and I don't really recommend the movie so I'll just tell you about it. The climax involves a car blowing up, and after it happens you see a bird flying away on fire. It's kind of a phony digital effect but it's kind of in the background, there's not a closeup, so it seems like a nice surreal detail. Then the bird circles around a couple times and flops down on top of a leaking propane tank, causing another explosion. I gotta give a huge thumbs up to the burning bird explosion, I wish the movie had more of that spirit.

The sequel has better production values but otherwise pales in comparison to the original. It reeks of desperation. It stinks. I smell a rat. Something smells fishy. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. etc.

By the way, I assumed this was done by another one of these young up and comer horror fan directors but director Dave Payne previously did a bunch of movies including ALIEN TERMINATOR (one half ALIEN, one half TERMINATOR), ADDAMS FAMILY REUNION, and JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH (the story of Chippendales).

REIGN OF FIRE

I heard a rumor, or actually I just saw it on the ad, that REIGN OF FIRE is supposed to be the perfect summer movie. And in a way I think it is. Because it takes a good special effects extravaganza premise - the world is obliterated by firebreathing dragons and a small community of survivors fight back in postapocalyptic england - and treats it much smarter and more dramatic than you'd expect.

Yeah, this is a movie with computer animated dragons, and a bunch of people fighting them. But the emphasis of the story is not on the fighting. It's always on the drama. After a prologue and a MAD MAX-like dragons-take-over-the-world explanation montage, you get basically a DAY OF THE DEAD setup. Here is this community of survivors living in spruced up castle ruins using what limited resources they can find to survive. You find out about their whole system - how they eat, their security system, how they use birds for lookout and what they teach their kids to do if they see a dragon. There's also a little I AM LEGEND in there because they treat the dragons scientifically. They are not magical. They explain how they breathe fire, how they reproduce, the best way to kill them.

And after the dragons attack the place, you get a long scene of all the kids crying and walking around in shock. They are seriously traumatized. You don't get that in ARMAGEDDON or INDEPENDENCE DAY or that other one with the giant iguana and Mathew Broderick. Not the one with Marlon Brando, that's a different one. Anyway in most of these types of movies people run from special effects and they make a funny face and go "OH SHIT!" and if they're Will Smith or Orlando Jones, they make some joke about being black. Like, "Man, why the black dude always gotta get eaten by the dragon first!" And then they keep going.

REIGN OF FIRE doesn't have oneliners, it doesn't have much comedy relief or action stunts or wacky ethnic stereotypes. There is not even a scene where animals narrowly escape harm. It's a legitimate attempt to treat one of these types of premises somewhat realistically, like how it might really be. It's a PG-13 movie but it doesn't feel toned down for the kids. You don't feel like they pussied out anywhere.

The two leads are Christian Bale and Mathew McConaghey, and both are topnotch. Alot of individuals give McConaghey shit because Joel Schumacher made him a big star with that horrible John Grisham movie, and he was in the worst Texas Chainsaw sequel, and he got arrested for playing the bongos naked. And now that I list those things I mean I guess maybe I can see their point. But I actually kind of like the guy when he's in the right role. Like NEWTON BOYS wasn't bad. FRAILTY was okay. And there was probaly something else.

Here he's bald, bearded, covered in tattoos, playing the dragon-apocalypse version of Patton. A cocky american military asshole who chomps on cigars and has actually killed some dragons. He leads a small brigade of sophisticated dragon killers. He gets to say things like "Let's rock 'n roll, we got a dragon to kill" and they get to say things like "We got a bogie on our tail" (with the bogie bein a dragon). McConaghey gets to talk tough and act crazy, and walk around with no shirt on swingin an ax. Unlike in that embarassing 'SAW sequel it works when he hams it up this time.

Christian Bale is the more passive, shaggy haired leader of the community, and the first modern man to see one of these dragons (when he was just a boy). He talks with his actual british accent and no matter how hard I stare at the guy, I can barely tell he's the same genius who played AMERICAN PSYCHO so perfectly a couple years ago, or the racist fuckwad in SHAFT 2000. He's good though.

I'm not gonna claim the movie is devoid of hollywood contrivance type deals. I mean why would Christian Bale have a 20 year old Time Magazine about the attack of the dragons sitting on his desk? But at least it wasn't underwater, like when they did the same thing in WATERWORLD. And at least the pictures looked cool, like real news pictures, except with dragons in them.

If I was going to name the perfect summer movie it would be BLADE II, because I would watch that in any season. But REIGN OF FIRE is a good one and I would love to see more pictures like this. Pictures with unpretentious action premises that are still true to themselves, that don't try to follow the trends or formulas that everyone else does, or treat the audience like a bunch of retards.

RESIDENT EVIL

Apparently this one's based on a video game that's kind of based on the night of the living dead movies. So it turns out real crappy like a xerox of a xerox. And apparently the machine needs servicing. The video game is probaly better because after three of your pac-men get eaten by zombies, the game is over. The movie lasts, like, more than an hour.

The plot isn't that bad. Milla Jovovich, who is still gorgeous even after leaving Luc Besson and becoming integrated into society, plays some kind of security agent or something in a dress. (Not sure.) She wakes up naked in the shower of a mansion with no memory. Some army goons rush in and bring her along with them into a secret underground chamber to investigate, even though she doesn't remember how to help them.

Okay so I am not really backing my claim that the plot isn't that bad. Well it turns out that before she lost her memory (I never understood how) she was undercover, living in the mansion to guard the secret entrance to this underground facility "the hive" where a realistically sinister corporation performs illegal genetic experiments. But somebody let loose a deadly virus, the computer put the place in lockdown, and all the scientists and dogs inside were turned into zombies. Also some monster comes out at the end.

Where the not that bad part comes in is that while the team of toughs (including 2000 Outlaw Award Winner Michelle Rodriguez) try to contain the virus, the computer senses that they will be infected and spread the virus to the city, so it contains them. And then Milla starts to get back bits of her memory which make her slowly piece together who released the virus and why.

I mean I'm not claiming its great but it's a structure that could've been interesting with skilled filmatism. Instead they hired the dude that did "Mortal Kombat" and "Event Horizons" and apparently asked him if there was anyway he could make something alot worse. There is no tension because you don't care about the characters and things are not staged to give you a sense of geography, of how fucked these people are when the doors close on them.

It just doesn't feel like a real movie. I like looking at Milla and Michelle Rodriguez is pretty cool, even when she has nothing at all to do. But otherwise none of the actors have any presence. They even got that idiot from The Crow Part 3 in one of the lead roles. The sets are mostly storage closets with pipes. If this was shot in hollywood it's an amazing facsimile of Canada. If it was shot with a hollywood budget, it sure looks like Steve Norrington's "Death Machine" on less imagination.

At first I thought the computer was going to be the only interesting character. It manifests itself as a hologram of a little british girl. But the idea of a computer that makes snide comments doesn't hold up. I guess it kinda worked in Knight Rider, but that was a long time ago.

All the attempted scares are cheats. There is a part where Milla is being chased by mutant dobermans. The lab goes totally silent - until the camera changes angles to reveal the dogs behind her. Suddenly they are panting and growling up a storm. This pattern is repeated several times within that sequence, that something is dead silent until it is revealed and suddenly it can't contain itself.

There is exactly one shot that is worth watching in this movie and it was already in the trailer. Milla sees one of the mutant dobermans jumping through a window. So she turns around, runs up the wall, spins back around and kung fu kicks the dog in the head, mid-air. I must admit I had to rewind that part. If only the rest of the movie had been that stupid it would've been easier to sit through.

When my friend loaned me the screener of this picture, he mentioned the dogkicking shot, and one where you see the side of one of Milla's boobs. I was surprised to find that those really were the only two memorable things about the movie.

The best thing I can say about this one is that it didn't seem as long as Final Fantasy.

REST STOP

What better location could there possibly be for a horror movie than a rest stop? I mean obviously when people think of scary places for a horror movie they think of old spooky houses, haunted mansions and castles, dark caves and tunnels, cabins in the woods, woods in general, hospitals and asylums, abandoned amusement parks, wax museums, slaughter houses, seemingly normal suburban neighborhoods, backwards rural towns, rusty sheds, dilapidated huts, eerie villages, summer camps, ordinary high schools, old boarding houses and conservatories, orphanages, hotels, churches, curiosity shops, opera houses, abandoned mannequin factories, deserts, Antarctic outposts, laboratories, graveyards, tombs, morgues, farmhouses, mysterious islands, dungeons, torture chambers, basements, carnivals and circuses, movie theaters, libraries, malls, grocery stores, dirty warehouses, last houses on the left, etc. to name a few.

But what is the one thing that most of those places have in common? You are not there right now. So you would have to travel to get there. And with the exception of (arguably) the mysterious island you would most likely have to drive there. And if it was a long way from where you are now you might have to stop and pee at some point before you get there. BAM! That's where the rest stop comes in. I feel I have just proven that a rest stop is more of a threat to you than a torture chamber. So be careful.

And of course there's so much to work with for a rest stop horror movie. The free stale Chips Ahoy type cookies, the jugs of McDonalds orange drink, the coffee in styrofoam cups, the drinking fountain. I mean the possibilities are endless. The tagline for REST STOP is "dead ahead," but it could also be "Get out to stretch... AND DIE!" or "In the dog walking area no one can here you scream."

Okay on second thought, what the hell was anybody thinking a rest stop was a good idea for a horror movie? But they do an admirably okay job of pulling it off, especially for straight to video. Not that I would recommend it but still. You could do worse. Like if there was one called EROTIC BAKERY, that might not work.

REST STOP is the first in a line called "RAW FEED" which is supposed to be higher-than-you-could-reasonably-expect quality straight to video horror movies. The look is nice and realistic, seems to be mostly shot on location, nice cinematographing, pretty good acting, music doesn't sound cheap, no avid farts or anything, no distracting CGI, and not too jokey (in fact not jokey at all).

So their hearts are in the right place but, unfortunately, it's still not all that captivating. The story is basically THE VANISHING TEXAS DUEL MASSACRE. A young couple headed for California stop at the rest stop to pee, the bathroom is creepy, when the girl comes out the boy and his car are gone. They were just having a fight but the movie doesn't really play much with the idea that maybe he abandoned her on purpose, instead it immediately becomes clear that a weird pervert (whose face we never see clearly) who drives a yellow pickup has taken the boyfriend and is stalking the girlfriend trying to terrorize her. So she can't rest, even though it's a rest stop.

There is no celebrity or b-movie cameos in the movie. Well, actually, little Joey Lawrence is apparently in there, he must be the police officer who tries to help her but if so he is unrecognizable, I didn't once think "Joey Lawrence? Gimme a Break!"

As far as I know there is no universal fear of rest stops for them to play off of, but there must be a fear of public restrooms because this has come up before with the gas station in LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 3. And I think maybe the lady had to use the restroom in John Carpenter's BODY BAGS, the segment where the guy from REVENGE OF THE NERDS plays a gas station maniac. Plus people get killed in outhouses in many horror movies, including but not limited to FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 and THE HILLS HAVE EYES REMAKE PART 2. In this one the boyfriend actually tries to get her to pee in the bushes but she refuses and that's why they go to the stop. So really what this is is trying to scare women into peeing in a bush. It's pro-peeing in a bush propaganda.

There are some Creepy Redneck characters in the movie too, obviously inspired by TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, but more like the crappy remake than the original American classic. I'm tired of these kind of characters, the backwards trailer trash with forty year old clothing, phony accents and extreme religious beliefs. It's a fuckin cartoon, they never seem like actual people. I did kind of like the weird little guy who's always taking pictures. Kind of Mini-Me meets the peeing wheelchair guy from TEXAS CHAINSAW: THE HORRIBLE REMAKE. In one of the alternate endings he actually shows up at the girl's house at the end. Not sure how he got there. Hopefully in a little remote control car, that would be cool. I wonder if he ever fought Dollman.

There's nothing real scary or shocking in the movie. Probaly the two most memorable touches are probaly the closeups of the stalker's nostrils as he smells his prey in the restroom, and the scene where a character begs another to put him out of his misery, she fires into his mouth and blows his brains out but he somehow survives and yells that she's a bitch before she shoots him again.

One gimmick they come up with from the rest stop location is to use bathroom graffiti as a record and form of communication between the rest stop's previous victims. It starts to get more weird when she peels off a layer of paint and finds graffiti about the killer going back to the '70s. There is kind of an ambiguousness in the time period too, it starts to seem like something supernatural is going on when she meets a girl who literally thinks she's in the '70s.

What exactly is going on is left vague. Is it just some psycho in a pickup truck who you never see clearly? Or is it supernatural? Judging from the varied alternate endings I'm pretty sure the filmatists didn't really know what was going on either. Oh well. Maybe they'll decide something after they're done shooting part 2.

RICHARD PRYOR LIVE AND SMOKIN'

This is a video I have seen on the shelfs alot but I never got around to renting it on account of it is only 45 minutes. And who the fuck wants to pay 3.50 or what not for 45 minutes of standup when you could just watch scrambled Def Jam Comedy Jam for free.

But now I finally saw it and it was interesting but hell boys I gotta warn you, this is for Richard Pryor experts only. It is not a good introduction to his works, in my opinion. I don't want you to watch this one first unless you promise me right here and now that you will watch Richard Pryor Live in Concert and Live On Sunset Strip even if you don't like this one too much.

According to his autobiography this was his first concert film, originally titled just Smokin' and filmed at the Improv in New York in April 1971. It was at a time when he was really considered to be breaking new ground. For a long time in his career he was just imitating Bill Cosby but then he decided to start talking about the type of shit he really thought about after growing up in a whorehouse in Peoria, Illinois.

But when you know how good Richard got later, this one seems pretty crude. For the first half he seems real nervous and his timing seems just a little off. He keeps mentioning the camera but not in any way that's funny, it just makes him seem nervouser. In one part he laughs a little bit in the middle of a character and tries to make it into a joke but it's kind of awkward.

And one thing that's weird is these white people aren't laughing very much. If you've seen his other films you're used to this motherfucker strutting into a huge theater where he's treated like a comedy god. Here he's just some black dude saying "nigger" a lot while they try to eat.

(Later he went to Africa and denounced the n-word but this was before he could afford that type of travel. Remember back then comedians didn't get paid for performing at clubs.)

Anyway that is not to say if you like Pryor you shouldn't watch this. There is some good characters on there. But the jokes and the polish just isn't there if you're wanting the full Richard Pryor one two punch. Sorry.

RICHARD PRYOR LIVE ON THE SUNSET STRIP

This is Richard's standup film from 1985 and like you damn well oughta expect from Richard, it's some funny shit. It is interesting to contrast this one with his 1979 Live in Concert because Richard has gone from being a genius to being a superstar. The opening credits play this '80s style funk and show giant billboards advertising the show. Then a spotlight comes on in the back of the theater and Richard struts his way through the audience, and you see this cockiness on his face that is almost like a different person. Everybody loves Richard when he's on stage being funny but this is something else altogether as you feel the outpouring of love from the audience and you see how it gives him strength.

Alot of the shit Richard talks about he wouldn't have known before he was a superstar. He mentions groupies, a trip to Africa (and how's he gonna do that before he was rich?), filming a movie. But he doesn't ever come off as a sellout, he's letting you in on his life, exposing his flaws, making it all something you can relate to. He also talks about some of his early days, like when he was 19 working at a club run by the mafia. There is a story he tells about trying to get money from the mafia that is a scene in his autobiographical movie he directed Jojo Dancer Your Life is Calling, and I had no idea it was something that really happened to him but I guess it must be.

This picture has special meaning to me because Richard talks alot about the penitentiary and his experiences filming Stir Crazy. But the best part is near the end when he goes into stories about his addiction, catching on fire, how he was so addicted that his dealers would worry about him and refuse to sell to him, "nah, you're killin yourself." He tells a story where he accurately portrays three characters: a high Richard Pryor, Jim Brown doing an intervention, and a pipe trying to convince Richard not to listen to Jim. I think Richard is always best when he's playing animals or inanimate objects and this is a good one.

I know what your thinkin, who the fuck wants to watch a movie of just a standup act. I know I know comedy ain't all that cool these days but that's because most of these jackasses couldn't comedy their way out of a clearly labeled exit door. But Richard is another story and believe me if the movie you're looking to rent is checked out maybe you could give this one a chance and you will be pleased. Anyway it's not like turning on comedy central or something, number one it's actually funny and number two it's kind of a time capsule, it's on film and Richard is up there in a bright red suit, and the lights are all floating around like glowing red orbs and they cut to dudes in the audience with mini afros and what not, I mean it is more interesting than what you get now days.

RICOCHET

I think I saw this movie back when it came out and I remember it just being ridiculous, but seeing it again I thought it was a good ridiculous. The movie begins with a melodramatic Hitchcock style credit sequence, but then cuts straight to Denzel Washington, Ice-T and Kevin Pollack playing very aggressive basketball on a playground. As far as I know this one is one of only a handful of movies in all of cinematic history that begin with those three guys playing street ball.

I like this scene because it very quickly sets up most of the major players in the movie while also establishing just why the movie is cool. For one thing, the director is Russell RAZORBACK Mulcahy, video director turned movie director who is fond of fancy hotshot camerawork. But this is 1991, still firmly in the naive days when a director followed a code of honor that they were expected to provide visual clues to the audience to understand what the fuck is going on. For some of you younger individuals it's probaly hard to imagine, but the camera is flying around in such a way that it enhances your enjoyment of the movie, instead of pissing you off. This starts in the basketball scene with the camera somehow following right behind Denzel as he weaves through the other players and slam dunks.

In this one scene we learn that Denzel is a cop and law school student, Pollack is his partner, Ice-T is a childhood friend who he is distancing himself from because he's a criminal, and Victoria Dillard is a girl Denzel has his eye on (who will become his wife). More importantly though what this scene establishes is that this is young, arrogant, show-offy, charming Denzel. It's after MO' BETTER BLUES but before MALCOLM X, so he's got the chops but not the expectations. And he's applying that talent to a character in an over-the-top b-movie thriller. His character is named Nick Styles, if that gives you an idea.

The one major player missing from the b-ball scene is John Lithgow as the villain, a psychopathic hitman. Styles happens to run into him in the middle of a crime at a carnival, and he apprehends him in a rather show offy manner (in his underwear and in front of TV cameras). So Lithgow goes to jail and Styles makes a name for himself. While Lithgow is in the joint Styles becomes assistant D.A., gets a family and starts working toward building a children's center to help other kids from bad neighborhoods become successful like him.

Lithgow in my opinion does not make constructive use of his time in the can. Instead he cuts out pictures of Styles and plasters them all over his wall. He spends all his time planning his revenge. They even got a bookmobile that comes to this prison but the motherfucker doesn't get the hint. Just sits around with a bunch of negativity. I mean if I were him I would at least take a couple days off to read books even if I was gonna spend most of the time on planning revenge. It's just not healthy. just my 2 cents.

Lithgow is real good at playing these over-the-top villains. The year after this he'd do CLIFFHANGER and the year after that RAISING CAIN (Lithgow's MALCOLM X). Motherfucker has ludicrousness running through his veins. But I tell it like it is so I do have to point out a cheat they did in establishing how tough he is. His cellmate is Jesse Ventura, and as soon as he's introduced to him he calls him a fruitcake or a creampuff or something like that and bashes his head into the toilet. Then it cuts to a little later and the two are in gladiatorial combat wearing armor made of phone books and duct tape. This is not a sport I have witnessed before, but it's a good idea. Anyway, he beats Ventura again. Now, I can understand a movie where a guy takes on a much more menacing opponent, but through some sort of outsmarting or unexpectedly superior martial arts skill or something they manage to beat them, and this wakes up the other characters to this underdog's overdog status. But really they do nothing to convince me that Lithgow could kick Jesse the Body's ass. They just have him do it and that's supposed to be enough. I will accept every other absurd aspect of this movie, but this one is too much.

Anyway eventually Lithgow gets out and enacts his plan of revenge. He doesn't want to kill him, he wants to "kill his life" and "fuck his mind." So this is where the movie is most enjoyably silly. He enacts a complex plan to ruin his life and I won't give it all away but it involves framing his friend as a child molester, making him look corrupt, kidnapping him, shooting him up with drugs, forcing him to screw a hooker on video, then letting him go and making it look like he's making all this shit up when he tries to tell everybody about it. It gets so bad it actually starts to be kind of painful to watch, you almost want to skip to Styles getting the upper hand again because it's so grueling what humiliation he has to go through.

But what makes it great is Denzel's performance. The script to this movie is fun enough that it would work with Michael Jai White or somebody in the lead, but with a great thespian like Denzel (and when he's still young and hungry) it's kind of a b-movie miracle. As things get worse he does seem to get a little crazy and he does a great talking to himself monologue as well as an incredibly uncomfortable rant to the D.A. trying to explain what's going on but sounding like a total nutball. And just as a little pre-MALCOLM X treat he gets one scene that's closer to the righteous persona Denzel is known for, when he storms into Ice-T's gang hideout and lectures them all about staying away from the children's center.
In a weird cartoon kind of way RICOCHET sort of says something about black-white relations in 1991. Styles is a black man who pulls himself up by those bootstraps you always hear about, and he becomes a great success and public figure. But the media is so happy and quick to believe that he's corrupt, that he's a junkie, that he cheats on his wife. So it speaks to the paranoia of white people and of black people. This is a year after Washington DC mayor Marion Barry was disgraced for smoking crack and a year before he was elected to city council anyway.

There's a scene where a black man on TV talks crazily about a conspiracy with white people putting AIDS in vending machines, and this is one white view of Black America: a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists thinking white people are out to get them. In other words, white people are paranoid about black paranoia. But in Styles's case it's actually true: there actually is a conspiracy against him, executed in part by a white supremacist prison gang. (This leads to the enjoyable sight of Denzel beating up some bigots.) And the only way for Styles to overcome this conspiracy is for two sides of his community to come together: his side and Ice-T's side. Styles is right to try to follow the straight and narrow but Ice-T is right that the system is broken and luckily is able to use his gangster super powers to help his former friend. And by doing this they repair their relationship and will hopefully change things for both of them.

One thing that happens in alot of movies but that I think is not true to life is that he clears everything up by getting it captured on tape by news cameras. It's gotta be a coincidence, but this came out 7 months after the Rodney King beating was captured on tape, and about 6 months before the cops who beat him were acquitted. So during that period it made more sense to believe that videotaped evidence would mean justice. These days I don't really buy it. They would show that shit on cable news and still figure out a way to make Styles look bad.

The pulp credentials behind this one are pretty solid. You got Joel Silver producing, Mulcahy directing and a screenplay by Steven E. De Souza who's always known as the guy who wrote DIE HARD but is also, let's face it, the guy who directed STREET FIGHTER: THE MOVIE and wrote KNOCK OFF and various other crazy shit. And then credited with the story are Fred Dekker (people love him for directing MONSTER SQUAD and NIGHT OF THE CREEPS but I've only seen ROBOCOP 3 so I can't get behind this individual) and a guy named Menno Meyjes, who wrote THE COLOR PURPLE, was one of the writers on INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE and recently directed that movie THE MARTIAN CHILD. So kind of a weird guy to be involved.

Anyway this is a real gem, full of the absurdity and energy that can make a movie like this special, and with the unique treat of a great performance by Washington. Ice-T's acting is not as impressive but I bet he is proud to be in this one and he provides a pretty good end credits rap theme song. This is definitely one I will be recommending to many people.

RIFIFI

You wanna see a BADASS fuckin movie, you see RIFIFI. That's what I wish somebody woulda told me a long time ago. Instead all they told me was how excellent it was. Now look, you know how much I care about excellence. But there's alot of excellence in this world. I think Criterion is on number 300 or something now. How'm I supposed to watch every one of them? It won't happen.

Unfortunately no matter how many movies a guy watches, there's still ten thousand you're never gonna get to watch in your lifetime. So you hear the name of these classic movies over and over again and sometimes you think "yeah yeah yeah, great movie, I know" but it doesn't even occur to you maybe you should watch it. Look man, I don't mind black and white, I don't mind subtitles, I know this is Criterion Collection. But I need a hook. Nobody told me "it's about four ex-cons planning a jewel heist." That's all you had to say, man.

If you're wondering what in fuck's name "Rififi" means, apparently it's some french crime slang from the time that roughly translates as "rough and tumble." They got a whole night club song and dance number explaining what it means but otherwise it's not really relevant. Just a cool name that sets the tone, like DIE HARD or HARD BOILED, or if they made a movie called BOILED HARD, that would also be similar.

Turns out although this is a French movie, the director Jules Dassin is American. Chased out of the country by the blacklist, he was having trouble even getting movies made overseas, people not able to work with him without closing doors in America. Somebody offered him this book, he couldn't even read it because the french street slang was so thick, then when he had somebody read it to him he thought it was racist and repulsive (apparently there was some kind of corpse fucking involved - don't ask me). But he needed the work so he took it anyway and loosely adapted it.

Score one for McCarthy because this is a great fuckin caper movie. The lead is Jean Servais as Tony the Stephanois, a scary lookin con fresh out who gets brought onto a job by a young friend and puts together a team to rob the safe of a famous jewelery store. This is not a nice dude - before he takes the job, he first tracks down his ex-girlfriend and whips her with his belt. This causes some trouble with her new man, which will ultimately cause trouble for the job too.

The main thing that makes this movie so spectacular is the long, detailed heist sequence. We see some of the planning and practicing but then we go straight into the job, which takes about a half an hour in the middle of the movie with no dialogue or music. You can't help but be fascinated watching how they systematically get into an apartment above, then tunnel through the floor, disable the alarm, etc. You really feel like you're in there with them. Even once they've got what they came for, you're nervous for them to get out of there without getting spotted. One of the best sequences ever in a movie, probaly. And that's including the bar fight in ON DEADLY GROUND.

Then there's the whole look of the thing. It's black and white, 1955 Paris. But it looks so raw. Like they walked around with a big camera on their shoulder and shot it on real streets. I'm not saying it's not stylized at all but it feels more real than most movies of this type.

As fun as the heist is this is still a pretty dark movie. You root for these guys but they aren't admirable, and things don't turn out too well for some of them. There are cold-blooded betrayals that reflect Dassin's experiences with McCarthyism.

I'm sure it goes without saying that Criterion made a good DVD of this one. Be sure to watch the interview with Dassin. I was watching it for a couple minutes before I realized - holy shit, that guy's in the movie! (He plays the Italian safecracker Cesar under a pseudonym). Anyway Dassin tells a great story about what happened when the author of the book, upset about Dassin's loosely adapted script, pulled out a gun and put it on the table.

That's all I got to say but take it from me, you want to watch this one. I ain't got no reason to lie to you.

RING 0: BIRTHDAY

Okay, let me take a deep breath and explain this shit. You remember the movie THE RING, directed by Gore Verbinski, starring Naomi Watts. It was a remake of the japanese movie RINGU (or RING) directed by Hideo Nakata. (You may remember I reviewed THE RING on THE AIN'T IT COOL NEWS and also was the first motherfucker on the internet to reveal it was being made back when I reviewed RINGU and RINGU 2 for them.) The movie by Hideo Nakata came after a TV series and both were based on a novel. At the same time Nakata's movie came out there was another movie called RING 2 or RASEN which means SPIRAL but is not to be confused with the Japanese horror movie UZUMAKI which is about spirals but is completely unrelated to rings. Well RING 2 is also not to be confused with RINGU 2 which is directed by Hideo Nakata. See, RINGU was a huge hit but RASEN (even though it was based on the sequel book) was not, so they pretended it never happened and made a new sequel. Soon after in Korea, they made a remake of the original RINGU, known here as THE RING VIRUS and I haven't seen that one but I heard it has stuff that was ONLY in the movie version but also stuff only from the book. In the US Gore Verbinski made THE RING which is sort of the same story as the Japanese movie but now in seattle with horses and a girl named Samara instead of Sadako. That one now has a sequel coming out which is directed by, holy shit, Hideo Nakata himself, director of the original RING movie and the second attempt at the first RING movie sequel. So now he's directing the sequel to the remake of his original, which is apparently a direct sequel to the remake, not a remake of either his original sequel or the sequel that was adapted from the book sequel that he did not direct and nobody liked.

Okay, so those are the important ones to know about. Don't worry about the series of books and comic strips and several different TV series that retell or followup on the events of the books and movies. That will just confuse you. So put those in the forget about it bin with RASEN. Okay. So you got all that. But also there is RING 0: BIRTHDAY which is part 3 of the RINGU movie series not including RASEN and written by the guy who wrote the books. Part three but it's called part zero because it takes place BEFORE all the other stuff.

Okay, you're right, I don't get it either. Look on the website theringworld for more info but for me that only made me more confused because there was more information than I expected. Sometimes it's better not to have to do research to watch a movie.

Anyway the point is, I liked all these movies but I gotta admit I can't remember what's what. There was a cursed video tape and a creepy little girl in a well with long hair and a fucked up googly eye. You got seven days after you watch the video then you die, but you copy the video you're safe, but only if you curse some other poor bastard by making them watch the tape. That's exactly what I remember. I don't know if it was in america or japan or korea, if the little girl had a giant eye or a regular sized eye, if the phone call had a scary voice talking to you or a scratchy noise. I get confused easy you guys. So if I say something wrong in this review then don't worry about it man, be cool. It's cool.

Begin actual review now. THE RING PART ZERO which is actually the one I'm trying to review here, is real different from all the other RINGS from all across the world. It takes place 30 years earlier which I assume is the early '70s but it's Japan so you don't get any afros or wah wahs to make it clear. In the first movie (see above) you had a journalist investigating her niece that died from a cursed videotape. In this one they haven't invented videotapes let alone cursed videotapes so instead we got a journalist investigating why all her colleagues died after a scientific demonstration of psychical type powers. I am not really clear if it was Sadako who was being demonstrated or her mom, but both apparently had psychic powers and both were there.

'70s Sadako is not a googly eyed vengeful ghost in a well, she is a young timid gal who just joined a drama club. As far as I can tell she is alive and has regular eyes and is not stuck in a well. BUT, she seems to be cursed. Everybody thinks she is creepy, they see apparitions around her, SHE sees apparitions around her. Best of all, everybody who knows her has been having a dream about a well. The '70s equivalent of a cursed videotape is a dream about a well. And then all the sudden the star of the play is just sitting there during rehearsal, her eyes turn white and she dies. And everybody's freaked when Sadako is named as her replacement.

Now up to this point Sadako has not been very likable. She sits by herself pouting with her head down, almost never talks, definitely never smiles. But then she has to get up on stage and starts to do the dialogue and suddenly we see that she is a real person with a personality. It is kind of like that scene in MULLHOLLAND DRIVE where the ditzy aw schucks blond gal does a crying monologue for an audition and you see that she's something completely different from what you thought she was. And wait a minute... that character was played by Naomi Watts, the star of the American remake of the movie that this movie is a part 3 to? What the shit is going on here?

Anyway, these people are apparently doomed from being around her (the even get blurry when photographed) but you don't get the same 7 days countdown. There are very few deaths in the movie. Mostly it is about Sadako as she falls in love with the play's soundman and the rest of the drama club grows more and more suspicious of her. When they finally premiere the play it suddenly goes into CARRIE territory as people turn mean and the building starts to shake. But Sadako swears it's not her, everybody beats her unconscious and suddenly the movie goes off in a completely different direction for the final stretch. I think there are new things revealed in this one but I gotta admit I don't know which things I maybe forgot from the other sequels or which things I actually misunderstood and they really didn't happen in this sequel. Also, is it just me or does this backstory open up more questions by implying a backstory with Sadako's mother? It's funny because it starts out saying "30 years earlier" and then the reporter starts asking questions about what happened 11 years ago!

I enjoyed it though. It's clever the way it works the mythology of the cursed videotape into the era of reel to reel audio tape. And I liked that it made the scary ghost from the movies even more tragic now that you know how close she came to being a regular girl with a boyfriend and a talent. But that's really what this movie is about - it is more of a tragedy than a horror movie. THE RING PART ZERO BIRTHDAY is good prequel for people interested in the story and characters of the RING series, by which I mean about ten thousand different movies, books, TV shows, comic strips, video games and I don't know, probaly board games and commemorative stamps. Whatever makes up THE RING, this is a pretty good addition to the pile.

p.s. And after I figure this shit out, I still gotta figure out JU-ON.

RINGERS: LORD OF THE FANS

This review is for anybody out there who is a poor sucker, like me. If you are a poor sucker you might foolishly assume that this documentary about LORD OF THE RINGS fans is called RINGERS because it is like the movie TREKKIES. A horrifying look into the abyss. You stare at that fucker and it stares right back at you, or whatever. A freak show. A good time at the movies. A cultural document that gives you the fuckin creeps even thinking about it years later.

But you remember how TREKKIES seemed like it was trying to be respectful and non-exploitative of the fans, but the people they found were just so fuckin over the top that it didn't work? You know, like halfway through the interview with the guy dressed as a woman that he says is the never shown on screen wife of a minor astrounaut character for one episode, they figured "Ah, fuck it, we can't make a respectful documentary about these lunatics. Let the freak show begin." Well this is not like that. This is more like a rejected VH-1 special.

The movie has sort of an overview of the writing and publishing of the books, how they got popular and then just a bunch of interviews with the stars of the movies talking about how they hope the movies give people hope and believe in theirselves or whatever. Some of this stuff is actually pretty interesting. They interview David Carradine and at first you're thinking okay, yeah, let's see what the guy from KUNG FU thinks about Lord of the Rings, I guess. Er-- huh? Then you find out that in the '70s when he heard there was a LORD OF THE RINGS movie being made he called up the studio trying to get in on that, but they told him it was gonna be animated. He claims he was a fan of Ralph Bakshi but actually went and tried to talk him out of doing it as a cartoon.

Also there's a part in here where they claim the Beatles tried to make a LORD OF THE RINGS movie, first with David Lean and then with Stanley Kubrick. Ain't that a bitch? They act like this means the Beatles would've starred in it but I'm betting they just wanted to fund it like HOLY MOUNTAIN. I mean how would you do LORD OF THE RINGS starring the Beatles? On the other hand Ringo would've been good as those two fuckup hobbits that get stuck in a tree for most of the trilogy.

Unlike TREKKIES this doesn't have profiles of nutbag freakos who wear wizard hats to work and are trying to get surgery to turn into a giant talking eagle. You bet your ass those people are out there but these "Ringers" are just people who came into a little booth at some comic book convention or other and talk to the camera about how "AWESOME" Lord of the Rings is. The closest thing to a lunatic is some lady who claims she sold her house to go to the premiere of RETURN OF THE KING STARRING VIGGO MORTENSEN. But she seems like a normal lady and at least she got to go to New Zealand. I heard it's pretty there this time of year.

They try to act like the fans interviewed are at some big LORD OF THE RINGS related event, but I'm guessing it was more of a generalized nerdfest. Unless it is normal to dress up like Pirates of the Caribbean at a Lord of the Rings festival. Anyway, you can only watch so many earnest people in costumes professing their profound love for Lord of the Rings before it gets old. And by "so many," I mean one.

One of the few enjoyably uncomfortable moments here is when a teenage girl tells Elijah Wood the thrilling tale of the time she saw him in FLIPPER and said "Oh my god he's so hot" and then checked the credits to see what his name was. But that's just teenybopper shit, that's not true obsession. The only truly great moment in the whole thing is when a little kid talks about his favorite villain in the movies (I couldn't tell which one he was talking about) but says if he saw him in real life he'd "just kick him in the weiner."

The style of the movie is inexcusable. For a while, all the segments start out with some "funny" little cartoon with wacky sound effects. There is a cheeseball score that sometimes makes you think you're watching Access Hollywood. Some of the history is illustrated with fake black and white archival footage. Okay it's harmless here but let's just not do that in a documentary, asshole. Worse, they illustrate each decade since the publishing of the books with fake stock footage of young people sitting around in ridiculous "Hippie" Halloween costumes (or whatever cliche best represents the decade in question) pretending to read the Lord of the Rings books to each other. Which is of course what everybody did in the '60s, drop acid and sit around in a bedroom READING to each other. This is pretty much the worst thing I've ever seen in a documentary, ever. Including G.G. Allin shoving a banana up his ass.

There are alot of things I could suggest that these filmatists could've done. First of all, erase all the tapes of everything they shot and fire the animator. Then don't ever make the movie. Short of that, they could've at least done the Billy Boyd interview at a SEED OF CHUCKY press junket, sitting in front of the SEED OF CHUCKY poster. That would've been kind of funny.

Also, the entire movie could've been about David Carradine's adventures, going around asking for roles in movies or trying to talk people out of making movies. Maybe he could tell some stories about the making of CIRCLE OF IRON. Shit, EVEN if he had to stick to the topic of Lord of the Rings, this guy is clearly more interesting than most of what's in the movie. You gotta learn to let shit happen in a documentary, don't force it. In other words, leave the camera rolling on Carradine. See what unfolds. Don't worry, you'll have time to do more montages of dudes dressed up like orks later on.

The thing I don't get is, why does these fan groups have to have names? I doubt anybody really uses the word "ringers," but I know for a fact that there is a name for people who like SERENITY, two names for people who like STAR TREK, one for kids who wear evil clown makeup. What's the deal, man? Can't you just be a guy that liked the Lord of the Rings books? Do you really gotta have a name for it? What if you like more than one thing, how the fuck are you supposed to identify yourself? David Carradine says he likes that shit, you don't see him going around calling himself names. Come on man get with the program.

Anyway this movie is a lemon. It's one of those movies strictly for the people who actually appear in the movie. Except the FLIPPER girl, she probaly doesn't want to see that shit again. Anyway, I say don't bother watching this one, even if it is an extra on a DVD that you find for free in the bushes.

RIO BRAVO

Recently a reader named David Lambert sent me a very accurate email:

"...I've loved your site for almost a decade now, but my one complaint is the almost complete lack of reviews for Westerns.

The Western is the most bad-ass genre out there and it's a huge hole in your 'reviewography.'

How can a guy calling himself 'Outlaw' Vern not represent the genre that the term 'outlaw' comes from?"

You got me, David. I knew he was right so I pledged to "at least review RIO BRAVO or something," and he gave me a variety of other suggestions that could come in handy if I am to strive for this particular type of excellence.

You guys probaly all saw it already but just in case: RIO BRAVO is Howard Hawks's 1959, 2 hour and 40 minute "last great western." The opening 5 minutes or so is done with no dialogue, but with musical cues any time somebody gets punched or shot, so it kind of seems like a musical pantomime or something. It's goofy but it's a great opening because it establishes the basics about the three main characters. First you got Dean Martin as Dude, a pathetic unshaven drunk trying to get a drink at the saloon. Then you have Claude Akins as Joe Burdette, the asshole who throws a coin into the spittoon so that poor Dude will have to reach into a pound of spit if he wants his drink. And then John Wayne as Sheriff John T. Chance, who kicks over the spittoon before Dude reaches in, to save him some dignity.

The first shot of John Wayne is looking up at him from the ground, so even though this is a traditional western and not as gritty as the revisionist ones I prefer, you are definitely gonna get some badass in here. The spittoon incident turns into a fight. Chance gets in Burdette's face, Dude hits Chance over the head with a board, Burdette is gonna shoot Dude, but some dude tries to calm him down so he shoots that guy instead. Then he goes to another bar.

The scene ends with Chance, back on his feet with blood dripping down his head, coming in to arrest Burdette for the murder in the other bar. And Dude comes in behind him to back him up. As the story unfolds we learn that Dude was Chance's trusty deputy until he left town with a girl who came in on a stagecoach. When that relationship went sour he started drinking and he's been washed up ever since. But he's gonna help Chance bring Joe Burdette in and try to straighten up his life. Starting now.

And the movie is about them being outnumbered, under siege, trying to keep this prisoner. It's just Chance, his drunk deputy and "an old cripple" named Stumpy, who kind of bothers me becausee talks exactly like an old gal who used to ride the same bus as me and would never shut up. Other people offer help but Chance usually turns them down for their own safety, and Burdette's rich brother still pays off thugs to shoot them. He does eventually get help from babyfaced Ricky Nelson as Colorado Ryan.

I always heard about this being the inspiration for ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, and it does have sort of the same setup, but it's not really the same kind of movie. For one thing it's not as confined. Chance does get to walk around to the saloons and to the hotel. There are always people standing around watching him. The threat is obviously there, but it's more of a "we're watching you" and not a "if you poke your head out we will play Whack-a-mole." There is definitely tension but it's not grabbing your intestine and squeezing it. Even in the climactic guns and dynamite battle our heroes are pretty light hearted, joking around with each other.

What the movie is more about is these characters and their relationships, the camaraderie. The way Chance's friendship brings out the best in Dude, the way Dude redeems himself to help his friend, the way ol' Stumpy shows up and helps even though Chance forbids him to. There's also a love story with Angie Dickinson as a character called Feathers, who becomes smitten with Chance when he does a nice thing for her (basically getting her taken off the western equivalent of the no–fly list). So you get to see this big ol' middle aged lug with the stupid old hat hit the jackpot.

To be honest though I gotta say, as attractive as Feathers is, there's no fuckin way this relationship turns out good for Chance. That woman is crazy. During the movie he knows her for a couple days and she already has about fifteen to twenty dramas. She wants him to show her affection and he does, but not in the specific ways she wants him to, and she will not tell him that this is the problem, so instead she throws a fit about something else. It's supposed to be cute but come on Sheriff, just you wait until the novelty wears off. When you've been together for a long time and she's not quite as young and fit, tell me how cute that's gonna be then. This kind of drama queen behavior is trouble later on in a relationship, and here you are starting out on that page. Sorry, John. You're fucked. Get out while you can. It's not worth it. You're a good guy, people like you (except the Burdettes), you got a respectable job, there's lots of stagecoaches coming through. You can do better.

Anyway, this is a real good movie even for those of us not as versed in the westerns. All the characters are great but the MVP is undoubtedly Dean Martin as Dude. Martin didn't get a chance, or didn't bother, to do very many serious roles like this. But he does a great job, I was very surprised.

ROAD GAMES
After watching DARK AGE and ROGUE recently I started thinking about other Australian pictures, but without giant crocodiles: MAD MAX, RAZORBACK, CHOPPER, WOLF CREEK. And I thought holy shit (American for "crikey") I gotta see some more Australiama or whatever it's called. Actually, I have since learned that a documentary on Australian exploitation cinema played in Austin recently and got all my Ain't It Cool colleagues excited about "Ozploitation." I'm not ready to accept that term, that seems pretty forced. How bout if we call it "cinemarang." Or "cinemaroo." Or "Australian cinema" would be another good one.

Anyway I decided to watch this one by Richard Franklin, best known in the states for the surprisingly decent PSYCHO II. He did that one because he was obsessed with Hitchcock, studied all his movies, even got him to come speak at his film school. Can you believe that shit? "Good evening kids, I'm Alfred Hitchcock. Questions?" I wonder if he hung out in the dorms at all.

Anyway ROAD GAMES is definitely a Hitchcock homage, specifically it's REAR WINDOW but crossed with Spielberg's DUEL. Stacy Keach plays a truck driver who spends most of the movie talking to himself, or at least to his pet dingo. He makes up names for the people he sees on the road, and imagines what they're up to. He has to play these "road games" to survive the long drives.

But then he sees a guy in a van pick up a hitchhiker, and then the same guy digging a hole. He decides this guy is the killer they've been talking about on the radio. Of course he tries to find out more and ends up getting into trouble. In one scene an old man seems to think he's the killer, and there's a very destructive vehicle chase with boat in tow. Jamie Lee Curtis shows up as a hitchhiker who's as interested in following the guy as he is. Her name is Pamela but he just calls her "Hitch." It could be called DINGO AND HITCH but luckily it's called ROAD GAMES.

It's a good story and it's extremely well directed, with an old fashioned score by Brian May, the guy who did MAD MAX and who it turns out is not in Queen. There are 3 or more scenes that are almost unbearably suspenseful. Franklin knows how to build and then give you enough information to scare you but not enough that you can be positive what's going on. You're not even 100% sure this is the killer. But you know there's danger and then he leaves you just... sitting... there... waiting... to see... what will... AAAAHH!

I mean it, this is a movie worth seeking out. I recommend alot of movies, but this is a red alert, everybody should watch this one. It has the visual appeal of the Australian open road, the precise mechanics of the best thrillers, a couple intense action scenes, even a dollop of the ol' horror movie gore (apparently forced on Franklin by Avco). Maybe most importantly it has Keach in an appealing lead role. I never really thought about it but it's nice to see him as the guy you're rooting for to be happy and not die and all that.

10/28/08

ROAD TO PERDITION

ROAD TO PERDITION is that gangster movie that came out to pretty good reviews a couple years ago that we all forgot about already, but I never saw it until now so I'm late to the party I guess. Please disregard.

This movie is modeled after old fashioned gangsters movies. But it's based on a comic book by Max Allan Collins. The comic book itself is modeled after LONE WOLF AND CUB, either the Japanese comic books or the great movies based on the comic books, I'm not sure which. Also I'm guessing it's a little bit based on some real life historical type business since it's got Al Capone and whatsisdick Nitti in there and I think somebody said Elliot Ness is in the comic book, and maybe some other historical figures like Thomas Jefferson or Voltaire or one of those guys. As you know I don't read comic strips, but I have read a good book by Collins called TWO FOR THE MONEY. Actually it's two books reprinted as one by Hardcase Crime, taken from the Nolan series, which is modeled after Richard Stark's Parker series.

So there's a whole lot of adapting and homaging and alluding and what not going on here and to be honest, somewhere in all that monkey business I think the translator got fucked up. This is not a bad movie by any means and it really stands out in certain areas, but it's not the great movie that an individual with high standards, such as you or I, demands. I guess that's sort of Sam Mendes's thing. This is his second movie as a director, after Academy Award winner for Best Picture AMERICAN BEAUTY and before Art Director's Guild nominee for Excellence in Production Design - Contemporary Feature Film JARHEAD. After getting so much (partly deserved) acclaim for AMERICAN BEAUTY he's sort of in the "A-List Director" category so you hold it more against him when he makes his type of movie: pretty good but then if somebody starts saying they're great you get annoyed and start imagining that they're terrible. But really they all have their moments.

As you know if you've seen the movies, LONE WOLF AND CUB is the story of a shogun's executioner framed by rivals and his wife is killed, so he takes his infant son and goes on the run, and travels around as a ronin for hire, having badass samurai adventures and killing people while his son looks on and learns to kill. (The series is also known as BABYCART because the li'l guy is in a baby cart with weapons that come out of it and he even sometimes fires them off himself). ROAD TO PERDITION is a loose gangster version of that basic setup. Tom Hanks (the kid from POLAR EXPRESS) is the right hand man to kingpin Paul Newman, but Newman's jealous son (Daniel Craig, the James Bond who almost stole MUNICH) sets him up to get killed and kills his wife and kid. Hanks gets away alive and so does the son he's least close to. He loads the kid into his old fashioned gangster movie car, tells him the house is now just a building and not their home, and takes off.

So just like LONE WOLF AND CUB he's now this cold-hearted killer who barely talks, dragging his son around for some killings. Instead of a sword he gives the kid a gun, instead of pushing him in a babycart he teaches him to be his getaway driver, and instead of adventures they rob some banks in a montage. Capone and Nitti are helping to hide Daniel Craig, so Tom Hanks and cub rob these banks and demand only dirty money from Capone and Nitti's accounts. That way they can maybe pressure the fuckos to give up Daniel Craig for the purpose of bloody revenge.

The title literally means they're going to a farm town called Perdition, Kansas where they hope to stay once they've got the shogunate and the fuckin shinobi and all those guys, or their gangster equivalents, off their ass. Also it might be some kind of symbolism, it is hard to tell due to its subtlety.

(Nah, just teasing, I actually think it's a cool title.)

First thing's first, the photography is gorgeous. The legendary Conrad Hall Sr. shot the fucker right before he kicked, then he went and won an Oscar from beyond the grave. Lots of shadows and fog and shit. There's a real nice scene where there's a shootout at night and you don't see the gun firing, the camera just pans across a groups of gangsters as they fall down dead.

Also it's a good cast. The kid is good, Daniel Craig is good, Paul Newman is good, which is something I've noticed he does sometimes. Jude Law is the most impressive of everybody as a weird crime scene photographer/assassin who's been hired to kill Mr. Hanks.

But you know what, the main thing that undoes this movie is the same thing that made it make its money back. Fucking Tom Hanks. Now don't get me wrong, he does as good of a job as he could do and it's interesting to see him playing a different type of role than he usually plays, and by usually I mean "in every movie he's ever made." Not just because he's a killer but also because he shuts the fuck up for most of the movie, none of that easy going regular guy charm he's always tossing all over the place. So, good job Tom Hanks. But bad job Sam Mendes for putting Tom Hanks in this movie. So you made a fancypants move by hiring Forrest Gump to play a gangster, but that doesn't mean it's a smart move. Let me explain.

The whole thing about this character, if you think about it, is that he's a cold blooded killer on the surface, and a nice guy deep down underneath. The main point of the story (emphasized by the kid in narration at the beginning and end of the movie) is that this guy is known for his amazing gun skills and for exacting his badass revenge. He killed alot of people while he worked for Paul Newman and he killed alot more people tying up the loose ends after they killed his family. To history, he is a mass murdering crook. And to his son he was a distant father, even before the kid knew what he did for a living. But on this little road trip to Perdition, Kansas and various banks along the way, the kid learned about the other side of his father, the nice side, the loving side, the honorable side, etc.

So if that's what the screen story is telling us, we should be looking at this guy and saying, "My god, look at this murdering bastard, he'll shoot your balls off if you look at his hat the wrong way," and then be surprised to see him bonding with his son and then you start to see him in another light. But by stunt casting the guy from YOU GOT MAIL, they get the exact opposite. You look at him and say, "Ha ha, it's Tom Hanks," and then you say, "Whoah, Tom Hanks shot a dude," which is exactly backwards of what the movie is trying to tell us. The movie sabotages itself. The casting rats out the screenplay.

Not that the screenplay is an upstanding citizen either. The story is kind of muddled. I don't know how close it is to the comic book but it seems like they fucked up adapting it, started taking out scenes and leaving in scenes and not realizing that what they had left didn't really connect. For example, there's a bunch of stuff in the beginning setting up that all the gangsters can't tell Tom Hanks's two sons apart. Then one of the sons (the main character of the movie) sneakily follows his dad on the job and witnesses Daniel Craig killing a guy that he was only supposed to threaten. Daniel Craig later ends up killing the other son and the implication is that he thought he was killing the witness.

The problem is, there's no reason in the story why he needs to kill the witness. His dad already found out and chewed him out in front of all the big wigs. Everybody knows about it and is pissed at him for it. He's obviously gonna endanger his life and piss off everybody more by killing the family of his longtime partner. So it doesn't really work.

A weirder problem I had was the narration I mentioned earlier. The story is narrated by the kid, looking back on the events, but he's still a kid. He says things like "I never picked up a gun again" and seems to be looking back with the wisdom of years of experience, but he's clearly the same age as he is in the movie. What the fuck? If he was supposed to have some kind of Emmanuel Lewis type kidney condition or something they probaly shoulda mentioned that in the movie. Unless his kidney condition was a surprise twist that subtly provides a piece of the puzzle that explains everything and I was just too stupid to pick up on it.

I'm not trying to steer you away from ROAD TO PERDITION, it's not that bad. But I'm not gonna steer you toward it either. Get it, steer is a driving related word, and the kid drives a car, and the title involves a road. that was pretty clever in my opinion how I did it that way. thanks.

THE ROAD WARRIOR
(or MAD MAX 2)
Man, I love MAD MAX. So raw with its low budget, so fierce with its ridiculous car stunts and harsh view of humanity. There's something about that one that nobody has really captured again. Still, in a way this amazing sequel takes it to a new level.

The world is further down the shitter now. Society is not just crumbling, it's in crumbs. Max is still hauling ass down Australia's highways in his Interceptor (the last one left), battling high speed maniacs and stealing any gas he can find. The opening scene is the most reminiscent of the first movie, a classic chase scene. It also introduces the gang that will be the villains in this one. Vernon Wells plays Wez, the dude with the mowhawk and shoulder pads, riding a motorcycle with his blond punk (or bitch, or desert life partner) on his back. On the other side a dude in a car tries to shoot Max with a crossbow, but Max hits the brakes and the arrow hits Wez in the arm.

Although this chase is full of all kinds of great violence and vehicles catapulting through the air, my favorite part is the little exchange at the end, after the engines have all been turned off. As Max examines an abandoned truck he found Wez and his bitch pull up and stare him down. Wez still has the arrow in his arm. He screams and at first it seems like a battle cry but then you realize it's because he's pulling the arrow out. And then he puts it in a sheath with his other arrows and drives off.

This one is much more mythical than the first one. It's not a cop movie anymore because there's no police force left - in fact, the gangs drive stolen police cars and like playing with the sirens. So it's more influenced by spaghetti westerns and samurai movies. Max barely talks and there are long sections with no dialogue. Not only the two extended chase scenes, but the part where he spies on the oil refinery through binoculars. There are all these far away shots of this place with its machines pumping and all these crazy souped up jeeps and motorcycles and dune buggies rolling around, and you realize that this was before the days of CGI, they actually had to do all that at the same time, for real. These days nobody would do a shot that complicated, they'd leave it up to the computer nerds to rig later.

Even more than in the first one director George Miller has created this whole world with a different way of living, a different culture. The villains have a bizarre lifestyle based around S&M and sports gear they must've scavenged from a stripmall somewhere, maybe there was a Big 5 sporting goods store next to a Castle Superstore or a Lover's Package that they found after the nuclear war. There are alot of mowhawks involved too.

The leader is Lord Humongous, a muscleman who wears a goalie mask and never takes it off. The back of his head is weird and mostly bald and this is before Jason put on the hockey mask in part 3. So I guess that answers my question about whether or not Jason goes to movies. Lord Humongous also inspired many a 1980s professional wrestling tag team, and he travels with male sex slaves chained to the front of his vehicle, which could be popular with rappers before long, mark my words. And yet Humongous is a well spoken guy. He has a hype man who introduces him as "the ayatollah of rock 'n rolla", then Humongous holds a microphone and makes a speech trying to convince the oil refinery clan to surrender. And I am almost positive that it is word for word the same speech Bush made when he told Sadaam to "disarm." Except Bush was wearing pants. Arguably.

On the good guy side there are some great characters too. There's "gyro pilot" played by Bruce Spence, the weird pilot of the little helicopter that Max tries to steal from and then they take turns taking each other hostage. This guy wears a long coat but no pants. In fairness, it is the desert. My favorite moment with him is when he watches Max take a shotgun shell off of a dead body and put it in his gun. So he realizes that Max has been threatening him with an unloaded gun. "All this time!" he says. "That's dishonest. Low!"

But if I had to choose a favorite character in this movie it might be that ferocious little bastard "feral child." Nobody likes child sidekicks but this kid is the Michael Jordan of child sidekicks. He can't be as annoying as most because he doesn't talk. He can't even have an emotional moment where Max hurts his feelings and realizes he's wrong and has to apologize to him and give him a pep talk. This kid just howls and growls. But he's a bad little fucker, he climbs on the back of the truck to help Max, he can do a flip, and he's a master of the bladed boomerang. One of my favorite parts is when the hype man tries to catch the kid's boomerang and it cuts his fingers off. Then everybody on his own side laughs at him.

So you've got this great world and characters and a perfectly simple story, like a good western. It all comes out of Max wandering around scavenging. To save himself from Max, the gyro pilot tells him about the oil refinery, says he could steal from it. Max stakes the place out and witnesses Humongus's gang attacking and raping a couple coming from the refinery. The woman is killed but Max rescues the man, and you think he's getting involved because of the way this attack mirrors what happened to his wife. But no, he helps the guy back to the refinery hoping they will give him gas as a reward. Purely selfish. But he ends up stuck in the middle of this tribe's war with Lord Humongus and ends up helping them.

By helping them, I mean driving a truck in a spectacular 15 minutes chase. He drives this rig at top speed, chased by all these guys shooting at him with guns and arrows, trying to climb on the back, while his guys shoot from on top of the truck or from other vehicles. All kinds of good shit happens, for example the gyro pilot drops a snake on a guy causing him to shoot his own driver. There are explosions, crashes, motorcycles sending their drivers flipping through the air in ways you never thought could be done without cables. Don't get me wrong, I like a good CGI spectacle, but this is so much better because you know they're really doing this stuff. I don't think there are even any models used. It's all stuntmen becoming great artists by not becoming roadkill. These people risked their lives in the name of kicking ass. And they'd do it again.

It's a winning formula: the story is simple, the action is complex. But you always know what's happening. You might be plowing down the highway at 150 mph, but you see the geography (including from the gyro POV so you can see the whole layout of where all the vehicles are).

Of all the great moments in this great movie, the most satisfying may be at the end when Max and the gyro pilot, having survived the ordeal and learning that what they thought was going on was not really what was going on, they just look at each other and smile. And these are two guys who have not exactly been best friends - they've tried to attack each other with knives and snakes, Max has put the pilot in chains, and wouldn't give him any leftovers from the can of dog food he ate. (Those went to his trusty dog, "Dog.") But now they've fought this battle together and they are buddies enough that they can smile at each other. But don't go thinking they'll become desert life partners, the pilot has a girlfriend and he never sees Max again. Still, it was some good times they will always remember.

I watched THE ROAD WARRIOR with somebody who'd never seen it (!) and who asked why they are fighting over gas and not food or water. After all, we see Max eating dog food and I don't think we ever see water. I never quite thought of it that way but it makes me realize another way this movie is great. Because ain't that the truth? That's how fucked the world is. They are fighting over this commodity that in reality is kind of a luxury. Max needs gas because he likes to driver around the highways in his Intercepter. The Humongous gang needs gas because they like to ride around in their dune buggies and on their motorcycles. Many Americans need gas because they have SUVs. But none of these are essential to life.

The most responsible gas (or "juice") users seem to be the oil refinery tribe. They don't seem to be nomads, they're not wasting the stuff driving around doing donuts and wheelies. I think they want the fuel to power more areas and rebuild civilization. They want it for mankind. Even still, it's kind of cool to have a Utopian collective who dress in white but their thing is pumping gas, not organic farming. In the future even hippies are part of the oil industry.

TRIVIAL ASIDE WITH HEAVY SPOILER: It's pretty amazing that the feral child turns out to also be the narrator. That little fucker went from speaking in grunts and wolf howls to being so eloquent he was a leader and narrator. There are plenty of us who grew up speaking good English but would never speak well enough to be a narrator. But this guy went from grunts to narrator. I think it is a tremendous accomplishment and I'm very proud of the little guy. I'm sure his adoptive wolf parents must feel the same, wherever they are.

Anyway, point is ROAD WARRIOR is one of the best ever. Come for the badass anti-hero and some of the greatest car stunts of all time, stay for the flawless and imaginative movie. A must-see.

ROAD HOUSE

You know, people recommend movies to me all the time. They got a pretty good idea what I'm into, and they got some movie they like, they figure I would like it too. And I've discovered some damn good ones this way. For example I still wouldn't've picked up MR. MAJESTYK if it wasn't for Jeff McCloud, I think was the first guy who told me about it.

Well I can't remember who told me this one, ROADHOUSE. A film by Rowdy Herrington. Whoever recommend this must've been jerkin my chain, but that's all right. I enjoyed this one, even though it is about Patrick Swayze is the world's second greatest bouncer who is sent in to clean up a rough redneck bar, ends up having to kill Ben Gazarra. You know how it is.

I knew this was a good one pretty quick, because a couple minutes into the movie a woman stabs a guy in the hand with a pen, and as payback she gets kicked in the balls. There are alot of feet and knees crushing balls in this movie, but that's normal. I've seen that before. A woman getting kicked in the balls though is not something I believe I've seen before. Until now.

I also noticed right off the bat, this movie is pretty spectacular in the bad dialogue department. I mean there are a bunch of doozies in this and they are so good that your brain can't even contain all of them. A character will say something great and you make a mental note of it so you can try it at home, but then the next one is so good you forget the last one. So the only one I still remember is at the end of the movie, Swayze has broken into Ben Gazarra's place and he's in a room full of stuffed bears and deer heads and shit. And Gazarra comes in and says, "I see you found my trophy room. The only thing missing is your ass."

I never knew this until I saw the movie, but apparently there are world famous bouncers. The very top of the line, legendary dudes, the Oliviers and the Michealangelos of throwing out drunks. A bar owner actually goes out in search of Swayze and pays him big bucks to fly somewhere out in the boonies and clean up the world's roughest bar. I mean, this is a bar where all that happens is people fight. During the few moments when they calm down, they yell and throw bottles at the blind guitar player of the house band. So in a way this is kind of like those urban teacher movies where some white person has to go in and teach a bunch of rowdy gangsters how to study and respect their elders and crap. Only instead of bettering children's lives and making the world a better place, all he does is make the bar go out of business by alienating all the clientele.

Actually Swayze is not even a bouncer, he is a "cooler," which it turns out is the fucking manager. He watches all the other guys and then at the end he steps in to casually knock a knife out of a guy's hand and break a table with his head or something. And probaly afterwards he gives somebody petty cash to go buy a new table ("remember to get a receipt" "I know, I know, I've done this a million times, Swayze") but they don't show that part. Anyway, Swayze is second best to his mentor Sam Elliot, who has long hair and goes shirtless, like an old man version of Swayze. That guy has a cool voice, I should look into having him play me in a movie. But not with that fucking Swayze hair. Anyway, the second best bouncer in the world, Patrick Swayze, goes around and everybody is amazed to actually be meeting him. They've heard all about him and his amazing throwing a drunk out of a bar skills.

And the movie goes into detail to show you what life is supposedly like for a bouncer. Like he has a Mercedes but he buys an old beater to drive to work, because he knows every night he's gonna get his windows broken and his tires slashed. Not just by the patrons but by the bouncers and bartenders he fires for skimming the till or having "the wrong temperament." He outrages everybody at the bar when he gives a big speech about how they have to "be nice." Then he goes back to the humble house he's subletting from an old hillbilly, sits on the porch shirtless and reads a book. It is mentioned later that he is a philosophy major. Also he does tai chi.

But don't worry, there's an action movie plot in here somewhere. See, it turns out one of the guys he fired is the son or nephew or something of Ben Gazarra, the rich thug who lives across the lake from him, drives around on 4-wheelers and laughs at him when he does his tai chi. And of course Gazarra is rich from muscling in on all the friendly down home mom and pop business owners who Swayze has struck up a friendship with. But everybody is too afraid to do anything.

Also, Swayze gets stabbed alot and he was careful to ask that the bar pay all his medical bills. So he falls for the doctor who stitches him up. They go on dates but she is intimidated by his rough lifestyle and tries to straighten him out. They have a Billy Jack and his wife style disagreement over the use of violence in solving problems.

I can't remember, but I think Sam Elliot got killed. An homage to Ben Kenobi dying in "the new hope of star wars" I think.

I don't know jack shit about Pat Swayze, but as you know I am one of North America's top 2 or 3 Seagalogists. And in my expert opinion, this movie could've been a Steven Seagal movie. It has almost all of the major Seagal motifs: well liked expert badass trying to live humble life, fights in bars (lots of them), people flying through windows, awkward discussions of philosophy, backyard training sequences. Hell, the scene at the end where he breaks into Ben Gazarra's mansion to get his revenge is almost interchangeable with the same scene in HARD TO KILL. Seagal falls in love with the nurse who treats him in HARD TO KILL too, so there's another similarity. And I mean, tell me you can't picture Seagal doing that scene where he's in the backyward doing tai chi. Only thing is, unless this was one of his first 2 or 3 movies he definitely would've kept his shirt on. There are alot of shirtless scenes in ROADHOUSE actually, which might be why they had to ditch Seagal and settle for Swayze. If Seagal was in the movie the character would come off a little different, but the script would be almost exactly the same. They'd just have to add a line about his black ops background or how kicking a guy out of a bar is just like something he encountered when he was a Navy SEAL. Something like that.

In fact, further research reveals that the writer of this picture, David Lee Henry (sounds like a serial killer, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt) also wrote Seagal's OUT FOR JUSTICE. Ironically, OUT FOR JUSTICE is the best written Seagal picture, the one that seems like it could've even been respectable if it starred a more serious actor that could pull off a New York accent.

One thing that would be better if it was Seagal, the hair wouldn't be so distracting. Say what you will about Seagal's ponytail, at least it doesn't date the movie. I watch some of these Van Damme and Swayze movies, I don't even look at their faces, I'm too hypnotized by the fucking mullets. It's amazing that we as a society once considered that shit acceptable. Seagal knew what he was doing, man. He was looking forward.

Look out for cameos. I noticed the wrestler Terry Funk, Tito Larriva from all the Robert Rodriguez movies, and the great Keith David (he gets his name in the credits but he gets about one line). Also I noticed on IMDB apparently Pat Tallman was in there, she's the one from all the George Romero movies, who was so cool as Barbara in the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake.

Anyway if you enjoy ridiculous '80s action movies, this one is pretty high on the list, mostly due to the oddity of Pat Swayze in a badass role. And I am proud to announce that MGM currently plans a direct to video sequel to ROADHOUSE. You heard it here first, folks. I don't have anymore information unfortunately. I'm betting Swayze won't do it so I'm hoping they will get a Jim Belushi or a Coolio type to continue his character's adventures. Maybe Sam Elliot gives him guru advice in flashbacks or, better yet, as a ghost. Or we could even get a prequel where whoever the '90s equivalent of a young Pat Swayze is would play him and he would meet Sam Elliot's character for the first time (played by either Treat Williams or Ice-T). This way they could make it a period piece and keep the bad hair. On the other hand, MGM is the studio that gave us WILD THINGS 2, so this could be the same deal - just a half assed remake with different actors and character names. But I don't know that for sure, it's just speculation. We're still allowed to dream.
ROBOCOP
Since my recent viewing of the TERMINATOR trilogy was a smashing success I decided to look for some other '80s-'90s sci-fi/action robot trilogy to watch, and I came up with ROBOCOP. I'd seen the first one a million (1,000,000) times and never seen the sequels, but I had a pretty good idea it was not gonna be pretty. And it wasn't.

To me the real trilogy is not ROBOCOP 1-3, it's ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL and then STARSHIP TROOPERS, Paul Verhoeven's three ultraviolent, FX heavy studio sci-fi action satires. ROBOCOP started off that trilogy with a bang, and even including those other Verhoeven classics there's really nothing quite like this one. Its unique approach is established at the very beginning when it opens with a TV newsbreak (co-anchored by Leeza Gibbons) that's a weird hybrid of news from the '80s and from today. We learn alot from the TVs in this movie: the world is in chaos, with wars and rebel attacks a regular part of life, deadly fires caused by a laser misfire of "The Star Wars Global Peace Platform" in space, but there's a nuclear war themed game you can buy and a really good artificial heart (is a surgery ad really that different from the prescription drug ads we already have?) and a popular comedy where a dude always says "I'll buy that for a dollar!" and everybody laughs. They really capture the feel of the '80s and the 2000s, that it's a crazy fuckin nightmare but everybody's used to it and doesn't care. This movie predicted everything but Paris Hilton. They weren't too far off predicting what police cars would look like (those things looked futuristic in 1987, now they just look the wrong color) and there's even a DVD in this movie when the villain, Clarence Boddicker, storms into a penthouse, pulls out what at that time appeared to be a CD, and plays a video from it.

In fact I think it's mainly the details of this world that make the movie work so well. The movie seems more dated than some of the other classics of the era, some of it is a little cheesy and although I still like the stop motion animation of the ED-209 that was so cool at the time I'm sure kids now would laugh at it. But as much as the ideas of the future come out of the '80s they still seem believable. I mean, I bet these corporate executives really do have stock tickers above their urinals. And the guy making a speech in front of a bank of monitors showing animated corporate logos and footage of war planes doesn't seem that exaggerated anymore.

Into this futuristic world they put a very classic sort of Frankenstein story. Peter Weller is Murphy, a cop new to Detroit who gets killed on duty (in fact completely fuckin massacred) and they use what's left of him to control this new cyborg police officer that Omni Consumer Products is developing. Of course he never realized he volunteered for this sort of thing, but it's standard in the police officer's contract. We see alot of the building of Robocop from his perspective, like we're half awake during surgery. So we know they managed to recover one of his arms but OCP had them get rid of it because to them robotic would be better. And we know he knows this. His builders are oblivious to his humanity, they don't even notice when his bad dreams start showing up on their TV monitors, and they are completely surprised when he gets up and walks away.

The action and comedy of the movie are pretty simple, it's basically your usual cop story but exaggerated. Robo remembers the gang who killed him and goes after them. The violence from both sides is heightened so the criminals get ahold of a powerful new gun that can blow up a car with one shot, and they walk around the streets laughing and shooting cars for fun. A rapist is shot in the balls, a gas station blows up around Robo, a guy gets melted by toxic waste, a woman tries to hug Robocop and it's awkward. Robo goes after a guy in a dance club and when he knocks the gun out of his hand somebody else catches it and just dances with it.

The heart of the movie is Nancy Allen as his partner Lewis, the only person who recognizes Murphy inside there and tries to get him to remember who he is. And of course his flashbacks to his old life. The poor bastard. Throughout the movie he slowly reclaims that little chunk of human flesh at the top of his robotic body. He takes off his visor, revealing his face, and the very last scene is him saying his name is Murphy and then it cuts to the title, the credits and the glorious theme by the late great Basil Pouledaris.

Wow, I just realized ROBOCOP turned twenty last month. It's old enough to sneak into clubs and to get a cheesy back tattoo. I'm not gonna say it's perfect like I recently said about ALIENS, but as a fun and well told action movie I think it holds up about 90%. Verhoeven's direction is so clever and dramatic the way he stages the creation of Robocop with all the POV shots and not showing what he looks like at first and showing the shocked reactions of the other cops. And there is this whole world, not just the corporate culture I mentioned before but also the rough life of the police officers, with the looming threat of a strike. And Verhoeven threw in the co-ed shower concept he also used ten years later in STARSHIP TROOPERS.

(Speaking of the cops in this movie, the character Johnson played by Felton Perry is the one actor besides Nancy Allen who returns in all three movies. I thought he looked real familiar and when I looked him up sure enough he was Dirty Harry's partner Early in MAGNUM FORCE as well as Buford Pusser's partner Obra in WALKING TALL. So this guy has a great record of movie police work. He should get a medal. I apologize for not remembering who he was.)

After he becomes Robocop and you get used to him the story and characters seem pretty simple, especially after you've seen it as many times as I have. And some of the settings look pretty cheap. But there are a bunch of memorable sequences like Robo's fight with ED-209 (foiled because he can't walk down stairs) and getting shot up by the other cops and having to flee, and finally the showdown in the board room, the perfect place to end this shit.

Some of the story gets a little stale after watching it over and over but the details of the world, the dark sense of humor and that pure Verhoeven tone make it hard not to love. It's a genuine classic.

ROBOCOP 2-3

It's easy to see why they thought you could make good ROBOCOP sequels. It was such an interesting world and concept, and done fairly cheap, why not expand on it? Unfortunately the sequels are missing two major things that made the original great - 1: a focus on the character of Murphy and how he becomes Robocop and 2: the crazy fuckin madman Paul Verhoeven.

ROBOCOP 2 is worth watching because it's full of great ideas. There's a funny opening scene where you hear that the police went through with their strike and then it pans across a series of intersecting crimes. Later Robo is in a faceoff with an armed little boy who says "Can't shoot a kid, can you, fucker?" and shoots him. This turns out to be the leader of the drug gang. There's also an entire little league team, in uniform, led by their coach, who rob a store. (a one-up of the Baseball Furies.) The new model of cyborg is made from a cult leader/drug gang leader so it turns out to be a junkie robot and, like the movie itself, it's called Robocop 2. When they're building it there's a great scene where the dead guy's brain and eyeballs are in a jar and you see through their POV watching doctors have a conversation while casually holding his hollowed out head. Also, Detroit owes OCP so much money there's a hostile takeover and the city becomes corporate owned.

The original script was by Frank Miller, the comic book guy who did SIN CITY and supposedly influenced the original ROBOCOP. So he has all kinds of these great over-the-top ideas but either he didn't know how to sculpt them into a movie or the guy who rewrote it fucked it up or maybe the director blew it. It's Irvin Kershner (director of STAR WARS 2, cameo in ON DEADLY GROUND) but his direction here gets cheesier and broader than Verhoeven's. There are characters that just don't work, like the mayor who seems too young to be mayor, too much of an over-actor to be in this movie, not funny enough for how funny he seems to think he is, and then he makes matters worse by making outraged speeches about what's going on. Verhoeven trusted the audience to understand what an ugly world this was, this movie has to have speeches to explain it to you in case you're an idiot.

If you ask me the very best thing about ROBOCOP 2 is a great scene where you find out that because of his memories of his family before he died Murphy has been sort of stalking his wife and kid. He has been driving by the house and spying on them. We learn this when some pricks from the company sit him down and lecture him about scaring her and try to get him to say that he is a machine. For most of the scene the camera is close on Peter Weller's face, without its visor, disgustingly attached to a robot head. It's hard to really make out his emotions there, he definitely looks sad and a little like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and sort of like he doesn't want them to know his emotions. Whatever it is it's tragic.

But then they barely follow up on this great idea other than a few token appearances by the saintly wife not aware of what he's going through and convinced that the machine is not Murphy. And the movie spends so much time on the junkie criminal becoming Robocop 2 and the corporate bitch who arranges the whole thing and various other subplots that Robo never gets enough focus. It's like so many failed genre movies of the time, it seems more like a list of ideas they had than an actual story unfolding. There are good bits here and there but you don't feel like you're going anywhere and you're just happy when it ends.

ROBOCOP 3 should probaly be called HELLO, WE DIDN'T GET THE FIRST ROBOCOP AT ALL, THAT'S WHY WE MADE THIS UNWATCHABLE PILE OF HORSE SHIT. Pretty much from beginning to end it is clear that everything I liked about ROBOCOP, anyway, went soaring over these people's heads.

First of all, this is a PG-13 movie. ROBOCOP was a movie that deliberately went too far with its violence. Verhoeven wanted to take the glorified violence of American action movies to its logical conclusion. By part 3 the violence is not trying to shock you, it's trying to be appropriate for children. It's a bad comic book. Kids liked the first one, even though it was for adults, so now they just figure they should make the kind of crap they imagine kids probaly like. Maybe they should do that with KILL BILL next. Or FRIDAY THE 13th. When parents allowed their kids to see these movies it was understood as an agreement that for the sequels they just want to stay home and let their kids go by themselves.

In fact, this movie starts out with a little girl who you know loves Robocop because she has a doll of him. The real Robocop doesn't even show up until 15 minutes in. Actually, it's not even the real Robocop because they couldn't get Peter Weller to come back. They couldn't even get the animatronic Peter Weller head from part 2 to come back, it wanted script approval. Hell, they couldn't even get Leeza Gibbons to come back. Even Leeza must've said what the fuck are you clowns doing? This crap is supposed to be fuckin Robocop!?

In ROBOCOP Murphy was basically Frankenstein's monster. But in part 3 here, he utterly fails to throw the little girl in the water and drown her. She lasts throughout the movie. Verhoeven's Robocop was a guy who went too far, the idea was that a robotic cop is a bad idea, it's supposed to make you uncomfortable. But sort of in part 2 and definitely in part 3 you are just supposed to think that's cool, a robot who shoots everybody! And now he can fly. Instead of being one of the few people with a heart left in a cruel world he is part of a literally underground team of earnest multi-cultural rebels.

One thing that's kind of weird, they have quite a cast of future TV all stars. Rip Torn (Larry Sanders Show) is the CEO of OCP. Bradley Whitford (the West Wing) is one of his top guys. Stephen Root (NewsRadio, King of the Hill) is one of the rebels, so are CCH Pounder (The Shield) and Jill Hennessy (Crossing Jordan). And Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm) is the guy working at the donut shop where all the cops hang out. There might be some other people I didn't recognize. It's good that these people were in here because it creates a curiosity factor, you can play a spot the up and coming TV actors game to occupy your time until the damn thing ends.

Everything about these movies devolves over the three, from the skill of storytelling to the depth of character to the quality of the production design to the level of violence. The one and only thing that grows throughout the trilogy is Lewis's hair. It gets longer in part 2 and longest in part 3. That is the extent of the journey that this series will take you on.

I didn't think part 2 worked, but I can list plenty of things I liked about it. Unfortunately that's not the case with this one. It's not only the guy playing Robocop who's been replaced, it's also the whole spirit and attitude of the original movie. Instead of extrapolating a future to say something about what's going on in the world today they just look for "fun" comic book concepts of silly things that could happen in a phony kid's comic book future. Instead of exaggerating the violence to make a point about our attitudes about violence in movies they intentionally tone down the violence to be appropriate for kids. Robocop is now no different from TJ LAZER, the show his kid watched on TV in the first movie.

I mean go back to part 1 and look at that classic board room scene where a demonstration of ED-209 goes awry. A volunteer is chosen to hold a gun and the robot tells him to put it down. He does, but the robot keeps counting down: "YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO COMPLY..." The thing doesn't work, it thinks he still has the gun, so it fills him with literally hundreds of bullets. The body falls on the table and it just keeps firing its machine guns into him, it's a fuckin mess. Even twenty years later that scene is hilariously brutal and eerily believable. I mean if they really had these robots, I believe this would happen.

In that scene the OCP boss is pissed. Not because one of his guys is dead. Not because he is liable for this accidental death. He's mad because this is gonna cause delays that will cost the company millions of dollars. That's the Verhoeven way. He paints a portrait of this ugly world and what makes it true is that everyone goes along with it. Life really is ugly and people really are okay with it.

But if the ED-209 incident was in ROBOCOP 3 there would be someone there with a conscience who would point out how bad it is. "Are you crazy? How can you be talking about money? A man just died!" ROBOCOP 3, you just don't get it, man.

You know what, I'm gonna cap this all off by getting poetical on your ass. ROBOCOP is just like Robocop himself: a slick, deadly machine with a small piece of human struggling to keep it under control and to be noticed from inside. ROBOCOP 2 is like Robocop 2: a junkie robot. Maybe you met him at a bus station or something. He kept rambling and you have to admit he came up with some pretty interesting things to say here and there but it was all jumbled and ultimately lost you. And then ROBOCOP 3 is like that guy who is not Peter Weller playing Robocop. He's wearing the suit but nobody's gonna confuse him for Robocop. He hangs out on Hollywood Boulevard and he lets you take your picture with him and then he tries to guilt you into giving him money. Just tell him to have a nice day and then take off. He'll keep talking but do not engage, just pretend you don't hear him.

Actually, I got one last thing. At this time I would like to request that any soul-less movie studio executives please stop reading. Go check the stock reports or something. The following material is not for your eyes. I am going to have to go with the honor system but please stop reading. If you keep reading and then this gives you the idea to do a certain thing I am discussing here but you fuck it up then that constitutes a contract wherein you agree to give me 50% of all profits from said mistake. So you better stop reading. thanks fellas I appreciate it. Last chance.

Okay, here goes nothing. I know this is asking for it, but I think ROBOCOP is a perfect candidate for a remake. The only problem is that I can't think of anybody I'd want to do it besides Verhoeven himself. If they did it they'd probaly get some chump who didn't get what Verhoeven was doing and would just try to make a robot movie with digital age effects. But if Verhoeven went back to this idea from a modern perspective it could be a god damn masterpiece.

I mean think about it: when ROBOCOP came out Rodney King and the LA riots had not even happened. Let alone OJ Simpson, Amadou Diallo, the various police brutality incidents that inspired DO THE RIGHT THING, the ATF siege at Waco, the "Free Speech Zones" that started with the WTO riots and flourished through the Bush era. The militarization of the police force shown in Robocop doesn't seem futuristic anymore, they really do wear armor now and carry more weapons and occasionally they drive tanks through city streets. I want to see a Robocop movie for the modern age, one that addresses the racial issues of modern policing, the PATRIOT Act, the drug war and the police being turned against citizens at protests. I want to see a ROBOCOP for the Halliburton era, with Mediabreaks for the post 9-11 landscape.

Somebody told me a few years ago that Verhoeven wanted to do another ROBOCOP, but only if he could call it ROBOCOP 2. Doesn't sound very official to me but shit, give him a greenlight. It could be magic.

Continuity: The original ROBOCOP is really good. But in part 3ade it really bad. Who

ROBOTS

What this one is about is robots. It's a movie about robots, so they called it ROBOTS. You see how that works? Movie is about robots = title is ROBOTS. That is the level of imagination and innovation we are working with here in America circa 2005. Ain't life beautiful.

Before I go on, I gotta warn everybody, just because a movie is in IMAX doesn't mean it's in 3-D. I saw GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS and POLAR EXPRESS there and the 3-D made those worthwhile, and I swear on THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST: RENAILED that is the one and only reason why I went to see this ROBOTS. Now obviously I would prefer if a 3-D movie was a horror or a part 3, something where either a shark or an eyeball is gonna pop out of the screen at some time. But I have accepted that now 3-D is for kids movies only so a man's gotta settle. I didn't mind payin my ten bucks but then when I walked into the theater and there was no goggles, I realized that I was finally suffering the consequences of my ignorance about Imax. I knew this day would come. ROBOTS is not in 3-D. Sheeit.

ROBOTS is a computer animated one about a world where everybody is robots. They have dreams, goals, etc., and you could see where it would go from there.

I mean seriously, every single god damned thing that happens in this movie, you would already figure would happen in this movie. Except maybe the character who has a giant ass who farts all the time, I didn't see that one coming. Farting robots in this one.

A cartoon rabbit's mom once said if you can't say something nice, shut the fuck up you thumpery little piece of shit cartoon rabbit (paraphrased) so I will start by saying two nice things. Number one, the designers of this movie are very clever and creative, building an entire world and population out of junk parts. Number two, there is about three or four mildly amusing jokes spaced out throughout this movie. One detail I liked, the villain listens to Kenny G in one part. Somebody should steal that for real live action, that's a good one.

What you got here though, a bunch of celebrity voices playing "characters" such as Ewan McGregor as Hero Robot, Halle Berry as Hot Girl Robot, somebody else as Kid Sister Robot. Then there is dad robot, mom robot, wise old inventor robot (Mel Brooks), Lovable Flying Pet-like Robot, and Miscellaneous Robot "Characters". The main problem with this movie, every single god damn element of it except the design comes straight out of the How To Make Boring Generic Kiddie Fluff handbook.

Hero Robot (who probaly has a name, but who gives a shit? not anybody who didn't get paid to work on this, that's who) has no personality quirks. He is a mathematical formula. The formula goes like this: boy robot + dream to become inventor = let's try to stretch this out to feature length if possible. When he's a little boy he sees a tv show that makes him want to invent. So he invents a thing, then tries to meet the guy from the TV show. But Villain Robot has replaced the tv guy. So for the rest of the movie he has to run around saying things about following your dreams and going for it and now is your time to shine and that type of bullshit. And to stop an evil plot by Evil Robot and his mom. That's all he ever does. There is nobody in the world, no adult, child or animal, who has any amount of feeling for this stupid character. He is a complete blank. He is nothing.

That was enough to sink the movie but just in case, they also threw in Robin Williams as Wacky Robot. What he does is wacky stuff. He jumps around and says his lines in different accents, makes references to anime, etc. I think we all can agree, that stupid motherfucker is not funny. What is he doing polluting our children's minds with that crap. There is alot of time during this movie for you to let your mind wander, and one of the things I started to wonder about: if Robin Williams was born now, would his parents put him on ritalin or something? It would suck to lose POPEYE but it might be worth it to avoid more incidents like Wacky Robot and Various Award Shows.

Another thing, I heard there's gonna be an unauthorized TV movie coming up about the making of MORK AND MINDY. And they deal with his drug problems and he has some big emotional moments. Or at least, the guy playing Robin Williams does. I was thinking, wouldn't it be great if they have a big emotional breakdown scene where he realizes he's hit rock bottom and he's admitting his drug problem, and he's crying and all, and then all the sudden he starts to get self conscious so he starts mugging, riffing off of it, making references to Reaganomics and E.T. and Rubik's cube and crap. And it's so pathetic and embarassing that it makes the scene just completely devastating. This might be the greatest tv movie of all time, if they get the brilliant actor that could pull that off.

Anyway, I value your time, so I'll wrap this up in three (3) more paragraphs. Some of you might be saying Vern, this is a kid's movie, who the fuck cares. Well I'll tell you who cares, I do. Because if I have a commitment to excellence then America should have a commitment to excellence, and by extension Hollywood should have a commitment to excellence and to sharing excellence with the children. They are spending millions of dollars and all these people are working so hard on it, and this is what they make? The Pixar guys wouldn't do that. They know that it's about creating strong characters with personality and telling compelling stories about them. Not just saying "it's about robots!" and stacking up 250 half assed ideas about what robots do in robotland. "Ooh! Ooh! What if they have to go through a metal detector? But they're all made out of metal! Ha ha ha, it's funny because robots are metal!"

Let's not have another one of these, please. Yes, Pixar made one about a world of toys, and a world of bugs, and a world of fish, and a world of monsters. But they made good characters and stories for most of those. They didn't just leave it at the world. The way things are going, I bet they really will do my idea first introduced in the OSMOSIS JONES review I believe, about a world of laundry where a sock is searching for his lost twin brother. It's called LAUNDRY. Because it's about laundry. The one sock, he always believes in following his dream, but then there is a setback and he almost gives up, but his loyal pair of panties girlfriend reminds him of how he taught her to be confident even though she is not lacey and has a regular ass covering area instead of a thong (the thong panties are the popular girls in school, isn't that clever, it's a world of laundry). And so he realizes that he should always follow his dream and he goes out there and finds his sock brother, hooray for everybody and then they dance and get folded which to laundry is a really big deal like getting married or knighted or something.

The only problem with LAUNDRY, and also a problem with ROBOTS. Some kids are gonna see it when they're real little and they're gonna like it, because they don't know any better. But then when they're older they want to recapture that magic, they rent the movie and they can't even sit through the god damn thing it's so bland. That is a sad state of affairs not as much in LAUNDRY as in ROBOTS. Because everybody knows robots are cool. They shoot lasers, they crush stuff, they go inside a building after a stand-off to find out if the snipers hit the gunman or not. So this movie should be alot better in my opinion.
ROCKY BALBOA
A couple weeks ago I saw a theater marquee that said APOCALYPTO and ROCKY BALBOA on it. And I thought damn, Mad Max and Rambo are both directing movies now. Tryin to join the ranks of the Badass Laureates like Clint and Takeshi. While my man Seagal is busy revolutionizing the world of DTV self expression, these guys are going in a more societally accepted direction. Of these two action hero directors, Crazy Fuckin' Mel obviously gets the medal for ambition because he made an epic about a culture rarely portrayed on film, in a language never spoken on film. He's moving forward. Stallone is moving backwards but that's okay, he's taking care of some personal business. He's putting a cap on the ROCKY series. And doing a fine job of it in my opinion.

It turns out I did the right thing preparing for this movie. I watched the original ROCKY for the first time in more than a decade. I meant to watch the sequels again too but didn't get around to it. Well it turns out ROCKY BALBOA is a direct sequel to ROCKY. Forget about what happens in the middle, that still happened but this is all about revisiting what happened in part 1. This is what becomes of that young guy we saw 30 years ago, with the mumbling and the bad jokes, the deep hunger for achievement and the funny hat. It's almost like those 7 UP documentaries, or BEFORE SUNRISE/BEFORE SUNSET, or maybe HALLOWEEN H20. With punching.

I know Harry down in Texas and his Buttnumberthon team went crazy over this movie, but the few people I knew that saw it were lukewarm on it at best. I heard it described as a long boring "why is Adrian dead?" drama followed by an awesome training montage and fight. That is partly accurate but personally I really liked the drama part. It's not really about boxing, it's just about this particular character who happens to be an ex-boxer. I think what made the movie enjoyable to me is that I completely believe this is what Rocky would turn into. I was worried that Sly had plastic surgeried himself in the convening years, that he's too pretty now to play Rocky. But no, he's looking older and wider and gruffer, still wearing that hat but now it looks like an old man hat. As a director he makes the wise decision of showing himself in alot of unflattering closeups that show he's an old fighter. Now he walks around Philadelphia and he's a beloved celebrity, everybody calls him by his first name and he's happy to take photos with random people who come up to him. He runs a small, homey restaraunt (called Adrian's, of course) where he hangs around and tells fight stories to the customers. The thing that's really missing in his life though is what the original ROCKY ended on: Adrian.

When a highly trained team of terrorists kidnaps Adrian, Rocky has no choice but to-- nah, just kidding. I think some people forget that ROCKY is not an action movie, it's a best picture winning drama. And the new movie is a non-best picture winning drama. The movie begins on the anniversary of Adrian's death of "the woman cancer." Rocky visits her grave and we know he does this alot because he has a folding chair that he stashes in a tree in the cemetery. The first section of the movie has Rocky and his brother-in-law Paulie (still played by Burt Young) nostalgically visiting all the crucial locations from the original: the apartment, the pet store, the wreckage of what was the ice skating rink where he went on his first date with Adrian. I liked Paulie's emotional outburst telling Rocky he doesn't want to reminisce about all this shit. Rocky can do that because he was nice to Adrian, but Paulie knows he "treated her bad."

There are references to details of ROCKY that I wouldn't expect them to follow up on. He still has pet turtles (bigger now). He gets another dog (this time an old washed up one he can relate to instead of a young hungry one). His old opponent Spider Rico is back now, hanging out at his restaraunt. Remember when Rocky ran through that market and some dude threw him an orange? I think he visits that same market (no orange throwing takes place, though). The one that surprised me the most is when he visits the bar he used to go to and gets in a conversation with the bartender. After a little bit he realizes that she is Marie, the young girl who he lectured and walked home in part 1. Remember that scene? It's not the same actress and she's the wrong age but luckily most of us don't remember exactly what little Marie looked like, so we fall for it. Anyway Rocky starts hanging out with her and she becomes one of the main characters (with Adrian dead you need a female in there somewhere I guess.)

Although the filmatism isn't quite as raw and gritty as in part 1, they went for a little more realism than the rest of the series. The heavyweight champ he fights in an exhibition match is less of a supervillain than in some of the sequels. He's a spoiled punk with an ego, so you root against him, but he has some moments even at the beginning to show he's not a bad person. Even when he's insulting Rocky by telling him he'll hold back in the fight he's genuinely trying to be nice.

The biggest difference is the fight, which (except for a too-arty passage of time montage in the middle) is shot like a real boxing match, and apparently they were really punching each other. It seems very real and for me that made it more involving. Because I saw it at this late date I didn't have some sold out crowd getting excited and chanting "ROCKY! ROCKY!" There were probaly less than ten people in the theater and the crowd wasn't rowdy at all but to my surprise some girl yelled out "Come on Rocky!" several times during the fight, like she thought she was really there. The first time it happened I half convinced myself it was just really good surround sound, but then it kept happening. That proves it, this is a good scene, it tricked somebody into thinking it was a live event. But it was only a movie.

The sentiments in this movie may be a little corny, and a little too rehashed from the first ROCKY picture. But to me it really works because it feels so sincere. The first movie was about this young hungry guy tired of being a loser, wanting to get somewhere in life, getting his big shot and going as far as he can with it. And obviously Stallone was in a similar situation to his character and he did pretty well, he got on Oscar for the screenplay and everything. ROCKY BALBOA does the same sort of thing, now he's this old guy that people like but they think he's a joke, they think he's used up. And he knows people think he's crazy, including his son (no longer Sage Stallone and now working an AMERICAN PSYCHO type job) for wanting to fight again. But he has this one thing he wants to do and of course Stallone was the same way, wanting to do this last ROCKY movie even if people are laughing at a 60 year old man doing another boxing movie. You gotta love the training montage where his trusty corner man goes through a list of all the things his old man body can't do anywmore and why his only hope is blunt force and he says, "Let's start building some HURT BOMBS!"

One thing that's weird about this movie. Since they are homaging/rehashing moments from the first movie, of course they gotta do Rocky jogging and going up the stairs and what not. The sequence ends with a freeze frame of Rocky holding his fist in the air triumphantly. It would look pretty badass except he's also holding his mangy dog Punchy in the shot, so it looks goofy. Just to make sure Rocky's ego doesn't get too big.

The funny thing though is they used the freeze frame shot for the poster. Only they photoshopped out the poor dog. Can you believe that shit? I would be so pissed if I was that dog. Come on marketing department, you saw the movie, you know you can't count that dog out just because he's old. That dog is gonna bite you on the ass. That dog deserves his revenge, and you deserve to be bit. I got half a mind to go around with a sharpie and draw the dog back onto all the posters. I am not a good draw-er though so it will probaly end up looking like a seal or a weasel or something. And you know what, it would be pretty cool if Rocky was on the museum steps holding a seal. I wonder why they didn't do that. Just one of those weird things I guess. Maybe a budgetary issue.

ROLL BOUNCE

This is one of those movies that on the cover should have a big quote from Roger Ebert or somebody saying "Seriously, not that bad!" I'm not gonna try to convince anybody that ROLL BOUNCE is great but it is actually very well made and watchable for a movie about kids rollerskating. You can face that fact or not, I don't give a fuck, but there it is. ROLL BOUNCE is kind of good.

Now if you are new around here you may not be familiar with me, I should probaly specify that I am not some pedophile or somebody, and personally I have never reviewed a movie about kids rollerskating before. ROLLERBALL was strictly adults and so was DERBY. I'm a first timer here for this type of material is what I'm saying, and don't worry I won't make it a habit.

But ROLL BOUNCE is kind of a family comedy type deal about black teenagers in the '70s who like to rollerskate, but their local rink gets shut down at the beginning of the summer so they go across town to "Sweetwater," the rich kid rink and end up deciding they have to win the big skate off that will take place at the end of the movie.

Now, usually this type of movie would be all about training and trying to become champions and all that shit. Eye of the tiger. But for some reason this one just has a montage or two about that. Actually come to think of it I have no idea when or how they learned how to skate as good as they did at the end. For most of the movie they kind of suck, and then all the sudden they oughta be in the Olympics and who knows how the fuck they made that transition. But I guess that's part of the mystery of ROLL BOUNCE. There's a little more going on than skating because in addition to mourning the loss of his skating rink, the main kid is mourning the loss of his mother. It gets pretty sappy and it actually works. See the paragraph regarding "The Two Hs" for more information.

The main kid is played by child turned fake rapper turned actor Bow Wow. He used to be called Li'l Bow Wow but now he is regular sized so he dropped the Li'l. I know it makes me a chump that I insisted on mentioning the whole "Li'l" thing but let's face it I would also be a chump if I had to mention an actor named "Bow Wow" and just pretend like that was okay. So it's a lose-lose situation. Anyway Bow Wow does a good job in the movie, he's not bad.

Bow Wow also has a whole crew of skating cohorts played mostly by actors with normal human names. I recognized two of them as actors who get alot of roles purely because they have afros. You got the kid who played The Rock's nephew in WALKING TALL (PG-13 remake) and you got the kid who was a frat boy in OLD SCHOOL and then graduated to adult life in WAR OF THE WORLDS and now has been bumped back to high school in ROLL BOUNCE, possibly as punishment because I was complaining in my review that you can't have the dude from BIKER BOYZ all the sudden show up as Tom Cruise's buddy from work. Also in the non-afro department is the girl who played Eve in EVE'S BAYOU. So there's a marquee name in the cast, technically speaking.

The two main things this has besides rollerskates is the two Hs, heart and humor. The heart comes in with Bow Wow's tense relationship with his dad played by Chi McBride, the Charles S. Dutton of the new millennium. There's a subplot about how his dad pretends to be going to work every morning but actually was laid off and is trying to find a new job, but doesn't want his kids to worry about it. This is actually a really touching part of the movie and it even has whole heartwrenching scenes with just the dad out in the world dealing with this problem. Take that teenagers, you're gonna have to watch scenes without Bow Wow in them, just an old aviation engineer in a tie who has to swallow his pride and consider becoming a janitor. Fuck you, kids.

Then there's the humor. These are funny kids that talk alot of shit and there's some good dialogue. Mike Epps (NEXT FRIDAY, guy who might play Richard Pryor) and Charlie Murphy (CHAPPELLE'S SHOW, funnier than his brother Eddie now) have a couple scenes as wacky garbage men. And of course there's the easy laughs that come from very earnest and well choreographed roller disco scenes. But most of the laughs come from just kids hanging out in the neighborhood, getting into scuffles and what not. What this really feels like to me is FRIDAY for kids. Except come to think of it FRIDAY has way more poo poo humor than ROLL BOUNCE does. So maybe it's actually FRIDAY for adults but without pot. I'm not sure.

My one complaint about ROLL BOUNCE is that it doesn't make any effort to stick it to the white man. When I saw the trailer I thought the prissy white disco dudes in jumpsuits represented the pricks at the rich people rink they have to compete against. Unfortunately in the movie these guys are only part of a multi-culti elite guard for the local skating champ, Sweetness, who is black. Okay so maybe it's a good message for the kids to get along and be color blind and hold hands across america and everything but for us FRIDAY watching adults I think ROLL BOUNCE would be even more enjoyable if the bad guys were disco-listening white assholes. We already know from the opening credits that Bow Wow skates to Parliament, so let's put all the cards on the table and let it be known that during this unparalleled era of funk and soul music, white motherfuckers were listening to some real bullshit.

In fact this movie coulda gone way deeper than that. Imagine if the movie ROLL BOUNCE as it exists today was only ACT I of a generational epic. Bow Wow proves himself in the skate off, then it skips forward twenty years and continues for another 2 hours or more. The ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA of teen roller disco comedies. Maybe that wouldn't be necessary. But how can we really know for sure until somebody does it?

Anyway even at a measly 112 minutes it's pretty good in my opinion.

ROLLERBALL (2002)
Well once again the conventional wisdom turns out to be right. You would think that as dumb as a movie like this would probaly be, it might be enjoyable. Well, I would think that. But I would be wrong.

I've never seen the original, and I always meant to. I understand that it is kind of a satire of sports and american society's thirst for violent entertainment. The great DEATH RACE 2000 was made to cash in on the same themes but is generally considered to be better. Anyway the approach that John McTiernan, the director of DIE MOTHERFUCKIN HARD 1 & 3, took was to set it in pretty much the present, since wrestling and ultimate fighting become more ridiculous and lurid than anything filmatists of the '70s could've imagined. But there really aren't new points to be made here.

I mean talk about weak stick it to the man moments. There is a part where a character gets in a bad motorcycle accident. Cut back to the obnoxious commentator (taken from an actual wrestling league I believe) and he sits in stunned, respectful silence. In another scene he is reading off a set of last minute changes to the rules, designed to endanger the lives of the athletes. Right in the middle he says, "This is bullshit!" Gimme a fuckin break.

The idea is that the sinister millionaire owner played by Jean Reno deliberately tries to have the athletes killed or maimed in the name of ratings. Inside the arena they have a real-time global ratings monitor which goes up significantly every time somebody gets hurt. As if all around the world, people with Nielsen boxes magically sense motorcycle accidents, turn it to ESPN2 for a few moments and then turn it off until it happens again.

The #1 problem of the movie is the casting of Chris Klein as Keanu Reeves. Now, I liked the dude in other movies. Apparently Alexander Payne saw him in a real high school while scouting for ELECTION and cast him to play the kind but moronic jock Paul Metzler. He was so perfect for the role of himself that they cast him as himself in the American Pie pictures. And by chance he looked like a slightly buffer Keanu Reeves, so suddenly he's starring in a big action picture.

The problem is you can't just grab some kid out of a high school hallway and turn him into Bruce Willis. He worked playing a dumb kid because everything he says sounds dumb. He has no idea how to deliver this dialogue convincingly, and when he tries anything different from a flat reading he comes off looking like a complete jackass. He is not ready to play a hero who has to come up with ideas, figure things out, and have confrontations with people.

Remember when I said SNATCH was a hollow remake of LOCK, STOCK AND ET AL, which was already devoid of substance? Well Chris Klein is SNATCH to Keanu's LOCK STOCK.

The next problem is the Rollerball itself. If you had some idea of the rules of the game you'd be able to have some kind of suspense during the numerous game scenes. But I have no fuckin clue how it's supposed to work. It has something to do with rollerskating, but sometimes they ride motorcycles. About halfway through the movie I noticed that they had a ball that they tried to throw against a metal thing. That was when I realized why it was called rollerBALL. Turns out there is something to do with a ball.

I fuckin dare John McTiernan, Chris Klein, LL Cool J or anyone involved in this movie to explain the rules of Rollerball. No fair checking the old movie.

And are they fake or are they real? The announcers give the protagonists fake backgrounds. When LL Cool J gets killed (spoiler) they claim he just got a virus during a south american archaelogical expedition and never deal with the ramifications of him being gone. They say Chris Klein was a pro hockey player even though he wasn't, etc. So it's all fake, right? But then for some reason the "bad guy" characters really threaten and try to hurt them while they're playing, or rollerskating, or motorcycle riding, or whatever in fuck's name they are trying to do, although I'm pretty sure they're not really trying to do anything.

LL Cool J is the only one in the movie with charisma. Unless you count Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (the naked blue chick from X-Men) who has her hair dyed black, a scar on her face and talks in a Boris and Natasha accent. In case that doesn't tip you off that she's russian, they give her a giant fur hat. But she's still not silly enough to be entertaining. Everyone plays it real serious, except maybe Jean Reno who continues to jeopardize his career by hamming it up in bad american summer movies.

The closest thing to McTiernan trying something interesting is that there is one long chase scene that is black and white tinted green. It looks like a security camera. I'm not sure why they did that.

Remember when this came out, and you didn't bother to see it? Yeah, you had the right idea.

ROLLING THUNDER

This great overlooked revenge movie was one of if not the first movie to deal with the effects of the Vietnam War. With a script by Paul Schrader (rewritten by another dude) it works on two levels, as a raw exploitation picture and as a depressing statement about the mess our country was in at the time. Fortunately we never repeated those mistakes ever again so this movie is completely irrelevant now and only good as a curiosity.

The picture opens with corny music as heroic Vietnam POWs arrive home at an airport, among them William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones. Mr. Devane will be our protagonist this evening, and as he pretends to enjoy the ceremony honoring him as a great american hero, you can tell right off the bat that he's not quite there. He's got a wife and kid waiting for him, and the kid doesn't even remember him he's been gone so long. Some guy named Cliff is there to give them a ride home. "You remember Cliff?" the wife says innocently, and you fuckin know what that means.

The wife left the house exactly how it was, to make the return more comfortable for him. And that makes you think how fucked up it would be to be locked up for years and all you want to do is come home, but then when you get there you don't even recognize it. That would suck, and he didn't get this. But what also sucks that he did get is his wife immediately tells him she's been fuckin Cliff and they're gonna have to get a divorce. There is a great scene where Cliff tries to have a man to man talk with him, and brings him a beer. You expect the major to chew Cliff out but he's just real nice about it, which makes it so much creepier. Instead of beating up Cliff he makes him uncomfortable by pressuring him into pulling up his arms behind his back like his torturers did to him in 'Nam. And the major almost seems to enjoy it. Making Cliff uncomfortable. Then all he does is tell him, "I'd appreciate it if you don't call my son a runt."

Now I already mentioned there's gonna be some revenge involved in this picture, but it's actually not against Cliff. Instead, there is a ceremony where a department store awards the major with a silver dollar for every day he was locked up - somewhere around $2500. Afterwards, a bunch of rednecks (including Roscoe P. Coltrane from the Dukes of Hazzard) show up at his house to try to force him to give them the coins.

Now look, I know I'm one to talk, but these here are some dumb fuckin criminals. I mean no offense to the handicapped but this is one retarded fucking crime. The Radio of home invasions. These guys are stealing $2,500, but they bring like 5 guys. If they're splitting it five ways, that's only $500 each, right? And the way they choose to go about getting this $500? By torturing a man who is famous for being tortured for years on end. The exact guy that you should probably not want to torture information out of. Because obviously the guy knows what he's doing when it comes to getting tortured.

Worse, they end up killing his wife and kid, and stuffing his hand in the garbage disposal. So it's double murder plus, for 500 fucking silver dollars. If they can even carry them. Nice fucking plan, fellas.

Anyway, soon after our guy gets out of the hospital with a hook on his hand he starts tracking the motherfuckers that did this to him, trying to find their whereabouts, so that the revenge can take place. Once he catches their scent he goes out to visit his old war buddy Tommy Lee Jones. This is another great scene because the whole family is there (including brother-in-law Paul Partain, who played the obnoxious Franklin in TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE), nobody knows what's up and they're all gonna have dinner together. But Devane takes Tommy Lee aside and says, "I found him." "Found who?" "The sonofabitch that killed my son."

Tommy Lee doesn't even hesitate, he says, "I'll go get some equipment," and starts getting ready to go kill the motherfucker. And as they're about to start supper the family is kind of confused because William and Tommy suddenly leave, completely suited up in their uniforms.

It's a simple movie but it's a good one. So much tension and so much that is obviously going on that the characters never talk about. It's a little bit TAXI DRIVER, a little bit FIRST BLOOD. I guess Schrader said that in his version there was no family, the guy was just a maniac because he was so damaged by the war. He seems to think the family was Hollywood bullshit, but I disagree. It creates so much great tension, and if you read up on the divorce rates, domestic violence etc. that happens in military families (not even POW) it is clear that this has a basis in reality. I mean coming home to find out your wife fell in love with somebody else was a common experience after Vietnam, and it will be now. I just read today about a soldier here in Washington State who they think killed his wife and left her in the bath tub. His dad said, "That's not my son. My son is still in Iraq, and for that you can thank George W. Bush." I think the major's dad could've said the same thing about his son, although you probably should thank his captors and various other factions. Bush was playing all day water volleyball at that time and obviously cannot be blamed for these problems.

The director, John Flynn, also did the pretty good THE OUTFIT (with Robert Duvall as Richard Stark's Parker character, who you know and love from POINT BLANK and PAYBACK). And he did OUT FOR JUSTICE, which for my money is Steven Seagal's grittiest and best directed movie, even if Seagal does a bad Italian-american accent for the whole thing. Apparently his first movie THE SERGEANT, not available on video, had Rod Steiger as a drill sergeant who hides his attraction to new recruit John Philip Law by treating him like shit. Unfortunately other than that the rest of his filmography is pretty uninteresting.

Anyway this a real good one and highly recommended for all those trying to catch up on the '70s badass classics. Along with POINT BLANK it is high on my list of pictures sorely needing a DVD release.

ROLLING VENGEANCE

As long as I was renting ROLLING THUNDER I thought what the hell man, might as well also pick up ROLLING VENGEANCE which should be pretty fuckin good considering it's the story of a man achieving the vengeance of the title by means of a huge monster truck with a drill on the front and flames coming off the top. I mean god damn if that isn't a good premise right there. I am not at all surprised that somebody sunk their money into this pile of shit. Especially in 1987, when monster trucks like "Bigfoot" and what not were probaly about as close as a fucking truck could get to being a popular cultural type icon or whatever.

The one thing they failed to take into consideration, though - the killing blow that prevents this movie from being worth your time - is that they made it in 1987. I'm sorry, but 1987 was not a good year. 1980-1989, those were bad years. Sorry. I don't care what cable television tells you about how great the '80s were. Your mother and I have been meaning to talk to you about this, actually. The 1980s were literally the worst decade ever as far as American arts and culture.

The 1970s gave us the whole TAXI DRIVERS AND RAGING BULLS scene. It gave us blaxploitation. It gave us TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and HALLOWEEN and DAWN OF THE DEAD. It gave us classic albums by Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder. When you pick up a movie from the '70s, even a bad one, you still assume it will have a good soundtrack. If it's from the '80s, you better fucking believe it's gonna be a bad one. It might even have Dokken or somebody on it.

I'm not saying the whole 1980s were entirely bankrupt. You got your Prince and your Michael Jackson, your growth of hip hop, etc. But the plusses are so outweighed by the minuses it's hard to even comprehend. Have you heard the music the whites were doing back then? I mean good god. And think about some of the movie stars. Steve Guttenberg. Ted Danson. Tom Selleck. And whoever else was in that movie. Even the baby. I don't give a fuck.

And think about it. Can you think of a single hairstyle from the 1980s that you could have today without looking like a fucking jackass? How about a clothing item?

Nope. There's not one. And no, ironic hairstyles don't count.

Look on your DVD shelf. How many movies do you own from the '80s? I'm betting you have a lot more from the '90s, the '70s, even the '60s. If you have a lot from the '80s chances are you grew up then and you think some of them are cheesy but they have a place in your heart. And even those probaly aren't from 1987, I bet. Unless it's ROBOCOP. In that case you get a pass.

There were some good movies that managed to escape from 1987, but not many. 1987 has a strong grasp and only an occasional ROBOCOP is able to slip through its fingers. I don't know, I'm sure THE LAST EMPEROR is pretty good but according to my trusty Oscar book the other nominees for best picture were BROADCAST NEWS, FATAL ATTRACTION, HOPE AND GLORY and MOONSTRUCK. Anybody out there happen to own any of those on DVD? Or re-watch them within the past ten years? Even on TV?

No. There is almost nothing in american popular arts that was created in the year of 1987 that would not, in a more just 2004, be destroyed forever. Or at least told to fuck off. And yes, this includes PREDATOR. Fortunately, most of these movies and songs have already been buried in our memories and only ever remembered for ironic and nostalgic purposes.

So it's a real bummer that ROLLING VENGEANCE was not made in the artistic safe zone of 1979, where a movie like this could've been gritty and brutal. Instead it's a boring and bloodless movie about a murderous rampage that could still be rated PG if they didn't throw in a hint of sexual assault. The picture opens with a couple of bland pretty boy 1987 hunks driving big rigs down a street while that awful 1987 music that they had back then plays on the soundtrack. Some tightpants wearing permheaded 1987 assholes whacking off their guitars and diddling their keyboards and singing about trucks. God damn I hate that shit.

The main character is some dude who works as a trucker with his dad, and they deliver Budweiser and Jack Daniels to a bar owned by Tiny (Ned Beatty). But this guy tells his girlfriend to stay away from there because "they're bad people." The girlfriend is in MADD and she likes to go over there and confront Tiny about the drunks that leave from his establishment. It turns out she has a point because not only are these dudes driving around drunk, but they actually drive around with a pickup truck full of drunks, and then they find innocent families to throw beer bottles at and then run them off the rode and try to make a pass at the mom.

Well one thing leads to another, and eventually mom and sister are dead and it's time for some rolling vengeance. Dad stands up in court and yells, "This man killed my wife and daughter, and he gets fined $300? He oughta be strung up by the balls!" And the whole court applauds. That's the kind of shit that passed for emotion in 1987.

It takes WAY too long to get to the rolling vengeance, so I have to admit I'm not even sure who it was that eventually decided on getting the rolling vengeance. Some guy with a truck, I know that much.

There is one pretty funny scene where Ned Beatty and his son are in the bar and they get in a big argument because Ned implies that his son is a "chickenshit," and then refuses to take it back. The son is so offended he's about to shoot Ned, but then the monster truck drives through the bar and smashes everybody. But Ned pops back up and shoots a cop in the head for no reason.

Also there's a part where a girl hides from the truck in a sewer pipe, but she's still not safe because the truck penetrates the pipe using its drill.

Otherwise though, this movie is WAY too 1987 for my tastes. Fuck you, 1987, in my opinion.

ROMEO IS BLEEDING
This is one of the '90s crime pictures I had to catch up on. It came out in '93, the year after Reservoir Dogs so it probaly just missed the raising of the standards. If it came out in the '80s it would have seemed a little better but since then we've had a whole lot of far superior crime pictures and neo-noir type creations. This has the slick feel of a True Romance and the nihilistic attitude of a True Romance, but not the characterization of a Reservoir Dogs or the strong themes of honor and betrayal of a Reservoir Dogs.

Gary Oldman plays Jack Romeo (well they didn't call him that in the movie but I've decided Romeo is his last name, you got a problem with that asshole? I didn't think so) a police sergeant who, even if he wasn't a police sergeant, would have almost no redeeming qualities. Now I think Gary Oldman is a great actor judging from what I've seen of him in the fifth element and the true romance. But I mean jesus. This is a guy who can play characters with no soul, no heart, pure evil. He is a great villain. But he is not a good anti-hero or everyman who you want to follow into the dark side. And we're not going to feel sorry for him. If this movie was going to work it would have needed someone who could invest the character with some type of infectious charisma that would make you want to side with a fucking dirty pig asswipe like Jack Romeo.

Sgt. Romeo is in bed with the mob, they pay him $65,000 to tell him where a key witness is going to be so they can off him or her. Things go sour when the feds move one of the witnesses, a female Badass named Markovich or something like that, before her mob rivals get to her. Now Romeo is in trouble, they're going to kill his wife and his niece/girlfriend and the rest of his toes if he doesn't go kill this Markovich lady by noon Wednesday.

But Markovich shows him her thighs and pays him five times the $65,000 to help her fake her death. And that is one of the problems here. This guy is called Romeo and by the end of the picture it is clear that there is supposed to be a romantic element to this. He is supposed to really love his wife, and it is supposed to be tragic that the idiot thinks with his dick. I mean he's fucking her niece, he's fucking a Badass mob boss even late in the picture when she has only one arm, eventually you find out he's fucking plenty of other gals. But we never see him spend any quality time with his wife, he doesn't share his money with her or tell her what he's doing, he even puts on a front complaining about how little he gets paid. And we're not sure why either of them like each other, especially why she likes him. I mean jesus give us something to work with here or don't pretend it's romantic. You gotta give them some kind of good side to their relationship if it's gonna mean shit to the audience.

But what's almost worse than that is the god damned non-stop narration. It is supposed to be a surprise that it is Gary Oldman. But I mean jesus. He's obviously not using his real accent and he sounds like a fucking jackass, doing this cheeseball accent to overemphasize lines like "It's tough to dig a grave when the corpse is standing right there staring at you." And he's talking over this sleazy vibes and saxophone jazz. It's supposed to give it a film noir feel but the whole thing feels more like one of those soft porn movies on Showtime about some private eye that starts fucking some femme fatale, most often played by Shannon Tweed.

This is also one of those movies where the cops all wear suits, sunglasses and mustaches and talk macho but you're supposed to be impressed by it. Nice try. The funniest part is when a cop played by Will Patton says, "She turned around and she pointed my own gun at me Jack, you know like some kind of an animal!" Well for fuck's sake I hope this line was re-dubbed for the cable version I saw because what a moronic thing to say. When was the last time you went up to a monkey or an elephant, stole his gun and turned it on him? Speaking for me only it's been quite a while. This is like how people say something like, "You have no right to do this, to beat me like a dog!" Like it's okay to beat a dog. What kind of a pussy beats up on a damn pooch?

There is only one truly memorable scene in this movie, and the filmmakers obviously knew this because they flashforward to it at the beginning so that you won't give up on the movie until it happens. Romeo shoots Markovich, handcuffs her, throws her in the back of her car and drives off. But she's not dead. From the backseat, she wraps her legs around his head and forces him to crash the car. Then she rolls over the seat and without hesitation, even though she's wearing a skirt and pumps, savagely kicks through the windshield. Then she hooks the satchel of money with one foot, grabs some crucial papers in her mouth, rolls over the hood of the car and takes off down the street. Bravo. Now if only the rest of the movie could have been half that interesting we would have had something here.

ROMEO MUST DIE

This is the latest Jet Li picture, his last in the US was 1999 Outlaw Award Winner for Best Picture - Karate Black Mask. That was weird type of comic book story where there is karate, masks, lasers and all that sort of garbage, which is why it is good. Jet Li is an amazing type of action star as far as the kicks, the punches and etc. Legend has it that he is so fast they have to ask him to slow down so the camera can pick him up properly. In fact this guy is faster than Superman in my opinion, and he can also fly although only with the help of cables that are removed using high tech electronic computers that they have today. But the real thing about Jet Li is that he is a very charismistic and good looking dude, maybe a little feminine but in a "I'm gonna kick your ass and the girls will still think I'm sensitive, sucker" type of way.

What's historic about this one is that it's the first picture ever made in English with Jet Li as the star. The only English language picture he's done in the past is I believe Beverly Hills Cop 4 or one of those type of movies, where he played the bad guy in a couple scenes and then the good guys make fun of him for being chinese. But he was so much more popular in that movie than the movie itself that now he is being groomed to join the pantheon with Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Rudy Ray Moore and other martial arts superstars who have made it big in the states. And what better to story give this motherfucker than one by the bard of writing, Mr. William Shakespeare himself, the genius behind Titus and other hits.

Well, that's what they WANTED us to think. I've been reading about this piece for a long time and every single time they call it an update of Romeo and Juliet. I knew they wouldn't talk like Shakespeare, and obviously there is gonna be some liberties as well as possibly some karate. But I thought it was gonna be a serious, modern karate type of picture which coincidentally happens to be about the warring capulets and whatsits and how Romeo and Juliet meet and fall passionately in love and then the shit hits the fan if you know what I mean, as far as a bunch of karate scenes happen and what not. Of course that would be totally ludicrous. I think it would be very enjoyable.

Unfortunately there must have been alot of script doctors and what not on this picture, who thought they were a regular William Shakespeare, taking out scenes from the original and adding their own. Because what they ended up with is your basic americanized karate picture that has no fucking connection to the original story. There are two families, yes, one black and one chinese. And there is one scene where Jet Li looks in a window at Alliyah, which I guess is supposed to be like the balcony scene. Otherwise, there is no connection. You got no nurses, no apothecaries, no Tibalt or Mercutio types, no forbidden love, and even the rivalry between the two families turns out to be fake. Boys Don't Cry was actually a much more faithful update of Romeo and Juliet. Hell, Titus was a more faithful update of Romeo and Juliet. I mean, if Shakespeare was alive he would probaly take his name off this project in my opinion, unless he is a very big Jet Li fan but even then he would probaly be very torn.

I mean wouldn't it be funny if it actually followed the story very closely, but then Romeo starts flying around kicking guys? That is true Cinema in my opinion. At the very least I expected a Romeo and Juliet-like romance, but the relationship here is as cold as a cold beer. They barely know each other, they never even say they are into each other, nobody except a wacky fat guy makes a serious attempt to actually forbid their forbidden love, and at the end all they do is hug.

I mean we don't even know for sure Jet is straight in this picture. The closest they do to going on a date is Jet convinces Aliiyah to go with him to the night club where he expects everyone to get massacred. Which I guess could be considered romantic I mean what do I know. Yeah, I guess it's romantic, way to go Jet.

I mean it's not that bad. There is a couple good action scenes. The best one is where Jet doesn't want to punch a girl so he moves Aliiyah around like a doll and uses her fists and feet to beat up a gal. Delroy Lindo plays Aliiyah's dad, an evil gang boss who is the nicest guy you'll ever meet and never does anything bad or mean during the whole movie. And both Jet and Aliiyah are very likable.

There was a couple things I didn't understand. Like why do they keep talking about starting an NFL team even though they live in Vancouver, a part of Canada. And how come when Delroy Lindo sees Jet Li he says, "Is this Han?", even though he's never heard of him before. There is also a subplot about how people turn into skeletons when they die, I didn't get that at all man I guess it was over my head.

Maybe I am too much of a purist when it comes to the Shakespearean works, though. I guess you can't expect every Shakespeare production to be as faithful and tradtionalist as Titus, Theater of Blood or Strange Brew. But even as a straightup karate picture this doesn't deliver as much excitement as Black Mask, which everybody and their uncle claims is straight up shit compared to Fist of Legend and all those. Come on you americans, if you're gonna use Jet Li use him well you are wasting a national resource here motherfucker and he's not even ours yet.

ROPE

See Compulsion

RUDY RAY MOORE: RUDE
I'm sure most of you motherfuckers know that Rudy Ray Moore is one of the pioneers of independent Cinema, one of the greatest orators of our times and easily the rawest presidential candidate of the last two decades. What you might not know is that in addition to his fine collection of pictures (Dolemite, Petey Wheatstraw, Avenging Disco Godfather, etc.) Mr. Moore has a live concert film in the style of the Eddie Murphy standup pictures he did back when he was trying to copy Richard Pryor instead of dress up in a bunch of funny disguises and fart.

This was released on the "video" cassette format in 1988, the same year that Die Hard hit the theaters. But it looks to ol' Vern like it was filmed in the early '80s, not sure about that bud. At any rate he mentions Reagan so it was probaly a little before '88 in my opinion.

Anyway, Rudy tells a lot of jokes about dick and pussy and he calls out people (obvious plants) in the audience and says how ugly they are. He is best when he's rhyming, "rapping" as he calls it about the legend of Dolemite, or Shine (the black folk hero who supposedly escaped the Titanic 'cause "he was a swimmin sonofabitch"). When he rhymes, he almost goes into a trance, his neck starts poppin back and forth and he snaps and gyrates and slides across the floor like James Brown, keepin the rhythm.

The other highlight is when he makes his campaign speech for Dolemite. First he says he won't promise to do jack shit when he's elected, but then he starts sayin "I'll have a constitution that will legalize prostitution, and you can bet your sweet ass I'll legalize grass." Then people from the audience stand up, "Mr. Dolemite..." and ask questions. "How do you stand on free love?" "I don't stand on it, I lay on it!" After a while it goes off theme and they start asking questions that don't make any sense, just to set him up for jokes. But what the fuck man it's still a PRETTY fucking good routine if you ask me.

Near the end Rudy starts talking shit about Richard Pryor's freebasing accident. Sorry Dolemite, you may have knocked Saturday into next week but you're not bad enough to take on Richard in the comedy game. But the main reason why Rude doesn't hold a candle's chance in hell to Richard's live films is because of the direction by Petey Wheatstraw director Cliff Roquemore. Some of the routines are obviously dubbed over with the original album versions, and the audience reactions are obviously phoney. This motherfucker cuts straight from a joke to a bunch of people standing up clapping and laughing their fucking eyeballs out, then he cuts off the sound and goes back to Rudy. There's a couple parts where the people go nuts before he even gets to the punchline. Richard's films really gave you a sense of what it must've been like to be there, but not this one.

Still, if you only know Rudy Ray Moore from his action films, it's worth checking out to see where those characters came from and what Rudy was known for (comedy) before he was a Cinematical icon. There is some funny shit on there and especially if you are thinking about voting for Dolemite this year, you might want to find out more about what he stands for and what not thanks bud.

THE RULES OF ATTRACTION

Not even Mr. McTiernan's ROLLERBALL managed to scare up as much hatred in movie critics as THE RULES OF ATTRACTION, the latest by Roger Avary, Oscar winning screenwriter best known as the guy who worked at the video store with Quentin Tarantino. I knew there were a handful of fans but many of the reviews were filled with the kind of angry blubbering you usually get when somebody talks about that last Batman and Robin movie or the 30th Anniversary version of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD where they added in extra scenes and changed the music. The kind of thing where you're so appalled by the movie you can barely even speak English anymore. The film critic at a local alternative weekly interviewed Avary about the movie and the first question was "What were you thinking?"

So I was kind of surprised by how good the movie actually is. Sure it's pretty pretentious. And if all you see is a "rich college kids are fucked up" message then no, it's not an original message. But then neither is "war is hell" and that hasn't made anyone declare the end of the war movie genre for all of eternity. I didn't find this movie profound (I didn't find it empty either) but I really thought the execution of it was exceptional. And there is some truth to the story it paints of people being attracted to horrible people and things turning out bad. (In fact, real bad.)

Based on a book by Bret Easton Ellis, who also did AMERICAN PSYCHO, the story is about the painful mating rituals of some college kids. First of all you got the kid who plays Dawson Creek on tv. I believe his tv character is a goody two shoes type but here he is a real asshole coke dealer misogynist named Sean Bateman, apparently the brother of AMERICAN PSYCHO Patrick Bateman. He describes himself as an "emotional vampire" searching for victims. Dawson does a good job, doesn't really seem like a stunt although it's a little overboard when he does evil slasher expressions while hitting on women (actually the opposite of his brother Patrick, who looks like a normal guy hitting on women when he is actually a slasher looking for victims).

Then you got a young brunette gal with a cynical attitude and punkish haircut, but old fashioned values. We'll call her Winona Ryder. Her roommate (the girl from SEVENTH HEAVEN) tries to convince her to get laid, but she's saving herself for her innocent boyfriend who is in Europe. (Later he gets back and we find out that he is not only an asshole womanizer, but that he doesn't even remember who Winona is.)

And there is a gay guy. What happens is both the gay guy and Winona end up yearning for Sean, exactly the wrong guy for either of them (or anybody in the whole world) to be in love with. And when Winona learns her lesson Sean suddenly falls in love with her and tries to prove himself, but unlike in every teen movie or romantic comedy you've ever seen, he does not sing a song for her and they don't ever find the common ground.

So what you got is basically some CRUEL INTENTIONS and a touch of HEATHERS in a cold-hearted college world, but directed with DePalmian attention to detail and trickery. I think people who hated this movie put it in the same category with that Gregg Arakki dude, or JAWBREAKER: the moronic, self conscious attempts to be shocking and nihilistic. I don't think it's that type of movie, though, and I really think this cleverness in direction is the main reason why the movie made people so spittin angry. It's the same thing I talked about with REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Although that movie was a little overrated by some, others were punishing it for being stylish. Like it's wrong to be stylish and clever and entertaining in a visual medium. I really think if THE RULES OF ATTRACTION just had generic pop songs instead of obscure oldies and bombastic orchestral music, and if it was presented in a lifeless Kevin Smith style (maybe even a frenetic Bruckheimer style) nobody would like it too much, but they wouldn't be pissing themselves in anger either.

The structure of the movie is built on a series of college parties, all with apocalyptic names (END OF THE WORLD PARTY) subtitled on the screen with the same sense of importance as historical dramas when they subtitle dates and locations. Which is probaly how these young fuckers see life, too.

Then there is this whole RASHOMAN type deal where the same period of a party will be told from a couple different perspectives. Mr. Avary finds an interesting way to travel through time visually. He shows the events in one room, then reverses time, following some frat boys backwards down the hall as they roll an empty keg back to the party. We hear the shoop shoop shoop of the backmasked music and see events from earlier, but backwards. Then the camera moves over to another partygoer, time starts going forward again and we follow that person.

There are several points in the movie where time moves backward, and Mr. Avary is sure to find the best things to show in reverse: snow falling, smoke blowing, vomiting, blowing bubbles, a praying mantis walking backwards.

There is another scene that is more blatantly Depalmian, and it was one of my favorites. In splitscreen, two different characters get up for the same class. We follow their morning routines and journeys to class. Eventually we see that they are heading down the same hall in opposite directions. Then they have a conversation, still in split screen so we see each character's face from the perspective of the other character's face. And finally the camera whips around to the side to show that they really are facing each other in the same shot, at least as far as I could tell. Nice work.

To be fair, some of the movie does have sort of a freak show feel to it, and not all of the attractions are spectacular. (this paragraph will give away some of the best parts, so watch it.) I thought the kid yelling obscenities to embarass his rich mom at a fancy restaraunt was too obvious, and so was the scene where Winona has to give a blowjob to her professor (Eric Stoltz). But there were other scenes where I just felt that rush that I was seeing something I hadn't really seen in a movie before, at least not quite like that. Like there is a scene where Sean, who is in debt to his drug supplier, goes to the dorm room of a junkie friend to try to get money that he himself is owed. It's a hilarious/tragic portrait of wasted youth, this fat, hairy naked kid giving a tour de force monologue of stoner wisdom before shooting up in his toe and screaming "I can feel my dick! I can feel my dick!" The actor is very convincing and the scene goes from amusing to incredible at exactly the moment when you realize that this fat naked guy is that fuckin kid from The Wonder Years. Kevin Arnold.

Another example. And don't read this either if you're gonna watch the movie. Throughout the whole thing Sean is getting these mysterious love notes and trying to figure out where they come from. I assumed from the beginning that it was the gay guy and that you were supposed to assume it was Winona. But when the author is finally revealed it is actually a total stranger, only barely seen in the movie, who finally gives up on Sean and slits her wrists in a bath tub. You've seen this bath tub suicide scene a million times before but this time it's somebody you don't even recognize. It's long, dialogue-less and ritualistic and I couldn't help but feel like I was spying on some poor anonymous stranger. I mean no wonder this gal feels so ignored. Not only does Sean not know she exists, I didn't either and I was watching her damn movie. I should be one of them omniscient guys. I almost blamed myself for her death.

If I had to pick this one or AMERICAN PSYCHO I'd probaly pick AMERICAN PSYCHO because that one was hilarious. Remember when he was running around naked with a chainsaw? And then he bit her on the leg. That was funny shit. But I preciate a filmatist trying to be inventive, to find new ways of telling stories and things we haven't seen in a movie before. To be frankly honest I didn't even like this dude's pre-LOCK STOCK bank heist movie THE KILLING OF ZOE, and here I am singing the praises of some college movie. Oh well I gotta tell it like it is man.

RUN LOLA RUN

I have seen people arguing about Run Lola here so I decided to check it out today. I have always believed in thinking for yourself and a man has a right to his opinion. The movie? what can i say. I don't know a whole lot about german movies so i didn't understnad all of it.

I did pretty good with the words on the screen but the story plot was pretty messed up in a way. for example the way it has cartoons in it, or lola dies and then suddenly it's at the beginning of the movie again. What the fuck? everybody in the theater was just laughing, it was so weird.

however i must say otherwise it was pretty interesting shit, pretty god damn interesting in my opinion. Lola, for instance, that bitch can really run. she don't sweat, either. I know from experience that takes a lot of skill and conditioning. To be frankly honest I have not run from the cops as often as many. Not to brag but i just didn't get found out too often. I have had my shares of mad dashes for the woods however. Trust me no matter how often you lift weights or whatever when you start to run it is not a pretty fucking sight. your heart is beating fast and the adrenaline and everything, but your about ready to piss yourself. you can feel the sweat dripping down your sides, the mud soaking into your socks (if your lucky enough to have them), taste the blood in your dry mouth. it's pretty fucked up as far as I'm concerned and I would not recomend it to anyone. you start to cramp up and your breath is burning up your lungs and you just want to lay down and take a fucking nap or something. When was the last time you ran? Cooped up in that cage it's not even possible. What are you gonna do run in circles? so anyway that's how i know this bitch is a pretty fucking good runner in my opinion.

also this movie sort of reminds me of a movie I rented by the name of natural born killers. I think some of you action fans no exactly what I'm talking about. This is a road movie that is almost the same as run lola but a little more down to earth. it's the same how it has all the cartoons and everything and it's all druggy trip out movie making like back in the 60's. Run Lola is a little more psychedelic because of the german electric music and what not. i think i liked the natural born killers better though because the characters are more average joes that you can relate to. in run lola she doesn't really have a motive. she's just this weird german chick with fucked up hair. i mean nothing against lola i would definitely fuck the girl but you have to admit the hair is kind of weird for a girl.

You do have to admit that the natural born killers borrowed a lot from german movies though how it's flashing to different stuff all the time and weird pictures projected onto people and all this kind of weird shit that the germans are so good at. I don't mean to say that germans are all weird. i have met some pretty fucking good germans right here on this news group in my opinion. so fuck anyone who is against all germans. There are exceptions to every rule.

Anyway i would like to hear other people's thoughts on run lola. it is definitely one of the best german movies i've seen in a long god damn time.

sorry, just tellin it like it is

--vern

RUNNING SCARED

I really don't have a problem with America's team captain, Paul Walker. Alot of people seem to hate this guy, but I think he's pretty good at playing these straight laced hunky characters in movies like THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS and EIGHT BELOW. But I gotta admit, when I saw the trailer for RUNNING SCARED I thought it looked like the worst shit ever. Paul Walker doing an accent, playing a mob guy? I wasn't buying it. It didn't help that the trailer ended with mobsters trying to hit a glowing hockey puck into Walker's mouth. Like it's not enough to hit the guy in the face, they gotta make it visually appealing and EXTREME.

But there are two things that the trailer didn't get across. One, that Paul Walker actually does a pretty good job playing this type of character. I was hoping that Clint's FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS would be the movie that shows Walker is a little better than people thought, but his part in that one turned out to be minimal. Instead it was this one that makes you think huh, maybe he could play other types of characters. Hard to say. The second thing the trailer didn't get across about RUNNING SCARED is that it's a crazed, ridiculous movie where the day-glo hockey rink fits right in. And I guess the third thing is that Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines are not in this one, it's Paul Walker.

Walker's character has the job of disposing of murder weapons for the mob. But instead of actually disposing of them, he keeps them in baggies in a secret compartment in his basement. I don't think the beginning of the movie actually offers a reason why he would do this, but the narration in the trailer tells you that it's his insurance in case they try to screw him over some day.

He has a wife and a son, and the son likes to play with the Russian kid who lives next door. The Russian kid is played by Creepy Boy, that kid from every movie that has come out in the last 2 years. For example he was in X-MEN 3 as the kid who takes away X-Man powers, and he was in some movie where he stares eerily at Nicole Kidman and freaks everybody out.

Well, Creepy Boy's dad is a John Wayne-obsessed, crystal meth manufacturing, Russian mafia associated child abuser. Creepy has enough so he steals one of Walker's murder weapons and uses it to shoot his dad.

Paul hears gunshots, assumes it's the dad doing the shooting and runs over, but when he realizes that the kid stole the gun that his boss just used to kill a cop in the opening shootout, he knows what he has to do: get the fucking thing back before the cops get there. He pries the bullet casings out of the walls, but Creepy runs off with the gun. So the movie is about Paul trying to get the gun back.

But like I said this is not some kind of realistic crime drama. This is a world where in one night a kid can shoot his dad, encounter a faceless boogie man, save a hooker from an abusive white pimp, get kidnapped by a middle class couple who are actually crazed pedophile serial killers, and face down corrupt cops and the Russian mafia in a black-light hockey arena.

Meanwhile Paul Walker is pounding the bricks trying to track the gun down, as it goes through multiple owners (including the same pimp Creepy Boy confronted earlier). Walker almost always plays a sort of dumb sounding but friendly jock dude who calls everybody bro. This is a rare challenge for him where he is constantly yelling, swearing, spitting, fighting, running, and panicked. Instead of "bro" he calls people cocksuckers and "You fucking motherfucker!" and in at least two scenes he just lets out a primal scream at the top of his lungs, like a sasquatch asserting his dominance over his territory. In that hockey rink he's pinned face down in a puddle of dark colored blood, screaming and making the blood bubble up.

The style of the movie is as freaked out as the characters. When I heard word that this was not the movie the trailer implied but actually something really over the top and feverish (some people even compared it to THE WARRIORS for some reason) I was a little worried that it was gonna be some DOMINO-type unwatchable bullshit. On the commentary track, the director even mentions that he got the idea to use a handcrank for a shootout from Tony Scott's MAN ON FIRE. Man, nobody should get ANY idea from MAN ON FIRE except to not watch Tony Scott movies anymore. But this guy uses the show-offy style much more effectively. He moves the camera all over the place but he is more controlled about it. He is willing to calm down sometimes to give it a rhythm, he doesn't do the same tricks over and over, and he gives you the feeling that the shots are carefully planned out to communicate things visually, even if they're ridiculously over-the-top. He twirls you around, but he doesn't hit you in the face with a shovel.

The bit about the Russian gangster being obsessed with John Wayne is kind of lame, especially since Sid Haig already had a John Wayne tattoo and talked worshipfully about "the Duke" in HOUSE OF ONE THOUSAND CORPSES. This guy has a huge John Wayne back tattoo and makes a speech to Creepy Boy about his childhood in Russia seeing only edited 8-mm versions of westerns and not knowing that John Wayne died in the movies and how that represents his feelings about America. And this is the character's first scene. I thought it was embarassing because first of all, didn't they figure out ten years ago to stop trying to copy Tarantino with these pop culture monologist criminals? And second of all, if he really felt this way wouldn't this have come out before and not have to be a speech he makes to his son right now? It's fucking horrible. On the other hand, I kind of like how it ties in to the character's death, when he takes his shirt off so that he can walk away with The Duke facing his foes. Then the tattoo gets its eyes shot out. It almost passes itself off as a meaningful death but I couldn't get past the context. This guy is a scumbag but he gets redeemed right before his death. How does he turn a new leaf? By refusing an order to execute his own son. And the movie acts like we're supposed to be surprised that he doesn't do it. Like an ordinary person would kill his own son but this guy took a stand.

And unfortunately there's a HUGE SPOILER twist that I could've done without. It turns out that, unbeknownst to everybody else in the movie, Paul Walker is actually an undercover cop. That's the real reason why he's keeping all the guns: for evidence. I think he needs to get the bullets and the gun before the cops do because he knows there are crooked cops about and he doesn't want to blow his 12 years of undercover. I guess the twist works storywise, but why does every protagonist have to be a fuckin cop? We were already with this guy for the whole movie while thinking he was a real criminal, so why do we have to find out don't worry, he's actually a good guy at the end? Especially since Paul Walker already did this you thought I was a criminal but actually I'm an undercover cop business halfway through THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS. Here they had us believing in Paul Walker playing a different kind of character and then they still have to tell us, "Don't worry, deep down he's actually a nice guy - like Paul Walker."

But most of the movie isn't that dumb. There's alot of clever little gimmicks, like a huge shootout that takes place in the enclosed space of a single (only slightly larger than usual) hotel room. The tangent about the pedophiles is pretty cool because their apartment seems like a different world from the rest of the movie, and Walker's wife, who up until that point doesn't have much to do, temporarily becomes the main character of the movie.
This is the guy who directed THE COOLER with William H. Macey and Alec Baldwin. I never saw that one and, although I liked this one, I'm not putting him on my list of directors to look out for. Because I listened to some of the commentary track and this guy just rubs me the wrong way. He keeps talking about the "fairy tale" and "Brothers Grimm" themes in the movie, he seems to think that makes it deep. You know what man, THE GODFATHER and GOODFELLAS didn't have parallels to Humpty Dumpty and Little Miss Muffet and if they did that wouldn't have made them deeper. Then the guy keeps talking about Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz and things that aren't even fairy tales or Brothers Grimm. But he seems so god damn proud of it. It made me kind of sad. The only thing he talks about more than the fairy tales is how he was trying to make a '70s style crime thriller, and how proud he is that he achieved that. Which is weird, because this is a 2006 movie through and through - crazed camera moves, gratuitous CGI showoffery, digital recoloring, Creepy Boy in the cast, limp postmodernism left over from the '90s, corny fairy tale references to make it weird. So I came to the conclusion that this guy made a pretty good movie, but probaly by accident.

THE RUNDOWN

I had no problem skipping this one when it came to theaters, but it was on DVD where the problems came up. Sure, I tried, but then motherfuckers kept recommending it to me. Saying it was "actually good" and "alot of fun" and all that kind of nonsense. After a while I figured well why not, give this Rock dude a shot. I skipped his mummy pictures, so all I know is he was in BEYOND THE MAT and he seemed like a nice guy. Goes by the name of Dwayne, I believe, in everyday life, but for wrestling and movies it's last name Rock, first name The. No relation to Chris.

The movie was pretty much what I expected when I first succeeded in skipping it. Unfortunately when they're trying out action heroes that have not yet convinced the Hollywood suits, they have to team them with some company man as his partner/buddy/"comic" relief sidekick. For example they pulled this shit on Chow Yun Fat in BULLET PROOF MONK and here they have the same fucking narc, Sean William Scott from the AMERICAN PIE teenage pictures, saddling down The Rock, making sure he stays in line and doesn't pull anything funny like making a great movie. Nope, the wacky buddy is always there to make up a couple jokes at the beginning and repeat them over and over and over and over again until the end of the movie. If there is a part that is mildly amusing, don't worry, you are sure to see it again. There is no need to rewind. There is alot of unneccessary shtick type business. Alot of stupid shit like oh no, they crash a car off a cliff and scream, or oh no, a monkey jumps on their head. Who knows what kind of craziness will happen next? And Ewan Bremner from Julian the Donkey Boy is in there as an outrageous scottish pilot, and everytime he comes on screen you can tell that the filmatists thought it was hilarious, but you really have no idea what it is about him that is supposed to be so hilarious. I'm sure it was great though if you made the movie. Just not if you watched it.

But having said that, any of my buds who said THE RUNDOWN was "surprisingly good," they are not that far off. There is definitely some good qualities in this picture. I should probaly mention what the shit is about. Well Rock plays a bounty hunter working for a specific rich criminal type. He wants to get out though and start a restaraunt. In order to do this he must complete one last job, retrieving his boss's son from a jungle somewhere. The son of course is Sean William Scott who is mixed up trying to find a legendary Indiana Jones type treasure. Rock has a hard time getting the kid because of Christopher Walken, the slavedriver at a huge diamond mine, who figures the treasure belongs to him and wants to use the kid to find it. Also the rebels who want the treasure so they can stop Walken.

Shit, you're right. This is a treasure movie. I'm not making this sound very good.

But Walken has a couple good speeches, one of them about the tooth fairy and the other about how the hell on earth of his diamond mine brings "a little piece of heaven" to rappers who like to wear shiny earrings. This ties it into the opening a little bit, which is the best part of the movie.

In the opening scene, The Rock is at a night club where football pros (wearing those diamond earrings) hang out. He's on a mission to take the Super Bowl ring from a player with a big gambling debt. He tries to talk to this guy, saying he's embarassed because he's a big fan. First the guy gives him an autograph, then gets pissed and throws Crystalle in his face, and a bunch of other huge football players puff their chests out. So Rock goes to the bathroom and calls the boss on his cell phone, begging him to let him do it another day because "the whole offensive line is here."

At first you assume he's scared, but then he explains that "these guys have a good chance of repeating this year - I do not want to hurt them." And you can see where it would go from there.

So yeah, there were a couple funny tough guy parts in the movie, but the thing that made it actually noteworthy is this guy The Rock. I'm not completely sold on the movie but I am completely sold on The Rock. Being a wrestler, he is a giant hulking muscleman, but unlike Governor Schwarzenegger he actually seems qualified to be an actor. Not like Governor Ventura, where he is funny when he says tough guy lines. This guy is easygoing and charming. He could play non tough guy roles if he wanted to. And he's palatable to us non wrestling fans because he's handsome and has short hair and hides his muscles under a Cary Grant style suit (but he still has those giant shoulders, like Superman or a walking cheese wedge). He's just a likable dude who happens to be of intimidating size. And I know I said Vin Diesel was the next big badass star (I still kind of like him) but I gotta admit this guy may be a better bet, because he seems so much more humble. It would be harder to hate him if you had seen his movies.

I probaly wouldn't've guessed this, but it's his fighting that could be better. The acting is perfect, it's the fighting this wrestler has a problem with, in my opinion. At least in the hands of these people, wrestling does not translate too well to action scenes. One obvious exception is the legendary, classic and untoppable street wrestling scene in John Carpenter's brilliant ode to the late Ronald Reagan, THEY LIVE. Here they don't do the same approach of just showing people do wrestling moves in a movie - they try to mix his usual throwing people, clotheslining and drop kicking with wire work and martial arts and crap. It's not terrible, but it seems kind of silly and fake - you know, like wrestling. What I would like to see is The Rock in a movie that doesn't have a bunch of fight scenes. Maybe some punch outs but not big choreographed fights. So instead of trying to be a Jet Li or a Steven Seagal he is more of a Lee Marvin or a Payback. The emphasis is on what he says and does and not how he kicks and jumps.

I believe he is playing an Elmore Leonard character soon (a supporting role in the GET SHORTY sequel) so maybe that will send him in the right direction of playing characters instead of fighters.

Anyway, I would like to welcome The Rock to the films of Badass Cinema. I'm looking forward to him making a really good one.