First off, I just want to say, I thought Charles Bronson was gonna play a mechanic in this movie. I’m not sure why. Maybe because THE FUCKING MOVIE IS CALLED THE MECHANIC. I don’t know, that may or may not be the reason.
Charles Bronson plays a mob enforcer, or a hitman, or an assassin, or a killer, or a mechanic, or a dentist, or whatever you think sounds coolest. Point is, he’s a guy who makes a living murdering people in fancy ways. And he’s real good at his job, by the looks of it.
The opening scene is one of them tours of force that you gotta be impressed by. For a good ten minutes or more, there is no dialogue, no narration, no explanation. Just my man Charles the Mechanic, spying on a guy, then going into the guy’s apartment, fucking with his teabags, putting explosives in his books, etc. Setting things up. Then blowing things up. All in a day’s work when you are a mechanic who doesn’t fix cars. (read the rest of this shit…)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Can you believe that? Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Has there ever been a better title for a film of Badass Cinema, because I don’t think there has. Leave it to Sam Peckinpah, that lovable old drunk who spent his whole career fighting with studios and filming innocent kids standing by the side of the road watching as horrible atrocities took place in slow motion to come up with a title like that. I don’t think that one will ever be topped.
Scroll up a little bit and you can read about POINT BLANK, Lee Marvin’s great Richard Stark adaptation. Directed by John Boorman, an obvious influence on THE LIMEY, one of the classics. Well here’s another one in the same tough guy vein. But it’s less arty, less thoughtful, and has a weird ass meat theme to it.
I’m sure alot of you out there have that Criterion edition of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. Yeah, me too. So you may remember a special feature on there showing Hunter S. Thompson filming his cameo for the movie, and that footage was actually an excerpt from this movie, BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER. The same movie I am now reviewing as we speak.
Well from what they tell me “The Punisher” is a Marvel Comics type super hero character. In the comic strip he’s a sadistic bastard that goes around “punishing” people. What this means I guess is not spidermanning them with webs or hulking them or whatever, what he does is kill them in horrible painful ways. He does not wear a cape or fly but he wears black spandex and a picture of a skull on his chest. Basically he is the guy from Rolling Thunder as a super hero. Without super powers or a hook hand. Superman’s morally questionable co-worker.
The disappointment of that Planet of the Apes remake nonsense got me thinking about the old days. How you used to be able to make movies about talking gorillas that were still intelligent type pictures. You got all the rubber makeup and the spaceships and the fighting and what not that the nerds love but you also got some social commentary in there or some politics or some insights about our world and what not. You got vietnam and the civil rights movement going on in the real world and the apes really strikes a ball or whatever with people because of the obvious parallels. These were expensive studio movies but they were willing to give something back instead of just selling a product and then running like hell.
You might find this shocking. But I like Michael Moore. Fuck it man, I love Michael Moore. Not that I ever met the dude but I love his pictures and his TV shows. I think he is a great satirist who finds goofy ways to illustrate his points and make them sink in better (like the time on The Awful Truth when he hired an actual pimp to turn out the bitches and hoes of congress, or the time he handed out fluorescent orange wallets to black New Yorkers so they wouldn’t get shot by cops like Amadou Diallo did).
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.
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
