Would you believe Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller’s SIN CITY had its twentieth anniversary last month? I mean yes it kinda seems like a long time ago, but 20 years ago? That’s a bunch of years. I’m against it.
Let’s consider how times were different. Rodriguez was well into his career, having just completed his EL MARIACHI trilogy, with FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, THE FACULTY and three SPY KIDS movies snuggled in between them. He was still in his digital photography evangelist period, ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO having convinced him of how a movie like this could be made affordably at his Troublemaker Studios in Austin. Miramax (before being cancelled) were still surprisingly cool about letting Rodriguez (like Quentin Tarantino) do the type of movies they wanted without much interference. The Ain’t It Cool News (also before being cancelled) were still a player with their breathless reports from Hall H presentations and alsosometimessomereviews.
Harry and Moriarty were (it seems to me) the loudest voices promoting the idea of “geek culture” and the potential for great comic book movies if they were made by people who really loved the source material and were faithful to it. Possibly even made for adults.
SIN CITY is the movie that took that idea the most literally. Rodriguez wanted not only Miller’s permission to adapt his interconnected anthology series of noir-inspired crime comics – he wanted him to co-direct it with him. The legendary cartoonist was skeptical, but Rodriguez got him to come shoot a test scene – the opening starring Josh Hartnett (HALLOWEEN H20) as a dreamy stranger who woos a heartbroken woman on the balcony at a party (Mary Shelton, WARRIORS OF VIRTUE) but turns out to be hired to kill her. Miller was hooked and they had footage to show other actors what it would look like. When all was said and done the DGA would only allow one of them to be credited since they weren’t an established team (huh?), so Rodriguez resigned from the guild. (read the rest of this shit…)
Would you believe Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller’s SIN CITY had its twentieth anniversary last month? I mean yes it kinda seems like a long time ago, but 20 years ago? That’s a bunch of years. I’m against it.
Let’s consider how times were different. Rodriguez was well into his career, having just completed his EL MARIACHI trilogy, with FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, THE FACULTY and three SPY KIDS movies snuggled in between them. He was still in his digital photography evangelist period, ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO having convinced him of how a movie like this could be made affordably at his Troublemaker Studios in Austin. Miramax (before being cancelled) were still surprisingly cool about letting Rodriguez (like Quentin Tarantino) do the type of movies they wanted without much interference. The Ain’t It Cool News (also before being cancelled) were still a player with their breathless reports from Hall H presentations and alsosometimessomereviews.
Harry and Moriarty were (it seems to me) the loudest voices promoting the idea of “geek culture” and the potential for great comic book movies if they were made by people who really loved the source material and were faithful to it. Possibly even made for adults.
SIN CITY is the movie that took that idea the most literally. Rodriguez wanted not only Miller’s permission to adapt his interconnected anthology series of noir-inspired crime comics – he wanted him to co-direct it with him. The legendary cartoonist was skeptical, but Rodriguez got him to come shoot a test scene – the opening starring Josh Hartnett (HALLOWEEN H20) as a dreamy stranger who woos a heartbroken woman on the balcony at a party (Mary Shelton, WARRIORS OF VIRTUE) but turns out to be hired to kill her. Miller was hooked and they had footage to show other actors what it would look like. When all was said and done the DGA would only allow one of them to be credited since they weren’t an established team (huh?), so Rodriguez resigned from the guild. (read the rest of this shit…)
TRAP is not only that style of rap where the beat sounds like a rattlesnake, it’s also the new M. Night Shyamalan joint, or “A NEW M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN EXPERIENCE,” as the poster puts it. It’s not one of his experiences that’s based around a big surprise, so don’t worry about that, but if by chance you don’t know the premise and would enjoy a silly thriller starring Boy Sweat Dave himself, Josh Hartnett, as a dorky dad taking his daughter to a concert, I recommend going in blind.
The rest of you may have seen the trailer, which gives us the first act reveal that Mr. Hartnett is here to finally fulfill his destiny as the dark-eyed nephew of Michael Myers (H20 timeline). As far as his kid Riley (Ariel Donoghue, BLUEBACK) knows he’s just Dad, Cooper Adams, who’s kind of embarrassing but she loves him and not just because he got her really good floor tickets to see her favorite singer Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan) to reward her for good grades. What she does not know is that he’s also the infamous serial killer known as The Butcher. And when he goes to the restroom he pulls out his phone to check the live feed of the guy he has chained up in a basement (Mark Bacolcol). (read the rest of this shit…)
OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE is the first of two Guy Ritchie films released in 2023. They came out so close together because this one was delayed more than a year for reasons reportedly including the pandemic, the bad luck of featuring Ukrainian gangsters right when Ukraine was invaded, and restructuring of distributor STX. I swear I heard it was going straight to video at one point, but then it suddenly hit theaters pretty much out of the blue, with predictably poor response.
It’s another Ritchie-Statham collab (their fifth), but not a gangster movie. Instead it’s a light-hearted spy caper, not an all-out comedy, but very jokey. It’s got the usual spy stuff: planting trackers, facial recognition software, meeting with buyers, pulling people into vans. And their mission takes them into the world of the super-duper rich, on yachts, in mansions, private jets, charity parties, bodyguards, art collections, jewelry auctions. A team of crafty good guys have to earn the trust of billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant, CLOUD ATLAS) before he sells a dangerous device called The Handle. (read the rest of this shit…)
First thing I want to say is that I’ve been calling this movie “Oppy” while having no idea that it’s what everyone calls him in the movie. I guess it’s just the natural, instinctive nickname that comes to mind for J. Robert Oppenheimer, even before “J.R.”
Second thing I want to say is that I was so wrong about the phenomenon of OPPENHEIMER! I had been confused as to why people were talking about it as a sure-thing blockbuster smash, but here I am finally having seen it after 3 weeks of sold out shows at the Imax. I had to give in and buy the tickets a week in advance, and the show did sell out in the same theater that never filled up for DEAD RECKONING, JOHN WICK 4, CREED III, DIAL OF DESTINY, etc. There’s lots of hype about it being shot for Imax format, and this is is the only full Imax format screen in the state, so that’s important context. But still – a 3-hour R-rated drama about a scientist selling out every show every day for weeks? Just because Christopher Nolan directed it? Hooray for the auteur theory! (read the rest of this shit…)
During this year’s October viewing I wanted to revisit a few things that I consider lesser movies from directors I like, that I haven’t seen since they came out decades ago. You know – just to be sure.
I started with a forgotten later one from George A. Romero – his last non-living-dead-related movie, BRUISER. I was disappointed in it at the time, but that was 22 years ago, and I’d had high expectations for it since he hadn’t had a movie in 7 years. There was that gap between his Hollywood stint in the early ‘90s and his return in the new millennium, and it was in the middle of that period that I became obsessed with DAWN OF THE DEAD and KNIGHTRIDERS and everything. So it was a big event when he finally came back with this odd French-American co-production starring a dude from LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS. (read the rest of this shit…)
WRATH OF MAN is a pretty different type of Guy Ritchie movie. It certainly shows some of his interests, his directorial chops, and his long relationship with filming Jason Statham. And okay, it also has some of that lightning quick snappy banter between the fellas, some of which I couldn’t follow at all. And it has Josh Hartnett playing a character called “Boy Sweat Dave.” I’m not sure I can picture that being in somebody else’s movie. Guy Ritchie is the Boy Sweat Dave type.
And yet this is a different style (a more calm and controlled type of flashy) and tone (less flippant, more foreboding, and even mythical) than what we expect from him. It doesn’t have freeze frames with character’s names as they’re introduced, but it does have four sections with pretentious chapter titles. A trend I very much approve of.
It’s a remake of a 2004 French film called LE CONVOYEUR (or CASH TRUCK), which I could only find on VHS with no subtitles (update: I got to see it on a Region B blu-ray so here’s my review). But this seems to me like it’s playing off of two American traditions: pulp crime novels, and movies that try to be like HEAT. I can enjoy both. (read the rest of this shit…)
Earlier this month when I reviewed HALLOWEEN II I wrote that it was “easily one of the best or the best HALLOWEEN sequel they made.” I was being a little cagey, saving it for today to reveal my opinion that the actual best sequel is 1998’s HALLOWEEN H20: TWENTY YEARS LATER. First I watched it again and verified that the verdict still stands now that we’re only a couple years away from being able to make HALLOWEEN H20-20: HALLOWEEN H20 TWENTY YEARS LATER. Also this time I learned that it plays even better when watched immediately after II.
It seems designed for that, because it begins with “Mr. Sandman” by the Chordettes, the same thing that played as Laurie rode off in the ambulance at the end of II. Unlike the other sequels it leaves Loomis dead after blowing himself up with Michael (Donald Pleasance had passed away by this point anyway). But Laurie isn’t the only major character to survive II: there was also Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens), Loomis’s nurse colleague. That’s who Michael comes after first.
Marion’s still working as a nurse, and still chain smoking. She comes home to her house in a different Illinois suburb besides Haddonfield and finds it broken into. The police take their sweet time coming, but two neighbor boys (one played by Joseph Gordon Levitt, SHADOWBOXER, KILLSHOT, LINCOLN) keep her company while she waits. I like that because in HALLOWEEN Laurie tried to run to a neighbor’s house for help and they turned off the lights and wouldn’t answer the door. Marion does have helpful neighbors, but things don’t turn out any better.
Of course this is the opening kill scene, but it’s also a strategic move by Michael, who ransacks Marion’s office, searches her files and leaves an empty one labeled “Laurie Strode,” signaling that he’s figured out the whereabouts of his sister (a triumphantly returning Jamie Lee Curtis), last survivor of the Halloween Murders. She’s in California, working as headmistress at a boarding school attended by her 17 year old son John (introducing Josh Hartnett) under the assumed name Kari Tate. (read the rest of this shit…)
BUNRAKU is a weird combination of elements. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where swords have replaced guns. It has fights choreographed by Larnell Stovall (UNDISPUTED III, NEVER BACK DOWN 2). It stars Josh Hartnett and a Japanese pop star named Gackt (so you know, like, lay off McG for a while) plus Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore. It takes place in a highly stylized, DICK TRACY-esque city – I think built on sound stages more than digital – designed to look like origami or miniature models, or maybe a puppet theater stage, since the title comes from a Japanese form of puppet theater. Anyway it’s all angles and solid colors, no curves or decay or complex shapes. (read the rest of this shit…)
WARNING: contains spoilers for PEARL HARBOR and World War II
After three financially successful action movies in a row (BAD BOYS, THE ROCK, ARMAGEDDON), Michael Bay got a once-in-his-career itch to make An Important Movie. He probly had SAVING PRIVATE RYAN on the brain, and definitely TITANIC.
Ever since James Cameron’s movie broke all box office records studios had been threatening to make asses of themselves by blatantly trying to catch more lightning in that same melodramatic-love-story-during-historic-disaster bottle. Jan de Bont almost did a love-story-on-the-Hindenburg movie, for example. PEARL HARBOR wasn’t as obvious of a copycat as that because 1) it was a love story set against a war movie as much as a disaster and 2) the love song on the end credits was by Faith Hill instead of Celine Dion. Totally different. (read the rest of this shit…)
LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN is slick, clever, full of gimmicks and smart-alecky dialogue somewhere between ’90s post-Tarantino and some old Fred MacMurray in DOUBLE INDEMNITY type banter. All of these things can really rub you the wrong way, and the more of these qualities present at any given time the more likely the wrongness of the rubbing. For me personally the rubbing was aligned properly for most of this movie, but it often seemed on the verge of pulling a 180 at any moment. So I can definitely see how you could watch this and just hate it if you were facing the wrong direction. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
Crudnasty on Nobody: “Hahahaha I appreciate you Vern, and CJ too, for the reassurance and rebuttals. I was looking at the card’s issue…” May 16, 12:10
Crudnasty on Sin City (20th anniversary revisit): “Seeing this review pop up made me smile. The movie was a mixed bag for me, but as you note,…” May 16, 11:07
Mr. Majestyk on Last Bullet: “So I blasted through all three of these yesterday, and that was probably the way to do it. They were…” May 16, 06:18
Skani on Havoc: “Finished it, and my overall impression didn’t changed, but I thought the fight inside the cabin with the harpoon was…” May 15, 20:12
Felix Ng on Last Bullet: “I like the way they show that Areski and Yuri have martial arts training as cops. Lino is more of…” May 15, 15:14
jojo on Sin City (20th anniversary revisit): “Sin City — the comic — caught on because it was so stupidly audacious. It was buying $100 worth of…” May 15, 14:36
VERN on Nobody: “To me one of the ways it’s a subversion of that type of story is the whole set up. The…” May 15, 14:00
CJ Holden on Nobody: “Honestly, I took this part of NOBODY less like “Real men blablabla”, but more like “This motherfucker craves violence and…” May 15, 13:26
Crudnasty on Nobody: “I think I have to turn in my action movie fan card, because I was excited to watch this movie-…” May 15, 12:28
MaggieMayPie on Nobody: “I am 100% on board for the John Nobody Family Vacation: Mayhem at the Amusement Park.” May 15, 11:02
VERN on Nobody: “Yeah, we’ll see how it goes but seeing the trailer I thought it was a pretty brilliant premise. You immediately…” May 15, 10:23
sparker on Last Bullet: “Also, my eternal appreciation and gratitude goes to whoever decided that the English release of this would be titled “LAST…” May 15, 09:35
Borg9 on Last Bullet: “For those wondering about AKA, it’s fine, a diverting 90-minute movie crammed into just over 2 hours. I can’t remember…” May 15, 09:02
Toxic on Nobody: “When they said there would be a JOHN WICK 5 I remember being worried that, after their own in-universe acknowledgement…” May 15, 08:38
Would you believe Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller’s SIN CITY had its twentieth anniversary last month? I mean yes it kinda seems like a long time ago, but 20 years ago? That’s a bunch of years. I’m against it.
TRAP is not only that style of rap where the beat sounds like a rattlesnake, it’s also the new M. Night Shyamalan joint, or “A NEW M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN EXPERIENCE,” as the poster puts it. It’s not one of his experiences that’s based around a big surprise, so don’t worry about that, but if by chance you don’t know the premise and would enjoy a silly thriller starring 
OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE is the first of two Guy Ritchie films released in 2023. They came out so close together because this one was delayed more than a year for reasons reportedly including the pandemic, the bad luck of featuring Ukrainian gangsters right when Ukraine was invaded, and restructuring of distributor STX. I swear I heard it was going straight to video at one point, but then it suddenly hit theaters pretty much out of the blue, with predictably poor response.
During this year’s October viewing I wanted to revisit a few things that I consider lesser movies from directors I like, that I haven’t seen since they came out decades ago. You know – just to be sure.
WRATH OF MAN is a pretty different type of Guy Ritchie movie. It certainly shows some of his interests, his directorial chops, and his long relationship with filming Jason Statham. And okay, it also has some of that lightning quick snappy banter between the fellas, some of which I couldn’t follow at all. And it has Josh Hartnett playing a character called “Boy Sweat Dave.” I’m not sure I can picture that being in somebody else’s movie. Guy Ritchie is the Boy Sweat Dave type.
Earlier this month when I reviewed 
BUNRAKU is a weird combination of elements. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where swords have replaced guns. It has fights choreographed by Larnell Stovall (UNDISPUTED III, NEVER BACK DOWN 2). It stars Josh Hartnett and a Japanese pop star named Gackt (so you know, like, lay off McG for a while) plus Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore. It takes place in a highly stylized, DICK TRACY-esque city – I think built on sound stages more than digital – designed to look like origami or miniature models, or maybe a puppet theater stage, since the title comes from a Japanese form of puppet theater. Anyway it’s all angles and solid colors, no curves or decay or complex shapes. 
released May 25th, 2001
LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN is slick, clever, full of gimmicks and smart-alecky dialogue somewhere between ’90s post-Tarantino and some old Fred MacMurray in DOUBLE INDEMNITY type banter. All of these things can really rub you the wrong way, and the more of these qualities present at any given time the more likely the wrongness of the rubbing. For me personally the rubbing was aligned properly for most of this movie, but it often seemed on the verge of pulling a 180 at any moment. So I can definitely see how you could watch this and just hate it if you were facing the wrong direction. 
