I remember how we began, with HIGHLANDER. It was the days before the internet, and I walked into the theater solely on the strength of Sean Connery's name on the poster. You surprised me. You dazzled me. You found a special place in my heart.
But you changed. In HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING, I didn't even recognize you. Everything you had told me about yourself turned out to be a lie, and you treated me like the dirt under your shoes. So I walked away.
I was done with you. I didn't need you in my life. But then you came around, full of promise, with HIGHLANDER III: THE SORCERER. It wasn't like the first time, and our trust had been broken, but at least it seemed like you were making an effort. Finally, though, I realized you were an empty shell - all promise and no delivery. We were finished. Through. I had my own path to tread.
Why, oh why, did I allow myself to fall into the same trap when you came back around with HIGHLANDER IV: ENDGAME? I knew what I was getting into, but I couldn't resist. My heart kept going back to those wonderful early days, even as my mind told me that no good could come of you. I should have listened. Once you had me committed again, you didn't even try to act like a real movie. You were nothing more than an "extra special episode with special guest Christopher Lambert." Your production values were strictly cable tv - and one of the high-numbered channels, to boot. Your heroes were lame, and your villains even lamer. Your story was pointless, your fight choreography uninteresting, and your climax an invalidation of your own wobbly mythos. That's it. I'm done with you, and for good this time. Don't come around, because I respect myself now and I've got no time for you.
What? IMDB tells me that HIGHLANDER: THE SOURCE is in post-production? Well, maybe just this once. What's the harm?
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Assault on Precinct 13
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 is aggressively mediocre.
The film hits every mark, goes through all the motions, like it's trying very hard. Hard as it may try, however, it simply cannot muster the tension it's trying to achieve. We know who the traitor is the minute we see him. We know who's going to die, and pretty much in what order. We know exactly how the hero's arc will play out, and we even know how the antihero's arc will play out.
As the hero, Ethan Hawke shows us nothing we haven't seen before. As the antihero, Lawrence Fishburne is convincingly portrays a one-note actor. As the various targets trapped inside the titular precinct house with our anti/heroic duo, Monica Bello, Drea de Matteo, John Leguizamo, Brian Dennehy, and "I've seen that guy before" guy Matt Craven all show up, do their jobs, and go home.
While not a terrible film, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 has little to recommend it. It may be just thing to have on in the background while doing chores, but I wouldn't sit down for it again.
The film hits every mark, goes through all the motions, like it's trying very hard. Hard as it may try, however, it simply cannot muster the tension it's trying to achieve. We know who the traitor is the minute we see him. We know who's going to die, and pretty much in what order. We know exactly how the hero's arc will play out, and we even know how the antihero's arc will play out.
As the hero, Ethan Hawke shows us nothing we haven't seen before. As the antihero, Lawrence Fishburne is convincingly portrays a one-note actor. As the various targets trapped inside the titular precinct house with our anti/heroic duo, Monica Bello, Drea de Matteo, John Leguizamo, Brian Dennehy, and "I've seen that guy before" guy Matt Craven all show up, do their jobs, and go home.
While not a terrible film, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 has little to recommend it. It may be just thing to have on in the background while doing chores, but I wouldn't sit down for it again.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
There's a moment at the beginning of the endgame of LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (1998) in which all the pieces are assembled on the board, but the interlocking stories and plots are jumbled together and everything appears to be headed for total chaos. Watching it, I thought, "How the hell is this guy (writer / director Guy Ritchie) going to pull this off?"
He pulls it off with dash, flair, humor, and not a little bit of gratuitous violence. The same could be said of the entire film. LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS is a fun, vibrant picture that isn't afraid to tell a raucous story raucously. Ritchie clearly enjoys writing dialogue that, if not entirely natural, is a pleasure to hear. Additionally, the guy knows how to craft a story that's inherently violent without giving it any real sense of danger. His characters and situations are so outlandish that they feel like characters and situations, not like real people, and that adds to the movie's sense of fun.
LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS could have gone wrong in any number of ways. Fortunately, Ritchie avoids them and delivers an energetic, amusing picture.
What a pleasant surprise.
PS There's a whole other side to this movie, the investigation of which was inconsistent with the upbeat tone of my remarks. LS&TSB does some interesting things with the nature of class, cleverly delineating various levels of "us-ness" and "them-ness." This is the kind of movie that could take you from a fun time at the theater to a fun time over coffee later, as you consider how calculated the film is, and how complicit you are, in its presentation of class and ethnicity.
He pulls it off with dash, flair, humor, and not a little bit of gratuitous violence. The same could be said of the entire film. LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS is a fun, vibrant picture that isn't afraid to tell a raucous story raucously. Ritchie clearly enjoys writing dialogue that, if not entirely natural, is a pleasure to hear. Additionally, the guy knows how to craft a story that's inherently violent without giving it any real sense of danger. His characters and situations are so outlandish that they feel like characters and situations, not like real people, and that adds to the movie's sense of fun.
LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS could have gone wrong in any number of ways. Fortunately, Ritchie avoids them and delivers an energetic, amusing picture.
What a pleasant surprise.
PS There's a whole other side to this movie, the investigation of which was inconsistent with the upbeat tone of my remarks. LS&TSB does some interesting things with the nature of class, cleverly delineating various levels of "us-ness" and "them-ness." This is the kind of movie that could take you from a fun time at the theater to a fun time over coffee later, as you consider how calculated the film is, and how complicit you are, in its presentation of class and ethnicity.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The Descent
I'm not claustrophobic. I know this because at one point in my military training I was put in a situation designed to induce extreme claustrophobia. I was snug as could be and could have stayed there all night. At least, I thought I wasn't claustrophobic. THE DESCENT has made me reconsider.
THE DESCENT has a solid horror framework: a group of friends go somewhere and promptly start dying. In this particular case, the friends go spelunking, a pastime which never particularly appealed to me but never particularly repelled me, either. While watching the first third of THE DESCENT, the one in which the group penetrates more deeply into the cave network in which nasty things are sure to happen, I felt uncomfortable, then confined, then outright claustrophobic. The filmmakers do such a fine job of closing in more and more tightly on both their characters and audience that, by the time a member of the party gets stuck in a tiny passageway, it was all I could do to breathe. I could feel the oppressive weight of the earth above me, and I yearned for daylight. Later in the film, when the nasties show up, THE DESCENT becomes your basic bug-hunt movie, which is fine. Still later, when the protagonist goes Spacek, the movie takes some unexpected and creative turns which pay off well. But that first third - oh man - I've never seen anything like it.
Neil Marshall, who earlier directed personal favorite DOG SOLDIERS, again populates his film with characters we know and respect. He doesn't waste our time with too much exposition, and he doesn't go for all the easy character beats we expect. Instead, he gives us the chance to get to know these people based on what they do, not say. It's sound, economical film-making, and it works.
What a treat.
THE DESCENT has a solid horror framework: a group of friends go somewhere and promptly start dying. In this particular case, the friends go spelunking, a pastime which never particularly appealed to me but never particularly repelled me, either. While watching the first third of THE DESCENT, the one in which the group penetrates more deeply into the cave network in which nasty things are sure to happen, I felt uncomfortable, then confined, then outright claustrophobic. The filmmakers do such a fine job of closing in more and more tightly on both their characters and audience that, by the time a member of the party gets stuck in a tiny passageway, it was all I could do to breathe. I could feel the oppressive weight of the earth above me, and I yearned for daylight. Later in the film, when the nasties show up, THE DESCENT becomes your basic bug-hunt movie, which is fine. Still later, when the protagonist goes Spacek, the movie takes some unexpected and creative turns which pay off well. But that first third - oh man - I've never seen anything like it.
Neil Marshall, who earlier directed personal favorite DOG SOLDIERS, again populates his film with characters we know and respect. He doesn't waste our time with too much exposition, and he doesn't go for all the easy character beats we expect. Instead, he gives us the chance to get to know these people based on what they do, not say. It's sound, economical film-making, and it works.
What a treat.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Rookie of the Year
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR is the kind of innocuous kids' movie that dreams small dreams: it only wants to entertain young baseball fans without inflicting too much pain on their parents.
It succeeds, I suppose. It entertained my young baseball fan and didn't inflict too much pain on me, but that doesn't make it a good movie. Its star, a kid (at the time) named Thomas Ian Griffith, knows two expressions: happy and dumfounded and sad and dumbfounded. Its action is ridiculous, it story paper-thin, and its adult-themed jokes too risque.
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR isn't a failure because it sets its sights so low. If you don't have a young baseball fan in the house, however, don't bother.
It succeeds, I suppose. It entertained my young baseball fan and didn't inflict too much pain on me, but that doesn't make it a good movie. Its star, a kid (at the time) named Thomas Ian Griffith, knows two expressions: happy and dumfounded and sad and dumbfounded. Its action is ridiculous, it story paper-thin, and its adult-themed jokes too risque.
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR isn't a failure because it sets its sights so low. If you don't have a young baseball fan in the house, however, don't bother.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story
I hated every frame of BLACKBALLED: THE BOBBY DUKES STORY. In fact, I couldn't get through it. When the movie hit 45 minutes without eliciting even the faintest trace of the beginning of the uptick of a grin, I ejected the thing, put it in its envelope, and dropped it in the mail.
BLACKBALLED is the kind of movie that hates its characters, hates its subject matter, and hates you, the viewer. The movie's about a disgraced paintball champion who returns to his old stomping grounds a decade after his shaming event. His friends loathe him and his enemies loathe him. I find nothing funny in loathing and found nothing funny here.
BLACKBALLED looks and sounds cheap. Its characters don't work. Nothing about it is funny. Someone should have shot it through the heart.
BLACKBALLED is the kind of movie that hates its characters, hates its subject matter, and hates you, the viewer. The movie's about a disgraced paintball champion who returns to his old stomping grounds a decade after his shaming event. His friends loathe him and his enemies loathe him. I find nothing funny in loathing and found nothing funny here.
BLACKBALLED looks and sounds cheap. Its characters don't work. Nothing about it is funny. Someone should have shot it through the heart.
Pusher
If LAYER CAKE is a movie about a genius trying to survive in a world of morons, then PUSHER (1996) is a movie about a moron trying to survive in a world of morons.
The movie follows Frank, a guy on one of the lower levels of the multi-level marketing scheme known as the Danish narcotics trade, through what may well be the last week of his life. PUSHER uses the industry-standard pattern of high life and decline, but it does so with two important deviations: it's shot with an improvisational style, using ambient light and (mostly, it seems) handheld cameras; and it doesn't give us anyone to root for. Frank is an idiotic scumbag surrounded by idiotic scumbags, and the succession of lousy decisions to which the movie bears witness does nothing to endear us to him or anyone else.
So, why bother with PUSHER? First, it puts us viewers right in Frank's increasingly uncomfortable shoes, and it takes us places where glamorous crime movies never go. Second, it manages to make us root for Frank, even as we despise him. It slowly ratchets up the tension until we find ourselves fully invested in his predicament, and its payoff is both unexpected and perfect.
That said, watching PUSHER was not a particularly pleasant experience. I respect this movie, but I don't necessarily like it. There's a PUSHER II and III out there, but I think I've spent about all the time with these people that I'm willing to spend.
The movie follows Frank, a guy on one of the lower levels of the multi-level marketing scheme known as the Danish narcotics trade, through what may well be the last week of his life. PUSHER uses the industry-standard pattern of high life and decline, but it does so with two important deviations: it's shot with an improvisational style, using ambient light and (mostly, it seems) handheld cameras; and it doesn't give us anyone to root for. Frank is an idiotic scumbag surrounded by idiotic scumbags, and the succession of lousy decisions to which the movie bears witness does nothing to endear us to him or anyone else.
So, why bother with PUSHER? First, it puts us viewers right in Frank's increasingly uncomfortable shoes, and it takes us places where glamorous crime movies never go. Second, it manages to make us root for Frank, even as we despise him. It slowly ratchets up the tension until we find ourselves fully invested in his predicament, and its payoff is both unexpected and perfect.
That said, watching PUSHER was not a particularly pleasant experience. I respect this movie, but I don't necessarily like it. There's a PUSHER II and III out there, but I think I've spent about all the time with these people that I'm willing to spend.
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