1. I don’t think The
Mask of Zorro gets much respect but I’ve always found it to be a really fun
movie. The production design is great
that has just the right amount of grittiness and the action is pretty fucking
bad ass. I also really dig Anthony Hopkins
as the master sage passing down his skills and knowledge to the impatient,
spirited and even somewhat reluctant student.
This brings me to the point I want to make about this film. The filmmakers found out how to do a
beginning story but in a totally new and interesting way. Now of course this was before the superhero
movie explosion that happened around 2000 with X-Men and Spider-Man. But having the older Zorro pass down his
legacy to a younger man is a cool way to start things over. I feel like it shouldn’t work as well as it
does but Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas play well off of each other. The way they act on film probably reflected
their relationship off screen. I could
easily see Hopkins giving some tips and Banderas perhaps brushing it off all the while knowing that Tony's right.
Also, does anyone know if Zorro was part spy in the original
books? The reason why I ask is because
the director, Martin Campbell, did GoldenEye
before this and it crossed my mind that he may have added some James Bond
elements to the character. Either way it
works.
2. Finally got around to seeing Frankenhooker after a friend recommended it over a year ago. And it’s fucking great. If you’ve seen Basket Case (Frank Henenlotter’s other claim to fame) then you know
what you’re in for. But I like Frankenhooker even better. It’s a bit more outrageous and funnier. I’m always suspect of title movies like Hobo with a Shotgun, Snakes on a Plane
or Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
because more often than not they’re letdowns.
The name of the picture and what it conjures up in your mind is almost always
better than the actual film. Frankenhooker delivers though. Henenlotter knows what the audience wants to
see, Frankenstein type theatrics with
a lot of exploding hookers. Sounds pitch
perfect to me.
3. Until the Light
Takes Us is a doc about Norwegian black metal. While Metallica was making some of the pop-iest
metal music in the early 90’s this movement was going in the total opposite
direction. The band members each had
their own stage names like Count Grishnackh,
Death and Faust. They would paint their
faces and wear upside down crosses and shit like that. But according to the film it wasn’t about
Satanism, it was about wanting to start a revolution and a desire to change the
world. One guy says that he hoped for
World War III so that everything could be destroyed and eventually rebuilt. And because of this hostile mindset this
movement managed to kill some people (some innocent and some part of the black
metal scene) and burned dozens of churches to the ground including at least one
that was a relic dating back to like 1150 AD.
But here’s the thing, the way these guys talk about it today they act so
calm and seem like nice mild mannered folks.
The juxtaposition is quite staggering and also incredibly interesting.
Even if you’re not into metal (I’m not huge into it myself)
I think you guys might find the material worthwhile. To try and create a work of art with the
mindset of “what’s the ugliest, darkest, most depressing, suicidal inducing
thing I could come up with” is fascinating because even with really heavy metal
those guys think that sounds beautiful. And
in a sense these guys must’ve also found beauty in what they were doing. But this Norwegian black metal movement
didn’t want anything remotely considered beautiful, they wanted trash. The trashiest trash you could come up with. Whether or not you agree is a different story. But for this to be the intention and for them
to be dead fuckin’ serious is astonishing and captivating.
One last thing about this picture. There’s a part where one guy describes that
part of this movement was about rebelling against good production (recording
wise) and wanted to use the worst mic, the worst equipment he could find and
not really adjust anything. Just set up
and record, whatever it is, it is. This
guy was speaking my language. I like me
some good production but from time to time I try to do just what this sonuvabitch
was doing and attempt to craft the ugliest sound possible with the worst
equipment available. The point is “good
production” is in the eye of the beholder and not necessarily indicative of
having the most expensive recording equipment.
4. Eastern Condors is now my favorite Vietnam movie ever. Well actually it takes place after the war is over in 1976 but it’s still a ‘Nam picture. It’s got great action, engaging characters, a straight forward plot (a rag tag group of U.S. Asian prisoners is assembled to find an armament stash before the Vietnamese do), incredible martial arts and stunts and no bullshit to sidetrack this thing. It’s all about the mission and the personalities of our group of reluctant heroes. This one is a brilliant masterpiece. I fucking loved it and you’ll fucking love it too, guaranteed.
5. Sphere and Event Horizon have pretty similar plots. There’s a mission to go check out/retrieve something from space or its Earth equivalent: deep sea. When the crew finds the spaceship they locate a spherical object in a large room, freaky shit happens (particularly visions/hallucinations) and the crew fights for their lives while trying to escape.
I would even say that the first half of Prometheus is kinda like the first third of Sphere. Scientists think
they’ve discovered something, they find out it’s a spaceship (except you don’t
find out it’s a ship until later in Prometheus
but in my opinion you would’ve had to not see Alien or be kinda dumb to not figure that out way before it’s
revealed) and the crew sets up camp monitoring the craft. They go in with spacesuits, look around, find
a large mesmerizing object (Sphere:
the sphere, Prometheus: the giant
head statue), the crew digests their findings, weird things start to occur,
fight for their lives, etc.
Sure a lot of movies have either a scene or a whole section like this but for some reason Prometheus reminded me a lot of Sphere. I had to go back and watch Sphere just to see if I was remembering the film correctly and I was. You know, that movie gets a bad rap and I can kind of see why but the first half or so is pretty cool. I like the way the mystery is handled and that it’s all business. Then when we start to dig into the characters and find out how the sphere works it just feels lame. And it’s hard to put my finger on just what makes the whole thing turn south. I do know that part of it is that Dustin Hoffman’s goofy attitude gets to me after a while and he does some ridiculous shit that I just can’t swallow like swimming through below freezing water with no problem. Also, I don’t want to spoil the film so I’ll just say that another problem is the sphere’s power seems to be rather random. There was potential for a really great piece of cinema but it just didn’t some together really.
As for Event Horizon,
well, see it. I haven’t seen Shopping yet so as far as I know this is
Paul W.S. Anderson’s best picture (as much as I like Mortal Kombat). Great visuals,
cast and storytelling. It’s eerie as
fuck and a near sci-fi classic.
6. By now you’ve all probably heard from a friend or read
somewhere about the concept of Cars
being strangely and hugely flawed. You
know, like there’s no reason why there would be human things in this car
world. Why aren’t all of the buildings
just warehouses? There’s a court house
with fancy trim, windows and woodwork and also buildings with nicely decorated
interiors including things that look like couches and display cases with
glasses in them. Why are there human gas
pumps? Why is there a wheat
harvester? Who’s eating the wheat? Why
aren’t all doors garage doors? Why are
there sidewalks, cameras, machine guns?
Who’s making these cars? And this
is just some stuff that I picked up from the Cars 1 and 2
trailers. It would go on endlessly if I
had actually seen the movies. The point
is that in order for Pixar to make Cars
relatable and familiar they had to have these living cars exist in the human
world.
Are those fucking telephone poles in the background? |
In light of this I’ve developed a theory on why there’s this
meshing of two different worlds, the Maximum
Overdrive theory. Maximum Overdrive is an 80’s horror
flick about machines coming to life via a “rogue comet” traveling through space. They run amok trying to kill every human that
they come across and it’s a lot of fun.
I definitely recommend it. It’s
also the only picture that Stephen King directed so if you’re interested in
seeing what a coked up King thinks makes for good cinema then this is your opportunity. Anyway, I think this is the world that exists
in Cars. The folks over at Pixar probably thought to
themselves, “what if that comet from Maximum
Overdrive strayed from the Earth’s atmosphere a little but not all the way.
There’s just enough distance so that
only cars would remain alive. But we’ll
set the movie a bunch of years after the apocalypse when all of the humans have
been wiped out. The cars have developed
a society of their own, uhh, but it’s the same as a human society. And they have all of this human stuff around
them to remind them of that. That’s the
irony, see?” I’m pretty positive that’s
the back story to Cars. What else could it be?
7. Sadly Rampart was not very good. Woody Harrelson as the racist, bigoted, hard boiled cop David Brown is good but very little happens. It’s more about reflecting on the type of person that Brown is and the life that he has led. The film meanders and then suddenly ends without resolution. We’re supposed to be seeing a slice of this cop’s troubled life but it’s the wrong slice in my opinion. I would like to see the part of Brown’s life where he’s fucking dudes up and covering up his illegal activities. Doing a whole movie where this crazy sonuvabitch is suspended and has to keep a low profile because there’s an investigation into him doesn’t pan out. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea for a movie but it feels like this character is wasted on that premise. It ain’t no Bad Lieutenant, either of them. But then again those are some tough pictures to be on equal footing with or even top.
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