The Train (1964)

All war pictures invariably ask at some point if the mission -- and by extension, the war -- is worth it. John Frankenheimer’s 1964 film The Train asks this question in a simple, yet provocative way. In the film, a French rail station manager played by the outrageously swarthy American Burt Lancaster tries to stop a train carrying priceless works of French art from Paris into Germany.

It’s a terrific conceit that leaves aside the standard cliches of war adventures. There is no bond of brotherhood between soldiers here, or subplots involving broken loyalties, or the glory of battle. There are paintings by Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, Picasso, and Matisse. There is Col. Von Waldheim, a ruthless German officer who appreciates them, and Labiche, the gruff, no nonsense member of the underground who does not. When the museum curator informs Labiche of Von Waldheim’s plan, he bluntly points out how he’s running low on men and asks if she has copies of the paintings. When told that the fallen members of the underground would’ve wanted to save the art, he responds, “And they're dead. And they'll never know!”

There’s lots of nifty action, with trains derailing and colliding and whistling and squealing, all of which is a childhood dream come true for any outrageously swarthy dude who ever had a train set. In one scene, Lancaster slides down a ladder, gets up a head of steam, and jumps aboard a passing train -- all in one shot by Frankenheimer.

It’s a lean and mean affair that unfolds like one long shell game, with Labiche and his cohorts trying to trick the German officers onboard that the train is en route to Germany when, in fact, it is looping back toward Paris. I enjoyed the tricks the French Underground employed to fool the German officers, and the numerous, sometimes ingenious ways Frankenheimer finds to make a train running along tracks exciting. At one point, Labiche must bring an engine from one station to another in broad daylight, and he soon comes under fire from a British fighter that, of course, does not know a swarthy American playing a French saboteur is at the helm. The ensuing scene becomes a race to a tunnel, with Labiche getting the engine up to top speed and then having to slam on the brakes to avoid being strafed.

Another twist involves Labiche’s having to paint the roof of the train so that future Allied air attacks can identify it and let it be. While the bulk of the film focuses on these and other tactics, what really grounds the action is the constant question: is it worth it? The more Col. Von Waldheim is undermined, the more vicious he becomes. At several points, dozens of civilians are lined up and shot without hesitation. Von Waldheim is a terrific villain, a ruthless man of culture who is a great foil to Labiche. At one point he tells Labiche, “The paintings are mine; they always will be; beauty belongs to the man who can appreciate it.”

The film succeeds because it balances the swift action and clockwork plotting with these brief exchanges about the value of art and culture. “This is our pride, what we create and hold for the world. There are worse things to risk your life for than that” argues the museum curator early in the film. Labiche says he can’t help her, but he does. Because that’s what swarthy dudes do during war.

The Incredible Hulk

...not to be confused with Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk, which was less incredible and more sleep-inducing. 2008's The Incredible Hulk is a kinda, sorta sequel and kinda, sorta reboot of the franchise starring Edward Norton in a soft-spoken, nuanced performance. I was surprised by how the story unfolded early on, with Bruce Banner in hiding and trying to deal with the menace he's already been saddled with (the opening credits remind you of his radioactive incident, of course). When Norton isn't the Hulk, many of his scenes are told with simple looks. Norton carries a good chunk of the film with his eyes, which for the most part are sad and forlorn. Though he's done quite a few flicks since, my last impression of him was his mail-it-in performace in The Italian Job, so it's good to see him back to form.

The film as a whole is solid if unspectacular. I liked the patience of the opening sequences, how the film takes its time establishing Banner's fugitive life in Brazil (which, incidentally, looks georgeous). This is, after all, a character who's established goal is to NOT get angry and turn into the titular character, and I liked how Banner was constantly monitoring his pulse and teaching himself to channel his energy while on his search for a cure.

I was also pleasantly surprised by director Louis Leterrier. I've liked the Luc Besson disciple's previous work, especially the Jet Li flick Unleasehed, but Transporter 2 isn't exactly a hallmark of cinema (I still like it, though). I watched Incredible Hulk a day after taking in the flashy and hollow Wanted, and Leterrier is clearly comfortable balancing character and action moments. The first big action scene in the Brazilian cola bottling factory is an impressive example of pacing, editing, and building tension, with the Hulk emerging from shadow only as a brief silohuette from a flash grenade. It's a geeky, uber-cool moment of iconography, a payoff for the film's quiet opening passages.

Unfortunately, as tuned in to the character as the screenplay is, the plot plods along from one locale to the next without any real sense of urgency. The insinuation the entire film is General Ross (William Hurt) needs to cover up this insidious military experiment gone awry while also restarting the project in secret... which explains the small, specialist squad led by Emil Blonksy (Tim Roth) but not the tanks and helicopters that come storming onto an American university -- tanks and helicopters being difficult to explain when one wants to keep a conspiracy on the down low. There's a sweet subplot with Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) helping Bruce evade her father, but the further along the story progresses, the less clear and more obligatory things become.

I liked the mini-rivalry Hulk has with Blonksy, a warrior who yearns to combine his experience with an all-powerful body of his own, but the finale feels like a long, drawn-out sideshow. There's a moment late in the film where a crowd of people -- including the Rosses -- watch the heroic Hulk walk away, and I wasn't sure if they were happy about this or not. It's a frustrating climax that not only leaves questions unanswered (sequel!) but raises questions and reveals plot holes that otherwise would have gone cheerfully unnoticed.

What the film lacks is that extra gear that all good action movies have. While I appreciated the simplicity of the film's opening, the ending is overly simplistic, leaning on gravitas that isn't really there. The film is executed well, but at the end of the day, it's a one-note story.

Wanted

Your reaction to Wanted will depend largely on how you handle the Loom of Destiny. It's a machine at the center of the Wanted universe and a big linchpin in the plot. It tells the Fraternity, the society of assassins in the story, who to kill next via irregularities in the stitching that are actually coded messages.

If you're confused, yes, it's that kind of loom. A machine that weaves yarn into cloth. This is an action movie about a millenia-old underground society of superhuman killers who restore balance to the world based on the machinations of a device that makes sweaters.

If you can buy that, you're going to love Wanted. Me, not so much.

I had mixed expectations about the film going in. The imagery left me cold, but then the reviews starting pouring in and praising director Timur Bekmambetov for his inventiveness and flair. Apparently, he was given an uncanny amount of freedom, especially for a foreign director making his English-language debut with a big budget Summer flick. And at one point during the film, I thought to myself that Bekmambetov was Michael Bay with a sense of restraint. He has a feeling for when to let a scene breathe versus when to go for the craziness. The first big action sequence specifically is full of energy and excitement, what with a confused Wesley (James McAvoy) being literally swept away at 100 mph by Fox (Angelina Jolie -- really, that's her character name) and her Dodge Viper. Jolie proceeds to lie on the car's hood so she can steer with her feet and shoot backwards at the bad guy. The sequence has a visceral quality that all great action sequences should have -- speed, momentum, a sense of danger.

And then in comes the Loom of Destiny. Which, again, is a machine that weaves yarn.

There's something so obligatory, so plain, so by-the-numbers about Wanted's storyline that keeps Bekmambetov's visual flair from succeeding. The screenplay pretends to be about Wesley's search for an identity, a search ignited by the revelation that his father was the world's best assassin, but all we get is a lackadaisical training montage highlighted by pretty CGI bullets dancing through the air in slow motion. The story then throws away all established themes and logic for the sake of plot twists that are supposed to be eye-opening, but are instead confounding and empty. Basically, the film tramples all over its first half in order to fill the second half with twists that lack sense. Wesley supposedly is following in his father's footsteps, but the film is too busy to note how he feels about this, instead giving us cryptic backstory for Fox and underwhelming lectures about the Fraternity's role in the world. At the center of it all is an air of myth and mysticism in the form of a machine that turns cotton into tablecloths.

For all the spectacular, inventive action, there's just as much that is hollow and superficial. Much is made of the bullet bending trick, especially for what it represents about Wesley's growth, but then that's that, and the plot keeps chugging along. Visually, there's something anti-climactic about watching two bullets slam into each other. Even the big finale is a letdown, involving an overly-elaborate scheme with bombs planted onto rats. I'm not sure if this strategy is supposed make Wesley clever or not, but all it basically accomplishes is to open the front door for him. Speed? Momentum? A sense of danger? No, no... we get bomber rats.

Wanted puts the fate of its characters, plot, and themes in the hands of the Loom of Destiny. The actors acquit themselves well enough, and some of the action is pretty cool, but at the end of the day, things hinge on a machine that knits. Who know who else knits? My mom.

No Country for Old Men

There are swift thematic undercurrents just under the violent surface of No Country for Old Men. From the lean, nuanced writing to the quiet, confident performances and the Coen Bros. restrained direction, the whole film is an exercise in understatement. Yes, there's a lot to digest in this high-minded action/western/thriller. The real question to ask after taking this film in is: really, who gives a shit?

The Coen Bros. can do and have done every type of movie. They have an off-kilter sense of humor, a real mean streak, and an uncanny ability to balance the two. Sometimes they create moments so tense and unnerving that an audience's only recourse is to laugh. Such is the case with most every scene involving Javier Bardem's amoral Anton Chegurh. He's quiet, composed, and sinister, a supremely chilling villain.

Sadly, the rest of the characters exist on another, less involving plane. They are flat, uninteresting people who speak in vague, ambiguous statements, if they speak at all. Tommy Lee Jones' retirement-avoiding sheriff opens and closes the film with two meandering soliloquies that deal with who-freakin'-knows-what. There's man's violent nature, retirement, the conflict in men between staying and going from their chosen lives, the eternal conflict of good and evil, violence begetting violence, and other such high-minded concepts that have fans of Cormac McCarthy's source novel sloppily wetting themselves.

I am a fan of the Coen Bros. and I do appreciate it when filmmakers let their audiences connect the dots. Forcing the audience to figure out what exactly the dots are is another matter, one that I feel should take a back seat to simpleton stuff like interesting characters and emotional thematics.

Make no mistake, I'm not knocking the film for being uniquely literate and intellectual, but strip the rosy prose away from the characters, and No Country for Old Men is a lean thriller about the mechanics of running and hiding with a big bag of money. If the medium is the message, then that is what's happening for two hours. When the Academy Awards do their featurette on this film during the ceremony and someone describes it as a provocative, insightful look into the dark souls of men, please remember that a significant portion of the film's running time is devoted to Josh Brolin screwing and unscrewing air vents.

The presence of Anton Chegurh changes and elevates things. His actions and their curious motivations are in such stark contrast to the film's protagonist that it leaves you craving more. But "less is more" is the theme of the day here, and No Country for Old Men left me underwhelmed. It's tense, involving, and meticulously plotted. I'll even throw in the adjective "diabolical" for good measure. But the hype is too much. If I had stumbled upon this film a few years down the road, I probably would have wondered, "Why haven't more people seen this?" But critics and (gulp) the literati are falling over themselves kissing this film's ass, and all I have to say is, "Really?"

UPDATE: Ask A Ninja agrees with me.

The Boondock Saints (sucks your will to live)

WTF?

The cult success of The Boondock Saints confounds me. In my mind, there are only two possible explanations for its relatively high regard: 1) a halo effect from the well received documentary Overnight, about writer/director Troy Duffy's abrupt rise and ego-laden fall from Hollywood's good graces, and 2) nostalgia for the mid to late 90's when every other movie was a shameless rip-off of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. Considering that Pulp and The Professional, two of my favorite films, are shamelessly looted from here, I was almost bemused watching it. It's like I was in high school again.

Reminiscing aside, The Boondock Saints is ridiculously stupid. It's built around the intriguing premise of two blue collar immigrant hoods becoming vigilante killers, but the writing is all over the map. It wants to be gritty and bold and daring and dynamic, but succeeds only in being juvenile and inane. The fact that it's a rehash in terms of characters, tone, the fractured timeline, and a pop philosophy, only adds to its maddening retardedness. That's right, it's so dumb I had to use the word "retardedness."

The real trouble with the film -- aside from the retardedness -- is its wildly uneven tone. Portentous religious overtones give way to farcical fat jokes, followed by obligatory timeline manipulation, and then Willem Dafoe's sitcom creation of a character. It's been almost a week since I've seen the movie and I still can't wrap my head around Dafoe's Will & Grace-esque gay FBI agent who's childish putdowns are made to be intelligent by virtue of the other policemen being stupid. I suspect the character is supposed to subvert expectations, but it's a nonsensical mish-mash of caricatures. It's like Duffy didn't want to offend gay people, FBI agents, or children, so he combined all the worst stereotypes into a cartoon and then directed Dafoe to channel Gary Oldman in The Professional. I could be paraphrasing, but he actually razzes another cop with, "Who's getting coffee? THIS GUY!"

Seriously, WTF?

I don't say juvenile to mean I was offended. The film simply feels like it was vomited into existence, the half-digested remains of something tastier and more satisfying. It wants to be vibrant and fresh by punctuating its serious moments with silliness, but it ends up undermining any pathos the story had going. One scene features an accidental shooting of a cat that's so awkwardly handled, the ensuing scene just gives up on the joke, turning what was an (unfunny) bit into a boilerplate argument between previously simpatico characters. The film wants to subvert your expectations, but it doesn't set up any expectations, nor does it establish any kind of heightened reality. It assumes you've seen the films of Tarantino, Scorcese, Besson, et al. Except if you have seen those films, then The Boondock Saints sucks even more.

I'm proud to say I've never walked out of a movie, but The Boondock Saints pushed me to my limits. And I was watching it at home, so walking out would have been a tremendous feat. But who would consider walking out of their own living room to get away from an atrociously conceived and produced movie?

This guy!

Cloverfield

I wonder if the found footage/shaky cam sub-genre of film will branch out from witches and monsters to include an actual domestic-themed "home" movie. But then I suppose no one would care to watch meandering stories of dysfunctional families. Oh wait, Little Miss Sunshine happened.

Anyway, 1-18-08 has finally delivered the film initially code named "Cloverfield" and shot under the names "Slusho" and "Cheese," and finally released as... Cloverfield. It follows through on the cryptic, gripping teaser trailer that promised a disaster/monster movie told from the point of view of the man (or Abercrombie & Fitch model) on the street.

It reinvents the genre in such a simple way that the film has an immediacy lacking in the likes of bloated behemoths like Godzilla (1998) or even the big event movie that carried Cloverfield's teaser trailer, Transformers. All the cheesy artifice that plagues these movies -- the military officers and government officials with their needless explanations, the interminable "something strange is going on" sequences followed by the "this can't be happening!" sequences -- all of that melts away. If you're someone who demands to know what this monster is and where it came from, you're going to be disappointed. This is a monster movie boiled down to the essence of what we all truly want: people running from something scary. It's surprising how spine-tingling the appearance of stealth bombers and machine guns can be when their arrival is a signal of danger, and not a precursor to more needless plot.

However, one thing Cloverfield doesn't reinvent is melodrama. Fans of JJ Abrams and his gang from their work on Alias and Lost will know they have a deft way with banter and group dynamics. Their characters are always endearing even if they're not terribly interesting (save for the notoriously inane Nikki and Paulo from Lost). The film takes a healthy amount of time to set up Rob, a young man who's childhood friendship with Beth has finally turned into romance on the eve of his career taking off. Unfortunately, the characters that end up together for the majority of the film are a hodgepodge bunch. While I applaud the filmmakers' willingness to kill characters, we end up with a group that lacks much chemistry.

What I especially was disappointed with was the character of Hud, who's basically the cameraman. He is Rob's awkward friend, saddled with the job of taping well wishes and turning it into a chance to hit on a girl. He easily could have been the voice of the audience, but instead he becomes a punchline, uttering some overtly obvious lines for the sake of humor. It's not that the character is dull or poorly written (his musings in the subway tunnel are hilarious), it's that the approach of telling the entire film through one single camera creates opportunities that are missed. The film could have subverted even more genre conventions by deliberately toying with the point of view or having Hud deliver more biting coments, but instead it opts for long, motion sickness-inducing takes. There's a lot of shaky cam for the sake of shaky cam, which is especially frustrating during the quiet moments. And there are moments with the monster when Hud points the camera at his friends, and instead of screaming at the stupid characters to run, the audience screams at the stupid characters to point the damn camera at the monster.

But here I am, after the fact, criticizing a fresh and inventive film for not being inventive enough. Cloverfield is undeniably involving, a special effects spectacular that you experience and not just observe. The standard built-in features of the camera (the light, the nightvision) are used to terrifying effect, and the approach creates startling moments that simply aren't possible in a conventionally shot film. The mere sound of the creature is terrifying because the camera could whip around and suddenly find it breathing down the characters' necks.

Even Rob's melodramatic motivation, which I didn't completely buy into amidst all the chaos, pays off in the end in a surprisingly poignant climax. It's icing on the cake, really, because at the end of the day the characters don't really matter, anyway. Cloverfield's approach is to trim the fat and make the audience an active participant. The point is to take part in this visceral, frightening roller coaster experience, and it works. Sure, you may laugh about the experience once the adrenaline has left your body, but you'll probably want to get on again afterwards.

Cinematical's Asian Sensations (sort of)

Cinematical has a list of Asian-American actors on the cusp of kinda sorta stardom in a steady-roles-that-aren't-generic-bit-parts way. Aw, shucks, Cinematical... you make me semi-ashamed for being a white-washed fan of mainstream Hollywood. Thanks for the shout out.

Rufio! Rufio! Ru! Fi! Oooooooo!

Grindhouse

Asking me for my favorite film is an exercise in futility. Even a Top 5 is tough, as it often just depends on my mood. If there's one thing I've learned about the moving picture, it's that movies hit you differently depending on when in your life you've watched them. I used to love Top Gun with every fiber of my being when I was eight, in large part because I had no concept of the French Kiss. Watching Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis tongue-bathe each other in soft blue lighting was an earth-shattering cinematic revelation for me. Nowadays? Not so much.

However, if you ask me why I've pursued a career in film, what movies made me want to MAKE movies, the answer is easy. Pulp Fiction and The Usual Suspects. Hands down, no contest. I watched them and thought, "Wait, you can do that in a movie?" Each flick, in its own way, questions the films that came before it, acknowledges and re-invents genre conventions, and finds unique ways to kick ass.

Which is why it pains me to say that I didn't care for Death Proof at all. Quentin Tarantino's first two films, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, along with his screenplay for True Romance, have had an undeniable influence of Hollywood (not to mention me) in the last fifteen years, but in that same time Tarantino seems to lose himself a little more in his passion for movies. Each new QT piece, from his segment of Four Rooms on down, is bloated, self-indulgent, and often just a little boring. For every butt-kicking Kill Bill, Vol. 1, he delivers a drawn-out Kill Bill, Vol. 2.

Death Proof's faults are a lack of storytelling basics. There is no clever reinvention, no freshening up of dusty genre cliches. It's four girls yapping, followed by another four girls yapping. For two hours. And every now and again, Kurt Russell and his death proof mobile drop in to make things exciting.

And don't get me wrong, things get exciting when the titular car makes an appearance. The raucous, road raging finale delivers on the guilty pleasure promise of the whole grindhouse notion. It's genuinely thrilling to watch two types of car fetishes literally ramming into each other on a winding two-lane road. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the film is content to be about girls in conversation. And not the wonderfully sly, lyrical conversation Tarantino is known for. The conversations aren't unique, don't wind back on themselves, don't come up again later, or reveal anything about the characters. It's dreadfully natural chatter, bland in its realism. Oh, sure, there's a vague thematic connection, but who wants thematic mirrors when you've been promised killer cars?

I remember the mid-90s when Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez burst onto the Hollywood scene. Tarantino was the Golden Child, the post-classical Hollywood auteur. He was the trendsetter to Rodriguez's raw, brash director prodigy. The knock on Rodriguez was always that he could direct the hell out of anything, but couldn't write a story to save his life.

Planet Terror kicks unholy ass. Rodriguez has crafted a screenplay that toes the line of awfulness without ever going over, resulting in a marathon of corny dialogue and excessive gore that's an absolute pleasure to take in. He's smart enough to give us characters we care for, and savvy enough to know that what we really want out of Grindhouse is the sweet action/horror stuff. For example, there's El Wray, the classic brooding anti-hero. He's constantly being given a hard time by the local sheriff, who makes vague references to El Wray's dark, mysterious past. After skipping over a "missing reel" that burns out the film midway through the story, Rodriguez jumps straight to all hell breaking loose and reveals a wounded sheriff telling El Wray, "Thanks for telling me about... you know." It's more than just a film buff in-joke. It's Rodriguez telling his audience to hang on, the good stuff's on the way.

The film is a delightfully rich ball of cheese. It's the type of movie that's unafraid to beat a testicle joke to death, to repeat dialogue for melodramatic effect, or to amputate it's heroine's leg and replace it with an automatic rifle/rocket launcher. While Death Proof goes through great pains to recreate certain grindhouse elements (the scratched, dirty film stock, poor editing, etc.), Planet Terror actually relishes in the ridiculousness of action/horror movies. Tarantino delivers a tip of his cap to a by-gone genre of film, but Rodriguez goes all out and makes a film that stands on its own cheesy, gory merits.

Ong-Bak

There's such a fine line between gloriously bad and wickedly awesome. During the opening moments of Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, I was worried the film would lean toward the bad. The basic set-up is simplistic.

Meet Ting (Tony Jaa), rural villager, monk-in-training, and master of Muay Thai fighting. An elder monk stresses that Ting must not use his impressive combat skills. Everyone watching knows he will spend the entire movie using his impressive combat skills.

Meet Don, a shady character. How do we know he's shady? Because he wears jeans, has a trash 'stache, and offers to buy a sacred religious artifact from the villagers. When his offer is spurned, he steals the head of Ong-Bak just prior to the annual Ong-Bak festival.

Meet the villagers. They moan and wail and cry about how their village is doomed to perish without their sacred statue. They pool their meager savings to help Ting on his journey to track down the statue in the big city. There's actually a scene where they realize the well is running dry and, rather then, oh I don't know, look for more water, they gather and wring their hands about their missing statue.

It's a stilted yet quick way to get Ting into situations where he must fight against his peaceful will. But a funny thing happened on the way to the butt kicking: the movie suckers you into caring. It wins you over with humor while cleverly setting up a simple, effective theme to underscore the wild action.

The director and his co-writers find the perfect tone to launch Ting on his journey through the grimy, corrupt underworld of Bangkok. The film is sardonic and wry, almost satirical, but never silly and stupid. One funny scene has scam artist Humlae, a jaded former neighbor of Ting's, stumbling futilely while Ting leaps gazelle-like down an alley and away from an angry gang. Humlae eventually steals a knife from a butcher and wields it, the tables briefly turned, only to have a knife vendor pass through hawking her wares to the gang's sudden delight.
Instead of making Ting a superhuman hero, the film makes him a fish out of water. He's on the outside looking in with his peaceful mindset and singular beliefs. The filmmakers know a modern audience can't really identify with his mystical mission. Just like con artist Humlae and his partner, who Ting hesitantly links up with, we're skeptical of what Ong-Bak means and why it's so important. The joke is on Ting half the time, as when Humlae tricks him into participating in an underground fight club to pay off his gambling debts. Humlae keeps baiting and switching Ting, helping only so far as he can help himself. Tony Jaa finds the perfect note to play Ting. He isn't there to convert anyone, he's just a guy trying to make things right. He's patient, kind, but not stupid. He knows when he's being used but doesn't act out of spite or revenge. His refusal to compromise, if only to make his journey a little easier, is endearing. He's kinda like an ass-kicking Forrest Gump, a lovable country bumpkin with some seriously vicious flying elbows who's resilience won me over.

What I especially liked about the film is the way they make the conflict actually kinda sorta interesting. It's not just Jaa versus gangsters. It is that, but time and again the story reflects themes of the old versus the new, the traditional versus the modern, and the sacred versus the corrupt. I'm not saying it's Pulitzer material, but there's something identifiable in the fighting that goes deeper than good and evil. My brain was tickled just enough to keep it awake. It's not just Jaa that you're pulling for, it's his cause, which I started to root for almost in spite of myself.

And by the way, the film kick serious ass. It's amazing stuff, especially considering that it's all basically real. Jaa's knees and elbows really are making contact, although it's a little suspect that every would-be victim either has big hair or a cap to hide the padding protecting him. No matter. Jaa is clearly an athletic freak, and the fights are quick and nasty, choreographed for maximum impact. (Doesn't "maximum impact" sound like a B-movie action flick? Curiously, it isn't. Dibs!) I appreciated the way that Jaa almost always is on the defensive, a reflection of his character. Most "peaceful" heroes in these things usually have an angry switch, but Jaa does only as much as is necessary to kick your ass.

He gets hit with chairs, tables, refrigerators, saws, more chairs, and even fire. Since this is an action movie, all sorts of bizarre and dangerous obstacles (plates of glass, racks of sharp rakes, whatever) magically appear during foot chases, but Jaa doesn't stop. All that stuff about tone, themes, and character? It adds just enough reality to the film to make me believe he can do all these things that he does. I willfully and gratefully suspended my disbelief, not just so Tony Jaa can jump off balconies and through scaffolding, but also so he can make things right with the gods, and maybe even redeem a few corrupted men along the way.

Ong-Bak had me going. It knows when to be funny, when to be serious, and when to let the stuntmen do the rest. That's how asses are kicked.

Gloriously Bad Movies: Bloodsport

When the idea for this blog was percolating through my head, one of the ideas I was most excited to write about was the Gloriously Bad Movie. You've seen them really late at night on FX or TBS, or all day on The Sci-Fi Channel. You may have taken part in a drinking game surrounding a Gloriously Bad Movie, or at least stumbled drunkenly home after a party, you and your friends about to tear into some fast food as you refuse to go to sleep while still buzzed, gleefully watching one.

Just to be clear, I am not talking about guilty pleasures. We all have movies that we're ashamed to like, that we enjoy even though we know we'll get ridiculed for it. I really dig Ronin, despite the cardboard cutout characters and a plot that's both byzantine and simplistic at the same time. It's a bad movie. But the car chases rock. They are sublime in their badassness.

The distinction is this: We like guilty pleasures in spite of their badness. We like Gloriously Bad Movies because of their badness. We revel in how awful they are. We cannot believe the low-rent acting or the do-it-yourself special effects or the fact that it was obviously shot without permits behind the liquor store down the street. The suckiness of these films is so entertaining that we just can't contain ourselves.

First and foremost, Gloriously Bad Movies are not about the details. At least, not the right details. Common utterances during a typical viewing include: "Wait, what?" "No way!" "Did that just happen?" and "Oh, my God, that was retarded!" If it's a truly glorious Gloriously Bad Movie, then you might even start doing the Mystery Science Theatre bit and speak overt, sexually explicit dialogue on the characters' behalf.

The inaugural entry into the Gloriously Bad Movie database: Bloodsport. Featuring that stalwart of Gloriously Bad Movies, the Muscles from Brussels himself, Jean-Claude Van Damme. It doesn't fit the mold of bad, it IS the mold. Watching this is watching every sports and action movie cliche from the past thirty years. And those are the good parts.

If you haven't had the good fortune of seeing it, the movie revolves around a secret, full contact martial arts contest in Hong Kong called the Kumite (KOO-mi-tay). A song plays during several fighting montages during which "Kumite" gets chanted in faux-hypnotic fashion. Remember, this is a non-John Hughes 1980s flick, which means the music is at a truly abominable level of cheesy synthetic shame. Jean-Claude plays an American soldier named Frank Dux who's representing his surrogate Japanese father who's dying but isn't dead. And never actually does die during the course of the story, so who knows, maybe he just has the flu.

"Wait, what?" Frank Dux. Surrogate Japanese martial arts master father. Wait, it gets better. In a really awful way.

Again, these bad flicks are about the wrong details, and Bloodsport is a prime example. Why is Dux an American with a Belgian accent representing a Japanese master in a secret Chinese martial arts contest? See, early on in the film, Van Damme visits the Tanaka home. Van Damme stares and stares at a sword before looking up into space for a prolonged beat, probably wondering why it's taking so long for the flashback to kick in. Then it kicks in, showing a young Van Damme first being beaten up by, then coming to the rescue of, Tanaka's real son. Tanaka takes Frank under his wing, but then the real son dies. We are not told why, but clearly it's because Frank needs to say to Tanaka that he's been treated like a son. Which happens a few minutes later.

Does any of this matter when the fighting starts? Is Frank's manhood or family ever questioned? Not so much. Anyhoo...

The flashback sets a good and proper tone of unintentional hilarity for the rest of the film. Rather than going with a kid who has a natural accent to match Van Damme's, the filmmakers cast a completely insecure stiff of a boy who may or may not have Down Syndrome. Watching the poor kid half-heartedly put up his dukes during a fight scene just about made me wet myself. It's important to note also that during this extended flashback/training sequence, the film keeps cutting back to Van Damme in the present day, still looking up into the air and wondering just how the hell long this damn flashback is.
Probably the biggest running unintentional gag is the secretive nature of Kumite. Time and again, the characters refer to the underground event as a sacred, honor-bound club. And time and gain, these conversations happen in public. At full volume. With other people around. In hotel lobbies. On the street. At restaurants. The police station. This is the worst-kept secret in the world. Less secret than Marilyn Monroe's affair with JFK. Less secret than Britney Spears' vajayjay. Everyone in all of Asia knows about Kumite. Except, of course, the requisite love interest: the hard-talking, career-driven female reporter who, nevertheless, falls in love with our hero.

The character of Janice is introduced with a shot of her legs, a short skirt being the outfit of choice for caucasian investigative reporters on the prowl in Hong Kong. Her investigative techniques are direct and to the point, "Hey, tell me about the Kumite. Where's the Kumite going to be? Come on, tell me about the Kumite!" She could have gone Jan Brady and screamed, "Kumite! Kumite! Kumite!" at the top of her lungs in public. Since everyone and no one knows the secret of Kumite (sssshh!), the effect would have been the same.

The film isn't really interested in Janice. There's a tremendously dumb scene where Frank, trying to explain what Kumite means to him, asks her why she's a reporter. "Well, my father was a reporter and I was a good writer and it seemed like a good fit." Um, okay. Frank practically goes into a spasm since this answer doesn't help him make his point. Janice eventually gets in on the arm of a gambler, sits ringside, and whispers illicit notes into a monstrously big tape recorder in full view of the rest of the crowd. By the way, if Kumite is such a secret, who are these peasant spectators? And how exactly does betting work when you're simply standing and holding up money? Oh, nevermind.

Above all, this is a movie of sheer manliness. The fighting stuff is actually pretty cool, although all the cliches of movie fighting are there. You know, if your opponent surrenders and you turn your back, he's gonna try and get the jump on you. Or the bad guy using some illicit substance to either pump himself up or blind the opponent (Van Damme gets blinded). The various fighting styles are in fine form, though sometimes the film is a little too manly. In fact, homoeroticism is taken to absolutely fabulous heights. When Frank beds Janice (after a scene of not-so-subtle innuendo), the filmmakers go out of their way to cover the naked Janice with a bedsheet. She looks offscreen at her lover, and the reverse shot is of Jean-Claude stark ass naked. This after a scene in which Van Damme meditates while doing an elevated split between two chairs in his underwear. The creme de la creme of latent gayness? The resolution in which a victorious Van Damme visits his injured comrade in the hospital. He's won the tournament and avenged his friend's defeat. He's got the girl at his side. He looks deep into the eyes of... his ravaged buddy. "I love you, man," says Jean-Claude. They hug. The girl stands off to the side wondering why she never filed her Kumite story.

I've not even mentioned Forest Whitaker as an FBI agent chasing Van Damme. Oh yeah, Van Damme is an AWOL soldier forbidden from fighting in the Kumite (because, see, EVERYBODY knows what the Kumite is, even United States Army officers.) For some reason, Whitaker and his elder partner want desperately to bring Van Damme back, but only they know why. And after all is said and done, they're waiting at the airport for Jean-Claude, who hasn't shown up. They curse his wily ways. Then Jean-Claude emerges from the plane with a smirk, "Hey, what took you guys so long?" And this point I uttered, "Oh, my God, this is retarded!" But it wasn't finished yet. Oh, no, Gloriously Bad Movies are bad to the last drop.

See, Jean-Claude turns and sees Janice waiting on the tarmac. She brings a fist into her open palm and bows like a fighter. "Did that just happen?" I asked myself. Jean-Claude returns the gesture. The music is coming up. I'm grinning from ear to ear at this silliness and I say to myself, "Please, Dear God, end with a freeze frame. This movie needs to end with a freeze frame." And just as I'm saying this -- BOOM! -- the image of Jean-Claude's bow goes still. The closing credits roll.

Glorious.

Tony Leung Trio

I was going to recommend the films of Wong Kar-Wai when I had a revelation. I've seen roughly 8 Chinese-language films in my lifetime, and actor Tony Leung (a.k.a. Leung Chiu Wai, if you're of the Asian persuasion) has been in, oh, 7 of them. Whether he's the Kevin Bacon of China or simply an actor whose movies happen to get US distribution, I do not know. What I do know is his presence anchors every film I've seen him in.

The first film I saw Tony Leung in is John Woo's Hard Boiled. Leung plays a cop undercover in a gun dealer's gang who crosses paths with Chow Yun-Fat's hardened (as in a boiled egg) detective on the trail of the very same gun dealer. While that description may sound like an intriguing setup for a gritty drama, keep in mind that this is a John Woo film, which means lots of people shoot lots of guns at lots of other people as they jump and swing and do lots of insane shit, sometimes in slow motion. The opening teahouse shootout sets the kick-ass tone for the rest of the film. Woo has many nameless henchmen kill many nameless civilians, which doesn't really bother Chow Yun-Fat's character so much as when his partner is killed. Angry Chow chases his partner's killer into a backroom, gets covered in flour while dodging bullets, and then blows off the guy's head, thus splattering his flour-white face with blood. Yes, that is the first five minutes. Leung lends some gravity to the proceedings as the morally compromised undercover cop, but it's Woo's bullet-ridden choreography that will forever forgive him his future trespasses, which are called Windtalkers and Paycheck.

In Infernal Affairs, Leung plays another cop undercover as a gangster who is hunted by another cop, who happens to be an undercover gangster. This is the gritty drama take on that premise, and the film is both a clever thriller and an intriguing character study. There is an extended sequence early in the film when the police are waiting for a drug deal to go down and the film details how Leung and his counterpart (played by Andy Lau) are indirectly sabotaging the other's operation. It's a clever, taut, even provocative film that manages to stay focused on the two leads as they slowly but surely lose their grip on their identities. Lau is solid, but Leung stands out as a man who hates himself for what he is only pretending to be, and slowly drowns in desperation because the number of people who know the truth are dwindling. If this all sounds strangely familiar to you, this was the basis for The Departed, so if you want to lord your superior film knowledge above the heads of your Netflix friends, do give it a spin and pretend like it was a secret that the Hollywood Remake Machine let out.

In Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express, Leung gets to stretch his legs and play... a cop. Which is why I will instead be talking about Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love. In it, Leung plays a writer (ha!) who rents a room next door to a lady played by Maggie Cheung. Both are married, and both come to the realization that their spouses are cheating on them with each other. What unfolds is an endearing friendship that threatens to turn into something more, but both vow never to sink to the level of their unfaithful spouses. This is the type of art house fair that I usually dread, but Wong is a romantic through and through. He infuses his films with real heart and, in this case, real melancholy. Loneliness and unrequited love are staples of his work, and what's heartbreaking about Mood is the fact that both emotions are self-inflicted. Both characters repress their true feelings so as not to shame their already broken marriages. Visually, the film is a splendor. Wong is a master at creating atmosphere, and here he recreates a crowded 1960s Hong Kong with rich colors and a penchant for the Nat King Cole song "Quizas, Quizas, Quizas." At first, it is a little odd to hear Cole crooning in Spanish for this Chinese film, but the images are mesmerizing and the repitition of it is sadly evocative... perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Leung won Best Actor at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival for his work here.

So there you go. If you're in the mood for a fun Friday night doubleheader, go with Infernal Affairs followed by Hard Boiled (and stay far, far away from the Infernal Affairs sequels). If you want heartbreak and romance, give In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express (which is delightfully romantic) a spin. If you want a dash of science-fiction mixed in with your unrequited love, pick up a copy of Wong Kar-Wai's 2046, a quasi-sequel to Mood that also stars Zhang Ziyi and follows Leung's character as he becomes a cold womanizer who writes a pulp sci-fi novel that mirrors his hedonistic exploits. Like what you've read about Leung but want some kung fu? There's Hero with Jet Li, a visually stunning and dreadfully boring film, but hey, whatever your cup of tea. Action? Love? Subtitles? Tony Leung is your man.

"Only The Brave" & Kouraku

I really, really wanted to like Only The Brave, an independently-financed film about the most highly decorated unit in US military history, the 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team comprised of Japanese-Americans, most of whom were sent to internment camps in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack. It's an amazing story, a uniquely American story, and a real shame that it hasn't been told in the mainstream before. Most World War II texts gloss right over it. The fact that Only The Brave is written and directed by a Japanese-American filmmaker, Lane Nishikawa, makes it all the more significant. And all the more disappointing.

The film is actor-writer Nishikawa's directing debut. It shows, especially during the war scenes, as his camera has trouble navigating the chaos of the battlefield. It's hard to criticize him for not having enough money (narrow-minded film executives are to blame there, but that's another topic), but the budget limitations are evident. Visually, there's little urgency to the war stuff. Which soldiers are where, and where they are going, and what's in their way... it's all muddled and flat.

I'd like to say that the battle sequences are ancillary to the story of these brave volunteer soldiers and their journey from the internment camps to the army, but it isn't. The bulk of the picture is focused on the 100th/442nd's rescue of the "Lost Battalion," a unit surrounded by German forces in October 1944. The entire context of the internment of US citizens for no other reason than racist paranoia is relegated to a crawl of text during the opening moments of the film. If you were to walk in late to this film, you might not know at all that it's about soldiers who overcame blatant discrimination to join the army and serve the very country that maligned and repressed them.

Part of the trouble is the driving force of the film is explored with cryptic strokes. Jimmy, the platoon leader played by Nishikawa, is first seen as a veteran haunted by his memories. However, his relationships with his men are cold and conventional. There's little chemistry between the characters because they do little together save for stalk through the forest. There are poignant flashbacks spread intermittently throughout, featuring each of the soldiers saying their goodbyes to their families. One in particular, with one soldier receiving a "1,000 stitch" scarf that carries the well wishes of an entire community, strikes a heartbreaking cord. These share other details and give some shading to what are otherwise faceless soldiers, but they aren't enough to sustain the prolonged battle sequences and serve only to convolute Jimmy's story.

It's evident that Nishikawa wants to honor the veterans of the 100th/442nd by telling their story without melodramatic touches or fifty years of hindsight. The tone of the film is stoic, immediate, and the filmmaker has a fondness and a good ear for the soldiers' banter between battles. However, as a whole, it all feels raw and incomplete. Jimmy's haunted looks are never fully explored, undermining an intriguing absolution. As a historical retelling, Only The Brave misses the mark, and as drama it's convoluted and underdeveloped.

The Los Angeles screening I went to was the kick-off of a national tour promoting the DVD. Visit the film's website for more info.


After the film, Camille and I wandered through J-Town looking for some eats. (Isn't "J-Town" much cooler than "Little Tokyo?" Come on, try it on for size.) We thought the wise thing to do was follow a crowd, so we walked into Kouraku, a quaint place with the menu written in dry erase on the wall and counter seating fronting the kitchen. Of course, the dry erase wall menu was in Japanese, so we had to peruse the surprisingly vast table menus. They seem to specialize in noodles, so we both went for ramen with an appetizer of squid cooked in butter.

Squid can easily become rubbery and gross, but here it was fresh, soft but with a nice bite, and butter-rific. I don't think I can overemphasize how deliciously buttery the butter on the butter squid is. Butter butter butter. So simple and fantastic.

I went for a shrimp omelette ramen in a soy-flavored broth. First and foremost, the broth brings the goodness. Warm, smooth, and a touch sweet and salty. While I'm a tremendous fan of putting a fried egg on pretty much anything, I've never considered making an omelette... and then dropping it onto soup. The shrimp omelette by itself would have done the job, but the plain sweet flavor of the shrimp and egg in the middle of a rich broth, combined with the soft noodles is thoroughly satisfying.

Camille had a more hodgepodge soup that contained an array of proteins in a different kind of broth. I think satisfying is probably the best word for this food. Not fantastic. Not mind blowing. Satisfying. Looking at the menu, it's enticing to see that every soup dish describes the different broth they use. I think we'll be coming back.


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With a name like Swagger...

Sometimes, Taco Bell just does it for you. Maybe you've only got a few bucks on you, or maybe you're drunk -- which is the preferred state for eating a double decker taco -- but sometimes you don't want quality. Not even McDonald's-level quality. You just want a double decker taco.

Shooter is a double decker taco. It's directed by Antoine Fuqua, whose magnificent Training Day is a whopper of a dirty cop thriller (pun intended, thank you). But Shooter, on the other hand, is dull and workman-like. It's not bad, per se, but you've got to be in a specfic mood to really enjoy something as exceedingly mediocre as this. Drunk, for example. Or up late, eyes buzzing with caffeine while channel-surfing madly through infomercials hoping for something decent at 2 am that isn't Law & Order reruns on TNT. You see what I'm getting at here.

One of Mark Wahlberg's criteria for picking out scripts must be really spot-on character names. There exists no better porn star name than Dirk Diggler, and I really can't come up with a better moniker for a sharpshooter than Bob Lee Swagger. Of course, while I like Wahlberg, the last thing I'd say about him is that he oozes charisma. So, in the misnomer department, Swagger is up there with Pussy Galore from Goldfinger. But it's still a cool name. So cool, it should be written with an exclamation point -- Swagger!

Swagger! is depicted as an earnest, loyal, simple man. During an operation, he and his spotter are left behind. Since the spotter just showed a picture of his girl mere moments before, War Movie Doctrine dictates that he tragically die, and so it goes. Swagger! escapes and moves to the mountains to become a sharp-shooting yokel, and there he stays until Danny Glover (whose character name is so bland I cannot recall it) arrives with a job: Figure out how to assassinate the President and, in doing so, track a rogue assassin plotting to do so. Swagger! is set up but escapes, embarrassing a young FBI Agent (Michael Pena) who begins to suspect Swagger! is just a fall guy.

Fuqua is a confident director who's shown real flair in the past, but he doesn't do much to elevate Shooter above it's generic trappings. The writing is strangely concerned with making Swagger! smart and resourceful, which is Screenwriting 101 for creating character, but the end result is a thriller in which there are few thrills since the bad guys can't match wits with a good-hearted killing machine like him. Swagger's got this. I mean, his name's Bob Lee Swagger!

The film is a throwback to the straight-arrow action films of the 1980s. In fact, substitute the story's post-9/11 government paranoia with communists and you'd have Red Dawn, right down to the sharp-shooting yokels camping in the woods. At the end of the day, I think I prefer Red Dawn's shameless 80s sincerity. That movie at least knew in its heart that the villains didn't really matter, it was the struggle of teenaged kids banding together to survive World War III. Shooter loses it's steam at the most crucial of points, the very end, when the story suddenly shifts from Swagger clearing his good name to the filmmakers wagging their fingers at morally-corrupt capitalist bureaucrats. By the time you realize what they've done for money (no, not for money! Evil!), you'll probably want the credits to roll. There's actually a sequence where Swagger lets the bad guys go so they can be properly shamed in a government hearing. Which they don't, but hey, we're talking about Bob Lee Swagger! Suffice to say, this is the least satisfying comeuppance a villain has ever had.

Yet, I cannot condemn the flick as bad. It's decent. It moves quickly. The action is nifty. Not spectacular, or terribly exciting, but nifty. Sure, Michael Pena becoming Swagger's new spotter is one big ball of cheese, as is the quasi-romance that blooms when Swagger seeks refuge with his old spotter's heartbroken girl. But every time Wahlberg, I mean Swagger!, offs a baddie with his sharp-shooting skills, it's oddly satisfying. Double decker with mild sauce satisfying. And with just as much guilt on my part.

"One bag, plus the guns. I'll make pancakes."

Through divine intervention (or a friend of a friend), I managed to watch the pilot for Fox's slated 2008 hour-long show, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. That's T:tSCC for you geeks.

I love Terminator and T2, and I'm very happy that the rumored third film never came to fruition. Whatever did happen to that alleged third film? I could've sworn it was shot, but for some reason I can't recall any of it. Kinda like the prequel Star Wars trilogy George Lucas said he'd do but hasn't yet. Boy, I hope the rumors are true and Lucas casts Leo DiCaprio as Anakin Skywalker. He'd be good. Anyway.

For the fans out there, your worst fears have not come true. The pilot (which I hear is undergoing reshoots) is solid. It actually kicks some ass. The opening shot is of those familiar headlights on a dark road, which dovetails into a Sarah Connor nightmare that recalls more iconography -- nuclear holocaust and T-800 skeletons. The show quickly settles down to reveal the strict, regimented life of Sarah and John. Sarah's nightmare has sufficiently spooked her into wanting to take John and run from a home that includes a sweet fiancee. Despite John's protests, Sarah coldly tells her son, "No one is ever safe. Half an hour. One bag, plus the guns. I'll make pancakes."

While I'm pleasantly surprised that the official title of the show has "Terminator" in it, it really should be called The John Connor Chronicles, because at this point the writing begins to focus on the dilemma of the future savior of mankind: be a kid or be a soldier. As played by Thomas Dekker (who had the recurring guest role of Hayden Panettiere's friend Zach on Heroes), John is torn between the allure of a normal teen-aged life and the dire warnings of his mother. He has an easy chemistry with Summer Glau, who plays a cute girl named Cameron (as in James) at John's new school. His awkward confession about his parents is sweet and endearing, and is the kind of emotional territory the show can use as a solid foundation.

And just as I'm appreciating the emotional groundwork the pilot is laying, shit hits the fan. By the end of the pilot, the requisite good and bad terminators have appeared. The clever aspect of having the show from Sarah and John's point of view is that constant, ominous threat every other human provides. Anyone can be a terminator in this world.

The action is almost non-stop from the point the terminators come into the story, and this is where the pilot really clinched my fanboy adoration. There's a distinct feeling that writer Josh Friedman and director David Nutter truly love and respect James Cameron's original world. The hand-to-hand fight choreography between the terminators distinctly mirrors the face-offs between Arnold and the T-1ooo. Miles Dyson's wife and son ("Danny? Dann-eeeee!") have a brief but heart-wrenching reunion with Sarah, who they think murdered Miles. The original films' linchpin is a time machine that is never seen, but Friedman cleverly works it into the pilot's plot. But the show doesn't just want to rehash what Cameron did. One inspired sequence toward the end of the episode has the good terminator assembling hidden gadgets into a ridiculously cool weapon, and it's revealed that an engineer from the future was sent back to the 1960s explicitly to build and plant technology that can be retrieved in the 1990s. There's an underlying excitement in exploring new aspects of the original world that's very alluring.

While one staple of the films -- epic, kinetic action sequences -- is hindered by the TV budget, there's enough tension and invention in the writing to make the production go. And the true core of the story, the mother-son relationship, is dealt with in quiet, endearing exchanges. While some of the dialogue errs on the cheesy and a subplot involving an FBI agent on Sarah's trail appears to already be running out of steam (how long can he NOT believe Sarah's crazy tale of the future?), there's good stuff here. And while this picks up where T2 left off, it sure feels like the show will end up rewriting that third movie that we don't talk about and doesn't exist. I'm not quite certain what these characters will be doing on a weekly basis, as their search for who picked up Skynet's research isn't given a lot of momentum in this pilot. But these characters are alive and well, so I'll be back... er, I'll be down for watching more.

PS - If you want to quibble about story continuity... it's fine. The 1992 film actually does take place in 1997, where this picks up. And I don't want to spoil it, but this world does revolve around... wait for it... time travel. I know, I know... Just shut up and watch it, dude.

PPS - Sarah Connor is played by Lena Headey, who is gaining serious geek points. She works with Terry Gilliam, co-stars in 300, and then takes the role as Sarah Connor. And she's no slouch in the looks department (looks strikingly like Naomi Watts in this, too).

Oh, what, you still think Alba's hotter? How many times have you seen 300? Now, how many times have you seen Honey?

Thank you.