Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Well, I guess Massawyrm, like many of our Austin residents, is knee-deep in the Austin Film Festival by now. Or at least, that’s what I hear from many of my friends who are there, including some Massa wasn’t aware of.
Still, he managed to file these reviews before the festival got underway:
Hola all. Massawyrm here with a look at several of this weeks big releases, the how-bad-must-it-be-if-it-was-held-back-this-long film 'Knockaround Guys', the wonderfully entertaining 'The Transporter', the mystifyingly bad 'Pokemon 4-ever' and the way-too-hyped-for-its-own-good 'Punch Drunk Love'.
Knockaround Guys
First up is the stunningly miscalculated "Knockaround Guys", a good film in a bad situation. Most people have been wary of this film due to terrible early buzz centering around the fact that it's sat on a shelf so long at New Line. And most people have written it off. But don't write it off yet, because this is one solid little film that delivers exactly what it should for the crowd who enjoys this type of movie. And, oh, it's produced by Lawrence Bender.
Oh, so that pricked up some of your ears, didn't it? Imagine the hype that would have been on this film if rather than their current marketing ploy (focusing on Vin Diesel and Seth Green) the black screen lit up with the words "From a producer of Reservoir Dogs, Killing Zoe, Jackie Brown, From Dusk Till Dawn, Anna and the King, Four Rooms, Fresh, Good Will Hunting, Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction" and "From the writers of Rounders". Geeks around the world would have been up in arms about this movie being shelved. Now while a great producer does not a good movie make (Bender also produced White Man's Burden and the Mexican (a movie that actually is pretty entertaining if you can get past the worst 20 minutes of an opening that I've seen in recent memory)as well as the From Dusk Till Dawn sequels), but Bender's got a pretty good track record with a few really good films outside of his Tarantino/Avary collaborations.
And the two fellows that share both writing and directing duties on Knockaround Guys, well, they're pretty much unheard of to the geek community as of right now. They both wrote 'Rounders' together, which is a great little film. They're only other contribution to cinema as of yet is producing duties on the cool-as-all-hell indie I reviewed last week "Interview with the Assassin".
Now, hopefully, a few of you out there who may have seen the trailer but heard it was shelved might be looking at this with a bit of interest, and rightly you should. While not brilliant or a stunning achievement, this film certainly isn't the mess early buzz has made it out to be. It's actually damned entertaining, delivering everything I want from a low rent mobster hood film.
When the son of a big time underboss finds that because of his name he can't get decent steady work, he turns to his father for a job and brings his hood friends in on the deal. And things begin to go wrong. Pretty straight forward and pretty entertaining. You like Vin Diesel? Well, you can watch him kick some ass. You like Seth Green? Well, you get to watch him act weaselly and provide good solid comic relief, what Seth green does best. You like John Malkovich? Well, this is a typical strong Malkovich role.
This has everything a low rent hood movie should have. A bag full of money, guns, betrayal and oh yeah, even a Mexican stand off. I had a lot of fun with this and if this is your kind of film then you probably will as well. Catch this one if Post-Tarantino noir is your thing.
The Transporter (or When the Hell did Jason Statham Learn Kung Fu?)
Well, this film was certainly one hell of a treat. I first saw the trailer of this at a midnight preview screening of xXx back in early August and let me tell you, I was sold. Having already seen xXx, I felt this trailer was the perfect primer for my second viewing and got me both stoked to watch xXx again as well as be one of the first in line to see this bad mother. It looked bad, but wonderfully so. While I had no hope at the time that I would enjoy it more than xXx it still looked fun. I turned and looked at Harry who had his famous deer-in-headlights _expression that I'm so fond of seeing after he sees something that has just scared the hell out of him. I belted out my excitement with words that I'd like to think were witty and appropriate for the moment but probably amounted to "That rules!". So when finally the chance came to see this film, I was there ready to get my ass kicked. Bad or Brilliant I wanted to see Jason Statham put boot to ass.
And dear God did he.
Imagine for a moment, if you will, a Hong Kong action film set in France, with a Car Chase worthy of John Frankenhiemer, a lead actor as cool and slick as any you've seen in recent years (up there in coolness as Chow Yun-Fat) and over the top action scenes that stick within the realm of possibility (unlike those of the aforementioned xXx). Now Imagine that its good. Really good. That's the Transporter.
Jason Statham came completely out of left field for this one. Dear God, while he was definitely on my 'cool-radar', I had no idea how much of a badass he could be. The movie opens pretty much how I expected: Jason Statham (Frank Martin) is on a job as a professional driver and plays it cool like he was Clive Owen in those BMW short films. Then an amazing chase ensues. And everything goes exactly how I expected. A few pleasant surprises but nothing to send me reeling. I saw the trailer, I expected crazy driving and some fisticuffs cut to make it look like Statham knew martial arts. And that's what I got. Until the cuts they made around Jason Statham's martial arts abilities. There were none, cuts around his abilities that it. Jason Statham knew Kung fu. And he used it, not like you'd expect in a standard American made action film, but rather, as if he were working on a Hong Kong film.
There are alot of differences between Hong Kong action films and western made ones. Chiefly, however, the main difference is in location. Western made action films use the location to create a mood for the fight, while Hong Kong films use location as a place where many interesting things could happen. In a western made film, a fight that took place in a kitchen might take advantage of knives or pots being readily available; but in a Hong Kong film, that's a given; what would happen then would depend on the fight choreographer. Opponents reaching across burners while the other turns them on. Flung mixing bowls. Flour in the face. Food on the floor. And all of the kitchen's confining space would be used to the advantage of one opponent and to the disadvantage of the other. The fights are exciting and three dimensional and the primary reason many of us are so addicted to the damned things.
The Transporter has these Hong Kong sensibilities. Some of the fights in this film are so amazingly original that you just will have a hard time believing that you're watching a Western made action film. There's one fight in particular that is so spectacular, so original, that anyone who goes to see this will no doubt be talking about it in the lobby afterward. Even the people that don't like this film will have to concede that at least this was worth checking it out for.
And Jason Statham is just so god damned cool in this that its unbelievable. Now here's a guy that's been kind of shaky. When he's directed by American's he's terrible, hell, he could suck start a leaf blower. American directors try to make him SOUND American, which he clearly can't do well at all. But when he's directed by anyone other than an American (as with Corey Yuen here, Guy Ritchie or Barry Skolnick (Mean Machine)) he shines. He's fantastically cool here and has definitely added himself to our suddenly growing (but still all too small) list of dependable action heroes. Watch out for this guy, because he's about to kick all of your asses with this film. Here's to hoping this isn't the last of these kinds of roles that he gets.
I Loved xXx, as any of you who read my review of it already know, but if I had to watch one of these two movies again, I'd watch The Transporter in a heartbeat. For you action fans, this will absolutely satisfy you this weekend. Highly recommended.
Pokemon 4-Ever (Not just a clever title)
Okay, there's not really much to say about this film except that it's terrible, terrible, terrible. I'm a Pokemon fan. I LOVE the game series, I mean, I love it. I already have planned a weeks vacation when Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire come out here in the states early next year (if I don't get a hold of the Japanese versions first with an English walkthrough). It is quite possibly the most addictive and replayable RPG of all time. I mean, who wouldn't love raising cute little monsters and evolving them into big beasties with which you can slag your friends carefully raised big beasties? God it's addicting, and if you think otherwise then odds are you've never played it and only know about it through the media craze generated by it back in '99. "It's a kids game." Bah.
I've seen the other three movies, and while I was not a fan of any of them (nor the series), I did note that they were getting progressively better, every installment getting that much closer to being a full on Anime. It seemed as if Pokemon was growing up with its audience. Pokemon 4-Ever looked as if it could be darker, cooler and as close to true anime as the series had yet to get. There are Pokemon hunters, poachers who hunt and beat the crap out of rare Pokemon so they can cage them and sell them to the highest bidder. There's time travel, mystical Pokemon with strange powers and a man in a giant robot ready to kick some Pokemon ass.
Alas 4-Ever is about how long this movie seems to last. Only the youngest fans of this series are going to be entertained by this. Everyone else is just going to be bored to tears. Anything cool this movie had to offer was cut together in the trailer and absolutely none of the interesting concepts are developed whatsoever. But the biggest flaw here is that everything that hinders the characters comes so damned easy to fix. Is that Pokemon hurt? Oh, well it just so happens that you're holding it in a magical lake that cures Pokemon. Did that Pokemon die? Oh well it just so happens that a thousand time traveling Pokemon will show up and heal it for you. Is the magical lake polluted and tainted now from the battle that occurred around it? Hey, guess what, the pokemon standing next to you that seemed to be there for no apparent reason just so happens to be able to dance across water and purify it. Yay! He save the day!
Wow was this film dull, even to a fan. Odds are you already had no interest in seeing this. Now when your kid brother asks you to take him to it, make sure its a theatre playing The Transporter as well and let him suffer alone at the hands of his Japanese masters. Don't take the bullet on this one, I've already taken it for you. There are a million better ways to spend the cost of a matinee than this. Please do so.
Punch Drunk Love
Alright, of all the reviews I've ever posted, this is the one I feel I will take the most flack for, especially since it comes packaged with positive reviews for an action film and a film that nobody's counting on being any good. I like Punch Drunk Love, I really do. But it's flawed and desperately over-hyped.
Note as I duck beneath the hail of rotten tomatoes chucked in my general direction.
I believe it was Seneca that wrote "There is no genius without some touch of madness." And I honestly believe that's true. I also honestly believe that Paul Thomas Anderson is slowly going insane while everyone else around him simply nods, smiles and calls his insanity genius.
Punch Drunk Love is certainly far and away this years most self-indulgent film, a film that definitely has PTA's name written all over it. However, this isn't quite the PTA you remember. All the slick gloss and shine of his previous two films is gone from Punch Drunk Love, as if Anderson had scrubbed it away with steel wool to leave a raw, gritty coat to this films exterior. Gone are the smooth masterful tracking shots, replaced by shaky handheld camerawork that often jumps and wiggles at the wrong moments. Gone is the carefully woven soundtrack that lies beneath the surface and drives the films more clever moments. It finds itself replaced by the Harmonium theme you're now familiar with in the trailer, that "He needs me, he needs me" song that seems to go on five minutes too long and drum tacks that at times overpower the scene to create the feel of frenetic tension and makes you want to claw the hair right out of your head.
But, obviously, this is all intentional. And that's all well and good. I can handle the director allowing flaws like sunflares and poor lighting into his film when it happens to be the look they're going for. I trust PTA, I've loved all three of his films. He's obviously a master at his art. But it's clear that he made this film for himself and his most die hard of fans and not for anyone else. Someone said in an earlier review that this film isn't for everyone. That's a gross understatement.
"But it's Paul Thomas Andersons take on the romantic comedy!" Yeah, and apparently his take on the romantic comedy is a film that isn't romantic, nor particularly funny. This is one of those "the funniest moments are in the trailer" comedies in which once you've seen the trailer, you've laughed about as hard and as much as you will during the film. Now I'm not saying that there aren't laughs to be had, but all of the best moments, all of the really quirky things this movie has to offer, you've already seen if you've only watched the trailer so much as once. And as for the romance, well, that's a whole other problem entirely. I mean if your idea of romance is "I saw your picture and had to meet you and I don't care what kind of problems you have or even if you only talk to me in response to direct questioning, I'm still going to want to hook up with you anyway" than this is the date movie for you. Unfortunately for those of us that like a little chemistry to our romantic films, this isn't going to satisfy you in that department at all.
What this film is, at its core, is a love letter to neurosis. And it's a really good love letter to neurosis. And if Paul Thomas Anderson wrote this from the heart, as he did with Magnolia, then this is quite possibly the most expensive, best directed cry for help I've ever encountered. He seems to be putting himself naked upon the screen and channeling his emotions through Adam Sandler as if he's saying "Why can't someone just love me despite all my problems?" And it's really heartfelt. You honestly feel bad for Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) and you want to see things go well for him.
Sandler's performance is solid. While I do not share some others view that he deserves a nod for this as he is pretty much playing the same sweetly retarded man with bottled up rage that he often plays, simply without the dick and fart jokes, I forgot for almost the entire movie that I was watching "Funny man" Adam Sandler. Sandler is quite convincing when he's not talking out of the side of his mouth.
Emily Watson is great, but then again, when isn't she? And just having seen her great performance in "Red Dragon", this seemed quite tame and a bit under her abilities.
This film, however, reminded me quite a bit of "The Royal Tennenbaums" in so much that we spend the first two thirds of the film examining all of the issues that the characters have while the final third actually answers the nagging question some of us were having as to why exactly we cared about the protagonists at all. Punch Drunk Love's greatest asset is its conclusion, which is sheer genius. The final act was every bit as satisfying as I would hope from a PTA film and makes this film well worth watching. While not as mind alteringly weird as his conclusion to "Magnolia" or as shocking as Mark Wahlburg's monster cock mirror pep talk in "Boogie Nights", I honestly feel Punch Drunk Love has PTA's strongest, most satisfying ending to date.
And you know what, I liked this movie. I swear I did. But not nearly as much as I love "Boogie Nights" or "Magnolia". For those of you who thought Magnolia was self-indulgent you have a big surprise coming. And for those of you who have yet to enjoy any of PTA's work and yet have still seen it, well this is certainly not for you whatsoever.
This film is going to play alot like Attack of the Clones did earlier this year, in which the die hard fans proclaimed it as genius and one of the best of the series, while everyone else just walked out shaking their heads or worse, swearing. All of the AICN crew I saw the film with dug the hell out of it, but several of my other friends made a b-line out of the theatre, one of them remarking to the rep on his way out "Anderson really needs to get back together with Fiona Apple". I walked out a bit stunned myself, not exactly sure what to make of the film I'd just watched. It took about three cigarettes just to be able to think coherently about the film at all. And I figured out that I liked it. Yes, after all of my heavy criticism, I like it. I just can't call it the genius everyone else has. This movie's hype has set the expectation level way too high and I'm sure many people, after hearing it, are going to walk out just as stunned as I did.
Well, that about does it for me folks. Remember, this is a huge weekend, and while most of the talk about so many good films opening has been negative (as many of these films are going to suffer from the pinch at the box office) keep in mind that this is an absolute paradise for us movie goers. There's a little something for everybody this weekend, action fans, romance fans and indie fans alike. Go out and spend that hard earned cash and help support some of these great films this weekend.
Until next time friends, smoke 'em if ya got 'em. I know I will.
Send me an e-mail! Or send me two! I need one for each face!!
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em indeed. It’s been nice hosting Massawyrm’s reviews here on AICN, so it’s sad to announce that this is the last article you’ll be seeing from him. We certainly wish him luck in finding another venue for whatever it is he does. For now, though, it appears the wyrm has turned.
"Moriarty" out.
