I'm reposting my review of LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS because it has just recently recieved a limited bout of distribution in the U.S. and is about to go National. All of you 'cool movie lovers' out there simply must see this film. Right now I believe it is only in New York and L.A. but soon it'll be everywhere. DO NOT LET THIS FILM PASS YOU BY. It's one of the REAL good ones.
Ok, after seeing CLAY PIGEONS a man in a suit approached me. He claimed to be from GRAMERCY and he had a heavy as hell shiny steel 35 mm film can next to him.
“Harry Knowles?” he said.
“Yes.” I said intelligently.
“I have something I need to show you, and that you need to see. Do you have somewhere to screen this?”
So Tom Joad and I call up Robogeek and ask if he can give us the keys to the Paramount Theater in town. Robogeek is usually easy to coerce, but this time I had to promise him that I’d take him on an adventure soon.
We swing by the Robo-labortory. He handed us the keys and over to the Paramount we went. Now usually I have this underground screening facility, but I loaned Quint the place to try to woo some young lass, but he left the vents open and well... it’s fairly mildewy, so I had to use a real theater in Austin. It’s dangerous cause of the danger of being caught.
We had the Gramercy fella meet us there. Downtown Austin on Tuesday night is about as dead as it ever gets. I send Father Geek up into the projection room. And we, Father Geek, Tom Joad and myself all saw LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS. The Gramercy fella stood guard in the lobby, to make sure the rightful owners of the Paramount never found out.
I’ve been hearing about this flick for a while now, and when I was in London there were advertisements everywhere for it. With a title like that, it’s kinda hard not to notice. But I left the UK before I could see it.
I’ve been having Brits rave on and on and on about how good this thing is. Ahhhhhhhh Bullshit... right? Wrong. This is everybit as wonderful as the Brits are saying.
This is an ultra-stylish cool universe film. It exists in that screwed up universe where Tarantino and Rodriguez and Danny Boyle live. It’s that place where nothing ever goes according to plan, where everything looks cool even if it isn’t. And last but not least there is this beat and music overlaying everything that just has you doing that “OOOOOOOoooooh YEEEeeeeeaaaaaaAAAHHH” sort of thing.
This was the perfect double feature with CLAY PIGEONS, unfortunately I don’t think that is going to be possible till the latter part of next year when both of these films are available on video. I was just lucky as hell.
The easiest way for me to explain to you the coolness of the film is to do a rundown on some of the periphial characters. IE the characters that aren’t the main folk of the flick.
First off there is HATCHET HARRY. He’s about as cool as they come. A gun collecting card playing porno dealing loan shark that just don’t take shit from anyone and plays every angle like Caligari in a german expressionist flick of old. He’s known to beat people to death with dildos and other... pleasure enhancement tools.
There’s BIG CHRIS and LITTLE CHRIS, a father and son team of enforcers that... well, they do everything together that you always wished your Dad would show you how to do... you know like kill people with doors, and bad looks. They wear the next generation in cool overcoats. I think most people are going to love this team.
There’s the afro-sheen MR BREAKER that has a Samoan Pub, but deals high grade chemically enhanched super weed (like that shit that turned Stacy Keach into a lizard in CCNM). He’s a bad ass with two guns and a crew of the biggest blackest badasses around town. Imagine waking up one day with a meaner and uglier Martin Lawerence standing over you with a dripping jeri-curl Afro that has two shiny pistols in your face.
There is the gang of paranoid laid back marijuana hortaculturalists that are armed with a high powered pellet rifle and a psycho-drugged out femme living in the cushions of their couch.
There’s the bumbling moronic pair of idiots that try to do absolutely nothing right.
That’s just some of the background characters. The really good ones I’ve kept as a secret. Right now I haven’t heard a peep as to when to expect this film to hit the USA. But I can tell you this, when it does get here, by all means go. Why?
Ahem...
Remember when Mr Blonde cut the policeman’s ear off? Remember when Ving Rhames took it up the ass from that HillBilly Bastard named Zed? Remember when Renton went toilet diving? Remember when Floyd toked from the Syrup Bear Bong? Remember when Sex Machine’s Crotch Gun lept to life? Mike McDermott played poker with Teddy KGB?
Remember when Blake said, “That watch costs more than you car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. Nice guy, I don't give a shit. Good father, fuck you! Go home and play with your kids! You wanna work here, close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can't take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a sit?”
You may be getting the point by now. You see this film is about those quirky mean as hell cool moments where the subversive film freaks, like you and me, smile and walk out of the theater and know we are cooler than all the people out there that haven’t sat in that seat and saw that moment. This is that type of film. The one you imitate dress from. The one you buy the soundtrack to. The one you buy the all the dressing DVD or LaserDisc to. This is a cool movie.
My father began hailing it above TRAINSPOTTING as did Tom Joad. Me? Well, for me they are two films of such incredible differences that I can’t begin to compare them on a quality level. But I can say this, I’ll end up watching and quoting this movie more than I will TRAINSPOTTING.
It’s quirky and it is cool. If ya want to know what it is about... well go to the site and read that for yourself, it’s at this link.
The flick is just cool. It’s not a film for Mid America. It’s for those that wear black. For those with piercings. For those with the hair of a different color. It’s for people that love cool films.
To wrap this up, let me say that... wow... Gramercy really is showing a couple of fun as hell films this day. Now see CLAY PIGEONS if you’re in the USA, and go see LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS if you are in England. They are both a damn good time, though you folks in England are getting a better deal.
