Sunday, October 31, 2010
From the Vault: Four Rooms
No matter how good the idea looks on paper, the odds seem greatly stacked against feature directors combining their talents on short films around a common location or theme. For every small masterpiece such as Martin Scorsese's "Life Lessons" in New York Stories, you get four works such as the ones found in Four Rooms.
Four Rooms revolves around the misadventures of a bellhop named Ted (Tim Roth) on his first night on the job (and it's New Year's Eve no less) at the Hotel Mon Signor, a Hollywood landmark that once attracted the major stars of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s.
Allison Anders (Gas Food Lodging) wrote and directed the first segment, "The Missing Ingredient," which doesn't start things out well since it's the weakest segment. Set in the hotel's honeymoon suite, Anders' effort concerns the gathering of a coven of witches (including Madonna, Lili Taylor and Valeria Golino) who try to summon a long dead virgin goddess. Unlike the goddess, this segment never comes to life.
Things improve slightly in the second short, "The Wrong Man," which tells what happens when Ted wanders into the wrong room and becomes embroiled in a domestic dispute between a married couple (David Proval, Jennifer Beals). While this segment written and directed by Alexander Rockwell doesn't succeed either, Proval provides some good moments and Rockwell does manage to build some suspense (even though we know Ted has to be OK since there are two more rooms to go).
Writer-director Robert Rodriguez contributes the most enjoyable section with "The Misbehavers" which features a great comic performance by Antonio Banderas who leaves his two rambunctious children in the poor bellhop's care while he and his wife hit the town. "The Misbehavers" contains the most chuckles of any part of the film and has been so well conceived that it makes the two previous shorts look even weaker.
The final segment, "The Man From Hollywood," offers the first writing-directing effort from Quentin Tarantino since his masterful Pulp Fiction. Taking its basic premise from the classic "Man From Rio" episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, it works best when Tarantino's character (a successful Hollywood filmmaker) deconstructs himself to often funny effect.
Overall, Four Rooms mostly misfires. The sporadic laughs don't make the entire package strong enough to earn a recommendation the way "Life Lessons" and, to a lesser extent, Woody Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks" helped New York Stories overcome the burden of Francis Ford Coppola's horrid middle section.
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Labels: 90s, Banderas, Coppola, Hitchcock, Rodriguez, Scorsese, Tarantino, Willis, Woody
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Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Trejo's Time to Shine (and Slice)
By J.D.
When he made his half of the Grindhouse double bill (2007), Robert Rodriguez also put together a trailer for a film he would like to see. And so, Machete (2010) was born — a Mexploitation action film about an ex-federale who is set-up, double-crossed and left for dead. However, the origins for this project go back even further to 1995 when Rodriguez made Desperado, the second film in his Mariachi trilogy. It would be the first time (but certainly not the last) he worked with veteran character actor and professional badass Danny Trejo. He’s someone you’ve probably not heard of but have definitely seen. If you need a tough-looking tattooed henchman, he’s your man. While working on Desperado, Rodriguez envisioned Trejo starring in a series of action films as Machete but at that time the director did not have the clout to get someone to bankroll a Latino action film that didn’t feature someone with movie star looks like Antonio Banderas.
Rodriguez never forgot about his pet project and over the years cast Trejo in several of his films. Even though the Grindhouse films were a commercial failure, audiences loved the faux trailer for Machete. Rodriguez managed to convince a Hollywood studio to finance it with a modest budget and used his connections to assemble an impressive cast that included the likes of Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, and “introducing” Don Johnson. However, would what worked as a movie trailer be too much of a good thing as a feature film?
The prologue sets up everything we need to know about Machete (Danny Trejo) — he’s a badass Mexican federale set-up by his corrupt superior and left for dead by local druglord Torrez (Steven Seagal). It also sets just the right tone as we see Machete hacking and slashing his way through a house of bad guys with bloody abandon. Meanwhile, in the United States, a corrupt, ultra-conservative Texan senator named John McLaughlin (Robert De Niro), campaigns on a platform of preventing illegal immigrants from crossing the border. He even employs a border vigilante group, led by the brutal Von Jackson (Don Johnson), to enforce his policies.
Sartana Rivera (Jessica Alba) is an upstanding Immigrations enforcement officer investigating the problem through legal channels and ends up crossing paths with Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), a no-nonsense taco stand operator who moonlights as a revolutionary operating an underground railroad of sorts for her Mexican brothers and sisters. Machete, now a day laborer (or, at least that’s his cover), is hired by Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey), a local businessman, to kill the senator for $150,000. Machete is set up, shot and forced to go into hiding. With the help of Rivera and Luz, he plots revenge on the men that betrayed him.
It’s awesome to see Danny Trejo finally get to carry a film for once and play a character that doesn’t get killed off. He brings his customary intensity as the strong, silent man of action and in many respects the film is Rodriguez’s present to the actor as he has him take down tons of bad guys, look cool doing it, and hook up with many of the film’s lovely ladies, including Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan! Robert De Niro is a lot of fun to watch playing a John McCain meets George W. Bush-esque xenophobic politician. It’s also great to see Steven Seagal as a powerful criminal and Machete’s arch-nemesis, not to mention appearing in a mainstream film that didn’t go straight-to-home video.
Michelle Rodriguez adds another tough chick role to her resume as she portrays the female Mexican equivalent of Che Guevara but with a dash of Snake Plissken from Escape from New York (1981). Another fun bit of casting is Lindsay Lohan playing the messed up celebutante child of Booth. She and Rodriguez have some fun riffing on her public persona and kudos to the director for not bowing to peer and public pressure about her party girl reputation and showing that regardless, she still has the acting chops. Rodriguez regulars Tom Savini and Cheech Marin show up in memorable bit parts as a deadly assassin and Machete’s ex-federale now-priest brother.
It’s no secret that Rodriguez is a filmmaker that wears his influences on his sleeve. For examples, Desperado was a homage to the Hong Kong action films of John Woo and From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) and Planet Terror (2007) evoked the films of John Carpenter and George Romero. Growing up in the 1980s, Machete is Rodriguez’s love letter to the films produced by Cannon Films during that decade. They were responsible for cranking out an endless stream of generic action films starring the likes of Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris and Michael Dudikoff. In these films, the action stars were often a one-man army capable of wiping out the fighting force of a small country seemingly single-handedly. The same goes for Machete who is an unstoppable killing machine bent on revenge.
Machete is full of outrageous, over-the-top violence and inventively staged action sequences, like one scene where Machete bungee-jumps from one floor of a hospital to another with the aid of an evil henchman’s large intestine. In this respect, the film has the same gonzo, go-for-broke action that Rodriguez orchestrated in the underrated Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). Living up to his namesake, Machete finds all sorts of ways to kill the bad guys with a vast assortment of sharp weapons. Machete is a lot of fun and never outstays its welcome as Rodriguez knows how to keep things moving so that things never get boring.
Machete not only features all kinds of wild action sequences but also has something on its mind, commenting on the rampant immigration problems that continue to plague the states along the United States/Mexico border. Along the way, Rodriguez plays up and makes fun of Latino stereotypes (they are all day laborers and love tricked out cars) only to twist them into a rallying cry, a call for revolution that takes full bloom by the film’s exciting conclusion in a way that has to be seen to be believed. Best of all, Rodriguez has created yet another awesome Latino action hero. Forget Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables (2010), Machete is the real deal and a no holds barred love letter to ‘80s action films. As great as it was to see many of the beloved action stars from the ‘80s and 1990s, I felt that Stallone’s film never went far enough. Rodriguez’s film doesn’t have that problem as it gleefully goes all the way with its cartoonish violence. Let’s hope that he and Trejo get the chance to do more Machete films but the next one should be direct-to-video if they really want to get in the spirit of the kinds of film they are championing.
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Labels: 10s, Banderas, De Niro, John Carpenter, Rodriguez, Stallone, Woo
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Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Darkman is everyone — and no one
By Damian Arlyn
Although it may be hard for young people to imagine, there was a time when the name "Sam Raimi" did not arouse any excitement in movie lovers. Indeed there was a time when Sam Raimi was just another unknown, ambitious director trying desperately to carve out a place for himself in the world of cinema. Like a lot of filmmakers who made a name for themselves in the late '80s/early '90s — including Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Soderbergh and the Coen brothers (with whom Raimi was friends) — he was an independent, but what he really wanted was to make mainstream "Hollywood" movies and with only three features under his belt (including the "no-budget" horror flick Evil Dead and its semi-sequel/remake), Raimi was given the opportunity to helm a major studio picture. The result was Darkman and it was released (unleashed?) 20 years ago today.
The genesis of Darkman lay in Raimi's troubles securing the rights to make a movie of The Shadow (something Russell Mulcahy would do with mixed results four years later) which eventually forced him to concoct a superhero of his own. While the imprint of Walter B. Gibson's famous crimefighter on Raimi's character is apparent, so too is the influence of classic monster movies: the "mad scientist-creation" of Frankenstein, the bloodlust of The Wolfman, the split-personality of Jekyll and Hyde, the bandaged visage of The Invisible Man and the scarred, ominous figure of The Phantom of the Opera to name just a few (It is very appropriate that Raimi's film bore the Universal logo). In fact, Darkman is just as much a horror film as it is a superhero movie. The story of a horribly disfigured innocent seeking revenge on the despicable criminals who made him so provided Raimi the chance to indulge not only in some spectacular action sequences but in some delightfully gruesome acts of violence.
I could talk about the hammy performances delivered by a group of game actors doing the best they can with the material (including a "pre-Oskar Schindler" Liam Neeson attempting some kind of American accent and wife to one-half of the team of Raimi's filmmaking friends, the Coen brothers, Frances McDormand, with whom presumably Raimi had some difficulty working), but the truth is that Darkman isn't really about the acting because it isn't really about its characters. Darkman is about its visuals and they are stunning. Raimi has always been a purely "cinematic" filmmaker and Darkman feels like the work of a child finally allowed to play with big toys. His unbridled passion and enthusiasm infuses (infects?) nearly every frame of the film. Classic "Hollywood-style" montages, extreme camera angles, outrageous special effects and an ostentatiously operatic music score provided by frequent Raimi-collaborator Danny Elfman (who, sadly, is currently estranged from the filmmaker) all testify to the fact that this is a movie made by a director who doesn't have a single subtle bone in his body. His two subsequent films (Army of Darkness and The Quick and the Dead, both of which I love for the exact same reason as I do Darkman) exhibit the same "no-holds-barred" approach to filmmaking. It wasn't until 1998's A Simple Plan that Raimi pushed himself as a storyteller and fashioned a moody, atmospheric thriller-drama that then allowed him to deal with more mature, complex themes in future films (such as the under-appreciated For Love of the Game and the creepy Gift). When the Spider-man series brought Raimi back to the comic book genre, he was able to create a far more "balanced" product than he had attempted to do more than a decade earlier (likewise with his return to horror on Drag Me to Hell).
Though reviews were mixed, Darkman was successful enough at the box office to spawn two direct-to-video sequels. I was 14 when it came out and remember very well the thrilling trailer, TV ads and movie poster tantalizingly declaring "Who is Darkman?" I missed seeing it in the theater but viewed it finally when it came to video. The violence disturbed me somewhat, but I loved the film nonetheless and even purchased the novelization. I caught it again once or twice in the following years but hadn't seen it in a very long time when I sat down to watch it again recently. I found my affection for the film had not waned in the slightest and, in fact, my appreciation for what Raimi was able to accomplish (given his relative lack of experience and the number of obstacles he reportedly had to overcome) only increased. However, much of the film not only seems incredibly silly but patently absurd to me now. The fact that lean, 6'4" Liam Neeson could possibly pass himself off as the 6-foot-tall, overweight minion Pauly just stretches credulity pass its limit. It occurred to me while watching Darkman that the film was made only three years after the similarly cartoonish and ultra-violent Robocop, but that the latter holds up much better today. Raimi's vision is perhaps not as dated as Verhoeven's (except in the area of special effects) but it is also not nearly as moving or intelligent.
The most important thing that Darkman provides for contemporary audiences is a chance to see a supremely talented and eminently creative artist at a crucial point in his career. Though still a little "wet behind the ears," Darkman displayed the enormous potential that Sam Raimi possessed. It was a potential that he would fulfill much later with projects that were just as visually sumptuous but which didn't sacrifice characterization and emotion in the process. Now, when his name is mentioned (as it has been in connection with the upcoming comic book-inspired action-thriller Priest), movie-lovers have good reason to get excited.
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Labels: 90s, Coens, Liam Neeson, McDormand, Movie Tributes, Raimi, Rodriguez, Spike Lee, Tarantino
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Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Games people don't play
This post is part of the White Elephant Blog-a-Thon being coordinated at Lucid Screening.
By Edward Copeland
When I received my assignment for this year's White
Elephant Blog-a-Thon, I originally was given the task of reviewing ABBA Number Ones. Apparently though, people who choose to rent that like to keep it for a very long time and it became clear that there would be little chance I'd get to see it before April 1. Ben was kind enough to get me a substitution: Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over. Having not seen the first two films, I hoped I wouldn't be hopelessly lost. Also, since I would be watching it in boring old 2-D, I hoped it wouldn't lessen the experience. Mamma mia! I wished I'd been able to see the ABBA offering instead. At least their tunes were catchy. There isn't a whole lot to say about Spy Kids 3 except that it's mercifully short. Despite lacking the 3-D glasses, the images did show quite a bit of visual depth, even if I frequently recalled those old SCTV skits about 3-D movies (Would you like a hot dog?). The
premise involves the youngest ex-spy kid in a family of spies being sent inside a new video game to rescue his sister from the hands of the evil Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone, who always is dangerous when he's trying to be funny). For the most part, as with all movies that try to depict life inside a video game dating back to Tron, games always are more fun to play than to watch and in the case of Spy Kids 3, a lot of the time it's difficult to even tell what the object of the game is. Robert Rodriguez's film admittedly is colorful, but it's a colorful bore. It's practically overflowing with cameos. (Having not seen a Spy Kids film before, I was surprised to see Danny Trejo appear as a character named Machete, the same character he played in the mock trailer in Grindhouse. The young actors aren't very good and the old pros don't get enough to do to help save the day, though Ricardo Montalban has some fun. Stallone though is over-the-top not only as the Toymaker but as his four imaginary friends, one of whom is obviously based on Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory. "This isn't a game — it's life!" The Toymaker bellows. It's not really life, it's hardly a game and it's certainly not a movie.Tweet
Labels: 00s, Blog-a-thons, K. Douglas, Rodriguez, Stallone
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Thursday, January 24, 2008
1 divided by 2 + footage=Planet Terror
By Edward Copeland
I never got a chance to see Grindhouse in the theater though I really wanted to, but the odd way they've handled its DVD release means I will never see what others did. The much-talked about trailers between Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof might be on bonus discs, but I didn't rent those. Of course, I also have no way of knowing what's been added to Planet Terror. I can say though that, for what it is, I enjoyed it quite a lot.
For the most part, Rodriguez really nails the look and feel of a '70s-type exploitation film and the great ensemble cast all play it just right, from Jeff Fahey as the chili cook to Josh Brolin as the asshole doctor, from Naveen Andrews' crooked scientist to Freddy Rodriguez's ostensible hero.
If I had any complaint about Planet Terror, it's when it inserts timely references such as Osama bin Laden and 9/11. They seem out of place since the film plays as if it were made in the 1970s and come off sounding like anachronisms.
The action scenes come off suitably over-the-top as does the gore, since this is a zombie film. I wish I could have seen it as Grindhouse, especially with those fake trailers in between, though the Machete preview at the opening is fun in itself.
Death Proof is up next in my rental queue, so I'll get to see the second half of Grindhouse soon, sort of.
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I never got a chance to see Grindhouse in the theater though I really wanted to, but the odd way they've handled its DVD release means I will never see what others did. The much-talked about trailers between Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof might be on bonus discs, but I didn't rent those. Of course, I also have no way of knowing what's been added to Planet Terror. I can say though that, for what it is, I enjoyed it quite a lot.
For the most part, Rodriguez really nails the look and feel of a '70s-type exploitation film and the great ensemble cast all play it just right, from Jeff Fahey as the chili cook to Josh Brolin as the asshole doctor, from Naveen Andrews' crooked scientist to Freddy Rodriguez's ostensible hero.
If I had any complaint about Planet Terror, it's when it inserts timely references such as Osama bin Laden and 9/11. They seem out of place since the film plays as if it were made in the 1970s and come off sounding like anachronisms.
The action scenes come off suitably over-the-top as does the gore, since this is a zombie film. I wish I could have seen it as Grindhouse, especially with those fake trailers in between, though the Machete preview at the opening is fun in itself.
Death Proof is up next in my rental queue, so I'll get to see the second half of Grindhouse soon, sort of.
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Labels: 00s, Josh Brolin, Rodriguez, Tarantino
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Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Anthologize This
By Edward Copeland
Last night, I finally watched Nine Lives and my reaction was about what I expected, namely the same that happens when I watch any film that is an anthology of scenes. To me, by their very nature, they can't help but be unsatisfactory. I liked segments in Nine Lives and there were certainly a lot of strong performances, but for me films made up of what are essentially short films are doomed to disappoint.
You start and stop nine different times in this movie and it's inevitable that you are going to like some segments more than others and unless they hit a lucky streak where there are more segments you like than segments you don't, the film itself will leave you underwhelmed.
This has been the case with nearly every film anthology I can think of. Take Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). I could watch the segments inside the male body, with Gene Wilder and the sheep, the "What's My Line?" takeoff and even with Woody's court jester numerous times, but I doubt there is enough money in the world to make me endure the segment with Lou Jacobi as a cross-dresser again. Fortunately, I think there is more good than bad in Allen's film, but not enough to compete with his truly great works.
Another example involving Allen was New York Stories. I think the first segment, "Life Lessons," by Martin Scorsese is brilliant. So good in fact that anything that follows it is almost certain to disappoint and, in the case of Francis Ford Coppola's "Life Without Zoe," do more than disappoint. It's such a lifeless, pointless mess that all the goodwill that Scorsese built up in the viewer evaporates. When Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks" shows up, it skews your reaction. It's funny and a welcome respite from Coppola's train wreck, but is your reaction truly because you find it funny or just because you are relieved. Would it have played differently as the middle film of the trilogy or the first?
One of the greatest anthology misfires I've ever endured was Aria, where 10 directors take their shot at making short films out of classic opera passages — and all but one fail. This list included Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, Jean-Luc Godard, Derek Jarman, Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell and Julien Temple. The only segment I liked was Franc Roddam's "Liebestod," set in Las Vegas and starring a young Bridget Fonda — and I wasn't familiar with any of Roddam's previous works.
By their nature, anthology films start to remind me of old episodes of TV's Love American Style. You almost expect each segment to end with some cutesy freeze frame and explosion of fireworks. Honestly, I don't even see what the appeal is for filmmakers. Look at the disaster that was Four Rooms, connected only by the character of Tim Roth's bellhop. Only Robert Rodriguez's segment entertains and the other three segments are ponderous misfires.
The one example I can think of where all the segments of an anthology are about on par is the film adaptation of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite — each segment is funnier than the one that precedes it. It's not a great film, but it works for what it is.
On the other end of the scale, there are things like Creepshow and Twilight Zone: the Movie where you are lucky that you get one segment worth watching. Hell, in Twilight Zone, the prologue and epilogue with Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks are better than three of the segments of the film itself.
There is something to be said for having a movie that moves from beginning to end in whatever way it chooses. The films that choose to merge and intercut stories and characters (such as Pulp Fiction or Nashville or Short Cuts) end up infinitely more satisfying than the ones that start and stop and start again. Nine Lives does have some characters who recur in subsequent segments, but really it's to no point and no avail.
Perhaps the only anthology that I would call great is Richard Linklater's Slacker and that's because it doesn't play like an anthology. It flows from one segment to the next on a nonstop trip from beginning to end.
Come to think of it, my resistance to movies as anthology is probably why I've always been lukewarm to Fantasia.
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TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Last night, I finally watched Nine Lives and my reaction was about what I expected, namely the same that happens when I watch any film that is an anthology of scenes. To me, by their very nature, they can't help but be unsatisfactory. I liked segments in Nine Lives and there were certainly a lot of strong performances, but for me films made up of what are essentially short films are doomed to disappoint.
You start and stop nine different times in this movie and it's inevitable that you are going to like some segments more than others and unless they hit a lucky streak where there are more segments you like than segments you don't, the film itself will leave you underwhelmed.
This has been the case with nearly every film anthology I can think of. Take Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). I could watch the segments inside the male body, with Gene Wilder and the sheep, the "What's My Line?" takeoff and even with Woody's court jester numerous times, but I doubt there is enough money in the world to make me endure the segment with Lou Jacobi as a cross-dresser again. Fortunately, I think there is more good than bad in Allen's film, but not enough to compete with his truly great works.
Another example involving Allen was New York Stories. I think the first segment, "Life Lessons," by Martin Scorsese is brilliant. So good in fact that anything that follows it is almost certain to disappoint and, in the case of Francis Ford Coppola's "Life Without Zoe," do more than disappoint. It's such a lifeless, pointless mess that all the goodwill that Scorsese built up in the viewer evaporates. When Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks" shows up, it skews your reaction. It's funny and a welcome respite from Coppola's train wreck, but is your reaction truly because you find it funny or just because you are relieved. Would it have played differently as the middle film of the trilogy or the first?
One of the greatest anthology misfires I've ever endured was Aria, where 10 directors take their shot at making short films out of classic opera passages — and all but one fail. This list included Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, Jean-Luc Godard, Derek Jarman, Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell and Julien Temple. The only segment I liked was Franc Roddam's "Liebestod," set in Las Vegas and starring a young Bridget Fonda — and I wasn't familiar with any of Roddam's previous works.
By their nature, anthology films start to remind me of old episodes of TV's Love American Style. You almost expect each segment to end with some cutesy freeze frame and explosion of fireworks. Honestly, I don't even see what the appeal is for filmmakers. Look at the disaster that was Four Rooms, connected only by the character of Tim Roth's bellhop. Only Robert Rodriguez's segment entertains and the other three segments are ponderous misfires.
The one example I can think of where all the segments of an anthology are about on par is the film adaptation of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite — each segment is funnier than the one that precedes it. It's not a great film, but it works for what it is.
On the other end of the scale, there are things like Creepshow and Twilight Zone: the Movie where you are lucky that you get one segment worth watching. Hell, in Twilight Zone, the prologue and epilogue with Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks are better than three of the segments of the film itself.
There is something to be said for having a movie that moves from beginning to end in whatever way it chooses. The films that choose to merge and intercut stories and characters (such as Pulp Fiction or Nashville or Short Cuts) end up infinitely more satisfying than the ones that start and stop and start again. Nine Lives does have some characters who recur in subsequent segments, but really it's to no point and no avail.
Perhaps the only anthology that I would call great is Richard Linklater's Slacker and that's because it doesn't play like an anthology. It flows from one segment to the next on a nonstop trip from beginning to end.
Come to think of it, my resistance to movies as anthology is probably why I've always been lukewarm to Fantasia.
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Labels: 00s, Albert Brooks, Altman, Animation, Aykroyd, Coppola, Godard, Linklater, Neil Simon, Rodriguez, Scorsese, Woody
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