THE ROBBERY REVIEWS
by Ben La Rosa
I went straight from the gym to the Blockbuster video store around 9:15 p.m, spent about 20 minutes looking at all the titles and eventually brought three videos (THE CROW: SALVATION, SUPERGIRL & ORDINARY PEOPLE) to the front counter. As the clerk handed me my receipt to sign a black guy in a gray sweatshirt slipped through the batwing door behind her, moving way too fast for an employee.
He mumbled something and the woman clerk
freaked. Another girl who worked there began opening registers. I looked down and saw the black dude had a BIG dull gray revolver. I looked at him. My mind unfurled like a sail in a strong breeze. I absorbed every detail I could about him. When he saw me still standing there he waved the gun a little and said in a really mellow voice, "Everyone to the back, man."
I turned around calmly and walked to the back. I thought about jumping the bastard but the counter was tall and there was a computer monitor between us. He would have had time to make popcorn on a stove and salt it before my stupid head dived in front of his gun.
I walked to the back. There was a 30-something couple ahead of me and to my left, a mountain of tall fat guy in a blueberry satin baseball jacket. I made a hand sign as if pressing buttons on a cell phone. He just looked at me.
We all got to the back where there was an EMERGENCY EXIT door with alarm. Everyone agreed without words that to open the alarm door might cause the robber to panic.
"Does anyone have a cell phone?" I said
calmly.
The woman's eyes lit up and there it was, out of her purse like magic. I told her I had the robber's description down cold so she handed me the phone. 9-1-1 had put her on hold.
My clerk, Mary, was an older woman with white hair. She was badly shaken and crying. I started to hug her to comfort her then remembered I'd been in the gym and was sweaty and stinky.
A kid employee was back there so I gently pushed her into him for the hug.
"Janie's still up there!" she cried.
I started walking to the front of the store, holding the cell phone. By this time we knew the robber had left because Janie was also on a phone. Everyone met at the front. The kid locked the doors. Blueberry Mountain was talking, mostly to himself, "I used to work at a Circle K. Gun in the face happened all the time."
One of the clerks told everyone the store had made a deposit earlier so the robber only got a few hundred rather than two grand.
Everyone was talking. It felt good. I finally had something in common with people again. I gave the woman her cell phone back. She quickly held up a DVD case and made a comment about how she had been looking for it forever.
The cops arrived 10 minutes later. One thing I don't like about cops is the undershirt. In the Coast Guard we had to wear V-necks under the button-up uniform shirt. The undershirt the cops wore looked sloppy with its little triangle of white across the collar, peeking up from behind the armor.
More cops arrived. Blueberry had seen the getaway car. There was a single cop interviewing each of us. I gave my description. My cop asked me about the suspect's gun.
"He used a revolver," I said.
"A .38?"
"Bigger. Maybe a .44."
But any gun looks huge when you're looking at it from the wrong end.
I seriously weighed attacking the motherfucker. A 'disguised suicide' reads better than a plain old one. If the perp had been on my side of the counter and the clerks well out of range of a stray bullet I would have jumped him. Since the cops have my address and phone number etc and they do eventually catch a suspect I'll probably end up going down to the station to see the lineup. Who knows? The cops didn't seem very aggressive or interested and by now I'm sure those niggas got away clean.
My 3 movies were still on the counter, sitting obediently where they'd been left. In addition to the two rentals, I had bought one of them outright (THE CROW: SALVATION) and was overjoyed to see them all safe, along with the receipt. I signed for them, wished Mary well and got out of there.
I have only three regrets: 1) Describing the robber as 'African-American' (instead of black) to the 9-1-1 dispatcher. 2) Not seeing the movie title the cell phone woman was dying to rent. 3) Not reminding everyone before the cops arrived that it's never the gun's fault. That, if anything, the gun was a victim.
The rentals are due Wednesday.
THE CROW: SALVATION (2000): QUICK VIEW: Might enjoy it if you loved the original, yet are ready for a different kind of Crow movie. The special effects are semi-cheap, acting is decent, revenge (always) fun.
Despair is not watching THE CROW: SALVATION, the third movie of the franchise. Despair is discovering the super-hot girl in your Environmental Science class shares your obscure last name (!!!) but when you finally talk to her she laughs and says you remind her of her brother.
Eric Mabius (CRUEL INTENTIONS) plays Alex Corvis, a roughshod youth executed for murdering his girlfriend. Naturally he was set up and upon his creative return from the dead as The Crow, goes about solving the inevitable mystery while extracting inevitable justice.
I'm not a great judge of acting ability but I liked Mabius a lot and liked the sound of the word 'Mabius.' Kirsten Dunst plays the dead girlfriend's sister. We don't get to see her naked but she does her professional best. Some of the other actors you'll know by face but not by name. For the most part
they're 'aight.' Since the so-so plot has elements of mystery I won't spoil it for you.
I'm speaking now primarily to Crow fans because I
can't conceive of anyone else just picking "C3" off the video store shelf. I'm not here to win anyone's heart (except maybe that La Rosa broad in Enviro-Sci) but to give my two cents worth and get the fuck out.
Despite minor flaws the original THE CROW forever remains a 'klassic.' Brandon Lee gives such a solid, sincere (final) performance. I'd love to boast of something as meaningful before my own pointless death.
The sequel, THE CROW: CITY OF ANGELS (also called THE CROW II) wasn't as bad as the anti-hype made it to be. The flick branded its own wild, angry style and vision and (former soap opera actor) Vincent Perez's Crow is as fucked-up and psychotic as anyone would be, avenging his murdered child. However, C2 had serious problems. As a friend pointed out, "They made (Perez) look exactly like Brandon Lee." Then there's the H'wood hype machine, the greed-speed at which C2 appeared (only two years after the original), the lame arch-villain and suck-massive-donkeydicks ending.
THE CROW: SALVATION is a pleasant and welcome anomaly, both from the real-life tragedy of the original and clusterfuck of the first sequel. By no means a great movie, C3 is fun and has heart. With a shitty, made-for-Showtime feel that works just hard enough to make you believe, the blunt gore and
brutality burst through. Even the soundtrack works on you the same paradoxical way: the evil rock and techno feels secondhand yet makes you (meaning 'me') wish for a surround system.
The best horror reaffirms the (potential) value of
life. THE CROW: SALVATION entertains while doing just that. Thank the God(s) of your choice they didn't cast Jon Bon Jovi as the lead (for awhile a rumor) but do anticipate a possible sequel where The Crow character will be a woman.
SUPERGIRL (1984): QUICK VIEW: Awful '80s movie for novelty purposes only!
I rented SUPERGIRL in order to counteract the somberness of ORDINARY PEOPLE and also because I ain't got the nerve to rent SG by itself.
It's a terrible movie in every way but, hell, I like watching Helen Slater twitch her butt a short red skirt every now and then. Teen guys of the '80s were 'programmed' to like Slater anyway. When cable was new they showed her other epic, THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN, approx. 50,000 times. So you got to see her hot, tight body over and over and over and jacking off to her image came (pun intended) naturally.
I'm wasting precious masturbation time (on porno that is, SG is now returned) condemning the plot so I'll be brief: 'Kara' lives in Argo City, a remnant of Krypton that exists in 'innerspace.' She fucks up by losing the glowing softball (called the Omegahedron) which powers the city and so travels to Earth to find it. Arriving on Earth she becomes Supergirl, flying around ballet-like to flowery music closer to a fem-hygiene commercial than a requiem for the Girl of Steel.
Meanwhile, the Omega-Softball falls (literally) into the hands of Selena (Faye Dunaway), a practicing witch. For you Charles Bukowski fans don't be too hard on Faye. This flick came out 3 years before her great turn as a low life , yet sexy, alcoholic in BARFLY.
There's a meat head hunk named Ethan who Selena tries to bewitch but instead the love potion makes Ethan fall for Supergirl (d'oh!), now disguised as academy schoolgirl Linda Lee.
And there's some battles and other horrible shit. GOD, is it bad! In order to move the plot along characters and even whole mountains blink in and out of existence, stop-motion style. Embarrassing to watch, much less create.
That's all you're getting from me. This film should be rented only to make fun of with your drunken crew OR to ogle the skirt, a nearly pointless endeavor because you don't really get to see anything anyway. It's 'tease cinema' at its best.
One positive effect (revelation not mine, thus the quotes): "Though not successful, SUPERGIRL was a breakthrough movie of its time by casting a strong female lead. This helped pave the way for strong female characters (such as BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) in the '90s."
ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980): QUICK VIEW: Powerful drama. Heavy, but highly-recommended.
After reading my 'thrashing' of AMERICAN BEAUTY --- just some aspects of it but, overall, I thought it was great --- a friend asked if I liked any 'serious' movies. Yeah.
Buy or rent ORDINARY PEOPLE.
You don't have to be suicidal to appreciate this movie about a family devastated by the death of a son. But, it helps.
A teen-aged Timothy Hutton plays Conrad Jarrett, the survivor of a boating accident that claimed his brother's life. The story begins some time after 'Con' has been released from the hospital, no longer suicidal but severely depressed.
Donald "Lexus" Sutherland plays Calvin Jarrett, Con's dad, and Mary Tyler Moore does a wonderful turn as Beth Jarrett, the cold, patrician mother.
The story is mainly about Con, his struggle to return to high school and the world of the living, as it were. From the start it's obvious the dad loves him and wants him to heal, encouraging him to see the shrink, Dr. Berger (a most-excellent Judd Hirsch) but there's something wrong with the mom.
After the death of her favorite son she's still in Society Mode, giving too great a shit about all the trivialities many upper-middle class folk concern themselves
with. Because there exist such people, and the acting by everyone in the cast, from main characters to bit parts, is just excellent, the story feels like voyeurism more than a movie.
Con meets with Dr. Berger and begins sorting what's important to him and why he can't feel anything, but life isn't waiting for him to figure it out. There's a cutie (Elizabeth McGovern) on his tip, alienated friends, his 'letting down' the school swim team, his awkward missteps with mom and more tragedy --- always more tragedy --- awaiting him.
Equally sympathetic is Sutherland's Cal, also beginning to break out of the horror and confusion, questioning why Beth acts as if nothing is, or ever was, wrong. He loves his wife and son dearly but he can't understand things. Long-seeking the strength to confront Beth and protect his son, he finds it convincingly, for himself and the viewer.
Beth appears to feel nothing for Calvin or Con and, throughout, her façade never alters. Buck, the son who died, was her pride and joy. When he died her world ended.
Many people, upon first tasting death or heartbreak or rejection, never love anything again. Does that make her a villain? There are no easy answers.
ORDINARY PEOPLE is a movie that breathes alongside you, with surprising depth and exposure of humans' frailty, thoughtlessness, humor, compassion and (in)ability to cope with the world, especially after a tragedy. It approaches perfection in tone, depth, story, pace, balance and acting, with none of the 'wink-wink' current movies use to cross-pollinate both the 'suckers' who feel things and those greater fools who think themselves too clever or cynical to be
suckers.
In comparison, a modern cinematic diamond like AMERICAN BEAUTY (hyped up-the-ass by critics before even being released) looks more and more like
glass.
Dass it, dawg. All 3 of The Robbery Reviews. What a selection to 'die' for. --- Ben La Rosa, January 20, 2001.
RAT RACE (2001): A friend at work told me about this film and said it was funny. I doubted her since her idea of funny is usually not my idea of funny but I took her copy of the movie home to watch it over the Labor Day weekend so I wouldn't offend her. Well, I owe her an apology because this old style slapstick road movie WAS funny. But the fact that Jerry "Airplane" Zucker directed it should have told me it was gonna be good.
RAT RACE's all-star cast includes England's goofy man Mr. Bean, Oscar winners Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Bates and Cuba Gooding, Jr., Newman (Wayne Knight) from Seinfeld fame, comic Paul Rodriguez, Monty Python's John Cleese, some hot chick from the ER t.v. show, Austin Powers' Seth Green, teen movie 
starlet Amy Smart (what a hottie), SNL's Jon Lovitz and last, but not least, Gloria Allred, the biggest femi-nazi bitch of all times.
But, get this, her cameos were laugh out loud. I kid you not.
I'll describe you one. Newman is a delivery driver. He's racing along. Mr. Bean steps in front of his van. Newman creams him. Mr. Bean goes flying. Newman gets out of the van and goes to see if Mr. Bean is all right. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Gloria Allred appears. She tells Newman, "I saw you. You ran that man over. I'm suing you!" So Newman picks up Mr. Bean and throws him into his van and shouts, "SHIT! IT'S GLORIA ALLRED! LET'S GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!"
In another scene Gooding, Jr., is at a casino/hotel bar ordering a drink. The bartender has his back to him. Cuba says, "Miss?" The bartender turns around. It's a really butch looking lesbo, the short hair, the man face, etc. Cuba goes, "Oh! I'm sorry about that. I thought you were a woman." The bartender, angry now, tells him, "I AM a woman."
The premise of this film is that a bunch of Cleese's gambling buddies are sick and tired of betting on the usual shit, like poker, craps, keno, etc. So Cleese sets up a 'rat race' for $2 million and choses eight human dolts as the participants. Once gathered in a penthouse room, Cleese tells them the first person who gets to Silver City, New Mexico, and puts their special key into locker No. 001 at the local train station gets the loot. Then he tells them to go, that the race is on.
So they all take off for the gold at the end of the rainbow. And they all run into human goofballs that try their best to keep them from getting there.
Whoopi faces off with Bates, who plays a squirrel lady. And, yes, Bates is as squirrely as her $2 a pop squirrels. And she doesn't like it when someone doesn't buy one of her babies. Whoopi finds this out after Bates gives her directions for a 'shortcut' through the desert. Of course, the shortcut is not what it's supposed to be. Like the signs read, "YOU. SHOULD. HAVE. BOUGHT. A. SQUIRREL."
Lovitz and his family end up visiting the Barbie Museum. But this is only after, in his haste for the cash, Lovitz's forces his daughter to take a No. 2 with her butt hanging out their mini-van's side window. The Barbie Museum ends up being a museum celebrating KLAUS Barbie, the Nazi war crime s.o.b. Hilarity ensues when Lovitz and his family take the Neo-Nazi's, who run the museum, car. Lovitz's son declares, as they speed along the highway, "I can't believe you just stole Adolph Hitler's car!"
Later, Lovitz's wife finds a tube of lipstick in the glove compartment. She likes the color and says, "That Eva Braun had style."
Lovitz tells his family he wants to get to the $2 million first because, "I don't want to work at Home Depot!"
Back at the casino, and as Cleese's high rollers are keeping track of the eight going for the $2 million in Silver City on a War Room-like monitor being sent signals from their special keys, there is another bet happening. It's how much would a hooker charge to get naked, put on a sailor hat, get into a jacuzzi full of Pepto-Bismal, clip a man's toenails and shave his mother.
Later, Newman and Mr. Bean are in the desert trying to find a dog that has taken off with a live donor heart that's supposed to be delievered to an El Paso, Texas, hospital a.s.a.p. Since they can't find the dog, Newman suggests this to Mr. Bean, "A drifter! We find a drifter. Kill'em. Cut out his heart. No one's gonna miss him, right? I mean, he's a drifter. He's an invisible man. It's the perfect plan."
On Gooding, Jr.'s, adventure he ends up driving a bus full of I LOVE LUCY fans. These broads are all made up to look exactly like Lucille Ball. Of course, they finally drive him batty enough that he snaps, yelling, "SHUT UP, YOU CRAZY LUCY BITCHES!!"
There's lots more here, too. A milk cow driving a car. A monster truck race. A pierced from tongue-to-toe chick who flashes us her nipple metal. A backwoods gas station attendent. A retarded key maker. The Third Reich. A rocket car going for the land speed record that ends up going as fast as a speeding bullet. Literally. A helicopter that dive bombs a residential area. A bunch of people in a bus from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. A hot air balloon festival. Afro Whores and much, much more.
Rent it. And, just like my co-worker told me, you'll laugh, laugh, laugh. --- Dirty Howie, September 2, 2002.
SON OF SATAN (2002): QUICK VIEW: Faithful, entertaining adaptation of Charles Bukowski's short story of the same name from his book Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems
.
This 14-minute short film, directed by Jan Kovac for Fox Searchlight's new independent director's program, is set in modern times (rather than the early '30s of the story) and begins with Buk's literary alter ego, Henry 'Hank' Chinaski, age 11, learning from some neighborhood chums that Simpson, another kid in the neighborhood, has been bragging about fucking a young girl under Hank's house.
Hank, furious at such a boastful lie perpetrated by a fellow virgin, decides to teach Simpson a lesson. He and his two underlings find Simpson and proceed to give him a sound beating. And, in a terrifying moment of clarity, Hank holds a "military tribunal" and decides the punishment for Simpson's untoward transgression will be death.
Using a found rope they hang Simpson from the neck in a garage. Hank's underlings flee in terror at the result of their work and when Hank finally releases an unconscious Simpson he tells him he's glad he's still alive.
But, if he squeals, he'll kill him.
Of course, when Hank returns home hours later, his angry father is waiting to unleash his brand of punishment after learning from Simpson's outraged parents what had happened.
The tone of the movie is perfect. The boredom and
hopeless frustration of being a kid are captured perfectly. There are no evil melodramatics during Simpson's hanging. This is the kind of stupid shit real kids do without understanding physics, as well as morality. The hanging scene is terrifying, sick and funny all at once.
This was definitely a bold story choice for Kovac. Most of Bukowski's childhood stories portray Hank as the tormented victim. Here, when he arrives home and is confronted by his father (a legendary character in
Bukowski's stories), the inevitable harsh words and harder blows are counterbalanced by Simpson's torture.
The child actors are excellent, especially the kid
playing Chinaski, which leaves the father as the weakest link. To the non-Buk fan (who will probably still be in shock at the hanging scene) the movie father will seem another stereotypical sluggish meathead, chewing dip and wearing a wifebeater. The actor doesn't deliver his lines very well but, fortunately, the story is strong enough to sustain his inadequacies.
Bukowski fans know Buk's literary (and real life) father as a far more complex and fascinating character: an obnoxious, abusive coward
who, nonetheless, worked hard and was not only not slovenly but anally fastidious (the latter a constant source of Hank's miseries, as things were never
'perfect.')
However, I forgive the movie makers. Having been
around my share of student and/or no-budget films I know firsthand the perils of dealing with work-for-free actors. When not outright terrible they're typically fifty times more arrogant than their paid counterparts and, because they pretend to know
EVERYTHING there is to know about acting, they are also difficult to direct.
Minus the father's watery acting and a few lines
that could've been safely updated this is a near-perfect short film of a powerful, disturbing and timeless story.
It's also better than 95% of what's passing for entertainment in the theaters. --- Ben La Rosa, July 23, 2002.
RIVER'S EDGE (1987): Well, since nothing lately in the movie theaters has appealed to me enough to go and see it, I decided to review this old favorite of mine. This movie, like no other, captured MY particular teen experience perfectly.
But don't call the cops! There were no dead bodies left laying around and we committed only a few petty crimes.
My friends and I were alienated stoners/working class teens who didn't want to die virgins. We were the children conceived at protests, fondue parties and rock concerts of the '60s and early '70s when two-income families became the norm and there was no one watching the kids after school let out. This was America at the height of the Cold War when dying in a nuclear holocaust was a REAL possibility. So why not say YES to drugs, sex, petty crime and heavy metal? After all, there may be no tomorrow. We felt we didn't have the luxury of waiting until we got older because we maybe weren't going to get any older.
Against this backdrop is where RIVER'S EDGE, written by Neal Jimenez and directed by Tim Hunter, takes place.
Tim (played by Joshua John Miller) discovers the dead body of a local girl named Jaime by, of course, the river's edge in the shitty town he lives in. He runs and tells his older brother Matt (Keanu Reeves) and his speed freak friend Layne (Crispin Glover) about it but they don't believe him. Finally, when Matt and Layne arrive at school the next day, John (real name Samson), one of their stoner friends, tells them and a group of their stoner buds they're hanging out with that he did indeed kill his girlfriend Jaime in a fit of unrequited rage.
Matt and Layne still don't believe him. So John takes the whole group down to see the dead body. At this juncture, Matt and Layne become believers but the rest of the group just writes it off as a bad joke. Remember, at this juncture in American history, parents and police were ready to lock stoner kids away in prison and treatment centers and throw away the key. This became a big deterrent for the kids not to report the incident. Also, retaliation from the stoner peer group was just as big a reality because everyone hates a narc.
Well, I'm going to stop my review at this point because I want some of you out there in cyberland to check this flick out if you haven't seen it already.
I will give you another bit of info though: Dennis Hopper does an excellent job playing the burned out ex-biker drug dealer named Fleck. Hopper and Glover's performances alone are worth seeing this movie for.
In the aftermath of Columbine and the other school massacres of the past five years or so, I think this movie and its messages ring more true than ever.
Of course, the bigger threat is terrorism these days vs. nuclear holocaust.
So drink up! --- Todd Taylor, December 13, 2001.
"We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes because it's obscene!"
--- Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
TRAINING DAY (2001): Denzel Washington will soon be receiving yet another Best Actor Oscar nomination (which he actually did, by the way, and won it March 24th at the Academy Awards ceremony). This time it will be for his role as sociopathic L.A. narcotics detective Alonzo Harris in one of the best cop movies in years, TRAINING DAY.
Denzel eats up the screen with a performance so voracious, so fierce, so majestic, he might have overwhelmed the film's other players, 
such as Ethan Hawke (Denzel's new recruit), Dr. Dre (one of Denzel's commandos), Snoop Dogg (a wheelchair-bound street hustler), Macy Gray (a crack whore) and Scott Glenn (a white drug lord), but he doesn't. And that is a sign of a great actor when he lets his co-stars do their thing and not get in their way.
In fact, Hawke (nominated for Best Supporting Actor) gives us his best performance in a movie since his turn as the flawed human in GATTACA. He shows a wide range of emotions in this film that I've never seen from him. Now I know the guy can really act because of his sterling performance in TRAINING DAY. Before this film I thought maybe he was only on screen because of his pretty face.
One example of his acting prowess involves drug use. After Denzel talks him into taking a hit off some shitty Mexican weed they'd just gotten off some white kids who scored the stuff earlier from a street dealer, Hawke gets high. Real fucking high. He sinks down into his car seat and looks around. He's paranoid. A lot of people get paranoid on grass, especially if they see cops and most definitely if they ARE a fucking cop. Then Denzel tells him to drink a beer to take the edge off the pot high. As Hawke slams down the 12 oz. can of Carta Blanca, Denzel deftly informs him that the weed was spiked with PCP. "Oh, shit!" Hawke is thinking. "I'm a cop and my cop partner, my new supervisor for chrissakes, is getting me so fucking high I can't do my fucking job anymore! I'm gonna get fired for sure since this shit's gonna show up in my piss test!"
Oh, yeah, this stuff is great. Give mucho credit to David Ayer's action-packed screenplay (he also penned THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS) and Antoine Fuqua's directing, which is a nice comeback for him after he failed to deliver the goods in his disappointing debut THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS.
This is not your typical cop buddy movie. This is not LETHAL WEAPON because LETHAL WEAPON was fantasy. TRAINING DAY is reality. This is how cops really interact. On the street, cops can't trust anyone, not even their own partners because anyone could be a narc.
We all knew going in that Denzel could act --- he's already got one Oscar --- but until this crazy cop character we didn't know if he could play a really bad guy, a despicable creep, a morals rejecting cop bent on not only killing the bad guys and taking their drug money to keep for himself but also so sinister he sets up his new partner for death on his first day on the job.
Denzel portrays a composite of one of the ruthless real life cops who brought shame to L.A.'s Rampart Division last year when it was discovered they were killing, robbing and setting up drug dealers and gangstas in a misguided effort to rid the area of crooks and their drugs. Denzel's Alonzo Harris is meaner, nastier and more homicidal than any real bad guy and he's earned the gangsta's respect with his brutal violence.
Matter of factly, as they cruise through gang territory in a confiscated low rider, he brags to Hawke, "I'm a wolf among wolves."
And in the acting business, he's the best of the best. That's why it'd be a real shame to see Asshole Of The Year, Russell Crowe, walk up and accept the Best Actor Oscar (and read a stupid fucking poem) instead of Denzel. If this does occur, I hope Denzel pulls out his police department issue 9mm and blows Crowe to bits. His bad cop character sure would. --- Robert W. Howington, October 10, 2001.
QUICK VIEW: Junk movie disguised as serious drama. Quality acting makes it worthwhile.
WARNING: Some plot spoilers ahead.
I felt a tad foolish renting this, knowing I'd look like some doofus who saw the Oscars then ran right out to get it after Denzel won Best Actor. Shit, I almost got it for free thanks to Blockbuster's in-stock guarantee but the store had ONE copy left. And here I thought I'M A CRITIC! KING KONG...DOESN'T HAVE SHIT...ON ME!
The much-ballyhooed acting of TRAINING DAY'S major players is top notch (with enough crap coming out the shoot someone had to do it right eventually.)
Denzel Washington won Best Actor for his character Alonzo Harris, a seasoned, corrupt narc cop, and Ethan Hawke does a similar quality turn as Jake Hoyt, a nubile rookie desperate to join the narc division.
The acting was so good, in fact, that it's only
now, a day or two after seeing it, I realized the movie started out way more promising than it ended, twisting here and there unnecessarily when the main story by itself would have been enough: through a day of absolute terror, Hoyt's rookie sense of right and wrong, pushed by his desire to excel, is challenged by the 'training' of Alonzo's lawless personal code, forged by 13 years on the streets of L.A.'s worst gang territories.
Charging through scene after scene, Alonzo violates the rights of anyone who gets in his way and, in what surely is the brilliance that earned Denzel his Oscar, ably convinces Hawke's character (and us) every time
that the end justifies the means.
For me, what killed my potential love of this flick
versus simply enjoying it was seeing Denzel's hard work go to shit because of the story. After crafting such a compelling character, about three-quarters of the way through the flick, the story began to stink more and more of Hollywood, until I finally gave up.
Three major problems: 1 --- Though there was a visible story arc, the tying together of the seemingly random acts of chaos just
didn't cut it. Too many loose ends. As this is the LAPD depicted post-Rampart there's no fucking way they'd get away with lots of the shit they did. Add to that fact real people today are such whining bitches they jump all over cops even when cops do the
right thing. 2 --- Some of the characters were not believable and the
relationships between them confusing, such as who the fuck is the Hispanic hottie Alonzo is bangin'? At the beginning Alonzo mentions he has four kids so I thought the hottie (who had only one kid) was just some routine bitch-stop on his rounds. Yet, later on it's suggested the hottie is his wife. Plus, Alonzo lives smack in the center of a thug-filled housing project. Cops in L.A. make more money than that, even honest ones. And the cabal of old white men who are all DA's, high-ranking cops and lawyers talking shit
like they were anarchists? That's just laying it on thick. 3 --- At first I thought TRAINING DAY had broken new ground with its depiction of how deeply the (fake) War
on Drugs has corrupted police and the legal system. Hell, if narcotics were legal (and they damn well should be) there wouldn't have been much of a story to begin with. But rather than highlight the horrible effects of everyday corruption, the flick goes the
absurd route, personifying evil (mostly) in Denzel's character.
Many who will see this flick will like it. I liked it. But for me, a mediocre Denzel (and Hawke) in an overall kickass movie would have topped the Oscar-winning Denzel (or Hawke) in a mediocre movie.
Fuck it. It's healthier to want more of the good
stuff than pretend the 'so-so' stuff is great.
A much better (and believable) tale would have Hoyt joining the ranks of the narc division as just another cynical bastard, fucking things up Machiavelli-style like Alonzo.
Robert W. Howington mentioned in his review that
David Ayers, writer of TRAINING DAY, also penned THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, which I've not seen but understand is stylistically similar to the '80s classic POINT BREAK, meaning great action, killer visuals but a flimsy/mindless plot. In other words, a dumb summer movie.
TRAINING DAY is more like that. Now it just needs to admit it. --- Ben La Rosa, April 1, 2002.
"All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl." --- Jean-Luc Godard
THREE KINGS (1999): In light of recent events I've decided to review the Desert Storm inspired THREE KINGS. Unlike most movie fans, I didn't see this flick when it first came out. I saw the previews for it and thought, "A Gulf War movie? Yawn. Snooze. Yawn. What a boring idea for a flick."
Well, I was wrong. This movie is actually pretty damn good.
Three privates --- Troy Barlow ("Marky" Mark Walhberg), an office worker who ended up in Desert Storm for the extra bucks for his burgeoning family, Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze), a trailer trash refugee, and Chef (Ice Cube), a homeboy from L.-fuck'n-A. --- find a treasure map stuck up inside an Iraqi soldier's asshole. It leads to gold bullion and they get the crazy idea of going and getting it themselves.
However, their plan to keep all the gold is quickly compromised when Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) discovers them with the map. He decides he wants in on the deal himself and the rest of the movie ensues from there. As this fearsome foursome goes after the loot we get to see lots of special effects --- blazing machine guns, excellent explosions, death and dismemberment.
Along the way our heroes end up making a deal with some Iraqi refugees to take them to the Iranian border in exchange for their help in hauling the gold and saving them from some of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard troops who catch wind of the Americans' gold heist.
In the backdrop of all this is an NBS reporter trying to get an interesting story out of the war. She chases after Gates and his gold robbers like Monica chased after Clinton. Finally, after a lot of shit, including getting lost in the middle of the desert and running into enemy troops, she gets her shitty story: AMERICAN SOLDIERS HELP REFUGEES CROSS INTO IRAN, FILM AT 11.
The biggest point to come out of this movie is the fact that Bush Sr. promised the Iraqi people if they helped him in overthrowing Saddam he'd install a democratic government. But he obviously backed out of his promise.
This is at least one reason, out of hundreds, that could explain the terrible terrorist attacks that happened to America on September 11, 2001.
Maybe this time Bush Jr. won't fuck it up. --- Todd Taylor, October 10, 2001.
"You know what capitalism is? Gettin' fucked!" --- Al Pacino, Scarface
ED GEIN (2001): We've all heard of Road Rage, Air Rage, Sideline Rage and a million other sound bite words about some kind of rage. Well, welcome to the worst case of Farm Rage ever recorded and made into a movie, ED GEIN. This real life sociopathic transvestite inspired the films PSYCHO (the Norman Bates character), THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (the Leatherface character) and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (the Buffalo Bill character). The man responsible was a non-descript Wisconsin farmer who just happened to be an as-sick-as-they-get serial killer on the side. Farmer Gein was apprehended by the authorities after the decaptited body of Beatrice Worton was found in his shed in 1957. Further investigation of his property reveiled the remains of at least 15 other people. To this day nobody is sure how many people Gein really killed.
ED GEIN is a true account of this insane and infamous man. The story was written by Steven Johnson and directed by Chuck Parello. Steve Railsback, who played a chilling Charlie Manson in HELTER SKELTER thirty years ago, plays Gein and, like he did with Manson, does a great job here, too. The movie starts out with some actual footage from the arrest of Gein in 1957 then goes into the movie.
PLOT: Gein, of Plainsfield, Wisconsin, grew up in a home with an extremely religious mother and an alcoholic and abusive father. Through Mrs. Gein's constant Bible reading and her extreme intolerance of anything sinful the young Ed becomes brainwashed into being his mother's faithful servant and never straying from her side. This is important because lots of real life serial killers, including Manson, Edmund Kemper III, Henry Lee Lucas (who inspired the great film HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER), were dominated by sadistic and evil mothers. So, naturally, Gein ends up being a socially inadequate loner and a captive slave to his domineering mother and her maniacal nonsense. His father and brother die some time earlier, although the screenplay is pretty fuzzy on that point. Anyway, Gein's mother, his last living relative eventually dies, leaving him alone on the family farm. After her death, Gein starts reading all kinds of books on surgery, mysticism and cannablism. He begins digging up bodies out of the local graveyard to experiment on. He even makes a human skin suit out of his mom's remains. Each time he digs up a body he always prays for it to be raised from the dead. When the bodies don't come back to life he dissectes them, using the body parts to make skull bowls, lamp stands and other bizzare household furnishings. The son of a bitch could have started his own thrift store.
The amazing thing about this film is that various people interact with him in town but never catch on to his bizzare hobby, regarding him merely as an eccentric. In fact, there's one scene where he's babysitting some kids and they go into his room to find shrunken heads and a lamp stand made out of a human neck and all. One of them says to him, "Pretty damn weird, Ed."
I don't know whether this was poor screenwriting or the town's people were really that stupid. Either choice makes sense to me. Small town people, especially 50 years ago, can be pretty dumb. More than anything this film shows, though weak in spots, that madness could be living right next door to anyone, maybe even you. --- Todd Taylor, September 6, 2001.
"I'd hate to be you if I were me." --- Frank Stallone, Barfly
UNBREAKABLE (2000): QUICK 'VIEW: Rent and decide for yourself.
As Robert W. Howington once said, regarding people: "They expect perfection --- fuck that."
UNBREAKABLE is not a perfect movie but few are. Most of the complainers I've talked with don't like the ending, which is wrapped up with onscreen words. After watching it I felt --- as director M. Night Shyamalan obviously did --- what remained wasn't worth showing.
However, the ending arrives too abruptly for a movie that moves too slowly for no good reason. With great intelligence and intensity, Samuel L. Jackson plays Elijah Price. Born with a disease that makes his bones super brittle, Elijah's life is sketched for us in deciding moments: his horrible birth (he came out of his mother's womb with broken limbs) and lonely childhood, when kids called him "Mr. Glass" (remembering the way kids *really* are I wouldn't need the excuse of brittle bones to want to avoid them) but also the magical day his momma buys him his first comic book. From then on comics become Elijah's lifelong obsession, as well as his trade.
When we reach the present we meet David Dunne
(Bruce Willis), a sad fucker riding a train. Dunne's marriage is dying and he is dying but only inside. For you see, when the train wrecks and all the other passengers are killed, Dunne emerges completely unscathed, an obvious miracle seeing that everyone else dies. Soon he is contacted by and meets Price, who tells him his theory of comic book mythology, how if there is someone like him with brittle bones, there must be a polar opposite, someone who can never be broken, someone who is, ta da, unbreakable.
Naturally, Dunne excuses Price as a weirdo, except now that he has this knowledge he must examine his own life, specifically his medical history (never sick or injured) but also his crumbling relationship with his wife (Robin Wright Penn) and pre-teen son (Spencer Treat Clark). This is where the movie sags from the weight of the obvious: If you believe you're unbreakable why not start nicking your arm with a razor to see if you bleed and go from there?
But nothing like that happens.
Shyamalan had a brilliant idea but it's like he decided to keep it simple in places by leaving out common sense, replaced by rainy, gray and gloomy shots that are beautiful but tedious. As for the rest of it, Dunne and Price stay in touch and Dunne finally puts Price's theory to the test and the movie wraps up, albeit semi-satisfyingly for the long wait.
The concept, dialogue and camerawork of UNBREAKABLE are done well, so seeing this flick is an experience worth having. But like director Shyamalan's THE SIXTH SENSE once you know what you need to know about the story there's no need to revisit it. --- Ben La Rosa, September 4, 2001.
"This is a world where everybody's gotta do something. Y'know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody's gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that. Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don't wanna do. All the things that I don't wanna be. Places I don't wanna go, like India, like getting my teeth cleaned. Save the whale, all that, I don't understand that." --- Mickey Rourke, Barfly
GHOST DOG --- THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI (1999): QUICK 'VIEW: Worth seeing once.
GHOST DOG --- THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI feels like the work of a senior film school graduate: Self-righteous, too long and too slow. But there are cool parts here and there. Forest Whitaker plays Ghost Dog, a mafia hit man who follows the strict code of the Samurai. A loner, he lives on a tenement rooftop with carrier pigeons, his method of choice for communicating with the "lord" he serves --- a fat, aging goodfella named Louie.
Because Louie saved Ghost Dog's life years before Ghost Dog considers himself Louie's "retainer" and serves him utterly. The plot takes off when Ghost Dog wacks either the wrong guy or the right guy, I couldn't tell. But the rest of The Family is pissed and they order Louie to kill Ghost Dog, in addition to them sending out their own goons.
Now here's the problem with this flick: Ghost Dog
is one bad motherfucker, crazy in his own way (who isn't?) yet highly skilled. Meanwhile, the mob comes off as a bunch of aging simpletons and subnormals. Before anything, I thought, "There's no way these clowns could run the streets." Lemme tells youse, as 'wopsploitation' movies go, deez-here mob caricatures are stuck in the Land of Damned Film Characters: not wacky enough for a comedy, nor believable enough for a meaningful movie.
It would have been a much better flick if the Mob were badasses or they hired someone as good as Ghost Dog. One cool feature is the reading of chapters out of HAGAKURE (means 'hidden leaves'), which is one of those centuries-old Samurai how-to texts. The passages sort of concur with the movie but are interesting enough on their own.
Toke up, see this flick once, or just toke up. I don't care. --- Ben La Rosa, September 4, 2001.
"I got my black belt in bar stools." --- Pam Grier, FOXY BROWN
ROMEO MUST DIE (2000): QUICK 'VIEW: Forget it, except to fuel your love-slash-morbid curiosity for the recently deceased R&B singer Aaliyah.
I rented ROMEO MUST DIE two months before Aaliyah's tragic death in order to see Hong Kong action star Jet Li in action. I was warned that this flick reveals only "half of what (Li) can do." That was true and, like most of the cinematic diarrhea flowing out of Hollywood, this flick seemed a half-assed effort.
Granted, ROMEO MUST DIE was made before Li proved really bankable in this country but that isn't going to help you, the viewer. Here you've got one of the best martial artists on the planet, with limited English speaking skills and fair acting skills, with only four or so tepid fight scenes.
The plot is hardly interesting. The movie feels more like an hour-long t.v. episode of something you'd see on the UPN or WB networks. Black and Asian crime families are battling over control of some waterfront
property. Of course, they're only battling because Whitey, depicted --- as always --- in movies where minorities are the primary characters as evil, cold, stiff, racist and preposterous, is offering a shitload of bank to whichever family can sell them the entire
waterfront, in order to finance land for a sports stadium.
Well, blah blah blah.
Li plays the brother of a murdered Asian and Aaliyah is the daughter of the Black Don (Delroy Lindo) and the two join forces to figure out the Big Double-Cross, etc. This shit is so formulatic if you bottled it you could feed all the infants of the world.
Now the part you've (maybe) been waiting for: What of Aaliyah? Could she act? Did she get naked? Some will always disagree but I thought for the material presented, Aaliyah was a decent actor, especially for someone who also modeled, made albums, etc.
To answer the naked question: before seeing this movie I knew there was a singer named Aaliyah and I'd seen the cover of one of her CDs for one second and that was it. If and when I heard her on the radio I didn't know it was her. Watching the movie I was absolutely floored by her looks. She was, quite
simply, one of the most beautiful women --- black or otherwise --- I have ever seen. Without being an Aaliyah fan or worshipper I would sometimes dote on her insane
miraculous gorgeousness and laugh. At 22, she had already beaten the game. When I heard she'd been killed I felt glass break inside and another trophy taken. Stupid and selfish but that's how it felt. And still feels. Does she get naked? No, but after the flick
there's her video for "Try Again" where she's dancing around, sexy as hell. (Like me, you might observe that it doesn't look and feel like the *right* kind of sexy. As usual the Industry jerkoffs highlighted the wrong things about her, pissing paint on a natural
sunset, trying to sell it harder.)
Thank the Gods (except the one that took her) that
ROMEO MUST DIE captured Aaliyah as her fans' and friends' collective memory is proving her to have been: young, sweet and fairly modest for being on top of the world, as well as ball-churningly gorgeous-hot-beautiful. Amen. --- Ben La Rosa, September 4, 2001.
"If it bleeds we can kill it." --- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Predator
THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974): This is the extremely low budget little horror film made near Austin, Texas, during a hot ass summer over 25 years ago that started the Hollywood slasher craze --- HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET --- and it is without a doubt, after watching it again last night on the INDEPENDENT FILM CHANNEL, still the best movie of that genre ever made.
After all these years it still had me on the edge of my couch totally absorbed in its lunatic and relentless intensity and terror-filled insanity as a group of fun-loving young adults meets the most criminally sociopathic and weirdly dysfunctional family ever put to film. The scary goings on are practically non-stop and as palpable as anything could ever be. In other words, it will scare the living hell out of you.
THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE is definitely one of the best movies ever made, no matter the genre, and its title alone, that can only bring fear into the minds of those that see it, will never be matched or bettered. This seminal archetype has stood the test of time because I thought, after all these years of being desensitized to death and dismemberment from watching Hollywood's violence-filled blood fests, I would laugh more than fright while watching it for the dozenth time.
But I didn't fucking laugh once.
And everyone thinks it's a blood-filled splatter fest. Nope. The filmmakers MADE you think it was bloody. We actually only see blood a few times. Hey, this was real low budget stuff, folks, so the director, Tobe Hooper, used his imagination to create human monster characters we'll never forget to scare the bejeezus out of us instead of wheelbarrels full of catsup.
The first blood curdling event is when the five doomed hippy types driving in their van down Interstate 35 for a weekend of fun and frolic encounter a hitchhiker. Of course, being the good souls they are they pick him up. Not until he gets into their van do they realize they've picked up a psycho like no other on the planet. The hitchhiker tells them how he and his family used to work in a slaughterhouse before technology forced them out. He explains to them, in grossly graphic detail, exactly how headcheese is made. Franklin, one of the van's occupants, shouts, "I think we just picked up Dracula!"
Yes, they have. A modern day, real life one at that. And they don't know the half of it. Just wait until they meet the rest of his family. Oh, boy, are they in for it. And so are we.
Then the hitchhiker takes a knife and slices his hand open before grabbing the wheelchair bound Franklin's forearm and slicing it, too. The van comes to a screeching halt and the hitchhiker is unceremoniously dumped out by the side of road and the van speeds off.
We also see blood in the kitchen of horrordom's greatest human movie monster of all times, Leatherface (played with incredible passion by Gunnar Hansen). But there's really not as much blood there as you think you see. This kitchen is where Leatherface takes human bodies, alive and dead, and uses his chainsaw to cut their limbs off before placing the body parts into freezers. These parts will later be used by the family's patriarchal leader, the old man, to make bar-b-que ribs, sausage, etc., which will be sold at the psycho family's roadside gas station/convenience store.
Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger will always owe a huge debt of gratitude to Leatherface --- a character inspired by none other than true life psycho killer Ed Gein, an otherwise forgettable rural farmer who had a nasty habit of digging up graves and killing women and skinning them for their hides which he fashioned and sewed into wearable outfits for his transvestite fantasies. Leatherface, a retarded and infantile adult male, the epitome of a sociopathic Baby Huey, came out of nowhere to become the scariest movie maniac of all times. Him and his blazing, loud as hell chainsaw, its exhaust fumes shooting out all over, will never be forgotten.
And neither will the tragic character of Sally 
(played by the sexy hot Marilyn Burns). Sally, the sister of Franklin, who she sees getting his guts turned into spaghetti by Leatherface's chainsaw, spends the entire last half of the film running in terror from Leatherface, the hitchhiker, the old man and Grandpa. Her brilliant performance definitely cinches her as the all-time #1 Scream Queen in my book.
In the film's last minutes the harrowing action gets your nerves all freaked out as Sally screams her fucking ass off in absolute fear for her life while being chased through rough Central Texas thicket by Leatherface and his chainsaw, while she jumps through two different pane glass windows, while she has her index finger sliced open and the blood oozing out of it is excitedly sucked on by the nearly dead Grandpa, while she is tied to a dining room chair made from human body parts, while her screams and cries are unashamedly mocked by the entire family of whackos.
Look, it just don't get no better than this. --- Dirty Howie, August 30, 2001.
"MADE IT, MA! TOP OF THE WORLD!" --- James Cagney, White Heat
BLAZING SADDLES (1974): "Mr. Lamar, you use your tongue prettier that a $20 whore."
It's dialogue like this that makes BLAZING SADDLES one of the funniest movies ever made. Now I realize I'm risking attacks by all the politically correct liberals and intellectuals for favorably reviewing this movie but it's just like Mick Jagger once said, "If they can't take a joke fuck 'em." And that's exactly what this movie is --- A HUGE, HILARIOUS JOKE!
Now, if you absolutely HATE writer/director Mel Brooks you probably won't like this movie. However, I'm not a huge Brooks fan and I love it. It's just pure cornball humor at its best.
PLOT: A black railroad worker, Bart (Clevon Little), hits his supervisor, Mr. Taggert (Slim Pickens) in the head with a shovel, after nearly drowning in quick sand and ends up in jail and is scheduled to be hanged. Meanwhile, it's discovered that the railroad is going to have to be diverted through the town of Rockridge because of the quick sand problem so Hedley Lamar (Harvey Korman) schemes to drive the people from the town by sending his henchmen (Taggert & his cowboys) to kill the town sheriff and replace him with Bart, the condemned black man who attacked Taggert. From this premise every possible cliche from the Old West is
made fun of, as well as all ethnic groups and politicians.
When Sheriff Bart comes on the scene he is outfitted in a sleek horse, saddle and clothes like a 19th century Shaft. However, Lamar's plan to drive the people out with a black sheriff doesn't work. So a German singer (Madeline Kahn) is sent there by Lamar to seduce him. The "black man is bigger" stereotype gets a firm going over here (pun intended). Finally, like all westerns, Sheriff Bart ends up defending Rockridge from Lamar and his evil railroad and becomes the town's hero.
The 'N' word is used a lot throughout this movie, as well as other racial slurs, but as Mick said... --- Todd Taylor, August 23, 2001.
"That's my sister, baby. And she's a whole lot of woman." --- Antonio Vargas, Foxy Brown
THE TAO OF STEVE (2000): QUICK 'VIEW: Rent it or be a "stu".
You may have heard of the movie THE TAO OF STEVE. It was hyped as the story of a fat, pot-smoking loser who effortlessly seduced HOT women. While Dex, the fat-assed slacker (played by the always amazing character actor Donal Logue) does have a way with women, 1) this is not the heart of the movie, 2) do not expect to see ANY hotties being bedded and 3) though the theories make sense this is not a 'how-to' for getting laid. (If you're a veteran visitor to the AHA site you already know that anything you try to get a woman might fool one or two bitches but, just like the fucking Borg, they will ADAPT and their relentless insanities will trample you.)
So what is THE TAO OF STEVE? One great fookin'
movie with realistic and funny dialogue, great characters and an honest story, which is this: Dex is a philosophy graduate who lives with a couple of other dudes. In his past he was thin and fucked many women but now, 10 years later, he is much fatter, while
everything else about him has wasted away --- except for his power to seduce women.
We learn of this mysterious power when the wimpiest of Dex's housemates talks excitedly about pursuing a certain girl. He is immediately rocked and made to feel like a dork by everyone at the table, all of
which follow The Tao of Steve. There are a few ground rules but in its essence, The Tao is this: Never pursue a woman --- act disinterested --- then she'll pursue you. We do this by "being a Steve," as Steve is "the Ultimate American Male" (think Steve McQueen or Steve Austin (not the wrestler but The Six Million Dollar Man).
The wimp demands to know what he is since he's
not a Steve. When told he's a "Stu" (think of Mayberry's Barney Fife) he gets convincingly upset.
Somewhere around this time Dex is introduced to Syd (Greer Goodman), a rather plain girl who nonetheless captivates him. Dex then becomes the equivalent of a cut-rate martial arts master: able to effortlessly pass along wisdom to the Stu yet no longer able to do the techniques himself.
For the rest of the plot first read the back of
the video's box as you're carrying it to the rental counter then watch THE TAO OF STEVE. It's paced well and never bores. There are things to learn if you want them and you feel as if the characters don't exist for the sake of a movie but are real people a camera happens to catch at different times as they live their lives. This is extremely difficult to do yet there it is.
The purest magic is watching Dex rendered powerless and vulnerable when confronted with something meaningful. At times I fought not to cry which made little sense since I watched it alone. --- Ben La Rosa, August 20, 2001.
POOR WHITE TRASH (2000): "You wanna know what it feels like to be in love with someone fuckin' someone else? It feels like a rat in your stomach chewing and crawling its way through all your organs, stopping long enough only to spit, shit and piss and laugh at you. Then it gets into your heart and stays there for years, sometimes forever. A good piece of ass is the most dangerous thing in the world. Do me a favor boys and run from it."
It's lines like this, spouted out by William Devane, in his role as Ron Lake, that make POOR WHITE TRASH a kick ass movie. So grab a case of Old Milwaukee, ice'em down real cold, grab some porkskins and popcorn, light up a few stogies and prepare for a wild ride.
THE PLOT: A trailer trash mom, Linda Bronco (Sean Young in her best role in years and years), gets fired from her nurse's job at a retirement home and her son and his best friend end up in trouble with the law for 
setting a broken down car on fire outside a convenience store (the fire was a diversion tactic that didn't work). This leads them to soliciting the services of the best friend's sleazy lawyer grandfather, who just happens to be, yes, Ron Lake. He is in his own world of hurt, being married to a young, sexy vixen (Jaime Pressly), who likes to go off and fuck the sheriff's son every chance she gets, even fucking him while he's in the hospital with a bullet wound in his side. His screams are pain hers are orgasmic. Seeing Pressly's outstanding hot bod stripped down to bra and panties is reason enough to check out this flick. Little wonder why she makes so many appearances on Howard Stern.
Anyway, in order to pay their grandfather for his services, Linda, her kid, the best friend and one of Linda's one night stands (yes, the sheriff's son, again), decide to pull a series of robberies. Linda is determined to keep her kid out of jail and send him to college. From this premise, the plot twists and winds like a speeding car going down a dark country road leading to all sorts of outrageous incident's and dialouge.
Unlike the more serious white trash based movies SLINGBLADE and TRASH (a movie I reviewed that also stars Ms. Pressly), POOR WHITE TRASH is a sarcastically witty, cornball hoot. A healthy suspension of disbelief is an important principle to keep in mind when watching it.
Old Milwaukee, or any other cheap beer, helps out a lot when viewing this laugh fest directed and written by Michael Addis. I guess this flick was a straight-to-video release only because they don't allow drinking or smoking in theaters anymore. You can chalk this one up as being another well-deserved buckshot round aimed directly at 'political correctness', like GUMMO was.
Well, later, I gotta go piss out some of this beer. --- Todd Taylor, August 13, 2001.
I got a call from Todd on Saturday afternoon and he said, "Man, you gotta come over and watch this movie I rented. It's funny as hell." I asked him what the name of it was and when he said POOR WHITE TRASH, I said, "I'll be right over." I loaded up the booze, the drugs and got my ass in the '91 Oldsmobile and tore ass down Berry Street for Todd's place.
To be truthful, Todd wasn't actually drinking Old Milwaukee as we watched this funny as shit movie. He was drinking Michelob. Now I like Michelob. But because I get too bloated from beer I've switch to just drinking the hard shit, like Pig's Nose scotch whiskey mixed with lemon flavored iced tea. Yum-fuck'n-yum. Michelob is a high rent white trash beer. Bukowski drank it himself so you know the shit is all right. But the actors in the movie were drinking Old Milwaukee.
Now Jaime Pressly can suck my dick anyday. She is one of the best pieces of ass around, period. Plus, she looks white trash and acts it too. She's been in this movie, TRASH and that Jerry Springer movie. In it she played yet another trailer trash whore. Jaime, you is the best movie acting whore alive today, baby. I'd LOVE to fuck your brains out. Well, what's left of your brains anyway.
Like Todd said POOR WHITE TRASH is as funny as a motherfucker on fire after trying to get the bar-bee-que grill going and pouring a little too much lighter fluid in there. Dumbass. The scene where the one kid gives a French kiss to the blow up sex doll is amazing in the fact you can't believe he's doing this in the first place and in the fact it goes on for so long you begin to want to turn away from it, it being so despicable of a sicko sexual act, worse than seeing Richard Simmons giving head to Liberace. Yeah, I know Liberace is dead but if they dug up his remains I bet Simmons would still suck what was left of Liberace's dick.
The granddaddy lawyer's beer can art covered front yard is another fine moment in the film. Our friend William Bryan Massey III if he saw this movie would stop taking his cans to the can man for money for his beer (he drinks Miller High Life) and would instead build him an empire of beer can art in his backyard if he saw this movie. That's if his bitch, er, common-law wife, Carol, didn't finally kill him first.
Yes, POOR WHITE TRASH is a masterpiece of anthropology. Everyone who's white trash knows some, or all, of these shady characters, unfortunately. --- Dirty Howie, August 13, 2001.
BAND OF THE HAND (1986): This film was made by Michael Mann, the maker of t.v.'s MIAMI VICE and director of the first Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter film, MANHUNTER. Even if you weren't a fan of MIAMI VICE (I wasn't) you will still enjoy this flick because it has substance and style and was made at a time when movies were first fusing with music videos while still retaining some intelligence.
A group of five teenage felons --- bomb builders, gang members, coke dealers --- are transferred from juvie hall to the middle of the Everglades for 'rehabilitation.' Their case worker is Joe, a Miccosukee Indian and hardcore motherfucker with a simple philosophy: learn to live or die. The ensuing adventures in the swampy wilderness are merciless, fascinating and fun, doubly so because through the miracle of decent acting the changes in each character ring true.
The second half of the story takes place in Miami when 'the program' moves to a ghetto overrun with human trash and ruled by an evil drug lord. Expect raucous gun and hand-to-hand combat, machismo, racial tensions, flashy '80s wear (like Tubbs and Crockett in MIAMI VICE) and even a splash of voodoo, all stylishly shot and (nostalgically) soundtracked. Rather than being exploitive and obvious these elements serve the story well and, thus, fucking rock.
Other interesting things to see along the way: Jim Carrey's ex-wife Lauren Holly as a 16-year-old girl in the coke biz and a young Lawrence Fishburne with the lil' lines shaved in his 'fro (this IS the '80s.) BAND OF THE HAND is painlessly moral and consistently entertaining.
I hate most movies but love this one. That should tell you something. --- Ben La Rosa, August 4, 2001.
THE PLANET OF THE APES (2001): Quick 'view: WAIT FOR VIDEO.
I don't hate Tim Burton, the director. But there is now a word in my vocab for when I see any movie against my gut instinct and suffer for it: BURTONED.
I was first BURTONED in '91 when the world was in a tizzy over BATMAN. What they showed looked cool enough; the set designs, the Batmobile…even Michael "Mr. Mom" Keaton seemed like he would pull it off, once the shock of this gross miscasting wore off.
Then the movie came out.
I think the entire world left the theater feeling stupid as hell because BATMAN SUCKED.
Face it: It was fucking boring with almost no action. It moved way too slowly. And Jack Nicholson as The Joker did some things that just looked fucking GAY, such as dancing around to Prince songs.
It pisses me off to this day that NO ONE but me admits BATMAN/Burton screwed them. Ten years later history repeats itself. This time with the Burton version/vision of THE PLANET OF THE APES.
I only saw it to appease some people I cared about. My worst fears were already confirmed by t.v.'s "Making of Apes Special" where they make Burton appear to be the goddamned Messiah.
Look, I've not seen the original THE PLANET OF THE APES (1968) but I hear from many that it's a great movie.
As for this version the rumor was that as the premiere deadline approached they were still throwing it together. It shows.
The new APES moves way too slowly, which probably would have been the case had the movie been good. The plot is more hole-riddled than Swiss cheese caught in a drive-by; not even a chimp could suspend his disbelief.
As Sis pointed out there's not one character you care about. The only reason to see this film in the theater is if you worship Rick Baker, the genius makeup guy. The apes look fucking incredible, totally convincing.
It's just they're stuck with this shithole script based loosely on the paperback book by Pierre Boulle.
As Dirk Diggler in BOOGIE NIGHTS, Marky "Mark" Wahlberg, ex-rapper turned Hollywood hunk, sported major wood. In this $100-million-dollar train wreck he's just wooden. Helena Bonham Carter as Ari, a female ape, does a great job but, again, the horrid script. And Tim Roth, who hasn't had this intense of a role since his screen splashing turns in Quentin Tarantino's RESEVOIR DOGS and PULP FICTION, plays General Thade, the ape who hates humans and wants them all dead. Roth fucking rocks but only because I was thinking this character should be in other movies, such as a bona fide remake of SHAFT.
As a misanthrope this movie did nothing to change my mind about humanity, the dirty hordes of which in this movie are strangely silent. Thade was right to want to wipe them out because given enough time they'd eventually become the same assholes you and I have to put up with on a daily basis. --- Ben La Rosa, July 30, 2001.
THE OPPORTUNISTS (2000): For the past 3-4 months I've not been going to see movies as much at the movie theaters because of the awful films you get to not enjoy for the high price of a movie ticket and the overblown candy and drink prices.
So, fuck it, I said to myself. I'll get into the car and drive the one minute it takes me to get to my local Blockbuster and check out the straight-to-video fair there. So the other day, while eyeing through all the video boxes, I came upon a movie, THE OPPORTUNISTS, starring one of my favorite actors, the great Christopher Walken. I picked up the box and read what the movie was about and decided to rent it.
I also grabbed me two boxes of Goobers chocolate covered peanuts. Goobers at the movie house costs almost three dollars. At Blockbuster, however, the same sized box is only a buck fifty, giving me another good reason to stick with Blockbuster instead going out to the movies.
In THE OPPORTUNISTS, written and directed by Myles Connell, Walken plays Vic, an ex-con bank robber who is struggling to make it straight as a mechanic. But since he's such a bad mechanic nobody in town wants him to work on their cars so his business is failing badly. In fact, the only car at his garage is a cop's car and he even screws that one up when the guy shows up to collect his car and the engine explodes before he can drive it out of the lot.
So as Vic's bills go past due and continue to mount --- he's behind on the rent for his car repair garage and on the retirement home bills for his aunt --- he keeps telling the bill collectors that'll he'll have their money soon. He even writes them checks that he knows will bounce, even peppering the farce further by telling them, "Wait a day before you cash it."
But he doesn't have any money and the fact he doesn't is tearing his family life apart.
Knowing Vic is in bad financial straits, a loser con man --- played by one of America's best character actors, Donal Logue, star of FOX's GROUNDED FOR LIFE sitcom and who first came to media fame on MTV promos where he played a scum bag white trash nasty ass NYC cab driver --- keeps pestering him to get in on a job he's lined up that would bring quite a windfall, plenty enough money for Vic to pay off his bills and go into retirement. But Vic tells the dude to get lost, that he's not in the safe cracking business anymore.
"I'm too old to play Robin Hood," Vic tells him.
But the guy doesn't give up and, eventually, Vic relents. He realizes he has no choice but to do the job. He needs money and he needs it now, especially since the retirement home has transferred his elderly aunt to a "geriatic hospital." You can tell all of this continuing bad news is eating at Vic's gut. He wants to take care of his family but he can't do it as a mechanic.
He then gets into an argument with his bar owner girlfriend, played surprising well by ex-MTV video star Cyndi Lauper. She's watching her lover's life go to hell and blurts out, "Are you just gonna let it all fall apart?"
Walken, pissed off, answers, "I don't see it. What's falling apart?"
But he finally concedes to her concerns by saying, "The 'regular citizen' thing is not going so good."
So he cases the joint to be robbed and, since his three co-horts in the crime are all morons and don't act like professionals, he ends up getting caught red-handed.
I'll end this review right here. If I told you too much more it'd ruin the film for you but it is a good little movie --- better than any of the shit they got playing down at the local megaplex. --- Dirty Howie, June 27, 2001.
