Dec
31
“The Road” Lost Scene
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I started reading Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” — soon to be a major motion picture! — this evening. I haven’t picked up any of his other titles, though I did very much enjoy the film adaptation of “No Country for Old Men.” At the moment, I’m 50 pages in and will probably finish it over the long weekend.
Being a bit of a grammar Nazi, a grammar Nazi who also failed to assassinate Hitler, it took me a few pages to get used to McCarthy’s style. Contractions don’t have have hyphens, dialogue isn’t in quotes, and so forth. Almost all the paragraphs are separated from one another by triple spacing, which is an odd stylistic choice because I thought that was only done to shift the point of view or suggest a passage of time. Here it just sort of pads things out.
At any rate, McCarthy also has a very, very dreary tone. The book is set after some time after a catastrophic event (my money’s on Sarah Palin’s 2012 presidential bid) turned the planet into a giant charcoal briquette, hence the melancholia. But I find McCarthy’s narrative voice bordering on self-parody. It’s so morose, yet the heroes — a nameless father and his nameless young son — are somehow able to cope with all the horror going on around them as they travel down an empty road, heading south. And boy, isn’t how understated everything is that much more profound?!
So without further ado, what follows is my attempt at biting McCarthy’s style in a lost scene from “The Road:”
It was very cold, very wet, and very, very gray. The man wakened shortly before dawn broke. His boy was still asleep in his arms. Shivering and rail thin. He was so very thin. Rain marched heavily on their lean-to. It was cold. Wet. And gray.
Very gray.
The man silently left the tent. Cold, wet, gray rainfall was falling from the black sky. Black as a gravedigger’s cornhole.
He heard the boy calling out to him from inside the lean-to. He said: Papa, you there?
I am, said the man.
Rain still gray?
Grayer than all get out.
Im okay with it bein gray.
Me, too.
They were each other’s world entire.
-Brad Lohan
Dec
31
“New Year’s Evil” Review
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Last weekend, the New Beverly had a screening of “New Year’s Evil,” which I completely flaked on. I was, however, able to find a VHS copy of the film at Cinephile yesterday evening. Being a fan of holiday-themed slasher films and full of regret for having missed the screening the other night, I rented it.
You’ll never find a more worthless holiday than New Year’s. That people need some excuse in the form of a holiday to get stinking drunk has always puzzled me. Nonetheless, the average person has this mistaken impression that the start of a whole ‘nother year will wipe the slate clean, allowing them to start afresh. And what better way to kick off a new beginning than with a monster hangover?
But I guess it’s better than being stabbed to death, which is how a handful of folks spend the holiday in “New Year’s Evil.” Released in 1980 — by Cannon Films! — the film is a stalk-and-slash entry about a killer who sticks people with a switchblade on New Year’s Eve. That said, he kills his victims the moment the clock strikes midnight somewhere within the continental United States. He also keeps calling the live TV show “Hollywood Hotline,” and using the on-the-nose alias “Evil,” he lobs threats at the hostess Dianne Sullivan (Roz Kelly), who’s rocking in the new year when she’s not neglecting her adult son.
Taking into account the fact that there are four time zones within the contiguous U.S., the killer has to keep lining up his next victim before the clock strikes twelve; it’s not as easy as it sounds. The concept is sort of interesting if not overly complicated. He does, however, inexplicably kill a woman in a hotel room at the top of the film as a warm-up. At any rate, the film’s not completely unwatchable, unlike its bastard cousin “Christmas Evil.” But for the life of me, I can’t remember how the stalker gets his comeuppance, and I just finished watching it 12 hours ago.
Talk about old acquaintances being forgotten.
-Brad Lohan
Dec
30
“Star Trek: The [Slow] Motion Picture” Review
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I’d been contemplating a series of blogs about the “Star Trek” movies. The Royal on Santa Monica screened “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” in 70mm last week, something I’ll never forgive myself for missing. At any rate, Devin at Chud.com announced last weekend he was going to review all the Original Series episodes and the first seven “Star Trek” films during the run-up to the release of the reboot in May. Wow. And here I was going to blog about movies two, three and four, which in my opinion, are the holy trinity of Trek fillums. Devin’s totally pwned me. Oh, well. It’s going to take him forever and a day to get to the movies, so I can at least get the jump on him in that regard. I’ll even tackle the first film for S’s and G’s!
The first “Star Trek” movie was originally intended to be a relaunch of the TV series called “Star Trek: Phase II.” But after the success of “Star Wars,” Paramount decided that the franchise might be better suited for the big screen. The studio commissioned scripts from writers like Harlan Ellison — a guy who said, “I’m the writer. I don’t know what the f*** you are!” to an empty suit at the studio during a story meeting — and wooed directors like Philip Kaufman. Ellison’s script sounded ambitious as all get out, spanning all of time and space and featuring lizard people as the baddies; Kaufman meanwhile wanted to kill off the original series crew, save for Spock, whose sexuality he needlessly wanted to explore. At the end of the day, the studio settled on Alan Dean Foster’s pitch, which ultimately became “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”
And God Almighty, it’s boring.
Directed by Robert Wise, “Star Trek: TMP” picks up several years after the end of the original series. James T. Kirk (William Shatner) has been promoted to Admiral; Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is back on Vulcan, meditating about something or other; and sporting a bushy beard and white v-necked jumpsuit, Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) looks like he’s joined a 23rd Century Bee Gees cover band. At any rate, a gaseous body has munched three Klingon Birds of Prey and is currently on a collision course with Earth. Only the Enterprise — with Kirk back in the captain’s chair — can intercept the cloud before it destroys all life on our planet. If anyone’s going to obliterate the Earth, it damn well better be mankind, not some gassy alien whatsis!
Wise’s direction apes “2001″ rather than the quick-and-dirty production values of the television series. But the Kubrickian approach unfortunately slows the pacing to a crawl. In one scene, Kirk and Scotty take a shuttle to where the Enterprise is docked in Earth’s orbit, and it just goes on and on and on. I became eligibile for Social Security benefits before that part was over.
Jumping ahead a bit, when the crew finally reaches the gaseous body, they confront V’Ger, a Voyager-class satellite that was launched by NASA during the 20th century and has since become self-aware. It calls itself “V’Ger” because some dirt is covering a few letters on its hull. I find it amusing that the V’Ger has a mildly retarded form of artificial intelligence. That said, V’Ger wants to join with its creator, and the crew oblige by allowing Captain Dekker — the butt-chinned doofus who Kirk demoted when he assumed command — to make out with this bald chick who does all of V’Ger’s PR work. No, it doesn’t make any sense. The film did allow me the opportunity at one point to rhetorically ask my cat, “I wonder if the carpet matches the drapes on that bald chick.” Zing!
Miraculously, “Star Trek: TMP” grossed a pile of money upon its release. If anything, the film’s success guaranteed a sequel that would return the franchise to its roots without losing its cinematic scope.
Next: “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”
-Brad Lohan
Dec
29
The Curious Case of Shooting People Who Talking During the Movie
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Last week, I yelled at some obnoxious teenagers during a screening of “Yes Man.” The little turds were talking and texting and irritating the holy hell out of me. I finally got fed up and shouted, “Would you idiots shut the f*** up?!”
The trick to getting people at the movies to zip it is to publicly humiliate them, to call them out in front of everyone and suddenly make them the center of everyone’s attention. At least that was my theory. Immediately after I told those kids to shut up, some asshole a few rows back started yelling stupid bullshit at me! He said something about anger management. I didn’t even want to see “Yes Man,” and there I was getting heckled for trying to make some annoying kids behave themselves. I said the f-word, granted, but that’s the only thing kids these days understand.
And this is why I think James Joseph Cialella Jr. should get off with just a slap on the wrist. Cialella, who should be elevated to folk hero status in my opinion, shot some loudmouth at a screening of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” according to Philly.com. He only winged the guy, so I don’t see what the big deal is. Besides, he was doing a public service. What’s more — and this is the best part of the story — after he shot the guy and the other patrons fled the auditorium, Cialella sat back down and continued watching the movie. That’s a film-lover, folks.
I have half a mind to start a legal defense fund for Cialella. Last week, people in the audience annoyed me at virtually every movie I attended. It’s getting out of hand. Is it too much to ask for people to just sit there and watch the movie? I don’t see why movie-goers nowadays pay $10 to do everything but take in what’s on the screen. Maybe Cialella’s story — his legend — will motivate people to shut their damn pieholes.
Note to self: do not buy a gun.
-Brad Lohan
Dec
28
“The Spirit” Review
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Will Eisner is known by comics fans as a creator who pushed the limits of graphic storytelling and advanced the medium by leaps and bounds. There’s even a prestigious award named after him. His most popular character, The Spirit, was never as instantly recognizable to non-readers as, say, Batman or Spider-Man, but he still appears in his own monthly book. That he is a comic book character virtually guaranteed that regardless of his crossover appeal, someday a movie would be made about him.
Enter Frank Miller.
Miller’s not unlike Eisner in his capacity for pushing the envelope in the comics medium. His seminal work — “The Dark Knight Returns,” a mini-series that’s often mentioned in the same breath as “Watchmen” as one of the greatest graphic novels ever – hit stands two decades ago; he’s yet to top it. That said, his run on “Daredevil” in the early-’80s is the reason I love the character, and his “Sin City” books are a visual blast. Of late, however, he’s done his best to alienate long-time devotees with his abysmal writing on “All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder,” a title I still pick up because I’m clearly full of self-loathing.
Still, I’m always curious about his projects. The long-in-the-works Batman vs. al-Qaeda mini-series he’s had on the back-burner for a couple years now definitely piques my interest. I like to think the man has another masterpiece or two left in him.
So what’d I think about his second directorial effort, “The Spirit?” To be perfectly honest, I dug it. I’m probably the only one, but I genuinely enjoyed the movie. It’s being torn apart by critics; as of this evening, it’s got a 16% rating on Rotten Tomatoes — ouch. I could tell the audience I saw the movie with was antsy and definitely not into the flick. The girl sitting in front of me, much to my chagrin, must’ve texted every human being she’d ever met during the film. Part of me sort of liked the fact that everyone in the auditorium was having a rotten time but me. I’m sick of sitting through the audience-friendly pap that leaves me cold.
To appreciate “The Spirit,” or at least Miller’s approach, you have to understand Miller. I’m sure any other filmmaker would’ve made a more straightforward movie, one that pits the immortal ex-cop Denny Colt against the criminal element of Central City. And it would’ve been okayish. Miller’s not any other filmmaker. He’s not even really a filmmaker. He’s a comic book creator tackling a completely different medium. Movies and comics seem like similar storytelling media, but there’s actually quite a disconnect. Why do you think it’s taken over two decades to adapt “Watchmen?”
Miller could give a damn that movies and comics don’t exactly feed into one another. It shows with “Sin City,” a film he co-directed with Robert Rodriguez. The movie is slavish to the book and much more formalistic than your average flick. It’s still a movie, though. Rodriguez’s absence is felt with “The Spirit.” Rodriguez has a better sense of cinematic pacing as well as visually bridging the divide between comics and moving pictures. What you have with “The Spirit” is a superhero movie based on comics that exist solely inside the skull of Frank Miller. There’s a dreamlike — or perhaps nightmarish — quality to the proceedings, as though they weren’t filtered through a pencil onto a page before being realized on screen. This movie is a window into the mind of one of the maddest of mad geniuses in the comics medium.
It’s pure Frank Miller.
I think critics and audiences were expecting “Sin City 2.” This is something else, something much more insane. It’s a cartoon, it’s a horror movie, it’s a detective film, it’s a superhero flick, it’s lacking only a kitchen sink. Miller leapfrogs from one genre to the next, like his titular hero bounds effortlessly from rooftop to rooftop. Miller’s having a blast, and you can either go along with him for the ride or sit there and be miserable.
The film is about ex-cop Denny Colt, aka The Spirit, who mysteriously returned from the grave after his shooting death and has a very deep affection for his city, which he talks about lovingly (and at length) in voiceover. The Spirit’s a vigilante, but like Batman, he’s called upon by the largely incompetent police department to battle crooks. His costume consists of a long black trenchcoat, hat and domino mask; he also wears a blood red tie that’s constantly flapping in the breeze. The Spirit is a romantic hero, swooning over virtually every woman who steps into his line of sight. I liked that he’s a charmer, and not one of the endless amount of boring and humorless brutes that populate most action films these days. He talks tough, to be sure, but he’s definitely a throwback to an earlier era of two-fisted heroes. He’s even a cat person!
In the film, The Spirit matches fists with The Octopus, played by Samuel L. Jackson at his most Samuel L. Jackson. The Octopus and his bespectacled and bosomy female companion Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson) are after a vase that contains the blood of Hercules. The Octopus, like The Spirit, is immortal and more than a little drunk on his own power. All the chasing around ultimately leads The Spirit back to his old flame, Sand Saref (Eva Mendes), and her incredible posterior. The movie doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I think that’s sort of the point. It’s not exactly style over substance. The style is the substance.
To be fair, even I had a few problems with the film. Louis Lombardi’s performance as each of The Octopus’ inept henchmen grated on me to no end; I did enjoy watching them die repeatedly, though. Miller has a bit of a tin ear for dialogue, and actresses like Johansson and Mendes aren’t quite as gifted at delivering lengthy speeches as they are at filling out their costumes. I could’ve done without the Nazi fetishism as well.
If you think you’ll hate this movie, you probably will. That’s really the best review I can give you. Though I haven’t been terribly impressed with the bulk of Frank Miller’s output of late, he’s nothing if not a visionary. He may have completely lost his mind, but fortunately not his — ahem — spirit.
-Brad Lohan
Dec
27
Christmas Day Double-Bill: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” & “Valkyrie”
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I technically didn’t see “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Valkyrie” back-to-back on Christmas. I went to see the former at midnight on Christmas morning and the latter well into the evening on Christmas day. But, I saw them both on Christmas, so there. These reviews are a couple of days late, I know. Having a friend in town this week sort of threw a wrench into my ordinary routine. At any rate, without further ado, here are my reviews of two of the umpteen movies that dropped on the 25th.
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
The story of a man who ages backwards seems to have all sorts of built-in narrative possibilities. Screenwriter Eric Roth somehow manages to avoid any that are terribly interesting. As such, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is director David Fincher’s latest exercise in style-over-substance. Brad Pitt plays the titular Benjamin Button, buried under old age makeup and CGI trickery. I’ll bet the DVD featurettes about how the age effects were pulled off are 100 times more interesting than watching Button’s boring life play out over nearly three hours. I mean, we’re not getting any younger in the audience.
“Valkyrie”
Speaking of special features on DVDs, I hope “Valkyrie” has an alternate ending in which Tom Cruise’s one-eyed character, Claus von Stauffenberg, actually does assassinate Adolf Hitler. That said, the flick’s theatrical ending is a bit of a downer. Regardless, it’s still fun to watch Nazis get blown away by a firing squad even if they are the so called “good guys.” “Valkyrie” is a little clunky and uneven in its first half. It feels like scenes are missing, suggesting that test audiences ripped this movie a new asshole. Director Bryan Singer is still convinced he’s a better filmmaker than he actually is and just doesn’t stick the landing with the movie. The fact that I heard at least a half-dozen people in the audience muttering Cruise’s last line to their companions who couldn’t understand it simply goes to show that Singer totally bungled the climax.
So, it wasn’t a terrific day at the movies for me. The two films I saw weren’t terrible. They were just unremarkable. I shouldn’t fault filmmakers for trying different things, but I have to wonder why Fincher and Singer thought these projects were worth the effort.
-Brad Lohan
Dec
27
Scratch One Netflix Subscription
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I reactivated my Netflix account at the top of the month. It had been on hold for a couple months as I’d busied with moving and applying for grad school and seeing films as they’re intended (i.e. on the big screen) to be able to watch a half-dozen or so movies I knew better than to see theatrically in the first place.
That said, once I reactivated my account, I removed about fifty or so titles from my queue that I knew were just going to be a couple hours of my life I’d never get back (read: “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”) and front-loaded the thing with “Planet of the Apes” sequels and Clint Eastwood movies — stuff I knew I’d enjoy. I found myself really looking forward to nightly double-bills and couldn’t wait to see those little red envelopes in my mailbox.
Unfortunately, for every two movies I got from Netflix, one would be scratched and unplayable. I still have no idea how “Escape From the Planet of the Apes” ends because the final third skipped like a sonofabitch, and the other day, I was really loving “The Eiger Sanction” until the screen went black during the climax(!) and the hateful words “Unable to Read Disc” came up. Another two flicks — “Play Misty for Me” and some dumbass made-for-TV “RoboCop” movie I should’ve known better than to check out — also skipped, but weren’t completely unreadable. “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes,” “Tightrope” and “Firefox” played just fine, but the ratio of damaged to undamaged discs is pretty much 1:1. We’ll see if I can make it through “The Gauntlet” tonight.
Of course Netflix will ship me a replacement copy of a damaged DVD, but that’s sort of beside the point. I don’t want to wait another day or two to watch the rest of a movie. And what if the replacement copy’s damaged?
Netflix ships DVDs in flimsy little sleeves that don’t seem to protect the discs from much of anything. If they mailed them out in the hard shell DVD cases, that might reduce the amount of wear and tear. It sounds more expensive, but the cost of damaged discs and shipping replacement copies can’t be good for their bottom line, either.
At any rate, I’m cancelling my Netflix subscription — effective immediately. I live within walking distance of two video stores, and neither fittingly rhymes with the word “lackluster.” Too many movie nights have been ruined by unplayable discs I’ve received from Netflix. I’d rather they be ruined by the crappy movies I’m checking out.
-Brad Lohan
Dec
24
“Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs.”
The first “Die Hard” is my favorite Christmas movie and perhaps my favorite action movie as well. For a film that was originally intended to be a sequel to the Arnold Schwarzenegger film “Commando,” it has since spawned three sequels of its own, not to mention a metric shit-ton of imitators. In the intervening years, the “‘Die Hard’ on a…” sub-genre has pretty much played itself out. Even movies three and four in the “Die Hard” series abandoned the concept of the lone hero pitted against heavily armed terrorists in a limited arena. However, the first two “Die Hard” movies are the Alpha and Omega of action cinema.
“Die Hard”
As I mentioned before, the first “Die Hard” was supposed to be a follow-up to a good-but-not-great Schwarzenegger movie. Based on the Roderick Thorpe novel “Nothing Last Forever,” the source material doesn’t exactly seem very well suited for the man who would be Governator. It’s about a fifty-something New York cop named Joe Leland who beats back a group of terrorists that have taken hostages in an L.A. skyscraper on Christmas Eve. To make matters worse, Leland’s grown-up daughter is one of the people being held captive.
The film adaptation knocks twenty year’s off the hero’s age, swaps out his daughter with his estranged wife, and changes his name to John McClane. The casting of Bruce Willis in the role of McClane was at the time seen as a risky move on the part of the filmmakers, paying some TV star $5 million to anchor a summer action movie. At any rate, the spine of the story remains intact, though the book has a bit of a downer ending. Leland doesn’t save his daughter’s life during the perfunctory scene at the climax when the villain is using her as a human shield.
I can honestly say that the movie is better than the book. With this film, John McClane became the template for the modern action hero. He’s not a hulking brute that speaks with a heavy accent. He’s an average guy who’s insecure about his wife’s success and unable to put his feelings into words until he finds himself pulling shards of glass out of his bare feet after his eleventeenth hairbreadth escape from the baddies. The reason why this movie surpasses all the also-rans is because the audience is right there with McClane. We’ve all gotten into stupid arguments with people we care about. Granted, it probably didn’t take a hostage crisis to help us sort out our priorities. But McClane’s need to apologize his wife turns her character into more than just a MacGuffin, and the movie is something more than an exercise is making things go boom.
Alan Rickman deserves special mention for his turn as Hans Gruber, a master thief who’s only posing as a terrorist. As played by Rickman, Gruber’s criminal genius is only matched by his oily charisma; his plan’s so brilliant, you almost want him to get away with it. He’s the perfect foil for McClane. The only shame is that they only have two scenes together. Seeing them match wits is action movie nirvana.
“Die Hard 2: Die Harder”
Before remakes were all the rage, sequels filled that void by pretty much just doing the same thing as the first installment. That’s essentially the case with “Die Hard 2: Die Harder.” It’s a sequel/remake that doesn’t quite live up to the original, but it’s still the best action movie starring former presidential candidate Fred Thompson in a supporting role.
“Die Hard 2″ is presumably set a year after the original. McClane’s in D.C., eagerly awaiting his wife’s flight at Dulles International Airport, when a group of mercenaries seize control of the tower from a remote location. International drug dealer General Esperanza is being extradited to the United States, and the mercs aim to set him free once his plane lands. With dozens of arriving flights circling high above the nation’s capital, and the airport police ill-equipped to handle the situation, it falls on McClane to once again wage a one-man war on terror.
Oddly enough, one of my professors in film school prefers this film over the first. I think it’s only hobbled by the fact that McClane and his wife have patched up their relationship, and McClane’s character doesn’t have what screenwriters call a “need” in this one. A sequel is generally less satisfying because the hero has already experienced an arc in the previous entry. Now that he’s more or less flawless, his further adventures lack a certain something, an emotional climax that reconciles both his “need” and his “want.”
At any rate, the second movie is nonetheless a great fireworks show. I particularly enjoy the scene in which McClane ejects from the cockpit of a plane a nanosecond before it explodes; that moment’s definitely on par with his iconic leap from the rooftop of the Nakatomi building in the first film.
The central villain — Colonel Stewart, played by William Sadler — is arguably the biggest bastard of the series. He crashes a commercial airliner to demonstrate that he’s deadly serious, and in doing so, racks up the highest body count of all the other big bads in the franchise put together. He also does kung fu in the nude for no reason whatsoever.
And speaking of gratuitous nudity, Dennis Franz of “NYPD Blue” is in the film. His performance as airport police captain Carmine Lorenzo is a profanity-laced treat for the ears. Of all the secondary antagonists McClane goes up against in these films, Lorenzo’s probably the only one who can hold his own with the hero in the naughty language department.
Movies one and two in the “Die Hard” series are a great Christmas Eve double-bill. By the 24th, if you’re not sick to death of the Christmas season, then there’s no hope for you. This really is a miserable time of year, let’s be perfectly honest with ourselves. Today I actually thought to myself I’d rather be at work than dealing with the parking situation at Ralphs. That said, “Die Hard” movies are the perfect remedy for whatever bad will toward men you might be feeling. I think my film professor said it best, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Nothing says the holidays like an icicle being stabbed in someone’s eye.”
“Yippee ki yay!”
-Brad Lohan
Dec
22
The 12 Cliches of Cop Movies
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I’ve been wanting to blog about movie cliches for awhile now. I just wasn’t sure about what approach to take. Should I make it an ongoing thing, should I try to compile a list of favorites, should I do this, should I do that? Then I realized I was too busy procrastinating and not nearly busy enough blogging. I think 98% of writing is avoidance. The other 2% is organizing words into sentences. At any rate, let’s finally explore movie cliches, or more specifically, cop movie cliches.
I watched the first two — and in my opinion the only two — “Lethal Weapon” movies this weekend. They’re great films — a little dated, but hey. They’re also teeming with cop movie cliches. Cliches aren’t necessarily the worst thing in the world. Genre filmmaking demands a certain sort of adherence to a set of predetermined rules called “genre expectations.” These expectations are more or less a checklist for a filmmaker, a checklist of elements that are essential to make a satisfying movie.
But don’t confuse genre expectations with cliches. Cliches are a bastard child of genre expectations. Expectations are the broad strokes. For example, cop movies are generally modern day westerns and follow the myth of the frontier hero. Cliches, on the other hand, are the little bits of business that are all too commonplace in a given genre. Most cop movies, even great ones like “Lethal Weapon,” still rely on a host of cliches to tell their story. Cliches don’t ruin a movie necessarily, but they do give the movie a samey quality.
Below are my 12 favorite cop movie cliches (in no particular order):
1. The hero sustains a gunshot wound. Cops aren’t invincible, but almost. Shooting the hero cop in the arm, leg or side will only slightly inconvenience him. If he’s shot in an extremity, he will still be allowed a limited degree of motor function (i.e. able to wield a gun or throw a punch). Never will he bleed to death or pass out or be shot anywhere that completely ruins his day, like in the dick.
2. The hero’s love interest is a knockout…and available! Cops are usually separated, divorced, widowed or all of the above. They’re loners, but not completely against the idea of hooking up. So when a potential love interest — one who’s usually part of the hero cop’s investigation in some capacity — enters his life, she’s not only stunning, she’s unattached. Or, her boyfriend/husband is the villain and thus he deserves to be cuckolded.
3. The hero will either turn in his badge or be suspended. Unfortunately, the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing takes a lot of the momentum out of a 2-hour action movie. A hero cop, however, has a crime-fighting tool — his “gut” — that can tell him if a suspect’s guilty or not, and it doesn’t cost the taxpayers a cent in some long, drawn out criminal trial! The only drawback is that the cop’s superior is a stickler for due process of the law. As such, the cop will either be removed from active duty or voluntarily turn in his badge and be able to carry out his own unique brand of justice — vigilantism! — without a bunch of red tape getting in the way.
4. The hero is a much better shot than the villains. In movies, Los Angeles looks a lot like Sadr City. It is a bullet festival. And not only can the hero cop acrobatically dodge small arms fire from the endless supply of henchmen who are shooting at him from all angles, he can also return fire at a much greater success rate. This is true, of course, until the third act when the cop sustains a minor, but not career-ending flesh wound, like I mentioned above.
5. The villains are foreigners. Americans are awesome. Everyone else in the world only wishes they were as awesome as we are. I believe that’s what “E Pluribus Unum” stands for. At any rate, if it weren’t for a bunch of Eurotrash in three-piece suits, coming into our country and shooting haphazardly at our hero cop, this country would be even more awesome than it currently is, which is pretty goddamn awesome.
6. The hero’s superior officer is a secondary antagonist. As I mentioned above, the hero cop will doubtless come into conflict with his chief, a pencil-pushing bureaucrat who rides a desk all day and has no effing idea what it’s like to be a cop on the streets. The hero’s superior officer personifies our broken system, and although he might not be foreign, he will probably at the very least look French.
7. The hero trusts someone who will ultimately betray him. I’ve never seen a buddy cop movie in which one of the buddies turns on the other; I wrote a script with that reversal, but I’ve never seen it elsewhere. That being said, everyone else is suspect — even that knockout love interest who’s curiously single. Someone will sell out the hero to the villains because they’re threatening to kill a person of great importance to the betrayer.
8. Strip clubs are essential to solving any mystery. If you can’t shoehorn a wholly unnecessary love story into your cop movie, then what kind of a screenwriter are you, anyway? Still, there’s more than one way to capture a pair of breasts on film and make it seem organic to the plot. The preferred method is to set a scene in a strip club, where the hero cop can enjoy a few drinks, some relaxing music and a colossal number of boobs as he puzzles over the investigation.
9. The hero is a casual dresser. Most hero cops are average Joes, like you and me. They’re not empty suits; those are his superiors. No, the hero cop dresses like he’s either going to a ball game or going to kick some nogoodnik foreigners in the balls. His outfit also reflects his contempt for the establishment. And he’s a slob.
10. The hero will rattle off a one-liner to a corpse. Hero cops talk to the dead…in bitingly sarcastic tones. After bumping off the big bad or one of his underbosses, the cop will say something related to how the poor schmuck died, which is in a manner that’s often bizarre or unusually painful. This impromptu eulogy typically has a humorous component, done more for the audience’s benefit than to celebrate the life that was just ended. It is creepy and needless, though, if you think about it.
11. The hero has the body of an Adonis. Although he chain smokes and drinks like a fish with a history of alcohol abuse, the hero cop is in peak physical condition. He will more than likely appear shirtless in at least one scene — usually while bedding the love interest — and reveal a sweat-glazed torso that’s full of muscle. If he also shows his buttocks, his ass cheeks will be firm enough that one could break a chair over them. His penis will never be put on display, leaving the audience to imagine that a camera lens which could fully capture its majesty has yet to be invented.
12. The villain will use the hero’s partner and/or lover as a human shield. This is the ultimate predicament for our hero cop. It’s been done to death, but I know I’ll see it in a thousand more movies before the Rapture. Nonetheless, this is probably my favorite cliche because it hinges on the very notion that villains have apparently never seen a movie in their entire lives. The human shield will, without fail, elbow his or her captor in the chops and duck out of the way so the hero cop can put a bullet in him.
Bonus round: The villain will produce a pistol from out of nowhere, so the hero can justifiably shoot him. Hero cops are not cold-blooded killers. When the main badguy’s defeated and (apparently) disarmed at the film’s climax, the hero can’t simply blow the bastard’s head off, regardless of how much he’d like to. Then he’d be no better than the garbage he’s trying to take out! So, the villain will somehow make a weapon materialize out of thin air, and allow for our hero cop to gun him down in good conscience.
So there you have it. Those are definitely not the only cliches that can be found in cop films (car chases are a glaring omission), but like the movies I’m riffing on, I’m leaving things open for a sequel.
-Brad Lohan
Dec
21
“My Name Is Bruce” Review
Filed Under Cult Films, Movies | 1 Comment
I still remember going to see “Army of Darkness” in the theater during its original release in ‘93. I had no idea who Bruce Campbell was, or that I was seeing the third installment of the “Evil Dead” trilogy. At 13, I’d just gotten into horror movies. And what a flick “Army of Darkness” is. The Sam Raimi film is a cocktail of horror, fantasy and Three Stooges-inspired “splatstick” that didn’t exactly set the box office on fire, but it’s hands-down on my list of “desert island movies” and probably one of the innumerable flicks I saw as a kid that got me excited about filmmaking. Hell, an “Army of Darkness” poster, one of my favorite bits of movie artwork to date, adorned the wall of my apartment in Hollywood for years.
Though “Army of Darkness” star Bruce Campbell hasn’t quite enjoyed the level of success of “Army of Darkness” director Sam Raimi, he has carved out a niche for himself as an icon of sorts, an icon of Z-grade movies, but an icon nonetheless. He has a devoted following. Rabid fans will watch pretty much anything he’s in. I went to a screening a few years ago of “Bubba Ho-Tep,” which I thought sucked, and haven’t bothered renting any of his recent DTV releases like “The Man With a Screaming Brain” or “Alien Apocalypse.” I think Campbell’s really only as good as his material, and when Sam Raimi isn’t providing him the material, well, chances are, you’re not doing yourself any favors by watching it.
Still, I was curious about “My Name Is Bruce,” a creature feature starring Bruce Campbell as himself, not Bruce Campbell as someone else who’s exactly like Bruce Campbell. What “The Chin” is best known for is bringing his own unique brand of blundering pomposity to his roles, a quality that most folks more than likely assume isn’t really acting, but performance. We can split hairs all we want about the difference between the two. I think Campbell’s a better actor than most of his movies deserve. So how does he fare when he’s literally playing himself?
In “My Name Is Bruce,” The Chin is to cinema what Randy “The Ram” Robinson is to pro-wrestling. He’s currently starring in a cheapie called “Cave Aliens 2,” weathering a divorce and living in a trailer park. But his agent — played by Ted Raimi, who “shemps” in multiple roles — promises him something big is coming up. So when an extremely devoted fan comes knocking on his door and asks him to rid his podunk town of a Chinese demon, Bruce thinks it’s all part of the gag. Little does Bruce know that Gold Lick, Oregon, is in fact haunted by an actual Chinese demon. On a side note, the town is so backwoods (or the art department so inept), no one seems to notice that the “Welecome to Gold Lick” sign is misspelled.
I found myself enjoying “My Name Is Bruce” more than I thought I would. It’s 80 minutes of fan service, but Campbell, who also directed the film, brings his A-game to B-material…at least in front of the camera. The direction is unfortunately a little flat. Campbell doesn’t quite have Sam Raimi’s slam-bang shooting and editing style. That said, I definitely enjoyed the movie more than “Bubba Ho-Tep,” though to be fair, I’d enjoy a roundhouse kick to face more than “Bubba Ho-Tep.”
Speaking of roundhouse kicks to the face, “My Name Is Bruce” has more than a little in common with last month’s “JCVD,” starring the Muscles from Brussels as the Muscles from Brussels in an introspective meta-caper. I think the Van Damme film is more personal. “My Name Is Bruce” isn’t interested in exploring Campbell’s career lowlights as agonizingly as “JCVD.” But I don’t think the film suffers for it. They could’ve had a scarier monster, though, a big bad that really personifies the career rut that Campbell’s in.
This coming Friday, the Nuart is screening “Army of Darkness,” and I fully intend on going. “My Name Is Bruce” got me in the mood to see more of The Chin. I’d love to someday watch him cross over into the mainstream, to break out of DTV limbo, to do more than just a cameo in each “Spider-Man” film; he’d make a helluva Mysterio. Until then, I can’t wait to see his grooviest film unspool on the big screen again for the first time in 15 years.
-Brad Lohan