Well, that'll teach me to watch movies about getting dragged down to Hell. Out here in the non-cinematic world the eldest of my business partners has decided to take off a few years earlier than anticipated. As a result I've gotten tied up completing some of his assignments as well as my dealing with my own substantial workload.
I've only got the most basic of stat counters on the blog, but it's enough to know I've got a few regular readers out there. So I just wanted to drop a quick note and say thanks for the support so far and hope you'll bear with me as it will probably be the end of the week before I can get the next review out.
I'm sure those of you who enjoy things like eating and paying the bills will understand.
In the period in which I did my time as an art student, "mixed media" junk-art was big. Maybe it still is, I dunno, I don't live in that world anymore. For those of you who've NEVER lived there, the basic idea of the stuff is to make something that looks as much as possible like it got mashed together "organically" (translation: "by accident") yet wound up looking in some way compelling. You're already thinking, "sounds easy, just bash some crap around and bullshit a rationale for it," but that's not exactly true: Most of the professors could always see through that, or at least were good guesses as to which of us were likely to pull it. (::raises hand::) No, the "trick" was to actually do your best BUT, if you made an actual mistake, to pass it off as one of the many "intentional mistakes" making up the greater piece. If you were REALLY ballsy, or if you were a woman and suspected that the professor harbored an ambition of sleeping with you, you might even get away with "that wasn't the original intention, but it wound up opening new possibilities so I kept it in."
Short version: The two inherent problem with art-imitating-junk are, #1: It can be tough to tell how much is imitation and how much is just junk, and #2: It can be even tougher to argue how much it, if at all, it ought to "matter." (all-time champion "textbook case" movie of this type: "Attack of The Killer Tomatoes.") Consider: If a fellow shows up tommorrow with the cure for cancer, does it really make any difference if he found it through years of dogged, meticulous research or if he just spilled the "wrong" random chemicals into the same kettle?
In this particular case, we can take a certain amount of weight off the issue immediately by confirming right off the bat that "Shoot 'Em Up" is, in cinematic terms, most definately NOT the cure for cancer. It's not even really the cure for a hangnail. Or even acne. In fact, if it WERE some kind of medicine, it likely wouldn't even be very effective against mild heartburn. Despite the requisite Internet hype, this is NOT the "next level," "perfect example," "ultimate extrapolation" etc. of ANYTHING. Even amid it's own genre, it's not nearly as good as the two "Transporter" films. But it IS art-imitating-junk, and thus it does beg the troublesome "how much" and "does it matter" queries.
For analysis, it's best to start with the "junk" in question. Though it's obvious from the setup - black-clad gunslinger (Clive Owen) protects baby from army of killers - that actionphile writer/director Michael Davis has "studied under" John Woo, along with most of the other "Asian Masters" of the genre (the supremely icky "evil scheme" and the particular fetish that Monica Bellucci's "hooker with a heart of gold" heroine specializes in indicate he's also "up" on his Takeshi Miike and Chan Wook-Park) but those are generally 'good' action movies...
...And "Shoot 'Em Up's" ambition, seemingly, is to be a BAD one. After about ten minutes or so it becomes clear that the film is charging, fully-aware and with great commitment (or maybe not, but lets not get ahead of ourselves), away from Woo and into the realm of "Double Team," "Tango & Cash," "Stone Cold" and the collective filmography of Lorenzo Lamas: The land of "so bad it's good" disasterpieces action-adoring movie geeks prize for their grand-scale "are you KIDDING ME???" spectacle of unintentional hilarity. These are the "heights" "Shoot 'Em Up" hits, but the sticky-wicket is that it appears to go there on purpose: The difference between this film and a genuine-article like "Half Past Dead" is the difference between seeing a skateboarder hurt himself in a funny (to you) way while attempting what was meant to be a cool trick and seeing Johnny Knoxville hurt himself in a funny (to him AND you) way while attempting to hurt himself in a funny way.
And believe me, "Shoot 'Em Up" has it's so-bad-it's-good action movie bases covered: The gunfights make no logical sense, defy all known physics and involve a nigh-superhuman hero who never misses a shot tearing through waves of bullet-magnet henchmen who couldn't shoot a legless elephant. It shamelessly thrusts vulnerable targets (pregnant women, babies) into great danger in order to provide the suspense an un-killable hero lacks. The good guy has a "cute tic," in this case he's constantly chomping carrots a'la the similarly-unstoppable Bugs Bunny (get it??), and caps off his most impressive kills with groaner one-liners. The bad guy (Paul Giamatti) speaks Smartypants Supervillian Condescension fluently to his henchmen. Exposition on things we've already figured out is delivered with thudding literalism, usually in ADR voiceover.
It's obvious that Davis intends most or possibly all of this to be a lark, a self-parody joke to his fellow genre devotees. The trouble arises in how difficult it seems to be to sort out how much of the "funny" is there intentionally and how much happened organically. Example: Of course the hero's insistance on post-kill punchlines is an in-joke, but is the fact that the jokes are stunningly bad PART of the joke or just honest-to-God bad writing? Ditto some of the just-plain-awful straight dialogue. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine that any film that has a character say of the hero "I figured out who you hate most: yourself" and NOT be doing so as satire, but on the other hand I DID see "Transformers" so I guess it's possible. On the OTHER hand, strongest possible evidence that this is all one big joke: Amid all the massively fetishized (hell, outright sexualized) footage of firearms and their workings, "Shoot 'Em Up" eventually positions itself as, I shit you not, a pro gun-control message movie. For real.
So, which is it? Art-imitating-junk or junk-masquerading-as-art-imitating-junk? Overall, my guess would be that it's a lot more of Option #1 than most of it's detractors will admit, but ALSO a lot more of Option #2 than it's makers will readily "cop" to. The more uneasy question is whether or not the answer matters. "Shoot 'Em Up" is a so-bad-it's-good junkfood action epic of absolutely no nutritional value, and on that level I enjoyed it the same way I enjoy "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane" or "3000 Miles to Graceland." If all, or even MOST, of it's eye-poppingly ridiculous execution was an intentional mash-note to bottom-shelf action trash, Michael Davis just might be an expert genre-analyst/satirist. If it's often startling (seeming) ineptitude really IS ineptitude, then he could be ::shudder:: another Uwe Boll. But, so what? If I liked the final product, and I did with reservations; and if others hated it, does the "intent" really make a substantive difference for EITHER opinion? A like is, after all, a like and dislike is still a dislike.
How can YOU expect to react? Well, I can think of at least quick test. The Brian Bosworth vehicle "Stone Cold" is one of the silliest, dumbest, most inane action movies ever produced. I love it to death, and bought it the first day it was out on DVD. If you know of this movie, also bought it or WILL buy it now that you know the DVD is out, you'll probably have a good time with "Shoot 'Em Up"... though possibly not the good time you were intended to.
The reason that "3:10 to Yuma" is the best thing to happen to the Western genre in a good while is that it's not trying to be the best thing to happen to the Western genre in a good while. Ever since "The Wild Bunch," nearly every Western that's come out has either been trying to "deconstruct," "revise" or "examine" the genre, and every OTHER Western has been attemtping to counteract those efforts through re-mythologizing. Now, for the first time since "Tombstone," we've got a Western that isn't asking to be judged as anything other than what it is: A pretty damn good action/drama that happens to be set in the Old West. Is it going to be the movie that turns old-school cowboys into the "new" superheroes? No, and I'm grateful that it knows better than to bother.
Christian Bale has the lead as Dan Evans, a one-legged (Civil War wound) rancher who's impotent innability to make the land work or fend off the Railroad Company goons trying to run him off it is (possibly) starting to cost him the patience of his wife and has (definately) already cost him the respect of his eldest son - who prefers as a role-model Ben Wade, a notorious outlaw he's read about it dime-store paperbacks. As it turns out, the ACTUAL Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) has recently led his gang of brutal thieves into the area for a coach robbery. Wade is one of those inherently-brilliant improvisational supercrooks who's always cool, collected and Zen in the manner of someone who's thinking ten steps ahead of everyone else, to the point that he barely registers mild annoyance when a posse of Pinkertons (overheard at the screening: "Dude, which guy is Pinkerton?") and a crotchety Bounty Hunter (Peter Fonda!!) bust him in Evans' cozy little county.
Problematically, Wade's gang is comprised of super-dangerous cutthroats who tend to go a little feral without The Boss around to guide them. Even MORE problematically, while they'd be trouble enough scattered to the four winds, Wade's full-blown-psycho of a Second in Command (Ben Foster) is more than a little... um.. well, obsessed with his mentor, and opts to hold the wolfpack together as a lethal-force rescue squad that announces doom to any town that keeps them from Wade. With this imminent attack acting as a ticking clock, a posse forms to transport Wade to a secure train bound for Yuma Prison. Seeking reward money to settle his debts, Evans joins the team. Seeking Ben Wade and the chance to prove his mettle, Evans' son follows.
So, it's a "prisoner transport" movie, Old West style. Works for me. You'll not be too surprised, I trust, to learn that it's really about the psychological duel between Crowe and Bale - urbane, witty criminal versus earthy, emotionally-scarred honest farmer; both of whom are carrying baggage and secrets. and, really, thats all there is to "report." There's no straining for shocking twists or groundbreaking metaphor - it's a "set up and go" action picture, plain and simple.
There's exciting chases, big gun battles, encounters with Indian raiders and sadistic Railroad workers, macho battles-of-will and a big climactic shootout in the middle of a not-precisely-lawful town. The stuff Western genre-pics are made of, done well with good actors and a tight little script. In many ways, it reminds me of a "cowboy version" of "The Departed," another deceptively "classical" genre film that became a crowd-pleaser and Oscar winner. Don't even think of it as a "Western," think of it as a "Cowboy Movie." And enjoy.
If you spend any amount of time in the video-game centric corners of the Web, you've likely heard of or experienced the work of James Rolfe, better known as "The Angry Nintendo (now more broadly Video Game) Nerd." Short version: Relentlessly-profane, disturbingly-informative reviews/trashings/history-lessons on old-school video games of the deserved-obscure and/or famously-awful variety, posted semi-regularly to GameTrailers and the glorious ScrewAttack.com.
Part of what's made The Nerd an online fixture is that his rants and raves have a certain intimately familiarity to his fans: If you're one of the millions of now-grown gamers who grew up as Rolfe seems to have, i.e. a child-of-the-80s firmly-ensconsed in the video game culture of the time - especially the Nintendo-branded variety, some or even most of his digressions will awaken some pretty powerful nostalgia in you. It has for me, but never so much as his most recent posting in which The Nerd sets aside (mostly) the anger for a pure-nostalgia look back at "Nintendo Power," the Nintendo-published magazine/company P.R. machine that was MASSIVELY popular in it's day and retains a cult following even still.
It seems corny, but I got literally misty watching The Nerd reminisce in detail over the strange ads, letters, etc. of the magazine... which as a kid I would read each of to the point of memorization. Literally every single thing he mentions here I recall, vividly, with accompanying memories tied to it. Some good, some not so. I remember getting my Issue #1. I remember "Howard & Nester." I remember the LETTERS he reads from the letters page. I know, silly... but I found myself honestly moved by this short little webisode. So I'm tossing the clip and link on here, just to share and also to do my part to introduce more people to The Nerd. Give this guy a look, he's a lot of fun:
Thank you, Angry Nintendo Nerd, for a truly pleasant entry into what has been an increasingly mezzo-mezzo sort of week.
Paragraph 1021 of the Catechism reminds us that "The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith." In honor of Going To Hell Week here at the B-Movie Catechism we give you the 1930 Max Fleischer classic Swing You Sinners! in which Bimbo receives his just rewards. In song no less.
You're so wicked baby, and you're depraved You can rave It's apparent that you have misbehaved To your grave But if you should wanna be saved Jus' behave Swing you sinners!
Good evening Mr. & Mrs. Catholic and all you other Christians at sea. Sorry about the pants thing, but if Britney and Lindsay can do it, why not us? Maybe our first story has a clue. Now off to press
DATELINE: VENICE - GO AHEAD AND CALL IT LIKE YOU SEE IT, BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS ALREADY SEEN IT
Making the rounds at The Venice Film Festival, IMDB News overheard actress Keira Knightley commenting on the recent behavior of other young female starlets. "I'm not going to get blind drunk and then stumble out and fall over an puke up in front of people. I'm not saying I don't do that in private, but I try not to. The whole celebrity thing is not magic. They're real people proving they're s**ttier than everybody else because they don't even wear knickers." Perhaps Ms. Knightley once heard someone quote The Catechism where it states that "modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden." That probably goes double if it's supposed to be hidden by knickers. And while the Catechism doesn't explicitly address puking up in front of people while drunk, it does point out that modesty is considered an integral part of temperance, so we're pretty sure it's covered in there somewhere.
DATELINE: ISLA NUBLAR - FILM FRANCHISE NEARS EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT
Speaking of things that might potentially cause your gorge to rise. Contradicting rumors continue to fly over the expected plot line of Jurassic Park IV. Bloody-Disgusting.Com reports that the producers may be backing off of a story which features Laura Dern's character from the original movie running afoul of a government agency training dinosaurs to carry weapons. While this story would almost certainly highlight the Catechism's teaching that "the dominion granted by the Creator over the... animal resources of the universe cannot be separated from respect for moral obligations" as the beasts inevitably turn the weapons on their masters, let's face it, this just sounds like a bad Sci-Fi Channel movie waiting to happen. On the other hand, if Michael Bay was to film a live action remake of Dino-Riders...
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES - ADVANCE TO ABSURDITY, DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200
And since we brought up sequels and remakes, we may as well mention this. MovieWeb tells us that director Ridley Scott is considering a film adaptation of the board game Monopoly. Seriously. For real. Look, we don't have any reason to lie to you. Well, you may have noticed the Catechism asserts that "we believe that God needs no pre-existent thing or any help in order to create, nor is creation any sort of necessary emanation from the divine substance. God creates freely out of nothing." Apparently now, so does Ridley Scott.
What else is there to say after you learn the guy who made Bladerunner is adapting Monopoly? Not a thing. Just remember as we close another Newsreel that today's gossip is tomorrow's bible study. And as the great Les Nessman always said, "Good evening, and may the good news be yours."
'Round these parts, when one enters a room and notices among it's denizens an elephant, it's considered polite to acknowledge him (the elephant in the room) first, just to get it out of the way.
So, then, about politics and "Death Sentence." This is a "you hurt my family, now I hurt you"/take-the-law-into-your-own-hands vigilante vengeance movie about a suburban family man who, failed by "the system," opts to take the fight personally to the vile inner-city street gang that murdered his son using a literal bagful of guns. It's poster-slogan is "Protect What's Yours." Any way you slice it, possibly by intent and definately by execution, this winds up as a merger of "zero tolerance is the only deterent" urban-crime nightmare fused with a "right to bear arms" frontier-justice fantasy - as almost all such stories are when told with sincerity or, at least, intellectual honesty.
Depending on where you fall on the "gun issue" and to what degree you can divorce your personal belief in this regard from the analysis of what isn't really a "message movie" will have a lot to do with how you end up assessing the film: Too many of the virulently pro-gun are likely to elevate it into something that it isn't, while a smattering of those virulently anti-gun will certainly react as though director James Wan had just burned a cross on their front lawn. And they'll both be missing the overall merits of the film, chiefly the way in which it asks the audience to indulge in the fantasy of metting-out shotgun justice on their enemies but also shoves them headlong into confrontation with the logical toll such actions can take on a person. It's exploitation with a brain... that it uses to figure out how to become even more exploitative.
Kevin Bacon, his simmering intensity somehow ramped up even higher here than it was in "The Woodsman," has the Charles Bronson role as the suburban dad with the perfect family: Lovely wife (Kelly Preston), two great kids (one an artistic type, the eldest a varsity hockey star), a slick V.P. job at an insurance firm in the Big City and a quaint lil' house as far away from urban jungle as it can be. All of this is shattered, you will be unsurprised to learn, when Dad and Number One Son make the mistake of stopping for gas in the blighted inner-city after dark and the local gang of psycho-thugs turn up looking for an "initiation kill" for their newest recruit. Exit Number One Son.
In the first of a few interesting mini-twists on the well-worn "Death Wish" formula, Dad is already so enraged at the murder of his son that he doesn't even give "the system" a chance to fail him: When he learns that the killer may only get, at best, a short sentence; he opts out of the trial, tracks the guy down on his own and takes his eye for an eye. Unfortunately, he's not exactly a killer by trade, so the act itself freaks him right the hell out and sends him on a slow but innevitable train to Crazy Town. More unfortunately, his prey was also the younger brother of the gang's leader, and he and the whole "family" (irony!) take the killing as an act of war that they are all too happy to answer. So, there's your movie: Vigilante-justice sets off a full-blown shooting war between The Burbs and The Hood.
This is, we all realize, well-worn cinematic ground. And while it wisely avoids an overindulgence in reference or homage "Death Sentence" lives openly in the shadow of cut and dry "they-pushed-him-too-far" revenge thriller titans like "Death Wish" and "Vigilante." What distinguishes it, eventually, seems to come from a willingness to chase the darkness that Wan has brought with him from his more familiar horror work: Most "serious" films in this vein are willing to end in the comfort of ambiguity over "where it all MIGHT end," but Wan and Bacon are prepared to pull the audience down in the deepest, darkest waters of the revenge thriller pool... the waters where "Taxi Driver" and "Straw Dogs" swim. Ironically, this provides the "realistic consequences" that the genre's most strident critics most-frequently rail for- but in doing so it "crosses a line" that most of those same critics simply will not be able to handle.
This kind of movie is the squeamish critic's worst nightmare: It's absolute, balls-to-the-wall, brutal, punishing, attention-demanding stuff... but it's ALSO smart, well-made, sincere and excellently-acted - so they can't couch their "I just couldn't take it" review in the veneer of more analytical criticism. "Saw" already showed that Wan was a prodigy at visceral onscreen-terror, "Death Sentence" hints that, with the right projects, he could have the makings of another David Cronenberg or Paul Verhoven.
