ZOMG U GUISE! EXISTENTIAL CRISIS!

Normally, trying to predict box-office results is a gigantic waste of time. The only way it's not is if you actually are a movie studio. Ordinarily, I would completely dismiss the whole enterprise—the only reason I care about how much money a picture makes is its career implications for my favorite directors—except for the fact that occasionally, audiences will be like “Oh, I don't want to go to this picture, it's flopping,” like when Fight Club was in theaters and despite being both wildly entertaining and having something interesting to say politically, people bought into Joe Lieberman's whole Columbine-inspired crusade to cut Hollywood's balls off and the picture would have flopped (and David Fincher would have been through) if it hadn't miraculously turned a profit on DVD.

Columbine was already awful enough. The two jerkoffs responsible ended up trivializing a very real problem in American culture—the relentless bullying of those who do not fit by those who do—and gave people a new reason to harass weirdos, thereby exacerbating the problem. But, because politicians do not understand outsider culture (because the only people who have ever or will ever win elected office are insiders to some degree or other), the way they decided to fix this problem was by making the entertainment industry “police itself” or something. Since Hollywood is a market-driven business, a whole lot of fretting ensued, and the fact that interesting, transgressive pictures had been making healthy profits for the entire decade went out the window in a scared desire to prove to Middle America that “hey, we're not sick and depraved! And those Columbine psychos, it was their fault!”

A decade later, the movie business is in its usual state: neither unacceptably awful nor incongruously awesome. This year in particular has been an interesting one, featuring any number of sequels, cash-ins, and the usual exasperating bullshit, but the odd really interesting picture (like Inception, and a couple kinda cool things at the art houses). This coming weekend, something that used to happen a lot but that I honestly cannot remember the last time it did is looming: two pictures I really want to see are coming out at the same time.

This raises an interesting question: when did Hollywood studios stop competing with each other? Counter-programming—putting out a “chick” picture the same weekend as a “dude” picture—is fucking retarded because it assumes that no chicks want to see dude pictures and no dudes want to see chick pictures; granted the former is a lot more common than the latter, but still. This coming weekend's head-to-head seems like counter-programming, and it's probably a mark of my otherness that I feel like either could have been made personally for me. But let's look at the situation a little more carefully:


Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: dir. Edgar Wright, starring Michael Cera, a couple cute girls, and a bunch of handsome dickheads.

Wherein Scott Pilgrim (Cera) has a fairly mundane problem—dealing with his new girlfriend's dating history—turn comic-book epic end-of-the-world life-or-death on him, as he has to battle her Seven Evil Exes, who are all better looking and more confident than he is, all of whom can beat the living shit out of him unless he musters some inner strength or something. I don't know, I haven't seen the picture yet.

While the premise certainly isn't irredeemable or anything, the main attractions here are Edgar Wright and Michael Cera, both of whom are nerd gods. Edgar Wright's resume is short and to the point: Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz. He knows nerds. He is a nerd. He's a very talented director with a rare ability to balance subtlety with over the top orgasmic geek-out. Scott Pilgrim marks his first foray into a world where Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are no longer there to be awesome, though Michael Cera is definitely of that phylum.

And Michael Cera, despite teetering on the brink of overexposure from having seemingly done the same picture where he shyly romances the cute hipster girl about twenty-five times in a row (even though it's really only three), is finally breaking out of the mold in a very smart way, since he's still shyly romancing the cute hipster girl, except now instead of a bunch of twee faggots with acoustic guitars on the soundtrack providing the only dramatic tension, he faces the threat of people like Chris Evans frat-douche-ily stomping the shit out of him. This bodes well, and the inevitable triumphant third-act table-turning when Michael Cera grows a pair and kicks ass cannot but be one of the funniest fucking things you or I will ever see.

Therein lies the appeal for me. A picture where the nerds get one over on the handsome douchebags who get all the girls is one that will always have an audience of at least yours truly. Even though, fortunately, I'm no longer as awkward as I was in high school (and, let's be real, college, and, let's be more real, my mid 20s) part of me will always identify with the underdog nerd. Although Michael Cera, as the skinny, stuffed-into-locker variety of nerd, is of a slightly different stripe than my hulking and brooding, he's still my people. And I thus support any enterprise that involves Michael Cera hooking up with hot girls. It'll take some of the sting out of never getting to nail Maeby Fünke.


The Expendables: dir. Sly, starring Sly and just about everybody with balls except Danny Trejo.

Of course, this has an entirely different appeal. Back in the 80s when men were men and extras were filled with holes, action movies were not something “real” actors did in between Oscar-bait roles as gay retards with leukemia. Action movies were something you did if you were the personal trainer for one of those “real” actors and had a shapely, steroidal figure.

I've always respected Sly more than I actually like most of his pictures; my favorite things he's done are the sort of things his big fans tend to hate, like Tango & Cash and Demolition Man. I've never seen any of the Rambo movies and only the first Rocky movie, and swear up and down til I'm blue in the face that the best picture he ever did was Nighthawks, which in spite of having Billy Dee Williams and Rutger Hauer (and Joe Spinell!) in it somehow managed to slip through the cracks of history.

This, though, is different. The Expendables has one of the most impressive arrays of large, gruff voiced dudes ever. There's Sly, as the head of a team of ass-kickers for hire or something, who has a summit with Arnold and Bruce Willis which results in Sly and retinue going out and blowing shit up. Who needs details? It's Sly, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Steve Austin, Randy Couture, and ericrobertsandmickeyrourke *cough cough*.

Now, of course, I want to see this, but I'm resisting for a couple reasons. One is that big-budget homages to low-budget movies (lookin at you, Grindhouse) tend to miss the point and, by the very fact of having more than $1.50 are a totally different kind of picture. Real low-budget action movies have the one guy on steroids in the lead, the one girl no one's ever heard of before who's kind of cute but can't act, the one drunk character actor phoning it in and hamming it up as the villain for that fall's rent, the one other big muscular dude as the villain's number one henchman, and a wise-cracking sidekick (who was sometimes also muscular).

The second reason is that the example I'm about to use of the aesthetic purity of that template is not in The Expendables: Jean-Claude Van Damme. As readers of the Bordeaux, France/Seattle, WA based zine Louis Liard are aware, I am the world's foremost authority on Jean-Claude Van Damme, the king of kings in low-budget action cinema. Genetic engineering could not have produced a better low-budget action star than Jean-Claude Van Damme. He had very large muscles. His near-complete inability to speak English made his acting seem shitty (though, as we discovered in the brilliant, revelatory JCVD, he actually can act). And he kept it simple. Let us take, as an example, Double Impact:

1---Leading man on steroids? Check, times two: Van Damme plays twins
2---Girl no one's ever heard of who's kind of cute but can't act? Meh, the blond can't act but she isn't attractive, ditto the “lesbian” working for the villain.
3---Drunk character phoning it in/hamming it up? Again, slight departure; Geoffrey Lewis isn't the villain, but he sure is drunk and screwing around. Philip Chan, though, HOLY SHIT is he hamming it up, and you can smell the Remy Martin on that dude's breath.
4---Other big muscular dude? Bolo motherfuckin Yeung. The only reason this dude wasn't the biggest fucking superstar in the fucking world was racism; it was always barely plausible that Van Damme could kick his ass. I submit Bolo could have killed Arnold. Yes, that's right, and I'll say it again so there's no ambiguity. Bolo could have fucking killed Arnold. And, don't get me wrong, I love Jean-Claude Van Damme, I love Arnold, but why can't a Chinese guy be big, muscular, not be able to speak English and star in a movie? Huh? Riddle me that, Menachem Golan.
5---Wisecracking sidekick? Not applicable, but let's take Bloodsport as an example—Ogre was fucking great in that as Jean-Claude's wisecracking sidekick, who multitasked as a big muscular dude, and the crippled/dead friend JC has to avenge, only being Ogre he's enough of a badass that he recovers from Bolo crushing his skull within days and is drinking beer like nothing ever happened. Completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, but Ogre was fucking awesome in Bloodsport.

Now, Sly isn't a retard. In fact, in the discussions here regarding Tango & Cash and Victory, I reiterated several times that Sly is, to the contrary, rather intelligent. Sly offered Jean-Claude Van Damme a part in The Expendables. But Jean-Claude Van Damme turned it down, I guess out of an ascetic loyalty to the purity of low-budget action cinema or something (JC is fuckin weird), thereby putting Sly in the awkward position of, due to circumstances completely beyond his control, being unable to perfectly make the all-star team kind of picture he wanted to. Of course, holding that against him would be ridiculous, and I won't do it.

Sly's mistake that he didn't have to make, and that I will hold against him, is cutting Danny Trejo out of the picture (AFTER PUTTING HIM ON THE MOTHERFUCKING POSTER). It's very simple. You cannot make any kind of definitive cinematic statement about anything male without Danny Trejo being involved. Anything testicular with which Danny Trejo is not involved needs to be compared to Danny Trejo. Those stupid Dos Equis ads would be awesome if Danny Trejo were in them, because he is that guy. So what the fuck, Sly? First you cast Danny Trejo, then you decide to merge his character with either Eric Roberts or Mickey Rourke (I forget which)? This is utterly unacceptable, and should have been decided with a bare-knuckle boxing match, which prison boxing champion Danny Trejo would have won, and ended up playing both Eric Roberts' and Mickey Rourke's roles. Sure, Eric Roberts matured into a pretty cool reptile, but Mickey Rourke has looked like fuckin Rocky Dennis for about 20 years now, and the whole point to Mickey Rourke was that he was good-looking. Even in his prime, a half-asleep Danny Trejo with one leg chainsawed off by Mickey Rourke's wisecracking sidekick would fucking destroy him.

But, still. Even if it's imperfect and exempt from the grand tabulation of Statements on Masculinity due to one annoying violation of the statutes, it should be a hell of a lot of fun. Thus presenting the dilemma: The Expendables or Scott Pilgrim? For me, the answer is moot, since I'm going to be spending the weekend reviewing plays for nytheatre.com and trying to have production meetings for a movie I'm directing the end of the month (many self-indulgent plugs to come). But if I were to go to something this weekend, it would probably end up being The Expendables, even if it came down to a coin flip. I have the feeling Scott Pilgrim will benefit from a DVD-and-a-joint viewing at home more than a see-it-in-the-theater-completely-straight experience. Of course, I could be wrong, and probably am.

And, for the biggest question, the one I care the least about: which will be #1 at the box office? Neither. Eat, Pray, Love is going to gross $40 mil. (EDIT: 40 million rubles, maybe. See what I mean about box office predictions being fucking stupid?)

FELIZ CINCO DE MAYO, MIS AMIGOS

A few reasons why this movie is going to kick ass:

(1) It stars Danny Trejo.

(2) The rest of the cast is like something I came up with when I was high (Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Alba, and Robert De Niro in the same fucking movie? With Cheech? And Jeff Fahey? And Don Johnson?)

(3) "They just fucked with the wrong Mexican." This is simply the best tagline in the history of cinema. We shall never surpass this.


Happy Cinco de Mayo!

THE COOLEST LIVING CHARACTER ACTOR

This interview is the best I've read in quite a while. Danny Trejo has been one of my favorite character actors for some time: by 1995 when he showed up (awesomely) in Desperado and (equally awesome) in Heat, I had been seeing him in stuff for so long that I started making a point to remember "Okay, that Mexican guy with the tattoos who could fuck up God, ok, Danny Trejo."

So check out that interview. We learn all kinds of shit in it, to wit:

(1) Danny Trejo really does say "hey, hippie, what kind of dude are you?" in The Hidden. He really does. This makes me so fucking happy you don't know.

(2) Nathan Rabin would make a pretty good armed robber.

(3) Danny Trejo knows this because he was an armed robbery consultant (coolest job ever? up there) on a couple movies, including Heat.

(4) Chuck Norris dresses up as Danny Trejo for Halloween.


Enjoy! Be back with more substantive verbiage soon.

BETTER LIVING THROUGH NETFLIX, VOL. 1: THE HIDDEN

I've been on a bit of an 80s kick recently, which is both characteristic and uncharacteristic, as stated before. One of the things I like about movies from that era is that before political correctness and the weird modern tendency to over-explain in movies set in, there was a more consistent number of fun pictures being cranked out. This is, ironically, partially due to the influence of the independent cinema of the 90s—people suddenly became a lot more concerned with movies being good, which did not make for more good movies, it just led to a lot more overthinking and bloat.

Not so in the 80s, even the late 80s. A good example of the kind of movie they just don't make anymore is The Hidden. It falls squarely into the mismatched-partner buddy cop movie thing, but with a twist: one of the cops is a cranky, hard-boiled rule-breaker . . . but the other one's from outer space. Heh heh heh . . . oh, cinema.

We open with some grainy security camera footage of a bank. But right at the end of the credits, this guy pulls out a shotgun and starts blastin' fools. He picks up a couple bags of cash and hauls ass. Once we cut back to good ol' 35, we see that the dude with the shotgun is Chris Mulkey. Chris Mulkey hops in a little red sports car, bumps some metal, and a pretty well-filmed car chase ensues. Chris Mulkey clearly does not give a fuck; he runs over pedestrians, sideswipes cars, and concludes by ruining some poor schmuck in a wheelchair.

Introduce cops Michael Nouri and Ed O'Ross. They set up a massive-ass roadblock with a whole bunch of other cops, and when Chris Mulkey comes screeching along in his little red sports car, everybody opens up with shotguns. Something's a little off, though: Chris Mulkey takes a fuckload of shotgun blasts but doesn't seem all that fazed. Badass though he is, that is food for thought. Eventually, Michael Nouri pumps enough bullets in him that he crashes his car, end of car chase.

In the hospital, Chris Mulkey is on death's door. A doctor gives Michael Nouri a bit of shit for being callous, but Ed O'Ross fills the doctor in on Chris Mulkey's recent activities:

“He killed twelve people, wounded twenty three more, stole six cars, most of them Ferraris. Robbed eight banks, six supermarkets, four jewelery stores and a candy shop. Six of the ones he killed he carved up with a butcher knife. Two of them were kids. He did all that in two weeks. If anyone deserves to go that way, it sure in the hell was him.”

However, prior to this, Chris Mulkey didn't even have a criminal record. Huh. So the cops leave, and when he's finally all alone, Chris Mulkey stands up, goes to the schlub he's sharing a hospital room with, and this space cockroach from Jupiter comes out his mouth and squeezes its way into the schlub's mouth. Ah ha. That old canard.

Enter “FBI Agent” Kyle MacLachlan. He's a little spacy, but then again, he's Kyle MacLachlan, we expect no less of him. He announces to Michael Nouri that they're now partners, and they begin hunting the schlub in earnest. Michael Nouri still can't quite figure out what the fuck Kyle MacLachlan's on about until the schlub kills a guy in a record store because the guy objected to the schlub shoplifting metal tapes. The schlub also ganks a boombox, because it's the 80s, and metal tapes don't play themselves.

Having acquired tunes, the schlub goes to get a bite to eat, and blasts metal in the middle of a diner, in a very funny scene. He sees a Ferrari drive by and starts thinking thoughts. He pulls a dine and dash, but the waitresses don't really give a fuck because he cracked some nasty farts (the space cockroach's new host body having a bit of gastrointestinal problems), and he follows the Ferrari to a local dealership, where the hilariously sleazy salesman is closing the sale with a hilariously sleazy mobster type. The schlub informs them that he wants the car, but they inform him that he can't have it, and the salesman asks a large black gentleman to dissuade the schlub's enthusiasm for the Ferrari so they can close the deal and do some coke in peace. Some enthusiasm, though, cannot be dissuaded. The schlub gutshoots the large black gentleman, and interrupts the cocaine and paperwork to shoot the salesman and the mobster and take the keys to the Ferrari.

Michael Nouri puts out an APB on the Ferrari, and tries to get some information out of Kyle MacLachlan as to why two random dudes with no criminal records both suddenly develop a fixation on heavy metal, Ferraris, and homicide.

Michael Nouri: You know what bothers me about these two guys DeVries and Miller?
Kyle MacLachlan: Neither has a criminal record. They both led normal lives until a few days ago, and now they're killing people.
Michael Nouri: Do you read minds or was that just a shot in the dark?
Kyle MacLachlan: No, I read minds.
Michael Nouri: Oh yeah? What was I just thinking?
Kyle MacLachlan: That I'm full of shit.
Michael Nouri: Impressive.
Kyle MacLachlan: Not really. Quite simple to read.

Kyle MacLachlan does admit that his own Porsche in which he tools around from crime scene to crime scene at 110 mph, is stolen, but then again, he could just be fucking around. But THEN AGAIN, the space cockroach from Jupiter likes driving fast . . . could there be a connection?

When Michael Nouri invites Kyle MacLachlan over to his house for dinner, a couple more hints are dropped. Michael Nouri's daughter and Kyle MacLachlan share this weird moment where it looks like all kinds of communication is going on even though neither of them says a word. Then, Mrs. Nouri asks Kyle MacLachlan where he's from, and Kyle MacLachlan just points up. Hmmm. Still, ya gotta give the movie credit. It just lays those pieces of evidence in front of you, and on top of it being fucking Kyle MacLachlan you as the viewer know he's an alien, even if Michael Nouri doesn't figure it out until almost the end of the movie.

The schlub stumbles upon a huge store of machine guns belonging to the mobster whose Ferrari he stole, and right when the cops find the Ferrari outside a strip club, the space cockroach transfers to the voluptuous body of stripper Claudia Christian, whereupon she fucks some sleazeball to death and steals his car so she can drive around killing people and listening to metal.

Our policeman heroes catch up to cockroach Claudia and shoot her a whole bunch of times with little to no visible effect. This, and the weird little silver space gun Kyle MacLachlan pulls out, starts making Michael Nouri think that this is Something They Didn't Cover in the Academy. Claudia jumps off the roof and croaks, but not before the space cockroach possesses Michael Nouri's lieutenant's dog. Because hey, you don't get to Earth that often, why not.

While the space cockroach decides that possessing people is more fun and jumps to the lieutenant, Michael Nouri has Kyle MacLachlan arrested to try and Get A Straight Answer Out Of Him. It transpires, shockingly, that Kyle MacLachlan is not an FBI agent from Seattle. He's an alien pursuing one mean-ass space cockroach from Jupiter.

In the morning, some lab tech retardedly fires Kyle MacLachlan's space gun, which blows up a wall and creates enough of a diversion for cockroach Lieutenant to hold Michael Nouri at gunpoint and shlep him down to Kyle MacLachlan's holding cell, where they talk some alien trash, and the cockroach racistly discourses about a couple different kinds of aliens, when Danny Trejo—

—yes, that's right, sports fans, the Danny Trejo, starts heckling the cockroach from his holding cell.

Danny Trejo: “Hey, hippie! What kind of dude are you?”

At least that's what I think he said. He might have been saying “Hey, hefty.” But I like the thought of him calling a space cockroach from Jupiter holding a rocket launcher while in the body of a police lieutenant “hippie.” (Keep in mind I'm the guy who swears to this day he heard an Ewok say “oye, puto!” in The Ewok Adventure . . .)

But anyway, Danny Trejo gets shot to death for his wit, and a gun battle ensues. Michael Nouri gets shot in the stomach, the space cockroach takes over Ed O'Ross' body—which, Ed O'Ross being Michael Nouri's partner, induces a degree of angst—and Kyle MacLachlan takes off in pursuit. Cockroach Ed O'Ross takes advantage of the real Ed O'Ross being assigned way back in the beginning of the movie to protect a senator to possess the senator. Cockroach senator announces at a press conference that he's running for president, whereupon Kyle MacLachlan bursts in . . . wait, this needs a new paragraph . . .

Kyle MacLachlan flambeés the senator with a motherfucking flamethrower!

He gets shot a whole bunch of times in so doing, but man, aliens sure can take a bullet. Then, when the space cockroach crawls out of the senator's flaming corpse, Kyle MacLachlan hits him right between the antennae with his space gun. Suddenly, everybody who was shooting Kyle MacLachlan is like “ohhhhhh, now we get it . . .” and they apologetically take him to the hospital.

At the hospital, Michael Nouri is in bad shape, and his wife is crying. Kyle MacLachlan, being a good sport, takes one for the team, and breathes alien light into Michael Nouri's mouth, which makes him okay again, and Mrs. Nouri sure is happy, but the daughter knows something's up. Daddy kind of did die, it's Kyle MacLachlan in his body. But the wife clearly doesn't give a fuck, so everybody wins. The end.

I first saw The Hidden in the theaters with my mom, I think, and I'm pretty sure I saw it a couple more times on video, because watching it again a whole lotta things I remembered as being from some 80s cop movie or other were actually from The Hidden (the scene where the car salesman whips out coke while they're signing the papers, the scene where the black cop shoots a very aesthetic paperball jumpshot into the wastebasket, etc)

The Hidden holds up. I guess its relatively low budget kept it from being distributed too widely, but it's way more entertaining than Alien Nation (which is not to say Alien Nation isn't cool, it just drags a bit, whereas The Hidden fuckin moves) and everyone I know who's seen it loves it.

Worth putting in your queue: Hell yeah.