DANGEROUS DAYS

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (2009)
Sci-Fi/Action/Drama; USA
112 minutes

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Action/Sci-Fi; USA
150 uncalled for minutes

District 9 (2009)
Sci-Fi; South Africa
112 minutes

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
Action/Sci-Fi; USA
118 minutes

Spartacus: Blood & Sand (2010)
Historical Drama/Action; USA
Starz Network

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (2006)
Superhero/Action; USA
115 minutes

Vexille (2007)
Sci-Fi/Action/Animation; Japan
109 minutes

Appleseed Ex Machina (2007)
Sci-Fi/Action/Animation; Japan
105 minutes

Book of Eli (2010)
Post-Apocalyptic/Action; USA

Outlander (2008)
Sci-Fi/Action/Period Piece; USA
115 minutes

Gunhed (1989)
Sci-Fi/Action; Japan
100 mins

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This movie makes no fucking sense. None whatsoever. Reading the twisted origins of the "Gunhed" script it's easy to see why the story is such an utter mess. But it looks really cool. The sets, costumes, character designs, cinematography and atmosphere are all spot on - occasionally bordering on genius, but good luck trying to figure out what the hell it all means. They're on some abandoned man-made research island or something, there's a giant killer mech thing that wants to destroy the world, somebody gets turned into a weird monster cybernetic thing somehow, they're looking for some shit called - I kid you not - "texmexium" (why they didn't just go to Chevy's is beyond me...maybe they don't have gringo food in the future)...I don't know. It makes me sad to think about how epic this movie could have been. All the promise was there, but God damn did they miss the mark. I mean, you should still check it out because there's some cool shit, but maybe watch it on mute or something.

Give this some time if you're into: mechs, cyberpunk, live-action anime, 80s special effects

Terminator Salvation (2009)
Action/Post Apocalyptic Sci-Fi; USA
115 mins

Star Trek

A Naysayer's guide

Some people might call me a “Trekkie”, but I’m far from being a purist or some kind of psycho who can’t stand to see my beloved franchise tainted. I loved “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine” most of all and (feel free to call me a pansy, but) I’ve always been more of a Picard guy than a Kirk guy. There have been episodes I’ve loved and episodes I’ve hated, spin-offs that have worked and spin-offs that have embarrassed the hell out of me - same goes for the movies, and while the latest attempt at a reboot of the franchise certainly has it’s moments, all-in-all, it offers very little other than pretty CGI to the versed Trek fan.

First thing first, despite all the bells and whistles, the swirling camera shots, the lens flares and the Hollywood heartthrobs, this movie is basically “Star Trek: Nemesis” with a few roles reversed. Swap Spock for Picard and Nero for Shinzon and you have basically the same general premise – a maniacal villain that’s been wronged by the vast workings of the universe, but focuses his malice mainly on a Starfleet captain and wants to force said captain to watch as he destroys his home to avenge the wrongs inflicted upon his peoples…or something like that. Even Nero’s costume was pretty much exactly what Shinzon was rocking in Nemesis, with a little less goth-fetish and a little more of an old-timey chimney sweep look going on.

But aside from some plot similarities and the carrying over of characters from the original series, this “reboot” of the franchise is not really Star Trek. I’m not saying that simply because it sucked, but because the fundamental elements that make something Star Trek were absent. To me, Star Trek was never about Captain Kirk or Spock. It was never about Picard or Warf or Data or Janeway. Star Trek is about a universe in which humanity has gone through their absolute lowest point, when all seemed hopeless, and yet they powered through, overcame their petty differences and strove to create not only a world where people could live in peace and prosperity, but a unified universe free of money, greed and the corruption and exploitation that they spawn.

In the Trek universe, nobody gets paid for what they do, they work together for the betterment of society and all their needs are satisfied by technology. There are, of course, varying view points on what constitutes the betterment of society and thus there are conflicts between planets and species, but the Federation is supposed to represent something like the UN, where all are welcome and all are equal under the law. In this new vision of “Trek”, however, that is not the case. If you’re human, then you’re kosher – no worries there – but if you happen to have large eyes that are slightly skewed on your face or if you have a weird buggy look about you, then you can expect a life of second-class citizenship aboard the Enterprise or any other Federation vessel. Verbal abuse, constant belittlement, racial slurs and even physical violence are just some of the friendly obstacles you’ll come up against as a non-human alien in JJ Abrams’ “Trek”. Ethnically diverse background characters don’t have it much better unless, of course, they have some stereotypical cultural trait that can be exploited for gags, such as a funny accent or a background in martial arts.

If you think that Star Trek is about Captain Kirk being a cocky womanizer or Spock being an angsty emo then you’ve completely missed the point. Trek is about the universe itself, not just the characters that populate it.

The problem I have with this movie is that JJ Abrams admittedly has tried to turn “Star Trek” into “Star Wars” and they are just two completely different things. I’m not saying that you can’t bring Trek into the modern age or make it more action packed and accessible, but if you’re doing it at the expense of the true core of the franchise then you’re better off just naming it something else and starting fresh. When Ron Moore rebooted “Battlestar Galactica”, he completely changed the tone of the original, but at it’s essence they were the exact same concepts, just treated with a little more seriousness and realism. There was a real reason to approach that material again and give it the respect it deserved and it resulted in some incredibly groundbreaking writing and filmmaking. I would have been very happy to have the same thing done for “Star Trek”, but in this case it wasn’t necessarily the material that needed revamping, it was just the packaging. The only thing wrong with “Star Trek” was that the average Joe associated it with being a low-life social reject. But instead of taking Star Trek somewhere it had never been before, all they did was recast it, recycle familiar storylines and Michael Bay up the visuals. Did it make it more accessible? Sure. But did it make it better? While “Battlestar” went back and treated Glen Larson’s creation with more respect, Abrams does the opposite – this Trek is much hokier than it ever was before. The best comparison I can make is to the Batman franchise. This Trek is like Joel Schumacher’s take on Batman. It’s what someone who isn’t into comics thinks comics are supposed to be: campy, overly-stylized and aimed at twelve year old boys.

I hate to be this guy, I really do. It’s not that I’m out to piss on everybody’s parade or be that guy that’s always talking shit and never satisfied…I just calls ‘em like I sees ‘em. So please don’t start flooding my inbox with hate mail about how I’m just a lonely virgin who has never left my mother’s basement and therefore couldn’t possibly be qualified to pass judgment on “normal people entertainment”. Now granted, I am a bit of a grizzled old man at heart, but I’ve been known to experience this thing called “fun” every once in awhile. I get it and I’m not against it in principle. But if there’s one thing I absolutely hate is when movies try to blindside me into having “fun” by amping up the tension to a ridiculously over-the-top level, artificially creating situation after situation where the hero(s) must overcome some life or death obstacle or another in rapid succession that serve no purpose other than to take up space between one plot point and the next. It’s what I call “Indiana Jones-ing” a movie. You know, Indie gets to the top of the mountain, but “Oh no!” now he has to cross the dilapidated hanging bridge to the other side, but “Oh no!” the bridge is starting to give way and he uses his whip to grab onto an old tree trunk, but “Oh no!” the tree is coming loose, so he backflips through the air and somehow manages to grab a narrow ledge, but “Oh no!” now the dark-skinned antagonists are shooting flaming arrows at him, how will he ever survive?!?! “Oh my God!” his trusty sidekick jumps in on a motorcycle and saves the day, but “Oh no!” some other pointless thing happens to keep the tension going to distract you from the fact that the only thing that’s really happened in the last 40 minutes is that Indie walked into a temple and grabbed an ancient jeweled thing of some sort.

There’s a lot of that going on in the new “Star Trek”. Something is always happening, whether it adds anything to the story or is suitable for the moment at all and that’s another one of the film’s problems. Was there any purpose to Kirk encountering huge snow monsters on a frozen planet? Other than the fact that someone thought “Star Trek” needed more big monsters, not really. I’m of the school of thought that creating balance and context are the keys to making anything worthwhile. Danger means nothing unless you can compare it to safety, fear means nothing unless it can be contrasted with happiness. In order for something to have an impact, it has to shatter perceptions somehow, but if a film is balls-to-the-walls at every moment and the characters are always facing random dangers at every turn when it finally comes time for the hero(s) to face the real deal, it ceases to have the impact it’s supposed to have because we’ve already been there several hundred times already. The ending of this film suffers from just that problem and as a result feels very anticlimactic. Instead of leaving you with that “wow factor”, it becomes what feels like another in a long list of gags.

And speaking of gags…those were aplenty as well. Slapstick has never really been a huge part of Star Trek, but it’s plastered all over this film, from Kirk hitting his head on a steel beam getting into a space ship or Bones getting accidentally beamed into a sewer pipe, to an extended gag sequence that involves Kirk growing oversized hands and a speech impediment – a scene very reminiscent of Will Smith’s brilliant turn in “Hitch” (sarcasm is hard to inject into the written word, but yea, that was a hefty dose right there). Again, I have no problem with fun in movies if it suits the story or is relevant somehow, but that didn’t feel like the case here. It felt like the creators weren’t confidant in the strength of the material alone and felt the need to cram in any and everything that might keep the viewer from having too much down time to really let any of that material actually set in.

Then, of course, there is the junk science. I’m not going to dwell too much on this because I know only the geekiest of us actually care, but it does need to be pointed out. Number one - total lack of knowledge as to what a “black hole” actually is and how they work. You can’t just drive through the middle of a black hole like it was some kind of giant garage door. Number two – livable planets generally have atmospheres that would prevent someone from say, jumping out of a space ship and free-falling in a straight line down to an orbiting platform. Even if the pressure and friction of the atmosphere didn’t set them ablaze, orbiting structures are not stationary, they’re moving through space at incredibly fast speeds. On top of that, if a structure were low enough in the atmosphere to allow people to take off their helmets and not freeze or suffocate to death during their choreographed sword fights, then suffice it to say it’s probably too low to maintain orbit and keep from being pulled down by the planet’s gravity. And finally – is there sound in space or isn’t there? Make up your damn mind, JJ.

I must admit, I’m being pretty negative towards this movie here, but it did have some redeeming qualities. The aforementioned space jump scene was cool despite the improbability. Visually, the film has a lot of style and “flare” (if you know what I mean). The spacescapes are all beautiful, the ships looked great and many of the shots were framed well to create interesting compositions. If I were reviewing the film based solely on watching the whole thing on mute, then it would undoubtedly get a high ranking and in all honestly, if this hadn’t been labeled a “Star Trek” movie, I probably wouldn’t have many of the complaints that I have. But they decided to make it Star Trek instead of…oh, I don’t know…coming up with something original for once, so here we are.

One of the things I feel is necessary in a case like this is to put things into perspective and say exactly how this film stacks up in the grand scheme of things. It’s not as bad as, say, “The Pacifier and it’s certainly not straight-to-DVD quality. This movie is akin to Michael Bay’s “Transformers” in many ways. The stories to both films are inconsequential compared to the real stars, the effects, the action and the merchandising. Both claimed to be about things they weren’t – “Transformers” was more about high school students than Transformers and “Star Trek” was more about the zany adventures of James T. Kirk and his special destiny (not to be confused with the famed coverband Starbuck & Her Special Destiny) than it was about Star Trek. They both have throwaway pop music soundtracks, which isn’t exactly unexpected from “Transformers” since it is set in the present day, but it really felt out of place in “Star Trek”. As much as I love “Sabotage”, I have a hard time believing that people will still be ubiquitously bumpin’ that jam throughout the ages. I don’t even know all that many people who still have that in regular rotation now. Personally, I’d be interested to hear what kind of fist-pumpers people might be creating in the future, but I understand that such things would be problematic for fast-food chain tie-ins and high-octane TV spots, which we all know is the real point of making this movie.

Most of the time, after a Star Trek movie finishes and I’m walking out of the theater, I’m thinking about something grand, like whether there might be some validity to the Borg’s collective way of living, whether androids really could develop to understand emotions some day, if Spock and Kirk really should have saved those whales or if it was right of the Federation to get involved in such and such conflict on such and such planet, but walking out of the theater after JJ Abrams’ “Star Trek”, the only thing I was thinking about was the quickest route to Jack in the Box to get some curly fries. That about says it right there. It’s eye-candy and mindless distraction, nothing more. So if you’re looking for a “rock ‘em, sock ‘em good time”, a “roller-coaster ride of thrills and spills” or a “dazzling, high-octane whiz-bang of summer movie madness” then by all means, go see “Star Trek” and enjoy the hell out of it. As for me…I’ll be in my room watching “First Contact” and weeping.

Watchmen

Not another damn 'Watchmen' review

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Like many of you, I was squirming in my seat this weekend trying desperately to make it through the final twenty minutes of "Watchmen" without experiencing complete bladder failure. To me, it says a lot about the quality of a film if I'm willing to risk the embarrassment of self urination because I simply can't bring myself to walk out and possibly miss something awesome.

Part of what made "Watchmen" so successful in my eyes, despite the fact that it’s really long and doesn't flow in the way we've come to expect from conventional filmmaking, was the complete and utter devotion to bringing the world to life. It's something that happens very rarely in the age of quick turnarounds and bare minimum effort, but when it does happen, it's something truly magnificent to behold. Zach Snyder's obsessive desire to do justice to his source material rivals that of the great genre filmmakers of the past. James Cameron and Ridley Scott come to mind when I look at the attention given to even the most minute details of the film and that's a pretty damn good category to be in.

It's really hard to find fault with that kind of dedication. In fact, if I had one major complaint about "Watchmen" it wouldn't have anything to do with the actual film, but rather the fact that it wasn't Zach Snyder's own original creation. I've stated before in previous episodes of Dangerous Days that I have a real problem with the lack of creativity in Hollywood at the moment. The constant reliance on remakes, sequels and adaptations of already successful franchises has spawned a slew of lazy, uninspired pseudo-blockbusters that are generally more successful as trailers than they are as films. In part, the reason these movies fail so frequently is because the people behind them simply don't care all that much either way about the films they're creating. It's about making the returns, not about making a piece of art. But then something like "Watchmen" comes along and does it right and still, I can't help but wonder why we can't see this kind of dedicated filmmaking tied to an original concept.

Before I actually saw the movie, the reviews I'd been reading were all starting to sound strangely familiar. Critics threw out terms like: soulless, boring, long, meandering, all style-no substance...all things that people originally said about Ridley Scott's "Bladerunner" when it first came out. I'm not going to compare the two films because they don't have all that much in common, but from a directorial standpoint, there are many similarities between the obsessive eye behind "Bladerunner" and "Watchmen". I think that like Scott's film, "Watchmen" will gain appreciation when taken out of the popcorn-eating theater context and eventually people will hail it as the great achievement it is when they have the ability to pause and relieve their bladders at will, but can an adaptation of a graphic novel truly reach the level of being deemed a "masterpiece" the way "Bladerunner" has in recent years? Does the fact that it's a very literal translation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's comic hold it back from true greatness as a film?

Put the fact that "Bladerunner" is based (albeit a bit loosely) on a Philip K. Dick story to the side for a moment because adapting a book is much different than adapting a graphic novel. With a novel or story, there is only the written word and the imagination to draw from and there is a lot of room for interpretation, but with something like "Watchmen" you're adapting something that could easily act as your film's storyboards - word for word, image for image. Though I truly enjoyed the film, I'm starting to really understand Alan Moore's point of view. The graphic novel already exists and it's great - why do we need to make it a movie? In that respect, the only real purpose it serves is to flex artistic muscles and perhaps act as an extended commercial for the comic to those that might not otherwise find it. The book is a masterpiece, for sure, and the movie recreates the book extremely well, but just because you paint a flawless copy of the “Mona Lisa” doesn’t mean you’re DaVinci.

Looking back at some of my favorite sci-fi films, "Alien" and "Aliens", "Terminator", "The Abyss", "2046", "The Thing"...they all share something in common. Even if they are adaptations or sequels, the worlds they depict exist only in those films. John Carpenter's "The Thing" is of course a remake of "The Thing From Outer Space", but you can't just pop in a copy of the 50s original and get the same effect. If you're itching to watch "Aliens", there is no substitute. You can't just go pick up another movie, even the first one, and expect to get the same experience. They are true films - the experience is fleeting, it sucks you in and when it's over, it's over, never to be regained again except from repeat viewings. With "Watchmen", however, I don't know if that is going to be the case. You can't really separate the film from the comic, which in a way acts to lower the impact of both pieces.

I guess what I’m saying is, we’ve seen Zach Snyder reinvent other people’s art to great effect three times now. He’s proven that he can deliver a solid film if his source material is strong enough, but are we ever going to get a true cinematic masterpiece out of him? He’s obviously got the chops. Will we see his obsessive eye focus on his own pet project or is James Cameron’s “Avatar” the only original piece of American sci-fi filmmaking we can expect to see in the near future? As much as I love Jim and Ridley, it would be nice to see a successor to their throne come out of this new generation of filmmakers so we don’t always have to rely on the old timers to see some worthwhile sci-fi.

Remakes, sequels and reboots

You are Hollywood's bitch and you're too weak to do anything about it

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Being a science-fiction fan in this day and age is a lot like being on the losing end of an abusive relationship.

Ever since Hollywood discovered that us nerds would gladly open up our wallets on nothing more than a wink and a promise of an epic spaceship battle, or a little bit of alien side-boob, they've been milking us for all we're worth. And we're so eager for the love that we just smile and take it.

They churn out disappointing rehash after disappointing rehash, recycling concepts that Asimov would have considered outdated, thinking that if they just throw in enough explosions or CGI monsters that we won't notice. And the sad thing is that most of the time, we don't.

Our abusers are consistently letting us down, falling short on their lofty promises and yet we always take them back, no matter how severely they've embarrassed us in front of our friends. Why do we do it?

Take "Transformers" as an example. Even if you were never a fan of the cartoons or the toys back in the 1980s, the basic concept of giant, shape-shifting alien robots battling for supremacy itself just sounds so damn good on paper that it's hard to imagine how it could ever go wrong. And indeed, with all the possibilities that arise out of that basic premise, it really should have been a no-brainer.
Yet somehow, Hollywood found a way to widdle all that promise down to nothing. How, you ask? By completely ignoring it to focus instead on the petty relationship problems of a teenage boy and the object of his newly pubescent lust. Don't get me wrong, Megan Fox is a hottie for sure, but given the choice to watch her run around cock-teasing in a skimpy T-shirt or witness a gang of badass robots waging all out war across America, I'd totally go for the epic robot battle.

Hot birds are a dime a dozen, but how often do you see a diesel truck transform into a huge mech and then throw another huge mech into the side of a skyscraper?

So why the hell are we watching these high school students awkwardly trying to put their genitals together when there is robot destruction to be had? High school students are the people I push out of the way to get on the train in the morning, they're the people I have to explain my Carl's Jr. order 15 times before they finally get it. They are not cooler or more interesting than Megatron.

I'm sorry, but in no version of reality would that ever be the case. So why did Shia LaBeouf get more screen time than Optimum Prime? Why was the main character in a movie called "Transformers" not, how do I put this, a Transformer?

But like the reliable punching bags we are, we all still went and saw it, and most of us will even make the same mistake a second time around when the sequel comes out. they show us a flashy trailer of all of the coolest parts of the movie in rapid succession, and we ignorantly think that they've changed, that somehow this time things will be different. And maybe, just maybe, there will be an original script, a fresh perspective, a unique vision at the end of that rainbow.

How long has it been since that happened? I honestly can't remember the last new sci-fi movie I wasn't merely settling for in some way.

Let's take another example, "Alien vs. Predator," Like "Transformers," this one should have been a no-brainer, but somehow the filmmakers made the strange choice along the way to try their hardest to not give the audience what they wanted to see. Not only was the movie rated PG-13 when neither franchise had yet turned out anything less than a hard R, but the battles between the Xenomorphs and the Predators were poorly filmed and wildly unsatisfying.

We went in wanting to see aliens take on predators, and what we got was cartoonish predo-human buddy cop shenanigans and a Tomb Raider-esque pyramid of booby traps.

Regardless of how entertaining these films may or may not have been, they both failed on a fundamental level. They just weren't about what they should have been about for no good reason. If this was a school assignment, they both would have been given F's because they wrote 10-page essays on ancient Egypt when the assignment was to solve a math problem.

The main connection between these two films is that they both rely on non-human characters to tell a story. The writers and producers in Hollywood gave been operating for a very long time under the idea that no audience will be able to enjoy a movie unless they are able to directly relate to the protagonist and thus the "useless story vessel" is born.

The main character in "Transformers" is a teenage boy not because it has anything to do with transforming robots, but because Hollywood just doesn't believe giant CGI robots can carry a movie on their own. The concept that audiences who came out in droves would somehow leave the theater severely disappointed that their Transformers movie didn't focus enough on human issues is completely ludicrous.

Nobody came to see anything but Transformers, so why would they be let down if the story was told from the Autobots perspective? They can talk, they have personalities. What's the problem?

"AvP" is a little different because neither species can communicate in English. But seriously, off the top of my head, I could think of 20 cooler setups for that movie than the one that was delivered. They even had a better concept built right into the movie that they totally slept on -- the ancient Aztecs' first encounter with the Predators. It was right there in the movie and would have been a way cooler story. But instead, they went with the more generic "scientific expedition encounters unbelievable horror" route.

Personally, I think "Apocalypto" meets "Alien" meets "Predator" would have been much more satisfying and much more original, but hey, nobody's paying me to write this crap, so what do I know? All I really know is what I like and what I don't like. I don't like movies that water down their subject matter for the sake of mass appeal.

When will Hollywood open its eyes and realize that people like sci-fi just the way it is? People love "Terminator," they love "Alien." They love Star Wars. But what they don't love is watered down sci-fi that's afraid to commit.

As the victims of constant letdown by the Hollywood system, how can we geeks take back our self respect? How can we break the cycle of abuse?

The answer is fairly simple -- don't believe the hype! Don't let The Man's smooth talking ways seduce you. If they want to get into your pants, make them work for it!

An awesome trailer does not make a good movie. In fact, the more awesome stuff you see in a trailer, the less impressed you should be because it means they're trying to pull the wool over your eyes. If you show up at the midnight screening already wearing the officially licensed T-shirt on your back before you've even seen the first five minutes of the movie, then you're playing right into their hands, and they're going to keep on shafting you time after time. They'll only try what they think they'll be able to get away with.

Support independent filmmakers. With blossoming genre scenes growing out of Korea, Japan, Spain, Mexico, Russia and many other countries, there really is no shortage of alternatives to the big Hollywood blockbusters that have become so stagnant lately. With the cost of special effects and CGI slowly becoming affordable to small production houses, the playing field is being leveled and it's no longer necessary to have a Hollywood budget to get Hollywood-level production values.

A year or two of poor box office turnout might cause the big studios to re-evaluate their game plans, and maybe try a little bit harder to make them worthwhile films.

Predator 2

Now with more Jamaicans!

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With the country's first African-American president taking office last week, it's easy for most Americans to start getting the idea that racism is dead in this country.

But though our nation is finally ready to let a black man run the country, America still has a hard time with the idea of ethnic heroes being portrayed in our movies, comics, magazines and television shows.

My friends and I have a game, it's called "The Name 10 Black Actors Game." It's fairly simple. There are no rules. You just ask a friend, a co-worker, a random person in a bar, etc. to name 10 working black actors off the top of their head.

I guarantee the first answer will be Denzel Washington, the second answer will be Will Smith and the third answer will maybe be Samuel L. Jackson if they've really got their thinking cap on. The fourth answer may take awhile ... it may not ever come, depending on who you're talking to.

There just aren't that many prominent black actors out there, sure, but more importantly, there aren't that many mainstream movies that want to acknowledge that black people are anything more than sidekicks.

That's why, whenever I get the chance, I pull out my trusty old copy of "Predator 2" and slip it in the DVD player. It's one of the only movies I can think of where the hero of the story, the real hero, is a normal guy that just happens to be black. He doesn't have a snappy retort to everything, he doesn't talk jive, he isn't a caricature of what white people think black men are like - he's just a dude with a shit job in a really fucked up city with some seriously messed up stuff going on around him.

It's refreshing to see in a world where black characters in movies have to basically walk around with a shirt that says "Hey, I'm the Black Guy!" in huge day-glo letters, or where roles have to be re-written for Will Smith by his own private writing team because he couldn't just play any old character - he has to be sassy-talking and street-wise or the world just wouldn't know what to think of him.

Danny Glover got a lot of attention for doing the Lethal Weapon movies because, well, Mel Gibson was standing right there next to him the whole time and people were bound to notice him sooner or later. But that audience didn't follow him over to "Predator 2," which really is a shame because he's great in it. Glover's role obviously wasn't written for a black guy. The filmmakers could have just as easily cast James Caan - his character's name is Mike Harrigan for chrissake - but that's part of what makes this movie such a one of a kind achievement.

The role was written for a white guy, it could have easily been played by a white guy, the movie it was a sequel of starred a white guy and it still went to Danny Glover! Against all odds. When the hell does that happen? Almost never, folks. Almost never. Hollywood Rule No. 5: Never cast a black actor unless absolutely necessary.

But our cultural stereotypes don't stop with race - a lot of people will ignorantly argue that sequels are never as good as the original movies that spawned them. But you know what? A lot of people think Britney Spears is a good singer. A lot of people think George W. Bush was a good president. A lot of people say a lot of shit, but it doesn't make it true.

The reason most sequels fail is because the people involved are just trying to recreate the magic that succeeded for them the first time around. It's an easy pitfall.

Unfortunately, what the filmmakers fail to realize more often than not is that it was probably the uniqueness of the original that was appealing to the fans in the first place. This is just another area where "Predator 2" defies all odds.

"Predator 2" is nothing like "Predator." Sure, the alien is the same, and sure, they're basically both about lone badasses outclassing said alien with nothing but their own bootstraps, but that's pretty much where the similarities die.

First difference: "Predator 2" abandons the jungle for a dystopic future Los Angeles. Second difference: it's basically a sci-fi noir flick, which as a film geek, I love. Third difference: the original "Predator" contains absolutely no Jamaicans, while the sequel - chock full of those rudeboys.

The point is, it would have been super easy to just hire another five or six roided-out beefhead b-list actors, give them some big guns, fly them to the part of L.A. that looks most like a jungle and had a "Predator" sequel knocked out in like ... two weeks, max. But they didn't do that, and I, for one, commend them for not taking the easy route. Instead, they created a whole new setting, a whole new backstory and a whole new set of characters.

They didn't have to, but they did. They broke Hollywood Rule No. 4: Never do more work than is absolutely necessary.

That's not to say this movie is completely, painstakingly original - it does follow a lot of the action movie formulas and lone cop cliches, but I don't have a problem with that. Point me to a movie that isn't cliche in some way and I'll gladly illuminate you as to something you overlooked. But what matters most to me when watching a movie is not whether I've heard someone express a similar sentiment in another movie, but that I can buy what's taking place on screen as being organic to the story being presented.

In this case, yeah, I totally buy it. If I was Lt. Mike Harrigan and this was happening to me, I can't say I'd react any differently than Danny Glover does. I'd be cussing my boss out, going off on my own and trying to get to the bottom of it.

Call me cliche, but that just seems like the logical thing to do. And, you know what? It worked! He caught the bad guy, solved the mystery and put an end to the problem. Can't argue with results.

"Predator 2" will always hold a special place in my heart because even with its cliches, even though it's a sequel, it's still more original than 99 percent of movies being churned out today. It reminds me that you don't always have to go the obvious route to make a great movie. You don't always have to cast the obvious guy that you think audiences will want to see, you don't always have to put forth the bare minimum of effort and you don't always have to beat a dead horse.

The film industry has a lot of crazy, self-imposed notions of what will bring them success. They don't like taking risks, they don't like standing on shaky ground when their money is on the line.

I can certainly understand where they're coming from in that approach, but the problem with that mentality is that it leads us to situations like what we're experiencing today where the same five stars appear in variations of the same five movies over and over again, year after year.

Nobody is creating anything, they're just trying to appropriate something that's already proven successful. Nothing changes.

But look around you. Things are changing in the real world and it's time that our media reflects those changes.

So now that Barack Obama is in the Oval Office, can we please get some color up there on the silver screen? Can we see somebody at least attempt not to follow the beaten path? Please?

Taken

Not to be confused with the awful TV miniseries of the same name

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my boy luc besson has done some great work in his day (leon, la femme nikita, the 5th element), but for the last few years he's been churning out a bunch of merde (the transporter, danny the dog). entertaining merde, but merde nontheless. his latest project, taken (which he co-wrote with robert mark kamen) by all appearances seemed like it was going to fall in line with that trend. kamen also co-wrote the transporter with besson and in the director's chair, yet another transporter alumnus, cinematographer pierre morel, seemed to round out the trifecta of over-the-top mediocrity. but whichever wise man once said you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover must have actually been a pretty smart motherfucker because, against all odds, taken is an awesome movie!

usually, i'm not much of a liam neeson fan. something about his delivery just never sits right with me, but i must say, the old bastard really delivers in this movie! he plays bryan, a former CIA spy or something like that, who has given up the life of espionage in order to rebuild his relationship with kim (maggie grace), the teenage daughter he was never really there for growing up. his ex-wife (famke janssen) has married up in the world, sinking her claws into some rich dude who is apparently so rich he just gives thoroughbred horses away as birthday presents to other people's kids, so bryan has effectively been cut out of his daughter's life. boo hoo. however, since she's under 18, kim needs bryan's permission to leave the country so she can go to france for the summer to hang out with her new rich friends, following U2 around on their european tour (meh, kids today and their new fangled rock n' roll music). long story short, the dumb ho flies with her equally dumb hoey friend to paris and ends up getting her ass kidnapped by some albanian gangsters who get her hooked on smack, so they can sell her as a prostitute...bet you weren't expecting that!

let me just state for a moment that i'm not being sexist by calling them "dumb hoes", they really were about as dumb as hoes come. so dumb, in fact, that they were kidnapped literally like 10 minutes after they got to paris. they had "dumb ho" written so clearly across their foreheads that they didn't even give themselves the chance to eat a fuckin' crepe or buy a souvenir beret before they were dragged kicking and screaming into the back of some greasy eastern-european dude's fiat. so ladies, i don't want to receive any insensitivity warning emails from this shit. show this to the most ardent feminist you know and i'm sure they'll concur that these were some unintelligent females preoccupied with a ho-like lust for french cock. simple statement of fact, not at all intended to be offensive. [/public service announcement]

anyway, where was i? ah yes, the dumb hoes get kidnapped...right. so liam neeson, being a former spy, proceeds to use his skills to get his daughter back. that's pretty much it as far as plot goes, but let me tell you that the result is nothing short of satisfying. for about the first 40-45 mins of the movie, everything is pretty timid, you get to know the relationships, the personalities, the general climate of these character's lives and then BAM!, bryan arrives in france and all of a sudden the movie becomes an all out action romp that is made all the more amazing by the fact that you aren't really expecting it at all. from the second liam neeson smashes some random dude's head into the side of a car it kicks into gear and never really lets up.

the action in this film is top notch. you don't get many huge effects sequences or anything like that, just class-A, well executed, well choreographed fighting, stunts, chases and shootouts. the whole time i was watching it i kept thinking, "if the bourne movies had been more like this they probably wouldn't have been so lame" and i think that's a pretty apt way to describe this movie - like the bourne identity if it wasn't lame. liam neeson is basically like jack bauer in old man jeans instead of perfectly weathered fashion denim. he kicks, he punches, he chokes, he kills, he tortures...oh man, does he torture! no cheesy one-liners here, just sheer, unabashed, unapologetic ass kickery. if someone said to you "dude, liam neeson kicks ass and takes names in this movie", you might have a hard time picturing it, as did i, but trust me...it works! he really does a great job. i don't know if he did the fighting and stunts himself, but if he did then the guy really has been making the wrong kinds of movies for all these years.

i don't want to give too much of the awesome stuff away, so i wont go into specific details, but all around this movie is really well made. when the final climactic moment happens, it's intense and it makes you just want to pump your fist in the air, 80s style...and not in that trying-too-hard-to-be-badass kind of way. you get the sense that this guy isn't trying to be a badass, he just is...and that's the best kind of badass to watch on screen.

i'm not going to sit here and lie to you saying this movie avoids all hollywood cliches to present a truly rounded and gripping portrait of the sex trafficking underworld...that would be wrong of me. there are plenty of cliches here - the lone hero trying to impress his estranged family, the bumbling goons of non-american socio-ethnic backgrounds, the convenient plot developments that allow situations to play out with the greatest of ease, the neatly wrapped happy ending...you know, that kind of shit. and sure, the general idea is a little unlikely (take note all you would-be criminals out there, kidnapping well-off american tourists is probably not the best business model for any fledgling vagina smuggling outfit) and the fact that one guy could do all this stuff without consequence is a little over the top (though not entirely impossible), but really...who cares? it is fantasy, after all. if you want a realistic portrayal of the sex trafficking business, go watch some frontline, but if you want a great action movie that takes the general concept and runs with it to create an entertaining piece of...entertainment, then by all means check out taken.

showdown in little tokyo

so i guess what they're saying is, white people have bigger penises than asians?
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yea, we all know that low budget 80s action movies can be hilariously ridiculous. we've all admired the enigma that was jean-claude van damme and scoffed as he graced even the simplest line with a sense of incomparable innocence, as if totally unaware of its meaning, simply a vessel through which god himself spoke to mankind. we already know that anything starring chuck norris is going to get you through those rough, lonely patches when the world is beating you down at every turn. that stuff is old news. the 80s has been picked clean. time for something new. something fresh. something about asians...but not too much.

time for showdown in little tokyo. this isn't just another one of those cheesy 80s b-movies, this is something very different. this is dolf lundgren as you've sometimes seen him before, except this time it's the 90s and that means everything is just a little cooler, a litter funnier, a little tougher, a little manlier, a little more homo-erotic, a little more ludicrous, a little more in-your-face, but a little more sensitive as well. yes, you may have seen him in rocky IV or he-man, but you've never seen him like this before (unless you've already seen this movie).

here's the trouble, i want to tell you about all the crazy funny stuff in this movie, but at the same time i don't want to be the one that ruins the experience for you. it's gotta be a complete surprise. it's one thing to go into a movie expecting it's going to be horrible, i mean, it is dolph lundgren we're talking about here...his record speaks for itself, but you never expect something of this caliber. it's the kind of thing that slaps you in the face and makes you stop and wonder - "was this made by a bunch of crazy geniuses that crafted such a complexly intricate network of high-concept themes and infinitely relevant social commentary that they are just kicking back on a distant planet somewhere laughing at my puny attempts to make sense of it?"

things are just flying at you at break-neck speed and you're struggling to catch up: the stereotypes, the cliches, the decapitation, the body doubles, the honkey-samurai infiltration outfit, the gay...omg, the gay! i don't want to tell you, but you must know...no, no, you must see for yourself. it truly is a spectacle to behold.

ok, in case you hadn't picked up on the fact already, this movie stars dolph lundgren, but it also stars brandon lee, tia carrere and about 50 other guys you've seen in a billion forgettable movies, but have never bothered to learn their names. of course when you talk about a brandon lee movie you can't help but talk about the tragedy of his death and whatnot...i'm not trying to take away from that, it was pretty sad, but i find something even more depressing about his story. yea, the guy lost his dad in a tragic accident, he lived 11 years with that sorrow only to die in a freak accident himself, but on top of all that, he never got the chance to even make a decent movie. that's a goddamn bummer if i ever heard one. you could argue that the crow was a decent movie, which it was, but you could also argue that the motherfucker never even lived to see a screening of that movie, so it doesn't really count. the fact is, at the moment of his death when his life flashed before his eyes, as far as he knew, he'd never made a good movie in his life. how seriously depressing is that? it really makes you question whether it's ethical to even write a bad review about the guy. i know i wont. it just doesn't feel right. and when you factor in how incredibly humiliating it must have been for him to play the part he plays in 'showdown in little tokyo' you feel even worse for him. it's just degrading.

still, that shouldn't stop you from acquiring this movie and laughing your ass off. in fact, sometimes it even makes it that much funnier. god, i can't believe i said that. i'm sorry, brandon.

big trouble in little china

its all in the reflexes.

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it's a dark and stormy night here in san francisco (well, technically it's the middle of the afternoon, but that's just semantics at this point). it's been raining heavily over the last week, streets flooding, power dying, cars crashing left and right. to put it plainly, it's a madhouse out there and it got me thinking - what would ol' jack burton do at a time like this? when the earth quakes, the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of heaven shake...what would he say?

john carpenter has unleashed many brilliant creations on the world, from his masterful reinvisioning of the thing to the gritty, futuristic dystopian escape from new york to the ever-so-slept on, but amazingly strange prince of darkness. few, however, can hold a candle to the profoundly hilarious and ingeniously zany big trouble in little china. let's just establish this right now before we go any further - kurt russell is a fuckin' genius. no ifs, ands or buts about it - just. plain. genius. if you don't agree, you're either a total poser that's never seen any of his movies or some stupid whore that's probably obsessed with matthew mcconaughey or something. regardless, your opinion means nothing.

i often find myself watching movies and thinking "this would have worked so much better if kurt russell was playing that guy". for instance, we all remember that flaming heap transformers, right? now, there really wasn't anything short of a global outbreak of alzheimer's that was going to save that rag, but just imagine if the part played so awkwardly by john turturro was instead played by kurt russell. eeeeehhhh? see what i'm sayin'? not good, but still much better, right? i don't know what it is about him, but his mere presence can elevate a movie above mediocrity. i don't know where he learned those acting chops, but my hunch is that it must have been from jesus himself. i know i'm hamming it up a bit, but i'm not being sarcastic. watch 'big trouble' again and try to imagine anyone else being able to pull that role off. imagine if dolf lundgren played jack burton. or bruce willis. sly stallone. arnold. these hot shots think they're holywood royalty, but are they worthy to even lick the ground kurt russell walks on? imagine tom cruise's sissy ass saying "son of a bitch must pay". you can't because it's just totally wrong. he'd say it all ratty-like, as if someone had just befouled the holy name of xenu. not only that, he probably would have looked like an idiot in those acid washed jeans.

anyway, i'm getting a little off track here. i'm supposed to be talking about one of my favorite movies of all time, so i should get to it. a lot of people just don't quite get 'big trouble in little china'. i can't blame them - it's weird and goofy and you're never quite sure if what you're watching is real or if you fell asleep halfway through the movie and your imagination concocted some outrageous, totally implausable dream world where every word out of every character's lips endlessly tickles your funny bone for no clear reason and the alleys of chinatown are magically big enough to drive semi trucks through. it's a damn weird movie and i get the feeling that the average joe just has no idea how he's supposed to process it. "wait a second...is this for real?", "is this movie really racist?", "why is he talking like that?", "did they really wear boots like that in the 80s?".

not me though, i get it. i get every single line, every single subtle detail to the point where i probably laugh at things that aren't even jokes just because i get this damn movie so much. it's one of those films that gets it right in every way possible. the performances are just over-the-top enough to make the gags work, but not so much that it becomes a spoof. obviously it's a parody of those old charlie chan type movies, but carpenter handles it in such an interesting and comical way that it's not offensive or racially insensitive. jack burton is the perfect clueless action movie oaf that simultaneously thinks the world of himself and is delightfully surprised whenever he's actually able to back up all his big talk. not to mention kim cattrall's criminally overlooked performance as gracie law, a young, conscientious civil rights lawyer that has a serious problem with her face.

the thing i love most about 'big trouble in little china' is the way it comments on how american society is still incredibly racist, ignorant and biased toward other cultures, whether they know it or not. anything more than a passing glance at the film reveals that while kurt russell's name is first and foremost on the credits, jack burton is far from the hero of the story. in fact, the film flips the tables in a really interesting way. wang chi, played to hilarious effect by dennis dun is the true hero in 'big trouble' and jack is his witless sidekick who is just tagging along to cash in on a bet. jack, who is a big man in his own little pool of truck-drivin' CV radio personalities, is of little or no consequence to the inhabitants of san francisco's chinatown. the "weirdness" of their culture persists and amplifies only because of his ignorance toward it. carpenter derives comedy from the sheer ridiculousness of the film's portrayal of chinese-american life and how little the average american actually knows about the culture. but, in pointing out this dilemma, 'big trouble' is also bittersweet, for it calls into focus the bias' of hollywood as a whole. dennis dun, donald li and victor wong all gave great performances in this film as well as carpenter's 'prince of darkness' and should by all accounts have gone on to at least have decent careers on the c-list, but what became of them? not a whole lot. it's painful to me to see the great things that can happen when hollywood isn't culturally backwards, only to be pulled violently back to the reality of the situation - these great actors are going to forever be relegated to playing nameless henchmen in the background of movies that have something vaguely to do with asians. the world may yet remember the immortal advice of jack burton on matters of importance such as how to conduct yourself when accosted by a grabby thug or how to respond when your old lady is on your case about driving too fast, but will they remember even a line of what egg shen said?