action – Page 12 – Late to the Theater

‘My God, Someone Paid For this To Be Made’ Entry — GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

GI Joe starts out in France in 1611. I know, because despite the fact taht I was drunk, I took copious notes. They are stained and festooned with question marks and mad scribblings, but overall still valid.

What kind of bullshit is that? FRANCE? WHAT?

Asinine. Who gives a shit about the historical heritage of Cobra. Please raise your hands if you were demanding historical significance from a movie based on toys that you played with in the sandbox or bathtub.

Once upon a time, I had a vision.

A glorious vision, the sort of vision that got people burned as heretics in the Dark Ages, yet was no less true for its ostentatiousness.

I dreamed I stood on a cliff, staring out at a roiling sea. Clouds skirted the horizon, the sun burned like a vengeful eye, and below me the cliffs were alive with plumes and torrents as the sea crashed and raged.

A sea of absolute bullshit.

Not possible. — And don't tell me, 'Oh, it was based on toys, what do you expect?' You know what else was based on toys and won buttloads of awards? 'TOYS.'

It’s possible I was biased against the GI Joe movie from the very start. Watching the trailers gave me a horrifying clarity, a window into what it must be like to be an epileptic who habitually gets trapped inside a washing machine full of neon lights, pleather, airborne vehicles and shitty laser effects.

Now, I played with Joes as a child, albeit I didnt’ play by the rules. For some reason I was stuck on monsters and aliens mode, so the only Joes I had were ones that had animal sidekicks, or some kind of weird mutation. I had Spirit Wind, the Military MP guy (his German Shepherd was a werewolf to my Lego people), Killer Croc, Outback (warthog accessory! BOSS!) Some kind of guy with a Cobra as a hat, and Big Boa, because he came with removable and adorable boxing gloves. I didn’t give a shit about patriotism, vehicles (Except that crazy ass Cobra Commander flying skiff, that was amazing) robots, guns, or tanks. It was also common for GI Joes to go to war with the mutants of Outworld, which were comprised of my He-Man and Ninja Turtles figures.

I went into the GI: Joe movie thinking ‘Well, I’ve had like nine beers, and even folding laundry has usually become fun by then. Therefore, this will be fun.’ Ipso, facto.

My fake Latin philosophy math was wrong.

Watching GI: Joe – The Rise of Cobra was incredibly similar to being in a car accident, and I’ve been in no less than 5 in my life so I know what I’m talking about. There’s a lot of noise, a lot of shit suddenly moves around, your whole perspective on life has changed but you aren’t sure why, you just know SOMETHING HAPPENED.

Which is what watching the film was like.

Usually, I pull my punches with hating on a movie, but By God and Sunny Jesus, I will NOT do so today. This movie was way, way too expensive to get the kid glove treatment.

Adewale! — This movie is also unforgiveable for wasting Adewale Akinouye -Agbage's time. I refuse to believe he doesn't have better things to do than this.

What kind of bullshit is that? FRANCE? WHAT?

Other scribblings from my note:

‘why is the military using a civilian H2?’ Nathan pointed that one out.

This observation was closely followed by ‘why are you questioning the logic of the GI:Joe movie?’

‘Duke- Dude can’t talk right. Sounds like he’s going blublubblubblub.’

Seriously. Channing Tatum, from his IMDB entry, seems sort of respected as an actor, and yet I could barely follow his dialogue because of his weird novocaine mumbly-mouth. Plus, the man’s eyes were so dead and glassy I could clearly see his paycheck reflected in their surface, because no other thoughts animated his corpus.

‘Science says emotions don’t exist? WHAT?’

Scarlett, that most cartoonish of hotties (and played by some girl with red hair and boobs, it’s totally not worth it to look her name up), makes this weird assertion as to why she won’t date Marlon Wayans (who MUST have better things to do than this movie, for christ’s sake, he was in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) when he makes his move on her. This is not only story bullshit, it’s scientific bullshit. Science has no problem quantifying emotions–they’re caused by subtle synaptic shifts in hormones, by adrenaline, by all kinds of math and numbers and chemicals and things that ARE REAL. So being attracted to a dude is totally valid. She’s just a racist.

I was also enraged by the Baroness character.

Barf. — Spies are also known for being inconspicuous, which involves wearing costumes rejected from the Underworld series as too cheap-looking and giant belt buckles.

A brief digression:

In the Preacher books, the villain, a scarred German psycho named Herr Starr, is teaching a course on how to deal with terrorists to some soldiers in an elite anti-terrorist recruitment facility. He begins his lesson with the words:

‘Shoot the women first.’

He goes on to explain that any woman who has worked her way up to the top of a terrorist organization has worked at least FIVE TIMES as hard as her male compatriots in order to have her skills and dedication recognized. In short, in any terrorist situation, you had best kill the va-jay-jays because THEY would pose the greatest threat to you, and kill you five times harder than a dude. Anything a dude can do, a woman has already done, alphabetized, collated, and buried in the backyard before he even thought of it.

GI:Joe posits that Cobra allows someone to totally half-ass their way to the top of the organization. In an elite, worldwide terrorist group, how does someone FAKE enthusiasm? HOW? Baroness’s residual love for Duke leads to the Cobra organization’s fall, suggesting that women can’t be trusted in these situations because they get all emotion-y and fall in love with men and shit. God forbid they handle firearms, their estrogen might gum up the firing pin.

Pre-Cobra Commanderization — Someone looked at this pic and said 'Yes! Cover one third of his face in burn makeup, the other half in a breathing apparatus, dress him in a shitty wig and hire him!'

Which brings me to my next point:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is adorable.

Just look at that face! So much spunk, so much character! You wouldn’t just have a beer with him, you’d want to take him home and show him your band trophies from high school.

He was the most fun thing about Rise of Cobra, and brought a much-needed feel of pseudo-camp to the shenanigans. After awhile, I realized I was patiently waiting for the ridiculous action setpieces to end so I could get back to the much more interesting story of Destro or whatever he was.

Dick move, Hollywood: if your film’s basically a multi-million dollar recruitment product for the armed forces, don’t make the villain more interesting than anything else happening onscreen. I even stopped giving a shit about Christopher Eccleston when Gordon-Levitt was onscreen. ECCLESTON.

Every few moments in GI:Joe, I found myself whistling or humming the main song from Team America: World Police. It’s a little ditty that goes something like ‘America…FUCK YEAH! Coming again to save the motherfucking day YEAH!’ What’s tragic is that movie, starring puppets and a metric ton of sarcasm, was a much more fun movie than this one, and it was much more honest about what was going on. It also got me a lot more excited about blowing shit up.

So in short–I know I watched the GI Joe movie, and I have all these residual flashbacks and strange images burned into my mind, but I just don’t know what actually HAPPENED. There was a desert and the Eiffle tower and an underwater city and some kind of nano tech mask or something. The sad thing is that I am smart enough to understand all this stuff–unlike a car accident, I can go back and relive the experience, articulating complex emotional ideas and pieceing together what actually happened.

I just don’t give a shit, though.

How To Utilize The Spectacular ‘Reverse Highlander’ Maneuver

There can be only one! My world is binary! — 'I wonder what Sean Connery's up to right now?'

The scenario:

At a party/lunch/work function/bar/medical convention, a conversation is going well, but dangerous territory is broached.

The Enemy: ‘What’s your Favorite [insert media example here] of all time?’

The Victim: ‘Oh gosh, there are so many, I don’t know, I can’t think of anything, I…I guess [you blurt out the title of some widely-acknowledged lesser exponent of an artist’s creative oeuvre, ie Prince’s ‘Under the Cherry Moon’ instead of ‘Purple Rain’ or Clint Eastwood’s ‘Paint Your Wagon’ instead of ‘Unforgiven’].

YOU HAVE DIED.

Game Over, man, Game Over! — My hypothesis will prove that within a certain set of predetermined enviromental factors, game will not be present.'

Socially, anyhow.

How to avoid such a fate? Where is the reset button of life?

There isn’t one, but those who aren’t willing to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!

If you had known the maneuver known (in my head) as the Reverse Highlander, this wouldn’t have happened.

Are you ready to learn it?

‘So what’s your favorite [blahblahbla] of all time?’

Step One: ‘Well, there can’t be only one.’

See what I did there?

Step One allows you time to gather your thoughts, organize, and target them instead of just shotgunning them all over the face of whoever you’re speaking with. I fully realize that the average person does not live in fear of conversational faux pas like long pauses, losing one’s train of thought or stuttering, but there’s no harm in being prepared and practicing good conversational skills.

Step Two: You’ve gathered your thoughts, and can now progress with the conversation like a stone cold orator, which if I know kids these days is every kid’s dream.

‘Of course I enjoy [Neil Gaiman’s film adaptation of Coraline/most of his books/his accent] but there can’t be only one favorite. And even though it landed heavily on the side of suck, there was something fun about his Beowulf adaptation.’

And that kids, is the Reverse Highlander.

Because there can’t be only one.

There can't be only one! There just can't! — Pictured: Game

Fun Friday: Remo Williams – The Adventure Begins…

The 80’s was a time of excess.

File that understatement along with others such as ‘Salma Hayak is attractive’ and ‘I enjoy dairy products.’

Please enjoy this odd box art. — Isn't it amazing someone signed off on this artwork?

When the 80’s movie action ball really started rolling, you got the A group of Schwarzeneggar, Stallone and Willis, then the B group of Lundgren and Van Damme, then the C group of Dudikoff and Jackie Chan.

Way on down the alphabet, somewhere around the weird numbers like ‘Q,’ you’ll find Fred Ward as Remo Williams.

The movie is subtitled ‘The Adventure Begins’ because it was based on a ‘men’s adventure series’ of books with names like ‘The Destroyer.’ It was intended to be the first of a series, but since the first movie never really caught fire the series was abandoned.

There are a couple reasons why the movie didn’t catch fire–the action scenes are lackluster, the villain not that engaging (although he could have been; he’s an arms manufacturer creating faulty weapons and scamming the US military), and the movie gets off to a slow start.

But before we get too much into it, let’s talk about the elephant in the room:

Chiun.

Chiun is Williams’s Korean mentor, teaching him everything from martial arts to what not to eat (hamburgers). From him Remo learns how to fight, how to climb stuff, how to dodge bullets and run on water.

The problem is that Chiun, though he is a fantastic character and his chemistry with Remo carries the film at times, is not an Asian man.

Not at all.

In what is either an inspired or monstrously insensitive casting choice, Chiun was played by veteran actor Joel Grey, best known as the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret and father of 80’s actress Jennifer Grey. The makeup was so convincing that it was nominated for an academy award but lost to Mask.

The use of Yellowface in movies has rarely stirred the same kind of discussion that blackface has, yet it’s no less offensive to the minority it seeks to depict.

Now, there’s a place for it. I think part of what makes a good actor is the ability to create believable characters, and if you can create a character that’s nothing like yourself and it’s still compelling, you’ve done something. It’s probably little consolation that the filmmakers hired one of the best actors of the time to portray Chiun, mostly because there are real Asian actors struggling to get any work in Hollywood.

The bottom line for me is that I didn’t even know a white man played Chiun until I watched the movie last night, and I grew up watching this film. I saw Joel Grey’s name in the credits and thought ‘Huh, I wonder who he plays?’ Then I noticed how there were so few names in the opening credits, had a brainwave, and cringed. “Oh god, they DIDN’T.’

But they did. And you know what? Grey is pretty convincing. It helps that the character is actually well-written: Chiun is Korean, fiercely proud of his heritage and way of life, disdainful of Williams and his lazy American lifestyle, and when he isn’t training Williams is usually seen eating traditional Korean dishes, practicing calligraphy, or watching his soap operas. He is proud of what he’s accomplished with Williams, but would never admit it to the man’s face.

It helps that the film’s writers had dozens of books and some already well-fleshed out characters to draw on–again, it’s hard to accept that they were unable to find a Korean or at least Asian actor to portray Chiun, but I think they were looking for something other than complete authenticity. Remo Williams doesn’t necessarily wink at the audience, but there is some element of self-awareness to the film–it’s in the ludicrous stunts, and just in Fred Ward’s self-effacing, blustery performance. Hell, they got his name off the bottom of a bedpan!

Kate Mulgrew, best known as Janeway from…one of the Star Trek shows that is not Original Series or Next Generation and therefore I know nothing about, puts in a convincing performance as a Major investigating the corrupt arms dealer. It was weird seeing a strong, self-directed woman character in this movie, as entrenched in 80’s action cliches as it is, but there she was, a breath of fresh, ball-busting air.

Bottom line: Remo Williams is a weird, fun actioner ahead of its time in some ways, and strangely staid in others. Ward has a passing charm as a leading man, if only because of his blue-collar, hangdog approach to the world, and he clearly has done some of his own stunts–his face is easily viewable in a few scenes.

This movie has me interested in tracking down some of the books. Apparently there are over a hundred in the series by now, and they’ve been going since the 70’s–with such ample room for character development there’s probably a lot of good stuff being missed out on.

Remo Williams is available on Instant Watch.

4 Badasses You Never Saw Coming

The Man With No Name, James Bond, Dwight McCarthy, Lara Croft, Indiana Jones, Marv, Al Swearingen, Titus Pullo, Tony Soprano, Han Solo.

Badasses are in no short supply these days–you could come up with probably five off the top of your head, and hands down everyone would agree ‘Yup, pretty badass.’

But what about unexpected badasses? Those badasses who don’t come immediately to mind but nevertheless can ‘tho down’ when necessary? What about badasses that come at you sideways?

Today’s entry is all about 4 Badasses You Never Saw Coming.

4. Princess Leia.

Way more than a steel bikini no matter what a Google Image search says, Princess Leia is more than capable of Throwing Down when necessary.

Madame Badass — Just a small girl and her Big Gun

To wit: We meet Leia when she is running from the cops–that might not sound so badass, but consider what running from the police got her: dropped like keys into a storm drain.

Storm Troopers don’t know the meaning of the words ‘civil rights.’ That’s why the Galactic Empire is evil–because they do whatever the shit they damn well please, which is why rebels are even more badass in this situation: breaking the rules gets you zapped with lasers. And lasers are HOT. They burn through things. Sometimes those things are meaty, because they are people.

Consider also that Leia fed the Imperials bogus info concerning the rebel base–knowing full well they’d figure that shit out. Then she WATCHES while her home planet/family/pets/house/neighborhood/wallet/everything in her entire life, gets blown to hell. She’s definitely upset, but she also WATCHED HER HOME PLANET GET DESTROYED and still didn’t give up the real rebel base. Leia knows what the stakes are–keep silent and one planet gets destroyed, talk and LOTS of planets get destroyed. Considering that the death star’s main purpose is, you know, destroying planets.

It's coming right for us! — In this rare exception, it might have been better for Alderaan to run from the police.

3. Babe The Pig

Who’s a good piggy? WHO’S A GOOD PIGGY?

*grunting* — ANSWER ME DAMMIT! I DEMAND TO KNOW WHO'S A GOOD PIGGY!

Babe the Pig is, and by and large, he’s a bonafide hero.

After all, on the one hand, he saves the farm (twice!), stands up to feral dogs and disapproving orangutans, faces a terrifying elderly clown and saves a bull terrier in one of the most moving and humane moments in film.

Some day I’ll get drunk enough to post my semi-hysterical and embarrassingly earnest review of Babe: Pig in the City, but today is not this day. Today is for Babe, and our other unsung badasses.

Watch this clip and tell me this pig doesn’t have guts.

Could YOU turn around and face an oncoming bull terrier bigger than you?

2. The Mad Hatter

Back in the Old West, you judged how ridiculously badass a gunfighter was by how outlandish and insane their outfit.

DRAW! — This would be the equivalent of holding a Desert Eagle and many shooting trophies in your hands at all times.

The logic went that if someone was fool enough to dress like a pretty pretty princess, they were the walking equivalent of an apocalypse.

From Doc Holliday to Wild Bill Hickok, who never met an ascot he didn’t like, nature’s maxim of ‘the brighter the plumage the more serious the danger’ was for a brief time, applied to humans. What had been true of insects and poisonous plants for millions of years finally, and gloriously, applied to mammals.

Enter the Mad Hatter, Alice’s long lost friend and guide to the weirdness she finds through the mirror in the recent Tim Burton adaptation.

'Hello Gents! Fancy a spot of tea and an assbeating?' — 'At My Signal, Unleash Hell. And Cucumber Sandwiches.'

The statement his outfit makes is nothing short of a declaration of war on every living being on Earth.

There are alien satellites observing this shit and transmitting this declaration back to their home planets, and in about five thousand years a bunch of Lovecraftian horrors will land and demand to know where the BeHatted One is so they may kill him and bring order to the galaxy, Dagon Style.

But consider also the weapon the Hatter shows up with at the third-act battle:

The Claymore - The 12-gauge of Swords — The Hatter Comes Heavy.

That is a CLAYMORE. The folks who used them were called Highlanders, and the only thing that differentiates Highlanders from Vikings is that they wear plaid. Nothing else.

Here is a demonstration of what Claymores can do. It is worksafe and very entertaining, if by entertaining you mean HOLY SHIT LOOK WHAT THAT SWORD CAN DO. Please also note the hefty fellow waving that pigsticker around–if a weedy little fellow like the Hatter is using one, then it means his eyes probably got that way through a constant and consistent application of Angel Dust. Not the man you want to be facing on the battlefield.

1. Mr. Faun Tumnus

'I say! Bit Nippy Out!' — 'Would you like to walk back to my house? I seem to have misplaced my big white molesty van!'

When first we meet Mr. Faun Tumnus in the recent Chronicles of Narnia adaptation, he’s a timid little fellow who drops his shit and screams when surprised by the terrifying countenance of a small girl.

He gets wild by breaking into the sardines, and making hot tea. He is adorable, except he has goatlegs and entertains children without wearing pants. Or maybe for some folks, that’s a plus. It’s a big world out there.

Anyhoo, we realize this is all a big act. Later on, once all the statues have been brought back to life, Tumnus is more than ready to plow furrows across the White Witch’s ass and he heads down to the battlefield to do it…

…in nothing but a fancy red scarf.

There was a name for the guys who used to go to war without clothes on: psychopaths Berserkers.

Mr. Tumnus hasn’t brought armor, or even a weapon. He IS the weapon.

I have figured out the secret of Faun Tumnus, and it is that he is a Berserker. He doesn’t have the spear and the wolf pelt, but just give him a few minutes and he’ll have a pile of them–taken from the enemy and dumped on the field.

You only see a brief scene of him running towards the battlefield, but it’s because ostensibly this is a children’s movie and watching a goatman tear monsters apart with his bare hands and then eat their organs would incur at least a PG-13 rating.

'Just putting a child to sleep in my house--nothing untoward here.' — No more child molestation jokes. Seriously.

Additionally, Mr. Tumnus has HOOVES. Which are hard little pointy things.

It’s bad enough being kicked in the face by a human foot, imagine taking a hoof to the face–it be like being bludgeoned.

Now imagine that foot belongs to the mythological equivalent of Bruce Lee, and realize that Mr. Tumnus was the Narnians’ secret weapon all along. Aslan was just there to tell him where to go.

There are dozens, hundreds more unsung badasses to go, but I hope you enjoyed this little sampling. As always, there’s More To Come.

Spotlight: Inception’s Tom Hardy

When I saw the box cover in our Instant Watch queue I thought from it’s Tom Of Finland look that it was a gay documentary of some kind, and wondered if my boyfriend had put it in the queue for me, as he sometimes does.

Man, I was really, really wrong.

Midway through Inception I finally realized why the actor playing Eames was familiar–it was Tom Hardy, who I’d seen a few months before in the brutal, brutish and brilliant documentary Bronson. I just didn’t recognize him because he was urbane, dressed and not covered in mud and policemen!

Drink it in. — Who wants a terrifying mustache ride?

Bronson is the stylized biography of English career criminal and ‘most violent man in England’ Charlie Bronson, who changed his name at an early age when he decided he wanted to be famous (but didn’t know for what).

Man, I was really, really wrong.

Bronson is still a marvelous film–just not the one I thought I was watching.

It’s genius lies in the fact that you realize early on that you are being charmed by a sociopath–what it took the Sopranos almost three seasons to address, Bronson manages to explore in about 2 hours. It shows Bronson the man as a stifled artist, a man with a rich inner life but no tools to express that other than violence. Violence became his art, and we the audience have a duty to remember that no matter how he convinces us to cry, how he charms us or shows us he just wants to be understood, he is still a dangerous animal.

And the engine powering this complex, manipulative machine is actor Tom Hardy.

Many biopics seek to paint a picture of their subjects not quite aligned with reality. They often overplay their sympathy–especially in the case of serial killers or psychopaths–while leaving out the inhuman cruelty such a person visits on their victims. No matter how ugly the portrait of a disturbed artist is, it is still attempting to humanize the subject enough for the audience to empathize with their plight. After all, who wants to sit and have their stomach turned for 2 hours by how revolting a human being can actually be?

Which is where we come back to Tom Hardy. His witty, sometimes funny portrayal of Bronson charms and entertains us, but never lets us forget that we are not to trust him, never to think that he’s ‘safe.’ He has depth, certainly, and there is something heartbreaking in watching someone who might have been a great artist founder on the tides of his own passions–but you must never, ever turn your back on him. Not for a moment.

Dapper! — Remember to brush your teeth, because this picture is just candy. Plain and Simple.

(BTW, I’m not dissing Hardy’s appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis–it’s just I saw that when it came out, it’s not on Instant that I know of, and as a vehicle for Hardy’s acting talents it wasn’t that engrossing.)

Bronson is not a movie for everyone, but now that you’ve read a little about it (and perhaps will watch the trailer) you will appreciate what a marvelous range Tom Hardy has.

I point that out not because I am creepily fangirling him, but because MOST actors have a range they never get to explore, because they are typecast from the start. Although his depiction of Eames was spot-on, it is not the limits of his ability and I hope filmmakers in the future remember that.

“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, Darling.’ – Eames