crime thriller – Page 3 – Late to the Theater

The Bitch Is Back Post: Catwomen and She-Devils

Granted, putting glasses and beige on Michelle Pfeiffer doesn’t exactly put her in the same league as Roseanne Barr, but Tim Burton’s effort to represent those forgotten women at least pays lip service to the fact that they exist. Because Selina Kyle’s apartment is TOTALLY that kind of woman’s abode: stuffed animals, pink, nightshirts with kittens on them, an old dollhouse. . . everything unthreatening, soft and pink and friendly, and it exists as her own escape from the cruelties of her real life.

Disclaimer: No, I never saw the Halle Berry one. We do not speak of it.

So!

Batman Returns. And She-Devil.

Although both had different aims, they both succeeded at some of the most subversive ideas brought to the screen in a mainstream 80’s movie.

They were delightfully underplayed attempts at bringing feminism with subtly anarchic overtones to the screen . Both, in their ways, were like the girls’ version of Fight Club before there WAS a Fight Club.

When Batman Returns came out, it was the summer between my 6th and 7th grade years. I remember the trailers for it–it looked like the exact thing my little heart had been waiting for. Even though I’ve seen it umpty-billion times sense, I remember the excitement during the opening credits sequence; Cobblepot’s tortuous pram is floating through the sewers, and just as the music swells, a cloud of bats flutters from the dark to form the film’s title. I STILL love that moment.

And of course–there was Catwoman.

Sultry, slinky, strong and dangerous, she was doing the stuff I pretended to do in my backyard–climbing walls, doing cartwheels, and making it look awesome. My diet of Ninja Turtles had fed in me a desire to practice backyard ninjitsu, and my Barbies had engendered a fascination with makeup. Catwoman was the perfect storm.

Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is obviously not a direct interpretation of the comic–the comic Catwoman was a jewel thief, a criminal with a more formalized modus operandi; she and Batman both break the rules, and both do it for personal reasons, but his reasons are (ostensibly) selfless while hers are selfish.

Hell Yeah — No, you cannot has. But maybe you can?

BR’s Catwoman is breaking the rules because she wants to, because the same rules are the ones that broke her. Her aim is less focused and results in chaos. She focuses her efforts on property destruction at first, and her first crime is to destroy a department store, one of those wretched bastions of ‘femininity’ that pretty much exist to convince women they are somehow inadequate in order to sell them shit they don’t need. Sound familiar?

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.”

The first rule is. . . — Oh yeah. You know it.

Women (and more recently, men–welcome to the objectification club, boys!) have been sold an idea of what they are supposed to be by the media. And it doesn’t stop at gender; minorities, gays, religious groups–everyone is shown by advertising and media what they are expected to be, and how they are expected to behave, by telling them what to buy. This is not news. Or it shouldn’t be.

The 80’s were a great time for onscreen anarchy, in both overt and covert forms. I’m not too interested in covering the overt forms, because for the purposes of this post, subversion is the name of the game. Bringing it down from the inside. . .oh yeah.

It’s interesting also because this is in line with another oddly anarchic women’s film of around the same time, Roseanne Barr’s She-Devil.

One of her character Rose’s great moments of revolution is to destroy her family home and all her family’s possessions; she does this by basically breaking all the ‘good housewife’ rules: she puts aerosol cans in the microwave, overloads electrical sockets, overfills the washing machine, throws a bunch of metal shit in the dryer (including the overhanging lightbulb) fills an ashtray on top of a magazine pile with still-lit cigarettes, and leaves the blender on high with a knife jammed in the beaters.

After destroying the house, she takes the kids in a taxi to the abode of her nemesis, Mary Fisher, a romance novelist who has seduced Rose’s husband (played by a way too convincing Ed Begley, Jr. as a whining, entitled douche) away from her. Bob has been living in the lap of luxury, and now that Rose has dumped the kids on him, Mary Fisher’s fairytale life begins to crumble.

The anarchic thread in She-Devil is the preposition that there are more than beautiful, statuesque women in the world; indeed, the entire film is about those women marginalized and ignored by society; the same ones whose desire to be beautiful, and to be the center of everyone’s attention fuels the romance novel and romantic comedy industries. Society thrives on these women, who have been made to feel unattractive and undesirable to the point that escape from reality, through daytime soaps, romance novels, melodrama, and even video games has become necessary to their daily life. These women who–in the film–are instrumental to Rose’s vengeance plot through their intelligence and talents rather than their beauty (although one does get exploited for her beauty; Olivia, the bouncy, somewhat brainless secretary is manipulated by Rose to get to Bob, but since Rose herself was a victim of Bob’s duplicity the audience is not too unforgiving of Rose).

Which is why it’s so brilliant–every woman who’s been downtrodden or marginalized had, at some point, something fierce and ferocious in her that had to be beaten out by society. It’s nice to imagine that just Selina’s fire was never really beaten out, ours hasn’t been either. It’s in there, waiting for something to come along to stoke it and prod it back to the surface. . . or maybe, sometimes it just happens all by itself.

Nugget: Inception

When I have neither the time nor inclination to write a full review, I write a nugget. Sometimes its because what I saw needs percolation time and to try and write a full review doesn’t do the film justice; other times its because the film isn’t quite worth all the work of a full review.

Nugget: Inception.

Magic! Absolute magic! — This. This right here was worth the price of admission.

Everything you’ve heard is true: this is the best movie of the summer and you should see it immediately. It warrants seeing two or three times, but I’ll have to wait for video for that.

It is continually amazing to me what Christopher Nolan is doing with movies. How is what he does and what, say, Uwe Boll does the same medium? How?

But yeah, see it.

See it NOW.

In a Nutshell Entry: Bubbles from ‘The Wire’

Sometimes in media, one component stands out from the whole and is deserving of its own little examination, for many reasons. It might act as a microcosm for what the whole is about, or it might stand in stark contrast to the rest of the whole–‘In a Nutshell’ entries explore some fascinating component of particular interest without losing focus, or in the case of something that’s really good overall, doing a disservice to the rest of the whole. It’s also a way to introduce a possibly unfamiliar audience to some small piece of an otherwise unwieldy and daunting subject; it’s a ‘way in,’ if you will.

In a Nutshell: ‘Bubbles’ from The Wire

In acclaimed HBO series ‘The Wire,’ which I’m viewing for the first time on DVD, there is a small galaxy of amazing characters. The show has a metric shitload of other great reasons to watch, but for me one very special reason is mumbling heroin addict/police informant Bubbles, so called for the spit bubbles he blows when he slams junk.

Take a moment to verbally express your disbelief and possible disgust; I’ll wait. Bubbles is worth it.

The Ubiquitous Bubbles — The Unlikeliest of Heroes

As a homeless addict, Bubbles exists at the lowest caste of the Baltimore Street world. Gangbangers and slangers largely ignore him, and so he is able to move freely through their world, collecting bits of information and storing them in an almost photographic memory. His assistance on various operations–everything from helping identify members of the gangs and their hierarchy, to actually wearing a wire, to making phony buys–is pivotal; without him the detectives would be utterly and totally shit out of luck.

According to David Simon, show creator and a former police reporter for the Baltimore Sun, Bubbles was based on real life informant ‘Possum,’ who had a gift for names and faces and was a police informant for over 20 years–think on that a moment. People are proud these days if their careers last over 15, and that’s usually not in a field where you can be shot for looking the wrong way at someone’s shoes. Simon wanted to do a feature story on Possum, but when he went to the man’s apartment for a last interview, Possum had died from complications with HIV. And now, the legacy of an HIV-infected junkie has informed a character within one of the most memorable television shows of our time. Funny old world, that.

Although there are roughly eight billion great moments and characters in The Wire, Andre Royo’s portrayal of a charming junkie steals nearly every scene he’s in. I would personally like to recommend to filmmakers that he act in more stuff.

In a scene in the second season, McNulty (Dominic West, one of the main characters), who has been busted down to Marine Patrol, reveals how little he gives a shit about his new position by his utter refusal to learn how to tie a simple knot. Each time he docks his patrol boat, he wraps the rope clumsily around the pylons before abandoning the whole thing, probably hoping the boat will just drift out to sea and he can finally be fired and drink himself to death as he secretly wishes. The camera pulls back to reveal a visiting Bubbles, who has tied a perfect maritime-regulation knot, and calls McNulty out on his half-assed attempt. Bubbles the heroin addict chides McNulty the self-destructive drunk police officer on his knot-tying. That’s the perfect summation of the character–drugs don’t waste people, they waste lives, time, potential, jobs, relationships, but the user is still alive. With his charm, intelligence, and ability to ‘talk a cat off a fishcart,’ Bubbles is a walking reminder of how easy it is to just give up, and certainly how hard it is to get it all back–but also that there’s always hope. Which is possibly the cruelest truth of all, sometimes.

There are countless moments like that with Bubbles throughout the series. He’s at heart a good person and definitely cares for others, but at the bottom of everything is his addiction, driving him along like a dog being used by a bad master. Occasionally he climbs out from under it, and does well for a stretch, but being homeless isn’t exactly ideal for kicking an addiction and cleaning one’s life up. He’s paid about 30 dollars a day to be an informant, but cheerfully and unself-consciously asks Detective Kima Greggs to keep his money for him; the reason is obvious: if he didn’t, he’d just spend the whole nut, overdose, and kill himself.

Watch this moment from the first season, where Bubbles goes ‘fishing,’ and see if you aren’t a little charmed by his audacity and caginess.

We only just finished the 3rd season, so at the time of this entry I’m still not sure what the future holds for Bubbles. I’d sure like to see him get out of the game and clean himself up, since the show has a high bodycount when it comes to dead dreams.

A New Cult Movie: Black Dynamite

Shockingly, Black Dynamite has not yet received its seating assignment in the Halls of Cult Films; it’s also entirely possible that I am not frequenting the right internet forums or attending the right kind of parties. Either way, it is this blog entry’s intent to spread the word about Black Dynamite and get people watching it, but more importantly, talking about it.

Every few years, the Canon of Cult Movies opens its doors to a new entry; that entry then receives the highly-sought honor of being constantly brought up in Internet film forums, quoted at parties, and turned into memes or Halloween costumes.

Super Bad, Out of Site - BLACK DYNAMITE! — This. This here is the movie. It's awesome.

The blaxpoitation genre is one that lends itself to parody almost from its inception: while some lauded Hollywood’s attempt to create entertainment aimed solely at a black audience, many within that audience deplored the stereotypical world of pimps, hoes, drug dealers, violence and bitches depicted. For some, it seemed an attempt to create a ‘get out of white guilt free’ card by filmmakers who wanted to reach an African American audience without actually doing anything different.

But whatever its intent, blaxpoitation films have created an indelible mark on American cinema, love it or hate it. In the case of Michael Jai White (best known for his portrayal of Al Simmons in 1997’s apt Spawn adaptation), who plays Black Dynamite, it’s roundly a labor of love to spoof the genre. Before the film, he regularly held blaxpoitation-viewing parties at his house, and the film was inspired by his listening to James Brown’s Superbad on his iPod.

There is NOTHING to dislike about this film. Although it explores similar territory as 2003’s Undercover Brother, the latter was based on an existing webcomic; in retrospect UB (though I LOVE IT) felt like an attempt to create an Austin Powers analogue for African American audiences. The modern setting severely limited the possibilities for lampooning the blaxpoitation genre, although the film was entertaining enough in its own right.(I’ve seen ‘I’m Gonna Get You Sucka’ but don’t want to get too far off track–this review is more about Black Dynamite than the blaxpoitation-parody microgenre).

Black Dynamite is ALL blaxpoitation: roundly set against the original 70’s backdrop and even utilizing the same crappy stock footage many of those films used, it indicates an encyclopedic knowledge as well as a love of the genre and distills both into a marvelous recreation. Black Dynamite, with its visible boom mikes, mind-blowing dialogue, gratuitous titties, and sinister plot by The Man could have sprung wholly-formed from the afro of Richard Roundtree. But it’s more than that–it’s a brilliant adult comedy the likes of which I thought weren’t even made any more: one that assumes the audience isn’t just in on the joke, but is smart enough to figure the joke out if they aren’t. It offers a sharp, never-slow take for an audience increasingly numbed by dull entries in action and comedy films.

'I'm off to work, Bitches!' — Black Dynamite bids his bitches adieu.

It’s a joke that doesn’t get old for a minute. Each gag is as unpredictable as Black Dynamite himself, and the cavalcade of supporting characters is perfectly cast. There’s not a weak performance to be seen, and some characters like Honeybee leave you wanting much more from them. Even the action scenes, when they aren’t played for laughs, are meticulous–since White has no less than SEVEN black belts in various disciplines he has entirely earned the right to show off. Also, he’s hot.

Although the idea of an action hero being a closet psychopath has been explored to the point of exhaustion, there are a few scenes that get mileage even from that tired old trope, like this one where Dynamite is leaving new girlfriend Gloria in the care of some hoes he looks after.

The whole movie is a treat. From ‘Who the hell is interrupting my kung fu?’ to Roscoe’s Chili and Donuts to ‘First Lady, I’m sorry I pimp-slapped you into that china cabinet,’ there is nothing to dislike. Just remembering scenes I saw two days ago is making me laugh all over again. That and looking up clips, both original and fan-made, on Youtube.

The only weakness of Black Dynamite is that no one is talking about it. A few more high-profile cameos might have raised its profile a little, and perhaps spending more than 2 weeks in the theater might have drummed up more buzz about it.

I can’t tell you how often I see a comedy that ‘everyone’ agrees is hilarious and I barely crack a smile–I have an odd sense of humor and I also can’t stand comedies where everyone is an asshole; Tropic Thunder made me laugh, Pineapple Express stole two hours of my life and left nothing in me but hate, and the trailer for Hot Tub Time Machine makes me cringe and wonder if John Cusack owes someone money. So when I find a new comedy that actually makes me laugh, it’s a cinch that it’ll entertain even the most dour of viewers.

Watch the trailer (and other goodies!) here.

So I watched this; I dunno, it was all right Review: Suspect Zero

Anyway, the story unfolds like a well-creased grocery list that’s been living in your pocket for a few days. There are some great scenes, and Kingsley ultimately carries the weight of the film while Eckhardt, who is serviceable, takes the film to be Srs Bznss instead of a Se7en knockoff. Carrie-Anne Moss runs around and does–something, I don’t remember what she was there for. Something.

Every time I sit down to watch a movie, I am conscious of how long the film is, sometimes down to the minute. The reason is because unless I’m doing something else, those minutes are time out of my life I will never get back. Do I expect every film I see to be worth 106 minutes’ worth of my time here on earth? Nope. I watch some bullshit too–looking into my queueueu is looking into seething madness. Kurosawa’s Rashomon rubs shoulders with Beverly Hills Chihuahua. A BBC nature program about the different meteorological regions of China and their native wildlife sits next to Bogie and Bacall in The Big Sleep. Gremlins 2 brings me a different kind of delight from Who’s Harry Crumb?, but both still delight me.

The point I’m getting to with all this rambling is that every film is a gamble, and your time is at stake. Some gambles are major windfalls for the mind, and in some, the house wins.

In Suspect Zero, a crime thriller starring Aaron Eckhardt, Ben Kingsley and Carrie-Ann Moss and directed by Elias Merhige (he was redoing his bathroom that year), the house definitely won.

I do not hate this film. I do not think it was a waste of time, or that it should be fired into the sun or any other example of internet film critic hypobole. I just don’t get what happened.

I suspect that Merhige, while he made the film, was either excited to be making a Hollywood crime thriller or wrestling with a choking case of self-loathing because he was making a Hollywood crime thriller. There’s a strange vibe of self-doubt saturating the film that has nothign to do with the story; I can’t even describe it except that it’s there, and it’s palpable.

The story is at least passable: an FBI agent who’s been transferred to a lesser field office because of something in his past is tracking a series of murders he believes to be connected, despite the fact that there is nothing to connect them. It turns out he’s tracking a serial killer who targets other serial killers, and kills them in new and creative ways so there is no pattern–the idea being that the FBI will only catch onto a serial killer’s existence if there is a pattern. Say, a guy who sets fire to his victims and then hits them with a car. There’s a pattern, so the FBI acknowledges a serial killer is responsible. If a guy gets his head bashed in behind a gas station, and another just gets shot, and another gets skinned to death or something, the assumption would be three different perpetrators.

The movie starts out well–Ben Kingsley sits down at a table across from a restaurant supply salesman at an isolated truckstop and begins telling the man all the gruesome things he does to people, then showing pictures. Kingsley is incapable of losing his dignity–probably because he is always self-aware of the caliber of what he’s appearing in, be it Gandhi or Bloodrayne. He also seems to be one of those fortunate people who never get tied to bad movies. If you say ‘there’s a new video game movie coming out and Uwe Boll is involved’ sphincters immediately clench and oceans of vitriol roar forth onto the internet. Say the same thing about Kingsley and you get ‘Huh. That might be good.’ The man is bulletproof. Probably because he has a sense of humor about himself, from his appearance on The Sopranos (“Heyyy, guys. . .”) to his audition for Michael Bay’s Transformers 3.

Anyway, the story unfolds like a well-creased grocery list that’s been living in your pocket for a few days. There are some great scenes, and Kingsley ultimately carries the weight of the film while Eckhardt, who is serviceable, takes the film to be Srs Bznss instead of a Se7en knockoff. Carrie-Anne Moss runs around and does–something, I don’t remember what she was there for. Something.

If you’re just looking for something to watch and are more comfortable watching films with famous actors in them (I’m guilty of that–Oh! So and so’s in this, well I’ll give it a whirl!) then you could do worse than watching Suspect Zero.

Frank Collison! — Also it has this guy, who is awesome, so it has that going for it.

Suspect Zero is available for viewing on Instant Watch. You know, if you’re interested.