Keepin' It Really Reel Award - September '09

I’m not the type of person who gets surprised easily. I tend to stand back from situations and analyze the people and events involved and try to make as objective a conclusion as possible. And since most people don’t change, or I’m just too young to have seen it, I’d say I have Ted Williams-ish reliability. But here I am to admit that I have made a mistake about one of America’s “it” ladies. No doubt she’s done amazing things the world over, but I was just never sold on her as a top shelf actor – or class-A beauty, but that’s neither here nor there. Angelina Jolie, I offer my apologies for doubting your acting chops. I don’t know why I thought I could disprove your talent especially since you come from a talented family. If this apology is not enough I’m sure I can think of something to make up for it. Ah, I’ve got it! How about the September 2009 Keepin’ It Really Reel Award? (Ms. Jolie was not available for comment).

I never outright said I hated her, but I did take a few cheap shots in one entry about female action heroes. But looking at it honestly, the movies were hokey and what was she supposed to do with a role like Lara Croft? Even an infant could see she was given the role solely because of her physical appearance, and while the people with a logical brain were obviously on a beer run, someone thought they had a hit movie on their hands. But redemption comes along but so often and for mine and Angeline’s relationship it came in the form of not one, but two movies I saw this month, A Mighty Heart and Changeling.

A Mighty Heart is the true story of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl’s abduction as told through the eyes of his pregnant wife, Marianne Pearl. Sometimes it’s hard to say how you feel about a true story because the events are so traumatic, so powerful that the eyes of objectivity are blinded. But this is a movie when you have to sit through the anger, the heartbreak, and the frustration so that you can take away its lessons. And the only reason it works simultaneously as a form of entertainment and honor is because of Angelina Jolie’s performance. We first meet her as the patient, understanding, loving wife and mother-to-be that she is. But what follows is a world wind of a performance that knocks you off your feet and leaves you speechless. Even in the saddest or most uplifting of movies I never cry; this was not one of those times (I actually didn’t cry. I was close, but this statement is staying in for effect!). It’s a movie that is so heavy I can’t outright recommend it to people without the “approach with caution” disclaimer, but A Mighty Heart is one incredible film held up by the shoulders of Angelina Jolie. – 4 reels out of 5

And then there is Changeling; the true story of Christine Collins and her search for her son, Walter. The LAPD, in their attempts to save face and hide corruption, deliver to her a child that is not her son, and, in the craziest of true story twists, consult doctors and experts who deem Christine “mentally unstable” for not recognizing her own son! As my wife has said, “this is one of the best movies I hate.” What she means is that it’s just a tough pill to swallow; it’s never fun seeing kids disappear and having to go through the thought process of all the terrible things that could happen to them (see Gone Baby Gone). And that anger, disgust, and frustration is only heightened by the deliberate attempts of the LAPD to stymie Christine’s efforts of finding her real son. Think about it: being told you’re crazy by the people who know they made a mistake and whose job it is to protect you – that’s like being buried alive; there is no more claustrophobic feeling than that. But the reason we continue on the journey is because Angelina Jolie captivates us at every turn. Obviously we want to know what happened to Walter and what will happen to all those involved in this conspiracy, but the unease in our stomach is settled a bit by Jolie. Her performance is honest and visceral (I’m sure being a mother of 19 kids helps) and for that this pill goes down a bit easier…of course you’ll never take another dose. – 3 reels out of 5

There you have it. But is that enough to take home this month’s award? The reason Angelina Jolie deserves the award is because it’s clear that she makes movies she wants to make. She has an amazing talent and that shouldn’t be overlooked because of films like Tomb Raider or Wanted. Perhaps these movies allow her to do all the things she does in her real life as a just and honorable human being and ambassador to human rights and world heath. And those are the reasons that Angelina Jolie takes home September’s award – because all she knows how to do is Keep it Really Reel - on screen and off.

Taken...for one hell of a ride!!

This has been a rough week of rentals for me; I decided to give Strange Wilderness a try because I watched Happy Gilmore on television and thought “maybe Sandler can produce a good one this time around” – he didn’t. The movie was absolutely terrible and I finished it only to see if the last 10minutes could be worse than the first … and they were. Amazing! – 0 reels out of 5. Then it was the ultra-heavy “if they made a sequel to 8mm this would be it” otherwise known as Trade starring Kevin Kline, which occasionally played out like a road trip/buddy comedy. That, along with some other issues of themes and character inconsistency, detracted from the overall impact of the film. – 2 reels out of 5. Man, after Trade all I wanted in my life was romantic comedies or spoofs. I couldn’t take another serious movie especially one dealing with selling young women into the sex trade.

But no, my buddy had to Gchat me two days later saying I needed to bump Taken to the top of my Netflix queue. I told him I absolutely did not want to watch the movie where a father threatens his daughter’s kidnappers and they respond with “good luck." That preview just made the movie seem corny and Hollywood-ish; it just put a bad taste in my mouth. Plus I thought it would be a fusion of Leon aka The Professional and the Bourne movies (which on paper is an awesome fusion, by the way) that would fall way short much like copies never retain the sharpness of their originals. Reluctantly I bumped Taken to the top of my queue. Taken arrived Wednesday. I put it in the DVD player at 8:15pm on Thursday. By 9:50pm I was calling my buddy apologizing for ripping his recommendation.

The movie is enjoyable. I was wrong about its plot, and for that I am ignorant for not doing more research. The movie centers on Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), an ex special forces or CIA operative, who must track down his seventeen year old daughter in France before she is sold into the sex trade. Ok, wicked heavy storyline right there because if it was a kidnapping/ransom deal you would think his past caught up with him and that’d be a different box of cracker jacks, but instead we’ve got to deal with this sex trade thing again and see all these creepy dudes forcing girls into heroin dependency etc. It’s real in that sense, and that makes it appalling but that much harder to turn away at the same time.

Taken definitely fell victim to some action pic clichés, but it also excelled in understanding its dark themes and allowing its hero to take advantage of them. There were the 50 bad guys' bullets to Neeson’s one fatal good guy bullet – that gets very annoying over the course of 90minutes. Why not just let him seek cover? Or make him fire 50 rounds as well? I don’t understand why villains have terrible vision and aim? Is there no sight test in the recruitment of assholes? And then the whole car chase thing where cars are side by side and bad guys fire fully automatic rounds at Neeson’s car and the bullets bounce off the window fringe and side mirrors – warning: painfully unrealistic sequences are closer than they appear.

But as I mentioned there is a flip side to the cliches and its a darkness of sorts. Because Neeson has entered the gruesome world of sex slave traders and the morally inferior, he is allowed the freedom to brutally hunt and torture/kill his victims, and we cheer him for it. He’s no vigilante and he’s not a bad guy with the good guy characteristics; he’s just getting his daughter back by any means necessary and we’ll support him for that. There is one awesome scene involving an innocent bystander that I won’t even spoil, but if/when you see this movie you’ll jump out of your chair and say, “Holly hell! That’s what he was talking about!” There is more to complain about in Taken, but by the end you just say “forget it” and you’re happy you rode the roller coaster even if some of the loops and twists looked better from afar. (I would love to discuss the negatives in greater detail free from spoilers, so email us and I'll explain my uncut, unedited feelings)

Rent Taken and enjoy it. It’s not a popcorn flick; you’ll definitely want your glass of Kentucky Gentlemen and Coke with you for this one (if you’re over 21, of course). Take the clichés and some of the scenes that make you want to roll your eyes with a grain of salt. And if you really like this after you watch it, go back and watch some of Luc Besson’s better movies – Leon aka The Professional and La Femme Nikita – so you understand why I was a little hard on this movie. -- 3 reels out of 5

clarity on my rating system:
0= don’t bother
1= I don’t recommend it, but good luck if you want to see it
2 = worth a shot if it sounds like your type of flick; not for everyone
3= rent; if movie is in theaters wait for rental and you should like it
4= see in theaters if you have the chance; rent and enjoy!
5=what are you still doing here? Go see it or rent today!

Keepin' It Really Reel Award - June '09

Well, it’s here. Summer is finally here! And that means movies; tons and tons of blockbuster movies. Grab your popcorn and strap in for eye popping, heart pounding, ear deafining action this summer. Not long ago Terry and I discussed our veiws on the modern action hero and the state of today’s action films. On our podcast, which you can listen to here, we talked about men like John McClane, John Connor, and Indiana Jones. What you won’t hear or read is anything about the female hero. Who was she and what, if anything, happened to her? Who was the lady John McClane? The answer is this month’s recipient of the Keepin’ It Really Reel tip of the hat – Sigourney Weaver/Ellen Ripley.

The other day I was watching Aliens on AMC and I was forced - once again - to reflect on the movies of old (by old I mean 70’s and 80’s; yeah, I’m not yet 30). There is just something about the state of movies today that…well, to put it simply: if movies were food they’d be White Castle. You always think you’re getting more than you pay for, you think, “this time around I won’t be disappointed.” But damn it if you don’t always end up on the toilet holding a roll of two-ply like it’s the bible bargaining with the heavens “please make it stop!” That was me after a long list of quickly forgotten action flicks, but this was not the case after my viewing of Aliens. As I said it got me thinking about action, heroes, women in movies and specifically women as heroes.

Lets get it out the way now – a woman is just as able to be a convincing action hero as a man. Of course, they may have to do it in a different way, but I believe in Ellen Ripley as much as I do John McClane. Maybe she needs body armour resembling that of a forklift and McClane chooses C4 and a machine gun, but she is very capable.

My real problem with today’s female heroes is that they’re too glamourized. If you watch Charlie’s Angels or Mr. and Mrs. Smith these women are flying through the air, fighting tons of dudes, all while rarely bleeding and they always manage to keep their air-brushed, blown out, revlon look. Forget that BS! Ellen Ripley torched acid bleeding aliens and got her ass kicked all while in her underwear. Now THAT is sexy! I challenge the man or woman who says they can find something sexier to some form of duel...or at least a heated game of connect four.

Women are naturally beautiful and everyone knows they don’t take crap; it’s the perfect formula for an action hero! Hollywood doesn’t need to force these women to all conform to this same idea of beauty. And don’t tell me or anyone else what beautiful is. I mean if – and no disrespect here - Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti can pull off the ladies man (see Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead and Sideways), then shouldn’t women have a little more leeway and varied appearance? I don’t want Charlize Thereon (Aeon Flux) or Charlie’s Angel’s or anymore of Angelina Jolie’s garbage (unless she’s bringin back the Hackers look). Just give me another great female hero who only knows how to kick ass and take names. Everything else will fall into place after that. So let the hair get messy, let the makeup run, and just give us – all of us – more Sarah Connor, more Trinity...dammit, we want more Ripley!

Thank you Sigourney Weaver/Ellen Ripley for always Keepin’ it Really Reel. We tip our hat to you this month June 2009.

Last Action Hero

I am a child of the ‘80s. Other than listening to one-hit-wonders, wearing zubaz, and consuming mondo and bubbletape, I pretty much spent my time watching heroes from 80’s action films. Time passed and I grew up. But the more things changed the more they stayed the same. I traded my zubaz for jeans, my bubbletape for a much healthier diet and stowed away the mondo for… well, let’s be honest - who can resist a mondo? But one thing that never changed was my love for the 80’s hero. Original heroes, not the ones from tv series or comic books. Men like John McClane, John Connor, and Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones.

At a young age these movies were the epitome of action for me. Though I never actually saw John Connor in action, it was the myth and the legend of the man that enticed me. Plus kicking the hell out of Terminators is always a good way to spend your day. McClane was a no b.s. cop that flipped the script on the good vs bad dynamic -- he was the reckless mess, but he always fought on the side of good. And then there was Dr. Jones – he always got the girl, always saved the day, and looked cool as hell doing it too! None of the movies required crazy graphics. All the stunts were just enough “over the edge” that my young mind thought it to be plausible, but only for these men. As the years went on these movies began to mean a lot more to me. Die Hard was a quintessential action film served with the comedic garnish, which is something that never got old. I began looking into the art and science of film making and Raiders of the Lost Ark became one of the greatest screenplays - more specifically, one of the best opening acts I’ve ever read or seen. And the themes within Terminator resonated with me, especially the idea of “no fate but what we make” and the constant play and influence of/on time. Even though each of these heroes saved the day in different eras in their movies, they represented the original action hero of the 80’s. And with their adventures they took us on an incredible journey and delivered a great story, and for that I loved them well into my young adulthood.

June 27, 2007 everything changed. That was the day Live Free or Die Hard was released and the day my heroes began to fall one by one. You see, our original heroes cannot survive in today’s entertainment environment. Is the modern world too tough for them? No, in fact it’s too soft and over-glamorized. Our tough guys cannot make it in a world that turns rated-R movies into PG-13 popcorn flicks just to fill seats over a long weekend, and they cannot make it in a world where dollars are pumped in in hopes of getting more dollars out. It is no secret that sequels often fall victim to the “bigger and/is better” strategy, but all of these films made it passed that quite successfully. It was the 4th installments in all of these franchises that were their ultimate downfall. Studios accepted mediocre products just to monetize our loyalty to 80’s classics. It isn't fair and it doesn’t work, no matter if the movie takes place in 2018 or during the Cold War – It Just Won’t Work!

Perhaps it’s because the generation before mine created the good stuff and my generation, as we have done with most things, has only extracted bits and pieces of the great arts and turned them into fluff. Our Woodstock sucked. Our Rock n’ Roll has been shot to hell and has so many sub-genres ripping off specific elements of Rock n’ Roll that it’s gone from groundbreaking to comical to seizure inducing. Even our inventions are worthless - yes, I’m looking at you snuggie. To borrow a quote from one of “my generation’s movies”: God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars.

With no purpose or place we’ve taken our heroes with us. We have nothing to say and they have no stories to tell. Generations before us knew what struggle was and their heroes reflected it – those were the guys we grew up on. Now it’s our turn to take the helm and we’ve turned the perennial badass into a softy with a CGI addiction who uses unoriginal one-liners as a chaser. The McClane’s of the world cannot survive in our day where stunts and explosions matter more than the story, where 20minute action sequences mean more than “how the hell did they get from point A to point B?” We have killed off our original 80’s heroes one by one.

To summarize my feelings in a sentence I look to the end of Tyler Durden’s quote: [I’m] slowly learning that fact. And [I’m] very, very pissed off!