Hollywood Reviews and Movie Trivia

"The Protector", written, directed, and produced by Prachya Pinkaew is audaciously over the top, with bad dialoge, horrible dubbing, but a fun ride and scores a C...

With the opening title credit "Quentin Tarantino Presents" one can just about bet on a project being a bit off center. Previous 'presents' include: 2006's "Hostel", and "Hero" (2004). Both of which had their unique edge that did make one want to see how it ends. "The Protector" has dual moments. Some when the production techniques were simply amateurish, and surprisingly in contrast, production techniques that are amazing. I know that sounds like a negation but true! The redeeming factor is the superior athletic martial art skills of the star Tony Jaa. One is reminded of Jackie Chan in his younger days...

First I'll start with the story, and then I'll pass along some outrageous observations that somehow all came together for a fun-ride. As with most martial arts films, the story is very basic. Kham (Tony Jaa) comes from a family with a long line of Thai descendants that raise elephants that are chosen by kings and are representative of power. These same descendants are also the guardians of the elephants and highly trained in multiple forms of martial art styles. When poachers steal a prize elephant and its calf and his father killed, Kham follows the trail. The poachers have arranged for the elephants to be shipped to Australia and Kham is in hot pursuit.

Once in Sydney, Australia, Kham following the leads, runs up against, here goes, gangsters, crooked cops, and the mobster's niece Madame Rose (in an absolutely ruthless performance by Xing Jing) who has the Sydney police department in her back pocket! Of course Kham has a multitude of bad guys to fight including a totally outrageous fight in a warehouse where a gang of bike-riding, roller skating, four wheel vehicle driving group, where Kham uses virtually every foot of warehouse space to kick butt! Kham with the physicality and style of Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and Sonny Chiba all rolled into one, Kham not only sprints up walls in traditional form, but does ceilings as well! There's another scene where Kham, in the tradition of "The Bride", Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill" fights the famous "88 keys" (the men in black masks and suits), Kham's fight scene tops that. The camera starts in a medium shot as the bad guys come into frame and he battles them. During the scene the camera is doing a slow 360-degree turn around Kham. While turning, it's also widening. By the time the shot is at wide angle, there must be a couple of hundred bad guys in black laying about all around Kham!

There are quite a few thrilling sequences that really showcase the athletic skills of Tony Jaa. The one that stands out, and will likely become the marital arts scene to top in future martial arts films is what I call the "winding staircase sequence". Inside a brothel, run by Madame Rose, Tony Jaa, in one long take that had to be at least 5 minutes long, Jaa battles his way up what has to be a 6 story winding open-air staircase! The camera follows Jaa every step of the way as he fights his way to the top, without a single camera cut, where Jaa, clearly out of breath, just keeps on going! What a sequence!

Conversely, the inconsistent production items, in a strange off-the-wall way, added to the fantasy aspect of "The Protector". The look of film had the texture of being filmed in16mm film and being blown up to 35mm, which resulted in a highly grainy washed-out look. The sequences in the character's native land had an amber edge to it, which is fine. When the story shifts to Australia, the scenes have a blue hue to them. Not just a light tint like director Steven Sodenberg used for "Traffic" where the Mexico scenes where lightly tinted amber and the US scenes more color rich and crisp. The Sydney scenes were so blue that sometime the colors were almost completely washed out! Language was a major dichotomy. It starts off with the native tongue with English subtitles, goes to some English badly dubbed still with subtitles, and once in Sydney, which is an English speaking country, the dubbing totally broke down! The main factor that made it a fun movie to watch through all the flaws is the extraordinary skill of the star, Tony Jaa. With absolutely amazing athleticism, definitely look for more from this extremely talented martial artist!

Grade: C

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"Miami Vice", is writer/director Michael Mann's big screen version of his hit TV series and scores a B+...

The "Miami Vice" TV series (84'-89') was a trendsetter for its time. It made popular the music video style sequences, which have become staples of such shows from "Cold Case" to "Smallville". The TV series made fast cars, flashy wardrobes, and undercover cops Crockett and Tubbs household names. Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas became the "in buzz" in television. The driving creative force for "Miami Vice" was Michael Mann. His distinctive visual style of shooting at night was once again showcased in last year's "Collateral" starring Tom Cruse and Jamie Foxx. After years of resisting offers to bring "Miami Vice" to the big screen, Michael Mann takes his TV series to the next big screen level. As director, my favorites of Michael Mann include: "Thief" (81" starring James Cann, "The Last of the Mohicans" (92') with Daniel Day-Lewis, "Heat" (94') with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, and 2004's "Collateral". This big screen version of the TV series is set in contemporary times. Updated are the staples of the series. The fast cars, fashionable wardrobes, and the fast pace intrigue are all very "now".

The big screen version is loosely based on the episode "Smuggler's Blues", (Episode #15, from the 1st season, aired 2/1/85) and directed by Paul Michael Glaser from "Starsky & Hutch"), which featured Glen Frey's tune "Smuggler's Blue's along with a guest star appearance. An interagency sting operation has gone bad with two federal agents, and the family of a protected informant (hauntingly played John Hawkes) is dead. There is a leak involving the three agencies involved: FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), and ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms). Because the Miami Police Dept. were not involved in the operation, Crockett and Tubbs are assigned to infiltrate the network of mid-level drug trafficker Jose Yero (John Ortiz), as transporters willing and able to move Yero's product from South America into south Florida. If successful, Crockett and Tubbs will move up the ladder, with the hope of getting to the top man, Montoya (Spanish actor Luis Tosar in a very menacing performance). There's deception and countermoves as Crockett and Tubbs put their plan into motion. They even "give" Yero back a load of stolen product they stole, to get deeper into the operation!

A staple of Michael Mann's stories is shootouts in the Sam Peckinpah style and romance. The Chinese/Cuban Isabella (Li Gong from 2005's "Memoirs of a Geisha"), is Montoya's money manager. At the first meeting with Montoya and Isabella, a silent connection is between Crockett and Isabella, with his becoming intrigued by her confidence. And She senses something different in Crockett. A sexual encounter ensues that is electrifying screen sensuality. The gun battles between the good and bad guys are haunting; taking place in the dead of night with the amplified sound of the characters' high-powered weapons, and the upgrade of Crockett & Tubbs' colleagues detectives Switek (Domenick Lombardozzi), Zito (Justin Theroux), and Calabrese (Elizabeth Rodriquez) to high tech-paramilitary operatives was a refreshing change. There's one rescue sequence when we find out just how deadly Calabrese is when she tells the kidnapper she is about to kill him and does as he's about to answer.

Creating strong, definitive, complicated characters has always been a Michael Mann trademark. As a director, he has a way of getting that essence on screen. With Colin Farrell, his charisma and screen presence skirt that fine line between Crockett's identity and his undercover alter ego of Sonny Burnette, revealing subtle nuances in the character's undercover front. It comes through in Colin Farrell's eyes and is fascinating to watch. As always, Michael Mann has strong female characters, and Li Gong's character of Isabella could be called the most complex of his female characters to date. Crockett and Isabella appear as mirror images of each other, both living a life that is not their own. They have intense and beautiful scenes, with dreams of freedom and love, that each of them know, can never be. The world Michael Mann creates with 'cops and robbers', fast cars, exotic boats, beautiful women, wonderful wardrobe, with deception and discovery lurking at every turn, its hard for the characters, and us, to determine what's real or just a cover. If you liked the TV series, you'll love this big screen version...

Grade B+

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Can people change? It's a good question, and one that haunts more than a few of us. Are humans locked into their ways, good or bad, or can we change into better people for one reason or another?

16 Blocks is an action film that theorizes we can change, for better or worse. Bruce Willis plays Jack Mosely, a NYPD detective who drinks so much that we're surprised he can stand. We first see him limping up the stairs to a crime scene, sweaty, slow, out of it, pathetic. Jack drinks so much that his attempts to hide the liquor in his desk are more of a formality than practical, as everyone knows he doesn't have a sober minute.

At the end of his shift, Jack gets a new assignment. Escort Eddie Bunker (Mos Def), a witness scheduled to testify to a grand jury. From the get go, Eddie talks, talks, and talks in a tone we can barely understand, and we haven't had as much scotch today as Jack has. Roughly one block into the trip, Jack stops the car to pay a visit to his favorite Chinese liquor store. Unfortunately for him, he must drop his scotch bottle and open fire on an assassin who nearly kills Eddie.

Jack brings Eddie to his favorite bar, as much for safety as for the liquor. He calls in Frank Nugent (David Morse) for support, only to discover that Frank and several other officers are the ones Eddie was going to testify against. Frank casually explains the need to execute Eddie, smug in the assumption that Jack couldn't care less. When Jack shoots one of them in the knee with a shotgun, however, that assumption changes, and a brutal foot chase begins.

Richard Donner, the man behind all of the Lethal Weapon films, makes effective and even mildly inspired use of the material. The action could have been laden with explosives and flashy tricks, but Donner instead keeps the gun battles simple, yet effective. The combatants aren't the dogged killing machines of Lethal Weapon, but flesh and blood men who aim, take cover, reload frequently, and would rather just get it all over with.

16 Blocks does succumb to a stereotype too many, including a frustratingly obvious use of deus ex machina, but in a way, the formula provides some of the charm. We basically know what we're going to see as it unfolds, though Willis and Mos Def play well off of each other, never getting very friendly but developing a mutual respect that we can appreciate.

The broken down cop stereotype is known to all, but the film treats the character seriously, not as an excuse for wild action sequences. Exhausted and full of enough guilt to drive him to extreme alcoholism, Jack finds new hope through Eddie, a man so lively that just being around him must be like a breath of fresh air to someone who feels completely dead inside. Despite their seeming differences, both men share a sordid past that they would just as soon leave behind.

Jack and Eddie may not spend much time together, but what they do have they make damn good use of. The events of the day offer opportunities for change and betterment, and they both seize upon them. Can a broken down alcoholic cop rise to the occasion, and can a petty criminal straighten his life out when afforded the chance? I don't know, but I'd sure like to think so.

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Superman floating above the earth. Superman saving a falling airliner. Superman gently holding Lois Lane a giving an aerial tour of Metropolis. Superman taking a bullet in the eye and not blinking.

Yes, we've all seen the trailer. In fact, I just watched a newer version; all 157 minutes of it. To be less sarcastic, Superman Returns is full of scenes that tingle the imagination and play well in split-second flashes, but virtually nonexistent consistency between them. If I were to read that the trailer was written first and the screenplay written expressly around it, I wouldn't be surprised. The film quickly rushes by every sequence, as if director Bryan Singer was afraid that he may not have time to pack in another ad friendly moment. Superman Returns might be the first film made that could be classified as a big advertisement for itself. Or the sequel.

Superman has to be one of the most difficult comic characters to write. With godlike near-invulnerability, he can solve situations that would baffle Batman or Spider-Man in mere seconds. Watching him fight the average villain would be like watching Michael Jordan shoot hoops with a senior citizen. Yet, take away his powers, and he loses what makes him special. See the dilemma?

Of course, great Superman stories have been done. Superman II was typically considered the greatest superhero film until Spider-Man 2 swung along, and comics such as Kingdom Come and Superman: Peace on Earth showed a godlike being struggling to do all he could to make the world right. But in Superman Returns, we never see a serious inner-conflict, or hardly even a physical one. The film just doles out one falling object after another for Superman to dive in front of.

The plot, if you must know: Superman (Brandon Routh) returns to earth after a five year absence in space, where he presumably used some great counting games to avoid madness. He returns to Metropolis as Clark Kent at the same time he rescues that falling airliner, which luckily arouses suspicion in no one, despite his six word alibi. Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has been royally pissed at Superman since he took off, understandably so since he sired a child with her before he left (since Superman is an alien, does that make Lois guilty of bestiality?). She wrote a capsule-description friendly article titled 'Why the World Doesn't Need Superman' which won a Pulitzer, no easy task considering her personality has all the flavor of a vegan diet. Superman and Lois have a few blasé discussions that have roughly the same dramatic tension as when I complain that my Netflix have arrived a day late.

Lex Luthor(Kevin Spacey) also throws himself into the super-mix, with an Evil Scheme so stupid that the microwave-acid trip-plot in Batman Begins seems quite reasonable. Luthor got out of prison after a five year sentence, which suggests to me that Saddam should request a trial in the U.S. Luthor acquires a few Kryptonian crystals from Superman's icy vacation house and decides that he will use them to destroy half of the earth in order to create a new landmass. Sure, billions will be killed, but the survivors will pay him a lot of money for the land, even though jagged shards of black ice are usually unsuitable for trendy nightclubs or food production.

Superman doesn't so much battle Luthor as he does meddle in his plans. Most of the film goes by before Superman gets around to Luthor, roughly the amount of time it would take the FBI to snare him. They share perhaps four minutes of screen time, during which Superman walks up to Luthor and allows himself to be stabbed with kyptonite.

Did this make sense during any of the numerous production phases of the film? Of all the ways Superman could be exposed to kryptonite, the writers decided that simply allowing his archenemy to hit him with it at point blank range would be the most effective. In Dark Night Returns, arguably the most respected comic ever written, Batman defeats Superman by shooting him with a cannon, a kryptonite arrow, and jolting him with the electricity supply of an entire city. If Superman Returns was canonical to the comics, then Batman only need begin mouthing off to Superman and keeping that kryptonie arrow in his pocket.

There exist precious few action sequences, which are visually spectacular but not very exciting. Superman doesn't do anything that we haven't seen during the comic film bonanza of the past few years. The filmmakers mistook the wholesomeness of the character for blandness, and subscribe to the Batman Begins school of lighting, which erroneously believes that dim is a synonym for gritty.

Throughout the film, I couldn't help but recall Spider-Man 2 and United 93, two infinitely better cinematic experiences. Comparing Superman to Spider-Man, Superman can't match up as an interesting character; while Superman takes me-time in space and tends to look at humanity with a glint that could be condescending, Spider-Man makes tremendous personal sacrifices in order to put his abilities to good use. United 93 tells the true story of the doomed 9/11 flight where ordinary plane passengers fought their hijackers, likely saving a lot of lives in the process. One film is fantastical, the other factual, but mention the word hero to me, and I'd think of either of those films long before I would Superman Returns. Does the world need Superman? My answer is a resounding 'no'.

1.5 out of 5

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Posted by James Frazier | Add Your Review | TrackBacks (0)

Once in a while, an artist friend and I get together, grab a video camera, and make movies. Nothing too fancy, mind you, with budgets as low as $0, but we've turned out some interesting stuff. Little action pieces, parodies, weird editing, bizarre colors, and surrealism permeate every frame of our makeshift experiments, which may or may not be loosely connected to each other.

Director Tony Scott is unapologetic in his use of these techniques for Domino, a film so hyper-kinetic that it doesn't stay still long enough to be assigned a genre. There may be a story buried underneath mountains of unprocessed film, but a plot definitely does exist, though not one that can be made sense of. Reflecting on it, I've concluded that it wasn't meant to make sense; in the same way action films use plot as a clothesline to hang action scenes on, Domino uses plot to hang dozens of frantically edited snippets of cinema.

I do mean dozens. By the closing credits, the audience has seen shootouts, explosions, sex scenes, pornography, severed limbs, thievery, Jerry Springer, detailed discussions on race mixing, satire of reality TV, satire of upper-class British families, religious commentary, scores of different color filters, bank robbers dressed as living first ladies, lots of subtitles, computerized visual aides, and Mickey Rourke. In short, meet Tony Scott, the world's most experienced, well-budgeted film student.

Domino Harvey (Kiera Knightly), the film's primary reoccurring character, serves as the nexus of the swirling insanity. The wealthy daughter of an old movie star (The Manchurian Candidate's Laurence Harvey), Domino joins Ed (Mickey Rourke), the world's ugliest bounty hunter, to become the world's prettiest bounty hunter. What possesses her to abandon a comfortable life to get in the dirt with society's dregs? An interesting question, but the film doesn't care, because such an answer could take more than a shot of Domino punching out frat girls to understand.

Kiera Knightly gets the role half-right, half-wrong. The bitchy part she has down pat, but she looks too much like a cute girl at a costume party with a biker theme. Looking at Domino, one never gets the impression that this 100 pound girl could seriously stand up to Mexican gang bangers and mobsters, who could snap her in half like a Popsicle stick without a second thought. There are successful female bounty hunters working today, but I doubt many of them try to pay their tipsters in lap dances.

It may sound like I dislike the film, but perhaps I am being glib. While it possesses the attention span of a gnat and spends two hours assaulting our senses with barely comprehensible vignettes, there exists a palatable talent underneath the mayhem. I've seen films by terrible directors, and Domino clearly wasn't made by one of them. The wild variety exhibited from frame to frame couldn't be done by a hack. Only a good filmmaker with an unfortunate lack of focus could make this, an explosive mess that manages to be entertaining by the sheer power of its scattergun approach to storytelling. I'm hopeful next time Tony Scott will pay less attention to the editing machine and a bit more to the typewriter.

2.5 out of 5

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Posted by James Frazier | Add Your Review | TrackBacks (0)

Doom is a film based on an extremely bloody video game shooter, only the filmmakers decided that the shooting part wasn't as important as the bloody. By the time the first half hour ticks by, we've seen buckets of gore, but not a single shot fired. If Doom's goal was to suggest that films can poison the mind just as easily as video games, then mission accomplished (for real).

It seems as if the director had only seen one movie before, James Cameron's Aliens. Only the DVD must have been damaged, because the only scenes he could study were the ones where the Marines slowly walk around the abandoned space outpost, the lights at the end of their weapons providing the only illumination. Doom's run time clocks in at a criminal 113 minutes, 90 of which consist of scenes where the Marines split into pairs and clear dark rooms.

In between those, we have lots of childish expository talking, along with poorly choreographed shots of Marines plowing bullets into monsters. The visual effects crew obviously missed the rest of Aliens as well, because where Aliens creatures were creepy and sleek, Doom's demons resemble rugby players drenched in mud. Perhaps they figured that the brazen lack of lighting would make this a moot point?

Exactly why the filmmakers mostly ignored the vile looking monsters of the source material is hard to explain, as is the complete lack of interesting violence or combat. People get butchered, Marines shoot machine guns, they move on. Most films of this nature are ruthlessly mean-spirited and cynical, but Doom merely operates on fumes, gliding from one stupid scene to the next. Gore sickos will have much more fun with smut like Saw II or Wolf Creek, while action fans can find more inspiring material in the typical B western. A bright 6th grader or a stupid English grad student could have reasonably written the plot, which is so worthless that it doesn't deserve description.

Doom offers surprise only in the astonishing boredom of each frame. I can't even despise Doom, because to do so would require the far more energy than the film possesses. If for some reason you are forced to watch Doom, I suggest a game; close your eyes, listen to the dialogue, and make your own pictures. Rest assured, what you think of will be much more enjoyable than what actually exists. Even better, suggest an alternative activity. How about a good book? Video games can be so dull.

Rating: 0.5 out of 5

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Posted by James Frazier | Add Your Review | TrackBacks (0)

The second half of the Bride's revenge finds its way to store shelves on Tuesday. Personally, I want a version that allows me to watch the entire saga uninterrupted from start to finish, but I can live with the few seconds required to switch DVDs. Tarantino continues his homage to the ghosts of movie directors past with a more character driven story reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs-era dialog. Volume 2 pays vague homage to the Akira Kurosawa style of Samurai-western storytelling, relying less on the exaggerated bloodshed of Kill Bill Vol. 1. The end is somewhat predictable, yet still relieving, tying up loose ends and paving the way for a possible third installment with a twist. A deleted scene and film premiere footage featuring Robert Rodriguez's band, Chingon, are two additional motivators for owning this DVD.

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Posted by Jake Ludington | Add Your Review