Drive Angry Shot in 3D

OK my friends, this is one of those embarrassing moments like where you discover that your parents are sexually active, your fiance dropped out of high school, or you have broken wind and there is no dog around to blame. There is a place for bad movies , and that place is apparently in front of my eyes. This looked ridiculous from the trailer, it stars Nicolas Cage, who has notoriously low standards for choosing film projects, and it's main selling point is that it was shot in real 3D, not converted to 3D. If those things don't automatically turn you off, then my friends you are my kind of people. This movie is STUPID, and there are so many elements that are Cheesy it would make a blue box of macaroni self conscious. Which pretty much explains my point of view on it. It Was A Blast! Much like the equally awful Piranha 3D last summer, I went into this with high expectations of campy fun and I was not disappointed. There is mayhem, blood, car chases and Nicolas Cage in full on weird mode, what more could one ask for?

Well I'll tell you, there is actually a lot more that you get. The concept is silly, but in a way that makes you want things to go for the rest of the movie. Cage plays a vengeful soul, who has escaped from hell to rescue his grand-daughter taken by satanists with the intention of human sacrifice. I'll pause here so you can read that last sentence again..., that's right, he is literally "Grampa from Hell". We never see how he manages his escape, and there are only the vaguest of hints as to why he was in hell in the first place. The movie pretty much picks up in the middle of a car chase that ends in a 3D gunfight which includes hands being shot off of wrists (IN 3D). After that, it is a series of chases and shootouts and flashbacks that make almost no sense but who cares, it's in 3D and stuff blows up and gets chopped off.

Featured as the Accountant from Hell sent to bring Cage's character John Milton (yeah, it's that kind of obvious)is one of my favorite contemporary character actors William Fichtner. We first noticed him on the TV show "Grace Under Fire" where he played a recurring character.He plays the banker for the mob at the start of "The Dark Knight". He reminds me of a young Christopher Walken, without the idiosyncratic manner of speech. He is in my favorite episode of The West Wing, and adds intelligence to every movie he is in, even a piece of crap like this movie. The character is menacing, and has some great comedic lines. In the end, it turns out almost as if there could be a sequel featuring the two characters. Since the movie appears to have tanked with audiences, I doubt that we will see that, but in my head it is already bubbling.

There are several muscle cars featured in the movie as well. That 1969 Charger, driven by Stuntman Mike in "Deathproof", is back for another round of bad ass motoring featuring death and dismemberment. When I was 15 or 16, my friend Don Hayes and I almost died in a crash on the freeway in a 69'Charger. His mother owned the car and she let him drive it. The combination of power and teen adrenaline resulted in us driving too fast on the freeway, having a car in front of us stop short, and Don having to swerve onto the shoulder to go around and avoid hitting the other car. We fishtailed a little and hooked the bumper on the fence separating the freeway from the neighborhood around Ramona Convent. We ripped out part of the fence and bent back a part of the right rear bumper. I don't know that there is any connection but I am sure he caught hell, so maybe that is why Nick Cage drives a Charger. Late in the movie, John Milton storms a satanist orgy in a Chevelle SS, that is on fire and looks like a muscle car from hell while he is chasing down the cult that has his grandchild.

The feature set piece in the movie is a shootout at a motel that features Milton killing dozens of cultists, while never stopping having sex with a waitress he picked up in the roadhouse next door. It reminded me of that scene in the original "Dirty Harry", where Clint is eating his lunch and has to go out and stop the bank robbers while still chewing his hot dog. Neither could be bothered to stop their activity to deal with the bad guys, and the bad guys simply become fodder to show how phenomenally cool the main character is. No it doesn't make any sense, but guys get shot in the kneecap, impaled by hoes, machetes, and scythes, and it all happens in 3D. Oh yeah, the blond waitress is also naked the whole time, in 3D.

There is a well worn analogy to junk food when it comes to movies like this. After two weekends in a row, watching some of the finest and most well regarded movies of the last year, I was ready for dessert. I don't need Crème brûlée, or Tiramisu, I am perfectly happy with something cheap and full of sugar and fat from the 7-Eleven. So basically, "Drive Angry Shot in 3D" is a Hostess Snowball. Chocolate cake, covered in marshmallow, and frosted with pink coconuts. It looks fun, it goes down great while you are consuming it, but afterwords, you may hate yourself for giving into the temptation. Don't worry though, you can live with the guilt.

Here is a podcast for a site titled How Did This Get Made? It is 35 minutes but their deconstruction of the movie is a blast.

Episode 5 - 'Drive Angry'/Curtis Gwinn | Earwolf

Found This and it looks like it is in my ball park.

AMC Best Picture Showcase Wrap Up

The second day of Best Picture nominees did not fly by as quickly as the first day's movies did. In large part this was because of the somber and self important tones of the two movies that stared the day. These two films were the last two that I had not seen at all from this years list of nominees. The subject matter may have been what put me off from rushing out to see them in theaters, although Winter's Bone was a movie I think I would have gone to if it had played for more than a few days in more than a couple of theaters.

Winter's Bone was clearly a fine film. There is a good story arc and it is intricately plotted. The actors are all very good. The lead is an actress named Jennifer Lawrence, and she seems quite young. This story reminded all of us of the TV show "Justified" without the good guy gun-play. There is a sad element to the world that all these people belong to. There is basically no hope except in the will power of our heroine, she is all that is holding her family together in the midst of a family blood feud involving meth. The people she encounters all seem so real and unpleasant that it is difficult to think they are all actors. None of them seem very familiar except the guy playing the sheriff, who we recognized from several Television programs. The authenticity is one of the things that made this movie work so well. In addition to the Best Picture Nomination, the lead actress and the guy playing her dangerous uncle are both deservedly nominated.



Black Swan on the other hand is a movie that no one in our group really cared for. It seemed to be very indulgent and overwrought. Maybe if we were ballet fans it might have seemed more meaningful. As it was, the whole exercise came across as a long experimental piece that might have worked as a long Twilight Zone episode but it went on far to long with some cliche acting and visualizations. Natalie Portman is probably going to win the Oscar tonight, but many years from now, people are going to wonder why. She does do a credible job on the dancing elements, but she has only three or four facial expressions and she uses them very judiciously. I think she is pretty but her flat emotionless voice and dull expressions don't help sell the over the top premise. This is one of those films that cinema majors in elite schools will probably love, but the rest of us just think "Huh??"


Inception is also a bit over hyped. It is a great film and visually arresting, but it has a lot of the same types of problems. There is a great deal of mental gymnastics to support the premise. The concept is very creative, but the emotional baggage that Leonardo DiCaprio is supposed to be going through is not really involving. It feels like it is being fit into the puzzle, not to be the focus of the story, but to manipulate us with another mystery that will provide some emotional payoff. I thought the movie made more sense last summer when I first saw it. It was smoother and well oiled, this second time was clunky and more obvious. I did appreciate the Roles that Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt played. They seemed more a part of the story when you are not trying to figure out how everything ends up being connected. The music is solid so along with the Special Effects, that is one place where the movie will be rewarded this evening.


The Social Network is one of those Zeitgeist films that comes along every few years. The Graduate and Fatal Attraction were examples of those films that seem to catch the tenor of the times. This movie is what people who make films seriously, would like the movie making experience to be about. It discusses the events that are changing our world in an interesting way and it tells a fascinating story. The script is written by one of the smart guys when it comes to language and changes enough of the real story to make it interesting and have an arc to follow, but retains enough of the truth to titilate us with behind the scenes gossip. It was trending as the likely winner at one point but now it will likely be an also ran.


The movie that capped off the day was my favorite of the ten films nominated, "The King's Speech". This is a wonderfully realized piece of historical drama that features three terrific performances. Colin Firth will be collecting the award for Best Actor for his role as Prince Albert, the second son, who becomes King George after his brother abdicates. He is crippled with a speech impediment that limits his ability to move through the intricacies of pre-war politics. The friendship he develops with the therapist that tries to help him is complicated by the therapists unorthodox approach to therapy and the status differences between them. It is a document of real events told in a dramatic way. The accession of George VI to the throne on the cusp of World War II is well known, but told from a dramatically different point of view here. The story works because of the times and the characters. People sometimes dislike Tea on the Lawn English movies, I understand this but they are focusing on the wrong issues, these movies are often about human nobility, dignity and courage in the face of strong adversity. This movie follows that tradition and meets our hopes about the way we as people want ourselves to be remembered.

Best Picture Showcase Week 2

At the theater early. First up is Winter's Bone, one of th two I have yet to see.

That was depressing but really good. The actors are grear. The world in that movie was scary and depressing. It is set in Missouri or Kentucky. The blood feuds and crank are frightening.

Black Swan...WTF. A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Inception, this was my second time and it seemed much more confusing than the first. I may have been looking for puzzle pieces insread of simply enjoying the film making. This movie would be difficult to explain to someone sitting next to you who was not paying attenion.

The Social Network is coming up after the dinner break. We won some prizes for trivia earlier and get to try for more before the movie starts.

Predator: The Musical (The Final Schwarzenegger Musical)

I want to see it on Broadway NOW. This belongs on the stage, not Spiderman.

Michael Kahn Tribute

Tribute to Michael Kahn, A.C.E. from Carsten Kurpanek on Vimeo.

Unknown

Clearly there is a marketing effort to tie this film in with Taken from two years ago. The tag line, "Take Back Your Life" is not really very subtle. That is as close as the movie comes to being about revenge fantasy and Liam Neeson kicking butt. This movie is apparently based on a book that was a suspense thriller. There are spy elements and double crosses and a plot that seems so clear after certain revelations that you will kick yourself if you missed them. I was trying to think of similar themes and "The Bourne Identity" came to mind, but Amanda had a better link and that was Total Recall. I hope that does not give too much away since the cleverness of the situation is a big part of the appeal of this movie.

The first movie I remember seeing Liam Neeson in was Excalibur in 1981. He was one of the knights of the round table, the one that saw something wrong in Lancelot's refusal to join them at council on a regular basis. Nearly ten years later he was Dr. Peyton Westlake, a researcher that becomes the deformed and vengeful "Darkman". Since then he has been in dozens of movies and been nominated for an Academy Award. He is a proficient and appealing actor, but until "Taken" a couple of years ago, he was not a star. hat movie established him at a relatively late point in his life as an action star. Here he plays a lost soul biomedical researcher, but one that seems able to take care of himself. The good thing is that he is believable in both aspects. You need to have that kind of credibility to carry off a movie like this. Schwarzenegger and Stallone could never get us to believe the intellectual element of the characters they played, although they are both smart guys, they clearly fall in the action category. The closest I can think of another actor to be able to play tough and vulnerable was Kurt Russell. He may not be the biochemist, but is could do the everyman forced to become something more, really well. Neeson has that same ability.

There are elements of old cold war spy films in this movie. It is set in Berlin, there are dark forces at work, and a former E. German security guy turns up as a key character. There are side notes related to international business, science and middle eastern politics, so it is not hard to see parallels to all kinds of spy films. There are car chases and hairbreadth escapes and some solid fight scenes. So if you like intrigue and suspense, this is a good film choice. The plot is not as convoluted as it might have been. In fact, once the key twist is revealed, it all makes a lot more sense and fits in well with the things that we have been shown.

Diane Kruger, who was so solid in Inglorious Basterds, is here as the usual civilian caught up in events, far beyond her depth. Yet her character is tough and resourceful and manages to be a key ingredient to the story, not simply a female interest for the star. Bruno Ganz looked familiar to me, I am sure he has been in some things I have seen, but he is best known for the German movie "Downfall" in which he plays Hitler. I don't know if many people have seen that movie but I do know that millions have seen him in the role because clips from that film have been used in Youtube parodies for years. If your favorite TV show got canceled or your team lost in the championship, there is probably a scene of Hitler going off in German with English subtitles despairing over the disappointment. That is Mr, Ganz. He is very subtle here but incredibly believable.

This is a solid film that will play well in theaters for a while and will earn some good video business. It is not as perfect as "Taken" was, in large part because the emotional involvement in that movie is never present here. This film is more coldly calculated to fool us and to lead us to the resolution. It is a lot more clever but not as strong in audience reaction. I'm sure I will see it many times on the satellite channels next year and enjoy it but I don't need to keep it in my head the same way that I did with "Taken".

Spoiler Alert:

I have a great way to describe the plot of this movie, but I don't want to spoil it for you. If you want the clue, follow this link. http://hitgirllives.blogspot.com/2011/02/unknown-clue-revealed.html