A Kung-Fu Chop Off The Old Man's Block

I was never the greatest fan of The Karate Kid movies. Some of it had to do with it being a teen version of Rocky (and I loved Rocky) and partly to do with it being a film series about bullying (and where's the fun in that). As a result it's taken me a while to get round to seeing the 2010 remake. It turns out this big-budget reinterpretation is one of the better films to have come out of a very disappointing summer season.

Some significant changes have taken place in this reimagining. For a start there ain't no Karate. It's Kung Fu. That's because of the relocation of the action from Japan (in The Karate Kid - Part II) to mainland China. And the age of the protagonist has been reduced to allow for the casting of Jaden Smith, son of box office titan Will Smith. And it all works very well thank you very much; a surprise considering it comes from the director of Pink Panther 2 and Agent Cody Banks.

The locations are sumptuous, richly detailed and epic, the story exciting and character focused, even giving the supporting characters (from trainer, girlfriend, bully and mom) opportunity to grow. It captures that underdog spirit of the original, the Hollywood feelgood factor of striving to win against all the odds, and some fight sequences that are tense and dazzling to watch.

Apart from Harald Zwart's cinematic direction, the film also benefits greatly from the casting of it's two leads. Jaden Smith is a chip off the old mans block. He really is like a mini Will Smith having the charm, attitude, charisma and acting ability to carry a movie of this scale...and at such a young age too. I've got to admit it, but the young lad's gonna be a movie star. He's partnered with Jackie Chan who gets to deliver the full range too; kick ass fight sequences, a moving back story and tons of humorous banter between him and his protegee.

The weakness is in an over-familiar script that borders on, but doesn't quite tip over into, sentimentality at times. It's a little over long too, with perhaps too many subplots occupying the plentiful running time. But it's not a major complaint as the plot and tension snowball into the satisfyingly tense, climactic tournament scenes. The same old inspirational sports story, but a pleasingly good one.

December Pick N Mix

Starting a bumper Pick N Mix month, we have an Aliens inspired twist on the ending of AVATAR...



A rather inspired reworking of the ending of The Assasination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, done by a couple of the animation team from the upcoming Yogi Bear movie...



A nicely edited Next Generation spoof...



This just goes to prove how frequently Nic Cage goes bugnets in his movies...



An entertaining Oscar Awards clip from 1989 as Pee Wee Herman faces off against RoboCop...



And, another marathon compilation, this time showcasing the infamous Arnie scream...



Merry Christmas. Ho. Ho. Ho.

A Shane Black Christmas #1 - The Long Kiss Goodnight

You can't go wrong with a Shane Black script. It's gonna be a buddy movie. One buddy has to be a trained expert...the other has to be from a social minority. And it has to be set at Christmas. There are currently four movies (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), all penned by Black, that fit this description. So in the Christmas spirit (and since I can't face watching The Polar Express or The Grinch) I've decided to have a festive revisit of The Shank Black Experience starting with The Long Kiss Goodnight.

Here's what I noticed:-
1/ After her rather ineffectual star role in Cutthroat Island, Geena Davis steps up to the mark, in her dual roles, as an amnesiac suffering school teacher and as super-assassin Charlie Baltimore.
2/ Not surprisingly with Renny Harlin directing, Long Kiss is the biggest scale of the four movies (the Niagara Fall stuff is MASSIVE) and the most bullshit in tone. Of course, there's nothing wrong with a bit of bullshit action, especially from a director in his prime.
3/ It seems bizarre to me that I forgot just how incredible Sam Jackson is as Mitch Hennessey. Give the man some great dialogue, a tough attitude and a licence to swear and no one can top Jackson in a role like this. Perhaps it's because he was playing the sidekick...maybe because Davis gets top billing...but Sam runs away with this movie.
4/ Black's one-liners still induce stomach cramps from laughter. If you haven't seen it (or even in a while) those witicisms just kind of sneak up on you and sucker punch you.
5/ Patrick Malahide and Craig Bierko were never the best villains but there's a great supporting cast including Brian Cox and David Morse.
6/ Despite girlies kicking arse in everything from Total Recall to Mortal Kombat, this was the first movie to convince me that a woman could be a convincing, no-nonsense action hero. When Davis spits, "Suck my dick!" at the film's climax, you know it's a declaration that women are now toe to toe with male action stars. Since then women action stars are mainstream, from Tomorrow Never Dies Michelle Yeoh to TV's Buffy. All the girls be kung-fu fighting.

Great preposterous action, great actors with a great, script laced with profanity strewn humour, The Long Kiss Goodnight is a frequently watched action classic. And that's pretty good considering it ranks forth out of four of Black's movies.

Give The Brand A Hand

Approaching Get Him To The Greek, there were two big concerns:-
1/ Would director Nicholas Stoller and producer Judd Apatow (whose last team up Forgetting Sarah Marshall was unfunny enough for me to turn off 20 minutes in) be able to deliver the comedic goods this time?
2/ Would flamboyant comedian Russell Brand be able to carry an entire movie with his poncing around?
The answer to both questions was fortunately yes!

While Greek still has the rambling qualities of all Apatow movies, there's enough R rated jollies packed into this buddy movie to justify watching it. Jonah Hill is the affable record company man that has to get irresponsible rock star Aldous Snow to the concert at the Greek Theatre in L.A. in 3 days. Comic set-pieces happen, relationships are re-evaluated and people swear aplenty.

Apart from getting to throw up every 15 minutes, Hill plays the hapless straight man to everybody else who's pushing the boundaries of taste and silliness. Sean 'P Diddy' Combs can't act for toffee but his dead-eyed, ranting delivery makes him perfect for delivering deadpan humour. The cute Rose Byrne proves she can play comedy playing Brand's slutty pop star girlfriend, complete with gormless Cockney accent too. Brand himself is a movie star in the making...never really acting...just playing a bravado version of himself with enthusiasm and conviction. It's on his shoulders that the movie rests; without his likability and talent for improvisation the film would collapse.

There's some nice cameo's from Lars Ulrich, Pink, Zoe Salmon, Tom Felton and Kristen Bell (playing themselves) and some groovy musical interludes as well. All in all a very silly and funny comedy that far exceeds Apatow's last effort Funny People. If you don't like Russell Brand, chances are you won't like this, but if you do, like me you'll be looking forward to his remake of Arthur in 2011.

If The Bandidas Said "Stick 'Em Up", I Would...

When green lighting or distributing a movie, the potential backers of the film have to weigh up certain considerations. On paper you could see why a film distributor might have a problem with a Western (a commercially dubious genre), set in Mexico (not the more bankable U.S.) starring two women (wasn't the Wild West supposed to be a male dominated world) and written by a Frenchman (nuf said). But when it was revealed that that film would star Latino hotties Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek, they should have been clamoring to get that puppy into theatres. That movie was Bandidas and, alas, it was released straight to DVD.

The fools. Bandidas is from the minds of Robert Mark Kamen and Luc Besson, the team behind The Transporter, Kiss Of The Dragon, Danny The Dog, Taken...and the whole sub-genre of bullshit Euro-thrillers that are fun, fun, fun. This Western is certainly no different, blending a buddy action movie with the sophisticated European direction that defines all the above movies. Much less brutal in tone than something like Taken, this is a light adventure film in the vein of Mask Of Zorro that would make a great Boxing Day afternoon treat. For it's $35 million budget it's a rich, sumptuous film and doesn't disappoint on the action front.

Best of all is the interaction between it's leads. The gorgeous Cruz (playing the poor, uneducated, feisty partner) and the voluptuous Hayek (playing the rich, sheltered, feisty partner) are great, putting their heart and soles into a female buddy dynamic that's rarely seen in cinema. And as a bonus, you get the goofy Steve Zahn bumbling around, as the beautiful ladies squabble for his attention.

Fun, sexy as hell and sadly overlooked.

When Greed Was Good (And So Was Charlie Sheen)

Despite it's stellar reputation I never had a desire to see Oliver Stone's Wall Street. And despite it aging quite badly, it's a pretty good drama. It's a drama they don't make very often; a big budget production for adults that's very commercial. Filmic drama theses days is split into two camps; the teen, commercial drama about sex, romance, high school and cheerleaders. And adult drama...gritty, humourless and worthy. But Wall Street embodies 80's drama when two actors could go head to head in an Oscar baiting confrontation and then storm off in a symphony of soft rock or hip, synthy pop-beats.

It's a fairly run of the mill coming-of-age/morality tale set in the high stakes world of the stock-market, excellently told by Mr Stone. I say excellent as, while it's never in doubt what will happen to Sheen, it's the skill in which Stone keeps the audiences expectations hanging as to when it will all kick off. It's really weird seeing Charlie Sheen look this young and naive on screen (following years of goofy comedy and bad paparazzi press) and it's comforting that Michael Douglas's Oscar winning performance as Wall Street shark Gordon Gekko actually lives up to the hype. Douglas as an actor has always been drawn to the anti-hero character and he's never done that better, or with more relish, than with Gekko.

A recommended drama (that I'm sure everyone and their cat has seen by now) and a nice cinematic snapshot of a time in world history when capitalism was let off the leash. That turned out really well now, didn't it.

Money Never Sleeps (And Neither Does Oliver Stone's Paranoia)

Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps is an interesting sequel that never quite gels as a drama in it's own right. It follows all the right sequel rules; follow similar characters dynamics as the original movie but give them a fresh twist, while setting it in a different time or location. So instead of Charlie Sheen's greedy hothead we get Shia LeBeuf's do-gooder. Instead of Sheen receiving the lesson in morality, it's Gekko himself who must reconsider his actions.
Wall Street 2 is also an opportunity for Stone to comment about the current state of the world, especially the Economic crash of 2008, and other issues like Banking conspiracies, environmental funding, media manipulation, and financial regulation...especially when compared to 1987, when the original film was set.

The cast are uniformly excellent, although the script never lets them be fully rounded, three dimensional characters. LeBeuf shows he's got the maturity to carry a non-action movie away from Bay and Spielberg, Carey Mulligan masters an American accent as we always knew she could and Josh Brolin plays grizzled and ruthless like he had Michael Ironside possessing him. Michael Douglas himself is a little more restrained as Gekko this time around, but slips back into top gear following a third act twist. Charlie Sheen pops up for a smarmy cameo half way through but it's ill judged and forced (thanks for that 20th Century Fox).

A nice addition to the original movie, but not essential. But well done to Stone for making a mainstream, commercial, studio drama in 2010...just like they used to in the old days.