Ten Statements About....PARKER (2013)

Yeah, 'cause a big cowboy hat is the perfect way to disguise
you're a granite-faced, unshaven cockney ass-kicker....

"How do you sleep at night?"
"I don't drink coffee after 7."

1) While I am relieved that Taylor Hackford didn't try to go the comedy route like the last director did with Westlake's prose, there is a fundamental--albeit not a fatal--flaw in the film, and that's the casting of Jason Statham as Parker.  There are moments where Parker is required to blend in and become more or less invisible amongst the background, and while Statham is able to do so more or less well in the opening heist, his main disguise gig--complete with garish cowboy boots and a white ten gallon hat--fails completely...and having Jennifer Lopez' Leslie call him on it doesn't forgive that everyone else doesn't.

2) On the other hand, the four thieves who Parker has a vendetta against do blend into the background--to the point where they're more or less cyphers.  It doesn't help that most of them go unnamed for long stretches of time; I didn't know the one I referred to as 'Beardy Guy' was called Ross until after his storyline was over.  Even Michael Chiklas' Melander (who I spent the bulk of the film referring to as 'Michael Chiklas' in my head) seems one dimensional and ill-formed.  The one villain who comes off the best is Michael Hauptmann's weasely and incompetent Hardwicke, who not only helps define Parker's code of ethics, but also provides him with the impetuous and motivation to seek revenge.

3) I like the use of Nick Nolte as Parker's former partner and father-in-law...precisely because I could see Nolte back in the 80's being cast as Parker in an adaptation made at that time.

Cross this priest, and you're likely to be damned...

4) And then we have Jennifer Lopez, who apparently remembered she had acting talent on the way to the movie set.  She does the amazing thing of being the comic relief while also being a) integral to the film, and b) being an actual living, breathing human being that we have sympathy for.  Lopez' Leslie actually takes the burden of being the sympathetic character off of Parker, giving him free reign to be the ruthless and relentless protagonist we want to see.

5) I do very much appreciate the fact that Statham's Parker is not invulnerable....he gets hurt.  Hell, he gets hurt very, very badly.  And Hackford is unblinking in showing how grotesque the aftermath of these fights are.  The only problem I have with this is how Parker doesn't seem all that immobilized by his busted ribs and stabbed hand during the fight scenes in the climatic sequence.

6) I also appreciate that Hackford shoots his action scenes by locking down the camera and letting his actors actually fight.  It makes the fights seem more brutal and, more importantly, clearly seen.  I am hoping that this and Skyfall (link!) indicate the end of the 'shakey-cam' school of action filmmaking.

7) You know who else surprised me as a character?  Patti Lupone, who played Leslie's mother, plays it originally like a cartoon monster...but as we go further into the story, Lupone manages to add small, almost infinitesimally tiny touches that moves the character from the one to the three dimension.  And then Lupone surprises us even more by how she reacts to seeing Parker in a serious state of distress, something that makes us admire and respect the character.

8) One very minor thing that bugged me was the script's insistence that Parker is inherently a good guy who loves his girlfriend, does right by people who do right by him, and lives by a code that can be interpreted as virtuous....which is not the Parker Donald Westlake had in his books.  This choice to soften Parker is doubly confusing given that the script provides us with a sympathetic character we can identify with in Leslie.

"Yeah, we're, like, bad guys and stuff because we're...bad.
Plus our boss is Vince from The Shield....

9) On the other hand, I do appreciate how the relationship between Leslie and Parker develops.  I'm pleased that Hackford keeps the attraction pretty much one-sided between the two, thus emphasizing Parker's being committed to his girlfriend and his view of Leslie as part of the job (and since Leslie held up her part of the job and didn't screw up in the way Hardwicke did in the first job, his taking so much time to make sure she's safe in the climax works character-wise).

10) Look, I understand that the house Melander's crew is holed up in is supposed to look run down...but why is it the one house that looks so out of place in the ritzy neighborhood they're operating in--and is the most sinister looking, grey-brown thing with exterior lights that look like malevolent eyes?  What, did the sign shop in the area go out of business so they couldn't hand a 'Thieves At Work' sign over the door, or was that too subtle?

Overall...while there are some good elements, particularly some of the performances, the film's insistence in making Parker into a hero in character instead of incidentally interferes with it being the bad-ass movie it wants to be.  All in all, just another film that comes off more as product than anything else.

Back to The Atlas, which has apparently taken to renting out some of its auditoriums on Sunday to a local church.  The audio track was off during the running of the audiovisual sludge of the Regal Firstlook, allowing me to use my Kindle in peace.  The trailers included the first one for Bullet In The Head that made me want to see the movie, if only because I now know it's a Walter Hill film; Iron Man 3 (no 'I have to see this moment, although I am intrigued by the trailer's stinger); and The Evil Dead remake, which I cannot decide whether there might be enough orginality in the mix to get me curious.

Ten Statements About....T-BIRD GANG (1959)

"Hey, we drive around in a T-bird...and we're a gang...I guess
that makes us...."

"Look, you're in a position to do a great deal. The only way we can prove anything on this bunch is from the inside. And that's just where you put yourself."

1) Another reason why I love black and white? It can take what would've been an ordinary composition, like an overhead shot of two guys in a white thunderbird, and make it into something cool and striking.

2) I understand that John Brinkley's Frank is made up that way to make him look younger and give him a little punk-y appearance...but damn, he looks disturbingly like some goth kid who's doing this to make enough money to buy amps for his Cure cover band.

3) You know, I'm positive it's an accident of the lighting...but it's hilarious how, in most cases, main villain Alex--played as if he's some sinister comic book mastermind (he even insists on playing classical music for his crew!) by Ed Nelson--is shot so that he seems to have a perpetual Hitler mustache.

Look into the eyes of madness...or at the very least very bad
acting!

4) I really, really have to wonder about Pat George's Marla. Okay, she's Alex's moll but she behaves in such a bizarre fashion that you have to wonder what her story is. Of course, it could just be she's an awful actress trying her damndest to make her part stand out....

5) I've said this before about these older genre films--but John Brinkley and Tony Miller's script packs craploads of stuff into this caper's 65 minute running time. Modern day caper films would've taken an hour to cover the first twenty minutes of this story.

6) Hey, look! Vic Tayback is skinny and playing a regulation cop!

7) I know that since Tony Miller co-wrote the script, he gets to play the 'crazy' right-hand man of Alex...but Raymond just looks and acts like a goof. It doesn't help that Miller looks uncannily like a sinister, down on his luck Eric Stoltz; I'm sorry, it's hard to get all freaked out when the guy from Some Kind of Wonderful is waving a switchblade around....

"Do I have to pose like this much longer?  I've got to
learn 'Friday I'm In Love' for Thursday's gig at the Dew
Drop Inn..."

8) Wow...for a film about a gang of car-crazy robber, there's very little in the way of car-craziness, and the actual robberies are sort of brief--especially that climatic record warehouse heist.

9) Yep...there's nothing more satisfying for a confrontation between hero and villain than having one keeping hold of the other's pants leg, allowing himself to be dragged along slowly across a barroom floor.

10) So many films could benefit from their orchestral score being replaced by repetitive jazz bongo riffs.

Overall...yeah, it's a goofy, corny piece of work, but there's something charming-in-a-dorky-way about this movie. It's screwed up in so many places, but it does manage to tell its tale, tell it more or less well and being good for a couple of (more often than not unintentional) laughs.

Ten Statements About....FAST FIVE (2011)

"Hey!  The audience is getting bored--let's jump out of this car!"

"This just went from Mission: Impossible to Mission: In-freaking-sanity"

1) Even though this is undisputably a Fast and Furious film, it's nice to see that the caper flick has survived beyond last year's glut. Hell, there's a decided whiff of The Italian Job at points. That being said....

2) Chris Morgan's script tries so hard to make sure every one of the film's massive cast of characters a story arc that the movie ends up at times with a sense of diffuseness. In particular, the second act feels like so much running around trying to convince us meaningful things are going on.

"Okay..here's the plan...I act all bad-ass...and
you, you distract Diesel with your tiny ta-tas."

3) Elsa Pataky's Elena is arguably the most ill-served by this desire to give everyone something uniquely theirs to do. The script sets up an interesting back story for her, gives her some motivations...and then she does nothing much save give Diesel's Dom someone to look at meaningfully. The resulting romance just doesn't have the right feel to it..

4) I don't buy where Dwayne Johnson's Hobbs ends up in his story arc. Considering how much time is spent convincing us that he is truly hardcore ("Real Old Testament," if I recall Paul Walker's Brian saying)...then has him stepping back and pretty much letting our heroes get away because they helped him avenge his team.

5) Jordana Brewster's Mia's main story arc effectively takes away the one thing that makes her uniquely suited for this franchise--namely, that she is overpoweringly sexy when driving a fast car. Sitting at a computer screen and giving instructions over a headset...not so much at all.

6) You gotta give this movie credit for playing thoroughly fair with the big twist of its climatic heist. They lay out the clues, but manage to misdirect us with key lines of dialogue.

7) You know, given how easily Brian and Dominic escape from Joaquim de Almieda's Reyes in the first act, and how they manage to elude him and overcome the obstacles he puts in front of him with inpunity...well, he's a pretty crap bad guy. And no amount of him telling stories about how the Portuguese conquered Brazil will convince us he has more than one dimension.

"What...you can't judge me...you did The Tooth Fairy, damnit!"

8) But then...these movies aren't about vivid bad guys. They're about big-ass stunts, and the film manages to give us something exploding, flipping over or flying into the river every ten minutes or so. And on that level, it is a success.

9) I sincerely doubt the physics that allows our heroes to use precision driving moves to manipulate a ten-ton safe as if it was a mace...and the damage to property, vehicles and--yes--life reaches Bad Boys level of ludicrousness. But it did look cool.

10) I am so happy that this film doesn't forget anyone who was anyone who appeared in the series to date--as the final stinger after the cast credits attest.

Overall...taken for what it is, it works. As a movie, it's a little too convoluted in its desire to make sure everyone gets a chapter in this film's book.

Since I was treating my mom for Mother's Day, we headed out to MovieWorld in Douglaston, to my knowledge one of the very, very, very few independent movie theaters left in NYC--this place still practices a $6.50 matinee on Sunday before 5p.m. Yeah, the place still has a cheesy 'trapped in the 80's' feel to it, but the sheer friendliness of the staff makes up for it. The trailers included The Hangover II, which seems to want to make me not want to see this movie every time I see it; Transformers III: Dark of The Moon, that made my eyes glass over with boredom...and ones for X-Men: First Class, which emphasizes the relationship between Xavier and Magneto and makes the film look even better (and Hell, as a Banshee fan, I marked out seeing him flying across The Bay of Pigs) and Cowboys And Aliens, which reveals more of the plot and is getting me all the more jazzed for this.

Ten Statements About....RED (2010)

Much of what is right in this film--and the world--
is encapsulated by this one photo.....

1) This is yet another film that contributes to the Year Of The Caper Flick, with a group of colorful types banding together to pull off a job/clear their name/redeem themselves....you get the idea. And I suspect the reason it's being dumped in The Fall Graveyard is because Summit Entertainment's executives knew it would suffer from comparison to some of the caper films we've experience this summer.

2) I have not read the story the film was based on--although the collection just came in via my DCBS Shipment--but even though the film seems proud of its comic pedigree (the logo and the poster is consciously designed to mimic the cover of the miniseries), it seems to be leeched of everything that makes Warren Ellis such a distinctive comic book writer.

3) Like Live Free or Die Hard, Bruce Willis plays a character who's one step away from a super-hero. Unlike Live Free or Die Hard the moments that shore up his super-hero-ness, like the shot of him calmly stepping out of a car spinning out of control, works.

4) The reason Mary-Louise Parker is so integral to the film is not only that she's incredibly beautiful but very credibly middle-aged, but because she has this sort of endearing gawkiness that allows her to become the POV character and give us a grounding presence to all the silliness. Her enjoyment and excitement as she gets deeper invested in the caper is genuine and effective. She also shares perhaps the single funniest scene, an exchange with Helen Mirren.

"Laugh, or I'll blow your ass up!"

5) The way John Malkovich's Marvin is written to be the 'wacky comedy relief' character is painfully over-the-top and winge-worthy. The way Malkovich makes the character not only palatable, but likable is a credit to his abilities as an actor.

6) Every action movie could benefit from Helen Mirren shooting people. I cannot imagine original choice Meryl Streep playing wetworks expert Victoria anywhere nearly as perfectly as she does.

Bruce Willis: schoolin' you young'uns since 1985...

7) Karl Urban, playing the kinda-sorta-bad-guy-who-really-isn't-that-bad, is super cool. And his fight scene with Willis is one of the highlights of the movie. If only the central exchange from said fight wasn't featured as the punchline of the trailer, it would have more impact.

8) The actual bad guy is so wipsy, and the resolution of the problem, is anticlimatic. I wonder if the film would have been improved if Richard Dreyfuss' arms dealer Alexander Dunning was the real villain. Lord knows he proclaims himself the 'bad guy' enough...but his brief scene blows the actual villain out of the water.

9) I really like Christophe Beck's score, which starts off soft and jazzy and grows in freneticness the further along we get in the story. And even the few song choices work--my favorite being when Parker's Sarah wakes up from being drugged to Jackson Browne's "Doctor, My Eyes"--which serves to comment on both her and Willis' Frank's condition at the time.

10) I like Brian Cox. I like Morgan Freeman. I like Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren and Karl Urban and Julian MacMahon. Why do these actors together not generate enough heat to keep my eyes glued to the screen?

In short...a film that really should be better judging from all the disparate parts, a movie that pales in comparison to all the other Caper Films we've been treated to in 2010.

It was back to the Atlas for me, which means a forced viewing of The Regal Firstlook (although even I thought the Daft Punk video tied in Tron Legacy was entertaining)....and another fistful of trailers, the worst being Drive Angry, a Nicholas Cage horror film that comes off as a parody of Ghost Rider and looks so epically awful I have to wonder if it started out as a joke gone horribly wrong, and presentations yet again of both The Green Hornet and Due Date--which is made even more dreadful by the way the trailer hews so closely to The Script. At least I also got to see the trailer for Faster again, which doesn't hew close to the script, and seems to promise the return of Dwayne Johnson to action-y goodness.

Ten Statements About....INCEPTION (2010)

And this behavior is business as usual in this film

1) Christopher Nolan's entire catalog is about perception--even the Batman films. And this one doesn't break that streak.

2) Some people may be dissatisfied that there isn't a tremendous about of the wacky 'bending space' sort of special effects the film's trailer was full of. But that's because the bending space stuff is not the focus of the film. At its core, it's a caper film that literally never leaves a single room...which oddly makes it part of that trend this year for caper films that also includes The Losers, The A-Team, and The Expendables. Hell, given the situation diCaprio's Cobb is in at the beginning of the film, this movie is a lot closer to those three than you would think.

3) Ellen Page (le sigh)'s Ariadne turns out to be the single most important character in the film--and her name makes it very clear. Just as the mythological Ariadne guided Theseus through a labyrinth, so does this Ariadne serve to guide DiCaprio's Cobb through his character arc.

Know the rules if you want to stay awake...

4) Nolan understands a simple precept far too many directors do not--namely, lay out the ground rules early on for your entropic elements, and stick to them. He spends so much time laying down the rules for the Extraction Method in the first act that when new paramutations are introduced, we can extrapolate the reasons why these things happen very easily.

5) Also, Nolan is able to make his action sequences work without all that caffiene-cam nonsense--even when dealing with actions that occur on several different planes of consciousness (each plane distinctive precisely so we, the viewer, never lose sight of where they are), we comprehend exactly what happens.

6) Nolan confines the bulk of the big special effects sequences to the first act, where Cobb introduces and trains Ariadne in the art of being an 'Architect.' And it's the kind of imagery CGI should be used for--the sort of weird 'what am I seeing?' sort of mind fuck that makes Dark City one of my favorite films. Plus, by hitting us full on with a series of big shouty effects, it makes us much more accepting of later, smaller effects when the caper is actually underway.

 7) The team--because what would a caper film be without a team to pull it off--is well-cast, and does create a certain level of chemistry between them. The real break-out is Tom Hardy's Eames, who has a very subtle sense of humor and whose brogue definitely acts as an aural contrast to the others.

8) I absolutely adore the way the film has absolute mastery of its interior logic--to the point where, when Cobb returns to a place he tells Ariadne he spent time in and abandoned many years ago, it's suffering from disuse and entropy.

9) I like how every level of the setting in which the bulk of this plot occurs gives the person on it a different puzzle to solve. While Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's Arthur is the most compelling, all of the controllers of the levels have something to work out.

10) And best of all--Nolan doesn't feel the need to wrap everything up in a nice little bow. The ending is consciously ambivalent, inviting you to decide whether Cobb was successful or not in his own quest.

In short...I love a movie like this that assumes we're smart, we're willing to follow the story through several literal and metaphorical levels and that we'd be willing to do some of the work ourselves. This is, I suspect, one of those films that will give up new treasures with every viewing.

The trailers were an odd sorting, including The Last Exorcism (Eli Roth wants in on all that Paranormal Activity money, and shows once again that he and subtlety has never met), The Social Network(I like the slightly unconventional approach to the trailer, although I wonder if its montage of people clicking on stuff to a female cover of Radiohead's "Creep" is just covering up that it's got nothing good to show me), the hideous looking Due Date, and the absolutely dire-looking Dinner For Schmucks. But the real question for me is what will I end up seeing first on August 13th--The Expendables or Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World? Which part of me do I feed--the testosterone-laden action fan or the hipster doofus who loves candy-colored storytelling?