Weekly Recap 8/5 - 8/11

A new, weekly (duh) addition to the site where I force myself to write down thoughts on my viewing habits from the past seven days. Let the great experiment begin!

8/6/12 La Haine

Fraught with tension, a fantastic Vincent Cassel performance and gorgeous black and white photography, think of La Haine as an improved version of Do The Right Thing. The film presents an objective look at the malaise of mid-90s France, but also the intricate divisions that separate us as people. Its final message, while not profound, feels organic to the story. It also helps that director Mathieu Kassovitz can distance himself from his films, a feat Spike Lee so rarely does. This steers through uneven terrain on an even keel, successfully balancing shock and humor in an experience that's not unlike holding a number two down a mile-long hallway. With La Haine, no clenching is required.

8/8/12 Gone in Sixty Seconds

Of course "My Buddy is a Cage" selections are included here. And of course you can't make me write about it twice.

8/8/12 Dr. No

A few summers ago at my grandparents' house, I came across an old shoebox filled with Polaroids and marveled at how preserved they were. Also, old people loved tight short-sleeve polos in 1956 apparently. Revisiting Dr. No felt a lot like opening up that old shoe box. As dull and stupid as the titular villain makes for both a mystery and a nemesis, it takes a great deal more to thwart Connery's charisma and charm. Its many flaws aside, Terence Young's first Bond entry remains a classy film, and that's coming from someone who tends to undervalue older cinema.

Regrettably very familiar with Austin Powers humor, I was surprised that Dr. No sets up so many iconic qualities the Mike Myers series would go on to lampoon. Mongoloid henchmen. Connery's puns and horn dog attitude. Or maybe Dr. No simply showed how little Dalton and Brosnan really contributed to the franchise. I said it, Pierce. Stick to run-by fruitings.

8/9/12 Hard Boiled

You know what? I'm glad I watched Gone in Sixty Seconds.

Maybe it's purely by comparison but Jolie and her stupid cocaine dread locks make John Woo's Hong Kong action film look like a masterpiece. I suspect had I not seen Gone, Hard Boiled would still look pretty damn great. It may sound counterintuitive for this genre, but the sound design in Woo's films always seems top notch. Action set pieces constantly one-up themselves, but the gun cocks, the shells pinging against pavement give the sequences their meat. Even the punch sound effects stand apart from the overused stock from Power Rangers episodes. You'll have to maybe just trust me on that comparison. 

8/11/12 From Russia With Love

If I had a time machine, after I became a millionaire betting on the '86 World Series, I'd slap the shit out of my thirteen year-old self that fell asleep watching From Russia With Love. 

Bond generally creates an expectation for new gadgets and hot babes, however those elements often drown out the potential intricacy and paranoia that a spy thriller can have. An invisible car is memorable because it's a pretty fucking stupid idea. Here, Q's suitcase -- with its gold sovereigns, spring-loaded throwing knife, and booby traps -- gets it right, as does the entirety of this film. One of the best Bond entries from the best Bond. Keep it simple, sweetheart.

NOTE: Now Playing Podcast's latest retrospective is in fact on none other than Agent 007, and they're doing two a week. I like to keep pace, so with multiple Bond films and the obligatory Nic Cage entry, my viewing habits have become increasingly dictated. What I mean to say is this recap might be a bumpy ride when they get to Roger Moore and I can't put off Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance any longer. Yeesh.

Your one and only digital mecca to kneel and worship at the shrine of America's greatest thespian, Sir Nicolas Cage. "My Buddy is a Cage" is a weekly feature where we revisit his great and... even greater filmography, one scenery-chewing rant at a time.

Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000)

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Matchstick Men was my virginal entry into the Cage brand of heist films, and thank heavens I enjoyed it because what follows is an attempt to dissect banality in its rankest form.

When police stumble upon Christopher Eccleston's operation to jack fifty cars in three days, well-meaning fuck-up Kip Raines (Giovanni Ribisi) takes the fall, and his ex-con brother Memphis (Cage) has to pick up the slack, lest he risk his kid bro dying in some elaborate junkyard accident. With even less time and even more pressure, Memphis must corral his old posse together for one last heist, all the while evading the dopiest pair of cops (Delroy Lindo, Timothy Olyphant) this side of a Marvel sequel.

Underwhelming isn't the right word, and yet boring doesn't do justice to how contrived Gone in Sixty Seconds is. An action film with cars and one-liners was all I came in expecting, and director Dominic Sena fails to even deliver on those easily attainable checkpoints. The post-viewing ritualistic tango me and my VLC player have for each screen capture session quickly confirmed that. Gone is a film about stealing cars, but you couldn't find a noteworthy shot to steal from it. It's as if someone set out to make a genre piece, and then undercut the essential elements.

What Gone excels at is telling the viewer how to feel, mainly through what Classicists refer to as 'script bludgeoning'. Take Memphis' rag-tag squad of saps and burnouts, where the story devolves from an actual narrative into one of those audio headsets they hand out on cheap tours: This one's the tech guy. This one's the hacker guy. This one's the strong silent guy. This guy's really a tomboy who shares a forlorn love story with Nic Cage that we won't try to hamfist into the story for another forty-five minutes. If your high school TV production class remade Ocean's Eleven, it would rival the modicum of screen presence these mouthbreathing dipshits collectively muster up. Their sole purpose is as a Chino-bred Greek chorus: That ride is so sick! Jolie is so fine! I don't understand what any of you jagweeds are saying. Everyone is so impressed and astonished with each other, and precisely none of that admiration is earned. It's as if the screenwriters showed so little confidence in their characters that they anticipated viewers' similar reactions and crammed in emotional street signs to make sure we were watching this turd the right way.

Oh, and Angelina Jolie as "Sway." THE FUCK. From the oh-so-forced bad girl motorcycle to the oh-so-forced blonde dreads, Jolie is utter dreck. Only a twad pocket with a name like 'Memphis Raines' could have a thing for this woman. What is attractive about this character? More importantly, is it possible to be so laid back you topple over? The burnout look works for a select group of new age femme fatales, but "Sway" is no Marla Singer. The nappy hairstyle and oversized trench coat reek of an incoherent heroin addict who drinks water (?) out of gasoline jugs.

The stupidest.

With its endless buildup to a mega heist that is neither interesting or satisfying, Gone in Sixty Seconds is blue balls on cinema. Early on, Scott Caan's stupid character, whose stupid nickname I can't even remember, utters some pointless throwaway anecdote about his latest sex act, "The Stranger," where he sits on his hand until it numbs and then proceeds to nurk his throbber to climax. Someone's jerking me off here, and I'm not sure who.

As if to hammer its short-changing home, Gone doesn't even dispense with the Cage as I've now come to expect, or in this case, desperately crave. Early on, he hams it up in a dealership, sniffing out the whereabouts of a '67 Shelby Mustang GT, the heist's crown jewel, but excising the general blah of Memphis as a character, it's minor. I guess if the prospect of Cage pleading into a steering wheel sounds appetizing, bottom's up:

A suspension of disbelief is endemic to a large majority of narrative films. Gone in Sixty Seconds is a suspension of disinterest, and it does not succeed. I don't care about 'Memphis Raines,' his terrible pornstar moniker or his sloppily etched backstory. He's got a backstory with that '67 Ford MacGuffin. He's got a backstory with the local fuzz. He's got a backstory with a blonde-haired sewer rat. Everything in this is abbreviated and frustrating, melting together in a paradoxically lethargic 118 minutes. I care so very little.

A small rush of relief washed over me when Master P popped up onscreen, a sentence never before committed to the internet.