An artist impersonating a knowledge worker
What can I say, Black Dynamite was what I expected and more. The perfect spoof of the blaxploitation films of the 1970s with some of the best lines I’ve heard in a movie all year.
However the theater I saw it in was all but empty, so I can’t see this becoming a big hit. You can’t just be familiar with blaxploitation you need to be a fan to get many of the jokes in Black Dynamite. But if you’re a fan of classics like Shaft, Super Fly, or Foxy Brown you should definitely see Black Dynamite.
Traitor is a study in how not to try and create a mystery out of your protagonist. In the first three minutes we see Don Cheadle’s character watch as his father is killed in a car bomb. Then the movie jumps to 20 or so years later and he’s working with terrorists. For the first part of the film they toy with him being a terrorist or not. Then as we long suspected, he turns out to be working for the US government. Then they try and toy with the fact that he might actually be switching sides. In the end though we learn he bleeds red, white, and blue. It’s not really that complicated of a plot and one we’ve seen in bits and pieces other places. The problem is that by making the lead character, the protagonist a mystery we never get behind him. It isn’t like we question one thing about him, we question everything. We don’t know his “visible outer goal” as Michael Hauge would say. We’re not so much lost during the film as much as we simply don’t care. They do give us an interesting and raw view of terrorism which kind of keeps you watching, but the basic structure of the movie fails.
Just saw a preview for Black Dynamite, a spoof of blaxploitation films of the 1970s. I’ve seen spoofs of them before but the previews for Black Dynamite looks pretty good. The great dialog, poor stunts, and karate to top it off.
Opens next weekend.
I was never really a fan of The Fast and the Furious film series but I got pulled in by Tokyo Drift. I and a friend wasn’t expecting much but found it to be pretty entertaining. It wasn’t a great movie, however we found great entertainment in the crazy plot and endless cliches. But Fast & Furious was quite a let down.
I think the main problem stemmed from the fact that they chose to have the two lead characters wait until half way through the movie to confront each other. But that’s the main reason we were watching, to see what Paul Walker and Vin Diesel’s characters do to each other. By waiting what they leave us with is an uninteresting plot around running drugs. They try to build the other characters up, but I was never really open to learning about them as all I wanted to see was Vin Diesel and Paul Walker go at it.
I was impressed with what director, Justin Lin, was able to do with Tokyo Drift however this was quite a let down. It was nice to see how they integrate characters from earlier movies but they only play ancillary roles to the weak drug running plot. And the racing through a mine shaft was too much, even for me.
I was really looking forward to seeing the sequel to Tokyo Raiders, but Seoul Raiders truly demonstrates how far Hong Kong film-making has fallen. Tokyo Raiders was never a great movie but it managed to still hold on to a little of what was great about Hong Kong film. It’s sequel was just trying to capture the first movie.
I fell in love with Hong Kong movies ten years ago after seeing such classics as Chungking Express and He’s a Woman, and She’s a Man. Granted what made these movies great was fleeting their success seems to have killed whatever it was. Now movies from Hong Kong seem like they’re just trying to recapture the old days rather than forge ahead.
It leaves me a little sad, I’ll no longer get excited to see what’s hit the video store from Hong Kong. I want that amazement back, that freshness that these Hong Kong movies once provided me. In some ways Korea has taken over where Hong Kong left off, but I’m afraid that it will prove just as fleeting.
Being a telco, ATT is part of the great telco oligarchy. And oligarchies are just like monopolies, they talk a good game but deliver little to nothing. One thing they can’t deliver to save their lives is innovation. Just look at this comical collection of ATT ads from the early 90′s. Under the catch phrase “You Will” the ads try to capture the future, a future brought to you by ATT. Only ATT brought us none of this stuff, other none oligarchy companies did.
Over the weekend I was lucky enough to visit Chicago. We did the typical tourist thing and visited Sears Tower, the bean, and a few of the other landmarks (most originating in The Chicago World’s Fair). Being a lifelong fan of pirates I was very excited to see the Chicago Field Museum was showing Real Pirates: Real Treasure, Real Weapons: The Story of the Pirate Ship Whydah. However by the time we got there it was almost closing time. Rather than spend in excess of $25 for a few minutes we decided to just hit the gift shop. Maybe pick up some interesting books on the exhibit. Of course we entered at the back entrance and would have to go all the way around the building to the main entrance for the gift shop. Needless to say it’s a large building and by the time we made it around we were told that we couldn’t enter. They stopped letting in guests at 4 and we weren’t even permitted to slip into the gift shop. Seems odd when all w wanted to do was spend some cash, but guess they have their rules. Guess I’ll have to get my pirate knowledge on somewhere else.
Sunshine Cleaning takes a while to get going and in the end, seems more like a made for TV movie. It’s a family movie, a family with a few issues. Only thing is, the issues aren’t that big and are settled too easily – there’s no real conflict. Like when the lead breaks off her long time affair with a married man. She tells him that its over, he pauses a moment, then walks off. That’s it. Issue solved.
But probably the most annoying is all the loose ends. Subplots are begun but never finished. When the movie ends you’re left wondering, especially because you could care less about the leads story – it was never big enough to care about.
I certainly wasn’t expecting much from Crank: High Voltage, but man was it bad. The first Crank was a stretch but this one just doesn’t make sense. In the first to stay alive, Chelios had to keep his adrenaline pumping through constant excitement and danger, or get some artificial adrenaline through epinephrine. In the sequel he has an artificial heart and must keep the battery pack charged. So Chelios races around town electrifying himself to keep charged. Ignoring the fact that such methods wouldn’t charge a battery, it most definitely wouldn’t account for the adrenaline driven scenes. Maybe the director thought the audience would overlook that, they certainly cram in enough action, killing, interesting fights, and colorful characters. But in the end the movie is more characters than plot and it gets old. You lose interest long before the redicoulous climax.
But then again, what can you expect from a sequel to Crank.
I was surprised Inglourious Basterds was as good as it was after being tortured to watching Death Proof, even on fast forward. Quentin Tarantino loves dialog as everyone can tell. Who could forget the discussion of Royale with Cheese from Pulp Fiction or Like a Virgin in Reservoir Dogs. But as we’ve also seen, that same dialog can fall flat. Audiences are fickle, trying to entertain them with dialog is a tricky business. It certain falls flat in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 and completely flat in Death Proof. But by following Sergio Leone, Quentin Tarantino is able to keep himself from running astray with unnecessary dialog. That said, there are times even in Basterds that the dialog gets a bit long but he can keep coming back to the plot.
All together Inglourious Basterds weaves a complicated plot that is more similar to Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West. I’d like to think that by following Sergio Leone, Tarantino was able to keep himself in check, but it also could have been one of the production team – a strong handed producer maybe. Either way, it ends up in a great movie. One of Tarantino’s best.