On my way out, I overheard a guy telling his friend how "martial arts gave me discipline", only he said it like he was asking a question

For years -- since '06, anyway -- my buddy's been talking up the television show 30 Rock. He said I was missing out on something I would really dig, and thanks to sickness and Netflix Instant Streaming, I was able to eventually catch up on both the first four seasons as well as pop culture's love affair with Tina Fey. So when I found out about that book she wrote, I thought that it would be cool to go to a signing and shake her hand or something (her left hand, of course -- us lefties can sense each other out).

Turns out the only signing she's doing in L.A. is after a "conversation" between her and one of my favorite You're Better Than This Material actors, Steve Martin -- but it's at the Nokia Theatre and even if you buy the cheap seats it's still going to cost a pretty penny with parking and all the other supplemental rapings those bastards give you. Meanwhile, all a New Yorker had to do to get his/her shit signed was go to a Barnes & Noble and buy her book. At the risk of going full Kanye, I declare the following: Tina Fey doesn't care about L.A. people.

I'm sure the Nokia Theatre deal will be as nuts as the book signing in New York, what with all the rabid fans and their fanatical rabidry (that's a word...now). But I don't think she's going to get as psychotic a turnout as fictional author of fiction Sutter Cane did in John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, which I just happen to bring up because I just happened to have attended a midnight screening of it at the great New Beverly Cinema. In that movie, this guy Cane, he sells more books than syllable-sibling Stephen King and I bet you he probably sells more books than J.K. Rowling and the shittier Mormon version Stephanie Meyer combined.

This midnight screening was hosted by Brian Collins of Bloody-Disgusting.com and he started off the night by asking if any of us in the audience had also attended the previous midnight show he hosted -- Phantasm II -- and after looking over the raised hands, he said that actress Sam Phillips (the guest for that screening) was in the lobby, still talking (she was rather loquacious, you see). He then intro'd the producer of the film, Sandy King (aka Mrs. John Carpenter) and proceeded to chat about the film and have a Q&A with the audience. One day I'm going to graduate myself to the level of Rich Miser (current status: Plain Miser) and in a brief moment of charity, I will donate a shitload of money to the New Beverly Cinema so they can buy some kick-ass microphones because at this point, the current mics are really more of a prop. Although I guess it would help if the user of said mic actually brought it up towards his/her mouth.

Ms. King spoke softly and I'm going deaf, so here's the best I can come up with, based on what I think I heard:

-- She talked about how the film was shot in Canada as a way to trick New Line Cinema into financing a union shoot; they wanted to keep this film a non-union production and King wasn't having it, and she knew all of Canada's film crews were unionized, so there. At one point, the studio wanted her to film in Love Canal, but she didn't like the idea of sending cast & crew to work in and around a toxic waste dump.

-- Collins brought up that this film was written by a studio exec (awesome risk-taking motherfucker Michael De Luca) as opposed to being a film that was dictated by one, and he asked King how much of the film reflected said script, or did Carpenter have his way with it. King answered that very little was changed; the Lovecraft references and all that shit, those were all De Luca's ideas and Carpenter fought to stay true to the script. In fact, King mentioned that the fights between New Line president Bob Shaye and DeLuca were particularly tough since those two had a father-son relationship.

-- Because this film was shot during a very busy period in Carpenter's career (he shot like 2 or 3 movies from '93-95), King couldn't quite remember when this film was shot (I remember on the laserdisc commentary they said it was shot in '93) but that Sam Neill was cast as the lead before Jurassic Park was released. By the time filming started, the dinosaur joint was breaking box-office records and Neill suddenly got super-recognizable around town.

-- Special effects maestro Greg Nicotero has a breakdown on every one of the productions he works on, usually due to UPS losing one of the items needed to complete his work (despite -- or maybe in spite of -- everyone telling him to stop using UPS)

-- She did everything to make sure that Charlton Heston was comfortable on set (even going as far as telling the "pretty liberal" crew what not to say in front of Mr. From My Cold Dead Hands), and he still ended up hating her and treating her kinda shitty. She didn't take it personally, though, because Heston had a reputation for hating producers in general. Aside from his treatment of her, he was the consummate pro and did everything that was asked of him.

-- They shot at a real church, which created some problems with the family of someone involved with the church (I missed exactly what this guy did) who had recently passed away. I'm sure they would've been OK with it if the movie was Fireproof II or something, but not this ungodly shit.

During the Q&A, Sandy King mentioned 30 Days of Night as being one of the few recent horror films she liked, otherwise most of them suck and she lamented the sad state of the genre (nobody's trying anything original anymore, she said). She also had no idea what was up with The Ward's release date, all she knew was that it had gotten purchased by a distributor and at this point, the movie is out of her and Carpenter's hands and it's up to the distributor to figure out whether they're going to release this shit or not. Also, it was brought up that Hayden Christensen is in the film, he's one of the little kids there somewhere. She also referred to Sam Neill as an "Englishman" and all I could think about was how lucky she was that Zoe Bell wasn't in the audience.

So then the movie started, and the print looked pretty damn good, like maybe it never got much of a run in the past 15 years. John Carpenter's score (done in collaboration with Jim Lang) was great as always, even though the main theme got me tempted to jump in and go Exit light/Enter night/Take my hand/We're off to Never-Never land.

This guy, Cane, he writes books that fuck you up, literally fuck you up. Even though his fame and name make you think of Stephen King, the subject matter of his books is more like some Lovecraftian shit. I remember reading an interview with Joe Carnahan, he's the guy who made the flashy/kinda lame Blood Guts Bullets and Octane, then he made the great Narc, and now he's back to making flashy/kinda lame shit. Anyway, he was promoting his first film, and he mentioned that he was writing the screenplay to Narc, and he said if the finished film reflects even a portion of his original intent, it would "stick to the sleep of the weak" or something like that. Well, Sutter Cane's writing is a lot like that, it sticks to the motherfucker reading it and disturbs his/her shit up something proper.

So now his publishers are all disturbed because Cane's gone missing, and in comes ace insurance investigator John Trent (played by ace New Zealander Sam Neill) to find out if this is all bullshit or not. Biblical motherfucker Charlton Heston plays the Moses of the publishing firm and he sends Trent out with this chick editor named Styles to find him -- but more importantly, to find the manuscript to his latest book (that shit was supposed be in press by yesterday -- dug the Escape from New York font on the cover). Not once is Cane's safety or well-being ever mentioned, except in the context of insurance claims.

Sam Neill is awesome for so many reasons, and reason number 899 is that he has one of the best knowing smirks in the business (he can also yawn and play tired better than any other actor I can think of at this moment). The characters he plays in most of these joints always seems to carry an air of having shit figured out way before you, and it's like he's amusing himself watching you make an ass out of yourself because of it. I wonder if that's something he does in real life or if that's just a trick out of his magical actor bag. Anyway, that shit's in full effect with John Trent.

His character is also kind of a dick in that he'll drive with a bicycle horn in his glove compartment just in case he has a chick sleeping in the passenger seat, then he'll take that shit out and honk the poor girl awake. Why? Shit man, why is there a watermelon there, I don't know why. But I bet you John Trent was also the kind of asshole in college who'd put shaving cream on his sleeping frat-bro's hand, then tickle his face with a feather. I don't know, maybe that's his way of scoring with the ladies, by doing fucked up/lame shit to them. Chicks dig jerks, they say. I mean, he's obviously into this chick, probably figures with this broad (played by Julie Carmen -- raza!) he can get some play during their stay at the hotel (located in the small town Cane is probably hiding out).

Or maybe he's not trying to really score with her, maybe he's just being an old-fashioned Man in the sense that it used to be OK to treat all women like you want to bang them, regardless of whether you want to bang them or not. I say this because the movie came out in '95 but it feels very 70's; you have Trent treating a big-time editor like Styles like she was some fuckin' secretary temp, and he's smoking up a storm in places nobody's allowed to smoke at anymore. To the best of my knowledge, when this movie came out, you couldn't smoke damn near anywhere anymore and Disclosure was still playing in movie theaters. Yet you have Trent smoking in offices and giving the impression that he's thisclose to giving professional women playful smacks on the ass. Also, you have to understand this was written by a guy who had no qualms whatsoever with getting a blow job during a party in front of everyone, so maybe he works from a different code of conduct than everyone else.

You know, I saw this back in '96 on laserdisc and I must've been a little asshole back then because I thought it was OK. Or maybe I'm a bigger asshole now, because after watching this film on the big-screen last night, I'm going as far as to say it might be one of Carpenter's best. It has a creepiness to it that grows larger and larger as the film goes on, it's like a Sutter Cane book in the way it sneaks up on you and eventually pounces on your fuckin' nerves like some asshole kitten pouncing on some awesome dog in a YouTube video.

It's like the director (props to d.p. Gary Kibbe as well) Just Fucking Knew where to put the camera for maximum effect on every single shot and his editor Just Fucking Knew exactly the right moments to cut away and/or how long to stay on a shot. There's a fantastic sequence where Trent is running down what appears to be a hallway straight out of Event Horizon, and he's being chased by...something. True to it's Lovecraftian nature, we only get glimpses of this unholy thing going after him and it's like I'm going Ay Dios Mio over here.

I love Carpenter's use of wide-angle lens and the way that shit is slightly distorted at the edges of the anamorphic frame -- those are usually the biggest giveaways you're watching a J.C. joint. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before filmmakers start aping that look, using it way too much to the point that it becomes a regular go-to setting on Avid or Final Cut Studio, kinda like the way lens flare used to be awesome until everybody and their fuckin' mother started using it. Then J.J. Abrams stepped in and offered his 12-inches to the lens flare gangbang with Star Trek. Maybe by the time John McTiernan goes to jail, does his time, and comes out, that shit will be old and done with for a while and then maybe McT can own the lens flare look once again.

The setting is pretty unnerving as well, like some Silent Hill-looking shit or maybe Fulci (if he was still alive) coulda used this location and made Straight Outta Dunwich with it or something. Nothing feels false or lame here, not even the false scares because this is the kind of rare movie where even the false jump scares have something unnerving about them; usually, the moment after a false scare is left to the audience to catch a breath but here, the false scare makes things worse because it means The Real Scare is coming up and I'm/You're not sure if you want to get to it, I don't need that shit in my life. Ay Dios Mio.

I don't know what it is that made me more susceptible over the years to being freaked out over the idea of this movie. Part of it is that the world of this film is starting to look a lot like the real world today. But to be fair, I'm sure people felt that way even when this movie was brand spanking new. Still, that was 1995 and this is 2011 and it feels like This Is It to me, like maybe we've reached humanity's breaking point and something is going to give one way or the other.

It seems like people are more divided than ever about every fucking topic, about every fucking thing and the Internet has only made it worse; this technology that was created to bring people from far-away lands together is mostly now used to scream I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE WRONG. You'll find far more discourse on disliking something than you will on liking something. That's the best we did with that shit, use it to tell more people than before what we don't like. Plus, I have a blog, that sure as shit doesn't help.

I guess what I'm trying to say in my rambling and confused way is that shit feels pretty goddamn apocalyptic to me already, just like the world of this movie, and that enhanced the viewing experience. I saw Black Hawk Down in a stifling hot and crowded theater, I saw Enter The Void on the big screen a couple nights ago in a highly altered state, and now I watched In the Mouth of Madness in a theater on a planet that is currently doing its best impression of latter-day Peter Falk -- stumbling around confused, angry and scared.

Throughout the entire film, you'll catch the occasional news report or radio broadcast about some crazy shit, and I like how that the characters in the film are in their own worlds, away from all that horrible shit, and it's not until the end of the film that SPOILERS YOU SENSITIVE ASSHOLES the mass hysteria eventually oozes its way to everything and it's too fuckin' late. That's kinda my worldview; we keep ignoring this shit happening Everywhere But Here and by the time we realize we have to do something, for all the good we'll do, we might as well get ourselves a large tub of popcorn and laugh ourselves to tears while we watch the show unfold. And we won't even need slimy tentacles or jagged jaws to get the party started, we'll do just fine on our own.

Shit man, real life is scarier than this movie, now that I think about it. I mean, in this movie, you can always blame it on those fuckin' Old Ones, but here in the real world we don't have a convenient otherworldly scapegoat to pin our fuck-ups on. There's another John Carpenter movie that had a similar effect on me, They Live, where it turns out it's not us fucking each other over in the name of Big Bucks, it's these goddamn formaldehyde faces from another planet that are pimping us out. If it was only that fucking simple -- if you ask me (you didn't) I'll take zombies, aliens, and motherfuckin' Cthulhu over Human Nature any day of the fuckin' week.

Anyway, it was a pretty scary movie, made scarier by my own wackpot/crackpot worldview and the wiry, skinny guy sitting in front of me; he eventually sat up unnaturally straight (the way we're all supposed to sit) and I swear I thought he was mutating right before my very eyes. To be fair, I was probably still tripping on reserves from last night's viewing of Enter the Void, so there's that too. There was a girl in the audience who would scream every once in a while and it made me sad because her screams never felt genuine. I was made even more certain of this during the end credits when out of nowhere she gave out another one of those I NEED ATTENTION screams, and I was made even more certain of my already certain certainty when outside of the New Bev she gave one more scream as we walked down the residential sidewalk -- giving the sleeping residents yet more fuel for the fire of what I'm sure will one day be a Formal Complaint against all those damn kids and their 2 a.m. exodus after a late night at the New Bev.

In conclusion, I think this movie would make a good double-bill with Memento because they're both wide-screen films about two smarmy insurance investigators (played by Down Under actors passing themselves off as Americans) getting owned by something they could never truly comprehend. The End.

Medium is the new large (popcorn)

The movie was going to start at 2pm and I thought I was ahead of the curve by arriving one hour earlier, but as I drove past the New Beverly Cinema at approximately 12:55pm and saw the line stretching out all the way down to Lulu's Cafe, I was like Of Course I'm An Asshole. Hello lady and gentleman, this is me talking about going to see Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino -- as opposed to pastry chef Quentin Tarantino -- had been programming March's schedule at the New Bev, and on the final week he would end it with a week-long engagement of his combined version of both volumes of Kill Bill. Tickets went fast, I know that because I was one of the motherfuckers constantly clicking the Refresh button on my browser minutes before they went on sale. Because of this, the New Bev has not only extended the run another week, they made the last two days (April 6/7) only available to purchase at the box office. That will be interesting to see, how that line ends up looking.

I went yesterday, the first day at the first showing, mostly because I liked the idea of having the rest of the day available to do nothing but check e-mails and harbor resentments against my few friends and acquaintances for real/imagined slights. The line was long, but we all had tickets, so I was able to substitute the panic of not getting in for the panic of not getting a good seat. It turned out I ended up sitting behind Mr. Tarantino again, as I did during the Grindhouse screening. He was sans brother Rodriguez, but he remained consistent in that his guests' were predominately female (Omar Doom was one of the few men in the group, so I'm guessing half of the ladies were with him, as it should be when you're one of the badass motherfuckers who killed -- fuck it, I'm not spoiling that one yet).

Did not expect QT to be there; it was his birthday that day, but it was also 2pm and if I was a rich Oscar-winning filmmaker, I wouldn't be getting out of bed until at least 2:30, but as it was, he was there in his green and black hooded sweatshirt. There's eavesdropping and can't-help-but-overhear, and since I was sitting behind the guy, I think I belong in the latter category; it sounded like he was talking about Tron Legacy and how he dug what he saw as a re-envisioning of the original film's visuals. It was interesting and fitting with his "tell me what you like, not what you don't like" philosophy, that I never heard him actually say that he liked the movie.

He also mentioned how the original Tron didn't leave as much of an impression on him as the arcade adaptation did. Someone said something about how watching Tron Legacy in 2D was like watching Captain EO without the 3D glasses, and QT laughed, saying he was going to use that line. Then he used a line from Death Proof, the one about "if you want to hang with the cool kids, you gotta be cool" or something like that, I don't remember, I'm fuckin' tired.

Before the film, a couple guys on stage were selling limited edition (of 600) posters of Kill Bill, drawn by someone respected, I'm sure. Anyway, they were $50 each and I'm just not quite at that disposable income level yet, so I didn't get one. You should get one, though. Get me one, too, while you're at it.

The pretty woman working the concession stand had a way about her that put me at ease, for some reason, she just did. For all I know, she could be cracking whips at the other employees behind closed doors, but the lady who served me my popcorn had a nice aura about her and strangely enough, did not have a single whiff of hipster about her, unlike the rest of us. She must be a Torgan, I thought to myself. Further thoughts ended with me concluding that a high-strung, overly sensitive piece-of-shit like me would only find peace in a utopia where all the people working behind counters of any kind were of the Torgan lineage.

While I NOM NOM NOM'd the popcorn, a girl I recognized from the stand-by line was walking up the aisle and then did a complete about-face right after passing Quentin's row -- excited recognition. She seemed cut from the Quirky cloth and in the movie of her life, she would be played by Alison Lohman; her blonde hair was mostly done up in something that reminded me of Princess Leia's hairdo, she was wearing a frilly white blouse and leopard print pants with matching suspenders. She carried a leopard print coat that completed the ensemble. She looked down toward Quentin and from where I was sitting I could see her eyes tear up, her form slightly trembling (as was her voice).

"Remember me?" she asked, and I suddenly felt my head tilt down towards the floor. QT did not answer (probably steeling himself, preparing for the worst), so she continued. Something about how she met him last year at a cafe and that she proposed marriage to him -- my gaze was burning a hole into the floor at this point -- and then went on to shower effusive praise, telling Rapist #1 from Planet Terror how much she loved him, and she used that word, "love". I felt for this MPDG and I certainly wasn't judging her -- there but for the grace of ego, go I.  But I wanted her to shut the fuck up before things got worse for both of them. She was a cute girl from where I was sitting but QT probably gets model-quality tang on a daily basis, and besides, you never promise crazy a baby.

Thankfully, nothing followed; Quentin said he did remember her, then thanked her and she went back to her seat. Even more thankfully, Quentin and his crew did not turn into Mean Girls after she left, it didn't turn into them laughing as Stuntman Mike walks away after failing to sneeze (or whatever the fuck he was trying to do in that scene). Instead, they listened as Quentin was rather matter-of-fact in his recollection of running into the girl, and then they continued talking about other stuff.

Julia Marchese stepped up to the mic and led the entire audience in singing Happy Birthday to QT, and then the birthday boy went down and did his intro. As he began, camera flashes started going off, so one of his ladies got out of her seat and hurriedly walked over to Julia to tell her something. Julia then turned to the audience and asked us to please shut off all cameras. Not satisfied enough with Lady Marchese's request, Quentin's Gogo Yubari then took over and went schoolteacher on us, telling those with cameras to stop it. Out of respect for Quentin -- and fear of being sent to detention -- the audience members proceeded to stop photographing QT.

He talked about how this print of Kill Bill was presented in Cannes back in '04 (the year he was president of the jury) and it was screened out-of-competition and he mentioned that there were things in The Whole Bloody Affair that were not in Vol. 1 & 2, and that there were things in Vol. 1 & 2 that are not in The Whole Bloody Affair, likening this version to a 60's "roadshow" film like Battle of the Bulge, complete with an intermission. He also told us that this print was only screened two times before today; the first time at Cannes, the second in a private screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Texas. Because of that, he told us, we would be the first public audience to watch The Whole Bloody Affair, which we reacted to by cheering because we're special or something.

It was going to be a long ride, so he quickly wrapped it up by thanking us for wishing him Happy Birthday, and then told us that he picked trailers of films that were in one way or another some of the inspirations for Kill Bill. To the best of my weed-damaged memory, we saw the following:

-- a jazzy ad for Dr. Pepper (seen before at the Grindhouse screening)

-- Pam Grier owning motherfuckers in Coffy

-- Sting of the Dragon Masters starring Angela Mao. I've seen this film before, when I was 11; I was studying taekwondo and was quite the fiend for it (the kind of little asshole who would go to the video store in his gi) and one day I saw this box for a movie called When Taekwondo Strikes. I was like Whaaa? A taekwondo movie that wasn't Best of the Best or Best of the Best 2? Huzzah! Anyway, that was an alternate title for Sting of the Dragon Masters. The trailer is awesome because Bernard Herrmann's North by Northwest score plays over it. But don't take my word for it, click here.

--The Million Eyes of Su-Muru with Frankie Avalon and Shirley Eaton. A bunch of hot chicks on an island doing their thing, and then fuckin' Beach Blanket Bingo shows up to shoot the shit out of them because he's the good guy, I guess. What a fucking asshole.

-- Rolling Thunder. If you don't know about Rolling Thunder, then man, you just don't fuckin' know.

-- They Call Her One Eye, the American re-edit of Thriller: A Cruel Picture. I met Christina Lindberg once at a screening of this movie; I pretty much acted like the girl I mentioned earlier, and she seemed genuinely creeped out by me. Par for the course, if you ask me.

-- Shogun Assassin, the American re-edit of the first 2 parts of the Lone Wolf and Cub series. Watching the trailer served as a setup for a pretty amusing callback for the audience near the end of Kill Bill. That John Landis-looking motherfucker Leonard Maltin did two things that will make him A-OK with me for life: he held open a door for me at the Egyptian Theatre, and he gave this movie three-and-a-half stars in his movie guide.

The film began, and this time when the late, great Sally Menke's name came up, Quentin was applauding along with everyone else -- his clapping was the loudest, and he was the last one to stop. 

I'm sure you've seen both volumes of Kill Bill, and it's safe to say that whatever your opinion on those films will be the same opinion with The Whole Bloody Affair. Me, I dug the hell out of both volumes. I dug how in the same way that Spielberg & Lucas took their beloved childhood cliffhanger serials and paid homage to them while taking that shit to the next level with Star Wars and the Indiana Jones flicks, QT took all those kung-fu, yakuza, exploitation, spaghetti western and grindhouse movies he grew up watching and made Kill Bill.

You see it even in the way certain sequences are shot; the Pai Mei stuff gets all crazy with the Shaw Brothers zooms and rack focusing, the House of Blue Leaves battle has the occasional tilted angles that look like 1970's Sonny Chiba is gonna come out at any moment, and the wedding chapel stuff (particularly the Bill/Bride dialogue) has a bit of the Leone-esque vibe, mixing wide shots with extreme close-ups of the characters faces -- and then, of course, there's all those feet shots. Always with the fuckin' feet shots. Me, I'm gonna have all the actresses in my movies wear glasses and everyone's gonna be like Dude, what is up with all the girls-in-glasses in your movies and I'm gonna be all coy about it, saying how it's not gratuitous, all the glasses shots have a reason for being there, unlike Jane Campion's movie which is nothing but gratuitous girls-in-glasses shots, tee-hee-hee.

To be safe, I'll try not to spoil anything too much in the off chance you still haven't seen this. It's been slightly re-edited to give that "roadshow" feel QT was referring to; the intermission break comes right after The Bride drops off a certain character at the hospital, and as a result, eliminating a major plot revelation that Vol. 1 closed with, and as a result of that result, the audience is no longer ahead of the main character in this version of the film.

This is the same print that was screened at Cannes, so we see the official Festival De Cannes logo at the beginning and French subtitles throughout (most amusing subtitle came up when Buck's "Pussy Wagon" is introduced: BAISODROME). The opening credits still proclaim this as Kill Bill Vol. 1, the end credits are from Vol. 2, and while QT has talked about adding an extra scene during the animated Origin of O-Ren sequence, it's not included in this print, so either they're still working on that for an eventual Blu-Ray or theatrical re-release or maybe that shit's just not gonna happen. 

As far as things that are no longer in this cut of the film, I remember the following: The Old Klingon Proverb no longer opens the film (a dedication to Kinji Fukasaku is in its place), the extended ending that closed Vol. 1 is gone (since we're going to see most of it later on anyway), and the Vol. 2 intro of Uma talking to the camera while driving to Bill's is gone too. As far as things added to this cut of the film, we now see the full uncut House of Blue Leaves sequence in color (I swear, somewhere along the way during that battle, the non-stop barrage of red blood and severed limbs became damn near hypnotic in its beauty -- beautiful ownage!) and I swear a couple dialogue scenes in the second half of the film seem to go on a tiny little bit longer (but then again, my memory of Vol. 2 is hazier than Vol. 1).

I'm running out of steam here, what else to say? Oh, OK, I noticed the women in the audience seemed to get a bigger kick out of O-Ren Ishii and Gogo Yubari doing their thing than the guys. One girl a couple rows ahead of me seemed absolutely delighted with Gogo's treatment of that drunk Ferrari-driving motherfucker -- was this a kind of wish-fulfillment thing going on, after a life of being accosted by unattractive men looking to pick up on her? Yeah, I wish I could disembowel the next loser who tries to hit on me!

There's a part when O-Ren tells her underlings how they shouldn't be afraid to speak up if they have an opinion on something or disagree with her. She says she's open to hearing them out as long as they hear her out in return. With the exception of the "I collect your fucking head" bit, that could also be something that maybe an Oscar-winning filmmaker might tell his cast and crew. I don't know, I'm just pulling even more stuff out of my ass than usual. Ready for more ass-out-pulling? Like, totally complete ass-out-pulling?

I like to amuse myself (and only myself) by interpreting the pre-battle House of Blue Leaves stuff as Quentin Tarantino and his entourage hitting up a hot nightspot. Quentin is O-Ren Ishii -- the Crazy 88's, his entourage. Like O-Ren, QT is fuckin' Boss of All Bosses in his field (provided that Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Terrence Malick, et al, aren't in the room) and I'm sure many an establishment was run by a person who told the staff that no matter what the VIPs demand, they gotta get that shit, no matter how fuckin' outlandish it is, you gotta satisfy their every whim with vim in this bitch. If Quentin's buddies want four pepperoni pizzas in this sake joint, that muthafuckin' Charlie Brown-looking muthafucka best get that shit right quick.

But then, in that case, who does The Bride represent -- Roger Avary, maybe? That motherfucker's blond-haired, so that shit could work. Do you find me sadistic, Roger? Taking your fuckin' Top Gun rant and using it for my own purpose? Uh, uh, motherfucker -- this is me at my most opportunistic. But to go with that interpretation would mean you'd have to go with the tragic assumption that QT has guilt about the whole intellectual property thing, and therefore is deserving of being revenged upon -- ah, but then again (like Budd says) so does Roger, so I guess we'll just see, won't we?

This combined version runs a little over 4 hours, even longer if you count the intermission (felt like at least 15 minutes were given to us), and yet it didn't feel long at all to me. I remember seeing Once Upon a Time in America at the Egyptian, that shit was a half-hour shorter than The Whole Bloody Affair and felt twice as long -- that might have something to do with that flick not having an intermission (what the fuck?), so I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. I never do, really.

As the end credits rolled, I overheard a girl a few seats down recognize the name Cheng Cheh. I wanted to tell the guy with her that she was a keeper, this chick who knew what the fuck a Cheng Cheh was. Then I was reminded of the Quentin fangirl from earlier (QT left during intermission, never came back, probably out of fear of the girl), and thought maybe I should follow my own ungiven advice, so I got up and looked for the leopard-printed lady.

There was a long line already formed outside for the 7pm show, this one even longer, snaking out even past Lulu's cafe and headed for the residential sidewalk. The standby line was as long as a regular movie night line, and then there was another line from the opposite direction, which I couldn't figure out. Down the street I saw her, the girl who wanted to take Quentin's hand in marriage, and I ran down until I caught up to her. Because I'm a fat fuck, I arrived completely drenched in sweat and out of breath. In between gulps of air, I told her that I may not be Quentin Tarantino, but maybe she'd like to join me for some pie, because I kinda have this thing where I like to go for pie after a movie and talk about it. She stood back, looked me over, and then very slowly, she smiled. I smiled back.

Then she yelled "RAPE!" and I ran away.

Somewhere in that last paragraph, I started making it up, which is sad because even in my fantasies I feel a need to be realistic.

Zoë Bell is better than you.

Playing hooky from school resulted in me getting Saturday detention, but when Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez played hooky from work, it resulted in Grindhouse. Go figure. As part of QT's birthday month, the man himself is programming the schedule at the New Beverly Cinema. There's a line that Harry Belafonte's gangster character says to Dermot Mulroney's hostage character in that dead drunken supremely-talented asshole Robert Altman's film Kansas City, and I vaguely remember it being something like "You hear that? (the music playing in the club) That's Count Basie. It's the only reason you're not dead yet." Well, I'm going to appropriate that shit, smack it up, flip it, rub it down (oh no!) and say that the New Bev is the only reason L.A. isn't dead to me.

When I drove past the theater, there were about 5 or 6 people in line. Ten minutes later, after finding a spot and taking a stroll around the block, the line was halfway down the block. Mr. Phil Blankenship would periodically walk down the line to make sure that everyone already bought their ticket online (it completely sold out online, anyone who wanted to buy a ticket that night had to wait in Standby). The huge turnout for tonight's screening of Grindhouse plus Machete reminded me of the two or three (or four?) screenings of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World they had here, and how those shows played to a packed house; both films were disappointments at the box office but the fans are hard-fucking-core. Which made me think if there were just as many hardcore fans of the movies that beat Grindhouse during its initial release; would I see people line up around the block to see Wild Hogs at the New Bev? I highly doubt that.

A very familiar-looking man stepped up to someone in the line, and after a couple seconds I went Holy Shit It's Michael Biehn -- Kyle Reese! Cpl. Hicks! Johnny Ringo! -- dressed casually in his dragon print button shirt and black jeans and hiking boots (he looked like he was in a scene from the non-existent Navy Seals 2, chilling out and drinking beer with his bros on R&R until they all get paged because a group of terrorists have taken over an embassy or something). The man in line showed Biehn an album full of black & white artwork (storyboards? comic art?) and after a while of looking through them, Biehn took his leave and walked off with his lady companion who was not Sarah Connor, which is a good thing because the chances of the New Bev turning Tech Noir dropped dramatically once I realized that.

As I devoured (DEVOURED, I SAY) the delicious popcorn, and the theater slowly filled to capacity, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez showed up. Biehn went up to Quentin and they hugged; he said something about how it's been a while since the last time they had spoken. Mr. Rodriguez -- a tall drink of water -- arrived suited and booted, and he not only managed to wear a cowboy hat without looking douchey or racist, he made that shit look pretty fuckin' cool. Quentin came dressed as Quentin.

They ended up sitting in front of my friend and I, and that was very cool. We were going to watch this movie with the guys responsible for it sitting close enough for me to uncomfortably breathe heavily all over them, clipping hairs from their head for the shrine I keep in my closet where I worship them Helga Pataki-style in my spare time; I have a lot of spare time. To Quentin's left were three ladies, which sounds about right, I'd complain if he had 2 or less. One arrived in the kind of sexy badass outfit one wears when riding a motorcycle in a movie; her belt buckle appeared to be a diamond-studded pistol. At one point, Quentin asked her for a large Diet Coke and I wondered if she was an assistant (or just a considerate friend) and perhaps that pistol was real and she was Quentin's "do-dirt nigga".

Like most of my fellow fanboys, I too considered the idea of going up to them and making a complete ass of myself. It's not like I wouldn't have anything to say, in fact, it's quite the opposite. I wanted to tell them how I had just completed my first feature and I had them to thank/blame. I wanted to tell them how they were the first filmmakers who I felt a kinship with, and that it was the 1993 one-two combo punch of seeing Reservoir Dogs on VHS and El Mariachi in the theater that gave my life a goal in that young age -- to go from accomplished film-watcher to wannabe filmmaker. I wanted to tell them how with their first films, Quentin Tarantino made me want to make movies and Robert Rodriguez told me that nothing was stopping me from making them.

Instead, I decided it was better to respect their space and leave them alone.

"Jungle" Julia Marchese began the intro by requesting people not to take photos or video and then QT and RR came down. Quentin talked about how this screening was especially, uh, special because it felt like he and his brother from another mother Rodriguez were coming full circle with this experience. They told the "hooky" story; Robert would watch 16mm prints projected on a white sheet in Quentin's blacked-out apartment (this was before Tarantino moved to plushier digs that are unfortunately located next door to Alan Ball's pterodactyls) and that Quentin sincerely declared/asked something to the effect of "Isn't this the life?". They told the Dragstrip Girl/Rock All Night story; Robert saw the poster for that double bill, said he had the same one at home, and then he immediately had a light bulb moment and brought up the idea for Grindhouse.

It also came out of wanting to share the experience of watching movies at Quentin's house; QT would screen 2, 3, 4 movies and have trailers and intermissions and ads -- Grindhouse would be a chance to do all that for audiences worldwide (well, audiences in the U.S. at least). They also mentioned how Rodriguez had his movie cast long before Tarantino cast his; to give the actors an idea of what kind of movies they were making, they screened Zombie (horror: this could never happen) and Torso (terror: this could happen) with trailers. Rodriguez's film would be full of show-stopping gore (like Zombie) and Tarantino's film would feature extended scenes of girls talking punctuated with the occasional brilliant kill scene, climaxing with a 20-minute long final setpiece (like Torso).

They also made sure to distinguish the "sickos" in Rodriguez's film as being "infected", not zombies. Quentin told a story about how he talked to director Umberto Lenzi (I'm assuming they were discussing Nightmare City) and referred to the bad guys in his film as zombies. Lenzi responded by getting all WTF about Quentin's use of the word "zombie", acting all confused before finally getting all Italian loud and declaring "THEY'RE-A EEEN-FEC-DED PEEEE-PUUULL!"

We were then told how we were going to watch Grindhouse as they originally intended it; with real trailers and ads included. The movie was already long, Quentin said, and I'm sure legal issues were also another reason why it wasn't released this way, but for us, the fans at the New Bev, this is how we'd be watching it. He told us that he and Robert would not be coming up to do a Q&A or talk more about the film, this would be a triple feature that would go: trailers, Planet Terror, trailers, Death Proof, trailers, Machete. Then they wished us a good time and sat down.

A guy went right up to Quentin to get his autograph or something and QT gave him the apparently-known-by-many shpiel of "Thanks, but I'm just trying to watch the movie like you..." or something like that. The lights went down and suddenly a guy in a powder-blue t-shirt with dark blue sleeves came walking quickly down the aisle, headed for the same row as Quentin but Julia (walking up the aisle) demonstrated her Bionic Woman engineering by lasering in on the pesky target and getting in front of him. She held up her hands, effectively blocking him in a polite manner that could also double for Don't Make Me Have To Push You. The lady Just Fucking Knew what this guy was up to and was going to put a stop to it. Whispered words were exchanged, but I managed to hear her tell him "Please go back to your seat" at the end of it, and that's just what he did.

I don't remember the order of the trailers and ads, but I'll do my best: a Coca-Cola advertisement, Lucio Fulci's The Psychic, Dario Argento's Deep Red, Sum Yung Guy's Deep Thrust, Lucio Fulci's Zombie, some Filipino's Women In Cages and I think that was it as far as the new trailers, followed by the Machete trailer and Planet Terror.

Now, I've written about Grindhouse before in one of my first ramblings on this here blog; it was my contribution to the far superior blog Final Girl and her Film Club. I haven't been there in a while, but I'm going to see if she's still doing the Film Club thing, I'd like to do another one. I think I might have even met the lady (if that was even her) behind that site at Eric Spudic's Movie Empire (which is now closed, unfortunately). She was working the counter and even offered to help me take my purchases to my car. I thanked her but figured I could handle it myself. Then she politely laughed at my stupid joke about how I'll probably drop them anyway. Then I went outside, and sure enough, I dropped the movies. Because my life is filled with nothing but new ways for me to choke on my spoon.

Anyway, yeah, I've rambled about Planet Terror and Death Proof already and it's interesting to read (for me, not for you) because I was well into an alcoholic depression (with the occasional rage-filled moment of levity) during that time of my life. Don't clap for me yet, 12-steppers, I don't drink anymore but I do love me some pot -- but at least I'm not depressed anymore. So if you want my detailed (read: way too fucking long) thoughts on the extended versions of both films, click on this motherfucker.

I will say a couple things about the films, I'm now of the opinion (or at least as of this moment in time) that the shorter Grindhouse versions of both movies are superior. For a while, my ideal version of Grindhouse was the theatrical cut of Planet Terror (the pacing moves like a MUTHAFUCKA) and the extended version of Death Proof. But now, I like my Death Proof shorter as well. Sure, there are moments that I'll be missing, like the full Michael Parks monologue or that awesomely creepy photo-taking sequence, but I can always enjoy those scenes separately on the Blu-ray. I really don't give a shit about buying Italian Vogue (even though I liked seeing Nicky Katt pop up) and I'm not getting anything out of Kurt Russell fondling Rosario Dawson's feet, since I'm not the one fondling them. I once made a DVD with the extended versions of both movies along with the Zombie/Wright/Roth trailers taken from an Internet source, but after watching it once, I gave it to my cousin.

With repeated viewings, a dim motherfucker like me starts to notice and appreciate things more from these films. My third favorite scene in Death Proof (following the entire car chase sequence and the first crash) is when Jungle Julia texts Christian Simonson. She's excused herself to a closed-off section of the bar, away from the loud music of AMI the jukebox. The bar music on the soundtrack is eventually drowned out by Pino Donaggio's score from Blow Out ("Sally and Jack", I believe) and she's sending him lovey-dovey messages. It's like this is Jungle Julia without the tough don't-give-a-shit persona she's been putting up in front of everyone else for the rest of the film. This is a personal, non-guarded moment and I think she genuinely likes the dude, this dude who probably doesn't give a shit about her. I mean, for all she knows, that guy was probably texting back his "Me Too" message while getting a fuckin' lap dance. She's making Stuntman Mike feel like a heel and talking shit about that skinny fake-blonde bitch at the bar, but she's probably hiding the fact that she's also a little touchéd herself.

At least that's how I like to see it. I'm probably wrong, like I was wrong about the scene in Jackie Brown (still my favorite QT joint) when Robert Forster firsts sees Pam Grier and Bloodstone's "Natural High" starts to play on the soundtrack. I thought that was supposed to underscore Forster's love-at-first-sight moment, but then on the DVD, QT is talking about how that was just a moment for people to go "Ahhh!" because it's an awesome song, and how the only people who really got that scene were black people -- and Quentin, of course, because he's black too.

A couple moments watching Grindhouse with the directors in front of me stood out; The first was right after the Machete trailer when a blocky 70's-style Weinstein Company logo came up with the announcer saying "Brought to you by your friends at the Weinstein Company!" Right after that, Quentin glanced over to Robert and Pretty Girl With The Diamond Pistol Belt Buckle beside him. Oh how I wish I had the ability to interpret that glance! What did it mean? What was the emotion behind it? Only Quentin and those he shared his glance with know for sure. Also when the late Sally Menke's credit in Death Proof came up, everyone else in the room burst into applause and cheered -- all but Quentin, who slowly nodded for a while. 

After Grindhouse, there was about a 20-minute break (and the exodus to the toilets and concession stand began). Some guy walked up to Quentin and Robert and thanked them for the good times, and QT/RR graciously thanked him back. Quentin then said "Love your tailor!", referring to the man's Grindhouse t-shirt. I talked with my friend for a bit, then checked my messages (zero, as usual), then went to say goodbye to the Cherry Coke I had gotten intimately acquainted with during Grindhouse. I got in line to use the head and saw that Mr. Rodriguez was in front of me, probably looking to relieve himself of some Cerveza Chango.

When you're a famous filmmaker, you have to make peace with the fact that people are going to ask for autographs or talk with you while you wait to use the toilet; Rodriguez signed quite a few pictures and posters and was being incredibly nice the entire time. If he was annoyed, he was hiding that shit like a pro. The powder blue shirt guy (aka the guy who almost probably got his ass handed to him by Golden Earrings in the name of Quentin's comfort) went up to RR and shook his hand. After that guy left, the guy in front of Rodriguez then turned to Robert and said "Man, you can't even pee in peace!" and then followed it up with "So how was it like working with Lindsay Lohan?"

After the break, a new reel of trailers started: a jazzy bebop-ish ad for Dr. Pepper, Chinese Hercules (starring Bolo Yeung aka That Buff Asian Dude From Bloodsport), some crazy nunsploitation flick called The Lady of Monza (the trailer consisted of people getting whipped, smacked, punched, kicked, and I think even banged -- it's a movie about nuns), something called Ride In A Pink Car, muthafuckin' Charlie Bronson breaking out muthafuckin' Robert Duvall in Breakout, and a teaser for something called Teenage Hitchhikers (dialogue and narration playing over a slow revolving zoom out of what appeared to be the poster, if I recall somewhat correctly).

Machete followed. I saw it back in October and liked it, but felt a tad letdown. It's a sad irony (or whatever the right fuckin' word is) that ultimately this was yet another example of a movie that wasn't as good as the trailer. You have Danny Trejo, the 21st century Charles Bronson, fucking motherfuckers up in the worst possible ways using knives and various other stabbing/slashing/impaling implements all in the name of the illegal immigrants who are trying to make a shitty living doing shitty jobs -- and I was left wishing there was more of that. My buddy loved it, though; I think he even liked it more than Death Proof.

The good outweighs the bad, but the bad is still pretty fuckin' heavy; the movie feels too slow at times and that's kind of a shock because Rodriguez is usually aces in the pacing department (remember long ago, when I told you how I thought Planet Terror's pacing moves like a MUTHAFUCKA?) but to me, this one doesn't really feel like it's headed anywhere. Usually, you can feel that shit, like we're headed into the home stretch, but in this one, I sure as fuck couldn't. By the time Machete is leading an army of low-riders into the final battle, I knew I was watching the prelude to the Big Battle, and yet, it didn't feel like it, if that makes any sense and it probably doesn't.

Robert DeNiro's character, he's this senator who's running for re-election on a campaign of no amnesty for illegals and building an electrified fence at the border, and I think his ads where he refers to the illegals as "parasites" and uses images of cockroaches and maggots, well, it didn't seem so funny to me because I can totally buy that happening in real life. I think Rodriguez was trying for Satire and took an unplanned left turn into Straight Up Fuckin' Accurate. Shit, check any news message board on the subject, those motherfuckers are already talking that kind of shit -- hell, it's probably even worse. It's really just a matter of time before we see real ads like that, making illegals synonymous with insects. I'm still not convinced that DeNiro's speech where he keeps mocking the idea of "change" wasn't taken word-for-word from some politician going off on that socialist/commie/America-hating/tax-loving Obama (or "Nobama", as the clever like to call him).

Steven Seagal is awesome, and if you don't agree with me, then you're probably Kelly LeBrock. I probably even like him more as a fat guy, but I'm down with either version -- which I guess makes him the Alec Baldwin of martial artists. I love that they cast him not only as the bad guy, but a Mexican drug kingpin named Torrez. That description sounds like it was taken straight from the fantasy movies that play in the cinema of my imagination. He doesn't disappoint, either; he speaks with an accent, occasionally throws in some Spanish (he's particularly fond of calling people "puñeta").

The rest of the cast is great; Don Johnson does his best Michael Parks impression, Lindsay Lohan does a good job remaining somewhat relevant, Cheech is Cheech (always a good thing), Jeff Fahey speaks in such a low growling voice you could probably play his scenes to test your subwoofers, Nimrod Antal is way better an actor than you'd expect, and goddamn Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez are making it difficult for me to live life knowing I'll never get to bang them. We already know about Alba's hotness capabilities, but I was especially (pleasantly) surprised by M.Rod's bringing-of-the-sexy in this one. She didn't do much for me back in the day, but now, I don't know if it's because they usually cast her in butch roles or she hadn't fully blossomed yet, but I see her in Machete and she manages to combine that hardass aspect she brings with a large degree of absolute smokin' heat.

I wonder about that. I thought it was good filmmaking that did it, but I recently watched a video clip from a radio show where the host was recording his guest and in the middle of it, Michelle Rodriguez walks down the hall with her entourage, on her way to another show. They say Hi to her and she winks back. After she's gone, the guest turns to the host and talks about how hot she is in person, and what a shame it is that Hollywood's been dyking her up all these years.

Anyway, Robert Rodriguez co-directed this movie with his protege Ethan Manquis, maybe that's why this one doesn't have that same, uh, I don't know, snap to it that his other movies have. It really only comes to life during the action, and even then, half of the action is frustratingly standard-looking, while the other half is wildly inventive. It also seems to have the same problem that Once Upon A Time In Mexico had -- the film seems more interested in the supporting characters than the fuckin' main dude. Look man, in the end, I dug it, but goddamn, I really wanted to see the movie I thought I was going to get from the trailer. As it is, it feels like I'm watching a different movie with the occasional scene from the trailer thrown in -- which come to think of it, is EXACTLY what this movie is. Don't I feel like a fuckin' tonto.

The audience response was interesting. There wasn't as much cheering or laughing as with Grindhouse. There was the occasional WOOOO but I think it was the same guy doing it. Some of the jokes fell flat (regardless of whether they were funny or not) and got no response, and some bits that I didn't expect to get a reaction were rather well-received. Quentin seemed to really dig the movie, though. Some of the loudest laughs came from him, and on occasion, only the laughs came from him. But before you say What The Fuck Are You Implying, calm down puñeta, I'm not implying anything -- trust me, his were as sincere and genuine a fuckin' laugh as you will ever hear. These guys are best friends, and as such probably share the same sense of humor. It happens, I guess -- sometimes the audience is going to be on a different wavelength but as long as you're still getting laughs and as long as the audience is still cheering every once in a while, what's the problem?

The triple feature ended, and a great time was had by most (I can't assume for all of you). Quentin and Robert stuck around during the credits, talking to each other. My buddy and I ended up chilling outside for a while, me yapping incessantly while he smoked his cigarette. Eventually, RR went outside and signed some autographs. By the time we decided to take off, I looked over to see RR and QT listening intently while Clu Gulager (wearing a Marine Corps jacket -- once a Marine, always a Marine) talked to them about whatever. I felt like turning in their direction and shouting THAT'S RIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS, WHEN CLU SPEAKS, YOU FUCKIN' LISTEN, but then I remembered that I while I may be stupid, I'm not bloody stupid and instead I drove my friend to Norms, where I spent my meal being stared at by a bald smiling tattooed man in the booth in front of me, only occasionally breaking eye contact with me to look down at a sketchpad he was furiously drawing on.

Gym employees have no sense of humor, and if they do, it's an extremely wack sense of humor from another planet

So the doctor, he fixed my ear up; it wasn't permanent damage, just something a little antibiotic and steroids can fix. Feeling the sudden violent mood swings brought on by the latter drug, I wondered aloud if I should start beating the shit out of women while lifting weights or something. He said perhaps it's best to start incorporating some physical activity into my life, something more than just getting up to grab another Hot Pocket to toss into the microwave. Sure whatever, asshole. I mean, this doc, he was watching Hot Fuzz in his office, which happened to be across from the exam room where I was waiting inside for a long time. I could hear the unmistakable David Arnold ass-kicking music coming from the closed door and I was sitting there unable to even call a motherfucker because of the sign that said NO CELL PHONE WHILE INSIDE EXAMINATION ROOM. Also, my doctor looks like Guillermo Del Toro and he's giving me shit about my shape, so Double Dumbass on you, I say.

How do you really convince someone like me to visit a gym, to get a little of that physical activity he was talking about? You tell the asshole to visit one of these Gold's Gym joints and visit their "Cardio Cinema" room, a small darkened theater made up of a big screen, projector and treadmills in place of seats. They only play one film per day, played on a loop so if you come in late, you can catch up with the rest later if you're still running/walking/cycling by then. Sounded like an easy way to burn some calories; letting the on-screen events distract me as my heart-rate level was somewhere around 300 and all I was doing was walking. Fat fuck.

The guy at the gym explained how great the Cardio Cinema room is, and how it's outfitted with surround sound and IMAX. Yup, he said IMAX and it took every ounce, fiber, molecule, muscle, and belief inside me to not go right up to his face, look him in the eye, and go "BULLSHIT!!!!!" like Chow Yun-Fat in the English-dubbed version of Hard Boiled. Instead, I just nodded, pretending I was the kind of person who would buy that shit.

It's not like I was expecting The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, but the choices are relatively "safe" middle-of-the-road fare, and maybe even "middle-of-the-road" could be considered too kind, if yesterday's choice is any indication: Killers, a movie I never wanted to see because it starred two people who I'm 99.7 percent sure are insufferable douchebags in real life. There's another movie called Killers, starring nobody you know and directed by the guy who ended up creating The Asylum production company, responsible for those quickly-made low-budget DTV cash-ins of films currently playing in non-cardio cinemas -- I didn't even like that movie but I was really hoping I was watching that one instead.

I guess I could've gone to a regular treadmill instead, but I've gone through that before, that shit makes me feel all too aware that I'm exercising and even the music or the closed-captioned televisions aren't going to distract me enough. I'm here, so I should try this Cardio Cinema regardless of today's fare, I said to myself. I'm going to do a quick rundown on this one, because you really shouldn't be worrying about spoilers on this shit, and it's not like you're gonna read this anyway.

So the movie starts with the Female Douchebag From Knocked Up on a trip to Nice, France with her parents, played by awesome non-douchebags Tom Selleck and Catherine O'Hara. I feel bad for O'Hara, strictly on a She's Better Than This level; I'm sure she makes a nice chunk of change doing these movies a favor by being in them, but it still stings a bit that she and other SCTV gods like Eugene Levy also have to appear grateful for that shit. No wonder Rick Moranis said Fuck That Shit and got out of the game. No wonder John Candy's dead. I hope at least the people behind movies like Killers, New York Minute and Surviving Christmas understand that the only good they provide to this world is affording Levy and O'Hara the opportunity to appear in better movies, like those improv joints from that asshole Christopher Guest.

Female Douchebag is recently single and she meets this guy who's good looking in a This Guy's A Major Tool kinda way, played by Punk'd The Douchebag. Punk'd is supposed to be a secret agent/assassin type, and I say "supposed" not because his identity is mysterious or something, I say "supposed" because we're supposed to buy that shit, that this douche can fuck up some tough Frenchie and snap his neck. Whatever, douche. If anything, I'd sooner believe that while they were filming this, Punk'd got a little too rough on the stuntman fighting opposite him and nearly got his ass handed to him as a result.

I can picture it; the stuntman steps back and says to him (in a Cockney accent) that one more stupid mistake like that and he's going to twist Punk'd's nutsack off and place it between his asscheeks, a position more becoming to him, he'd reckon. Then Punk'd the Douchebag starts crying to his army of bodyguards to get between him and Angry Cockney Stuntman, then and only then starting to feel tough. So yeah, Punk'd meet-cutes Female Douchebag after doing a hit (he blew up some helicopter, killing his mark and a most likely innocent helicopter pilot) and they begin a wonderful douchebag courtship while enjoying the nice beaches and nice vistas of, uh, Nice.

Selleck's character is overly protective of his daughter, even making sure her hotel room is adjacent to his. He's always going on about her safety. I want you to remember that for later. Anyway, Punk'd ends up turning down a hit from his boss, played by yet another funny actor slumming it and having to look happy about it, Martin Mull. The only reason I don't feel as bad for Mull is because Patton Oswalt once referred to him as being an asshole; it was one of those arguments for Don't Meet Your Heroes, and the flipside to that coin according to Oswalt, was that he then met Carrot Top (not a hero of Oswalt's) and found him to be one of the nicest guys ever.

So cut to three years later, and Punk'd the Douchebag is married to Female Douchebag and they live in a nice neighborhood somewhere in the tax-incentive-giving state of Georgia. Punk'd has some kind of job in construction where he works out of an office and occasionally visits a site to tell the Mexicans what's what while still dressed in his clean white corporate wear, probably getting that shit dirty and not caring because I'M AWESOME or whatever douchebag mantra is filling his mind at the moment (he learned from the smaller, less-popular sub-sect of Transcendental Meditation called DTM, and I don't even have to tell you what that shit stands for. Meanwhile, Female Douchebag works in an office or something.

It's quite a thing to watch Punk'd's interactions with others; his response to everything is to make a condescending Whatever Loser look after the other person is done talking. For all I know, the character in the screenplay is supposed to be likable, but because of the actor playing him, he just seems like the smarmiest, most-asshole-like, I'm Better Than You motherfucker I've seen in quite some time. I guess this is what fans of Punk'd like about him, this is why they spend their hard-earned money to go see his shit movies, they love watching this guy be an asshole because maybe they want to be just like him, and they've gone as far as the Ed Hardy shirt and the ironic trucker's cap, but that's it. They're still a cougar away from being him. That's the only thing separating those douches from this douche, because there certainly isn't a talent gap involved.

I mean, Lois Griffin from Family Guy shows up playing one of Punk'd's neighbors and she's doing the wacky neighbor thing and it's like Punk'd couldn't even play it like he's amused by her. Later in the film you find out she's a hired assassin and I think that's supposed to be a surprise except Punk'd is already treating her weird from the beginning -- and I don't think he's supposed to be playing it that way. It's like the director tried to pull Punk'd aside and explain to him that his character should be friendly with Lois Griffin because as far as he's concerned, she's just some lady. But Punk'd probably turned to this director and went, NAH THAT'S STUPID, BRO (Punk'd speaks in all caps) and then probably explained that his fans like to see him be a dick and not in an awesome Alec Baldwin/Will Arnett sort-of-way, it's more like he's a dick in the way that genuinely unpleasant people are dicks.

So suddenly in the middle of the movie, the Douchebags find themselves being attacked by friends and colleagues; Punk'd's co-worker attacks him in the kitchen with a knife, friendly deliverymen are firing machine guns at them, a horny sexed-up neighbor is trying to run them over. Now, Female Douchebag doesn't know why (she doesn't know about Punk'd's former life -- he confessed to her late one night about it, except she was asleep and didn't hear a word, and he thinks she did and took it rather well as a result) this is happening to them but Punk'd figures maybe it's related to his previous employment. Anyway, they start to bicker with the whole WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME/I TOLD YOU ALREADY deal, eventually leading into the I'm Pregnant plot point and along the way, many a product placement is made.

This is where I came in (and then stayed to watch the first half when the movie started over). I started working out halfway through the film, and I have to admit, it played rather well this way, not knowing why anything was happening. In fact, there was an almost Kafka-esque feel to it, watching this couple freaking out as all these people in this suburban setting try to kill them, and they can't even go to Big K-Mart to buy a pregnancy test without Usher showing up with a price gun and making Punk'd nervous that he might be One Of Them. There's a germ of a good idea there somewhere, in my unintentional reedit-by-way-of-watching-it-from-the-middle version. Not that it helps, it only made me want to go home and watch the chase scene from To Live and Die in L.A..

Usher's appearance, by the way, only made me wonder if this was set up by having Punk'd call his bros and ask them if they wanted to show up and have some fun. Most of them were out doing better things (probably out fishing with Mark Cuban, Chris Daughtry, Jeff Probst, Super Chef Bobby Flay and Adam Scott's character from Step Brothers). Damn. Usher seemed like an OK guy, but now I have to re-think that because of the company he keeps. It must've been unbearable on that set, those two bro-ing out while girls with no standards or self-respect were screaming and moistening their undergarments because OMG PUNK'D AND USHER ARE AT THE BIG K-MART.

The assassins are mostly played by people who unlike the stars of this film, are known for their comedic talents and sense of humor. They unfortunately are losers in the Who's More Attractive game against the stars, and that's where it really counts in Hollywood; Lois Griffin from Family Guy (shot in the head), some skinny dude (run over), some other skinny dude (neck snapped), real-life Marine Rob Riggle (who unfortunately probably had the decency to be nice to Punk'd behind-the-scenes, rather than putting him in a hurt locker -- his character gets crushed/impaled), Casey Wilson from SNL (shot in the head), and someone named Lisa Ann Walter (burned to death) who I remember from something for some reason. For a while, I thought the theme of this movie was Hot People Rule, Normal People Drool, but there is one hot chick who is trying to kill them, as well, she's like Punk'd's secretary or something, and she gets impaled by an antler chandelier that she was bitching about earlier in the movie, which I guess is irony or poetic justice or something.

For a good portion of the running time, there was an older Asian couple on the treadmills next to me. They seemed to really enjoy the movie, and good for them, I'm not holding it against them, I just wish they knew that the star of the movie is probably the kind of asshole who would wait for them to leave so he could start going Ching Chong Ching Ching Chong behind their backs, then high-fiving his bro about it ("now let's go date-rape some chicks!").

I wish the Asian couple didn't leave, because then this fat guy (fatter than me) in a red polo shirt and sweatpants stepped in and decided that he was going to let everyone know what he thought of this movie. He didn't seem to mind that people around him left their treadmills while he was trying to MST3k the feature. It was probably his way of working up the nerve to do an open-mic night at the local Chuckle Hut and bomb horribly with his observations about women until out of desperation he starts making jokes about those goddamn Mexicans and their Mexican music (this Chuckle Hut is located in Orange County), then they'd all laugh and he'd feel Awesome and now fully charged, he tries to pick up chicks with his shit Chris Farley impersonation -- and succeeds!

You cannot escape the talkers, even in the movie theater gym. I felt that even though this was a shit movie, this is still a movie theater setting and he should take that shit somewhere else. Nobody is forcing him to watch this. As for me, I was running in spite of the assholes on-screen -- I was running OUT of spite. I'm a spiting motherfucker. Besides, as shitty as the movie was, it still managed to distract me from the plain and simple fact that I was actually running. Running! For more than 10 seconds! It's probably even easier if you're doing it to a movie you like!

It got to a point that we were the only two left, and I sure as fuck wasn't going to leave, I had a good run going. Eventually, a cute girl got between me and Fat Guy In A Polo Shirt and he decided to give his running commentary to her, rather than me. I can sense her Oh Man, I Picked The Wrong Treadmill vibes and I'd feel sorry for her, but since she'd probably never give me the time of day, I felt nothing but a major amount of Serves You Right For Being Cute toward her. Instead, I cooled down and switched to another machine, leaving her with Mr. All My Friends At Work Say I Should Be A Comedian.

So at the end of the movie, it turns out that Selleck's character used to be a secret agent/assassin/whatever himself, and he was the original target that Punk'd The Douchebag was supposed to take down at the beginning. He thought Punk'd was after him, so he assigned sleeper agents to pretend to be Punk'd's friends and neighbors until they got the word from him. There was a misunderstanding when Martin Mull's character recently contacted Punk'd, and Selleck assumed the hit was back on, so he alerted the assassins and that's why Punk'd and Knocked Up spent the second half of the movie trying not to get killed. This from the guy who was nervous about the idea of his daughter sleeping in a hotel room that wasn't adjacent to his.
But now that everything is settled, and all the assassins are dead, it's all water under the bridge, I guess. Turns out Selleck's as big a douche as his daughter and son-in-law.

This was an asshole movie made by asshole people and starring a couple of assholes. There is the occasional cool person involved (some of the supporting cast, the cinematographer shot True Lies) but other than that, it's an asshole production. But I saw the whole thing, so that makes me the biggest asshole of the bunch. You know, I'm being hard on Katherine Heigl, I know people don't like her, but I'll let her slide. I take back all the Female Douchebag talk about her because she never hosted a prank show, she never called herself and Sean Combs "the new Rat Pack". I'm sure in between doing movies, reading scripts and raising her kid, Ms. Heigl probably likes to chill out by reading my blog, so I just want to make it clear that I don't really have a beef with her. But you're sure as fuck on probation, Heigl.

The action was OK, but it's more of that pre-Bourne old-movie-star style of action choreography where you don't believe for a second that Punk'd could fuck a guy up like that. People get shot and blown up, it's a touch more brutal than you'd expect from a no-blood PG-13 movie, and it probably hurts more to watch because it's happening to people you want to see accomplish their mission and live. Instead, Punk'd and Knocked Up win the battle and live on to have an asshole baby. Meanwhile, I'm sure some of these assassins had families at home who are going to receive either a phone call in the middle of the night, or a visit from Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson. And for what? Because fuckin' Magnum PI was afraid of dying from the very same sword he lived by? What a fuckin' asshole.

This movie made me sad. The only thing that makes me sadder is if they took the same script, same director and the same cast but replaced Punk'd and Knocked Up with, oh, I don't know, Matt Damon and Amy Adams, I'd most likely give this shit a pass, even though this is without a doubt, a shining example of a Piece Of Shit movie.

I don't know if I'll do it again, I mean, I like being sedentary and dying a slow blubberous death, but as far as yesterday goes, I adapted rather easily into this new world, this gym world, walking around and exposing my fat upper body and juicy man-titties in public. What I wasn't ready for was the odd mixture of guys who trot around naked in the locker room with those who are trying to save themselves a little decency by using a towel. I guess that's where the thousand-yard-stare comes into handy when you're now living with civilians who look at your man-bitch-tits while their wangs are flopping around too close to the hair gel.

If hating Nazis is wrong, I don't want to be White

Listen lady and gentleman, I understand that shitty things happen to all of us and there's nothing wrong with bitching about it on the Internet -- shit, that's mostly what I do on this blog and Twitter, but for God's sake stop signing off with FML, because you are fucking blessed to be alive in this beautiful/ugly world and if you have at least one person that gives one iota of a shit about you, then consider yourself double blessed. You gotta treat that shit like gold, jack, 'cuz it is gold. Your life? That is gold. The Japanese are currently in a stunning realization of that, at this moment.

So last night I went to see a Rod Taylor double-feature at the New Beverly Cinema, part of Quentin Tarantino programming all of March's movie schedule because it's his birthday this month and ain't no party like a Quentin Tarantino party 'cause a Quentin Tarantino party don't stop (until the month of April). I knew of Rod Taylor when I first saw him in The Time Machine (the original, not that Guy Pearce bullshit), back when my 7th grade social studies teacher played it for my class for God knows what fuckin' reason. Then I remember QT geeking out about him during an interview on Riki Rachtman's radio show, back in '96; he was going on about what a badass awesome motherfucker Mr. Taylor was in both film and life. Quentin also championed going to the drive-in by yourself during this interview. So, I immediately started renting Rod Taylor movies to see if this motherfucker was right and once I was old enough to drive, I didn't even bother calling anyone to join me at the drive-in (there was no one to call, really).

Anyway, last night. While waiting outside, I listened to the older film geeks in front of me talk about favorite music composers and directors and actors; one of them had an anecdote told by director Richard Fleischer about working with Kirk Douglas. Turns out The Ragman's Son had a well-deserved reputation in his heyday for being a king-size prick and pretty much the stereotypical asshole superstar. So Fleischer was shooting The Vikings somewhere overseas and there's one shot where they set up both Douglas and a camera with a very rare lens or something on a couple of safety lines about 65 feet up a castle wall. I guess the guy in charge of Douglas and the camera rig asked Fleischer which of the two had higher priority, should an accident occur. Fleischer, not joking at all, told the guy to save the camera.

I also overheard the woman half of a couple that appeared to be in their late 40's remark at the long line, saying something like "Look at all the geeks. Quentin created this. These are all his children." Every couple of minutes or so, Michael Torgan would pass by with a cart carrying what I assume were film reels in boxes with the FBI warning stamped on them, either that or Torgan is also an FBI agent and in between working at the New Beverly and living his life, he's probably out doing extreme shit, hunting Bodhis with his fellow Johnny Utahs. Once inside, I saw Clu Gulager tell a guy with a backpack who looked like Russell Brand's earthier, buffer brother that he looked like he was going on a hiking trip and the guy was like "...uh, yeah". Poor guy just got Gulager'd and didn't know what to do.

Quentin wasn't there to intro (he had already shown up the previous night for the same movies) but that didn't bother me; his appearance should be treated like a cherry on top of the most delicious hot fudge sundae ever (the movies), not the other way around, and I know what I just wrote was probably the most fruitiest thing yet, but what can I do, it's in my nature. Both films are currently not available on DVD and that was really what convinced me to take the trip. The first film was Dark of the Sun, but the on-screen title was The Mercenaries, so I don't know which one is the actual title. It's weird because the latter title is more appropriate, but I prefer the more literate-sounding former.

Taylor plays a mercenary who arrives in the Congo with his brother-in-arms, played by that Martian-owning Jim Brown (they played a reel of Jim Brown trailers before the film) and it's kinda funny how when they arrive at the airport, everyone else is trying their absolutest darndest to get the fuck out, while Taylor and Brown are the only two trying to get in. It's hot in the fuckin' Congo, everyone is all disgustingly sweaty like a fuckin' migrant worker in July or Roman Polanski in the junior high school girls locker room, and I bet you that was all real, they didn't have to spray that shit on anyone. I doubt they actually filmed in the Congo, but they sure got the climate down.

So, it looks like the president of the C is worried about some stupid Belgian motherfuckers living deep in the jungle; I don't know why they're there, they should be drinking wine and eating pommes frites in a more friendly area, but they didn't, instead they set up shop trying to fuckin' civilize these savages (and what a coincidence that there are precious resources in this land to make some coin on) and now they're in a position to get fucked Jesus Quintana-style by the Simbas. The Simbas are bunch of these hardcore scary badass rebellion motherfuckers who are also big fans of The Lion King. The Simbas were also known for their extraordinary psychic abilities, since they were able to be fans of a movie that didn't even exist until 30 years later. That sounds all cute and shit, but they also rape nuns and young scared men, proving they are big believers in If It Feels Good, Do It.

That's why Taylor and Brown are there to do their thing, get these non-Van Dammes to safety. The president's like Oh and while you're at it, there also happens to be about 50 million dollars in diamonds stashed in a vault somewhere in town, you might want to bring them with you if you want to get paid for your service. At least Taylor wants to get paid, being the soldier-of-fortune that he is, but Brown is more of an idealist who wants to offer help to his birth country (he speaks perfect English because he went to the States and attended university there and because it's Jim Brown playing him).

I remember watching Siskel & Ebert and it was either the Jawless One or the Dead One who quoted some filmmaker, something to the effect of All you need to make an entertaining movie is have a train in it, or some shit remotely like that. I agree with that because every train movie I recall never failed to be entertaining, like Runaway Train, The Great Train Robbery (the Sean Connery bullshit, not the original), Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, and Unstoppable. Diminishing returns, but still, Good Times came from all of 'em. Well, add Dark of the Sun to the list, in fact, put this shit to the top of the list number-one-with-a-bullet because not only could this be my favorite movie involving train action (in a non-porn), this might be one of my favorite films period.

The late Jack Cardiff directed this, and in addition to being a director, he's better known as one of the world's all-time greatest cinematographers, a fact I was reminded of as TV's Marc Heuck told an older gentleman in the row behind me that Jack Cardiff is better known as one of the world's all-time greatest cinematographers. I think Tarantino has said before that he prefers Cardiff as a director, and I'd have to see his other flicks before I can agree or disagree. Fuck that, I agree, simply based on Dark of the Sun. Hey, I love The Red Shoes and thinks it looks mah-va-lous, but The Red Shoes didn't make me want to jump and go FUCK YEAH every ten minutes, like this piece of work. The film has a great pace, there is no fat to this bitch, the basics of the story are laid out with a brilliant economic simplicity. The mission is set and the men for the mission are chosen in what felt like 5, 10 minutes tops. They don't waste any time, and the dialogue isn't even that expository, or if it is, it sure as fuck felt natural. There's also a cool montage of setting up the train with guns and men and all the dialogue is silenced while the music and sound effects do their thing.

I liked Taylor's character because he's a badass, but he's also got a sense of humor and isn't all morose about his work, like most Men Of Ownage nowadays. But then again, that's probably because we're kinda watching a character who hasn't yet crossed that line, that line into darkness (ah, now I understand) that turns G.I. Joe into The No Mercy Man. There's this cowardly Frenchie dude who's only been on three missions, so he punks out early on and Taylor gives him shit about it, but for all we know Taylor's character had his own personal Frenchie moment back when he was green. Not all warriors come out of the womb as a certified Bad Ass, most have to work their way up to it, and I like to think the Taylor character is like that. Problem is, even if he's used to kicking ass and taking names, he's probably going to reach his breaking point during this mission, and if that sounds like a spoiler to you, then fuck ya'll, you shoulda been there last night.

I'm really just talking outta my ass more than usual, because I didn't sleep much from watching earthquake/tsunami coverage and I'm all tired and depressed now, but I'm thinking that the shit that happens during the mission in Dark of the Sun is so hardcore and not as easy as it originally sounded that the people involved end up revealing who they really are, deep inside, when the chips are down. It's a scary thought, because I'm watching some of the characters, and thinking, could I be THAT fucking guy? I mean, I'd like to think I value human life, and I hate to imagine that seeing 50 million in diamonds right in front of me will change my outlook, but you never know. You never know until it happens, if it happens.

On the other hand, I'd like to think that I'd pull some selfless shit for other people, but again for all I know, I could be one of those guys who starts cowering in the corner and crying like a little bitch during a firefight, rather than Manning The Fuck Up and getting my hands a little dirty with some punk-ass's blood. Here's something even worse -- how about being put in a position where you are watching horrifying shit being done to people around you and you can't do anything about it because it would mean giving yourself away; you have to fight against every fiber in your being that is telling you to do the right thing, otherwise the mission will result in instant failure and you'd be dead too.

The first half of the movie is a great rousing action-adventure, and if it continued that way, I'd have still been very happy about it, but then something happens that fucked my shit up something awful. Not many movies can accomplish making me feel a genuine sense of Oh My God These People Are So Fucked. I mean, usually I'm more amused, like Ha Ha, They're Fucked Now. But this movie, holy shit, the filmmakers are not fucking around, in fact, I think it's their way to slap the audience in the face to snap out of our Wheee This Is Fun! attitude and scream in our faces about how The Shit Just Got Real. I'm telling you, dear reader, this shit gets too fuckin' real -- and the movie is all the more awesome for it.

The second half is even better, because now you know that the game is rough and the stakes are other people's lives, to misquote that rat-soup-eatin' muthafucka from Dolemite. There are some moments here that I don't think modern action-adventure moviemakers have the balls to pull off now, everything is getting fuckin' homogenized just so Focus Study Member #14 feels better. There's a movie called Tears of the Sun that is similar in many respects (even the title!), except it's not as good and it's a lot more downbeat and something of a dirge, which just shows to go you how hard it is to both show you horrible shit while still maintaining an entertaining feel to the proceedings; Dark of the Sun pulls that shit off flawlessly and somehow makes it feel, I don't know, effortless. Fuckin' Jack Cardiff, yo.

Every likable character's death hurts in this movie, and every time a bad guy gets owned it feels fantastic. The writers did a great job making you feel one way or the other about the people in the movie, (there isn't a single character that fails to make an impression) and the actors then carry it the rest of the way by just being awesome about it. There's this former Nazi asshole who's along for the ride because he's in charge of the soldiers they're using for the mission, and Taylor notices that this piece-of-shit still proudly wears a Swastika medal and tells him to take that shit off. Later on, the Nazi does some cold-blooded shit, something that has a horrible chilling logic to it, and Taylor then tells him to put that shit back on because he sure as fuck earned it.

I loved the dialogue scenes between Taylor and Brown's characters; nowadays, we'd all be calling this kind of relationship a bromance, and it doesn't help that there's a least one line Brown says regarding Taylor that could really be taken the wrong way (unless that's what the writers intended, the cheeky bastards) but back then in the 60's, that was just male camaraderie. Nowadays there's no such thing as Male Bonding, we have to call that shit borderline gay, and that's too bad. I guess you just can't have a couple bros who feel very strongly about each other -- probably even moreso after having gone through previous violent missions together -- without assuming they want to bang each other. Nowadays you just can't be really close with your bro; I sure as fuck don't want to get it on with any of my close guy friends -- but that's probably because they're not attractive enough for me. Anyway, it doesn't always have to be subtext, that's what I'm saying.  

Listen man, I don't want to make this shit sound too serious, because when it comes down to it, this movie is just full of Win -- Win in the form of motherfuckers getting shot, blown up, and repeatedly karate chopped to the neck. There's a chainsaw battle, people jumping from roofs onto jeeps, machine gunning motherfuckers even after they've been killed, and one spectacular jeep versus raft scene that had me wondering if it was going to end the way I thought it would end. I figured it wouldn't; the chase was good enough, but the catching up part will probably suffer in comparison to the build-up, I thought to myself. My man, I'm telling you it ended EXACTLY how I hoped it would, and apparently everyone else in the audience felt the same way because the whole fuckin' room burst into applause.

I'm going to share the same sentiment as other people who saw this film at the New Bev by calling it my favorite men-on-a-mission movie. Rod Taylor is a badass, Jim Brown is cool, and hot half-raza Yvette Mimieux (Taylor's co-star from The Time Machine) is nice to look at and helps keep the gay away. I don't get it. I don't get how you can't make a movie like this anymore, a movie with great action, drama, and humor without any kind of pandering. They exist, on occasion the summer movie gods give you a Die Hard or an Inception. But we're also sorely lacking in movies with some fuckin' BALLS (he said in a Will Arnett voice). In a weird way, I'm so glad Tarantino introduced this movie to me and so many others at the New Beverly, but I'm also kind of bummed that there aren't more like them. What the fuck, yo?

They showed a reel of Rod Taylor trailers, then a guy in a Snoopy shirt and striped shorts sat near me (I don't even know if that shit was ironic or a genuine love for the Peanuts dog and all things vertical), then the next film, Hell River (it had the much better title of Partizan in the print that was screened) began. Now, this movie commits only one terrible crime in my eyes, and it's the unfortunate crime of following Dark of the Sun. I think a lot of people held that against it, based on the walkouts during the film. This was a film made in Yugoslavia, and as a result, the film has very much a dreary Southeastern European look and feel. It's very serious, and I only remember one moment of levity in the whole thing, but it's still a good flick.

Rod Taylor was pushing 50 at this point, starting to look more like his Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds, but he still came off as his usual badass self. He plays Marko, and rather than being all depressed about living in Yugoslavia, he's busy heading a rebellion against the Nazis (it takes place during 1941) and most of the movie consists of them doing the guerrilla thing, surprising these fuckin' Krauts and doing everything except shouting "Wolverines!" at the end of it. Early on, there's a scene between Marko and his brother and while watching the older, pudgier guy talking with this much younger dude, I realized that the movie is trying to make us believe Marko is much, much younger than he appears. Like, he's supposed to be only a few years older than this other guy who appears to be in his 20's. I don't know. I accepted it because hey, it was 1941 in Yugoslavia and the Germans are fucking everybody up. That shit would probably age the fuck out of you.

The main Nazi bad guy is played by the same fuckin' Nazi from Dark of the Sun, also looking a little older than the last time, but at least he's probably playing his age. That was pretty amusing, it almost works as a prequel to Dark of the Sun, with the German actor playing the same character -- only somewhere between the events of both films, his character got some work done on his face and lost a few pounds. Adam West also plays a Nazi, and such is the film's strength in accomplishing an overwhelming sense of downbeat bleakness to the proceedings that I didn't find it funny or even amusing. I mean, come on -- it's Adam West playing a fuckin' Nazi! And yet, not a giggle or smile from me.

Ultimately, you're watching a film about fighting a force much greater than you, knowing you're probably not going to make it, but goddamn it, it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees or something like that. It's not a pretty life for a Partizan, marching marching marching through cold frozen landscapes with little food and only the clothes on your back. The bad guys have machine guns and tanks while you're most likely only rolling with a bolt-action rifle. The odds are overwhelming. Fuck it, I'd like to think I'd pick that life over shaking in my boots and trying to act all civil with these Nazi monsters when they come goose-stepping into my hood.

There's one scene where this woman mayor of a small town is translating a conversation between Asshole Nazi From Dark Of The Sun and some other townsperson, I don't know, he looked like a priest or something. She speaks in an even tone and I don't think she ever looks this asshole in the eyes -- she does not want to do anything remotely antagonistic. Doesn't matter, the next scene she's hanging from a tree. Sucks to be you, woman mayor.

The best the Nazis can come up with is just executing innocent villagers because they know the Partizans are human beings with hearts and souls (Nazi ain't got no humanity!) and it would probably fuck up their morale enough to just give up the Wolverine bullshit, but it's really no choice at all for the Partizans. It sucks, but by fighting back there still is a chance, a tiny sliver of a chance, but a chance. There's more than one battle scene where Taylor can't help but get so fuckin' exasperated after killing a bunch of Nazis, barely surviving, then only to find a whole new mess of Nazis coming the other way. It's like one of those old school video games where the bad guys won't stop until you die, because that shit was all about a high score, not getting to the end.

My favorite scene is when Marko has been separated from his fellow Partizans and he's hiding out in what used to be a village but it's been destroyed and on fire and shit. The only living creature aside from him is a dog (happy to see him, natch). He goes upstairs in one house and looks at the framed photos on the wall, pictures of a family. He picks up a hat from the table. He plays a record that is still on the turntable. You can just watch that shit get to him, that the people who lived here -- mother, father, children, grandparents -- were just living life, doing their thing, maybe even happy or content. Now they're all either dead or well on their way. 

Some scenes look kinda cheap, and some scenes look fuckin' epic, like some Lean/Cimino style shit with wide shots of what looks like hundreds of motherfuckers walking down the tundra. The battle scenes are impressive in their size but aren't necessarily the most engaging. I don't know, it's just me, I guess; watching tanks get blown up doesn't really do as much for me as watching a motherfucker get shot in the face -- that shit never goes out of style.

I have to say though, there's one battle moment that I don't think was intentional, and I think what we saw on-screen was a split-second away from turning Hell River into a genuine snuff film; one soldier falls off his tank, falls right in front of the wheels and for a couple seconds manages to only get pushed by it and it's only by the grace of God (that motherfucker must've been answering prayers that day) that the actor/stuntman manages to throw himself aside and is narrowly missed by the tank as it rolls right past him, as opposed to right over him.

It's a good film overall, shaky in some moments (Adam West leads the lamest dumbest schmuckiest attempt at an ambush in film history for a non-comedy) but I dug it, and I really liked the ending. It definitely would've played better on its own, but maybe I'm alone in that opinion because I felt like not that many people were
into it. Again, that could be from having a tough act to follow, but I'm not sure, they could've just thought it was really shitty. I overheard one (I'm guessing) New Bev employee talk about how one of the patrons stepped out into the lobby/concession area and asked her if it was even worth bothering going back in. She told him yes, it's worth it because you will never see this movie again. She has a point, sometimes you have to give a movie a chance, because in some cases all that exists is a fuckin' film print and one day you're gonna think about giving that movie another try, and guess what? You're assed out.

Anyway, going back to that FML shit. I guess I'm just too sensitive and being No Fun For Anyone, but personally I feel that FML fuckin' trivializes the whole game of Life, whether you're being serious or funny. Some people hate when you take God's name in vain, and I don't like when people damn their existence like that for some bullshit reason, there's plenty of evil shit out there ready and willing to show you some real FML. I just hate that saying, that's all, and if it was anything else but FML, I'd probably be OK with it. I'm being extra-douchier than usual, but whatever, that's my thing and believe it or not, I'm pretty fuckin' sincere in all my ramblings. Yeah, even when I referred to Karl Malden as "smoking hot" in my last one, because if I had the chance, I'd hit that and try to get some American Express travelers checks out of the deal. Oh wait, he's dead, so that's never going to happen. FML