Excepting the mysterious lack of gratuitous nudity, this explosion of zombies, guns, motorcycles, blood, cheezy one-liners and, well, explosions was exactly what I was hoping for from a grindhouse tribute film. (8/10)
d. Robert Rodriguez
[Also watched Rodriguez's fantastic Machete trailer, which was thankfully still attached to the movie on the BD release.]
2005 - The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D - I'm still trying to figure out why this was a worse movie than the similar Spy Kids 3-D. Maybe I like the Spy Kids universe better? Was it because Spy Kids 3 had Bill "Game Over" Paxton in it? I think the 3-D in SK3 was more fun than in this film. It didn't have the rollercoaster-style excitement that the previous movie's 3-D offered.
I do appreciate the movie's background: I think it's incredibly cool that Rodriguez filmed one of his son's stories (though I might bet his son recently watched The NeverEnding Story and The Wizard of Oz). I liked the title characters. I think all four of the kid actors did excellent jobs. It was good to see David Arquette back.
It didn't work for me, but my six year old niece loved it when it came out and had the Happy Meal toys to prove it. I suppose that's what really matters. (6/10)
2005 - 15 Minute Flic School: Sin City - The more tech-bound Rodriguez's films get, the less these things serve as "film schools" for regular Joes. I suppose knowing that actors take time to adjust to shooting in front of a green screen might be useful if I had an army of CGI artists to fill in all that green with believable backgrounds. Short of that, I'll be hauling the camera and actors outside, thanks.
Still, it was fascinating to see what Sin City looked like pre-computer, Blue Bastard and all. (6/10)
2005 - 10 Minute Cooking School: Sin City "Breakfast Tacos" - A quick, middle of the night snack? Not likely! By my count, there were about 9 million steps to making these scrambled-egg tacos, starting with making the tortillas from scratch. Fresh tortillas are good, no doubt, but, c'mon. If I've been up all night editing a movie and I'm hungry, I'm not gonna be kneading dough. More likely, I'll dig some nachos and salsa, or resort to eating green olives out of the jar if nothing else can be found.
Anyway, I hope we get more of these on future DVDs. These are fun. (7/10)
2005 - Sin City - Like eating a hamburger and drinking a brew. It's a manly feast of honor fighting evil in a twisted world. Beautifully shot, near-perfect casting (thanks for nothing, Michael Madsen), and a great score. I haven't been this entertained by such an unrepentantly dark film since I repeatedly went to screenings of The Crow back in high school. Something about this ultra-violent and grim world speaks to me on the reptilian level of my brain.
The film begins and ends with a man seducing and killing a woman. The only strong women in the show are prostitutes or strippers, and they still need help and leadership from Marv, Dwight and Hartigan. Women are smacked around by boyfriends, eaten by cannibals, and beaten by yellow bastards. Is this film misogynistic? Perhaps. I could also see painting the movie with a broader misanthropic brush. Outside of the honorable warriors of the picture -- Marv, Dwight, Hartigan, Miho and Gail -- humanity isn't portrayed as the noblest of species here. Corrupt cops, crooked clergy, and perverted politicians' sons abound.
This has to be the most faithful adaptation ever filmed. With a novel, I'm always one to say that I don't care how closely a film sticks to its source book. Writing and filmmaking are completely different art forms; some things that work well in writing (long interior monologues) don't work well on screen. Graphic novels, however, are different. They're essentially movie storyboards with the dialogue conveniently circled. It makes sense to use them this way when translated them into film. The results speak for themselves, I think. All of the creative energy Frank Miller originally put into framing his comic panels is preserved in the movie. The same goes for his noir dialogue. Using this, beyond his respect for the author, I see as more of Rodriguez's ultra-efficient filmmaking style. It makes sense and it worked. Bring on part 2. (9/10)
2003 - Once Upon a Time in Mexico - I like this movie a bit better than the other two. I guess that makes it my favorite of the Mariachi trilogy, though not by much. The first time I watched this movie, I didn't think much of it. If you're going to use a title that imitates one of the best westerns of all time, I'm going into it with high expectations. The movie just doesn't have the epic scope to live up to the title. Maybe that's an odd thing to write, given that the film is about stopping a presidential assassination. However, most of the film takes place in the center of a city. Confined by buildings in every frame, you don't get the feel of wide-open Mexico. There isn't a great sense that country-wide events are taking place. It would've been interesting to see this at the theater. There, it was cropped to a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, like its namesake Leone film. Perhaps that extra wideness would've complimented the title?
Anyway, I'm just glad the plot wasn't another rehash of the first film. That may be why I liked this one the best. The movie is pro-democracy and anti-US intervention. It has the (perhaps irrational) optimism to suggest that some heads of state can look out for the needs of the people. I dig that at this point in history. Action-wise, also, I think the movie's an improvement over its predecessors. El Mariachi & Carolina's chained escape down the side of a building was a beautiful sequence to behold. El Mariachi retains his cartoonish power from Buscemi's tall tale during the beginning of Deperado, as I'd wished for, his guns exploding like cannons and propelling bad guys through the air. Add in the always interesting Johnny Depp and Willem Dafoe and it's a good time. (7/10)
2003 - Ten Minute Flick School: Fast, Cheap, and in Control - A brief look at the shooting of Once Upon a Time in Mexico. There's a lot of focus on CGI again, which is a large part of the "cheap" portion of Rodriguez's shooting philosophy. Don't mess up the church: CGI in the bullet hits later. Don't poke Cheech's eye out: use a dummy and computer composite the two together. The only practical advise to the computerless independent filmmaker was some discussion on editing to hide lack of people in crowds. (6/10)
2003 - Ten Minute Cooking School: Puerco Pibil - How to make Johnny Depp's favorite dish from Once Upon a Time in Mexico. This looks pretty tasty; I'm gonna give it a try one of these days. Rodriguez does a great job of explaining the steps necessary to cook this pork dish. He's a natural Food Network personality. This piece is also edited in a nice, punchy manner, making it fun to watch. (7/10)
2003 - Ten Minute Film School: Dream Screen Plus How to Make Cool Home Movies - The first half of this is a look at the green screen work in Spy Kids 3. It's as you'd expect. A stage. Covered in bright green. Kids pretending they're in a video game. Check, check, and check. The later half is more interesting. Rodriguez shows off some home movies he's suped-up with sound F/X, editing and a smattering of CGI. Fun. As someone now only 4 months away from being a parent, I found this part to be inspiring. I need to buy myself a new camcorder soon! (7/10)
2002 - Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams - Or, Spy Kids Go To Harryhausen Land. Which ain't a bad idea. As a kid, Mysterious Island was one of my favorite Disney movies. This is sort of the hyperactive, computer-generated version, which I'm sure suits modern kids just fine. The mid-level CGI does not stand-up to Harryhausen's stop-motion work, but it's at least creative. I felt like this one was a tad more violent than the first, probably because it featured kids doing kid-karate on human adults, rather than robot thumb guys. It was good to see Ricardo Montalban kicking some ass again. (7/10)
2002 - Ten Minute Film School: Big Movies Made Cheap - This installment of Ten Minutes takes a peak at the computer effects in Spy Kids 2. Here, Rodriguez applies his El Mariachi shooting philosophy to CGI. No need to make more than one fake rock for a cave wall: just duplicate it in the computer. No need to build a big set: just fake it in the computer. While it's all as practical and frugal as you'd expect from Rodriguez, this Ten Minutes is veering into standard DVD featurette territory. Maybe I'm getting old, but CGI isn't something I see independent filmmakers using a lot. Computer modeling and animation requires an entirely different skill set than regular, old filmmaking. (6/10)
2003 - Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over - I was afraid this one was going be the modern equivalent of Transformers: The Movie: flashy, surfing a sugar high and incomprehensible to adults. It was, but I enjoyed it anyway. I think the 3D aspect helped. Parts were plain exciting to watch wearing those red and blue glasses. My one complaint was that half of the movie was focused entirely on Juni's adventures in the video game. Fortunately, the entire cast of characters developed over the course of the series joined him for the final battle at the end. Also: Sylvester Stallone was hilarious, hamming it up in a quadruple role.
Extra bonus point for 1) casting Bill Paxton 2) having him say "Game over, man! Game over!" (7/10)
1999 - From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (directed by Scott Spiegel) - This was such a bad movie, I actually kind of feel sad for the director. Growing up with Sam Raimi and then watching him become a beloved and successful filmmaker must be hard. You can certainly see Spiegel desperately trying to come up with a cinematic style like his pal. Rather than using the quick-zooms and low stedicam shots favored by Raimi, Spiegel has apparently decided that he is the POV man. We get point-of-view shots of everything from pools of blood to phones to a knob on a safe. They make no sense, are incredibly distracting and, ultimately, make the entire film feel like a high-budget college flick. (4/10)
2000 - From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (directed by P.J. Pesce) -It's a shame that many people, due to the ordering of the numbers in the titles, will skip this prequel after the huge disappointment of part 2. I was taken completely by surprise at how good this Old West/action/bandito/vampire flick was. It's beautifully shot, packed with great characters and is effused with that great Eastwood western flavor I love. My favorite character is the dead-on, historically accurate portrayal of Ambrose Bierce by Michael Parks (who is unrecognizable from his role as the ill-fated policeman in the prologue of part 1). Better than the original. (8/10)
1998 - The Faculty - In light of Nixer's obsession with Invasion of the Body Snatchers in Roadracers, Rodriguez's choice of this project suddenly makes more sense. He's been dying to make his own body-snatcher flick. That's fine. I think every generation should get one of these (I'd like to claim the '78 version as mine, rather than the crappy '90s The Puppet Masters). It's one of those essential horror/sci-fi stories that can be retold in a variety of configurations.
This configuration brings the invasion into the slasher movie's favorite setting: a high school. Surprisingly, this hadn't been done before but it makes perfect sense. The cliques of high school could mirror the terror of conformity the body snatchers represent. This flick didn't explore this idea very effectively, unfortunately. The actual snatching of the kids in the school was put off towards the end of the film, mostly to use them as a mob to chase the uninfected kids around. Most of the movie is spent battling the faculty, as the title suggests. The group who defeat the snatchers, of course, are drawn from each of the standard high school cliques and their diversity defeats the menacing conformity. Too bad the menace was shown just as some shots of kids getting along inside of the normally chaotic school. It's a missed opportunity.
The movie fell similarly short on a number of plot points. At one point, Casey's principal tries to get one of his parents into her office for a talk by themselves as a ruse to infect the parent with a snatcher. There's a moment of tension as no one believes Casey's story. If his parents are infected, we assume he'll lose them forever; he's about to watch them walk into their deaths. Some fast talking saves the day, but it doesn't matter too much. We find out later that every infected person will be A-OK if the queen snatcher is killed. This also results in an unusually low body count for a teen horror movie. None of the (human) teens buy the farm. Only a couple of teachers meet their fate.
Otherwise, it's an alright horror flick. Unlike others of my generation, I have no problem with so-called "WB horror." Never a watcher of '90s teen dramas, horror movies casting from those shows don't seem any different from other teen movies with teen actors.
And to Miramax: eat me. This is your third non-anamorphic transfer in a row (after Four Rooms and From Dusk Till Dawn). It's the HDTV era: zooming these things makes 'em look like crap. (6/10)
1998 - The Ten Minute Film School - This is a brief peak into the shooting of El Mariachi created by Rodriguez for the DVD release. Color me impressed. His hyper-efficient shooting style is a beauty to behold. He films without sound partially to not waste any film shooting slates. He films all of his actors' takes in a row, substituting zooms for camera moves or angle changes. He records all of the dialogue and sound after filming is complete so he can use the actual location's sounds. If an actor screws up, say, a jump over a balcony: stop filming, change angles and have him pick up from slightly before the mistake so it can all be editing together. Every amateur filmmaker and film student in college should watch this. (8/10)
1998 - Ten More Minutes: Anatomy of a Shootout - What did 1000 times more money in the budget do for Rodriguez's shooting style? Rodriguez shows us using footage from the making of Desperado. Mostly, his style has been completely changed. He has so much money, he can have all of the actors and stunt people act their scenes for his video camera so he can pick out the angles he will use when he shoots it for real on a later day. No more frenetic shooting from the hip; he can take his time and figure out things before committing them to celluloid. This is sound advice. If you're filming your first big-budget studio movie, you're going to want to have all your ducks in a row. It's just not as useful as the previous Ten Minutes were for the amateur filmmaker. (7/10)
2001 - Spy Kids - A film I'm looking forward to watching again with my future daughter. It's imaginative, colorful, and full of energy. There are robots made of thumbs, mutants, jetpacks and submarines. There's a solid kid's movie message about families sticking together (even if they sometimes fight). I don't recall any product placement. Who knew the director of Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn had this in him?
Extra points go to Teri Hatcher for walking around the entire movie with a hilarious hairdo. (7/10)
1995 - From Dusk Till Dawn - What I see on the screen are two buddies -- Rodriguez and Tarantino -- just having a good ol' time making a movie. It's half an action-crime movie welded onto half a horror-vampire movie; they made sure they covered the two ass-kickingest genres in cinema. It features Harvey "Mr. Wolf" Keitel, Fred "Black Caesa" Williamson, and Tom "Dawn of the Dead" Savini destroying hoards of vampires in every way imaginable, exploding the bloodsuckers in fountains of goo. Plus, Salma Hayek dances around in a bikini with a snake around her shoulders. Engineered to purely entertain is what this is. If you're in the proper mood, it achieves this objective.
Tarantino wrote the script and almost directed it himself. I think Rodriguez was probably a better choice to sit in the director's chair; though this is his first horror movie, it feels like his type of thing. I can see some echoes of From Dusk in the decade-later Sin City in Rodriguez's methods, though he's a lot rougher around the edges here. Tarantino casting himself as the perverted, teeth-grinding brother of George Clooney, I think, speaks for itself. Tarantino writing himself a part in which Salma sticks her foot in his mouth speaks even more for itself.
One thing that struck me about the mythology of this movie: a cross will work on the bloodsuckers. You don't see this too often anymore. In the modern era, religious icons tend not to bother vampires anymore; their weaknesses have been pared down to sunlight, garlic and stakes in the heart. I'm not a religious man so this is the state of affairs in vampire movies I prefer. But, every once in a while, it's nice to see the old-school rules go into effect. My question is this: what counts as water when creating holy water? Jacob blesses some tap water that they load into squirt guns and that works OK against the vamps. Think on this: vampires are made from people. People are 3/4th water. Vampires drink blood. Blood is 50% water. Couldn't Jacob bless the water in the vampires' bodies and make them instantly burn up? (7/10)
1997 - Scream 2: "Stab" - During the opening scene of this Wes Craven sequel, Omar Epps and Jada Pinkett Smith get killed while watching Stab, a movie-in-a-movie that recreates the opening scene from the first Scream. It's all very hip and meta. These days, though, it's impossible not to think of the similar opening scene from Scary Movie. Which, I suppose, is potentially even more hip and meta. Which ever is officially hipper and more meta, Rodriguez's directing work is merely workmanlike. His Miramax-ordained task was to re-film the opening scene from Craven's previous movie and make it look slightly more Hollywood. That's what he did. (5/10)
1995 - Four Rooms
"The Missing Ingredient" (directed by Allison Anders) - I enjoyed this one more than I used to (something I can also say for the entire movie). While a coven of female witches questing for sperm doesn't exactly ring true, it's all in good fun. Cartoony magic, a pretty topless girl with cherries in her hair and a resurrected goddess make for an entertaining into to the anthology. And, remember when Madonna was a kitschy actress who'd show up in random movies? Good times.
"The Wrong Man" (directed by Alexandre Rockwell) - For some reason, this segment's my favorite. Goofy noir. I particularly like Ted's speech about how he hates the name Theodore ("Pretty soon Theodore becomes 'Theo the Thumper'..."). His excuse, delivered perfectly by Tim Roth, for sitting on Angela's lap is also priceless: "I was just trying to help her breathe a little."
"The Misbehavers" (directed by Robert Rodriguez)
"The Man from Hollywood" (directed by Quentin Tarantino)
(7/10)
1995 - Desperado - It's a lot slicker than El Mariachi, but it's lost the guerilla filmmaking charm of its predecessor. Actually, Desperado, having a similar plot to the previous movie and shot in the same Mexican town, shows what effect increasing a filmmaking budget by 1000 times will have. You can replace the leads with a pair of pretty faces. You can burn down a building and shoot the hell out of a bar. You can have rockets blowing up people and cars. You can have animal wranglers. You can hire Los Lobos. Still, though I think it's a bit better of a film that El Mariachi, it's not 1000 times better.
What I think would've been cool -- and maybe I think this because his previous film was highly stylized -- was if Rodriguez had shot the entire movie in the style of the opening "tall tale." Maybe that would've been impossible, but that's always been my favorite part of the movie. The vigilante's face is eternally in the shadows. Guns are so powerful they propel badguys 15 feet into the air. He could've made Buscemi's tale a framing device and had the preternaturally powerful Mariachi reign vengeance upon vengeance upon the criminal element.
Anyway, this is some solid, gunfightin' fun. (7/10)
1995 - Four Rooms: "The Misbehavers" - This was always my least favorite segment of this movie. This is not because it's bad or poorly made. The ending is an image of a ridiculous predicament that you can't help but smile at. I think it's just that the precocious kids vs. loser adult dynamic feels overused. Kids annoy adult. Adult gets comically annoyed. I've seen this in too many cartoons to be fully interested.
Luckily, this is probably Tim Roth's best segment. From his explosions directed at the ringing telephone to his impossibly cool-voiced cooing used to convince the kids to behave, he's in complete control of his performance. I've read that Steve Buscemi was the original choice for the bellhop. That would've been a different -- darker, maybe -- movie. Roth never fails to impress. (7/10)
1994 - Roadracers - Before firing up the DVD, I was thinking: "Roadracers? Looks like some kinda '50s drag racing movie. Meh." Actually, no it isn't. Roadracers is a cinematic ball of energy that plays with the conventions of '50s teen movies, ultimately blowing them away with a shotgun blast to the chest. What a nice surprise this flick turned out to be.
Though this move was infamously shot in just 13 days, it isn't sloppy. The actors nail their characters. David Arquette, in particular, becomes possessed by the ghost of a chain-smoking, squinty-eyed, leather-clad 1950s rebel without a cause. The editing is beyond hyperkinetic. The simple process of lighting a cigarette -- which happens countless times in this flick -- often involves as many as five cuts. I can see this technique annoying some, but it only serves to emphasize the style of the film. It's a BAM-POW-ZOWEE blast from a hyperreal vision of the past.
Most of all, I like the story. For first three-quarters of the film, it follows a fairly standard story arc. A rebel plays the guitar and has a beautiful girlfriend. He likes to hang out at the local diner with his quirky pal. The local police hassle him and he runs into some trouble with the mostly harmless local bullies. One day, the rebel is given a choice to determine his fate: try out for a band that just got signed or fight the bullies at the playground. After much cajoling from his gal and quirky pal, the rebel makes the right choice and heads to the club to try out. Things are going his way; he's gonna make it!
Not really. The band turns out to be lip-syncing sellouts. He destroys the band's instruments, beats the band members and heads to the playground to rumble. The bullies turn out to be armed with more than little switchblades. The rebel is shot in the shoulder. Fleeing briefly, the rebel retrieves a shotgun. He kills the head bully, gets the police to ram into a tree and explode, leaves his girlfriend, and -- covered in blood, with a crazy expression on his face -- roars down the highway into the credits. Neat.
C says: "I love finding good movies you've never heard of." Hell, even the wife was impressed with this one. (8/10)
1990 - Bedhead - A cute short about a brother tormenting a sister and her super-powered revenge. Sibling rivalry will be a theme that runs through most of Rodriguez's movies. Appropriately, the siblings in this movie were played by Rodriguez's real-life brother and sister.
This short film isn't too dissimilar from any student film you might see at your local college's film fest. Most noticeable about it is the energy apparent in the filmmaking. The camera flies around in a Raimi-esque manner and always seems to be zooming in on something. The kids battle in an exaggerated, slapstick way all over the yard. The pace is quick and the editing is snappy.
It's an entertaining little film, miles better than anything I managed to output in college. (7/10)
1992 - El Mariachi - The famous $7000 movie. While shooting in Mexico in the main actor/producer's hometown probably helped the budget quite a bit, this is still an impressive feat given the result.
The same energy from Bedhead infects this movie. The camera zooms through streets and dreams. The action is sped up for comedic effect. The editing of the shootouts is exciting. Rodriguez plays around with every cinematic trick he can think of. Visually, it's a fun (and funny) movie.
So, what's the deal with people ordering a beverage, taking one sip, and leaving? It wasn't explicitly pointed out in the movie, but this is what happens every time a character sidles up to a bar. Is this a standard piece of Mexican humor I'm missing out on? Or just the way the film ended up? Maybe it's like smoking in movies: giving characters a drink to briefly sip gives them something to do when they don't have any lines?
The story is the weakest bit in the film. Most of the movie is, essentially, El Mariachi accidentally running into Moco's men, who try to kill him because he fits the description of a rival criminal. The dream sequences seem to be there just because dream sequences are fun to shoot, not because they add anything. And, I realize Rodriguez had no idea he'd make two big budget sequels to this little film, but it's not much of an origin story for a hero. "He watched in horror as some woman he picked up at a bar the other day was shot in front of his eyes." or "He fights crime because he can no longer play the guitar." It's not exactly in the same neighborhood as Bruce Wayne or Frank Castle's reasons for their wars on crime.
Still, I wish I had the gumption to sell my body to science in order to make a movie. If anything, I admire Rodriguez for his determination. (7/10)
Free from my year on the SOL and my melted brain having recovered from writing 227 individual posts on that particular subject, I think I'm ready to tackle a "normal" chronocinethon. Or two. It makes sense to do both Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's films simultaneously. They work together so often and influence each other's work so much, they're essentially cinematic brothers.
Maybe my choice of directors is a bit strange at this time. They both just came out of a high-profile flop a couple of months ago, sending their "stock" in Hollywood to an all-time low. Instead of plowing ahead into the much anticipated Sin City sequel, Rodriguez is now working on a remake that I have next-to-no interest in. Tarantino is seemingly getting nowhere with his next film, which he's been working on for years.
Eh, whatever. I like their films and my amigo C agreed they'd be fun to get into right now. Our next ten or more weekends will be filled with Mexican vampires, botched jewel heists, underage spies and women wielding both swords and witty banter.
Marv is a modern saint. (9/10)
d. Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino
Robert Rodriguez (1968 -)
"a total, unadulterated maniac"
says needcoffee.com
