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Well here we are in December and experiencing the full tilt power of the networks’ vast
conspiracy to get you to watch crappy Christmas specials, by forcing all the good shows into premature re-runitis. While this practice drives me a little bit batty, it also drives me straight to the video store where if I had a dollar for every minute of my life I spent staring intently at the walls of new releases, I would indeed by a far more fabulously-well-to-do chap than I am now.

BAD BOYS II (TWO SPUDS)

A few weeks ago I was wondering what the hell had happened to director Michael Bay. Well apparently he was having himself a ball down in Florida making Bad Boys II, the sequel to Bad Boys starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as a couple of bad-ass Miami narcs whose cases get them into more shoot-ups, torture chambers and high speed car chases than any two real cops would experience in an entire career.

If you are any kind of fan of this sort of mindless high energy film making, these movies rank very high on the food chain. This has to do with two things. Thing one is that the chemistry between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence is extremely good. And thing two, Michael Bay is one of the world’s best action directors, so every single shot in this film is worth looking at for one reason or another. The choreography of his action sequences is pure filmic poetry and his ability to showcase the comic talents of his actors inside the seeming chaos of the high energy action sequences is awesome. Michael Bay’s filmography is relatively short but his pictures (Amageddon, Bad Boys, The Rock, Pearl Harbour), are an action adventure reel that any director would kill for.

As in most movies of this kind, the plot is completely forgettable—something about illegal Ecstacy that’s killing Eurotrash clubbers in Miami. There are some cool big time bad guys, a lot of great looking women and cars smashed to bits and scattered all over Miami, while Will and Martin keep up the witty repartee and empty clip after clip into the Miami underworld.

What I really liked about the movie was Michael Bay’s work ethic. This film looked a hell of a lot better than it had to. It had a rhythm and cinematography that were nothing short of exquisite. Especially when you consider that this movie was aimed at 18 year old males who masturbate 10 times a day. But my theory is that Michael Bay worship guys like David Lean and Sir Richard Attenborough and will eventually turn into one of those directors. So he makes every shot a real keeper, even when they don’t have to be, because he’s a pro and he wants to become a master. And producer Jerry Bruckheimer will be right there shoveling the cash into each and every one of his projects. And that’s a good thing.

BRUCE ALMIGHTY (ONE SPUD)

Jim Carrey gets to play God for a couple of hours. He gets permission from the real god (Morgan Freeman), but instead of making the world a better place for you and me all he manages to do is get his dream job, make his girlfriend’s (Jennifer Anniston) boobs bigger, teach his dog to use the toilet like a human, part some tomato soup a la Cecil Be De Mille and do away with rush hour for himself, of course. Well Jim is pretty funny and so you don’t really mind wading through a couple hours of self-indulgent sophomoric crap with him. And, of course there’s Jennifer Anniston and Catherine Bell for eye candy. Sorry girls no eye candy 4U. Unless you think Jim Carrey is some sort of hottie.

VIEW FROM THE TOP (NO SPUD 4U)

This movie is a fluffy little piece of cinematic lint that’s about something so insignificant that all it does is speak to the sad state of affairs in Hollywood, where stuff like this not only gets made, but gets made with people like Gwyneth Paltrow, Mike Meyers and Candice Bergen in it. I don’t know, maybe I didn’t get it. This movie is about a young woman who wanted to be an airline hostess, and all the crap she had to go through to actually realize her dream only to discover that’s not what she wanted at all. Which makes it pretty goddamn stupid to start with. Add to that, this really irritating 70s look, complete with big hair and short skirts and a very wrapped-up-in-itself screenplay and what you have is a real piece of crapola that lasted about 2o minutes in it’s theatrical run and will no doubt very soon end up on the rack
in the video store where all the other crappy titles reside. All I could think of is that they could have given the money they put into this dog to somebody who actually had an idea.

GIGLI (ONE SPUD)

When this movie came out in the summer, the critics had a field day with it. Guess it was just the luck the draw that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were also the hot item de jour and that this movie had all the earmarks of a vanity picture. Anyway, the buzz that surrounded the release and subsequent abysmal failure of this film is probably more a testimonial to the power of the media and the gullibility of the brain dead idiots who buy all the bullshit the media spins than anything that was so awful about the movie. I have to admit to a certain amount of gullibility myself. But this movie was a “wait for video” for me anyway. And when we finally got around to watching it, I was, of course, completely mystified regarding all the negative press this movie had received.
Gigli is a story of a not too bright hoodlum (Ben) who is asked to kidnap the autistic younger brother of a Federal prosecutor who is going after Al Pacino for some reason. J-Lo shows up to keep an eye on Ben, so he doesn’t screw things up. Yadda …Yadda.

Don’t get me wrong, Gigli is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. But by the same token it’s also not an absolute piece of crap either. It’s a little boring because mostly it’s a lot of talking and very little action. But I could see what it was trying to be, and I actually got a kick out of some parts of it. There are great cameos by Christopher Walken and Al Pacino. And the chemistry between Ben and J-Lo is not all that bad either. It’s kind of a dumb premise but how many times have I said that this year? It’s chatty and doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s probably just a notch above a made for TV movie of the week.

But what it is mostly is a victim of a vindictive press who seem hell bent on sadistically torturing a movie every now and then. Kind of like one of those big fat bullies in the school yard extorting lunch money from the richer kids. I don’t know what the psyche behind this behaviour is and frankly I no longer care. I get weekly emails from my pal Michael Moore and no longer subscribe to the “Big Lie” journal. I stopped watching the nightly news about 10 years ago and frankly it’s lowered my cholesterol.

See Gigli. Don’t see Gigli. It’s not great. It’s not terrible. It just is.

THE LAST SAMURAI (TWO SPUDS)

A while ago I wrote a big piece on Tom Cruise. He is Mr. Hollywood and as such has a rather large responsibility to make the Hollywood system a ton of money every time out of the gate. And the really cool thing about Tom is that he manages to do this and keep on having what looks to be a very good time. There are a lot of spuds who don’t think much of Tom and argue that all the pictures that he does are pretty much Hollywood formula of one kind or another. And that’s ok. Actually, it’s better than ok, because with a Tom Cruise movie, you always do know what you’ll be getting when you sit down in the theatre. A star driven, big budget, well written, produced and directed Hollywood movie. And that’s exactly what you get with The Last Samurai. It’s a picture that’s been made at least a hundred times before.

But this one’s got Tom, so you at least know it will be entertaining as hell. Because Tom really does understand that people are plopping down their dead presidents at the movies to be entertained. This is something that the majority of people making movies have not yet been able to get their heads around, hence the abundance of not-so-entertaining flicks that you can only watch to the limits of your pain threshold.

In The Last Samurai, Tom plays a cynical (read drunken), ex-cavalry captain who is recruited by some fat cats in Japan, circa 1875, to train an army that will ostensibly wipe out the Samurai warriors who are preventing Japan from dragging itself kicking and screaming into the industrial revolution, (read lots of trade with the highly industrialized USA). I won’t tell you a lot more than that, but if you’re any kind of Tom Cruise fan, you can probably figure it out on your own. This is a big sprawling war movie that is exquisitely put together, runs on a decent story line (read lots of anti-American sentiment) and has some of the best hand-tohand combat scenes I have ever been put on film. It’s also got a big giant Hans Zimmer score which imbues the goings on with real movie majesty. Even if you’re cynical about big time Hollywood film making, you’ll find yourself getting sucked into this one hook, line and sinker, mostly ‘cause it’s just so damn interesting to watch. Although she can’t tell me
exactly why, The Wife was completely enthralled with this film. She even cried at the end. I didn’t cry or anything, but I found it quite moving. And that’s because of Tom. Cause even though he’s still Hollywood Pretty Boy #1, he’s also become a much better actor than people give him credit for being. In his own way, he always manages to bring his characters to life and make them interesting enough for you to care about.

And Tom really wants you to care about his character. So much so that he parks his character behind a scruffy beard and badly razor cut Tom Cruise long hair. I guess Tom was also happy to be working with a lot of Japanese actors, because as you may or may not know Tom is not the tallest guy on the team.

Anyway, in spite of the fact that there’s nothing new going on here, The Last Samurai was rock solid and a treat to watch from start to finish. And with the slim pickings out there this year, that puts it head and shoulders above most of the crowd.

Since I am finishing this on Christmas Eve and you won’t be getting it for a few days yet, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas or whatever you call it, surrounded by family and friends and good football games.

 
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