Articles tagged with: Badass
Cinema and Television, Julytember 2010, Subheadline »
History will never be able to tell us for sure whether Robert Rodriguez was kidding when he originally made the trailer for Machete. Certainly, the other guys who made fake trailers for 2007′s Grindhouse were kidding; regrettable though it is, we do not live in a world awesome enough to ever see Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the SS, or Edgar Wright’s Don’t. But unlike these others, Rodriguez announced, almost immediately after Grindhouse‘s debut, that he intended to make Machete for real.
But this announcement didn’t come until after he …
Cinema and Television, June 2009 »
Remakes (or in this case, second remakes) are handicapped from the get-go. Playtime compatriot Daniel Swensen has already outlined the pitfalls of modern updates, and the new Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 falls in line on its tracks like the titular subway train. One can see the infinitely tense possibilities of the skeletal scenario of Morton Freedgood’s (alias John Godey’s) 1973 novel on which each movie has been based: four men hijack a NYC subway car and hold its passengers hostage; the head criminal has found a way to …
April 2009, Cinema and Television »
Henri-Georges Clouzot probably didn’t expect Wages of Fear to be condensed into a thrilling, 10-minute prologue for the third sequel to a film most notable for a young, bald thug declaring that he lives his life a quarter mile at a time. Yet here comes Fast & Furious, whose tagline promises, “New model. Original parts.” The impressive sequence details the brazen highway heist of a gasoline truck by the first film’s antihero, Dominic Toretto, and his crew of high-speed bandits. Dom’s girlfriend nimbly assists in the heist, only to be written out of the picture when the screenplay requires Dom to embark upon a vengeance quest. It seems that at least one of the original parts did not come with an extended warranty.
Cinema and Television, February 2009 »
Co-written and produced by France’s own action auteur, Luc Besson, and directed by his cinematographer-cum-protege, Pierre Morel, Paris is presented as a hotbed of corruption and weak-kneed complicity. In other words: a town in desperate need of a karate-choppin’ cleanup. Apparently Jean Reno was out of the country on business, so Besson & Co. imported a giant Irishman who has, for the last several years, made a living playing doomed mentors to young heroes in Campbellian summer movies.
