Tag: marley shelton

David Twohy’s A Perfect Getaway

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

A lot can go wrong on a vacation to the tropics and in David Twohy’s ruthlessly taut, excellently warped, deliriously irrepressible shocker A Perfect Getaway a lot of it does thanks to a crazy Bonnie & Clyde pair of serial killer haunting on a chain of less touristy Hawaiian islands. The hook is that we’re presented three sets of couples and not told until the final act which ones are the nutcases. There’s Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn as the California yuppies out of their depth in the rugged natural world juxtaposed by Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez as the lower middle class adventurous couple with a military background. There’s also Chris Hemsworth and Marley Shelton as your stereotypical beach hippie types with just as many eccentricities as dysfunctions (they got married in the produce section of a grocery store) but they kinda hover in the background to a lesser extent. Anywho, one of these couples are crack piping mass murderers and although if you objectively look at the narrative structure and character development throughout it’s not hard to tell who, we must remember that in the case of any trip.. it’s the journey, not the destination, and what a fun journey this film is. What makes it most engaging is Twohy’s wonderfully meta, cheekily self aware and rapid fire script that riffs on the art of Hollywood screenwriting deftly and lets the actors, Olyphant in particular, fire on all cylinders and really whip the rug out from underneath the audience quite frequently. It’s a vicious, savage piece too and when the final act rolls around there are some queasy body horror FX, terrific pursuit scenes and some real mean mugging from the two actors that are revealed to be certifiably fucking bonkers. Thing is, you see a trailer or poster for this and it could be read as kind of generic at first glance, but it’s really anything but on a script level, there’s so much juicy dialogue, bizarre character idiosyncrasies and dark humour woven into the overall thriller plot that it becomes instantly, unavoidably memorable. Great film.

-Nate Hill

Blair Hayes’ Bubble Boy

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I’d love to have been in the studio executives office to hear the pitch for Bubble Boy: “Okay so basically Jake Gyllenhaal is this kid who lives in a plastic bubble, he’s on a road trip and there’s also a travelling freak show owned by Mini Me from Austin Powers, a singing cult led by Fabio, Asian mud wrestling, twin incontinent geriatric pilots named Pippy and Pappy, a motorcycle gang headed up by Danny Trejo, an Indian who drives a food truck serving ‘Ice cream… and curry’” …if I were the exec in charge I’d have no choice but to green light the thing just for the balls they had to bring it to me. Like how do you say no to all that? Real talk though, this film was actually pretty special, and I mean that sincerely. Yes, it’s this kind of surreal, John Waters-esque parade of uproarious and seemingly arbitrary commotion anchored only by Gyllenhaal’s naive, oddball hero but there’s a message sewn into all that madness too that’s actually really sweet and astute. Born without a self generated immune system, Bubble Boy is kept at home in a pristine plastic environment by his overbearing, Jesus freak mom (Swoosie Kurtz), until he falls in love with the girl next door (Marley Shelton). When she runs off with plans to marry a preening douchebag (Dave Sheridan), he constructs that amazing bubble suit and and it’s off on a bizarre cross country race to find her and fix the misunderstandings of their relationship before she gets married. Things get a little… random along the way and his mom takes hot pursuit with his dad (John Carroll Lynch, excellent) in tow. It may all seem like noise and confusion but there’s a real theme of escaping one’s own personal prison going on beneath the surface. Gyllenhaal has left his eternal quarantine and headed out into the great unknown but in a sense each character he meets is in their own bubble of sorts, stunted by belief, circumstance, past trauma or just lunacy. Trejo is terrific as the rambunctious biker who pines for his lost love and will do anything for Bubble Boy, who he considers his ‘Vato.’ The circus show and all its members (which include the varied likes of Matthew McGrory and Lester ‘Beetlejuice’ Green) are a self ostracized bunch who don’t value their own worth until put to the test. Hell, even a cross country bus ticket vendor played by Zach Galifinakis sits resolute and awkward inside his booth, perplexed at sights he observes around him and unable to engage with the world. When mom catches up to Bubble Boy just when he’s about to reach Niagara Falls and wants to yank him home, Carroll Lynch as his dad gets the subtly subversive, beautiful line of dialogue: “What if Neil Armstrong travelled all that way just to *not* walk on the moon.” This is a balls out comedy peppered with delightfully weird shit but it’s also a film about questioning one’s reality, breaking boundaries imposed by whatever system governs you and finding a place in this world, which I promise you is far more strange than anything any screenwriter could ever dream up. Absolutely great film.

-Nate Hill

Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror reminds me of a raucous house party where everyone shows up in costume ready to fuck shit up; there’s a huge ensemble of partygoers, some true blue old friends you haven’t seen in years, some fresh new faces and even some people outside the gaggle of usual suspects you’d usually find at this type of thing. Everyone involved ditches their professional personas and gets down n’ dirty for change, inhibitions gone and ready to not take anything too seriously for a bit. In paying loving tribute to the 70’s Grindhouse exploitation they grew up with Rodriguez and pal Tarantino produced decidedly different tales on the aesthetic for their double feature and although Quentin’s is probably the better film when you look at the big picture, Robert’s is arguably the more entertaining one.

This is a zombie flick of sorts, employing the simple premise of a US county afflicted by a killer virus accidentally unleashed by Sayid from LOST, here playing a weirdo scientist who collects dude’s testicles in a jar. Pretty soon the horrifically gooey infection spreads into the nearby towns and causes the kind of wanton, disorganized chaos that only the best B movies have to offer. Rose McGowan (before she went all psycho feminist on us) is killer good and super hot as Cherry Darling, a go-go dancer who doesn’t let the loss of her leg stop her from being an absolute badass, hooking up a high powered machine gun to assist in killing zombies. She’s joined by many including badass gunslinger El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), the grizzled local Sheriff (Michael Biehn), a BBQ slinging old salt (Jeff Fahey), the local doctor (Marley Shelton) Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks), Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas and more. The framework of the film is essentially just a loose blueprint for bloody mayhem to ensue and the huge cast to all get their moments of inspired insanity. Bruce Willis has a deranged cameo as an army lieutenant who claims to have killed Bin Laden before swelling into a gargantuan behemoth zombie and exploding, so there’s that. Tarantino himself shows up as ‘Rapist #1’ and almost gets to live up to that name before his junk literally melts off in the film’s most inspired gross out moment. My favourite aside from Biehn and Fahey (who are epic) might be Josh Brolin, poised right before his legendary Hollywood comeback and playing the psychotic Doc Block here, an initial family man who loses it and becomes a raving lunatic before he’s even bitten by a zombie. This is pure aged cheddar through and through, and unrepentant bloodbath that finds the cheap vibe it’s going for in paying tribute to the old Grindhouse flicks of yore.

-Nate Hill

Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Death Proof is regarded as the weakest link in Quentin Tarantino’s work, but in a career so consistently awesome does that really matter much? It might be weirdly paced and the inherent schlock in trying to recreate the Grindhouse aesthetic makes it hard to take seriously but it’s still a sterling flick in my book and one fucking wild ride at the movies.

I wasn’t around for the Grindhouse era but it seems to me like Quentin and Robert Rodriguez only partially aped the vibe and sort of trail blazed through their own stuff instead of sticking strictly to routine like, say, Hobo With A Shotgun did. It’s a good thing too, because you wouldn’t want two creative wellsprings like these filmmakers limited to doing something that’s cheap to its bones and has little innovation. As such (with QT’s half of the double bill anyways) we get something that’s a healthy compromise of balls out Mad Max style vehicular bedlam and leisurely paced, character heavy interludes of dialogue, which is of course his trademark. There are an absolute ton of characters here, but naturally the one that showboats across centre stage is Kurt Russell’s Stuntman Mike, a charming but sadistic serial killer who mows down and decimates innocent women in his souped up Dodge Charger. That of course fills up the back half of the film, while initially we are treated to a solid chunk that sees different groups of girls bicker, banter, discourse on everything from John Hughes’ films to the benefits and drawbacks of being a semi-famous radio DJ and generally have a good time. Usually when you think of showcase Tarantino dialogue and characters this film wouldn’t enter the running, and I’m not sure why, he writes some of the most wonderful parts here and these gals positively act the pants off of them to the point that when the highway mayhem kicks in, you’re almost disappointed that the round table discussions and quirky friendships are done with. Russell is absolute perfection and seems born to play this peculiar villain. He’s so charming that bad vibes aren’t even perceived, and even later when he gets downright psychotic there’s this fourth wall breaking sheepishness that gets chuckles instead of screams, especially in the end when he turns into a big baby. My favourite of the gals has to be Vanessa Ferlito as sultry Arlene, Rosario Dawson as tomboyish Abernathy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as sensitive Lee and Sydney Tamiia Poitier as aforementioned DJ Jungle Julia. Others are fantastic too including Jordan Ladd, Zoe Bell, Tracie Thomas, Marcy Harriell, Helen Kim, Tina Rodriguez and Rose McGowan as angelic Pam, who squares off against Mike in both the funniest and scariest sequence of the film. Watch for cameos from several of the Inglorious Basterds as well as a brief turn from Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks).

The film consists mostly of two things: girls hanging around in apartments, cars and bars talking and beautiful old muscle cars playing havoc along the interstate. When you have Quentin at the helm providing pages of wonderful dialogue and overseeing practical effects based car chases, it makes for something endlessly fun. I saw this as a double bill alongside Rodriguez’s sometimes fun, often lame Planet Terror and viewed together is enough content to melt both brain and eyeballs, especially when you consider that they each have generous runtimes. This is the better of the two films and I think they should be viewed separately as their own entity. Not the weakest thing Quentin has done (Hateful Eight bears that crown for me) and so much more fun than people remember or give it credit for.

-Nate Hill

Sin City: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I remember seeing the edgy character posters for Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City hanging on the movie theatre wall when I was younger, having no idea what Sin City was or any knowledge of the books, but thinking they looked incredibly cool and enticing. Then the trailer came out, and it was all I could think, talk or breathe about for months leading up to its release. I was obsessed. When opening weekend arrived I got my dad to take me, and spent two unforgettable hours of cinematic nirvana in a dark auditorium that was packed to the gills with fans old and young alike, each basking in the delectable black, white and colour speckled glow of the piece unfolding in front of us. I had never seen anything like it, and it blew my system into sensory orbit like nothing had before. Around this time I was just discovering a lot of Rodriguez’s and Tarantino’s career, poring over pulp and crime thrillers from all across the decades as my love for cinema expanded, and this was something I just knew would be special as soon as I saw that first provocative teaser poster. The innovation and artistic ambition used by the ever resourceful Rodriguez and his team led to gleaming critical reception, a massive box office hit and one of the most gorgeous pieces of art in the motion picture realm. His decision to simply lift the still frames out of Frank Miller’s graphic novels was something that not every director would be able to go along with, let alone wrap their minds around (director’s are a finicky lot who always have thir own bright ideas, even when the source material is already gold). Rodriguez was so in love with the books that he envisioned them onscreen just the way they were drawn, and that’s pretty much what you get in the film. The pre-credit sequence sets the dark, vibrant, moody and impossibly lurid setting of Basin City, a rotting heap of corruption  where almost everyone is either corrupt, sleazy or just outright evil, and even the ones that aren’t deal out some pretty heinous bouts of violence themselves. The prologue involves girl in in a red dress (Marley Shelton) conversing with a mysterious, well dressed man (Josh Hartnett). The scene takes a turn for the dark and tragic, we zoom out as Rodriguez’s self composed gutter lullaby of a score grinds into motion, and the glowering opening credits trundle by, a moment of a pure joy for anyone watching. The film is separated into three central vignettes, each from a different volume of the comics. The first, and strongest, features a sensational Mickey Rourke as Marv, a hulking bruiser built like six linebackers and basically impervious to anything that could kill a human being. After a heavenly night with hooker Goldie (Jaime King), he wakes up to find her lying dead next to him, not a mark on her. This gives his set of talents a purpouse beyond bar fights and roughing up abusive frat boys, and he wages a war of ultraviolence in her name, to his grave if he must. There are some villains in these stories that seem to be dredged up from the very bottom of the last pit of hell, just the worst of humanity’s many deplorable qualities. Marv eventually runs into evil arch bishop Cardinal Roark (a devious Rutger Hauer) and insane cannibal ninja sicko Kevin (Elijah Wood will haunt your nightmares)., on his bloody quest. Rourke’s genius even shines out through 12 pounds of prosthetic makeup slapped all over his mug, and he captures the wayward warrior soul in Marv, a restless anger and old school, Charles Bronson esque charm by way of Frankenstein’s monster. His work is a great way to kick off the first third of the film, and the gravelly narration hits you right in the film noir nostalgia. The second segment is a lot more lively, with far more people running around, sans the melancholy of Rourke’s bit, and instead emblazoned with a war cry of a story starring Clive Owen as Dwight, a hotshot tough guy who gets on the wrong side of seriously scummy dirty cop Jackie Boy (a growling Benicio Del Toro having a ball) who likes to beat up on waitress Shelley (Brittany Murphy). Dwight pursues him to Old Town, a district run by lethal militant prostitutes lead by no nonsense Gail (Rosario Dawson can use that whip and chain on me anytime). Then everything goes haywire (I won’t say why), and Michael Clarke Duncan gets involved as a weirdly articulate, golden eye sporting otherworldly mercenary named Manute. This middle section is the one that feels most like a comic book, where as the other too have more of a noir flavor, like their old Hollywood roots. The third and most depraved chapter (which is no light statement in this town), sees aging Detective John Hartigan (Bruce Willis) lay his life down in order to protect young Nancy Callahan from a terrifying pedophile child killer (Nick Stahl) who is the spawn of despicable US Senator Roark (Powers Boothe sets up a cameo of the pure evil he would go on to exude with his much larger role in the sequel). Jessica Alba plays the adult version of Nancy, now an exotic dancer and once again in danger from Stahl, who now has some… interesting changes to bis appearance, courtesy of genital mutilation from Hartigan years before. It’s one demented set of stories that would be almost too much to take in the real world, but this is Sin City, a realm that exists in the darkest dreams of Raymond Chandler and his ilk, a seething netherworld of stunningly beautiful women, ghastly corruption and terror,  and good deeds that go unheralded in the night, bloody retribution perpetrated by antiheros and tragic scapegoats who know damn well what a pit of hell their town is, and that nobility is but a drop in the bucket of injustice they wade through on their way to violent exodus. The cast list goes on for miles longer than I’ve mentioned so far, but look out for Alexis Bledel, Carla Gugino, Michael Madsen, Jude Ciccollela, Nicky Katt, Nick Offerman, Tommy Flanagan and Devon Aoki as Miho, a deadly little hooker assassin who can turn you into a pez dispenser with her razor sharp katana. The level of violence on display throughout the film is so far over the top that after a while it seems almost Looney Toons in nature. Throats are slashed, heads are removed, testicles are ripped off, skulls are crushed and all manner of maiming and murder inflicted. What made it acceptable with the ever gay MPAA though is the fact that mic of it exists in the black and white mode of visual storytelling, and only a few instances of actual red blood seen.  That goes for more than just the violence though in terms of color. Amid the sea of stark black and white there are beautiful hidden gems of colour that you have to train your eye to find. A pair of green eyes, a crimson convertible cadillac, the sickly yellow pallor of Stahl’s mutated skin. That’s but a taste of the patchwork quilt of visual artistry you are treated to here, and has constantly been emulated in either work since, but never quite effectively as here. That’s the idea of it though, a heavily stylized piece of hard boiled neo noir that exists simply to plumb the very depths of darkest genre territory, do justice to Miller’s books with a laundry list of wicked actors, a bonus scene directed by Quentin Tarantino and a story that’s pure noir to its bloodstained bones.

Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Death Proof is… not the best flick in Quentin Tarantino’s career so far, but an entertaining little ride through the B movie corn nonetheless. It’s Quentin playing in the sandbox, and although he tends to fling it about too energetically in spots, and dawdle around listlessly in others, one can forgive such pacing issues when you consider how much fun it is for the most part. It also helps that his Grindhouse effort is heaps better than his pal Robert Rodriguez’s painfully lame Planet Terror, but that’s a whole other chestnut. Death Proof works mostly thanks to the bubbly, endlessly sexy performances from an extensive roster of irrisistable cbicks, and one gleefully evil bit of work from genre legend Kurt Russell, having a devilish blast as Stuntman Mike, a psychopath who batters helpless chicks to death as he rattles them around in his specially rigged vintage muscle car, primed for murder and ready to burn rubber straight to the ER. A fair chunk of the film is spent simply observing these girls talking, bickering, socializing and indulging in idiosyncratic pop culture banter that’s a facet of the Q Man himself. He loves to project his own affinities onto the written page and use them as backbones for his characters, and although that may be one of the core elements of screenwriting in itself, it’s always a little more pronounced with QT. Writers are books, but he is a popup book, always a tad more garish than the rest of the kids on the playground. I don’t wanna say that such lenghthy swaths of running time spent on girls chilling out isn’t fun (it’s captivating, especially with this bunch), but it is essential to the Grindhouse vibe they set out to emulate? A minor quibble, but a quibble all the same. To their credit, the girls are simply terrific. The first bunch include Rose McGowan’s angelic and short lived Pam, Sydney Poitier’s spunky radio DJ Jungle Julia, and Vanessa Ferlito’s wiseass Latina. The first act sees them run into Stuntman Mike in a roadhouse bar owned by Tarantino himself, who just can’t resist casting himself in his own shit lol. Oh well, at least he didn’t try an Australian accent this time around. The second time act we meet Rosario Dawson, stuntwoman Zoe Bell and cutesy pie Mary Elizabeth Winstead, all in the crosshairs of Mike’s radar, but this time he may be in way over his greaser hairdoed head. The vehicular mayhem is traditionalist and non CGI, and quite honestly a spectucalr firework show of blood, glass, metal and scorched asphalt. I just wish there was more of it, man. Sure, the character building with the gals is awesome, but it eclipses the action in gross proportion. A little balance between talky talky and vroom vroom would have been appreciated. Russell is a hoot in a role that was originally going to be played by Mickey Rourke. He just has that knowing gleam in his eye and good ol’ boy charm that makes it work so well, especially in a naughty little fourth wall break that shows you just how much Mike enjoys his sick little game of bumper cars. There’s characters that bleed in from Rodriguez’s side of the fence, including Michael Parks as the seemingly immortal Texas Ranger Earl Mcgraw, and Marley Shelton as his daughter. It’s a valiant effort, with plenty of Mad Max style merit and a seriously smoking lineup of luscious ladies. I just feel like he over fed certain ingredients to the pot when cooking this one up, and neglected others in areas. Still though, even average Tarantino is brilliant, and this one glows, if for a few dull spots. 

The Fifth Patient: A Review by Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

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The Fifth Patient is a super awesome amnesia thriller, in the tradition of The Bourne Identity. It stars Nick Chinlund (in one of his rare lead roles) as John Reilly, an american who awakens in a remote rural hospital somewhere in Africa, with no memory of who he is, how he got there or what’s going on. A local military official (Isaach De Bankolé) interrogates him, believing that he works for the CIA. He has several visitors including a woman who claims to be his wife (Marley Shelton) and a former colleague (Henry Czerny). Gradually he pieces together the fragments of his damaged mind and suddenly has memories of being involved in a terrorism plot, planting seeds of doubt and causing him to suspect he isn’t who they think he is at all. Now all he can trust are his instincts, wary of everyone around him and unsure of his own past. It’s a serpentine story with hefty work from Chinlund who handles all facets of the character superbly, including some third act surprises. Sometimes these type of thrillers fall apart at the seams in the conclusion, tripping over the rug they’re trying to pull out from the audience in terms of plot points. Not this one. It’s well constructed and makes concise sense of its story right up to the last frame. Also watch for work from Brendan Fehr, Olek Krupa as a mysterious russian prisoner and the great Peter Bogdanovitch in a nearly unrecognizable turn. Now, I’m fairly certain that this one was never officially released back in 2007, because you literally cannot find it anywhere, it doesn’t have a legit poster and even seems nonexistent in some databases. Years ago it popped up on Netflix canada for about a month, thus ending my tedious quest to see it. You’d think that such a solid film with the prolific actors in it would have been treated better, but for one reason or another, it’s been forgotten.  Hopefully one day a distributor will pick it up, because it’s quite the well made, entertaining thriller with a crackling lead performance.