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September 2006
This is strictly for those with
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s an incredible movie out now that celebrates the manly art and ancient tradition of busting your [testicles] for the [heck] of it.
And blowing things up.
And sticking stuff up where the sun don’t shine. And tricking your friend into wearing a beard made of hairs cut from, um, an intimate location.
And teaching 9-year-old kids how to drink and smoke and call people [practitioners of fellatio].
Yes, my friends, “Jackass: Number Two” is hands-down the best movie of the year. I have seen it three times already, and it is only Tuesday that I am writing this review.
If you’re like me — and you’re bound to be since you’re reading this — you were probably worried whether Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, Steve-O, Wee Man and the other [mentally deficient individuals] in the gang could make a sequel good enough to stand up to the thing of beauty known as “Jackass: The Movie.”
It’s sort of like trying to make a sequel to “Chinatown” or “Resident Evil” or “Alien vs. Predator.” Sometimes people shouldn’t mess with the sacred memory of a great film, right?
So I am happy to report that “Number Two” kicks the first movie’s [posterior]. It’s eight minutes longer, 10 times funnier and about 100 times sicker.
These guys throw themselves in front of stampeding bulls, horny horses, killer anacondas and really, really fat women. And they do it knowing all the while that the trade-off for all this fun is busted teeth, broken bones and, at least in one case, bleeding from, well, where the sun don’t shine.
Right before he does one stunt, Bam goes, “This is really gonna suck.” Yeah, so these guys know what they’re in for, but they do it anyway. And that is the sort of sacrifice that a great democracy like ours is built on.
For instance, in the Man-Fishing scene, Steve-O jams a giant fish hook through his own cheek, knowing that in just a few minutes he might be lunch for the hammerheads and mako sharks swimming around under the boat. But he still yells, “Cast me out, [deity condemn it]!” And jumps into the sea.
And when Wee Man gets blasted across a river by a wind machine, he comes back all beat up and half deaf. But does the little dude complain? No, he does not. He just shrugs it off and says, “I can’t hear, kind of.”
Some people just don’t appreciate this kind of spontaneous, unmotivated bravery or understand its central, inspirational place in these United States of America.
Like when Bam has a friend brand his [posterior] with a red-hot brand shaped like, well, a [male reproductive organ]. And when he shows it to his mom, she’s all horrified and goes, “Bam, that is so infected!” Then when Bam’s friend apologizes because the scar is all blurry, on account of him being afraid of hurting Bam too bad. And Bam’s mom goes, “Why would you burn him in the first place?”
See, that’s a perfect demonstration of the female inability to understand the great and noble dreams that drive men onward. Like, you know, dreams of shooting off a pier and into a lake in a rocket-powered shopping cart. Or walking around disguised like a geezer with fake old-man [testicles] hanging out of your pants. Or jumping on the teeth of a rake just to see how much pain your skull can take.
“Jackass: Number Two” is just the right title for the movie, because there’s a lot of hot, smelly No. 2 in it. And a whole lot of vomiting — on-screen, and maybe out in the audience, too. Especially during the horse sperm scene.
That’s the one part of the movie that had me a little worried about the future of the “Jackass” series. See, when Chris Pontius does what he does in it — and I won’t tell you what he does, because I don’t want to spoil the pure, thrilling disgust of it — he goes, “I’m ashamed of myself.”
For just a second — at least until the next scene started, and Steve-O stuck a hungry leech on his eyeball — I had this awful feeling that maybe the “Jackass” guys were starting to get soft.
See, what makes them so [darned] great is that they’ll eat horse [poop], [defecate] on dollhouses and chug beer up their favorite place — the one where the sun don’t shine. And they never, ever feel shame about it. As soon as shame starts to work its way into the picture, well, then this will no longer be the wonderful kind of nation that inspires us to dream big, blow things up, and kick dwarfs in the [testicles] — am I right?
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Great painters live on in these (moving) pictures
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dear Mr. Smithee,
Being an artist myself, I’ve enjoyed seeing famous artists portrayed in films.
My short list consists of “Lust for Life,” “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” “Pollock,” “Picasso,” “Girl With a Pearl Earring” and “Frida.”
Are there any good ones I may have missed that you can recommend, oh wise one?
JACK NEWMAN, Boynton Beach, Fla.
Dear Blue Boy,
Being an artist myself, I don’t usually waste my valuable time with everybody else’s staid museum hangings.
But my once wee son, Cecil B., went through an elaborate easel phase. We ended up hauling our persons all across the country to gaze and headily reflect upon purported art.
I can still see Cecil B. now, his small body racing through the National Gallery of Art, stopping quickly in a room of Dutch masterpieces. He twirled on a toe and, punctuating the moment with a swoop of his arms, proclaimed, “Rembrandt!”
Cecil B. certainly had his opinions (he still to this day insists he is correct about everything, and where he got that I’ll never know). He proclaimed van Gogh “too brushy.” Monet? You call it impressionism. Cecil B. dubbed his works the smushed results of “a dude who was going blind.”
The best movie on your list is, undoubtedly, “Pollock.” Jackson Pollock might not have painted as well as Michelangelo, but Ed Harris is better at acting the former than Charlton Heston (“The Agony and the Ecstasy”) was the latter.
Here are films you should see: “Basquiat” (1996) with Jeffrey Wright; Akira Kurosawa’s “Dreams” (1990) with Martin Scorsese as van Gogh; “I Shot Andy Warhol” (1996); “Moulin Rouge” (the original 1952 version with Jose Ferrer as Toulouse-Lautrec and definitely not the Baz Luhrmann exclamatory excrement of 2001); “My Left Foot” (1989); “Rembrandt” (1936), with Charles Laughton; “Surviving Picasso” (1996); “Vincent & Theo” (1990), with Tim Roth as van Gogh; “The Wolf at the Door” (1986) about Paul Gauguin; and “Painted Fire” (2002), a visually astute film about 19th-century Korean painter Jang Seung-ub, ably played by Choi Min-sik (“Oldboy”).
You should also look for the 2003 Disney animated short “Destino,” a project Salvador Dali and Walt Disney abandoned in the 1940s, and the remarkable “Russian Ark” (2002), which takes place at the Russian State Hermitage Museum.
ALAN
P.S. You get a “The Black Dahlia” T-shirt and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
The name of a movie. A man’s child is kidnapped. He has to assassinate the governor or they will kill his child. A man at a shoeshine stand helps him get his child back. Thank you.
JACK KABLER, Fairborn, Ohio
Dear Word Mincer,
Hello, and a fine morning to you, too, Mr. Kabler.
If Grandmother Smithee taught me anything, it was how to be polite.
“Stand up straight and speak like you know something, child,” she would say, just before letting loose with a thorny rosebush switch on exposed legs.
But I also realize that you, Jack, are in a bit of a hurry. So …
“Nick of Time,” 1995. Johnny Depp and Marsha Mason. He parent. She governor. Shoeshine man: Charles Dutton (middile initial: S.). Plot proceeds in actual time. Tagline: “Ninety minutes. Six bullets. No choice.”
You’re welcome.
ALAN
P.S. You get an “Idlewild” T-shirt and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
Claudette Colbert passed away in 1996 in Barbados. Where is she buried, and is the grave site accessible to those who mourn her?
D.P. KELLEY, Atlanta
Dear Cemetery Bound,
Actually, her grave site is accessible to anyone who also just wants to gawk.
Oscar winner Claudette Colbert was born in 1903 in Paris and by her mid-20s was a star. Among her better films: “The Sign of the Cross” (1932), “It Happened One Night” (1934), “Drums Along the Mohawk” (1939), “Since You Went Away” (1944) and “The Egg and I” (1947). She died in July 1996 after a series of strokes and is buried in the St. Peter Parish cemetery off Highway 1 near Speightstown, Barbados.
For more information, call the Barbados Tourism Authority at 1-246-427-2623.
ALAN
P.S. You get a “9 to 5” coffee mug and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
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What is the ap-peel of Mr. Zach Potato Head?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Look, before I start writing about “The Last Kiss,” can somebody help me out here?
I’m talking about what I like to call The Zach Braff Phenomenon, OK? Sure, he’s fun and goofy on TV, in that “Scrubs” show. But on “Scrubs,” nobody would ever take him seriously as a romantic lead. So how come people are supposed to when he’s put on the big screen, and all his non-leading-man qualities get multiplied 20 times?
Like that honker of a nose, the puffy lips that look like cold-cuts way past their sell-by date, and a pair of eyes that always look so surprised, you’d think somebody just smacked the back of his skull with a skillet. All the different parts of his face just don’t seem to belong together — like he’s some kind of mix-and-match human Mr. Potato Head.
But put Zach in movies and all of a sudden he’s supposed to be some kind of a babe magnet??? Color me with an I-Don’t-Get-It paintbrush. I mean, first he snagged Natalie Portman in “Garden State.” And now, in “Last Kiss,” he’s got TWO (2 [!!!]) hotties climbing all over him.
The first is his girlfriend Jenna (Jacinda Barrett), who’s carrying his baby even though he hasn’t even proposed to her. She’s gorgeous and cool, and she puts up with Zach’s [excrement]. Like, when they’re lying on the couch together and she starts to talk about sharing their feelings, she asks him if there’s anything he’s holding in. And he [expels gas]. And she jumps up and yells, but she DOESN’T freak out like most girls would. She laughs and calls him a loser, and he goes, “You’re in love with a loser, so only a loser can love a loser.”
See, he talks like a third-grader. But girls are supposed to be crazy about him.
The other one is Kim (Rachel Bilson), this college student that hits on Zach at a wedding. She follows him up into a treehouse and gives him signals most guys couldn’t miss. Like, she tells him she wants to be a professional flute player (!!!), then she grabs his hand and holds it on her [breasts] so he can feel her heart beat. But he acts like, OK, whatever.
So she finally goes, “Do you, like, want my phone number or something?”
Later on, she says weird stuff like, “I would wear the hottest dress for your funeral.” So even though she’s a babe, she’s obviously a wacko-nutjob, too, and that half-explains why she would throw herself at Zach.
But that doesn’t explain why his pregnant girlfriend Jenna would stick with him, especially when she finds out he’s thought about fooling around. She kicks him out, but all he has to do to prove his love to her is to just stay there, sitting and sleeping on the porch all day and night.
Like that is such a big ol’ hardship? Please, I call that quality time! I am the champion porch sitter-outer. Geez, man, if that’s all it took to make any girl you want fall crazy in love with you, then I would be married to Angelina Jolie by now, and the gossip writers would refer to the two of us as Purlkelina.
“Last Kiss” is full of other couples that spend the whole movie [lady-dogging] and moaning about their relationships. Like Zach’s pal Chris (Casey Affleck)? Chris has had it up to here with his nag of a wife. And when he calls it quits, she goes, “Am I so easy to walk away from?”
No, lady, the walking is hard — especially when your gut is telling you to RUN as fast as you can. Which is what I did when it was over with my ex — and that had nothing to do with any STRIPPER, like LaDonna said in her column last week, a column that I still don’t know why anybody would ask her to write in the first place when she is obviously 10 times crazier than Rachel Bilson.
See, “The Last Kiss” is the kind of movie that can bring up all those bad memories — and remind you why you got yourself out of that mess.
There’s only one guy in the movie that’s got it figured out. That’s Kenny (Eric Christian Olsen), who out-wedding-crashes Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn combined. He plows through a whole parade of beauties. Then, he finds this insatiable chick that seems to be just his match. Until he swings by her house, and she’s all, Great, you’re just in time — my parents just dropped by.
That’s all Kenny needs to hit the road to South America, without her. And he’s the smartest guy in the whole movie — am I right?
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1930s tragedy shows dark side of drive for fame
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dearest Mr. Smithee,
Every Friday, I read your column first. It charges me for the whole day.
Can you enlighten me about the death of the actress Lillian Entwistle in the 1930s?
ROHIT MATHUR, Kennesaw
Dear H,
Seventy-four years ago this week, a depressed actress, originally from Wales, climbed to the tippy-top of the first letter in the big Hollywood sign (only then, it read Hollywoodland). She jumped head first.
The resulting splat was one of Hollywood’s infamous - and plentiful - deaths relating to fame, or the lack thereof.
The woman left behind a note in her discarded purse, reading, “I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain.” It was signed “P.E.”
Eventually, the dead woman was identified as Peg Entwistle, a would-be starlet whose real name was Lillian Millicent Entwistle. Entwistle in her teens did stage work in New York, according to an article in Catholic Commentary. Later in Hollywood, she co-starred in a play with Humphrey Bogart (I am confident you’ve heard of him) and Billie Burke (among other parts, she played good witch Glinda in “The Wizard of Oz”). The play, however, ran for about 10 days.
While in Hollywood, she made one film for RKO - 1932’s “Thirteen Women,” which was rather rudely panned by critics. The studio recut the film and reportedly chopped most of Entwistle’s scenes.
Distraught after seeing her dreams dashed and unable to find more work, she said she was going to a store and, instead, climbed a ladder that stood at the bottom of the big H and dove into Tinsletown lore.
After her leap, the Los Angeles Times dubbed her “The Hollywood Sign Girl.”
A letter from the Beverly Hills Playhouse mailed the day before her jump offered her the lead in a play about a woman who commits suicide, according to Internet Movie Database.
There’s more.
At age 17 in New York, she met and married older actor Robert Keith only to find out he had a secret son. Their marriage crumbled, and she later headed for Los Angeles.
Oh, and the son? Brian Keith, who later starred in TV’s “Family Affair.”
To gawk at her photo and read more, including tales of sightings of her ghost, go to www.prairieghosts.com/hollywood3.html.
ALAN
P.S. You get a “Pirates of the Caribbean” T-shirt and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
I purchased a DVD titled “Benito - The Rise and Fall of Mussolini.” There are two discs with a running time of 10 hours, 28 minutes. The acting, photography, costuming and sets were extremely good. The screenplay and editing could have been better. Where was this movie marketed? How much did it cost to prodce?
VIC LIPSCOMB, Carrollton
Dear Il Duce,
In the early 1990s, Italy’s RAI2, one of three public TV channels in the country, made a long, long film for television in three parts called “Il Giovane Mussolini,” starring Antonio Banderas as guess who.
Now, many years later, that film is being sold on DVD to Banderas lovers (and those who just like World War II movies, which must be you, Vic) as a two-disc set and re-titled “Benito - The Rise and Fall of Mussolini.”
I am not so sure about your perception of the film’s running time. All references I have found state the movie is 308 minutes, which not only means 5 hours and 8 minutes, but if I ever have to slog through it, I’m going to need a break time for a nap.
More important than the rest of your questions, did you know that there is a road sign at a certain spot in Texas that points to San Antonio 15 miles away in one direction and to Bandera 31 miles away in other direction?
Would I like to you, Vic?
Certainly not to your fellow readers out there who adore their beloved Antonio.
ALAN
P.S. You get a “Butterfly Effect 2” tchotchke and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: My friend Dan Mapel in Alpharetta writes to remind that last week’s list of “road movies” could well have included the very funny “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”
Well, I guess I could have included it. But I didn’t.
Actually, now that Dan’s mentioned trains, I believe I could add a subset category of best non-road road movie. Clearly, that would be Buster Keaton’s Georgia-centric 1927 masterpiece, “The General.”
HAVE A QUESTION FOR MR. SMITHEE?
E-mail him at alansmithee@ajc.com or go to accessAtlanta.com and click on Movies. Please include your name, city and daytime phone number. Mr. Smithee can’t reply to every request, but inquiries chosen for publication will receive movie-related prizes.
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Hollywood sure can make trashy look glamorous
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is LaDonna Potter and I am writing about the pretty but pretty FRUSTRATING Movie “Hollywoodland,” which is set in Hollywood in the 1950s.
It is all about how George Reeves, the Actor that played Superman on TV, wound up dead and who killed him. Or it’s supposed to be about that, but at the end of the Movie, I had no idea who pulled the trigger because they show it happening three different ways, like they couldn’t make their minds up. But the Costumes are beautiful!!!!
Of course I am way too young to know much about the 1950s! ;-) But I do know my fair share about Fashion, and there is a lot of it in “Hollywoodland”!!!! :-)
But wait, I should tell you more about the Movie first!
Ben Affleck (who was SO cute back in his “Pearl Harbor” days but has gotten pretty flabby lately) plays George Reeves, who was a Tarleton Twin with bright orange hair in “Gone With the Wind.”
That was a long time ago, and George is having a hard time finding work now. So he has plenty of time to fool around with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane), an older woman who is the wife of a Movie mogul played by the short British man from “Roger Rabbit.” [Editor’s note: Bob Hoskins.]
George meets Toni at a Restaurant, and they start flirting BIG-TIME! She laughs at his jokes, and he tells her he’s real happy that he’s spreading so much joy. And she goes, “Who knows what you might be spreading.” And in one scene, George goes, “Do you want to see the real Man of Steel?” It’s little lines like that that remind you that the Movie takes place at a time when people knew how to be raunchy as all get-out but still make it sound elegant!!! (I bet it is what dirty Sex-talk sounds like in French, but I have never even been to New York, much less France.)
Ben and Diane make a very attractive couple, but I have to state for the record that I am against Adultery since after all that is what destroyed my own Marriage no matter how many times my ex-husband Ray says he didn’t do anything with that stripper. A woman knows things.
Anyway, Toni buys George a house and goes out with him in public, and her husband doesn’t even seem to mind. (California is SO weird!) But then George gets the job playing Superman and he dumps Toni, all for this gold digger [witch] named Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney), and if Leonore Lemmon is not a stripper name, I don’t know what is!!!!!
George tells Toni, “She makes me feel young.” And if I was Toni, I would’ve shot George in the head myself — but that is NOT one of the ways the Movie shows him getting killed!!!
Oh, I forgot to say, the Movie goes back and forth in time, because this Private Eye named Louis Simo is trying to find out how George died. (The P.I. is played by Adrien Brody, who needs to gain weight as much as Ben Affleck needs to lose it!)
Louis’ private life is just as big a mess as Superman’s, I am serious! He has a girlfriend who helps him in his Sleuthing. But he also has a wife (Molly Parker) and a little son called Scout, which is confusing because that is the girl’s name from “To Kill a Mockingbird,” right?
Anyway, Louis is a lot like George, except for the being dead part. Both guys have a major drinking problem, and I can relate to that!!! There is this one scene where Louis drinks-and-drives his way across town to pick Scout up after school. Only, he is not supposed to be picking him up, and he causes a scene and Scout runs away from him.
Boy, did THAT take me back! I remember when Ray pulled the same stunt during our first few weeks of Trial Separation when Cal was in Nursery School, and his teacher (Cal’s teacher, I mean, not Ray’s) liked to call the cops!!! Ray was so smashed, his breath smelled like he had gargled the entire contents of a Strip Club, including the ashtrays.
This happened only a week after Cal’s cousin Little Dwaine had taken in a loaded German Luger (sp??) for Show-&-Tell, and I am sure the teacher thought our whole entire Family was nothing but trash. I was so embarrassed!
Anyway, Louis Simo starts to get his [manure] together at the end of “Hollywoodland” and try to be a good Dad, even though he hasn’t solved George Reeves’ death.
Good Lord, I am out of space and I didn’t even talk about the Movie’s gorgeous Costumes! Well, just go see for yourself!!! Especially the black dress Diane Lane wears when she first shows up at the restaurant, and the pretty pink sleeveless dress with the red sash she wears when George is washing his car. Because even if you have to commit Adultery, at least you should dress well — am I right??? (Ha-ha!!!)
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Take a detour or two in search for road movies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dear Mr. Smithee,
Seeing “Little Miss Sunshine” last week sparked a family discussion of our favorite “road movies.” We have compiled a list of our top nine road movies and then in the No. 10 spot placed five great movies that may or may not qualify.
The first nine (in order): “Easy Rider,” “Rain Man,” “Thelma and Louise,” “It Happened One Night,” “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Sullivan’s Travels,” “Five Easy Pieces,” “Sideways” and “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”
The next five: “The Wizard of Oz,” “Red River,” “American Graffiti,” “Bonnie and Clyde” and “North by Northwest.”
How would you define a road movie? Can you think of any other great road movies?
MICHAEL AXELROD, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Dear Road Hog,
You say five at the end that may or may not qualify?
Sir, you have problems long before you get to those.
“Rain Man” might be a road movie in some feeble minds but certainly not mine. Just because Dustin Hoffman and that crazy Tom Cruise get in a car and ride somewhere does not make their movie a proper road movie.
There are many esteemed brains who surmise that what qualifies a here-to-there film as a road movie is a vehicle of some sort that in some way becomes a kind of character in the film.
Hence the VW bus in “Miss Sunshine” that everyone has to get out and push to make go.
I’m not so much a stickler on points like that. So if your heart is set on “Rain Man” being a road movie, then autobahn your way to wherever you want to go with it. Just don’t expect me to help pay for the gas.
I like several of the inclusions on your list, though one of those doesn’t happen to be “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.” It has less road than one should expect in a road movie.
My road-trip movies:
Your aforementioned “Easy Rider” and “Thelma and Louise,” plus “National Lampoon’s Vacation” (seriously), “The Motorcycle Diaries,” “The Straight Story” (who says the vechicle can’t be a lawn mower?), “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World,” “The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert,” “Paper Moon,” “La Strada” and, listen to me now because this is important, what is without a doubt the greatest road-trip movie ever, “Lost in America.”
I would ignore every Crosby-Hope “Road” movie.
Some clown will surely write to say I forgot about “The Brown Bunny.” But let me just go ahead and say, “No, I didn’t.”
ALAN
P.S. You get a “Little Miss Sunshine” goodie and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
Anticipating Martin Scorsese’s new movie “The Departed” got me thinking about the older “New York, New York,” which was recently on TV. I have been greatly puzzled by something:
Why wasn’t the title song (one of the best songs ever composed for a movie) even nominated for an Academy Award? Particularly since the awful “You Light Up My Life” won best song for 1977.
PHIL DEJARNETTE, Lilburn
Dear You Give Me Hope,
I very clearly recall the day my once wee son, D.W., became a man. It was the moment he turned to me and said, “I don’t really think the Oscars are the best of anything.”
Trust me, it hurts deep inside one’s heart to witness innocence dying.
My innocent Phil, you might be miffed about the Academy’s negligence regarding “The Theme from New York, New York,” but the bigger song controversy from that year concerned “Saturday Night Fever” and how nary a ditty from that hugely popular album was deemed worthy of Oscar consideration. As any red-blooded Aussie might, Bee Gees honcho Robert Stigwood demanded a re-vote. He didn’t get it.
The helpful book, “Inside Oscar” reports that a rep from Stigwood’s company told People magazine that the Academy’s music branch was made up of “retired violinists who probably still play 78s on their Victrolas.” (Hint for younger readers: He accused Academy members of playing really, really old records on really, really old equipment, meaning that Oscar voters are basically really, really old, which they are).
In any event, nobody ever said the Oscars were fair or right or even half-right.
If it helps, which it won’t, know that a few years later, Frank Sinatra’s version of “The Theme from New York, New York” was nominated for several Grammys. It lost, however, record of the year and song of the year to … Christopher Cross … for his immortal … “Sailing” … which I must say I do hear on rare occasions … in elevators.
ALAN
P.S. You get a collection of recent movie soundtracks and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
HAVE A QUESTION FOR MR. SMITHEE?
E-mail him at alansmithee@ajc.com or go to accessAtlanta.com and click on Movies. Please include your name, city and daytime phone number. Mr. Smithee can’t reply to every request, but inquiries chosen for publication will receive movie-related prizes.
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Action-packed doesn’t even begin to cover it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After only a couple of minutes watching “Crank,” you realize you’re in for an excellent experience. This is the kind of movie that just STARTS, you know? Doesn’t waste time making you learn who’s who or what’s what. It’s just like somebody fired a starter gun, and the movie sets off at a sprint. It’s full of great action from top to bottom — like when two guys are punching each other, hanging out the side of a flying helicopter — and they keep on punching each other after they fall out!
Jason Statham (aka the Transporter) plays Chev Chelios, a hit man who gets shot up with some high-tech sci-fi Chinese drug that’ll slow down his heart until he croaks. Like, in an hour.
The guy who dosed him is Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo), who leaves Chev a video where he smirks and says, “Have yourself a nice death, [rectum].” Verona is this Latin gangster who’s a total skeeze, except for the fact that he hangs out with ladies wearing not much — sort of like Chev’s Doctor Feelgood (played by Dwight Yoakam!), who spends his time hanging out with topless babes. And that’s the kind of doctor you can trust.
Oh, and the main crime lord has this cool pad where these girls lie around in their underwear inside these big plastic bubbles — which I guess are designed to keep them fresh and hygienic until it is time for hot sex with the gangstas.
Yeah, so “Crank” is the kind of thing you’d get if Russ Meyer had ever made a hit-man-on-the-run movie. [Editor’s note: Russ Meyer was an American filmmaker (1922-2004) known for titles such as “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!,” “Mondo Topless” and “Supervixens.”] Russ would have made an awesome movie, and I am sorry he is dead (R.I.P., big man!).
Anyway, Chev vows to track Verona down and snuff him — but he realizes he’ll die first if he doesn’t keep his heart rate up. So he hops in his car and does whatever it takes to keep his ticker stoked. He mainlines Red Bull, snorts nose spray, jams his hand in a hot waffle iron and drives his car straight through a busy mall, just for the rush of it. He also snorts coke off a scuzzy bathroom floor and picks a fight with these black gangbangers, just to stay alive.
He also tries to get his groove on, stomping his foot in time to “Achy Breaky Heart” on the radio. And since “Achy Breaky Heart” is one of the most annoying songs God ever made, that would get my blood pumping, too, only not in a good way.
It doesn’t work for Chev, either, because he winds up having to go to the hospital to steal some hypodermics full of epinephrin (sp?). He also holds some doctors at gunpoint and yells, “Juice me,” and he makes them blast him with those electric paddles they use on heart patients. [Editor’s note: a defibrillator.]
Now, to be honest, I could’ve done without those scenes where Chev is running around the streets of L.A. wearing only a hospital gown so that he’s always mooning the camera with his flappy pale British butt-cheeks. And he’s over-tweaked on that epinephrin stuff, so he’s also got [an aroused male reproductive organ] poking against the front of his nightie.
But I can forgive all that stuff, because the movie’s got plenty of car wrecks and chases. And there’s this awesome scene where Chev fights Verona’s brother, and he whacks the guy’s hand off with a meat cleaver and goes, “I wonder how many steaks I could cut out of you?”
Best of all, there’s Chev’s girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart, who sure doesn’t come off too smart here, but she is gorgeous — and that makes her the perfect woman). She wanders around her apartment in her teeny-tiny underwear and wants Chev to fix the clock on her microwave because she doesn’t know Chev’s a hit man and there are some creeps on their way to kill her.
But Chev gets her out of there in time and takes her to Chinatown. Only, his heart starts sputtering out on him. So he figures there’s one guaranteed way to get a man’s heart rate (and something else) back up. And he goes, Let’s do it, right here on the sidewalk.
And she goes, Oh no, I can’t, you brute! Only, then she gets into it, and she’s all, “Take me right here, in front of everyone!” And he does, yelling, “I’m alive! I’m alive!” And all the little people of Chinatown crowd around them, cheering and clapping and laughing.
The scene gives you a warm, glowy feeling, like those old “I Want to Buy the World a Coke” commercials. Only, with public sex instead of soft drinks — am I right?
Permalink | | Categories: The 'B' Movie King
For some film fans, once is never enough
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dear Mr. Smithee,
I am baffled by the amount of DVD sales there are. I can’t understand people buying them. Do they watch them over and over? I can’t seem to be interested in seeing a film more than once - with very few exceptions. Are there any films you would look at twice or three times?
TED CORNELL, Wellington, Fla.
Dear One Who Must Not Own Any Books Either,
I am baffled by the number of people who collected Beanie Babies, but that doesn’t mean I go around questioning their resolve. Or intimating that there’s something clinically wrong with them even when one would have to conclude there probably was.
What possesses some people to own 10 different kinds of balsamic vinegar?
And while we’re considering possession, let’s not miss an opportunity to wonder why even though Jessica Simpson is a lovely-looking young lady, who in their right mind would actually buy her overly produced musical gunk?
I own more DVDs than anyone might deem normal.
Well, let me correct that, because my esteemed sons, D.W. and Cecil B., are each certainly someone, and they each own more DVDs than I do.
Part of the obsession is the opportunity to actually own something that when first viewed was personally and intensely fulfilling. Pardon me if we DVD owners also want to share with others, lending them out as good friends and good citizens are wont to do.
I don’t rewatch all my DVDs over and over again, but I do, at times, find that my thoughts go back to certain scenes.
Just this week, I had a hankering to see the bicycle chase in “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.” It’s a great sequence. So I put the DVD in and went straight to that very scene. Then, later, I was thinking about the “Ride of the Valkyries” attack in “Apocalypse Now.” Guess what? The DVD went in, and I watched it.
I rewatch some movies to see if they hold up.
“Pieces of April”? Yes.
“Narc”? No.
I’ve certainly enjoyed multiple DVD viewings of many movies. Some that come to mind: “City of God,” “Donnie Darko,” “The Thin Red Line,” “The Limey,” “Election,” “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” “Grizzly Man,” “Hustle & Flow” and “Air Force One” (hey, I’m being honest here).
ALAN
P.S. You get an “Invincible” T-shirt and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
I am 71 years old, overweight, underexercised, and will probably die soon. This is a craven attempt to become the owner of an Ask Alan Smithee T-shirt before that occurs. I’m not asking to be given one for nothing. In exchange, I offer the following suggestion: a remake of “Forrest Gump” starring Minnie Driver, Yanni and directed by M. Night Shyamalan! If this appeal to your sympathy fails, I would be willing to humbly beg!
MARY ELLEN ISPER, Snellville
Dear Trust Me, You Had Me At Hello,
“Forrest Gump” was bad enough the first time. But I wouldn’t mind hearing the line, “Run, Yanni, run!”
Let’s consider a few other potential remakes:
“Midnight Cowboy” - Freddie Prinze Jr. as Ratso Rizzo; Paul Walker as Joe Buck.
“Some Like It Hot” - Seann William Scott as Jerry/Daphne; Ashton Kutcher as Joe/Josephine; Jessica Simpson as Sugar.
“Sid and Nancy” (if they hadn’t died, instead growing older) - Kevin Costner as Sid; Judi Dench as Nancy.
“Wuthering Heights” - Martin Lawrence as Heathcliff; Lil’ Kim as Cathy.
ALAN
P.S. You get “Wordplay” crossword puzzles and most definitely an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
I enjoy your column and usually agree with your picks, but you left out two movies from your film noir selections - “Murder My Sweet” (1944) and “Crossfire” (1947). Both were directed by a man credited with starting the film noir style, Edward Dmytryk.
MICHAEL MCKINNEY, Duluth
Dear Lucky You,
I realize that I am practically perfect in every way, but I was indeed forthcoming about my lack of film noir expertise. Truth is, I have not seen your fine films. Maybe if some nice person sent them to me on DVD. …
ALAN
P.S. You get an “Accepted” T-shirt and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
HAVE A QUESTION FOR MR. SMITHEE?
E-mail him at alansmithee@ajc.com or go to accessAtlanta.com and click on Movies. Please include your name, city and daytime phone number. Mr. Smithee can’t reply to every request, but inquiries chosen for publication will receive movie-related prizes.
Permalink | | Categories: Alan Smithee
Flicks in four words
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Brevity. That’s what it’s all about. With no more than four words, users at www.fwfr.com can summarize summer hits as well as more serious movie fare. Try these on for size:
“Titanic”? Icy dead people.
“Fight Club”? Raging (Pitt) Bull.
“The Blair Witch Project”? Tense. Intense. In tents.
Like it? Try it:
A gat in the hand means heaven for film noir fans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dear Mr. Smithee,
After reading your column this a.m. (which, of course, I read before any other section of the AJC), I read another writer’s piece about film noir classics on DVD. Which begs the question - what are Mr. Smithee’s favorite film noir movies?
DREW ELIZABETH LANE, Peachtree City
Dear You’re Good. Chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like, “Be generous, Mr. Spade,”
One of the happy times has to have been years ago when D.W. and Cecil B. were but wee lads and one would be crouching outside the dorrway of their little playroom and the other would be somewhere unseen inside and calling out, “Who’s it gonna be, Eddie? You or me?”
That was the day after the three of us had watched “The Big Sleep” with Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe and the very proliic John Ridgely as the unfortunate Eddie Mars. Bogie spoke those very words.
Now, my dear Drew Elizabeth, while I am a man of many cinematic letters, I would have to say that film noir - crime stories and such shot in stark black and white - is not my strongest suit.
But I have affection for a great many great film noir works. Here’s what I like:
Simply do not miss (especially since they are filled with the rotten sweetness of corruption): The aforementioned “The Big Sleep,” the aforereferenced “The Maltese Falcon,” “Sunset Boulevard,” “The Third Man,” “Double Indemnity,” “M,” “Shadow of a Doubt” and “The Night of the Hunter.”
Hard not to enjoy: “Strangers on a Train,” “Touch of Evil” and “The Killing.”
Simply good: “Ace in the Hole,” “Key Largo,” “The Letter” and “Rafifi.”
You have to see it to believe it: “Kiss Me Deadly.” It begins with Cloris Leachman, wearing nothing but a swiped trenchcoat, desperately running down a two-lane blacktop to escape … something terrible. And before its conclusion, the film has unleashed a torrent of hard-boiled dialogue, plot twists, cool cars (as stiff-necked private eye and playboy Mike Hammer, Ralph Meeker drives a ’50s Jaguar convertible) and bizarre visions.
If for no other reason, see it because it inspired Quentin Tarantino’s strange briefcase in “Pulp Fiction.”
You won’t be sorry.
ALAN
P.S. You get a “Little Miss Sunshine” T-shirt and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
“Snakes on a Plane” reminded me of an earlier movie set in England. I think it was called “Venom,” but not the horrible 2005 flick. A young boy is sent to a pet store to pick up a harmless, docile snake and is mistakenly given a black mamba. It is scary, much like “Alien.”
I cannot find this movie on Google or Yahoo. Maybe I have the name wrong. What was it? I know that you have the answer.
GEORGE BARTON, Sharpsburg
Dear Luke,
Trust your feelings. You know all you need to know.
The made-in-England “Venom,” released in November 1981 in Japan and the following January in England and the United States, involved a heady cast (Klaus Kinski, Oliver Reed, Nicol Williamson, Sarah Miles and Sterling Hayden for starters) and a lot of vocal bombast.
I daresay that whilst it is not a horrible movie, it is in no way to be mentioned in the same sentence. As. “Alien.”
According to the Internet Movie Database, here are three pertinent triva facts:
Kinski chose to do this film over appearing in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” because “he was offered more money.”
“Texas Chain Saw Massacre” director Tobe Hooper left over “creative differences.”
Hooper’s replacement, Piers Haggard, “thought the black mamba was the nicest person on the set.”
You can find DVDs of the film online at places like Amazon.com.
ALAN
P.S. You get an “Invincible” shirt and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
Dear Mr. Smithee,
I don’t know whether you are old enough or even care, but do you remember when color was being introduced into movies?
NORM LYNN, Lake Worth, Fla.
Dear Bright Eyes,
Sorry, I think you’re looking for Papaw Smithee. But color started showing up around 1917. The first feature-length sound film in color reportedly was “The Viking” (1928).
ALAN
P.S. You get a “Step Up” shirt and an “Ask Alan Smithee” T-shirt.
HAVE A QUESTION FOR MR. SMITHEE?
You can e-mail him at alansmithee@ajc.com or go to accessAtlanta.com and click on Movies. Please include your name, city and daytime phone number. Mr. Smithee can’t reply to every request, but inquiries chosen for publication will receive movie-related prizes.
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