E Y E W A N N A B E

I had listened to the Beatles before Backbeat...I liked them a little bit.  Backbeat changed me.  The movie changed the way I looked at music - it changed how I looked at some sixties band.

Backbeat told me the story I never knew about the Beatles...how they went to Hamburg on their first tour.  There was no Ringo...there was a drummer named Pete Best.  And there was a bassist named Stu Sutcliffe, a good friend of John Lennon's.  Stu wasn't great at the bass, he was an art student, but he was along for the ride.  The boys played in a shitty bar for 10 hours a night, high on drugs, fucking every chick they could find, having a great time, drinking, dancing....living it up as crazy 19 year-old rock-n-rollers.

Then Stu meets Ingrid.  Ingrid is beautiful, into the art scene, and they fall for each other.  Ingrid gets the Beatles into the German style and suddenly they are wearing weird haircuts and leather jackets.  Suddenly...they are becoming more and more like the Beatles.

The acting is wonderful...American Stephen Dorff pulls off a career high as Sutcliffe and joined by the awesome Ian Hart as John Lennon, and Sheryl Lee as Ingrid.  ALSO the film was directed by Iain Softley who would go on to direct a little movie called HACKERS!  That's right...I said Hackers!

The soundtrack was songs from that era done by a superband that consisted of:
Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum): vocals
Greg Dulli (The Afghan Whigs): vocals
Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth): guitar
Don Fleming (Gumball): guitar
Mike Mills (R.E.M.): bass guitar
Dave Grohl (Nirvana): drums

Yeah...talk about a fucking soundtrack!  And it kicked major ass as well!

But the movie isn't a Beatles movie.  I mean it is, but it isn't.  It's a well-crafted drama about the man who left the Beatles for art and love (Pete Best wasn't so lucky...he was forced out for Ringo Starr). 

The film changed my perceptions of the Beatles.  I bought some Ingrid photographs.  I read every book I could about the Beatles early history.  I watched their films.  I started listening to all of their music.  They went from some sixties band to the band that changed rock-n-roll TWICE, invented the concept album, invented the music video, invented multi-layer albums...and more.  It was this movie that did it for me and I still love watching it at least once a year to this very day.

NEXT UP:  No, venti is twenty. Large is large. In fact, tall is large and grande is Spanish for large. Venti is the only one that doesn't mean large. It's also the only one that's Italian. Congratulations, you're stupid in three languages.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I first saw District B13.  It was a French karate movie...in French...that KICKED ASS.  Actually it is not karate but parkour...which has really entered into the American mindset since this film.  But B13, starring Parkour's creator David Belle is one hell of an incredible martial arts flick.

The first twenty minutes alone is mind-numbing...in an incredible way.  When a gang leader and his men show up to confront Belle and get back their stolen drugs...Belle takes off and actually uses the ENTIRE BUILDING as his playground/weapon.  The man is just ... there are no words.  There are NO WORDS.  To watch him as he bounces off walls, doors, down poles, into windows...it's stuff that Jackie Chan wishes he could do...back in his prime!

Belle is joined by Cyril Rafaelli - who also showed off his Parkour skills in Live Free or Die Hard.  Together the two have to stop a bomb going off in the ghetto.  That's the plot...and who cares about the plot.  Because really it is just an excuse to watch these two guys kick major ass.

There's a sequel that actually came out on DVD just two weeks ago...but the problem with that film is that there is probably too much plot...maybe 10 more minutes of plot.  That's wasting time!  Here the plot is secondary to the incredible action.  The jaw will drop several times watching this incredible flick...

Director Pierre Morel has also gone onto great things like Liam Neeson's Taken and an upcoming brand new Dune movie!

TOMORROW:  I always said, if I had to fuck a guy... I mean had to, if my life depended on it... I'd fuck Elvis.

I love Get Shorty...it is very much a near-perfect comedy in every way.  It took Pulp Fiction to bring back John Travolta but it took his next film, Get Shorty, to cement him as the cool MF he is.

The cast is top notch: Travolta, Rene Russo, Gene Hackman, and Danny DeVito.  PLUS Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, Harvey Keitel, Jon Gries, and Dennis Farina.  That is just a great cast to have in a film.

The plot is onpoint and is actually BETTER then the Elmore Leonard book it is based on - a rarity in the book-to-film world (Be Cool, in contrast, was an AWESOME book and a HORRIBLE film).  Travolta is a loanshark collector who goes to Hollywood to collect.  But his Chili Palmer is a HUGE movie freak and once there is able to get in with a gorgeous B-movie actress, an out-of-date director, and a huge movie star.

I'm not certain what it is about the film that makes it so rewatchable.  This is one of the film's greatest assets...that no matter how many times one watches it Get Shorty NEVER gets old.  It's probably just everything rolling together so well from the actors to the direction to the script.  Travolta has SO MUCH fun with Chili.  It's just a treat to see a character so in love with films and be right in the middle of LA.  He's a kid in a candy store.  Rene Russo was just BEAUTIFUL in this film and the two of them worked so well together.

Throw in a bunch of awesome bad guys (Lindo, Farina, Gandolfini) who all think they can take on Miami's coolest mobster and the film just speeds along with stopping.  There's never a dull moment in the film and the film simply leaves you begging for more.  It's quite a shame that the sequel was so incredibly bad...bad enough to almost not want to mention it again.

But I hold Get Shorty in such high esteem that it has remained in my top 10 since 1995.  It was perfect then and is still perfect now.  It's only beaten by one comedy - but I'll get that a bit later.

TOMORROW: It's funny how people see me and treat me, since I'm really just a simple, boring person.

There is no mocking that The Muppet Movie is on my top 25.  The Muppet Movie is just incredible...it succeeds on so many levels.  It is a witty, warm comedy full of unforgettable songs and almost every star the seventies had to offer.

Yes it is the Muppets - and again - I don't care.  The movie is surreal and brilliant beyond belief.  There are such witty lines and great set-ups like Fozzie and Kermit driving.  Kermit is looking at the map and tells Fozzie to 'bear right.'  Fozzie turns right back to him with 'frog left.'  That line still makes me laugh to this day.  There's other great stuff - alot of it with the Electric Mayhem.  When Fozzie and Kermit arrive at their place they fall asleep.  When they awake Dr. Teeth and his gang have read the script up to this point, so there's no need to rehash everything that's happened already.

Guest stars...this movie had the motherload: Richard Pryor, Edgar Bergen, Dom DeLuise, Milton Berle, Madeline Kahn, Mel Brooks, Carol Kane, Cloris Leachman, Orson Welles, James Coburn, Elliott Gould, Steve Martin, Bob Hope, and Telly Savalas.  It was great having alot of that Mel Brooks crew in the film...hopefully the new Muppets/Jason Segel movie will do the same with the Judd Apatow crew.

The music is awesome in the flick...it was nominated for two Oscars...one for the score and one for the song Somewhere Over The Rainbow.  Some of the other songs are MADLY addictive including Moving Right Along and Can You Picture That - the totally badass Dr. Teeth song.

Truth be told is that every time I watch this movie I smile, I laugh, and I sing the songs for days on end.  I root for Kermit and the gang to beat Doc Hopper and I just get lost in all the magic.  There's really no other kids movie like it and it is by far the best kids movie ever produced.  Yes better then Wall*E and Toy Story and whatever else you can throw at me. 

AND it is that good.  Better then Dances With Wolves and Shawshank Redemption good.  Don't believe me?  Watch the movie...just go watch it...and no matter what age you are you'll be shocked at how amazing The Muppet Movie is.

TOMORROW: He was a good man, a good person. It's not fair! We are not just helpless children! He had a life! Do you hear me? I mean, do YOU hear ME? What's the matter with you?

Dances With Wolves just FEELS real.  Everything is perfect in the film from the settings, the dialogue, the sets, the acting, the costumes...it truly feels like we are there with Kevin Costner's John Dunbar during the Civil War.  There are other Civil War films like Gettysburg - it is a great film but seems to lack the emotional connection that Dances With Wolves brings.

I'll get this out of the way...Dances With Wolves won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Directing, Writing Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, and Original Music Score.  It also snatched the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture (Drama).

Costner's Dunbar is a lost spirit who almost lost his leg in the Civil War.  He realizes that change is coming and wants to live in the American Frontier before industry and war make it disappear forever.  It's a time slightly before the Wild West and Dunbar is in an area that is not a big city.  His closest neighbors are Indians...who aren't that friendly to him.

Dunbar's transformation from soldier to Indian is told remarkably.  Green Mile's Graham Greene and Battlestar's Mary McDonnell are just two indians in the tribe - though Mary is an adopted daughter.  Her Indian is WAY better then her English. 

Everything is perfect in the film - down to the Indian language which is spoken through most of the film.  It's not dumbed-down for the audience - the Indians speak their native language and you have to read subtitles.  No English!

The film is a rare modern epic and the longer version is even better.  I actually don't own that version...I just have the regular 3 and 1/2 hour one.  This is Costner at his finest moment and he was rewarded greatly by the Academy.  For me it is a simple tale of survival and doing what makes you happy, even though those around you may shun you for it. 

Plus the movie has a cute wolf in it...that's always a plus.

TOMORROW: "Bear left."  "Frog right."

The next must-see film is already out in France and hopefully, with Luc Besson writing and directing this flick, it will make it here to the states!  Plus it is a comic book film!  Sure it's a French comic...but it is a comic book film nonetheless.  The trailer looks amazing and Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec (The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec) looks like it could be a franchise for Besson.  Did I mention how fucking pretty this movie looks?!?!?!?!  CAN'T WAIT!!!

20. The Usual Suspects

Usual Suspects is just a great movie.  Even after you know the plot and its amazing ending you still don't get it...you can't wrap your head around it.  Why was Keyser Soze hanging out with these criminals in the first place?  Did he want to make sure the guy who knows his face is dead...by also showing EVERYONE ELSE his face!!?!?!  The movie is still a mind-fuck.

Directed by the awesome Bryan Singer (who actually worked in the same office as my Mom at one point - true story!) the film is told sort-of in reverse.  We see that a big mission failed to kill this guy and we learn the story through Oscar winner Kevin Spacey who is the only man of a small group of criminals who survived.  Spacey PWNED as Verbal Kint and he won that Oscar as proof.  Also Christopher McQuarie, another local guy who wrote the flick, was rewarded with the gold statue as well.

The performances are awesome.  Stephen Baldwin gives an inspired performance which is perhaps only overshadowed by his awesome job in Biodome.  You couldn't understand half the things Benecio Del Toro was saying in the movie which made him even more awesome.  Kevin Pollak acted like a badass for the only time in his career - yet he did so quite believeably.  And Gabriel Byrne, UTHER PENDRAGON HIMSELF, is always kickass but was even more so as the man who could be Keyser Soze.  Pete Postlewhaite was good as the lawyer and James Cameron's future wife was...prettyish.  She didn't do much...but she looked do-able.

Everyone truly went on to bigger things.  Spacey won the Oscar for this then would go on to win another.  Del Toro would win an Oscar just a couple years later.  Baldwin would remain the brother of Alec.  Singer would make two great X-Men movies and a gay Superman film.  The film was truly a start for some talented people and gave them a chance to shine.

It's a potboiler...it's a great thriller...and if you've never seen it before you'll never guess the ending which is one of the best ever done in Hollywood (maybe only trailing Shawshank, The Sixth Sense...and yeah...Empire Strikes Back).  Getting to the end is quite a journey and makes it so worth it to take the journey over and over again.

TOMORROW: Leave this lopsided house. Do not come back until he give you those things, with both hands open.

Star Trek finally saw a second life thanks to the release of ST: The Motion Picture.  It was Wrath of Khan that finally saw the ultimate Star Trek.  To this day it is the best Star Trek EVER done.  It brought everything from the television show and filmed it into a most kickassish script with a real bad guy, real drama, amazing music, and a ending that was just brilliant. 

I'm going to talk about the ending for a moment...the Enterprise and the Reliant are in this storm cloud where they really can't rely on sensors to fire at each other.  When the ship's get close then they can fire due to line of sight.  Khan is looking around in the Reliant, looking to kill Kirk and the Enterprise.  Suddenly they realise what Khan is doing.  He's flying the ship with a 2 dimensional thinking.  He's going right to left...but nothing thinking about going UP OR DOWN.  Kirk takes the ship down, the Reliant goes past, and Kirk brings the ship back up - blasting the Reliant.  It is just...the most amazing plot device ever.  It's just two ships...and the drama is perhaps unrivaled in space fantasy.

The movie also treats the characters well.  This is the first film where not only are the characters older but they REALIZE that they are getting older...that perhaps they won't be going on in their duties forever.  It's also about just because you are getting older that doesn't mean that you still can't kick some major ass.  As Spock, Bones, and especially Kirk come to grips with this - with amazing results.

Of course bringing back Ricardo Montalban, who appeared as Khan in one episode of the original series, was brilliant.  The man had the best costume ever...his chest was just OUT FOR EVERYONE TO SEE...people actually though he had a chest costume.  Nah man...that is ALL Montalban.  Khan was great - he was quiet, but cocky, self-assured, and wanted nothing but vengeance.  It's a shame because he really could have conquered if not for his own vanity.  But I guess that is the downfall of most great men in history.  Khan is the ultimate bad guy out of all these movies.  I kind of remember Nero from the new flick...but I've watched that about four times since its release.  There was the Borg and Borg Queen...there was Fake Picard guy...there was Christopher Lloyd...but yeah...those are all after-thoughts to Khan - the ultimate Trek baddie.

Star Trek II is the bestest the series will ever see.  It just made Star Trek great and the whole end sequence with its sweeping music is just outright brilliant.

TOMORROW: How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?

John, Paul, George, and Ringo.  In 1964 the four lads from Britian were on top of the world.  Before fame had hit them they had all seen their idol Elvis up on the big screen.  Now it was their turn along with director Richard Lester (Superman II, the even worser Superman III, and the subpar Beatles flick Help!).

The plot is very simple: It's Beatlesmania!  The Fab Four are off going to do a televised concert.  The four, their manager (Norman Rossington - playing a fictionalized Brian Epstein), and Paul's dirty-old-man grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell) are all along for this ride.  There's lots of music here, lots of girls pining for the lads, and lots of running (everyone chases the Beatles!)

Underneath it all the film has an amazing Marx Brothers-like quality.  They pull it off better than most Marx Brothers films!  Obviously The Beatles have a great rapport with each other and this comes off wonderful on film.

Though it's a film the movie has a documentary-like quality.  It often doesn't even feel scripted.  You know they are "saying lines" but it really feels like a camera was just along as the Beatles were doing things.  It's what makes the film a masterpiece.  It's a great time capsule of one of the world's best bands.  Brambell steals many a'scenes as the scheming grandfather always looking to make a buck off of his nephew and his bandmates.  It also had some kickass new Beatles music like A Hard Day's Night, I Wanna Be Your Man, and Can't Buy Me Love.

TOMORROW: Adopted Indian seeks out other Indians.  Violence and love ensue.

Comic Film Reviews: Push

Reviewed by Ryan McLelland

Kung Fu Reviews: Meals on Wheels

Reviewed by Ryan McLelland

It's a hard toss-up for me trying to decide Jackie Chan's best film. It's a narrow thought process for me as it comes down to Dragons Forever and the weirdly titled "Wheels on Meals". Both films feature the amazing trio of Jackie, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao...'brothers' since their early days and all film stars in their own right. But the comedy in Wheels on Meals works the best and the action scenes are amazing, with Biao really strutting his mobility. 

The plot is thin: Jackie and Biao are cousins who work a 'gut-truck' in Spain. Sammo is an acquaintance who takes over his employer's private detective agency when his boss goes on the run. Someone hires Sammo to find a beautiful girl (Lola Forner - also seen in Armour of God) whom Jackie and Biao have already had the pleasure of meeting. She's a pickpocket and the daughter of Biao's dad's girlfriend (the dad and the mom met at the local insane asylum. What love!). Anyway it seems that Silvia is being chased by mobsters so she can't claim a lot of money that should be coming to her. Bad guys give chase, Jackie and Biao help her, and Sammo runs in to try to get his way.

The three have been in a number of films together (Project A being the other film that features the three as equals) but even with the not-so great plot you'll be surprised at how well the acting is, how the jokes are still funny even while you are reading them (and don't go for something dubbed, the film is much better in Chinese), and how great the kung-fu scenes are. You'll be surprised by Jackie and Biao's skills on a skateboard and while the Jackie Vs. Benny the Jet fight scene in Dragons Forever might be a bit better, you still HAVE one in this movie.

For amazing comedy, action, and great kung-fu, that is directed by the pudgy Sammo, and taking the three men out of Hong Kong a la Way of the Dragon - this is the film for you. Fans of Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao, and Sammo Hung will be hard pressed to find something better, though Dragons Forever comes very, very close.

As for the reason the flick isn't titled 'Meals on Wheels' - it actually boils down to some Chinese superstition - where a flick that had been put out by the studio (Megaforce) failed - so they didn't want to release another movie that started with an "M" in case it failed.  That is actually a true story...

Comic Film Reviews: Whiteout

Reviewed by Ryan McLelland

Whiteout is an adaptation of the Greg Rucka Oni Press comic of the same name.  It sat on the shelf for two years and was finally released last year to zero box office while being blasted by critics.

After watching the flick I don't understand where all the bashing came from.  The film is a decent thriller with Kate Beckinsale - who is very easy on the eyes.  She's joined by The Spirit's Gabriel Macht, Alien's Tom Skerritt, and STOMP THE YARD'S COLUMBUS SHORT!  With a cast like that, how can you lose?

Maybe because the movie comes off like a case of CSI: Antarctica - where Whiteout takes place.  As the members of a science team prepare to leave Antarctica before the winter whiteout hits, US Marshall Carrie Stetko is told that a body has been found.  Can she find the killer before everyone leaves?  Is she going to be stuck in Antarctica for the winter with the killer?  Or will the killer leave with some mysterious stuff found on a old Russian  plane.  Anything good on that plane...something worth KILLING OVER!?!?!?

The flick is directed by Domenic Sena who has brought us other decent-but-not-great fare like Kalifornia, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Swordfish.

So where does the flick go wrong?  The acting is good enough, there's a decent amount of action, the story is original, and the directing is solid.  Maybe Whiteout just looked better on paper.  Maybe audiences didn't really care about the story.  Given it is a simple story - but it was INTERESTING.  It was fun seeing the Antartic weather conditions and how that limited and affected the characters and the story.  Antarctica is a vicious beast of a continent and placing a murder story in there is original enough for me.

Besides...we have Underworld, Stomp The Yard, and The Spirit all kicking major ass in the same movie!  Can you ask for anything more?  I guess....some people can.

Comic Film Reviews: Tales of the Black Freighter

Reviewed by Ryan McLelland