Finally, Machete!

Movie Reviewed: Machete

Director: Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis

Date Watched: 14 September 2021

jamesintexas rating: **1/2

Machete is not a good movie, but it is really fun and really having fun. Rodriguez's camera work revels in the marvel of Danny Trejo's quiet, formidable menace, and the first ten minutes is completely gripping in its violence and energy. The plotting and storytelling runs out of steam, and the stunt-casting of so many recognizable faces slows it all down a bit, but there are so many wonderfully silly moments. This film's creation is a triumph, coming from the Grindhouse Trailer as a 90 second fantasy, and Rodriguez stamps the film with his own unique and silly vision. Did I mention how silly it is? Or how glad I am that Machete is in the world?

After a truly brutal origin story in Mexico, Danny Trejo's Machete is an ex-Federale caught up in a web spun by Jeff Fahey to shoot State Senator Robert De Niro, a vocal proto-Trump politician. When the plan goes awry through a double cross, Machete must seek out allies like taco truck owner and resistance leader Michelle Rodriguez, evade capture from an ICE agent Jessica Alba, and even his estranged brother Padre Cheech Marin. Trejo is always winning in this role, proving fully capable of all the fighting and snarling, delivering lines like "Machete don't text" with steely aplomb. The film's imagination extends to its fight scenes and scenery chewing, especially from Don Johnson as a white supremacist vigilante leader and Cheech. It suffers, a bit, from not having Trejo on screen as much as he could be, but maybe that was by design? I mean, when you've got Jeff Fahey, Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, and Shea Whigham, it is hard to share the screen time. 

Machete is never not fun, and Rodriguez has crafted an ode to Danny Trejo, silly movie-making, and taking shots at our country's deep hypocrisy with immigration and labor. Completely ridiculous in a wonderful way.

The Magnificence of Kathleen Turner and William Hurt

 

Movie Reviewed: Body Heat

Director: Lawrence Kasdan

Date Watched: 5 September 2021

jamesintexas rating: ***1/2

Pretty much a classic, shot in the sweltering heat, with tons of noirish angles and performances, Body Heat features William Hurt as a lawyer drawn into a relationship with a unsatisfied housewife played by Kathleen Turner with great aplomb. Very workmanlike, meticulous, shaded with great supporting turns by Mickey Rourke and Ted Danson, Body Heat builds and builds towards its completely satisfying ending, and I think that this film means I need to return to Double Indemnity soon. ASAP.

Time Marches On: 1986 and The Big Easy

Movie Reviewed: The Big Easy

Director: Jim McBride

Date Watched: 5 September 2021

jamesintexas rating: **1/2

I think that I may have liked this more if I had seen it when it came out in 1986. Despite committed performances by Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin and an impossibly impeccable sense of place with New Orleans locales, The Big Easy lacks storytelling grace and style, seems deeply uncomfortable/ugly in its treatment of both women and African-Americans, and it lingers as a quirky, kinda fun mystery with lots of great touches, Quaid's Capote-esque lawyer among them. 

I think that director Jim McBride's commitment to the light corruption of the NOPD overshadows the gruesomeness of the storytelling and its implications. Ned Beatty does what he can as the beleaguered police captain dating Quaid's mom, but the real challenge here is Barkin's character, a new DA. She is not treated respectfully; instead, she is an object of uptight ridicule often, objectified, kidnapped by police officers, and generally harassed. The chemistry between her and Quaid is apparent and palpable, but the film could have taken itself to some better, more interesting places if there's was a connection of intellectual equals, of debate and ideas as well as the physical. By reducing her to a series of traits and focusing on her ineptness or nervousness, it makes this always Quaid's picture, and his energy drives everything. The mystery is kind of fun, though the police work to solve it involves...finding a car already in police custody... Chinatown, this is not. But, it was fun, breezy, and the music on the soundtrack and in the film performed live was incredible, as was Quaid's commitment to a Cajun accent. A bit artless and clumsy, The Big Easy collapses in on itself, but I enjoyed watching it once.

Squandered Squad

Movie Reviewed: The Suicide Squad

Director: James Gunn

Date Watched: 28 August 2021

jamesintexas rating: *

Just not very good. Despite Margot Robbie's game, fun performance as Harley Quinn, a walking shark person, and Idris Elba's intensity, the film seems sloppy, lazy, and lacking in fun, especially when Robbie is not onscreen. 

James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy, for me, was one of the top films of that year, a master class is silliness, fun music, quirky storytelling, and kinetic filmmaking. This film lacks that imagination and verve, I think, and it seems hung up on presenting lots and lots of characters, far more than we can care about. John Cena's Peacemaker is a silly highlight, but the giant special effects extravaganza is not as much fun as just watching characters riff and dig on each other. 

The Suicide Squad is not incredibly memorable, and so it goes in 2021. I am still searching for the best (or I'll just take simply a good) film to hang my hat on. This ain't it. Margot Robbie, to be clear, is a national treasure in her committed wackiness, though Birds of Prey was much more fun and stylized.

Judgment Day: Instant and Timeless Classic T2

 

Movie Reviewed: Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Director: James Cameron

Date Watched: 8 July 2021

jamesintexas rating: ****

A potent, mesmerizing mix of action, jaw-dropping special effects that hold up, and powerful storytelling. Schwarzenegger has never been better; less is more from his stoic, Frankenstein's monster-performance. This time, I was moved by Edward Furlong's vulnerable performance as young John Connor and the relationship with Sarah Connor (the always great but really great here Linda Hamilton). The ending closes on shots of the open road, clearly a reach towards the driving of the first film, but overall, the film wrestles with a fiercely determined villain, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), clad in the terrifying carte blanche uniform of the LAPD. Cameron's storytelling, with broad strokes, always appeals to me. A classic.

Day of Truth

 

Movie Reviewed: Training Day

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Date Watched: 27 June 2021

jamesintexas rating: ***1/2

Compelling and eminently watchable.  Denzel Washington’s magnetic, explosive Alonzo bounces off Ethan Hawke’s more internalized performance as Officer Hoyt. An artifact of 2001, the film consists of multiple great scenes and moments, with crisp action and dialogue, powerful music, and a sense of place.

The Best of the Mohicans (And 90's Action Adventure Films)

Movie Reviewed: Last of the Mohicans

Director: Michael Mann

Date Watched: 22 June 2021

jamesintexas rating: ****

Simply put, one of the greatest action-adventure films of all-time. Emotionally resonant and beautifully shot, Mann's masterpiece features a tour-de-force, visceral performance by the brilliant Daniel Day-Lewis as Hawkeye, adopted son of Chingachgook (Russell Means) and a stirring compliment to that in Madeline Stowe's Cora Munro. The more I watch and study this film, the more I think it is about grief, loss, survival, and the inevitability of time. Mann has crafted something incredibly memorable here, something important and beautiful.

No Solace This Time Around

 

Movie Reviewed: Quantum of Solace

Director: Marc Forster

Date Watched: 22 June 2021

jamesintexas rating: *1/2

A bizarre low point after the marvelous Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace feels disconnected, discombobulated, and a film in disarray, lacking enough scenes with the villain Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), Spectre (or Quantum or whatever they are called). I thought Olga Kurylenko's performance as haunted Camille was strong, and Jeffrey Wright's return as Felix Lighter is always welcome. But Marc Forster seems to be somewhat at fault here: strange choices that defuse action sequences; cross-cutting with horses racing and Tosca operas; and the abrupt ending that just seems to short circuit everything into shooting. Nice moments, but what a mess, and what a let-down. And to me now, in 2021, it feels so derivative of the far superior Bourne films.

The Royale Standard: Bond is Bond

Movie Reviewed: Casino Royale

Director: Martin Campbell

Date Watched: 20 June 2021

jamesintexas rating: ****

It just doesn't get better. I think it is because of the ferocity of Craig's debut performance, the physicality and brutish brutality, as well as the searing performance by Eva Green as the complex Vesper Lynd. Martin Campbell's steady direction whisks us from the Bahamas to Montenegro to Venice with a crackling opening scene and both homages and deep seeds of the Bond character and ethos.

Shuttering, Quivering, Psychological Horror: Shutter Island Soars

Film Reviewed: Shutter Island

Director: Martin Scorsese

Date Watched: 20 June 2021

jamesintexas rating: ***1/2

Netflix

Genuinely terrifying, full of scenes that linger with incredible performances, I'm a big fan of this Scorsese tone poem of a film. DiCaprio is eminently watchable as a US Marshal in search of a missing patient on a Civil War fort off the coast of Massachusetts. Highlights include Patricia Clarkson, Ben Kingsley, Ted Levine, and Max Von Sydow in delicious supporting performances. The ending is devastating, and the nightmare sequences are truly horrifying. I'm a huge fan.

Burn After Watching, Seeing John Malkovich Scream and Curse

Movie Reviewed: Burn After Reading

Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen

Date Watched: 30 May 2021

jamesintexas rating: ***1/2

Endless fun. Watching John Malkovich scream and curse, George Clooney sweat and squirm, and Brad Pitt dance to music only he can hear is exactly what I needed today. A reminder of what a great actress Frances McDormand is (and Richard Jenkins for that matter), the loopy, silly plot covers a great deal of ground with the CIA, the Russians, a disc of memoirs, duplicitous marriages and affairs, insecurities and loyalty tests, and ferociously unsettling violence. Well-done.

Gritty Fun & Vengeance

Movie Reviewed: True Grit

Director: Joe and Ethan Coen

Date Watched: 30 May 2021

jamesintexas rating: ****

I just think this is a perfect film. Bridges is Tuben "Rooster" Cogburn, one-eyed overweight US Marshall, a curmudgeon who is willing, eventually, to do the right thing. Matt Damon is LeBouef, (La-Beef), a Texan of honor and principles. And the debut of Hailee Steinfeld as Maddie, the avenger of her father's murder, no nonsense and swift enough to out maneuver a bad deal and the turns and twists of Rooster and LeBouef, all delivered in a clipped, quick, fiercely intelligent cadence. I love The Coen Brothers, and I love this film, especially more having just read Portis's magnificent novel.

Two National Treasures: Chan and Tucker

Movie Reviewed: Rush Hour

Director: Brett Ratner

Date Watched: 18 May 2021

jamesintexas rating: **1/2

Chris Tucker is anarchic fun, and Jackie Chan is a delight, always. The film rarely rises to the level of these two performers, but it captures a moment in time when both men, eminently watchable, were on top of the world. Tucker is so much fun, and Chan is as great as Fred Astaire or Charlie Chaplin or both! The rest of the film is forgettable, but I'm thankful for this time capsule of these two marvelous performers who are impossible to ignore onscreen.

The Invisible Masterpiece: Pandemic-Struck

Movie Reviewed: The Invisible Man

Director: Leigh Whannell

Date Watched: 30 April 2021

jamesintexas rating: ****

An instant classic, The Invisible Man is the perfect movie to watch in a quiet, dark house with everyone asleep, branches casting shadows on the window curtains, creaking sounds on the wood floors. It is completely captivating in its soundscapes and establishment of fear. Elizabeth Moss should have been nominated for Best Actress for her visceral, raw performance as a survivor of an abusive relationship that swerves into the oncoming lane of a high-tech madman science fiction nightmare. I cannot say enough about the fear established in each scene because of the patient, masterful direction, the long shots and use of background space to ominous effect. There are genuine scares in this film, ones that will linger for years in my mind, and I think that this movie deserved a much-wider audience and much more acclaim. 

It came out right at the start of the pandemic but has always been on my radar. It features great performances, genuine fear, and a confidence and assuredness in its storytelling that lets the audience always feel that they are in good, capable hands. Terrifying. A masterpiece of suspense.