Hello, is it me you’re looking for? That’s rhetorical because I am here anyway, manning the controls of the Mockingbird Movie Falcon as we fly through an asteroid field of movies good, bad or otherwise. While it is The Dame’s destiny to do further research on Fassbender’s special talents, it is mine to fly my Mock X-wing straight at the monolithic horror that is George Lucas’s vision (coming at you in 3D!) and fire two torpedoes at Jar Jar Binks. Yes, I am mockblogging when the supposedly retired destroyer of my childhood is releasing a film and my life has new focus. Hopefully, it’s not a trap.
Cue the Cantina Music (Note: do not, we can’t afford it):
SEE: Rampart
One way to avoid cinematic travesties and the fan boys who love them is to see Rampart, a film about a degenerate cop on a downward spiral in Los Angeles. It is written by James Ellroy and as such will have that pulp-y, twisted L.A. noir feel, and the acting, in particular Woody Harrelson’s performance, is said to be stellar. A film that explores race relations and violence in Los Angeles can be challenging and heartbreaking but that is always more fulfilling than heartless and soul-deadening with a character that is racist in conception.* Plus, I feel like it’s good to support art that endeavors to portray Los Angeles as the complex organism that it is, where class and ethnicities push and pull, especially if that art is something other than the fluff-fest that is The Closer. ** If all of this seems like a bit of a downer, there is always Chronicle, certified to be awesome by the Nerd Elite and written by the son of John Landis, a director who never went back and added CGI effects to An American Werewolf in London.
RENT: The Films of Walter Hill
Not all genre films with unique visions are tampered with and repackaged into a gross, commercialized pile of ill-conceived back story and poor performances; some remain perfectly strange reflections of the times they were made in and ironically become classics, cult or otherwise. Sometimes you need a little weird, you know? Wakes you up a bit and distracts you from the cynical world- like reading this blog or doing tequila shots. Such is the case with Walter Hill’s films, from The Driver to The Warriors to Streets of Fire, all of which are frightening, beautiful, odd and most of all compelling. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll ponder Diane Lane’s lack of lip synching abilities (Helen Keller would’ve done a better job) and you won’t have to hear a virgin blather on about pod races and Darth Maul. In conclusion, this paragraph is just an excuse to post the trailer for Streets of Fire, my new favorite thing.
SKIP: GEORGE LUCAS
We have arrived. This is the moment. The skies have opened up and lo, I get to fulfill my Mockingbirds at the Movies duty by covering the most mockable of all movies, Star Wars Episode I. (If the blog had existed when The Crystal Skull came out, this would have already happened.) Now you will find a much more articulate breakdown of this cinematic travesty in the corresponding chapter of Simon Pegg’s memoirs, but let’s not ruin my fun. This flick, its nature and the principle of its existence, is a veritable buffet of NO: it is condescending, cynical, poorly conceived, poorly written, on the whole poorly executed, completely lacking heart, has spurious motives behind it, wastes great acting talent and is totally unnecessary. So here it is: DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE IT’S A TRAP. Okay, that was a bit anticlimactic, but I think it says it, in a t-shirt ready kind of way. A t-shirt that I will trademark and mass produce and sue anyone who steals it and then become that which I hate. Circle of life.
THE REST: Denzel vs. Not Chris Pine…some chick fails to understand forgetting Channing Tatum is a good thing…EWAN McGREGOR IS NAKED AGAIN…the story of a female soldier returning home…a gorgeous animated movie about a Latin music duo…let us bask in the glory of The Rock aka The Countess’s future ex.
Han shot first (so let it go, little man),
Madame Taunt
*Full disclosure: I have never seen The Phantom Menace, something I am proud of and about which I am quite smug.
**Seriously, this is one of the few shows that actually addresses the fact that non-Beverly Hills types exist in this town. Southland does, too.
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