Tag Archive for 'Bruce Willis'

Grindhouse: Planet Terror

Published
by
Chalupa
on January 8, 2009
in Action, Cult film, Horror, Sci-fi, Thriller and Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

This is the first of the Grindhouse films I saw.  If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino decided to make a couple of B-movie flicks.  The first that I saw, Planet Terror, was directed by Rodriguez and is about a biological outbreak of sorts.

I think the coolest thing about these films is the style.  It looks like something out of the 1970s - the scratchy film, the sound, the commercials, the trailers, etc.  I really wish the fake trailers would be made into real movies.  There are even random bits of the films missing due to a missing reel.  Before this whole digital age, films used to arrive in several reels that were loaded and lined up.  If you’ve seen Fight Club, Tyler Durden talks about the “cigarette mark, ” that little circle in the upper right corner, showing when a new reel has started.  This is something I had never even noticed until it was Tyler brought it to my attention.  Anyways, the style is really cool and the films are shot present day, just in this old style.

Planet Terror is about a military group, I assume rogue, has their hands on some biological weapon.  In a botched sale the chemical is released and starts wrecking havoc on the surronding area.  The only people immune are the soldiers who were trying to buy the weapon in the first place.  They have these gas masks of sorts on and are breathing in some type of antidote.

There is of course a group of heros who are trying to fight off the affected/infected people and these crazed soldiers at the same time.  Being true to the B-genre, there are some nifty little elements like Cherry, played by Rose McGowan, loses her leg and ends up with a stump.  A stump with a machine gun attached.  This proves quite useful later on.  While this film is a bit ridiculous, it’s definitely fun and entertaining.  Liz walked in and said, “gross.”  She happened to catch a couple scenes where the effects of the mysterious chemical was being seen on several townsfolk.

If you’ve seen a Rodriguez or Tarantino film before, you’ll probably recognize a lot of the actors.  This is definitely an ensemble cast effort.  If you get bored in the middle, just stick through to the end.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy it at least a little bit.

Rating: ★★★½☆

Alpha Dog

Published
by
Chalupa
on January 31, 2007
in Based on a true story, Crime, Drama, Dysfunctional, Independent and Kidnapping
. 0 Comments

Here’s another movie I had no idea what it was about before I saw it. Turns out it’s based on true events surrounding Jesse James Hollywood who was one of the youngest people on the FBI’s most wanted list. He eluded the feds for five years before being caught in Brazil in 2005. The story goes that Benjamin Markowitz owed Hollywood $1500 or so so Hollywood and his friends kidnapped Nicholas, Markowitz’s little brother, held him for five days, and killed him in the end.

One might say I just spoiled the movie, but all this information is out there if you want to look any of it up since this is based on actual events. What really drew me in and kept my attention was the reality of the film. It seemed so real. A lot of times you watch a movie and know that what you just saw would never ever happen in real life. This story definitely seemed possible. I think the performances helped make this movie what it is. Directed by Nick Cassavetes, we have Bruce Willis, Emile Hirsch, Vincent Kartheiser, Justin Timberlake, Shawn Hatosy, Harry Dean Stanton and Ben Foster to name a few.

I think I was most surprised by Timberlake. I’ve just always seen him as a fluffy person. I’m not into his music and he’s always been around other people I consider fluffy like Brittany Spears, Christina Aguilera…..and who can forget ‘N Sync? This guy can actually act though. Another great performance from Emile Hirsch. I really like this guy. He seemed to almost be the same person he was in Lords of Dogtown. I mentioned to Liz that he always seems to play roles where he’s a drug addict and a deviant. She then reminded me of some other roles like The Girl Next Door and Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys.

Another interesting aspect was the time period. I’m almost the same age as Jesse James so thinking back about when this happened while watching the film made it a lot more real for me. I really liked watching this movie, but don’t know if or when I’ll watch it again. It’s definitely worth your time to watch it once though. Let me know what you think if you saw this.

Lucky Number Slevin

Published
by
Chalupa
on April 19, 2006
in Black Comedy, Crime, Drama, Neo Noir, Thriller and Twist
. 0 Comments

I was immediately interested in this film after I saw the first trailer. Luckily this wasn’t one of those movies that showed everything cool about it in the 45 seconds they call a ’sneak peak’. This one includes Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley. Sort of a Sin City mix of cast. It was actually interesting to see Lucy Liu in a role where she wasn’t a killer or mobster or just intimidating and crazy in general.

The movie starts out as one huge case of mistaken identity as Slevin is beaten up and hauled in to talk to the two mobsters in town, The Boss and The Rabbi. Slevin was just visiting a friend and that friend just happened to owe money to several people who wanted it back real bad. Things start to go from bad to worse as we see just how bad things are going for Slevin. His friend is nowhere to be found and now he’s in the middle of a war between two men and owing large sums of money to both. Even though this film doesn’t follow Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, it was the first thing I thought of when we were introduced to The Boss and The Rabbi. Here were two powerful men, interlocked in a blood feud or sorts, who faced each other from their concrete and glass buildings across the street from each other. A shaky truce was at hand and neither wanted to fully cross the line and invoke the consequences.

Ultimately, this film is about revenge. True, pure, unadulterated revenge. I think I had things figured out right from the start on who was who and that kind of stuff, but that was ok. The movie still gripped me like a couple of arm rests with cup holders and kept my attention. This was a very good thing since it was about 2am and my 3rd movie of the night at the theater.

There’s some violence and some language and stuff like that. If you can handle it though, you should definitely give this one a watch. It’ll keep you entertained.

Sin City

Published
by
Chalupa
on April 2, 2005
in Action, Based on a comic, Based on a graphic novel, Crime, Drama, Graphic Violence, Multiple story line, Narrated, Neo Noir and Thriller
. 1 Comment

Sin City is a movie adaptation of the graphic novel/stories by Frank Miller. It was co-directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez with a Quentin Tarantino as a guest director. There are so many big name actors/actresses in this movie I’m not even going to try and name them all. Check out the link for yourself.

I’m most definitely not going to make a general blanket statement of telling people to go see this movie. This is definitely a comic book made into a movie - and I’m not talking about X-Men, Spiderman, Batman or The Hulk. There was some great cinematography and I loved what they did with the black and white with artistic splashes of color in all the right places.

As far as content in here that might turn people off there’s a decent amount of violence. Definitely nothing that bothered me, but I’m sure it’ll bother some. There was also a decent amount of T&A that I wasn’t necessarily expecting.

The story was great and captivating. I most definitely didn’t understand everything and will need to see it at least one more time. The timeline was also a bit confusing. Sort of like watching Pulp Fiction for the very first time. I’m going to need to talk to Lofton - I’m sure he can explain it all to me.

Overall I’m gonna have to say I liked this movie. Great acting, great directing, great story. It was intriguing as well as interesting. There’s a good chance I’ll be seeing it again with some other people and will hopefully get a better grasp on things.