This Week at The Hand Grenade’s Headquarters #24

Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007)

It’s been the subject of much heated debate that cinephilia has increasingly populated the world of film (perhaps this is why there’s been so many remakes, reboots, spin-offs and sequels lately). Whether this is a good or bad thing for new films, it’s certainly a field to be approached, and it has in the works of several directors who showed their passion for the overlooked pleasures of certain films. The leading filmmaker reaching back to “trash” cinema, as Pauline Kael would call it, has been Quentin Tarantino, but he’s not alone.

Edgar Wright, the British director of deliriously flashing parody comedies, is one of the major figures in this revision of popcorn film conventions, and Hot Fuzz is his homage to the cop features that have so gracefully filled our screens with explosions and catch phrases. In glorious scenes bursting with quick cuts, spinning cameras, good-cop / bad-cop relationships and predictable plot twists, Wright and his faithful team – which includes producer Nira Park, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost – create a thrilling, awesome parody of action movie clichés while admiting the guilty pleasure that films like Point Break and Bad Boys II bring to their audiences (yes, even Michael Bay gets some love here, although there are also references to more polished classics like Chinatown and The Wicker Man). But unlike many of them, Hot Fuzz comes with one surprisingly funny surprise after the next, including self-references and the whole lot. Not to miss if you believe cool guys don’t look at explosions.

Furious 7 (James Wan, 2015)

Over-the-top doesn’t begin to describe the seventh installment of Fast and Furious. The notion of top has been smashed, crashed, burned, shot at, punched in the face and ran over with a bullet-proof car-tank. It doesn’t even exist. And honestly, we can only thank it for doing that, because the middle ground wouldn’t have sufficed. Furious 7 has a bigger cast (including Jason Statham, Kurt Russell, Djimon Hounsou and… Tony Jaa?), bigger effects, bigger stunt sequences and bigger ambitions, and the result is a fistful of fun. It proves that action films work strictly in two distinct ways: you keep it real and clear, or you blow up cars with helicopters.

The film, bound to be the year’s top grosser if the second Avengers doesn’t get in the way, still has features that don’t do justice to its greater moments, most notably the open sexism of the street races and the plot holes in the logistics, but it is, without a shadow of a doubt, an alternate example of the escalation of the absurd that Hot Fuzz loves so much. It’s the best film Michael Bay never did, and in its sincere interest in multiculturalism, it’s a much more respectable achievement. And, sincerely, a film with Vin Diesel, The Rock, Jason Statham, Tony Jaa and Kurt Russell, with actual visual clarity and actual bad-ass one liners? Good enough a dumb-awesome movie for me.

Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (Prachya Pinkaew, 2003)

Ting (Tony Jaa) is a villager from Ban Nong Pradu who offers himself as a candidate to rescue the head of the village’s Buddha statue. Soon before the head is taken, he’s reminded by his master of the responsibilities that his powerful skills require, as they might get him in danger and possibly hurt others. When he gets to the city, he, well, gets in danger and kills and severely injures others, directly and indirectly, showing little to no remorse. It happens, I guess.

That could just be the same innocence typical of most martial arts films, but Ong Bak, for being more serious than the average, has this flaw too exposed for its own good. The films too full of action movie clichés and stereotypical character, and it’s not until its final sequence that we actually get to marvel at Tony Jaa’s incredible set of skills. The rest feels too forced in its slow motion sequences and instant replays, and the choreography feels too out of touch with the rest of the story, as if they went for whatever tested his limits better. Since there’s not much of a story and the fighting takes too long to get really good, the film is something of a disappointment.

Mad Max (George Miller, 1979)

Perfect car stunts, endless blue skies and young Mel Gibson’s butt shine in Mad Max, George Miller’s violent, stylish film debut. Until 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, it was the film with the highest profit-to-budget ratio of all time, and for very good reasons: if the overly dramatic musical cues, the dystopian setting and the wild vocabulary of the film (the bandits often feel like an evolution of the droog system from A Clockwork Orange) screams cult classic, its gorgeous landscapes, iconic performances and depth-friendly, entrancing camerawork suggest the skills of a professional director, and a great one. The Mad Max franchise, which will have a new sequel this summer starring Tom Hardy, started with an energetic film with violence that verges on amorality but is always massively compelling.

The Rock (Michael Bay, 1996)

I couldn’t help but think of Tony Zhou’s enlightening video essay about Michael Bay’s directorial style every single minute of The Rock, probably his masterwork but still a disappointing experience. In his essay, Tony nails down the problem with the visual style behind every one of his films, and The Rock is no exception. Set in San Francisco, the film tells the story of Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage), a biochemist who works for the FBI and is summoned for the biggest mission of his life: alongside ex-con John Mason (Sean Connery), he must stop a group of rebel soldiers in their blackmail operation against the country, otherwise they will blow up San Francisco with V/X gas, said to be more powerful than napalm and incredibly deadly. But if the demands of the rebels (and the hostage situation they impose) give the film a thought-provoking tone, Bay sacrifices it by dealing with the topic with kid gloves.

It took me about two minutes to foresee everything I could expect from the film: right from the opening credits there is a massive cluster of information and visual elements, but this overblown abundance of material doesn’t work here; there is so much going on nothing stands out very well. Every scene is pumped to the maximum volume, every line is made of exposition, and every shot is looking for maximum impact. Bay applies clichés like one would apply ketchup and salt to french fries, and while The Rock isn’t as offensive as his later films, it does feel exploitative in its unsentimental killing spree and its complete lack of camaraderie. The only compensating factor in the film is its leading duo: Cage, which feels tamed here by the cheesiness of the script, nevertheless has more than enough time to give the film some of the humanity it needs, and Connery, who has by far the best lines in the film, is a touch of class that would be erased from the rest of Bay’s films.

Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991)

Keanu Reeves, Gary Busey, Patrick Swayze, FBI agents and surfers? This has to be a 90’s movie! Yes, the film is as outdated as its premise sounds: an FBI agent (played with very little emotional depth by Reeves) goes undercover to track down a group of surfers, lead by Bodhi (Swayze), who specialize in swift bank robbery operations. The plot is absurd and the script goes really over the plot, but Bigelow (how did he get from here to Zero Dark Thirty?) balances the film’s average blockbuster quality with unpredictable changes of tone, keeping you comfortable with its contagious cheesiness and alert in its electrifying, sobering action sequences. All in all, it’s a respect, above-average popcorn action film that proves that Bigelow was up to something before we couldn’t even see it.

The Killer (John Woo, 1989)

The Killer might be pure Hong Kong action and have a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but this time John Woo hasn’t impressed me. Like Hard Boiled and Face/Off, two of his other successes, it starts with a rushed, on the nose set-up of character need and allegorical flourishes and grows up from then onward, but The Killer, with its obvious symbolism, loose character development and only so-so action sequences (dying is overrated), it’s not quite the showdown one would expect from one of the masters of the action genre.

Roar (Noel Marshall, 1981)

Have you ever seen Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, or at least know what it’s about? Have you ever thought that it could have been shot in Africa, only this time with lions and tigers, and it turns out to be a slapstick comedy in the end? If you answer to these two questions is yes, then Roar is exactly the film you’ve been looking for. It took eleven years to shoot, and it is really scary when you’re aware of its production history: cinematographer Jan De Bont, who would later direct Speed and photograph Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October and Basic Instinct, had his scalp lifted by a lion and sewed back on with 120 stitches, and Melanie Griffith almost lost an eye. But look at those cute tiger cubs!

Born as an honest, passionate project against animal cruelty and illegal hunting, Roar has been described as the Citizen Kane of people getting surrounded and nearly killed by lions, the live-action version of The Lion King with Mufasa set out to kill you and the Walt Disney snuff version of the Swiss Family Robinson.

As such, it’s a scary/funny experience to watch such a dream project: the lions (and tigers, panthers, cheetahs and two elephants) are real, and so is everything they do around Tippi Hedren (yes, it is The Birds with lions), Melanie Griffith, two of Noel Marshall’s children and Marshall himself as the main character, an American activist studying and fighting for a wildlife preserve in Africa. When Marshall inadvertently leaves his lion-friendly abode just as his family is coming to visit him, the thin line between blood-thirsty mauling and skateboard-riding adorableness turns out to be both a complete mess and a strangely unforgettable film. One has to admire Marshall for having the guts to make this movie, even though, considering how ridiculous the plot and the acting are, he might be crazier than he is bold.

Shot of the Week: the opening shot of Ong Bak, which gives the film a visual takeoff it never actually embraces.

Raise the Red Lantern (pinyin: Dà Hóng Dēnglóng Gāogāo Guà)

-Rich man? If you marry a rich man, you will only be his concubine.

-Let me be a concubine then. Isn’t that the fate of every woman?

Since the international emergence of Asian cinema in countries such as Japan, China and India, the role of eastern filmmaking has been fiercely debated among critics and spectators, and one of the main points for discussion remains to be the matter of universality. This happened to many of the most distinct Asian directors, sporadically accused of ‘westernizing’ their films in order to achieve broader recognition and box-office results – Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Slumdog Millionaire, and many others are recognizable examples. In China, Zhang Yimou, one of the most recognizable Asian directors of the last few decades whose films have swept awards in Hollywood, Venice, Cannes, Berlin, Moscow and many other major film cities, is one the most important modern examples of such issue. Indeed, his films are very well accepted by western critics and audiences, but amid such a convoluted debate, questioning the following is inevitable: how do movies like Raise the Red Lantern contribute to local and international audiences, and how does a movie achieve both universality and public acceptance?

Perhaps the way the story is shown to us leads to that. Not only the film is piercing about its themes of sexual enslavement and obedience, it can be seen as a silent allegory to government ruling and authoritarianism. Yimou clearly denies it, but I believe there’s the possibility that his denial relates to the fear of censorship, which nevertheless affected the film for a short period. The story of decline from the center of all attention to disgrace and madness, as seen through the eyes of Songlian (Gong Li in a breakthrough performance), is both silent and aggressive, and in the way it’s calmly orchestrated by Yimou’s direction, it stands out as one of the most charming Chinese films. It was accused of historical and cultural inaccuracies; I can guess too little on those matters and think the film transcends such issues.

Songlian, in a haunting opening shot, reveals to her mother, who doesn’t appear on screen, that she has no choice but to marry a man in order to reach for support her deceased father can’t give anymore. A former college student, she walks to her new husband’s house and becomes the Fourth Mistress. She has a maid, several nights with Master Chen (Ma Jingwu), a huge room for herself and, whenever possible, the food she wants; internally and socially, however, the mood is tense, as all the first three wives conflict with one another and trick one another to receive the most attention. Songlian’s duties are just like everyone else’s but her wishes thus depend on stubbornness and deceit against her female acquaintances. There are no villains in the story, but the newcomer is the main character and is the one whom the film focus on, which leads us to sympathize with a character that’s ironically just as human as the other three. The enemy of the story is never directly shown on the screen, but guesses are easy to make.

Zhang Yimou is famous for his visual storytelling, and in Raise the Red Lantern, he uses it in full potential. The most important ingredient of the film’s visual component is the calculated framing, which never shows the main character outdoors, with the exception of the palaces’ roofs, confined in the castle’s boundaries. Several times, shots of the palaces and the main patios fill the screen, and the feeling of imprisonment is unavoidable. What’s most interesting in the film, however, is the intense use of colors, in almost abusive shades of red, blue, yellow and white, complemented by the wives’ gorgeous rooms and surroundings. Lanterns, masks and clothing are all essential to the film’s charm and luxury, and the result is dazzling.

This movie has been interpreted several times as both a feminist picture and a model of the framework behind authoritarianism, and indeed it’s hard to make distinctions between these perspectives or to remain on one side of the discussion. The customs that force the four women to fight against one another are hardly disrespected, and yet it’s clear that there’s a silent opposition to the oppression that comes from their faceless master. Raise the Red Lantern is a good looking story with ugly innuendos.

Raise the Red Lantern

Year: 1991

Director: Zhang Yimou

Cast: Gong Li, He Caifei, Cao Cuifen, Lin Kong, Jin Shuyuan, Ma Jinwu

Academy Awards: Best Foreign Language Film (nominated)

Venice Film Festival: Silver Lion for Best Director; Golden Lion (nominated)

Thelma and Louise

Who said selfies are a recent thing? #selfie #ontherun #dammitthelma

Most road movies are character studies, and that’s no surprise, coming from the model that has defined so many movies in the subgenre; some go further with alternate themes and motifs, some take it too conventionally, and the majority of them relies on the subconscious relationship between the key to the highway and the key to self-discovery to uncover drivers and passengers’ inner thought and ideas that would’ve never come to life if not for the trip. Although Thelma and Louise walk(s) through dangerous paths (both the movie and the characters), it is one clear and fine example of one road movie that goes further, and the character study that it brings is as fast and visible as one can get, which makes a difference that’s pleasant to watch, much due to its smart script and our brave leading performances.

In a maybe too fast introduction, Thelma Dickinson (Geena Davis) and Louise Sawyer (Susan Sarandon) team up for what’s an initial sign of their sense of revenge against the mistreatment that defines their lives as women. It’s an occasional, random trip to the mountains, but it has its purposes from both sides. Thelma, in spite of her graceful expressions of joy and her will to liberate herself, is imprisoned at home, in the classic situation in which the husband (Christopher McDonald) is aggressively bossy, She’s afraid of even going out for the weekend, after all. Louise, on the other side of the coin, is a seemingly braver woman with notable determination and sense of organization, who planned the short trip in order to impress her absent boyfriend (Michael Madsen) and catch him by surprise over her attitude. As they go down the road, Thelma decides to stop for a few drinks, some talking and some dancing, only to find out the flirtatious man she meets at the honky-tonk isn’t very nice with women. In a surprising sequence of events, a trigger is pulled, and the couple of friends see themselves on the run from the murder scene.

Because of its great critical and commercial success, Thelma and Louise is often cited as one the most notorious feminist films in mainstream cinema, much because it does everything to look feminist and because of its strong female performances, which are the usual ones we see in the stark majority of feminist and would-be feminist films (the tough lawyer, the female soldier, the single mother fighting for her kids, and the list goes on). There’s a slight twist: Thelma and Louise are everywoman; they didn’t feel strong or confident before the key incidents, but their situation reaches a point when there’s no escape from revealing their true selves and rising against sexism. With a murder behind their trip and the certainty that no one would believe in a rape story that’s not under the stereotypical circumstances. They’re in command regarding what they do, what they think and who they relate with for the first time, and this proves to be the best time they’ve ever have, even if this is unavoidably tied to the criminal circumstances of the journey.

Thelma and Louise, nonetheless, doesn’t avoid some of the flaws that we see in most road movies and others that compromise the movie’s greatness. Little are most of its problems, such as cliché key moments, the unnecessary use of flashbacks or some bad performances, as they don’t hurt the movie significantly (perhaps its ending does, but it happens in too many mainstream movies). What’s most disturbing in the movie is that the strong leading characters, beautifully played by Davis and Sarandon (both Oscar-nominated, both still behind the greatness of Jodie Foster in The Silence of The Lambs) are far more interesting than any male character, from most to least important. There’s simply no match. Thelma and Louise are bundles of joy: they’re brave, they’re complementary to each other, they deliver fast lines, they kick asses, and everything’s so natural in Davis and Sarandon’s performances its impossible not to feel an itch when it comes to the supporting characters.

Keitel and Madsen, who’d become opposing buddies in Resevoir Dogs a year later, are the most likable, but none of them seem to stand up against the female fugitives. As a result, Thelma and Louise, isn’t set in a world of ruling men and sheer sexism as its premise promises, but in a world where the slight intimidation from the leading ladies turns the whole situation upside down, because no man is able to do anything. The very demonstrations of sexism in the film are in many ways cartoonish, and some characters, especially McDonald’s, don’t deserve being in the film. On the other hand, we see in several scenes throughout the movie that some of the men looking for Thelma and Louise are supportive of their cause, revealing to the camera an unexpected understanding of their situation, even if partial.

The feminism of Thelma and Louise may be debatable and unfortunately not comprehensive enough, but the film’s a fine example orchestrated by Ridley Scott, who’s notorious for his support of strong female characters throughout his filmography, especially in the science fiction masterpiece Alien. It’s always nice to see mainstream American cinema getting both serious and funny about social themes, which doesn’t always work out as successfully as in this picture.

Thelma and Louise

Year: 1991

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Brad Pitt, Christopher McDonald

Academy Awards: Best Original Screenplay; Best Actress (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Cinematography (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated)