Strangers With Candy

Unwatchable. Twice.

Catch & Release

The alphabet is less predictable.

The Road to Guantanamo

Let’s see here. You and your pals traveled to Pakistan to attend your friend’s wedding. Lacking money for a hotel and electing not to stay with family, you crashed at the local youth hostel, er, mosque, where the faithful held regular anti-American rallies. With a couple of weeks to kill before the wedding (No job to get back to in England? Ah yes, convicted petty criminals with limited education and dim prospects, your time was your own.), you decided to travel to Afghanistan “to help.” Now, by “help” do you mean “provide aid and comfort?” And to whom exactly? Never mind.

So, when you found yourself doing a lot of sitting around and not much “helping,” you asked to be driven back to Pakistan. Did you offer any resistance when your driver took you deeper into Afghanistan to the city of Kunduz? And is this the same Kunduz that was the last major city held by the Taliban before its fall to US-backed Afghan Northern Alliance forces on November 26, 2001? The same Kunduz from which witnesses reported a Pakistani airlift of as many as five thousand Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters? But you were only there to help. And, like an errant Harold or Kumar, to find “really big naan.”

The simple fact is I’d be stunned if you’d been renditioned off to Cuba after, say, taking a leak on a Louisiana State Trooper’s leg during Mardi Gras. But captured retreating with foreign fighters deep in Taliban country? In late 2001? With no passport? Sorry. I’d be outraged if they’d let you go.

In related news, the visa-less travel of Britons of Pakistani descent continues to pose a special security challenge here in the United States.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Classic movies rarely hold up as ecstatic entertainments. By the time you mentally correct for the black and white film, the echo on the crummy soundstage sets and the hammy theatrical acting, you’re not left with much in the way of verisimilitude. What you are left with, though, is the pure pleasure of watching a cultural anthropology lesson unspool in front of you. See Bogie ask a young John Huston if he’ll “stake a fellow American to lunch.” Watch him uncork his trademark teeth-baring shoulder shrug. Observe the original “steenking badges” line in its’ natural habitat.

The story is rock solid; all the raw material is here. I’d run to see a remake by John Singleton with this lineup:

Dobbs: Sam Rockwell
Howard: Avery Brooks (Remember him?!)
Curtin: Don Cheadle
Cody: Freddy Rodriguez

Hell, I’d settle for a Treasure-themed Scrubs episode.

Now Playing: Grindhouse

I suppose if you buy a ticket to a B movie homage made by B movie fanatics you shouldn’t be surprised when you get B grade entertainment. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy myself. I just hoped the whole affair would rise above its’ lineage a bit more. Rodriguez and Tarantino, with movies like Sin City, Reservoir Dogs and (literally) Pulp Fiction, have always managed to make more of whatever genre they’re reworking. Pulp gems like The Faculty and Kill Bill succeed because they take the material completely seriously. And the B movie design elements they feature, e.g., sound, voiceover, titles have been polished to a high shine. Grindhouse is just dirty.


In order for the joke of Planet Terror and Death Proof to work (“Hey, it’s 1979, you’re on the Deuce and you’re in a real live grindhouse!”), Rodriguez and Tarantino are forced stick too closely to the crappy B movie ethos. In order to really feel the sleaze, by definition the characters have to be thinly drawn, survive ridiculous mishaps ridiculously and connect with no one, least of all the audience. Grindhouse is run through with a feeling of “Isn’t it cool how realistically we’ve captured how gloriously crummy this whole experience used to feel?”


And there is a moment in Death Proof when Kurt Russell turns to the camera, flashes a big cat grin and winks. It’s a great moment. I laughed out loud. But the spell is broken and the movie stops working as an engagement. It does, however, continue to work as a vulgar display of formal power. These two guys know what the hell they’re doing and they’re obviously having a ball, but a lot of it’s academic.


Okay, enough of the smarty pants anal-ysis. Let’s just get to the fun stuff. I liked:

The posters. Obviously.

You heard it from me last; this kid Freddy Rodriguez is going to be huge. He’s got a quality that really connects. If only he were a little taller (5’6”).

Rose McGowan proves she’s more than just a pretty face by turning in an impressively different character in each movie. You say Rose McGowan, I think Cherry Darling. I didn’t know she's got Pam in her too.

Michael Biehn’s back! I can’t believe he was 28 when The Terminator came out and he’s 51 this year.

Sydney Tamiia Poitier turns in a great performance as a completely self-absorbed, too-cool-for-school, obscurist disc jockey. As soon as you see her foot hanging out the window you know what’s coming, and I cheered (and threw up in my mouth a little) when she got hers.

The fake trailers, especially Don’t! by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz).

Tarantino can still get me on the edge of my seat, rocking nervously. He did it first the moment the Gimp spidered out of the box. This time it’s the POV shot behind Zoe Bell, over the front of the hood. You realize just how fast that car is moving. Christ.

R.J. MacReady’s back! I can’t believe I was 12 when The Thing came out and I’m 37 this year.

Bonus Commentary: 1. Tarantino writes great dialogue but, yawn, wake me when the car chase starts. Twenty minutes of yakking before we get to the meatgrinder. 2. Why didn't the girls just, uh, slow the car to a stop so Zoe could get off the hood? I guess you don't have a movie in that case, but that's a logic problem you've got to solve buddy. 3. Grindhouse movies were chock full of sexy time. Here, whenever tube tops go flying or lap dances are set to pop off, poof! "missing reel?!" Hope they find them before they master the DVD.

I could go on and on about the things I loved and the things I didn’t, but the bottom line is I had a great time and my complaints probably flow from that bottomless well of expectations. I’m grateful to Tarantino and Rodriguez for hoodwinking the Weinsteins. I doubt they’ll be able to do it again, Grindhouse’s box office take being what it is. On the other hand, Machete appears to be in preproduction.