The Limey (1999)

Let's take this blog back to the 90's. The decade of mushroom cuts, Who Let The Dogs Out and Jar Jar Binks.

And 1999 to be particular. That year of Millenium Bug madness. I'm pretty certain there was a lot of money being made by some people back then and what for? The general fear on the streets back then was quite ridiculous, especially in retrospect. The thought of the world ending because really fat ibm laptops couldn't understand what moving from 99 to 00 meant was laughable to me even then. Seeing those old laptops in movies like Hackers is strangely fascinating, in a way even more enjoyable than when you see those early suitcase sized mobile phones from the late 80's and early 90's. I can't put my finger on it but it's something similar to voyeurism, or driving extra slow past a car crash torn between hoping you'll see a body and that everyone is ok.

1999 was an incredible year for movies as it turns out, here are just a few: Fight Club, The Matrix, American Beauty, Boondock Saints, Sixth Sense, Magnolia, Being John Malkovich, Blair Witch Project and Baby Geniuses.

The same year Steven Soderbergh released The Limey, starring Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda and Leslie Ann Warren and featuring a kickass supporting cast of Luis Guzman, Nicky Katt, Melissa George, Joe Dallesandro and Amelia Heinle who sadly has gone on to star in such fabulous TV fare as The Young and the Restless.

Soderbergh is a hugely talented film maker and has been responsible for some of the biggest movies in recent years, most obviously the Oceans movies but at the point he shot The Limey he had been on a bit of a dry spell. His breakout film Sex, Lies & Videotape was a full 10 years before and it was only the George Clooney starring Out of Sight that had dragged his career out of the gutter in 1998. He has since gone on to make a blockbuster followed by a low budget personal movie almost like clockwork and The Limey is one of those. I LOVE IT.



A triptych of interesting artwork, British, German and American movie posters I think. The British image is the one I'm used to and one I'm most partial to. For some reason it took me months of taking the DVD out of it's case to realise that the black section in the middle was the silhouette of a gun. On top of this it has the tagline "Tell Them I'm Coming" thrown in which is from a piece of Terrence Stamp's dialogue. The American poster has a real sense of late 90's to it. Many movie posters of the period used the multiple panel style to the same effect but it also reflects the disjointed narrative structure of the film. The German one? Well it all screams a bit of National Socialism with that flag behind him doesn't it?



Once more I shall Synopsisise for you. Wilson (Terrence Stamp) is in L.A. investigating the death of his daughter (Melissa George) and enlists the help of Ed (Luis Guzman) and Elaine (Leslie Ann Warren.) His investigations lead him to her ex boyfriend, Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda) and Wilson wants revenge.

I guess you could easily label this a revenge thriller but it's so much more than that. The script from Lem Dobbs is incredible, the imaginative use of structure and repetition to tell the story and the near perfect dialogue elevate this above a mere revenge thriller. There are moments of sheer joy when you can't believe what Wilson has just done or what he has just said and the excellent dialogue isn't reserved just for Terrence Stamp, everyone has amazing moments in a non stop stream of quality writing. There are some great moments of culture clash humour revolving around Wilson having never been to America and the Americans not having a clue what Wilson is saying, coupled with characters holding prejudices towards the others country, this serves as an entertaining piece of background to the main noir plot.

Soderbergh's direction is almost an extra character at times, adding multiple layers of meaning to scenes with his use of filters, music, silence, repetitions with different delivery of the lines and the jumpcuts along the timeline allowing for interesting juxtapositions. This is a fabulous piece of film making in a genre that usually matches the brutal subject matter with a less than subtle touch from the director. The film equivalent of a literary crime novel. Instead of James Patterson or Kathy Reichs you get Georges Simenon or Cormac McCarthy and The Limey is most definitely not a Michael Bay film.

Script and direction aside the best part of this movie is Terrence Stamp. His performance is something else completely. By accentuating his London accent and slightly overacting at times he has deliberately created one of the most memorable gangsters in film history. He is extremely likable and at times even sympathetic. Whilst you may not have a clue what he's saying half of the time if you're not used to the dialect and slang you will understand his emotions.

Enjoyable on multiple levels, filled with back humour, touched by some violence, thrills, spills, a car chase, gun fights, a final showdown on a beach at night which bears remarkable similarities to a Mickey Spillane, excellent direction, a little arty, cool dialogue, a near perfect film really.

Kaboom (2010)

I think you should know before you read any further that I am a fan of the film maker. Gregg Araki has been a major influence on the kind of films I want to make so I cannot be completely unbiased with this review. In much the same way as Repo Chick in fact.

Kaboom is, according to imdb, the eleventh Gregg Araki movie. He is perhaps most famous for Mysterious Skin, a beautiful, interesting film that helped launch Joseph Gordon-Levitt out of TV and onwards towards his inevitable mega stardom but fans will point to The Doom Trilogy of Totally Fucked Up, Doom Generation and my personal favourite Nowhere.



Cool posters and a great demonstration of the power of artwork on selling movies. How many orgasms can you see in the black poster? The multi coloured lettering and the reviews chosen all there to appeal to the new generation of ADD Araki fans out there on their macbooks spamming each others twitters. The second poster looks very arty doesn't it, a serious awards poster if you ever saw one, it still says "sex" but in a slightly more subtle way, ideal for sensible people who take things like Cannes and Sundance seriously.



What you are about to read is as much of a synopsis as you can write for a film like this: A super hot bi guy (Thomas Dekker from Heroes) and his arty hipster friend (Haley Bennett who doesn't really seem to have been in anything worthwhile) are college freshman (I'm English, I have no idea what these terms actually mean) having a lot of fun sleeping around, weird stuff starts to happen and there's a plot to destroy the world.

Or you can trust the official writeup from the Toronto International Film Festival: Smith's everyday life in the dorm - hanging out with his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella, hooking up with a beautiful free spirit named London, lusting for his gorgeous but dim surfer roommate Thor - all gets turned upside-down after one fateful, terrifying night.

Araki is a director who is used to working with a low budget, another in the school of using creativity to solve a problem instead of throwing money at it. His previous films have looked deliberately cheap and largely visually arresting. Kaboom is no different, a similar story is told about similar characters using modern techniques of low budget film making.

At times it is obvious that these are the same characters as the previous films but for the new generation, he has a unique ear for knowing how youth interact, instead of the stoned mallrats making home videos in the 90's we are treated to the evolution of these sluts and slackers in to the youtube and facebook generation with HD video blogs and instant access to gossip and knowledge via smartphones.

The continuing themes of the director's works are abundantly evident from the start, alienation, homosexuality, the apocalypse, paranoia, drug use, apparent nihilism. These young people are trying to find themselves in the modern world and even more so than 15 years it is proving difficult with the large amount of technology available and the lack of cohesion in their family lives.

Shot in vivid colour and making use of noir stylistics in the thriller scenes this is at times a visual feast, especially impressive considering the budget and at other times deliberately cheap looking, some of the effects for example could have been taken from his 90's trilogy.

The constant waking from dreams sequences are very nicely done and add another layer to the story which is engaging, mostly because you are constantly asking "what the fuck is going on?" And there are subplots that weave their way through the story and later work their way to the surface and become the major plot devices.

Other visually appealing items for your consideration: Juno Temple is naked half of the time, there's a lot of sex to keep your attention focused on the screen, Araki stalwart James Duval plays a permanent student who's permanently stoned and a white Rastafarian to boot and there's a whole cast of beautiful people who may or may not be superfluous to the story.

For a dramatic comedy with slight science fictiony undertones this movie has great moments of humour and mixes them with disturbing scenes and an occasional eeriness (thanks to the use of light and shadow and occasionally well placed cameras.)

There's a lot of talk out on the net of Donnie Darko and Southland Tales being ripped off by Araki for this movie but I would state without any hesitation that Richard Kelly was a fanboy of Gregg Araki a long time before he even considered making those two films and I would even add Alex Cox to the list of directors he was influenced by before he got his big break. The fact that Kelly had a breakout mainstream success means nothing, Alex Cox was clearly an influence on Araki and as witnessed by Repo Chick recently he himself has made a film that was influenced by Araki.

The major difference between these three directors is that Richard Kelly had a lot of money thrown at him, Alex Cox made different decisions in his career and is working in other fields aside from film and Araki is hindered by his use of homosexuality. They are all film students and Araki's use of Chien Andalou in Kaboom should point your expectations towards a film that has no plot in the conventional sense, a disjointed chronology, uses dream logic and presents a series of tenuously connected, disjointed scenes. But that's not all there is, it's a thoroughly enjoyable piece of film making too.

Kaboom (2010) DivX - icefilms.info

Repo Chick (2011)

I was just getting in to the swing of writing these reviews when life went and got itself in to a great big rush. A mad time of job changes, house movings, 50+ hours a week at work and not even enough time to watch movies.

Initially my fourth review was going to be the Paul Dano/Zooey Deschanel starring oddball indie flick Gigantic but the plans went out the window. Now I bring you Repo Chick instead. Laying in bed this morning finally watching Alex Cox's pseudo-sequel to his 1984 cult classic and all round masterful piece of indie film making Repo Man (do not confuse it with the overhyped Jude Law sci-fi actioner Repo Men released last year) and realised I had almost enough time to write a review for once, so here I am.

I saw Repo Man for the first time a couple of years ago and it immediately became one of my all time favourite movies, funny, imaginative, well written, zany, a five minutes in to the future piece of science fiction cinema that acted as an allegory of modern society, not to mention a very appealing approach to film making. So much like everyone else I was very excited when I found out there was a sequel.



I personally like both posters as advertising for the flick, the bright pink one evokes social memory of all those "strong men with big guns" movies we've all seen: Dirty Harry immediately springs to mind and juxtaposes it with a cute blonde girl dressed all in pink and looking like she's about to play dollies with Buzz Lightyear as Mrs Nesbitt/some male fantasy of slutty school girls. Female centered action movies are few and far between and unfortunately Barb Wire also jumps to mind here.

The second one is clearly a finished article intended for cinemas and DVD covers and whilst looking kinda cheesy and cheap is a very clever piece of art. Again you look at Jaclyn Jonet and think hot girl with a gun but this time she's almost identical to a Fembot.



To synopsisise for you: Jaclyn Jonet is Repo Chick a spoilt rich bitch who is disinherited by her family until she finds a regular job. She ends up working as a repo man for a chubby looking Chakotay from Star Trek Voyager and hunting down an antique train carriage with a $1m bounty on it. An evil scientist is using the train to deliver nuclear weapons to some American city using a gang of Vegan anti-golf protesters as a decoy.

This is probably the moment to address many of the issues that fanboys have had with this movie. It's over 90% green screen and therefore looks cheap, but there's no escaping the fact that it was a very low budget independent movie and as an innovative and resourceful artist Alex Cox has come up with ways to tell a story with what he had to work with. Initially the green screen effect is jarring and obvious but intentionally so, his characters live absurd lives and this is magnified by the green screen. Coupled with his use of miniature towns and partially animated scenes it's easy to see why some people found it difficult to watch but whilst I was saying "What the fuck?" I was also laughing along with it, it's a fun movie.

Jaclyn Jonet is excellent as Repo Chick, her only downfall being she is way too beautiful to play one of those Paris Hilton types. Her character is one of those vacuous "IT girls" who is mean to everyone and lives off of the family wealth trying to make music and fashion. Whilst in real life these people are overly made up cretins whose inner meanness shines through in their pinched facial features Jaclyn Jonet is just beautiful and no amount of method acting, wardrobe and dying her hair could change that.

The character's growth is obvious, as in not too subtle, but the story moves forward at quite a pace for the first half of the film and the dramatic change in the character is grounded within the world of the movie, so it is excusable. We're all looking for something that we can excel at, the confidence and pleasure a person gets from knowing they've found it can lead to dramatic changes in persona and Repo Chick is no different.

The only other real standout performance belongs to Miguel Sandoval, Carlos from the most recent series of Entourage or Treviranus in the Alex Cox directed, Borges written Death and the Compass. A fine actor who is always cropping up in small roles in unexpected places, a man who's screen presence is huge in a small film like this, the camera loves him. In film where not many of the cast play it straight Sandoval is like an oasis in a desert, calm and welcome.

Sure, it was clearly the intention of Alex Cox to have his characters be caricatures but there's no excuse for the performance of Chloe Webb, a woman who has hardly acted on screen in 20 years and seems to be a pet of the directors, which has to be the only reason she got the part cos the word talentless springs to mind.

The characters irritate but they're meant to, Alex Cox doesn't like his audience to just sit back and relax with his movies, they jar and make you fidget, you may be irritated but at least you're not comatose like with most Hollywood films. And the simple fact remains that this is how people actually behave. I've met and seen people like Repo Chick and her entourage and been amazed that they exist, the attitude towards financial gain is a sickening disease that's becoming more and more overpowering in the world and these characters are products of that.

THE STORY YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE IS TRUE, ONLY THE DIMENSIONS HAVE BEEN CHANGED, TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT.

A disclaimer of sorts, an excuse for the use of miniatures, a little bit of fun and the film makers way of telling the audience they are aware that these miniatures look like miniatures and that this is the desired effect.

Its quite possible that if funding had been in place the tiny models would never have even been considered, throw a couple of million at a problem and a real train carriage can appear for example but a movie that criticises capitalist society probably wouldn't go down too well by splashing endless cash on set design. As I said before this is a creative way out of a financial problem, set aside your initial reaction and you might just enjoy it.

I can't deny that I was disappointed by how cheap it looks as I wanted more but I enjoyed myself all the same.

Other reviews and reactions all seem to be from fans of the original disappointed by this effort, the obvious reference to Paris Hilton in the character of Repo Chick condemned, the plot or lack of has been heavily criticised and Alex Cox has been accused of lacking the punky edge and dark humour of the original. In response to these criticisms, which whilst largely justified are possibly ill thought out by disgruntled fanboys, is to point out that 27 years later Alex Cox is no longer an angry punk but he is still angry and has a critical message about todays socio-political climate. In addition consider that modern society is filled with ignorant, shallow people who worship Paris Hilton and others of her ilk and as such basing Repo Chick on her serves as an easily identifiable figure head for ridicule.

As a fan of the director and especially Repo Man I am perhaps going a little easy on this film. With my patience tested quite easily by awful films that I have a tendency to switch off, I make no guarantees that if this had been a film made by somebody other than Alex Cox I would be saying much at all about it. At least not in a positive light. I can see why it's received mediocre reviews, it's definitely a film you've got to be in the right mood for but as the Village Voice said "for all its flaws Repo Chick is a midnight-movie blast", and that is the crowd who would enjoy it I think. Open minded looking for something a little odd and a little fluffy at the same time.

This is no Repo Man but it's fun anyway.

Repo Chick (2011) DivX - icefilms.info