Machete Kills (2013)

This is one I've been meaning to do for a while, and on some levels wished I'd seen in the theater, because I enjoyed Machete so much. Alas, I often don't get to the theater at all for any movies, so why would this film be an exception. When I mentioned it to Jamie, her response was a little tepid, and I found out after it was because many people didn't like this at all. I had no idea there was this kind of vitriol targeted at the film--I guess I've been living under a rock for too long. Two guys that haven't been living under a rock and who have also looked at this are Fred from Full Moon Reviews and Mitch from The Video Vacuum, so you can go there and see what they both thought. They're both great friends of the blog and former guests on the podcast.

Machete Kills picks up where the first one left off. Jessica Alba is killed, which leaves our eponymous hero, played again by Danny Trejo, upset and ready to take it out on some people. Our President, played by Charlie Sheen(Estevez), allows Mr. Trejo that chance, by having him take out a Mexican separatist who has a nuclear bomb aimed at the White House. But things aren't as they seem--as they never are--and Mel Gibson is involved, which makes things worse.

I really enjoyed this movie, as did Jamie. I'm not sure why this was so vituperated against then; I don't know if it was the inclusion of Lady Gaga as an assassin, or Sophia Vergara as a screaming woman, or maybe the fact that Robert Rodriguez stuck it to the fan boys by distorting the image when Amber Heard had her love scene with Trejo, thus preventing them from seeing anything good. For me, this was a great action-fest with all the fun of the previous one. Maybe that's it, people were like "I've seen this before" or, "I liked it better when it was called Machete." Either way, it worked for us.

Let's start with Mr. Trejo. He gets this part and gets what he's supposed to do with it. That's why it works so well. He never overdoes it, yet he's never not believable. We've done over 20 Trejo films here at the DTVC, and the vast majority of them are him playing small parts or even just one scene cameos--the best small part of which by far is when he gave Jean-Claude Van Damme a foot massage in Desert Heat--but when he gets a good look at the lead with a good story and a lot of fun action, he nails it, which is great to see.

I wanted to go next to Mr. Sheen aka Mr. Estevez, as he takes on the role his father once held so well in The West Wing. Again, he gets what's required of him here and he plays the part perfectly. I was trying to think, of all the Presidents we've seen here, who is the best. We have Jerry Springer in the Dolph film The Defender. We also had DTVC Hall of Famer Rutger Hauer in the film Scorcher. One thing that's great about both of those is that neither man was born in the US. I think Sheen should go right in there with them as some of the best we've seen here at the DTVC. Also, special mention needs to go to the late Roy Scheider, who has played the president here a couple times, including another Dolph film, The Peacekeeper.

This film is rife with cameos and guest spots. Of course, we had Michelle Rodriguez reprising her role from the first one, which was great to see. Amber Heard, who we have seen here before in And Soon the Darkness. Antonio Banderas was also here, and we've seen him before in The Big Bang. Finally, from last week's film The Frozen Ground, we had Vanessa Hudgens, an actress I thought we'd never see here who's been great in both films. A lot of DTVC alums. One who wasn't an alum, and someone who had the distinction of being the most problematic member of the cast, was Mel Gibson as the baddie. It was a weird thing, because on the one hand I'm seeing everything we loved about him as one of the top leading men in the 80s and 90s, and part of me was enjoying that; but on the other hand, it's just Mel Gibson with all his anti-Semitic grossness on full display, and the problem with him being a baddie is he gets to retain that grossness, which doesn't help. I guess I'm torn on which way to go on that.

For my third picture on the post I had a lot of places I could go. With only three pictures on the main review page per post and the others relegated to the image page; and a film like this with so many names, it's hard to narrow it down. We knew Trejo would be one; and then I liked the idea of doing a paragraph on Presidents in DTVC films, so that was 2; but for three, it could have been anyone. I decided to go with Cuba Gooding Jr., because this is a guy we've been seeing here at the DTVC for some time getting after it in the DTV world because he can't get the parts he wants in Hollywood anymore despite being an Oscar winning actor. It would have been a crime to not recognize him here. The crime might have been that he had such a small part, as I would have liked to have seen him do more; but overall it was good to see him in this flick.

So that wraps things up. This is a yes for Jamie and me. Fun, all the action of the original, and a slew of cameos. Sign me up for number three--just not in the theater, I'll wait till it's on Netflix Instant. You can always check out the pod by going to the sidebar and clicking the link to the podcatcher you prefer.

For more information: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2002718/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

And Soon the Darkness (2010)

This is yet another of the Stars Play 11. There were a few reasons why I wanted to catch this one before it got the dump: I liked Amber Heard in both The Ward and The Informers, and wanted to see her here; I love Karl Urban, and couldn't let an opportunity to get him on the DTVC go by the boards; and finally, as I'm sure you know, I'm a sucker for mountain scenery, and where better to get it than Argentina? (Also, this will be another one where I discuss the ending, so heavy spoiler alert when I get there in the seventh paragraph.)

And Soon the Darkness is a remake of a film from 1970 of the same name. Here we have two girls, Amber Heard and Odette Yustman, finishing their bicycling trip in a small town in Argentina, and ready to catch a flight home, which they plan on doing the next morning, as long as they can catch the bus out of town. But Yustman's partying the night before causes the girls to oversleep and miss their bus, meaning they're forced to spend one more night. This is too much, and the girls are getting in each other's nerves, so they split up, only to have Heard come back to the rendezvous point and find Odette gone. Now it's a frantic struggle to find out what happened to her, before the darkness sets in and she's gone forever.



For the most part I enjoyed this. It was kind of silly and paint-by-numbers in some of the elements-- like how the girls have complete make-up kits in their tiny traveling backpacks--, but for the most part it did it's job and kept me sufficiently tense and interested. I liked Heard and Urban, Yustman wasn't in it as much, but she worked too. There was also that excellent mountain scenery, plus some excellent scenery in the form of Heard and Yustman-- unfortunately Urban remains well clothed throughout the film, so this isn't an equal opportunity ogler--, and some really nice sets, especially near the end when they were in an abandoned village. What turned me off is what often turns me off in these types of pictures: the ending ends up all over the place. I don't want to give it away too much before I get to the second to last paragraph, but we were kind of reaching a sufficient climax, and I noticed we still had a fair amount of film left, and sure enough, it went off the rails. I don't know if the original did the same thing, and they wanted to be faithful to that, but either way, it was a little much. All in all, not bad, but nothing special.

The eye candy in this was pretty hardcore. That scene where Heard and Yustman are sunning themselves in their bikinis almost hurt they looked so good. (They also made sure there was a close-up from behind of Yustman taking off her shorts over her bikini bottom, just to get in that gratuitous butt shot.) I don't know which I would've preferred, to have them be realistic looking and haggard after a long bike tour, with very little make-up, or to go the traditional Hollywood route like they did, where the girls stuffed professional make-up artists into their small backpacks. I imagine I know which one the girls' agents preferred, and that's why we got the ones we got; but I also think the film makers wanted the image of the girls as these American princesses that are brought into sudden contact with the harsh realities of the developing world, especially because, as they go through their ordeal, they end up looking much more haggard. I think that adds to our fear too as Westerners seeing them in a foreign place.



Love Karl Urban. Excited to finally get a chance to see him on here too. He plays a mysterious Westerner in the same town as the girls. Is he their ally or a co-conspirator? Whatever he is, he's awesome, I just wish there was more of him. You can never have enough Karl Urban. I can't wait until the new Chronicles of Riddick and Star Trek movies come out so we can see him in those again. I was so stoked to see him as Bones, playing one of my favorite Star Trek characters. He would've made DeForest Kelley proud.

One thing they touch on slightly is the brazenness of baddies here to kidnap an American girl. I don't say that to be jingoistic or Toby Keith "we'll put a boot in your ass" patriotic, I say it because the last thing I'd want to do is kidnap an American pretty white girl and deal with that eventual publicity. I don't assume that all Argentinians would be familiar with the American penchant to be captivated by the trials and tribulations of pretty white girls, but any that engage in a kidnapping ring must have some clue who Natalee Holloway is. I can't think of anything that would've bumped Casey Anthony off the frontlines like a story about two girls gone missing in Argentina. Next thing you know, your town is crawling with American press, then American PIs and investigative journalists trying to make a name for themselves-- come to think of it, this might have made a better ending to the movie.

SPOILER ALERT!!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Like the film Trap I reviewed a couple weeks ago, this film killed off the kidnapped girl, in this case right after she was rescued. And they did it classic cop out style too: by her falling on the ground and hitting her head. We go through 45 minutes of tension and wondering if Heard will save her friend, and when she actually does, we're rewarded with that? It just makes me wonder what I'm investing my energy in. It only gets worse from there, as the film proceeds to fall off the rails. The local sheriff is in on it, Karl Urban is killed off, and Heard is captured. We then get a final fifteen minutes of escapes and recaptures and cat and mouse games in multiple settings, none as good as the abandoned village I thought the movie was going to end in. If you want my take, I think the whole having the cop be a baddie was too much. We had enough by getting the girls out of the abandoned broken down hotel and to Urban and the cop, why tack on 15 minutes just to tack it on? If it's a length issue, just add an epilogue and slow down the credits. Sometimes simple is better.

END SPOILER END SPOILED END SPOILER END SPOILER

You could either rent this one on DVD, or keep an eye for it on cable. I'd do the latter if I were you, just because this is good, but not spectacular. I watched it late at night when it was still on Watch Instantly, so a late night cable cure for insomnia might be the way to go. (Also, you noticed I had to include those mountains. I couldn't help myself.)

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1391034/

The Ward (2010)

I came across this while looking for movies for my collaboration with The Film Connoisseur (link is to that post) for Halloween. I couldn't believe that a John Carpenter film had only a limited European release, and a DTV release here in the States. A John Carpenter flick should be a big deal, not fly in under the radar. (Also, if you've seen this and you comment and give away the ending-- or say what movie it's similar to--, I won't publish it. I don't want to ruin it for anyone.)

The Ward has Amber Heard as a girl in 1960s Oregon who is caught setting a farmhouse on fire, and is sent to the lockdown ward of a state mental facility. There she meets her four fellow inmates, plus the mysterious fifth one, Alice, who is a ghost that is slowly bumping them off. Heard doesn't find this situation acceptable at all, and tries her best to escape. Can she do it before Alice gets her as well?



I thought this was an excellent movie. You can see why John Carpenter is a horror master, because he hits all the right spots here, from the suspense, the tension, the creepiness, and then the brutality in the kills. How this was lost in the shuffle is beyond me, because it has the chops to compete in the US theatrical market. Maybe he personally didn't want to work with the big production houses. I don't know, and I'm not so sure I care either, because either way, this falls through the cracks and ends up in our laps, and we're better for it.

It really is startling though, when you page through Carpenter's bio, and you see all the big names, The Thing, They Live, Halloween, Escape from New York, Escape from LA, I could go on. The last one he did was Ghosts of Mars, which I saw in the theater back in 2002. I wouldn't put this one up there with any of his great classics, but from a director of his stature, this still delivers.



I was trying to figure out where I recognized Danielle Panabaker, who played the resident vamp in The Ward, from, and it turns out she was the guy from Supernatural's partner in Friday the 13th, where she got a really raw deal I thought-- I mean, she's helping the hero out the whole time and Jason still kills her, where's the justice in that? Anyway, she was the only one outside of Amber Heard that I recognized, but I thought the whole cast did a pretty decent job. They were all supposed to play one-notes, and sometimes doing that well is too tall an order, but for them it wasn't, and gave the movie that women in prison film mixed with supernatural thriller feel that I think Carpenter was going for.

Getting back to Carpenter, I've noticed in doing this blog how much modern horror directors draw from Carpenter, so it was weird to have one of his films come into our orbit. How many bad DTV horror flicks have I seen that try to cop the Carpenter aesthetic, from the darkened locations, to the danger racing across the screen in the background. One thing they almost never get right though is Carpenter's attention to detail, and that was evident here. He never lets a moment slip that isn't in some way a tension builder or a prop or extra that isn't somehow creepy or carries with him or her an element of danger. Even in this one, that isn't one of his best, it's still that much better than a lot of his imitators.



If you don't already know this, I'm putting it out there for you now: I'm a straight guy. And as a straight guy, I take a horror movie that takes place in a mental institution with an all young female cast for granted. I also take for granted that they're all going to be hot. I wonder though, could this movie be made with all young dudes? Us straight guys wouldn't like it, but are there enough straight women and gay men that would get into the shower scenes and all the stereotypes? Or do straight women enjoy an all hot women in a mental institution horror flick as much as straight guys do?

I enjoyed this movie-- though it might just be the straight male in me. This has all the makings of a fell through the cracks DTV gem, and with John carpenter directing, can you expect anything less? Sorry I couldn't get more into specifics about what I liked, but, again, I don't want to give too much away, because this is worth checking out if you haven't already, and I don't want to ruin it for you.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1369706/