A Spock Chop to the Stupid Nerve.

THE KARATE KID PART III finds Daniel LaRusso conned into competing in a karate tournament, with a savage opponent who is no match for Daniel’s stunning mediocrity.

Daniel-san (Ralph Macchio) and Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) return to LA from Japan, and proceed with their boring life in Reseda, Miyagi convincing Daniel not to participate in any more karate tournaments. That’s what the teens of 1989 came to see: an old guy and his ambiguously-fey student cleaning out a warehouse to sell bonsai trees…

Movie opens with flashbacks from the first two KARATE KID films, focusing on sensei Kreese (Martin Kove), who then appears in this film’s prelude, broke and defeated, visiting his rich friend Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith, actually trained in Tae Kwon Do, Kenpo and kickboxing), to hand over ownership of his Cobra Kai dojo. Instead, to repay Kreese for saving his butt in Viet Nam “more times than I can count,” Silver lets Kreese keep the dojo, sends him on an all-expenses trip to Tahiti, and plots revenge on the men who broke his bro’s spirit – Miyagi and Daniel.

The one-line plot-fixes come at breakneck pace in the first few minutes: Daniel’s mother is once again written out of the story by “taking care of Uncle Louie” in Somewhere Else USA, asking Miyagi to room her son; no talk of money to feed the growing boy (who is actually 28, still looking 14); Daniel’s love interest from the last film, Kumiko, is going on a dance tour instead of following him to LA. Considering she was his “Glory Of Love” chick, I suspect that Daniel taking her loss with such equanimity is less about him being happy about her following her destiny, and more about Macchio not possessing the acting muscles to portray the correct distraught emotion.

Miyagi is broke, so Daniel uses the money they won in Okinawa to lease a property for a bonsai store, “with enough left over for renovations” – jesus christ! How much did they win?! Wasn’t it just about $1200? Oh, I forget, this is the 80s, when rent and renovations came to about $4.60.

Daniel Meets Cute the literal girl-next-door (Robyn Lively as Jessica), and she immediately Friend Zones him, saying she has a boyfriend out-of-state, yet goes out with Daniel dancing, jogging, rock climbing – everything but fucking. She’s no Elisabeth Shue. And she’s no actor either. Her only reason for being here is to give Daniel something to talk to, so that he’s not expositing info to himself like a mental patient. And talk he does. (Bad decision giving the most lines to the guy who can’t act.) This gimp just won’t shut up, babbling constantly to Miyagi, to Jessica, to anyone who’ll listen to his monotone whine. No wonder everyone who meets him wants to beat the shit out of him.

But I really wonder why the filmmakers (once again, writer Robert Mark Kamen, and director John G. Avildsen) avoid giving Daniel a mature love interest. Jessica disappears before the finale (her kitty aching for some real man-love, which she was never gonna find around dork Daniel), so in the climactic orchestra swell after Daniel invariably wins the stupid karate tournament, there’s no one whose arms he can run into, except Miyagi’s, and he yells and carries on uncomfortably around the embarrassed Miyagi until the freeze frame.

Terry Silver, though an imposing 6’5” with formidable skills and an “I’m-an-asshole” ponytail, presents himself as a dutiful karate student to Miyagi and Daniel, playing a long con, insinuating himself into their confidence by apologizing on behalf of Kreese, whom he reports as “dead.” While unbeknownst to Miyagi and Daniel, Silver has simultaneously employed karate badboy, Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan) and his idiotboy sidekick Snake (director’s son, Jonathan Avildsen, who so wants to be Sean Astin – aim high, bro!) to terrorize Daniel into competing in the tournament. The screenwriting is so dumbfuck at this point, regarding the rules of the comp and an application that Daniel refuses to sign, that it’s best to just watch the rest of the movie on drugs.

Daniel and Jessica rappel down a seaside cliff to get a bonsai – why? Because apparently, it’s worth $10,000 and “could set Miyagi up for life”… $10,000 can set you up for life? Oh, I forgot – it’s the 80s. But this unnecessary little side quest was simply to get Daniel in a life-threatening situation where Barnes could blackmail him to sign the application, which he does. Whatever drugs you’re using to watch the rest of this movie, the ridiculous plotting tells us the screenwriter is on better shit.

Since Miyagi made it clear he turned his back on competitive karate, Daniel is driven into the tutelage of Silver, who puts Daniel through pain, psychologically and physically. The only flaw in Silver’s plan was banking on Miyagi refusing to train Daniel. If Miyagi saw through the ruse and started training Daniel, none of Silver’s pain would’ve transpired. The writers made Miyagi dumb for just this one plot point. (Whereas the writers themselves are actually dumb throughout the whole screenplay.)

Barnes and Snake attack Daniel many times, and for a guy who blabs so much, Daniel never says a word to Miyagi about the terrorist attacks – until Silver, Kreese and Barnes all jump Daniel in a dojo, laughing like cartoon hyenas, whereupon Miyagi’s stuntman kicks all their asses. After being beaten, THEY laugh at Miyagi like THEY won! And when Miyagi tells Daniel he will now train him to combat these hyenas, they laugh even more – What is the matter with you morons? The guy whose stuntman just kicked your asses is going to train his boy to fight your overacting jackass. If that doesn’t make you break out in a cold sweat, you need to stop with the drugs that are making you laugh like that.

If BACK TO THE FUTURE, THE GODFATHER and THE DARK KNIGHT are some of the best trilogies ever committed to film, then surely THE KARATE KID trilogy is one of the worst ever vomited onto celluloid. The 2018 resurrection of these characters in the excellent COBRA KAI series has garnered some retrospective love for the original films, but that doesn’t change these scripts that repeat themselves, meander and make no sense, or the dialogue that a 10-year-old might think is sophisticated, or the cartoon villains, one-dimensional heroes, and a lead actor that brings it all crashing down with his utter lack of acting ability!

The message is clear: the best way to win a karate tournament is to be Friend Zoned.

END

When Acting Happen, No Be There…

The doofus and his master travel to Japan, where they will encounter another karate master who wants them dead, another karate student who wants to maim Doofus, and another girl who falls for the willowy Doofus even through his atrocious acting, in the continuing adventures of THE KARATE KID PART II.

Back in the mid-80s, sequels aren’t what they are in the 2020s – filmmakers never went into every single project looking to create a franchise. KARATE KID grossing over $100 million and becoming one of the biggest sleeper hits of 1984 made a sequel viable, but no actors from the original film were locked into multi-picture deals, so though young Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) return for PART II, no one else from the first film is here, and movie has to hash its way through excuses as to why Ali-With-An-I (Elizabeth Shue) and Daniel’s mum are no longer onscreen.

It’s a pity, because Kreese (Martin Kove) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), the villains from the previous film, were available, and open this film with a coda to the first film, showing us what happened directly after Daniel won the All-Valley Karate Tournament with his stupid and illegal crane kick to Johnny’s face – Johnny is attacked by Kreese for losing, and then Kreese is humiliated by Miyagi. (In retrospect, it would have been great to have had Johnny in another KARATE KID film, as only decades hence would we realize what a great actor Zabka is; I guess it needed the arc of time to make his hero’s journey so compelling in 2018’s COBRA KAI SEASON ONE. Also, the filmmakers redeemed him at the end of KK, so they probably felt there was nowhere to go with that character.)

The same crew return for the sequel: screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen, director John G. Avildsen (who did ROCKY), and music by Bill Conti (also ROCKY). But this ain’t ROCKY. More like DOOFY. With characters copied-and-pasted from the previous film. Except now they’re JAPANESE…

Pitch meeting: “Daniel and Miyagi go to Japan!” Thus the filmmakers had to brainstorm the biggest dumbest plot point of all: how to get a poverty-line kid a plane ticket to Okinawa, and why. Out of nowhere, they manufacture Miyagi’s father on his deathbed in Japan, which would yield a great B-story, as Miyagi’s father also mentored Miyagi’s best friend-turned-rival, both seeking the love of the same woman. (It’s weird imagining the elderly Miyagi having a father, but remember it was only the 1980s.) Now the writers have to scrape their minds for how and why to place doofus Daniel in this infinitely more compelling story.

Out of their arses, they pull Daniel’s dialogue, “I used my college fund” – you have a college fund? That you just stole to buy a ticket to Japan for no reason at all? “I want to be there for you, Mr. Miyagi, the way you’re always there for me!”… those million monkeys typing Shakespeare couldn’t come up with a more harebrained storyline.

In Japan, we meet Miyagi’s nemesis, Sato (Danny Kamekona), and the girl they both loved, Yukie (Nobu McCarthy, THE GEISHA BOY). Their tangled past relationship drives Sato to vow Miyagi’s death at his hands, no matter that their sensei – Miyagi’s dying father – wishes them to reconcile. This B-story would have singlehandedly saved the movie from the cringe antics and acting of beanstem Macchio – if only the filmmakers respected the Japanese culture and allowed them to communicate in their native tongue. Instead, all the Japanese characters speak to each other IN BROKEN ENGLISH! Even when two Japanese characters are alone in intimate moments (Yukie and Miyagi) they’re both speaking in broken English! I’d like a little Western hubris to go with my Hiroshima please.

With the all-new characters, the filmmakers desperately want US to experience everything as “new” again for Daniel – new love Kumiko (Tamlyn Tomita), new nemesis Chozen (Yuji Okumoto), who is Sato’s student – they’re trying to sell us the same old emotions in a new packaging. It might have worked – if Macchio had an ounce of acting talent. Every scene with Daniel and Kumiko is a cringe-flirt on their way to a non-chemistry relationship (with Peter Cetera’s Glory Of Love clouding the soundtrack); every scene with antagonist Chozen is a laughable lopsided display of Chozen chewing villain scenery and Daniel wondering if acting is a vocation he should be pursuing. Still, Macchio is perfect casting: a born victim – one look at that rail-thin cringey milksop and you wanna beat him to a pulp and take his lunch money.

Morita imbues his Miyagi with solemnity and humor, always ready with a wise aphorism (“Best way to avoid punch, no be there”) or a punchline (“Never been attacked by tree”). He’s also a candidate for singlehandedly saving the film, while alongside a numbnuts who insists on bringing it down to doofus level. And Miyagi gets to kick some serious ass (unfortunately, not Daniel’s, but some bullies). It’s like Yoda in ATTACK OF THE CLONES – suddenly seeing this diminutive, quiet man rupture spleens.

And is that a young BD Wong? Giving Kumiko and Daniel invitations to a sock-hop and a dino DNA mixer to follow…

The moving plight of Miyagi’s lost love who never married, and the touching B-story payoff of Miyagi saving Sato’s life by performing a superhuman feat to prove his superiority, is all subsumed under the casual racism of Broken English.

The actual climax is a half-baked bullshido skirmish between Daniel and Chozen, ramping the stakes up by having Chozen threatening to kill Kumiko if Daniel doesn’t fight him. As Miyagi says, “This not tournament. This real.” Which makes us care even less – because if Macchio is so emotionally removed due to his lack of acting prowess, why should WE go there in our heads and hearts? Daniel tries the stupid crane move, which Chozen easily blocks, sending Daniel into a tizzy of indecision and getting his ass kicked (I like this part of the film), until he remembers the new patented “swiveling drum” move – remembers it because, for some reason, everyone in the venue has one of those little drums and starts spinning it.

One of the reasons we can’t relate to Daniel: whenever he gets a new move, he tries it once or twice, and when he employs it for real, he’s a tenth-dan black belt at the move – no physical striving, no emotional struggle – which is strange, considering director Avildsen is renowned for creating one of the first “training montages” with ROCKY, to illustrate a hero’s journey in compressed time. Not so here, where everything comes to Daniel breezily whenever he needs to access it, like magic who cares fuck you.

The lesson being, the key to good karate is: Speak Engrish in Japanese Accent.

END

KISS vs. Muhammed in a Battle to the Bitch.

Even though KISS 2020 GOODBYE is one of the biggest single rock shows on planet Earth, there’s something much bigger at stake here: the future of live music. Overcoming the diabolical logistics of the covid pandemic to put on this mastodon show didn’t just prove how meticulous KISS and their crew are, it opened the festering wound of humanity’s isolation; if this is how we now experience the inscrutable visceral excitement of “live music” then the terrorists don’t have to worry any more about dismantling Western society – the virus has won their war. So come with me as I review not just this bombastic gig, but how it reveals religious idiocies, the venal side of capitalism and the death of rock and roll.

On Dec 31^st, 2020, the year of living dangerously, KISS performs a one-off concert at the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai, on a 250-foot outdoor stage built just for this event, using record-breaking pyrotechnics. And with covid restrictions firmly in place, none of their live audience could get within 200 feet of the stage, with most viewing it from hotel balconies a football field away, so crowd noise was barely above a churchmouse whisper – because people were too spread out for effective ambient miking; and with fans around the world streaming it on Pay Per View, no matter the gargantuan virtual audience, the end result looks like KISS is playing – to an empty stadium; Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer look like they’re merely doing a light-sound-and-pyro production check. And with Paul’s once chest-beating male id stage banter reduced to half-chested non-sequiturs, this band that is usually so intent on OPTICS fail to realize how terrible this all looks from a civilian loungeroom point of view.

Now let’s understand something – the SHOW is eye-dazzling, the SOUND is ear-delicious, with Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer riding fluidity and finesse; with Gene’s bass the closest it’s ever been to resurrecting Lemmy, and Paul giving it all he’s got, of what he has left. But this is not how live music should ever be presented or consumed – with the live audience not even breathing the same air as the live band. And that’s the point in these horrible times, isn’t it? To not share the same airspace as each other. And that’s EXACTLY the opposite philosophy to live music. Live rock and roll IS blood and sweat and piss and spit. It’s ferocious and loud and tactile; it’s being amongst a hive of like-minded homo sapiens swaying in unison and EXPERIENCING the air washing over you as sound waves. But now, as long as this “thing” is in the air, live music – that which needs the AIR to expand over us – is dead. Gene Simmons has said many times, “Rock and roll is dead” which is a different long discussion – but he never meant THIS. The REAL death of rock and roll.

So – with no crowd to experience the wash of decibels – what’s the point in this faraway show?

The KISS New Years Eve Show: too far away to matter.

Pre-production started in July 2020 – 5 months to put this 10 million dollar show together; it took 4 weeks to build that stage, on the Royal Beach, facing inland toward the Atlantis hotel. 70 palm trees on the beach had to be removed, which, the production manager is quick to add, they replaced after the show. Of course you did – or you’d get your hands chopped off! Remember where we are, whiteboys! We’re in the United Arab Emirates. These people own Halliburton and the U.S. presidency. Even more than China. There are cranes and semi-trailers and earth-moving equipment; hundreds of elevated trusses and a massive lighting rig, all based around a 50 camera shoot. Not to mention all the meticulous covid precautions over and above the regular crewing schedules. The band directly faces the empty pool in the hotel courtyard; beyond that, the hotel’s towering rooms stretch up and away. And behind the stage, a massive lighted KISS logo for Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea.

From the hour-long pre-show junket, we get an appreciation for the massive undertaking. Yet, this junket opens up even more questions, like: what’s in it for KISS? Think about it: if the show cost 10 million dollars to produce, and the current Pay-Per-View record for a livestream rock concert is 10.4 million dollars (as the Guinness Records Man reports), even if KISS hits that record, would Simmons and Stanley be content to walk away with a mere $400K for 6 months of work? Nah, there’s something bigger and darker that no one will talk about – I’m thinking that Gene and Paul made a pretty oil-soaked penny for this glorified soundcheck, which they could have staged in the U.S. – but the United States would not have showered them as much as those Arab princes with wrath-of-god money purely to say they PWNED those dusty Israelites.

Oh, Dubai! I mean – DO BUY!

That fine line between being a masked band and wearing masks.

And the Gene and Paul interviews on the junket confirm my speculations. Gene: “Dubai is a 22^nd century city… all nationalities, creeds, religions, everybody just co-existing together… Nobody looks at you a different way, if you dress this way or that way, if you have religious insti–or not”– What the FUCK is he talking about? These Middle Eastern lands are tyrannized by the most extreme religious nutjobs on the planet: they will stone you to death for adultery; they will BEHEAD you for drawing a picture of their prophet! Notice how Gene swerved out of his religion misspeak – “religious insti–or not”? [LAFF] He told “The Oakland Press” that Dubai said, ‘You can do anything you want here, no restrictions.’ Yet at this very gig, KISS had to change lyrics so as not to offend the extreme religious nutjobs who have a stranglehold on the culture. Gene, I love you more than anyone, man, but – the hell?! For the first time in my life, I feel the sting of Gene Simmons being paid to do something completely at odds with his principles. All his merch and moneymaking deals and opinions on wars, women and politics are still within his principles – so I’m not recanting any of my reverence for him – but this! – Have they got his children or something?

Same goes for Paul: “I’ve already spoken with my wife and my kids and said, ‘We’re coming back to Dubai! You have to see this place! It’s absolutely amazing!’” Not mentioning they’ve already got his wife and kids – in a dungeon. I mean, that must be why he’s…

And Eric just puts his paw in his mouth: “We don’t go out of our rooms or anything. I mean, we follow testing and protocol, and basically we’re kind of – I don’t wanna say prisoner, but we’re kind of prisoners on our floor of a hotel and we only went downstairs to rehearse, and that’s it.” (Has Eric come back from Dubai yet?)

A stage fit to please an imaginary muslim deity.

And KISS’s manager Doc McGhee doesn’t help. Of all his out-of-touch musings, here’s the most out-of-touch: “…you can feel that energy of a live musical performance. Can you do it with 2 cameras or 4 cameras? No. …Can you do it in a soundstage? No. Can you do it in a 250-foot stage with a million 200,000 dollars worth of pyro. Yeh… And hopefully this turns into the experience that other bands can start moving forward and saying, ‘Hey I’m gonna do this!’” Hey, I’m gonna do this! You mean, all I need for my band to start working again is 50 broadcast cameras and a million 200,000 dollars worth of pyro? Why didn’t anybody tell me this? But if you need all that stuff, then why is the coolest thing on the junket the KISS retrospective, where we see KISS onstage in 1973, at the infamous toilet pub called The Coventry in Queens NY? (see SIDEBAR video) Reportedly their 24^th live gig, a couple of months before the first album was released: more compelling than any pyro that can blow a hole in the world, complete with that one drunk chick dancing. (We all know that chick, don’t we, bandguys?)

And now, 47 years and tens of thousands of gigs later, the KISS juggernaut perform this greatest show on Earth [record scratch] – to no one. Yes, there were the balconies and the virtual audience – but KISS might as well be back in Coventry. And the closest any drunk chick could get was 200 feet away, across the pool, with a mask. This is not how the gregarious human species is meant to rock and roll all night and party every day. Not that I’m anti-mask – I’m anti-virus. As long as it’s around – live entertainment is dead. OR whatever this is… So let’s look at some of these songs that offended allah, the sensitive bitch.

Detroit Rock City

I’m not covering all 22 songs in the full show, just hitting a few key points. (The full list is in the sidebar.) KISS tears into their classic opener, from the Destroyer album 1976, as they descend on those hexagonal pods, a staple of the End of The Road Tour. The height of technology, the pods double as lights and video screens and part of the roof design, but I’m not a fan of them – I dunno, they just look like Macy’s.

Detroit Rock City is in Cm, so Paul used to sing the high C5 in each verse, but the band is tuned down a semitone, so he’s now singing a B4, just under the C; still amazing for his age and vocal issues. His voice is alternately strong and weak. The strong lines, we hear the Starchild, but when he cracks, the illusion breaks. But let’s establish from the get-go that supervocalist Paul had surgery in 2011 for “vocal cord issues.” He was 59, and said it was “a complete success” – but it wasn’t. He said his voice was “cracking” – and it’s still happening. Then again – maybe he might have lost it completely if he didn’t have the surgery. On the other hand, Julie Andrews also had vocal cord surgery – lost her voice!! Lindsey Buckingham had heart surgery – and because of that tube they callously ram down your throat – damaged his vocal cords!! Whenever you bow to the knife, there’s no coming back. You are NEVER the same. All I know is, one of our rock gods has fallen.

And it just looks weird when he’s saying – in that “crowd” voice – “How ya doin’?!” seemingly to no one. Usually, at KISS live shows, we always see shots of the crowd intercut with the band on the big screens. But here – there are no cameras on any of the faraway people – it seems like the band is alone in some other dimension.

OPTICS!

Say Yeah

Say Yeah is from Sonic Boom in 2009, which Bruno Mars ripped off quite blatantly in 2010 with Grenade. I love Bruno Mars – he’s a monster talent, but don’t go turning Paul’s crowd anthems into simp anthems, Brunes!

Tears Are Falling

Oh yes! From 1985’s Asylum. But I wanna hear Tears Are Falling in Paul’s 1985 voice – at his vocal peak. Too much to ask of this shitty world where everything must grow old and die?

War Machine

Yeh, you BETTER watch out…

The diabolical outro song on 1982’s Creatures Of The Night, the last album before the makeup came off. Co-written by Bryan Adams – yes, THAT balladeer. There is YouTube footage of this complete song – from one of the balconies at the Atlantis. Which begs the question: who buys a ticket to a rock show and then watches it from a balcony? And someone at the back of a 20,000 seat arena will pipe up, “Yeh, but I’M a football field away – and having a good time.” Yes, but you’re part of the crowd, that stretches from you to the stage – there’s a euphoric transcendence in being a part of that hive-mind. And if we watch that show on TV, we’re connected to all you people connected to the stage.

For the KISS ticket holder who paid $999.00, yes it includes a ton of swag, but the event itself is dispiriting. How long can live music sustain this grift? Is the younger generation never going to experience anything as visceral, sensual and tactile as Woodstock, Rock Am Ring, Bonnaroo or Coachella ever again? Will there ever be another Live at Leeds, Farm Aid, or No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith? Whether you think it’s a hoax or not, whether it IS a hoax or not – this is where we are – no matter the power of those princes, the virus has made us all its bitch.

Calling Dr. Love

One of my favorite KISS songs, from 1976’s Rock and Roll Over. Artist Michael Doret designed that cover. (And 33 years later, designs Sonic Boom.) Hearing Gene’s voice sounding as strong and powerfully gravel as always, returns us to a warm safe place. It transports us back to wondering whether these beings were superheroes or spacemen. I think that’s what selfishly offends us about Paul’s voice. Those warm memories of floating in the KISS womb are cracked open when we hear he is only human.

100,000 Years

(see SIDEBAR video) Gene opens 100,000 Years (from the first album, KISS, 1974) with a ferocious deadly gallop, before anyone ever heard of Iron Maiden; Tommy pulling off those Ace arpeggios like metallic clockwork. And then – Paul’s forced lyric swap. The lyrics: “It must have been a bitch while I was gone…” are changed to: “It must have been a trip while I was gone…” because – get this! – there is legislation in the United Arab Emirates against “disgracing the honour or the modesty of another person” – Article 373 of the Penal Code.  Ironic, considering the UAE treat women like bitches.

So stopping Paul Satan-ley from saying ‘bitch’ here – Does allah forgive him for saying ‘bitch’ at those 10,000 other gigs? But Paul gets the last laugh – in the final verse, he drops in that ‘bitch’– (Has Paul come back from Dubai yet?)

God of Thunder

(see SIDEBAR video) Before God of Thunder, Gene usually spits blood – a horrifying journey into the frayed mind of a spasming bat-demon vomiting the entrails of its latest prey… Unless the very people that Gene claims are open-minded prohibit him from spitting blood. Because – allah. So after Gene tools around with his whale noises and contorted faces (and NO BLOOD), he rises to the rafters to growl into the heaviest tritone riff since the devil invented tritone riffs without checking with the arabs first.

Yes, Gene had to change “I was raised by the demons” to “I was born with the fever” (ha!) and “virgin soul” was changed to “sacred soul” (which sounds like sacred GOAL, for some reason) – but witness this fresh stupidity: every hex monitor shows him with a bloodied face during the song! And the bloodied faces are much more visible to the audience that his real tiny clean face. Do these censors not see the contradiction in what they’re censoring?— aw right, religious nutjobs, right… You know, Paul’s original demo for God of Thunder was a disco freakout – maybe they shoulda just done THAT version.

It weakens our respect when these guys who taught us never to take shit from anyone are rolling over like bitches. “I was raised by the demons” – when I listen closely, it does sound suspiciously like “I was bought by the Saudis.”

Beth

Eric Singer: drummer, singer, composer, mime.

Eric sings Beth – which he does much better than Peter – while playing a glittery baby grand, which he plays as well as Peter – meaning, NOT AT ALL. What a snide way to ruin a great song! Y’know, I could just make the gag, “Nice miming, Eric” and move on – but I’m gonna PROVE this outlandish fraud. Exhibit A, Your Honor: if he truly was playing, there’d be camera angles on his hands – because it’s a cool novelty – but they’ve meticulously crafted 50 CAMERAS to avoid his hands. Exhibit B: fan video from Sweden in 2019 shows his hands – as he freezes them in position and clops them down on the keys in the exact same position for every chord change. Meaning: either it’s an unmiked piano, a non-functional piano, or that Eric is a GENIUS for changing to 15 different chords without changing his finger position on the keys! The only question remaining, Your Honor: How bad does this look to musicians?

OPTICS!

Strutter

Paul introduces Strutter by apologizing! “We haven’t rehearsed this but… I mean, this is live, so we get to make mistakes and everything.” What irks me is not the lie about rehearsal – they rehearsed the shit out of this! – it’s the apology. Man, what happened to the confident godking who strutted across the Animalize stage with his 5 foot love gun?

This is what the loss of his grand instrument has done to him psychologically – he feels the need to apologize, not for the song or the mistakes they might make – but for his very essence not being there for us! Paul used to say nothing important in his stage banter, but it was so entertaining to listen to – the simple rock poetry of sex on the hoof. But his confidence – gone, with his voice! The banter at this concert is like reading a phone book. Because he knows he doesn’t have the Walk to back up his Talk anymore! And if you think Paul is using backing tracks to bolster his vocals: Would anyone use backing tracks that cracked so much? Really?!

And in the song, he’s not pushing much air any more, as he pules those long notes at the end of each phrase like a drowning man gasping for air. Again, it’s all about the air, this time, from Paul’s lungs. It’s because his damaged throat can’t handle the amount of air it takes to power these songs like pistons. Now to be fair, Paul’s shot-to-hell voice is still better than most rock singers today. It’s just not the grandiose tyrannosaur it used to be. I feel for Paul the most – trapped in the vessel that USED TO BE Paul Stanley the vocal god; to know the acrobatic feats he once pulled off, and to realize he CAN. NOT. DO. THAT. THING. he was once best at doing! The physical and psychological struggle must be killing him. Paul was so good, he pulled off the lead in PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in 1999. Yet now, The End Of The Road Tour is named after what he no doubt sees for himself, and the pandemic has robbed him of so many shows – so I don’t begrudge him going out with this weird bang. Fuck old age. Fuck operations. And fuck the pandemic.

Do You Love Me

After Strutter, before Do You Love Me – the worst stagecraft of all, as we see the band milling aimlessly as a Guinness Records rep walks onstage. Now at the end of every show, the band does mill aimlessly as they engage with the fans along the foot of the stage and come together gradually for the “KISS bow.” It looks fine in the context of a packed, screaming crowd, but in total silence, with no crowd? We ask ourselves what’s going on, as the Guinness man mumbles about records concerning the pyro and other stuff that he can’t confirm – OK man, juggle or something because you’re grinding this show to a standstill. Paul has to cut him off on mic because the year-end countdown has started and KISS almost miss it due to Mr. Excitement reading his clipboard.

Holding the record for the most people ever not there.

In Konclusion…

KISS 2020 GOODBYE is a weird experiment that made a lot of people money, made a lot of people happy, and made a lot of seagulls toast. The show per se is excellent; if you were there, even with the forced physical distance, the spectacle would be dazzling. However, there’s no one to feed off – so when Paul says “How ya doin!” to a smattering of far-off cheers, it lacks that joyous spark of excitement due to no connection with anyone. How does the band even keep its energy? Well, let’s just keep our eyes on that prince’s paycheck.

Washington high schools: Missing the point entirely.

Paul talks about the pandemic – a lot – more than he should. It’s depressing. And I understand the band is being responsible in promoting physical distance. But why do it at all? If you’re REALLY responsible, you’ll tell your fans to stay home. Right? And your 400-man crew were all tested like maniacs every day – but look at all this added expense to put on a show that wasn’t even an ideal live experience! This contradiction, this double-standard, this trying-to-do-it-halfway is not helping.

I saw KISS in 1992 on the Revenge Tour, 10 feet from Gene. And it’s next level connection when you experience the artist and his music amidst the maelstrom of a live crowd. And now we’ve come to THIS: a Washington State high school band with each kid in their own little tent playing their instrument; enclosing the very air that should be transmitting those sound waves to our ears! Of course it sounds like shit! Stop doing this and driving live music even further into the grave!

In the end, live music is not about pyro and pay-per-view and princes. It’s simply about BEING THERE, and if you’re not there, feeling CONNECTED to the crowd that IS there.

OPTICS!… bitches…

END

The look that says:
“Rapist killers are pretty bad, but then, you’ve never spent a weekend with her mother.”

KILLING GROUND is killing it.

The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has tainted American storytelling so badly that even in a brilliant movie called UNFORGIVEN (1992), though all the characters do in fact remain unforgiven, yet the lead character finds redemption. So foreign movies, unbound by the juvenile strictures of the contradictory MPAA, are like a cold bucket of water to the face; movies which are allowed to leave their characters truly unforgiven and unredeemed.

KILLING GROUND is an Australian production that dares to leave us bereft of hope. No one redeemed, no one forgiven. It might not boast the amount of sado-horror gore that these types of thrillers are known for (cough-WOLF CREEK), but it retains a darkness that enshrouds the characters at their cores.

Writer-director Damien Power realizes that the junkets and trailers and loglines will give away the genre and premise of his movie – a young couple on vacation in the Aussie bush, terrorized by killers – so smartly decides the best way to be original is to tell his story in a fashion that would still create intrigue and tension, even though we think we know the outcome. As satisfying as his non-linear methodology is, Power ups the stakes by adding emotional bonds between the protagonists that will be tested at an existential level, with the life-and-death trials to come.

Ian Smith (the Australian Mark Wahlberg) is Ian, a young doctor on a New Year’s Eve adventure with his breezy publisher girlfriend Samantha (Harriet Dyer), visiting a secluded campsite he cherished as a kid. After the young couple set up their tent, making “a good team,” as Ian puts it, Sam offhandedly says, “Let’s get married,” in an astounding display of acting prowess: though she’s glowing, we see in her face that hesitant smile that doesn’t know which way to turn, as it braces itself for the worst. Ian says Yes. And the sun comes out in Sam’s real smile! An early warning sign that these two kids are going to bring it, in this tale that takes it all out of them. When Sam can’t get reception to call her sister with the news, Ian jokes, “Consider this your cooling off period then.” Sam: “Nah – this is a done deal.” These kids are totally selling how nice it must be to have a partner look at you that way. However, the film will force us to recall Sam’s decisiveness in its enigmatic final frames…

Across the way, on the otherwise-deserted beach, is another tent, seemingly uninhabited, for the night and day Ian and Sam are present. Without warning, we are witness to another young family – father (Julian Garner), mother (Maya Stange), teen daughter Em (Tiarnie Coupland) and toddler Ollie. They’re at that other campsite. Director Power treats us as sophisticated enough to realize he is showing us another time-frame. This is obviously before Ian and Sam got here. Em is stridently being a teen, poo-pooing her dad’s taste in Simon & Garfunkel, living on her cellphone, vetoing a walk to the far-off waterfall with her parents, and staying behind at camp. When she gets spooked by being alone, she takes a hike to the family car and falls asleep inside. (All we know is, she’s got better reception than Sam; if only they’d met, so Sam could’ve asked her Australia’s million-dollar coverage question: Telstra or Optus?…)

A third throughline is introduced – two working class blokes who look like trouble: German (stoic Aaron Pedersen) and Chook (a creepy Aaron Glenane). (Not only does Pedersen look like the Australian Tommy Chong, it’s heartening to see an Aboriginal actor in a co-leading role that commands the screen with such easy dominance, not looking like stunt casting or someone out of their milieu of “tribal elder” or other such racist shit. Voted Bachelor of the Year 1994 by Cleo Magazine, his alpha maleness is definitely on display here!) They have some tenuous, sinister connection to the campsite, but it will take us a few more non-linear cuts to make that link. Right now, they’re trying to pick up some barely-legal shielas at the local watering hole. Something in their conversation earlier makes it clear they aren’t averse to rape…

KILLING GROUND, one of the best proponents of The Australian Film Industry, is another example that fortifies my argument against Stephen King’s saw, “It is the tale, not he who tells it,” as I’ve always maintained that a mundane tale could be made compelling by the one who tells it. Thus correcting the axiom to, “It is not the tale, but he who tells it.”

When rapist-murderers take advantage of a beautiful day to pursue their hobbies…

Craftily written and artfully directed by Power, each scene seems to unfold only to make the next scene (in flashback or real time) more intriguing and mysterious. We know the fates of these three groups of people are intertwined, yet their interaction is held off like a dominatrix tease, all meandering from separate pasts into a razorwire present. All framed by the deceptively serene beauty of the Australian bush.

Sam realizes something is horribly wrong when she discovers the other tent is disheveled inside… We see that other couple taking a walk to the falls with toddler in backpack… Chook, with a glint of lust in his eye, finds Em in the car, sleeping… Ian needs to change his flat tyre so they can summon a ranger to look into the disheveled tent; when Sam is bringing their bags to Ian’s car, the camera is angled to see a toddler following her from another path; the toddler falls, Sam doesn’t notice (but we notice the beautiful framing! And the story coming together…).

The most touching moment in this harsh thriller is Em’s mother, seeing Em being manhandled, and simply body-slamming into the assailant. No whining of “Please don’t hurt her!” No waiting for a strategic opening – just SLAM! – like a mother grizzly protecting her brood! That brought a tear.

Movie will continue to defy our expectations with the actions of Ian (who may look like Wahlberg, but decidedly doesn’t act like a Hollywood Hero); the psychosis of German and Chook towards the family; the twisting fate of the toddler; Sam’s defiant and powerful spirit (manifested in her brilliant performance); and the fact that even when the movie seems to have nothing left in its tank except Chase Movie, it will still find the pistons to drive us white-knuckled to its final frames.

Watch KILLING GROUND if you’re sick of being coddled by Hollywood good time bears.

END

Never don’t give up that third piece of cake.

Never Don’t Just Watch.

Let’s see: if a comedian still hasn’t said anything remotely funny or intriguing or insightful 32 minutes into their set, you can pretty much guarantee the rest of their 1 hour set is going to be just as shallow, unfunny and lame, right?

Such is the case with the simpleton humor in KEVIN JAMES: NEVER DON’T GIVE UP, a standup comedy presentation for people who have just come out of surgery with stitches in their mouths making it hard for them to laugh without extreme pain; thus, they can safely watch Kevin James and not worry about even cracking a smile.

After spending his adult life saying unfunny lines written for him by other people (in a lifetime’s worth of unfunny sitcoms), Kevin James writes his own unfunny lines for himself in his Netflix Comedy Special, filmed in New York.

And now we know why he’s in so many Adam Sandler films.

Any comedian who starts their set with a gag about having to hold a pose too long while someone tries to work a camera phone really doesn’t belong on a standup stage. And this is an important set – being filmed for Netflix – and the star of such intellectual hightowers as PAUL BLART: MALL COP and GROWN UPS 2 has no opening zingers? The first few minutes roll by so awkwardly, I wondered why the producers of the show didn’t edit them out neatly. It’s not just me who is unaffected by the bulbous charm of Mr. James; listen to the non-existent roar of that crowd… blissful library-silence… You can count the laughs on one hand or less.

I’ve never known Kevin James as a stand-up comedian, so, just for laughs (sorry, I said ‘just for laughs’ – didn’t mean to get your hopes up), I checked out his history, and found his first Comedy Special, SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF, way back in… way… way back in… 2001. Hmm, 17 years away from the standup circuit; maybe he’s a bit rusty [– Oh, ya think?!] … and it’s 2001, you know, the year of that disaster… what could go wrong? And I click through that Special randomly, and I see – Movie Maniacs, I kid you not – I see the SAME ELEVATOR GAG that I just saw in the 2018 Special! Back in 2001, there’s Kevin James telling that same joke – word for word! We all know comedians have their favorite bits (or audience favorites), but even those bits gradually develop over the years, as the comedian crafts them leaner and keener, mixing ‘em up, adding to ‘em… Nope – not with Kevin James, boy, nosirree! Folks, the exact same gag about getting off on the wrong floor and having to pretend it’s the floor you wanted. Word. For. Word.

So I guess he’s either still doing absent-minded shit like that – or, tragically, he thinks that bit JUST KILLS. Are you kidding us with the lack of new material, Kevin? After 17 years?! Are you kidding? Well, obviously not, otherwise it would be funny.

Now, of course his audience is laughing. They paid their money to see a comedian they find beloved. Oh, see how they laugh! What are they – STUPID? Because I figure that a Kevin James audience is populated with fans of his sitcoms, and to enjoy those sitcoms, you require an IQ level somewhere near goldfish. And I realize: That’s why Kevin can repeat his bits, because goldfish have a memory that lasts the length of a 3-foot fish tank, seeing that same little castle that you forgot was there just one minute ago.

The inane bits roll off Kevin’s tongue: elevators, moving walkways, lactose-intolerant people, nut allergies, friendly waiters, a cigar given to him by a cop in a raincoat on a film set— this bit, we imagine, was going to skew into the cop being a pervert or an escaped convict or anything interesting – but no. It’s all about the cigar. And during most of his bits, Kevin will self-flagellate about being fat. Because we couldn’t guess that a fat guy has eating disorder guilt.

Does Netflix really think that, due to Louie C.K.’s irrational ostracism by the MeToo extremists, we’d slip and forget and just start laughing at any ersatz white fat guy telling jokes onstage? LOUIS C.K. HOW WE MISS YE!

I didn’t watch long enough to get to the explanation about the title, or I’d tell you about it, to waste more of your day. Or maybe you already know all about it, if you watched his Special from 2001.

END

Deus Ex Magica.

Arbitrary magic. The last resort of bad storytelling. When Magic has no limits, when it works here but doesn’t work there, when it is employed as deus ex machina here, then forgotten there, just throw out the story and start again, because you’ve obviously written yourself into an illogical corner – and now you get to call it a “kids’ story” as blanket excuse for thoughtless writing.

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS is meant to be an inspirational journey, the quest of a young Japanese boy to find his father’s mystical armor, to defend himself against his pursuing grandfather, but – like any story driven by arbitrary magic – this technically brilliant stop-motion animated adventure ends up merely a pointless quest where no one needed to leave home.

Pity, since the tale started auspiciously, with a Japanese woman in a small boat, adrift in a stormy ocean. Head bowed, she slings a shamisen – a Japanese instrument like a three-stringed banjo. She wears a red backpack. A boy’s narration informs us, “Pay careful attention to everything you see and hear, no matter how unusual it may seem…” (Oooh, it’s going to be an intriguing mystery like THE PRESTIGE or maybe a twisted thriller like INCEPTION or MEMENTO!) A giant wave threatens to crash over her boat. The woman raises her arm and strums the shamisen – and cuts the wave in two. It is awe-inspiring. It is Magic. We accept this, taking it she is a powerful sorcerer, or that the instrument is magic. But then… A wave rises up behind her and topples the boat. (Uh, you just used  magic to cut that other wave. Why not–? Onward…) She is washed ashore, wounded. A distance away, we hear crying from her backpack. Again we are touched with emotion as we see the courage of a wounded mother, struggling across the sand, to be with her baby at any cost. Excellent. Then more narration: “If you forget what I tell you, even for an instant, then our hero will surely perish.”

As it turns out, none of this is pertinent. Because – magic.

Young Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson), now living with his debilitated mother atop a seaside cliff, frolics into town to play his magic shamisen in the square, having his origami come to life as he relates a tale that is actually the plot of this film. (From the crowd, we hear a baritone, “Oh my!” and realize George Takei is one of the characters.)

We give him a pass on all this magic, because now something else is bothering us… the accents. This is feudal Japan. And everyone – EVERYONE – is speaking with a modern American accent and vernacular. It is very off-putting, and illustrates the small-mindedness, disrespect and venality of American cinema. (I’m not expecting to see a “kids’ cartoon” in subtitles, but at least make them Japanese-toned. For those who consider that racist, consider how much more racist the current American English is.)

Then the magic starts piling up and topples the story itself: Kubo’s evil grandfather, Moon King (voiced by Ralph Fiennes), took Kubo’s eye when he was a baby (as revenge for his daughter marrying the man she was sent to kill, Hanzo), and is searching for Kubo even now to take his other eye (uh, immediately I ask: When Moonie was taking the first eye, why didn’t he just spend the time taking both? And the reason he wants both Kubo’s eyes?  So Kubo can join him in the spirit realm. Sounds mighty catholic to me. Moonie extrapolates, obviously not listening to a word he himself is saying, “While you still have that eye, Kubo, you can see all the hate and pain in the world. But if I take the eye, you can come live with me in paradise.” Well, that makes all of ZERO SENSE. Doesn’t have to: kids story.)

Moonie’s two daughters, Kubo’s aunts (voiced by Rooney Mara), are also after Kubo – they’re totally magic and appear out of nowhere, fly, make explosions, you name it. Why do they even want his eye? Like Moon King, they’re the most powerful bitches in black hats around. Kubo’s mother saves him from their attack by putting two wings on Kubo’s back so he can fly away (because – why not?) then making her own giant explosion to kill her sisters and herself (because – why not?).

So Kubo flies to a faraway deserted town, and sees a helmet hanging from a high tower. Stay with me on this, Movie Maniacs: Kubo lands, divests himself of the flying robes, then runs at the tower to try and topple the helmet with his boy-weight… Uh, YOU WERE JUST FLYING! And you saw the helmet before you landed… This is what I mean by arbitrary magic. And its contradictions within its own story.

Kubo embarks on a quest to locate the same three pieces of mystical armor that his father Hanzo sought. To defend himself against Moon King. Turns out Moonie didn’t want Hanzo finding the armor because it would make Hanzo too powerful. (So do we deduce that Hanzo – who is painted as a dead hero – was seeking ultimate power to topple the rule of the Moon King? Sounds mighty military coup to me.)

Kubo is joined on his quest by a toy-monkey-turned-real called Monkey and an insect-turned-warrior called Beetle. Monkey sounds like Sigourney Weaver (–is Charlize Theron), and Beetle sounds like George Clooney (–is Matthew McConaughey). [These spoilers ahead do not spoil the story any more than the stupidity of the story itself, wallowing as it does in arbitrary magic.]

In the film’s final act, we realize that the quest was pointless – as the spirit of Kubo’s mother was in Monkey (which means she didn’t die in that explosion), and the spirit of his father is in Beetle (who conveniently had memory loss). The family that he desired was with him all along, and the Moon King was defeated NOT by the indestructible armor, but by magic. (Who woulda guessed?!)

The finale is based around Kubo’s “Two Strings” of the title – one is a hair of his mother’s, one is his father’s bowstring, and he plucks a third from his hair to string the shamisen and then strum it at Moon King while reciting bullshit platitudes.

Writers Marc Haines, Chris Butler and Shannon Tindle must have been on a tight schedule to not step back for one second and think about the illogical events and unsustainable motivations of their characters. Animator and first-time director Travis Knight nonetheless frames the illogical story beautifully. And the stop-motion artists should be commended for creating a piece so smooth I doubted I was watching stop-motion at all, and pondered many times that it may be CGI or 3D animation rather than that veteran artisan technique. The film is filled with Japanese culture – being raped by American studios.

While we’re going cross-eyed trying to figure where the next deus ex magica will land, everyone dies, because the very last deus ex – in a film driven by arbitrary magic – must necessarily be to bring everyone back to life. Funny how Magic can bring all the supposed “good” characters back to life, but the much more potent black magic employed by the “evil” characters has somehow ceased to function for them. Like any good Japanese massage parlor – a happy ending. Happy for infants who think this is how the world works; intolerable for actual storytellers.

END

Ape-ocalypse Now…

Reboot. Gorilla style.

In a cold open, two pilots – an American and Japanese – crash-land on a deserted Pacific island. It is 1944. They try to kill each other, in a foot chase that leads to a mountain ledge. As they grapple, something… YUGE… rises from below. A gorilla! No, not just a gorilla – a GORIL-LIL-LIL-LIL-LA!

Opening Titles, scrolling through the years, showing watershed events – nuclear tests, Viet Nam, space race – to 1973.

An American scientist leads a military expedition to an island discovered by satellite photos, to beat the Russians there and discover its secrets – and is confronted by that same gorilla, who goes ape on their helicopters. All the extras die. The next move is up to the scientist and the military. To kill or not to kill this ancient beast…

KONG: SKULL ISLAND is APOCALYPSE NOW meets GODZILLA. For a very marketable reason. Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment are even now planning the Daikaiju Match of the Century – Kong Vs Godzilla! For that to happen, they had to make the 50-foot Kong of the past 84 years more GORIL-LIL-LIL-LIL-LA. To face the modern 350-foot GODZILL-LIL-LIL-LIL-LA. Not only is the ape’s size amped up to 100 feet, its role is modified to be more of a rampaging beast, a creature that ruled the Earth before Man; it is played like it might not be an ape at all but just a giant carnivorous creature with a hint of blond ambition… The stage is set…

… for Francis Ford Coppolla. Writers Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein and Derek Connolly, and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, save on man-hours, printing costs and originality, by simply copying and pasting Coppolla’s 1979 APOCALYPSE NOW, with Huey helicopters, loudmouth military grunts, obsessive military captains, a riverboat ride, wild machine-gun fire, napalm, wartime cinematography, and that same overused seventies soundtrack that hits all the Creedence and Jefferson Airplane beats. It worked for that big ape, Brando…

“Sir, I think we’ve found Marlon Brando.”

Starring Tom Hiddleston’s British Smug, Brie Larson’s Tight T-shirt, Samuel L. Jackson’s Shouting, Toby Kebbell’s Dog Tags, John Goodman (who doesn’t roll on Shabbas), Corey Hawkins Being Black and Nearby, Jason Mitchell Straight Outta Compton, John Ortiz as Welcome Back Kotter, and John C. Reilly as Sasquatch.

Jackson is Captain Insecure Dicksize, who, after his men are annihilated by Kong for invading Kong’s territory, obsesses over killing Kong. Like every American chickenhawk, he lays the blame of his troop’s death not on himself for invading, but on the party being invaded. “I know an enemy when I see it!” Uh, okay, but Kong is not your enemy, jarhead. YOU struck first, without warning, without permission. Movie shows us very explicitly that the only “monsters” on the island are the ones who arrived in Hueys. They even make Goodman’s scientist, Dr. Crackpot, a superficial monster whose parents were killed by Kong, which he regards as “something with no conscience, no reason.” Well, not really. The reason: you were encroaching on his territory.

Crackpot tells Dicksize his organization is after Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (MUTOs, which ties it to GODZILLA 2014, where the winged monsters were called MUTOs – a stupid name, because once you find them, and classify them – huzzah! Massive Identified Terrestrial Organisms.) “The Castle Bravo tests were not nuclear tests – they were trying to kill something.” (Almost the same dialogue in GODZILLA, describing the Bikini Atoll tests.) His token black assistant pipes up about his Hollow Earth Theory, which has turned out to be true. No one cares. Not even the black demo he’s here for.

The wonderful rounded hills of Skull Island.

Crackpot wants evidence to take back to civilization. Shouldn’t the focus then, be more on T-shirt taking pics, rather than Dicksize’s vendetta? That’s when we realize even the filmmakers have lost the plot: When we see a graveyard filled with giant bones of dead apes (Kong’s parents), T-shirt says “I’ve taken enough pictures of mass graves to recognize one.” Yeah, well, how about taking a picture of THIS one? Because – evidence.

We see her snapping pics, but of all the wrong things. That picture of a giant footprint might be a tiny hamster’s without showing a canteen or person’s foot next to it for scale. Or how about this? At least all the male scientists back home can get a perfect idea of size if you place your D-cup rack next to it.

Hiddleston the tracker is introduced like Wolverine in a bar fight. Then we never see him use any skills again for the rest of the movie, except looking like Thor’s brother. Movie tries to flesh out his character with talk about his father in the RAF mounting an attack from which he never returned (but we’re just wondering when he’s going to mount an attack on T-shirt’s nicely-rounded Hamburger Hills). Other futile attempts at characterization also fall flat, like Dicksize being a career military man, left rudderless when assigned leave, and then creaming his camo when assigned the Skull Island mission. We recognize each of these characters from bullet points in the Selling Your Hollywood Screenplay Manual:

• the girl who befriends the monster
• the jock who befriends the girl
• the fanatic general
• the nervy company man who is eaten first
• the token black dude
• the token Asian chick
• the loon who lives with the natives…

John C. Reilly is the bearded loon, who turns out to be the pilot from the cold open. He’s the Dennis Hopper in this Ape-ocalypse, and the only character well-rounded enough for a poignant post-credits resolution. Providing exposition on the ape (“Kong is king around here; god to these people”), and the “skull-crawlers” (“I never said that name out loud before, it sounds stupid now that I think about it”) – giant iguana-like monsters that are genuinely scary, taking the place of the tyrannosaurs in any given Kong adventure. Why? Because of Kong’s new SIZE; he needs bigger foes. Everything is giant – oxen, spiders, stick insects, squid – except for the human roles. Outstanding production values save KONG from the B-movie pile, but the vapid characters drift it back.

I love the smell of ape-harm in the morning.

For once, the great ape is not played by Andy Serkis in mocap; Toby Kebbell and Terry Notary don the motion-capture suit (veterans of playing apes in the modern PLANET OF THE APES saga), and find the connective tissue between all the Kongs:

He tries to rip apart the monster’s jaws (like KONG 1933), he walks upright (like KONG 1976), he is seamless, wondrous CGI (like KONG 2005). And his “realism” sells this film. We do not doubt any more that what is onscreen is absolutely in the environment. I like the way Kong just wanders around and appears here, appears there, unhurried. As I always complain in JURASSIC PARK movies, we never get to see the dinosaurs just being themselves before the Running and Screaming starts. It’s nice to see Kong stop to get a drink.

When T-shirt finds an ox trapped under a helicopter and tries to save it, Kong is there to help. He looks down upon her magnificent push-up bra, ponders on his animal attraction, then strides away. (But Kong is a carnivore – those incisors didn’t evolve for herbivorous diet – wouldn’t he EAT the ox? Instead, we only see him eating a squid when it attacks him. As in every movie that anthropomorphizes animals (MADAGASCAR, ZOOTOPIA), mammals don’t eat mammals – but feast on fish. Unless you’re in NEMO, fish are no higher than plants in Hollywood’s hierarchy.)

The scant connection between blond and ape is downplayed here, because of the extended universe the studios intend to tread. If Kong fell in love – he would have to die. The theme will never more be “beauty and the beast.” Kong is necessarily beauty (of nature) and beast (of destruction) all in one.

That’s what happens when you do it gorilla style.

END

All good decisions: ironic stomach graffiti, heroin while pregnant,
these two as parents, suicidal rock bands, cut-off tees on men.

Don’t Believe Anything Anymore.

A documentary about Kurt Cobain, as confused, conflicted and depressing as Kurt Cobain.

KURT & COURTNEY certainly looks and feels like a credible documentary, with its hand-held ethos and somber-bordering-on-ominous narration by filmmaker Nick Broomfield, but in the end, it only throws more fuel on the fiery controversy surrounding Kurt Cobain’s and Courtney Love’s relationship and Kurt’s untimely death/suicide, rather than answering any questions definitively.

Kurt Cobain, from a small town boy to a rock star in punk/grunge Seattle band Nirvana; disenchanted with stardom; three albums that swerve the music scene, wailing, railing at the world like a hard rock Holden Caulfield… Courtney Love, also a small-town girl, punk rocker, directionless, control freak, estranged with her father. These two whirlwind forces would marry; heroin, baby, tabloids, Nirvana world tours; then a sudden suicide under suspicious circumstances. Note that Courtney inherited Kurt’s full fortune, being his wife. Word is that they were close to divorce, in which case she would have received only half that amount… Also note that Courtney’s first album with her band Hole, Live Through This, was released the week Kurt died. Just sayin’…

Due to Courtney threatening legal action (she owning the rights to Nirvana’s catalog and vetoing its use in the film), the doc is devoid of the very element that made Cobain a household name – his music. Unable to license any Nirvana songs, Broomfield litters his doc with odd source music, from early Cobain bands, friends’ bands, and generic heavy music. Thus robbing it of a certain level of cred.

Broomfield delves for the truth surrounding the firestorm romance of Kurt and Courtney, and the suspicious gloom of Kurt’s death. He makes little headway, and only reveals what we already know or already suspect: that Kurt was a tormented, lonely soul and that Courtney was a wildcat junkie who was simultaneously Kurt’s deliverance and destruction.

Broomfield is deflected at every turn; he gets piecemeal information that he can’t corroborate; Courtney actively evades him; or he finds himself just talking to junkies who are obviously stoned…

Hank “Tough Love” Harrison

Then there’s Courtney’s firecracker father, Hank Harrison. Author of two books, Kurt Cobain: Beyond Nirvana and Who Killed Kurt?, Hank is an earthy pragmatist who kicked Courtney out of his home more than once for not following his simple rules (no heroin, no junkie buddies, no turning tricks – you know, every father’s basic credo), and is more than ready to vilify Courtney for her lifestyle and her probable role in Cobain’s death! He doesn’t say she did it, but then he never says she didn’t…

Whereas in the 2015 documentary MONTAGE OF HECK, Courtney claims she was in London “thinking about” having an affair, here, some 17 years earlier, Hank bluntly says she was there screwing around with Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan. His straightforward vitriol toward Courtney causes Broomfield to comment he is treating Courtney harshly, but I’m willing to bet Broomfield has not had relations with a junkie. There’s no turning them. I’m with Hank’s “tough love” all the way.

Tracy “The Supportive Girlfriend” Marander

Broomfield interviews Kurt’s ex-girlfriend, Tracy Marander, in her house filled with old hippie and Nirvana paraphernalia, almost like she’s waiting for Kurt to come back to her. He also interviews one of Courtney’s former lead singer boyfriends, Rozz Rezabek, now happily married with a house and family of his own. The contrast is striking: whereas Marander only has loving words for her creative Kurt, Rezabek complains of Courtney trying to turn him into something he was not, telling her to fuck off onscreen, saying if he had stayed with her, he would have ended up with a gun in his mouth. Interesting choice of words…

Tom “Courtney Did It” Grant

Then there’s Tom Grant, ex-LA county sheriff, hired by Courtney to find Kurt in 1994 (when it was not yet suspected he was dead). Grant is fully convinced Courtney is responsible for Kurt’s death, citing Kurt’s fortune as her motivation. He claims Kurt could not have even raised the shotgun to his mouth with the amount of heroin in his body at the time of death, meaning someone else must have been in the room to shoot Kurt and set up the “suicide” scene. Grant claims he was hired by Courtney “to make it appear she did everything she could to locate Kurt when he was missing.”

Grant thinks the word suicide entered Kurt’s lexicon when Courtney entered his life. He argues that even if Kurt was reportedly “suicidal,” that was no excuse for the police not to do a thorough investigation of the scene. A Dr. Colin Brewer has discounted Grant’s theory, stating it would take more than a minute for the heroin to circulate, giving Kurt ample time to pick up the gun and use it. Grant was bankrupted pursuing the case.

Kurt loved the idea of being in love. Asked why he changed his mind on having a baby: “I really was a lot more negative and angry and everything else a few years ago. But that had a lot to do with not having a steady girlfriend. That was one of the main things bothering me that I wouldn’t admit at the time. Now that I’ve found that, the world seems a lot better for some reason. It really does change your attitude about things. For years I would’ve said, ‘How dare someone bring a child into this life?! It’s a terrible way to go – the world’s going to explode any day!’ and stuff like that. But once you fall in love, it’s a bit different.” So he just needed to get laid? If we think he sounds a little immature, remember, this guy was just 27 years old when he died. Prone to all the emotional pitfalls of having a rudderless, unreliable, yammering, philandering junkie girlfriend.

Despite his glowing testimony, by all accounts, Kurt was depressed because of Courtney. Though “they bonded pharmaceutically over drugs,” Kurt maintains he took heroin to curb his chronic stomach pains. It’s a bullshit excuse, yet at the time of his death, he was reportedly trying to get clean.

El Duce “The Douche”

The most bizarre moment in the doc is surely Broomfield meeting with a bearded, dirty, doughy tramp called El Duce (aka Eldon Hoke), a “singer” in a lecherous punk band, who alleges he was offered $50,000 by Courtney to kill Kurt. (Though his Italian epithet means leader or duke, in his case, its pronunciation (el doo-chay) conjures its phonetic meaning of “douche.”) El Duce is a cartoon mountain man: scraggly beard, cackling laugh, crazy eyes not quite focused, erratic speech not quite sane. Though he declined Courtney’s offer, he claims openly, “I know who whacked him!” It’s the eeriest moment in a film filled with eerie and uncomfortable moments. Especially when we discover that during the making of this film, El Duce was reportedly “killed by a train.”

Interviewing Kurt’s Aunt Mari is another bizarre encounter. A Christian wacko who doesn’t believe in the murder conspiracies, she is the epitome of the spinster: plays acoustic guitar at schools like a nun, relating stories that clearly bore the kids, then singing her original inspirational songs that – like Courtney – might drive some of those kids to suicide. She has a small home studio where Kurt recorded some of his music, which she is all too proud to display; we sense she thinks others will regard her as kewl for having a studio where the instigator of Nirvana tread… and she’s just a little too old to sport that mullet…

One of the most illuminating interviews is with Amy Squier, the Cobains’ babysitter, who succinctly characterizes them: he was quiet, courteous; she was a harpie, namedropper, sucking the spotlight from everyone else; he kinda sat there, enjoyed the contrast; she wanted the mansion, the big car; he didn’t. Of course, all this delivered while in a purple haze.

Broomfield and some other activists try to ambush Courtney at a rehearsal studio, then eventually do so at an ACLU event where she is receiving an award. Broomfield comes at her like any other reporter, so she is unaware of his intent, yet in this uncomfortable interview, he can’t tease out any red meat. In the end, he resorts to crashing the mic onstage (as if he was a speaker), and pointing out the irony of this person who issued death threats to journalists for negative reviews receiving an award from the American Civil Liberties Union – before he is unceremoniously kicked off. I don’t know what that tirade was meant to achieve, because it never got him any closer to the truth about Kurt’s death, or an interview with Courtney.

In the end, Broomfield states he “doesn’t believe anything anymore.” All that effort to come full circle to what Kurt was always trying to tell us. Don’t believe anything anymore. Finally, another soul has achieved – nirvana…

END

Hit-Girl graduates to Batman with Kick-Ass as her Robin.

Kicks it up a Cerebral Notch.

No matter that KICK-ASS 2 loses the precocious and comedic tone of its predecessor (KICK-ASS, 2010), it remains a scathing exposé on the real world consequences of superheroing in a world that is more evil and twisted than any comic universe can comprehend.

The violence is graphic, the swearing is viciously funny, the colors are glaring and the action is livid, but the best aspect of KICK-ASS 2 is how it displays an understanding of consequences when it transposes comic book ideals into the real world environment.

The crime-fighting exploits of college boy Dave Lizewski aka Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) have inspired myriad masked heroes taking to the streets to combat wrongdoing. However, just as every action creates an opposite and equal reaction, the new rash of “heroes” spawns a new breed of villain, that matches the heightened tenor of the heroes. The young man whose gangster father was killed by Kick-Ass, Chris D’Amico aka Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), tips into psychotic, renames himself The Motherfucker, and accrues a team of insane criminal acolytes to create murderous havoc in the city, while he seeks vengeance on Kick-Ass. Mintz-Plasse’s performance teeters on the precipice of cheese and melodrama, but he infuses it with a somber darkness that grounds it in real world psychosis; frankly, an amazing nuanced job, which we do not expect to be so convincing.

The hero and villain being two sides of the same problem is one of the excellent implicit messages in KICK-ASS 2 that will go largely unnoticed. Toward the end of the film, Dave muses on the fact that his “superhero” may have been directly responsible for creating the “supervillains” to oppose it: “Upon defeating the Motherfucker and his army of criminals, did we make the world a better place? Or did we just finish what I started when I put on the mask?”

Meaning, the creation of the HERO spawned the VILLAINS (rather than the other way round, as in the Batman universe). In other words, as you ramp up the size of your armed forces – thinking that will stultify enemy resistance before it starts – there will, in fact, rise up bigger and more radical insurgency towards your armed forces, to match them in force and fury — cough– Middle East. It’s the evolutionary race between predator and prey; as prey becomes tougher, more cautious, more camouflaged, predators become more ferocious, cannier and more perceptive. The vicious circle spirals out of control.

KICK-ASS 2 is also a coming-of-age tale, for the actual star of the movie, Chloe Grace Moretz as Mindy/Hit-Girl. A KICK-ASS sequel had to follow the fate of the young superhero girl raised by the city’s first true superhero (Nic Cage as Big Daddy, who died gruesomely in the first movie). Mindy is now trying to fit into “normal” society under the watchful eye of her father’s cop partner, Marcus (Morris Chestnut). After slumber partying with the “mean girls,” after the cheerleader tryouts and the dating scene (which surprisingly doesn’t include a date-rape attempt, but a vanilla date-dump scene!), Mindy will come to realize her destiny is, in fact, being Hit-Girl. But it would come at a price that few superhero movies address: her vigilantism in the final killing spree would cause her own guardian Marcus to come after her on principle, even though his vow was to take care of her. And Hit-Girl embraces her vigilantism, knowing she cannot help but be an outlaw. So on the one hand it’s acceptance of her fate; on the other, she is admitting to willfully abrogating the social strictures she is trying to preserve. Whether Hit-Girl is hero or villain is perception in the end. That flawless skin, those chest buds, those anemone lips and blond tresses inform me she’s hero. (Although a flaw in the story is in thinking a trained killer like Mindy would be as hormonally affected as regular teen girls when it comes to dates, bullying and boy-bands.)

Writer-director Mark Wadlow has judiciously brought the Mark Millar/John Romita Jr. graphic novel to life as an adult film. Just because the word superhero is bandied about doesn’t mean KICK-ASS 2 must automatically be perceived as simpleminded or juvenile.

This franchise is so powerful because it couches all these concepts in a wholly entertaining, satisfying wallop to the limbic part of our brain. It’s got all the fun elements that Marvel sluice into their kids-movies-disguised-as adult fare (screaming colors, quips, punching), and then it steps up the intensity with R-rated familial sacrifice, beheadings, cop-killing, finally throwing in morally ambiguous darkness (vigilantism, redemption from past sins) that many will miss precisely because they equate this genre with baby-minded diversions.

From Pet Detective (good), to The Riddler (evil), to The Colonel (morally ambiguous).

Jim Carrey is Colonel Stars and Stripes, leading a wannabe crimefighting team called Justice Forever; he’s a rampaging neurotic who will blissfully cripple criminals whilst chastising his team for taking the Lord’s name in vain. Full credit to Carrey for once again burying himself in a role where he is practically unrecognizable, but demerit points for him going rogue against the film’s marketing campaign and denouncing his violent character after the Sandy Hook school shooting in December 2012. One thing has nothing to do with the other, and it’s sad that Carrey unnecessarily entwined his ego in the inevitable subsequent non-sequitur debate over gun control. If Carrey had said nothing, no one would have suffered any less or further; not the film, not his career, not the families of the victims at Sandy Hook, but by inserting himself into the narrative, he effectively drew attention away from any real issues. Any news story featuring Carrey’s disavowal of the film was now an “entertainment” piece.

The film’s potent messages were also diluted by Carrey’s stunt. The KICK-ASS series illustrates how violence begets violence, and that “for real people who try to be superheroes, eventually, it had to end too.” Things fall apart; the center cannot hold with a violence-against-violence ethos. There has to be something more – and this movie provides that answer: Dave narrates that “superheroes can’t exist in the real world for a reason – because the real world needs real heroes, and not some punk playing dressup!” Amazingly, in this Hollywood blam-fest, the difference between “hero” and “vigilante” is defined – a vigilante might enact justice on purse-snatchers or corporate thugs, but a hero will also aid those in need of food, clothing, shelter, a helping hand – one of the very traits Carrey’s Colonel emphasizes in low-key scenes that do not include blammo! And Carrey himself missed this salient point by shooting his mouth off like an incognizant turnip.

Taylor-Johnson has ripped up himself for the role of Dave. He’s meant to be a wimp, trained by Moretz’s teen Mindy (who is also in stunning shape), but as soon as he takes his shirt off, it looks like his physique has been sprayed on by Marvel Comics. Gone is the dynamic between them – that of a bigger brother with a more adept and lethal little sister. At the conclusion of KICK-ASS, when Dave flew Mindy home in the jet-pack (under the cosmic majesty of Marius Vries’ Flying Home theme), it was innocent and loving and platonic. No matter Mindy’s foul mouth and killing skills, she was an 11-year-old schoolgirl. Now they are on the same sexual playing field, so besides all this lust in my groin being legal, their interaction is somewhat confusing.

At the conclusion, it is sad to see Mindy leaving Dave to motorbike across a bay bridge (that old symbolism of “crossing over”), but maybe the sadness stems from that poignantly uplifting Flying Home theme, tying the franchise together and edging a tear in our eyes. We imagine Dave and Mindy would end as an item, but the film skews more realistically by leading Dave sexually afield, setting him up with three women in his orbit: his distant girlfriend (an insipid cameo by Lyndsy Fonseca), his fantasy infatuation – Hit-Girl, and his ferocious animal lust – Night Bitch…

“Hi, why is no one listening to a word I say?
Hey… hey… up here…”

Ah, Night Bitch (Lindy Booth), a supergal on the Stars and Stripes team, with a torso so delectably deliriously delicious, it remains nakedly exposed for the better part of the movie, even though any combat specialist will attest that is probably the worst and most ignorant way to enter into lethal battle – unless you’re Michelle Rodriguez.

Two supporting roles shine with gravitas and poignancy; John Leguizamo as D’Amico’s “Alfred to his evil Batman,” and Garrett M. Brown as Dave’s father.

Donald Faison is hero Dr. Gravity, and Israeli bodybuilder Olga Kurkulina is villain Mother Russia; whereas Clark Duke was merely one of Kick-Ass’s nerds in the last film, now he’s in on the super action as Battle Guy; Evan Peters was Kick-Ass’s other nerd friend – but he actually graduated to a real super (Quicksilver in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST!) – replaced by dorkier Augustus Pew as Ass-Kicker.

KICK-ASS 2 is still about the hero’s journey – Dave trying to find his purpose – but I believe the untapped gem of the series is Hit-Girl. Her character is indoctrinated as a super from a young age; she knows nothing else, and of all the characters – heroes or villains – she alone is imbued with that psychosis inherent in all great superhero characters. Her polar opposite is Motherfucker, who embraces his pure evil. These two are the Batman and Joker of this franchise. Kick-Ass himself is, unfortunately, kinda the Robin.

END

When the blues become grays…

The Smoothest Criminal.

Nobody wants to get old – but they don’t wanna die young either.
— Keith Richards.

His face is the underside of a running shoe, his voice is weather-beaten phlegm, his fingers arthritic memories, smoke curling from a constantly-lit cigarette. So this is what Gollum is doing now? No wait, the guy in this documentary is Keith Richards, guitarist for The Rolling Stones since man invented fire.

Director Morgan Neville (JOHNNY CASH’S AMERICA) perches on Keef’s shoulder, watching him insouciantly lay down tracks for his new solo blues album, while telling tall tales: visiting Muddy Waters’ old house, (“It was rockin’ when I got here – it’s leaving I don’t remember…”), working with Chuck Berry (“Chuck has his own way of showing appreciation…”), playing with Howlin’ Wolf (“The gentle giant”), visiting New Orleans concert halls carved from churches (“Beautiful woodwork!” – I thought that was such a funny, inconsequential line – and there it is in the trailer!).

Not really a biography, just a portrait of the ageless superstar at this point in time. If you came for the Strolling Bones, you’re in the wrong doc; they are but a peripheral presence, and only because they inform such a large slice of Richards’ life. There is one excellent sequence where we see the young Stones in the studio (circa 1968) fashioning Sympathy For The Devil from a slow Dylan-esque wailer to the ramped tribal samba we worship within pentacles.

Doc investigates what influenced Richards (reggae, country, R&B, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis), what united him with Mick (he recounts that fateful 1960 meeting on the morning train with Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry records tucked under Jagger’s arm), and what drove him to venture out on his own (the rift between he and Jagger in the late 80s: “1985 to ’89, that was actually World War III”). We see an SNL performance of his first single Take It So Hard, from his 1988 debut solo album Talk Is Cheap.

Tom Waits is a talking head, Buddy Guy beats him at pool, and there’s a touching segment where Richards reconciles with his dad after two decades.

He may actually be a great guitar player after all these years. Who can tell? He keeps playing the same chords. For all his Living Legend status, great philosophies and life experience, Richards makes some odd and naive sweeping statements about his chosen art form:

He complains about the white version of the blues, differentiating “rock and roll” from “rock music,” saying he’s losing his taste for the latter, because “they turned it into a march [he groans a plodding song in strict 4/4]. That’s their version of rock. Excuse me, I prefer the roll.” Whatever that means. And the only reason people rub their chins and declare you a prophet – is because you’re Keef! Who you been listening to anyway, turning rock into a “march”? There’s something worthwhile to be found in every song in every genre, from The Backstreet Boys to Black Sabbath, from Barbra to Bach. And I would think someone with Richards’ experience would know that, or would have innately sensed it by now.

He has forged some of the most memorable riffs in rock and roll history, but the material we hear him constructing (presumably for his 2015 release Crosseyed Heart) is a stream-of-consciousness potpourri of the same old blues progressions, as he leans his runnelled face up against a mic and rasps the same old blues lyrics about whiskey, women and blind lemon pie. No one is saying Richards is not good, or that the album might not be stellar, but this solo Stone is given a lot of undue credit simply for being alive after ingesting every drug in the universe. He’s just playing 12-bar blues, people. It ain’t heart surgery! And though there IS edification in hearing good blues played by great musicians, even the best artists in that genre soon start repeating themselves (to wit: Keith Richards). That’s my biggest gripe with the blues: from the tonal modes to the fretboard positions to the facial expressions – repetitive repetitive repetitive repetitive repetitive repetitive… But it doesn’t have to be! Richards’ own output is a marvel of blues-BASED ditties that colors outside the 12-bar framework (Gimme Shelter, Angie, Sympathy For The Devil, Brown Sugar, etc.), so why the constant reversion to this simplistic, BORING form? Yeah, I said it.  Richards is regarded as a god, even though there are so many others who are more prolific, more creative (Todd Rundgren, Frank Zappa, Prince), who push the boundaries of music past where they found it, whose originality gives us chills.

Keith holds Chuck Berry in highest regard: “Not a lot of guys wanna play like Chuck, because it’s like taking on the devil. I’ll take it on.” Uh, if you say so, Keith. People will nod because you have seniority. But everyone wants to play like Chuck – at first – because you gots to learn the rudiments of rock and roll, but any musician worth his salt will quickly surpass Chuck. Hell, even I’ve played with session musicians that are so good they can make you think you’re listening to good ole one-trick-pony Chuck, and then they can take the music FURTHER than twelve bars. But that’s plain blasphemy around old bluesmen. In a Queen documentary many years back, Richards was asked if he could, or would like to, take the place of Brian May, to which he shrugged, smirked, and deflected, “Man, that’s his gig, y’know?” Face the music, Keith – you CAN’T play like Brian May, but Brian May can easily – EASILY – play like Keith Richards. And May takes it way past 12 bars. Listen to the 68-year-old Brian perform Love Of My Life and get back to me on that godhood thing…

Keith Richards comes off as a really nice guy, still sharp and funny, and appreciative of his musical life, and though the cig never leaves his lips, we presume he is straight as an arrow these days. Or he wouldn’t be alive! So that title is kinda cheap: Under The Influence – like he’s still a Badboy, with a horse needle in his arm and drinking straight from the Jack bottle and puking in a gutter and spending the night in jail after a gig. He even has a chuckle about that perceived image of him. Then why that title?

You really should know the history of the Stones going into this doc, because they hardly register here, their presence as insubstantial as the cigarette smoke swirling about Keith’s head like a halo. If taken at face value, the 71-year-old Richards is a lone artist making his way in the world. At this moment, he is. But how did he get here with this kind of clout? The Stones…

His joy of life is unquenchable, his laugh is infectious. His wife of 32 years, Patti Hansen, is still hotness. His property is lush green acreage. He’s a multi-millionaire. And he’s a Rolling Stone.

Why is this guy singing the blues again?

END