Target Malpractice.

A man down on his luck accepts an invitation to make big money – and inadvertently finds himself the 13th gunman in an underground Russian Roulette game.

“13” sets up the clichéd premise immediately: electrician Vince Ferro (Sam Riley) needs money for his dad’s operation. While he is busy connecting wires at a client’s home, he overhears the client talking about a letter he has received that will mean the end of his money troubles. The client overdoses the next day. Vince steals the letter.

He follows the letter’s guarded instructions, picking up a key, expenses, a cellphone, traveling to New York, where he is picked up by a mysterious driver and taken to a mansion deep in the woods.

The trembling Vince realizes too late that he’s in too deep. The mansion hosts a vast game of Russian Roulette, with high-stakes bettors gambling on “their shooter” beating the odds and surviving. If their shooter falls, they turn their bets to the remaining players. Each player wears a black numbered t-shirt. Vince is number 13. “His” bettors – outraged that Vince took their player’s place – tell him simply, “It’s too late to leave. You have to play now.” Mortified with fear, Vince joins the circle of men aiming their guns at the man’s head in front of them.

M.C. Michael Shannon stands atop a ladder, commanding players to load their guns, spin their barrels – stop… Aim…

Shoot.

Yes, Vince stands to make more money than he’d earn in ten years. If he lives.

Directed by European Géla Babluani (remaking his own 2005 European film 13 TZAMETI), 13 is like the most intense Russian Roulette moments of THE DEER HUNTER compressed into Christopher Walken pants-wetting proportions.

Though set in New York, the movie oozes Euro, in unnerving plot, gritty direction, and the wealth of European actors. Sam Riley, his lips redder than Michelle Pfeiffer’s as Catwoman, is a Brit, as are many of the supporting cast. Hard-fightin’ Brit Jason Statham is a veteran bettor, who places his own elder retarded brother in the circle, played with brawny tragedy by none other than Ray Winstone; British Hard Guy from a previous era, as older brother to the British Hard Guy of this era. This is the deepest side-story, as the elder brother laboriously spits some harsh, guilt-laden words at the younger, as the competition nears its finale; we speculate that the younger brother places the older in play as a means to abdicate his responsibility for him.

Mickey Rourke, somehow always looking like he woke up in a dumpster, is a shooter, so bloated he’s about to float away. Ben Gazzara, so old he’s about to keel over. Alexander Skarsgard (son of Stellan) so Sexiest Man Alive he’s about to get laid. 50 Cent so gangster he has the audacity to try strangling The Wrestler. Jason Statham so hard he’s about to make TRANSPORTER 4. Ray Winstone so retarded Sarah Palin called and wanted lessons. Michael Shannon so overacting he’s about to become General Zod.

END

None More Shirtless.

Visual gluttony!

No matter what you may think about IMMORTALS as a grandiose movie, a confused mythological tale, or an action fantasy diversion — goddam, it looks good!

Call the filmstock developers! Someone spilled sepia tone and iron filings all over our print! And tell those guys to put some shirts on!

IMMORTALS follows ancient Greek mythological hero Theseus (shirtless Henry Cavill), on a legendary journey created by the screenwriters (Charley and Vlas Parlapanides), whom we presume haven’t read a Greek myth in their lives. The only vignette marginally resembling a Greek myth is the slaying of the Minotaur (the Minotaur not even a half-man half-bull, but an executioner with a kind of “crown-of-thorns” helmet shaped like a bull’s head). All the rest is off-the-cuff “mythology” about power-mad King Hyperion (even more shirtless Mickey Rourke) seeking an “Epirus Bow” that will help him rule the world. (Well, what else would one do with an Epirus Bow?)

And Theseus is there to lead Greece against him – with no shirts on.

As I watched IMMORTALS, I kept feeling like I should know this “Theseus” fella, but none of his situations or adventures were jogging my memory. He has a few scenes with John Hurt, who knows some of the old gods personally. Then that scene with the Minotaur, and my jaw dropped: It’s that Theseus?! Wasn’t he the half-son of Poseidon (here represented by a fey Teen Model) and a princess (here a peasant woman)? And isn’t Hyperion one of the 12 Titans, not a mortal king?…

If you’re here for the mythology, you’ve come to the wrong shirtless film. All I can say is, I enjoyed the movie as the extreme visual spectacle that it is, all mythological knowledge thrown out the window with the men’s shirts. (How long does it take to get your obliques that cut anyway?)

Stephen Dorff (shirtless to the max) gives Superman a run with his own obliques cut like bicycle seats on his hips. He’s scrapper Darius (–or something–who cares about the Greek names, right? They’re not actual characters from the Theseus myth anyway!). Frieda Pinto (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) is a virgin oracle garbed from eyebrow to ankle in concealing oracle-wear – until Theseus saves her with the supercool glittering arrows from the magic Epirus Bow. Then it’s plunging neckline and thigh-high slit skirt. Oh, and sex (–now calm down, young lads; though she’s got a smokin’ bod, it’s useless. She’s a virgin! Ironically, God only knows how long it’s gonna take to convince her to GO GREEK!).

The portrayal of Zeus is telling of our times. Remember when the elder gods were always old men like Lawrence Olivier, or even Liam Neeson? Here, the father of the gods is dashing Luke Evans (none more shirtless), upgraded from playing Apollo in 2010’s CLASH OF THE TITANS. And all his divine chillun – Ares, Heracles, Poseidon and Athena – are Teen Models. Shirtless of course. Except for the goddess – the only person we really want to see shirtless. Isabel Lucas (as Athena) teases us as a naked stone woman, then drapes an annoying toga over herself as she assumes her immaculate human goddess form. She’s so perfect that I love her so much I hate her.

The movie loses me when Zeus vows to kill any of his god-children that help the mortals – and then when Ares and Athena help the mortals, Zeus kills only Ares! Can’t kill the Hot Chick, oh no! That would mean half our audience of young boys masturbating would leave.

In the final battle against Hyperion, Theseus (whose British accent gets more Australian as the film wears on) rallies the retreating Greek army to turn and fight, by giving Inspirational Movie Speech No. 24, aka the “Blessed Are The Cheesemakers Speech” – in other words, how does anyone past the fifth row hear him? “We must stand and fight!”… “Did he say ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers’?” “Well, obviously it’s not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.”

Director Tarsem Singh has studied Zack Snyder’s 300 like a man possessed, copycatting that scintillating balletic violence; I especially like the representation of gods killing faster than the eye can see, as they ravage at normal speed through a forest of assailants that are being mutilated in slow motion.

When everyone is dying at the hands of the Titans (which are nameless stone-textured soldiers that scuttle around like bestial insects), Zeus decides to turn to magic – a literal deus ex machina. The eternal question: why didn’t he use magic in the first place and save us all that time looking for our shirts?

END

The Man Show.

Ladies, don’t go near this movie if you don’t want to get pregnant.

Sylvester Stallone and his man-team infiltrate a junta compound to rescue a chick. Explosions. Gunfire. Wrestling matches. Man-banter. Big explosions. Then some bigger explosions. Then an explosion so big it will rattle the testosterone right out of your ballsac and into the nearest female’s womb. That’s how manly THE EXPENDABLES is…

As a boy’s action-adventure movie, THE EXPENDABLES delivers, with hand-to-hand, gun-to-gun, wall-to-wall, ball-to-ball man-sweat; hot women (Giselle Itié, Charisma Carpenter) and a cool seaplane; hella fun, with hard action, hard livin’ and forearms as hard as roped steel cables.

Seems Stallone has given up trying to impress audiences with his considerable acting talent and opted, in his autumn, to revert back to the gunmetal thunder of his macho youth that involved beating up people and baritone mumbles. (Autumn? At 64, still built like a freight train. Now that’s the power of will, the power of diet, the power of, uh, steroids.)

Man-Poffy

Stallone heads a mercenary team informally known as The Expendables, which includes Jason Statham (most agile), Jet Li (most diminutive), Terry Crews (most trapezius), Randy Couture (most xtreme) and Dolph Lundgren (most junkie giant). Eric Roberts (most B-Movie) is the villain, with Steve Austin (most neck) as his muscle.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis cameo in a man-banter scene with Stallone that makes its own semen sandwich. Mickey Rourke (most tattooed) is an ex-member of the boy band, who surprisingly turns out to be the heart of the movie.

It is Mickey’s tragic baritone mumbling about how he could have saved one woman’s life, after taking so many lives in a war zone, that spurs Stallone into going non-merc and rescuing one of the hot women for free (apparently to redeem his soul, but mostly cos she looked like a Euro runway model), and our hearts go out to him and his boys for having to kill all those faceless junta drogues who can’t hit the side of a barn with their machine guns and army training.

A wet-dream tough guy ensemble, Stallone directs and co-writes and beats up people and baritone mumbles.

END

Jumping the Stark.

The first IRON MAN movie was a planet-crusher. IRON MAN 2, well, maybe it could crush a small moon or something. It’s still a full-fledged, fun-filled ferrous romp, but, like all superhero sequels, suffers from cramming us with characters and classic storylines in its desperate need to impress. My hole feels stretched. Not in that good way either.

IRON MAN 2 opens in exhilaration: over AC/DC’s Shoot To Thrill, Iron Man jets through night skies over city lights, camera/we on his steel shoulders, feeling the weight of the armor, the gut-thumping power of the afterburners in his boots, inhaling the burning breeze as he plummets like a missile into a packed amphitheater, landing onstage in a pose that can only be described as THOOM! You don’t applaud an entrance like that. You throw panties.

War Vegetable

Machines clack his costume off his body as an Iron Chick chorus line (in tiny faux-metal undies) dances behind him. Billionaire playboy Tony Stark emerges (Robert Downey Jr., once again bringing his breezy brio) to open the Stark Technology Expo.

Half a world away, in a dank Russian lab with no windows, Ivan Vanko (scary Mickey Rourke, body-tatted like Motley Crue and still pumped from his WRESTLER role like a balloon float gone awry) plots revenge on Stark for Stark’s dad stealing tech ideas from Ivan’s dad. He becomes supervillain Whiplash and scares everyone by carving Tony’s racing car in half with his electric whips and showing off his puffy muscles.

Everyone wants a piece of the Iron. Garry Shandling, excellent as a snide congressman, impotently orders Stark – who doesn’t take him seriously – to turn over the Iron Man technology to the military; while sleazy Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), the government’s tech bitch, tries to duplicate the armor for military use, i.e. killing. (Of what other use is the military?)

Hammer allies with Whiplash to unleash an army of robots which ultimately keeps the effects team up all night rendering CGI. IRON MAN 2 shows us both ends of the crime spectrum – white collar (Hammer’s Machiavellian corporate moves) and blue collar (Whiplash bash, with enough macho metal punching to keep the simpletons happy).

Don Cheadle replaces Terrence Howard as Rhodey, Stark’s military liaison and best friend. And gets to kick ass as the heavily-armed “second Iron Man” called War Machine.

Stan Lee is Larry King.

Paul Bettany once again voices J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony Stark’s 3D hologram supercomputer that makes Bruce Wayne’s bat-computer look like Pong. It is everywhere it needs to be, doing everything it is told to do – like an ideal version of a chick. In Spielberg’s MINORITY REPORT (2002), when Tom Cruise flapped his hands in the air accessing information, it looked “futuristic” and unattainable, and though Stark’s holograms are miles above MINORITY’S technology, yet we feel that this kind of technology might exist today in some secret gub’mint facility.

“Tony, you’re gonna play them drums good – or else!”

It’s amusing to see how naturally director Jon Favreau slots into blockbuster mode – remember this was the indie guy who made SWINGERS (1996) and hosted actors’ chats in DINNER FOR FIVE (2001).

Stark’s power source has been updated from the comic books: he used to plug into the wall like a regular old toaster, but here he has power cells that click into his chest piece – the same chest piece which keeps his heart beating yet is killing him softly through blood toxicity. Desperately seeking a cure, Stark nonetheless becomes fatalistic and bequeaths Stark Industries to his blond helper Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, forever pining after the playboy she will never have), and stumbles upon the alcoholism plot point very conveniently.

And this is where the film stumbles as well. In the Marvel comicbook series, serious plot arcs like alcoholism gestate and develop over weeks or months (“Demon in a Bottle” was first published in 1979, then Stark fell off the wagon proper in 1983, forcing James Rhodes to don the Iron Man armor, precipitating War Machine), lending the story gravitas and “realism.” While in IRON MAN 2, Stark goes lush, Rhodey croaks the damning key line, “You don’t deserve the suit!” and commandeers the War Machine armor all in a few hot minutes, making it seem, well – ironically – like a comicbook. Or at least what people think comicbooks are – shallow, vacuous and unrealistic.

Stark creates a laser thingy that will simultaneously cleanse his blood and kill anything that he aims it at (‘IRON-ic’ huh?). When it flames on, Stark has to lever the laser to angle it onto his chest plate, which absorbs its energy. The laser shoots up the whole room in the process of moving it (simply to show off its lethal power to viewers). I guess Stark couldn’t have just angled it at the chest plate to begin with, being a physics genius an’ all…

The climactic battle between Whiplash and the two iron men is robbed of its impact by having to put Mickey Rourke into an Iron Suit and then on top of that ignominy, to have him remove his mask so that we can see him (the Spider-Man Mask-Removing Syndrome – ensure the ignorant audience knows who is behind the mask and then ensure the dumb dumb dumb audience can see the emotions on his face).

Movie ends with a true metal song, with a true metal singer – Bon Scott’s true AC/DC, Highway To Hell.

Despite its overwrought overpandering, from its titanium thunderware to its tiny metal underwear, IRON MAN 2 delivers, but says nothing we haven’t heard before in loud metal clanks.

END

Blonde on Blande.

Billed as “the next Mickey Rourke movie” (after the award-winning THE WRESTLER, 2009, even though he filmed this prior to WRESTLER) and tagged as “Brad Renfro’s last screen appearance” (before his untimely death), and written by Bret Easton Ellis (AMERICAN PSYCHO, 2000), it is surprising what a box office failure THE INFORMERS was, going straight-to-DVD so fast that even before I rented it, I was already behind in the late fees.

Then I rented it. Now I’m not surprised. And I’m not paying the late fees.

Empty, bereft of soul, like its characters; a movie experience that leaves you feeling like a victim of a drive-by rape, one good thing can be said about THE INFORMERS – it is as detached, distracting and uninvolving as Ellis’s book.

Yet that is in keeping with the story itself, so I guess it is successful in one sense, in that the characters are written to be exactly this nauseous! In a morally bankrupt Los Angeles of 1983, four separate stories minimally intertwine with many diverse, decadent characters, all sociopaths on burnout paths; damaged goods, desensitized by their riches and traumatized by their insecurities. Unlike the sociopaths in TRAINSPOTTING or TRUE ROMANCE, these people are downright unlikeable.

At least they’re blond.

I’m… too sexy for my blondness

Maybe it’s because I lived and died through the 80s, but I’ve met these people before, and they aren’t new or shocking, they’re not cool or interesting – they’re pathetic. They are “dark” and “edgy” like Donnie Wahlberg was the bad boy of New Kids On The Block.

An early scene features four guys sitting around a wake, spitting chunky gobs of Ellis’s satiric, absurdist writing. Then it loses direction quicker than a crack whore who needs to pay the rent but blows it on blow.

Graham (Jon Foster, blond) is screwing Christie (Amber Heard, blond), and they are both screwing Martin (Austin Nichols, blond). Martin is screwing Laura (Kim Basinger, blond), wife of William (Billy Bob Thornton, blond), who is trying to re-screw Cheryl (Winona Ryder, a brunette with no hope of passing on her genes). The younger blondes constantly fuck – Amber Heard scoring a million brownie points for being topless or naked always – while the older blondes bitch about relationships and drugs.

Meanwhile, Tim (Lou Taylor Pucci, blond) is on holiday in Hawaii with his dad Les (Chris Isaak, drunk), who infantilizes and cockblocks him.

Meanwhile, rockstar Bryan Metro (Mel Raido, drugged out of his mind) hangs with road manager Rhys Ifans (blond) and gets sex everywhere. His band is called The Informers. Like it matters to the story.

Meanwhile, Uncle Peter (Mickey Rourke, blond) visits his nephew Jack (Brad Renfro, blond) only to stash a kidnapped kid in Jack’s bathtub. (Remember back in the day when you could earn money through ransom?) The marketers who pitched this movie as Rourke’s and Renfro’s unwittingly targeted the only interesting story of the bunch.

Rourke is tanned, taut and pumped (prepping for THE WRESTLER role), his shirts not knowing the meaning of buttons or sleeves – but Renfro just looks puffy and old, a reflection of his real life struggle. His character is a bellboy/actor, at one point, going to a very dark place when he beseeches someone who ‘knows a director’: “You have to be willing to do anything in this town… I’m willing to do anything.”

Though each story is compelling in itself, stitching them all together fails them all.

At one point in their drug-addled, wastrel lives, parked overlooking the lights of L.A., sniffing coke, Martin asks a dissatisfied Graham blondly, “What else is there? You already have everything?!” to which Graham replies even more blondly, “I need someone to tell me what’s good and what’s bad, because if nobody tells you these things, how do you know?” How much blonder could it possibly get? Answer: None more blond. Ironic that the person whom he wants philosophic schooling from, with whom he wants a “meaningful relationship” – is blond Christie, the promiscuous airhead!

Nihilistic, narcissistic nothingness; guess blondes don’t always have the most fun.

At least they’re blond.

END

Emotional Pounding.

Well I’m frustrated, outdated,
I really wanna be over-rated.
I’m a finder and I’m a keeper;
I’m not a loser and I ain’t no weeper.
I got the boys to make a noise
Won’t ever let up – Hope it annoys you!
Join the pack, feel the crack!
Well now you’re here – There’s no way back!
— Quiet Riot, Bang Your Head.

Director Darren Aronofsky bodyslams us for a three-count with THE WRESTLER, a modern masterpiece; controlled, poignant, inspiring, funny, ultimately heart-wrenching with a Ramjet dive off the turnbuckle.

The Poff off the turnbuckle!

All that wayward talk about Mickey Rourke winning Mr. Oscar is well-founded. His performance as The Wrestler is music sweet music – specifically, 1980s hair metal. Not only does he pull the shameless Oscar Moments (“I’m a broken-down piece of meat… I don’t want you to hate me” – you’ve seen the trailers), he also does the most natural onscreen acting since the 1970s (think: JAWS or THE EXORCIST) – and that’s him in the ring, 100%, having spent four months drilling the discipline of the bodyslammer, performing all his wrestling stunts himself.

A triple-threat performance so remarkable should be rewarded – even if it’s just the political hokum of the Academy Awards. At the time of this writing, he has already walked off with the Golden Globe for Best Actor.

THE WRESTLER opens with posters of wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Rourke), in a montage of his glamorous, storied career, while Quiet Riot’s Bang Your Head slams at the soundtrack; some posters feature his watershed bout with “The Ayatollah” at Madison Square Garden.

Crash-cut to 20 years later in a lonely dressing room after an exhibition match, with Randy accepting a light pay packet (the usual managerial excuse “Not as many people as I thought”). He is down but not out, long dyed-blond locks, long in the tooth, long past his Use By date, yet punishing his body in small matches for small pay.

“Well I’m frustrated, outdated…”

With a Steadicam following so close behind him we can hear his labored breathing and count the wrinkles on his puffy, battered face, our first intimate adventure with Randy is him being locked out of his trailer (for late rent) after returning from a match, eventually sleeping in his Dodge van.

Some glamour.

“I really wanna be over-rated.”

Aronofsky is intent on showing us the side of this vocation farthest from the bright lights and the crowd roar, following Randy so closely we almost get a steroid high from breathing in the stank of his sweaty, bloody tights; blonding his hair, tanning his hide, doping on painkillers, buying a sweater for his estranged daughter…

He makes time at a strip club with stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) who – ironically – doesn’t treat him like a slab of meat, and though they share a few tender moments, she forces herself to regard him as “just a customer.” And though we know he feels for Cassidy – not least because she spends so much time rubbing her firm naked ta-tas against his brickhouse biceps in private dances – he keeps up that tough man-facade…

“I’m a finder and I’m a keeper;
I’m not a loser and I ain’t no weeper.”

Mickey Rourke has always had a body carved from unyielding rock; a background in boxing and self-abuse has brought him this wrestler’s meat-muscle frame. Though he was not Aronofsky’s first casting choice, The Wrestler IS Mickey Rourke – it is futile trying to imagine anyone else fitting this role as snugly. Rourke is not acting, just being. Though something seems very “wrong” and misshapen about that mountain gorilla frame, like it is being driven by will alone and one misstep will implode it.

Randy is obviously the oldest still on the circuit, yet the camaraderie of the wrestler brotherhood is apparent – backstage, they all give him the respect he has earned. But in this “fake yet real” “sport” he is not fighting these young man-mountains anyway – he is battling his own failing body.

“I got the boys to make a noise;
Won’t ever let up – Hope it annoys you!”

Wheels go into motion for a 20th Anniversary Rematch against The Ayatollah, but after an exceptionally gruesome match (“You okay with a staple gun?”), Randy is felled by a heart attack and doctors warn him “never to exert himself again.”

“But doc, I’m a professional wrestler.”

“Join the pack, feel the crack!”

Faced with potential death if he steps into the ring again, Randy reassesses his stagnant life and bleak future. He tries to stomach the nostalgic sludge of a reminiscence tour, but seated behind conference tables, selling memorabilia and his autograph for $8 a pop, putting on fake smiles for photos with redneck fans, won’t sustain his spirit.

His day job behind a deli counter becomes intolerable (his dweeby boss denigrating him at every turn); his stilted reconciliation with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) goes awry; his uncertain courtship of stripper Cassidy falls flat, and Randy realizes that for all the battering he has taken in the ring, “The only place I get hurt is out there.”

“The world don’t give a shit about me.”

He is a Wrestler, only alive in the ring. Neither doctors nor time nor his body nor his heart can make him stop being one.

“Well now you’re here – There’s no way back!”

As Bang Your Head is his theme song, Quiet Riot’s career arc exactly defines Randy’s career. The band’s 1983 release Metal Health was the first metal album to hit Number 1 on the U.S. charts, followed by arena tours; twenty years later, Quiet Riot were playing small casinos and nudist colonies, and late 2007, founder and lead vocalist, Kevin DuBrow died from a cocaine overdose.

THE WRESTLER is a tragic commentary for those who chance into the insular world of stardom; we have made no place in our shallow, blitzkrieg society for them to graciously decompress.

Streetfighter Jack Wilson warns Philo Beddoe in ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN: “You’re fast and you like pain. You eat it like candy. I’ve seen a few cases like that in my time. The more they get hurt, the more dangerous they become. But you gotta be durable, too. Real durable. Most ain’t.”

“Bang your head! Metal health will drive you mad!”

KAPOW!

END