"Accomplishments"
At home: I love what Dan Trachtenberg is doing with Predator, and I hope the sequel bait at the end of Predator: Badlands means there'll be more. Here, he does two interesting things. One is giving us a Predator as a protagonist. Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Dek (could there be two more mismatched named in terms of letter count?) is a Predator we can root for - a runt in his his own culture who makes a terrible sacrifice to prove his worth on a deadly planet where even the plant life has evolved to be lethal. It's an insane setting and they get a lot of mileage out of it. The other interesting thing is his use of the Alien universe - part of the Predatorverse since the second film (a trophy in the background), then realized through the AvP films - using androids and that always evil corporation to good effect, while foregoing the ultimately less interesting xenomorphs. Elle Fanning plays an empathetic model who perhaps has something to teach our young hunter, and push him towards a very different kind of Predator than he already was. Trachtenberg knows how to build an action set piece, and his notion (teased in Killer of Killers) that Predators are essentially roaming swordsmen - like alien samurai - creates some great opportunities. Fanning's android body also has some fun implications. The result is a lot of neat stuff we haven't seen before, and that's all I ask from my action flicks.
If I'd seen Lethal Weapon (unclear), I certainly didn't remember it starting with Woody's naive girlfriend from Cheers snorting coke with her breasts exposed before jumping off a building. Shane Black's first film of course takes place around Christmas, but I wouldn't say all the hallmarks of his style are present and accounted for. It's got distinctive villains, for example, but no fun conversation between henchmen. He's basically doing his marketable riff on the Odd Couple buddy cop movie, inadvertently (perhaps) crystallizing it into the form it would remain in for decades to come. Riggs isn't just a "cop on the edge", he's about to step off of it. Though his suicidal attitude becomes a joke in later films, the first Lethal Weapon is very dark at times and Riggs COULD end up killing himself. But Black knows enough to give both partners an arc, so Murtaugh the family man is pushed to the edge even as he helps Riggs walk away from it. With Richard Donner at the helm, we're in good hands cinematically, and he brings out a nice naturalism to the banter, and the night cinematography is gorgeous. That last reel sequence alone could be the envy of a Hong Kong flick, and that's one of the highest compliments I can give.
If I'd only seen one Lethal Weapon back in the 90s, it must have been the second one. That bathroom scene is iconic and indelible (as is the house of stilts). This one has much more money behind it and the stunts and action set pieces are consequently pretty great. It seems they've decided that the boys uncovering some kind of international crime while investigating a routine one is part of the formula, and Apartheid-era Afrikaans are not a common action flick villain, so quite cool to see. This might be where I learned about diplomatic immunity, but immunity or not, these guys make such a splash, it would actually start a war. The other thing they've decided is part of the formula is the bickering (unfortunately), but Riggs and Murtaugh are getting along too well, so in comes Joe Pesci as a spoiled, manic, protected witness. Happily, he's having too much fun for us (or the guys) to stay irritated at him. No wonder the character stuck around. My main beef with the movie is that the lore drops are unnecessary, as Riggs could have gone on his revenge for current crimes without the need for an entirely too coincidental connection to his past, but mileage may vary.
Lethal Weapon 3's biggest sin - and there are many, from lower stakes to dumb subplots like that lady who crushed on Murtaugh, repetitive and loud firefights, and terrible editing - is that it doesn't recognize its own genre tropes or how to capitalize on them. Here we have Murtaugh a week from retirement, and in an action cop universe (which this series is most definitely a part of), that means he's marked for death. ESPECIALLY since we're hard-wired to understand franchises as closed trilogies. It's fine that he doesn't die - we wouldn't want that - but every time the movie tells you to fear for someone's death, it's someone else's. They don't do anything with the tension that comes with their set-up. Otherwise, it's a real step down from the previous film despite Donner still directing. Shane Black has entirely stepped away and the result is a more ordinary story. It still has its moments, like badass Rene Russo comparing scars with Riggs, a bit of hockey action, and a fiery finish, but it telegraphs its surprises too obviously and often feels disjointed, like it's cramming too many unimportant things into the narrative.
While a fourth Lethal Weapon seems surplus to requirements, it's actually a return to form, at least in some ways. The accumulated cast is all here - Rene Rousseau still the best thing to happen to the franchise and I can't believe all the kids stuck with it since the beginning - plus Chris Rock as a new breed of supercop (he's basically Chris Rock saying Chris Rock things, but not a bad part of the trio). This time, they go up against the Chinese Triads, incarnated by Jet Li sporting a terrible hair piece, though what really creates cognitive dissonance is Hollywood's insistence that Jet Li should be a villain. For a franchise that has never slung the N-word (give or take South African equivalents in episode 2), it sure is casual with its racism towards Asians. That said, the plot allows for much better action than possibly any of the films. Exhilarating fights and crazy stunts abound, so much better than the previous film's dreary shoot'em-ups. LW4 says its final words on the central bromance and how it has spread across a family of characters. 11 years after the first flick, was a fourth film necessary? No. What it fun? It sure was!
In their Splitsville, Michael Angelo Covino (dir.) and Kyle Marvin (co-wr.) write themselves as ordinary schmoes who somehow pull two of contemporary cinema's most beautiful women - Adria Arjona (Hit Man) and Dakota Johnson (Materialists, making her 2 for 2 in the cool modern romcoms category in 2025). But let's forgive them the fantasy, because the movie is a fabulously original and funny anti-romcom about revolving door open relationships, with many amusing performances beyond those of the four leads. There's just no guessing where this modern screwball picture is going from one moment to the next. And though I call it an anti-romcom, it's still pretty romantic, even if the grand gestures tend to crash, burn and explode. A strong combination of witty dialogue, solid physical humor, and outrageous premises. I wish it didn't just to the end so quickly, cuz I could have used another 15 minutes.
Three years after Hamlet Goes Business, Aki Kaurismäki returns to the factory works for The Match Factory Girl, still using much of that earlier film's cast, I see. His Ophelia, Kati Outinen, is the title character, a sad, plain woman living a dreary life, but dreaming of romance. When she is given a shot at one, she timidly glows. When it's taken away, she takes her revenge upon the world. It's a dreary life, yes - a dead end job, eating alone in diners, a bully of a stepfather... even the news are filled with the terrible things happening in '89-90 - but Kaurismäki paints it in vibrant colors that create a strong contrast with the pale figure of his anti-heroine. Outinen is a mysterious character, all interior life, giving the film very little in terms of dialogue. If you don't count the songs sung in dance halls, the first word spoken is at 20 minutes, and the Match Girl won't speak for several more. I like the ambiguity this often creates (the mother's gift is of particular interest to me), as we wait to see if anyone will light HER match, and then whether the flames will be those of passion or those of destruction.
Kaurismäki's first collaboration with Kati Outinen is Shadows in Paradise, though nominally more about Matti Pellonpää's character, a garbage man who falls for Outinen's supermarket cashier and tries to eke some happiness out of grubby circumstances. But his fate seems to always be disappointed with life. Opportunities come, then are ripped out from under him. These are characters who can't ask too much out of life because they know they won't get it, and any ambition is quickly stamped out. But does that mean they should stamp them out themselves? The title of the film is key: If Paradise is light and happiness, then it must cast a shadow. But are shadows darkness and therefore these "unhappiness"? Or is it just how we define an absence? The shadow knows light exists because it is defined by it. And so our characters continue to try, and in accepting where they are in the social order, may find something that's, if not Paradise to most, the shadow of one, and a Paradise to them.
The middle, and most wintry, part of Kaurismäki's "Proletariat Trilogy", Ariel follows more of his protagonists trying to get out from under capitalism's heavy thumb, and of the three films, it's likely the funniest, albeit in the director's deadpan idiom. At its core, a dispassionate romance that evokes absurdist theater in how quick and unsentimental it is, and a character who keeps making the wrong decisions, trapping him in a loop of terrible consequences. And yet, we're asked to find it funny. And we do, in a head-shaking kind of way. By the end, we understand the title, but it did have me wondering all the way through, and perhaps it works on other levels as well. Titled after Shakespeare's character in The Tempest, it starts a little as if Prospero had given his boyish spirit (here, our anti-hero) his freedom before blowing his brains out. But once freed, "Ariel" has nowhere to go, and off the island. the "brave new world" is full of dangers. The boy who reads comic books and plays a part in his new life is also an "Ariel", at least visually, and perhaps more. Yeah, it does work on several levels.
You know, I'm not sure Kaurismäki's Proletariat Trilogy really ended with a third film. 1996's Drifting Clouds still feels like it's of that world, and a further hit piece on capitalism. Here, Kati Outinen is a head waitress who loses her job soon after her tram driver husband does, testing their relationship, and more importantly, the system that keeps the unemployed on the verge of disaster. This is a world where the light at the end of the tunnel can be smothered at any time and where the unscrupulous exploit the worker. And yet, Kaurismäki always angles for a happy ending, even if it's one that's dosed in grubby reality, and so we hope. Despite its low-rent stakes, the film's last reel was a real nail biter, and all that stress gave way to an overwhelming release that seemed to come out of nowhere and affected me deeply. Kaurismäki, you've done it again!
The myth of the movie dog is examined in Jérôme Boivin's Baxter, giving an inner monologue to a bull terrier across several owners and making him a sociopath. Or really, just an animal that can't understand the human point of view. I think that's part of why so many people dislike the film - it's a seriously effed-up version of a "boy and his dog" stories. But honestly, if it were about a cat, people wouldn't give it a second thought. That's, in a way, insulting to cat lovers, but to be fair, it would also be true. Pets are what we make of them, either working around their instincts or conditioning those instincts out of the beast. We humanize them, but their actual frame of mind might be like Baxter's dark, venal thoughts. The other reason people might dislike it is all the simulated death and violence, which can be hard to watch. I don't like that kind of thing, and yet, I thought it was powerful here. Baxter's last owner, a kid with terrible obsessions, is something of a mirror of his dog, and we're asked whether his sins are any less forgivable than the animal's. Do either of them have a choice in the matter? Rather chilling. An underrated bleak comedy, but the difficult material means some audiences will never get far enough into it to rate it.
The original Tremors is a cult classic now, and one of the best creature features on record, but it wasn't a hit. Some 6 years later, we get Tremors 2: Aftershocks, and it's kind of like a 2 Fast 2 Furious - we spin off one of the characters (Fred Ward's, good, good) and give him a new annoying sidekick (I thought we would be stuck with Chris Gartin's idiotic character for the rest of the franchise, but thankfully, no - he wants to be the new Kevin Bacon, but he's only the new Melvin) and off they go on a similar, but different adventure. It's not QUITE working, so they bring in Michael Gross who will become emblematic of the franchise and is having a great deal of fun. The best thing Tremors could have done is evolve the graboids to make each film unique. And the graboid babies are pretty cool. The movie's biggest weakness isn't the occasional bad CG that animates the monsters, it's the editing. There's just so much dead air between lines, especially up front when all you want is for them to get ON WITH IT.
[1927] It: The very first "It Girl" was Clara Bow, originating that term in a 1927 silent romantic comedy, based on an article by Elinor Glyn who appears as herself in the film. Bow has "It", whatever "it" is, which in this case means she's impossibly cute with her giant eyes and open expressions, even if she's a conniving man-trapper intent one drawing her rich boss away from his presumptive fiancée WHILE dating his layabout best friend. Having "It" means members of the opposite sex will do anything you ask, and the audience (this guy included) will forgive you anything. Besides, the character is also working to support her roommate and her (the roommate's) baby, and other qualities besides. The film is dated in the way it treats the single mother element as scandalous, but not as much as you might think. Ultimately, It is a lot of fun, with no alien killer clowns to be seen anywhere.
[1928] The Man Who Laughs: When it comes to stealing from Victor Hugo by way of silent cinema, DC Comics got a better deal than Marvel whose Quasimodo is a minor character, whereas the Joker is an international icon. It's actually incredible how close the original Joker art is to Conrad Veidt's portrayal of the sad clown at the heart of this historical melodrama. And what a melodrama! We get sympathetic foundlings, secret successions, a decadent duchess made for Pre-Code shenanigans, a heroic trained dog, a foppish lout, a blind girl who loves our hero despite is disfigurement, and all sorts of fatal misunderstandings. To be honest, some of the early set-up is initially hard to grasp - it's what happens when a verbose writer like Hugo is abbreviated by the silent form - but the eventual result is a tragi-romantic piece with plenty of tension, and even a little humor. Hugo's downer ending is omitted, but Hollywood notions aside, I think it would have elevated the film to greater artistic heights.
[1929] Un Chien Andalou: Buñuel's first film, a collaboration with Salvador Dali, is naturally a piece of surrealism that blew the hinges off cinema, but to me, it's a bit of a creative dead end. We need to get to those dead ends, however, so we can take discoveries made along the way (and so Un Chien Andalou and its longer follow-up, The Golden Age, retain their influence), but it is still an end point. As the story goes, the two artists combined creepy dreams and built upon them to create dream imagery that exclude logic and even symbolism. But I think the fact that it's two dreams combined and supplemented by automatic writing means it's not entire consistent even within its format. It must be SOMEone's dream, right? So is it the man's, or the woman's? One born of an oneiric telepathy? It satisfies the remit of bending to nonsense, but cannot be said to be representing what it is to dream. Or at least, not exactly. Regardless, it's like when someone tells you their dream - it doesn't mean anything TO YOU and is therefore a little dull, aside from an interesting image here and there. Only your own dreams are fascinating to you, and though we have two of the world's great surrealists collaborating, it's still THEIR dream and not yours.
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