Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

It’s rare for a title to perfectly capture the spirit of a movie. True Romance does this, right down to its very core. It’s a movie about love, of course. The best ones always are. But it’s a love that extends far beyond the destined union of Clarence and Alabama; True Romance is an ode to pop culture, country style talkin’, The King, kung fu, sex, drugs and rock & roll written with the kind of passion only Quentin Tarantino could deliver.

But unlike Tarantino’s later works, which deliver the same cultural worship chock full of amazing dialogue and memorable references, True Romance is driven by the love affair at its heart, a completely unbelievable journey that somehow feels oh-so-right.

Why? Because it’s destiny. Why should everything work out for Clarence and Alabama, when they’re in over their heads, hunted by the mob, married and practically strangers? Because they deserve it, he says. And they do. That’s romance. Are they crazy? Absolutely. Violent? Without a doubt. But maybe their actions are excusable because they’re in love. Where would cinema be without violence, after all?

True Romance is a great film because it infuses Tarantino’s off-kilter cultural appreciation with a massive dose of lighthearted, downright sweet whimsy. The film clearly doesn’t take itself too seriously, and we are to accept that sometimes people fall in love and that’s just how it’s damn well supposed to be. Hans Zimmer’s score perfectly establishes the tone–at first it seems utterly bizarre and out of place, but gradually it begins to evoke the caution-to-the-wind love affair of Clarence and Alabama.

It’s not a love affair that gets development or depth. It is what it is, just as the movie homages and elaborate dialogue are only skin-deep elements that bind together a wild plot. But Tarantino has proven that the homage is an art of its own. This is a movie lover’s movie, made even better by the power of hindsight. Nearly twenty years after release, we can see True Romance as more than it was in 1993. It’s not just a movie in love with the idea of love and the glorified violence of the silver screen–it’s a movie in love with the 90s and the late 80s, or at least a movie that has come to define the culture of the time. So many of the actors went on to famous bigger and better roles, it’s easy to see the romance of them acting these small parts in a movie that, more than anything, wishes to say only this: movies are so fucking cool.

Amid the chaos of that day, when all I could hear was the thunder of gunshots, and all I could smell was the violence in the air, I look back and am amazed that my thoughts were so clear and true, that three words went through my mind endlessly, repeating themselves like a broken record: you’re so cool, you’re so cool, you’re so cool.

As a genre, buddy cop movies thrive on the cliche.  Oftentimes they are nothing but a series of recognizable cliches strung together, from the sassy love-hate relationship to the victorious shootout finale.  Sometimes they’re done well and you get Lethal Weapon.  Sometimes you get Rush Hour 3.  Adam McKay’s The Other Guys may share structure with those movies, but its tone is so utterly bizarre that between every bout of laughter, I was left feeling downright weird.

Ferrell and Wahlberg star as a number-cruncher and a screw-up who get no respect around the office, and hardly deserve to.  They’re pretty terrible police officers by movie standards.  When they happen to stumble upon a major case, they immediately screw it up, but keep doggedly pursuing it to prove they have what it takes.

The most interesting thing about The Other Guys is how McKay intentionally plays with the genre–the plot actually intentionally subverts a lot of predictable cop movie elements, and the action actually involves very little ass-kicking.  In one awesome White Stripes-driven scene, Mark Wahlberg wields two guns in a slow-motion shootout…and doesn’t actually seem to hit anyone.

The Other Guys does have a few problems, mainly driven by a minor identity crisis.  Yes, it’s a comedy first, but as the film draws closer to the end it begins to focus more and more on the nation’s financial crisis and the crimes perpetrated by mega corporations.  The ending credits even go so far as to provide facts and figures about the government banking bailouts and ludicrous salaries of CEOs.  It’s actually really disturbing, and retroactively paints earlier moments in a pretty dark light.  Michael Keaton’s turn as by-day police captain, by-night Bed Bath and beyond manager sounds funny and looks funny, but man is that a depressing image.

The Other Guys either needed a bit more comedy or a bit more serious cop drama–either way, the two made for a slightly uneven mix, which the writing capitalized on to make things even more awkward.  It’s hard to describe what makes the movie so downright bizarre–the writing and delivery are so off-kilter that they clash with the relatively realistic world Wahlberg and Ferrell bumble through.  It’s like this celluloid version of New York has its own reality–common for cinema, especially comedies or fantasies–where we don’t know quite how seriously we’re supposed to take things, which leads to quite a few “Oh man did that just happen” moments.

Even if the movie bounces kind of weirdly between farce and reality, the writing is spot-on most of the time and stays pretty damn funny throughout–though the film begins on such a high, it would be impossible to retain that momentum until the end.  You may finish the movie feeling as though you’re not quite sure what you just saw.  But for a genre movie, isn’t that the most pleasant of surprises?

Before Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer teamed up to direct and produce one of the most overshot, masturbatory action films of all time (Bad Boys II), they created an action flick with a clear 90s feel that nonetheless retained a hint of violent 80s grit (Bad Boys The First).

Released in 1995, Bad Boys was the first step in Will Smith’s transition from Fresh Prince to, well, Hollywood God.  The 1995-1996-1997 progression from Bad Boys narcotic cop Mike Lowery to Independence Day’s alien face-punching pilot to Men in Black’s look-h0w-fast-I-can-run Agent Jay secured Will Smith as an honest-to-God superstar.

Martin Lawrence has not risen as far, nor did he attain his fame as quickly.  But he’s done all right for himself, moving from a sitcom career into action-comedies just like Will Smith.  Granted, for the past decade he’s largely been starring in shallow buddy movies far worse than Bad Boys, or going the Eddie Murphy route with by co-starring with Martin Lawrence, Martin Lawrence and Martin Lawrence in modern cross-dressing classics.  But at least, with Marcus Burnett in Bad Boys and Bad Boys II, he found a buddy cop team-up that really jived.  Lawrence is the perfect foil to Will Smith’s ultrasmooth, ultrabadass Mike Lowery, and he strikes a great balance between comic incompetent bumbling and serious action star territory.  Which is probably what makes the climax of Bad Boys so great; when Marcus’ whiny, mumbling persona is stripped away to reveal his grim-faced fuck-the-rules mentality, the energy is palpable.

Will Smith’s character is mostly flat (his duty: look cool, talk cool, act cool, be cool), but obviously entertaining.  So overall, Bad Boys is fun, the action is solid, the bad guy appropriately eastern European, and it holds onto just enough of that 80s action grunge to feel a little dangerous (it’s no Last Boy Scout, but, then, what is?).  But that energy Martin Lawrence brings at the end somehow grabs everything good about the film and condenses it into one moment, when the writing is quick and perfect, the acting serious, and the sound and cinematography mesh to project the raw power of the Porsche’s engine and the overwhelming need for speed.

I could watch all of Bad Boys again, waiting in anticipation of that one line.  And I probably will.  Because when Martin Lawrence starts mirandizing bitches from afar, you know it’s on.

Bayonetta brought two thoughts to the forefront of my mind as I spent a chunk of my weekend brutally slaying the divine.

1) Nobody can create an utterly incomprehensible, retarded story through whacked-out interpretations of religion like Japan can.

Maybe I’ve simply reached the boiling point; I’ve watched anime, played games where God or angels show up to give humanity some grief, and it never stuck in my craw quite like Bayonetta. Or maybe it’s just that Bayonetta does everything to the extreme.  ”Flock off, feather face?”  ”Don’t fuck with a witch?”  It’s like watching Barb Wire (although, to be fair, the writing is intentionally tongue-in-cheek, and Bayonetta’s voice actress couldn’t be as bad as Pamela Anderson even if she tried).

But then there’s the whole war between Heaven and Hell, thing, and these Lumen Sages and Umbra Witches and somehow they managed to kill each other off even though they seem pretty damn invincible, and then sometime they’re in Purgatorio (which may not be the same as the human world, exactly?) and sometimes poor Luka can see Bayonetta, and sometimes not.  For whatever reason, I could barely tolerate the camp factor, and was itching to skip about half the cutscenes in the game.  Even the “punch each other really fast” left me feeling pretty underwhelmed.  I enjoyed the over-the-top stuff in Devil May Cry 3, but something about Bayonetta simply didn’t resonate.

2) I feel like playing Ninja Gaiden II.

I have no problem admitting Ninja Gaiden II is a flawed game.  It’s got a lot of problems.  The level design early on is kinda bland; the camera is problematic (though I think Bayonetta’s frustrated me nearly as often).  The framerate’s not so solid.  Clearly, it was released before it was completely done.  This is all true.

What’s more, I can guarantee I had a far more frustrating experience playing Ninja Gaiden II than I did Bayonetta.  It’s a harder game (though not as hard as the far more defense-focused Ninja Gaiden.  That is a tough game.)  Bayonetta was a forgiving game; you could die without losing much progress, even during boss fights, and get all your health back to boot!  Okay, so your rating would suck, but I was never putting in the kind of time it would take to achieve Platinum medals, anyway.  Ninja Gaiden had cheap bosses, cheap enemies, and extremely frustrating moments.  This is all true.

And yet I enjoyed it so much more.  Why?  I think it has to do with focus.  Bayonetta is one of the few games I’ve ever played that gives me too much; the volume of button combos, the endless variations of the same two buttons, didn’t feel liberating so much as stifling.  I always felt a bit more in control with Ryu, a bit more balanced, more prepared to launch a devastating attack, dodge out of harm’s way, block the next incoming swipe.  Bayonetta had plenty of awesome mechanics, the Wicked finishers and the torture attacks being especially awesome to trigger after a vicious combo.

But the combat never had the same satisfaction as Ninja Gaiden II’s.  Of course, it’s mostly just stylistic preference — they handle differently, despite their core similarities.  But I think Bayonetta missed the mark of being an evolution for the fighting genre.  ”More” doesn’t equate to “new,” and even if Bayonetta is “More, more, more, more, and more,” it didn’t leave me wowed.

But maybe I just like ninjas.

1. LA Sucked in 1997

One of cinema’s oldest, most hilarious practices is to set a movie a few years in the future and predict that just a little ways down the road everything will, inexplicably, go all to hell. I still remember the beginning of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, in which a foreboding narration informs us that the year is 1991, and cats and dogs are totally extinct.

Predator 2, set a mere 7 years into the future at the time of its release, portrays Los Angeles as a warzone: desperate cops have firefights in the streets against gangs and drug lords. I guess we’ve cleaned the place up a bit in the past decade, huh?  And by we, I actually mean Danny Glover.

What can I say. The man can drive. He’s also good at massacring drug dealers, but that’s just not as original or cool, really.

It just gets better from here. Read the rest of this entry »