Tag: Alamo Drafthouse

Classic Four-Play: ‘Stallone Zone’ – Good Old American Action

Stallone Zone

I’ve made no secret of my love for Alamo Drafthouse [Yonkers].  In the past year it has become one of my favorite places to trek to (I do have to cross a big important river to get there), especially for classic films and classic film marathons (except for that time I totally bombed trying to underplay a Nic Cage impression, but c’est la vie), not to mention great food and drink.

Again I say, if you have one near you and you’ve not been there. you’re doing yourself a disservice.  Go check it out at your earliest convenience.

Anyway, if you haven’t realized it by now, my latest excursion there (now more than two weeks ago; hurray for expediency) was for Stallone Zone, a marathon of four surprise movies starring (if not also written and directed by) Sylvester Stallone (all on glorious 35mm prints), curated by Drafthousers Cristina Cacioppo (who chose the films) and Austin hipster-type Greg MacLennan (who brought the prints, and many other wonderful visual goodies).

Now, let’s be real, you have to be in a certain mindset to truly enjoy a typical Stallone movie, and I’m perfectly fine going there, because I like having a good time.  Stallone represents escapist entertainment at its adrenaline-fueled peak.  Quite frankly, Stallone Zone was probably the most fun I’ve had in one day so far this year, and that’s the honest truth; and myself and all the friends I brought can’t wait to see what’s on tap for the next Drafthouse marathon.

But, I digress.  On to the movies.  These’ll be a bit shorter than my typical reviews since I have almost a handful to get through, not to mention there’s probably not much meaningful prose I can add after 20+ years.

Movie #1: Tango & Cash (1989)

Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky [and Albert Magnoli (Uncredited)]
Written by Randy Feldman
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Teri Hatcher, Jack Palance, Brion James, James Hong, Marc Alaimo, Philip Tan, Michael J. Pollard, Robert Z’Dar, Lewis Arquette, Edward Bunker, Michael Jeter, Clint Howard, Adolfo ‘Shabba-Doo’ Quinones, Glenn Morshower, Billy Blanks, Geoffrey Lewis
Soundtrack: Harold Faltermeyer

How serious Russian filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky ever got involved with this project (more on Russian cinema later), the world may never know, because this is action-comedy at it’s finest.  I dare say this movie is proto-Hot Fuzz, because it’s definitely not a parody, but it knows what it is and makes no apologies for never getting too, too serious.

Stallone wonderfully plays against type as the uptight and slightly foppish Ray Tango while Kurt Russell does his usual thing with a little more lightheartedness as the fast and loose (if not downright slovenly) Gabriel Cash.  Throw in Jack Palance (and his lovely mice…over and over so you don’t forget) as your main villain and a whole tanker-truckload of snappy one-liners, and you’ve got a recipe for some big, burly laughs and a lot of [occasionally over-the-top and] enjoyable action.

I had watched this movie only once before, and I was surprised at how much I had forgotten about, but was delighted to see again.  I don’t know if John J.B. Wilson people had less of a sense of humor about themselves in 1989-90, because this movie was panned enough at the time to earn three Razzie nominations, but who cares about that now?  I certainly don’t.

★★★★☆ (Remember, this is an action-comedy.)

Movie #2: Paradise Alley (1978)

Written and Directed by Sylvester Stallone
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Lee Canalito, Armand Assante, Frank McRae, Anne Archer, Kevin Conway, Terry Funk (yes, THAT one), Tom Waits (yes, THAT one), Joe Spinell, Frank Pesce, Frank Stallone
Soundtrack: Bill Conti

If you go to a Drafthouse marathon like Caged or Stallone Zone, you can always count on at least one really obscure pick, and this time it was Paradise Alley.  I don’t want to say too much about this film in terms of the plot, as I’d suggest you just watch it to check it out, but this movie is so Stallone that he even sings the theme song.  Apparently this was actually the first movie he wanted to make,  but it wasn’t something he could get financing for until after Rocky was a raving success.

The basic premise is that three brothers in post-WWII Hell’s Kitchen are scraping their way through life (this is the first half of the film, and I won’t lie, it’s a little bit tedious at times, but it’s worth it and it does make sense from a dramatic and narrative perspective), until finally they get an opportunity to make some real money by working together.

This is another role where Stallone plays against his usual type in the sense that his character isn’t really likable, but don’t worry, there’s a bit of an arc.  Honestly though, as Stallone-centric as this movie is, it’s the supporting cast that really makes it, particularly Armand Assante in his first major film role.  The dynamic dynamic of the three brothers is crucial, but the menagerie of other characters is also a big help to making the story and the compact world it’s set in come alive.

It’s not a perfect film by any stretch, but I do recommend Paradise Alley, if only based on the strength of its second half (which is much more action-packed).

★★★½

Movie #3: Demolition Man (1993)

Directed by Marco Brambilla
Written by Peter M. Lenkov and Robert Reneau (Screenplay and Story), and Daniel Waters (Screenplay)
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne, Benjamin Bratt, Bob Gunton, Rob Schneider (Uncredited), Denis Leary, Jesse Ventura (Bit Part), Jack Black (Bit Part), Glenn Shadix, Grand L. Bush, Steve Kahan, Troy Evans, Don Charles McGovern, Bill Cobbs
Soundtrack: Elliot Goldenthal

So, this is a very interesting movie, because it’s a popcorn action flick built upon the framework of a really solid science fiction premise (I suppose Robocop would be another good example, though Paul Verhoeven’s satire is much more biting).  Some people might say the future is played too cheesy here, and, yeah, it goes a little too far with that at times, but on the whole the fact that it seems off-putting actually works in the movie’s favor, because you’re seeing things through the eyes of our primary characters; and let’s face it, if you suddenly woke up 36 years into the future, you’d probably think everything and everybody was pretty weird.

From a visual perspective, obviously the action scenes are great (the opening sequence leaves quite an impression), but the overall look and feel of the future is very well done, and still holds up pretty well 20+ years later (except for all the Oldsmobile references, but, you know that?  Go watch 2001 or 2010 again and try to hate on them in the same way; yes, I just compared those to Demolition Man).

This movie has another great pairing of stars as well, except unlike Tango & Cash, Stallone is up against Snipes in this one, and there’s pretty strong action hero/villain chemistry between them, not to mention some good old-fashioned fish-out-of-water comedy.

Not much else to say about this one; just classic 90s action.

★★★½ Stars
(★★★★★ for the sweet S.A.P.D. hats we all got as part of the package)

This picture is what you call a “segue”.

Movie #4: Rocky IV (1985)

Written and Directed by Sylvester Stallone
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Brigitte Nielsen, Tony Burton, Dolph Lundgren, James Brown (yes, THAT one), Michael Pataki
Soundtrack: Vince DiCola

Forget Ronald Reagan.  Rocky Balboa was the man who single-handedly defeated Communism.

Whatever you think you know about this film, you really haven’t seen it unless you’ve watched it on the big screen with a pumped-up group of fans.  By this point in the day (it was well into the night actually), the Stallone Zone audience was so into everything that the festivities were less like a film screening, and more like a live concert, with the crowd cheering for every fan favorite and greatest hit.  A couple of my friends and I were even doing air toms during one of the famous training montages.

Speaking of montage, there are no less than five montages in this film (you easily lose count after a while).  Maybe it’s as simple as Stallone wanting to play tastemaker because he really liked the bands on the soundtrack, but in the absence of a thorough explanation, I offer a radical hypothesis:

Perhaps Stallone is such a proficient student of film that he used the opportunity of a movie where his character fights a big Russian in “the heart of the Soviet Union” to pay tribute to early Russian cinema, as montage editing was pioneered in the late 1910s and 1920s by Soviet filmmakers Lev Kuleshov and Sergei Eisenstein.

Or maybe that’s all wrong.  It doesn’t matter.

Rocky IV is great because it makes you feel great, and if you don’t like it, you hate America.  End of story.

Ⅳ out of Ⅴ Stars.

 

Hearts on Fire, baby.

Movie Review: ‘The Matrix’ – You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly

Original Release Date: March 31, 1999
Written and Directed by The Wachowskis
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Gloria Foster, Joe Pantoliano, Marcus Chong, Julian Arahanga, Matt Doran, Belinda McClory, Anthony Ray Parker
Soundtrack: Don Davis

My biggest fear about reviewing this classic (and make no mistake, it is a classic) fifteen years after its release is that there’s nothing new I can say about it, but, as I keep telling people, I do what I want.

I had the distinct pleasure this past Memorial Day Weekend of seeing The Matrix as it was intended to be seen (more on that later), in a proper movie theater, on a proper big screen.  In my case, the theater in question was the venerable Alamo Drafthouse Yonkers, which I’ve now been to a handful of times for special viewings like this (and marathon shenanigans).  If you have an Alamo Drafthouse in your general vicinity, and you’ve not been there, please check one out at your earliest convenience; I promise you, you won’t regret it (unless you’re a terrible person who talks, texts, or does whatever else during movies that doesn’t involve watching them and enjoying good food and drink).

To say that The Matrix is one of my favorite films would be a gross understatement.  In one of my middle school summers, my best friend (with whom I went to the Alamo) told me about this mysterious movie that I had never heard of, and all he could really convey to me was that it was awesome and that I totally needed to see it (he was right).  So my mom took us to the video store to rent it (on VHS; remember that?), and we watched it; and I was hooked.  As it was a 7-day rental, and I had nothing better to do, I watched The Matrix every day for those seven days.  It was like a good book I couldn’t put down, except it was the same book, and it was still awesome no matter how many times I went through it.

Why so awesome?

First of all, if you’ve never seen it, stop reading this right now, go find a friend with a Blu-Ray player and an HD projector (or a movie theater that happens to be playing it) and watch the movie.

Quite simply, The Matrix is a film that demands to be seen on a large screen (you could argue that “it insists upon itself” in this respect).  As much as there are foreshadows and callbacks in the dialogue, there are even more that happen within the frame that you probably won’t quite be able to make out on your TV (spoiler alert: the movie effectively ends where it begins).  Not only that, but the cinematography in general is just fantastic (tons of interesting shot compositions, incredibly effective use of close-ups, etc.), the fight choreography (both traditional and fantastical) is as good as you’ll ever see in a mainstream film, and most of the visual effects are still as jaw-dropping as they were fifteen years ago.  The glaring exceptions to this are the “real world” scenes involving the Sentinels, but they can be forgiven; I actually really enjoy how the first Sentinel encounter feels like a classic “silent running” submarine scene.

One [perhaps underrated] production choice that benefits the film greatly (unless you come from a land Down Under; then maybe you’re less impressed) was the decision to shoot the film in Australia, and specifically Sydney for location shots.  It plays the part of “generic American city” very well, and doesn’t have any giveaway landmarks that make you say “New York” or “Chicago” or “LA” or even “Pittsburgh”, thus taking you out of the movie for just a brief moment  (Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy suffered this problem endlessly, though it doesn’t detract from the greatness of those movies).  The terrific irony of The Matrix is that the “real world” scenes were done virtually, and the virtual world scenes were done as practically as could be (a far cry from the blatant CGI-fests of today…or the next two Matrix films, but whatever).

From a casting perspective, whether the individual actors were first choice or not, there’s not a miscast character in the whole film, right down to the extras:  Keanu Reeves as the wonderfully slightly vapid hero, Laurence Fishburne as the wise zealot, Carrie-Anne Moss as the faithful XO and somewhat reluctant love interest (and owner of the first bullet-time sequence in the film), Joe Pantoliano as the delightfully sketchy Cypher, and Hugo Weaving as the evil G-Man to end all evil G-Men.  Even Marcus Chong‘s performance as Tank the operator is pitch perfect.

One last area I’d be remiss to not address is the music.  Don Davis’s score is perfectly adapted to the action and tension; big when it needs to be, but also small when appropriate.  But the other song choices from artists of the day fit the tone of the film to perfection, from the remix of Rob Zombie’s ‘Dragula’ in the club scene, to The Propellerheads’ ‘Spybreak (Short One)’ in the lobby shootout sequence, to the closing roar of Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Wake Up’.

Really though, when I think of the legacy of The Matrix, I think of it as one of the last great films (maybe the last great film) to not be sullied by the internet age; and by “internet age”, I mean the current broadband state we live in, where every movie, no matter how good, is subjected to endless nitpicking by NERDS to the point that it almost feels like a crime to actually enjoy a movie nowadays.  Yes, The Matrix is derivative of other preexisting styles; yes, there are “goofs” where you can see how effects or stunts were done, or they just don’t look quite right; and yes, there are plot holes (for shame); but, in the end, none of that matters, because the story is well-written, the film is well shot, the characters are well-acted, and, most importantly, you always care about what’s happening on screen and can’t wait to see what’s next.  Lots of great movies have all the deficiencies I listed in the former, but what truly matters is the latter.

YOU HEAR THAT, NERDS?  LOTS OF GREAT MOVIES HAVE PLOT HOLES.  GET OVER IT.

Rant over.

★★★★★ (out of five)

P.S.
In all honesty though, after you watch The Matrix, you should totally check out Dark City.