Squirrels Never Learn

A few months ago, a squirrel got trapped in the pipes running along the wall outside my office window. It went nuts, squeaking and struggling, until I went outside and pried the pipe back with a stick so it could get out.

You would think the squirrel would communicate its experiences to its friends as a cautionary tale: don't stick your head behind the pipes.

Or maybe it did, and not all of the squirrels got cc'd. A few minutes ago, another squirrel got trapped behind the same pipes. Cacophony ensued. I hunted around the office and found an umbrella to use as a lever.

I went outside. There was a second squirrel sitting on the pipe behind which the first squirrel was trapped. It chirped at me. Not random noise; there was a discernable pattern. I ignored it and set about trying to pry the pipe back.

I looked up to see if the squirrel had gotten out. Whaddaya know? Five more squirrels had appeared. They perched along the edge of the rooftop overlooking my office. They were arranged in precise, five-foot increments.

My guess is the squirrel wasn't chirping at me. It was sending out the squirrel distress call. I didn't know they were like groundhogs or meerkats -- I'd never seen communal behavior in squirrels before. Now I have been enlightened.

Which makes me wonder... why aren't squirrels kept as pets? Uncle Billy had one in It's a Wonderful Life. But I don't think I've ever seen a domesticated squirrel in real life, and I used to work in a pet store. Why cats, but not squirrels?

Query of the Day

Haven't done one of these for a while... the really crazy ones have slowed to a trickle. Are screenwriters getting better/smarter?

Nah...

This one sounds like the writing's kinda tight, but there's something funny about setting a movie in the "cut-throat death metal world."


"Set in current day, a teenage band seeks out evil in order to catapult themselves to the top of the cut-throat death metal world. The band is lead by Severin, a dope smoking delinquent, who wants to avoid the months and years of tedious band practice. His erudite sister, Virginia, struggles to keep him out of trouble while investigating what really happened to two recently dead classmates. Shrouded in piousness, a Catholic priest with his own priorities tries to save the band from themselves as he desperately searches for one of the holiest of Christian relics. Teenage hedonism and religion collide with hilarious results in this farce."

Beverly Hills Cop IV

First it was Arnold in TERMINATOR 3. Then Bruce Willis in LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. Stallone in ROCKY BALBOA and JOHN RAMBO. Harrison Ford in INDY.

And now, according to this article in Variety, Eddie Murphy in BEVERLY HILLS COP IV.

All of the franchises I grew up with are coming back for one more go around.

I'm cool with that. I really liked DIE HARD and RAMBO, and I fucking loved ROCKY. T3 was... I dunno, I didn't hate it, but it was just okay. And I haven't seen INDY yet. Yeah, yeah... I know, I'm losing geek cred, but the reviews and word of mouth weren't strong enough for me to battle the Memorial Day crowds. I'll catch it next week.

But the common denominator of the original franchises were: most of them were rated-R. I saw a lot of them when I was a kid, and somehow managed to survive the experience with psyche intact. This includes the BH movies.

Now... Brett Ratner is negotiating to direct, he of the RUSH HOUR franchise fame, which are in a lot of ways the PG-13 versions of Eddie Murphy movies. Though all of the signs point against it -- I'm not exactly holding my breath here -- I really hope they take a page from Stallone's book and give us an old school Eddie Murphy movie, with sex, violence and "fuck" every other word.

There's enough vegetables in the world. We need some more red meat.

Thanks Guys

Out of nowhere, a work crew showed up and started tearing up the sidewalk. They're using jackhammers. Yes, that's plural, as in more than one jackhammer.

You may wonder where this is happening. If you were to take a wild guess and say, "Right outside's Mike's office window," well... give yourself a prize.

Did I mention a significant portion of my job involves the phone? Yep, sure does.

Thanks, guys. Happy Tuesday.

Haven't Posted Lately...

...because my entire life has focused on two inter-related tasks: editing THE UN-DEAD novel so it's ready to go out to publishers, and polishing DEMON so it's ready to go out to the studios.

Especially in the wake of IMPLANT. It got heart-breakingly close to selling. Which means I'm not that far off the mark... DEMON might be the one. We'll see.

Wondertwin Powers Activate!

According to this article in the Reporter, Herzog and Lynch are collaborating on a movie.

In Chicago, I was all about Lynch, and kinda ignored Herzog.

These days, I'm the exact opposite. Grizzly Man will do that to ya.

Regardless: Lynch and Herzog will either cancel each other out and it'll suck, which happens sometimes when a package sounds amazing on paper but just kinda lies there in real life. (coughAlienResurrectioncough). Especially when it comes to unique filmmakers -- it's usually the singularity of their vision that makes them special, not their team-playing ability.

Or, if we're lucky, it'll be the most amazing thing ever made by anybody ever.

Hawk the Slayer

Thank you fucking God, Hawk the Slayer is finally out on DVD!

It's at the top of my Netflix. If luck is with me, I'll have Hawk in hand by the weekend.

When I was a kid, I was nuts for sword 'n' sorcery movies. Conan the Barbarian was at the top of the list (and still is), but I loved this B-movie knockoff called Hawk the Slayer. I had it on a tape that I watched so much it broke.

I literally haven't seen this movie for about twenty years, maybe longer. But, from what I recall, it's kind of a mash-up of a fantasy journey movie a la Krull and Holy Grail, and a fantasy take on The Seven Samurai. I remember Jack Palance (!) plays the main villain, a dude dressed in black leather with half his face burned off. And there's a climatic fight where the heroic seven make a stand in a church against Jacks' evil army. And there's a witch and some mist and stuff, kinda like in Excalibur. And the elf guy shoots his bow so fast it's like a machine gun with arrows.

Shit, I love these movies.

More GIJOE Stuff

There are a bunch of character pix on the net, collected here at aintitcool.

Y'know what? Ray Park as Snake Eyes buys my ticket. I'm about 75% sold on the Baroness. I'm not sure about her weird, disco belt buckle, but they got the leather and glasses right. I'll have to wait until I see the movie to find out if Sienna Miller hits the accent, which is my big sell point. And Duke looks cooler than I ever gave the character credit for...

I think they should also shoot the actors in action poses, and green screen a big explosion behind them a la the illos on the action figure packages. That would be rad, and I think it would help sell this to the fanbase... seems like there's a lotta hesitation out there.

New ROBOCOP?

Check out this article in Fango.

As much as I love the original RoboCop, everything that's come after has been total garbage. But if it follows the quality wave a la Casino Royale and Batman, we might be in for some good stuff, finally. Fingers crossed...

Good Movies

I saw Iron Man yesterday. It's really good, thoroughly entertaining and very well-written. I wanna be Jon Favreau when I grow up.

It's even better because I have no emotional attachment to Iron Man. At the height of my comic book geekdom, when I was dropping $50 a week on my pull, there were a bunch of core titles I picked up all the time, and some I picked up every once in a while. In all of those years, I picked up a total of one copy of Iron Man, read and and felt, "Eh." Iron Man is one of the best characters to play in Marvel Ultimate Alliance, but that's the extent of my good feelings toward the guy.

So I was pleasantly surprised to get completely sold on this guy, his world and adventures. Which, in a way, is exactly what a movie like this should be doing for the general audience. Apparently it worked... Iron Man opened to over $100m domestic, and almost as much overseas. It's a great debut for Marvel Studios. They've gotta be popping some corks over there.

Unlike other Marvel films up until now, I noticed a couple of slight nods to the rest of the universe. When Tony Stark tests the peak altitude for his flying suit, his on-board computer tells him there's only one aircraft capable of going higher: the SR-71 Blackbird. It doesn't explain further, but that's the plane the X-Men fly around in. And we get an introduction to SHIELD. Fun stuff... it'll be interesting to see if this'll turn into a trend among the Marvel titles, or if it's just this one instance. Outside of Daredevil/Elektra, the other Marvel movies have been careful to keep the focus on the main character and his little corner of the world.

I saw Pusher. This is a gangster movie outta Denmark, the first in a trilogy. The set-up isn't exactly game-changing: a drug dealer in Copenhagen has until the end of the week to pay off some Russian mobsters. But it's shot in a really grungy cinema verite style, and the acting and writing is fantastic. You're totally rooting for the pusher Frank, played by Kim Bodnia. This guy is phenomenal. Why he hasn't been brought over here yet, I don't know. He would be perfect to play the lead if GTA IV ever gets a feature treatment.

And I watched Dario Argento's Tenebrae. It's about an author who's written a very edgy, American Psycho-type international bestseller. While he's on a book tour passing through Rome, someone starts killing women in ways described in the guy's novel. The author is supposed to be our main protagonist, but he's a total smarmy douchebag. The actor seems like a guy who should be playing a doctor on a soap opera. On the plus side, the Goblin soundtrack is awesome, there are some really creepy sequences and... shit, it's Italian horror. 'Nuff said.

I also Netflixed Argento's Deep Red. It showed up, but the disc has no subtitles. Since I don't know Italian, I'm gonna have to send it back. First Zombi 3 shows up and won't play, now this. Netflix, I love you, but you're disappointing me in the Italian horror department. C'mon, show some love.

Rambo III, and the Algebra of Bad Sequels

I watch a lot of movies. Always have. For some people, watching movies is something you do on a date, or in lieu of watching television. It's a passive activity to be done when nothing else interesting is going on.

I'm the opposite. Watching movies is an active passtime. Every time I watch a new movie, I'm adding another word to my vocabulary. That, and it's fun for me. The more I work in the film industry, the more I understand movies, and the more I like watching them. I feel like I'm having a conversation with all of the people who got together to make this thing.

There are some movies I like that I've seen several times, and favorites I've seen dozens of times: RoboCop, Conan the Barbarian, The Exorcist, The Big Lebowski, The Road Warrior, Drunken Master, Fist of Legend, Dead Alive, The Shining, Ghostbusters, Evil Dead II, The Blues Brothers... there are more. They're my comfort food. They're part of my hardwiring.

But I've come to realize that, every time I re-watch one of my favorite movies, I'm not watching something new. Thus, there are some odd holes in my movie-watching. Thanks to the magic of Netflix, I've been steadily working to plug those holes, watch the classics, catch up on secondary pictures by filmmakers I like and follow-up on sequels.

This is a long-running project. I've been working on it for years, and I'll probably never be "done." When I'm 80, I'll be sitting around catching up on everything Hitchcock's ever directed.

All of this is just a run-up to explaining why I haven't seen Rambo III until last night. This might not seem like a big deal, and it isn't. But I suspect a lot of people who know me even moderately well might do a bit of a double-take. ("You haven't seen Rambo III?!") Perhaps because I have deep love for Rocky III. How could I miss out on the third installment of Stallone's other franchise?

I missed it in the theaters and there wasn't enough love out there for me to make a point of renting it. And it was never on HBO at two in the morning.

Point is, I have now seen it, and can report that Rambo III is a ludicrously bad movie. But it's also very interesting, because it was made in 1988, and Rambo is fighting on the side of heroic mujahideen in Afghanistan. It's like a strange adaptation of Charlie Wilson's War. (The non-ficiton book, I mean, not the movie... which is also on my Netflix q). Rambo III is so crazy awful, if you did a shot-for-shot remake and threw it in front of today's audiences, they would assume they were watching the latest terrible spoof from the geniuses behind Meet the Spartans.

Rambo III was produced by our friends, the now-defunct Carolco. (Though they've returned from the dead as C2, they of Terminator 3 fame). Back in the day, Carolco seemed like a somewhat better version of Cannon and Golan-Globus. While Cannon made Invasion USA, Carolco was out there with The Terminator and Rambo. That is -- relatively inexpensive genre projects that were just kinda way better than they had any right to be.

I have deep love for all of these companies. They gave me my '80s childhood. But I'm well aware most of these movies are hideously bad. The generation before me had Roger Corman. I've got Andrew Vajna and Mario Kassar.

The whole time I was watching Rambo III, I thought, "This movie has a certain Golan-Globus sheen to it."

Sitcom-level direction. Clunky editing. Bad acting. Atrocious dialogue. Rambo III is the kinda movie that's so cliche at every beat, every moment that, even though I'd never seen it before, I felt like I'd seen it a hundred times. It felt like a feature-length episode from season four of The A-Team. This is the movie Team America is making fun of.

When Rambo attacks the Russian fortress in act two, we get a non-stop barrage of subtitled Russian ridiculousness.

One of the friendly mujahideen on the mission with Rambo makes a noise, attracting the attention of guards with German shepherds. One of the guards says: "Doggie, what do you smell?" When they don't find any intruders (because Rambo's awesome at hiding and shit) another guard says: "Calm, Rex. Calm, Rex." He's referring to the dog. I watched the credits very closely, and didn't find the name of the actor playing Rex the Guard Dog.

Rambo gets into a gunfight with some Russian guards. The first guy through the door yells, "To the Motherland! Charge!" When Rambo steals a gunship, the main bad guy runs outside and screams: "And who do you think you are? Stop! Wait! Who do you think you are? Stop! Wait!"

In the opening shot of the movie, we find Trautman navigating his way through an Asian bazaar. He's in full uniform, ramrod-straight, and the squarest dude on the planet. He's like the Air Force officer Fred Willard played in Spinal Tap, but this time going on an undercover mission.

From that shot alone, I knew I was in for something special.

I'd always heard about the stick-fighting scene. In a Q&A on aintitcool, Stallone said this was physically the hardest scene he'd ever shot, that the guy he's fighting really kicked his ass and stopped his heart with a body blow. I believe it -- the stickfighter is awesome to watch, lots of fun. The direction isn't the best in the world, but no worse than the Thunderdome scene in Mad Max 3. It's the only non-awful scene in Rambo III.

Stallone is at the peak of his blow-dried mulleted, Bridget-Nielsened self. From Copland on through Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, Stallone has spent decades repairing the damage he did to his career at this stage. Watching Rambo III, I could understand from whence the damage came, and how deep it went.

This movie is even worse when you consider it's the second sequel of First Blood. We've recently film schooled First Blood and Rambo: First Blood, Part II. First Blood is an adaptation of a novel by David Morrell. (Name drop -- I had lunch with him a couple of years ago, nice guy, very smart, mustache). It's more of a drama than an action movie. It reminded me a lot of Taxi Driver.

Rambo III is like having a Taxi Driver 3 where Travis Bickle decides to clean up the streets of a third-world city with a rocket launcher and painful action movie one-liners. Imagine that movie... imagine it, motherfucker.

Kurtwood Smith shows up in act one as an officer named Griggs. This was just a year after RoboCop. I've seen that movie so many times that it's hard for me to separate Kurtwood from Clarence Boddicker. You're thinking: "Ah ha, obvious villain, he must be this movie's Murdock." But you'd be wrong. Griggs comes back for one scene, and otherwise vanishes. I liked that they didn't just photocopy the evil CIA character, but I would have liked to have Clar -- ahem, Kurtwood -- around. I'm a fan.

There are absolutely no women in this movie. None. Well... there are a couple of extras who get machine-gunned by the Russian gunships. But that's it. In First Blood, Part II, Rambo had that hottie Vietnamese chick helping him out. In this movie, instead of a hottie Vietnamese chick, Rambo gets a young boy who wears a lot of mascara.

I thought the implications of that were kinda weird.

Structure-wise, this movie is very similar to John Rambo: someone's been kidnapped by villains, the good guys track down Rambo to a place where he's found some peace, ask for help, Rambo says no... has a change of heart, he hooks up with the native people, stages a big raid in act two, along the way the fight becomes personal for him, and he fights an entire army in act three. John Rambo is like the good, entertaining, well-written version of Rambo III.

Like the two movies before it, the main Rambo theme plays over the ending credits. But, while in the past it's been this very soulful, almost sad, song... here it's the worst, sub-Huey Lewis LA white guy-wearing-a-Hawaiian-shirt 80s poser rock. It's like if Dirk Diggler cut You've Got the Touch, and off that got hired to do his take on the Rambo theme. I don't understand this. Sly had the juice to co-write the script for Rambo III, but he couldn't bring Frank back? Maybe there was a falling out.

The Afghans are presented as simple, good-hearted people. At the end of the movie, an on-screen card tells us the film is dedicated to "the gallant people of Afghanistan." There is a scene between Trautman and the main Russian baddie where Trautman explains that Afghanistan is for Russia what Viet Nam was for America. This is interesting because, since Trautman and Rambo are helping the indigenous fighters, they're basically performing the exact mirror image role as the evil Russian officer and his thug in Rambo: First Bood, Part II.

And that's when it occured to me: if Afghanistan is for the USSR what Viet Nam was for the US, then Rambo III is for the Rambo franchise what Rocky IV was for the Rocky franchise.

For all the crying you hear about remakes these days, everyone seems to have forgotten that, whenever a movie spawned sequels and became a franchise, it was inevitable the sequels would get shittier. For example, I can easily say The Hills Have Eyes remake beats the living hell out of The Hills Have Eyes II.

There are some exceptions. The Psycho sequels are really good. And sometimes the sequels vary in quality: Friday the Thirteenth Part Six is way better than Five, but not as good as Two. Exorcist III isn't as good as The Exorcist, but it's fucking light years beyond The Heretic.

By and large, the shitification of franchise sequels was so inevitable, it seemed like there was an algebraic equation ruling it from behind the scenes. Something like X + Y = Superman IV.

I also realized there's a relationship between the shitty sequel and the great original, and a relationship between shitty knock-offs of great movies. Sometimes "part one" is a piece of shit, because it's just a half-assed version of a better movie.

And we've seen the reverse effect, where franchises are "re-booted" (Hollywood's term, not mine) to create a good sequel after a bunch of shitty ones. Stallone has become the guy in front of the parade on this with Rocky Balboa (which I love) and John Rambo (which I like, but I can't love until I see an extended edition). Rocky and Rocky Balboa are very similar. There's no change in the equation. But Rocky and Rocky IV are very different in almost every regard.

I'm not a super math genius. I got an A in Basic Algebra my freshman year of college only because I did the whole tutoring sessions thing with the professor. I don't have the chops to just whip out an equation. Perhaps by looking at a wide range of examples, we can find the clockwork heart ticking in these bodies of work.

There is always a specific moment when franchises jump the shark.

That stated, using the Rambo III equation as a jumping-off point, here we go:

Rambo III is to First Blood what...

Rocky IV is to Rocky.
Superman III is to Superman.
Star Trek V is to Star Trek II.
A Nightmare on Elm Street II is to A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Friday the Thirteenth Part V is to Friday the Thirteenth Part Two.
Halloween IV is to Halloween.
The Exorcist II is to The Exorcist.
Wrong Turn is to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre III is to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Iron Eagle is to Top Gun.
Delta Force is to Rambo: First Blood, Part II.
Return of the Jedi is to A New Hope.
Poltergeist III is to Poltergeist.
Temple of Doom is to Raiders of the Lost Ark.
RoboCop II is to RoboCop.
Conan the Destroyer is to Conan the Barbarian.
Blues Brothers 2000 is to The Blues Brothers.
Beyond Thunderdome is to Mad Max and The Road Warrior.
Terminator 3 is to The Terminator.
Eve of Destruction is to The Terminator.
Ghostbusters II is to Ghostbusters.
Batman and Robin is to Batman. (Though I'd have to argue on this one -- I kinda hate the first Batman, and I don't mind Batman Forever as much as a lot of people).
Hellraiser III is to Hellraiser.

I can think of more, but lunch time's over. Back to work.