Archive for January 27th, 2008

SF & Fantasy Sunday: The Big Empty

By
Ian W
Published: January 27, 2008Posted in: Drama, Science FictionTags:

Aiming for the cool indie weirdness of Repo Man, The Big Empty comes up way short. Its title is half right though, the film isn’t big but it certainly is empty.

To go into the details of the plot would be pointless, it’s both convoluted and at the same time vacuous. It feels like writer/director Steve Anderson woke up one morning and decided to write the most outlandish tale he could just for the sake of it. The film is populated by oddball characters from an FBI agent/frustrated actor to a cowboy clad serial killer but none of it has any real point.

Some of the performances aren’t bad, Kelsey Grammer has fun playing it straight as the FBI man and Sean Bean gets a dry run for The Hitcher as an English cowboy nutjob. But it’s all just wasted effort in a film as pointless as this.

The best thing about the film (by a long, long way) is the soundtrack, with both the songs (from Lazy Lester and John Lee Hooker amongst others) and Brian Tyler’s score providing more pleasure than anything in the film. This is one DVD that should have had a music only track.

The Weekend Western: Valdez is Coming

By
Ian W
Published: January 27, 2008Posted in: Movie Reviews, WesternsTags:

Burt Lancaster as a Mexican! The idea probably sounds ridiculous…I mean Burt looks about as Mexican as George W. Bush does an Arab…and yet, a bit of make-up and a first class performance and Burt becomes Bob Valdez, ex-cavalry scout and current lawman (on the Mexican side of town of course).

Many a ‘70s western mirrored hot topics in the here and then, with Viet Nam an obvious target (Soldier Blue and Ulzana’s Raid). It’s not war but race that’s at the heart of Valdez is Coming and considering it offers up a black man murdered for a crime he didn’t do, a pregnant Indian woman now a homeless widow and the browbeaten, and later just plain beaten, Bob Valdez, you’d have to be a little slow on the uptake not to get the film’s message.

For all that the film doesn’t feel preachy, the subtext never getting in the way of what is a damn fine action western. In lesser hands Valdez’s transformation from submissive lawman to a one man guerrilla army would be ridiculous (particularly for someone of his advanced years) but Lancaster makes it real. Bob knows the land, knows the people and, most importantly, knows how to handle a gun (he carries a small arsenal) and Burt, in the way he handles that array of weapons, the way he moves and interacts with the environment, makes it all real.

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Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting: Zatoichi’s Vengeance

By
Ian W
Published: January 27, 2008Posted in: Drama, Martial Arts, Movie ReviewsTags:

It’s been a while since I’ve watched any of the Zatoichi films and with half the series still waiting to be discovered I though it was about time to renew my acquaintance with the blind swordsman.

This is the thirteenth in the series and features everything I’ve come to expect – a beautiful woman fallen on hard times, a masterless samurai, an evil Yakuza boss with a seemingly endless supply of henchmen, superb swordplay (with a trick or two from Zatoichi) and plenty of eating and drinking. If there’s one thing our blind masseur enjoys it’s filling his belly.

They say it a fine line between comedy and tragedy and Shintaro Katsu straddles it brilliantly in these films. He’ll make you laugh one minute and bring you close to tears the next, not to mention displaying his own unique sword fighting style.

While Ichi leaves a trail of dead and wounded in his wake the fight scenes are oddly bloodless. This film features a rare (at least up to this point in the series) glimpse of the red stuff, not as you might expect, as Zatoichi slices and dices his way through the bad guys, but from a nose bleed he suffers while taking a beating.

While the films may be as formulaic as the Bond movies in the west, they are always watchable thanks to Katsu as the downtrodden blind man who always wins the fights but can never seem to find happiness.