Yikes, it's been a week since my last update. That's bad news for you (it's gonna be long...)

I spent most of the last week visiting my Grandmother and other extended family types in rural Southwest Missouri (Carthage to be exact, but that link makes it sound way more interesting then it is.) I spent a lot of time reading and I also caught a few movies.

On Sunday night I went out and saw A Man Apart. This is really a paint by numbers action movie. Nothing too complicated, nothing special. But they did execute well on the classic formula. There were some fun moments and Vin Diesel does a good a job as anyone in roles like that.

Monday night my Dad and I (we were on the trip together) went and saw Anger Management. My expectations for this were way down after reading reviews of it over the weekend. This was good because while it was funny and entertaining, it wasn't what I was hoping for with the pairing of Nicholson and Sandler. It was really a run of the mill below average Adam Sandler comedy with Jack adding lots of flavor. As it was it was funny and passable, without Jack it would have been straight to video quality.

Then last night on the way home from work I went to see Bulletproof Monk. I wrote about this a while ago and my fears were accurate. This thing was like amateur night. The fights were poorly choreographed and filmed choppily. The special effects were pure camp and didn't blend into the human actors well at all. It was painfully obvious that the actors (outsite of Chow-Yun Fat) didn't have a lot of fight training - especially when it came to wire work. But in the end this all added to the camp factor. If you like the old school Hong Kong martial arts movies more for their camp then for the talented people who star in them then you'll probably enjoy this movie. I mean, how can you not get behind movie with a monk tutoring stiffler, a guy with "Mister Funktastik" tattooed across his chest (yes, that's his name), and Nazi's, yes Nazi's, as the main villians? Pure camp fun.

That said I have two thoughts that come to mind:

1. I shudder to do this, but I actually found myself comparing scenes in this movie to The Empire Strikes Back. Yes, I know this is a bit of blasphemy. But when Chow-Yun Fat starts following Stiffler around, messing with his mind and stuff, I was reminded of the early scenes when Luke first meets Yoda. Sad but true.

2. Why can't John Woo come back and direct again. He can get a Hollywood style budget then go sign Chow-Yun Fat. And here's the important part: Get Chow-Yun out of the martial arts movies where he does ok (but not great) and put two 9 millimeters in his hands like God intended. Then they could go off and make an stunning action movie. There was a brief moment of bliss where Chow-Yun had two guns in his hands in this movie - anyone notice how much more natural he looked there then in the hand to hand scenes? If you want to know what I'm talking about go rent Hard Boiled and The Replacement Killers.

Still want more?
Read the Archives!