July is probably a little early to declare any year the worst movie year ever, but I haven’t had the opportunity to see enough films these past few months to mount any kind of argument either way with the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Queenan’s belief that Hollywood hit the bottom of the bottom in 2010. I would most certainly argue, however, that this decade has far and away been the worst ever — a perfect storm of soulless, bloated blockbusters, 140-minute “comedies,” self-consciously indie indies, and the last dying gasp of anything resembling the charismatic movie star. Two words Queenan and I would surely bond forever as blood brothers over: Shia and LaBeouf.

Though he’s a little hard on “Grown Ups” and awkwardly avoids rendering a judgment of any kind on Christopher Nolan’s much-debated “Inception,” give Queenan credit for at least managing to avoid the self-referential while creating a somewhat hyperbolic frame that’s obviously meant to draw attention to Hollywood’s bigger problems (which essentially boils down to the fact that those who make the movies are completely out of touch with these who watch the movies). Because if 2010 was the worst year ever for anything, it was the oh-so precious and nearly-extinct Critical Community’s masturbatory need to write about themselves. Honestly guys and gals, if entertainment is the least necessary industry in the history of the world, what does that make those of you who spend your lives intellectualizing over why it isn’t?

My personal realization that everything that could possibly go wrong with Hollywood has, occurred about halfway through a matinee of “Predators” I ducked into earlier this week. No offense to Adrien Brody who’s a fine actor and probably a very nice guy, but after he won an Oscar in 2002 for “The Pianist,” do you really think he saw himself  just a few years later spending an inordinate amount of time under the leadership of a personal trainer in order to get properly ripped because his next gig was stepping into Arnold Schwarzenegger’s shoes?

Brody deserves better and so do we. (more…)

After waxing poetic about John Woo’s talent for the last month, it may surprise you to learn that I consider his later career an embarrassing falloff from his Hong Kong prime. That such sad declines are all-too-common among directors (and actors, and authors, and painters, and musicians) doesn’t make it any easier a pill to swallow. I miss young John Woo almost as much as I miss young Steven Spielberg, and I don’t make that comparison lightly.

Part of Woo’s problem was the advent of American special effects capable of mimicking, with a few mouse clicks, the previously unique style he pioneered via endlessly inventive cinematography and editing. Soon anyone could make what at least superficially looked like a John Woo movie, and they saturated the market with mediocre simulacra of his imagery until it felt old and tired. This is what I suspect Werner Herzog once meant when he condemned the “worn-out images” which imperil our civilization’s collective imagination “because of the inability of too many people to seek out fresh ones.”

Then there was Woo’s catastrophic loss of creative control, resulting from his move to Hollywood soon after he finished Hard Boiled. He once wearily explained his momentous decision to abandon his homeland in this way: (more…)

Maybe you first saw it at a museum retrospective or a revival theater, with the marquee emblazoned with tag-lines like, “The most action-packed film of all time!” and “More exciting than a dozen Die Hards!” Or perhaps your first taste came in a dorm room or a friend’s basement, with a piece of pizza in one hand and a brewski in the other, both forgotten as your mouth gaped and your eyes bulged. Some of you, no doubt, spied it in the Criterion Collection bin at the DVD store and, curious, made an impulse buy, thinking you were in for a particularly well-made Kurosawa-like police procedural.

Whatever the circumstances, if you’ve ever watched Hard Boiled, a 1992 movie from Hong Kong directed by a distinctive auteur named John Woo, within minutes you were privy to this:

YouTube -- click here to watch in full-screen

And your action-movie lovin’ life was never the same.

One of the great Golden Ages of cinema blossomed in Hong Kong between the early 1980s and 1997. Director Tsui Hark once described that city as the Chinese version of New York: “Very business, very crowded, very stink, and people very nervous.” But with one big difference: while New York perennially writhes in the death-grip of the Democrats’ tax-and-regulate machine, Hong Kong is a capitalist’s paradise, harboring freedoms and opportunities unimaginable in modern America. This mindset isn’t just a part of their business or political community, it’s also reflected in their films. John Woo once described the special appeal of Hong Kong pictures: (more…)

I just finished voting for the Screen Actors Guild awards and after wading through the five “screeners” they sent me I started wondering about the leading men of today.In this day of confused metro-sexual male stars one might wonder where all the real men have gone. 

Look at the leading men of today. When I saw Leonardo DiCaprio as a tough guy in Gangs of New York I wasn’t sure if it was a drama or a comedy. Matt Damon isn’t too bad but I‘m not convinced he could take a punch. I like Bill Pullman but he looks like he is always on the verge of breaking into tears. George Clooney, please my sister could throw him down and twist him up like a pretzel.

Here are my top five unrecognized real men of filmdom. I skipped the obvious choices like The Duke and Clint and went for some guys who are well known but not often looked at as Alpha dogs. Can you imagine any of these guys sitting in anything but a leather barber chair? Can you see any of them wondering if they should get frosted tips or a mani-pedi? Just being a tough guy wasn’t enough for my list they also had to have the craft of acting down too! (more…)