| Hot Fuzztival (03.31.07 - 03.31.07, 5 movies) |
| Date Viewed | Movie | Director | Notes |
| 03.31.07 | Electra Glide in Blue | James William Guercio | Time to fill in Fuzztival notes. I've been holding off because there's a lot to say, but if I don't do it now, I won't do it at all. So here goes. First off, the Fuzztival started at noon, and I figured I'd have plenty of time if I left Dallas at 8am. Unfortunately, there was a 2-person fatality on 75 that delayed me almost an hour. Luckily Brian was able to save me a seat, and I got the the Drafthouse with 15 minutes to spare. I didn't keep track of all the trailers that were shown, and I kinda wish I had. Terror Thursday Zack picked out 6-7 related cop trailers for each movie, and each burst was really great. There were a lot of the expected movies, but also some movies I'd never heard of. The trailer for Partners - a movie about a gay cop who teams with a straight cop - was particuarly awesome. So... kudos Zack. Tim League came out to kick off the day. Since Edgar, Nick, and Simon were all scheduled to appear, there were three mics on the stage. For some reason, Tim decided to pick up and talk through all three, which Brian & I thought was pretty funny. Tim welcomed the crowd, (good naturedly) insulted the out-of-staters ("You're not as good as us, but you're pretty damn good"), the introduced Edgar. Here's another thing I wish I'd kept better track of. Edgar intro'd each movie, and they were all really funny. During this first intro, for example, he couldn't pronouce the last name of the film's director. So he asked some guy in the audience to say it, but kept inadvertantly speaking over the guy. Then he started doing it on purpose. It went on for several minutes... good times. He contrasted this movie (small things happen in a big place) with Hot Fuzz (big things happen in a small place). He also called it the end of the Easy Rider era, which makes it OK in my book. I'd seen this movie before, and although I liked it the first time, I remembered being a little bored by the stretches where nothing happens. This time around, though, I expected those places and ended up liking the movie even more. My favorite scene is still the shift-of-power scene where Blake and the detective go to the bar. The whole movie is just a bunch of real, small moments that take place while Blake is working on a murder that nobody else really cares about. The first time I saw this I didn't know who Elisha Cook was. I've seen a bunch of noirs in the interim, and it made me like his performance even more. This movie is slow enough that it really wouldn't work any other time during the day, so I'm glad they started with it. And really glad I got to see that final shot on the big screen. |
| 03.31.07 | Police Story II | Jackie Chan | After the last movie ended, Tim announce that they would be providing us with cop substanance: free donuts! Little touches like this is what makes people such diehard Drafthouse fans. Edgar came back out to introduce this one, and compared Jackie Chan movies to porno: "Once you know where the good bits are, there's never a need to watch the entire thing again. In fact, you could call this movie nothing but Jackie Chan moneyshots." Then he ran though a checklist: "Jackie jumping off a bus through some glass: Check. Maggie Cheung running away from some door frames and getting hit on the head: Check. A playground fight that involves the use of monkey bars: Check. A fight in a fucking fireworks factory where the bad guys are throwing bombs at each other: Check." He also noted this this movie has the greatest "running away from a fireball" scene of all time. I instantly question whether he's seen the Marine. The movie opens with a shitload of awesome action shots, presumably from PS1. Then I realize that the movie's subtitled, and that the guy in front of me has a huge head that blocks out the first few words of every sentence. Despite Edgar's promise of continuous moneyshots, there's surprisingly little fighting. There's a bar fight at the beginning that's nice and the previously-mentioned playground battle. And other than the final (admittedly great) sequence, the rest of the movie is talky and plotty. There's a 5-minute scene where some guys read a letter. It was kinda frustrating because I wanted more action... especially since I could only read half the subs. The last extended sequence is probably my second-favorite thing I've seen from Jackie (behind the final sequence of Legend of Drunken Master). Not only does he have to fight all these guys, but they keep setting him on fire with mega-sized versions of those snappops that everybody had as kids. So, that was cool. And the "running away from a fireball" scene was so over-the-top that it probably does beat the Marine. |
| 03.31.07 | Sudden Impact | Clint Eastwood | Coming back for this one we were all hoping for a faster-pased movie. Which it was. I thought I'd seen this before, but it turns out I hadn't. I told Brian later that when I think of the non-spaghetti-western version of Eastwood in my mind, this is how I picture him. I don't think he's ever looked cooler or more badass in a 'modern' film. He's weathered enough to look like he's seen it all, but still vital-looking enough to believe that he could kick your ass if he felt like it. The movie involves a woman who wants revenge on a group of people who raped her. She tracks them down one-by-one and Eastwood is always a step behind. Edgar commented on the exploitation-vibe and... in a joke you could tell he'd been waiting to deliver said: "It's rape-revenge in a seaside town. Call it, 'I Spit on Your Pier.'" I love being in a place where a joke like that gets a big laugh. The other thing that was made better by Edgar's intro was the bulldog partner "Meatball" that Eastwood gets about halfway through the movie. Edgar suggested that everytime the dog comes in, we picture him saying something like "Thanks boss" or "Sorry boss." Sure enough, anytime there was a shot of the dog, people in the audience remembered that suggestion and started laughing. Edgar also noted that he thinks a mid-movie fart attributed to Meatball was actually courtesy of Eastwood. The movie is a good example of a no-frills, by-the-book lone-wolf cop movie. It does everything it's supposed to do (Eastwood says "Make my day" a couple of times, there's fetishistic shots of the Magnum) and nothing more. Great movie to plug-in to the festival. |
| 03.31.07 | Freebie and the Bean | Richard Rush | The last vintage film was one that I, and a lot of people, were looking the most forward to. I'd only seen a P&S VHS dub of this one, so I was psyched. The movie lived up to my expectations/memories of how awesome it was. I'm pretty stunned at how much of a negative backlash this movie got when it was released. Caan and Arkin have such great chemistry together, I always felt like I was watching two guys who were really friends. And those chase scenes are so damn impressive to watch. I've seen a couple of comparable scenes in Italian cop movies from that era, but nothing like it in the US. Just wholesale destruction that's filmed in a way where it looks like extras are just *this* far from getting killed. For some strange reason, I couldn't remember big parts of this movie, like whether Harper was cheating on him, or whether Freebie would make it. Don't know why that is, since it hasn't been that long since I'd seen the movie. |
| 03.31.07 | Hot Fuzz | Edgar Wright | With the vintage part of the fuzztival over, it was time to watch Hot Fuzz. The three guys came out wearing black C&W pearl-snap shirts that they'd bought earlier in the day. You can tell they have fun on these tours playing up for the locals... when they came through on SotD, they kept dropping in 'Go Longhorn' references throughout the Q&A. Nick told us that if anybody in the audience knew how to read music, he wanted to know what his shirt said. Anyway, I'm really glad I saw this movie after getting soaked in cop-goodness (gross) for 10 hours. And at the Drafthouse. I really can't think of a better way to have seen it. Plus, the last trailer of the night was Thunder Cops, a pantheon-level trailer. I guess I'd have to say that I liked this movie, but not as much as Shaun... parts of it seemed must more parody-ish than that movie ever did to me (especially the beginning and end). I've heard some people say that they didn't like how the last part of Shaun became pretty much a straightforward zombie movie, but I've always enjoyed that aspect. But here, the movie is pretty self-aware through the whole thing. And where Shaun was arguably set in "our world," this movie was set in Crazy Cop Land where good guys never get hit by bullets and can live through exploding buildings. Which kinda took me out of it. I didn't expect that this movie would be so heavily influenced by giallo, slasher, and Wicker Man-type movies. None of that really comes through on the trailer, but all plays really well. The final sequence is really action-heavy... Smoking-Aces levels of excess here. It think that would have been more impressive had I not been watching stuff get blown up in movies and trailers all day. Bottom line is that I really like spending time with these actors on-screen, and I laughed a lot. So even though I'm not completely sold on the tone, I liked it and am looking forward to seeing it again. The guys came back out around midnight and did Q&A for close to an hour. I don't really remember a lot of what they said... other than Nick's battle with an audience member he dubbed "Angry Drunk." They seemed like they were having a good time, which is impressive since they've done tons of these recently. After the Q&A we hung out in the lobby until 2ish, just enough time to see all the drunkasses stumble out of bars. Don't they know the Fuzztival was today! The three guys signed autographs for almost that long, which I thought was cool. In all a fun day at the Drafthouse. Looking forward to next weekend's Grindhouse Festival. |