The Tredekka Top Ten...#6

The true meaning of Christmas is keep your shoes on in case of a terrorist attack, always taunt your enemies, keep a clip with at least two bullets taped to your back, love thy neighbor, and don't rappel off the side of a building using only a firehose unless you really, really have to.

Die Hard ( * * * * * )

Best American action movie.

The Acting: Alan Rickman rules the world as a vicious, but exceptional, thief. Willis erases the scarlet letters TV off his chest as everyman John McClane, a regular guy in an insanely dangerous situation. When he's tying a firehose around his waist in preparation for a suicidal leap off a forty-story tall building, he does what anyone in that situation would realistically do: he asks himself, "What the fuck are you doing, John?!" And anyone who doesn't sympathize with him as he plucks bloody chunks of glass from his bare feet is a heartless monster. Speaking of which, Alexander Gudonov plays the indestructible euro-terrorist, and Bonnie Bedelia the estranged, world-wary wife who still loves Willis. William Atherton, not satisfied to play the biggest jerk in the world in Ghostbusters, here plays the biggest jerk ever. And then there's Reggie V. Poor Reggie V.

The Story: Terrorists seize Nakatomi Plaza--and it's up to the L.A.P.D., the F.B.I., the TV media and an asshole named Ellis to impede the efforts of the one man in a position to do anything about it. This script was unrealistic on so many levels, yet super-realistic on so many others. It was action movie realism at its finest, thanks to the script by Steven E. De Sousa and Jeb Stuart. This movie was copied by every scriptwriter in Hollywood, including, eventually, those two original scriptwriters themselves. Die Hard has entered the lexicon as part of any high concept pitch now: "Die Hard on a Boat," "Die Hard in Space," etc. In fact, it's been so copied, I plan on writing a movie using only dialogue from Die Hard, but scrambled up to form a new plot, called Air Hedd.

The Direction: John McTiernan's Predator is another action highlight of the period. And I love those flaring lights of his from the old panavision lenses. He described this as a horror movie where the protagonist is the monster, and the bad guys are the ones trying to accomplish something. And as McClane picks them off, and the genius of their plan comes more and more into light, you find it's fun to root for both sides.

Overall: What a great holiday movie. Merry Christmas, everybody.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 1: No Movie Can Get More Than 5 Stars, Not Even Deadfall. Or Die Hard.
• Rule 4: Sweet Actor Bonus--Alan Rickman, +1 star--Al Leong, +3 stars.
• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--Rickman deserves +2 stars for playing the most suavely evil villain ever, Hans Gruber.
• Rule 24: Exploding Buildings Are Good, +1 star. Especially if they get glass all over people. Then again, who gives a shit about glass?

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * * )

The Tredekka Top Ten...#7

They went to Jackrabbit Slims for a good square meal. This is the dumbest special effect in an otherwise good movie since all of Phantom Menace.

Pulp Fiction ( * * * * * )

I saw this 11 1/2 times in the theater (once I had to leave because my roommate was tripping) and I think I laughed with sinister delight each time. But nothing beats the first time, when everyone's laughing (and it's not, by the way, a comedy) and looking at their friends like, "Are we really seeing this movie?" Is it the best movie of the 1990's? If not, it's damn close. It's sure as fuck better than that piece of shit Forrest Gump.

The Acting: This is the movie that made Samuel L. Jackson a star, and John Travolta a star again. Bruce Willis solidified his indie cred, and Ving Rhames made a name for himself. But you can't help but benefit from being in a movie like Fiction.

The Story: As with most Tarantino movies, it's not what the movie is about, but how it's about it. He takes a chronologically twisted, novelistic approach to the pulp material, and makes one character the protagonist in one section, an ancillary character in another, and an antagonist in yet another, particularly Vincent Vega (Travolta). But all of the stories are about redemption, and how the characters grab their chance, or don't. There's more to be said, but entire film classes have deconstructed this movie frame-by-frame, and I'm not willing to be quite that thorough.

The Direction: Not bad for a sophomore effort. It made, like, 100 million dollars, which for a Miramax film, an indie film, was at the time unheard of. Quentin Tarantino has since shown himself to be inconsistent (Jackie Brown was, at best, average, and my mixed reviews of the two Kill Bill installments are listed somewhere below) but he is still an exciting voice and a director who only does what he passionately believes in, as opposed to, say, almost any of the rest of them out there working today.

Overall: My favorite story is "The Gold Watch" about Bruce Willis's character, and my favorite scene is the one where he decides what kind of hero he wants to be: Casey Jones, Leatherface, or Toshiro Mifune.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 1: No Movie Can Get More Than 5 Stars, Not Even Deadfall. Or Pulp Fiction.
• Rule 3: Suck Actor Penalty--Kathy Griffin, -4 stars.
• Rule 4: Sweet Actor Bonus--Christopher Walken, +4 stars.
• Rule 5: Spitting = Good Acting, +1 star for Willis and Rhames, who suffered and drooled together.
• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--I give +5 stars distributed however you'd like to the actors in the heart-stopping needle scene.
• Rule 16: The Paul Verhoeven "More Blood!" Award--goes to the scene where Marvin gets shot in the fucking face. +1 star. The glistening brain matter inside the glistening jheri curl really made it work for me.
• Rule 27: The Trunk Sees All, +1 star for Quentin Tarantino's signature scene.
• Rule 41 (NEW RULE): Stick A Needle In My Eye--Minus 1 Star To Any Movie With A Shooting Up Scene.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * * )

The Tredekka Top Ten...#8

Get ready for an ass-kicking, ball-dropping, ball-kicking good time.

Strange Days ( * * * * * )

I saw this at the University of Georgia Tate Theater in Athens for free with a bunch of friends back in the mid-nineties, before the general release. Now it's 2004 (almost 2005) and I'm still waiting for my "other-people's-memory" Juliette Lewis porn. C'mon, Steve Jobs, get crackin'.

The Acting: What a great cast, led by Ralph Fiennes, whose name is pronounced weird. Angela Bassett plays the token single mother-turned-badass limo driver/bodyguard, who carries a torch for Lenny Nero (Fiennes) who in turn is still in love with Juliette Lewis, who may or may not love a music mogul played by the gravel-voiced Michael Wincott, or even Lenny's best friend, Tom Sizemore. But it gets better, because an old acquaintance, a hooker named Iris (who is ironically given the name, being the sole eyewitness to a horrific crime) is being hunted down by the cops "Robo"Steckler (the great Vincent D'Onofrio) and Engelman (William Fichtner).

The Story: The city is rocked by the death of rapper Jericho One (Glenn Plummer) on the eve of New Years Eve 2000, the biggest party in the history of the world, and set against this apocalyptic fin-de-siecle backdrop is ex-L.A. cop-turned sleazy memory peddler Fiennes, using a technology called S.Q.U.I.D. (Superconducting QuantUm Interference Device) to sell other people's experiences for profit. When a mysterious "fan" drops him a memory of an illegal blackjack tape featuring a murder he'd committed, things get nasty, and Fiennes turns to his best friend Mace (Bassett) for help, because as he gets closer to the fan killer, he comes to realize that if the awful truth behind Jericho One's murder comes to light it could lead to city-wide riots so bad "they'll see the smoke from Canada."

The Direction: There are a million twists and turns, and anchoring all of the bedazzling (but never bewildering) changes of perspective (including a bunch of immaculately filmed first person POV footage that astonishes in its ambition) is Kathryn Bigelow, director and ex-wife of James Cameron, who wrote the screen story. They also co-created the underestimated Point Break (which Cameron ghost wrote) and she remains the cinema's best female director. Her strong visual style accompanies a lean storytelling sense in this thrilling epic of personal redemption.

Overall: Not having a date or any parties to go to, I was going to watch this movie on New Year's Eve 2000, but I went to bed early instead. I still find that sad on many levels. But then I think of Michael Wincott's legendary line from this film ("The only time a whore should open her mouth is when she's giving head") and it cheers me up every time. This film also generated a highly varied and interesting soundtrack, which hopefully one day soon I will listen to in my flying jet car.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 1: No Movie Can Get More Than 5 Stars, Not Even Deadfall. Or Strange Days.
• Rule 4: Sweet Actor Bonus--Vincent ("CONAN? Conan was the damndest bastard there ever was!") D'Onofrio, +2 stars--Michael ("Caw! Caw! BANG! Oh fuck, I'm dead!") Wincott, +3 stars.
• Rule 5: Spitting = Good Acting--Ralph gets +1 star. D'Onofrio has an excellent scene where he gets blood all over his face, but he doesn't get squat in terms of points. Probably bad karma from doing Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
• Rule 22: The Great Entrance Award--goes to the mysterious killer's opening scene, which involves "a little B & E action" followed by the most fucked-up rape/murder scene yet given us by speculative fiction. It's hard to describe, so you'll have to see it for yourself if you haven't already. +1 star.
• Rule 39: Dystopian Near-Futures Are Fun!--you may laugh now, but when 1997 gets here...oh, wait, that was the year of Predator 2. Anyway, just try to imagine a Los Angeles where cops commit crimes and vice runs rampant. Then imagine that everything from The Matrix to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind rips it off because they figure no one will notice. And you have Strange Days. +1 star.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * * )

The Tredekka Top Ten...#9

One picture alone can't do this movie justice, but this is one of my favorites. Wait, that's not funny. Shit. Fucking Hopi indians, with your depressing music. Turn that shit down!

Koyaanisqatsi ( * * * * * )

You have seen part of this movie. Maybe not the whole thing, or even a trailer, but if you've ever seen time-elapsed photography on TV, they probably ganked a scene or two from this film. Made for Bell Labs and released in 1983, and culling over 8 years of footage, Koyaanisqatsi is a movie unlike any other...yes, even unlike its awful sequels Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi, also by monk-turned-director Godfrey Reggio. It is a documentary with no narration that nevertheless captures the scope of our planet's complex, trying existence and man's "life out of balance" on it. There are two types of Koyaanisqatsi viewers, those who watch it in rapt awe the first time, and those who openly blabber about "What city is that?" and "is that Death Valley?" because it has no conventional actors, plot or dialogue to interrupt. Koyaanisqatsi (pronounced COY-on-UH-scot-see) is not even a real word, but a word devised by Godfrey Reggio based on the Hopi language to mean, variously, "Life out of balance" and "a way of life that calls for another way of living" among other shades of meaning.

The Acting: Well, some people clearly get photographed without prior knowledge, and judging by the looks on some of their faces, didn't stick around to fill out any consent forms. There's not acting in a tangible sense, but people are asked to pose for the camera at various times. Mostly people are seen in slow-mo or time-elapsed crowd scenes.

The Story: While there's no literal narrative, there are themes that, when understood, have the capicty to squeegee the third eye about human existence, the truth of fractals and chaos theory, and you find yourself thinking things like, "You know, cities really are just big organisms, and the cars are the bloodstreams..." and "clouds look just like water at that speed" and "computer chips are just tiny city blocks" and shit like that. Or, you can just laugh at the hubris of Seventies clothing, or cheer at epic scenes of buildings being demolished, planes dropping bombs, television sets exploding and men in lab coats tending time-lapsed hotdogs like surgeons operating. Ever wanted to see a twinkie factory? Check. Ever wanted to go spelunking in a place where a bat's wing catches a ray of light through a donut-shaped hole in the roof of a cave? Check. Or just watch a nun sipping water in a mall at a thousand miles per hour? Check. There's a mind-boggling array of images to absorb in this film, and it's relevance is not restricted to any time or culture. Anyone in the world can watch it and come away with the same feeling. It's the story of the world.

The Director: Godfrey Reggio came from a Christian order of monks where he left regular society for most of his adult life and as such came to this film with a truly objective view. It is a haunting film of immense complexity, made supercharged and steamlined by a Phillip Glass soundtrack.

Overall: The cinematographer Ron Fricke went on to make the documentary Baraka, which was superior to Reggio's follow-up films, but in a different category altogether from this one. There's nothing else like Koyaanisqatsi, and there never will be. Thanks to Cliff Biggers, who screened this movie in his creative writing class, which is where I first saw it many years ago.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--in a very real sense, the backgrounds of most movies become the subject of this one, and they steal the show. +2 stars go to Mother Nature. Now show us your tits. (It's a seventies movie, come on.)
• Rule 12: Dodged The Pretentious Bullet Award--this movie is like that cave on Dagobah; what you find there depends entirely on what you bring to the viewing. +1 star.
• Rule 24: Exploding Buildings Are Good, +1 star. They blows ups all kinds of shit.
• Rule 29: Any Film Shorter Than 86 Minutes Is For Pussies...good thing this is 87 Minutes.
• Rule 33: Any Documentary Gets A Pity Star For The Effort. +1 star.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * * )

The Tredekka Top Ten...#10

If this movie were made today, it would probably be Clive Owen or Nick Stahl freaking out in a Barnes & Noble. Just wouldn't be the same, would it? I wouldn't like that one bit. Not oooooone bit.

They Live ( * * * * * )

Me and some guys met Roddy Piper at DragonCon a while back, and he was a class-act all around. My friend Jason bought some sunglasses for him to sign, and Roddy acted like nobody had ever thought of that before, then started acting out a scene from this movie, play wrestling with his convention assistant, saying, "It's hard to get people to try these things on." He only fucked with the guy for a couple of seconds, which was a good thing for the assistant since he was a skinny white dude who couldn't survive a five minute brawl with Rowdy Roddy anyway. This is a man who has been stabbed by three fans, yet is still classy enough to have played bagpipes for Princess Diana. And it was he--not John Carpenter under the writing alias Frank Armitage--who created the line, "I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubble gum." For my money, that line stands as the polar opposite of Storm's line in the X-Men movie (you know the one) as probably the greatest one-liner of all time. They Live rules!

The Acting: There's something about Meg Foster that makes me want to put a blindfold over those freaky blue eyes of hers and do nasty things, at least to the Evil-Lyn/80's Era Meg Foster. She's excellent here as a treacherous media person. But nothing tops the simple buddy team-up of David and Piper. Angry black everyman Keith David is always a treat in any movie, but when you team him up with Roddy Piper, put them in an alleyway, and have them fight for five solid minutes, it's fucking movie gold.

The Story: Piper plays the unnamed everyman (credited as Nada) who has his own tools and knows how to use them, he just wants an honest wage for an honest day's work. Good luck, when you're living in the decade of greed and zombie-like yuppie aliens are running things behind the scenes. He discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see the way things really are, including all the subliminal messages written everywhere ("CONSUME" on a billboard, "I AM YOUR GOD" on a greenback) as well as mini satellite dishes on traffic lights, floating surveillance robots, and of course the alien yuppie scum who are behind it all. So he does what any everyman would logically do. Kills a couple of aliens-as-cops, takes their pistols and shotgun, strolls into a bank, and starts blowing the fuckers away. But that's not much of a master plan, so he tries to enlist his buddy from the construction site to help out. That also doesn't turn out too good for him. In fact, Nada has a very bad week, but let's just say that in the end, he gets the job done--and with a smile, too.

The Direction: The pacing suffers a little from Carpenter's slow style, but it benefits greatly from his sense of humor and his excellent soundtrack. Carpenter has his very own niche in seige-horror pictures, and this is far and away my favorite horror movie ever. As far as I know (though I've only seen a handful of others, including Hell Comes To Frogtown by T2 co-scribe Randall Frakes, Dead Tides with Trevor Goddard, and the execrable Tough and Deadly with Tae-Bo master Billy Blanks) it's Piper's only good movie, which is generally a testamant to a quality director. There is no funnier (or longer) street brawl in movies, and it's a visionary delight.

Overall: A classic movie with one of those great, Silence of the Lambs-type open endings that allows you to ponder and enjoy the movie long after its over.

Tredekka Rules

• Rule 1: No Movie Can Get More Than 5 Stars, Not Even Deadfall. Or They Live. But that doesn't mean it can't go off the scale in terms of racking up points--this is on the top ten, after all!
• Rule 5: Sweet Actor Bonus--Keith David, +2 stars--Al Leong, +3 stars--and Roddy Piper, +4 stars. We're up to 9 stars, and we're only at Rule number 5. That's ridonculous.
• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--Observe Piper at his most subdued, recalling a tender moment from his childhood when his father took him down to the river to teach him about the power and glory, and saws his little neck back and forth just like a little tree. And try not to giggle with delight, I dare you. Or better yet, just watch the fucking fight scene again. When he smashes the bottle to use against Keith David and it evaporates into useless chunks, Piper gives a laugh that looks absolutely spontanous, yet doesn't break character. And the look of determination when he gets up for the third time--even in that mullet, you've got to take him seriously. What a performer. +5 stars.
• Rule 22: The Great Entrance Award--goes to the "bubble gum" scene. You really can't beat it, unless your name is Mr. Stay-Puft. It's like I told Roddy myself, They Live is a classic. +1 star.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * * )

"Hey, kids, it's me--the REAL Darth Vader. The end of No Voices In The Sky is near, but beginning tomorrow is the Tredekka Top Ten. Now why the fuck didn't I get an Over The Top Acting Award for Jedi? You can see my fuckin' skull here!!" 

And the Oscar goes to... 

Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heavens Door ( * * * )

This is the only anime series that matters.

The Acting: Can't speak for the voice talent across the ocean, but the English cast does its usual excellent job. The animation in the show was feature-quality to begin with, so there's no drastic improvement there.

The Story: A running theme in the series is the main characters' chronic malnutrition. In one episode, all the food they had to eat were psychedelic mushrooms. So when a 300,000,000 woolong reward goes out for a bounty head, they go after it with their usual zest. Things get complicated when their target, a terrorist with access to nanotech, is revealed to have government ties. Spike almost dies at the hands of "Vincent" and he takes it personally. Spike, Ed, Jet, Faye and Ein all return in what amounts to a fair episode of a great series.

The Direction: Shinichirô Watanabe returns to the series that made him great, or that he made great, or both. As I said, this is the only anime out there worth a damn. Personally I rate hard-core anime fans up there with hard-core Dr. Who fans in the greater realm of loserdom, and having worked retail I can't tell you how many of them like to slob the knob of Evangelion. Well, I've seen all of Neon Genesis Evangelion, which started off interesting for about six episodes, and then became a nonstop German schizen video of half-baked philosophy, idiotic plots and fourth-rate characterization. And the animation wasn't so hot, either, so fuck all of you anime nerds. As a great philosopher once said, "Anime is teh suck." Except for Bebop. Due to the excellent Cowboy Bebop series finale, this movie takes place mid-series...or...is it just a dream?

Overall: Faye gets as naked as she'll ever get in this movie, and it's a cocktease in other ways as well. Equivalent to about four episodes in length, you only get enough grist for one really entertaining episode. As a movie it's good--as the capper to the Bebop legacy, not so much. "Real Folk Blues 1 & 2" said all that needed to be said.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 22: The Great Entrance Award--when Spike shows up at the end to administer some ass-kicking, it's a pretty sweet moment. +1 star.
• Rule 24: Exploding Buildings Are Good--to be honest, I don't recall a building exploding, but a tanker truck does and a monorail does, and a bunch of sparks and shit come out of a building as it falls apart at the end, so close enough. +1 star.
• Rule 30: Any Animated Film Gets A Pity Star For The Effort, +1 star.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * )

This movie was made by a bunch of Fargin Ice Holes.

Batman And Robin (ZERO STARS)

How do you compare nothing to nothing? Sure, this movie gets zero stars--deservedly--but in a way, I like it better than the zero stars I gave to Batman Forever. For one thing, it's so awful it's sporadically quoteable. Ah, but why try to damn it with faint praise, when I can damn it with vitriolic outrage instead? Let's begin my longest rant yet...

The Acting: Uma Thurman should never play chicks who are supposedly hot. Her hotness--if any, and that's highly debatable--comes from the fact that she looks cute in a weird way. So anytime I see her trying to vamp it up like she's Jean Harlow or some shit, I want to fucking puke. Alicia Silverstone, who was hot only in the context of Aerosmith videos whose music is so bad that you're forced to focus only on your sense of sight, shifts and boomerangs in weight and density in her role as Batgirl more than that biomechanical monster changes in Akira. But she's not even the "real" Batgirl (Jim Gordon's daughter)--now she's Alfred's neice. I guess they figured Police Commissioner Pat Hingle was so fucking fat and homely that he could never conceivably get laid, or if he did impregnate someone his daughter (if there ever was one) was aborted and flushed down the same toilet as the mulatto Two-Face daughter who never knew who her real daddy was, Billy Dee or Tommy Lee. Okay, that was pretty harsh, but I'm not finished. Then we have Elle McPhearson, inhabiting a character with all the drives, ambition, opinions, and cognitive skills of an eleven-year-old girl. Her dating rationale is something along the lines of, "We've been going out for a year. We have to get married, Bruce." I don't remember exactly, but it was retarded. This whole movie's retarded. I haven't even slammed the male actors yet...so let's move onto...

The Story: Hoooooo Doctor. What a Cleveland Steamer. First you've got Robin, who's poutier than a chicken-head faggot because he doesn't have his own Robin signal. Huh, really? You think that's believable character motivation, Shumacher? Huh. Let me posit this theory to you, then: Alyas Batman en Robin--the Fillipino musical version of Batman that has scenes where Batman snaps people's necks mixed in with scenes of a midget in a Spider-Man costume (I'm not kidding) and where Joker and Penguin sing a song called "I'm Mr. Joker and I'm Mr. Penguin" while they rob a fucking bank--Alyas Batman en Robin captured the Batman mythos better than this movie. Robin's whining about not having a signal??? HE'S FUCKING ROBIN!!! But maybe he has reason to whine, because Chris O'Donnel, unlike Mark Wahlberg, didn't realize that, as second fiddle, it was his duty to carry George Clooney through the movie. Clooney's had exactly two good film performances: the excellent From Dusk Till Dawn, which I saw twice on opening day it was so funny, and O Brother Where Art Thou?, which I made my Dad see with me in Ireland a month before it came out in the States, because the trailer looked so good. But he had good directors in those movies, and when he doesn't have a good director to inspire his sorry ass, he needs a good croney to prop us his sorry ass. Chris O'Donnel couldn't prop up his dick even with the help of Minnie Driver and her whole Circle of Friends. So there Clooney is in the cape and cowl, and the thought going through everyone's mind is? You guessed it--"Hey, that's George Clooney." When he says, "Hi, Freeze, I'm Batman," he redefined laziness for all time. Gone was any sense of character, menace, heroism--there was just some douchebag in a Batman costume. He wasn't even good as Bruce Wayne, millionaire playboy, because he was tied down in a faggoty relationship, and unlike Val Kilmer, Michael Keaton, or even Adam West, there isn't even a hint of vengeful passion or insane fire behind those droopy eyes. There was one ray of sunshine in this movie, though...Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mister Freeze became the Jar-Jar of this movie--the much-maligned element that, however bad it sucks--becomes the one watchable thing on screen, for its car-wreck value if nothing else. And Akiva Goldsman wrote for him every bad freeze, cold, or ice-related line that could ever exist, except for the one good one out there--"Ice to see you," from the Simpsons. John Glover plays Jason Woodrue, who is supposed to be Floronic Man, but somehow I don't think that character will creep into Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan's new Batman franchise. Ever. It's appropriate that the character Bane is in the movie, since, like Batman's spine before it, he helped break this franchise's back. Which brings us to...

The Direction: Who is the biggest no-talent douche in Hollywood? Well, actually Edward Zwick is--have you seen Legends of the Fall or The Last Samurai?--but behind him is Joel Schumacher, who probably likes being behind other men come to think of it. Let's be scientific about this. Here you have a movie that has "the hockey team from hell"--a bunch of ice-skating goons who either skated all the way to a heist at a museum OR actually took the time to put on ice skates when they got there. Wow. Then there's the line, "No sign of beauty..." which is followed by "but there's the beast," when Bane shows up. But let's rewind for a second and just suppose that Robin had said that line with no intimation that Bane was anywhere near. How many superheroes do you know (other than Speedball the Masked Marvel) who would be looking for a supervillainess and tell his or her crime-fighting partner, "No sign of beauty." Then there's Poison Ivy's mind-control pheremones. I'll allow that there could be such a thing as mind-control pheremones, but gay, pink, sparkly ones? Then there's the multitude of leather-fetish crotch shots, because wasn't Schumacher a fucking hairdresser before he turned director? HOW DOES THIS FUCKING HAPPEN, GOD? And why does every interior set look like a disco-slash-bad rave, when every exterior set look like an architecturally-impossible homage to Blade Runner, only with giant statues everywhere that make no sense whatsoever? When there's a fucking car chase in the Batmobile, and you can see hobbits in elven boats drifting by the feet of the building, it's never a good sign. I think the conceit behind this movie is, "We made a shitty movie called Batman Forever, which was a self-parody of two successful movies before it. It did well financially, so logically we must make a movie that is a parody of a parody. It need not be believable in any way, because in these troubled times, people obviously want fantasy over reality. Therefore, we must create a fantasy that is so detached from reality, that it gains its own reality, and then we must destroy even that reality during the course of the movie by interjecting scenes of a Batman credit card, Uma Thurman in a pink monkey suit, and--yes--even a Robin signal." Now, let's assume all of this was true that I just wrote, and that was their reasoning all along. It's insane, but almost noble in its ambiition. Why, then, does this movie end like THE LAST FUCKING MOVIE ENDED, EXACTLY?!?! Batman saves the day by shooting a bat-grappling hook to catch himself, and then Batman and Robin (now joined by Batgirl) run towards the camera out of the Bat-signal...rr...riiiighht. To quote Tequila in Hard Boiled: "BULLSHAAAAT!!!"

Overall: "They say that revenge is a dish best served cold...well put on your Sunday finest, for tonight we FEAST!"..."Adam...and Evil."..."Take two of these, and call me in the morning."..."BATMAN: I love you old man."..."Winter...has come at last." Akiva Goldsman went on after penning these nuggets of gold to win the Academy Award for best screenplay for that pointless turd of a move A Beautiful Mind. Joel Schumacher continues to make movies, and his adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera (say, wasn't that a Robert Englund movie?) is coming out soon. Thusly I prove once and for all that the Oscars are meaningless and the Hollywood system is irreparably fucked up. Worst of all? Batman and Robin wasn't a financial disaster. It made money. I gave it money, because my friends dragged me to the theater (and I remember that time when Kelly walked out and none of us thought he was coming back). Maybe Batman Begins will work like Memento and erase away my memories of the Schumacher era of Batman. Let us pray.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--I got to give one point to Arnie for giving it "the cold...college try"? Uh? Uh? +1 point.
• Rule 17: The "Don't Fuck With The Fourth Wall" Penalty...yeah, and I wouldn't advise running towards the fourth wall at the end of every movie, either. -1 star.
• Rule 20: Don't Give Me An Ice Cream Headache...Uh? Uh? -1 star.
• Rule 34: The Superhero Movie Handicap--I would almost waive this, since this is pretty fucking far from being a superhero movie, but fuck it. No mercy. -1 star.
• Rule 37: Any Film Directed By Joel Shitmaker, -1 star.

Tredekka Score: (ZERO STARS)

I had a choice between this picture or the gross one where Oscar/Hai tries to strangle Ricky with his own intestines. Which to use? And then I remembered the Baby Jesus, and the choice was easy after all.

Story of Ricky ( * * * )

Simply one of the goriest--and funniest--films ever made.

The Acting: I like IMDB and all, but I ain't looking up a bunch of Asian names. Ricky (or Riki-Oh) is the star, and he's beset by some of the worst villains to ever grace the silver screen, by which I mean a dubbed VHS tape by Revok Film Prodigies in Canada, which was where I got my first copy of this. The DVD version is inferior, because they change it where the tongue-less kid is Hai's "son" instead of, more appropriate to the prison setting, his "lover." And in the DVD, Elephant kills for rice, instead of candy bars, making him too much of a monster for even me to believe. But the DVD does have the dude on the toilet singing "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones instead of whatever the fuck chinky song he was singing. If any of this is of any interest to you, reader, God help us all. Let's move on.

The Story (SPOILERS): It is the near future. Riki meets his uncle. He beats up a graveyard. A mannequin resembling his girlfriend falls off a building. Riki goes sickhouse on a drug dealer's ass, turning his head into an ashtray. He goes to jail (where the movie actually starts, the rest is flashback). The Asst. Warden eats candy out of his fake eye and threatens Ricky, who gives him a bloody nose without touching him. He confronts the Gang of Four, killing one of them by first whomping him on the back of the head so hard that his eye pops out, then the guy tries to "take you [Ricky] with me!" by pulling out his own intestines and strangling Ricky with them. This is the same scene where Ricky sews up his own cut arm with some spare tendons, or something, and one of the prisoners' Greek chorus shouts, "Repaired!" Then Taizan and the other gang shows up. Taizan smashes some dude's head with his bare hands (see photo above). Ricky gets mad at injustice and fights the rain. Then Ricky burns down a poppy field, cuz he hates drug dealers. They go zero hour on his ass, and he winds up frozen in concrete. Then he punches Taizan's fingers off in jail, before he is tasered, nearly crushed by a hydraulic press, and dropped down a trap door. Then they bury him alive for like a month. Then a dog gets kicked in half, for absolutely no good reason. Then Ricky comes back, and meets the Warden, who tortures him in ways I can barely understand, much less describe. A big fight ensues. Ricky and the Warden face off after the Asst. Warden blows up from an exploding bullet. The Warden starts to shake, and his arms grow out, and he becomes a demon or something. Ricky "steals his energy" as his uncle taught him, but I think the part where Ricky puts him in a meat grinder is his own invention. After the goriest meat-grinding scene imaginable, Ricky pulls a Warden-shaped dummy head out of the carnage and shows it to the inmates, who he then frees by punching through a wall. I left out some of the violent parts of the review, so the parents reading wouldn't get offended. All I can say is, if you haven't seen this movie already, you MUST RENT IT. It is probably beyond anything you've ever experienced.

The Direction: This is the one movie where Paul Verhoeven would watch it and go, "Wow...that's, like, too much blood. LESS BLOOD! LESS BLOOD!"

Overall: Rent it with a friend, to share the priviledge and the pain that is watching Riki-Oh.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--Mmm, let's just say "Warden" and give it to him. Any number of actors deserve it, but few turn into demons simply because they forgot their "medicine." +1 star.
• Rule 7: Extended Cameo By Human Intestines--this is a one time only variation of this rule. These are the John Geilguds of human intestines. So, they receive a well-deserved +3 stars. (Why not +5? No guts are that good. They'd have to sing and dance in a wall-to-wall musical to merit that kind of bonus.)
• Rule 16: The Paul Verhoeven "More Blood!" Award--I cannot help but award +1 point. This movie may be the bloodiest ever. Technically, I suppose Kill Bill maybe had more blood, but nowhere near the blood/gore combo evident here.
• Rule 17: The "Don't Fuck With The Fourth Wall" Penalty--or in this case, do fuck with it--the humorously fake blood and gore is worth the cost of admission, and thank God the effects aren't realistic, or I would hurl instead of laugh so hard I hurl. -1 star.
• Rule 34: The Superhero Movie Handicap, -1 star. It is based on a Manga, after all...
• Rule 38: The "Blind Me Now" Penalty--for multiple naked dudes in the prison shower. Fortunately, no wangs were in evidence. -1 star.
• Rule 39: Dystopian Futures Are Fun! +1 star.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * )

KEEFER: "Bullets are cheaper than medicine." (kissy noise) BLAM! 

Men of War ( * * * * * )

KEEFER: "This isn't I hit you, you hit me, I hit you, no no no...it's I hit you. I hit you. I fucking hit you." Thanks John Sayles, for writing the part the great Trevor Goddard was born to play--that of the heartless mercenary Keefer in the Perry Lang-directed Men of War.

The Acting: Best Trevor role ever. And it's got a cast of supporting actors that, for good or ill, make me grin. There's Tom "Tiny" Lister Jr., the crosseyed hulk with the scary voice playing--for a change--a menacing bad guy; Anthony Denison (crime lord Ray Luca from the great eighties show Crime Story); Cute Asian actress Charlotte Lewis from The Golden Child, who almost got busy with Alyssa Milano in Embrace of the Vampire and originated the then-unnamed Tredekka Rule #8; B.D. Wong, who desperately needs to play Bill Paxton's dad someday; JAG and various men's magazines hottie Catherine Bell, here portrayed as a butch tomboy soldier-for-hire; and genius scientist Dolph Lundgren (I.Q. of 160, believe it or not) plays Nick Gunar, a Swedish gun for hire with "a touch of the poet." Maybe it's because Trevor beats the crap out of him, but I consider this Dolph's best role, as well.

The Story: There's this island covered in bird shit, which a company wants to mine off the face of the sea because of its resulting rich mineral content. Except a bunch of brown-skinned people live there. Enter Nick Gunar and his team of mercenaries to threaten the inhabitants away. Except that Nick is a softie, and he grows to respect and even love the local culture (I'm sure seeing Charlotte Lewis's big frilly tits while she bathes in a tide pool had nothing to do with his change of heart). Meanwhile, the evil CEOs get a new partner in the form of Nick's old teammate Keefer (Trevor) who in a hilarious scene joins their company, pointing out his fax number on the back of his business card while holding one of the bigwigs in a shirtless headlock. The sides are drawn when Nick refuses to leave the island, and a small war ensues that tests loyalties and pits primitive warriors against high tech might, just like the ewoks.

The Direction: Perry Lang directs, and cameos as one of the shit-hunting corporate a-holes. He has a touch of the poet, too.

Overall: "It's Swedish...like me"..."What color [people are we fighting]?" "Lighter than you but darker than me."..."What's your story, bitch?"..."Bald head!!"..."Well well well...Nick Gunar."It's worth it all just to see Trevor's swaggering entrance. He's running the local police, and he comes across Nick's crew in a brothel. The claim that they've done nothing wrong, so Trevor shoots one of his own men, licks Catherine Bell's face, and proceeds to beat the shit out of Dolph after giving the speech cited at the top of the review. Trevor Goddard was my favorite actor for years, and he always delivered a hilariously over the top performance. He died June 7 2003 from an accidental drug overdose. He's usually only in a bit part or a cameo, but this performance in particular is worth hunting up.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 1: No Move Can Get More Than 5 Stars, Not Even Deadfall. Or Men of War.
• Rule 4: Sweet Actor Bonus--Trevor Goddard, +5 stars.
• Rule 5: Over The Top Acting Award--Trevor, +1 star for each time he licked Catherine Bell's face, which is to say, once.
• Rule 22: The Great Entrance Award--again, +1 to Trevor, for his smoke-filled, arena-style entrance accompanied by that leering laugh of his. T.D. knows what I'm talkin' about, since he does the best Trevor laugh I've heard.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * * )

No, this isn't from "I Love the 80's" And I'm sorry if this image gets the end credits music stuck in your head like it did mine.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension ( * * * )

This is one of those movies where you either get it or you don't. As I used to say, there are two types of people in this world: those who believe that all people worldwide can be split into two discrete (even if random) categories, and those that do not believe that such a division is possible. But that had a faulty premise, so my other saying was there are those who like Buckaroo Banzai, and those who don't. But then I saw a couple of potheads on the Daily Show who said that the real distinction was between those who had experienced Story of Ricky and those who hadn't, and after seeing said movie I have to agree that the latter is more truthful. But I still love Buckaroo. Give me the formula!

The Acting: Let me just list the fucking bullum heads to be found in this movie. Try--seriously, just try--picturing their fucking bullum heads as you read this list: Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Goldblum and Clancy Brown. Has there ever been a fuglier cast? Maybe, if not for Ellen Barkin, who was "Priddy" hot back then (Ugh, I make myself sick with my pathetic puns. I'm leavin' it in though.).

The Story: Orson Welles--and to a lesser extent, maybe even H.G. Wells--was right about the alien invaders coming to earth, but mistaken about their pedigree. Instead of Martians invading Grover's Mill, New Jersey it was Lectroids from Planet Ten. Red Lectroids. The Black Lectroids are laid back Jamaican good guys, except that they'll ignite the cold war if the war criminal Lord John Whorfin isn't stopped from returning. So it's up to famous neurosurgeon/musician/comic book star/fan club recipient/dimensional explorer Buckaroo Banzai and The Hong Kong Cavaliers to stop him. And there's a watermelon hooked up to a machine, for some damn reason.

The Direction: You wouldn't exactly say that the suspense builds to an unbearable crescendo, but it's a fairly passable action-comedy and an exceptionally good riff on B movies and cold war movies. I love it when the president asks for the declaration of war..."the short form."

Overall: I refuse to pass into the afterlife until I have seen what was promised to me: Buckaroo Banzai vs. The World Crime League. Come on, you rich nerds out there! Get the G.D. ball rolling already! Jesus fucking Christ, there's a fucking Battlestar Galactica TV series again--surely they've scraped all but the very bottom of the 70's/80's barrell! What are you waiting for, the TranZor Z movie? Shit...

[Here's some trivia from IMDB I found interesting: "In the original script, Buckaroo was supposed to have an arch enemy named Hanoi Xan, who was never seen but referenced to by Buckaroo and the other characters. All scenes containing dialogue regarding Xan were deleted from the film's theatrical release but are now available on DVD. Xan was supposed to be the mysterious head of a crime syndicate called the World Crime League and also the man who murdered Buckaroo's parents and wife Peggy."]

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 3: Suck Actor Penalty--John Lithgow, -1 star
• Rule 4: Sweet Actor Bonus--Clancy Brown, +1 star
• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--generally he sucks, but for this role he was willing to hook electrodes up to his tongue and talk all crazy and shit. John Lithgow, +3 stars "More power to him!!"
• Rule 22: The Great Entrance Award--"John Valuk is dead. He fell on his head." +1 star.
• Rule 23: Master And Command Your Title, Stupid, -1 star. Surely "Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" would have gotten the gist across. When you add the "the" it's just excessive.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * )

Raise the roof one last time y'all! 

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ( * * * * )

A serviceable capper to the trilogy, but somehow they think they can get money by beating a dead horse and doing a fourth one. I don't see how unless Indy's son is in it and he grows a beard and plays the kick-ass old man role Sean Connery perfects in this film, which comes across as an ironic send-up of his James Bond persona as much as anything else. Excuse me while I shake my fist as Hollywood. Okay, I feel better.

The Acting: What a great father-son duo, brought to life by the inimitable Jeffrey Boam's script. There's a fantastic cameo by Admiral Ozzel as Hitler and Denholm Elliot and John Rhys-Davies reprise roles from the first movie. Julian Glover is the villain, and he played one of my favorite characters in The Empire Strikes Back--the no-nonsense General Veers. Alison Doody is easily the hottest and most treacherous Indy chick.

The Story: Indy must team up with and tolerate his father to find the Holy Grail of artifacts...the Holy Grail. Once you've done the Ark and the Grail, there's nowhere to go but down. What're they gonna do, Spear of Destiny? Boooring. Atlantis? Lame. Shangri-la? Boring and lame. They're best bet? Don't even call it Indiana Jones 4--just call it Raiders of the Lost Ark 2 and bring the fucking Ark back. Last I heard it was in the hands of top men. Who? Top...men.

The Direction: Speilberg knows how to stage a horse and tank chase across the desert as well as anyone. Nice job.

Overall: Nice...job.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--I never really liked Sean Connery pre-Hunt for Red October, mainly because I hate old James Bond shit. This is my favorite role he's done. That one word, "Junior!" sums up an entire father-son relationship and makes an iconic character--Indy--even better. +1 star. Also, +1 star goes to River Phoenix, who does the most dead-on impression of another actor I've ever seen as the scowling, deadly-serious and seriously earnest boy scout persona of Henry Jones Jr.
• Rule 22: The Great Entrance Award--when we first meet Henry Jones, he's busting a vase over his son's head, then lamenting the fact that the vase appears to be from the Ming Dynasty. That's class. +1 star.
• Rule 40: I Love It When Americans Mouth Off To Nazis. When Dr. Jones senior scolds the "goose-stepping morons" about buring books instead of reading them, I had to laugh. You-ess-ay! +1 star.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * )

I don't feel comfortable watching images of poverty in India, mainly because WHY AREN'T THEY SINGING? Baliwood is rolling over in its grave. TRIVIA: Harrison Ford didn't actually act in the same space as these filthy Indian extras. If you look closely, you can see their reflection on the glass.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ( * * )

My fantasy is that Indiana Jones 4 starts off with Indy in deep shit somewhere (hopefully not fighting hippies, even though it would chronologically be about the 1960's by now) and suddenly Short Round shows up and kicks some fucking ass, because he's being played by Jet Li. Then they go get the Ark of the Covanents out of that big warehouse and strap it to a missile, and launch it at the alien invaders. Did I mention it's a sequel to Independence Day, too? That's right folks--coming Summer 2006--InDy4. But how can it be a sequel to both, when Harisson already looks too old to wipe his own butt? Uh...because when he drank from the grail he got everlasting life. Duh. My point is, I hate hippies. Dirty, dirty hippies.

The Acting: Hmm...really not so great, this time around. I find Kate Capshaw particularly annoying. The best part is the Jap gangsters at the Obi-Wan Club. The ones who are so evil that they're about to lose their shit Jimmy Fallon-style the whole time they're talking to poison-victim Indy. Now there's some delicious villainy. Jonathan Ke Quan is a good foil/sidekick.

The Story: There's no Nazis or Christian relics on the line, so who gives a fuck. Easily the worst of the three.

The Direction: Spielberg is a virtuoso at gross bug footage and the dinner scene is probably one of the most memorable scenes in the whole trilogy. But the heart pulling out shit was hinkey, and the main villain was hardly worthy of being a henchman to the likes of Toht and Belloq.

Overall: Proves once and for all, Europe and the Middle East brew better villains than Asia.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 5: Spitting = Good Acting, +1 star to Harrison's impression of Gene Simmons.
• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--goes to Jonathan Ke Quan, whose deadpan delivery of the lines "no time for love Dr. Jones" and "we going for a wide" make an otherwise humdrum movie and a shitty convention (the kid sidekick) much more tolerable. He'll be replaced with an even more loveable gungan in the special edition, though. (Actually, I do give Spielberg credit for not doing special editions of his films. If Indy hadn't shot that sword-weilding arab dude in cold blood, it simply wouldn't be the classic it is today, and unlike Lucas I think Speilberg knows that, stupid hand radios in E.T. aside.)
• Rule 17: The "Don't Fuck With The Fourth Wall" Penalty--this just in: you need a heart to live, I don't care how goddamn crazy you are. -1 star

Tredekka Score: ( * * )

My physics is a little rusty--is sand as heavy as gold? Doesn't matter. They stole this bit from UHF anyway.

Raiders of the Lost Ark ( * * * * * )

I remember an article in the Star Wars fan club magazine Bantha Tracks that showed a scrappy-looking dude played by Han Solo trying to fight some shirtless German guy that looked about twice his size. It was an ad for George Lucas's upcoming movie Raiders of Something Something. I didn't really care, because it wasn't Star Wars related, but I still remember reading it in the kitchen that morning. What made it stand out, I wonder? Probably Harrison Ford in that leather jacket and fedora hat, an image of rugged Yankee fearlessness with a touch of the haphazard anti-hero, who's forced to be up for anything mainly because of piss-poor planning on his part.

The Acting: Every role is totemic, symbolic, pure pulp--and the actors are all up to the challenge. Even--hell, especially--the Nazi sympathizing monkey.

The Story: Whips, snakes, holy artifacts, museums, planes, more snakes, Nazi submarines, and a cameo appearance by the Wrath of God make this the ultimate cliffhanger pulp movie.

The Direction: Spielberg at his very best. Two of his movies set during World War II won best picture--but this is his World War II era (well, technically all three Indy films are pre-World War II, but they have Nazis, so close enough) movie that deserved it.

Overall: Dun-duh-duh-dah! Dun-dah-dah! Dun-duh-duh-dah! Dun-duh-duh-duh-dah!

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 1: No Movie Can Get More Than 5 Stars, Not Even Deadfall. Or Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• Rule 3: Suck Actor Penalty--Alfred Molina, who will always be the "throw me the whip!" guy (even though Indy said that line) earns -1 star for just plain sucking. Granted, he's good for this one role, but did he deserve playing a Spider-Man villain, or having a sex scene with Natasha Henstridge when she had black hair and looked just about the hottest any chick has ever looked at the end of Species? Fuck you, Alfred Molina. I would never throw you the idol, unless it concussed your bullum head when I threw it.
• Rule 4: Sweet Actor Bonus--goes to Karen Allen, who was also terrific in John Carpenter's Starman and Scrooged. One of the great actresses of the eighties, here plays the old-archaeologist-buddy's-daughter-next-door, who can drink ugly guys under the table and hurl American sass at Nazis. +2 stars.
• Rule 5: Melting = Good Acting, +1 star.
• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--Harrison was born to play Indiana Jones. +3 stars to the man who gave my generation two of its greatest non-Robocop heroes.
• Rule 13: Spawned A Shitty TV Series Award--ahh, Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. You helped me learn and get bored. Thanks. Especially for that piece of shit jazz episode that actually had Harisson in it, you fucking cunts. I want that hour of my life back (it was the only episode I ever watched). -1 star.
• Rule 22: The Great Entrance Award--goes to the ghosts, which were twenty kazillion times cooler than the ghosts in the grotesquely overrated Return of the King. "They're byoo-tee-ful!!" +1 star.
• Rule 32: William Hootkins = Blockbuster. Lucas didn't think that "Porkins" was a clear enough name to elucidate that William Hootkins was fat in Star Wars, so here he's dubbed "Major Eaton." We get it, we get it. Jesus. Just be grateful he started another succesful franchise for you...if he'd been in the Tucker movie, that franchise would have taken off and Jeff Bridges would be a mega star by now, on par with Tom Selleck. +1 star.
• Rule 40 (NEW RULE) I Love It When Americans Mouth Off To Nazis. It was good in Casablanca, it's good here--hell, it's always good. YOU-ESS-AY! +1 star.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * * )

I don't know why, but Andie MacDowell reminds me of the Bill Hicks line about gloves, scarves, and rosy-cheeked women all being for sale on the streets of New York. 

Groundhog Day ( * * * * * )

This may be an unlikely-seeming movie for me to review, but if you haven't seen it you really should. This is one of those concepts that movies are made to explore, and it's damn funny too.

The Acting: Bill Murray is weather man Phil Conners, and was probably a little bit miscast because all the chicks seem to think he's fantastically handsome, but nobody else could have done this role as well. Nic Cage or some typical Hollywood fuck would've sunk it on impact. Most of the cast is comprised of bit players, including the loathesome Chris Elliot (I'd review Cabin Boy some time, but my brain's blocked it out like the procedure in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Andie MacDowell as the omnipresent love interest. She's like Hollywood's answer to a brunette, redneck Meg Ryan or something, but here she's well cast to type as the object of Phil's affection.

The Story: My brother's old college roommate Dave Berkeman made him and I watch this, and afterwards pointed out how much Zen Buddhism there was in the plot. It was like god touched Phil Conners and said, "Get enlightened." The groundhog is utterly incidental to the plot of the movie--basically Bill Murray's trapped in a repeated day, and part of the fun of the movie is trying to estimate how long he's been living this one day. (Considering he learned how to play the piano like a professional pianist, peacefully robs a bank using split-second timing, learns everyone in town's personal backstory AND studies medicine enough to be nicknamed "Doctor Conners" among other feats I would guess a millennium at least.) He goes through the stages of bewilderment and fear, mild enjoyment, using it to manipulate women, mass suicide, severe depression, and then...well, then he starts thinking he should improve as a person. I was always a big fan of the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol, and this movie has echoes of that level of personal transformation. And like the Scott movie, it doesn't come off as anything less than touching and sincere, even to a Godless cynic like me.

The Direction: Harold Ramis (who cameos--get me two Ghostbusters!) does a splendid job of writing and directing in this movie. Editing can make or break any movie, but never moreso than in this one. And after many examinations, I can find little or no important continuity errors, which is a miracle given the complexity of the material.

Overall: I don't recommend chick flick-esque comedies often, so I hope you believe me when I say this one's worth checking out.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--Bill Murray experiences as close to the entire range of human emotion as any character could, and he keeps it all maintained inside a believable character. He walks a Razor's Edge--er, tightrope--and with the help of a great script and director, completely pulls it off. +5 stars.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * * )

My new title for this movie is Kick Ass Kung-Fu Cops Versus Human Emotion And Their Own Conflicted Natures...Volume 1. 

Equilibrium ( * * * * )

What if George Orwell's 1984 has a dose of prosac and a heaping helping of cataclysmic kickassery? Equilibrium is the answer.

The Acting: "Who's that guy?" "Christian Bale." Five minutes later: "What's that actor's name again?" "Christian Bale." 50 minutes later: "What's his name?" For some reason I simply could not remember Christian Bale's name when I first saw this movie. So remember: Christian Bale. He's the new Batman. And ladies, you can catch him running around in his underwear in American Psycho, if you like blood-slicked dudes carrying chainsaws. Sean Bean makes the most surprising cameo I can remember in recent years--mainly because my friend Buck loved this movie and ranted about it but never once mentioned Sean Bean's name. Angus Macfadyen, who was Robert the Bruce in Braveheart but usually plays some Shakespearean douchebag, is excellent as the emotionally amped-up leader Dupont. Emily Watson plays the doomed everywoman, and I'll never complain about a cameo by William Fitchner, who is always scarily earnest and or/scarily vacant-eyed. Then there's Taye Diggs.

The Story: After the third world war, mankind tries to eliminate violence through medication called Prozium. But to quote Trevor Goddard in Men of War, "Bullets are cheaper than medicine" and they also create a class of state assassins called the Grammaton Clerics, who use statistically-created methods of standing in the middle of twenty people firing at them and not get hurt. It's believable, shut up. Christian Bale plays cleric John Preston, and he kicks ass. They use a type of kung-fu in their "clerical" work which incorporates guns, so that they do all this crazy-ass contorting and shit while shooting the shit out of people. Pretty sweet, except that usually they're shooting innocent "sense offenders" who want to do nothing more than experience foribidden human emotions. When John Preston himself becomes a sense offender, he must hide it from everyone, including his creepy kids and smarmy partner Taye Diggs, while simultaneously leading the hunt for the resistance leaders. But fuck all that. There's a scene near the end where John Preston kills more people at a dead run than has ever been filmed in live action to my knowledge, and only the first episode of Aeon Flux on MTV's Liquid Television even comes close. Best two uses of reload clips I've seen--ha ha! I luuv it!

The Direction: Writer-director Kurt Wimmer dazzles in his sophomore effort. I haven't seen his first feature, One Tough Bastard, and frankly I'm ashamed of myself, given the catchy title.

Overall: Did we really need a movie explaining that our emotions are the best thing we've got going for us as a species? No, but the same story could easily have been told as some weepy piece of French crap, so kudos instead for giving it a dose of the old ultraviolence. Beware, though, the first hour of this movie is a rough patch because none of the main characters show emotions.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 3: Suck Actor Penalty--Taye Diggs, -4 stars. Not only is he a suck actor, but his suck acting actually hurts the premise of the story. He plays the smarmiest, smuggest "unemotional" Cleric you can imagine. So it's a nagging question: is he himself a sense offender, or can you possibly be that smarmy and smug without emotion? He has a great ending, however, that is reminiscent of The Cube.
• Rule 4: Sweet Actor Bonus--Christian what's-his-name, +1 star.
• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--all five stars to Mr. Bale, who does the action well, including a lot of swordplay, and eventually becomes the emotional core of a difficult movie. His scene of emotional breakdown in the rebel hideout with the snowglobe features my favorite use of Beethoven in movies. +5 stars.
• Rule 14: Cool Gun Award--the clerics' semi-auto pistols are bad ass, and my favorite feature is that little spikes come out of their handles for some close-quarters pistol whippin'. Wimmer's shot of Cleric Preston's two barrels heating up in a pitch black room lets you know you're in for a treat. +1 star.
• Rule 22: The Great Entrance Award--in the first scene, Christian Bale and his partner Sean Bean kill a bunch of resistance members (including Dominic Purcell--Blade: Trinity's Dracula and TV's John Doe) and then they find a stolen copy of the Mona Lisa. A tech tests it and says it's authentic. Bale waits a beat before he orders, "Burn it" and two refugees from Fahrenheit 451 pop into the frame with flamethrowers. And you think, "How could they possibly redeem this cocksucker?" And then they do. +1 star.
• Rule 23: Master And Command Your Title--this category is generally for long-ass titles, but the title Equilibrium is more forgettable than the title of that Ray Liotta movie, Unforgettable. I mean, I personally like the word and all, but the general moviegoing public needs a title they can wrap their brains around, like Throw Momma From The Train. I want you to make money, Kurt Wimmer, so that I can see more of your shit. -1 star.
• Rule 39 (NEW RULE): Dystopian Futures Are Fun!--+1 star.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * )

Ah, to be "24" forever...what a Rush. 

The Lost Boys ( * * * )

I'm trying to close out some "missing links" for the last Tredekka reviews, and I've mentioned Lost Boys waaay too many times to not review it. Still can't believe Schumacher directed this thing.

The Acting: Damn, yo. What an Eighties mindfuck this cast is. Ya got Alexander Winter as Marko (there was also a terrorist named "Marco" in Die Hard), eighties semi-hottie Jami Gertz as Star, and of course Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. Oops, I mean Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. Kiefer Sutherland worked with Schumacher at least three times after this movie. Proof positive he's gay.

The Story: Santa Carla, California's got one of the highest death tolls in the country. Big deal, I live twenty minutes away from Atlanta. Anyway, vampires with metal band hair product and the abililty to just fly around (wtf???) terrorize the town and try to recruit more members from the Emerson family, which includes Corey Haim and Jason Patric. Now I know why Schumacher wanted to direct this movie. See, vampires are like homosexuals in that they "recruit" their members, and he wanted to "recruit" Jason Patric and Corey Haim. As far as Corey Haim goes, though, he probably only had to "ask."

The Direction:

Overall: No, I left that blank on purpose.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 5: Imploding = Good Acting, +1 star
• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--the performances were good across the board, but I think I'll single out Kiefer for creepily echoing his dad as a self-assured menace. +1 star.
• Rule 16: The Paul Verhoeven "More Blood" award--goes to, fuck it, the script by Jeffrey Boam. Ugh...and Schumacher...I guess... +1 star.
• Rule 22: The Great Entrance Award--goes to Bernard Hughes as Grandpa, whose-specially equipped truck defies belief. He also has the best movie-ending one-liner, the one about "...all the damn vampires." +1 star.
• Rule37: Any Film Directed By Joel Shitmaker, -1 star.

Tredekka Score: ( * * * )

Don't try this at home. Crossing the streams is "bad." 

Ghostbusters ( * * * * * )

"We're ready to believe you."

The Acting: Take a bunch of SNL and SCTV actors, the chick from Alien, and the great William Atherton who always plays a mondo asshole, and stir. Genuinely brilliant.

The Story: It's a business start-up comedy crossed with an epic special effects adventure...in other words, the defining movie of the 1980's. (Yeah, that's right, you heard me, Wall Street.) A skyscraper apartment building is designed to end the world and now it seems it may actually happen...luckily three paranormal scientists recently expelled from their college digs and one regular working stiff are ready to stand against the unleashed Gozer the Gozerian, no matter the form--J. Edgar Hoover, Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, they don't care. They've got the tools, they've got the talent.

The Direction: Ivan Reitman did a brilliant job realizing Ackroyd and Ramis's script.

Overall: There's never been a memorable one-liner generator like Ghostbusters: "Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown." "He slimed me" "...Cats and dogs, living together--mass hysteria!" "Okay...she's a dog" "What about the twinkie?" and my personal favorite, which I can't help but blurt out through clenched teeth every time I see the mayor play Tony Soprano's lawyer, "Get me the Ghostbusters!"

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 1: No Movie Can Get More Than 5 Stars, Not Even Deadfall. Or Ghostbusters.
• Rule 6: Over The Top Acting Award--Bill Murray gets +2 stars for making damn near every single line he says delightfully funny.
• Rule 13: Spawned A Shitty TV Series Penalty--it's own "The Real Ghostbusters" wasn't that bad, but it did inspire that other "Ghostbusters" cartoon to come out, too. -1 star.
• Rule 14: Cool Gun Award, +1 point. "Whoa-whoa-whoa nice shootin' Tex!"
• Rule 22: The Greatest Entrance Award--Mr. Stay Puft, I salute you with a one-time-only +5 stars for Greatest Movie Entrance and the resulting line, "I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought."

Tredekka Score: ( * * * * * )

Happy Birthday, Jesus--I hope you like crap! 

A No Voices In The Sky Announcement

Prepare yourselves for a December to remember, Tredekka readers, as this month marks the beginning of the No Voices In The Sky Grand Finale! That's right, December will be the last full month of reviews, followed by the final Voices post on New Years Day, 2005!! (That way, I can claim this blog spanned two years :P)

Here's what's coming up...

• The Tredekka Top Ten!
• New Tredekka Rules!
• Movies That Go Off The Tredekka Rules Charts!
• ...And Some Surprises!

Barring technical issues, new posts should appear every weekday, with the last post on Saturday, January 1st! Watch the skies...

--Tredekka