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The Quick and Dirties: When Netflix Attacks Vol 3 - Oh, the Horrors!

Movies I Grew Up With: New Jack City

Technically, this isn't a movie I grew up with since I was twenty years old the first time I saw it. And since that was more than twenty years ago, I'll just say it qualifies. Besides, calling what I was at that age an adult is a physical description only. I was in the Army, and stationed in Hawaii. During one of those rare moments when I wasn't on duty or in a bar/nightclub (how'd I get into those? hmmm), one of my roommates and a gaggle of our buddies got together and went to see New Jack City. After all, a number of us were from the Big Apple, where the movie was set, and loved the commercials. A couple of us snuck in some beverages they don't sell at movie theaters and away we went.

NJC was a trip inside crack era New York, which I lived through, but had never had a look at on the big screen. Rappers were also new to the cinema. A few had made it in movies specifically about rap and played themselves, or had cameos in other movies. This one was billed as starring Ice-T. Now he's a household name with a reality show and a still popular cop show. Back then, he was just that pimp-lookin', perm wearing brotha from the west coast that did the rapping in the Breakin' movies, made "I'm Your Pusher," and "Six in the Morning," I wasn't a big Ice fan, but I had to see. I'm a hip hop head through and through, so I needed to make sure he didn't embarrass us. He wasn't great, by any stretch. Re-watching it all these years later makes it easier to see how uneven he was, really iffy at some parts, but solid toward the end of the movie.

Another 'hood luminary in the cast was little known comedian Chris Rock. He was actually good all the way through. He brought levity to a serious picture, even though his character has some serious stuff going on. He makes it work. For my money, it's still his best movie performance with the possible exception of CB4 and the underrated I Think I Love My Wife. Rock was joined by urban flick blue blood Mario Van Peebles. Ya know, Melvin's li'l boy. Well, the young buck is all grown up and sat in the director's chair on this one.

Regardless of any of those guys or a wonderfully understated yet still crazy Judd Nelson in the cast, the real star of the show is a guy we hardly knew. Wesley Snipes wasn't a tax evader, Blade, or even Passenger 57, yet. He was a guy who'd shown up in a couple Spike Lee joints, including the lead in Jungle Fever. We liked him well enough but weren't exactly clamoring to see him. Still, from the opening scene he lets us know he's not just playing a role, He really is drug kingpin Nino Brown. He's that good. To me, it's one of the most criminally underrated performances in cinematic history. I'll tolerate lots of criticisms about New Jack City. I will not stand for any knocks on what Wesley accomplishes here.

There are certainly legit issues with he movie. The easiest one to spot is that it is so blatantly of the era during which it was made. Back then, the fashions, the hair cuts, the slang, they were all perfect. I, myself, looked like I had just stepped off the set of a Big Daddy Kane video. And I was far from the only one in that crowded theater looking that way. Now, all that stuff is dated. That's not a problem for me, but a source of laughter for younger viewers. Except that, sadly, the hair cuts have made a comeback over the last year or so. Someone please make it stop. There was a reason we old dudes cut them off. We woke up and realized black dudes' hair should not include angles. If you're a youngster who is guilty going retro with your head, pay attention. As simultaneously skillful and artistic as it is of the barber to hook you up with a fresh one of those cuts, it is ridiculous looking. Now, get off my lawn!

Woah! I'm way off track. Where was I?

That's right. New Jack City.

It's taken me many years, but I can finally admit it's not really one of the all time greats. However, it will always be one of my favorites. It connects with me on a level few movies have. Though I've never been directly involved in the crack game, aside from that one time a couple rocks were sold in the back seat of my car...not by me...long story that I'm not telling, I've been around it and affected by both sides of it more times than I care to admit. Aside from that, it takes place in areas I understood growing up. Plus, it combines two of my favorite things by shooting a Scorcese movie through a hip hop filter. It's been said that everyone loves a gangster. Double that love if he has a cool sound track. Oh yeah, I didn't even mentioned that the soundtrack was the number one album in America for a while before the movie even came out and produced a number of hit singles.

You know something? I could go on forever about New Jack City and feel like I already have. I'll just wrap it up by saying this is a film that belongs to me.

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Directed by Troy Duffy.
2009. Rated R, 118 minutes.
Cast:
Sean Patrick Flanery
Norman Reedus
Julie Benz
Billy Connolly
Clifton Collins Jr.
Bob Marley
Brian Mahoney
David Ferry
Judd Nelson
Peter Fonda
Gerard Parkes

The McManus Brothers, Connor (Flanery) and Murphy (Reedus) have taken refuge somewhere in Ireland after the events of the first movie. In that movie, they hunted down and killed over 20 of Boston’s bad guys. Now, ten years later, they’re compelled to return to their hometown when they learn that a local priest has been murdered in cold blood, but not before they shave.

Sometimes a comedian will step on stage and bomb. His routine will be stale and sensing his own failure, he starts sweating profusely. If that weren’t bad enough, he’s the only person laughing because obviously he thinks his material is funny even if no one else does. Essentially, this is the problem with All Saints Day. While the first movie is a ripoff of Quentin Tarantino, it is at least occasionally clever and often entertaining. It also contains a wonderfully quirky performance by Willem Dafoe. This time it goes straight for screwball comedy, mixed in no subtle manner with gun-porn and homo-eroticism.

Also evident are the countless hours spent studying movies like Shoot ‘em Up and Smokin’ Aces plus everything Tarantino and Guy Ritchie have done since 1999. There’s also the countless other films it references and uses as inspiration for its never-ending succession of bad jokes. Yes, it quite literally laughs at them alone. I can’t count how many times a character says something supposedly witty then bursts into an uncontrollable guffaw. We’re supposed to recognize the movie it just poked fun at (Panic Room, The Godfather, The Untouchables, GoodFellas, so many more I lost count) and laugh along. It never quite works that way.

Among those inspirations, of course, is the original The Boondock Saints. Agent Smecker (Dafoe) only appears briefly. The running gag is that Eunice (Benz) has taken his place and basically does an impersonation of him. This is supposed to be funny mostly because he was a homosexual while she is actually a woman. It is not funny. Neither is the goofy Three Stooges routine by our three local cops assigned to help her. They’re just caricatures of what they were in the first movie which were caricatures to begin with.

Even the violence is played for laughs, unsuccessfully. What should be a reprieve from the annoying only grows moreso. What is funny, if only to us, is that the plot with a “sins of the father” slant could’ve made for a great movie. It’s told in a manner that borrows heavily from The Godfather Part II. However, the joke is on us. The execution is murderously bad. This makes the two hour runtime feel unbearably long.

This experience reminds me of something Roger Ebert once wrote: "Better to wait for a whole movie for something to happen (assuming we really care whether it happens) than to sit through a film where things we don’t care about are happening constantly." In The Boondock Saints II things we don’t care about happen constantly.


The Opposite View: Matthew Razak, Examiner.com

What the Internet Says: 6.5/10 on imdb.com (7/5/10), 21% on rottentomatoes.com, 24/100 on metacritic.com


MY SCORE: 2/10