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.

American Hustle

Directed by David O. Russell.

2013. Rated R, 138 minutes.

Cast:

Christian Bale

Amy Adams

Bradley Cooper

Jennifer Lawrence

Jeremy Renner

Robert De Niro

Louis C.K.

Michael Pena

Shea Whigham

Elisabeth Rohm

Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) and his girlfriend (Sydney Prosser) are a successful pair of con artists with their hands in a few different pots. They're ripping fools off and keeping them on a string all while enjoying each other's company. Life is good. Things change when they get busted by ambitious FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Cooper). After applying some pressure, Richie tells the couple they can get off cleanly if they agree to help him make four more arrests. The problem in everyone's eyes except Richie's is that the targets get increasingly larger in profile and difficulty to ensnare. Complicating things even furhter is Irving's wife Rosalyn (Lawrence). She won't let her husband go even though it's obvious he no longer wants to be married, at least to her. She's also on the unstable side. Her unpredictability threatens to bring down the whole operation.

As he has in the past, director David O. Russell proves to be extremely adept at not only telling his story almost completely through dialogue, but having it remain entertaining all the way through. In a great many films, the words people are saying are merely perfunctory. Characters say enough to advance the plot. The trick Russell pulls is that in addition to propelling our story, these people seem to be living and dying with each conversation. It's something he used to great effect in Silver Linings Playbook. Here, he may have one upped himself. In SLP, the characters merely believed their lives were hanging in the balance as they spilled their guts. To an extent, they were as we were dealing with a number of people with fragile psyches. In American Hustle, that extent reaches the literal level. There is a real chance the our heroes will turn up dead as a result of one conversation or another.

To make all that talking work, Russell needs the help of his magnificent cast. The ensemble delivers and then some. Much of the hype surrounding this movie's performances focused on the work of the two ladies we see most: Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence. Both are tremendous and more than earned their Oscar nominations. Adams continues a recent stretch of excellent performances that started with her turn in The Master and even includes her underrated work in Man of Steel. This time, she shows us a woman who is smart, despite some of her own decisions. She's in love with a guy that she recognizes she can never fully have if she continues to stay with him the way things are. She also know she can't reach the heights she aspires to without him. Meanwhile, Lawrence gives us another phenomenal portrayal of a woman with questionable sanity. When this past awards season rolled around I started to read and hear a lot of moaning and groaning about the love Lawrence was getting. Most accused the Academy of favoritism, or just giving her a nod because she's a popular and highly bankable actress. I think she was legitimately outstanding. She shared scenes with Adams, Cooper, and most often, Bale, and each time she was the most captivating person on the screen.

None of this is to suggest that the men were not good. As a group, they were just as good as the ladies, if not better due to sheer quantity. Bradley Cooper continues to distance himself from being just a pretty face. The fact that we can feel his character's ambition jumping off the screen earned him an Oscar nomination, too. Also continuing is David O. Russell's resurrection of Rober De Niro. For the first time since the 1990s, we get a totally scary Bobby D. He only gets a few minutes of screen time, but it is an intense pocket of time. On the opposite end of the spectrum is comedian Louis C.K. as Cooper's boss. It's a wonderful comic relief role that he pulls off without doing anything that would qualify as zany. Between DeNiro and C.K. is a perfect Jeremy Renner as Mayor Carmine Polito. Everything about him feels exactly right.

Then there's Christian Bale. He once again throw his entire body into his work, physically transforming into the person he's playing. Lots of actors, some excellent ones included, simply play themselves in multiple movies. This isn't the case with Bale. Trevor Reznik (The Machinist), Dicky Eklund (The Fighter), and Bruce Wayne (The Dark Knight Trilogy) all share a similar face, but are very clearly different men. Bale completely disappears into his characters and Irving Rosenfeld is no exception. It yet another impressive turn by an amazing actor.

The larger plot, the one about trying to make the busts, is really of secondary importance to our enjoyment of American Hustle. It's an interesting tale that provides some tense moments, but it isn't what compels us to watch. The dynamics between the various characters is what does this. How these people interact and feel, or don't feel, for each other keeps us engaged. Whether or not any of them is someone we like is debatable. What is not open for discussion is that these are magnetic personas. We struggle to peel our eyes away from any of them. We can also see each of their points of view. This helps us understand their motivations. Armed with this knowledge, we can easily empathize with them as their various objectives seem to get further away. Propelled by an amazing cast and enhanced by sure direction, American Hustle is a very enjoyable experience.

Favorite Movie Scenes Blogathon

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

Directed by Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn.

2013. Rated PG, 95 minutes.

Cast:

Bill Hader

Anna Faris

James Caan

Will Forte

Andy Samberg

Benjamin Bratt

Neil Patrick Harris

Terry Crews

Kristen Schaal

Al Roker

Khamani Griffin

Precisely eight minutes after the events of the first movie, we begin our next adventure with Flint Lockwood (Hader) and the rest of his island clan. In case you don't remember what happened in the original, we start things off with a recap to get you caught up. The bottom line is there is a lot of cleaning up to do. There is literally food just lying around everywhere. In swoops famed scientist Chester V (Forte). Chester dispatches his subordinates to clean up the mess and sweet talks our hero into coming to work for him. Flint agrees then he and all his friends and family are evacuated while the clean-up is going on. We know what Flint doesn't. We know that Chester is really the bad guy and has an evil plan involving the machine our hero invented in that first film. We also find out that the food on island is alive and very dangerous.

Narratively, the movie shoots itself in the foot almost immediately by revealing that Chester has ulterior motives. He basically announces he's dishonest and is tricking our hero. The unintended consequence of this is that the good guys look like idiots instead of heroes. Even young viewers might be wondering why Flint doesn't see what's going on when Chester's admission makes his intentions more than obvious. It doesn't help that Flint is presented as clueless about anything except his own inventions.

Another issue is that the surrounding cast is given much less to do this time around. There are a few nice scenes between Flint and his father Tim (Caan). For the most part, though, dad is relegated to hanging with a group of sardine loving pickles. Sardine loving pickles is a phrase I never thought I'd type in a million years, but that is precisely what I meant. Earl Devereaux was played wonderfully in the first movie by, of all people, Mr. T. This time around he's played by Terry Crews, and we hardly see him. I remember him in a dress in one scene and making a chest hair joke later on, but that's about it. Anna Faris gets roughly the same workload this time around as Sam Sparks, the girlfriend/voice of reason, and might be the most likable character in the film. In place of these diminished series vets, we get Chester channeling Steve Jobs during one of those Apple conventions when he was announcing the next big thing. There is also his sidekick Barb (Schaal). I'll just say she's an ape with conscience and leave it at that.

All that stuff is bad, but hardly deal-breakers. Kids repeatedly sit through many worse offenders. What tears it for me is how aggressively bizarre the whole thing is. And not in a good way, either. It's an off putting kind of strange that gets worse as it goes along. We start by meeting much of the food. It's all edible versions of things in the real animal kingdom. This is a bit weird, but creative so I'm fine with that. The things done with them following this just rub me the wrong way. Most upsetting was the whole scenario involving strawberry poop. Hmmm, another phrase I never thought I'd use. You just have to see it to understand. Or not, if you're smart. I will give the powers that be some credit for one thing that was done with this aspect of the movie. Every so often, we'd get a pretty clear homage to Jurassic Park. They seem to be trying to invoke the same sense of wonder viewers felt the first time they'd laid eyes on Spielberg's dinosaurs. At this it fails, but they're still nice little nods.

I'm sure you've already figured this out, but Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is not my cup of tea. The original was warm, funny, and had tons of charm. This one is lazily written and oddly executed. Instead of rebuilding the empathy we felt the first time around, the sequel assumes it remains with us and proceeds right to all the zany situations. These situations are where most of the energy is spent, but needed to be reined in. It becomes one of those instances when creativity runs amok. No one realized that everything that pops into your head isn't a good idea. While watching the first movie, it was hard to stop smiling and harder not to be drawn in by the characters and their plight. This time, I spent a lot of time cringing and shaking my head.

MY SCORE: 3/10

Machete Kills

Directed by Robert Rodriguez.

2013. Rated R, 107 minutes.

Cast:

Danny Trejo

Demian Bichir

Mel Gibson

Sofia Vergara

Amber Heard

Charlie Sheen/Carlos Estevez

Michelle Rodriguez

William Sadler

Walton Goggins

Cuba Gooding Jr.

Antonio Banderas

Lady Gaga

Vanessa Hudgens

Jessica Alba

Machete (Trejo), our favorite ex-Federale, is back. As sequels must, things start off on a sour note for our hero as his partner/girlfriend Sartana (Alba) is killed during a bust gone bad. He himself is about to be taken out by corrupt Texas law man Sheriff Doakes (Sadler) (are there any other kind in a Machete movie?), when the phone rings and none other than the Commander-in-Chief himself, Pres. Rathcock (Sheen/Estevez), demands that he be flown to White House immediately. Once there, the president asks Machete to go to Mexico and assassinate Mendez (Birchir), an ex-cartel member who has acquired a nuclear bomb he is threatening to use on the U.S. Machete's pay for this job? His criminal record will be expunged and he will immediately be granted full citizenship in this country. Mayhem ensues.

The citizenship angle is important, or at least it would be, if this were the first movie. That one immersed itself in nearly all of the issues associated with the immigration debate. This one starts down that same road, but it rather quickly detours, concerning itself with being as zany as possible. Unfortunately, what's left has no gravity and our tale goes spinning off into the atmosphere. Literally. As in we wind up in space. Don't worry, that's no spoiler. We are told right at the beginning that the next installment in the franchise will be Machete Kills Again...in Space. Without the weightiness of an issue to hold it together, the movie never connects with us on any level. Its predecessor consistently went hard at the issue it attacked. Even if you disagreed with its basic stance, there was something to grasp. Here, there is not.

Like the first movie, we get a never ending succession of jokes. The difference is that in its predecessor, with the immigration issue as its anchor, it shaped itself into a sharp, if ultra-violent and exploitive, political satire. Instead, this aimlessly throws as much against the wall as it can and hope some of it sticks. Some of it does. Director Rodriguez really stretches his imagination to come up with a plethora of outrageous occurrences. Some of them make us say 'wow,' while others make us laugh. The problem is that rather than being part of a cohesive whole and sustaining its humor, these jokes are all stand alones, fleeting moments of comically presented gore. The one strand of consistency is that no matter where we are in the movie, we'll soon get a reference to an older movie. Most often, and most overtly that reference is to Star Wars. This usually works. Other times, we get the director paying homage to his own past work which is a bit narcissistic, to say the least. This usually doesn't work.

It's not all bad, though. We do have some fun performances. Danny Trejo is once again spot on perfect as the titular Machete. It's a wonderful deadpan that would make Steven Wright proud. YouTube him, young'uns. William Sadler gets to go over the top as that crooked law man and does a nice job. It was nice to see him just cut completely loose. The same can be said for Mel Gibson in a bad guy role. As much as we say we hate him these days, he was pretty good in this flick. Weirdly, Walton Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr., Antonio Banderas, and Lady Gaga all play the same person (La Cameleon). It doesn't quite fit anything that's going on and is odd more than it is good, but is interesting. For the top prize, there is a tie between Charlie Sheen and Sofia Vergara. Sheen, billed under his birth name of Carlos Estevez in a nod to the whole immigration thing, is wonderfully cast as the most fun president the United States has ever had. While not realistic in any way, he's still a blast to watch. Vergara chews scenery with reckless abandon, playing every scene to the hilt. It helps that she's often outfitted with some of the director's versions of biological weapons, including the pecker gun he used in From Dusk 'Til Dawn. She makes every bit of it work and is the most fun part of the film, along with Sheen.

Machete Kills is a movie I could see some people loving because of the outrageousness of the action, the fun performances, the ridiculous humor, and a few quotable lines ("Machete don't tweet"). For me, it didn't quite come together like it did the first time. Almost all of the focus has been removed in the name of making the sequel a "bigger" movie than its predecessor. It is. The third, if they actually complete it, promises to be even bigger. However, the director has already seemed to lose his way with this franchise. At his best, Rodriguez brings his limitless imagination for morbid, twisted humor and welds it to an intensely focused narrative purpose to create, as our New England friends might say, a wicked good time. This time, the latter part of the equation is missing. There is some fun to be had. However, if you enjoyed the first one, even if you couldn't pinpoint it, you might be struck with the unsettling feeling that something is off. In some instances, way off.

The Wolf of Wall Street

Happy Birthday, Batman!

Today is the "official" 75th anniversary of Batman's birth, March 30, 1939. I have to say he's holding up pretty good for an old man. I've had some fun with him all week, but I've also posted lots more about him since I've gotten this place up and running. This includes lots of reviews and lists...

Just click here for all of my Batman related content.