The Hot Blog

Unfortunately I've bailed on this twice. Can't summon the desire for some reason. That said, I was burned on the Wells/Poland Man on Fire recommendation so I'm understandably skeptical this time around.

And I heavily object to the classification of "The Hurt Locker" as an "action movie."

Because...

i'm totally gonna see it! (i, too, am a fan of 'man on fire' - or as i prefer to think of it, 'the angel of death does mehico!' - so i have time for scott and denzel, tho tony can just as easily leave me cold so it's always a crap shoot with me and the more adhd scott. fingers crossed)

(but why the bizarre, out of left field at 'trek', dp? unfitting of your station. who in their rational mind is gonna compare 'trek' and 'pelham 123'?)

because I am referring to it as the best studio film of the summer, leah.

sorry, i'm fried, i meant to say 'why the bizarre DIG at 'trek'

and i'm salivating at the mouth for 'hurt locker', which has no release date here yet, so i'm likely to have a hard-out case of rabies by the time 'the locker' rolls in to town

'because I am referring to it as the best studio film of the summer, leah.'

got it

while no doubt i should quit while i'm behind, i'm also curious as to why you don't think 'the hurt locker' should be categorized as 'action, kris tapley (obviously i haven't seen it, but action is k-big's speciality and i for one love her to death for it)

Hurt Locker is a great movie, period. It is also a great action movie, if you choose to categorize it as such. Is it deeper than, say, Con Air? Of course. But there are some sequences that are so tense, and other sequences that offer such an adrenalin rush, that it would be foolish to not be willing to categorize it as an action movie. In my opinion.

This new Pelham looks like a b-movie so by The Hot Blog definition it's crap. But DP says it's good. So it's good crap, but still complete and utter crap.

THE HURT LOCKER is not an action film, in so much as that it's a character study inside dramatic geography. I guess it's a case of which side of the rickety fence to you put THE WAGES OF FEAR / SORCEROR on?

Hurt Locker is the best movie I've seen all year and Tapley's right; It's not an action movie. It's a thriller. Straight-up. You'd PROBABLY find it on action shelves at Blockbuster in a couple years. You MIGHT find it in drama. But the primary reaction it elicits is edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting suspense, hence, it's a thriller.

I think Denzel's last outing with Scott was DEJA VU.

Glad to hear something positive about this one. I love the original, and am naturally wary of an update.

This review is all over the place, but at least you're writing about this and not Nikki Finke! :)

I liked this, too, but I've always been a (T) Scott fan (yep, even "Domino").
Confession: I've never seen the original "Pelham." My mother died--suddenly, shockingly--the day I was planning to see it, and I've always had this weird, superstitious thing about the movie ever since (like someone else in my family would die if I ever watched it). Hell, I was even a little nervous going in to this version.
Glad that Dave singled out Travolta who gives--for my
money-his best performance since "Pulp Fiction" here. And it was nice to see Gandolfini prove there's life after Tony Soprano (haven't seen him in B'way's "God of Carnage," or even "In the Loop" yet).
Also appreciated was a brisk run time under two hours (always refreshing at any time of the year, particularly in summer).
"The Hurt Locker" seems "more" than an "action movie" to me, but what first-rate genre film (comedy, super-hero movie, horror flick, whatever) isn't more than the sum of its genre-mandated components? I am getting a little nervous about it's release/marketing strategy, however. Summit keep monkeying around with the Cleveland opening date, which makes me wonder if they really know what they're doing (arthouse/platform; general/wide; ?) "Locker" was one of the few genuine highlights of last year's Toronto Film Festival for me, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Eventually.
Speaking of TIFF 2008, does anyone know whether Linklater's Orson Welles movie ever landed a U.S. distributer? That's another terrific film that deserves to find a theatrical audience.

Im psyched for Pelham. I love Travolta as the villain. Face Off is my favorite action movie ever. It is such an insane B Movie ride.

Tony Scott puzzles me. His films have become these hyperactive visual annoyances, as if every frame has to be blurred, burnt, or moving. Man on Fire and Domino are, in my opinion, a visual mess to the point of distraction.

Every time i see one of those visual cues, i picture Scott going "HEY LOOK, IT'S ME, THE DIRECTOR". His style on those films does nothing to draw you in. The trickery only removes you from the reality of the story. It doesn't make the world any more immersive.

Still, i have hope for Pelham.

I'd take out Travolta's 1-2 of Get Shorty/Broken Arrow and replace it with Pulp Fiction/Get Shorty...two performances that worked perfectly together, and Get Shorty really cemented his return. I didn't care for him in Broken Arrow, he was way too hammy. I can't take him as a serious threat when he's cackling all the time...he's playing a "bad guy," not being one.

His best job as a straight villain was probably in The Punisher since he played it straight...too bad the movie was so dull.

Travolta really epitomizes the definition of Movie Star, not that he never has flops, but he has always been able to bounce back. Costner has got to look at Travolta's latest comeback with a mixture of hope and envy.

i agree with hcat. I find Travolta more of a movie star that a traditional actor. He's a presence. He's a showman.

That's why i think his career has never been over. The guy always puts on a show, puts a lot of energy behind what he does. He might not be the world's greatest actor, but he always tries to entertain.

Most of the time, that's enough.

1) Hurt Locker literally took my breath away.

brilliant.

2) Denzel's last "outing" with Scott was "Deja Vu" and not "Man on Fire".

Disagree completely, but, hey, it's taste and we both get to be right. However, I'm a little flabbergasted by the notion that a movie could play just as well with its reels mixed up and be lauded for that. Kinda makes me want to see it all mixed up and see if I prefer it that way.

David: There are a few thrilling scenes in the film (Hurt Locker), but nothing that I would classify as an action scene or set piece, nor enough of such scenes to designate the film as an action film. On top of which, the film is built more like a character study. Kind of surprised I have to explain it.

Pulp Fiction is in a category by itself. Everyone knows about what they did for his career. Broken Arrow is an apt mention, just alone for the line "God damn what a rush!". I watched the latter half on HBO last weekend. You can tell Travolta's having a lot of fun with that role.

I'm not talking about career, I'm talking performance. And the problem with Broken Arrow specifically is that he IS having too much fun with his role. He can have fun and still create a villain who's not a buffoon. But Travolta tends to seem a little lazy so he just falls on his shtick a lot.

If anything, you could put Broken Arrow as part of a three punch, but DP ignores Pulp and reaches to Fever, and it's obvious what that did for his career as well.

Swordfish = guilty pleasure. Guilty.

I am fascinated and dismayed by the growing need in the world - and on this blog - to narrow things down to semantic niches. I love most of the conversation going on here today.

I really don't mind someone wanting to classify Hurt Locker as a "thriller" and not an "action movie." But deeply objecting?

The reason why I call The Hurt Locker "an action movie" is that "thriller" is harder to define for people. And at this point, those of us who believe that the film deserves as big an audience as any summer action movie...and delivers heart-pounding excitement as much as any summer action movie... and is more ambitious in examining the human spirit than any other summer action movie... need to leave some of our aesthetic ambiguity behind and let people - adults and teens both - know that this movie will knock you on your ass.

Pelham is, obviously, a "thriller" and not an "action movie" as well. But only because the definition has evolved, somehow, to mean that an "action movie" is about giant action set pieces and a thriller has action, but people actually say things you have to listen to in order to understand the film. The "thiller" niche is more adult. But I fear that we are, even before the marketing does, helping narrow the interest of younger audiences who would be thrilled to see the more "adult" films. Niche happens. But we don't have to build the walls before the public does.

While I agree that his Broken Arrow perf is over the top just like Face/Off and Swordfish), that is exactly why I enjoy it. He was able to create a "likeable" villian along the lines of what Rickman is able to do.

And I know its sort of quibbling but I think White Man's Burden was released between Get Shorty and Broken Arrow.

And after rewatching Days of Heaven recently I was really struck at how much of a Travolta performance Gere gave. I know Travolta was the front runner from the role but Gere basically gave an imitation of the confused insecure cockiness that Travolta nailed home in his early career. Looking back both Gere and I would say Eric Roberts (at least in King of the Gypsys and Pope of Greenwich) seemed to be riffing on Travolta's SNF performance for most of the early eighties

Tapley - Would you say that Summit's trailer for THE HURT LOCKER should be up for next year's Golden Fleece award? They are certainly marketing it as an action thriller. And pretty much every review I have read has included terms similar if not identical to "thrilling" and "edge of your seat." Audiences looking for Gulf War character pieces found them in HOME OF THE BRAVE and STOP-LOSS (not to mention LIONS FOR LAMBS and RENDITION) and flatly rejected them.

What's wrong with deeply objecting to that? You whittled it down to a niche, not me. But this:

"The reason why I call The Hurt Locker "an action movie" is that "thriller" is harder to define for people. And at this point, those of us who believe that the film deserves as big an audience as any summer action movie...and delivers heart-pounding excitement as much as any summer action movie... and is more ambitious in examining the human spirit than any other summer action movie... need to leave some of our aesthetic ambiguity behind and let people - adults and teens both - know that this movie will knock you on your ass."

Is fair enough and point taken. Relax.

Also, I owe you six figures:

http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2009/06/david-letterman-conan-obrien-news-1357986.html

bmc: The trailer and how Summit wants to sell it to make money isn't the argument. They are free to do what they must and I applaud them for heat-seeking the audience for this, one of the best films of the year. But David was writing, however briefly, in a critical context and so that is why I objected to the classification.

"I am fascinated and dismayed by the growing need in the world - and on this blog - to narrow things down to semantic niches."

I'm curious. Do you think that's different than your own recent column on niche films? If you start narrowing things in one area, the rest follow.

And Travolta is hilarious in BATTLEFIELD EARTH. Quite intentional I would argue.

Travolta will probably go down as one of the most bizarre leading men of the late 20th-century. He can be charming and touching and he can also have the look of an alien learning English.

for me, it's Get Shorty. His best ever. I caught a few minutes of Be Cool (the sequel) and watching try to immitate his old self was just...jeez that was strange. But back to it, Get Shorty owns. He's confident, he's threatening, he's funny. He throws James Gandolfini down a flight of stairs. He punches Dennis Farina square in the nose. God I love that movie.

I hear you, Christian. I see the dichotomy.

But I think there is a difference between a discussion of how things work and how things feel.

It is an ongoing issue/problem in my work because I do blur that line, sometimes recklessly, sometimes without thinking 3 steps ahead... and while I, obviously, know my intent and tone, it is also understandable that not everyone else does.

I guess when I react badly to it, it is when I am still getting slapped out, without context, about a word I used lightly in a comment and saw it turn into its own idiotic drama.

We do live in a niche world. But there are prices for that. That still must be addressed. Just because something feels like "what it is" or "the way of the future" doesn't mean that the way it is used is not still in play.

When I used the word "crap," it was in the broadest, most irreverent way. At the same time, there is absolutely a difference between the action film and a thriller niches. And so... we dance.

Narrowing language narrows thought. But understanding how language is heard seems to be a necessity.

"Look… it ain’t Star Trek. It isn’t meant to be Star Trek. But it is much smarter and invested in real humans than Star Trek." George Wendt states; "BULLSHIT." The fact that you believe this demonstrates your fundamental flaw.

Nice of Christian to call you out on your NICHE bullshit. You are the one who started it. Why don't you excuse the people and realize he who smelt it. Dealt it.

Niche is the reality of the world, IO. I'm not changing my position on that. I'm not dancing away from it.

But like the internet, niche is the tool, not the answer in and of itself. If any of us allow ourselves to be sucked into "deal with it" as opposed to "work with it," it will eat us alive.

That said, I don't expect you to deal with any ideas more sophisticated than black vs white while you are busy raging, which seems to be all the time.

You are kinda making my point... you are so focused on trying to box me it... to win some sort of point against me... to prove my "fundamental flaw"... that you aren't dealing with the issues in front of you. When my "flaw" is that we disagree, you can scream all day long and you won't find objective proof of that "flaw," as it cannot exist.... it's subjective, not objective. Sorry this frustrates you so. Oddly, it doesn't bother me at all when you disagree with me on a matter of taste.

"But it is much smarter and invested in real humans than Star Trek."

Yeah, but Star Trek is more invested in real Vulcans.

'Hurt Locker is the best movie I've seen all year and Tapley's right; It's not an action movie. It's a thriller. Straight-up. You'd PROBABLY find it on action shelves at Blockbuster in a couple years....But the primary reaction it elicits is edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting suspense, hence, it's a thriller.'

no disrespect intended in the slightest, but are you quite young, the insneider?

because this brings to mind my same old bone to pick, how sad and resentful i feel that 'action' has become almost a dirty word meaning big, dumb, shallow, 'shit-blows-up' set pieces without depth of story and character and intelligence, lacking in nuance and soul (thank you mcratnerbaysommerscohenblahblahblah).

'But the primary reaction it elicits is edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting suspense, hence, it's a thriller.'

no, in fact this is what ACTION is SUPPOSED to do/to be: dynamic, thrilling, to serve and propel the story, to provide excitement and momentum, to make us care for our characters in peril. ACTION DOES NOT PRECLUDE OTHER GENRES, it is merely one component of great film-making.

seven samurai, the wild bunch, poseidon adventure, dirty harry, bond, warriors, apocalypse now, superman/II (donner), enter the dragon, the thing (carpenter), jaws, star wars/empire, 48 hrs, terminator/T2, raiders of the lost arc, predator, mad max/II, aliens, the hunt for red october, near dark, leathal weapon, crouching tiger, to live and die in LA, saving private ryan, heat, point break, spiderman/II, die hard, collateral, the matrix, lord of the rings, titanic...just a few great action movies off the top of my head. are they also great sci fi/horror/war/drama/martial arts/western/fantasy/comic book/crime/adventure? absolutely. and they MOVE. ACTION! nothing precludes action. and when done right, nothing is more thrilling, compelling and visceral, imho.

wow, i didn't realise that tony scott has actually admitted to having proper ADD (the old term for ASHD)! that explains it

(having just re-read my most recent action flick rant in so many days without being in a big rush, i realise i did a dyslexia manoeuvre and wrote 'nothing precludes action' toward the end, which makes no sense whatsoever, when i meant 'action precludes nothing'. doi)

ADHD

I was pretty underwhelmed by PELHAM. Denzel is great, as always, but the movie isn't nearly as smart as it thinks it is. Lots of lackluster script moments, where stuff gets set up but the payoff is bungled, some truly silly moments, they couldn't figure out what to do with Travolta's character, and Tony Scott needs to stop his absurd art experiments or at least contain them. Here they added nothing and in fact kept yanking me out of the situations.

Well known that I'm a big Tony Scott fan, so it's like I'm somehow disappointed *in myself* for not liking it quite as much as David, Wells, TURAN (HOLY SHIT!), and, er, Tony "A.O." Scott.

Definitely enjoyed it for the most part, but can't say I didn't come out just slightly underwhelmed. Straightforward and coasts pretty nicely on Denzel and Travolta, with Tony bringing his usual post-"Spy Game" bag of stylistic tricks. But it's much closer to "Deja Vu" Scott-by-numbers than the over-the-top, fevered mania (love it or hate it) of "Domino," "True Romance," "Last Boy Scout" or "Man on Fire."

In fact, after "Deja Vu" this is two in a row where I got pretty much exactly what I would've expected going in (literally, as every shot is in such pure Scott style it's 100% how I imagined it in my head beforehand... bordering on predictable), but didn't think Scott did anything to make it transcend to the next level.

Biggest complaint is just that there's absolutely *nothing* surprising about it that we haven't seen in dozens of other, similiar movies. Travolta is a blast, but he's kinda done this before and as some have rightly pointed out, he's working triple-overtime to be menacing and still just seems amusingly goofy.

In fact, it feels like blasphemy for ME of all people to to even suggest it, but I almost wish Tony'd return to just a bit of his old style, at least photography wise.

I'm not bitching about the titles on screen and crazy film stocks and blurring and quick cutting that some critics and motion sickness sufferers can't handle. I'm talking more the "sheen" for lack of a better word... "Pelham" is visually just "Deja Vu 2," all glum and overcast and wan exteriors and no colors popping out like they used to in his old stuff. Just seems like *everyone* has co-opted that style, from Peter Berg, James Wan and (sort of) Greengrass on down to every hack CSI director (in fact, he even uses Berg's regular DP here, so the circle is complete). Combined with the lack of plot surprises and the surprisingly short running time, it just adds this "seen it before" vibe that kept nagging even though I was basically digging it.

Just in stuff like "The Hunger" and "Revenge" and even "The Fan," there were shots that were as painterly as his brother's compositions, sort of Ridley's Euro-art ambitions colliding with a junkier pop-American sensibility that gave Tony's movies that juice. The new, desaturated green/gray, color-timed-within an inch of its life, crazy subtitles and freeze-frames shtick worked best for MoF and "Domino," and it's fun here but a little cold and mechanical, kind of how "Deja Vu" felt... almost dreary in spots.

How awesome was that annoying chick on the other end of that idiot's webcam? COOL GIRLFRIEND.

I saw it THREE MORE TIMES today since Moviefone wouldn't tell me where TETRO was playing...

I don't know whether the opening credits sequence is the goofiest or the most awesome thing ever: 99 PROBLEMS BUT A BITCH AIN'T ONE just cranking on this ridiculous closeup of Travolta in his wool cap while credits alongside his head in T-SCOTT style sputter-motion.

All I know is it brought down the house, as did most of those -- MINUTES TO GO freeze frames... I love Tony but I'm not sure anymore that some of that stuff is as "hip" as it's meant to be... The young-skewing audience was "What the FUCK"ing away at most of that stuff.

Just saw PELHAM tonight - and to appropriate the obvious metaphor - what a fucking trainwreck! Denzel was good, Travolta was what Travolta has become (I didn't buy even a moment of his character, especially the more that was revealed about him), and the Tony Scott visuals were - just as Lex stated above- exactly as expected. Though, can we please call a moratorium on the low-framerate slow-motion shots? Every time they showed a helicopter against a bank of skyscrapers, I sank that much lower into my seat.
But the script! The fucking script! Without spoiling too much:

1. When the battery dies on a laptop, and you show us that battery dying on-screen, DON'T resurrect it for no goddamned reason. This is not a zombie movie.
2. You can throw around the words "fate" and "luck" half a dozen times, but ridiculously convenient coincidence will always be just that. Especially when character A happens upon character B at JUST THE RIGHT MOMENT - three times within the space of five minutes. At the climax.
3. If you are going to pull off a gigantic swindle online, would you really use your own bona-fide actual name?
4. Iceland. Ass model. Dog shit. Fashion week. Not only NOT a bullshit story, but its payoff is as an ID on the bad guy? Really?
5. The mayor suddenly turns into Encyclopedia Brown - creaky, but give it a pass. But as the clock ticks to its final minutes, he's the guy who is going to run to the SEC? "Let's go!"
6. Uh-oh. Forty-five minutes into this thing and it looks like it might be getting boring. Bring on the speeding car footage! And maybe there could be a few wrecks along the way. . .? (And honestly, pointing out the non-helicopter stupidity does not make it not stupid.)
7. The train hurtles toward Coney Island, and frigging SPIDERMAN did a better job in five minutes creating empathy for passengers-in-peril than this thing did in almost two hours. And couldn't they at least have shot the guy in the blond 'fro? Or thrown him off the speeding train? Anything? The constant cuts to him were practically turning into stock footage.
8. Streaming webcam. Not on the news. Which they are watching online. And that’s not even bringing up the whole bluetooth / laptop volume issue. (And sorry Lex, that annoying girl was nothing but annoying.)
9. Ransom. Suitcases. No GPS (at least not revealed to the audience). But a hidden gun - hey, no problem! Speaking of which, these guys with suitcases were awfully easy to identify. In traffic. In front of the Waldorf-Astoria. . .
10. Who in the fuck where those other two guys? Honestly! You get rid of Luis Guzman in favor of keeping on two rejects from AIR FORCE ONE? I appreciated the anonymity of the players in the opening scenes, but keeping them red-shirted through the whole picture? Whatevs.

well, i'll always love tony just for making the single most badass chick flick love story ever:

aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

are you dick ritchie?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObU-wa6_2gU

and that alabama is quite a woman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqfDcrg3if0

B-Mac, again, I'm as big a Tony Scott fanatic as you're likely to find (excepting maybe HE's Actionman), and Denzel and Travolta have been iconic to me since CARBON COPY and SNF, respectively...

But I can't really argue with any of those points. Tony and the actors work overtime, it looks great (if now-predictably "Tony"), but many of those issues nagged throughout, even to someone like me who gives logic a pass when it comes to big, dumb action movies. Which is why I'm surprised the esteemed critics I mentioned above were so charitable.

But let me focus in particular on that "runaway train" setpiece near the end you mention in relation to Spider-Man 2. All apologies to one of my favorite directors, but that prolonged stretch where that car's on the loose packed very little suspense, nor did the juxtaposed scenes of Denzel... er, walking around some dark tunnels while Travolta and Co. make their escape. It picks up again with the car chases and gunplay, but there's a stretch there with the runaway car where we just don't care about anyone on it, and the scenario isn't that exciting no matter how many times PAUL BLART MALL COP shouts about rails and red lights and tripping brakes.

Also, that glasses mom chick was UNPLEASANT and what the FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK was with the rainbow coalition of hostages, on down to some random COWBOY DUDES? It reminded me of Janeane Garofolo's line about the SPEED hostages where the only thing missing was an Eskimo with a spear.

If David and Wells BOTH like something...be wary.

11. One of the hijackers fires an automatic weapon inside a mostly-metal subway car and NONE of the bullets ricochet? Puh-leeze.

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