He doesn’t want to punch that man in the face; it’s just that the son of a gun won’t leave the hot woman alone.
He doesn’t want to make love to the highly strung hot woman; it’s just that it’ll help her loosen up and stop being such a goddam tight-ass.
He doesn’t want to be partnered with some slight, bookish-yet-hot woman who’s just aced her last semester of cop school – she’ll slow him down when shit gets real on the street; it’s just that the smarts she’ll learn from him in two minutes flat will help her more than a lifetime of theory. So what’s he gonna do? Let her die in the ’hood like a miniature pig?
He doesn’t want to endanger his life fighting for freedom – it’s already cost him his marriage, his liver, and turned his chest hair ash-white; it’s just that he’s the best they’ve got.
The true hero doesn’t want to do anything except finish up his bourbon. And yet when I act like that, people tell me I’m wasting my life. Or that’s what their eyes are saying. Looking at me like a nothing. So I tell them, ‘You don’t know diddly shit about creating a protagonist through narrative structure. I do. I write new pamphlets every other year. I’m a hero. I’m a storyteller. I’m perfectly safe to drive.’
See: HERO, THE; MINIATURE PIGS, INCREASED RISK OF DEATH W/R/T
RESCUE
If someone RESCUES you, you cannot be a HERO. You are most likely a child or an above-averagely-attractive woman.
As such, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the titular protagonist of Steve McQueen’s 2013 plantation dramedy 12 Years a Slave, is not a hero.
The hero of that flick is Mr Parker, a shopkeeper who recognizes Solomon at the end of Act III and courageously suggests that someone else should free him.
But Parker is white, and in these politically correct times his heroism is downplayed by a media that would rather celebrate a central character who lacks the imagination to escape from a field. Clint Eastwood escaped from Alcatraz! Can you imagine a Bruce Willis movie in which he was captured, alternated between self-pity and stoic passivity, and didn’t single-handedly execute everyone who stood in his way?
No wonder Slave didn’t get a sequel.
See: HERO, THE; RESCUE, LEVELS OF ATTRACTIVENESS REQUIRED FOR
ROCK BOTTOM
Every HERO hits ROCK BOTTOM.
It’s 3 a.m., you’re down to your last few burritos, you want to make some kind of connection with someone, but you’re too blasted to get out of the tub. You feel something dripping on your head, revealing your bald spot. You look up: the shower head is on. How long have you been here? You look down and see a toe floating in the suds. When you realize it’s still attached to your foot you start to cry.
You’re on the freeway. For some reason you’re moving. You can barely hold the wheel. You don’t know why you’re here. You don’t know where ‘here’ is. Whose car is this? It smells of cement. Or maybe pork. Rain reveals your bald spot. You look up: why doesn’t the car have a roof anymore? Didn’t it used to have a roof when that other person was in the car? You look down and see that your pants are on the passenger seat. Now you’re on a grass verge. It’s possible that the car is upside down. Finally, you can rest your head on the dashboard. You look down, or is it up? Your exposed penis and thighs tumble toward your bleeding chin. Why do they look so bright? Why is everything flashing blue? What’s that tapping on the window?
You’re trying to sleep. You feel something funny in your arm. You see what looks like a lit cigarette singeing your hair, but when you pick it up to take a drag you realize it’s a scorpion. You swallow the scorpion, but it tastes like a lighter. The wind reveals your bald spot. You look up. That’s not wind. That’s paraffin. Someone’s trying to set fire to your dumpster. How are you going to sleep if this thing catches? You’ve lost your faculty card and you don’t have the energy to beg. So you close your eyes and hope the puke will staunch the flames. You look inside but all you can see is you and you and you and you, all jerking each other off in an octagon.
For the hero, things do not end here. Act III’s round the corner.
It’s time to scrape off the vom and KICK SOME ASS.
See: ASS-KICKING, CONCERTED; HERO, THE
S
‘You just gotta keep checking for shards …’
SCIENCE FICTION
The tagline to Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi dramedy Alien is:
In space, no one can hear you scream.
Then how come we can hear the dialogue?
In George Lucas’s 1977 farmers-in-space saga Star Wars, it’s not the stars that are doing the fighting. It’s the people.
And why can’t I remember anything about the plot of Total Recall? The story is so unmemorable that Len Wiseman filmed the movie again in 2012 before anyone realized that Paul Verhoeven had already made it in 1990.
Upshot? SCIENCE FICTION and science fact are two very different animals. In fact, they’re not even animals!
SECRET AGENTS
In McG’s 2014 brain-tumor dramedy 3 Days to Kill, Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) has kept his highly dangerous work in government ops a secret his whole life. His service to his country has cost him his marriage and estranged him from his daughter. So when elite CIA assassin Vivi Delay (Amber Heard) offers him an experimental drug that could prolong his life (on the condition that he terminates an arms trafficker called The Wolf), he faces a terrible dilemma. In order to ensure a future with his family, he must go back to his old life, but because he has to do it secretly, they’ll never understand the sacrifice he’s making! In fact, they give him hell about being late for stupid dinners or after-school pick-ups! When he almost got an ass full of lead!
Part of the film’s success is that it recognizes how unappreciated men are in the modern world. This guy was literally out saving the planet, and all his ex can do is beef about how he wasn’t around enough. Well, why don’t you try telling a bunch of highly trained dissidents that you can’t let the firefight go on too long because you’ve got to go home and listen to your wife complain about everyone she met that day?
The subtext of all SECRET AGENT movies is the impossibility of explaining anything to a woman. Because ALL men are secret agents. We’re doing shit women will never understand: covert shit, dangerous shit, draining shit.
When there was a wasp crawling up your bikini strap, who told you to just stay still? Who de-iced the windshield before it was even noon? Who made two trips to the dump to get rid of a bunch of old shit you made me throw away even though we might one day need it? Who set up the new speaker system so that we can hear the bass properly? Who downloaded that app on your phone in under an hour? Who knew that there was an even cheaper restaurant only three miles’ walk away?
Men knew, that’s who.
The secret agent represents the part of male consciousness that women can never access – a world of speedboats, emptying full clips into Foreign Nationals and meaningless animalistic trysts with sultry hot tamales.*
Women don’t understand that men need to do this in order to make the world safe for them. I’m not trying to slake the lust of every exotic woman in the world, but if I had to (for the sake of international security) give some knockout dame the gift of my private length, I would. I totally would. I’d have to.
Men like this, HEROES, are destined to walk through life alone, judged, scorned, misunderstood and saddled with alimony.
See: HERO, THE; SULTRY WOMEN, SELFLESS LUST-SLAKING OF
* It seems perverse that LaSure would not refer to James Cameron’s seminal True Lies, a film based on this dichotomy. It’s very possible that LaSure, a man who needed little excuse to rewatch Road House, had never heard of it – Ayo.
SELF-LOVE
The tragedy of Narcissus is not that he fell in love with his own reflection; it’s that he never learned to swim. Who hasn’t tried to dry-hump a mirror? You just gotta keep checking for shards.
The true HERO knows he will never find his equal. If he did, he’d have to share billing.
Do you think Schwarzenegger, Stallone or Seagal would ever split their massive fees with some dame?
What for?
They’ve got their own tits.
See: HERO, THE; OWNING YOUR TITS (AS A MAN)
SETTING
Where’s your story set?
A titty bar (Showgirls)?
Various titty bars (Striptease)?
An ancient titty bar (Mrs Henderson Presents)?
In which era is your story set?
Post-apocalypse (Mad Max)?
Mid-apocalypse (Apocalypse Now)?
Pre-apocalypse (He’s Just Not That into You*)?
What are your characters fighting – what are they set against?
Their ex-girlfriends (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past)?
The outdated concept of monogamy (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past)?
Matthew McConaughey’s own self-worth (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past)?
Three crucial questions, three routes to world-beating movies (apart from Apocalypse Now – it’s pretty sweet when they napalm the jungle, but after that it literally drifts).
See: JUNGLE, DIFFICULTY OF NARRATIVELY TOPPING NAPALMING A
* I find this film’s title has the unfortunate effect of making me imagine a mid-congress observation made by a third party. LaSure told me that he once received similar feedback from a gas fitter in Houston – Ayo.
SEX
In Joseph Zito’s 1984 action dramedy Missing in Action, Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris) goes back to his Saigon hotel room with the relatively hot Ann (Lenore Kasdorf), but when he removes his top to reveal his stacked and hairy torso – looking like a wet barrel that’s been picked up from a barber-shop floor – it’s not to make sweet love to her, although she waits in anxious anticipation of his length; it’s to change into ninja blacks, scope out the city and ice a commie piece of shit.
HEROES never prioritize the carnal (except in Sharon Stone movies – she’s like the Pied Piper of penis).
There’ll be another sweet piece round the corner before your gun barrel’s gone cold.
See: GUN-BARREL COOLING TIMES, APPROXIMATE; HERO, THE; NINJA BLACKS; ROUND-THE-CORNER SWEET PIECES; TORSO HAIR
SHAKING HANDS
HEROES very rarely agree to SHAKE HANDS, and almost never air-kiss. And yet, despite their lack of civility, we cheer them on. This is because the hero acts as we wish we could and NOT as we actually do. We don’t want to touch people’s puffy hands; we don’t want some asshole’s clammy cheek barreling toward us in smug expectation; we don’t want to endure the humiliation of having our outstretched arm pivoted back into our chest for a hip-hop hug from a forty-five-year-old. And yet we allow these violations every day of our shriveled lives.
Do you think Jason Statham would put up with this bullshit?
That’s why we love him.
See: FAT-CAT TYPES, REFUSING CIGARS FROM; HERO, THE
SHOWERS OF SPARKS
Have you ever seen a SHOWER OF SPARKS in real life?
That’s why we go to the movies.*
* Or watch talent shows? – Ayo.
SKIN
If you want to make a buck in this biz, someone’s gotta show some SKIN.
But don’t give ’em everything right up top; it’s best to take her slow …
In Joseph Zito’s 1988 action classic Red Scorpion, we have to wait thirty-eight long minutes until we see Dolph Lundgren’s bangers; then it’s an agonizing additional twenty-two minutes before we see his exposed legs in short cut-offs that detail his dense quads.
In John Irvin’s 1986 lesson in action Raw Deal, we have to wait seventy-two minutes for a shot of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wet tits, still steaming from the shower.
In Rowdy Herrington’s 1989 doorman thriller Road House, we have to wait way past the Act II mid-point before we see dappled spots of sun yellowing the sweat on Patrick Swayze’s naked back, a shimmering pool of meat inviting us to dive ever deeper into his deltoids.
In Barb Wire, Pamela Anderson drops her melons in the title sequence. How are you gonna top that! Cut straight to an explosion? No wonder it bombed at the B.O.
Seeing Pammy act is the price you pay for the prospect of seeing her naked. As soon as we got that title sequence, there was no reason for us to see the rest of the film – you want to leave the theater, but you can’t stand up.
The whole thing’s a boner-killing mess.
SLUT
A SLUT is a woman who has sex with someone other than the HERO.
An exception exists for a woman trapped in a loveless relationship wherein congress is perfunctory, off-screen and, as such, no real threat to the hero, with whom true, LIFE-GIVING, orgasmic BOOM-BOOM awaits.
See: BOOM-BOOM, LIFE-GIVING; HERO, THE; NON-HERO TYPES, CONSISTENT SEXUAL INADEQUACY OF; OBLIGATION, PERFUNCTORY CONGRESS WITH NON-HERO TYPE OUT OF A SENSE OF
SNIVELING
Slapping a SNIVELING person is not, for some reason, assault.
SON OF A BITCH
One of the few acceptable terms of endearment in cinema, it can also be used to indicate surprise (‘Son of a bitch!’) or a moment of realization (‘Son of a bitch …’).
Oddly, it is seldom used to denote a dog’s lineage.
SOUNDTRACK
Has there ever been a bigger missed opportunity than Terry Malick’s 1973 serial-killer dramedy Badlands? Two kids in double denim shooting off guns just for yucks could have been backed by a kick-ass SOUNDTRACK. I’m thinking how Jovi took things Next Level on Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory.
Instead, we get the inane ramblings of some chick who sounds like she’s about to go in for emergency oral surgery and is trying to distract herself from the pain by playing the waiting-room glockenspiel. And it’s always the same tune! I love ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’, but Jovi would never play it twice in a row! Part of the joy of hearing ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ live is that you know you won’t have to hear it again until you’re back in your truck.
Yet many so-called ‘classic’ films repeat the same theme again and again. (I’m looking at you, Georges Delerue: your ‘score’ to Jean-Luc Godard’s Le mépris is literally a stuck record. Same deal with Carol Reed’s 1949 antibiotic dramedy The Third Man. Not only can you barely see what’s going on, it plays like an unfunny episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.)
But soundtracks can be used to subvert expectations:
Try some space funk under that courtroom summation.
Underscore that sex scene with sounds from a squash match.
Use classical music under your diarrhea montage.
See: MUSICAL JUXTAPOSITIONS, TOTALLY RADICAL
SPACE JARGON
When watching Tobe Hooper’s 1985 space-vampire dramedy Lifeforce, I mistook the term ‘soft dock’ as a snide reference to impotence.
It is painful to be reminded of one’s own failings. It’s painful in court, it’s painful when you’re being held down by your current brother-in-law, it’s especially painful at a press screening. And it can be crushing to be corrected by the director of that movie during a subsequent Q and A.
Point being, it doesn’t take much to make me think of the few dozen times when I’ve been too filled with self-hate and rye to get the blood flowing to the right set of sacs.
So let’s get it right. Here’s a list of some useful SPACE JARGON from Joss Whedon’s 2012 cash cow The Avengers:
‘There’s no one that knows gamma radiation like you do …’
‘Your work on anti-electron collision is unparalleled …’
‘We can clock this at 600 teraflops …’
‘The portal is collapsing in on itself …’
‘This is a level 7 …’
The writing is so strong that only the last few remind me of my intermittent leverage. You can also use the following standalone terms during nearly any hard SF* exchange:
calibrate
comms (off or on)
evac
initialize
intel
ion
partial evac (something I once had to do in an alley)
particle
probe
proton
thrust
Or combine them in virtually any order, e.g.:
calibrate comms
ion thrust
initialize partial evac module
etc.
Or try throwing ‘anti-’, ‘auto-’, ‘hyper-’ or ‘nano-’ into the mix, e.g.:
auto-proton probe
anti-ion thrust
hyper-calibrate nano-comms
etc.
For reasons too painful to restate, avoid the prefix ‘semi-’.
* SF = science fiction. When an acronym necessitates a footnote, perhaps a rethink’s in order? – Ayo.
SPEAKING VOLUMES
Regardless of the ‘character’ they’re playing, Steven Seagal, Bruce Willis and Jason Statham rarely shout. In fact, they barely open their mouths. It sounds like they’ve had all the moisture syringed from their throats. Who knows if they even have tongues?
But actors of their stature, stubble and syllabic simplicity don’t need to be audible. Why?
Because they have power.
Villains shout because, deep down, they’re weak. Foreign Nationals speak loudly because, deep down, they’re weak. Women scream at me because, deep down, they’re weak.
The Grip of Film Page 12