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SirAlanSmithee
Reviews
Powder Keg (2001)
Masterful deviation and conclusion to "The Hire" series of shorts
Powder Keg concludes the BMW short film series "The Hire" by adding a very human element to the enigmatic and elusive series title character played by Clive Owen. Director/co-writer Alejandro González Iñárritu departs from the pattern established by the previous 4 directors and makes the driver more of a background character, focusing instead on a war photographer who, after snapping a shocking series of photographs, is on the run and grievously injured. He takes the time to reflect on his life and what he's done-or not done-with it, and why he started taking pictures in the first place.
Stellan Skarsgård does a wonderful job as the photographer, and manages to communicate volumes just as much with what he doesn't say as with what he does. Clive Owen has the opportunity to portray a different side to the driver then in the previous films, allowing his normally unflappable character to have an emotional moment beyond what we've seen. The moment at the end of the film between himself and the woman played by Lois Smith is made more pronounced by his inability to effectively communicate his thoughts and feelings, and his abrupt exit punctuates that perfectly.
Iñárritu directs this short perfectly, using hand-held 16MM cameras to capture a grainy, almost documentary-like feel to the film, and over-exposure for certain shots adds the right amount of dramatic flair to the film.
All in all, my only regret with this film is that it's the last one in this excellent series. BMW should be highly commended for allowing what could have been little more than overblown and expensive commercials to be short films in which the centerpiece vehicles sometimes took a back-seat to the characters and their stories instead. I hope to see another series like this again soon.
Six-String Samurai (1998)
The Best Bad Movie Of All Time
Have you ever sat down to watch a movie that had you rolling your eyes in the first few minutes because it was incredibly, laughably bad, but you had to keep watching, and soon enough, you were cheering at the screen? Six-String Samurai is that movie in spades.
This lovely little film starts with a fairly far-out concept-That in the 50's, The USSR nuked The United States, and a young musician named Elvis was crowned King of Lost Vegas *snicker*. 40 years later, The King has died and a new King is to be crowned. The movie kicks off from there, an exercise in bad-acting and set design that is attacked with such aggressive fun that its impossible not to get drawn into the antics of it all. It is easy to see that the film-makers had a big place in their hearts for Asian Action and Kung Fu movies. Not only does it have some of the standard cliches of Asian Cinema-Tough, almost monosyllabic hero, precocious orphan, leering, comically evil more-bad-then-bad-can-be bad guys, a near indestructible head villain-it also has liberal doses of Eastern Philosophy, tongue-in-cheek references to The Wizard Of Oz, and even a childhood monster made real.
By the end of this movie, you are having such a good time that you can forgive all of the poorer aspects of the film because the dynamics of it all are just fun. Definitely works best as a film to get and watch with a group of friends, although you'll want to actually listen for some of the cheesiest line-readings in recent years. This is a movie that falls under the "So Bad, its GREAT!" Category. One of my personal all-time favorites, my friends and I sit around and quote this one incessantly. It's a little hard to find, but well worth the entertainment and cheese-factor.