Shot of Life!

By Aaron 9/8/2007

 

Shoot em’ Up starts running and never stops. Some movies have non-stop action, and some movies are entirely action. Shoot em’ Up is entirely action. Not the Pulp Fiction or Bourne Identity kind, but the over the top kind. The fun kind. From the first scene when Clive Owen is eating a carrot at a bus stop, you know the movie is going to be ridiculously over the top. Once you accept that fact, it is hard not to love Shoot em’ Up. The movie has all the scenes you play over in your head when you get your first toy gun – all the unbelievable stuff you fantasize about doing to the bad guys.

Not be left in the Transporter genre of plotless-action movies, Shoot em’ Up develops a hell of a lot on the run. When the movie opened with an unexplained, unprefaced action scene, any plot seemed to be a forced concession. But the movie pushes itself to make connections – we actually know why there are two groups trying to kill Clive Owen and we actually see the antagonists, unlike Mr. and Mrs. Smith. There are even significant amounts of character development as we find out who Clive Owen is, who Monica Belluci is – we even find out about Paul Giamatti’s family. So it would be best to say that the movie evokes the feel of Payback and the glam of Smokin’ Aces.

But more importantly – how does the movie stack up as an action movie? Once you leave reality behind, the movie is almost unmatchable. The action just LOOKS great too – so fluid and fast and the camerawork is tight and sharp, making the action look even faster. Perhaps it is hard to be unbiased considering Clive Owen does all the things I look for action heroes to do. He picks up weapons of the guys he has killed, he uses his terrain to move around so he is not a target, and does everything else we want to do but do not because we have some attachment to our body as it is – unbroken.

Not to leave any action movie distinction unchallenged, the movie also does its best to race for the highest kill count. At one point the bad guys even say, “I guess fifty men will have to do.” And then a scene later they need to reload on henchman. Not to forget firepower, the movie has a scene in a weapons factory, which gives Clive all the weapons he needs at his very fingertips. Despite severing itself from reality, the movie DOES go to great pains to explain why Clive Owen knows about guns and why he always has so many. All these things set Shoot em’ Up apart – it seems incredibly similar to Smokin’ Aces in terms of advertising and style, but this movie succeeds with simply action instead of contrived plot twists, boasting its ridiculousness. So the little things start to add up for the movie and it is worth 7/10 saltystix.

Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

 

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

 

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

 

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

 

 

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

 

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.