The B Movies

On the dog walk the other night, I asked a couple of fellows doing the same if they had any recommendations for a DVD to get that night. Family fare, or thereabouts.

These two are academics, one's a history lecturer, the other, a professor of philosophy. Both keen culture-hounds. I figured their judgement might be worthwhile...

"Hellboy!" said history man
"Spiderman 2" said Philosopher.
"Riiiggghhhtttt", said I.

Anyway, I clipped Wilma to the rubbish bin outside the DVD store (I carry a nifty little carabina for this), and went in to scour the shelves. I don't really need advice about what to get, it just helps if I have something in mind, or I'll be there all night checking out the entire selection...

After about 20 minutes... having looked longingly at the Before Sunset new release & deciding it might be too tedious for a 12 year old, and Swimming Pool, because I know T likes Charlotte Rampling, because people tell her they look similar (and Helen Mirren - I'm onto a good thing really), but Swimming Pool is a family unfriendly R18 & no matter how appealing the thought of aging English, and barely legal French hotties prancing naked around the pool was... I came across the words... Spiderman 2.

On getting home, M scrutinised my selection & said "We've seen this."

"Spiderman 2? No we haven't"
"It's Spiderman... the 2 disc set, you didn't take your reading glasses did you?"
"F..."

So M offered to walk back to the DVD store & switch it for Spiderman 2, or if that was out something similar, armed with advice/warning from T "You might like to consider something I might like to watch."

10 minutes later, she's back, with a huge grin as she announced,

"Bulletproof Monk!"
"F..." said T

Chow Yun Fat! Hoo Hah!!! Now if you're unfamiliar with Our Man Fat, he's probably the Cary Grant of our time. Truly. He was the main man in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but his best work is in John Woo Bullet Ballets, the best of which is indisputably Hard Boiled. In fact, although he's known now for martial artistry, Crouching Tiger was his first foray into the genre, he's usually shooting people. Lots of people...

Our first B Movie of the weekend then, Bulletproof Monk is a guilty, park your brain outside & enjoy the ride, pleasure. Alternatively some people might be profoundly irritated by the idiocy of the so called plot.

Chow, is an 80 something year old monk with no name, charged with protecting a sacred scroll from an evil nazi who tried to take it off him 60 years ago in 1943. We take up the action is modern day New York. And really, it's campy crap. But with Chow Yun Fat spouting "fortune cookie philosophy", and who is by far the best thing about it (although, he should fire his agent). The 2nd male lead is the guy who played Stifler in the American Pie movies, and if this guy is a movie star, then there is hope for the rest of us. The female lead looks like Avril Lavigne, but I suspect she wasn't.

The next day was de ja vu, but without the advice from my cultured friends. This time I took heed of the longing in my soul... and checked out the 2nd B Movie of the weekend. Before Sunset.

This one's a sequel to a small film called Before Sunrise made by a guy called Richard Linklater some 10 years ago starring Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy. They were a couple of young things who meet on a train in Europe, he on his way back to the US the next day, her to start school in Paris. On a whim they disembark the train at Vienna & spend the night pretty much conversing about all sorts of things. They connect & promise to meet again in 6 months time. It is the all time finest romantic movie ever made IMO.

9 years later, Jessie (Hawke) is a best selling novelist on a promotional tour of Europe, promoting his novel about two young things who meet on a train... etc.

He looks up from a book signing in Paris, and there is Celine (Delpy)

Here, we find out if they kept their rendezvous 9 years earlier & what has become of them since.

Again, time is limited - Celine asks "How long have we got this time, 20 minutes?"

Hawke replies, "Longer then that". They have 80 minutes actually, and the movie follows them pretty much in real time as they wander Paris, with a few flashbacks interspersed.

And it is lovely, these are two real people, talking real things, the chemistry is palpable & it doesn't hurt that they've both aged really, really well. Delpy is of course, luminous. And so is Paris.

Can't say much about it without spoiling it, but the ending is fantastic. Both of these movies have you wanting to see more of these characters*, so now we just have to wonder how much longer before the 3rd movie is made.

*Celine & Jessie also appear briefly in a sequence in Richard Linklater's Waking Life.