What a gloriously stupid movie. Angel Town, the 1990 ass-kicker from director Eric Karson, has an incredible start. The film opens with a montage of the bad guy, Angel (Tony Valentine), driving through East L.A. with the theme song, written and performed by a band headed by the director’s brother, playing on top of it. Then there’s a big gang fight that ends in a shooting. And THEN, the main character, Jacques (Olivier Gruner), has sex on top of his father’s grave. I shit you not, that is how this movie begins. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Angel Town”
Some of Those Responsible: Peter Kwong
The Empty Balcony: Big Trouble in Little China
As I was watching John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China recently, I was struck by the familiarity of the material. I felt I had seen it before, but in some other context. Confined, mazelike, and windowless environments; various tricks and traps the heroes must overcome; goons, monsters, and the bosses that control them, etc. And there it is. Big Trouble in Little China plays like a videogame. Considering it was released in 1986, before videogames became complex enough to compare, does that mean John Carpenter was breaking new ground, that Big Trouble in Little China is ahead of its time? No. It just reaffirms that the pacing and storytelling of today’s videogames are derivative of cinema. There are plenty of other films from around the same time that are akin to videogames (Aliens, Commando, and Total Recall all come immediately to mind, among many others). Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Big Trouble in Little China”