If you're following along at home, the current recap runs from 2:40 in the following clip. Please remember that all clips are very much
. Consider yourself warned."Big, crazy, jarhead, motorcycle freak, reject cop just like you, Scotty. He's a wild man that no one else wanted."
"Yeah, that means I'm expendable."
Um, Katydid, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there some sort of screenwriting koan about showing instead of telling?
...
Pointless image #823 of NJC - white cop lays down on the bed and fires the conveniently-loaded handgun of black cop into the conveniently-placed target shooting paper. The seven shots make a smiley face with dramatic sunlight streaming through the holes into the smokey air.
...
Oh, good, another outstanding example of ethnic stereotyping: the Italian gangster. Only this gangster is young and hip. I can tell because he's young and hip, wears a nice suit, has a long ponytail, and has one weird, diagonal strip shaved into the left eyebrow.
Why was that ever a fashion thing?
At least the gangster doesn't have an over-the-top Italian accent. I don't know why van Peebles suddenly decided that now was the time to show restraint.
...
We flash to the angry, young Italian gangster going back to the bar filled with not-so-young Italian gangsters. Everyone has a gold chain and at least two gold rings - often found on pinkies - and wears a suit with shirt open a couple of buttons.
Oh, and they call the Cash Money crew the "Cash Money Monkeys" and refer to their drug connections as "spikaroos".
The elder mobster says "You know what I say: you lay down with Peruvian dogs, you get up with Spanish fleas. Soon, Nino will itch, and we'll be there to scratch the hell out of him."
I swear I could have written that line when I was in seventh grade, and Mrs. VanOsdol would have told me to stop being so cute with my words.
...
White cop is on top of the building taking surveillance photos using a camera with a foot-long lens. Right next to him is Ice T doing the same but with a secret agent tiny camera.
Because he's trying to blend in next to white cop, apparently.
...
Re-enter Chris Rock. He's limping because Ice T shot him a few years back. He's begging food from Nino who's handing out food to the poor, doing some of that "Robin Hood b---s---," according to Ice T.
This is another example of why I think this movie was originally pitched as a multi-season television show. Rock's character appear, and within two minutes, Ice T had grabbed him from the crack house and forced him into rehab. If we'd been given two or three episodes to care about the Rock character, this might have worked. Instead, we have to take a leap of faith and somehow assume that Ice T cares enough about Pookie (Rock's basehead character) to save him from the depth of the crack den.
...
In one scene, Pookie is yelling at Ice T, screaming to get this cop off of him. In the next he's confessing his sins and begging for help to get off of the crack. In the next - all assumed to happen sequentially - he's yelling and cursing Ice T again.
Luckily Ice T has been able to change into his awesome Adidas jacket and gold chain before dragging Pookie off to rehab.
Because it's important to be stylish when you're dropping off a junkie.
...
Next scene, Ice T is standing at a stormy window as Pookie shakes and shivers from withdrawl. Ice T starts to put a hand on his shoulder but pulls back.
Sorry, pulls back emotionally.
...
Now Pookie's rahabbing in Ice T's apartment with the storm raging outside the windows. The lights are dramatically dimmed, and Pookie is shirtless, his six-pack abs covered in sweat.
Right, because crack fiends have lots of time and inclination to do ab crunches.
And because cops take crack fiends into their apartments all the time.
Ice T comes to stand behind Pookie, offering silent reassurance...while wearing his pajamas, some sort of African rob open to his waist.
I'm wondering is this rehab doesn't involve a little something more than just a twelve step program.
...
In the rehab meetings, Pookie breaks down as recovering addicts tell stories of their life on crack.
In other words van Peebeles take a few minutes to let his characters proselytize to the camera again.
...
Montage time again...rehab...crying...working out with Ice T...collapsing to the floor while attempting the first jumping jack...White cop working on surveillance equipment...running in the sunset - being helped by Ice T...now Pookie is in the rehab meeting saying he's clean while Ice T looks on proudly from outside the door...
...
Back to the fifteen degree camera angle. Now we're in the streets. I can tell.
...
Pookie recounts how people buy drugs in the Carter. Everyone in the scene is black except our drug buyer who looks like Kurt Cobain - red and black flannel, dirty t-shirt underneath, jeans, stringy longish blonde hair.
Why a white guy?
Is van Peebles saying that whites were somehow taking advantage of the black community? That blacks were gaining power over whites? The New Jack Swing would someday lead directly to grunge?
Damn Mario van Peebles and his subtlety!
...
"After you [buy your drugs] you can take your goodies home or stay at the Enterprise."
"What the hell's the Enterprise?"
"...On the street when you're smoking crack, they say that you're beaming up to Scotty, man. You're going to another world. It's like crackhead's the final frontier. That's why they call that room the Enterprise."
I'll readily admit that I know nothing about this culture, but the appropriation of Star Trek references by black, early-90's, drug subculture seems somehow unlikely.
...
Oh, wait, two more white characters: a mother and her eight- or nine-year old daughter.
Mom's 'beaming up to Scotty' while the girl looks on.
At least it's not all negative.
She, she's a mother spending quality time with her kid.
...
"For the Love of Money" reappears at the drastically improved Spotlite night club's New Year's Party.
Three years later and Flava Flav is still working the dance floor.
In the back room, Wesley Snipes (Nino) is leading a toast to celebrate what their group has become. The cinematography is a little obvious with him wearing an all-red suit over a black shirt standing in the center of the shot while his various lieutenants wear vaguely the reverse - largely black over colored shirts. The eye is drawn to Nino.
...
Nino speaks to velour track suit (now in a sharply tailored black suit over red shirt, Nino's mirror duplicate) about how this isn't about money. This is about taking care of each other.
"Nothing and no one will ever come between you and me...never."
This is just after Nino chants "Am I my brother's keeper?" to the group to the answer of "Yes, I am!"
...
Oh, by the way, the girl who will eventually come between them shows up three minutes and thirteen seconds later.
I'm surprised that van Peebles waited that long.
...
Young Italian gangster shows up at the New Years party with a gift from The Don.
It's a foot-tall statue of a black lawn jockey with a noose around his neck.
Um, perhaps a nice candle or a gift certificate to Applebees would have been more appreciated.
...
Nino carries a butterfly knife.
I'm kind of sad that the heyday of the butterfly knife is over and that I never learned to open one with the correct flourish.
It may have something to do with the fact that I never owned one, but who cares - the opening of a butterfly knife just looks cool.
...
Post-New Years party, back at Nino's mansion, the two couples - Nino and his girl, valour track suit and the come-between-us girl - are watching Scarface.
I've never seen Scarface, but even I know that once the gangsters start watching scarface, that everything is about to go to hell.
First you watch the Scarface, then you get the downfall.
(Oh, if you haven't seen this take on Scarface, take the 2:11 to watch it.)
...
Wesley Snips has an oddly hairless chest.
Wait, did I say that out loud?
...
I think Nino's living in the set of "November Rain"...floor to ceiling lace curtains, five-foot-tall candlesticks...Tudor mansion...
...
Van Peebles comes in yelling at Ice T about "put[ting] a notorious crack head on the payroll."
White cop waits a minute then asks "wait, is this some kind of black thing?"
I swear I've heard Judd Nelson say that in a different movie somewhere.
Ice T doesn't like the comment, and yelling ensues.
White cop answers with "F--- the mafia! I'm gonna wax your high, yellow, narrow a--..."
I swear that I am shocked this didn't win the Oscar for best original screenplay.
...
We're forty-five minutes into the film.
I'll be back next week with another twenty or so...
4 comments:
"Show, don't tell" should be imprinted on every screenwriter's brain. But even in my genre class last week, a guy wrote "we see her consider..." The professor rightly tore him up. I'm planning a rant this week about how great films come from not very great scripts.
Apropos of this Blockbuster going-out-of business title,I picked up Scott Pilgrim, A Single Man, and The Road on Blu-ray for under $35 yesterday, as the location by me is closing. Thanks for shooting yourself in the foot, Blockbuster!
Um, Katydid...who's Joe?
Hahaha, okay so at work I'm in the process of making us a new Facebook account for our student org. I made a Gmail account for that Facebook with my co-worker's name, but forgot to log it out. Thus the Joe-ness.
Post a Comment