Snow Screen: The Hateful Eight, The Big Short & The Revenant

What's some holiday weekends without some movies?! After the nearly botched press screening of Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight I attended, it was time for round two at The Arclight in Hollywood in the Cinerama Dome...oh wait, Disney put the kibosh on that as their reported terms were 4 weeks in the biggest house for any theater that wished to exhibit juggernaut Star Wars: The Force Awakens. While that really sucks because 8 was made for the Dome to be projected in 70mm, let's be honest, The Arclight and any other theater is going to make a lot more money from Star Wars and the following 20 sequels and spin offs than they would from Hateful. And Disney is all about making their billions. But we still got 70mm and some killer programs with centerfolds. I was hoping for Kurt Russell and his magnificent mustache but we all ended up with Tim Roth. Like a western take on John Carpenter's arctic set The Thing, Hateful follows a group of colorful and less than savory criminal, sheriff, bounty hunter, former soldier and cowboy types. A terrific cast includes Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, a scene stealing Walton Goggins, Roth, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Madsen and quick appearances by Channing Tatum and Zoe Bell. If you like Tarantino, i.e. revenge, lots of cursing, derogatory terms for black people and women, violence, blood and humor, you'll like The Hateful Eight.

Next up it was The Big Short for pre-New Years Eve at the Cinemark in Playa Vista for a star studded telling of the housing meltdown and financial crisis of 2008. Filled with facts, weird hairdos, celebrity cameos and Wall Street lingo, Short is enjoyable and educational while also frustrating and sad as greedy bankers made it happen, weren't punished, got bailed out by your tax dollars and are back to business as usual. I wish Anonymous would target those guys and open things up a bit...Christian Bale dons his American accent as the genius loaner who saw the crash coming then we get Ryan Gosling and Steve Carrell as hedge fund managers who buck the trend and bet against the current to reap billions. Producer Brad Pitt shows up in a small role as a mentor to some young guns while continuing his transformation into Robert Reford. Usually funny guy Adam McKay blends the yuks with facts to break it down for us non-Wall Street types and does well for his first non-Will Ferrell starring directorial effort. Gosling gets a near Pain and Gain moment of greatness when he shouts "I'm jacked to the tits!". For action fans, American Dragons, Street Fighter and Arrow's Byron Mann shows up as a cocky gazillionaire who tells Carrell how it is.

On Saturday it was Alejandro Gonzaelez Inarritu's mountain man revenge tale The Revenant over at The Landmark in a weird theater with couches instead of stadium seating. It seemed like a nice change of pace and a relaxed atmosphere for the nearly 3 hour movie and trailers but by the mid point my neck was sore, I couldn't lay down and no arm rest in the middle meant passing our gallon sized Coke Zero back and forth. An incredibly beautiful as well as brutal film, The Revenant is to be commended for what the cast and crew went through to produce the film. Shooting took nearly a year in snow, ice and freezing rivers and I wondered if anyone got sick or injured. While vistas of nature and scenes of escape and violence were shiver inducing and blood curdling, the actual story of the film played out like a big mash up of Jeremiah Johnson, Gladiator, Dances With Wolves, Man VS Wild, The Punisher and Rambo that made me want to eat the meat of wolves, fish, horse, buffalo, elk, etc. While Leonardo DiCaprio no doubt went through living hell to make the film, I don't think that warrants "acting" merits or awards since you have no speeches or brooding to show off the verbal or physical transformation. Just lots of struggling and pain.

Vernal Viewing: Sabotage

I've been looking forward to Sabotage for quite some time.  Writer/Director David Ayer has had a hand in some great flicks from Training Day to fucking classic Harsh Times to enjoyable cop thriller Street Kings to the surprisingly solid End of Watch.  He takes a reality based approach to the seemingly tired genres of cops and soldiers but delves into the nitty gritty of the highly trained, under cover agents that operate in the shadows of society's shitholes.  So when I heard Ayer was doing a movie with Arnold, I knew it would be something different that wouldn't try to recapture The King of Kings' former glory and would move him into a new direction. 

Sabotage follows John "Breacher" Warden (Ah-nuld), a living legend in the DEA's under cover unit who has taken down a top cartel leader but lost his family in a retaliatory kidnapping and double murder.  Now, Breacher is obsessed with taking down the bad guys and finding the man who killed his wife and son.  The movie starts with his team taking down a safe house with $200 million in cash sitting in the basement.  Breacher's team hides $10 million and blows up the rest but when they go to retrieve it, the money is gone and soon they are all under investigation by the DEA.  After being cleared of the charges, Breacher's team begins getting killed off one by one in extremely gruesome manners, attracting local Homicide detectives.  After that, it's a slow burn mystery thriller with bits of debauchery and tactical military style action placed throughout.

Hands down, this has to be Arnold's darkest, craziest, bloodiest, funniest, macho-ist, raunchiest, filthiest, bro-down of his career.  His turn as Breacher is more realistic than anything he's done in years, maybe ever.  As a highly trained, motivated leader and operator; Arnold's trademark physicality, sense of humor (an interrogation scene and a remark about 48% body fat had us laughing for 5 minutes) and penchant for cigars makes him badass with a touch of menace instead of a cartoon character.  The supporting cast is superb as well as you get a nearly unrecognizable Sam Worthington (Avatar) as Arnold's 2nd in command Monster, TV star and all of a sudden Arnold BFF Joe Manganiello's Grinder shows off his impressive size and gets one of the best/worst lines in the movie, Josh Holloway from TV's bullshit Lost puts in a funny/wise ass performance as Neck, Pacific Rim's Max Martini shows up as trouble maker Pyro, Terrence Howard plays smooth devil's advocate Sugar, World War Z's Mireille Enos convincingly plays an action and controlled substance junkie while real life military advisor Kevin Vance gives some honest credibility as Tripod.

Co-written by Skip Woods (A Good Day to Die Hard), Sabotage plays like an amplified version of Ayer's directorial debut, Harsh Times, where Christian Bale and Freddy Rodriguez basically drive around Los Angeles drinking and getting into trouble.  That "up to no good" vibe is cranked up here and every character is raw, every other word of dialog is "fuck" and there's booze, tits and guns galore.  Once Breacher's team starts getting killed off, the mystery is well done but when everything is revealed and we head into the final act, the movie can't top itself and seems to shift down gears.  Parts of the flick confused me, such as the inciting incident where Breacher's team steals the money then blows up the rest.  His superiors have a rough idea of how much was there from a parallel FBI investigation but if some of it burned up, how would they know what was missing?  And is the cartel upset that they blew up the money or that they might have stolen some?  Or both?


Sabotage comes on the heels of Arnold's comeback starring vehicle The Last Stand bombing at the box office then his team up with Stallone, Escape Plan, which did peanuts in America but cleaned up overseas.  Opening up this past weekend in a crowded market against Darren Aronofsky's Russell Crowe starrer Noah, defending YA champ Divergent and faith based God's Not Dead, Sabotage opened at # 7 with a pitiful $5.3 million take.  That makes it Arnold's worst opening since the early 80's behind titles like Raw Deal and Red Sonja.  Open Road Films, a relatively new distributer owned by AMC, has had trouble marketing their films in the past as The Killer Elite, The Grey and Sabotage are not your typical slam-bang action picture but instead are actually dramatic thrillers with action.  Props to them for trying to sell the movie on Ayer's past credits and the supporting cast but it just wasn't enough.  Arnold seemed to be everywhere to promote the film and while his internet videos rack up millions of views, that exposure isn't driving patrons to the theater, sadly.  A friend didn't want to see the movie after hearing it tanked but I told him to stop being a mainstream sheep of the masses.  He ended up joining us and having a blast while learning new life skills.

Listen all y'all its a Slap da Chop!

Master Cast: Reign of Fire

Parts of Hollywood will be shut down starting today in preparation of the annual Academy Awards happening on Sunday, March 2nd.  Ellen Degeneres returns as host for the second time in a year dominated by nominees based on true life events like Captain Phillips, 12 Years A Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club and American Hustle.  Nominees for Best Actor include Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey.  This is Bale's second Oscar nomination and McConaughey's first.  Bale had previously won for his wiry, crazy and shady portrayal of boxing trainer Dicky Eklund in The Fighter.  This year sees him being praised for his performance as a fat, hair piece wearing petty criminal in American Hustle.  Matthew's McConaughssaince has been building for several years as 2011's The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, Killer Joe and 2012's Magic Mike showed his serious and charming sides.  His performance as HIV stricken cowboy Ron Woodruff in Dallas Buyers Club sees him shedding his Hollywood muscle and dropping some 40 pounds in a truly great destructive and desperate showcase.

Rewind 12 years and these two Best Actor nominees co-starred in the summer of 2002's awesome, post-apocalyptic, dragon fighting sci-fi/action romp, Reign of Fire.  Bale, fresh from his hilarious and villainous roles in American Psycho and Shaft plays Quinn Abercromby, leader of a struggling colony of survivors in the ash covered ruins outside of London.  Everyday is a struggle to feed and inspire the downtrodden community as many have lost hope and want to take their chances out in the wasteland.  One day, a small army arrives at their gates, led by McConaughey's bald, bearded and wild eyed Denton Van Zan, a dragon slayer who has rebuilt a military unit and come from America looking for the papa creature he believes to be the key in defeating the winged menace.  By now McConaughey had already made a splash with performances in Dazed and Confused, A Time To Kill and Amistad.  Genre fare hit and misses like U-571, Frailty and The Wedding Planner showed a varied if uneven career path in progress.

Director Rob Bowman wanted two strong actors in the leads who would be believable and able to carry the picture beyond it's computer enhanced spectacle.  Bale sports a mangy beard while McCon's shaved head and tattoos made him nearly unrecognizable.  Of course the two leaders butt heads as Quinn believes hunting dragons is suicide and that they're better off waiting them out.  Van Zan is eager to take back the sky and planet as he views Quinn's plan as nothing but a slow death.  While survival is the goal for both men, their opposing leadership styles eventually bring them to disagreement and blows, literally.  McConaughey admits to being overzealous in their one sided fight scene and headbutted Bale for real.  Bale, a consummate professional, took the blow and finished the scene but was plenty pissed afterwards.   Bale even punked McConaughey and asked if he was OK.  McConaughey responded, "Yeah, you mad bastard - I headbutted you!"  By the end of the film, both characters meet in the middle as they realize each of their methodology is flawed.  Teaming up, they defeat the fire breathing father and humanity's future looks to be back on track.

As if having two future Oscar nominated leading men weren't enough, Bowman's keen eye for casting also gives us Gerard Butler in a supporting role as Quinn's second in command, Creedy.  4 years later, Butler would star in massive hit 300 which would inspire a spate of imitator sword and sandal action movies while giving rise to a new style of Spartan-veined workouts.  Also along for the ride is 90's hot actress Izabella Scorupco, a former model and singer who popped up in Goldeneye and 2000's cheese/intense-tastic mountain climbing action flick, Vertical Limit ("Strap on the nitro.").  Here's hoping that Bale and McConaughey use their current pull in Hollywood to reunite in another flick as entertaining as Reign of Fire.

Workout of the Day: The Dark Knight Rises

Watching The Dark Knight Rises while sick inspired today's workout.  In the flick, Batman has just been pummeled by Bane and had his back broken.  Now locked away in a remote prison to suffer, an inmate punches Bruce Wayne in the spine to reinsert a disc.  Fueled by anger, Wayne begins to mend and starts a prison regimen of pull ups, push ups and sit ups to get back in fighting shape.

Technically a Pull Up uses an overhand grip (knuckles facing you) and work more of your back/lats and shoulders while Chin Ups are underhand (palms facing you) and use more bicep.  I think it's a pretty stupid distinction to make because variety is a spice of life and training.  If you're only doing Chins with one grip, you're hurting your own physique.  Pulls are a smidgen safer since there's no pressure on your wrists like a Chin.  But you only have to worry about that if you have sloppy form and are flaring your elbows out.  Hands Parallel is the ultimate no wrist impact position though.



So why not do all three?  That's what my session entailed, hands wide, shoulder width, close with an overhand grip, then the same three repeated with an underhand grip, finally it was two sets of parallel grip wide and narrow.  If you make the effort to pull to your chest, the pecs and delts get more involved as do your abs.

They say the average male cannot do one chin, that's not surprising because how often do people even think of doing them?  They probably harken back to some kind of bad high school memory of gym class.  But chins are one of the best exercises you can do as they work your forearms, biceps, shoulders, core and chest.  If you can't do one yet, no biggie.  I started out struggling to do one as a sophomore in high school and built my way up to doing 135 in one workout.  It just takes time and persistence, if you can't do a full chin, then use a chair and step into the top position and lower yourself down, controlling the movement.  In college, I installed a chin up bar in my apartment and took Arnold's advice and did 50 chins on a given day.  No matter if it was 50 sets of 1 or 5 sets of 10, I just got to 50.

Push Ups can have the same variety, hands wide, shoulder width and close, fingers facing each other, fingers out, hands staggered, on knuckles, etc.  You can work your chest, shoulders and triceps with just a changing of hand position or putting your feet up on a chair.  Keep your elbows tight to avoid shoulder strain and to keep the pressure on the muscles you're working.

The brawl that started it all:

I'm a Doer! Reign of Fire's Denton Van Zan

"It's my territory.  It's your territory.  They're just renting it."

(Gravelly announcer voice) It is the year 2020, the Earth has been ravaged by dragons; the soaring, fire breathing menace of lore.  Mankind has nearly gone extinct, survivors live quietly among ruins and ash.  One man seeks to preserve life while another seeks to eradicate a species.  It is, the Reign of Fire.

"There's nothing magical about them, they're made up of a collection of organs; a mind, a heart, a liver, you take out one of these, you bring down the beast!"

I remember seeing this flick upon release on my birthday in 2002 and thinking what a ridiculous bad ass Matthew McConaughey was as the bald headed, yoked out, tatted up dragon slayer Denton Van Zan.  Christian Bale is also fine in his role as the peaceful, logical leader of a group of survivors, Quinn, but McCon took the flashier role and ran with it.  He's brash, physical and driven, like To Live and Die In LA's Richard Chance, Van Zan was one who lived by the sword and would die by the sword (or in this case, a dragon and an axe).  It was a nice departure from McConaughey who previously played nice opposite Jennifer Lopez in the rom-com, The Wedding Planner.

"Dig your own holes, die in them."

What's fun about these characters is that you know they're not going to be the reasonable voice of the picture or even make it to the end but they will invigorate those around them and force them to act.  In Reign of Fire, Van Zan's sudden appearance, dragon theories and man power demands force semi-pacifist Quinn to confront his fear of the beasts and attempt to obliterate them once and for all.  His notion that there is only one male in the species leads to an ill fated trek to London to hunt down the big daddy.  After his forces are wiped out, Van Zan realizes his full throttle, fight hard, die fast style of warfare will not advance the human race (it is good at getting the blood pumping though).  With the help of Bale's calm and collected Quinn, they sneak into London undetected and feed papa Dragon an explosive Popsicle but not before he eats Van Zan like a bug.

To prepare for the role, McConaughey says he spent two months at his ranch getting in shape by pushing a truck, wrestling with cows, lifting weights, running and boxing.  Allegedly, Arnold Schwarzenegger himself was in talks to appear in the film so it's ironically appropriate that McConaughey took a page from The Oak and played the role with physical gusto.

"Come on, big boy!"