NSFW: Not Quite Hollywood Movie Trailer
History books say that Australia was founded by criminals, crabs and derelicts, so why shouldn’t the land’s cinema reflect such ribald and humble beginnings? The new documentary, Not Quite Hollywood, takes a look at ’70s/’80s “Ozploitation” (what a sweet word) from the eyes of endless players (Jamie Lee Curtis, George Miller, George Lazenby) and admirers—yeah, you just knew that Quentin Tarantino would be available to tell you how it be and how it used to be. When it comes to docs like this (btw: you must Netflix Z-Channel!), QT’s that lone guy in the theater whenever you walk in 25-mins early.
The NQH trailer overfloweth with priceless Fango-gasm gore, supple eroticism, and the always lovely Stacy Keach saying “rape” and pontificating about his and Curtis’s 1981 hitchhiker thriller gem Roadgames. I’ve seen a lot of B-movies, but I’m not sure just how much altered-state Aussie celluloid has floated through my brain over the years. Off the bat, I’d recommend seeing Peter’s Weir’s mindfuck, The Last Wave, and recommend knowing about (but not seeing) the only killer feral pig movie, Razorback—sounds great, I know, but it plays like a neverending Duran Duran video. Also: you pretty much see all of the feral pig footage in that entire film in this trailer. All in all, this is a colorful-looking doc from sometime director Mark Hartley. Film history, for your health.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD MOVIE TRAILER.
Battlestar Galactica: Maelstrom
(S03E17) There are shows that I watch where I can’t stand when they rely too much on flashbacks to keep the story moving. Battlestar did this a bit too much in the previous two seasons, though they seem to be getting much smarter about it. This episode was one small example of that.
Now I’ll say a bit of something that’s spoilery if you haven’t caught this episode. I’m a bit disappointed when the goings on outside the show - like casting and contracts - leads to strong hints to the fate of certain members of the cast. Then again, maybe only we nutcase fans of this show knew this information, while others are blissfully ignorant and surprised. Damn you!
Seriously, why am I so disappointed when I’ve written Spoilers Anonymous posts for this show? Sorry, I digress.
It’s been obvious since long ago that Starbuck was an unstable character. From her actions on deck and barroom brawls, to her toying with Apollo and seemingly enjoying Leoben’s company, it was almost unnecessary to throw us yet another reason for her to become totally unhinged — her dying mother she left behind. And let’s not forget the entire situation at hand, with humanity hangling on by a thread and drifting through space basically on derelicts.
Young Kara, at first look, bore a close resemblance to Kacey, the girl Leoben used to fool Starbuck into thinking she was a mother. That could have been the point though, as Leoben obviously knew everything about her.
I’m actually not really sure what we’re supposed to have walked away with in this episode. Like I said, Starbuck was screwed up, but suicidal-like? Really all that would make sense is that Starbuck turns out to be a Cylon, though I believe Ron Moore has said she’s not one.
One logical step from this event seems to be the aftermath, as we’ve already seen in Adama’s reaction. Though most likely I’m looking too much on the surface of things, and really the moral of this part of the story is that some or all of these people have predestined fates, some more aware of their own than others.
A few questions I’m left with: Why was Starbuck ready with her eject seat? Would that have saved her? We’re not seriously supposed to consider she did pull it, are we? And what did Leoben mean by “all of this has happened before … and will happen again?”
I’m not 100% convinced it’s time to say goodbye to Starbuck just yet, but it seems pretty likely. Well, at least they’ve put an end to Starpollo for the time being.
Current fleet population: 41,399 (-1 for Starbuck)
Hunter Stephenson’s Script Review: Cocaine Cowboys Pilot for HBO
Earlier this month, we reported on the possibility of a new HBO show based on 2006’s engrossing hit documentary, Cocaine Cowboys, from uber players Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer. Today, Slashfilm gives you an exclusive review of the script for Cocaine Cowboys‘ pilot episode written by Billy Corben and David Cypkin of Rakontur, the Miami-based production company behind the doc and its sequel (set for release this July). For legal reasons, we’ve omitted specific plot details in the review.
Being familiar with Rakontur’s M.O. and work from my time on Miami Beach, I had previously tagged their HBO show pitch as “the antithesis of Miami Vice.” So, it was no surprise to see the opening credits in the script described as such. Verbatim. But while the show’s oddly subdued credits might fit this “antithesis” (old farts playing shuffleboard, an idyllic underdeveloped Miami Beach circa ‘79) , the pilot is not as leery of Don Johnson’s white blazers and Michael Mann’s kooky multiculti derelicts and crabs as I surmised. Recall that the first season of Miami Vice didn’t drip with Art Deco camp under Mann’s watch: the action exuded unprecedented cinematic flash and all of Miami was game, not just Miami Beach beauty. New York City figured into Vice’s early storyline, as it does here. Everything in Cocaine Cowboys is similarly bigger-than-life but far seedier.
Cowboys‘ opening scenes–a hasty drug deal at sea set aboard a 150-foot vessel that’s quietly sinking under the careless supervision of incredibly stoned, hard partying Rasta thugs–conjures the same crotch-grabbing gusto and hyper-imagery on display in Mr. Bay’s Bad Boys II. The similarity is blatant, even. We’re talking requisite Miami bimbos jumping off a nearby sailboat after its comically set ablaze by a flare fired by an addled rudeboy named Chicken. Think swooping Bay-mentored aerial views of hot-boobs-overboard. Will HBO execs desire this sort of acronym? After reading the script a few times, I’d bet that the sought-after demographics would get sucked in quickly…and cocaine use would probably get a nice boost nationwide. Note: nothing in the script came off like Billy Walsh’s Medellin– thankfully–but Billy Walsh would definitely set his DVR.
Continue reading the script review of the Cocaine Cowboys pilot for HBO…
Discuss: Would you like to see a new HBO show from Bay, Bruckheimer and Rakontur about the ’80s cocaine trade and culture in Miami, Florida?
What follows after the opener is a dizzying string of introductions to countless shady-as-all-hell characters; serviceably corrupt human synapses fast-connecting to fates (predictable ones?) steered by the era’s incoming cocaine boom and a certain ruthless, wealthy Colombian drug maven, who’s arrived to neuter Miami’s Cuban middlemen. Unlike current drug-hustling shows like Weeds or AMC’s Breaking Bad, the latter of which had one of the more intense, madcap debut episodes in recent memory, Cocaine Cowboys‘ pilot is a slower burn a la Elmore Leonard’s 1983 Miami caper, Stick, by way of Blow’s horny, everyone nose energy. There’s not a signature line (or line) or act of violence here to make your id dance like a California Raisin; but the scale of Corbin and Cypkin’s sandbox is massive; their research extensive, sober, post-ironic. You can tell they’re entrenched in the pilot’s setting and lifestyle, and that’s half the battle when making a show like this.
Not a sole character in the pilot possesses a sympathetic moral center; you don’t fall for any of these people and I wouldn’t expect to in future episodes, whether it’s the charming young-blood opportunist from New York (Carlos) or the insecure, conning Jewish Miami real estate agent (Sam) with the evil, comely Latin wife (my least fave character). Unlike Breaking Bad or Weeds, these characters get into the drug game because it’s who they are, who they know or what they deserve. Moralizing caveats are out the window and if they hit the average Joe back there doing the speed limit, so what.
On one hand, that’s, um, bad, but on the pinkie-ringed other, omnipresent vice at a humid 99 degrees might be refreshing. These are all restless, hungry, compromising characters–attributes shared with the real life men and women in the documentary (a few of them are very loosely adapted here)–the kind you love to hate. The dealers’ alarming casualness to illegal activity and the deadly stakes involved, their foreign born capacities for bloodshed remain intact, just like in the doc. Just like in real life. But there’s a winking intellect missing early on from several of the dozen or so players that made the real people, namely the white drug traffickers Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday, seem so intriguing and complex. Those guys could have gone straight and made a killing, but the kicks, obscene wealth and rebellion made their souls’ smile. We don’t meet one cop, apparent narc or “good guy” in the script. Raging “Cocaine Godmother” Griselda Blanco, or a composite thereof, does not appear either, but I’m guessing she will. A certain hell is simmering, filled with a carnage stew that HBO has never served to its viewers.
Like Miami Vice, Cocaine Cowboys teases you with pro-crime sex appeal–all of the females (and several men) herein are portrayed as conniving hotties–and tons of atmosphere. Ooh, the setting. Any of these characters could catch a nasty head-shot (and one does in macabre QT fashion) and you wouldn’t care (you might cheer), but a spot-on recreation of gritty ’80s-era Miami, complete with Tab (!), fabled sniff spots like The Forge (still around), and indestructible Everglades trailer parks would bring me and many others back for more. It’s a great hook. This is where HBO is a must: the budget for this show is no joke. Add a generous amount of Spanish dialogue, debauched nudity and drug use (club restroom stalls, natch) and, sans Showtime or a brief stay at The Setai, I don’t see this happening elsewhere.
The two most appealing characters both seem to be loosely based off the doc’s real life drug runner/pilot, the enviously named Mickey Munday; they are two white guys (Darryl and Wayne) lured into transporting coke by personal aircraft by the Colombos (weed is so abundant in the MIA it’s washing up on shore, a colorful highlight). What’s slightly odd is that the aforementioned Carlos, the Colombian based in New York, shares more in common with the doc’s other standout trafficker and partner of Munday, Jon Roberts (they’re both vets, sly, affable, NY backgrounds), than do Darryl or Wayne. For those of you curious about the adaptive nature of the show, this seems like a good example of what to expect.
With ethnic rivalries brewing over cups of cafe con leche on Calle Ocho, Darryl and Wayne are intriguing Caucasian outsiders, proud of it, and looking to cooly cash in on their situation. Unlike The Sopranos, the characters here wear their agendas around their necks like “gaudy Krugerrands.”Double-crosses are like a drug to them, like a second language. But this obviousness could work. And at a time when so many shows (and GTA) revolve around the prism of a major, conflicted anti-hero, the core lifelong, complicit friendship between Darryl and Wayne is unique, promising, anti-P.C. and entertainingly carbonated. Also, racial stereotypes are a recurring punching bag in the script. Everyone takes a hit. Controversy awaits.
Corben and Cypkin are not preoccupied with creating a spiritual springboard via a heightened crime drama or with delivering hard-won metaphors. Nor do they level their script’s hedonistic buzz with convenient psychologist-types or gals with hearts of gold; they are laying an elaborate blackmarket framework on which to unapologetically show viewers how Miami came to be *Miami*; in contrast, Miami Vice crashed the city’s party and famously stamped “Hollywood approved” in neon. I’m not sure another television show has ever aimed for such a palpable, self-fulfilling goal, but I do know that Miami would welcome it (unlike other cities) and so would current pop culture (as would the sad, downsizing, dying Miami Herald). Rakontur clearly desires to bask in Miami headlines of all kinds. It’s endearing with a dash of WTF.
Ostensibly, with a high profile HBO series, Rakontur is looking to monopolize and emphasize the on-screen history of Miami for years to come; their’s is a smart business strategy lacking any formidable, organized local competition. Pop culture doesn’t need this show, per se, but I wouldn’t underestimate or devalue the “want” either, especially when Michael Bay, boats, broads and a sure to be talented cast are involved. Does HBO want a blatantly populist time-bomb rather than the usual dazzling critical darling and semi-sleeper? We’ll find out. I want to see it, even if the script didn’t shock or stun me like I expected. Even if Richard Price (The Wire) is Jenga to Corben and Cypkin’s stylish jacks.
The one thing you learn from the original doc is that the game was worth it for many of those involved; if you could handle it and you thought human life expendable, the fun was as real and surreal as the death tolls. “The Hong Kong of the Western World.” The fictional version of Cocaine Cowboys would offer three vicarious vacations at once—epic TV, nascent but scenic Miami, the Me Decade—with enough contemporary, provocative “realism” and high production value to draw comparisons to the best dramatic series around. Also looming is a feature film adaptation with Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg attached. Which will _ _ _ _ first?
Script Review: 7/10
The Joker, Lex Luthor, The Riddler to Appear in David Goyer’s Supermax?
Get your most asinine soap joke ready in the comments, because it seems that Green Arrow will be joined behind bars by a vast and infamous stable of DC villains in David Goyer’s Supermax. Latino Review took a look at the script by Goyer (Batman Begins, X-Men Origins: Magneto) and Justin Marks (that new Street Fighter) and reports that The Joker, Lex Luthor and The Riddler all make sweet cameos inside the script’s titular prison alongside a laundry list of other DC derelicts including: Blockbuster, Shock Trauma, Gemini, Cascade, Tattooed Man, Multiplex, Djinn, Merlyn, Pied Piper, Latarian Milton, Iron Cross & Heatmonger & Backlash (Aryan Nation), Calculator (yes!), Count Vertigo, Floronic Man, Split and Icicle. Okay, so Latarian Milton is not appearing, but give him a year.
Previously, Goyer stated that many of these villains will be revealed by human name only and sans costumes (obviously), which further exemplifies just how Geek City this project is. LR’s consensus is that the Supermax script is both ridiculously cool and highly accessible to the mainstream, comparative to Batman Begins even: “[Warner Bros.] would be on crack not to make this.” Goyer and Marks quickly touch upon the island cast-away/archery origins of Green Arrow né Oliver Queen, yet another billionaire playboy in our world’s comicverse, and by page 7 (approx. 10 years later), we see Queen in costume and encountering the arrow-laden set-up that lands him behind bars. And not just the bars you’d imagine in an old Elmore Leonard paperback…
“Want to know how cool SUPERMAX is? The prison changes shape, cells rearrange, and reconfigures every night to disorient the prisoners from breaking out. A transforming super prison!”
Applying extra heat to the situation, Queen becomes a, uh, marked man inside due to corporate backstabbing (shades of Iron Man). I’ve always thought that Green Arrow was a hard sell to a big summer audience, but some of my doubts are fading and I can’t wait to check this script out. Of course, as we reported last year, Matt Damon was once rumored for Green Arrow, and if the script’s this strong, I’m sure other A-listers will bite as well. Let’s hope it happens.
A thanks to Slashfilm canuck Jonny for the reminder. Moreover, Canada is still Canada.