8B
ON THE VERGE OF THE WEEKEND
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Friday, October 25, 2002
T H E D A I LY E A S T E R N N E W S
‘Transporter’ gives great action and little more
“The Transporter”
By Ryan Rinchiuso
Corey Yuen, director
S TA F F W R I T E R
The Transporter (Jason Statham)
lives his life by three rules: 1.
Never change the deal, 2. Never
know names, 3. Never look in the
package. With these three rules,
Frank gets paid very well for transporting materials from place to
place. This philosophy ensures he
is organized and his life is simple.
This all changes when he hears
rustling from his package and
breaks rule three and looks in the
package. He sees a woman tied up
and gagged and against his better
judgement he tries to help her,
which instantly complicates his
life.
“The Transporter” is the first
English language film from popular action film director Corey
Yuen. Yuen has made many frenetic action movies in Hong Kong and,
along with producer Luc Besson
(“The Professional”), makes his
English debut a fun film. I said fun,
not great or award winning
because that distinction needs to be
made.
“The Transporter” is a movie
that exists to entertain the audience with gunplay, car chases and
explosions, and succeeds perfectly
on this level.
Jason Statham is a relative
unknown, making a splash only in
Guy Ritchie’s “Lock, Stock and
Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,”
but with this movie proves he
makes a good action star as well.
With his distinctive Englishaccented voice and close-shaven
head, Statham was perfect for this
role as an ex-military man now
working for himself. He is also the
kind of action hero who is interesting; he remains silent most of the
time, saving the audience from
cliched one-liners spewed out after
he offs every villain.
The woman, (Qi Shu), is already
an institution through most of the
world and now American audiences can see why. She is gorgeous
with a smile and a sparkle in her
eye that can melt the heart of any
man in the audience.
Yet, the story and acting is not
why anyone would go see this
movie. People will be paying to see
action. In the action department,
Besson and Yuen give the moviegoing public their money’s worth.
The car chase at the beginning of
the movie is well done and is just a
peg behind “Ronin” for one of the
most exciting car chases in the past
10 years.
The fights are choreographed
and filmed in such a way that a person would have to watch it twice to
get a handle of what is going on,
and the gunplay in the film is definitely influenced by the bullet ballets of John Woo. The action is good
PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAZON.COM
If you are one of those people that would point out the fact that two cars colliding at 45 mph would not explode,
or wonder where Frank got that parachute, this is not the movie for you. Plot holes and fun abounds in this film.
throughout the film, but the movie
really hits its stride in the last half
hour.
The last half hour of the film
could not have had more than 20
lines of dialogue spoken, and in its
place is a half hour of car chases,
fights and explosions. In the last
half hour, the makers of the film
also come up with an action movie
first – the grease fight. What the
grease fight consists of is 20 villains slipping around on some sort
of motor oil like the Three Stooges
while Statham slides around kicking people.
I thought this scene would have
been out of place in the film but
Yuen pulls it off so well it not only
works, but it becomes one of the
high points of the film. The final
action piece, which takes place on
moving semi-trucks, is also well
done. The highest compliment that
I can pay this scene is it reminds
me of the scene in “Raiders of the
Lost Ark” that has Harrison Ford
also jumping from moving truck to
moving truck.
The movie has plot holes that a
two-year-old could easily point out.
If you are one of those people that
would point out the fact that two
cars colliding at 45 mph would not
explode, or wonder where Frank
got that parachute, this is not the
movie for you. This movie is for the
people who go in expecting to see
cool action scenes and nothing
more. “The Transporter” is made to
amuse you, and for me, it easily
accomplished its goal.
‘Rules of Attraction’ makes two hours feel like eight
By Ryan Rinchiuso
“Rules of Attraction”
S TA F F W R I T E R
“The Rules of Attraction” tries
to be many different movies at
once. The film wants to be a teen
sex romp, a drama about love and
longing, an art film and a drugfueled ride in the vein of “Pulp
Fiction.”
Unfortunately, “The Rules of
Attraction” fails in all areas and
becomes a jumbled mess, which is
painful to watch and is chock full
of missed opportunities.
Written and directed by Roger
Avary, the co-writer of “Pulp
Fiction” from the book by Bret
Easton Ellis (“American Psycho”),
the story takes place during a
semester at a New England college. Sean Bateman (James Van
Der Beek) is a college student, part
time drug dealer and a man always
looking for the next woman to take
advantage of. When you first meet
Bateman, the voice-over he gives
explains that he sees himself as a
vampire, hunting for his next
query.
This is the way Bateman is until
he receives a mysterious letter
from an admirer in his mailbox.
This letter intrigues Bateman and
Roger Avary, director
he believes it is from Lauren
Hynde (played by Shannyn
Sossamon), a virgin who shares
one of his classes, and he falls for
her assumed innocence and purity.
Lauren also has a slutty roommate Laura (Jessica Biel), who,
like Bateman, is looking for the
next person to love and leave.
Laura thinks Bateman is cute and
wants to be with him but Bateman
just uses her for her pot. The
movie follows around these four
and shows how messed up their
lives get.
Since “Pulp Fiction” was
released in 1994, countless numbers of directors have tried unsuccessfully to crib that movie’s style.
For the most part, the movies
became huge bombs and the fact
that they were cheap imitations of
“Pulp Fiction” was evident for anyone to see.
Avary, the co-writer of “Pulp”
decided to try and duplicate his
own success. “Rules of Attraction”
does the whole playing-with-time
PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAZON.COM
Roger Avary’s “The Rules of
Attractions” is a boring, trainwreck of a film not worth the
viewer’s tim.
in the narrative, with the movie
going into the future and the past
continually. The movie also tries to
be “artsy” with its use of voiceovers and camera tricks to disguise how shallow the plot actually
is.
While some of the shots Avary
uses are interesting, the fact that
the story is going nowhere is never
out of the viewer’s mind. For the
most part, the dialogue is atrocious. The jokes fall flat and the
dialogue uses profanity whenever
the screenwriter couldn’t think of
anything else to say, which, unfortunately, is very often.
The movie sadly did show potential and there was a very good
movie trying to peek out of the
ruins, but it kept getting buried
underneath pretentious crap.
Although I have not read the novel
this movie is based on, I am very
curious to know if something was
lost in the translation. James Van
Der Beek’s character was very
interesting and deserved to be in a
movie much better than this one.
Some scenes were just begging
to be done well, but never were.
There are painful scenes dealing
with sex, death and drugs and they
were hard to watch, but the scenes
that were supposed to be playful
were unfortunately directed with
the same kind of heavy-handness
as the dark parts. The result is the
movie drags on, making the two
hour film feel like eight.
Even in this car wreck of a film,
I applaud the actors because they
were prepared to do anything with-
Dysfunctional life on ‘Sesame Street’
I like “Sesame Street.” It is kind of
like a real life “Real World,” only
played through puppets. And everything is kind of hush-hush. There are
no confessionals here.
There are all sorts of messed up
things on “Sesame Street.” It seems to
be about counting and acceptance, but
delve deeper than that.
The two-headed monster obviously
had a multiple personality problem.
He talked to himself. He argued with
himself. And just try and tell me
Grover does not have a problem with
co-dependency. I mean, every time
anything went wrong, what did he do?
He called his mother.
Elmo and his silly little tickle me
doll will not be discussed here for
obvious reasons.
Cookie Monster obviously represents obsessive eating disorders. All
he thought about was food. He ate nonstop, and anything, not just cookies!
I’m not sure if any of the other characters tried to help him out, but in
those situations, people really aren’t
sure what to say.
Ernie and Bert – two boys living
coming out
swinging:
By Colin McAuliffe
S TA F F W R I T E R
together. While Bert seems to be in
charge, , Ernie is more passive and
just takes orders. The typical marriage is assumed to be this situation.
Ernie indulges in bubble baths singing
to himself and is quite emotionally
might I add, while Bert love pigeons
and bottle caps.
Bert goes out and does what he
wants, when he wants. This obviously
is supposed to portray a gay relationship, where one’s neglected, yet doesn’t get out of the relationship. Sad, but
it happens. Nothing like portraying
the archetype of an abusive relationship to teach kids how to interact with
other kids.
Then you get the more obvious. Big
Bird is 6 feet tall and has a fairly negligent mother. I’d say he is a grown
man or bird for that matter, yet he still
owns a teddy bear. Either he needs to
mature or belongs in a foster home.
Oscar lives in a garbage can, for Pete’s
sake. He is snappy and grumbles at
people. Can you say unemployed
drunk? But I suppose I’d be a grouch
too if I had to spend my days in a trash
can with a best friend who is a worm.
There is an obvious discrimination
against women too. I can only think of
five female characters off the top of
my head and at least 10 male characters. Of course one of those female
characters is blonde with pigtails and
always wears a skirt.
At least there is no racial discrimination. The main humans on the show
are Hispanic. Although I wonder
about the lack of all the other races.
There is so much more rampant
dysfunction and that is why I adore
“Sesame Street.” Seemingly innocent,
it portrays the problems of everyday
life that nobody likes to speak of, plus
it does all this with muppets.
CONCERT
CALENDAR
Friday
◆This Side of Five
10 p.m.
The Uptowner
$2
345-4622
◆ India Night
10 p.m.
Canopy Club
no cover
344-2263
◆ The Arrivals
10 p.m.
Friends & Co.
$5
345-2380
out question. James Van Der Beek
and Jessica Biel give the WB network the middle finger by playing
repulsive characters with no
redeemable qualities.
Van Der Beek does drugs, sleeps
around and kisses a man in an
effort to get out of “the creek”.
Biel, trying her hardest to get fired
from “Seventh Heaven” spends
most of her scenes in little to no
clothing, sleeping with any man
around or doing drugs. It takes
people with lots of courage to tear
down their images with reckless
abandon; it is just a shame their
courageous risk taking was used in
a movie that does not take advantage of it, leaving them to fend for
themselves.
“The Rules of Attraction” was an
ambitious movie and when these
movies fail to live up to the ambition, it becomes awful to watch.
“Rules of Attraction” has an interesting premise, an eager cast willing to do anything and a director
with zest. Unfortunately, it also has
a plot that goes nowhere, dialogue
that rings hollow and a horrible
identity crisis.
This movie should be shown to
aspiring filmmakers as an example
of what not to do.
Saturday
Sunday
◆ Everclear
◆A c o u s t i c
8 p.m.
Lantz Arena
$10
Sunday
9 p.m.
The Uptowner
no cover
345-4622
◆ Twinheaters
10 p.m.
Friends
$3
345-2380
◆ Massivivid
10 p.m.
Canopy Club
no cover
344-2263