Portrait of a Badass: Maximilian

Character: Maximilian
Actor: N/A
Film: The Black Hole (1979)
Badass Moment: VS Alex Durant

At the end of the 1970s, Star Wars had the science fiction world in an inescapable Dianoga stranglehold. Any and all challengers to George Lucas's throne would be thrown into the Sarlac Pit and slowly digested over a thousand years. Those who would attempt to stand on the shoulders of AT-ATs and capitalize on Star Wars mania with their own knock-off product would find themselves under a mighty, metal foot in quick order.

Conditions were perfect for an underdog.

Along came The Black Hole, Disney's space opera counter-attack. (We'll treat it as such for the purpose of this essay, even though its conceptualization pre-dated the release of Star Wars by two years.) This movie had guts. It blazed dark, new, PG-rated trails for a studio whose edgiest movie to date had been The Apple Dumpling Gang. More importantly, it stood in the face of Star Wars's iron-fisted oppression and said, "Oh yeah?"

Even though The Empire Strikes Back effectively responded with, "Yeah and so's your mama," while using The Force to crush The Black Hole's throat, The Black Hole stands out as an important science fiction film (and I'm not just saying that because it's the Walt Disney Company's most expensive box office failure ever, although that's always been a plus in my mind, too).

Contributing significantly to The Black Hole's dark tone was a silent, bucket-headed robot called Maximilian. This metal "mystery monster," as he is called by another robot in the film, floats around scaring the beezus out of everyone with his glowing red eye, his reluctance to speak and let's not forget his arm-mounted retractable food processor blades of death.

Glowing eye
Blades of death
What else do I have to say?
We didn't start the fire.

Speaking of fire (spoiler alert), some of the infernal imagery at the end of film seems to suggest that Maximilian's trip through the black hole lands him in charge of Hell itself. Talk about going over the top! The filmmakers couldn't have made this robot more badass if they showed him riding a Harley Davidson into an erupting volcano while killing John Wayne with a shuriken between the eyes from five hundred meters away.

Of course, I'm glossing over the fact fact that, despite boasting some relatively edgy themes and a particularly badass robot, The Black Hole is a really silly movie. It's full of sketchy science. It's packed with stiff-legged extras pretending really hard that they're androids. It even has a scene where a robot with a British accent laments the death of a robot with a southern accent. It's not exactly a masterpiece...but then again, neither is Star Wars in many ways.

Maximilian, you are a badass who could kick the crap out of Threepio any day. We salute you.

Portrait of a Badass: The Grady Girls

Characters: The Grady girls
Actors: Lisa Burns & Louise Burns
Film: The Shining (1980)
Badass Moment: The nice little girls invite Danny to play with them forever and ever.

The appearance of these two unremarkable (yet somehow dreadful) kids in Stanley Kubrick's celebrated adaptation of the Stephen King cabin fever novel ranks high among the most haunting cinematic images in history. The closet shot in The Ring, the janitor in Silent Hill, and the bathroom mirror scene in Poltergeist have all their shot at the championship, but the Grady girls (often mistakenly called the Grady twins) continue to defend their title against all comers.

The great thing about The Shining is that it wasn't so scary the first time I saw it, because the film hadn't yet taught me to be afraid of it. The second time I watched it, the dread of seeing the Grady girls again sprung out of nowhere just a second or two before their first appearance. That dread is a powerful thing; it's so strong that one of my friends from university used to "watch" the whole film with her face covered because she didn't want to be ambushed by the girls' surprise attacks.

Regardless of what viewers of The Shining think of these spooky little girls, the Grady siblings' impact on the other characters in the film is incontrovertibly devastating. Just look what they did to our poor, little protagonist Danny Torrence:

That kid's shit is in ruins. But that's only the beginning of it. Danny's trauma causes a chain reaction that reverberates through the film's entire cast. Look at these poor saps.

Grady girls, you are badasses, even if you did have to be "corrected." We salute you.

Portrait of a Badass: Johnny

Character: Johnny Lawrence
Actor: William Zabka
Film: The Karate Kid (1984)
Badass Moment: Sweep the leg.

Johnny Lawrence was just an ordinary, everyday, all-American boy growing up in sunny California. He was an exemplary student in his karate dojo, he hung out with the popular crowd at school and he was dating Elizabeth Shue. Everything was going great for Johnny Lawrence.

Until...

Until that little Jersey slimeball Daniel Larusso showed up with his short temper and his Crane Technique and his intentions to steal Johnny's girlfriend.

This summer....William Zabka IS....The Karate Kid.

That's how the trailer for this movie should have gone.

If The Karate Kid taught me anything, it's that sometimes the protagonist of a movie is not likable in the least. Sometimes he's an annoying, little punk who is doomed to be picked on because he just can't steer clear of trouble. Daniel Larusso is that kind of protagonist and Johnny Lawrence is that kind of trouble. No matter where Larusso's "stupid bike" takes him, all roads lead to a Johnny Lawrence beat-down.

For young viewers of The Karate Kid, an appearance by Johnny elicits the feelings of dread that only a real-life bully can prompt. And for cynical bloggers, watching Johnny beat up Daniel can be a satisfying form of entertainment. In Johnny Lawrence, the filmmakers have thus found a winning combination that transcends age gaps.

Some might say that Johnny's sensei, the diabolical Kreese, was the true villain of The Karate Kid. After all, just like Mr. Miyagi says, "No bad student. Only bad teacher." And it's not as if Kreese wasn't trying his damnedest to be a villain in the movie. I mean, look at him:

That ain't the face of a sane man. But since Johnny has a far more direct influence on the tribulations of Daniel Larusso, I cannot justify awarding Kreese the badass crown. And since Johnny has the guts to defy his insane teacher in the opening scene of The Karate Kid Part II, it's a done deal.

Johnny, you are a badass. When a man meets you on the street, he's an enemy. An enemy deserves no mercy WHAT IS THE PROBLEM MISTER LAWRENCE.

Portrait of a Badass: Jessica

Character: Jessica Rabbit Actor: Kathleen Turner (speech) / Amy Irving (singing)
Film: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Badass Moment: A weasel who puts his hand down the front of Jessica's dress falls victim to a booby trap.
Few things can affect a boy's development as drastically as the year 1988 affected me. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles poisoned my brain with the notion that women should have gigantic breasts and wear banana-colored jumpsuits like April O'Neil. Double Dragon poisoned my brain with the notion that women should have gigantic breasts and carry whips like Linda. And Who Framed Roger Rabbit poisoned my brain with the notion that women should have gigantic breasts and be married to rabbits...like Jessica Rabbit.
Yes, 1988 was quite a year for breasts. Even the number 88 itself has undeniably mammal qualities.
The movie was a groundbreaking work of art for its deep melding of live action and animated characters, to say nothing of its highly entertaining action, humor and story. But none of that had a prayer of making an impression on me in competition with Jessica and her 88's. I was only ten years old when the movie came out, too young to really appreciate what I was seeing, yet old enough to know that the part when Bob Hoskins accidentally bumps his head on her chest as he stands up was a moment of true film finesse.
Of course, breasts alone don't make Jessica the newest addition to the Hall of Badass. She's the quintessential femme fatale who spends most of her fleeting screentime earning the intrigue and distrust of the audience. And on top of that, she has a hell of a voice. Two voices, technically. The fact that no singular actress could be found who would do justice to both Jessica's speaking voice and singing voice is also a credit to her badassness.
I read somewhere that, in order to give Jessica's breasts their otherworldly motion, animators tried to make them appear to bounce in reverse. That's right, Jessica is so badass, the filmmakers had to violate Newtonian physics in order to bring her to life.
Jessica, you are a badass. And no, you aren't "just drawn that way." We saulte you.

Portrait of a Badass: Elliott

Character: Elliott
Actor:Henry Thomas
Film: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Badass Moment: In a drunken rage, Elliott frees all the frogs from his biology class and kisses a young Erika Eleniak.

The Month of Fury known as June is over and now it's time for some more positively-charged blogging. The only thing that can correct my mood is a tribute to one of my earliest cinematic memories. E.T. is at or near the top of many people's Greatest Movies of All Time lists, but too few of those lists actually delve into the science of badass. Well, pull yourself up to a sitting position and take notes, brotha. Science class starts now.

Elliott is the middle child in a fatherless family. His older brother won't let him in on Dungeons & Dragons. His younger sister is a twisted firestarter. As a result of these disadvantages, Elliott harbors pent-up frustrations which occasionally leak out in the form of abusive language like "penis breath."

Doesn't sound very badass so far, does he? Well, pay attention because this WILL be on the test. One scene alone gives Elliott his badass status: The scene where E.T. gets Elliott drunk and his resulting subversion gets him kicked out of school. You might recall that I cited a similar scene in my Badass post about Donnie Darko. I guess, since I never did anything to get myself kicked out of school as a youngster, I find it especially gratifying to see someone do so in a film. Furthermore, that scene's final shot (of the girl's feet surrounded by escaping frogs in the foreground, with Elliott being led away by a teacher in the background) is probably my favorite bit of cinematic imagery ever.

Elliott, you are a badass. (Underage drunkenness is wrong.) We salute you.

Portrait of a Badass: Sadako

Character: Sadako
Actor:Inou Rie / Shirai Chihiro
Film: Ring (1998)
Badass Moment: Sadako is ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille (pictured).

For a high-contrast example of the difference between Japanese and American horror films, all you have to do is watch Ring (1998) and its American counterpart THE Ring (2002). Each film lays out, in unambiguous terms, the devices of choice for its respective genre: Ring (sometimes romanized as Ringu) creeps you out with uncertainty and indecipherable imagery, while The Ring prefers to make you jump out of your seat with jolting music cues and sudden shots of disfigured corpses.

What most Japanese moviegoers cite, however, as Ring's number one agent of cinematic trepidation is not the creepy business of dead people with contorted facial expressions. That is, unless you count the contorted facial expression pictured above, which belongs to the super-scary killer ghost known as Sadako.

I won't pick one version of this horror story as "better," as both have their strong points. But I will say this: Samara, Sadako's equivalent in the American remake, cannot even approach Sadako's badass factor...mostly because, in a bizarre decision by the makers of the American version, Samara was given dialog. And not good dialog, either. Stupid, bad, un-scary dialog.

Even in a market that is increasingly polluted with movies that use "creepy kids" in their failed attempts to be scary, Sadako stands out (crawls out?) as a shining example of what a great ghost should be: Quiet, lurching and tragically hirsute.

Sadako, you are a silent badass. We salute you.

Technorati: Ringu / The Ring / リング / ghosts / bad dialog

Portrait of a Badass: Brad

Character: Brad Hamilton
Actor: Judge Reinhold
Film: Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)
Badass Moment: Brad threatens a mouthy customer with 100% ass-kicking. And even though Brad is really angry in this scene, he's smiling.

Big brothers from all walks of life can appreciate the badassness of Brad Hamilton, the biggest brother of them all. In Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Brad throws fast food out the window of a moving car. He protects the confidentiality of his younger sister's abortion. He gets walked in on by Phoebe Cates while masturbating to Phoebe Cates. He does everything a big brother should do. And then, on top of all that, he takes out the garbage. I didn't know, until I saw this movie for the first time, that I could win any argument just by saying, "I take out the garbage," with an air of miffed indignation.

Brad Hamilton loves his battleship-sized luxury sedan. Eight minutes into the film, he reveals that he has only six payments left to make before the car is officially his. When I was Brad Hamilton's age, I did not have a luxury sedan. In fact, I was a lucky ducky if I was able to borrow my parents' Mitsubishi Colt for a full school day. And I couldn't use the Colt to give any girls a ride home, because the only girl I wanted to give a ride home to had a 20-year-old boyfriend who looked like Judge Reinhold and drove a luxury sedan.

Badass.

Important: Brad Hamilton's greatest scene is certainly his verbal showdown with a dissatisfied customer at All-American Burger. This scene has special meaning for me, as it ought to for anyone who bore the brunt of rude customer complaints while working in a part-time service industry job. As the basis for his complaint, the customer cites All-American Burger's "100% guaranteed" breakfast set.

I can relate to the absurdity of such a guarantee. I used to work at a video rental store which boasted that, "If you're not satisfied with your movie, we'll give you a free rental!" This ridiculous guarantee is a physical customer-vs-cashier altercation waiting to happen. Fortunately, I managed to cut down on potential nastiness by secretly removing all the little signs advertising the guarantee. My boss never even noticed the impact of my workplace sabotage. Of course, a handful of extra-clever customers had already noticed the signs and did what anybody would do: They abused the system to no end.

I am proud to say, however, that I only gave into a questionable demand for a free rental once, and that was because I recommended the movie Fargo to a guy, honestly believing that he would like it. He didn't like it.

Brad, you are 100% guaranteed badass. You take out the garbage. We salute you.

Technorati: Judge Reinhold / Fast Times At Ridgemont High / Fargo

Portrait of a Badass: The Sphinxes

Character: The Sphinxes
Actor: N/A
Film: The Neverending Story (1984)
Badass Moment: The Sphinxes deny a "fancy" knight passage to the Southern Oracle by cooking him alive with their eye lasers. EYE LASERS.

My brother suggested that I honor "those statues that kill you if you're scared" from The Neverending Story with a spot in my hall of badass fame. Not a bad idea, I thought. But do I classify the Sphinxes, AKA the First of the Two Gates You Must Pass Through Before You Reach the Southern Oracle, as male or female? It was indeed a conundrum, for what are these Sphinxes but sentient statues with EYE LASERS. But, recalling that each Sphinx is also equipped with breasts that would coax jealousy from most of the statues in a Thai restaurant, I decided to go with female.

The Neverending Story, which clocks in at a neverending 94 minutes in length, is the story of Atreyu (Bastien), a warrior (wimp) who hunts the purple buffalo (draws unicorns) and struggles to defeat the ultimate destructive power of The Nothing (skips an entire day of school and hides in the attic overnight). While on his quest he travels across the Swamp of Sadness (gets thrown in a Dumpster), talks to a diminutive scientist (talks to his sandwich) and is stalked by a scary wolf thing (is scared of his humorless, mustachioed father).

In the scene featuring our badasses, Atreyu is challenged to walk between the two giant Sphinxes on his way to the Southern Oracle. The Sphinxes are meant to destroy him if he doubts his worth, which Atreyu obviously does (as evidenced by several shots of him looking doubtful). The lesson to be gained from this scene is unclear, as it clearly demonstrates that, even without the level of self-confidence required to pass through the gate, Atreyu manages to squeak by with some fancy footwork. So remember, kids: Even if your self-esteem is a ghastly wreck, sometimes you get lucky!

The hero Atreyu is arguably the badder badass of this story, and a more obvious candidate for my badass hall of fame. This youngster gets dragged through mud, dropped into the ocean, sneezed on by a giant reptile and hit with debris of all types. As badass as Atreyu himself is, however, he didn't have EYE LASERS. Tough luck, kid.

Sphinxes, you are statuesque badasses. We salute you.

FUN FACT! My sister and I used to have a hard time remembering the name of Atreyu's horse Artax. Without seeing the name in print, it could easily be misheard as Ortex, Ortez, Cortez, Cortex, Vortex or Hortense.

Portrait of a Badass: Ren

Character: Ren
Actor: Kevin Bacon
Film: Footloose (1984)
Badass Moment: Ren's anger surpasses the threshhold of smoking, quickly escalating to drinking, then dancing and finally gymnastics

A younger Kevin Bacon once taught us all a few important things. He taught us that we as humans should be able to dance where and when ever we want, and in what ever dippy style we choose. He taught us the value of freedom of expression...and of freedom from persecution by John Lithgow. He taught us all this and more in his role as a big city misfit teen called Ren (you eediot!) in the movie Footloose.

Poor Ren. His parents drag him away from home sweet Chicago and make him attend school in some unidentified rural town (I like to think it exists in the mythical state of South Oklaginiakotah). There Ren finds, to his shock and dismay, the town has an ordinance outlawing dance*. Furthermore, the locals don't take kindly to fancy-pants strangers who come into town with their Sting hairstyles and their skinny neckties and their black and white checkered loafers and think they can just cut the rug any old time they want.

Life in South Oklaginiakotah would get anybody down, to be sure. And sure enough, Ren's frustrations do come to a boiling point in the famous "dancing mad" scene. Through a carefully choreographed campaign of terpsichorean subversion, however, Ren manages to win a tractor race, teach a developmentally stunted farmboy a few "gnarly moves" AND get the town to repeal its despotic anti-dancing statute in time for the senior prom. Thank god for that because, as we all know, prom minus dancing equals nothing but a lot of underage sex.

Ren, you are a badass who doesn't fuse Flashdance with MC Hammer shit. We salute you.

*The town's anti-dancing regulations most likely cite the following obscure Bible excerpt:

"For thus saith the Lord God; In dancing ye shall be damned; And in having an abortion ye shall not necessarilly be damned per se, but be perhaps slightly shunned at My annual Big Heavenly Backyard Barbecue." - Proverbs 10:23

Portrait of a Badass: Audrey II

Character: Audrey II
Actor: Levi Stubbs (voice)
Film: Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Badass Moment: Twoie sings "Feed Me"

I saw Roger Corman's original 1960 B-horror film The Little Shop of Horrors for the first time when I was a kindergartener. Or most of it, anyway; it was being projected in a park in Minneapolis and I think I fell asleep and was taken home by my parents before the ending. Kind of a gruesome film for a little tyke, in retrospect. Fast forward to the VHS release of Frank Oz's film based on the stage musical based on the Roger Corman film, and one would see a nine-year-old me singing along with one of very few musicals I would ever deem "un-stupid." The damage was done. At a very tender age I had been inundated with images of sadistic dentists and man-eating plants.

The plant in question is Audrey II (affectionately called Twoie), whose soulful singing voice serves to convince geeky flower shop employee Seymour Krelborn (Rick Moranis) to feed her as many unfortunate humans as possible. Over the course of the film, viewers witness Audrey II's gradual transformation from a cute little flytrap, to an obnoxious, man-sized adolescent, to a bellicose, room-sized threat to humanity. And all to the tune of one of the catchiest soundtracks ever to deal with the topic of horticultural manslaughter.

Fans of the Corman film and the stage play with their tragic/comic endings might have taken issue with the remake's radically different climax, in which Seymour and Twoie face off in an explosive (literally, explosive) battle to the finish. The way I see it, the ending of the 1986 version is a prime example of the disasters that can come of market research. The remake originally called for a final scene in which giant flytraps run amok, destroying New York City, crawling up the Statue of Liberty, etc. This scene was shown to test audiences in an unfinished state; it was black and white with rudimentary visual effects. I'm willing to bet money that the test audiences saw this and, completely missing the point of the test screening, said "I didn't like the ending," because it looked crappy.

People are stupid that way. I used to work for a market research group that showed movie trailers, sometimes with unfinished effects, and no matter how many times you tell the test audience that the film is not yet finished, they ignore you and say dumb things like, "Why does Lara Croft look like a computer-generated wireframe?" The studio, in turn, misinterprets the test audience's gripe and makes radical changes to the film. Stupid, stupid market research.

Audrey II, you are a mean, green badass from outer space. We salute you.

Portrait of a Badass: Pyramid Head

Character: Pyramid Head*
Actor: Roberto Campanella
Film: Silent Hill (2006)
Badass Moment: Pyramid Head puts an end to Anna and her mopey nonsense.

*I know he's called The Red Pyramid in the movie, but I've been calling him Pyramid Head ever since he scared me out of playing all the way through Silent Hill 2.

The film Silent Hill was released in Japan on Saturday, so after work today I hightailed it to the theater complex in Shinjuku Kabukicho to buy myself ¥1800 worth of big-screen trepidation. As a sometime lover of Konami's Silent Hill games ("lover" may not be the best word...our relationship was complicated), I was sceptical about its cinematic adaptation. I had decided that, in a best-case scenario, the movie would either be A) really scary, or B) faithful to the games. Imagine my delight/horror when it turned out to be C) both A and B.

The appearance of the sword-dragging, mannequin-humping executioner called Pyramid Head was only one of many sources of glee/terror to impress/startle me during the course of this spooky/freaky movie. It is, after all, hard to ignore crucial Silent Hill elements like the rusty chainlink locales, faceless nurses, killer children and, of course, Akira Yamaoka's Portishead-meets-Trent-Reznor's-washing-machine soundtrack. But Pyramid Head is one of the great video game villains, now standing among the likes of Gannon (The Legend of Zelda), Nemesis (Resident Evil 3) and Evil Otto (Berserk).

When his ugly mug (which, despite being a pyramid, is still somehow ugly) shows up on the big screen, a Silent Hill veteran like me can scarcely contain his enthusiasm/revulsion.

Pyramid Head, you are a geometrical badass. We salute/abhor you.

Portrait of a Badass: Casey

Character: Casey Brown
Actor: Jodie Foster
Film: Candleshoe (1977)
Badass Moment: In her first five minutes onscreen Casey Brown goes on an unstoppable rampage, stealing a basketball, throwing a banana peel into a mailbox AND deliberately knocking over a 50-gallon barrel of machine oil.

---

Back in the days before I started viewing The Walt Disney Company as a threat to humanity, my sister and I really used to like this Disney movie called Candleshoe. It's a cookie cutter family film about a juvenile delinquent (Jodie Foster) who is recruited by a con man to infiltrate the estate of Lady St. Edmund ("What a shack!") in order to discover the location of a buried treasure. And then she comes to love the patsies she's meant to be defrauding, becomes a "real member of the family," blah blah blah, The End. It would be a very unmemorable film, if not for the fact that I watched it something like 75 times as a child.

Candleshoe does, however, deserve credit for giving Jodie Foster the skills (or skillz, if I may) she would later need to track down Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, scare Forrest Whitacre out of her house in Panic Room and complain endlessly to stewardesses in Flight Plan. It should also be noted that, like so many other live-action Disney films of the era, Candleshoe culminates in a final battle royale of slapstick chaos. See also Babes In Toyland and Swiss Family Robinson, two more mediocre movies that rest on the strength of their climactic goodguy-vs-badguy showdowns.

Casey Brown, you are a badass. Quid pro quo, Casey Brown.

Correction

In Portrait of a Badass: Javier, I stated that Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez was a Mexico City policeman. He was actually a Tijuana policeman. I also neglected to mention that he is actually referred to in the film as a "badass" by the character General Salazar (or, at least in Salazar's English subtitles).

My apologies for the delay of Day 4 of the Oronamin Experiment. Yesterday was a national holiday and Girlfriend and I found ourselves caught up in a karaoke battle, followed by dinner at Denny's in Sangenjaya. (A word on Japanese Denny's restaurants: They are nothing like Denny's back home. They don't serve breakfast items at all hours of the day. They don't have unlimited refills. They don't have key lime pie. Stateside Denny's is the kind of junk food I miss....that, and faux-Chinese buffet.)

Portrait of a Badass: Javier

Character: Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez
Actor: Benicio Del Toro
Film: Traffic (2000)
Badass Moment: Javier uses his police training and feminine guiles to apprehend Francisco Flores (see image).

This week the Oscars reminded me about how little justice there is in the world. Five years ago Gladiator, a fun film about dismemberment, stole the Best Picture award clean out of the hands of Traffic, an awesome film about exploding cars and dolls made of cocaine.

If you haven't seen Traffic, allow me to sum it all up for you, in the style of a junior high school book report:

There's this badass Mexico City cop. He's cool. He wrecks drug smugglers and hitmen. Then there is this politician guy and a stoner kid and Catherine Zeta Jones, but the cop is the best character. He's awesome.

The awesome cop is Javier Rodriguez y Rodriguez. His awesomeness stems from the fact that he shows more complexity than any of the film's other "main" characters (if you can call them that; Traffic literally begins and ends with Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez).

Everybody likes beisbol...everybody likes badasses...that's what I'm talking about, my friend.

¡PRIMA DE TRADUCCIÓN!
(TRANSLATION BONUS!)

Here's the Spanish babel fish translation of my article, courtesy of AltaVista:

Esta semana los Oscars me recordó sobre cómo la pequeña justicia allí está en el mundo. Cinco años hace de Gladiator, una película divertida sobre la desmembración, la estola la mejor concesión del cuadro limpia fuera de las manos del Traffic, una película impresionante sobre los coches que estallan y las muñecas hechas de la cocaína.

Si usted no ha visto Traffic, permita que lo sume todo para arriba para usted, en el estilo de un informe del libro de la High School secundaria menor:

Hay este poli de Ciudad de México de los badass. Él es fresco. Él arruina a contrabandistas de la droga e hitmen. Entonces hay este individuo y un cabrito y una Catherine Zeta Jones del político de la deshuesadora, pero el poli es el mejor carácter. Él es impresionante.

El poli impresionante es Javier Rodriguez y Rodriguez. Su awesomeness proviene el hecho de que él demuestra más complejidad que cualesquiera de otros caracteres "principales" de la película (si usted puede llamarlos eso; Traffic comienza y termina literalmente con Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez).

Todos tiene gusto de beisbol... que todos tiene gusto de badasses... que es de lo que estoy hablando, mi amigo.

Retranslation back to English:

This week the Oscars remembered to me on how the small justice is there in the world. Five years for of Gladiator, a film amused on the dismemberment, the stole the best concession of the clean picture outside the hands of the Traffic, an impressive film on the cars that explode and the wrists done of the cocaine. If you have not seen Traffic, allows that she adds/sinks everything for above for you, in the style of a report of the book of the High smaller secondary School:

There is this poli of City of Mexico of badass. It is fresh. It ruins smugglers of the drug and hitmen. Then there is this individual and a cabrito and a Catherine Zeta Jones of the politician of the deshuesadora, but poli is the best character. It is impressive.

Poli impressive is Javier Rodriguez and Rodriguez. His awesomeness comes the fact that it demonstrates more complexity than nobodies of other "main" characters of the film (if you can call them that; Traffic begins and finishes literally with Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez).

All have taste of beisbol... that all has taste of badasses... that is of which I am speaking, my friend.

Portrait of a Badass: ED-209

Character: ED-209
Actor: N/A
Film: Robocop (1987)
Badass Moment: ED gives some poor slob "twenty seconds to comply."

My Portrait of a Badass inductees until now have alternated male and female. Today I am faced with a dilemma: Does the name ED make ED-209 male? Does the inability to walk down stairs make ED-209 female? For the purposes of maintaining badass equality, it will be assumed that ED-209 is neither.

A glorious example of style over substance, ED-209 is Detroit's only hope against crime (except for Robocop, that stiff fool who walks around saying "Bad language makes for bad feelings." What a knob). ED-209 gets short shrift just because it kills indiscriminately, unable to recognize whether a suspect has dropped his weapon or not. But what ED-209 lacks in function, it makes up for by looking like a walking Audi concept car with machineguns where the mirrors should be.

Praise aside, if Detroit's crimefighting arsenal is down to a bipedal police droid with tragically oversized feet and a humanoid police cyborg with a tragically dorky walk, then all the bad things I've heard about Detroit are true, and I hope I never have to go there.

ED-209, you are a robotic badass. We must salute you. We have twenty seconds to comply.

Movie Soundtrack Fun!

Try singing along with the end title from Robocop, Jesse Jace style! The first time I saw the movie and heard the music on the closing credits, these lyrics naturally popped into my head:

He was a robot / He was a cop
He was a Robocop
He was a human / And he got shot
Now he's a Robocop!

Robocop! / Robocop!
Robocop! / Robocop!
Robocop! / Robocop!
Robocop! / Robocop!

[repeat until you lose consciousness]

Portrait of a Badass: Hatsumomo

Character: Hatsumomo
Actor: Gong Li
Film: Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Badass Moment: "I shall destroy you."
As I said in my September post Portrait of a Badass: Mitsuko, one fictional female stands head-and-shoulders above all others in the proverbial badass lineup. That woman was kept out of Portrait of a Badass due to the fact that she was a literary figure (not a "movielary" one). But after having seen the onscreen manifestation of Arthur Golden's serpentine geisha brat Hatsumomo in the film adaptation of Memoirs of a Geisha over the New Year's holiday, I can now add her to the list with a clear conscience.
Hatsumomo is a conceited, hard-drinking geisha with an attitude. She has secret trysts even though geisha are meant to be strictly trystless. She steals other geisha's clothes and tags them with graffiti (or, as graffiti were called back in the geisha days, "burners"). She's a firestarter, twisted firestarter.
About the debated decision to cast a bunch of Chinese actresses in a movie about geisha, I say this: Maybe the Japanese actresses who auditioned just weren't badass enough.
FUN FACT: Around the time I was reading Memoirs of a Geisha two years ago, I bought a semi-hollowbody guitar. I was so impressed with the "love to hate" factor of the book's prime antagonist that I decided to name my new guitar Hatsumomo. My other guitar is called Mercedes.
Hatsumomo, you are a movielary badass. We salute you.

Portrait of a Badass: Lucas

Character: Lucas Barton
Actor: Jackey Vinson
Film: The Wizard (1989)
Badass Moment: Lucas dons the Power Glove and plays the raddest fifteen seconds of Rad Racer ever witnessed. Then he attempts to use his video game skills as a means by which to impress a girl, and fails.

I cannot stress enough the importance of The Wizard. It is a cinematic staple for anyone who ever picked up an issue of Nintendo Power Magazine, yelled cuss words at the Mother Brain or pushed UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A, START. It is, for lack of a better metaphore, the National Velvet of the My Little Pony Generation. It's the classic buddy film telling of one boy's rise from adversity to proverbial video game godhood.

To make a great film, you need a great villain, and that's where Lucas comes in. The young hero of The Wizard, James Woods (but you can call him Jimmy), faces numerous obstacles on his path to 8-bit glory, but none so daunting as the dark visage of Lucas. If you don't believe me, just do a Google search and see if you can't find references to Lucas's dialogue. His famous line about the Power Glove is right up there with "Here's lookin' at you, kid" and "Stella!"

If I haven't already convinced you that Lucas is a badass, get a load of this: The dude was so mind-bendingly cool that he was able to get a young, bemulletted Tobey Maguire to join his entourage:

Lucas, you are so bad (-ass). We salute you.

*** SPECIAL HOLIDAY BONUS! ***

Nothing conveys my feelings about The Wizard quite as accurately as my Internet Movie Database review of the film. According to the IMDb, "15 out of 18 people found the following comment useful."

------------------

i love the power glove. it's my mommie. 18 July 2004
Author: jessejace from setagaya tokyo japan

Somewhere along the line, someone realized that it's nigh impossible to make a good movie based on a video game. So instead, they made a movie about the entire Nintendo Entertainment System, thereby capturing all the feel-good nostalgia associated with its hundreds of titles, but without crippling handicaps such as an unfeasible plot or Jean-Claude VanDamme as Colonel William F. Guile. Thus was born The Wizard...a shameless consumerist repackaging of The Who's Tommy, adjusted for a new audience and coming at you in full-on buddy film fashion.

Fred Savage explodes onto the screen as a curly-haired dork with highly articulate eyebrows. He's caught between his divorced parents in a custody battle over his autistic, obsessive-compulsive, equinophobic, dyslexic, colorblind kid brother Jimmy. Realizing that being in the custody of one or more of his parents will most certainly kill Jimmy (and that Jimmy has the superhuman ability to reach level 3 on Double Dragon), Fred Savage does the right thing and whisks his kid brother off to exploit his virtuosic video game playing ability for cash and prizes worth well over $130.

Along the way they meet Haley, who's totally hot if you're 12. Haley misleads Fred and Jimmy on many occasions, notably one scene where renegade truckers steal their entire video game pilgrimage budget and, presumeably, molest them. Still, they stick to their guns (or should I say, their NINTENDO LIGHT GUNS™, for use with Duck Hunt), even managing to outsmart the enigmatic Lucas, a rebellious young boy who apparently lives alone in the desert like Mohammed. But this little messiah has a NINTENDO POWER GLOVE™, buy yours today!

Lucas complicates the story, creating a sordid love triangle between himself, Fred Savage and Haley. He taunts Jimmy ruthlessly ("We wouldn't want you to...WHIZ on yourself.") and, despite having devoted his life to Nintendo games and thus presumably having no friends, a crowd of prepubescent disciples follow him at all times. His secret to success is the Nintendo Power Glove, which is, in Lucas's own words, "so bad." But as most of us know, the truth is that the Nintendo Power Glove was "totally gay." It only did what you wanted it to do when you were punching your friend in the face with it to vent your frustration about its lack of response.

The protagonists' path is beset by peril on all sides. There are teenage white trash hoodlums who exist solely for the purpose of stealing Jimmy's hat and saying lines like "What is this kid, some sort of cyborg?" There are fat salesmen who talk like Foghorn Leghorn, unable to believe that a scrawny kid is better than they are at Contra.

And don't get me started on Putnam, the creepy bald guy hired by Fred Savage's mom to bring the kids back home, dead or alive. Meanwhile, Beau Bridges plays Nintendo like my dad, yanking the controller this way and that. Every time Beau Bridges and Christian Slater run into Putnam, a redneck banjo riff kicks in and the whole movie starts to sound like a Menard's commercial while the adversaries engage in automobile/gardening tool combat.

Saved from certain molestation by a grotesque man-child named Spanky, their adventure climaxes when they play Ninja Gaiden with a scary gravel-voiced MC (who also appears to be a child molester) and nearly get eaten by a fake King Kong at UNIVERSAL STUDIOS THEMEPARK™, now open! By the way, Jimmy knows the exact location of the Warp Whistle in Super Mario Bros. 3 prior to the game's release because he reads NINTENDO POWER MAGAZINE™, subscribe today! Jimmy gets the Warp Whistle and uses it to reach World 4 and Lucas looks on helplessly as his empire of Power Gloves comes crashing down around him.

Spackled with golden dialogue, this movie is a subculture in its own right. But while many people quote Lucas's "it's so bad," or Haley's "he touched my breast," for me it doesn't get any better than when Christian Slater says, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™."

Portrait of a Badass: Spike

Character: Spike
Actor: Darlene Vogel
Film: Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Badass Moment: I guess it's the part where she grabs Michael J. Fox by the groin and hoists him over a restaurant counter. Because that's the only scene I can remember.

Prothetic claws. One red eye. Necklace made of bullet casings. White plastic armor-bra. These factors come flying together in a veritable tornado of badass known as Spike. Spike is one of Griff's eccentric toadies in Hill Valley 2015, and she makes the most of her short screentime by being the most terrifying future-babe imaginable.*

It wasn't easy to decide which of Griff's minions to crown "badass" in this post. I've always thought that dude with the chicken sound effect in his vest was pretty cool, and what's not to like about the crazy, laughing Asian guy? But Spike somehow broke out of the pack and stood head and shoulders above her peers as a full-on badass. I ask you this: How cool do you have to be before Elvis Costello names a whole album after you?

Spike is never referred to by name in the movie. She only has one line, and that line contains the word "scrote." I'll say two things about that. 1) Bad, and 2) Ass.

Spike, you are a badass and hoverboards don't work on water unless you've got POWER.

* At the time of the movie's release

Portrait of a Badass: Kaneda

Character: Kaneda Shotaro
Actor: Iwata Mitsuo (voice)
Film: Akira (1988)
Badass Moment: Kaneda plays an ill-advised game of pedestrian-on-biker chicken and wins!

The first animated character to be inducted into my prestigious hall of fame, Kaneda embodies creator Otomo Katsuhiro's vision of what no-good whippersnappers of the future could be like. Furthermore, he continues to stand alone as a unique, relatively unimitated character template. (Good thing, too, because characters similar to Kaneda would have to labelled "Kanedian," which would only cause confusion.)

This loud-mouthed leader of a bosozoku (biker gang, literally "speed gang") in post-apocalyptic Neo-Tokyo spends the first half of Akira stealing the show from his wimpy (but eventually omnipotent) cohort Tetsuo. In fact, most of Akira's popularity in the West stems from the biker gang scenes involving Kaneda early in the movie. What's not to like about a cocky, obnoxious hooligan and his ultra-stylish red jacket with the capsule on the back?

He spends the latter half of the movie, however, clinging desperately on to his superiority over Tetsuo, even as Tetsuo morphs into an all-powerful, giant infant made of chewing gum. Being the friend that he is, Kaneda even tries to put Tetsuo down for a dirt nap when it becomes apparent that Tetsuo has become a hazard to himself and others (and by "others" I mean "everybody"). But even as he lays waste to the world as we know it, Tetsuo spares the lives of his friends. Why? Because with divine omniscience comes the understanding that Kaneda is a badass.

Kaneda, you are a badass. We salu -- MY BIKE!!

Portrait of a Badass: Mitsuko

Character: Female Student #11; Souma, Mitsuko
Actor: Shibasaki Kou
Film: Battle Royale (2000)
Badass Moment: Mitsuko's flashlight close-up, Mr. Demille (pictured)
As you may know, Battle Royale is the motion picture adaptation of a Japanese pulp novel of the same name, in which a high school class is whisked off to an island in the Seto Inland Sea and the students forced to participate in a real life last-man-standing deathmatch. I will do my best not to let the absolute badassity of Mitusko in the novel affect my appraisal of her onscreen badassitude. After all, if "Portrait of a Badass" were more literary and less...uhhh...movielary, the Japanese female badass throne would probably be occupied by Hatsumomo from Memoirs of a Geisha.
(...a technicality that will cease to be a problem as soon as the movie adaptation of Memoirs of a Geisha, starring supreme Chinese hottie Zhang Zi Yi, is released.)
Every high school class has a girl who, while being the ultimate object of infatuation, is somehow inaccessible. Maybe it's because she's too "out of your league"...maybe it's because she's a snob...maybe it's because she kills everyone with a sickle. Souma Mitsuko is that girl.
As her schoolmates discover, her nasty classroom manner translates literally in the survival scenario posed by the Battle Royale, and before long everyone's getting sliced up by Mitsuko Souma, the cutest bringer of death you ever did-done seen. And all the while, she spouts mean lines like, "Shindemo ii" ("You can die") and "Shineyo busu" ("Die, ugly").
Contrast this with Shibasaki Kou's role in Miike Takashi's cellphone-centric horror film Chakushin Ari, in which she spends the latter half of the movie whimpering and screaming and hiding in corners AND singing a pop song. That's versatility.
Mitsuko, you are a badass, and a spooky chick, and yes you can have my lunch money just please don't hurt me. We salute you.