Review: John Wick 3: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

By Lynn Lee

“Guns.  Lots of guns.”

That line is only one of several of John Wick 3’s nods to its spiritual predecessor, The Matrix, albeit the most overt one.  With the right audience, it draws appreciative laughs.  It also embodies everything that’s both most effective and most lacking in Keanu Reeves’ latest blockbuster franchise.  The action pyrotechnics are dazzling, the callouts to his last blockbuster franchise amusing, but once the last gun stops firing, there’s nothing left.  Nothing to feel, think about, or care about, even as the story ends on yet another cliffhanger that practically ensures the next installment we all knew was coming and was sealed by the movie’s gargantuan opening box office haul.

It wasn’t always this way.  The first John Wick had a simplicity of premise that made for a sharp and clean, if fundamentally goofy, revenge narrative...

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Posterized: Keanu Reeves

by Nathaniel R

Whoa. Keanu Reeves turns 55 later this year and he's made roughly that many movies, too. Time sure does fly since he's still implanted in our consciousness as that stoner-like raven-haired looker of convenience store, surfing, and bus adventures. Figuring him out has always been an impossible trip. Keanu means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian but, that geographically specific well-known trivia aside, he's always been hard to visually or sonically place anywhere on the map OR within the pantheon of contemporary stars; Born in Lebanon and raised in Canada, though he's of Hawaiian/British/Chinese/Portuguese descent, and with a voice that conjures the early 80s and California. Who/what/where is he even other than on his own planet and his own unique star? 

Though it seems hard to imagine now, when he first came to fame he was a very unlikely candidate for longevity...

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The Man Is Chan

By Salim Garami

What's good?

I just wanted to tie up our celebration of Jackie Chan's quintessential Police Story and Police Story 2 finding their way into the esteemed catalog of the Criterion Collection by recognizing the other thing he's best known for besides kicking fools in the face: pre-emptively auditioning for the Jackass crew by partaking in some of the most dangerous stunts recorded on film. Safety is for mere mortals as far as Chan is concerned and he is probably convinced that if any characters are ever killed on-screen in a movie, then the actor themself must also be killed for versimilitude.

Not really, but much like his fight choreography, the sort of discipline and ambition Chan displays on screen in order to wow audiences around the world is the kind that pays off a lifetime of painful falls and crashes. He mirrors his own character's resilience to obstacles and defies fear and death with his stuntwork.

Let's get that listing over with so we can watch some more Jackie Chan.

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Chan's the Man

By Salim Garami

What's good?

This past Tuesday saw the home video Criterion Collection release of a 4K restoration for Police Story and Police Story 2, two of movies that made a household name out of Hong Kong international superstar Jackie Chan. Chan is ostensibly a man who needs no introduction in the world of action cinema, but put it this way: the bodily injury and risk, the way this man twists and flips his body and face for our entertainment, the rigorous and grueling discipline that he pushes despite looking so rubbery and clownish... it all makes Tom Cruise's high-altitude climbs and dives look like square cowardice.

The Hong-Kong-based actor-director is a more painful descendent of the school of physical comedy that Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton opened up, utilizing his background in the Peking Chinese Opera to make things as small as answering multiple phone calls look like athletic feats...

In order to illustrate his excellence and to celebrate this canonization and recognition through the Blu-Ray set release, I've opted to provide two mini-lists here: his top five fights in this post and his top five solo stunts in a post later tomorrow...

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Nathaniel's "Extra" Prizes: Musical Moments, Action Sequences, and Best Endings

As the Oscar aftermath is just about over, we return you to the in-progress Film Bitch Awards. We hate to not be done with these before the Oscars - argh - but these things happen. We'll finish up soon as there's now just 5 (gulp) categories left. 

Scene Awards
Musical moments, thrilling action sequences, opening scenes and great endings, and the like. There's lots to reminisce about but obviously there are spoilers for some 2018 scenes, particularly given the "endings" category. Films honored include but are not limited to: Ant-Man and the Wasp, The Children Act, Cold War, Eighth Grade, Isle of Dogs, Old Man and the Gun, Paddington 2, Vice, and You Were Never Really Here. Check it out.