Smokin' Ouch!

While I had seen a view ads for the recently released Smokin’ Aces and had chalked this up to one of those films that I will put in my Netflix Q only to be continuously pushed down my list as other more worthy films come out (the film Domino fits this bill as well), this review in the WSJ struck me as one of the most sedately savage reviews I’ve read recently

When someone says, in "Smokin' Aces," that a Las Vegas mob boss wants a snitch's heart, it is not a figure of speech. That heart, beating in the chest of a sleazy magician named Buddy "Aces" Israel, figures heavily in an otherwise heartless and ultimately brainless action thriller. But calling Joe Carnahan's movie heartless implies that this auteur of affectless anarchy might have meant to invest it with detectable human feelings, and failed. Better to call it heart-free, and acknowledge the wisdom of Mr. Carnahan's self-promoting, semiliterate Web site, in which he says: "Don't let those douchebag critics scare you off. I promise, on the souls of my ancestors, you will come out of that movie with at least one scene, that you'll never forget."

Possibly more than one. The splatter of mutual snuffery in an elevator. The grisly ventriloquism of a killer manipulating his dead victim's face. A monstrous child gone off his Ritalin. The souls of the filmmaker's ancestors may be safer than our own, for "Smokin' Aces" is a vision, nightmarish but far from unthinkable, of a movie genre in which drama and character -- fuhgetabout character development -- have been banished by extravagant freakery, cheerful degeneracy, mind-numbing logorrhea, lip-jerk profanity and serial spasms of murderous violence, all framed in the sort of striking, hollow images pioneered by fashion photography and music videos.

Mr. Carnahan came to prominence four years ago with a darkly efficient little cop thriller called "Narc." To give him his due on "Smokin' Aces" (the first word of the title is a gerund), he applies lavish amounts of manic energy and perverse humor to an outwardly simple premise -- all sorts of unpleasant people want to kill Buddy Israel before the FBI whisks him away to protective custody. The plot comes equipped with some intricate twists, but they aren't really dramatized. Rather, they're discussed and simultaneously illustrated, in fragmentary music-video style -- first to let us know what we're going to see, and, at the finish, to explain what we've seen.

Headcrab update

In regards to my last post (which was quite a while ago…Project Arcturus was quite time consuming this holiday season), it looks like I spoke too soon. Shortly after my post, Valve did release their own headcrab hat…While not quite as impressive as their original mini headcrab, this mono-color hat is pretty awesome….And I should know, since I own one…It fits my rather large noggin quite well, and while the longer crab arms take a little getting used to in your field of view, it is quite warm as well. Now my only question is how should act when I’m wearing it…should I incorporate a bit of zombie shimmy into my step or should I behave like the crab and I have more of a symbiotic relationship where I'm more of a mode of transport for the headcrab? It even looks pretty good just sitting on a shelf, just like Headly. I’ll save the world the embarrassment of a picture of myself wearing the hat and just use Valve’s stock picture to give you an idea of what it looks like (I just noticed that the headcrab stock photo victim is reading a story about the PS3, which given Valve's Gabe Newell said about the P3 --"The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels. I think it’s really clear that Sony lost track of what customers wanted and what developers wanted. I’d say, even at this late date, they should cancel it and do a “do over.” Just say, “This was a horrible disaster and we’re sorry and we’re going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it.”-- is interesting).

Adventurous souls looking to serve the Combine in a mentally diminished fashion can get your own head crab HERE