Sunday, June 30, 2013

Oscar Snuff #1: Miami Connection.

So I've always thought highly of Cormac McCarthy but I'm not sure I realized until now just how great he is as a writer. No Country for Old Men is fucking amazing and Blood Meridian has jumped up to the top of the list of favorite books of all time. Now. 
The reason in telling you this really has little to with McCarthy at all. You see last night I witnessed the single greatest piece of human art ever achieved in the modern world; the film "Miami Connection." If you have Netflix stop reading at once and queue it up and watch and witness the beauty. You see Miami Connection is a special film, for it is without a doubt terrible and while the editing is choppy and it feels like the whole script is simply improvised by unsure and timid actors, there are these moments of sheer cinematic brilliance that usually occur for absolutely no reason. At random points in the film, the photography suddenly becomes sharp and pronounced, and from seemingly nowhere these brilliant shots are produced that, with a cut and a redub could make part of the film actually pretty fucking cool. Except the movie is about a (musical) band of Tae Kwon Do blackbelt orphans (I'm not kidding) who play karate music in a club and go to The University of Central Florida. As I said, I'm not kidding; there's five of them, a cop mustachioed Italian one with a greasy mullet on lead guitar, a really awkward Jewish drummer (who has a little soliloquy about touring the world,) a lean and mean (and like 7ft gawky American kid (from Ireland as the film asserts)  on bass, who falls in love with some chick (whose brother is inexplicably a gang leader who own a gym, go figure,) a (possibly gay) black guy who can't fight on keys (and who later on has his own soliloquy when you find out he's not an orphan cause he has a father, again, not kidding,) and to top it all of, the man who made the whole thing possible; little known Korean action man Y. K. Kim as some Asian guy with no fucking rhythm on rhythm guitar (he also drives the band car, and hey guess what, they all live together and the black guy walks around with the top button of his pants undone and the zipper zipped down and none of them ever wear shirts; again, again, not kidding.) They are called dragon sound, and they play bland late 70s early 80s pop rock that obviously was made using Midi keyboards, and they get a job in some Gainesville nightclub, which in turn pisses off the band that played there before (a bunch of skeezy looking white guys who more resemble gangsters than a band) who joins with that chicks bro (and a coke stealing, coke dealing ninja clan who honestly doesn't do a whole lot other than ride motorcycles and get slaughtered in the film finale,) to take Dragon Sound out. Did I mention there is a fair amount of Tae Kwon Do in this movie? Well there is; tons of it. Most of it badly choreographed. There's actually a ten minute (seriously I timed it) scene where Mark (the Asian guy and the only one who's name I got) spars with the tall guy and the Jewish drummer and while the tall guy is pretty good, it becomes apparent that the Jew, the Italian, and the black guy have never done any martial arts in their lives (though the film asserts they're all Tae Kwon Do blackbelts.) But don't worry, that ten minute sparring scene is essential to the plot! So, they get in a bunch of fights and YK Kim struggles to speak English (though he does somehow, most of the other foreign actors are dubbed, badly; and awesomely so is the evil gang leader brother who may be the worst actor in the whole film) and they fight a bunch, and the black guy finds his dad, but along the way they accidentally kill the gang leader brother (after he kidnapped their Italian guitarist before a gig) in a bug fight, the ninja leader dude gets so sentimental about the gang leader brother, who was his buddy I guess, he decides to fuck Dragon Sound up. So when Marc and tall guy take black guy to meet his dad (after overly furiously excited when he got the letter, and by the way he calls himself a "black American") they obviously get set upon by ninjas and the black guy gets effed up by said ninjas. Mark and Tall guy then proceed to freak out and viciously cut down each and every ninja until they are drenched in blood ( which leads to a brilliant moment when a wounded ninja crawls up to the leader and says "everybody's dead!") In the final showdown between Marc and the ninja leader, we see that even the ninja leader isn't very good at martial arts, and he gets his butt kicked pretty quick. I must add that this is the point where we see once again the moves Marc used in sparring in real life, which leads to a knife in the ninja dudes belly. They rush the black guy to the hospital, and his dad shows up and has a touching heart to heart with Mark about how he's done wrong and will make it up to his son. The doctor comes out and says he's fine and the black guy is brought out in a wheel chair and everyone's happy. Totally cool about they fact they just committed like fifty murders, they just stroll out. End. 

my favorite parts  

90% of the film is dubbed, even the white actors, and 95% of that is improvised. At one point some cops show up and have the greatest exchange in the history of dubs, maybe in the history of the world; "we gotta get these gangs outta central Florida" "yea" "lets go" "ok."
The improvisation leads to strange scenes where people yell a lot and nothing is really said. There are also a lot of fistfights that break out spontaneously. 
There's a shit ton of karate in this movie, to the point where it gets boring, and they also cleverly slow down the kicks and punches real nice, but not just good ones. No,sometimes it seems like the editor was like, "whatever," and just slowed down whatever the fuck he wanted. But the actors move at three quarter speed so when he doesn't slow some of the action down, it looks like guys are just standing there open mouthed and waiting to get their fucking face kicked in. 
Don't forget Dragon Sound is a band! So they play music! There are two songs in the movie, the blistering "Friends Forever We'll Be Together," and the political rock anthem "Against the Ninja We Will Fight" (no joke.) the songs are amazing, if bad can be amazing. 
YK Kim, the lead man, cannot speak English.
YK Kim has no rhythm. 
While the Italian guy mock plays like he knows how to play guitar, YK Kim cannot. (However YK Kim can grab a guys nose with his toes and totally fuck him up.)
They are supposed to be in college, but YK Kim is at least 45. 
The bad guy is Japanese. 
There is an old Korean man who own a restaurant and can still kick the asses of a bunch of bros (including a "black American" with the tightest and highest white shorts ever manufactured, so high and tight I thought they were undies when he stood up) who don't wanna pay for his food (which is apparently Korean, but looks like grey slop on a plate.) 
That black guys shorts. 
The fact that the title doesn't really make a lot of sense other then they're in Miami and, I dunno, it sounds like a band name, why the fuck are they called Dragon Sound. Miami Connection is way better. 
The gang leader brother has one of those feather earrings. Nuff said. 
None of the actors seem to have ever acted or seen a camera before. 
There is a fair amount of 80s party dancing. 
Seriously, ninjas. 
The whole concept feels like a blatant attempt to cash in on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, though it predates it. I was just waiting for the band to order a big old pizza pie and freak out over it, sadly my wishes went unfulfilled. 
Seriously, I am not joking or exaggerating any of this (which might be my favorite part.)
There are approximately 17.3 barrel rolls executed within the first ten minutes of film. 
The Italian guy punches a dude and obviously breaks his hand. 
There are some exposed breasts. 
They talk about cocaine like they know nothing about it (which I'm sure they don't) and the Jewish guy calls it "stupid cocaine." Go get Em tiger. 
Somehow, the film asserts, a ninja clan would find themselves in Miami. 
Chest hair. 
The whole black guy story line. He actually says this: "I know we all said we were orphans (a thing which the film had yet neglected to mention) but thus is my father."
Mark: you have father! That great news. 

Best lines: (from Friends Forever song:) "friends through eternity loyalty honesty, we"ll stay together through thick and thin/ friends forever, we'll be together, we're on top cause we play to win"

"Isnt that your sister Jane? Working here"
"She's not supposed to be here, I don't, I don't know what...she's doing here"
"You better watch her" (then she kisses a dude, which totally tears it.)

Jane: "I have a brother, but I don't like him. I don't know why."

Jane's Bro: "where'd you find this sonofvabitch?"
Jane: "he's a friend!"
Jane's Bro: "A FRIEND!?!?"
Jane: "how can you treat me like this?"
Jane's Bro: "SHUT UP!"

"You dot understand, I'm her brother, when I say leave her alone (awkward pause) leave her alone."

Bad guy: "cause of you I lost my job and I got my ass kicked, you remember that hotshot? Now get your ass and that car outta this god damn town!"
Mark: "listen to I don't want any trouble. I just get job from...agent, don't, bother, us."

"We need to get rid of that band, if we want to control that area (for reasons that probably wouldn't make sense anyway.)" this is the best line in the movie. It makes no sense cause at this time all Dragon Sound has done is get a job at a nightclub and played one night, oh and recruited that gang dudes sister to be the token eighties chick in a pop band, so the assertion that they are in anyway a danger to a highly effective criminal organization with ninja training is silly at best. There is also a finger tap guitar solo in the Against the Ninja song , which makes up for anything the film has done wrong. I give this movie 100 stars out of 10. 




Thursday, June 20, 2013



NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW

Friday, June 14, 2013

heres the big one, please download for free and spread like a virus across all the earth...