Movies That Are Actually Awesome: Part 1

I watched Jim Jarmusch's wonderful film Coffee and Cigarettes last night, and considered writing about that and talking about Jarmusch's influence on American independent film. If you'd like to read that article, I direct your attention to any book about the history of American independent film.
Instead, I'm gonna talk about an under-appreciated gem of a film about Jason Statham murdering a series of ethnic stereotypes.
Seriously, though; go see Stranger than Paradise.

Crank: High Voltage
Crank: High Voltage and its prequel (Crank) are pretty much interchangeable. Personally, I prefer the second one because everything really gets cranked (HA!) to 11.

The film picks up from the end of the first, with Jason Statham as LA hitman Chev Chelios (good God what a name) falling thousands of feet out of a helicopter and miraculously surviving. While he's incapacitated, some chinese gangsters remove his heart and replace it with a prosthetic that runs on a battery (Don't ask me why). After waking up, Chelios battles gangsters across LA looking for his heart... while repeatedly electrocuting himself in order to keep the battery on his prosthetic heart charged.

The story is, obviously, not the movie's strong point. But, I wouldn't relegate this film to that long list of movies you have to turn off your thinking bone to enjoy. In fact, I'm telling you to never watch movies that require you to stop thinking. Those movies suck and are actually really bad for your health.

That being said, this film made me feel 13 again. And not just because it's trying really hard to look and feel like a video game.  This is one of those movies that captures the joy of low-budget filmmaking with a fairly large budget and some big name stars. There's a refreshingly manic, slapstick tone that runs through the whole thing, recalling the early work of Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi. Also, it's got some razor-sharp editing and a fucking great score, composed by Faith No More's Mike Patton. Put it all together and you get a movie that's stark-raving mad yet surprisingly coherent.

Ok, so why did this movie get terrible reviews? First of all, I don't think most reviewers were looking at Crank as a comedy. But after the sex scene set on a horse track during a race, Jason Statham performing a shotgun enema, and Dwight Yoakam's role as a heart surgeon/pimp, it's pretty obvious that we're not taking ourselves seriously here. One criticism I can understand is that the movie lacks any ambition. It's not trying to do anything besides make you laugh, but it does a damn fine job of that. It's also tremendously well put together and entertains me to no end.

So go see it. If you're afraid of losing your indie-cred, just tell your friends that it's like Run Lola Run.