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Mutineer Theatre Company

The mission of Mutineer Theatre Company is to create, develop, and produce diverse original material through an explorative and experimental collaborative effort. We are committed to working in a manner that places reverence on the voice of the artist, in whatever medium, to celebrate the work in a unified vision, discipline, and regard.

(Not only that, I’m a member of the company too! Self-promotion rocks!)

[Click on the picture to check out their website]

Crank – High Voltage: High Style, Low Content

OK, who’s the funny bloke who told me to stick my tongue to this thing?

Rating: 3 out of 10

“Just go in, shut your brain off and watch the pretty colors.” I’ve used this statement many times before to friends of mine who might take a film too seriously: I was incredibly prepared to follow my own advice while walking into this inevitable sequel. The original movie, Crank, ends in a fashion defying anything resembling logic. By the closing moments in that film you’ve left logic sitting at a bus stop forty miles out of town, lonely and holding an empty popcorn tub. You could say that Crank: High Voltage doesn’t disappoint in faithfully keeping the trend going, but then again, it all depends on what you find disappointing.

Crank: High Voltage begins three months after the final moment of the first film. Our fearless anti-hero, Chev Chelios, has his miraculously still beating heart harvested and replaced with an artificial one that only runs with the constant intake of electricity. Chev wakes up before the rest of him is picked apart and goes on a multi-million volt tirade in search of the people behind his involuntary organ donorship. Banding together once again with the strangest people in the underworld of Los Angeles, Chev unleashes constant mayhem on all who stand in his way.

Coming from a long standing love of brainless action films (Demolition Man, Showdown in Little Tokyo and Gymkata, just to name a few), I am one of the first to jump up for something that barely resembles a plot and takes in no consideration for performances or tone as long as the action is true and holds together. This one tiny thing is something co-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor seemingly did not know how to do. These two loudly broke down the walls of Hollywood with the original Crank and many regarded them as the new, fresh faces of the indie-action genre. Yet the failure here is that beyond the inclusion of 8-bit video game graphics, there is nothing new to their style. Crank: High Voltage pulsates off the screen like a mixture of Guy Ritchie (circa Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), Danny Boyle (circa Trainspotting) and a massive overdose of Adderall. The whole thing ends up as a collage of scenes strung together by the running thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if this happened here?” I’m usually a big fan of that question, but only when this next question is successfully answered: “But does it make any sense at all?” Strident, frenetic and unapologetically overdone, this movie only shows what a freshman student filmmaker could do with a little cash and some famous friends.

Jason Statham, reprising his role as the unstoppable Chelios, shows up and does what is required of him, but unfortunately that’s not much. He gives the stare, gets beat and tortured mercilessly, then breaks through everything with pure rage. He’s the main draw for this because without a doubt he is the most underrated action star on screen today. He is also the action genre’s version of Samuel L. Jackson, who will do just about any movie attached to a paycheck. The only difference is Statham is not getting offered the big budget flicks that will elevate him to where he deserves to be. Many actors get to a point when they do one studio film for the check and one indie film for the credit, but Statham seems to be hovering on a see-saw of bad versus good choices. He stunned people in his debut in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, followed nicely by Snatch (see the Guy Ritchie connection forming?), but just as he was riding the wave of stardom up the action movie totem pole, he starred in The One, his first pairing with legendary kung-fu icon, Jet Li, which left a lot to be desired. Their second time out together in War tumbled even farther down the hole. Statham also followed his bank account to the set of In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, directed by the infamous Uwe Boll, where Statham was a random Renaissance-era farmer who just happened to know martial arts. Yet, on the other side of the resume, keeping people interested was a handful of stand out performances in The Italian Job, The Bank Job (no relation) and the original Transporter (the franchise has slipped a bit in quality since then). I’m still keeping my hopes up for his upcoming projects: 13, The Brazilian Job (this one actually is related) and the Sylvester Stallone directed uber-explosion flick, The Expendables. Statham is better than this particular franchise and I look forward to him getting to prove it.

Now, not that these types of movies really get a whole lot of acting critiquing going on, I can’t let this go without mentioning the painfully terrible visual caricature of Bai Ling. Bordering on offensive, her turn as a hooker who gets psychotically attached to Statham brought groans from all over the audience. She trots over the line between comical and tragically bad taste in a pair of trampy stiletto heels. I can’t add anything positive under the realm of Amy Smart (who plays Chev’s girlfriend, Eve) or any of the random cameos that litter this movie. The only person who actually gets away with a believable character is Dwight Yoakam as the brilliant and depraved friend-cum-heart surgeon. The filmmakers actually gained a point for having his character laughably stop himself halfway through the picture while telling Chev, “You should be dead already. Doesn’t matter. Anyway…” It was a nice admission from behind the silver screen that they knew none of this really worked as a story of any value, instead relying on my old turn of phrase, “Just go in, shut your brain off and watch the pretty colors.”.

Recommendation: The main failure here is that the whole film is one big joke, but it felt like the filmmakers weren’t letting anyone else in on it. It’s more like something made by a bunch of friends who all made each other laugh on set without ever thinking if it would work on anyone else. Watch at home while drinking, but not if you have any history of epileptic seizures.

Fast and Furious: On the Road Again…

See that light over there? That’s our future. Let’s race to see who gets there first.

Rating: 6 out of 10

There are times when a movie ends and you just feel sad because you don’t get to spend any more time with those characters. No more twists and turns in their stories and no more chances for possible redemption, if they haven’t already achieved it. Yet sometimes you get lucky and a sequel is made, then if you’re really lucky a sequel is made of that, giving you the much sought after “franchise”. Certain movies you can look at from the very first moment and know they are destined for the franchise route, but I would challenge anyone to look back into 2001 at the original The Fast and the Furious and claim they saw this coming. It spawned three subsequent films, with this newest chapter opening to over $100 million dollars worldwide in its first weekend, a record for any April movie opening in history.

No palm reader in the world would have taken that bet.

Yet Universal Pictures seemingly struck gold with Fast and Furious and there is an entire pantheon of reasons why this worked. First, and most notable, was the return of the original cast making this movie feel much more like a sequel and less like a spin-off (ie: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift). The two main machismo machines, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, haven’t shared the screen in eight years, so this was a huge draw for people who actually stood up for the quality of the original movie. Secondly, the original teaser trailer and the first theatrical trailer were both cut extremely well, showcasing the scope of the car stunts and the parkour-influenced foot chase with Paul Walker, which will go down in history as a close second to the foot race in Point Break with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze (Swayze throws a dog at Reeves, that cannot be topped!). The third element, which is a little less apparent, is that this movie is an “interquel”, meaning it is not placed exactly in continual sequence with the rest. Fast and Furious actually takes place in the timeline before Tokyo Drift, which is shown to the audience in an early scene where Toretto tells his friend Han, also reprised by Sung Kang, to get out of town for a while. Han replies by saying, “I hear they’re doing some crazy stuff in Tokyo.” So they aren’t necessarily pulling the Highlander 2 maneuver, where they just ignore that the movie ever happened and continue the series without ever mentioning it, but instead they are treating Tokyo Drift more as an off-shoot, which keeps it legitimate in the universe of the characters. All in all they had every element in place for a new chapter that frankly no one thought would ever happen, but it did, in a big way.

Diesel returns to the role of Dominic Toretto, the mad-dog roughneck of the road racing world, who is now running a gasoline stealing outfit south of the border. When one heist goes slightly off the rails, Torreto is forced to move along without his comrades and his girlfriend, Letty, played once again by Michelle Rodriguez. On the other side of the border, bad boy FBI agent, Brian O’Conner, reprised by Paul Walker, is hot on the trail of a massive mafia cartel. When another mafia killing cuts too close to home, O’Conner and Toretto have to team up once again to infiltrate the cartel and bring it down. Both men are fighting for justice, yet they have slightly different definitions for it.

On paper the plot line actually holds together really well, but let’s be honest, no one watches these movies for the plot. It’s all about the cars, the crashes and the chaos. Fast and Furious makes a decent effort in all those areas, bringing the car races back to the forefront of the movie, without losing the sense of needing a storyline. That was one of the things the last chapter in this franchise, Tokyo Drift, was lacking. The racing never escalated, never changed from nearly the first screech of the tires in the movie to the last. While in Fast and Furious, the races did change throughout the film, they lose a little credit for placing their most impressive race about one-third of the way in. The scene where Diesel and Walker have to race each other along with two others in hopes of being chosen for the cartel driving squad is full of variety and intensity, yet later on the races begin to feel a touch redundant. Also, that first race had pertinent meaning for the story, whereas the later races feel tossed in just because they needed another scene of cars zooming by. No matter how silly the movie you still need to make the action on the screen make sense, otherwise the audience will drift away.

Diesel and Walker return to form in these characters and give us what we all know and love them for. Diesel proves once more that he can intimidate with only a glance and also the fact that he never sweats, ever! Walker still retains his boyish charms and continues to be endearing when he tries to act all tough on screen against Diesel. Yet, while Diesel wins the machismo battle, Walker always looks more comfortable on screen with the ladies, as he proves once more with his re-ignited love affair with Toretto’s sister, Mia, played once again by Jordana Brewster. Brewster still shows her skill in being able to make a believable on-screen connection with people who aren’t all that talented in the lighter arena of human emotions. As for Rodriguez, she is one of the original four and used heavily in the marketing of the film, but she is in only a few short minutes of the movie and really boils down to a plot device.

Recommendation: If you liked the first film in the series, you should have no problem enjoying this one. It still has holes and many parts of it could have made more sense with some basic story adjustments, but in terms of this series it is just under the original. Plus, you might as well keep track of what happens so you can be all set for the next chapter, which Paul Walker just signed on to. Faster and Furiouser!

Adventureland: Carnies in Love

Wait, you’re not actually a vampire, right?

Rating: 9 out of 10

When an ad campaign continually blasts, “Brought to you from the director of Superbad!” you might find yourself wondering exactly how many crass terms for random pieces of anatomy can be filled into ninety minutes or what quota will be reached for on-screen vomiting. In this particular case, surprisingly only one of those is really taken into account (on the down side, it’s the on-screen vomiting). Following up a mega-comedy hit like Superbad can be a tough ride, but director Greg Mottola came back with something subtle, touching and heartwarming, while still holding onto some of that raw and youthful comic edge. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon of today’s raunchy comedy tidal wave, Mottola reaches back into the archives and gives us something much more in tune with John Hughes and the date movies of the 1980s.

Adventureland is the story of James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) who instead of spending the summer in Europe with his wealthy friends as planned, ends up working at the local amusement park to try and save enough money for grad school in New York next year. Beyond his family’s money struggle, James also is dealing with his own private struggle in still being a virgin after college. His die-hard romantic notions which kept him fairly untouched before are taken to task once he meets fellow carnie, Em Lewin (Kristen Stewart). Damaged and dark, she becomes the willing target for his romantic quest, but along the way he ends up breaking much more than he fixes and learns that being the nice guy all the time isn’t all that easy.

There is a lot of tone and pacing carried over from Superbad, but while that movie saved the depth and meaning until deep into the third act, Adventureland plays out with much more intelligence and heart right off the bat. It might be easy to write off the main character of James as a carbon copy of Evan (played brilliantly by Michael Cera), but the characters really only share their social awkwardness and lack of success with women. James goes deeper into a real tumultuous place of pain and love and the mysterious moment when those two emotions meet. Seeing that on the page, Eisenberg was a perfect choice to play the role. While Cera and Eisenberg could make a great buddy comedy about two guys who struggle at trying to be cool, Eisenberg displayed a depth in Adventureland which Cera might have a hard time reaching at this point in his career. Eisenberg’s portrayal of James never comes off as a caricature or comedic statement on youthful longing; instead it is filled with minuscule moments of honesty which bring the audience closer to him. This movie marks another great performance in his already critically lauded career, including Roger Dodger and The Squid and the Whale.

Now, in terms of following pace with career performances, Kristen Stewart made a distinct about face here. Coming off of a terribly directed and painfully weak performance in the vampiric soap opera, Twilight, Kristen reminds viewers exactly why she still gets work. During numerous scenes in the movie she displays a vulnerability and fragile nature with barely a single movement in her eyes. Her painful and troubled stare through the windshield of her car is enough to make any caring person want to fix anything and everything wrong in her life. That special spark is exactly what allowed her to even steal scenes away from Emile Hirsch in Into the Wild, who honestly had the performance of his career. Personally, I am looking forward and hoping for this same raw intensity in her upcoming biopic of Joan Jett, where Stewart takes on the punk rock queen herself.

Beyond these two stellar performances, I need to give credit one more time to Greg Mottola for everything he did in creating slice of life in the mid-eighties and balancing in the perfect amount of generational references, from the constant blaring of “Rock Me Amadeus” out of the park speakers to the wardrobe selections filled with that classic mixture of muted over-washed t-shirts and neon high-waisted jam pants. How any of us grew up in through those years without being scarred as fashion misfits for life is a miracle in itself.

Recommendation: While not a shocking laugh riot like Superbad, the warmth and meaning of this film should guarantee you come out with a smile, both on the outside and inside.

Women’s Aid

What more is there to say?

Monsters Vs. Aliens: Animated Chucklefest for the Whole Family

Hi, we’re here to offer you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Have you ever thought about working from home?

Rating: 8 out of 10

Sure, the title of this film betrays a certain type of long fought battle, both in classic films and popular culture, but underneath that is another battle currently raging in theaters all over the world, the battle for animation supremacy! It really stands between two animation giants, Pixar and Dreamworks Animation, with Disney goofily bouncing around on the outskirts trying to nudge its way back into prominence. Pixar has the upper hand right now in sheer quality in the picture-after-picture race, but Dreamworks has brought the smackdown in a big way with its mega-hit Shrek franchise (known in certain circles as the “Ogre who saved Dreamworks”) and its newest cartoon smash, Kung-Fu Panda, which completely swept last years Annie awards (the animation version of the Oscars), beating out the critically acclaimed Wall-E (although, that did go on to win the Oscar). Now Dreamworks is bringing a solid right hook punch with its newest release, Monsters Vs. Aliens, and taking a gander at the $58 million dollar opening weekend, it’s not a knockout blow, but ears are definitely ringing in the halls of Pixar. Does this mean one will eventually destroy the other? Certainly not. In actuality this is a wonderful thing because it forces both companies to work even harder to create better stories and better products for us, the happy and popcorn-covered viewers.

The story of Monsters Vs. Aliens centers around a young woman named Susan who is getting ready to walk down the aisle on the happiest day of her life, but it is drastically altered when an asteroid filled with Quantonium lands directly on top of her, causing her to grow with enormous strength and size. Quickly snatched up by the government she is placed in a secure underground facility where she meets the rest of her monstrous cohorts. Lucky for Susan and her new friends, an alien decides to invade and conquer Earth and this ragtag team of mutants is the only things that stands between Earth and total enslavement by a new squidgy overlord. (I was informed “squidgy” is not a real word and while that may be true, say it out loud, feel it in your spine, and you’ll catch my meaning.)

Drama! Conflict! Explosions! This has it all, but we all really know what we’re in the seats for: laughs! Written by an entire cadre of screenwriters, the script amazingly makes it to screen without feeling like a Jenga tower holding on for dear life. The throughline is tight, the purpose is well-plotted and the jokes are a quickfire barrage of humor both for the adults and the kids. My feeling is a good deal of the humor might be missed by the younger ones, but they’ll still be delighted and tickled by the animated characters themselves. What isn’t funny about a talking pile of blue goo?

The character designs and the excellent choices made in voice casting is where the movie reall excels. The credits of this film read off like a who’s who of the comedy world, while also borrowing from some of the most popular shows on television today. Let me just lay them out for you (along with just one highlight of theirs): Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde), Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), Hugh Laurie (House M.D.), Will Arnett (Arrested Development), Kiefer Sutherland (24), Rainn Wilson (The Office), Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report), Paul Rudd (I Love You, Man), Julie White (Grace Under Fire), Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), Amy Poelher (Baby Mama), Ed Helms (The Office), Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones’s Diary) and finally, John Krasinski (The Office). Seriously, that list is bordering on offensive with how much talent they amassed here. Some of them were only brought in for a few lines here and there, but the main cast of characters was incredibly well-chosen.

Witherspoon plays Susan, who is later renamed Ginormica, and she doesn’t get a lot of the laugh lines, but she drives the heart of the story and her “best friend/girl-next-door” voice helps land that perfectly. Rogen is a genius as the gelatinous nimrod known as B.O.B., who steals cinematic second after second until he finally peaks in a beautiful moment of romantic conquest (you’ll have to see it to figure that one out). Laurie takes on Dr. Cockroach Ph.D., which in itself is sheer typecasting since he really just gives us an old-timey version of Dr. House, who already borders on “mad scientist”. Arnett voices the Missing Link, who gets huge boosts from Arnett’s skill at playing the oblivious, but heartfelt. Sutherland walk easily into the role of General W.R. Monger, which is a personal favorite pun, and lets us listen for a moment what it would be like if Jack Bauer finally gained full control of the military. Wilson won the dubious pleasure of creating the sound of Gallaxhar, the multi-tentacled maniac who wants to take over the planet. I slowly began to wonder if his other character, Dwight on The Office, is hiding any other limbs or alien bits. Lastly, more for the adults in the audience who follow political spoof news, Colbert voices the President of the United States and is painfully perfect in every way, from his effort to sway the alien with a rendition of Alex F (theme song from Beverly Hills Cop, for those unschooled in the best of 80′s comedy films) to his reaction when noticing the nuclear launch button looks the same as his fresh latte button. It’s easy to see the characters were altered to fit the sound and personality of the cast, which usually means lazy casting or poor writing in the first place, but here it truly meant the marriage of two amazing things to bring something incredibly funny to the screen.

Recommendation: There weren’t any particular moments where I was knocked on the ground, clutching my belly full of giddy bliss, but there was a distinct constant rumbling of chuckles, guffaws, and outright laughter. This fits nicely into the family outing evening or afternoon and should be a film that sees a good lifespan in the theater and even better when it crashes onto DVD. I’ll also go out on a limb here and say little kiddies everywhere are going to be squeezing their own stuffed versions of Insectasorous or B.O.B. in the very near future. Hell, I might be one of them.