Review: MACHETE / Robert Rodriguez & Ethan Maniquis (2010)
September 1st, 2010 by Scott Marks
Jeff Fahey and Robert DeNiro
Machete (2010)
Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis
Written by Robert Rodriguez and Álvaro Rodríguez
Starring: Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert DeNiro, Jeff Fahey, Don Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Tom Savini and Steven Seagal as a Mexican
Photographed by Jimmy Lindsey
Edited by Rebecca Rodriguez
Running Time: 105 min.
Rating: 
There are a few spoilers along the way. You’ve been warned!
Attention action fans who have shelled out many a hard earned dollar this summer only to be rewarded by a barren crop of blockbusters. The draught is finally over! If you learned the hard way that “The Expendables” was or found Scott Pilgrim’s efforts to take on the world feeble at best and “Red” little more than a comic book for the Depends set (Senior Con?), be prepared for a truly kick-ass moviegoing experience.
“Machete” is based on one of the numerous bogus coming attractions director Robert Rodriguez filmed for his “Planet Terror” segment of “Grindhouse.” The ersatz trailer about a renegade Mexican federale features Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey and Cheech Marin all of whom reprise their roles in the feature. If “Planet Terror” was an unconvincing endeavor to replicate the mood and style of ‘70s schlock, “Machete” is the director’s Master’s Thesis on the subject. This time Rodriguez and company do something more than just Xerox conventions and hair styles. In one film they establish their own genre – Mexploitation – while assigning long overdue leading man status (and top billing) to Danny Trejo, one of Hollywood’s most rugged and dependable character actors.
The film falls short of affording Trejo the same reverential treatment Quentin Tarantino (who also produced “Machete”) gave Pam Grier in “Jackie Brown,” but let’s be honest: Ms. Grier is an actress, Trejo is a force best used in small doses. After this, he probably has more screen time in the overlooked teen comedy “Bubble Boy” than any of his action features. Trejo stands around five-foot-six, has a complexion that resembles a shar-pei dartboard, tresses that are everlastingly a quart low and a voice as mellifluous as the sound of wind whistling through a beer can on a deserted sand dune. Trejo is about as far from a matinee idol as anyone this side of Shemp Howard, yet before the final fade the script calls for him to bed three of Hollywood’s hottest: Jessica Alba (immigration customs agent), Michelle Rodriguez (freedom fighter/taco vendor) and Lindsay Lohan (slut). He should blow Robert Rodriguez in Macy’s window.
There is probably a good cross section of Americans who will look upon the LiLo scenes as documentary footage. (They were filmed in a scant three days.) As the daughter of a corrupt businessman (Fahey) who would like nothing more than to move their relationship to the next level, Lohan appears eager to add more fuel to her already blazing reputation. Her meth-snorting heiress runs an adult website, engages in a three-way with mom and Machete and I’d bet anything that it was her idea to add cutters’ hash marks around her wrists. If America is already deemed a drug addled whore why not play the part to the hilt?
Not unlike his American International and Canon Films ancestors, Machete is a man of few words and flinty-eyed reserve (Trejo brilliantly mimics Charles Bronson’s lone facial expression) who is resourceful enough to transform any sharpened object into a weapon of death. His character could have just as easily been nicknamed Corkscrew, Cleaver or Meat Thermometer, three kitchen utensils our hero readily employs as a means of defense.
There is a gag in which Machete uses a bad guy’s intestinal tract – much like a convict would use a fire hose or tied up bed sheets – to make an escape. It will undoubtedly be the most talked about scene in the movie, but it is my duty to put you colon purists on the right tract by directing your attention to John Carpenter’s “Cigarette Burns.” Who will ever forget Udo Kier pulling a cecum desist by threading his large intestine through a 35mm projector?
Continue reading Review: MACHETE / Robert Rodriguez & Ethan Maniquis (2010)
Tags: cecum, Character Actor, Cigarette Burns, danny trejo, director robert rodriguez, eddie munster, GRINDHOUSE, jeff fahey, Jessica Alba, john carpenter, Mexican, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, original machete trailer, planet terror, Robert DeNiro, Robert Rodriguez, roger corman, shemp howard, steven seagal, The Expendables, tom saviniFiled Under Reviews, Theatrical
Have a PSYCHO Halloween!
October 31st, 2008 by Scott Marks
Here’s a 10 minute solo piece I did on horror films a couple of Halloweens ago for KPBS-Radio’s These Days. I was asked to come up with three bone chilling DVD rentals guaranteed to scare even Count Floyd. Admittedly, horror films are not my drug of choice mainly because it is the most recycled genre of all. For every Psycho or Rosemary’s Baby or The Hitcher there are literally dozens (hundreds?) of wretched knockoffs, sequels and remakes.
For me, it all peaks a few minutes in when I recount an abusive childhood memory: Dad taking me to see Hitchcock’s Psycho when I was five. What was he thinking? That it was hot out, we didn’t own an air conditioner and he wanted to cool off in a movie theatre for a couple of hours.
This year I spent Halloween eve revisiting Roger Corman’s X:The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963) and Jack Arnold’s Tarantula (1955). It’s hard to be horrified watching Ray Milland’s bad toupee and a Hawaiian-shirted Don Rickles as a carnival barker, but X remains a very well made, exceedingly entertaining horror film. (Rickles gives his best on-screen performance this side of Casino!) It’s an allegorical tale of a doctor who invents a miraculous serum that gives him a Superman-like power to see through everything. Instead of putting his invention to good use, Milland is kicked out of the hospital for malpractice and winds up as a sideshow clairvoyant. The film ends at a revival meeting, led by Corman regular John Dierkes, where the man who puts the “mentalist” in Christian Fundamentalist dutifully follows scripture and pulls the old “an eye for an eye” on himself. Columbia Pictures has announced a planned remake for 2010 and for once I’m not upset. In our soon-to-be post George Bush era, this parable is ripe for retelling. (It also makes a great double-bill with Jerry Lewis’ The Nutty Professor.)
Have not seen Tarantula in ages and frankly, the only reason I pulled it off the shelf is because I remembered Whit Bissell in it. (No one says “Halloween” more than the good Doctor Bissell.) No Whit, and even less wit, as John Agar, Leo G. Carroll and Gina Gershon lookalike Mara Corday are terrified by a giant, hairy arachnid. They should have quit with the impressive spider FX, but, no, Leo G. had to experiment on humans and subsequently get a dose himself. As in too many 50s horror films, the makeup draws howls…of laughter. Dan Blocker’s cosmetic makeover in the 3 Stooges Outer Space Jitters is unnerving by comparison.
Happy Halloween, everybody, and as Pee-Wee Herman said, “DON’T EAT ANY APPLES YOU CAN SHAVE WITH!!!”
Listen to the KPBS broadcast here.
Tags: Alfred Hitchcock, Don Rickles, Halloween, halloween movies, horror films, psycho, psycho movie, roger corman, rosemary's baby, tarantula, tarantula movie, THE HITCHER, the man with the x-ray eyes, x: the man with the x-ray eyesFiled Under DVD, Image Blog, Interviews, Reviews