Friday

So yeah, this isn't part of that whole "watching the greatest movies ever made" thing. It's a simple low budget comedy, but a pretty good one for the most part. I wasn't expecting a lot out of Ice Cube's acting as Craig, but his hard edged persona actually works well with the silly material. Chris Tucker plays Smokey in what was his breakout role, and the two of them make for a pretty entertaining on-screen duo. The plot is as basic as they come - Craig lost his job yesterday, so he spends his now-free Friday hanging out with Smokey and watching the people in the neighborhood. Things get more complicated later, after Smokey accidentally smokes too much of the weed he was supposed to sell, and they get into some trouble with the dealers. Also the local bully causes some troubles. But all of the trouble they get into is pretty minor, and just a way to try to build some tension near the end of the movie and give it a climax. They're never really in a lot of danger, and things work out exactly as expected. Which is okay, because the movie's just supposed to be funny, and it mostly is. A few of the jokes are pretty broad and disappointing, like some easy scatalogical humor and a midget being funny because he's a midget. But for the most part it's an easygoing movie with a few likable comedic performances and a decent soul behind it. It's just nice to see a side to 90s LA that's a bit more fun. I don't know about the sequels though, especially without Tucker's strong personality holding them up.

Jackie Brown

Jackie Brown is a bit of an oddity. It's Quentin Tarantino's third and probably least remembered film. One of the only stories he's done that wasn't his own, he took the plot from an Elmore Leonard novel (Who wrote many things that were adapted to screen, like 3:10 to Yuma) and reworked it into a tribute to 70's blaxploitation films, even starring a veteran of the genre, Pam Grier. Another big character is played by Robert Forster, who was also a long-time actor without a ton of success, and whom I only recognize from recent episodes of the increasingly-shitty Heroes. I guess Tarantino likes reviving people's careers. Some really big names (at least for the time) like Robert De Niro and Michael Keaton play smaller parts, but the movie focuses on Grier, Forster, and the always cool Samuel L. Jackson, who by the way turns 60 next month, can you believe that?

Anyway, Jackie Brown is a pretty solid crime movie, if not up to the standards of Tarantino's other work. It does a lot of things well that you expect from him, like clever dialogue that's just fun to listen to and some interesting decisions made with the filming. For some reason, I always seem to like the way he handles important scenes, especially violent ones. You can just sort of tell when something bad will happen, but it's still surprising to see how it actually comes about. Jackson is about as entertaining here as he was in Pulp Fiction, and the cast in general does a good job with the script.

On the other hand, the movie has some of the problems he's known for, too. If there's one thing he needs to learn as a filmmaker, it's how to let a scene go. Maybe he just needs a more assertive editor. Jackie Brown is indisputably too long. This isn't an epic crime drama, it just wants to be. It has all the makings of a tightly woven, thrilling movie, it just has an extra half-hour stapled on. Too many scenes don't really serve the plot, just add character where it isn't needed or go on for too long. Showing the same important moment from three different perspectives is a somewhat interesting creative choice, but there's no reason it couldn't have worked with all three cut together and a lot of time saved. It just sort of feels like an unnecessary flourish. And I know he likes to follow characters around with really long tracking shots, but I'm not sure anyone else does. Tarantino took a long break from directing after this movie, and I've never really heard why, and Kill Bill's running length suggests it wasn't to rethink his style. Whatever the reason, it wasn't because he made a decent if unexceptional genre film.