8.04.2010

The Boondock Saints II: Poop In A Sock


8.4.10
4:20 pm
I'll allow a moment for anyone reading this to "smoke a fatty".
...
There we are.
Congrats.
In the summer of 1998, I was first introduced to "The Boondock Saints" by Will.
It was an excellently over-the-top stylish action movie full of hilarious and quotable characters.
Plus Willem Dafoe in, perhaps, one of his most frightening roles ever and Ron Jeremy in, perhaps, one of his most erotic roles ever.*
While the story wasn't anything people hadn't seen before, it was fun as hell.
The ending was a total cliffhanger and fans wanted the sequel NOW.**
When I got to college in 1999, I found out that Boondock Saints had become a fixture with 18-year old males.
The movie...was EVERYWHERE.
A room that didn't own at least one copy was instantly shunned.
And the sequel was nowhere to be seen, a mere whisper of a rumor of it being on the horizon eventually.
The writer/director/house band Troy Duffy had made a pretty good movie that had become an instant classic with the 18 to 25 crowd.
He began to believe, not only his own hype, but that he was a god amongst fools.
In 2003 a documentary was set to be made about him and how he was going to redefine the action genre, but he treated the people involved like shit to the point where they re-edited it and released it as "Overnight".
The film was mainly to show Troy Duffy burning up, not only all his Hollywood bridges, but also all his credibility and good will he'd accrued after the first flick and to cement the idea that Boondock Saints 2 was never going to be made.
People were bummed, but eventually, they forgot about Mr. Duffy's Wild Ride.
Over the next year or two, bits of plot or script or a web site would pop up proclaiming "Boondock Saints II: Second Coming...Coming Soon." 
It didn't.
Fast forward to a time when the people that would have cared about the sequel are now about eleven years older.
Troy Duffy writes, directs and does the entire soundtrack for (not just instrumental stuff; he and his band record songs FOR the scenes in the movie so they all sort of reflect or downright ADDRESS what you are seeing on the screen...it's goddamn horrible and probably the reason he made Boondock Saints in the first place, to drum up publicity for his shitty band) the sequel.
It makes a quiet fart sound and a bad smell that people ignore, then forget.
Last night, I put myself in a hot box with said fart smell.
And it was farty.
The biggest and most pronounced problem with "The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" is that it was made one decade after the first one rather than one year.
Well, the very biggest and most pronounced problem is that it was made, but, shut up.
I'd say the second biggest problem is that it was almost the exact same movie (same characters saying the same type of things, same here's-the-beginning-and-end-of-the-action-sequence-then-the-off-beat-but-really-smart-FBI-agent-tells-us-the-middle gimmick) but a parody of itself.
All the well done, just-over-the-top-enough-to-be-fun characters and dialogue from the first movie were blown so far out of proportion and so grossly exaggerated that there was seldom a conversation between two characters where they weren't both just shouting and waving their hands or slinging adolescent one-liners back and forth as if they were alone in the room.
Willem Dafoe was replaced with Dexter's girlfriend (from that show about the serial killer that kills serial killers on Showtime. I think it's called "Dagwood".) with a bad Southern accent.
Her character in a nutshell?
Here's a line: "Ah'm so smart Ah make smart people look fuckin' retarded."
Well met, Sir Duffy, well met.
Rocco was replaced (except for an utterly pointless jargon, catchphrase and cliché-filled dream sequence in which he and the brothers yell in unison about how manly they are and about being real men and things ain't what they used to be and other stuff taken directly from Denis Leary's stand up routine in the 90's while music from the first film plays in the background) by Clifton Clinton Jr. (looks like a combination of Harry Connick Jr., Robert Downey Jr. and a jackal), who is usually fun as hell and, God bless him, he did what he could with this soggy bag of feces, but he was literally just imitating Rocco's idiot behavior from the first movie.
The three detectives (who looked almost as ravaged by age as the brothers themselves) showed up, Fuck Ass showed up and the son of the mob guy they executed at the end of the first movie showed up...played by a potty-mouthed Judd Nelson.
Who looked kind of starving.
The whole thing was a predictable, parodic toilet romp until the last three minutes...in which Willem Dafoe comes back from the dead to sow the seeds of a global conspiracy...AND SET UP A SECOND MOTHERFUCKING SEQUEL.
That's right all you masochists, "The Boondock Saints III: There's A Hole In The Poop Sock And It's Getting Everywhere. Ugh, It's On My Hands And Everything. Oh Damn It, Some Of It Got In The Bean Dip, Damn It! I Need A Bunch Of Wet Paper Towels Now! Why On Earth Did I Ever Think It Would Be A Good Idea To Poop Into A Sock?!" is coming.
Hopefully after I'm dead.
But.
Here is how much of a Willem Dafoe fan I am.
I might see this movie.
Not in the theaters (unless the Scott Pilgrim fairies*** sprinkle some free ticket dust my way), but I would Netflix it a few years after its release, sure.
And if THAT isn't a ringing endorsement of BDS3: TAHITPSAIGEUIOMHAEODISOIGITBDDIINABOWPTNWOEDIETIWBAGITPIAS?!, I really don't know what is.
Switching plates, there is a shity new E interview on the Eels web site, and an excellent new Beck interview on the Beck web site.
There are far too many exclamation points in the E interview to be realistic so I'll chalk that shit up to Drowned In Sound or whoever the interviewer was.
It was also one of those interviews that tries to get "stylish" and blend the actual Q&A interview with factoids about the band.
The gist of the interview?
Eels have a new album coming out.
In more exciting Eels news, their live line up has been revealed as their first warm up gig happened last night at the Galaxy Theater in L.A.
Full five-piece band, featuring the Chet (multi-instrumentalist) and someone named P-Boo.
I have no idea what they play or if they are even a human, but I'm excited.
One other thing I took from the interview regarding live shows, he said to not have any expectations, meaning,that you shouldn't base the upcoming tour on an earlier tour.
In the past, I'd comb the internet for set lists and bootlegs, spoiling any surprises there might be sometimes months in advance, but this time, for the sake of my own personal enjoyment, I just might refrain.
Also, they released another track from the new album called "Baby Loves Me".
It's simple and direct, not great, but fun.
That's that.
On the other end of the interview spectrum, was the Beck interview with Pitchfork.
These guys asked him questions and he answered them.
He talked about how he did the music for Sex Bob-Omb (Scott Pilgrim's band in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World) in two days, inspired by Nigel Godrich printing massive blow ups from the graphic novels and hanging them up around the studio.
Impressive.
There's one song called "Garbage Man" or "Garbage Truck" or "I'll Be Your Garbage Man" that is pure, delicious Beck.
He also mentioned that he has a new album almost ready to go that might be out by the end of summer.
And now that he has no record label, he might just pop it up on his web site some day.
Score.
This man continually impresses and delights me.
Looking at my top five bands, I have to count myself incredibly lucky that none of them have broken up or OD'ed or started to suck.
I mean, aside from massive delays between albums because of addiction (Nine Inch Nails) or bullshit faggot**** eco-fuckery (Cake), they're still here and making music that ranges from good to excellent.
In the case of Beck with his recent spate of collaborations (Charlotte Gainsbourg, Wilco, Feist, Jamie Lidell, Thurston Moore, Tortoise, Bat for Lashes, St. Vincent, Liars, Devendra Banhart, MGMT, Tobacco, and Stephen Malkmus) and Eels three-albums-in-sixteen-months thing, M'yes, very lucky indeed. 
One last thing.
Today there is a new memo on the switchboard.
It was posted by Lady Grammar herself, my stuporvisor.
That's not a misspelling, that is what I refer to her as, as she is "stupid", yet my "supervisor".
Get it?
This is said memo, verbatim:
"WHEN USING THE CONSOLE TO PAGE'
WHEN PAGING PLEASE DIAL 3756 PRESS THE "EES" KEY
LOCATED @ THE TOP RIGHT CORNER OF
THE 'CONSOLE'
YOU WILL THEN ENTER THE NUMBER YOU
ARE PAGING AND FOLLOW THE PROMPTS.
I think my favorite part is the quotation marks around 'console'.
Right then, ta.
*Kidding.
**Meaning "then".
***I have now received a total of five invites to see this movie. Guys, I'm flattered, but spoken for.
****Meant to offend Cake, not homosexuals.

No comments: