No. And I actually liked the first two. The poster’s tagline makes me want to say, “Do you PROMISE?”
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“To Live and Die in LA” – what a great wrong way car chase. There’s also the great one in De Niro’s “Ronin.” And a shorter one in the first “Taken.”
Sorry to hear that the well’s run dry with the third movie. I also really like the first one.
I love awesome car chases and that car chase in To Live and Die in LA is at the top of the list. It’s INSANELY suspenseful – AND requires good old-fashioned stunt driving – it’s thrilling!!
here, they just fake it – create it in the editing room. Lazy.
I liked Taken 2 better than Taken – but yeah, both of them are fine thrillers for what they are.
I re-watched it this morning in preparation for the review, and it holds up in the memory!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qkjY85WguI
Holds up? God, it’s even more awesome than I remember! When they cut in front of the train, when the semi jack-knifes… just wow. And driving down the LA River is like being in some canyon in a western, with the bad guys shooting at them.
In LA when you go the wrong way down the freeway, they flip you off. In Paris (Ronin) they only flash their brights at you.
William Peterson is so intense and charismatic. Do you know what he’s doing now? Per Wikipedia he was in a play “Slowgirl” in LA last year. But the run ended in April.
That whole train sequence – YES!
It requires stunt drivers who can drive – and then shooting through the front windshield, so you can see what’s coming at you – this isn’t green-screen shit, this is actually happening.
They shoot in the canal-canyon a bit in Taken 3 too – but just totally miss all the opportunities that awesome landscape inspires.
William Petersen was great in that – he helps sell the scene and you totally believe he’s driving – I’m not sure what he’s doing. CSI was a hit, right?
The To Live and Die in L.A. car chase is the template by which I compare all action scenes. It’s just perfect.
Even before the clip you attached starts, there is an amazing shot, right after the agent is killed and they jump in the car. They start to speed away, and for a moment it looks like they are in the clear, but the camera slowly pans up, and we see that they are being tracked by another car on the overpass above. It’s a shot I have commented on before, and if memory serves it lasts about 20 seconds. It orients the viewer with a real sense of time and space. I always yearn for this scene when I see a bad action scene like the ones you are describing, and when I see a good action scene, like in Snowpiercer, I think “Yes, he must have studied To Live and Die in L.A.”. I am guessing that there are no 20 second action shots in Taken 3.
Big William Petersen fan. Ever see Long Gone? Made for HBO in 1987. Best baseball movie ever.
Todd – What a wonderful addition to the conversation, thank you – you have SUCH a good memory.
I agree – that the car chase scene in To Live and Die is a template, one of the all-time greats – and love your memory of the moment before, with the overpass – // It orients the viewer with a real sense of time and space. //
What the hell has happened that this is seen as not important by these new action directors like Mr. Megaton (his name is too good to be believed.)
Once you know WHERE you are, once you establish that – THEN you can go all crazy – but it is essential that people know where they are. It’s just sloppy otherwise. It shows a real lack of skill – I would bet that the editors did the best they could with the footage they were provided in Taken 3 – but you can’t create something that never happened, you can’t go back to an establishing shot if you’ve never even shot one. It’s baffling.
I mean – isn’t the fun of making an action movie the challenges therein? Don’t you want to rise to the challenge? No? It’s so depressing.
How on earth have I missed Long Gone. Petersen would make a great baseball player – I love baseball movies and that one I have not seen.
And that swan-dive off a bridge – yes? If I’m remembering right – the camera follows him the whole way down.
Please correct me if I’m wrong – but that’s another stunner, where it honestly looks like it’s happening, actually being done .
A quick Google search tells me that a lot has been written about the bridge jump.
seen in this montage of clips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4nIkZYI678
And of course Dean Stockwell is in To Live and Die in LA! Sooooo sleazy.
Thanks! Yeah, I am pretty sure Petersen himself bungee jumped in that scene. Friedkin had already directed The French Connection, and he really challenged himself with To Live and Die in LA to make an even BETTER car chase, and better action movie. I don’t get the sense that the makers of Taken 3 felt such a challenge.
I blame Paul Greengrass and the 2nd Bourne movie for much of this. He is a good director, (I LOVED Captain Philips) and I think you make a great point that once the viewer is oriented, you can start to mash things up. Greengrass obviously is good at that, but his style has rubbed off on most directors the wrong way, who think they can fix everything in the editing room by just cutting to a new shot 4 times a second.
That’s why I responded so strongly to Snowpiercer, because it’s clear early on that this is a director who “gets it”. I knew very quickly I was in good hands and was able to really relax and enjoy. Many directors just REFUSE to let anything breathe anymore.
Long Gone was obviously ripped off later on by Bull Durham (which I like but don’t love.) It’s in the same mold as Slap Shot, will Petersen absolutely great in the “Paul Newman” role. It was my favorite performance for a long time before I started thinking consciously about such things. I wanted to BE Stud Cantrell (Petersen’s character). He was awesome. Virginia Madsen was great too.
It used to air often on HBO in the “early days” of cable, but now it seems like it has vanished. I think it is only available on VHS, which is criminal. Hopefully it will get a DVD release one day. If you have a chance to see it I give you my personal guarantee that you will love it!
// Greengrass obviously is good at that, but his style has rubbed off on most directors the wrong way, who think they can fix everything in the editing room by just cutting to a new shot 4 times a second. //
Interesting about the 2nd Bourne movie – has anyone out there written a critical analysis of the negative impact that film has had? I saw it, but it doesn’t stick with me. I loved Captain Phillips too – but that was full of firm establishing shots, so you knew the lay of the land, the layout of the boat – it was completely clear what was happening in that totally chaotic final scene, and think of all of the challenges there!
// Many directors just REFUSE to let anything breathe anymore. //
They can’t allow for it because they have no craft. They don’t trust the story, the actors, or the audience.
That’s why something like Inherent Vice feels like a miracle – let alone, oh, Carnal Knowledge … Jeez Louise. I re-watched My Man Godfrey the other day and it is filled with long long takes, minutes long – with multiple people onscreen, spouting pages and pages of dialogue. It is exhilarating. There’s blocking but not much.
I feel like people wouldn’t know how to shoot My Man Godfrey today if they tried – it’s practically a lost art.
Maybe that’s what’s so depressing about Taken 3. You can feel how thin it is – so instead of going back to the drawing board and, you know, get a better story – they pump everything up, even small family scenes, with 20 which-way cuts – and God, it’s so shoddy. There’s zero trust in us the audience, even with two people talking to each other.
Yeah – just looked up Long Gone and saw immediately it would be hard to find.
All you need to do is say it’s like Slap Shot and I’m in.
Oops, sorry for double post! Yeah, Stockwell in To Live and Die in LA. Awesome!
He’s got a fake tan, if I recall. I think he only has one scene, right?
He has a few scenes, he meets with Rick Masters (Dafoe) to discuss Turturro in jail, and then later on he meets with John Pankow’s character, and offers him ” indirect involvement” for $50,000. He oozes sleaze in a few moments. And his character’s name was the awsome Bob Grimes!
I love the name of the Taken 3 director. I can picture the meeting: “We have no story but we are going to production anyway, who can hit the audience over the head with an anvil?” ” I know, how about Megaton!”. Sounds like one of my kids Transformers.
It’s the meeting in the bar that I remember – that horrible bar – and it’s daylight – and he’s got some tumbler of liquor with ice in it, and it’s all just so bleak. Los Angeles, man.
Bob Grimes. Ha!!
I saw the original Pink Panther movie recently, it’s very different then the follow-ups, Sellers’ Clouseau is hardly in the movie. What was amazing to me though was how LONG some of the scenes were, just 4 or 5 minutes of people conversing over dinner or in a hotel room. It felt like such a breath of fresh air. I don’t think this is just me being “Old” either, I can appreciate razzle dazzle editing too. Just know when it’s appropriate, and have a clue what you are doing, that is all I ask.
Definitely!
I watched The Big Year again yesterday – kind of an unsung little movie – have you seen it? I want to write something about it.
And it tells three separate stories, in multiple locations, and the editing is phenomenal – I really noticed it on my second watch – lots of quick stuff, flashing us here, there, and back – giving us a sense of the frenzy of the big year – lots of “look at this, and then this, and then THIS” in quick succession – but then they are also able to slow down to something more formal in the scenes where we NEED to invest in the characters. Very confident editing job – didn’t feel like it was making up for a LACK in the material. And it was the perfect editing job for the story being told. At least that’s how it struck me.
Your example of Snowpiercer is perfect. I mean, that one fight scene – with 50 people in that tiny compartment – And in Mr. Megaton’s hands, we never would have gotten a sense of where they were, OR any sense of danger. Whereas with Bong Joon Ho – like I said in my review, I actually feared for the actors’ safety at times – because it all looks so real – they don’t use slo-mo (or not that much) – and often you see multiple people on-screen at the same time, fighting to the death.
I admit I have a soft spot for stunt men/women and also stunt drivers – when they are used well I am SO happy. I love that technical stuff, and love a great action sequence.
It’s kind of sad to see people not even TRYING. Isn’t it more fun to at least TRY?
So the 2nd Bourne movie – what happened? The franchise took off and they went apeshit with quick cuts, fearful of losing hold of their audience? What happened?
I have seen The Big Year! Really cute movie. I love movies that follow people’s obsessions, whatever they may be. That movie did a great job of “selling” that they were really travelling all over the world looking for these birds. I think there are 20 or 30 excotic locations they depict, but I found out afterwards that they weren’t actually filmed “on location”. But that is a great example of the filmmakers putting care and attention into their work.
And like you I love Jack Black. If I were forced to watch School of Rock on a continuous loop for the rest of my life I would probably be okay with that.
Jack Black is great!! And yes: it feels like it’s all over America, but I think they filmed in Canada with a short trip to Miami, and that’s it. Amazing!
Why I really thrilled to the movie was it’s actually quite a sweet look at male friendship – yes, alongside competition – but how men try to work that out, work with it. The Jack Black-Steve Martin relationship was all about that – the “how COULD you” scene was as open as two women fighting – and the movie didn’t make fun of it, or condescend to it – these guys really had to work it out, and decide “I really like you, let’s be friends again, please, and let’s work together” – it really HONORED the importance of platonic friendship (especially among people who share an obsession – and especially among men – it’s refreshing, considering the bro-mance version of bonding which usually involves getting drunk and killing hookers.)
Totally with you on School of Rock!!
Yes a very different take on male friendships and relationshipsy. You should definitely do a full write-up of that one… if you want to of course.
I really want to! – it came up again in one of my SPN re-caps and I thought – I need to write about that damn movie. Especially since nobody really paid attention to it at the time!
Jack Black holding up his finger for silence, closing his eyes, listening to a bird-call, and then stating flatly, “Western tanager.”
One of my favorite actors.
Yeah he is so good. The scene in the woods with Brian Dennehey, playing his Dad, stuck out to me. Jack leaves him alone for a bit, then panics and hurries back for him. I started feeling panicked too.
Jack Black has this special power where the emotions just jump off the screen and hit you. I agree he is a rare talent, and as great as he has been I think his most interesting work is ahead of him.
// then panics and hurries back for him. //
Beautiful scene – and then the two of them holding onto one another in awe and wonder as they stare up at the owl. I’m a sap. I cried.
// I think his most interesting work is ahead of him. //
Me too. I can’t wait.
Your no sap, that scene choked me up too, which I did NOT expect in that movie. That’s his power (and credit to Dennehey too) and I guess a great example of the power of great acting to occasionally transcend the material.
Yes – because each guy had his own thing to deal with in his real life – career stuff, having babies stuff, and for him – getting in sync with his dad. He had to grow up too – he had to be his own man before he and his father had that moment together. It’s not just that the father “came around” – the Jack Black character had to take ownership of his life, be a man, a grown-up. It’s a two-way street – I think that’s one of the reasons I find it so emotional. Black just plays that, 200%. You really get what a brat he is early on – a 36 year old man being like, “JEEZ DAD WHY DON’T YOU RESPECT ME??” Uhm, maybe because you’re acting like a brat and you still live at home and you’re rude to your parents like you’re still an adolescent?
Ha. Anyway – loved that whole Arc. And Dianne Wiest, too!
Great thoughts. It’s one of those movies that sneaks up on you.
From Taken 3 to The Big Year, that’s quite a journey!
With a small stopover in To Live and Die in LA.
Love the movies.