21 November 2009

The Saints are back! (And finally at a screen near me)




A month ago, an event occurred that I have been waiting on for the last five years.  That's right boys and girls, The Boondock Saints II:  All Saints Day hit theatres.  The terrible problem at play is the fact that it was initially released in a limited number of theatres in the Northeast and on the West Coast. That all changed this past Friday when Apparition expanded distribution to include major metropolitan areas.  The result?  Necessary action, my friends.  Thursday, a friend and I made the trek to Marietta, GA to catch the matinée and it was everything we had expected and more.  All I have to say is that if you are a Boondocks fan, you need to see this and if you don't know what I'm talking about then check out the original and then hit the theatre.  I should point out that there were around ten cars total in the theatre parking lot.  When you subtract staff from that number you get pretty close to the five of us that watched this movie (which is good for a Thursday shortly after 1:00 pm).  That's right, the odds are good that the only people in the house watching other movies were projectionists.





As for those of you who think it's just a rip-off of Tarantino then you don't know what you are talking about.  While Troy Duffy and Quentin Tarantino both utilise aesthetic violence in their work, there is a philosophical difference in how they do this.  That's right folks, philosophical.  You can't escape it because you never cease to think and thus we are all philosophers.  The point is that artistic violence utilised by Tarantino is philosophically postmodernist.  At the end of the day, you feel no real connexion to Tarantino's characters.  On the other hand, when Connor and Murphy kill gangsters, you identify with them.  Duffy's characters kill for a higher  reason than simply advancing the plot:  to destroy evil.  Tarantino's characters kill to advance the plot and sometimes simply because they can.  The point is that the only thing in common between Duffy and Tarantino is the presence of artistic violence.  Everything else is different in nature even as far as the plots in question.  The closest Tarantino has ever gotten to a story of divine retribution like Boondocks is his revenge epic, Kill Bill I & II.  This difference is borne out in how Tarantino and Duffy shoot their fight scenes.  Tarantino's scenes are fast, extremely bloody (like a performance artist throwing paint), cut quickly and people die in fantastical ways.  Duffy's fight scenes are in slow motion, include a great deal of symbolism and imagery and people die in relatively (for a gun fight) normal ways.  Additionally, Tarantino's scenes, while choreographed are choreographed to appear chaotic.  With Duffy, his scenes are more reminiscent of a dance.  Bodies don't just fall, they fall   These differences in style are all indicative of the differences in underlying philosophy, both in general and in regard to film that these respective directors hold.  The point?  Stop painting everything with such a damn broad brush.  That's all I'm trying to say (That and I'm tired of typing this and I don't care what you think so I'm going to cut it to a close.)





So, if you are interested in seeing Boondocks II check out their website and find a theatre near you.  If you don't have the luck of the Irish, then head over to Eventful.com and add your name to the list of people that want to see it.  After all, it worked for Paranormal Activity so why not give it a shot here too?

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