Category: Wesley Snipes

WHITE MEN CAN’T JUMP (1992)

By Marc S. Sanders

I’m not enamored so much by sports unless they are dramatized effectively in the movies.  If I can see Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes making magnificent trick shots with a basketball in White Men Can’t Jump, my attention will be had.  There’s lot of street corner basketball depicted in Ron Shelton’s film and for the most part it is sensational and quite funny when partnered with the on court ribbing that guys toss at one another.  This film arrived with the oncoming trend of “Your momma is so…” insults, which still bring out the sophomoric glee in me.

Fortunately, White Men Can’t Jump doesn’t just rely on the basketball antics. There’s a good set up here and some well-drawn characters.  It’s one flaw may be that I think the film overstays its welcome.  Just when you think the picture is over and every loose end is tied, a new development occurs.  That’s because every sports movie demands a final championship game.  Who made up that stupid rule?

Billy Hoyle (Harrelson) makes quick cash on the court by being the fish out of water on Venice Beach.  He’s the pasty white kid with the dorky rainbow-colored cap that any urban black athlete will happily challenge for a game of one on one or two on two.  That’s the trick to his con because he’s a magnificent player actually, and regular player and loudmouth Sidney Deane (Snipes) sees an opportunity for them to partner up and clean up.  Like most competitive sports, you gotta taunt your opponent and when they have gone overboard, you lay on your conceit and declare that you can beat them any day with any guy they choose to partner them up with, such as the blond, white guy sitting on the bench doing morning stretches. 

They each have their own motivations.  Billy is up to his neck in debt to some bookies who he wouldn’t throw a game for. They are ready to collect or shoot him in the head, or both.  His girlfriend Gloria (Rosie Perez in a standout performance) aspires to land a spot on Jeopardy!. Sidney lives with his wife Rhonda (Tyra Ferrell) and baby in the criminal area of Watts.  She’s pressuring him to get them out of the slums and buy a house in a nice neighborhood. 

At first, the cons work for the pair, but the question is can Billy and Sidney trust one another.  Will they scam each other while trying to work together?

Ron Shelton’s script works because it turns in various directions when you do not expect it.  These are unusual characters. Lovable, but not all that they seem either and they are built with flaws that will undo them while they try to make a further leap ahead.  Billy is a smart kid on the court but he’s not smart with money like Gloria.  Sidney is smart at putting up the façade of a dumb loudmouth on the court but that’s his M.O. for being a responsible family man.  Gloria seems like a zany dingbat on the surface but she may be the smartest character of them all.  It’s definately not because she has memorized every kind of food that begins with the letter Q for the game show.  She has true instincts and knows to see through the B.S. of people that her boyfriend Billy can’t. 

White Men Can’t Jump is a both a con movie and a sports movie, but it’s not the greatest of each of those categories.  Still, it’s very, very entertaining thanks to Harrelson, Snipes and Perez working in top form. Wesley Snipes is doing the fast-talking wise ass routine that Eddie Murphy built his career on.  You don’t see this kind of guy in every Wesley Snipes movie though, like you do in Murphy’s films.  That’s what impresses me with Wesley Snipes.  He’s not known to be an Eddie Murphy or a Chris Rock.  He’s an actor, not a comedian, and yet he’d convince me otherwise if this was the only performance I ever saw.  

Other than his obvious role in Cheers, Harrelson normally portrays smarter guys.  Billy is smart, but he lacks instinct and not just with money but with how he considers Gloria.  The best thing Ron Shelton could have done after perfectly casting this trio was to give these characters heart followed by the flaws that weigh them down.  All that maintains what could have been a one note and flat story.

However, the film runs a little longer than I cared for.  While basketball is at the forefront of the script, I believed the film was concluding when I saw the two guys had finally grown up and learned.  Only then, a new development occurs for Sidney and his family. Suddenly, it’s up to the two guys to get back together for one more game.  I didn’t need that one more game.  I had my fill and that final tournament is shot in slow motion – literally every shot the guys make, and I’m starting to lose my patience.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m impressed.  Harrelson and Snipes are not stunt doubled.  That’s them doing the doing the shots and accomplishing enormous efforts of agility to wow the audience.  They’re great, but by this point, I had seen enough basketball to deliver the message and I found the tacked-on twenty-minute epilogue mostly unnecessary. 

Granted some may argue that something occurs in that last game to justify the literal title of the movie.  I know what you’re talking about.  Yet, that could have been covered a lot more efficiently, I believe.  Less would have been more in this situation.

White Men Can’t Jump is great comedic entertainment, full of improvised dialogue and characters that are easy to like while keeping up a skeptical guard on them.  That’s good.  It states that Shelton’s characters are complex and that holds my interest.  Even the extras are ones to appreciate in their sweaty t-shirts while delivering urban vernacular to harass one another.  It’s a great culture to get a peek into.  I love the one guy who is a sore loser and whips out his knife, but then just as his girl calms him down, he says forget the knife.  He’s gonna get his gun. I challenge anyone not to laugh as all the other guys on the playground make a mad dash escape in a hundred different directions.  It would likely go down this way.  We hear of violent stabbings and shootings all the time. In this movie however, Ron Shelton and his cast find the natural humor of this opposing conflict.

I guess that’s the best compliment I can give the writer/director.  He didn’t sensationalize his characters.  Ron Shelton has a way of just letting his creatures of the court play.  Into—the—basket it goes. 

SWISH!!!!  It works.

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

By Marc S. Sanders

Hollywood back stories have created a quandary for the studios’ celebrated film franchises, especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Disney has purchased the properties and copyrights belonging to 20th Century Fox and now, at last the X-Men can properly meet Captain America and the Hulk and Spider-Man…well only if Sony will let the wall crawler come out and play.  So, how should all these guys meet one another, especially now that some of these actors who play these superheroes have received their AARP cards?  Furthermore, some of these characters are dead…at least for now.  Marvel producer Kevin Feige has the answer.  Only Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), the Merc With The Mouth who breaks the fourth wall at any given moment, can bring this all together.

Deadpool & Wolverine is the best of the smart aleck hero’s three movies.  Yet, it’s more of just a gimmicky flick than anything else.  This proudly excessive two-hour tentpole picture operates like a solid collection of Saturday Night Live skits, with buckets of blood to splatter instead of The Three Stooges’ cream pies.

Allow me to break down this very thin storyline.  Matthew MacFadyen is Mr. Paradox in a three-piece suit.  He informs Mr. Deadpool that his timeline is about to fizzle out of existence.  Somehow, our hero has to locate help from a Wolverine variant of another universe (Hugh Jackman, of course) to make things right again.  

There’s your open door into the silliness that normally comes with Deadpool.  Our title characters are tossed into a Mad Max kind of wasteland called the Void and an abundance of cameos commence from here on out.  The suprise appearances are a lot of fun and I dare not spoil a single one of them.  The rest of the internet did that the night before the film actually opened. I shan’t lend to that egregious violation. (I’m looking at you Variety, Yahoo and Entertainment Weekly. Was it truly necessary to go in that direction?)

I could never relate to the other Deadpool movies.  Sure, they had some hilarious wink and nod gags, at the expense of Reynolds’ career experiences with past superhero franchises.  Yet, those other films were also trying to work too hard with storylines weaved in as well.  They became tiresome and Ryan Reynolds is not the Bill Murray of yesteryear or even Robert Downey Jr. His schtick in this element was overdone.

With this third installment, the approach works with an Airplane! or Naked Gun finish.  That being said, it takes a lot of knowledge from prior Marvel films within the 20th Century Fox warehouse to get every gag.  It helps to know what other super hero movies missed out on getting green lit, which ones tanked at the box office and who are some of these very obscure characters that were churned out of the meat grinder.  If you know these guys, then you’ll applaud the purpose they serve to of any jokes or story references that allow this new picture to operate.

I found it fun.  I think most lovers of Marvel movies will too.  Yet would someone like my sixteen-year-old daughter catch every reference or cameo that walks into frame? Some characters have not appeared on screen in over twenty years.  Reynolds and company also toss out one-liners that reference dated Hollywood gossip.  There was a lot of explanation that I had to fill in for my wife on the drive home.

Beyond all this, Deadpool and Wolverine, played by Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, work really well together like a good buddy cop picture.  Get these guys back together again in a Lethal Weapon or 48 Hrs kind of movie and I’m there.  Honda might not be too fond of these guys, but their pairing is an overdue welcome to the big screen.  Why Honda? See the movie and you’ll know what I mean, but I am eternally grateful for the automaker’s contribution to this picture.

As expected, the violence is excessive.  I think I’ve had my fill of knives and claws being thrust into men’s crotches.  Seems to happen literally every five minutes.  Beheadings abound too.  Slow mo flips and bullets and bullet casings flying and dropping out of guns is never enough for these filmmakers either.  

Some will try to convince me of how tender hearted the picture is too.  Bah!!!! I know what you’re talking about, but go watch Terms Of Endearment or even Avengers: Endgame to get your tear ducts exercising.  The Hallmark moments here never carried much weight for me.

Deadpool & Wolverine is a grand time at the movies, worth seeing with an enthusiastic crowd over settling for a lonely night at home with Disney Plus.  The movie is a little too long, though.  None of the material belongs on the cutting room floor, but a good chunk of it could have been preserved for the next Deadpool blood spattered, slapsticky flick. I just didn’t need to consume all of the eggs in the basket.

My Personal Edit for the MCU: While I toss out my bravo on Marvel’s willingness for self-depreciation on a celebrity roast level with Reynolds and Jackman at the helm, it’s time to get serious again.  

Please get off this multi verse kick.  Director James Mangold (Logan, …Dial Of Destiny, 3:10 To Yuma) said it best that multi verse approaches produce lazy writing.  There’s no stakes anymore.  Hard to believe a character is dead when we watch him/her/they die.  They’ll just come back in the multi verse!!! Enough already.  

Bring back the villains who work based on sound logic like Thanos, Eric Killmonger and Obadiah Stane.  When these guys commit their worst misdeeds, know they did it for a greater purpose than just a mustache twirl and an evil laugh.  I could get behind their arguments.

More importantly, when the job is done, let it stay done.  Treat the audience fairly.  

As Annie Wilkes passionately declared: “Are you blind? They just cheated us.  HE DIDN’T GET OUT OF THE COCKADOODIE CAR!!!!”  I know exactly what you’re talking about Annie. Where’s that sledgehammer?

DEMOLITION MAN

By Marc S. Sanders

In the years since the Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes futuristic action picture Demolition Man came out in 1993, bloggers have been giddy to post about how brilliant the satire is, especially since much of its fictional future set in a totalitarian San Angeles (formerly Los) in the year 2032 ended up becoming real to some degree.  Okay, fine.  I’ll go with what they say.  However, Reader, this is not on the same level as Paddy Chayefsky’s prophetical film, Network, and the legacy it has bestowed.  Demolition Man remains just as stupid as it was when it first came out.

In a mid-1990s prologue of fire, gunfire, and flames, a vicious killer named Simon Phoenix (Snipes), with a happy go lucky habit of giggling through the mayhem he unleashes, is apprehended by decorated cop John Spartan (Stallone).  However, both men are sentenced to decades of cryo-freeze imprisonment because the hostages that Phoenix held had perished and Spartan was found neglectful.

The film jumps to 36 years later. Phoenix has been released and immediately returns to his old habits.  The problem is the law enforcement of this period is not equipped to contain the crazed criminal.  So, Spartan is defrosted as well to go up against Phoenix.  This future is occupied by the cute smiles and charms of Sandra Bullock, Benjamin Bratt and Rob Schneider as the cops who happily sing the melodies made famous by radio and television ads.  Guns are entirely outlawed along with drugs, alcohol, spicy food, and obscene language.  Say a curse word and a machine is nearby, quick to charge you with the offense.  Touching and the exchange of bodily fluids are forbidden as well.  A high five with no contact was an uncanny precursor and is now reminiscent of the early days of the Covid crisis when it was strongly urged that people not even shake hands.  About the only favorable improvement of this future is that toilet paper is no longer used, and people resort to solving their hygiene problems with three seashells.  Regrettably, the technique is never demonstrated.

This film invests a lot of time in its satire, and I appreciate the attempt to find its humor.  The problem is the humor is delivered by Sylvester Stallone and he’s not Bill Murray or Aaron Eckhardt (check out Thank You For Smoking).  Satire is not a wheelhouse for Stallone to reside in.  Sandra Bullock on the other hand is cute in her response.  A memorable scene could have been so much better had Bullock had a more appropriate scene partner.  Lovemaking takes on a whole new method in this 2032 future.  Head devices are used to stimulate the mind.  Oddly enough, you could say that’s the direction that virtual reality has taken.  I appreciate the intuitiveness, but Stallone’s performance doesn’t.  What was intended to be a foreign experience for sexual gratification, comes off very clunky with Stallone.  Imagine what Ben Stiller or Paul Rudd could have done here.  Bruce Willis would have been marvelous in a scene like this.

Wesley Snipes is just as good an action star as Stallone or Willis or Schwarzenegger.  Unfortunately, his Simon Phoenix is so one note as a villain.  He’s a got a bleach blonde crew cut and a giggle and nothing else.  Stallone’s character describes Phoenix as a dirt bag, and the dastardly bad guy shoots guns and does quick kicks.  There’s nothing to know or learn about this guy.  He’s just a target for Sylvester Stallone to do his typical Sylvester Stallone with a shotgun and a handgun and his signature rahhhhhhh bellow that he’s provided in Rambo and Cliffhanger and Cobra and most of the rest of his career.  (Don’t get me wrong though.  Stallone does have a good repertoire of movies.  This one in particular is what doesn’t work.)

Denis Leary lends to the thin plot for a time.  Back in ’93, Leary was known for a few MTV ads where he did his infamous ranting monologue while popping a cigarette.  Because the script for Demolition Man is so nil, the angry comedian is granted opportunity to do his schtick here…twice!  It didn’t amuse me in ’93.  Now it’s just terribly outdated.

Back to the satire, I question the response of the players.  This film takes place only 36 years after a time of violent crime and cursing and smoking and drinking and all the debauchery that we were tolerated.  When Rob Schneider and the police look shocked and terrified at Simon Phoenix’ measure of violence, they are completely oblivious to what’s occurring.  I dunno.  Should they be that gullible?  This guy is only from a time that’s just over thirty years ago.  It hasn’t been that long.  Bullock even has a poster of Lethal Weapon 3 hanging in her office.  The response was hard for me to swallow, and that’s what killed the satirical attempts.  You can’t be that dumbfounded or naïve, can you?

There was a good idea here, but any kind of semblance of thought went out the window once that was jotted down.  The right player was not inserted into the main slot.  Stallone is miscast.  That’s the biggest problem.  Demolition Man hinges on the ho hum gunplay of any Sylvester Stallone actioner and stands on a sliver of irony with how dynamics have played out since the film’s release.  That’s not enough to consider it a fun kind of popcorn flick, though.  Demolition Man needs to remain frozen in time.

MAJOR LEAGUE

By Marc S. Sanders

Never seen it before!!!! Finally at the behest of my colleague Miguel Rodriguez and company I sat down to take in the view.

Tom Berenger was a B leading man of the 1980s. Rugged with shaggy hair and a hoarse voice in films like Platoon, Someone To Watch Over Me and Shoot To Kill (a secret favorite of mine). Here in Major League, he carries on that tradition as an aging ball player with bad knees. He’s not given many of the gags, but he sure is likable. I didn’t need the inevitable romantic subplot with Rene Russo. Nothing great there. When he’s playing the ball player in a catcher’s uniform though, Berenger is at his best.

Wesley Snipes shows the future of his albeit temporary star power. He’s not on the level of Eddie Murphy funny but he made me laugh nonetheless, as the base stealer. His entrance into the film is hilarious. A cross between a Bentley & Volkswagen Beetle perfectly sums up his character. Looks like class when really he’s got none.

Dennis Haysbert is one guy I never knew was featured. Now, this guy can bring the comedy as a Voodoo believer trying to get his idols to help him hit a curve ball pitch. He was my favorite.

Charlie Sheen is the Wild Thing. It’s not so much Charlie Sheen’s talent. It’s how his character is written that’s hilarious. Writer/Director David Ward (The Sting) doesn’t rely on dialogue for his 2nd billing star. Sheen doesn’t say much actually. Sheen brings the image of a near sighted, out of control, felon with a power arm teetering on 100mph. Throw in some nerd glasses, a punk haircut and an anthem song, and now you’ve got a gag to carry you through a good comedy.

Major League screams of an 80s picture, most especially with the synthesized keyboard soundtrack, Berenger’s Miami Vice sports jacket over a t-shirt, Bob Uecker (great timing as a sports announcer), and 80s mainstay Corbin Bernsen (TVs L.A. Law). Sure, it’s dated but I found the movie to be fun.

Not my favorite baseball film. That belongs to Bull Durham. Still, I’m glad I finally saw Major League.

Oh yeah. As in many sports movies, the team sucks (hey…it’s the Cleveland Indians), the owner wants to stay that way for profit and the team eventually unites themselves to victory.

Exactly!!!! Rene Russo has nothing to do with any of this.

BLADE II (2002)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Norman Reedus, Donnie Yen
My Rating: 9/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 57%

PLOT: Blade, half human/half vampire, forms an uneasy alliance with the vampire nation in order to combat a new breed of monster, the Reapers, who are feeding on vampires and humans alike.


Why don’t more people like this movie?  It’s like someone took the best fight scenes from The Matrix, removed the pretentious plotting, added a crapload of gore, and created one of the best villains in the history of vampire movies: the Reaper, an evil-looking creature whose lower jaw splits wide down the middle to reveal a blood-sucking appendage that might even give the Xenomorph nightmares.

Blade II is lean and mean.  Director Guillermo del Toro has gone on record as saying this was not exactly the movie he intended to make, as it doesn’t keep precisely to the Blade “canon” (in case you didn’t know, Blade is a lesser-known Marvel comics character who is scheduled to eventually make an appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe).  However, despite his misgivings about this film, del Toro nevertheless created an action-horror masterpiece.

If you’re a fan of action films, what do you like?  Because it’s all here.  There are five great fight scenes, including a doozy in Blade’s own lair between Blade and two vampire ninjas wearing elaborate headgear that makes them look like humanoid bugs.  You like a great villain?  Here’s Jared Nomak, the vampire who carries the Reaper virus, whose wounds heal by themselves almost instantly, and who carries a dark secret.  His fighting skills are equal to those of Blade himself, who must learn to use more than brute force if he’s going to defeat Nomak.  (And let’s not overlook the cameo by Asian superstar Donnie Yen.)

You like a good story?  We got that, too.  Blade’s sworn enemies, the vampire nation, are forced to approach Blade for help when it becomes apparent they are no match for the Reapers.  Blade HAS to help, because who will the Reapers go after once they dispatch all the vampires?  Humans.  So you have the whole “uneasy alliance” going on, with no one more uneasy than Reinhardt, a vampire played by a deliciously malevolent Ron Perlman.  Reinhardt goes along with the plan, but can’t resist poking the tiger by asking Blade, “…can you blush?”  Blade’s response gives a whole new meaning to the term “kill switch.”  Game, set, match.

This is also a horror film, let’s not forget.  You like scares?  How about the part where a Reaper gets pinned to a wall with a ninja sword through its stomach…but escapes by crawling backwards up the wall, forcing the sword to slice through his body as he skitters away, unfazed by the damage?  YIKES.  We got gore, too.  Blade and company perform an autopsy on a dead Reaper.  I haven’t seen that much detailed gore since the autopsy in John Carpenter’s The Thing.

I mean, seriously.  This movie has everything I want in an action movie that’s also a horror film.  It covers ALL the bases.  (I could’ve done without the quasi-love-story, but it’s not dwelt on too much, so I can live with it.)  What more could anyone ask for?

(Also, it’s great to listen to on a bad-ass audio system…BOOMING bass and sound effects.  Great stuff.)