Clive Owen Is A Stone Cold Pimp

I've been trying to come up with a better title for Clive Owen than that; it sounds too cheesy, to played out to accurately describe the man. But as of right now, I am at loss for a better word. Clive Owen is a stone cold pimp - scientific fact. It struck me yesterday as I was watching 'Croupier' (I know, I should have seen it long ago, but I'm just getting things I put on my Netflix queue in 2003 now), and I began to think back on his career. Sure, he's had some missteps (Did anyone, anywhere, at any point see 'Broken Borders'?), but in the last three years, it's amazing how he's honed his persona in a wide range of films. If you look at the posters for films like the intimate relationship drama 'Closer', or the historical action adventure 'King Arthur', or the stylized comic porn 'Sin City', or the twisty heist film 'Inside Man', or to the dystopian sci-fi thriller 'Children Of Men' (which I'm going on record as saying was my favorite film of last year) - they all have the same pull quote - "Clive Owen Is A Bad Ass." Sure, they're all from Jeffrey Lyons, who may or may not actually exist, but still, it counts.

So I decided to stack my queue with the aforementioned films as a part of a 'Clive Owen Is A Stone Cold Pimp Film Festival'. It was going to be great - I could dress in costume for each of the films, in a tuxedo for 'Croupier', in that spiffy overalls, sunglasses, and paper mask combo from 'Inside Man', and watching 'Sin City' would finally give me a reason to visit that 'Leather Daddy' store across the street from me. But then I realized something, something horrible. The one thing that first brought Clive Owen to my attention, that took my breath away except for one small hiss that went "Daaaaaamn" every thirty seconds or so, wasn't on DVD. But then I realized, I live in a world where YouTube exists.

'The Hire' films were a series of short films that BMW commisioned in 2001 and early 2002. Each film centered around Owen as a mysterious driver, who of course drove BMWs. They then got a ton of top shelf talent to work on each of them, and then showed them on the internet. These were like, one of the main reasons I bothered to show up to school for that year, waiting to watch them on a computer with an internet speed that had been updated since 1992.



"Ambush" - This was the second to last thing John Frankenheimer ever directed, and its full of the same kind of, blunt, grey European style action that he did for the last leg of his career, especially in movies like 'Ronin'. It's fitting that this is the first in the series, since where all of the subsequent entries try to tweak the car chase formula as much as possible, Frankenheimer seems perfectly content just to do it straight, and present it to you as entertainment. It's kind of like, the other directors here would freak out if their eggs Florentine were undercooked, while Frankenheimer would just order his eggs straight with a tumbler of whiskey. Because he had a drinking problem. And... I forgot where the joke was supposed to be on that one, sorry.



"The Chosen" - Ang Lee directed this while he was still riding the wave of being a visionary action director, a time when people were still blown away by 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' and were excited for 'The Hulk'. That would explain why the chase in this one is basically car ballet, and why the kid is Ang Lee's son. Why a mysertious holy child who appears to have been raised in some secluded monastery is able to purchase comic book character themed medical supplies, still remains a mystery by the end though. Because who needs logic when you have shamless self promotion for your next movie?



"The Follow" - Director Wong Kar Wai brings his usual mix of beautifully depressing romanticism to the least action oriented of all the shorts. Highlights include mostly likely by tomorrow night Oscar winner Forest Whitaker pulling out his best shifty agent routine (Every actor in Hollywood has a shifty agent routine, its how they entertain each other at parties), Mickey Rourke being creepy, and Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima looking sad and pretty. Clive Owen remains a badass throughout.



"The Star" - I often wonder about Guy Ritchie's motivations. He popularized this new genre of British Thug films, then married Madonna, made a movie with her that sunk his career, and has spent the last five years watching his wife slowly morph into one of those generic looking aliens that they show in the recreations in those 'Unsolved Mysteries' episodes where the trucker gets abducted and anally probed, all the while doing every thing she can to grasp onto the last shards of fame she has. I know you can probably shake off 'The Star' to being Madonna having a laugh at herself, but it's scary to see the level of loathing that Richie has towards his wife in this thing - and this is from five years ago, the early part of thier relationship. I just imagine Madonna walks through her kitchen with her fifteen person entourage and Guy Ritchie is just sitting there with one of those old stone wheels that you operate by foot petal, sharpening some sort of ancient sickle. "What are you doing Guy?" "Oh... you know... keeping up."



"Powder Keg" - 'Babel' director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his (after the tiff they've been having over the promotion of 'Babel, former?) writing partner Guillermo Arriaga throw enough of their trademark blend of third world politics and tragic familial miscommunication to create what I think might possibly be the most depressing car chase ever put on film. Instead of getting an adrenaline rush from watching Clive Owen out run a cadre of Mexican thugs, I was instead filled with the urge to call my mother and tell her that I loved her. Thanks alot, dick.



"Hostage" - The only thing thats really surprising about this one is that John Woo didn't manage to fit a slow-mo shot of doves in it somewhere.



"Beat The Devil" - I'm thankful for this for so many reasons. Mainly, I think it's probably the last piece of terrific James Brown out of his fucking mind material that we have from the recently buried Hardest Working Man In Showbiz. My guess is that they didn't even tell him that there was a script, they just put him in the car with Owen and as far as he knows, he really was racing for his soul. And it's a good thing that he won too, because I would have hated to see the Godfather Of Soul end up in Tony Scott's version of hell, where you're forced to spend eternity in an over stylized, neon colored world, where you're constantly subjected to random jump cuts and oppressive non diegetic sound. You just sit on a rock, saying "Is this really necessary?" for all of time.



"Ticker" - "Smoking Aces" director Joe Carnahan handles the last one in the series. It's pretty straight forward
as stories about heart transplants in the middle of a military coup goes. I guess. I think it says something about what I've come to expect from my entertainment, out of years of ever heightening story lines in TV shows, when I find something like this a little mundane.