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....like
an old, vanished friend.
You always know where you are with a
Jackie Chan
movie-movie, not film, you notice-and exactly what you'll
get. Shanghai
Noon, his latest, has not only the
mandatory falls, crazy stunts and cartoon dialogue, but it's
welcome to anyone-like me-who misses the Western like an
old, vanished friend. Shanghai
Noon ain't no classic, pardner, but
it has enough of the necessary ingredients and references to
Oaters good, bad and ugly
to make the return of more cowboy
yarns a tempting proposition. It even rips off the grand,
swelling theme to How The West Was
Won. What's wrong with that?
....built
on the sweating backs of, you guessed it, coolie
labour.
The gossamer-thin story kicks off in The
Forbidden City in China and switches quickly to the US of A,
where the noble Chinese princess who Jackie was supposed to
be helping to look after has been captured by a Chinese
railroad baron whose business is built on the sweating backs
of, you guessed it, coolie labour. Jackie has tagged along
to rescue her, but his only lead is that she's in Carson
City, Nevada.
"John Wen?
That's a lousy name for a cowboy,"
Jackie falls in with a hopeless bandit gang
led by a dude with delusions of grandeur
(OwenWilson)
and encounters Indians, gamblers and a drunken horse
straight from the set of Blazing
Saddles. The screenplay hits all the
right notes-the greenhorn learning to fire a Colt .45, the
bar room brawl and a nice dig at the greatest hero of them
all. "John Wen? That's a lousy name for a cowboy," says
Jackie's sidekick. It turns out that he's called
Wyatt Earp.
Jackie, aka John
Wayne, isn't over-impressed with
that monicker, either.
It's fun
all the way, and not just for JC fans.
The scenery in Alberta, Canada, looks
magnificent and Shanghai
Noon loves its genre to death. It's
fun all the way, and not just for JC fans. The marshal's
called Van
Cleef and there's a smattering of
welcome non-pc lines that wouldn't have slipped through in a
straight Hollywood movie.
Back to the
top
"Pop Your
Cherry at Cherry Falls,"
Cherry Falls is
another post
Scream teen
slasher with a silly idea and is extremely well shot, much
better than its concept and story demand. The whole shebang
would have worked better as an out and out comedy, but
"Pop Your Cherry at Cherry
Falls," to give its unofficial
subtitle, falls apart at the end, when it becomes downright
ludicrous.
High school kids who haven't yet cracked
their shells are being offed by a peculiar nutter who can't
stand virgins. One of these is the daughter of the local
cop, and, natch, the high school is cut in two by the
growing number of stiffs and relative lack of
stiffies.
....believability
disintegrates quicker than a pair of paper
underpants
The cast is B rather than A, with
Candy Clark
whatever happened to her after The
Man Who Fell To Earth? as the
heroine's nicotine-addicted ma. The lack of names helps,
with everyone blending in as they would in a small
community. The story keeps you guessing as you tick off the
suspects one by one until; it couldn't be, could it? Then
the "hymen holocaust" kicks in and believability
disintegrates quicker than a pair of paper underpants.
Still, if you're a mild rather than a hardcore sicko and
you're not a virgin, you'll like this one.
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