{"id":243835,"date":"2010-09-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/summer-movie-line-up-finally-gets-its-big-action-on\/"},"modified":"2010-09-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T07:00:00","slug":"summer-movie-line-up-finally-gets-its-big-action-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/summer-movie-line-up-finally-gets-its-big-action-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer movie line-up finally gets its big action on"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMachete\u201d
\nDirected by Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez
\nWritten by Robert Rodriguez and \u00c1lvaro Rodr\u00edguez
\nStarring: Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert DeNiro, Jeff Fahey and Steven Seagal
\nRating: 4 out of 5<\/p>\n

por Scott Marks
\nCr\u00edtico de cine SDUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Summer<\/a>
Danny Trejo is \u201cMachete,\u201d a legendary ex-Federale with a deadly attitude and skills to match. (Courtesy 20th Century Fox Film Corp.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>Attention action fans who have shelled out many a hard-earned dollar this summer only to be rewarded by a barren crop of blockbusters. The drought is finally over! If you learned the hard way what \u201cThe Expendables\u201d was, or found Scott Pilgrim\u2019s efforts to take on the world feeble at best and \u201cRed\u201d a little more than a comic book for the Depends set, be prepared for a truly kick-ass movie-going experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cMachete\u201d is based on one of the numerous bogus coming attractions director Robert Rodriguez filmed for his \u201cPlanet Terror\u201d segment of \u201cGrindhouse.\u201d The ersatz trailer about a renegade Mexican federale features Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey and Cheech Marin, all of whom reprise their roles in the feature. If \u201cPlanet Terror\u201d was an unconvincing endeavor to replicate the mood and style of \u201970s schlock, \u201cMachete\u201d is the director\u2019s master\u2019s thesis on the subject. This time Rodriguez and company do something more than just Xerox conventions and hair styles. In one film they establish their own genre\u2014Mexploitation\u2014while assigning long overdue leading man status (and top billing) to Trejo, one of Hollywood\u2019s most rugged and dependable character actors. <\/p>\n

Trejo has a complexion that resembles a Shar-Pei dartboard, tresses that are everlastingly a quart low and a voice as mellifluous as the sound of wind whistling through a beer can on a deserted sand dune. Trejo is about as far from a matinee idol as anyone this side of Shemp Howard, yet before the final fade the script calls for him to bed three of Hollywood\u2019s hottest: Jessica Alba (Immigration Customs Agent), Michelle Rodriguez (Freedom Fighter\/Taco Vendor) and Lindsay Lohan (Slut). <\/p>\n

Not unlike his American International and Canon Films ancestors, Machete is a man of few words and flinty-eyed reserve (Trejo brilliantly mimics Charles Bronson\u2019s lone facial expression) who is resourceful enough to transform any sharpened object into a weapon of death. His character could have just as easily been nicknamed Corkscrew, Cleaver or Meat Thermometer, three kitchen utensils our hero employs as a means of defense.<\/p>\n

More than anything, \u201cMachete\u201d promised the pairing of the greatest actor of his generation and arguably the worst. Seeing the names Robert DeNiro and Steven Seagal on the same poster was enough to call for a defibrillator. Alas, billing is the only thing the boys share. The two never grace the same frame and both actors are photographed in tight close-up. <\/p>\n

This is understandable in DeNiro\u2019s case since his character, a Texas senator in favor of electric border fences, spends most of his time on screen delivering speeches and defending his stance in videotaped political commercials. Seagal, who hasn\u2019t appeared in a film in almost a decade, has close-ups written into his contract to simultaneously draw attention to his Eddie Munster widow\u2019s peak and mask his girth. It isn\u2019t until the last five minutes that we are treated to a full body shot of the great man draped in slenderizing Nehru threads. And it will take film historians and scholars decades of disputation before it\u2019s determined which is funnier: DeNiro wearing a cowboy hat or dressed as Cantinflas.<\/p>\n

Two questions immediately came to mind after watching the movie. First, who put up the completion bond money for a film starring Lindsay Lohan and Michelle Rodriguez? Second, who is Ethan Maniquis and why is he getting top billing over Robert Rodriguez? A quick look at Maniquis\u2019 credits indicates that he spent a decade working in the editorial department on several Rodriguez productions before earning a full-blown editor\u2019s credit on \u201cPlanet Terror.\u201d It\u2019s nice to see this kind of loyalty in a town not known for it.<\/p>\n

Stallone and his \u201cExpendables\u201d continually wink at their audience as if to acknowledge that the movies they are parodying were really stupid. Not all of them were and Rodriguez knows it (and shows it) by infusing his celluloid genuflection with reverence and a razor-sharp sense of film history. As satisfying as this and \u201cBlack Dynamite\u201d are to watch, let\u2019s hope we\u2019re not soon fed a slew of imitators. “Thanksgiving,” the second feature based on the \u201cPlanet Terror\u201d trailer, is currently in development and set to be directed by Eli Roth.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMachete\u201d Directed by Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez Written by Robert Rodriguez and \u00c1lvaro Rodr\u00edguez Starring: Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert DeNiro, Jeff Fahey and Steven Seagal Rating: 4 out of 5 By Scott Marks SDUN Film Critic Attention action fans who have shelled out many a hard-earned dollar this summer only to be rewarded […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":243836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Summer movie line-up finally gets its big action on","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}