I'll admit, there's probably at least one movie-related news item per day -- and usually quite a few more than one -- that gets my film-geek blood racing, but every once in a while one little scrap stands out that really floats my proverbial boat.

Today, it's the news -- via JoBlo.com and Collider -- that Shane Black has a new film in the works, his first since 2005's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I wouldn't hesitate to put Kiss Kiss up there with some of my favorite films of all time, and unlike most of the other flicks on that list (say, Taxi Driver or LoTR: Fellowship of the Ring), it's one that's not too depressing and/or long to watch multiple times in the same week, night, or whatever. The film, if you haven't yet seen it, is a comedic neo-noir that plants its feet firmly on the comedy side of things, paying loving tribute to "serious" private eye movies throughout -- and also, to a lesser but no less amusing extent, skewering the ever-loving crap out of Hollywood phoniness (which Black surely knew first-hand as the young, in-demand screenwriter of such action classics as Lethal Weapon and The Long Kiss Goodnight). Black's dialogue is some of the sharpest and funniest I've ever heard in a movie, and Robert Downey, Jr. is perfectly cast as the thief-turned-actor-turned-detective who carries us along through Black's self-reflexive, endlessly witty string of twists, double-crosses, and, uh, severed finger gags.

So, um, where were we? Oh right, Black's new movie. Well, actually, there isn't much to report on it as of yet, but what I do know is this: it's going to be called The Nice Guys, it'll be produced by long-time Black supporter Joel Silver, and -- best of all -- it's reportedly going to be another "detective story." I know lightning doesn't always strike twice with these things, but hey... it seems like Black has all his ducks in a row so far. Personally, I'm extremely happy that he's even getting the chance to give this genre another shot, since Kiss Kiss absolutely (and quite undeservingly) tanked at the box office. Here's hoping moviegoers will catch on this time around.
And, because I just couldn't end this post without it, here is just one of my favorite scenes from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, featuring Downey and Michelle Monaghan. Did I mention I freakin' love this movie?

While some filmmakers aren’t satisfied unless they’re creating genres all their own – Darren Aronofsky, Richard Kelly, Wes Anderson, et al – others make their mark simply by injecting some new blood into existing ones.

British newcomer Neil Marshall fits into that second category, and though he’s got only a few films under his belt at this point, he’s already established himself as a genre director worth keeping an eye on. Marshall emerged on the scene in 2002 with the unique creature feature Dog Soldiers, a tense and visceral werewolf movie with a Predator-like setup; this week he returns with Doomsday, a post-apocalyptic combo of biological horror and over-the-top comic book-style action. Judging from the film’s trailer, Doomsday treads some very well-worn cinematic ground (it’s tough to watch the previews and not be reminded of 28 Days Later, The Road Warrior, Escape From New York, et cetera), but I have a feeling that in Marshall’s hands it won’t end up being a more-of-the-same kind of movie.

That’s especially true since Marshall’s last movie, also built upon a familiar-sounding premise and with a virtual unknown cast in the lead, ended up being one of the finest horror films of the new century.

I’m talking, of course, about The Descent, Marshall’s successful 2005 film (released the following year in the U.S.) about a group of female cave explorers being terrorized by some truly creepy subterranean beasties. The film wears its influences right on its blood-stained sleeves – essentially, it’s an underground version of Ridley Scott’s Alien – but is so exceptionally well-made that it feels like a true original anyway.

Opening with a horrific sequence that has nothing whatsoever to do with caving (but does, thankfully, have actual bearing on the plot later on), The Descent quickly falls into a compellingly tense groove, as an all-woman group of outdoor thrill-seekers get together for a self-guided caving expedition in the Appalachians. These ladies, refreshingly, aren’t your usual horror-flick airheads, but rather a nicely fleshed-out set of characters; the one we associate with first is Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), who’s recovering from the death of her husband and daughter and is still struggling to keep it together. The film’s first act creates an impressive amount of dread and sets up plenty of conflicts within the group to play out later on – I hate to sound so clinical, but having taken my share of screenwriting classes, it’s awfully nice to see a movie actually do some of the things it’s supposed to.

At any rate, things turn seriously scary soon after the ladies descend into the abyss, when a cave-in blocks the only exit from the dank, dark, deep-underground series of caverns they’ve unwisely chosen to spelunk in. After a few internal squabbles – and a terrifyingly claustrophobic crawling-through-a-tunnel sequence that makes me shiver just thinking about it – an even more immediate threat emerges: sightless, cannibalistic, frighteningly humanoid creatures who proceed to pick off and devour our heroines one-by-one.

Marshall delivers the jolts fast and furious as the film progresses, deftly combining the intense psychological terror of being trapped alone in the dark with the expected (but well-executed) creature-flick bloodletting. The monsters themselves are particularly effective, since Marshall creepily keeps them in the dark for most of the film, revealing them in all their gruesome glory only at the exact right moments.

The most surprising element of The Descent, however, is the film’s worthwhile attempt at psychological depth, an area in which it actually surpasses many of the films that inspired it. By giving us a hero who’s battling her inner demons as well as flesh-and-blood ones – and also setting up a juicy conflict between her and headstrong group leader Juno (Natalie Mendoza) – this movie resonates the way horror films way too seldom do, especially in the beautifully bleak ending of the film’s original British version (which you can catch on the unrated U.S. dvd).

Certainly not for the squeamish, claustrophobic, or weak of stomach – no, the gorehounds won’t be disappointed here, either – The Descent makes the most of its stripped-down setup and innovates not because it’s drastically different from a hundred other horror films you’ve seen, but because it’s clear that the filmmakers here simply tried harder to make it memorable. It bodes extremely well for Marshall’s future as a reliably entertaining genre director (could he be the next John Carpenter?) and sets the bar pretty high for filmmakers looking to follow the same path.

By now, it’s pretty clichéd to say that digital video technology has made it easier than ever for just about anybody to go out and make their own movie.

That doesn’t make the statement any less true, however, and it doesn’t take much digging – a few clicks here and there on the Netflix site, say – to find dozens upon dozens of wannabe George Romeros and Woody Allens and David Lynches who’ve maxed out a credit card or two in pursuit of that glorious dream that I myself share: to produce a feature film and get it out into the world.

Now, look, before we go any further, let’s get one thing out of the way: yes, it’s easier than ever to make a movie nowadays, but making a good movie remains just as difficult as ever. And, I promise, this post isn’t going to be some rah-rah pep talk about how everyone should go try to make Blade Runner in their backyard. The truth is, although I can definitely muster up some degree of respect for anyone who’s ever actually completed a feature, the majority of no-budget films are pretty terrible, and don’t really deserve to be seen by anyone outside of their directors’ immediate families.

That may sound harsh, but what I’m getting at is that solid storytelling, competent technical skill, and attention to detail don’t cost anything, so there’s no reason why a movie made for the price of a chicken-fried steak dinner can’t engage its viewers on the same level – or, maybe, an even deeper one – than one produced by a studio. To me, if you’re dedicated enough to sacrifice your time, money, effort, and probably sanity to make your own movie, you may as well at least do it right. And for an example of how to do exactly that, you could do a lot worse than Christopher Sharpe’s ultra-low-budget indie effort Sex Machine.

Made for around $8,000 with an entirely volunteer cast and crew in the not-exactly-Hollywood locale of Oklahoma City, Sex Machine succeeds where most other films in its price range fail – it’s entertaining, compelling, and competently made throughout, and feels like an actual movie rather than just 90 minutes of footage slapped together just for the sake of seeming like one. I’d been reading about the film for months on a few of my favorite indie-film websites – Microcinema Scene, where Sharpe is a regular poster on the message boards, and Pulp 2.0, a blog run by Sex Machine producers’ rep Bill Cunningham – and I’m happy to have finally gotten the chance to see it.

Anchored by stylish visuals soaked in fluorescent reds, greens, and blues, the film is part Frankenstein, part El Mariachi, and a little bit Big Lebowski; it combines sci-fi, horror, film noir, comedy, and even a surprising amount of romance into a package that’s a little overstuffed but rarely boring. The story revolves around a guy named Frank (John Howell) who wakes up in the middle of a bloody shootout with no memory of how he got there. Worse, he quickly discovers that his body parts didn’t all originally belong to him – he’s seemingly been stitched together out of discarded pieces of other people, including one arm that bears a “Sex Machine” tattoo and another that used to belong to an African American man. His face bandaged up like the Invisible Man, Frank wolfs down painkillers, tries to make sense of fragmented (and extremely gory) memories that begin to surface, and occasionally wastes one of the sunglass-wearing assassins that for some reason are hunting him down. Eventually, he tracks down his former girlfriend Claire (Jessica Alfrey) and his bowling alley-owner buddy Owen (Sheridan Marquardt), both of whom assumed Frank died months earlier in a car accident; turns out, that’s not far off from the truth, and the reason why Frank has been granted his bizarre new lease on life is very closely tied into the reason why mysterious people are trying to, uh, re-kill him.

There isn’t an excessive amount of action or bloodshed in Sex Machine, despite its pulpy genre trappings, but what’s there looks pretty decent – though obviously done on a budget, the makeup effects are particularly convincing at times (especially in a cringe-inducing early scene involving an implanted tracking device). The visuals impress on a regular basis, almost completely avoiding the static and indifferently composed framings that mar most ultra-indie productions, and squeezing a lot of color and detail out of the mini-DV that Sharpe and his cinematographer Shogo shot on. And while the plot has a few holes that aren’t so easily overlooked, you’ve got to credit Sharpe and co-writer John Oak Dalton for keeping the mystery engrossing throughout and also making a valiant effort toward developing their characters; a lot of the film is actually devoted to the subplot about Frank and Claire’s relationship, which likely would have been overlooked if this were an average-budgeted mainstream action flick.

What resonates throughout Sex Machine is the thought and effort Sharpe and his cast and crew put into making the film something that audiences would actually enjoy experiencing. It’s clear that their interest wasn’t simply in seeing their names on a DVD sleeve, but in telling a worthwhile story, showcasing their talents, and connecting with the kind of hardcore genre fans that would appreciate, say, the Bullitt poster hanging on a character’s wall in one scene or the (unintentional?) Tarantino homages that pop up throughout (dig that gimp mask!).

As I’ve said, though, I wouldn’t recommend Sex Machine solely to folks who just love a good B-movie. As an aspiring/studying/working filmmaker myself, I learned a ton from this flick, and I think anyone else with an interest in making their own movies will, too.

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Incidentally, I’d like to continue focusing on low- and no-budget movies here on the blog, so if you’ve made one or know of any I ought to see, hit me up at nscalia@nhregister.com.

If you think about it, Jason Statham isn’t really doing anything in his signature brand of amped-up action movies that once-popular cinematic ass-kickers like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal weren’t doing in their flicks fifteen years ago.

So why is it, then, that Statham seems about a million times cooler than those guys were?

Maybe it’s his alignment with directors who really know how to use him, like Guy Ritchie or The Transporter series’ Louis Leterrier. Maybe it’s his superior fashion sense or the instantly class-boosting British accent. Maybe – and most likely – it’s because he can crack skulls, crack jokes, and crash cars with more style than just about anybody else doing it today.

At any rate, Statham has managed to carve out a pretty solid following among action fans on both sides of the Atlantic, starring in a string of mostly entertaining movies and even pulling off the unlikely feat of making a receding hairline seem pretty cool (I can’t thank him enough for that one). This week, those adrenaline aficionados can catch him in The Bank Job, a British caper flick based on an actual robbery that took place in swinging London in 1971. Early reviews are pegging the fact-based film as one of Statham’s most entertaining and well-made efforts yet, and it’s nice to see that they’re at least making an effort to get it out into American theaters.

You might be surprised, however, that another Statham caper flick you haven’t yet seen landed on dvd shelves just a couple of weeks back. Chaos, completed in 2005 and released direct-to-DVD with essentially no promotion whatsoever, pairs Statham up with Ryan Phillippe as a couple of mismatched Seattle cops trying to wrap their heads around a bank robbery with a motive that might not be entirely financial. Though ordinarily, a movie with stars that recognizable – plus Wesley Snipes, in a smaller role – would almost certainly have to be a clunker if it bypassed theaters for a no-frills dvd release, Chaos, surprisingly, isn’t half bad.

Quite obviously inspired by Michael Mann’s cops-and-robbers classic Heat, writer/director Tony Giglio’s film doesn’t earn many points for originality, though the action sequences are well put-together and the plot has enough kinks to keep it out of yawner territory. Statham stars as Detective Quentin Conners, a hard-nosed cop who’s been on suspension after a botched hostage situation that cost a young civilian her life and Conners’ partner his job. He’s reluctantly called back to active duty (of course) when a slick, well-coordinated gang of thieves led by the enigmatic “Lorenz” (Snipes) seizes a busy downtown bank, taking dozens of hostages and demanding that Conners be the top cop on the scene. As the film’s title suggests, however, things take a turn for the chaotic when the robbers set off a bomb inside the bank, providing a smokescreen for them to escape amongst the fleeing (and mostly unharmed) hostages. The complicated part of the whole deal? Apparently, the crooks didn’t actually steal anything while they were there.

It’s up to Conners and his new partner, the straight-laced, book-smart Det. Shane Dekker (Phillippe) to figure out just what the hell took place inside the bank; complicating matters are Lorenz, who keeps making taunting phone calls to the cops, and Conners’ temperamental former boss Jenkins (Henry Czerny), who still holds a grudge – especially since Conners used to be romantically involved with the fellow detective (Justine Waddell) that he’s currently putting the moves on.

Giglio lets the twists pile up by the truckload, and while the film is occasionally hard to follow, it’s energetic enough that it doesn’t become frustrating – and, actually, it’s probably more enjoyable the less thought you put into it. Among Chaos’s entertaining distractions are several tense (if ultimately pretty repetitive) shootout sequences, an over-the-top motorcycle chase a la the Transporter movies, and slick cinematography that somehow manages to make gloomy Seattle seem almost as cool as Mann’s much-fetishized Los Angeles. Statham’s performance isn’t one of is best, but it’s bolstered by strong work from Phillippe (who played a somewhat similar role in last year’s excellent Breach) and Snipes, who drops his usual badass stoicism for a more dynamic and “fun” villain role.

While Chaos can’t really roll with the big boys of the heist genre – and it’s unfortunately pretty similar to Spike Lee’s Inside Man, though it actually completed production first – it’s still an efficient and decently put-together B-flick that deserved more attention than it got. I don’t think Statham fans will be disappointed, and anybody who grew up on generic 80s cop movies like I did should have an especially good time with this one.