I'm following last night's post and doing one last SoA mega-marathon in anticipation of probably going to the big flick at midnight tonight. This first entry captures my experiences with The Specialist, my first top on the August Adrenaline Tour de Force. Expect me to get a little more out of focus and jaded as the evening goes along.
I love pre-dated opening scenes to movies. They're the perfect way to say "watch out for these two, they have a history together" or "something might happen with the character involved in this scene" or, in the case of A Simple Man, "here's a story that's pretty much entirely unrelated to the rest of this very fine movie." The opening scene of The Specialist features Sly and James Woods as Army dudes who rig a bridge in Bogota to explode, thereby killing some manner of political target. Problem is, the target is driving with an innocent child- so Sly, the munitions specialist, wants to abort the mission. James Woods pulls rank though, so the best Sly can do is hope to diffuse the bombs in time. Of course this doesn't work, so Sly ends up getting exploded off a dam into some water.
Suddenly its roughly ten years later and Sly is holding up a creepy, moderately seductive relationship with a woman who, as a girl, watched her parents killed by Miami crime bosses (one of whom is Eric Roberts!). He uses the latest technology (a fancy pager which connects to the 'Weekend Warrior' BBS, minidiscs recordings of all their conversations, a bizarrely sophisticated intruder home alarm system) to carry out a distant relationship with this woman, played by Sharon Stone. Well, its distant for her but somehow he manages to basically follow her 24/7 while listening to the minidiscs to provide the backdrop of the story.
Here's whats great about the rest of the movie: Sly gets involved, and since he's an explosives expert, a lot of shit gets blown up. Here's something else that's great: Sharon Stone had pretty much no sense of personal boundaries back then, so much like in Basic Instinct she gives a glimpse of the shapely goods in The Specialist.
Here's something that's perfectly expected about the movie: Sly and James Woods (with SS in the middle) play a lot of double crosses on each other while trying to kill the other guy. But it all happens in sunny, sexy Miami so I won't complain too loudly.
Since the entire nation is finally catching Expendables fever, Bill Simmons discussed Sly at some length in a podcast earlier this week. He said he wasn't a big fan of The Specialist. As far as dumb action movies go, I disagree. This was a pretty classic edition of Sly being a bad ass and throwing around some lame dialogue. Also, I love it when James Woods gets snarky.
Funny story about this movie: I went to it in Junior High with Joey Martin and his dad Ron. The sex scene, which if memory serves took place in a most luxurious shower, was quite good. In fact, it was the only thing Joey or I liked. After the movie, I was going to spend the night at Joey's. On the way back to their house, we started to talk about the movie, and somehow the shower scene came up. Ron did not like the shower scene. He thought it was inappropriate. I said, "I agree. Why do they always have to put that stuff in otherwise good movie." Joey gave me a strange look. By the time we got to their house, Joey said, "That was the best part!" I said, "I know!" And it was.
ReplyDeleteWas that a funny story? Or was that more just a, "On the subject of the Specialist..." type of comment.
Well had you tied in how cunning you were at duping your friend's dad into thinking you were a wholesome teenage man, then it would have been funny. Had you told a story about you and Joey playing the cracker game when you got to his basement, that would have been weird. And had you told the story of doing all the above and then Joey having a sex change, that would be an incredible inside joke.
ReplyDelete