Elmore Leonard’s Be Cool is a novel turned to film full of odd funny characters who have a small habit for getting caught up with gangsters, the Russian mafia, small-time wanna b’s and an eclectic mix of peculiars. Be Cool is part 2 that showcases Chili Palmer (John Travolta), a cool ex-loan shark who has adorned a big-time movie producer persona and finds yet another interest in being an even bigger music producer.
Cool
2 & 1/2 Stars
Elmore Leonard’s Be Cool is a novel turned to film full of odd funny characters who have a small habit for getting caught up with gangsters, the Russian mafia, small-time wanna b’s and an eclectic mix of peculiars. Be Cool is part 2 that showcases Chili Palmer (John Travolta), a cool ex-loan shark who has adorned a big-time movie producer persona and finds yet another interest in being an even bigger music producer.
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| Released on DVD June 28 |
In the sequel Chili Palmer wants to give up the movie business and finds an interest in the music industry. Chili gets his motivation from Tommy Athens (James Wood), a music producer who tries to pitch Chili on a new movie, he has always had an interest in Tommy’s wife Edie (Uma Therman) and Tommy has been shot down in cold blood so what better time than now to get into Tommy’s business and his spot next to Edie in bed. Thanks to Tommy’s lead with Linda Moon (Christina Milian), a stellar R&B artist, Chili moves forward with stealing her from Raji (Vince Vaughn), the wanna be music producer and his boss Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel). Of course, Chili does nothing by the books or by the rules, he walks in and says her contract is over and now she works for me. Needless to say Nick isn’t too happy with this situation and tries to have Chili knocked off and the Russians who killed Tommy is after him too. Chili, trying to avoid death and casualy running things with Edie, moves forward with a hit and a little help from Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler. I almost left out Sin LaSalle (Cedric the Entertainer) and Dabu (Andre 3000) producer and rapper for the posse DubMD’s, Tommy owed them money too and Chili is trying to avoid their hit list also. After dodging all those bullets and hit men, Chili produces the perfect album with a little help from Sin Lasalle and Edie. Everybody gets what’s coming to them in the end and all ends well that didn’t start too well.
John Travolta as Chili Palmer, he’s just to cool for words. Be Cool is a far cry from it’s predecessor Get Shorty, but it stands on it’s own. Travolta and Thurman are heating up the dance floor once again, o-yeah! The Rock is awesome, he really has some acting chops and Vince Vaughn is a laugh-out-loud riot. Can’t forget Cedric the Entertainer, playing a high class well educated gangster producer, what a cast. Based on the novel, Be Cool, is a load more fun to watch than to read. Parts are pretty cheesy, but if you can get past that then it’s smooth sailing from there. Chili is awesome; sorry couldn’t come up with a better word. I could see where this character could go in many directions, but if they did that it would be lame. No one wants to see Be Cool or Get Shorty part 20. Stopping with where they are at should work out just fine. There are too many parts to explain how funny this movie truly is. How can anybody go wrong; there is an actor for everybody’s taste, there’s hot, sexy, talented, short, hairy, tall, strong, weak, funny, ugly, Russian, straight, gay, gangster, mafia, music, bad movies, and even a picture of Tom Hanks. The list literally goes on and on. Don’t take my word for it, be cool and rent it for yourself.
The most original show ever made, and perhaps the best art form ever shown on television, The Prisoner is simply a masterpiece. Hailed as the first television classic, Patrick McGoohan’s allegory of an individual being trapped in a modern society that wants nothing more or less than to break him down into meaningless number is gripping television. More art than television, the show has been compared to Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Lewis Carroll, Aldous Huxley, G.K. Chesterton, Jonathan Swift, Gustav Meyrink, Alfred Kubin and the surrealist painters such as Rene Magritte. The show created awe, hysteria, and finally a profound appreciation for McGoohan’s masterpiece that stands alone as a shining example of what television can, and for at least one year strove, to be. It raises as many questions as answers, but does both with style. The show certainly wasn’t made for the casual viewer, or in an attempt to create a huge hit for the BBC. In McGoohan’s own words, It’s “not to everyone’s taste. It was never intended to be. I wasn’t making Coca-Cola.” No, it was in fact something much, much sweeter.
Sometimes you go to movies with low expectations and are pleasantly surprised because the movie is better than you expected. This is not that film. I walked out of Fantastic Four with a strange sense of bewilderment that no one tried to stop this train wreck from being shown. Didn’t anyone on set see how bad this was? Did no one at the studio level watch dailies, or by watching them did they see their careers end and decided they’d rather jump off the top of Fox headquarters than bring this up with the brass?