Not Quite There: A Primer

Later this week we are launching a new feature on the site called "Not Quite There" ...

The Man Movie Guide team watches a ton of movies in order to cull the best ones for review on the site.  It takes a lot to be a real Man Movie... as our "So what IS a Man Movie?" can attest to.  So that means that a vast percentage of the movies we watch for the express purpose of review on the site are abandoned because they're not up to snuff.

Our guide is a heavily curated one, and a lot of man hours (pun intended) are put into finding just the right movies for a full-on review.  Well we can now think of a few big problems with the way things have worked up until now:

1) You might be curious about a movie and just assume we haven't seen it.  Well guess what? WE HAVE!  Now we can tell you where things go right and things go wrong with the whole thing.

Going right....

2) In the conceivable near future we will be asked to review movies by filmmakers and/or studios.  What if the movie's not good enough?  We're not gonna just be nice and call it a Man Movie because we watched it for the site.  We don't care about anybody's feelings, but we do like free movies and/or money.  So now we have a way of espousing a movie without fully endorsing it.

3) One of the worst things about some of these bad or almost-bad movies is the time taken from the running counter of life that we will never get added back.  So bad enough 'Movie X' isn't worthy of a true Man Movie review, but now we don't even get a posting out of it?  Frankly, we think that's bullshit.  We are lazy people.  Why should we have to sit through 12 hours of film in order to get one review when we can sit through just an hour and a half?!

'Movie X'

And there you have it, our idea for "Not Quite There".  The way it will be laid out is as follows:

- Movie Title (that's the name of the movie)

- Trailer (so you can see said movie in action-ish)

- "Going For It" (a list of the pros for this movie as a Man Movie and anything else notably good in it)

- "The Case Against" (a list of what is holding it back from being a true Man Movie)

- "MMG Says..." (a recap of the movie and any relevant information)

As always, we are mad scientists with the site and even our own posts.  If you have any feedback, we would love to hear it.

Vaya con dios!

Blaxploitation as Man Movie

Hey, you jive-ass turkeys!  Man Movie Guide is back and looking to lay down some more wisdom on you.  The 70s were a funky time, and the cultural climate had begun to swing from free love and grass to a bleaker, generally more urban reality.  We won’t get into a history lesson here, but let’s just say that the evolution of the civil rights movement and the black power movement had taken the experience of black people in America to new heights in the public’s consciousness... and banking on that, reflecting and warping that experience, was bound to put some asses into theater seats.  Blaxploitation movies can typically tackle any genre of film: they can be comedies or action movies, drama or horror.  What sets them apart is difficult to encapsulate in a tiny little primer like this, but here we go:

·         The movie features a primarily black cast, or at the very least, a black protagonist
·         The movie tends to be smothered in 70s-era fashion and style (although exceptions do exist)
·         Race, racial tension, racism, or even slavery tend to be motifs… if not the backbone of the   

plots

·         There is more made-up sounding slang than a David Mamet script
·         The soundtracks are often funk or soul in nature (and usually awesome)

And so we get to Blaxploitation as Man Movie.  Not all Blaxploitation films are Man Movies; far from it.  There is, however, a strain of films in the category that feature the following: a strong and macho lead who is cool as shit, violence, sexings of hot (and sometimes afro-ed) women, heists, chases,  drug dealing, gangs, and the mob.  This isn’t to mention all the revenge films that Blaxploitation bred as a way of cinematically getting back at white folk (even if the movie was an attempt by white people to callously cash in on the racial landscape of the era).

“I can dig it,” you say.  And then you find yourself wondering to yourself why all Blaxploitation movies that conform to this mold aren’t Man Movies.  The answer is simple: most of them are awful!  While you’re bound to get an occasional stray brilliant line or good car chase or a fantastic set of tits in virtually any title of this breed of Blaxploitation, you will likely have to sit through the following to get to it: atrocious writing, unsightly and stilted acting that is either too hammy or sounds like the actors are reading right off the script in front of them, actors accidentally looking directly at the camera, gaffes and bloopers that were just kept in the movie, continuity issues in the editing, long and awkward silences brought on by a sparse soundtrack, poor lighting, improperly mic’d scenes, and budgets so low that it makes your local high school play look like Waterworld.

Now’s where things get groovy.  You don’t have to watch all Blaxploitation movies to find a Man Movie gem.  We’ve done all the heavy lifting for you.  Don’t thank us at once.  We consider our guide a heavily curated one.  For some reason, some really and truly bad movies have kept a name for themselves on through the decades.  Most of the Blaxploitation movies you can name off the top of your head are not only bad, but sometimes completely unwatchable.  We will shoot you some Blaxploitation movies for you to scope out as time goes on.  Just keep your peepers glued, ya heard?

The Case for Martial Arts Films as Man Movies

     Martial arts movies are a dicey proposition. Immediately, they turn off some folk. It's understandable, though. Oftentimes you find yourself faced with the same general plotlines and tropes just repackaged or mixed up slightly. A true martial arts movie will take a foreign, eastern culture and put it right in your goddamned face; leaving you, the western viewer, to try to make some semblance of sense of how any of this shit works.

     The best martial arts movies do this without any self-awareness; without any shame. They just take you on their silly ride and if you want to come along... you know, that's cool. Just like porn, the plot is mostly there to fill in the minutes between the action. That's not to say that the plot can't be deep, though. And a certain duality comes with a good martial arts movie: it is almost zen watching these extended and meticulously orchestrated fight scenes with no dialogue, but the fact that it's people beating the crap out of each other or disemboweling one another ramps up the adrenaline of the viewer to the point where nobody would blame you for practicing your own spastic flailing punches and wispy kicks after the movie's over.

     Not every martial arts movie is a Man Movie; just like not all Van Damme movies or Westerns are true Man Movies. There are a lot of shitty ones out there. And then you have several that hit all the right notes, but still manage to lack the indefinable soul that inhabits a Man Movie.

     If you're not familiar with the genre, let us help you figure out what's worth watching. If you've watched the best that martial arts movies have to offer with an open mind and it still doesn't do it for you... that's fine. Nobody's perfect.