{"id":865,"date":"2013-10-15T01:38:06","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T07:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/?p=865"},"modified":"2013-10-16T19:01:47","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T01:01:47","slug":"machete-kills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/?p=865","title":{"rendered":"Machete Kills"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Last week, in my review of Argento’s Dracula 3D<\/em>, I wrote: “For me, there are 3 basic levels that I can enjoy a movie on. \u00a0The first level is how good it is. \u00a0The acting, story, cinematography, direction, and originality of it. \u00a0Is it clever? \u00a0Charming? \u00a0Interesting? \u00a0Does it have anything to say? \u00a0Some movies knock several of these out of the ball park, and those are great movies.<\/em>
\nIf it fails the first level, then we drop down to the second level- does it have at least one or two of the above things done well enough that it makes up for lacking in the others? \u00a0There\u2019s a lot of fairly bad movies that can at least craft a good atmosphere, or have a clever twist, or good comic timing; something cool about it.<\/em>
\nFailing the above two levels, the last one is if it\u2019s at least entertaining in some way. \u00a0Is it fun? \u00a0Over the top? \u00a0Charismatic? \u00a0Does it pack a ton of crazy shit in it to \u00a0make up for the bad story and acting? \u00a0Or is it at least so bad it\u2019s ridiculous, and therefore fun to laugh at?”. \u00a0<\/em>
\nMachete Kills<\/em> is totally a 100% perfect example of the third level. \u00a0It has everything (except subtlety and realism)- more beheadings and machete kills than any Friday the 13th<\/em>, crazy, over the top violence and characters, tough ass chics, a wild sense of humor, disembowelments, death by helicopter blade, boob guns, a laser that when you’re shot by it turns you inside out, gratuitous everything, someone getting shot about every 45 seconds, and Tom Savini. \u00a0So tho it’s not exactly a well put together cinematic cultural treasure, it’s entertaining and fun.
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It did T E R R I B L E at the box office, but I recommend it. \u00a0I saw it at a bargain matinee, and I didn’t feel like I wasted my money. \u00a0You just have to have a good sense of humor and be in the mood for an over-the-top fun goofy violent grindhouse movie.
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The story is about Machete Cortez, who fights evil, corruption, and the Mexican drug cartels every chance he gets. \u00a0When a terrorist with a nuclear bomb aims it at the White House, the President (Charlie Sheen) calls him up to go kill the terrorists. \u00a0He runs into trouble when the terrorist turns out to have a split personality (one good and one bad personality) and wires the bomb into a heart monitor that will send it off to the White House if his heart rate stops. \u00a0They also have to deal with a gang of heavily armed angry prostitutes and am assassin named El Camelion\u00a0who can change his appearance almost to a supernatural degree (played by Waltor Goggins (from Predators<\/em> and Django Unchained<\/em>), Cuba Gooding, Jr, and Lady Gaga), before they finally meet the nefarious mind who masterminded the whole thing.<\/p>\n

You can’t take this movie seriously, of course. \u00a0It’s along the lines of absolutely awesome movies like The Toxic Avenger<\/em> and Street Trash<\/em>, only a lot cleaner (and with more money and cgi, so not as cool). \u00a0It’s unbelievable and over the top and funny, and I enjoyed it (I liked it better than the first Machete<\/em>, or director Robert Rodriguez’s grindhouse tribute he did with Quentin Tarantino Grindhouse<\/em>, which I liked ok (mostly for the stuff before and between the movies). \u00a0It could have used a little more substance, instead of blowing from one zany action piece to another (just a nice moment here and there for it to all sink in), and was a little preachy in a couple of places (but not too bad or unwarranted), but entertaining enough for the likes of me.<\/p>\n

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It’s too bad it did so bad at the box office with all the crap out there that should be doing worse, but you know what they say. \u00a0There’s no accounting for taste…
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Last week, in my review of Argento’s Dracula 3D, I wrote: “For me, there are 3 basic levels that I can enjoy a movie on. \u00a0The first level is how good it is. \u00a0The acting, story, cinematography, direction, and originality … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[6,32,234],"class_list":["post-865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-machete-kills-2013","tag-exploitation-movies","tag-gore","tag-grindhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=865"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions\/876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}