In the middle of a small western town at the end of the great wall lies a lone noodle shop owned by Wang (Ni Dahong) a miserable miser with a penchant for not paying his staff and abusing his wife (Yan Ni). When Wang learns from the local sheriff Zhang (Sun Hunglei) that his wife is having an affair with Li (Xiao Shenyang) one of his noodle cooks. He propositions Zhang to kill his wife and her lover. Soon Wang learns that Zhang is not the honorable sheriff he appeared to be.

Zhang Yimou’s take on blood simple, while ultimately telling the same tale provides some subtle differences, most notably being the light comedic touch throughout the film. From the opening scene where Wangs wife haggles with a Persian arms dealer, it is obvious that the tone is vastly different from that of the film it was based upon.

The entire tale is set amidst a baron landscape with a strong use of over saturation of color, The use of this effect lends a vivacity to the outfits, creating such a stark contrast between the deep red’s of the hills and canyons and each characters costume. That one can follow the entire story based solely on each characters assigned color.

There are subtle character variations in the main story; most notably being Wang’s wife who is a much stronger woman in this retelling than in the original, while Li’s character is meek and more worried about upsetting Wang than anything else. The Characters of waiter Zhou and Waitress Chen are played mostly for laughs with Zhou portraying the Asian stereotype complete with buckteeth.

Being such a small film with such a small cast of characters truly leaves a lot of weight on the shoulders of Yan Ni and Sun Hunglei if Yan is not able to deliver on her motivation for wanting to leave her husband or if Sun is not able to deliver as the cold and calculated sheriff the tale would fall apart; thankfully both deliver exceptional performances.

Two scenes that stand out the best at displaying the differences between “A Woman A Gun and a Noodle Shop” and “Blood Simple” are the burial scene which delivers its own unique take on Wangs death, and the true highlight of the film which is the choreography displayed while the team trades off noodle stretching duties. This sequence rivals any action sequence of recent memory and was mesmerizing.

A Woman A Gun and A Noodle Shop is a great reimaging of a Cohen classic, offering up its own unique style while delivering gorgeous visuals and unexpected humor.

Grade-92

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A sudden earthquake centered underneath Lake Victoria unleashes a prehistoric form of man eating piranha right before spring break.

Alaxandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes) brings together a high caliber cast for the new king of B movies.

By all accounts Piranha 3D should be terrible and from watching the previews one wonders what form of blackmail was utilized to put together such a stellar cast for a movie about man eating fish during spring break. Going into Piranha ones expectations cant be too high, the subject matter alone makes you expect the worse, But then something happens in the very first scene you quickly realize that the man fishing in Lake Victoria is Academy Award winner Richard Dryfus (reprising his role as Matt Hooper from the original don’t go in the water film Jaws); That is the point where it dawns on you that Piranha 3D might not be stupid at all and instead might just be extremely clever and a great time.

Elisabeth Shue stars as Julie Foster the Sherriff of Spring Break destination Lake Victoria along with her Deputy (Ving Rhames) She discovers the mutilated body of Matt Hooper (Richard Dryfus). Fearing that whatever killed him is still out in the water Foster calls in for help to find out what it is. Geologist Novak (Adam Scott) and his team with the help of Foster discover that an underwater lake housing the prehistoric man eaters has been opened up letting them loose. While Foster is working with Novak her son Jake (Steven R. McQueen) is working as the new “location scout” for Derrick Jones (Jerry O’Connell in a role that can only be described as inspired by Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis) creator of “Wild Wild Girls” accompanying them are Danni (Kelly Brook) and Crystal (Riley Steele) two of Derrick’s Wild Wild Girls, Kelly (Jessica Szohr) the girl he wishes was his girlfriend and cameraman Andrew (Paul Scheer) together they set out on a yacht to party and film all that Lake Victoria offers in the way of debauchery for Wild Wild Girls.

Piranha is a film that never takes itself to seriously yet at the same time delivers where it counts. There is more blood and gore on film in this than anything of recent memory. While movies like Avatar utilize 3D to enhance the film rather than be gimmicky, Piranha takes 3D to the level we always wanted it to be and that is purposely low brow with a sense of humor. Numerous dancing and partying people, Wet T-shirts, as well as Topless and Completely nude woman are all over the place dancing to the music and shaking it in 3D. The Underwater scene with Kelly Brook and Riley Steele is reason enough to see the movie. Factor in the huge amount of gore and the most over the top use of 3D involving Jerry O’Connell  (or at least part of him) and the fun never stops.

Easily the most surprising treat of the summer.

Grade -90

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Stallone stars as Barney Ross the leader of a group of mercenaries/Bikers called the expendables who take on a high risk job overthrowing the dictator of a remote third world island and the ex CIA agent backing him.

The novelty of the expendables is the combination of having all of these action stars from this generation and the last in one movie together. That novelty would have been pulled off if the focus of the movie weren’t on Stallone; to really work this had to be a true ensemble picture. Instead everyone is just a supporting player to Stallone. Stallone looks great given his age, however any scene that requires him to run is painful to watch, he looks like an old dog with hip dysplasia plodding through mud. There are two slow motion scenes where Stallone feels the need to run with explosions behind him, and that is two more than were needed. Better time would have been spent fleshing out some semblance of a character for the rest of the cast.
The group of the mercenaries includes Jason Statham as “Lee Christmas” Jet Li as “Ying Yang”, Randy Couture as “Toll Road” Terry Crews as “Hale Caesar” and Dolph Lundren as “Gunner Jensen” (Yes all completely ridiculous names).

Upon acceptance of the mission Stallone and Statham head to the tiny island of Vilena to do some recon, They go through this trouble and come up with surprisingly little in terms of actual intel, for being professionals one would think that more info would be gathered than simply finding out that Sandra (Giselle Itie) loves her island and disapproves of her father General Garza (David Zayas). For some unknown reason Stallone cant get Sandra out of his mind and once Mickey Rourke (Tool) uses up his five minutes of screen time to show everyone how to act and utilize emotion. The deal is sealed to help Sandra out.

The opening sequence and the ending sequence are what people paid the price of admission for, a bunch of actions stars killing people and blowing things up. The middle of the film is a real snooze.

On the bright side there are a few times where Stallone does seem to recognize his age, not winning every fight and not forcing himself on the much younger female lead was refreshing. I actually laughed out loud at the end of his confrontation with former CIA agent James Munroe (Eric Roberts) when Stallone utters the mandatory one liner.

Li, Statham and Lundgren are given one solo fighting scene a piece while Crews and Couture are given minimal screen time till the end.

With such a strong Action movie cast if Stallone deferred to them more and less on himself the expendables could have risen above its own gimmick and become something more than the sum of its parts.

Grade -76

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