Girlfight

Girlfight directed by Karyn Kusama.  Starring Michelle Rodriguez, Jaime Tirelli and Paul Calderón.

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SPEAKER_01 0:02

It's 1985 on the set of runaway train, and Daniel Trejo has been called in because there's a serious cocaine problem. Out of prison, clean, and working in a sober living home, Trejo heard being an extra was an easy way to make 50 bucks. As I've heard him say, if you were normal looking, you could be in the background, and if you look different, maybe you could be a bad guy. By pure coincidence, Edward Bunker, who was Michael Mann's guy and would consult in the crime genre for years after, recognizes Trejo from a stint in jail and insists he's teach the star Eric Roberts to box. That coincidence spawns a career of 250 roles in film and television. I sometimes think covering all the Screen Gems movies is a daunting task, but if I tried covering half of Danny Trejo's filmography, I would have to rethink this whole thing. Man is an interesting career. Something about the power of charisma over talent, like the lines in his face are worth more than a million dollar script. This is not the only show I do, so I'm trying to not let conversations from other shows drift into mine. But um at some point last week, a co-host on a show I produced was saying that they hate karaoke. And specifically they have a playlist that that are just brutal for audiences. Like, on purpose, if you're gonna make me do this, you're not going to enjoy it. As a fellow with limited register and clumsiness when attempting to carry a tune, I get it completely. But I think it's a bad strategy. I love Chris Rock, not just when his face slapped Will Smith's innocent hand that time, but in recent stand-up Tambourine, he jokes that a relationship is like playing in a band. It's the namesake of the set.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

That's right. When you're in a relationship, you're in a band. You're in a fucking band. And when you're in a band, you have roles that you play in the band. Sometimes you sing a lead and sometimes you're on tambourine. And if you're on tambourine, play it right. Play it right. Play it with a fucking line. Cause nobody wants to see a mad tambourine play.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

So my advice at karaoke is play it right. You're gonna ruin this for everyone because you don't think you could sing. That didn't stop half of the bands you liked when you were growing up. John Fogarty cannot sing, Axel Rose cannot sing, Joe Cocker can't sing, but the man destroys. You don't need to be a great singer to put on a good performance, and you certainly don't need to be an actor to be amazing in a movie. It's the power of charisma over talent. Talent is indicative of hard work and practice, of effort. I think it's very much the reason insecure actors choose to become method or dive into roles. It justifies or adds legitimacy to their craft, their career, their range. Charismatic people do not need range. They're rewarded for being authentic, for being themselves. And I don't want to come off as a hypocrite. I know I complain that Tim Robbins has been shorthand for creepy in the Arlington Road episode, but that's because there's evidence you can play much more than that. Next week we're gonna cover a Jason Statham movie. Let's play a game. I'm going to list a few movies he's been in recently, and we'll see if you can name any of the characters he's played. First, the Beekeeper. What was his name? Second, a working man, which he certainly is. What was that working man's name? Okay, I'll give you an easy one. We'll do the Fast and Furious movies. We all know that he is Shaw of Hobbes and Shaw, but what's his first name? If you're having a problem with this exercise, it's not your fault. I'll tell you why. They don't have names. Not really. Who the hell cares about Adam Clay or Lavon Cade or Deckard fucking Shaw? He's Jason Statham in this B movie. He's Jason Statham in this hard hat movie. He's Jason Statham in this family drives fast movie. I'm a huge Jason Statham fan. London baby. But he doesn't see himself as an actor, and we'll talk about this next week. That's the magic to him. Sometimes you need a Jason Statham type. Sometimes you need a Jeff Goldblum type. Sometimes you need a woman that is so intimidating. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Michelle Rodriguez.

SPEAKER_04 4:13

Wow. I can't believe you guys are honoring me. I make action movies. I never thought anybody'd give me an award for that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to Screen Generation. It's a podcast about the films released by Sony under the label Screen Gems. I'm your host, Evan Hughes, and we're finally at the point where the movies on my list are starting to kick ass. And actually, this one made me feel really nostalgic. This movie's got a killer soundtrack. It doesn't have 30 seconds of fat that could trip off, trim off of it. It's the most solid edit on a breakout film, I think, ever. The lead is an unknown extra whose first role is to train for two to four months, depending on who reports it, to become a fighting machine. God, if you thought this intro was long, you probably have no idea where I'm going. I adore Michelle Rodriguez. I actually don't think uh it's fair to say that she was typecast in her filmography. When everyone else is at dinner and they order an action movie, getting a plate of Michelle Rodriguez for the table will not upset anyone. Let's be Hollywood for a minute. After this, let's stick her in Resident Evil as a tough commando. Then let's stick her in SWAT as a tough cop. Then James Cameron's gonna see that, and he's like, I guess you're Trudy, the tough pilot in Avatar. She's a lot like Vasquez and Alien, so I can see a parallel there. This movie kind of starts it, but if you need a believable member of your team that will be in action situations, Michelle Rodriguez is shorthand for capable, formidable, and fine as hell. Karen Kusama, the director, decided to make this film after pursuing boxing herself. It'd be wrong to call it autobiographical, but it's fair to say she did the research and learned a lot about action choreography for the ring. Before setting her sights on this, she was an assistant to John Sayles, who directed our first Screen Gems film, Limbo, and play as the professor in this movie. Also, losing funding for the project, less than a week before shooting, Sayles and his partner, Maggie Renzi, backed her with the help of IFC. When this film was released at Sundance, they all looked like geniuses when they won the grand jury prize and best director in drama. I know Kusama to be a good director, but the next film she makes is somewhat of a fool's errand. A film I would see in theaters called Eon Flux. Regardless, any name she made for herself with this movie was unmade with that flop. And from what I have found with the Peter Chung miniseries, that's it's a it's a crazy property, meant to be a dissociative anime experience. So a few years go by, and she's been doing TV, but um, she comes out with another movie hiding behind Megan Fox and a Diablo Cody script who is fresh off of Making Juno. It's called Jennifer's Body, and I believe it's a very good, in my opinion, Teen Horflick. With it it makes me wonder how traumatizing high school was for Karen. Like both her depictions are of women being the worst to each other and men being oblivious, which we probably are. A few years later, she directs a script written by her partner Phil Hay, called The Invitation. I think this is her masterpiece, and it's different from all of her other movies because a man's the protagonist. But I do want to say, he's such a damsel in distress, I really wonder if she pulled a smooth move on us and just gender swapped the roles. Either way, she had a strong television career and is a solid worker when she has a good script. This movie is less about fighting and more about coming of age. That said, this is a non-traditional narrative. This isn't the karate kid, it's not the longest yard. There aren't movies like this. Actually, watching it and thinking about it, this movie has a lot in common with the original Rocky without sharing any of the tropes sports movies have. And it could be because of what Rocky turned into. The lead is misunderstood, the love interest is a sex-deprived honey named Adrian. The montages keep this thing moving, and they manage to make boxing exciting, which is a Rocky thing. In Rocky, there's less than 10 minutes of the match with Apollo Creed. The whole movie is about making it to the fight. I watched a ton of boxing during the late 90s. HBO pay-per-view fight nights at my grandparents. Heavyweights always were the primetime feature, and when you're that big, it's difficult to make it that far, you know, into the rounds. Somebody gets tired or somebody punched face too much. But I remember watching a featherweight fight in person and being pretty disgusted. It looked like men who escaped to prison camp were paired off and punched each other out for like no sport. And they don't do it in the movie, but kind of like when you're watching an NBA All-Star game and you know the players get tired of it, and then it just becomes like a dunking contest in a featherweight match, they know it's going to go to the card. So the last minute or so, they just stop dancing around and unload on each other, like to land as many punches as possible and maybe win. So, back to why this movie works. It's about a troubled teen applying themselves. The patriarchy of coaches try to discourage her at first, but they're not really the issue. The scarcity of female competitors is the issue. Her disapproving abusive father is the issue. The school that doesn't see her until she outperforms and probably helps the school's average in the fitness assessment is the issue. The guy she wants to love who has priorities is the issue. This movie is about a young woman's life and it punches you in the face for it. Because I have already invoked Fast and Furious, and because I'm heading somewhere, I kind of find it hard not to notice the similarities to this movie and Tokyo Drift. The opening shot in this movie and the soundtrack give Justin Lin a template for his movie. He uses some cool time-lapse shots and a dope DJ Shadow track, but they're almost the same. Seriously, this movie starts its opening with a fight over a chick being a hoe. In the other, it's a race over a chick being a hoe. Both of them get in trouble, and they still continue to fight or race to success and ultimately finding love. I was at one point going to make like a parody of the trailer for this movie, just as a guy who wants to get into fighting women because they don't believe I can. Yeah, it wouldn't have aged well. And I figured it was so close to Tokyo Drift, so listen to this.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

When bullying in cars gets too crazy, you're going to get kicked out of high school for racing cars. You're not my mom's car. Shape up and ship out to Japan. Oh no, they drive different here on the wrong side.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

No furious will race a fast under my roof.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Coming to theater in the year 2000. It's car fight.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

To clean the palate of whatever that was, I want to show you, or listen, yeah, I want to tell you how important Michelle Rodriguez is to the Fast and Furious. The same year as Avatar, they killed off Letty. Probably because she was the most recognizable member of the crew from the first movie. The sin of Fast 5 is she's not in it, and I consider it perhaps the best movie they've made. But that's forgiven in Fast and Furious 6 when her amnesia subplot, and no looking, what's the bad guy's name? I'll give you a hint. He's Jason Statham's brother. Something shaw. I bet you can't remember Jason Statham's first name either. Okay, anyways, Statham is Deckard, his brother is Owen. Okay, they get Letty back, as with Han, conveniently from Tokyo Drift, wink wink, maybe a similarity, fixing a huge miscalculation, and now nobody has to die in the series. Let's make a list of non-traditional actors in Fast and Furious and put them behind Rodriguez in acting ability. Tyree Skibsen, model turned baby boy turned Roman Pierce. Chris Ludacris Bridges, rapper turned actor, Rhonda Rousey, fighter who acted that one time. Dwayne The Rock Johnson and John Cena, wrestlers who make most actors look bad in these movies. Iggy Azalea.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

Hey, that's the girl I heard so much about. Where you been at? Ghost girl?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, that actually happened. Former rapper, former cameo, Iggy Azalea was stuck in these stupid movies. Jason Statham, diver turned martial artist, turned actor. There's a serious evolution of Letty and Dom's relationship in the Fast franchise. And if you take it from both ends, one and X, in the first, she's territorial and a total boss. She has to believably deliver lines like this.

SPEAKER_05 11:55

Why don't you girls just pack it up before I leave tread marks on your face? Yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

You don't have anything?

SPEAKER_05 12:10

You look a bit tired. I think you should go upstairs and give me a massage. Look at all our guests. How about we go upstairs and give me a massage?

SPEAKER_01 12:20

See, in that movie, they have sexual chemistry, and by Fast X, they're cuddling on some Walmart furniture like the Amish. Michelle Rodriguez is so good at kissing, I cannot believe Vin has fumbled this so bad. But every trace of their off-screen romance is dead in the later movies. And if you're looking before and after one to X, she looks the same and Vin has changed. For the vineyard. Also, we know too much about these people now. Vin Diesel's idea of a good time is karaoke, and he does it right. And Michelle Rodriguez's idea of a good time is target practice or skydiving. One time on television, Bear Grills drank her urine and did not complain. I can't make this shit up.

unknown 12:59

Ah!

SPEAKER_02 13:00

That's not gonna make much of a broth. But you know what we could do to supplement this?

SPEAKER_04 13:04

I am a little scared to hear what you have to say about the situation.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Well, if one of us peed, and then we stew the the mouse and the pea in the water, and then we got a urine mouse soup. Have you never had urine mouse soup?

unknown 13:19

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 13:26

It's like chicken.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Yeah. Sauted in piss.

SPEAKER_04 13:31

Well, I'm kinda happy it's my piss and not yours.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Yeah, thanks. We better not let the broth go to waste.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

You're for real. I can't believe this.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Now, while I did not like the most recent Fast and Furious movie, but Eating Fast X, Rodriguez gets to fight Cypher, played by Charlize Teron. She has dreads two movies ago, but forget about that. And it's a good fight. These women are physical, choreographed, have great stunt teams, and have stayed relevant for over 25 years. In fact, the Curse Project Eon Flux starred Thuron. So the ladies fighting in the Arctic bunker are both Kusama leads. And in a series of movies where people fight each other with cars, these women are the people who can believably throw down with each other. And they managed to fuck that up too. Like the endgame shot with all the ladies in frame, they just had to bring her back. Okay, let's uh let's go back to the list of non-traditional actors. Galgado, war criminal turned alleged actress. Don't get mad at me for that part. When Galgadot attempts to smile on camera, the IDF bombs a hospital. Oh, so I guess you're not coming for the hot takes? You're coming because you're a fucking jerkoff? She might be the best example of history of visually depicting looks aren't everything. And maybe she shouldn't come back if Vin is interested in, I'm not sure, murdering, you know, family. I'm certainly not going to waste your time recalling the events in this movie. I would love to spotlight Jamie Torelli and Paul Calderon's performances. Um Calderon is Marcillus Wallace's bartender in Pulp Fiction and the Sergeant Major in The Last Castle. I solidly recommend you watch this movie. And there is a Criterion Blu-ray available, but I found a 2001 DVD in full screen, and it did the trick just fine. As per a rating, I'm giving it a 9 out of 10. It will be joining my collection. Every week my list seems to be getting smaller, and my library seems to be getting a bit bigger. But I must have been going somewhere, right? Like I must have had a point with the introduction, right? When Robert Rodriguez was looking to cast female leads for his new project, a spinoff of the Grindhouse trailer Machete, he had to find someone with enough gravitas. Someone shorthand for dangerous, beautiful, incapable of running a taco truck that starts the revolution. And who do you think came to mind? I guess they needed someone with some natural charisma. Bet you didn't think I'd make it back. Oh yeah. The only actress to hold her own against Danny Trejo is Michelle Rodriguez. Extras who can throw a punch, who are cast because of who they are, not because of what they can pretend to be. This movie came out on September 29th, 2000. I'm recording this podcast on the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001. And this movie is New York without the Skyline shots. It's bodegas, it's diners, it's the gym, it's classrooms. The movie is older than several of my colleagues, and I can't imagine how they see the world when it's just history, not something that happened to you. In 25 years, it's clear we made a whole lot of mistakes. We never forgot, but we got so distracted. It's a stupid podcast about movies, but the impact of one day will be noticeable on the art we start making in the early 2000s, which is where the show is going. My name is Evan Hughes. I'm the host of Screen Generation. It's a podcast about the films released by Sony under the label Screen Gems. The show was made by human beings, correction, made by a human being, without artificial flavors, colors, or any intelligence for that matter. Next week, join me for my third favorite, Spelled with a U, filmed by Guy Ritchie, Snatch.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Well, you know, 50 up for three very fast.

SPEAKER_05 17:15

I've got a pair of five, I want to have to fight it.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

I'm outless.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Anything to declare?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah. Don't go to England.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Uh in Florida, and uh strong questions with uh magic structure for the standard work.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Until next time, Governor.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

It's been many years uh that I've been doing what I do, um, thirteen to be exact, uh, since um Girl Fight, which was the first look I ever made. And it's it's it's a half road, Jesus. Just uh growing up in the industry. Um and I when I say growing up, I mean becoming an adult. And um