"The whole point of being a rapper is making your peers say "damn, I wish I'd have said that first!" and making your audience say "damn, I can't believe he just said that!"
-- Ice Cube in some Hip Hop documentary on UK TV back in the early 90s.
Been burrowing my way through Uncle Murda's back catalogue recently to see if there's anything else I like as much as Wu Wuu Wuuu or even I Shot The Sheriff and I Just Shot Him, which are pretty much the only other Murda songs I'm up on aside from his joint with Jay Camel. Typically, the cut I'm digging most is some barely-mastered boopity-boop shit that only lasts a paltry minute and a half, but which transcends such problems with sheer anomie as it taps into a theme previously explored by Jim Jump in King Of New York and Pretty Tone Capone on Case Dismissed:
"I ain't gon' shoot your leg or shoot you in the arm
I might shoot you in the head or shoot your baby moms"
It's very rare that a sequel to or reboot of a perenial favourite lives up to the lofty expectations you have for it, but I'll be damn-diggity-damned if Bad Lieutenant : Port Of Call New Orleans hasn't surpassed my high hopesand even improved on the original movie.
The O.G Bad Lieutenant contains what's my favourite scene ever, but other than a few additional incredible moments, it's not a particularly good watch, is it? Port Of Call New Orleans retains some of the themes of the first movie, but thankfully eschews all the confusing Catholicism and vague pretense of a plot to just let Nic Cage run wild with the character. It's been a lonely existence as a fan of Cage's wide-eyed manic schtick (the Castor Troy scenes in Face/Off and the first 15 minutes of Snake Eyes remain untouchable) for the last decade, but validation has finally come a-knockin' on my door as Herzog agrees with me that the problem hasn't been Cage's overacting, but rather, he just hasn't been given the appropriate movie to fully showcase his lunatic charms in. Given carte blanche to spazz-out here he gives the performance of his career, and even manages appropriate homages to teh gawd Kinski as both Aguirre, with his wild eyes and hunch, and Nosferatu, with his oversized clothes.
And, yeah, nothing can ever top the wanking scene in the Ferrara flick, but if you can tell me with a straight face that these two scenes alone don't body the rest of the original, then you're straight up lying through your teeth like Herzog is when he claims he's never seen the Ferrara movie :
Add in incidental music which sounds like it's from series 1 of Round The Twist, rapper-turned-actor cameos from Xzibit and Chino XL (Xzibit is suprisingly good and with this one role has trumped his entire boring rap career), Cage namechecking Eazy E in front of his black accomplices whilst strung out and blackmailing narcotics possessing club chicks into sex (the police force should loop that scene and then show it in schools across the world as a recruitment initiative video), and we have what amounts to my favourite movie of the year, which is ironic since Cage is also the lead in my least favourite movie of 2009.
And, I was right about this toppling Baller Blockin' from its ivory tower as my favourite New Orleans based movie.
Bonus New Orleans beats
The best song from the Baller Blockin' soundtrack; and the last song Weezy did with Mannie in 2005, which is better than anything either of them have done since :
This is Maurice. Maurice is a friend of Sha Deezy's dad Metin and is someone who Sha Deezy and I have shared the company of when sinking a few drinks on numerous occasions.
Maurice had a behemoth heartattack a couple of weeks ago and got his Nikki Sixx on when he died for a few minutes before coming back to life. During those crucial couple of minutes when he flatlined he saw stuff. Stuff that, now he's on the mend, he's managed to sketch down. Post-death dream full of cliched iconography caused by lax of oxygen to the brain or genuine glimpse into the afterlife? You decide :
Although Maurice may have first hand experience of death and the possibility of what, if anything, comes after the human heart goes bump for the last time, here at The Martorialist we prefer to pour over this scene from Abel Ferrara's '96 mob chef-d'oeuvre (and dry-run for many a Sopranos actor) The Funeral for all our thoughts on theology and hold it to task for inspiring our own inability to take responsibility or blame for even the most mundane of errors.
Witness Jean Tempio (Annabella Sciorra, looking not quite as hot as she did as Gloria in The Sopranos) tell Ray Tempio (Christopher Walken) he'll more than likely burn in hell for avenging his brother Johnny's (Vince Gallo) death and Ray replying that he eschews all accountability for his actions as he blames them on god since nothing, according to "them Catholic scholars", happens without the god's permission :
You may or may not remember that Bad Lieutenant gets all sorts of crazy love here at The Martorialist and we're quite fond of a few Werner Herzog flicks too so we're weirdly excited about the upcoming Bad Lieutenant remake by Herzog now we've seen the trailer which was released on wednesday :
Of course, it looks like an utter car-crash with Nicolas Cage (who's become the definition of a hack, but who we love due to the greatness of Raising Arizona, Wild At Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, the 10 minute long opening tracking shot of Snake Eyes and Face/Off, particularly the scene where he says he wants to take Travolta's face...off and gestures outwards from his mug with his hand in a triangular shaped motion) usurping Harvey Keitel in the lead role, Herzog remaking a movie he claims he hasn't even seen, basing it in New Orleans (this may replace Baller Blockin' as our favourite movie set in the N.O) instead of New York and a cast which includes those esteemed thespians Xzibit, Eva Mendes and Brad Dourif, BUT, damn, this shit looks entertaining and if it includes a new version of the scene where the Lieutenant pulls his pud in the middle of the street over two teenage rawk chickz in a parked car with the juxtaposition of Cage doing his trademark delirious wild-eyed schtick and Herzog urging him to "tueg harder at dast cawwwwk" behind the camera then how can it not be the movie of the summer?
The Baptism & Murder scene from The Godfather Part 1? Nah, kid. The final showdown between Harmonica and Frank in Once Upon A Time In The West? Pfffft. Tommy sticking Paulie The Penis through the hole in the wall of the girl's showers only for Miss Balbricker to grab it in Porky's? Okay, you've got a point with that one, but cast it from your mind for now while we extol the virtues of the Show me with your mouth scene from Bad Lieutenant.
Now, you could argue that King Of New York is a much better movie than Bad Lieutenant as far as Abel Ferrara flicks go and you'd be right but there isn't a scene in KONY, not even the For the bulletholes, puta! tampons-in-the-briefcase scene, better than Harvey Keitel standing in a street furiously jerking off in front of a car containing 2 trashy teenage rock chicks from New Jersey who've jacked their dad's car without permission with one of them mock-fellating him while the other is baring her arse for him, is there?
* While this does obliterate any of the classic scenes in King Of New York into dust, the KONY menu screen with the loop of the scene where Frank (Christopher Walken) is dancing in the hotel room which is overdubbed with Saturday Night by Schoolly D is as about as close to rivalling it as you can possibly get.
