Special Treatment
Earlier today OK magazine critic Phil Villarreal thanked a Pheonix-based film publicist, Barclay Communications’ Lindsay Derr, for an invitation to see a 1.25 screening of The Mechanic (CBS Films 1.28), the latest action thriller starring Jason Statham. The invitation, however, says that reviews must be held “until opening day.” Villarreal felt this was unfair.
His objection was due to the fact that Arizona Republic critic Bill Goodykoontz, a top Gannett critic whose reviews appear in papers around the country, always reviews Friday openers on Wednesday. “If I go to the screening I will post my review Wednesday, 1.26, because that’s when Goodykoontz will post his review,” Villerreal replied, “[because] I will not respect an embargo that’s different for different people. If this isn’t okay let me know and I will not attend the screening.”
Derr’s response: “That is not okay so I will have to ask that you not attend the screening.”
Villarreal is a member of the Phoenix Film Critics Society and has joined the Online Film Critics Society. He says he’s determined that he will post his reviews “once Goodykoontz has posted his, since he is the biggest dog in my corner of the country. That policy seems to be okay with Allied [another Arizona-based publicity outfit] for the time being, but it’s apparently not good enough for Barclay.”
Villarreal can take solace over the fact that not one person seeing The Mechanic, or any other Jason Statham flick ever, will be reading the reviews anyway.
Endured this trailer at the front of “True Grit” …the only thing missing…the tagline, “Available In The
$5.00 Wal-Mart Bin…Sooner Than You Think”
The original is a guilty pleasure cult classic.
Attack of the Killer Pheonix!
The correctly-spelled version must have been copy-and-pasted.
I have no guilt in popping in the original from time to time. Charles Bronson at his non-killing machine best, cooly overlooking a massive ASSKICKING enterprise, with Jan Michael Vincent as his total asshole wannabe follower, his AWFUL HAIR immediately reminding you what the hierarchy is in every scene.
And that ENDING… aw fuck yes, what an ending. Someone who worked on the set for the remake told me that they, unsurprisingly CHUMPED OUT at the end in EXACTLY THE WAY you’d expect a FUCKING COWARD like Simon West would, when any real director would say, “You want me to shoot that? FUCK YOU I QUIT.” Plus, you just can’t bring in someone as AWESOME as creepy intense Ben Foster to be wimpy ass Jan Michael Vincent, because the dynamic is lost, as Foster and Statham could conceivably go toe-to-toe. Some waif like Joseph Gordon Levitt with a perm should have played it.
They’re playing the original Mechanic as a double with Hard Times at the New Beverly next weekend after this coming one.
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Very few people are going to read his review about this movie. Jason Staham Fans are coming regardless if this is a remake and it sucks. It can’t be worse than Crank2!