Why it's getting harder and harder to love Michael Madsen

To make up for my lack of posting while on vacation, I have been working the past week on a topic that is very near and dear to my heart - Michael Madsen. But because I have also spent a week writing this post which covers four film reviews and one of my favourite actors, it's really fucking long.

You may be sitting there wondering (especially if you are not a Tarantino fan) who the bloody hell Michael Madsen is. Chances are, you have probably seen at least one of his 166 projects, you just don't remember his name.

And of course, his most famous role was Mr. Blonde on Reservoir Dogs

To me, he is the sexiest actor alive. Well, he WAS.

At least I thought so the first time I watched Reservoir Dogs at O'Brien Hall with a bunch of NSCAD students instead of going to my calculus class. I still think I made the correct choice. How often do I need to take derivatives of matrix-valued functions with respect to matrix variables? Never. And if I hadn't failed that course, I wouldn't have dropped out of Dalhousie and I would have never gone into film school and became an awarding winning film director.

Thank you, Michael Madsen.

Now to put this in real perspective in case you don't know me very well, before I had seen Michael Madsen I had only ever had one real obsession with someone famous which was Donnie Wahlberg. Yes, that Donnie Wahlberg. In my defense, I was like, 9 years old when it started and he did used to look like this:

Which I now find creepy especially when I think about how he was 20 and I was 9. That relationship was never going to work, what was I thinking? Then again, I was 9. Thank god I didn't grow up around any cute pedofiles.

Michael Madsen looked completely how I expected Donnie Wahlberg to look like when he grew up. Not that I thought about it alot but it made sense to me at the time. And when I watched Reservoir Dogs for the first time, I was still smarting from my 12 yr old heart breaking from the death of a three year crush, which happened earlier during a viewing of the Sixth Sense (1999).

Right about this time.

Anyways, needless to say that I was smitten with Michael Madsen and he is one of the few actors that I actually will watch a project, no matter what it is, because he is in it. (Lance Henderickson is another one which I blame largely on Chris Carter.)

Unfortunately because of this smittenation and Michael Madsen not really giving a shit what kind of movie he is in, I have seen some pretty stupid films. And I do mean stupid.

So I have decided to reflect on some of his more disappointingly stupid works over the past couple of years. These films do not share much between them except they look like they were all made for a couple of million. Now don't get me wrong, I fucking love low budget. Fucking. Love. It. And I owned Carnosaur on VHS and then bought it again on DVD because I fucking love bad low budget. But these... these are just bad. And stupid.

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House 2008 - In rural Alabama, two couples find themselves in a fight for survival. Running from a maniac (The Tin Man) bent on killing them, they flee deep into the woods and seek refuge in a house. They soon realize the killer has purposely lured them to this house and that they are now trapped. At sunrise everyone dies if the killer's demands are not met and someone in the house is killed. What they quickly learn is that the only way out... is in. But going further into this house--where unknown challenges await them--is equally deadly.

You know what the fucking synopsis of this film should be? It was all a dream. There you go, five fucking words and I bet if you had read that as a tagline you would have thought what I did when I got to the end of this cocksucking shit ride at the fuck festival: are you kidding me?

I knew this movie was going to suck as soon as it started, but I fucking held out because I always try to for 25 minutes. Why 25 minutes? Because that is typically when the first act is over and the second act is about to begin and the director is all like "alright bitches, THIS is what you came for" and something happens. Once that something happens, I can tell if the meter of suckitude is going to raise or lower. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised. Other times, I either turn it off or suck it up.

Unfortunately I chose to suck it up in this case.

I am largely blaming on my brother Nathan because he was extremely confident that something with the name of "Tin Man" HAD to be awesome. And the fact that MICHAEL MADSEN was the Tin Man, well, how could it not be awesome? It was so not awesome.

It was the fucking sheriff at the beginning of the film. Which you can tell if you watch it because HE HAS THE SAME HAT AND COAT ON! But apparently that mask is like Clark Kent's glasses. And, not only was it all a dream but the "good guy" is actually this soul hungry manifestation of evil that wants you to kill. No, M. Night Shyamalan did not direct this film. I don't even give a fuck who did. I hope that they and the people who gave them the money all burn in hell with their bleeding black fog. Fucking Jesus.

Watchability: None. I believe no amount of drugs or alcohol will ever make this film watchable.

Gore: Does fuckers bleeding black fog count?

~~~

The Portal 2010 - Investigators pursuing a bizarre hemorrhagic illness are lead to a strange black painting that they discover is a portal to another dimension.

Let's just say if I had seen this DVD cover first, I would have never watched this film. Can you blame me? It looks like they gave a ten year old Photoshop and some crack and locked him up in a closet until he was done. Which was 23 seconds later.

In fact this movie is so bad that if you are even halfway interested in this plot, just watch Mirrors (2008) with Keifer Sutherland, its basically the same thing but a little less sucky. Instead of scientists there is an abandoned mall and instead of a painting there are mirrors and instead of Michael Madsen, there is Keifer Sutherland. And I fucking hate Keifer Sutherland so if I am telling you to watch something that he is in over Michael Madsen, that is saying a lot.

Watchability: In fact this movie is so bad, I am actually going to compare it to the Lindsay Lohan film "I Know Who Killed Me". Why? Because like "I Know Who Killed Me", I don't remember a thing about it. My brain, in the interest of saving what little is left of my sanity, has purged almost everything about this film from my head. The only difference being, I watched "I Know Who Killed Me" twice because my brain purged it so well that I forgot I already watched it. However, it has learned from that mistake.

Gore: I honestly can't remember.

~~~

Deep Winter 2008 - Best friends set out to be the first people to ski a dangerous Alaskan peak.

Now from reading this you may think what I did when I read it: Wow, Michael Madsen and his best friend take on a mountain! This sounds epic!

It was not. Michael Madsen was actually the crotchety helicopter pilot. Thats right, crotchety.

And this also isn't a horror movie. It is supposedly an action movie.

These two kids come to this mountain in the middle of butt fuck nowhere fueled with testosterone and are all like "oh this is super dangerous but our penises laugh in the face of danger". And the only person they know of that has a helicopter around this mountain that can take them to the top so they can ski down it is Michael Madsen.

Now apparently Michael Madsen worked with his best friend before who also wanted to ski down this mountain BUT DIED. Did this scare the boys? Hell no. Did Michael Madsen promise to help them because he declared "revenge on the mountain"? Hell yes. And is that in quotation marks because he actually SAID THAT in the film? Hell yes.

(Not actual dialogue)

If by revenge, he meant radio to the boys as they were skiing down it to where the best place to ski down would be, then, yeah, I guess he did avenge his friend's death. I think. I can't remember if the little fuckers made it all the way down or not. I do remember a moment where they were at the top and they were suppose to go down one part because Michael Madsen told them to so they could "train", but they were all like fuck this old guy, we're going down here, and then either someone almost died or they did die. I can't remember. There might have been an avalanche. But if it was me and I claimed revenge on a mountain, I would have at least tried to blow a chunk of it up. Or pee on it. SOMETHING. I would not, however, move to this town and become a cranky pilot that flies around the mountain where my best friend died. That still seems like the mountain won.

Watchability: I guess that would depend on how bored you were and how much you would like Michael Madsen play crotchety but I am telling you right now, no one can play crotchety like Lance Henderickson, so just watch the first season of Millenium instead.

Gore: Maybe some stupid ski injury but I don't really remember any.

~~~

Now out of all the films I have seen him in recently, I would have to say that this was the best one:

Croc 2007 -A large man-eating crocodile terrorizes tourists and locals near Krabi, in Thailand. Michael Madsen plays a hunter stalking the immense reptile, while sub-plots include a rivalry between a foreigner, who owns a crocodile-farm, and a Thai man who plays a part in framing the foreigner for the crocodile's rampage.

But before you go running off to dig through the DVD bargin bin to find this treasure, I have to mention two things:

- it's a Syfy production which for me, is like soap opera candy. I will (and have) watch any SyFy movie. (The Hive? Fucking brilliant in its ridiculiousness)

- consider how bad those other films are that I described before you consider how good this could be.

However, I will also watch any film for a good death scene. My film school roommate Tracy Many Books taught me appreciation of a good death scene. We must have watched that scene in Hannibal (2001) where the guy was impaled on a pole and then hung out a window and his guts spilled on the pavement below scene AT LEAST eight times. I will never forget that sound. Anyways, what I am trying to say is that I did enjoy the last death scene of this movie so if you do rent it and can't last the whole thing, just fast forward to the last fifteen minutes of the movie and you will basically understand anything anyways and see the best death scene in the film.

~~~

With 32 films currently in various stages of development, I have to say that I don't think the Madsen train is going to come to a stop any time soon. Unless of course he drinks himself to death.

And as much as I have hated on his most recent projects I have seen, I have to admit that I still have a tiny shred of hope that I am going to see him in something again that will remind me why I fell in love with him in the first place.

Even though the 32 films could potentially be a huge shitpile of shitty movies that are going to suck balls, I am still willing to wade through it, looking for that tiny glimmer. I'm just warning you now I don't know how much longer I can handle the smell, Madsen.