![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/The-Crow-01.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Undead goth kills drug-dealing rapists with guns, knives, swords, morphine, grenades, gothic architecture and some poetic verbal nuance.<\/p>\n
THE CROW. A movie so good, they\u2019ve tried remaking it 5 times. Soon to be six. And one of those times was with Edward Furlong, Tara Reid and David Boreanaz. \u201cCan\u2019t rain all the time\u201d my ass. But, there is some good news. Each one of these films has been exponentially less popular then it\u2019s predecessor, rendering the last couple all but forgotten. And this gem by visionary director Alex Proyas was before all that buggery.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can’t rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n THE CROW follows one of these rare cases, Eric Draven. A young musician robbed of both his life and true love during a vicious act of violence enacted upon them by a thuggish group of anarchist scum on the night before their wedding, All Hollow\u2019s Eve. One year later, Eric returns from the grave for sweet revenge. And as we all know, revenge is a dish best served with dreary tid-bits of gothic literature AND BLOOD.<\/p>\n Back in the day (the 90s) I wouldn\u2019t have thought twice about giving this film a 10 outta 10, but re-watching it after another decade and having seeing the seeds it so casually sowed grow, it\u2019s hard to forgive it for almost single-handedly creating a demand for Hot Topic stores and it\u2019s overpriced junk movie merch that I wouldn\u2019t even piss on for laughs. So, I\u2019d say it sits around a 9 now. Unfair? Sure, it is. But this is my fucking review, not yours. And a 9 still ain\u2019t too fuckin\u2019 shabby.<\/p>\n To me, Alex Proyas is like a reserved, (far) more talented Tim Burton. He has the dark, skewed gothic style down pat, and delivers it without cramming his contacts and arty weirdness up your ass with Johnny Depp\u2019s insufferable kooky tongue. And I appreciate that.<\/p>\n The powers that be chose wisely, in casting b-list, up-and-coming action star Brandon Lee to head-line.\u00a0 Having always played the short-haired, straight-laced guy, the proposition of Lee donning KISS make-up and a consistently wet mop of goth-rocker hair is an odd choice, but damn if it didn\u2019t work. Add to this some tight leather pants, oversized hobo-boots and an ever (well, sorta*) badass leather trench coat, and you have a recipe for ass-kickery.<\/p>\n Combining the talents of Proyas and Lee, with an archetypal revenge killer story so simple, yet fresh and stylistically original, ended up creating dark magic. I don\u2019t know anyone who didn\u2019t think this movie was kick-ass back in \u201894 and I don\u2019t know anyone now that doesn\u2019t look back on it with fondness and positive wisps of nostalgia.\u00a0 The score is pitch-perfect in complimenting the visuals and even the whiny complaint rock inter-strewn throughout added to the atmosphere and didn’t annoy me. The set design is perfectly saturated and dark, much like it’s comicbook cousin film, BATMAN. The supporting cast is great, especially Michael Wincott (ROBIN HOOD, ALIEN: RESURRECTION) as the Kingpin, Top Dollar, and his lead enforcer and bane of Draven’s afterlife, T-Bird, played by action industry legend, David Patrick Kelly (THE WARRIORS, COMMANDO<\/a>). And they even threw in a shotgun wielding Ernie Hudson for good measure. He came, he saw, he kicked some ASS! So, needless to say, I completely recommend this flick. It\u2019s a Reese\u2019s Peanutbutter Cup of THE MATRIX and DEATH WISH<\/a> flicks and it\u2019s not to be missed. Especially now before they no-doubt taint it\u2019s existence with another sure-to-be-shitty re-make next year. Ah, well. At least there is one good version out there. \u201cCan\u2019t rain all the time\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n *Made before THE MATRIX sub-culture of brooding 23 yr-olds decided dressing in them was the ultimate \u201cFuck You!\u201d to society, thus rendering them lame and ineffective. So having Lee sport one of his victim\u2019s was still cool and bad-ass.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are seriously fucked up. Would you look in the mirror? I mean, you need professional help!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cSo you\u2019re him, huh? The Avenger. The Killer of Killers. Nice outfit. I\u2019m not sure about the face, though.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you supposed to be? A clown or something?\u201d Lee had really begun to hit his stride and evolve out of his father\u2019s well-toned shadow, and I think that had he survived this film, he would have been in a Keanu-after-The Matrix situation of new ground, status and opportunity. Would he have fucked it up like Reeves? Who knows, but I can\u2019t help but think he would have been considered for the role of Neo, which is tragically thought provoking in and of itself.<\/p>\n As for the character, if Charles Bronson<\/a> were a twenty-something emo-rocker, he\u2019d be Eric Draven. And I haven\u2019t decided if this is a good thing or not. Paul Kersey is bad-ass, and Eric Draven is cool, despite the culture he wroth, so I think his defining adjective falls somewhere in-between.<\/p>\n On the downside, he’s a brooding, poetry spewing,\u00a0 furlong lover, but on the plus, Lee plays him as a fuckin\u2019 psycho\u2026 Plus, he is impervious to all physical damage and possessed with a rockstar\u2019s penchant for theatrics, and he never resists the urge to go apeshit on his girlfriend\u2019s torturers… Alright, I\u2019ve talked myself into it. Eric Draven is most definitely a bad-ass mother-fucker.<\/p>\n – Is undead. Draven sends 25 souls down to the pits of Hell in a grab-bag of gruesome ways. Watch<\/a>. As for the other 6, you have Shelly and Eric (of course) then Top Dollar takes out Gideon the pawnshop owner and a whore, Ernie Hudson takes out Tony Todd and the Crow even gets a kill by blinding Dollar’s psycho bitch sister and causing her to fall down a bell-tower. Ding Dong!…<\/p>\n Creeping in through the window of T-Bird\u2019s resident heroin junky soldier\u2019s 2nd floor apartment, Draven calls to Funboy as though he were a lost house pet, while rubbing his painted forehead in circles around the rooms hanging light bulb, successfully scaring the shit outta his prey. Fun-Boy pulls a gun and Draven pulls up a chair. Placing his palm on the pointed barrel, Draven tells him to \u201cTake your shot, Funboy. You got me dead bang!\u201d<\/strong>. Funboy does, but begins his celebration a little too soon, as Draven\u2019s hand heals almost instantly while he laughs and hollers back to the now disconcerted junkie.<\/p>\n Funboy:<\/span> \u201cJesus\u2014Christ !\u201d Then Draven proceeds to disarm Funboy and stab a handful of illicit-substance filled needles directly into his heart. MEH-TALL!!!<\/p>\n While he does meander around shirtless after unearthing himself, is more ripped than Jesus AND wears make-up and black leather, the fact remains that Draven is here on Earth to kill for his lost love. A woman. And a good looking one at that. But where this film lacks in gayness, it over exemplifies in unabashed degradation of all things feminine\u2026<\/p>\n Beginning with the beating, stabbing and raping of Shelly (Draven\u2019s fianc\u00e9), ending with an evil sexual deviant getting her eyes torn outta her sockets by the crow, and enough in-between to make even the Little Rascals cry, this film is unrelenting.<\/p>\n The other women in the picture are Sarah, a young girl who was pretty much raised by Eric and Shelly (we know how that panned out); her mother, a barroom whore; some woman that gets sexually abused to death by Bai Ling and her brother (yes, BROTHER). And Ernie Hudson\u2019s wife, seen only in a picture as she left him in the backstory.<\/p>\n So, lets do the math: Woman tortured and raped to death the day before her wedding + a sexual black-widow + a 48th trimester aborted girl + her druggie-slut mom + some dead skank + an apathetic, abandoner wife = One Bleak World For Womankind.<\/p>\n And I didn’t even mention the nudity…<\/p>\n Draven crashes a dubious local pawnshop after learning it’s stock includes his dead fiance’s pawned engagement ring. And I mean, CRASHES it. After beating the scumbag owner, Gideon, and stabbing his hand to the counter, Draven regains his lost bobble and begins to soak every last inch of the store with petrol. All while lecturing Gideon about the lives he helped ruin by knowingly accepting stolen merchandise. On the way out, Draven grabs a shotgun and fills the barrel with the other stolen engagement rings, walks outside and discharges a round of diamond infused justice unto the building. Badda-BOOM, MOTHA-FUCKA!<\/p>\n That is some cold blooded shit to say to a dude seconds before you use his own knives to stab him in all his major organs. In alphabetical order, no less.<\/p>\n I learned all sorts of stuff! For instance: *Facepaint? I’ll allow it.<\/strong><\/p>\n **FIRE IT UP! FIRE IT UP! FIRE IT UP!<\/strong><\/p>\n The Crow (1994) \u00a9 Crowvision, Inc. and Miramax\/Dimension Home Entertainment<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [THE CHALK-OUTLINE] The Crow (1994): Breakdown by Rantbo Undead goth kills drug-dealing rapists with guns, knives, swords, morphine, grenades, gothic architecture and some poetic verbal nuance. [THE EXECUTION] THE CROW. A movie so good, they\u2019ve tried remaking it 5 times. Soon to be six. And one of those times was with Edward Furlong, Tara Reid … Read moreThe Crow: \u201cWhat the FUCK you all painted up for, crackhead, huh!? Halloween ain\u2019t till manana!\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1699],"class_list":["post-2195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-the-crow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2195"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31360,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2195\/revisions\/31360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/The-Crow-02.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/The-Crow-03.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\n[HOW BAD-ASS IS THE MAIN CHARACTER?]<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/The-Crow-04.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\nBrandon Lee<\/a> is Eric Draven<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n\u201c\u2026 Sometimes.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n– Played guitar for a band called Hangman\u2019s Joke. And subsequently wrote himself one bad-ass piece of theme music, which he plays before trashing his one-man set. Totally METAL!
\n– Pioneer of Parkour.
\n– Bitchslaps an airborne knife away from his chest.
\n– Get shot, hundreds of times AND stabbed through the mid-section with a katana before becoming incapacitated.
\n– And, lest we forget, HE ROSE FROM THE GRAVE TO KILL THE BASTARDS THAT DARED FUCK WITH HIM!<\/p>\n[THE BODY COUNT: 31]
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n[MOST SATISFYING DEATH]<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
Fun-Boy Takes His Shot(s)<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/The-Crow-07.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\n
\nDraven:<\/span> \u201cJesus Christ? Stop me if you heard this one. Jesus Christ walks into a hotel\u2026
\nFun-Boy\u2019s Gun:<\/span> \u201cBANG!\u201d
\nDraven:<\/span> \u201cOw. He hands the innkeeper three nails and he asks\u2026\u201d
\nFun-Boy\u2019s Gun:<\/span> \u201cBANG!\u201d
\nFunboy:<\/span> \u201cDon\u2019t chu ever fuckin\u2019 die!\u201d
\nDraven:<\/span> \u201c\u2026could you put me up for the night!\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/The-Crow-5.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\n[DUDESWEAT AND MACHISMO]<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
[EXPLOITATION AND MISOGYNY]<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/The-Crow-6.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\n[EPIC MOMENT AND BEST ONE-LINER]<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
EP-M: …It’s A Lovely Way To Shop…<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/The-Crow-08.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/span><\/p>\nTHE LINE:<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/The-Crow-09.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\n[THE MORAL OF THE STORY]<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n\u201cThis is the really real world, THERE AIN\u2019T NO COMIN\u2019 BACK!\u201d
\n\u201cMother is name for God on the lips and hearts of all children\u2026 Morphine is bad for you.\u201d
\nAnd onions make you fart. \u201cBig time!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n[THE CHECKLIST: 19 outta 25]<\/span><\/h2>\n
[X] Athlete(s) Turned \u201cActor\u201d [Brandon Lee]
\n[\u00a0 ] Clinging To The Outside Of A Moving Vehicle
\n[\u00a0 ] Crotch Attack
\n[X] Dialogue Telling Us How Bad-Ass The Main Character(s) Is\/Are
\n[X] Ending Featuring An Ambulance, A Blanket or A Towel
\n[X] Factory\/Warehouse
\n[X] Giant Explosion(s)
\n[X] Heavy Artillery
\n[X] Improvised Weapon(s)
\n[\u00a0 ] Macho Mode(s) Of Transportation
\n[X] Main Character Sports Facial Accessory(s)*
\n[X] Manly Embrace(s)**
\n[\u00a0 ] Notorious Stunt-Man Sighting
\n[X] Passage(s) Of Time Via Montage
\n[\u00a0 ] Politically Fueled Plot Point(s)
\n[X] Senseless Destruction Of Property
\n[X] Shoot Out(s) and\/or Sword Fight(s)
\n[X] Slow-Motion Finishing Move(s)\/Death(s)
\n[X] Stupid Authoritative Figure(s)
\n[X] Substance Usage and\/or Abuse
\n[X] Tis The Season <\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>[Devil\u2019s Night & Halloween]
\n [X] Torture Sequence(s)
\n[X] Unnecessary Sequel
\n[\u00a0 ] Vehicle Chase(s)
\n[X] Vigilante Justice<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/The-Crow-10.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/strong><\/p>\n