Summer 2010: Saved by Trash

This summer movie season was dismal, to put it kindly. Potential franchises and sequels were mostly D.O.A. (Prince of Persia, A-Team, more Shrek and Sex & the City). There were only a handful of smart, well-written films for adults (Inception, The Kids Are Alright). So, where were the fun surprises to be found? In the B-Movie/Camp Genre of course!!

In my trash-loving opinion, the two best summer films of 2010 were Piranha 3D and Machete.

Piranha 3D was tits-tastic, with a self-aware cast that was having a blast making this gorefest. Seriously, I think maybe only the opening of Saving Private Ryan rivals this film for the sheer carnage packed into a twelve-minute chunk of scene. You have to see this (the 3D, as usual, is totally arbitrary and useless so check it out on DVD if you want). 

Machete, by Robert Rodriguez, improves upon his already-delightful grindhouse feature, Planet Terror. with another B-movie throwback. This one (based on a trailer from his collaboration with Tarantino, Grindhouse) is about a Mexican hitman, set up by Gringo bad guys to kill a senator. Right off the bat, we are given scene after scene of inventive, funny ways of destroying people with gardening tools. Rodriguez uses the whole, silly thing as a statement on immigration in the U.S.
Most of the critics I've read have derided the movie's political message, calling it obvious and over-the-top. Well....DUH! This is a grindhouse film of the MEXploitation genre. It would be inappropriate for this movie to NOT deal with politics. Blacksploitation and Mexploitation films of the 70s were often loaded with political symbols and messages. Sure, Machete outdoes them all with the image of Robert De Niro dressed as a migrant field worker tied to a fence and riddled with bullets. Or Jessica Alba, as an INS officer, siding with the illegals and yelling "We didn't cross the border! The border crossed us!"
Oh. And Lindsey Lohan's titties are in it. And she's in a nun's habit firing a shotgun.

I loved these movies. They are both perfect representations of the types of films this blog is dedicated to. They were also blasts of fresh, 70s air in a summer full of stifling, overheated misfires.