street kings was fucking awesome

Warren Theaters in Moore, Oklahoma, is the single best theater I've ever been to in my life. All-digital. All-THX. $7 for the poor seating, $12 for the balcony. I paid the $12. You walk in and it's like a fucking Joel Schumacher version of a '50s movie theater. Batman Forever and shit. Neon lights and a million-dollar marble floor. Nice attendants in monkey suits tore our tickets.

Jimmy and I ascended the stairs to the balcony area. A life size Yoda sat on the bar. I got a 32 oz. mug of Bud Light. I was set. The walls have classic movie shit all over them: King Kong, Star Wars, etc. Between the bathrooms there's a huge signed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade poster.

The place cost $32 million, and it looks it.

The balcony area in the actual auditorium is fucking class. Eight pairs of seats across and four rows deep, with enough room between rows so the motherfuckers behind you can stretch out without kicking the back of your chair. You can order off the menu sitting at the table in front of you. All you have to do is press the red call button. If you're cold, by the way, this other little button will warm your chair up. The padding is straight NASA. Plush as fuck.

It's about a ten-minute drive from my house. I'm going to see everything there.

The picture is fucking gorgeous. The sound is immense. And it helps that the movie we saw was tits, also.

"Street Kings" is the fucking shit. It's directed by David Ayer, who wrote "Training Day" and "Harsh Times". This flick almost pulls him out of the shit for co-writing "The Fast and the Furious" and "touching up" "SWAT". I understand, dude, you had to get paid. But I still have a chip on my shoulder about "Dark Blue". Because that was Ellroy, and your screenplay fucked it up, bad. But it was Kurt Russell and that guy who gets butcher knifed in Gangs of New York's fault, too. Goddamn they were bad in that movie. So basically at this point I'm willing to say that you're cool. You're on shaky ground, though.

The original screenplay for "Street Kings" is by James Ellroy, whose nuts most of you know I will ride, much like a cowboy, into the sunset. It was "touched up" by a couple Hollywood monkeys, but the Ellroy comes through, cheese and all.

The action is well shot in a kind of Hype Williams, "Belly" kind of way. I dug it. Lots of blood.

Keanu Reeves does alright. He's a "racist" cop who dresses kind of like an anime nerd. It's bizarre, him being part Chinese and whatnot, spitting the vile, racist, extremely Ellroy dialogue at the beginning, and then having some Koreans kick his ass and call him "white-boy". Then after the first fifteen minutes, he doesn't say or do anything racist at all. Weird.

The rest of the actors are fucking top notch. Common is great, Hugh Laurie is great, and Forest Whitaker is great. I feel like a scene between those last two can perfectly sum up the tone of the movie. Laurie and Whitaker hate each other. Laurie's trying to get dirt on Reeves cause he doesn't play by the rules, and Reeves is on Whitaker's Vice squad. It's kind of like a kid lighting a school on fire, and the kid's mom comes and yells at the principal for punishing her baby.

Anyway, here's how the scene goes:

Forest Whitaker: (walks into Laurie's office) Hey, motherfucker.

Hugh Laurie: Fuck you.

FW: (close up) I got somethin' for you.

HL: Fuuuck you.

FW: (takes his balls out and slaps them on Laurie's desk) What do you think of that, motherfucker?

HL: Eat shit. (takes his balls out and palms them and kind of shrugs. his balls are massive)

FW: Those are some pretty big balls, motherfucker.

HL: Go to hell.

FW: Oh, yeah? Go to hell? (FW begins pissing all over Laurie's office) I'm gonna piss on your blinds, bitch. I'm pissing in your fern right now. Cheap fake shit. Watering your plants, bitch.

HL: (begins pissing on Keanu Reeves) I'm pissing on your butt-boy. Your left ear looks like a Dorito that got left out in the rain.

(Keanu Reeves begins drinking heavily)

KR: We are all so hard-boiled.

(they stop pissing)

FW: I'll see you in hell.

HL: I'll fuck your mother in hell.

Whitaker and Reeves leave. Laurie straightens his tie and calls for a hooker, preferably one who's addicted to crack.

If that doesn't get you hard, I don't know what will. Go see it.