Romeo is Bleeding Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I cannot possibly think of villains without thinking of Lena Olin's Mona Demarkov. While the trailer for Romeo is Bleeding suggests that the film is nothing more than a ridiculous camp fest, her portrayal of the sadistic Russian hitwoman is mesmerizing and scary. With ease, she oozes every aspect of evil.

She can be the stoic, gravelly voiced baddie who bides her time, waiting for the perfect moment -- her eyes not missing a thing. She can be the seductress, using her beauty to easily prey on Jack's (Gary Oldman) continually wandering eye. She can be the villain who never gets killed -- not swayed by a shot to the arm, or other wounds that challenge her. But her most memorable evil -- her most villainous aspect -- is her adoration of real, intimate, bodily violence. She's not some bad gal with firepower. Her violence is within her, her weapons being the things lying around, or her own body. And she loves to give pain. She doesn't just smile -- violence makes her happy.

Take the scene after the jump (strong language warning!): She starts to choke Jack, and as he struggles for air, she laughs -- not just a giggle, but an eruption of pure, seemingly sexual, delight -- the throaty laugh, eyes closed, back arched. When Jack finally breaks free, her panting body looks post-coital, not post-choking. He hurts her. She keeps fighting. She chokes him with her legs, and then frees herself. It's almost absurd, but not in the carefully crafted fictional way -- it seems just crazy enough to be true, like Peter Medak pulled a real villain off the streets to play Mona. In one package, she's the femme fatale and the tough-as-nails baddie.

Yes, this is Gary Oldman week for me and retro cinema, but you won't see me complaining. Usually, the chameleon Oldman morphs and slides onto the screen for one of his many diverse supporting roles. Most recently, he's taken on heroes like Sirius Black and Lt. James Gordon, but he's got a past that includes the little person Rolfe, the creepy Mason Verger, Pontius Pilate, Zorg, a Russian hijacker, and as I shared earlier this week, Ludwig van Beethoven. 1993's Romeo is Bleeding, however, marks one of the few times like Immortal Beloved where we can see him shine in the lead.

Oldman plays Jack Grimaldi, a cop who has been lured by the dark side in a noir '90s landscape. (Think Twin Peaks' timeless quality and haunting music, but set within a violent urban environment.) To supplement his low-pay job as a sergeant, Grimaldi is working for the mob -- directing them to the locations of different witnesses under protection. For his efforts, he gets thousands of dollars, which he hides in the back of his yard. But this is only the tip of Jack's moral failings. While he has a wife named Natalie (Annabella Sciorra) at home, he's also acting out fantasies with his grating girlfriend, Sheri (Juliette Lewis).

Though he's still busy running around town as Captain Jack, fending off enemies and bringing Disney an absurd amount of money, Johnny Depp (and his production shingle, Infinitum Nihil) managed to spare enough time to partner up with Graham King's Initial Entertainment Group on three adaptations, all of which will be co-produced for Warner Bros. Pictures. Three books. Three stories. Three films. However, Infinitum Nihil (why does it take me ten minutes to type that name correctly?) stressed that Johnny Depp is not attached to star in any of the films ... but we'll go ahead and speculate that he'll pop up in at least one. Here's what we're looking at:

• The first book is Joseph Gangemi's Inamorata, in which Peter Medak (Romeo is Bleeding) is in talks to direct. This one takes us to Philadelphia during the 1920s in which a Harvard grad attempts to discredit a beautiful psychic, but falls in love with her at the same time. Hmm, I bet she didn't see that one coming. Zing!
• Next up is Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy's (say that ten times fast) Affected Provincial's Companion which, according to Variety, is a "compendium of essays, diagrams and poetry" on the value of being a refined gentleman is an unrefined world. Sounds strange, but it's supposed to be hysterical -- in the vein of McSweeney's stuff. I also love the title, though I expect Hollywood would change it to something like, How To Be a Better Man in 10 Days.
• Finally, we have James Meek's The People's Act of Love which -- get this -- is set in 1919 Siberia. Random. Anyway, story revolves around an escapee from a Russian prison camp who, while on the run, stumbles upon a Christian sect. And that's when things really get crazy. We think. And hope.