Charlie's Angels is PEAK Cinema

this video is one I've been wanting to do since I first started making film reviews about a year ago there have been a number of insults hurled at the most recent addition to the Charlie's Angels franchise which I managed to finally see while working on the outline for this video it was pretty average but I'm not here to talk about that being that there is a new installment I had the misfortune of stumbling across some discourse regarding the franchise that dragged the good name of the 2000s films through the mud by claiming that those films had been made to target a male audience I have not been this outraged by film discourse since I saw a bad take on Guy Ritchie's film the gentleman which has not even come out yet so I am here to set the record straight once and for all that Charlie's Angels 2000 is an iconic contribution to cinema and still holds up today [Music] when Sony Pictures was developing a new film adaptation of Charlie's Angels Drew Barrymore's producing partner Nancy Bonin told her that they needed to get in there and try to land the project they presented their creative vision together and drew rigged up two VCRs to make a reel of various films to embody what she wanted to make these films included foul play the Bruce Lee film entered the dragon and the musical number from used cars which served as a creative prelude to Cameron Diaz dancing not only was this pitching successful drew was the one to pick Mick G to direct the film up until that point he had never directed a feature film he had made a name for himself in the music industry both as a producer and a director of music videos and the fact that McGee our director was such a leader and combined all this cultural knowledge and film and history and music and musicals and incorporated them into a wonderful new film was yet honoring the series McGee worked in a number of references to other films including Great Escape Birdman of Alcatraz Mission Impossible a deleted scene in the red star bathrooms that was a nod to the shining and of course the matrix [Applause] [Music] we did the work that it took and sometimes it would hurt so bad but you just think you know this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity you're working with ton food masters know it was great cuz I really studied old kung fu movies like Iron Monkey and once upon a time in China and you know a drunken master and all the Bruce Lee movies and it was so great to get well-versed and in this whole you know genre and they add so much character and humor to their action sequences which is so fun now Lucy all the work out in this was that strenuous for you I was intensive we worked out eight hours a day five days a week and I think that is in itself like after two hours you're generally like oh my god had the best workout you know and you go pig out afterwards you literally couldn't walk after you left and the next day when you woke up you felt like somebody just came in and like ran over or like getting out of my chest you're like you know you're like to cross your leg you're like really it was bad yeah and you all were in shape pretty much it was I I felt like I was like oh great you know cuz a it started training before me like a month a month and a half and I thought oh no problem I went in there to keep my house yeah you want to be really open sell that yeah cuz I went in and I was I felt really flexible and great and I was like kicking really high and I'm like wow she's got great flexibility to the next day and it's true you had to be on ropes and harnesses to do the floor yeah they would put our they would let our foot lasso our foot and then I pull it on the other side you know so we'd have to lift their leg higher the board they pulled I mean it wasn't it was insane why are few is a style of action that combines wirework and kung-fu it is something that has existed for many decades in Hong Kong cinema but experienced a more international surge of interest after the Wachowski sisters used it in the matrix well you know these two girls have amazing flexibility they're like a rubber band you got any around here it's just like you just pull them back and I just were you King Queen Queen queen Queens right this then I'm not I never liked that I'm longer I'm it's further for me to stretch so I'm already stretched to my limit so they wasn't very athletic she's extremely I mean literally the master would say okay we want you to do this move which would take us months to learn much ego okay and she just flipped she'd just do it like that yeah that must've annoyed you too sometimes you get frustrated but it's true when someone does something you know it encourages you to keep trying and it whenever I would get frustrated and I'd be like no you can do it I'm gonna stay with you until you get it and then you do it you cry yeah we had a talk with these girls it didn't take the months to do anything I mean they learned right away we didn't you know we didn't have that much time they had to but the splits I had to be fourth like you know the guys would just our trainers who are amazing and so caring I don't want you guys to get the wrong impression don't set this up they're amazing they loved us they cared for us as they held me down on the floor one across this leg and the other one because well you know it's just like you know screaming and crying but you know the whole time that you're crying and going this really really hurts they're like I know [Applause] not very helpful wasn't exactly the lead actresses of Charlie's Angels trained rigorously together in preparation for the film's action to up their strength flexibility and overall knowledge of the various fight choreography and wire work that they would be doing so as to make the action sequences look better than if they were too excessively rely on cutting away to their stunt doubles every time a battle started chun-hyang was brought in to help with the action and he can also be seen in the Films opening sequence in the plane talking to another passenger chun-hyang comes from a family of famous specialists in Hong Kong action he and his brother have worked in renowned projects from both the Hong Kong and Hollywood film industries if Cameron you know needs to kick Crispin in the chest he wants perfect extension out of her leg and he wants the toe pointed this way instead of pointed this way because it's more beautiful and more correct and respect for the ancient traditions and arts we started when I say we need to do it again you need to trust that we need to do again but when I say we got it just sort of his response when it goes right transcends any language barrier because you see him with this big smile like this big thumbs up if it starts clapping and then when he finally gives you the thumbs up you know it really means something you know you've done something well and you've made an accomplishment and I'm just very pleased with the performance of the act for him to say that to me like they don't give compliments I just have such high respect for him we've brewed to be very close with them too and they're so wonderful and I can't imagine having done this film without them we became a very tight family very harmonious I just felt so tough and strong and it was just thrilling to me it's very impressive and I was jealous because I wanted to learn all that stuff any critiques against the hyper-stylized action of Charlie's Angels have completely missed the point there is a meticulous design for the film's aesthetic to build this unique and exciting world that audiences are transported to and the action goes hand in hand with that there's the art world that you and I live in and then there's the angel world that has its own rules an extra beautiful place a heightened reality that was ultimately grounded in reality each scene you know had its own signature I wanted it to feel like a gigantic storybook where you were turning pages you remember the scene at the racetrack you remember Cameron's dream you remember Lucy inside of a chrome Airstream trailer the Swiss Miss yodeler scene you would never confound this page with the current page with the page that's about to follow so that gives you a certain freedom to go all the way we decide it at the very beginning to try and hit a style cooler and sillier and Saturday morning cartoonish which was fun not so high style and colors were fun and joyous and we talked about reds and we talked about golden yellows and we talked about monochromatic sets and so we hit on tone that we knew right away which was there and it wasn't something that we'd seen before one of the most overlooked aspects of the film's action design is the deliberate absence of guns from the major action sequences this was something that drew barrymore deemed important because of the responsibility she felt for the young impressionable viewers that would likely idolize the Angels but I have to admit that I never once noticed the refreshing subversion of excluding guns from a giant action blockbuster until I started doing research for this video about a year ago at no point do the Angels use guns to win their fights now whose decision was it to have no guns to have the Adrian have no gun which is an amazing idea because I think if we go in there and we're supposed to be take seriously I mean it's a goofy fun movie but if you want to be taken seriously you also want to make sure that you can replace it with something that's as strong and as intense because we know that kids are gonna go see it and we want them to and there's a certain responsibility and we don't want them to go out and think oh I want to be Charlie's Angels like when we were younger you know you run around you have these fake guns and stuff like that and nowadays kids could probably have access because we know that I mean seen that you know and it's really horrible did you have a lot of resistance drew when you brought that up a studio level well you know it was a matter of well how do you make that work and what do you replace that with you know and I've been talking about about sort of like Indiana Jones and Superman and this sort of older genre that was a little bit more romantic than some of the Western movies with a lot of artillery and body count which are great too but there's a responsibility there and it's not patronized it's not beaten over your head we're not like don't use guns we're just like we're gonna oh this guy's coming at me let me let me kick him in the groin yeah yeah do the work with your hands and how interesting a world would be if you could actually primally you know do that and maybe jump out of airplanes and drive speedboats and race cards so there's so much going on you don't miss that I think that's the important thing to do is don't just take something away replace it with something I think it's very when there's an actress who's able to stand up and say that you know I think that this is important and I want wish we could do it another way and then do it there were critics that actually had the audacity to claim that the angels were not different enough from one another my only response to that is did you even watch the film I'm the first person to raise my hand for putting myself into the most embarrassing situation I can possibly find so to get up in front of you know a hundred and fifty amazing dancers and dance in front of them and just make we asked up myself it was like a thrill for me and just what I live for and what I want to do it Natalie is the girl next door she's friendly bubbly and can endear herself to practically anyone I'm spent they don't call me balls out Natalie for nothing she gets nervous about talking to a new love interest knows bird calls and she loves to dance that style of movement is also evident in her fight choreography the action and stunt team specifically designs the choreography to suit how the actresses moved during their training sessions while Natalie's style became more elegant Dillon ended up being more of a brawler drew is a barroom fighter Camryn is fantastically elegant too very fast with their moves and our spins and everything else and Lucy is a mixture of the two they've all got their own sort of threat they catered to that they saw which one what we were capable of and gave us those things to accomplish I wasn't so great at the kicks I was good in the wires I strive like my life has improved immensely since I started playing right skydived and he's scuba dive with sharks and we went on the survival trip from hell with no food tents water or warm clothes three days yeah yeah I felt like forever but I mean it wasn't that long but I I feel like you know we trained and we've learned to come through you know I feel like this year of my life is different than any other year Dillon is the rebel child with the troubled past she loves to play Scrabble and also has a propensity for free love which serves further proof of how relevant the film has stayed after two decades I wanna shape at no point does the larger narrative degrade her for this aspect of her personality she is a grown woman and can flirt and hook up with as many men as she pleases these are not committed relationships after all she's just having her fun in this corner of the Charlie's Angels universe Natalie and Alex like to tease her for having a propensity to crush on the bad guy but that's nothing but playful banter between friends Jason I'm one third of an elite crime-fighting team backed by an anonymous millionaire it should surprise no one that I would save Alex for last she's my favorite angel if I'm being forced to pick only she cannot cook she's stuck in the dilemma of whether or not to tell her boyfriend about what she really does for a living and she will serve you a leather moment and a hair flip better than anyone else she's supremely cool and confident and has some of the best shutdowns towards unwanted male attention I've ever seen thanks for the offer but my hands aren't going anywhere near your stuff I was wondering you know I feel like you know she has the intelligence and the wit and and the heart that anyone would love to have a night I admire her very much and she has a lot of strength to giant I hope that we get started this millennium Charlie's Angels served up a really fun mix of iconic villains Tim Curry brought all his devilish charm to the red herring character of Roger Corwin never sent a man to do a woman's job Kelly Lynch is Vivian Wood who serves an important reminder to the audience that everyone needs to be conscious of leaving their drinks unattended in the company of strangers she also holds her own in the action sequences in which she goes up against Cameron Diaz [Music] creepy Thin Man is a character Crispin Glover was highly involved in developing originally the character had dialogue Crispin thought the dialogue was terrible and purely expositional so he was insistent that the character should be played as a mute creepy Thin Man is also memorable for other quirks and idiosyncrasies such as his high-pitched screams and an affinity for women's hair but of course the most important villain to discuss is Eric Knox first of all the idea to let Sam Rockwell dance around and peacock to fully demonstrate NOx being his unfiltered self is genius given McGee's background in directing music videos I would not be surprised if it was his suggestion but I'm just speculating on that matter but before NOx has revealed himself to be a villain the entire process of introducing this character is fantastic when he's first been rescued he wears baggy or clothing ugly khaki trousers and Sam Rockwell plays him as being more reserved and demure he looks down when Dylan is looking at him with interest and he's a bit awkward in how he interacts with her then when it's time for him to reveal his true nature he's wearing all black the clothing is tighter his whole body language changes there's a level of confidence and charisma that he's been hiding up until this point and the fact that Sam Rockwell is such a skilled actor ends up serving the character really well because Knox is deceptive and being effective at deception means being able to act revenge is fine well I feel like the personal relationship that people had with the television show it's different than any other TV show that's been made into a movie for different reasons I think all that television shows that have been remade we're obviously important enough to get to that place where they wanted to remake them but this one that I mean girls played Charlie's Angels when they were growing up men liked it because it was exciting to see girls driving the cars that the guys loved and wearing exquisite fashion and sort of doing the man's job without male-bashing I think those are exciting things and I think women love it because the women are empowered they're smart they're doing the detective work they're solving the finds and they're having a really good time doing it and also the fact that women can work together and be friends is amazing it's not rare it's just wonderful I remembered it growing up my sister played Charlie's Angels and I just thought they were beautiful women who were powerful and they were role models to me they they were women that I saw myself growing up to be you know and I remember it vaguely and I think that um everyone we played Charlie's Angels ourselves and I don't know if that much about the series in terms of the specifics and the outfits and the storylines but I mean Charlie's name just exists and everyone was always in awe series so what of this false notion that Charlie's Angels was made to appeal to men this simply is not true they do not only look cool to women who find them aspirational nor do they only exist to be physically attractive to men or anyone that has an attraction to women for that matter their appeal lies in their complete well-roundedness as characters as I've previously touched on the angels are incredibly smart throughout the film they display a knowledge of a wide array of topics including languages technology birdcalls Scrabble the list goes on and on then there is the fashion of Charlie's Angels which is so undeniably brilliant there are the more memorable eccentric looks for them as they go on various missions such as being milkmaids belly dancers or even men but there was also a ton of thought put into the individual fashion to showcase each angels unique style and personality what do you find most engaging about the three angels their wardrobes the Angels gotta look absolutely extraordinary they look damn good when they are as casual as sort of t-shirts and jeans doing they're sort of surfer girl thing when they have the red sparkly dress or when they're in wet suits coming out of the ocean or when they're in you know the pit suits and the racecar scene they always need to look their best and you know Joe ELISA convinced me of the importance of taking each lady for who she is where the original show the three girls were quite similar in terms of their body types our look is much more individual for actress than I think maybe the original was Cameron's we sort of went with a California very fresh spontaneous wait for someone of the parties but it's again just a really sort of clear quick statement of somebody who really wants to just put it off it on him well Dylan's character has a little [ __ ] to her you know a little free loving and free living she's so cool and she's just tough you know and she's sexy the more flower child in a relaxed way so what I've done is done taking things like an old Spanish shawl and done some vintage or colors or softer as opposed to some of the other angels Lucy's character is more cosmopolitan they're international she's high-class she wears a lot of black in the movie her palate is a much stronger darker a little more serious and we use a lot of very form-fitting leather on her favorite leather jackets well I've tried to give an elegance to the whole thing and it's a choice of color and fabric camera has an elaborate beaded dress it's a pale blue chiffon dress totally studded with clear stones it's done in sort of the 50s movie musical style one scene the girls are attending elaborate gala is gonna be a dress of Lucy Liu's the skirt breaks away so it's been fun to try to design things in several different modes both elegant and fashionable and still ready for action the action of Charlie's Angels is not only artistic and exciting to watch but it empowers the women watching to feel like they too can build the strength to fend for themselves a lot of the people that attack them in the film are men and the idea that they're able to protect themselves in such dangerous situations is immensely satisfying to watch the Angels are undeniably beautiful but a lot of that comes from far more than just having good genes it's the total sum of their fashionable looks their confidence in themselves their total ownership of their bodies and the joy they experience from having all of the best that life can offer they have successful careers with a really cool job sounds impossible sounds like fun they are teamed up with their best friends who support them not only professionally when they are risking their lives on dangerous missions but with the more personal problems they have outside of the over-the-top circumstances of their work appear haircut and originally romance was not intended to be part of the story for the angels but Drew Barrymore ended up being the one to insist that it be added drew had this to say about it in an interview with Elle look I'm sorry girls want love at the end of the day we want sisterhood we want to have each other's backs and then we want to meet back up in the morning and talk all about what happened at night with the boy it's what girls do I was like there has to be an element of relationship so that's why I taped this scene from foul play and it was just very true to what a girl likes in fields what if that girl also loved her girlfriends and was a real sister and they had each other's backs and they were kick-ass and they loved to laugh because a girl without a sense of humor [Music] 20 years later and Charlie's Angels still holds up the action is incredible and the set pieces in color design look fantastic the Chinese Ally we did on stage which had backends going all the way around it it was three stories in some areas well we originally were going to go and shoot that at Universal they have a little alleyway which is great and then i saw the rental what it would cost to rent this place i can build this on a stage for three-quarters of that but at least they'll have the facility shooting at the day time control they won't have to worry about weather and all that stuff in the set itself wheat again to stylize it a bit and it became very close to what originally had inspired us which was West Side Story to me one of the most interesting set was the Knox residence we wanted to look into a John Lautner style of architecture even though we didn't have much time we knew he had an opportunity to make it really special it is the kind of play toy that a kid who's just done a dot-com company would buy because it's cool it's a great chick pad real 50s 60s modern big huge panels of glass each one of them was a different size and a different shape and her out surrounded by trees and this beautiful landscape out myself which is downtown LA we did a very large backing and there was 160 feet by 35 feet and we put on maybe 1,200 little blinking lights I would go there every day and I'd look around at the stage and I couldn't believe it it was a set I couldn't believe it we had great fun with sets like the mainframe where Natalie breaks in very stylized very high-tech you didn't know from one room to the next was borderline James Bondish kind of feel the other part of red star was the outside of the mainframe I had designed this circular hallway when McGee had this idea of the bathroom and as an homage to Stanley Kubrick it is exactly the bathroom in the shining salt raid set was McCheese idea right from the beginning he wanted Soul Train that was hip he was all trained that was fun it was using the existing Soul Train and we added a few things to it we added a lot of red I wanted it red because I wanted red hot I wanted lacquer and I wanted flashy bright vaudeville we keep link he started style lights it says Soul Train cellophane Zoltan so we went in and I made this giant Soul Train sign with the lights of course all of that means nothing because Cameron stole the show with that it's just great when you have somebody on your team who you can just give a few words of description and they just go for it and they they make you look good proofs in the pudding and up there on the screen the soundtrack is vibrant and one of the clearest indications of when it was released but nostalgia is always fun and the song choices only enhance the impact of the impression that the film leaves whether it's Cameron Diaz dancing to Sir mix-a-lot drew Barrymore destroying a room of henchmen to blur Lucy Liu inventing the word boss to Barracuda the Angels wire fooling the hell out of creepy Thin Man to prodigy or Sam Rockwell dancing to Simon Says with all the discussions that are taking place about better representation for women and diverse groups in general Charlie's Angels 2000 is a massive trailblazer there's been a massive up spike in superhero films over the last decade but there have only been a handful of them that have been led by women Charlie's Angels are practically superheroes in their own right but with better outfits and better action than the vast majority of the superhero films that have saturated the market today the Angels embodied a well-rounded power fantasy to not only have all of the best things that life can offer but to also be all inspiring to the audience the angels were never once questioned about their ability to do things simply because they're women if people in the story are inclined to underestimate them or be easily distracted by their looks the Angels simply use that to their advantage but they can also be fiercely strong and aggressive it just depends on the mission and what the circumstances are they do not need to constantly reference the struggles that women face in the real world because the Charlie's Angels world is a heightened surreal place that is better than the real world this film is a visionary work of art with a genuine love at the heart of it between these actresses when Lucy Liu got her long-overdue star on the Walk of Fame this year both Cameron and drew showed up to support her keep in mind that these women do not have a new film that they need to promote together so they don't need to do this they chose to do this Cameron Diaz doesn't even act anymore the bond that they forged working together in this universe is real and it shows on screen really I could wax poetic for hours about Charlie's Angels but I'll just leave it with this true friendship lasts forever and never trust a nerd wearing ugly khaki trousers

Channel: LadyJenevia

Views: 4,926

Rating: 4.9714284 out of 5

Keywords: Charlie's Angels, Charlie's Angels 2000, Charlie's Angels Review, Movie Review, Charlie's Angels 2000 Review, Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Sam Rockwell, Crispin Glover, Kelly Lynch, Tim Curry, McG, Behind the scenes, Charlie's Angels Analysis, LadyJenevia, Comedy, Action, Movie, Film, Filmmaking, Actor, Director, Production design, Costumes, Wardrobe, Chun Yen, Tiger Chen, Soundtrack

Id: rTJRk5Iw3TA

Length: 28min 45sec (1725 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 09 2019