American Psycho (2000)

Director Mary Harron's perversely witty, ultra-violent drama, an adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' 1991 novel American Psycho, presented a social satire of the morally-shallow Reagan era with its portrait of the violent psyche of a misogynistic male -- New York stock executive Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale). The wealthy, delusional, loathsome, 27 year-old narrator/yuppie and serial killer danced, sang, and commented upon the upbeat but bland pop music of Huey Lewis and the News' "Hip To Be Square" or Phil Collins' "Sussudio" as foreplay to violence. The well-tanned, status and brand-conscious, narcissistic 'hard-body' Bateman worked out while viewing porno and horror films with women screaming, as he perpetrated macabre murders of prostitutes and co-workers.

In a grisly apartment murder scene, Bateman wore a clear rainslicker and hit associate Paul Allen (Jared Leto) over the head with a shiny new axe head - with blood splattering over his face from the impact of the strikes (off-screen). In another scene, Bateman conducted a video-taped menage a trois with two hookers - and then nude and bloodied after stabbing one of the two prostitutes under a bed sheet during intercourse, chased after the second fleeing negligee-clad hooker Christie (Cara Seymour) with a chainsaw through his apparently empty NYC apartment hallway and dropped it down on her from a stairwell - she died when it hit her in the back.

In his own words, he declared his warped psychosis amidst the shallow and empty aspects of competitive and consumeristic corporate culture: ("Did you know I'm utterly insane?" "I simply am not there" and "I think my mask of sanity is about to slip") as his two worlds of business and sex/hyper-violence came together - although it appeared that the violence was all merely fantasy when he mused to himself about what he had done in the film's concluding voice-over monologue.

- "I know, I know, there are no girls with good personalities."
- "A good personality consists of a chick with a little hard body, who will satisfy all sexual demands without bein' too slutty about things, and who will essentially keep her dumb f--king mouth shut."
- "The only girls with good personalities who are smart or maybe funny or halfway intelligent or talented, though God knows what the f--k that means, are ugly chicks."

- "When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things. One part wants me to take her out, talk to her, be real nice and sweet and treat her right...."
- "And what did the other part think?"
- "What her head would look like on a stick..."

The comparison of business cards scene.

Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)

Nicolas Cage starred in Dominic Sena's glossy remake of the 1974 fast car classic as a carbooster (thief) named Randall "Memphis" Raines - it was Cage's 3rd Jerry Bruckheimer action film (after The Rock (1996) and Con Air (1997)). In this stereotypical, by-the-numbers, predictable film with cliched conventions throughout, reluctant anti-hero Raines' mission was to steal 50 cars overnight and deliver them to a Long Beach pier, to repay a debt that his brother Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) owed to psychopathic, wealthy stolen car dealer Raymond Calitri (Christopher Eccelston) and his henchmen.

With his former LA car-heist gang members Donny (Chi McBride), Otto (Robert Duvall), Sphinx (Vinnie Jones), and tough, blonde-dreadlocked chick girlfriend Sara "Sway" Wayland (Angelina Jolie) assembled for one more job, Raines planned to steal the automobiles (all code-named with female names, such as Nadine, Vanessa, Samantha or Eleanor), while avoiding stakeout cops (Grand Theft Auto Division detectives Castelbeck (Delroy Lindo) and Drycoff (Timothy Olyphant)) on the lookout. The film made a clear connection between sex, ladies and automobiles ("Hello, ladies. I always was a sucker for a redhead").

"Having sex or boosting cars... Um, ooh! Uh. How about having sex while boosting cars?"

The final spectacular car chase with the 50th stolen car - a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500 (nicknamed Eleanor) being pursued throughout Los Angeles by black BMW 5 Series police cars.

The Fast and the Furious (2001)

Also, 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), and Fast & Furious (2009)

New action hero Vin Diesel starred in this mindless but thrilling Rob Cohen crime film as shaved-head LA mechanic and street-racing leader Dominic "Dom" Toretto. This was another copycat example of a guy film with booming explosions and pyrotechnics, loud car stunts (races, chases, flipping vehicles and wrecks), and fast women provided for eye candy. "Dom" was suspected of being a hijacker of trucks filled with DVD players and electronics equipment, while pursued by handsome undercover police officer Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker).

The film's two accessory females were: innocent Mia (Jordana Brewster), a female gang member and the sister of "Dom" (also the love interest of the conflicted cop who fell for the racing lifestyle), and Dom's sexy girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). A rival Vietnamese gang led by Johnny Tran (Rick Yune) that was doing the actual hijackings added to the film's tension, and its drag-racing authenticity was enhanced by technical-sounding car terms such as NOS ("Nitrous Oxide System") and Motec exhaust systems.

"I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters.”

"You can have any brew you want - as long as it's Corona."

"I smell skanks. Why don't you girls just pack it up before I leave tread marks on your face?"

"It don't matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning's winning."

The innovative, zooming camera shot through a car's transmission system during a drag-race.

The final exciting hijacking of a truck, with a driver armed with a shotgun.

Jackass: The Movie (2002)

Also, Jackass Number Two (2006)

The cautionary tagline was this outrageous, juvenile, and tasteless unscripted docu-comedy film (with no plot, characters, script or sets) was "Do not attempt this at home." The episodic film was a more extreme, feature-length theatrical version of the controversial MTV-show of the same name, about the execution of various dangerous, painful and death-defying stunts by a masochistic group of twenty-something misfit males (self-proclaimed 'jackass' pranksters), who would appeal to frat-house audiences and other slackers. The insane, scatalogical film, sometimes similar to Candid Camera, was also full of buttocks-anal images, genitalia (all male), barfing vomit, bodily fluids, unbleeped profanity, and alligators!

The scenes of defecating in a display toilet in a hardware store, of eating a cone of snow soaked in one's own urine, of self-inflicted paper cuts, of bowling head-first on a skateboard, of using a rental car in a demolition derby (and then returning it to the dealership), of crashing a golf cart in a miniature golf range, masturbating underwater with a sea cucumber, suspending oneself over alligators with a jock-strap filled with raw meat, and the X-raying of a guy who has shoved a toy car up his anus.

The segment titled: "Ass Kicked By Girl" in which one of the characters fought against a female Japanese martial arts expert, predicting ahead of time: "I'm about to get the s--t kicked out of me by a girl."

xXx (2002)

Director Rob Cohen's PG-13-rated action film had a booming soundtrack and well-choreographed stunts of fiery explosions at a Colombian drug ranch, skydiving, soaring motorcycles, and a snowy avalanche - alongside a very cliched and thin James Bond-styled plot. It starred Vin Diesel as unemployed, anti-authority, cyber-savvy bad-ass and extreme-sports daredevil named Xander Cage. The rule-breaking, muscle-bound, leather-clad and tattooed Xander, who continually spouted one-liners (e.g., "Where's the peanuts?") with a gruff voice, was offered a mission by NSA Agent Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) to clean-up his record, by reluctantly becoming a NSA special agent dubbed Agent Triple-X.

He journeyed to Eastern Europe (Prague) to investigate biological warfare anarchists led by megalomaniacal Yorgi (Marton Csokas), by infiltrating into their underground group named Anarchy 99. One of the extremist commandos was leather-booted, flirtatious and sexy Yelena (Asia Argento), Yorgi's girlfriend. The group's plan was to launch AHAB - a solar-powered submarine that would release the bio-weapon dubbed "Silent Night."

"[Video games] It's the only education we got!"

"Do I look like a fan of law enforcement?"

"Dude, you have a bazooka. Stop thinking Prague Police and start thinking PlayStation. Blow s--t up!"

"If you're gonna ask someone to save the world, you'd better make sure they like it the way it is."

The scene of xXx stealing and then driving California State Senator Dick Hotchkiss' red Corvette off a 700-foot bridge, and escaping by parachute from the back of the vehicle to elude dozens of pursuing highway patrol cars.

The mountainside avalanche scene, with Triple X barely escaping in front of it on a snowboard ("Nothing like fresh powder").

Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003)

Writer/director Quentin Tarantino's blood-soaked, very violent action and grindhouse film (a revenge fantasy), contained numerous pop cultural references and stylized violence - it was another cinematic homage to the genres he loved most: kung-fu and martial arts (chopsocky) films, crime dramas, Japanese anime, B-movies, blaxploitation, Hong Kong action films, samurai sword epics and 'spaghetti' westerns.

The lengthy, entertaining film (for mostly male viewers, although most of the main characters were female!) was spliced into two parts, chock full of humorous wit (although with minimal dialogue), fight scenes, spurting blood, and a 10-minute anime sequence (to review the backstory of O-Ren Ishii's rise within the Tokyo underworld).

The main character was an action heroine or warrior goddess - a pregnant assassinatrix (or hit-woman) named the "Bride" (Uma Thurman) (aka Black Mamba), widowed (and left childless) after her presumed 'death' on her El Paso, Texas "dress rehearsal" wedding day after an attack on the chapel by four members of the DiVAS (the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad - an elite group that she belonged to, led by unseen Bill (David Carradine)). The groom and her unborn child were assumed murdered as well as members of the bridal party.

Now recently revived after a 4-year comatose condition in a hospital (where she was repeatedly raped and violated), she sought killing revenge against the perpetrators, driving a van marked "Pussy Wagon" and wearing a yellow motocross-style jacket (with black stripes) and leggings.

The Bride's many fight scenes as she sought revenge against the five who had wronged her:

(1) against suburban housewife Vernita Green / Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox) in the living room and kitchen of her Pasadena, CA home, by hurling a knife into her chest when Vernita betrayed her and attempted to shoot her with a concealed handgun through a box of KABOOM breakfast cereal

(2) her choreographed combat against sword-wielding Yakuza leader O-Ren Ishii / Cottonmouth (Lucy Liu) in the snowy garden of the House of Blue Leaves nightclub after a duel against O-Ren's psychotic, mace and chain-swinging teen schoolgirl bodyguard, Go Go Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama), and her bloody defeat of O'Ren's army of black-suited Yakuzas (the Crazy 88 fighters). The Bride's blood-soaked quest for vengeance ended when the top of O-Ren's scalped head was flattened, and neatly-sliced open - she sank to her knees and fell down dead.

Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (2004)

The Bride's (Uma Thurman) killing spree continued, after she was buried alive by Budd (Michael Madsen), but miraculously escaped from the coffin.

She was aided in her quest for revenge when one-eyed, patch-wearing Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) eliminated one of her targets before she arrived. Elle met Budd in his trailer with a red case containing $1 million, to exchange for the Bride's Hattori Hanzo samurai sword, but then double-crossed him by placing a Black Mamba snake in the case. The deadly creature bit him in the face and he died within 20 minutes.

In a surprise attack, Elle was confronted by the Bride, who plucked out her second eye, and left her to blindly die in the trailer with the Mamba.

Finally, the Bride delivered fatal blows to the chest (and heart) of Bill (David Carradine), her fifth and final target, using "the five point palm-exploding heart technique" taught to her by martial arts master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu).