I Hate All Your Favorite Movies

The Hurt Locker (2009)

2010-03-03T22:02:00.000-05:00

The Hurt Locker (2009)

Written by Mark Boal
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Kathryn Bigelow has made some of my favorite movies. The odd thing is that she mainly directs action flicks, which is pretty unheard of for a chick. While most lady directors stick to typical romantic comedy shit, Bigelow has taken it upon herself to become the go-to director for dramatic action flicks with heart. Point Break, arguably the best action flick of the 90’s, and Near Dark, a flick that did vampire action/drama wayyyy before it was cool, were both directed by Bigelow. It has also been rumored that she played a major part in the production of Terminator 2, without a doubt the best action flick of the 90’s, directed by her then husband James Cameron. That said, The Hurt Locker deserves every accolade and bit of praise it has been getting for the past 7 or 8 months. It is, in my humble opinion, the best movie of 2009. However, it is not without its flaws.

The Hurt Locker follows a bomb removal squad in Iraq for about the final 80 or so days in their tour of duty. The flick starts out with a scene so high in tension that I actually had to pause it just to get my breath back. Anthony Mackie, in an award-worthy performance plays Sergeant Sandborn, second in command to Staff Sergeant Matt Thompson (played by the always magical Guy Pearce), while the young and wonderful Brian Geraghty plays Specialist Owen Eldridge. When their leader dies in combat, Sandborn and Eldridge are saddled with Staff Sergeant Will James (played by Jeremy Renner, that guy you probably keep hearing about but you’ve willfully ignored while he played awesome characters in such movies as Dahmer, North Country, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Crawford, and 28 Days Later). Will James is young, cocky, brash, and kind of reckless. Overall, he’s a bit of a D-Bag. But he’s defused something like 800 bombs and he’s fucking good at what he does. For the next 75 days, James leads Sandborn and Eldridge on the ride of their lives.

What’s good: Damn near everything. As you’ve probably been reading, Jeremy Renner is fucking fantastic. Absolutely incredible. His performanced is nuanced and he acts better than most guys with twice as much experience. What’s most surprising is that he really does change by the end of the movie. He’s completely different from when we first meet him, and his transformation is really incredible. It’s what makes me love film. As I said before, Anthony Mackie was really incredible as well. There wasn’t a really big change in his character, but you could really see the pain that he held inside of him throughout the movie. Brian Geraghty was really good as well, although his character was kind of one note. Also good: the cinematography. If you’ve read any of my reviews, you’ll know that this is a big make or break point for me. Here, it definitely helped the movie. It was beautifully shot. I believe it was filmed on location in Jordan, and it really shows. You can almost feel the heat coming off of the streets and desert. There were a couple really beautiful slow motion shots that I really really enjoyed, and in my opinion they didn’t use them enough. From what I can recall, there was one in the beginning and another in the middle of the movie. A few more would have really helped.

There wasn’t much in the way of music, but it wasn’t really missed. This flick was about building tension, and the lack of music really helped. There were also a handful of cameos in the flick, which, I’m not gonna lie, were both cool and not so cool. Guy Pearce, David Morse, Ralph Fiennes (Team Voldemort!), and Kate from LOST all showed up for a few minutes. The good part was that they’re awesome cameos. The bad part is that none of them were for more than 5 or 10 minutes. Also, I don’t understand why Evangeline Lilly was in this. Yea, I know, she’s beautiful and all, but she’s not much of an actress, and it seemed like her star power really took away from the weight of Jeremy Renner’s character. At least for me, being a huge LOST fan, it was weird seeing Kate in anything other than LOST and it really took me out of the flick for the last ten minutes, which was probably when I should have been most invested in it. I think the role would have been better suited for somebody a little less known and, quite frankly, a little less beautiful. I just hate seeing incredibly attractive people in indie dramas. I know that seems weird, but I think indie dramas like this are better suited for normal looking people. Nothing against Kate.

The last thing I want to say is this movie is intense. Like, it’ll make your stomach ache. “Why?”, you ask? The tension. I can’t really describe it without getting too spoiler-y, but I will say this – one of the bombs they had to disarm was inside the stomach of a dead 12 year old boy. And that wasn’t the bomb that made my girlfriend run screaming from the room. I’m just saying, if you don’t take lightly to tension and extreme violence, this may not be the flick for you. However, I love that shit, so I can confidently say, without a doubt, this was my favorite movie of 2009. If I had to give it something, I’d say 10 out of 10.

What the %@#! is a Reboot?

2010-02-01T12:37:00.000-05:00

Seriously. I'm tired of this trend. I read today that the Bourne movies are getting a reboot. I just don't understand what it is. The first Bourne movie came out in 2002. That's 8 years ago. How can you already be rebooting it? There was nothing wrong with the franchise in the first place! With this, Spiderman, the countless horror flicks, and Superman, X-Men and everything else, I'm fucking tired of it. Yea the third Spiderman movie was a complete turd but what you do is hire another director and start fresh, like Batman did. But you don't do it 10 years later! The first Batman movie (the Tim Burton one, not the Adam West one from the 60's) came out in 1989. Batman Begins came out in 2005. That's over 25 years later, and 10 years after Batman & Robin, a film which affectively ruined filmmaking in general. 25 years is plenty of time to reboot a franchise that is struggling. 10 years is not. Fuck you hollywood.

Avatar (2009)

2010-01-24T13:35:00.000-05:00

Avatar

Written and Directed by James Cameron

Well, here’s an interesting movie. It’s the phenomenon that has captured the imagination of the world. I know you have many questions. Is it all it’s cracked up to be? Is it even good? What cereal is the best? Well I have answers for all of those questions, and many more. Read on, young journeymen, read on.

There is one thing I really liked about Avatar and one thing that I really didn’t like. What I didn’t like was the story. What I did like was the visuals. Here’s what the story was: A paralyzed marine named Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington, or the good robot, and only good part, from Terminator: Salvation) is forced to infiltrate the natives (known as the Na’vi on the distant moon-planet known as Pandora with missions to destroy their race. Jake does this by using an Avatar. Basically, his brain gets plugged into the body of a creature whose DNA has been combined with his to create his own unique Avatar. Of course, Jake is the only person that the natives will let join their family. Upon becoming a part of the Na’vi, Jake falls in love with them. Soon, he is forced to take a side – the humans or the Na’vi. Which one do you think he chooses? That’s right, he chooses the Na’vi. He then helps them to fight off the humans, eventually winning the war, and he becomes the king of the Na’vi and sends the humans back home. Does any of this sound familiar? It should, because you’ve seen it in EVERY MOVIE YOU’VE EVER SEEN!!! So the one thing I didn’t like about this movie was probably the most important thing you’d want to keep somebody watching it. Fortunately, there was a lot to like about this.

I guess the first thing that I should talk about is the special FX, because that seems to be what everybody is talking about with this flick. Yes, James Cameron did create new technology for this movie. No, you did not see the effect of this technology. Let me take a moment to explain. When movies and video games involving a lot of computer generated creatures are made, they’re usually done using motion capture technologies. Motion capture is when the actor or actress wears a black leotard with dozens of tiny little green ping pong balls on it (it looks like this). The actor then performs however he or she wants and then the movements of the little balls are converted into computer code. Then they use the computer to create a CGI creature, and use the actors movements as a template. They used this technology for Gollum in Lord of the Rings and King Kong in….King Kong, as well as in countless other movies. What James Cameron did for Avatar, is he created a camera that converted the ping pong ball movements directly into the image that we see on the screen. Previously, when people used Motion Capture technology, it would take several months of computer work to convert the MoCap into a believable character, and the actor, director and crew would often have to go back several times to create new data. With Cameron’s new camera, they can do it on the set, and it only has to be done once.

When it comes to the special effects, Cameron really took his time with this. It took him 10 years to complete the visuals of this. The entire movie takes place on a distant planet, and believe me, you will buy every second of it. You will be upset that this magical planet doesn’t exist, because it is completely beautiful. I’ve never seen any thing like this, and I really hope I get to see more of it. Cameron and the FX company (Weta, which is owned by Peter Jackson, who did the Lord of the Rings movies) put thought and time into each individual blade of grass, and it really showed. The digital characters were done very well. The first scene was a little awkward, but I think it was meant to be that way. After about 15 minutes of seeing the Avatars and the Na’vi, you never once think of them as digital creations. These are living, breathing people, and you genuinely care about them. The action sequences were spectacular as well. Each one had me on the edge of my seat. Last, the 3D was superb. Most movies use 3D as a gimmick. Lots of shots of things coming towards the camera, things like that. Avatar used it differently. Everything was in 3D, but it was all pretty natural. Sure, there were some shots down long hallways, but for the most part, it was all just a regular movie in 3 dimensions.

Next, the casting. Sam Worthington did a pretty good job (just like he did in T:S, an otherwise pretty mediocre movie). Here as the main character. I was totally with him on his entire journey. He never became unbelievable. His emotion was always real. He did a good job, and I see a lot of good things ahead for this kid. Zoe Saldana performed just as well. Even though her character was done digitally and you never see the actual actress, her facial ticks and physical expressions definitely show through. She did a really great job at making us believe in her as a character with real thoughts and feelings. The rest of the cast, however, were just a bunch of stereotypes. Giovanni Ribisi, who is usually pretty awesome, is simply the uncaring bad guy. He plays the same character as Bill Paxton in Aliens. He’s just completely evil. Sigourney Weaver plays the environmentalist scientist. She’s just on Pandora to observe the natives and the wildlife. She doesn’t want anybody to get hurt. There was one interesting line where Jake said “Dr. Augustine knew what I was doing, but she let it happen so that she could get closer to the Na’vi.” I found this line incredibly interesting, but they never said anything else about it. Stage actor Stephen Lang played Colonel Miles Quaritch. If Giovanni Ribisi’s character was evil, then Colonel Quaritch was Satan. He says all the things that you expect a bad guy to say, like “Shut your pie hole” and “It seems diplomacy has failed.” The bad thing about this movie, as I said before, is that for the most part, it’s incredibly predictable, right down to the characters and the dialogue. And boy is the dialogue atrocious is some parts of this movie. Just plain terrible. Cheesy dialogue is fine in a movie with good actors that embrace the cheese (like Inglorious Basterds). Cheesy dialogue is not acceptable in a movie that tries to be an epic adventure (like Avatar). There were many parts where the cheesy dialogue took me completely out of the experience.

Did I like Avatar? Hell yes. The experience was extraordinary. Was it a good movie? Kind of. The story and characters were nothing new. The dialogue was downright bad. But it looked beautiful. And even though I’ve seen the story at least 3 million times, I still enjoyed myself. I truly believe that it’s a game changer, at least when it comes to filmmaking. Does it deserve awards for Best film? Hell no. Best director, definitely, but this is not the best film I’ve seen this year, not by a long shot. I can still recommend it though. I’m gonna give it a 7.5/10.

LOST

2010-01-14T11:03:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to inform my 3 loyal readers that I will be taking a brief hiatus from my blog to catch up on LOST before the final season begins on February 2, 2010, at 8 pm. My annual "Previous Seasons Recap" was diminished to just watching seasons 4 and 5, due to the fact that I've probably seen every episode somewhere between 5 and 15 times. Sadly, watching LOST greatly cuts into my movie watching time, but it's the price you have to pay for great storytelling. I'll try to watch movies as often as possible, but I can't guarantee anything.

Cloverfield (2008)

2010-01-11T22:08:00.002-05:00

Cloverfield (2008)

Written by Drew Goddard

Directed by Matt Reeves

It comes as no surprise that my love for this movie is due in part to the participation of both J.J. Abrams and Drew Goddard. My fascination with Lost is well documented and widely known by my friends and family members. Not so coincidentally, J.J. Abrams produced both Cloverfield and Lost, in addition to writing and directing the pilot and several episodes of the latter. Upon Abrams’ departure to focus on directing Mission Impossible III and Star Trek, Drew Goddard briefly became the showrunner for the remainder of season one of Lost, until Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof took control. So, when I saw the trailer for this then at-the-time untitled movie before Transformers with my good friend White Goodman, I nearly shat my pants in excitement. If you haven’t seen the trailer for this, well then I certainly suggest you do (I tried to post it here, but I had trouble finding the original teaser, so I abandoned that venture). It was a simple teaser trailer, shot on a handheld camera, following people around a party in New York City. Suddenly there was an explosion and the head of the Statue of Liberty came flying at the camera, landing in the street. It was about 1 minute long and ended just as simply as it began– with the words “From Producer J.J. Abrams” and then “Coming 1-18-08.” Needless to say, I was floored, just like everybody else. The movie soon became a cultural phenomenon, taking the internet by storm with a vicious (then unheard-of) viral marketing campaign, leading to rumors upon rumors about what the film was about.

Cloverfield is presented as “found footage,” similar to Paranormal Shitivity and The Blair Witch Project, as well as countless other films. The difference, in my opinion, is that Cloverfield has a story worth watching. The story revolves around a small group of 20-somethings in New York City. During a going away party for Rob (Michael Stahl-David), a monster attacks New York City, not surprisingly leading everybody to panic and flee the city via the Brooklyn Bridge. When the monster tears the bridge down, the group turns back to Manhatten, now intent on rescuing Rob’s unrequited love from her semi-collapsed NYC apartment. The story is told via a hand-held camera, shot by a cast member. It’s a home video, essentially. Now, in most movies, hand-held doesn’t work, unless the viewer is given a damn good reason for the camera to never be shut off. Here, they give us a good reason. Rob’s brother Jason (played by Mike Vogel) and Jason’s girlfriend Lily (90210’s Jessica Lucas) give a camcorder to their friend Hud (played by the hilarious T.J. Miller) in order to document Rob’s going away party before he moves to Japan for his job at Slusho (Slusho is a regular staple of everything J.J. Abrams produces, from Alias, this, Star Trek, and MI:3). Hud is in love with Marlena (played by Lizzy Caplan, who I have a not so secret crush on), and Rob is in love with Beth (played by Odette Yustman, who is the worst excuse for an actress I have ever seen, although I suppose she looks nice, although wayyyy to skinny for my tastes). Much carnage and destruction ensues.

Here’s what I like about this movie…pretty much everything. The cast works great together. You really believe that they are friends and that they have been for years. Rob is a little whiny, but not too much that you are annoyed by him. Lily is strong enough that you really care about her. Jason is the smartass little brother. Hud is absolutely hilarious, spitting out one-liners and witty remarks deep into the third act of the movie. Marlena is just the right comibination of uncaring bitch and sweet young woman. One thing that might bother some people is the hand-held aspect. It does get a bit shaky at times. I’ve been told that this can cause nausea, although it never has for me. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. For me, the hand-held camera only helped me get more into the movie. We only know what they know. We only see what they see. There are no clever camera manipulations. I’d like to see Transformers 2 from a hand-held perspective. While those giant Autobots and Decepticons are destroying each other and the pyramids, what does it look like from the civilians’ point of view? I can only imagine that it’s absolutely terrifying, and in Cloverfield, I really felt that. The special effects for this were awesome as well. The filmmakers definitely went the same route as the makers of District 9 and used the “Less is More” philosophy, and it really worked. This movie has one of my favorite cinematic scenes ever, as well. For those of you who have seen the flick, it’s the subway sequence. For those of you who haven’t seen it, then why the hell are you still reading this and not watching the movie?

What do I not like about this movie? Well, there are a few things, and they’re both minor and major. First, I don’t like Odette Yustman or the Beth Character. She does nothing buy whine and cry the whole movie, and she irritates me. You can’t make a movie where the plot hinges on the fact that the main character loves another character that is annoying and whiny. Fortunately, Beth is actually kind of a minor character, and she only appears in the movie for about 15 minutes total. This brings me to the only other thing that I didn’t like. Why did Rob go back for Beth? Not just that, but why would Lily, Jason, Marlena, and Hud follow him? What the fuck do they care about Beth? From what I could tell, she was barely a part of their group anyway. I can tell you that the only people I would have gone back into that terrible, terrible shit for are my brothers and sisters, and even then, once I encountered those horrible creatures in the subway, I would have abandoned it all together. Not only that, but Rob wasn’t even sure if Beth was even alive! IMHO, it’s not worth it to risk your life for somebody else who might already be dead. I mean, what if they got back uptown and Beth’s building was collapsed, not just on a tilt? Where would the movie have gone from there? Those are just two minor pet peeves of mine about a movie that I absolutely love, so take them or don’t.

Overall, Cloverfield is a great action movie with a lot of heart and humor. The pace is incredibly quick, and you’ll be on the edge of your seat the entire time. My last comment comes from my 12 year old brother, who after watching it, said “I think I’m gonna have nightmares.” I think that’s pretty awesome. I’ve officially succeeded as an older brother. I’m giving it a 8.5/10.

Daybreakers (2009)

2010-01-10T12:31:00.000-05:00

Daybreakers (2009)

Written and Directed by The Spierig Brothers

Daybreakers is the movie that Twilight wishes it was. Well, that’s not entirely true. Let the Right One In is the movie that Twilight wishes it was, but I’ll save that for another review. Daybreakers is about what would really happen to Edward if he wasn’t nibbling at Bella’s neck every chance he got.

Daybreakers is set in 2019, and vampires have taken over the world. They tried to make a deal with the remaining humans, but the humans said no, and thus, they were hunted. Actually, they were farmed, except for the ones who went into hiding. Ethan Hawke plays Edward Dalton, a vampire hematologist (that’s a blood doctor) in charge of making a blood substitute, as the human supply is beginning to run low. As expected, he hate his job, because he “feels bad” for the humans. Sam Neill (Jurassic Park in the heezy!) plays Charles Bromley, the head of some corporation that controls the world’s blood supply. Naturally, he is the film’s villian. On the other side of the fence, Claudia Karvan (Who I’ve never heard of. Rightfully so, as IMDB tells me that she’s never been in anything that I’ve seen, which is a symptom of one of my main problems with this flick.) plays the female leader of the human resistance. Willem Dafoe plays her friend, and he is the most memorable part of the flick. Ethan Hawke soon leaves the corporate world for the chance to make a cure for vampirism with Dafoe and Nipples McGee, er Claudia Karvan.

There was a lot that was simply just mediocre about this flick. The acting was eh. The story was lackluster. But there was some good, so we’ll start with that. The FX were great. It appears that the production lacked a budget, and what budget it did have clearly went to making shit look cool, and it worked for the most part. The bad vampires looked awesome, especially that one that attacked Ethan Hawke and his “Out-in-the-military” brother in Hawke’s apartment/condo/awesome freaking home. We didn’t really see any transformations, but Michael Bay didn’t direct this, so that was fine. Also awesome, as usual and as mentioned above, was Willem Dafoe. I’ve known of the superb greatness of Dafoe for many years now, and most people probably recognize him from Spiderman, but if you haven’t seen Boondock Saints, then you’re missing out big-time. He was on the ball here, delivering one-liner after one-liner, and he kicked some ass to boot, unlike his much younger co-star Ethan Hawke. I’m not saying Ethan Hawke was bad, because I like the Hawke, and he truly wasn’t bad here. He made us care for him, and that was his job, so I’d say he was good. But he wasn’t the action star that he should have been. Sam Neill chewed up scenery like he was a fat kid in the Entenmann’ store. It makes me wonder why he hasn’t been doing more recently. I don’t think I’ve seen him since the disaster that was Jurassic Park 3. Another great thing about this flick was the use of vampire mythology. No sparkling, metrosexual, brooding, vampires here. Only badassery all around. The gore was there, and I had a blast with it. People exploded, heads were removed, eyes were gouged out, and it was all great. I also loved that awesome car chase with the cars with blacked out windows. Really cool.

Now, on to the bad. The story was ok, at best. Everybody was a cliché. Willem Dafoe was a former vampire, turned human, set out to destroy the vampires. Ethan Hawke was a vampire hematologist that DIDN’T DRINK HUMAN BLOOD. His brother was an arrogant, pushy, military type. The lead chick had had something happen to her family. Sam Neill’s rebellious daughter (played particularly well by the lovely Isabel Lucas, who you saw as the Decepticon in disguise this summer in Transformers 2: The Worst Movie I’ve Ever Seen) didn’t want to be a vampire, and when she became one, she caused trouble. All I’m saying is, the characters could have and should have been a little more fleshed out (no pun intended). Also, the whole middle of the flick seemed to be missing an action sequence, as I kind of zoned out during it. This is a by-product of having a very small budget, and this just means that the Brothers Spierig should have spent their money a little more wisely, which brings me to my next point – this movie should have gone straight to DVD, and the only reason it didn’t was the fact that Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe were in it. Did you notice any other real stars here? Nope. I think that they should have used a little more money and cast a known actress instead of Claudia Karvan. The flick could have used a credible female lead instead of some unknown with zero acting abilities.

Overall, I’d say Daybreakers was okay. And the people I saw it with seemed to agree. Mythology wise – it was great. The idea was great as well. The execution, on the other hand, was just ok. If you already saw Avatar, then go see this. If you haven’t, then there is at least one other movie out there that is much better than this. It’s worth a rental at least, though. I’ll give it a 6 out of 10.

District 9 (2009)

2010-01-06T20:24:00.001-05:00

District 9 (2009)

Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell

Directed by Neill Blomkamp

If I had to review District 9 in one word, it would be “Octopus.” If I had to review District 9 in two words, they would be “Fucking” and “Amazing.” I just like the word “Octopus.” Luckily for you (and me) I don’t have a limit to the amount of words that I can use. So, let the reviews begin!

What are you looking for in a movie? Do you want humor? District 9 has that. Do you want action? District 9 has that too. How about drama? Yup. District 9. This was the movie that pretty much took the world by storm this past summer, and there is a valid reason for its success. This movie is just plain great.

In District 9, our “protagonist” is named Wikus Van de Merwe, and he is played marvelously by Sharlto Copley, a native of South Africa. I put the word “protagonist” in quotes because, honestly, for about half of the movie, Wikus is just downright dispicable. You’ll hate him, but in the end he does a 180. Wikus is the newly in charge of the Johannesburg branch of MNU (Multi-National United), a munitions corporation. Wikus is tasked with the job of evicting over 1 million “Prawns” from the slums of Johannesburg and moving them into a new refugee camp. Prawns are an alien race, sent here from an unknown planet. When their spacecraft arrives, it just sits over Johannesburg until the humans cut into it. When they get inside, they discover hundreds of sick aliens. In an attempt to help them, they take them out and set them up with homes in the city. When fights begin to break out between the Prawns and the Humans, the Prawns are sectioned off into ghettos, called District 9. At first, the humans are very nice to the Prawns. They even give each one an individual name. However, naturally, there is a huge backlash against the Prawns. There are also militant groups that live inside of District 9, making money off of the Prawns, selling them food, weapons, etc. During Wikus’ attempt to evict the Prawns, he comes in contact with an alien chemical that slowly begins turning him into a Prawn. Together with Christopher Johnson (a prawn), and Johnson’s son, Wikus must fight for a cure, while being pursued by MNU.

There are essentially two parts to this flick. Act I, which is a story of mistaken identity gone hilariously wrong, and Act II, the sci fi action movie. In Act I, we’re introduced to Wikus. Now, I think it’s worth mentioning that Wikus is played by Sharlto Copley, a non-actor. Literally. He had never acted before this. He was a friend of director Neill Blomkamp and Blomkamp used him in the original short film that inspired this full length feature. He ended up doing spectacularly well in this movie, and he’s now set to star in the (unnecessary) film remake of The A-Team. Copley is amazing. The narrative of this movie is told in a very unique fashion, and it helps with our getting to know Wikus. At the start it’s a little bit disjointed, but the flick is told kind of like a faux documentary. There are talking head interviews (talking head interviews are what they do on The Office when the cast is looking at and talking directly to the camera, or what they do on The Real World, when the cast does the same thing) interspersed with real time, non-documentary style action. The thing is, it’s not really told sequentially. For me, this wasn’t a problem, in fact, it really helped me enjoy the story more. For my girlfriend, who has a permanent summer home on Jupiter, it was confusing. If you’d like help better understanding the story – the talking heads take place AFTER everything else, but the talking heads featuring Wikus take place BEFORE everything else. What I really like about this movie is the transformation of Wikus (and I’m not talking about the physical transformation). I love the fact that in the first 30 minutes, Wikus is a complete douche. You absolutely hate this man. And he does some pretty disgusting things. But in the final 30 minutes, you really feel for the guy. He does a complete turnaround, and I think this is due competely to Copley’s performance. There’s a scene near the end where Wikus is talking about his wife that nearly brought me to tears, and the fact that a sci fi movie can bring me to tears is an accomplishment in itself. There’s not much in the way of supporting cast here, save for the bulky bald guy who plays the evil mercinary.

Also worth noting here are the special effects. Although this movie was made for only $30 million (I think it’s sad that I had to use an “only” before I said $30 million), I think it looked 100 times better than Transformers 2. The news footage style really helped to mask the shoddy CGI. Christopher Johnson was well-realized, and I especially loved the little character quirks on the Prawns. Christopher Johnson had some sort of sheet metal permanently attached to his head, and there was one alien that wore women’s lingerie, which I thought was a great touch. Also, the alien weapons were frakking awesome.

District 9 is one of my favorite movies from 2009. Not only does it have snarky social commentary, it’s also a genuinely affecting story. If you missed it in the theaters, then you should definitely check it out on Blu-ray, because this flick was badass. I’m gonna give it a 9/10.

Adventureland (2009)

2010-01-01T21:26:00.000-05:00

Adventureland (2009)

Written and Directed by Greg Mottola

In a year full of surprises, I unabashedly consider Adventureland my biggest film surprise of 2009. Those who know me know of my extreme hatred for the social phenomenon known as “Twilight.” In fact, I don’t just hate the movies, I hate the books, I hate the people who act in the movies, I hate the people who make the props, and if it weren’t for the fact that half of the women in my family participate in the phenomenon, I would hate the people who read the books as well. Until I saw Adventureland, my loathing extended to Kristen Stewart. Now I mostly don’t mind her, but I actively tell people to see this movie, if only to see KStew’s fantastic, career-defying performance.

Adventureland is a movie that perfectly captures the essence of not only the late 80’s, but it also captures exquisitely what it feels like to be young. The flick takes place in 1987, and our lead is James, played with ease by Jesse Eisenberg (brother of that little Welch’s girl from the mid-90’s and star of Zombieland). When James’ parents suffer a huge career setback, his dreams of travelling Europe and attending an Ivy League school whislt living in New York are set on fire and thrown to sea without a lifejacket. In order to salvage what little future he still has, James takes a job at a local theme park called “Adventureland.” Here he learns important life lessons and blah blah blah. The thing about this movie is it takes things that we’ve seen over and over, but it does it in such a sweet, original way that you can’t help but fall in love.

First and foremost, the comedy is gold here. Martin Starr provided me with more laughs in this 107 minutes than Miss March, Fired Up, and I Love You, Beth Cooper combined. His line delivery was amazing every time, and for me he definitely stole the show. Bill Hader and Kristin Wiig also showed up to prove why they are the only good part of Saturday Night Live these days, although Wiig pretty much played the same character she plays every time she appears on SNL, and in my opinion, it’s getting pretty old, pretty fast. However, she kept the laughs coming here, and I put up with it. Ryan Reynolds gave a few good one-liners, as per usual, but this was really more of a dramatic outing for him, which came as a great surprise to me. That brings me to my next point – the drama part of the story.

Altough this flick is at points hilarious, for the most part it remains darkly comic, nostalgic, and just kind of serious. This is more the story of a young man growing up than it is the gross-out teen comedy that it was billed as, and that we’ve come to expect from Hollywood, and therein lies the true beauty of the movie. As the main character, Jesse Eisenberg performs far better than Michael Cera would have. He plays the character as a sensitive, nerdy, inexperienced teenager, and he’s incredibly likable and believable. His love interest is Em, played by Kristen Stewart, and this is where my biggest surprise came from. Stewart isn’t the whiny, mopey, needy little girl that she is in the Twilight movies. Here she’s a young girl, on the brink of womanhood, exploring her sexuality and experimenting with drugs. The first time she nonchalantly utters the “F” word, you’ll realize that this is not the Bella that you’re used to, and it’s a refreshing performance. The great thing is that she’s more than likely just playing herself, and it’s entirely likable. Another performance that really shocked me in this movie was that of Margarita Levieva as Lisa P, the chick that everybody in Adventureland wants to bone. Although she was basically just there to dance around looking hot, she really made the role a little bit more playful and deep than say, Megan Fox would have.

Another key to making this movie better than it should have been was the musical selection. The soundtrack includes key 80’s tracks from Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Lou Reed, The Cure, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Rolling Stones, and many many others. While on paper it sounds like your dads classic rock radio station, in the movie it really lends to the authenticity of maintaining the reality of the movie. The songs really work well and they make the flick just that much better.

Adventureland is not the movie that you think it is. While it was mostly advertised as an average teen comedy, it is actually a transcendant adult movie about growing up. It’s one of my favorite movies from 2009 and I definitely recommend it. If you’re in the mood to watch a great comedy with a lot of heart, then pick this up. It’s also a great weapon against the Kristen Stewart haters. I’m gonna go with 9/10.

Sugar (2008)

2009-12-29T11:55:00.000-05:00

Sugar (2008)

Written and Directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden

This movie completely surprised me and in such a way that it now comes highly recommended. What I thought would be an inspirational sports drama soon became an introspective look at hope, lost dreams, desire, and the cruelty inherent in “The American Dream.”

Having seen Half Nelson, I was already anticipating the follow-up from Boden and Fleck. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Half Nelson is little more than a masterpiece, and the performance that Ryan Gosling delivered was nothing short of God-like. The fact that he didn’t win an Oscar for it remains to this day a mystery to me. Another thing that defies logic is the fact that he followed it up with Fracture, a mediocre movie at best, and then followed it up with Lars and the Real Girl, yet another mind-blowing performance in a movie that was at times both incredibly sad and gut-wrenchingly hilarious. Tangent aside, Boden and Fleck are incredibly capable film-makers and I have no doubt that they have great careers ahead of them.

Sugar tells the story of a young Dominican baseball player named Miguel “Sugar” Santos. His teammates and friends call him Sugar because he always eats more dessert than anybody else. After achieving success in the Dominican Republic, Sugar is signed by MLB recruiters to play for an affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. He attends their spring training facility in Arizona where learns the lessons that America has to offer. He has to learn English, deal with racism, girls, and is constantly terrified of not playing good enough. In his home town, Sugar is a superstar – the best around. However, when he arrives in America, he is just average, and the rest of the movie details his fight to overcome mediocrity.

As the titular character, newcomer Algenis Perez Soto is absolutely fantastic. The making-of featurette told me that Soto was actually a Dominican baseball player who auditioned for a role as an extra, but Boden and Fleck made a terrific find. This was one of the best performances I have seen in years, and the fact that it was by a non-actor gives me great hope for the future of filmmaking. The first 30 minutes or so of the film takes place in the Dominican (it was also filmed there) and I loved the way that Sugar interacted with his friends and family. Everything seem well-researched and authentic, despite the fact that the Spanish some of the characters spoke seemed a little bit too “textbook.” By this I mean that I could understand everything they were saying, and as a non Spanish speaker, it seemed dubious that I could understand. It just didn’t seem like they would really speak that way. All of the supporting characters were just as good as Soto, never taking too much attention away from the lead, but always adding to the emotion and authenticity of the character.

Another thing that I liked was the way that the story unfolded. Like I said before, this is not your average rags to riches sports movie. There is no happy ending here. Our lead does not make it to the majors. The thing is – that’s not really the point of the story. We’re not supposed to feel bad for Sugar, and he never feels bad for himself. Despite the sadness that comes with the fact that Sugar isn’t good enough, the movie still illicits hope and happiness. Even though he doesn’t make it with baseball, Sugar still manages to find his way in America, and the film definitely ends on a hopeful note.

The last thing I absolutely loved about this movie was the cinematography and music. It featured at least two scenes set to music by one of my favorite bands, TV on the Radio, and most of the other music was of the indie variety. The cinematography was also great. One of the key scenes, in which Sugar experiments with performance enhancing drugs, had the camera attached to Sugar, but facing him, Spike Lee-style, while he walked in a daze through several locations. The shot was about 4 minutes long and brought on a huge range of emotions. It was extremely well done, as was the entirety of the flick.

Like I said before, I can definitely recommend this movie to everybody. It has a very strong, if unknown cast, it is very accessible, and I hope it ends up getting recognized when it comes time for awards. I’ll give it a 9/10.

Top 10 of the Decade

2009-12-29T10:39:00.001-05:00

Rather than create my own top 10 of the decade list, I am going to provide you with a list that most mirrors what my own would be. It's by the good people over at Joblo.com, a site which I have been following for about 8 years, a site that I trust and visit on a very regular basis.

http://www.joblo.com/best-of-the-2000s

The Hangover (2009)

2009-12-27T18:35:00.000-05:00

The Hangover (2009)

Written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore

Directed by Todd Phillips

Here’s a movie that I think really took everybody by surprise this summer. It came out of left field and it really delivered on all the levels that the other films failed too. It was mysterious, dramatic, adventurous, hilarious, and had Mike Tyson in it. Really, what more could you want from a movie?

I think by this point everybody and their mother has seen The Hangover (literally – my girlfriend’s conservative mother took her 13, 15, and 16 year-old kids to see it), so I’m pretty sure everybody knows what it’s about, but for those not initiated, here’s how it goes: 4 guys go to Vegas for a bachelor’s party. It’s really that simple. The story is not told sequentially. They arrive in Vegas, we see their first shots, and then they wake up the next afternooon with no recollection of what happened. What really draws you in are the characters.

What I really liked about this was how each character was drastically different. What more can be said about Zach Galifianakis’ Alan? The man is an enigma, and I believe his beard should be nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama when it comes time for Oscars. He really is fantastic and hilarious here. Is he a retard or is he just really weird? Who knows?! More importantly, who cares? Every line is delivered with the strength of the seasoned stand-up comic that he is. Ed Helms’ Stu was excellent as well. While I have been enjoying him for three seasons as Andy on The Office, the rest of the world has had no idea how truly gut-wrenchingly hilarious he truly is – until now. He really does well playing the lapdog to his girlfriend Melissa’s (The Daily Show’s Rachel Harris) evil witch of a woman. Also doing really well was Justin Bartha as Doug. I thought he was hilarious in both Gigli and the first National Treasure movie (yes I saw both of them, and no, I’m not ashamed. I was one of the few people to actually enjoy the former flick), and he was pretty good here, despite extremely limited screentime. Of course, rounding out the primary cast is Bradley Cooper as Phil. Now, I know people are going to hate me for saying this, but I’m not the biggest fan of Bradley Cooper. He plays his usual here – the dick, and he does it well. But it doesn’t take much to act like a dick. Just ask 75% of the male population of New York. They do it without trying. I understand his appeal. He’s suave, sexy, funny, charming. I just don’t really like the character, and Cooper doesn’t seem to know how to get away from it. What I can say in his defense is that he’s pretty funny in this, with some good one liners and zingers. Also, I really liked the way that his character not just put up with Alan’s weirdness, but really helped him when he needed it. If you want to see Cooper in a really great dramatic role, check out Midnight Meat Train, which despite sounding like a really demographically specific porn title, is a a really taut thriller. Heather Graham rounds out the cast as a stripper. Not much to say there except Lindsay Lohan turned down the role in what may have been the worst career choice of her life. Graham does what she usually does with a role, and that’s not much, but I don’t think there was much there to begin with, as the movie is really about the bond between the 4 guys. There are some really great side characters in here as well. Rob Riggle, Mike Epps, Jeffrey Tambor (Uncle Father!), Mike Tyson, and Ken Jeong all deliver hilarious, memorable performances.

I really loved the way the story was told. We don’t actually see what happened on that fateful night, and that’s what makes it great. We learn what happened as the guys do, and they never cease to surprise us. This movie goes to places that you would never imagine. The story has a huge set of balls, and it manages to pull it off, not just good, but great. Also, the cinematography is superb. You really feel the heat of Vegas beating down in each shot. The sweat, the filth, the booze, the drugs, the sand, this really feels like Vegas (probably because it was actually shot in Vegas). This movie really is worth seeing. I recommend it to everybody. Grandmas, Mom, Dad, your gay Uncle, this is really a great movie with tons and tons of heart and if you haven’t seen it, then you’re missing out. I’m gonna go with a 9/10.

The Uninvited (2009)

2009-12-26T14:26:00.000-05:00

The Uninvited (2009)

Written by Craig Rosenburg, Doug Miro, & Carlo Bernard, based on the film Changhwa Hongryon by Ji-woon Kim

Directed by Charles and Thomas Guard

What a turd! Every now and then a film comes around that just surprises me. In this case, I was surprised by the amount of people that saw this this past summer and enjoyed it. All summer long, people were singing its praises, and I kept putting it off, because I didn’t really give a shit. Now that I’ve seen it, I’ve realized that I wasted my time. I’ve never been able to understand the recent spat of Japanese horror film remakes, and this giant elephant turd hasn’t changed my opinion one bit.

The Uninvited is about a girl, Anna (played by the strangly beautiful and otherwise perfectly capable Emily Browning), who returns home after 10 months in the mental hospital after being placed there due to her mother’s death by both fire and disease. For anybody who is familiar with movies, that one sentence synopsis, which is given right on the back of the DVD case, should give every indication of what happens in this movie. After she returns home, she is greeted by her sister, Alex (played by Arielle Kebbel), her father (David Strathairn), and her father’s new sperm receptacle Rachel (Elizabeth Banks). Naturally, Anna and her sister both think Rachel is out to get them, and they start out on a quest to vanquish her for all of eternity.

The movie starts out strong. The opening scene is creepy as hell. In fact, throughout the whole movie, there are a bunch of qenuinely frightening scenes and imagery. The bad part is that once you figure out the twist that is coming (which I did after about 15 minutes), the rest of the movie just doesn’t matter. It’s just not scary when you realize what’s going on. My biggest qualm is: if you can’t trust the main character, why should you trust her? The fact that she was in a mental hospital for 10 months is the biggest bullshit indicator. She was obviously there for a reason, even if that reason isn’t given until the end of the film. I understand how this would be an interesting concept. It worked for The Butterfly Effect, Running Scared, and every other film that starts at the end and then rewinds back to tell you the whole story. The problem here is that we don’t start at the end. We start in the beginning with some crazy chick. So if she’s crazy, all the frightening imagery is just pointless. She’s crazy and it’s not real, so we know it can’t hurt her, so why does it matter? This leads me to the next thing I didn’t like.

The acting. Everybody here is otherwise perfectly capable of giving a great performance. Elizabeth Banks is one of my favorite comedic actresses. Here, she’s used in a dramatic role, and she really doesn’t deliver. She’s supposed to be ambiguous, you’re not supposed to be able to tell if she’s really evil or just misunderstood. The problem is that she just always comes across as evil. David Strathairn is one of those “Oh it’s THAT guy” actors who you’ve seen everywhere and you always love him, but you never know his name. He is the only one that delivered, unfortunately he was just underused here. Emily Browning is a young actress that I really like, but I just haven’t seen her in much. She was good in Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events and Ghost Ship, two movies that were very underrated IMHO. And here, she’s fine. She never sticks out but she’s not bad either. She’s just ok. However, once the twist happens, you’ll stop caring about her. Arielle Kebbel is just a terrible actress, but she looks great, and I thought she was hilarious in John Tucker Must Die.

Just about the only good thing here was the way the flick looked. I loved the locations, the cinematography, and like I said earlier, the scares, had they been used in a better written movie, would have been terrifying. I’m going to place the blame for this movie’s crappiness on the writing. Maybe it was the twist bullshit, maybe it was the chronology, I’m not sure, but this movie was just plain not good. Also, why was it called "The Uninvited"? The title has nothing to do with the movie. Was it Rachel who was uninvited? Who knows. It wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t even remotely good. I’m interested in seeing the original Japanese version (the poster for which is up above), but I don’t think I care enough to actually watch it. I’d give The Uninvited a 4/10.

All the Real Girls (2003)

2009-12-22T16:36:00.000-05:00

All the Real Girls (2003)

Written by David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider

Directed by David Gordon Green

It’s hard to say exactly what it is that I liked about this movie. Then again, it’s impossible to say what I didn’t like, because I liked damn near all of it. This movie was subtle and underrated, brilliant and beautiful. My mistake was watching Green’s movies in reverse order. I started with Pineapple Express, then moved on to Snow Angels (another beautiful, moving drama), and then finished off with this, what I consider his best (but I think I need to revisit Snow Angels sometime soon).

The plot is like this: Paul is the local hometown hero in a small North Carolina town. He’s the guy that has all the friends and he’s had his fair share of the nether-regions of the local ladies, if you know what I mean (I mean he’s laid nearly ever girl in town). In other words, he is to a small town in 2003, what Shia LaBeouf is Hollywood in 2009. He hangs out with his friends Tip, Bust-Ass (played by the always brilliant Danny McBride, in an early role), and Bo. When Tip’s sister Noel (Zooey Deschanel) returns home from somewhere, only to be immediately pursued by Paul. Because they are BFFL, Tip knows that Paul has, until very recently, been a womanizing asshole, and doesn’t want Paul to have anything to do with Noel. Thus begins the fight that most young, male friends have simply called “Can I Date Your Sister.” Some other stuff happens, Noel does some fucked up shit out of left field, Paul ends up broken hearted from the first girl he actually cared about, end picture.

All the Real Girls plays as the non-funny, sequential version of 500 Days of Summer. In both, Zooey Deschanel plays the love interest and proves, yet again, why she is my dream girlfriend. Funny? Check. Smart? Check. Quirky? Check. Beautiful? Check Check Check. In all honesty, I’d be fairly content if she played every love interest in every movie for the rest of history. Comedy, drama, action, it doesn’t really matter to me. This was the role she was born to play, and the only reason that my framed 500 Days poster with 500 pictures of her came down was so it could be replaced by my not-so-secret man crush Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in the new Alice in Wonderland. If I had to choose between a theoretical life without either of them, I’d gladly theoretically lay my head on a train track and wait for the 3:38 to Penn Station to arrive. Zooey’s performance here got her nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2004, amongst other things, and she really deserved it. Going into this flick, I’d seen her in plenty of flicks but nothing really stood out acting-wise. Well in this one, she proves why she’s such a hot commodity in indie flicks. She really does a fine job, and I commend her. Also performing incredibly well is Paul Schneider, co-writer and male lead. You may have seen him before in Parks and Recreation (the increasingly funny other show from the makes of The Office), Away We Go, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Crawford, or Elizabethtown, amongst countless others. He really does a good job here, essentially playing me, or you, or anybody else who has ever been fucked over by all of his friends, family, and (most recently) a significant other. Patricia Clarkson also shows up here as Paul’s mom, but it’s kind of weird because she’s a clown and she really looks like she’s about 4 and a half months older than Paul, who is supposed to be 20, but looks 29, which is much closer to his actual age (he was born in 76, which would make him 33 now, which would make him about 26/27 at the time of filming). The performances are the real star here, as the entire cast delivers on every level. At times it doesn’t seem like they’re acting, so much as just having natural conversations.

Also worth noting is the cinematography by Tim Orr, who has worked with David Gordon Green on all of his features. If there’s one thing that Green excels at, it’s making his pictures look fantastic, and that case holds true here. He lingers on sunsets, faces, landscapes for far longer than most directors would dare, and it helps him. This movie is nothing short of beautiful, and its scenery is conveyed in a natural way.

Chances are you haven’t seen this one. It went largely unnoticed in its 2003 release, but received heapings of praise by critics and film-goers alike. If you’re in the mood for a small, touching drama, then check this one out, it’s well worth your time.

Atonement (2007)

2009-12-21T17:51:00.001-05:00

Atonement (2007)

Written by Christopher Hampton, based on the novel by Ian McEwan

Directed by Joe Wright

This movie is not what you think it is. It took me a long time to come around to watching this. One thing you should know about me is that I don’t just dislike historical fiction, I actively loathe it. As an english major, I was often asked by professors to read books that took place in the 18^th, 19^th, and early 20^th century, and to be honest, I hated every single one of them. In my opinion, if it’s in the past, it doesn’t matter. That’s why it’s called the past and not “shit that happened and still matters.” We have no influence on the past, and so I don’t care about books or movies that take place there. And so, when I heard about this movie, I initially had zero interest. But then the Oscar buzz started (Atonement ended up being nominated for Best Picture in 2008, alongside No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Juno, and Michael Clayton, two of those deserved it, and No Country ended up winning). So, during a trip to Blockbuster, I picked this up on a 4 for $20 sale, and I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s hard to describe Atonement without completely giving away the plot, and I’ll try not to, but be warned, you may experience some minor SPOILERS if you read this. Atonement starts out just like most period flicks – in the past. The movie takes place between 1935 and 1940-ish. It starts out at an English estate – the home of 13-year old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan, in a deservedly Oscar-nominated supporting role) and her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley). The beginning mostly follows Briony as she finishes writing her first play and hands it out to her visiting cousins (three gingers, two of them young twin boys, and the other is their older sister Lola, who has some pretty intense hair, but she’s still quite pretty) to perform in it. Also living on the estate is Robbie (the completely awesome and underrated James McAvoy), a friend of the family. Robbie and Cecilia have some sort of past that’s only hinted at, and so they spend a lot of time arguing and throwing awkward glances at each other. Cecilia and Briony’s older brother comes home from the war with a friend. Meanwhile, Robbie offends Cecilia (because really, they’re just in love), and he writes an apology letter, along with a rough draft containing a very interesting word. He mixes up the letters, giving one to Briony to give to her sister. Briony reads it. Then she catches Robbie and Cecilia having sex in the library. Later that night, the gingers go missing. Soon after, Lola claims she was raped, and Briony witnesses the end of it and becomes convinced that she saw Robbie committing the raping. This sets up the second and third acts of the flick.

What starts out as a generic period piece soon becomes an unconventional look at three young people during WWII. You see, Briony’s little misunderstanding leads to a lot of bad crap that shouldn’t have happened. The truly great part of this movie is the way it is told. The storytelling is completely original and unable to be expressed in words. Wright gives us the story according to one character, then he rewinds and gives it to us again, this time from another character’s perspective. I loved it. This avant-garde style often leads to a lot of WTF? moments and a surprising amount of mystery during the whole flick. Another thing that really drew me in was the color schemes. When you watch it, pay attention to the colors, as they become very important. During the three different acts, certain colors are accentuated, for example, at the estate it’s greens and yellows and just forest-like colors in general. During Robbie’s war scenes, everything is brown and grey and black. During the third act, it’s blue, white, and red. Another brilliant thing about his flick was the music. This movie really set a new precedent for music in period movies. You see, whenever Briony is onscreen, the music is made by a typewriter. It may sound weird, but it really works, and it really works well (in fact, Atonement ended up winning the Oscar for Best Achievement in Original Music in 2008, a testament to the true nature of the music here). A lot was said about Saoirse Ronan’s performance in this movie, and it really is pretty remarkable what she does with an extremely limited amount of screen time. She is definitely a young actress to watch in the next 10-15 years. I have heard that her performance in The Lovely Bones is just as good as what she does here. The true standout, at least for me, was James McAvoy. The only thing I’d seen him in previously was the first Narnia movie. Since first seeing Atonement, I also saw him in Wanted, and I can say that, yes, he is officially one of my favorite young actors. I’ve heard that he’s really great in The Last King of Scotland, and I have it coming up in my queue.

If you haven’t seen this movie, then you’re really missing out. It’s a truly great film and it’s destined to become a classic, if it hasn’t already. See this one.

Public Enemies (2009)

2009-12-17T12:43:00.000-05:00

Public Enemies (2009)

Written by Ronan Bennett, Michael Mann, and Ann Biderman, based on the book by Bryan Burrough

Directed by Michael Mann

Like Mann’s other films, Public Enemies was somehow both slow and deliberate, but also fun and action-packed.

I think it’s well known by my friends that I actively loathe the film remake of Miami Vice. It was boring and pointless. In fact, I’m not the biggest fan of Mann’s in general. I’ll probably catch hell for it, but I’ve never really liked Heat, which some refer to as the greatest heist film of the last 30 years. To me, it’s 2 hours of Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino talking with a 20 minute action sequence in the middle. I did, however, absolutely love Collateral, but I personally think it has something to do with the combination of Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise playing a villian. Also that incredibly long shot near the middle of the foxes crossing the road that really sums up the whole film. Even then, there’s something about Mann’s films that just take me out of the experience. They usually involve a lot of talking, and the general theme is the difference between good and evil, and that is no different here. That said, I did enjoy Public Enemies, but I had some reservations.

Public Enemies is about John Dillinger, bank robber extraordinaire and bonafide rock star of the 1930’s. This flick opens by following Dillinger’s rise to fame (notoriety?) as he enters the prison he just got out of in order to bust out his friends. He and his friends then begin robbing banks (naturally, because, what else do you do straight out of prison?). At the same time, we see the story of Melvin Purvis, leading the FBI in Dillinger’s capture.

First off, Johnny Depp could be filmed painting the inside of a house for 8 hours and I’d not only watch it, but find it captivating. This is true for me, and this is true for you. He simply makes every movie he’s in better. And he excelled here. It’s like he was born to play John Dillinger. They’re both badasses. Depp really belongs in the 1930’s. Let’s face it, he is perfect here. Also perfect in this one was Marion Cotillard, who like 3 people saw in La Vie en Rose, for which she won an Academy Award. She played the love interest and she did it particularly well here. There are a whole boatload of cameos here, from Giovanni Ribisi, to Billy Crudup. LOST’s Emilie De Ravin even makes a brief appearance here. You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned Christian Bale, who was billed as the co-star here. That’s because he’s not a co-star. His character is there for you to want more Dilinger. In fact, he’s not even that great. As of this movie, I have officially lost my faith in Bale. Yes, he’s been fantastic in the past. I will admit that he’s an excellent actor. But he’s not a movie star. Give him a small, quirky role, and he’ll knock it out of the park. He was the perfect Patrick Bateman. But, let’s face it, was he really the good part of the two Batman movies? The first one was good because of the story. And we all know that The Dark Knight was really about Heath Ledger’s Joker. But, as of this past summer, I no longer care if a flick has Bale in it. Between this and That Terminator Movie, Bale isn’t what Hollywood wants him to be.

The thing that really takes me out of Mann’s films is his use of the HD Digital Camera. While most cinematographers use film, Mann has gone the digital route for his last few films. While it worked well in Collateral, I don’t think it worked at all in Miami Vice, and only works here in spades. Sometimes it’s on, sometimes it’s off. There was one scene in particular, where Purvis and his men are taking Dillinger through a courthouse, where everything just looks odd. The handheld camera is good sometimes. Sometimes it’s even great. Like during the robberies and the escapes. But during exposition shots, it really just made me feel distanced from what was going on onscreen. From what I gather, this is something that really divides people about Mann’s films, and it’s no different with me.

Like I said before, I liked this film, and I didn’t. It felt very similar to Mann’s other recent outings, but it was mainstream enough for me to enjoy it. The themes were there, without being too obvious. However, the camera work was a bit off-putting, and there were some characters and storylines that were mediocre at best. If you like Johnny Depp (and who doesn’t?), then give it a watch. Hell, give it a watch anyway. It’s not bad, it’s just average, but still enjoyable.

Franklyn (2008)

2009-12-13T12:38:00.000-05:00

Franklyn (2008)

Written and Directed by Gerald McMorrow

Due to the fact that this movie sucked, I’m gonna give you a brief synopsis sans spoilers and then just talk about shit that I feel like talking about, as I wouldn’t want to waste any more of your time with this movie than I have to.

Franklyn was essentially about 4 people making their way through a day or two, or possibly more, in London. To be honest, for the first ¾ of the flick, I had no clue what was going on. Sam Riley (who was Award-worthy in Control, a biopic of Ian Curtis) played somebody who sulked and popped his collar. I’m not really sure what his purpose was. Eva Green (the naked chick from The Dreamers, also Bond’s love interest in Casino Royale) played a crazy chick who was presumably obsessed with a weird art form involving suicide. She also played somebody else who may or may not have been imaginary. Ryan Phillipe (former husband to uber-bitch Reese Witherspoon) played a superhero in Meanwhile City, a city built on religions. Literally. It was a very poignent, not-so-subtle metaphor for the world today. And it looked a lot like the city from Dark City, a far superior sci-fi flick from which this one obviously got quite a bit of inspiration. There’s a nice little twist in the last 5 minutes that ties everybody and everything together, but it’s really quite bad. You’ll lose interest, just like I did, after about 10 minutes, because you have no idea what the fuck is going on. I rented this because I recalled reading a quite favorable review, but this movie was just bad. DO NOT SEE THIS. You’ll waste an hour and 38 minutes of your life. So, on to better things.

· Spiderman 4 – Yes, I saw the third one. To be honest, I enjoyed it at the time, but then I got to thinking, and I realized it was terrible. And from what I can recall, that was the general consensus at the time. So why would Sam Raimi agree to do another one? Maybe he wants to clear his name, but I think he did that with Drag Me to Hell. I’m on the fence with this one.

· Avatar – Listen, I was on the same ship as most people for the past year or two. Hearing all the hype, but not seeing anything, I really didn’t give a shit. Then I saw the first trailer, and I was stoked. Then the second trailer was even better. But now the trailers are on every five minutes on every channel, and I don’t give a shit again. The visuals look awesome, but the story looks generic. And from what I can gather, that sentence pretty much sums up all of the reviews coming out.

· Sex and the City 2 – I’d be much happier if Sarah Jessica Parker would fall into a well.

· Kevin Smith’s next movie, now possibly titled Cop Out – I love Kevin Smith. I own and love all of his flicks, even Jersey Girl, which pretty much got shit on by everybody else. I’m also a huge Bruce Willis fan. Honestly, I can’t name a flick with Willis that I didn’t like. From what I understand, Adam Brody and Olivia Wilde are in this as well. Adam Brody was the only watchable part of The O.C. Olivia Wilde is hot as hell. But Tracey Morgan is also in this. And Tracey Morgan is unwatchable in anything. He’s an annoying racist who seems to make it a point to always play a retard in anything he’s in. I’ll see this, but I’ll see it reluctantly.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)

2009-12-12T13:37:00.000-05:00

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)

Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig

I first encountered the music of Daniel Johnston last fall. A cover of his song “Devil Town” was featured in the pilot for the television version of Friday Night Lights. It was the single most moving moment I have ever seen in a television show. Not only that, but it was one of the most beautiful song I had ever heard. I soon became obsessed. As it turns out, in 2004 a record was released called The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered. This album featured 18 of Johnston’s original songs covered by several comtemporary indie bands like TV on the Radio, Death Cab for Cutie, Beck, and Bright Eyes (doing a version of “Devil Town”). I also found this impressive documentary.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston covers the entire life of American singer/songwriter/artist/performer Daniel Johnston. For those that don’t know, Daniel Johnston is came to fame in the late 80’s/early 90’s because of his sheer insistance on being known. He created music in his brother’s Austin, TX garage, recording straight onto cassette tapes. He would then go to shows and simply hand out copies of his tapes to strangers, complete with hand-drawn album covers and track listings. He soon began doing live performances, which were highly regarded. In the late 80’s, he moved to New York City in order to pursue his music career. He gained even more fame when Kurt Cobain wore a t-shirt with the cover drawing from his album Hi, How Are You during an MTV performance and several photo shoots. The primary thing that defines Johnston and his music is the fact that he has been diagnosed with Manic Depressive Disorder. He has had this since he was a teenager.

Johnston was born in 1961 in Southern California. He moved around a lot as a boy and the family soon settled in West Virginia. Daniel lived a quiet, “normal” life until he was about 17 or 18. At this point he began working in a McDonald’s. There was a girl that he fell in love with and he soon became obsessed with her. Needless to say, she broke his heart (as all girls are wont to do). This is when the Manic Depressive Disorder began to rear its head. Daniel becamed deeply, deeply depressed. As a boy, Daniel would record everything. He had tapes of arguments with his parents. He had tapes of conversations with friends. He had home movies, he had songs recorded, he had everything taped. Out of this depression came his first album (or cassette, as the case may be), entitled Songs of Pain, released in 1980. All songs featured Daniel on piano or organ and he also did vocals. He taught himself how to play the piano. He generally released a tape a year for the next few years, including Yip/Jump Music (which included the song “Worried Shoes” which was covered by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s for the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack) and More Songs of Pain. In 1983, he released Hi, How Are You, during which he claims he almost had a nervous breakdown at his brother’s Austin home. At this point, Daniel moved back home and was placed in a mental institution. After a few months, he left for New York. His album 1990 was soon recorded. The album was originally supposed to be entirely recorded in a formal studio, but Daniel’s mental illness prevented that. He was soon arrested for drawing hundreds of fish in the stairwell inside of the Statue of Liberty. He was then returned to a mental institution near his parents. It was during this time that Daniel was gianing recognition for his musical prowess and a bidding war soon began for his next album, while he was in the institution. For the next several years Daniel would leave the institution and go back in. To this day, he continues to tour the world, surrounded with friends and family to help him. Apparently a movie deal has been made for a biopic, tentatively to be released in 2011. He released an album on October 6, 2009 on his own label.

As the movie shows, the greatest thing about Daniel Johnston’s music is his ability to immerse himself in it. He doesn’t have the greatest voice. Hell, he doesn’t even have a good voice. He abilities with guitar and piano are limited at best. But that doesn’t matter. His lyrics are brilliant and his delivery is God-like. The difference between Daniel Johnston and 98% of every other recording artist out there is that Daniel means it, and Daniel means it every single time. He hardly ever performs a song live more than once because he can’t remember his old songs. This man makes songs up as he goes. HE MAKES SONGS UP. And you know what? They’re fucking beautiful! Yea, some of them are crap, but for every crappy song, he has 8 brilliant ones.

I know I kind of rambled on there for a bit, giving you a history of this guy you’ve never heard of. For that I’m sorry. But this documentary was amazing. I really got to know this man and I fell in love with him. His case is a sad one, but more than that, it’s uplifting. Please watch this movie. You owe it to yourself. It’s a happy, strange, sad, bizarre, inspirational story.

Bug (2006)

2009-12-09T17:09:00.001-05:00

Bug (2006)

Written by Tracy Letts based on his play of the same name.

Directed by William Friedkin

Wow, this flick was a freakin powerhouse! I would have loved to have seen this Off-Broadway play when it was out in 2004/2005. As sensational as it was on screen, it was probably 100 times more intense onstage. Needless to say, I liked it a lot, but it did lead to a lot of questions.

This flick was very simple plot-wise. It’s about a woman, named Agnes (played here by Ashley Judd, looking whitetrashified), whose husband (boyfriend? Baby daddy? I couldn’t really figure it out) Jerry (Harry Connick, Jr….Yea, I know, but more on that in a second) has just got out of prison. On her last night before he gets home, Agnes chooses to hang out at the bar that she works at with her lesbian friend R.C. (played by the super hot Lynn Collins, who you may have seen this past summer as the romantic sex interest of Wolverine, and she’s in True Blood and the upcoming flick Uncertainty with one of my favorite young actors- Joseph Gordon Levitt). They soon go back to the motel room where Agnes lives with their new friend Peter (Academy Award-nominated Michael Shannon) in tow. Peter is just a little weird, and it shows. After a few minutes, R.C. leaves and the rest of the flick never leaves the motel room. Peter stays the night and the next morning Jerry comes home. There’s some spousal abuse, and Peter comes home to save the day, except he really just stands around looking like the doof that he is. He doesn’t really stop Jerry, but Jerry stops because Peter’s there. This is one thing I couldn’t really jive with. It was obvious that Jerry was aggressive and probably a little crazy, but he never attacked Peter, even though it really seemed like he would (or should) have. ANYWAY, Jerry comes and goes, so does R.C., and there’s a doctor, but the main point is, when they’re alone Peter convinces Agnes that there are bugs. It starts out small. Not just literally, it seemed like a passing comment. But then they become obsessed. Peter soon becomes convinced that the government has sent out little nano-bot bugs to surveil him and then he convinces Agnes of the same thing and the movie just gets crazier and crazier from there.

What I liked about this movie was the tension. I saw the trailers, so I knew some weird shit was gonna happen. And though it was advertised as another Saw, that’s not what it was. It took a long time to build, but when it did shit really hit the fan in a bad way. The main theme is Paranoia. Are they crazy? Or is the government really spying on them? And I think it’s a valid question, especially in the current cultural climate we live in. The problem my girlfriend and I had was, Judd and Shannon often just came across as crazy for most of the flick. Now, as a cinephile, I understood what they were trying to convey, but she was right – they often went a little far. Personally, I loved it. But she was iffy. It’s important to think about when the government is putting too much pressure on its citizens, and this flick really put a lot of thought into it. The dialogue was fantastic, the performances were even better. I especially loved the washed out color themes that were present and the dark dark dark tone present throughout the flick. This motherfucker was pitch-black and I loved it! Director Williem Friedkin did a great job, and he’s come a long way cinematography-wise since The Exorcist. Overall, if you like really really tense thrillers, then this one is the way to go.

Knowing (2009)

2009-12-05T14:38:00.000-05:00

Knowing (2009)

Written by Ryne Douglas Pearson, Juliet Snowden, & Stiles White, based on Pearson’s book.

Directed by Alex Proyas

This one was a mixed bag of different sci-fi norms, with one big unique twist thrown in at the end. Was it original? Yes. Was it good? Meh.

Knowing was directed by Alex Proyas, one of my favorite sci-fi auteurs. Nicholas Cage is the lead. And it’s about the end of the world. How can a movie like this go wrong? Well, easily, apparantly. Alex Proyas is pretty amazing. The Crow, Dark City, these are classics. They were done on lower budgets, with lesser-known actors (at the time), and they have huge cult followings. But when Proyas tries to go big-budget and do a studio flick, he fails. See I, Robot and, now, Knowing for examples. It’s just something about trying to conform his film to appeal to the masses that takes away from it. Also, it’s quite possible that Cage is at fault here. When I was a kid, Nicholas Cage was the shit. He’s won an Academy Award. He was in Con Air, Face/Off, Raising Arizona, Snake Eyes, Wild at Heart, and Trapped in Paradise. I mean, c’mon! Those flicks were bad freaking ass! Somewhere along the way, Cage lost his sanity. And his hair. And what we’re left with is this.

Knowing started out great. You see, in 1959, a bunch of kids at a little elementary school in Massachusetts put some pictures and some letters into a time capsule, the whole town vowing not to open for another 50 years, conveniently, in 2009. There’s a scary ass little girl (SALG) that has some sort of problem, and on her paper she writes down numbers furiously until her bitch of a teacher rips it out of her hand. During the burial of the time capsule the SALG goes missing. She is soon found in a janitor’s closet, furiously scratching at the door with her fingernails until she bleeds. Jump forward to 2009. Nicholas Cage is an astrophysicist (this is where the movie loses all believability) with an adorable son. Also, he’s an alchoholic (and now I believe again!). When the time capsule is taken out of the ground, Cage’s kid gets the letter from SALG. Nicholas Cage finds it and immediately becomes obsessed with the numbers, convinced they have meaning. Perhaps not coincidentally, the numbers coincide with most disasters since 1959, predicting the dates, places, and number of people that will perish. Cage sees that there is a disaster predicted for tomorrow, and he sets out on a mission to prevent it. Because one person can prevent the death of 81 people. This leads to the best scene of the movie, which you may have seen part of in the trailers, a scene which the rest of the flick unfortunately fails to live up to. It involves a plane crash. It’s all done in a 2 and a half minute continuous shot with Nicholas Cage walking through the wreckage of the plane looking for survivors. It’s haunting and gruesome, and awesome. However, the next action scene isn’t for another 20 minutes, and it’s a looooong wait. He finds the descendants of SALG – played by Rose Byrne (from Sunshine, one of my favorite sci-fi flicks) and the same child actress that played the original SALG!!! Ahhhh, too many Scary Ass Little Girls for me!!!

As you can see, the movie’s a little convoluted, and if you’re not following, you’ll probably get a little lost. Also, I haven’t mentioned the last 45 minutes of the movie because there is a pretty ridiculous twist that you won’t see coming, and it’s pretty corny. You see, this movie would have been great if they hadn’t gone with Nicholas Cage, and if it wasn’t directed towards the non sci-fi lover. Nicholas Cage’s hairpiece and over-acting simply take you out of the flick. Most of his dialogue is laughable and his crazy eyes are gut-bustingly hilarious. He hasn’t done a serious flick since Leaving Las Vegas for christ’s sake! Everything with him is over the top, and it doesn’t work here. It might work great in Bad Lieutenant or Kick Ass, but it most certainly does not work here. Just as well, don’t make us think that the flick is about a world-ending disaster, because it most certainly was not. It was about the bond between mother and daughter/ father and son. That’s why you threw that “tear moment” in at the end. Because we were supposed to care about Cage and his kid, but how can we care about Cage when he’s constantly putting his kid in harm’s way, despite everybody telling him not to? And what about Rose Byrne and her SALG? Why were we supposed to care if they died or not? I don’t get it.

This flick did have good parts. The cinematography was pretty spectacular. The action sequences were intense as hell. The music was foreboding and creepy and perfect. That plane crash was fucking sick! But there was enough about it that was just “meh” to make me not care about it. If I had to rate it, I’d give it 2 ½ stars out of 5. This flick was mediocre all the way through.

Zodiac (2007)

2009-12-02T18:31:00.000-05:00

Zodiac (2007)

Written by James Vanderbilt, adapted from the book by Robert Graysmith

Directed by David Fincher

I’m marking this as one of my top 10 favorite flicks of the past 10 years. This film has absolutely nothing wrong with it. From the stellar performances, to the captivating set-pieces, this movie is a bonafide thriller.

I’m a big David Fincher fan. I’m one of the three people that actually likes Alien³, I’ve watched Panic Room more than once and I still enjoy it, despite the fact that Kristen Stewart is in it, Fight Club is my favorite movie, and Seven is another perfect movie. You may have noticed (or not) that I left out Benjamin Button and The Game, well that’s because I think The Game is terrible, but I blame it on the screenwriters (Fincher delivered on a well shot, finely acted, tense drama, but the story lacked) and I think Benjamin Button is about an hour too long, and a bit too pretentious for its own good. So, when Zodiac came out a few years ago, I was first in line to see it.

Zodiac chronicles (you guessed it) the search for the Zodiac Killer in San Francisco, California. For those of you that don’t know, there were a bunch of unsolved murders in the Bay area in 1968 and 1969. Soon after each of the murders, somebody mailed letters to the newspapers in the area claiming to be the killer. The letters were simply signed “The Zodiac Killer.” The killer (or killers) was never found. The amazing thing about this flick, is that this is not where all of the tension comes from.

The film itself starts off with the second attack, on July 4^th, 1968. We follow Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau on their date. When they get up to lover’s lane, another car approaches theirs and takes off after a few seconds. Minutes later, another car pulls up and a man gets out. He simply walks up to the window and shoots both Darlene and Mike several times. He starts to walk away, but when Mike and Darlene start moving around because they’re still alive, he returns and fires a few more rounds into each of them. Mike lives. The plot then moves to the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle, and we see the discovery of the first letter from the Zodiac. Next, we meet Robert Downey Jr.’s Paul Avery and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Robert Graysmith. Graysmith started out as a political cartoonist for the paper, but quickly became interested in the case. Paul Avery on the other hand, took a little while to get into it, but he soon became the number one journalist associated with the Zodiac, eventually receiving letters and threats directly from the killer. RDJ and Jake soon become bosom buddies, and obsessed with the Zodiac. The movie follows them and their fixation for the rest of the flick, but we eventually see a few more murders, and a little more than an hour in we meet Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edward’s detective characters. The movie explores a few of the potential suspects, eventually landing on Arthur Leigh Allen as the number one suspect (as I said earlier, the case was never solved and the killer never found, but the movie gently points a finger towards Allen as the culprit).

What makes this flick amazing is not the investigation part, but how it shaped and changed the lives of the individuals involved. This case consumed Robert Graysmith’s life (he eventually wrote a bestselling book about his experience, and obviously, this flick was made). For a movie that is basically a whole bunch of nothing, Fincher does a superb job filling it with tension, and he proves that he’s a master at conveying a lot of information through tight dialogue, and slow, deliberate set-pieces. The cinematography is excellent (as usual for Fincher, he used the excellent cinematographer Harris Savides, who has done work on most of Gus Van Sant’s better flicks) and the atmosphere of late 60’s/early 70’s is perfectly conveyed. One of my favorite parts was how they showed the passage of time. In one key passage, the passage is shown through time-lapse photography, showing the erection (hehehe I said erection) of a building. In another scene, the screen is black for about 2 minutes while we only hear about the case through radio and television audio broadcasts.

Overall, I’d definitely say that Zodiac is one of the 10 best flicks of the decade, and it definitely deserves your time. A word of caution – it is a little long (it’s about 2 hrs and 45 minutes) and there is some BRUTAL violence, although the gore factor is surprisingly low. Once again, it’s not so much about the murders themselves, but about the affect they had on the people of San Francisco. See this now.

Helter Skelter (1976)

2009-12-02T11:18:00.000-05:00

Helter Skelter (1976)

Based on the book by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry

Teleplay by J.P. Miller

Directed by Tom Gries

What started out as a 1970’s exploitation flick soon became something much more sinister and dark. This flick started out incredibly weak, but ended up backhanding me in the face. Read on, young reader, read on.

I just finished reading this book, so I figured that watching this made-for-1970’s-TV movie would be a good way to cap off my experience with Charles Manson and his Family. Boy was I wrong. This movie starts out bad. And not bad in a good way, it’s actually kind of painful to watch sub-par actors struggle with the corny dialogue and stilted deliveries. What surprised me is that 90% of the dialogue was taken directly from the court transcripts and the book. The sets are incredibly limited, although, from what I understand, they shot on location in most instances. This means, they really shot at Spahn Ranch, the LaBianca residence, and the streets of Los Angeles. Despite the attention to detail, I was still unmoved by the production value here. Another thing worth noting is that this flick followed the book (and by proxy-real life) to the T. Sure, they left out a few details and changed a few names, but this is pretty much as in depth as you can get. Of course, the 690 page book has much more info and it covers a lot more, but if you don’t want to spend 3 weeks of your life reading one book, this movie would probably be the best way to go.

Where the movie really kicks in is the second act. Once they get Susan Atkins and subsequently, Linda Kasabian (she was played by Marilyn Burns, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame) on the stand, that’s where the movie (and really, the case itself) kicks off. It doesn’t seem like it would be very exciting, two girls sitting on the witness stand, talking, but it was. For Linda’s statement, they used a weird 70’s film technique where they lay one image over another, so we got Linda in the background, with a recreation of the Tate/Labianca murders over it. It came out really well, and it was effective in scaring the piss out of me. The other good thing about this flick was Steve Railsback’s performance as Charlie. This dude was a freaking wrecking ball of intensity. He did play it a little over the top at times, but when he was being creepy, it was fucking on. He kept making that face that Charlie made for the cover of TIME magazine and it was fucking creepy as hell.

As a movie, this was just average. But as a history and film buff, I can recommend this flick over the 2002 remake with Jeremy Davies any day. If you want to learn more about the Manson trial/phenomenon, then check this one out, because it’s pretty decent. Until next time, loyal readers.

Tyson (2008)

2009-12-01T20:03:00.002-05:00

Tyson (2008)

Directed by James Toback

Wow! This movie was a freaking powerhouse! I’d heard a lot about this one going into it, but I didn’t even expect half of what I received. Read on, faithful reader(s)!

Tyson is a documentary. It is set up as an interview (or, several, as the case may be) with Mike Tyson. He gives us a history of his life, and speaks quite candidly, about every subject, from his childhood, to the infamous ear-bite, to the (alleged) rape of Desiree Washington, and his marriage to Robin Givens. That’s it. That’s all this movie is. A conversation. Doesn’t sound like much, right? Well, guess again. Like most documentaries, the interview is cleverly edited, the screen usually being separated into several parts, at times each one taking up more screenspace than the others (kind of the way The Fourth Kind did it). The interviews are interspersed with footage of Tyson’s fights, his training, and other public appearances.

I never imagined that this flick would impact me the way it did. Like most people, I’ve always thought of Mike Tyson as an animal, a freak, a beast, a monster. And in some ways, he is. But mostly, he’s just the same as us. When Tyson spoke about his former manager Cuss D’Amato, Tyson was genuinely moved, and so was I. Cuss was the father figure that Tyson never had. He helped Mike straighten out his life, and he gave him something to live for. Tyson loved Cuss, and you could feel it. Very rarely does a movie move me the way this one did, and those scenes in particular (the closest I’ve felt was when I watched the brilliant documentary Dear Zachary, but that’s for another time). You’ll feel everything that Tyson felt when you watch this. Anger, joy, sadness, laughter, and you’ll feel most of them in the same extremes that Mike felt. It seems to me, that Mike Tyson is a man cursed by a personality that dwells in the extreme. He admits that he’s never been in the middle, there is no “gray area”, everything is black and white for him. He says that when he goes for something, he refuses to give up, and I can jive with that, it’s a good philosophy.

This was an excellent flick, and it diserves your attention. I read recently that during test screenings James Toback, the film’s director, would intentionally seek out people that were completely out of the movie’s demographic – specifically middle-aged white women that knew nothing about boxing. Before they went into the screening, he would say “If you walk out within the first 5 minutes, I’ll give you $100. If you don’t walk out within the first 5 minutes, then you have to stay for the whole thing, and you have to give your complete, honest reaction to the film.” Apparantly, not one woman walked out, and many of them were in tears by the end of the flick.

On another interesting side-note, this flick was co-produced by Nicholas Jarecki, who also co-wrote and co-produced The Informers, the last piece of crap that I reviewed.

The Informers (2008)

2009-11-29T17:19:00.000-05:00

The Informers (2008)

Written by Bret Easton Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki, adapted from Ellis’ novel of the same name

Directed by Gregor Jordan

Wow! This one was a doozy. This movie, I have concluded, was a disaster. Somehow, I loved it and hated it at the same time (and I didn’t hate it in a good way). Read on!

What I did like: The slick direction. The music. The ample nudity. Amber Heard. The Mickey Rourke storyline. That’s about it.

What I didn’t like: Everything else.

I couldn’t really understand the story, but I’ll try to sum it up. This was one of those flicks that follows 3 or 4 or 13 different stories at once. The movie opened with the death of some guy via car accident. I think this was how they were trying to connect everybody together, but it didn’t really work. This guy had a best friend, Graham. Graham has no personality, but he has a super fucking hot girlfriend, Christie (Amber Heard), who sleeps with everybody. No, literally, everybody. And then everybody else. She even sleeps with Graham’s best friend (that’s the dude with the stupid hair in the second picture), who is sleeping with Kim Basinger, who is the mother of Graham. Kim Basinger is divorced from, but getting back together with her movie executive ex-husband, Billy Bob Thornton, who is sleeping with a news anchor, Winona Ryder. One of Billy Bob’s clients is the popular musicion Bryan Metro. Bryan Metro likes to sleep with children. Well, not little children. Just teenagers. In a completely unrelated sub-plot, there’s also another kid (played by Lou Taylor Pucci, who was in one of my favorite movies – The Go Getter) who is visited by his estranged, certifiably insane father, played by Chris Isaak. Yes, that Chris Isaak. In yet another unrelated sub-plot (and coincidentally, the only one I enjoyed), there’s Mickey Rourke’s character, who is the uncle of Brad Renfro (in an amazing final performance before his death by drug-overdose). Mickey Rourke kidnaps a little kid and wants to sell it for $6,000. I shit you not, everytime this part came back up, my stomach hurt from the stress of watching it. As you can tell, the story was terrible and convoluted. Each one of these sub-plots could have been extrapolated into a movie of its own, and none of them had any quantifiable conclusion. You’re never with any of the characters long enough to care about them, and most of them are such dispicable pieces of shit that you hate them, so when the story does something to them, (like kill them with AIDS), it’s really hard to conjure up any emotion. Even then, most of the dialogue is so melodramatic and self-indulgent that it borders on laughable.

If you’ve seen or read American Psycho, then you know how 80’s satire should be done. That’s a movie/book that knows what it is. It’s a toungue-in-cheek look at the excesses of the 80’s. It’s super-violent, and super-filthy, but it’s ok there. Here, there’s just to much. From what I’ve read, this movie was torn apart in the re-write process. Apparently, one director left before shooting began, and when Gregor Jordan signed on, he rewrote the script, taking out most of the satire, a vampire subplot, and all of the humor, prompting most of the cast to either jump ship or just give terrible performances. I have read American Psycho, and loved it, but I haven’t read anything else by Ellis, so I can’t say how this is compared to the novel, but I am going to make it a point to read this once I finish In the Woods (by Tana French, it’s very good so far, btw). Honestly, I’m can’t really recommend this movie though. If you do see it, see it for Brad Renfro’s performance and Amber Heard’s nudity.

Clerks (1994) and Clerks II (2006)

2009-11-29T15:46:00.000-05:00

Clerks. (1994) & Clerks II. (2006)

Both written and directed by Kevin Smith

I wasn’t even going to review these flicks because I know that everyone from my generation has seen at least the first one, and what can I say about either one that hasn’t been said yet? But then I realized something. Like all good movies, the View Askew films are movies that reach everybody differently. Everyone has a different story about which Kevin Smith movie they like the most. My personal favorite is Clerks II, but Dogma was the first flick I saw, and Mallrats was the first one I saw and loved. I saw Dogma probably around September or October of 2000, when I was just 15. I knew it was awesome, but I’m not sure I appreciated most of the jokes until the second viewing, which was about three years later. I first saw Mallrats about a year and a half later, in February of 2002. Two weeks earlier, I had gone snowboarding with my school. When my school went on snowboarding/skiing trips (which was every Wednesday), the students were required to sign up with a training class. This was my first time snowboarding. Since I didn’t want to look like a Sissy Mary, I signed up for the intermediate class, instead of beginner. It was also the first time of the season that my school had gone. Our instructor took us on an expert run that day. I went over a jump and fell on the landing. Seconds later, another snowboarder soared over the jump (not someone with our school) and promptly landed on my head. Literally. I was unconscious for the next day and a half, or rather, I don’t remember the next day and a half. I remember waking up in the hospital the next night. I think. Anyway, a head injury of this magnitude requires many follow-ups with many different brain doctors. So, two weeks later, I accompanied my mom to Mammoth, California, where she worked, so we could go to the doctor after she got out of work. I spent the day at her friend’s house nearby. My mom’s friend had a daughter named Toni, who was also about my age (and quite hot, I might add), and Toni had Mallrats on tape. Having nothing to do all day, I watched it. Mallrats quickly became my favorite “teen comedy” and remains that way today. I subsequently made it my personal mission to watch every Kevin Smith flick. When I moved back to New York, I borrowed Chasing Amy from my uncle, I bought Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back and Dogma on DVD, I bought the tenth anniversary version of Clerks, I watched the Clerks: The Animated Series religiously, I saw (and loved) Clerks II, Jersey Girl, and Zack and Miri Make a Porno in theaters before they even came out to the public. I was a fiend. I can honestly say that Kevin Smith changed my life. Clerks II cemented the fact that I wanted to become a screenwriter. So, without further ado, here are my reviews for Clerks and Clerks II.

Although I was only 9 years old when Clerks was released theatrically, and it wasn’t until I was about 19 years old that I actually saw it, Clerks pretty much sums up my childhood, growing up in the 90’s. Many afternoons were spent doing nothing, talking about girls and saying the dirtiest possible things we could. Watching it now, in my 20’s, the movie has changed a lot for me. I felt an odd sense of both nostalgia and sadness. The early 90’s was a time when somebody in their early 20’s could work in a convenience store and not go to college and figure out what they want to do with their life. Things aren’t like that anymore, and I wish they were. Once you turn 18, you’re quicky ushered into college, and then, the rest of your life. Now, everybody knows that that’s not what I did, but I still feel the sense of not doing what’s expected of me, and thus, the disappointment from everyone else. I want to work in a convenience store-slash-video store. I want to make movies with my best friends. I don’t even play hockey, but I want to play it on the roof of the place where I work. And also, Dante was a hideous fucking chode! How did he always have two girls pining after him? But you know what? These movies gave the rest of us hope. I mean yea, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller, Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, those are fucking excellent movies. But, at least for me, they were always just a little bit out of reach. Clerks changed that. The characters spoke about the things I was speaking about. They looked like me. They acted like me. And thus, it was incredibly accessible.

It does have it’s drawbacks. Critics (and Smith himself) have spoken ad naseum about Kev’s lack of photographic flair. Personally, I don’t think it took away from the film, but that’s just me. I can admit that it’s a boring looking flick. However, it doesn’t need it. The dialogue and the story are what draw you in here. I’m happy he didn’t keep the original ending, where the Quick-Stop is robbed and gunpoint and Dante dies. It didn’t need the twist ending. I still listen to the soundtrack to this one. The music was awesome and I’m very surprised they got some of the music clearances that they did. 15 years later, this flick is still as good as it was the day it first came out, if not better.

Clerks II is my favorite Kevin Smith flick. Actually, for those that are fans, Kevin Smith’s website is having a Chrismas sale right now, and I just bought a signed copy of this screenplay for $11, and I can’t wait til it gets here. While Clerks was funny, this one is side-splittingly funny. He brings Dante and Randall into their thirties (they’ve aged equally to the time between flicks), and places them in the fast-food business when the the Quick Stop burns down. Jay and Silent Bob are here too (in their final film appearance) and also introduces a new cast of misfits, the best of which is Elias (played by Trevor Fehrman – although imdb tells me this is the last movie he was in). Of course, some of Kevin Smith’s usuals show up for cameos. Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Kev’s wife Jennifer Schwalbach, Ethan Suplee, Kev’s mom, Scott Mosier, they all show up for a few seconds. I will never forget the Pillowpants conversation. Truly terrifying. What this movie had that the first one lacked, was heart. This was about Kevin Smith’s fears of going into his thirties and being at the same place he was 10 years before. I have a good feeling that when I watch this 10 years from now, it will have an entirely different meaning for me. Despite the fact that this is my favorite Smith movie, there are a few things I don’t like about it. The musical montages have to end. I counted at least 3 separate montages in this and I didn’t like any of them. Also, Kevin Smith needs to stop giving his wife parts in his movies. She’s just not that great. And last, when he made this, Kevin Smith hadn’t worked in the service industry in about 12 years. He obviously didn’t understand how it works anymore. 4 people can absolutely not run a fast food restaurant for a whole day, especially when at least 2 of them are always not in the restaurant. The good things are: it’s funnier, smarter, more emotional, and the cinematography is 1000 times better than any other Smith movie.

If you are one of the few people that haven’t seen either of these, then you owe it to yourself to check them out.

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

2009-11-25T16:06:00.002-05:00

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Written by William Roberts, based on the film Shichinin no Samurai (The Seven Samurai) by Akira Kurosawa

Directed by John Sturges

I watched this one based on a recurring recommendation by a guy I used to work with, and, despite my reservations to watch it, I ended up enjoying it a lot. You see, I have this theory. You know when you get a Netflix movie that you put on your queue like 4 months ago, and you totally forgot it was there? And then, once you get it, it just sits on your TV stand for like 35 days, because you don’t really want to watch it, but you don’t have the heart to just send it back either? Well, my theory is that these movies, the “TV Stand Movies”, as I like to call them, are the best ones. And it happens every time!

So, I put in this flick the other night, not expecting much from it (it was one of the dreaded TV Stand Movies, arriving on 10/17/2009, not to be returned until 11/25/2009), and getting a lot back. I’m told it’s a classic, and I can understand that. It is certainly one of the best western flicks I’ve ever seen. Now, I’m not exactly a connoisseur when it comes to Westerns, but I do like them a lot. 3:10 to Yuma (the remake) and The Proposition are two modern westerns that are regular staples in my dvd player. When I was “growing up”, I remember my grandfather watching Westerns and Nascar constantly, and I guess they kind of stuck with me.

The Magnificent Seven, as mentioned earlier, is a remake of the Kurosawa film The Seven Samurai, which I have never seen. So the movie starts, and there’s a bad man threatening a little Mexican village. It’s the usual Western story. The Mexicans are just farmers, as they say, so they hire Chris Adams (played by Yul Brenner) to protect them. Adams then hires Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and Robert Vaughn, amongst a few other dudes, and they form the titular group. Naturally, each additional person Brenner and Steve McQueen find has a particular area of expertise, for instance, there’s a knife thrower, there’s a guy that’s a riduclously awesome shot, there’s another guy that likes to protect children. Notable, however, is the complete lack of female presence until about 2/3 of the way through the flick. Our lone woman is Petra, played by Rosenda Monteros.

Also notable in this flick is the not so subtle racism and sexism. You see, only the white man can save the Mexicans. That’s right. The Mexicans are played with a complete disregard for changing stereotypes. They’re all brown, they all wear traditional farmers clothes, and they’re all illiterate and incapable of defending themselves. So then they hire a bunch of white men to help them out, and then the Mexicans hide all of their women, old people, and children! Later on, when a woman wants to help out (that’s Petra), the white men tell her that it’s really her job to take care of the other women, old people, and children! And she does it!

Despite the obvious discrimination prevalent in this flick, it was well-acted, the story was intriguing, and the action was pretty good. I can really see this being one of those flicks that “needs” to be remade in the next few years. I recommend this flick to fans of the 60’s, Westerns, and Steve McQueen, cuz he’s the fuckin man.

Crank 2: High Voltage (2009)

2009-11-23T17:59:00.000-05:00

Crank 2: High Voltage (2009)

Written and Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor

Holy shit, this movie is insane! Starting off exactly where the first one ended, this is a neverending adrenaline rush of a movie. It seemed as if the Neveldine & Taylor were trying to one-up themselves in each scene. Just like the first movie, you HAVE to suspend all disbelief to make it through this one. Also, if you’re easily offended, don’t even bother.

As I just said, this flick starts off just seconds after the first one (if you don’t remember – Chev Chelios fell out of a helicopter, bounced off of a car, and one frame before the shot ended, he blinked), the ending of which is thankfully played back in 16-bit videogame graphics. The irony of the videogame graphics is not lost on this reviewer, as the entire film plays just like a videogame. A bunch of Asians literally shovel Chelios up off the ground and the adventure begins. You see, in this one, Chev’s Strawberry Tart is replaced by an artificial chest thumper, which conveniently runs on a battery that will only last 1 hour if destroyed. Needless to say, after 30 minutes, the battery dies.

This movie featured some of the most obscene things I’ve ever seen on film. Here’s a few examples: Anal-rape with a shotgun, putting cigarettes out on a heart, nipples, Shiny Lunch Box, strippers, at least 4 utterances of a word that starts with the letter “c” and ends with the letter “t” (I’ll give you a hint – it’s not “coat”), public sex, an old lady cursing, and more nipples.

There’s a lot that was good about this, but I suppose you have to be the kind of person that likes this. Jason Statham continues to prove that he’s the number 1 action star of this decade. The man is charming, charismatic, and funny as hell. Bai Ling showed up as a hooker, and while I can’t say that I like her, or find her even remotely attractive, I can say that she was absolutely hilarious. There’s a bunch of cameos in this one as well. I mean, everyone shows up here, from Linkin Park’s Chester “My Band Just Keeps Getting Worse” Bennington, to Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, to Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite, and even one of the Coreys shows up for a split second. But the real gem here, in my humble opinion, is Amy Smart. Amy’s girlfriend character comes back, and this time she’s a stripper. An insanely hot stripper. Eve and Chelios top their Asian market sex scene from the first movie by having sex on a horse race track. And it’s just as awesome as it sounds. I really cannot emphasize enough how good Amy Smart looks in this movie. I can actually recommend seeing it, just to see her.

Over the top? Check. Naked chicks? Check. Brutal violence? Check. It’s official, there’s nothing bad about this movie. Check it out!

New Moon (2009)

2009-11-19T11:57:00.002-05:00

New Moon (2009)

Written by Melissa Rosenburg and Stephanie Meyer

Directed by Chris Weitz

Once again, I would like to give the “I am not in this movie’s target audience” clause. I know, as a cinephile, I should enjoy all genres of film, and to a point, I do. I have been known to enjoy the occasional romantic comedy, the drama, horror, thriller, actioner, even children’s films. But one thing I do not enjoy is bad filmmaking.

New Moon is bad filmmaking. How can you make a film WITHOUT likeable leads? I mean c’mon! It terrifies me that Kristen Stewart is considered a role model for young girls. This movie provides ample evidence to have her convicted as a bad hero. First, she smiles maybe once in the movie. We’re supposed to buy that Bella and Edward are in love, but they don’t spend a single second of this film enjoying each other’s company! It’s dramatic argument after dramatic argument after dramatic argument. Just because they kiss and hold each other every now and then doesn’t mean that they’re in love. Especially when Robert Pattinson makes that face like he’s in pain all the time. This was like a 2 hour version of Dawson’s creek, but with vampires and werewolves. Second, she’s a straight up bitch, and not in a good way. She ditches her best friends when she gets a boyfriend. She’s downright mean to her friend Mike, who has had a very obvious crush on her since day one, going as far as to leading him on to the prospect of a date, and then she’s blatantly rude to him at the end of it. And it wasn’t just Mike she was mean to! She used Jacob to help her rebuild a motorcycle so she could try to kill herself later. She spent months with the guy, and when he fell in love with her, which is understandable and natural, she freaked out and shunned him. This girl is a Class A Cocktease. Three, she’s a complete downer. When Edward breaks up with her (which, we are told, is at the very beginning of the school year, i.e. September), we’re given a montage recapping the months until February in which she mopes in front of a window. That’s five months of straight moping. At what point do you get the hell over it? Four, Kstew spends the first hour and a half of the movie trying to kill herself. You read that correctly. After Edward gives her the boot, she tries to kill herself over and over. She does this because whenever she’s close to death, she has visions of Edward, and she thinks if she dies, then he’ll be there forever. She gets on a motorcycle with a skeevy biker dude (with no helmet, mind you). She drives a motorcycle straight into huge rock. She jumps off of a cliff. There is no end to her stupidity. And this is a character that is now a role model for young girls around the world. The fact that women actually connect to this character is beyond the limits of my imagination.

Aside from the case against Bella, there are numerous other offenses in this movie. The dialogue is just plain terrible. At one point Bella says “Don’t do this for my soul, because I don’t care about my soul anymore.” Now, I know, that line pales in comparison to the infamous “Spider-monkey” line from the first movie, but this dialogue ran throughout the film. Another downside was Robert Pattinson. Really? Women find him attractive? Why? Don’t give me that “Oh, he’s dark, and quiet, and brooding, and mysterious” bullshit. He’s just plain creepy. The first thing my father taught me was to never trust a man who doesn’t smile. And in this movie, Robert Pattinson does not smile once. Also, he appears in Bella’s room without being asked, even when she’s not home. He has the body of an emaciated heroin addicted twelve year old girl. My girlfriend wasn’t the only one that made comments about the pre-pubescent pubic hair sprouting from his chest in the one scene where he was shirtless. Now, I know, it’s not the actors that were terrible here. Kristen Stewart was cute as hell in Adventureland, Panic Room, and Into the Wild. I really do not believe that it was her fault Bella was an unlikeable bitch who just jumps from guy to guy. There was a trailer before the movie for some other movie RPats is in, and it actually looked like he did a decent job. He was awesome in that Harry Potter movie. So I blame the screenplay(s) and story for what I didn’t like about this movie.

I know I’ve beat it up a bit, but there were some things I did like here. One thing I can say is that it looked great. The cinematography and locations they used were simply beautiful. There was a scene in which a bunch of werewolves chased a ginger vampire through the woods, and it was set to a Thom Yorke song and it was exquisite. I actually enjoyed that scene quite a bit. I liked all of the characters that were not Bella or Edward. Edward’s sister Alice (played by the uber-hot Ashley Greene) was adorable and sweet. Jacob, despite being shirtless for roughly 93% of the movie, wasn’t half bad. I’m glad they decided to stick with Taylor Lautner, because he made this movie tolerable. Anna Kendrick, as Bella’s “Best Friend” Jessica was equal parts bubbly and funny, and I really wish she had more than five lines in this. I can’t wait to see her in Up in the Air, because I’ve heard she’s fantastic in it. Billy Burke plays Bella’s dad, and he was awesome as usual, still rockin a pretty mean ‘stache. Michael Sheen showed up at the end to take a bite out of the scenery, chew it up, and spit it back out in Robert Pattinson’s face. In fact, that whole sequence at the end invovling the Volturi was pretty awesome, I really liked that. Dakota Fanning was pretty cool as a evil vampire with mind control powers. It looked like she had fun. Basically, what I’m saying is, I liked everything that didn’t involve Bella or Edward.

I can’t even say that I recommend this movie to 12 year old girls, because, really, there’s nothing good here. Get rid of the lead characters and actors, and maybe we’ll have a watchable flick. I will, however, be seeing Face Punch when that comes out, because it sounds frakkin awesome.

Across the Universe (2007)

2009-11-17T21:09:00.000-05:00

Across the Universe (2007)

Written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, & Julie Taymor

Directed by Julie Taymor

My love for this film can be summed up by the fact that I have an original one-sheet poster from the movie framed above my bed. I first discovered this underrated gem about a year and a half ago. I bought it for about ten dollars at my local Blockbuster. A few weeks ago I was perusing a nearby Costco, when I found it on Blu-ray for twelve bucks. Score! ANYWAY, the first time I watched it, I don’t think I understood it completely. I watched it again around five months later (around this exact time last year), and was simply spellbound.

This movie has everything. EVERYTHING!!! Let’s start with the basics – it’s a movie based on and set to songs by the Beatles. I’ll wait while you go out and find this movie and watch it.

Back? Oh, yea sure, go ahead and make some popcorn.

Ok! So, it’s a musical. Some people don’t like musicals, I can understand that. They’re pretty gay. There’s a lot to not like about them. It’s not very realistic that a group of people would break out into a clearly choreographed dance routine, where everyboyd knows the lyrics to the song they’re singing. And where the hell does the music come from anyway? But this one is different. Here’s a little trick to tell if a musical will be good or not. If the songs help to move the plot forward, then it will be a good musical. If the songs are an aside from the plot, the musical will suck (see this, or this, or this.) Across the Universe uses the songs to move the plot forward. The plot, here, revolves around Jude, Max, and Lucy (yes, all of the characters are named after Beatles songs, and no, it’s not as lame as it says) and takes place in the 60’s. Max and Lucy are siblings, Jude is from Liverpool, Jude and Lucy fall in love, Max gets drafted. Tangental characters include a Hendrix clone named Jo Jo, a Janis Joplin clone named Sadie (and yes, she is pretty sexy), and a hot little Asian lesbian named Prudence.

The best part about this flick is obviously the music. The Beatles were masters, and in my opinion, the last great music makers. What differentiates the Beatles from most other bands of that era, in my mind, is not just their lyrics, but their ability to harmonize. Beatles songs are rooted in the vocals, and McCartney and Lennon did things with their vocals that are unheard of these days. Rather than clutter up the songs with over-enthusiastic guitar solos and ostentatious drum fills, they let the lyrics and vocals do the talking. Now, in this flick, the filmmakers re-interpret some of the songs in ways that are both beautiful and unique, and they do the nearly impossible – they are even better than the originals (unlike in that goddamn blackberry commercial, which pretty much vomits on the original song).

The acting here is award-worthy. First off, all of the actors and actresses do their own singing in this. And it’s not just ‘meh’, like Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge, it’s raw and real. Evan Rachel Wood proves that she’s not just insanely hot, but she’s also one of the better actresses of her generation (if not the best). Jim Sturgess was equally impressive as the male lead, but the person that stole the most scenes for me was Joe Anderson as Max. This guy was badass to the max. That’s right, I said ‘to the max.’ You may have seen him in The Ruins as the German guy that fell down the hole and broke his legs, or possibly in the trailer for remake of The Crazies (which looks awesome, by the way). He’s awesome, and an actor to look out for.

The sets here were amazing, the wardrobes were spot-on, everything looked like it was straight out of the era. When I watched this on blu-ray, I found myself wishing that I had lived during the era (a notion that was instantly quelled when I thought back to “Helter Skelter”, which I am currently reading).

There is absolutely nothing about this movie that I didn’t like. See it, see it, see it, SEE IT!!!

I Love You, Beth Cooper

2009-11-16T13:14:00.000-05:00

I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009)

Written by Larry Doyle, based on his novel of the same name

Directed by Chris Columbus

Chris Columbus, what has happened to you? You are responsible for one of the highest grossing movies of all time! You directed not one, but TWO Harry Potter Movies! How can you make a film that was as boring as this?

Listen, I know, being a 24 year old male, I am absolutely not the target audience for this flick. There are two reasons I watched this. One, my girlfriend wanted to, and two, Hayden Panettiere (hereby referred to as “Panties”, because her real name is unpronouncable, and impossible to spell). Now, don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t terrible. But it was boring and generic. Let me explain.

As is typical for teen comedies, the first ten minutes of this are simple character exposition. First we meet the weird, possibly homosexual, best friend of our main character. Then, in an impossibly long graduation speech (which you may have seen some of in the trailers, it’s where our protaganist professes his love for the titular piece of ass), we meet our nerdy main character. Here, he is played by Paul Rust, whose nose deserves it’s own zipcode. Not that I didn’t like the guy, he was unusually nerdy and awkward, but had great comic timing. There are just times when his nose takes up the whole screen, preventing me from seeing Panties. You soon meet Panties’ two hot friends, one of which is borderline retarded, but has massive cans, and the other one is “misunderstood”. She also represents the flick’s only black character. After twenty minutes, the movie derails into a series of vignettes in which we are supposed to actually look past Panties’ hotness, and notice her personality. Unfortunatly for the movie, Panties is a terrible actress, and the character is a vain, psychotic bitch.

I think what I really didn’t like about this flick was the tone. It seems like the filmmakers were trying to make a satire of teen comedies. In the opening speech, the main dude rails on most of the typical teen comedy clichés, making you think that the rest of the movie will have similar jokes (i.e. be good). Not so. Most of the humor in the first half is very slap-sticky. For examply, Beth Cooper drives like a psychopath. There’s a scene in which the main dude gets hit in the face with a cork from a champagne bottle. There’s a rabid racoon in one scene. Beth Cooper’s boyfriend is a caricature of “mean guys” and has a permanent scowl on his face. Actually, there’s a ten minutes chase scene where he and his ‘roid head buddies chase our main dude. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t respond well to slapstick humor. It’s childish, and when you’re trying to make a movie for teenagers, it’s useless. There’s also many scenes that are parodies of real teen comedies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (actually, the main dude’s dad is played by the always awesome Alan Ruck, from Ferris Bueller) or Sixteen Candles. About halfway through the flick, they abandoned the slapstick tone, and the movie just became a series of serious conversations between the main dude and Panties, most of which consisted of laughable dialogue and very little chemistry. The main dude was basically a stalker. I don’t know about you, but I would find it very creepy if somebody had a poster of me above their bed. Panties thought it was cute.

Since I started writing this review, I have come to an important conclusion. I didn’t like this movie. There were a few laughs, yes, but this movie failed at everything it tried to do, save for making Hayden Panettiere look hot. I can recommend it for that reason, and that reason only.

2012

2009-11-12T13:15:00.002-05:00

2012 (2009)

Written by Roland Emmerich and Harold Kloser

Directed by Roland Emmerich

I absolutely love disaster movies! Not one for subtlety, Roland Emmerich doesn’t just do disaster movies, he does disaster porn, and this is the hardcore, double-penetration, girl on girl on girl on girl porn of disaster movies. Nothing is sacred in this flick, and all is destroyed. And I loved every last second of it!

2012 starts out the way most Roland Emmerich movies do. The year is 2009, and Adrian Helmsley (played by the excellent, yet underused Chiwetel Eliofor) has just figured out that the world is going to end in 2012. Flash to Independence Day, when those military guys first see the alien spacecrafts on radar. Flash to The Day After Tomorrow, when Dennis Quaid first figures out that the world is going to end. Basically, what I’m saying, is that Emmerich isn’t going into uncharted territory on this one. The movie then sums up the next three years of political meetins in about ten minutes. In those ten minutes, it is decided by our Danny Glover-played President that we’re not going to tell anybody that the world is going to end, but we’re going to secretly build underground garages for giant arks, so when the world actually does end, only a select few will be on the boats, saving the politicians from having to live through the armageddon with poor people. Jump to 2012, where we meet John Cusack, playing a dad whose annoying son and adorable daughter live with their mom and step-father, played by Amanda Peet and Thomas McCarthy. Lloyd Dobler takes his kids on a camping trip to Yellowstone where they meet Woody Harrelson playing a crazy person (so really, it’s just Woody Harrelson) and learn that the world will soon be expiring in an unappealing way. After this is about an hour and a half of pure destruction, involving everything from supermarkets, airplanes, LA getting wrecked (finally), Russians, Volcanos, more Woody Harrelson, and this hot chick. In the end, the movie somehow finds a way to have all of the characters meet up, AND kill, not one, but two hot Russians.

As with any Disaster movie, make sure you leave believability at the door. There’s one scene in particular, where there’s a 1500 meter high tidal wave coming towards one of our characters, and he takes out his cell phone and makes a call to another character, who is miles under a mountain. There are countless instances where our main characters narrowly escape death, as you’ve probably seen in the trailers. But you know what? None of that matters. This movie is awesome! Nothing is safe! The Vatican gets destroyed. LA is completely wrecked. In the end, the ocean levels rise like three miles and the Earth’s poles shift. All the destruction made me giddy! Sure, the dialogue is cheesy, the story doesn’t make any sense, but none of that matters. You’re going to this movie to escape, and escape you will. It’s all about the spectacle here, and you will be thoroughly entertained for two and a half hours.

Coraline (2009)

2009-11-11T16:12:00.002-05:00

Coraline (2009)

Written by Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman

Directed by Henry Selick

I don’t even know what to say about this film. It was just amazing. The visuals in this movie were beautiful, terrifying, haunting, this is just another level of filmmaking. From the opening title sequence, which depicts a doll being taken apart, and then remade, to the final frame, you are going to love every second of this film.

The story goes like this – a girl moves to the middle of nowhere with her parents, who don’t pay any attention to her, and loses all her friends, and understandably needs a means of escape. Rather than take the Wild Things approach, little Coraline ventures through a miniature door in the living room of her ancient house. On the other side, she discovers a doppelganger version of her own world, complete with an “Other Mother”, “Other Father”, and annoying (yet awesome) neighborhood kid “Other Wybie” (real name Wyborn). This world has everything the real world doesn’t. Parents that care, awesome neighbors, a talking cat, the best freakin garden you’ve ever seen, and most importantly, people with buttons for eyes. After a few visits, our titular character realizes that this “Other world” isn’t quite what it appears. A life lesson ensues.

I went into this movie thinking it would be a typical kids flick. Boy, was I wrong. Now, like everybody from my generation, I’ve seen (and love) The Nightmare Before Christmas, which was also directed by the great Henry Selick (which most people don’t know, they all think it was Burton that directed, he was just a producer), so I thought this would be kind of more of the same thing. Again, wrong. While Nightmare kind of retains some youthful imagery and tone, Coraline was dark, dark, dark. If I were a kid, this movie would give me nightmares. Shit, I’m an adult (kind of) and it still scared me. I mean, the girl is escaping from her parents, because they DON’T LOVE HER! And not in the cute way that Max from Where the Wild Things Are thought his mom didn’t love her. This girl’s parents really don’t give a shit about her. Also, her “other mother” wants her to sew buttons over her own eyes, and then turns into a giant spiderwoman. There was so much creepy imagery and tone here that I don’t know how to properly describe it. Despite being creepy, it was beyond beautiful. I’m about 98% sure that this is what Heaven looks like. I’m also fairly certain that Henry Selick invented new colors for this film. Your eyes will be please after you watch this.

I know that it sounds like I didn’t like this movie. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m positive that come December 31^st, this will be in my top 5 movies of the year. I just don’t think it’s a kids flick, so don’t expect that from it. This is a movie for adults, much like Where the Wild Things Are is. Coraline is a brave little girl. This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in years, and you owe it to yourself to watch this.

The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984)

2009-11-08T14:27:00.000-05:00

The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984)

Written by Vincent Patrick (based on his novel of the same name)

Directed by Stuart Rosenburg

I watched this one based on a recommendation by my Papa Jimbo (he’s really my grandfather, no jokes), and ended up really liking it, although it took me a while to get to that conclusion.

The plot is a little congested, so bear with me. Charlie (Mickey Rourke) is fired from the restaurant that he manages because of something his cousin Paulie (Eric Roberts) does. Paulie has connections in the Mob, and soon learns that the Mob boss who owns said restaurant has $150,000 in his possession. Paulie also has connections in the horseracing world and knows somebody who has a cup full of horse sperm from a winning horse. He knows people that are involved with horse breeding, so he pays them to take the sperm and use it to enpregnate a winning female horse, so they can have a superbaby. Soooo, when they both get fired, they decide to enlist a friend, Barney the Irish locksmith, to help them steal the money, which they will then bet on the superbaby.

I love heist movies. I really do. And this one is no exception. The protaganists need money, they contrive a plot to get some, they institute their plan, something goes wrong during the heist, they have to deal with it, and everybody is happy in the end. No different here. Netflix told me it was a comedy. This is not true. Sure, there were some laughs, but it was a lot more serious than funny. It took me a while to get into the story though. Maybe because it was so convoluted, maybe it was because I was intoxicated, I don’t know. When the heist stuff started happening though, I was really drawn in. It was nice to see Mickey Rourke when he was young, but you could still tell that his acting abilities are through the roof. Daryl Hannah makes an appearance as the crazy bitch girlfriend. The true standout in this flick, though, is Eric Roberts. You probably don’t know the name, but you’ll definitely recognize the face. He was a revelation in this. I never knew that one of my favorite character actors was so freaking awesome. He had charisma and emotion and it was awesome.

Like I said, this movie was a little awkward. It took a little while to get into it. But once it really starts, you’re gonna love it. I always love Mickey Rourke, and he’s always excellent, and here it’s no different. If I had to rate it, I’d give it a solid B.

The Fourth Kind (2009)

2009-11-08T13:46:00.000-05:00

The Fourth Kind (2009)

Written and Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi

I saw Paranormal Activity on Halloween but didn’t write a review because A) the last thing that movie needs is more publicity and B) I really didn’t like it. The Fourth Kind is the movie that Paranormal Sucktivity wishes it was. As pretty much everybody in America knows by now, Paranormal Craptivity is supposed to be “found footage”, but we all know that it was all staged due to the movie’s stars being all over the place. The Fourth Kind is similar, as it also features “found footage”. The difference is that Fourth also re-enacts that same footage. The movie, true to it’s name, involves a psychiatrist from Nome, Alaska who is experiencing some weird ass shit, possibly related to Aliens, along with her family and the rest of the town.

There was a lot to like about this flick. It was creepy as hell, and they sustained the tension throughout the whole film, from the first 3 minutes right until the very end. The main generator of the creepy tone was the brilliant cinematography (by Lorenzo Senatore, who is seemingly the go-to guy for straight to DVD sequels). THIS is how you use the “found footage” gimmick. Several times throughout the movie, the screen was split into either two or four separate boxes, usually when the weird shit was happening. On one side of the screen was the reenactment with Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovavich) and Abel Campos (Elias Koteas - more on them later), and on the other side was the “found footage.” Within the scene, the audio and visuals would ebb and flow, meaning, sometimes the “found footage” would scoot over, letting Milla use up most of the screen, and vice versa. The audio would do the same thing. Interspersed between these scenes was an interview between the “real” Abigail Tyler and some black guy. This is where the film is at it’s best. The “found footage” was genuinely scary (unlike in Paranormal, where it was just boring) and the real Dr. Tyler was just creepy looking (you’ll recognize her as the woman who’s face is blurred out in the trailer) and emotionless enough for me to absolutely buy that this is real. However, the reenactments didn’t even compete with the other footage. Granted, the setting was absolutely beautiful and the filters they used on the cameras were perfect, just muting the colors enough, making the white snow and the green of the trees pop out. However, the “story” parts of the reenactments were just not good. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Milla “I only do genre-flicks” Jovavich. I guess the only things I’ve seen her in are the Resident Evil movies, but still, she’s a little funny looking, and not much of an actress. However, here, she really impressed me. She shows a more sensitive side than I’m used to from her, and I liked it. Elias Koteas, character actor extraordinaire, was brooding and awesome as the requisite skeptic. The one truly bad element of this flick was Will Patton (another character actor that you’ll recognize, but not know who he is). This guy was a dick, and he was a dick just to BE a dick. He does things that don’t make any sense, and it seems like he goes out of his way to not believe anything Dr. Tyler says, even to the point of ignoring whole pages of script. He’s irritating and I wanted him to shut up. Also – Dr. Tyler had some ugly, obnoxious kids, her son in particular, and at one point I found myself wishing that the Aliens would come down and take them.

I liked The Fourth Kind a lot. It had some interesting themes, and was pretty creepy. However, there were some things that were just plain bad. If they had made the movie differently, perhaps by eliminating the reenactment portions, I think it would have been a lot more effective. Also, Hollywood should stop releasing horror movies THE WEEK AFTER HALLOWEEN. I’m looking at you Rob Zombie’s Halloween (which was relased in August, of all months). The Fourth Kind is worth a rental at least. Check it out, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Sid & Nancy (1986)

2009-11-02T17:20:00.000-05:00

Sid & Nancy (1986)

Written by Alex Cox and Abbe Wool

Directed by Alex Cox

Please excuse this review for being 23 years late, as I was roughly one year old when it came out. Inexplicably, I had never seen this until last night. Yea, I know. I had many opportunities, hell, I lived with White Goodman for about 5 months. That man practically IS Sid Vicious (and he even named one of his cats after the man). I even watched Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt’s recent ode to the iconic final moments of the flick (but that was done more to satiate my incurable, and admittedly kinda creepy, love for Zooey Deschanel). So, no, I have no excuse for having not seen this earlier in my life. The only semblance of an excuse is that I never felt like I was emotionally ready to understand it. And right, I was.

This movie is a tornado that will rip apart your insides. You’ll try not to fall in love with Sid. There are plenty of reasons to hate him. He’s an incorrigible dick. He’s a drug addict, and a lunatic. Still, he’s fucking awesome. Sid Vicious was the Rock Star to end all Rock Stars. I always knew Gary Oldman was the shit. My mom took me to see Air Force One when it came out in 1997 (I was, and still am, a Star Wars geek, so naturally, Harrison Ford was my hero) and it was Gary Oldman’s performance that simply blew me away. Subsequently, he’s known to me most prominently as Drexl from True Romance, not to mention the countless other films he’s been in. But here…Here, Gary Oldman is electric. He IS Sid Vicious. There wasn’t a single second that I saw him as anything other than Sid.

And then there’s Chloe Webb as Nancy Spungen. Let me just say, I know absolutely nothing Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, or the Sex Pistols. I was born about 8 years too late to really understand and be a part of that scene. But what I can understand is that Nancy Spungen is the Yoko Ono of the punk scene. Or at least, that’s how the film portrays her. She’s annoying, needy, and she is the reason Sid gets addicted to heroin. Webb is not an attractive woman. But then again, I suppose Gary Oldman wasn’t that attractive at the time either. But this isn’t a film about the benefits of being a rock star. Sid doesn’t fall for Nancy because she’s this hot piece of model ass. She has what he needs. Heroin and a vagina. But you know what? You can’t help but like her. Webb plays Spungen with just that little bit of charm that makes you see her the way Sid sees her, and it’s a benefit to the rest of the film.

Aside from Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, what I liked most about the flick was the cinematography. There are several shots in the film that seem to be about nothing and they go on forever. You question the first one, but after that, they help to build up the tension. The most memorable example is the slow motion shot of Sid and Nancy kissing in an alleyway, while trash rains down from above. Another one of my favorites was Sid’s version of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”. I’m telling you, you will not be able to take your eyes off of Sid Vicious for the entire flick.

Sid & Nancy gets my seal of approval. If you haven’t seen it, then what the hell is wrong with you?

Top 12 Favorite Scary Movies

2009-10-31T12:50:00.000-04:00

As an ode to the holiday we’re currently celebrating, I give this to you, my 3 loyal readers, my favorite movies. It’s not listed below, but the remake of The Last House on the Left gets an honorable mention because when I saw the unrated version, I was deeply distraught for hours, and could not stop thinking about it for weeks after.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

This movie boasts that it has been banned in more than 50 countries. In truth, the director and producers were arrested because people thought that what was happening in the film was true. It follows a documentary team sent to look for another team that has gone missing in the African jungles. When they get there, they’re brutally raped, tortured, and murdered by the natives living there. This is one of the only films that has truly made me sick to my stomach from viewing. Just so you know, it does feature on-screen, animal deaths.

Dead Alive (aka Brain Dead, 1992)

Peter Jackson’s horror pre-cursor to The Frightening and those movies about the midgets, this starts as a brooding thriller but somewhere along the way, it devolves into a surreal slasher comedy. Not for the faint of stomach, this flick throws in everything, from decapitations, dead mothers, intestines, lawnmowers, and giant monster babies.

Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

Directed and co-written by Scott Derrickson (he remade The Day the Earth Stood Still, but more importantly, he’s involved with Paradise Lost, a movie about the West Memphis Three murders), this movie takes what The Exorcist did write, and amplifies it by actually showing the girl get possessed instead of just talking about it for ¾ of the movie. That first scene, when Emily is in the dorm room alone, still scares the shit out of me.

Frailty (2001)

Directed by and starring Bill Paxton, this is a suspenseful thriller that went largely unnoticed when it came out. Paxton steals scenery as a father that is convinced that God has chosen him to get rid of demons hiding as humans. What is truly terrifying about this is when he turns on his own children.

High Tension (2003)

From French filmmaker Alexandre Aja, who went on to helm another favorite of mine, The Hills Have Eyes, along with the crap-tastic Mirrors (but we’ll forgive him for that, because right now, he’s remaking Pirahna 3D), this film lives up to it’s name. When her girlfriend’s family is attacked, Marie is forced to follow the killer to exact her revenge. It is one of those “twist-ending” flicks that you can see from 30 miles away, and if you really think about it, nothing makes any sense, but that doesn’t matter. Getting caught up in the chase is what it’s all about here, and this movie perfects that.

The Hills Have Eyes (remake) (2006)

Here, Aja remakes a campy classic into something truly terrifying. While the original was more about satirizing the family structure, and spent much more time on the Freaks, this one hardly leaves the human family. From the squirm-inducing trailor rape, to the revenge-flick finale, this is not one to miss.

Hostel II (2007)

Directed by Eli Roth, who arguably started the ‘torture-porn’ craze, this movie still makes me shake from fear and disgust. I saw this one with White Goodman in a rundown movie theather, and we left the theater speechless. But you know what? We fucking loved it. I love the way Roth mixes the macabre with the absurd, and never gives an explanation as to why.

The Mist (2007)

Adapted from a short story by Stephen King, this is another movie that builds and builds until it reaches it’s shocking conclusion. It starts off relatively nice, and a little nostalgic, but ends in the darkest place you can imagine. When Marcia Gay Harden’s character finally got what she deserved, the entire theater started cheering.

Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Back before Freddy was a one-liner spewing frat boy, he was the epitome of terror. Not one to waste time waiting for you to wake up, Freddy murdered you in your dreams. I saw this as a child, and was thereby hooked on horror. Also, it’s Johnny Depp’s first movie role!

28 Weeks Later (2007)

Most people go with the first movie here (28 Days Later), but to me, that one’s just a bunch of nothing (literally – Cillian Murphy spends the first 15 minutes absolutely alone), followed by some running zombies. The sequel, however, amps up the tension to 15. Nothing beats the opening scene in this, and (honestly) the rest of the movie kind of suffers because of it. However, this one still goes into my “the sequel is better than the original list” due to a dynamic performance by Robert Carlyle.

The Orphanage (2007)

Yet another entry from 2007, this one was produced by Guillermo del Tor, and it shows. That kid with the bag on his head scares the shit out of me. And the ending was as fucked up as anything I’ve ever seen. This one keeps you intrigued the whole time, but still doesn’t back of the gore (which is my favorite part).

Trick ‘r’ Treat (2008)

This is the movie that never was. Actually filmed two years earlier than it’s release, this one was written and directed by X2 and Superman Returns scribe Mike Dougherty. The problem was, WB didn’t know how to market it in a Saw world, and quietly released it straight to DVD this earlier this month. A horror anthology in the vein of Creepshow, it features 4 interwoven stories on Halloween night. The best part about this one, is it’s about the fun and mystery of Halloween. With scene stealing performance across the map, but especially by Dylan Baker and Brian Cox, this is definitely one you should check out.

Religulous (2008)

2009-10-30T20:07:00.002-04:00

Religulous

Directed by Larry Charles
Written by Bill Maher

In Religulous, Bill Maher goes around and interviews religious officials and normal people, asking them why they believe in whatever it is they believe in. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to summarize the plot of a feature film in fewer words (except for maybe a Michael Moore flick). As he says early on in the documentary, he’s not trying to tell religious people that they are wrong, he’s just trying to figure out why smart people – senators, scientists, elected officials – can not only believe, but actually rest all of their beliefs on something so ridiculous as modern religion.

I’m going to add a disclaimer here – I consider myself an atheist. There was a point in my life where I did firmly believe that God was there, and He was all I believed in. But then I realized that the Holocaust, and Abu Ghraib, and Katherine Heigl exist, and so I stopped believing in nonsense. So this movie only reaffirmed my beliefs.

Did Bill Maher do his job? Did he get an answer to the question “Should I follow a religion?” In a word, yes. Now, Maher didn’t have to work hard to drive his point home. I distinctly remember a democratic senator who actually made up words. He interviewed a formerly gay priest that hugged him at the end of the interview. Apparently there is a Holy Land Experience theme park in Florida that reenacts the crucifixion of Jesus. Actually, you probably won’t believe that, so here’s the link- http://www.holylandexperience.com/. Yea. Just take a second to let that sink in.

Is religion ridiculous? Hell yes. But now it’s necessary for our civilization to survive, which is very sad. Bill Maher questions members of (almost) every religion. He confronts Jews, Muslims, Christians, Scientologists, and Catholics. The only religion he passes on is Pastafarianism. Yup. Also real.

I liked this documentary a lot. Bill Maher was his usual smart-ass self. I especially loved Larry Charles’ decision to insert little clips and subtitles whenever somebody would say something absurd. It had me laughing out loud (which, if you know me, isn’t unusual during movies), speechless, and during the last 5 minutes, in a trance. Don’t miss this one.

Identity

2009-10-29T13:34:00.000-04:00

Identity (2003)

Directed by James Mangold. Written by Michael Cooney.

Every time I watch this flick, I forget how good it is. However, I don’t know why I like it so much. It suffers from the same problem that most thrillers did post The Sixth Sense – the inevitable “twist ending.” But I can look past that. This flick is a blast!

Without spoiling the plot, the only thing I’ll say about the plot is that it takes place mostly in an old motel just outside my former home (and current meth-town) Carson City. Ten strangers are trapped there in a brutal rainstorm, and when they start getting brutally murdered, they’re forced to confront each other.

What I will say is that the performances are spot-on. Most people don’t like John Cusack when he’s not being funny or Lloyd Dobler, but I do. The Ice Harvest, 1408, who can honestly say those aren’t awesome flicks? But here, he perfects the “wounded heart” acting skills that he uses for the subsequent six years. Ray Liotta yells a lot, and if there’s anything Ray Liotta can do it is yell. See Narc for further proof. Jake Busey gets acting lessons from his dad, and acts like a madman, chewing scenery like it’s bubble gum. And John C. McGinley continues to prove why he is one of the best bit-part character actors working today.

I absolutely love the beginning of this movie. James Mangold, who also did Walk the Line and 3:10 to Yuma, does what he does best, and that is make people talking seem exciting. The editing where you see the actor, and the frame freezes and rewinds, so you get a little bit of their back story is just brilliant. One of my other favorite parts is the events leading up to the reveal. It’s frenetic, chaotic, and completely crazy, and I love the way the reality of the film falls apart.

Downsides? The plot is a little unbelievable. But stick through it, because it’s worth it. Also, when the killer is revealed, you’re going to laugh.

This is one of my favorite movies, and after watching it, even my girlfriend agreed. You owe it to yourself to watch this flick.

The Town That Was (2006)

2009-10-27T16:59:00.000-04:00

The Town That Was by Chris Perkal & Georgie Roland (2006)

First things first – this is NOT one of those documentaries that comes out of nowhere. You know the kind – the film that does the festival circuit for 2 years before getting picked up by Paramount and released and makes $24 million on opening weekend. This is the documentary you watch because you’re interested in the subject. I have to admit, I knew quite a bit about this doc before I rented it. So, I’m guessing that anybody looking to watch this would also be well versed on the subject.

The Plot (SPOILERS): For those not in the know, this doc is about a town known as Centralia, in Pennsylvania. The town has been burning from underground for the past 45 or so years. Basically, back in the day (long before the environmentalists took over the world), the town would actually burn the garbage dumps on Memorial Day Weekend as a way to get more space for more garbage, and for another ritualistic fire to take place the following year. Well, in 1962, they lit the fire and didn’t put it out. Despite the fact that the town exists solely due to the coal mines located directly beneath the garbage dumps, the towns officials were apparently surprised and flabbergasted when they realized that coal is FLAMMABLE. Yea, I know. I was speechless also. After a little bit of research, they learned that ¾ of the world’s natural coal is located beneath….you got it- Pennsylvania. So basically, this underground fire is going to burn forever. The film goes into all of the political and financial chaos that stems from a town being on fire for 40-something years. I guess the government didn’t want to spend the money (big surprise there) to put the fire out, so they paid for an evacuation. The evacuation wasn’t mandatory, so people left very slowly. Today, only 11 people live in the town. The film jumps back and forth between archival news footage from pre-fire, and interviews with the people that still live in the town, and the few people still alive that left.

Cinematography: It’s a freaking documentary. Not a Spielberg film. IMDB tells me that the movie was shot over 4 years by a 3-man crew. Nothing exciting here.

Was It Good?: Well, I’m not sure. It didn’t tell me anything that I couldn’t read for myself on wikipedia. There wasn’t really any emotion behind it. It seemed like even the people still living in Centralia didn’t really give a shit about the town. The filmmakers tried to mess with your emotions by telling the story of Todd Bumbowski (a young boy who fell into his grandmother’s yard when it collapsed due to the fire raging underneath it), and by interviewing the 92-year-old mayor. Watch it if you find the subject interesting, I guess. I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as I’ve enjoyed similarly themed documentaries. This could have been an hour long special on the History Channel and I wouldn’t have known the difference.

Movies, for Dummies.

2009-10-25T20:35:00.001-04:00

This is my first blog, so please excuse the informalities. My plan here is to create a set of film reviews, for real people. My biggest qualm with film critiques is that most of them are based on a set of high-falutin critical rules that, frankly, I don't give a shit about. I'm a horror fan. I love scary movies. However, the "critics" (these are the Roger Eberts, the Owen Gleibermans, basically, the people that get paid) usually don't care for the genres that myself, and many others love. I'm simply presenting an alternative to that. I'm going to try and watch a few films a week, and give a review for them. I love movies from all genres and time periods. Action, Noir, Sci-fi, Horror, Comedy, Kids movies, foreign films, documentaries, and the occasional western. This blog will contain them all (except for romantic comedies...I watch about 1.2 of these per year).

This will also serve as the only warning concerning language, content, and other obscenities. This blog will contain these things. If you don't like dirty dirty dirty words, well then go read Ebert. Also, there will be movies that I will not like. In all honesty, I do believe that most movies are terrible. Especially if they feature castmembers from Gossip Girl. If you want a beautiful, glowing review of every movie I watch, than visit aintitcoolnews.com, because the (otherwise) brilliant Harry Knowles can provide you with that. So, with the rules laid out, let the movie watching begin!