Fabulous in it's ability to be ridiculous, Now You See Me lures you in with hope of a finely crafted mystery, but hits you over the head with a barrage of stupidity.
The plot makes zero sense, but that doesn't stop it from being as earnest as a cancer diagnosis. Harrelson, Freeman & Ruffalo all give it their best but it's like watching an All-Star team try and play on wet concrete.
Neither whimsical nor engaging, Now You See Me, but you'll wish you hadn't.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Magic Mike: 25 Out Of 100 Stars
I can't for the life of me figure out the point of this movie.
Channing Tatum is a stripper, he meets a directionless kid and brings him into the world of stripping, they do some drugs, have some sex, and there ya go. The movie ends, but the conclusion is sort of just there. Nothing really feels like it's wrapped up, but it's not like you care all that much.
There's a lot of man ass, if that's your thing.
I just don't understand why the story being told needs to be told. There's some humor early, then some drama, but none of it lasts long enough or is effective enough to make it worth watching.
More Mike than magic, this rabbit should have stayed in it's hat. Olivia Munn gets her tits out though.
Channing Tatum is a stripper, he meets a directionless kid and brings him into the world of stripping, they do some drugs, have some sex, and there ya go. The movie ends, but the conclusion is sort of just there. Nothing really feels like it's wrapped up, but it's not like you care all that much.
There's a lot of man ass, if that's your thing.
I just don't understand why the story being told needs to be told. There's some humor early, then some drama, but none of it lasts long enough or is effective enough to make it worth watching.
More Mike than magic, this rabbit should have stayed in it's hat. Olivia Munn gets her tits out though.
The Hunger Games: 28 Out Of 100 Stars
Not gonna lie, I'm watching this solely because Jennifer Lawrence is hot. Unfortunately she comes across more Kristin Stewartish than Jennifer Lawrenceish.
So there's been some sort of apocalyptic war, part of the treaty or whatever, was that the losing faction would send 1 boy and 1 girl from each district (don't ask), every year, to The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are a government run game that is essentially a fight to the death among the 24 participants. This apparently is to show honor and loyalty to the government or whatever. The people in charge have all the technology and like to dress like it's 17th Century France on acid, while everyone on the losing side is stuck in Kentucky in 1938.
So Jennifer Lawrence, playing a character named Catness. Yes. She's from the poorest district and her little sister gets drafted so she volunteers to go instead. Between there and the actual games we're treated to an interminable sequence that involves preparation, talent evaluations and a parade,. It goes on and on and on and on. Even Woody Harrelson playing a mentor can't save it. It pounds you over the head with how unfair and barbaric the whole thing is, even though, ya know, we had that figured out during the opening voice over.
Once the actual fighting starts it's not bad. It's not real good either though. There's some minor shit with an uprising and a love story and....I dunno, the movie tries to say stuff that doesn't need to be said without really saying it. It's just a hodgepodge and rather uninspired.
A little silly, a little dumb, The Hunger Games is more of a bad snack than a meal.
So there's been some sort of apocalyptic war, part of the treaty or whatever, was that the losing faction would send 1 boy and 1 girl from each district (don't ask), every year, to The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are a government run game that is essentially a fight to the death among the 24 participants. This apparently is to show honor and loyalty to the government or whatever. The people in charge have all the technology and like to dress like it's 17th Century France on acid, while everyone on the losing side is stuck in Kentucky in 1938.
So Jennifer Lawrence, playing a character named Catness. Yes. She's from the poorest district and her little sister gets drafted so she volunteers to go instead. Between there and the actual games we're treated to an interminable sequence that involves preparation, talent evaluations and a parade,. It goes on and on and on and on. Even Woody Harrelson playing a mentor can't save it. It pounds you over the head with how unfair and barbaric the whole thing is, even though, ya know, we had that figured out during the opening voice over.
Once the actual fighting starts it's not bad. It's not real good either though. There's some minor shit with an uprising and a love story and....I dunno, the movie tries to say stuff that doesn't need to be said without really saying it. It's just a hodgepodge and rather uninspired.
A little silly, a little dumb, The Hunger Games is more of a bad snack than a meal.
The Zookeeper: 15 Out Of 100 Stars
Kevin James is The Zookeeper. He's trying to impress his bitchy, self centered ex girlfriend while working alongside lovely and sweet Zoe Saldana. If you need any help figuring out where all this is going then you didn't deserve that GED.
The worst of the worst type of Adam Sandler movie. Just a collection of cut and paste story points and characters, but hey, it has talking animals.
Ken Jeong, Steven Root and Joe Rogan are pretty much wasted in this film, but boy do we get plenty of Adam Sandler doing animal voices. If the one thing you've always loved about Adam Sandler is the wacky voices he does, then oh boy, is this the film for you. We've also got lots of 70's arena rock, just in case we had forgotten this was an Adam Sandler movie. The two even get combined during the credits when Sandler sings More Than A Feeling in his various wacky voices.
What the fuck is it with Kevin James? I mean, we all know he just isn't funny right? Right?
Lazy, unfunny and annoying, The Zookeeper is the worst of Sandler and about par for James.
The worst of the worst type of Adam Sandler movie. Just a collection of cut and paste story points and characters, but hey, it has talking animals.
Ken Jeong, Steven Root and Joe Rogan are pretty much wasted in this film, but boy do we get plenty of Adam Sandler doing animal voices. If the one thing you've always loved about Adam Sandler is the wacky voices he does, then oh boy, is this the film for you. We've also got lots of 70's arena rock, just in case we had forgotten this was an Adam Sandler movie. The two even get combined during the credits when Sandler sings More Than A Feeling in his various wacky voices.
What the fuck is it with Kevin James? I mean, we all know he just isn't funny right? Right?
Lazy, unfunny and annoying, The Zookeeper is the worst of Sandler and about par for James.
Olympus Has Fallen: 0 Out Of 100 Stars
A movie as preposterous as it is lazy, and to be honest, an insult to the people who lived through 9/11. Olympus Has Fallen is a cheap and stupid movie whose only bright spots are the 4 or 5 times you'll laugh at how serious it tries to take itself, other than that it's a fucking rape of your senses.
The movie seems to take delight in recreating images of 9/11. A plane attacks the White House and flies by office buildings as we get the not so subtle reaction shots of the people inside those buildings. The Washington Monument crumbles to the ground after the plane crashes into it. Just real desperate, predatory, hack visuals.
I'm not sure I've ever been so insulted by a movie before. It seems to take delight in praying on real emotions and fears of an America under attack, and surround that with cut and paste drama, with some one liners sprinkled in. It's a fucking atrocious movie, made by idiots, and everyone who's in it, from Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo and Angela Basset, should be ashamed of themselves.
This is not Die Hard in the White House, this is not a fun action movie. This is a soulless, craftless piece of shit.
The movie seems to take delight in recreating images of 9/11. A plane attacks the White House and flies by office buildings as we get the not so subtle reaction shots of the people inside those buildings. The Washington Monument crumbles to the ground after the plane crashes into it. Just real desperate, predatory, hack visuals.
I'm not sure I've ever been so insulted by a movie before. It seems to take delight in praying on real emotions and fears of an America under attack, and surround that with cut and paste drama, with some one liners sprinkled in. It's a fucking atrocious movie, made by idiots, and everyone who's in it, from Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo and Angela Basset, should be ashamed of themselves.
This is not Die Hard in the White House, this is not a fun action movie. This is a soulless, craftless piece of shit.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Identity Thief: 39 Out Of 100 Stars
Too much, too much, too much. At 1:50 it's a good half hour longer than it needs to be. It's filled with just too much shit to be worth sitting through. On top of that it's not exactly all that funny either.
Jason Bateman plays a guy who has his identity stolen by Melissa McCarthy and upon discovering this, both he and the police decide the best course of action would be for him to go get her in Florida, and bring her back to Colorado. The premise is dumb, but that's ok, it gets dumber.
I'll not give away much more of that plot, as it were. Suffice to say the script just adds layers and layers and layers of crap on a dumb premise in the hope of jazzing it up with quantity instead of quality. We've got a bounty hunter, a drug lord and his henchmen and some various subplots between Bateman and McCarthy along the way.
The thing is, McCarthy is excellent when things slow down, teasing us with what could had the script been tighter. Instead we're treated to gunfights and chases masquerading as plot advancement.
There are about 25 really good minutes in the film, a scene with Modern Familys Eric Stonestreet among them, but in the end they just end up getting lost. Such a shame that two really good actors were wasted on this unambitious project.
Jason Bateman plays a guy who has his identity stolen by Melissa McCarthy and upon discovering this, both he and the police decide the best course of action would be for him to go get her in Florida, and bring her back to Colorado. The premise is dumb, but that's ok, it gets dumber.
I'll not give away much more of that plot, as it were. Suffice to say the script just adds layers and layers and layers of crap on a dumb premise in the hope of jazzing it up with quantity instead of quality. We've got a bounty hunter, a drug lord and his henchmen and some various subplots between Bateman and McCarthy along the way.
The thing is, McCarthy is excellent when things slow down, teasing us with what could had the script been tighter. Instead we're treated to gunfights and chases masquerading as plot advancement.
There are about 25 really good minutes in the film, a scene with Modern Familys Eric Stonestreet among them, but in the end they just end up getting lost. Such a shame that two really good actors were wasted on this unambitious project.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D: 32 Out Of 100 Stars
Interesting movie here, more so than you might think. It appears to be of two wills. One trying to get across an intriguing storyline involving family, that provides an interesting twist for possible new life in the series. On the other hand it's wrapped around a movie so cliche and pedantic that you wonder why they even bothered to make it.
It starts and ends with promise, but in between is pretty much nothing. As the film opens we're transported to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and then in an interesting way to approach things, we get about 5 more minutes, starting where the original left off. I thought this was a pretty innovative set up and gave me some hope for the film. The way they structure the film pretty much disregards any of the sequels as well as the reboot from a few years back.
So then, we skip ahead to present day and it becomes your normal cliche horror film, except to the umpteenth degree. I mean for real. None of the characters are fleshed out at all, or just enough to make you not give a single shit about whether they live or die.
We have the lead girl, who must have had it in her contract that her belly be visible 90% of the film, and it's a fine belly to be sure, but nary a boob is seen in the entire film. In fact there's a scene where she's hanging by her wrists, shirt ripped open, and magically her giant boobs, despite all her frantic struggling, are never revealed. So stupid.
Anyhoo, she gets a letter and learns that she's been adopted, and that her real Grandmother has left her the family house. So of course she takes off on a whim to the middle of nowhere Texas with her boyfriend and her best friend and her boyfriend. There is an insipid sub plot with the boyfriend and the best friend that exists solely to make you not like them, but it's all of about 45 seconds of screen time and so painfully shoe horned that it's just silly.
Anyway, they pick up a hitchhiker along the way and then go to the newly bequeathed house, where of course something is waiting for them. That's act 1.
From there it's just your standard slasher movie for about half an hour. There's a fun gore shot or two, and despite the set up for a good sex scene, it's led into and then completely ignored, which is fucking frustrating as hell. There is some chase, but again, the characters are so ridiculously thin that there's zero tension and what should be the most exciting part of the movie becomes a bit of tedious viewing.
The last third of the movie picks up a bit if only for the story, but now we're introduced to more characters who are just so shit brained stupid and one note that you end up groaning as we watch them stupidly lumber to get where it's obvious we're going.
I guess the ending sets up the possibility for more movies, but why bother. It's clear nobody involved here was much interested in writing a good horror movie so who gives a shit if they do another one.
It starts and ends with promise, but in between is pretty much nothing. As the film opens we're transported to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and then in an interesting way to approach things, we get about 5 more minutes, starting where the original left off. I thought this was a pretty innovative set up and gave me some hope for the film. The way they structure the film pretty much disregards any of the sequels as well as the reboot from a few years back.
So then, we skip ahead to present day and it becomes your normal cliche horror film, except to the umpteenth degree. I mean for real. None of the characters are fleshed out at all, or just enough to make you not give a single shit about whether they live or die.
We have the lead girl, who must have had it in her contract that her belly be visible 90% of the film, and it's a fine belly to be sure, but nary a boob is seen in the entire film. In fact there's a scene where she's hanging by her wrists, shirt ripped open, and magically her giant boobs, despite all her frantic struggling, are never revealed. So stupid.
Anyhoo, she gets a letter and learns that she's been adopted, and that her real Grandmother has left her the family house. So of course she takes off on a whim to the middle of nowhere Texas with her boyfriend and her best friend and her boyfriend. There is an insipid sub plot with the boyfriend and the best friend that exists solely to make you not like them, but it's all of about 45 seconds of screen time and so painfully shoe horned that it's just silly.
Anyway, they pick up a hitchhiker along the way and then go to the newly bequeathed house, where of course something is waiting for them. That's act 1.
From there it's just your standard slasher movie for about half an hour. There's a fun gore shot or two, and despite the set up for a good sex scene, it's led into and then completely ignored, which is fucking frustrating as hell. There is some chase, but again, the characters are so ridiculously thin that there's zero tension and what should be the most exciting part of the movie becomes a bit of tedious viewing.
The last third of the movie picks up a bit if only for the story, but now we're introduced to more characters who are just so shit brained stupid and one note that you end up groaning as we watch them stupidly lumber to get where it's obvious we're going.
I guess the ending sets up the possibility for more movies, but why bother. It's clear nobody involved here was much interested in writing a good horror movie so who gives a shit if they do another one.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
2012 Year In Review
Either I missed some really great movies, or I just wasn't that impressed with this years lot. I guess Men In Black 3 was my favorite film of the year, though in looking back on it I really, really liked The Campaign as well. Even though I had it rated it higher than some of the films that made my top 10, I couldn't in good conscience put That's My Boy on my year end list. More than anything I felt a bit let down by this years big films. Django, Argo, Silver Linings and Prometheus all left me wanting something just a little bit more than they gave me, but whatever.
Top 10 Movies Of 2012
1. Men In Black 3
2. The Campaign
3. Django Unchained
4. Argo
5. Safety Not Guaranteed
6. Flight
7. American Reunion
8. The Silver Linings Playbook
9. Why Stop Now
10. Prometheus
Top 10 Movies Of 2012
1. Men In Black 3
2. The Campaign
3. Django Unchained
4. Argo
5. Safety Not Guaranteed
6. Flight
7. American Reunion
8. The Silver Linings Playbook
9. Why Stop Now
10. Prometheus
Rubber: 82 Out Of 100 Stars
And now for a movie that's nothing but fun. The story of a telepathic tire. Yeah, that's right, a telepathic tire.
But honestly, that's not entirely what it's about. I'm not gonna spoil too much more except to say this is just a brilliant piece of film making. It's the sort of experience that makes you appreciate how much fun and creativity the medium can provide. A bright star in a galaxy of crap.
The actors, the story, the premise, the layers, it's just all so cohesive and wonderful, even if there's no reason for any of it.
But honestly, that's not entirely what it's about. I'm not gonna spoil too much more except to say this is just a brilliant piece of film making. It's the sort of experience that makes you appreciate how much fun and creativity the medium can provide. A bright star in a galaxy of crap.
The actors, the story, the premise, the layers, it's just all so cohesive and wonderful, even if there's no reason for any of it.
Piranha 3DD: 20 Out Of 100 Stars
I've not been so disappointed in a movie in a long damn time. The first Piranha was just a shitload of fun, boobs and gore that knew exactly what kind of movie it was. This follow up is just a shit fest that hasn't got a clue about what makes a movie good, fun or mildly interesting, even though it's probably got more tits than the original.
So somehow the killer fish from the first movie have migrated from Florida to Arizona, don't ask.
David Koechner plays the owner of a water park who is illegally pumping in water from a lake or some shit. He's the absolute wrong guy for the role as he's just a walking cartoon who isn't very funny. The movie has stunt casting galore. Gary Busy has a minor role and David Hasselhoff has a big role in a part that should have come across as funnier than it does. But it really ends up as just a few minor laughs in a cesspool of a movie.
The characters are all awful, beyond awful. There's a lot of teen angst and just stupid shit. There are fish in vaginas that bite off cocks, I don't how that comes out as boring as it does, but these fuckers sure make fish in vaginas boring. The bloodbath scene just looks so dumb. Perhaps some money could have been spent on the set instead of stunt casting.
Ving Rhames returns and I've never felt so sad for an actor in all my life.
Pathetic, that's the best word I could use to describe this entire effort.
So somehow the killer fish from the first movie have migrated from Florida to Arizona, don't ask.
David Koechner plays the owner of a water park who is illegally pumping in water from a lake or some shit. He's the absolute wrong guy for the role as he's just a walking cartoon who isn't very funny. The movie has stunt casting galore. Gary Busy has a minor role and David Hasselhoff has a big role in a part that should have come across as funnier than it does. But it really ends up as just a few minor laughs in a cesspool of a movie.
The characters are all awful, beyond awful. There's a lot of teen angst and just stupid shit. There are fish in vaginas that bite off cocks, I don't how that comes out as boring as it does, but these fuckers sure make fish in vaginas boring. The bloodbath scene just looks so dumb. Perhaps some money could have been spent on the set instead of stunt casting.
Ving Rhames returns and I've never felt so sad for an actor in all my life.
Pathetic, that's the best word I could use to describe this entire effort.
Flight: 73 Out Of 100 Stars
Denzel gives an awesome performance in a movie that feels like it doesn't have much of a middle, but the bookends are pretty fucking awesome.
Nadine Velazquez, of My Name Is Earl fame, opens the movie buck ass naked in all her glorious glory. Then we get an absolutely riveting sequence involving a drunk Denzel trying to land a plane that has gone all goofy.
From there the movie sort of....I don't wanna say meanders, but it just feels like stuff put in to bridge the gap till the last act, especially the relationship Denzel forms with Kelly Reilly. It just doesn't feel organic.
But there are enough good scenes in the middle to make it worth sticking around for the 3rd act where Denzel is once again his masterful self.
It's a good movie that doesn't quite have the sizzle to become a great movie, though Washington gives it his best shot. John Goodman is also fantastic in a very limited role.
So yeah, Flight never reaches the stratosphere, but it's a fun ride none the less.
Nadine Velazquez, of My Name Is Earl fame, opens the movie buck ass naked in all her glorious glory. Then we get an absolutely riveting sequence involving a drunk Denzel trying to land a plane that has gone all goofy.
From there the movie sort of....I don't wanna say meanders, but it just feels like stuff put in to bridge the gap till the last act, especially the relationship Denzel forms with Kelly Reilly. It just doesn't feel organic.
But there are enough good scenes in the middle to make it worth sticking around for the 3rd act where Denzel is once again his masterful self.
It's a good movie that doesn't quite have the sizzle to become a great movie, though Washington gives it his best shot. John Goodman is also fantastic in a very limited role.
So yeah, Flight never reaches the stratosphere, but it's a fun ride none the less.
Everything Must Go: 82 Out Of 10 Stars
I love this movie. Will Ferrell plays a drunk who has just lost his job and his wife. His stuff is all out on the lawn and he can't get inside his house. So he does what any good drunk would do and sets up house right there on his lawn.
I'm making it sound skeevier than it is. Ferrell doesn't play it for laughs or tears. He's just a dude with problems and no real idea of how to fix them. He does a magnificent job of hitting every note just right.
The supporting cast is used excellently. They sort of move in and out of the script exactly when needed. There's a young kid from down the block whose mother is a caretaker, a cop who is his sponsor, a pregnant lady who just moved in across the street and is awaiting her husbands arrival in town.
Everything is played fairly straight with the anger and comedy subtlety sprinkled in, keeping things very real.
Just a fantastic film.
I'm making it sound skeevier than it is. Ferrell doesn't play it for laughs or tears. He's just a dude with problems and no real idea of how to fix them. He does a magnificent job of hitting every note just right.
The supporting cast is used excellently. They sort of move in and out of the script exactly when needed. There's a young kid from down the block whose mother is a caretaker, a cop who is his sponsor, a pregnant lady who just moved in across the street and is awaiting her husbands arrival in town.
Everything is played fairly straight with the anger and comedy subtlety sprinkled in, keeping things very real.
Just a fantastic film.
Division 3, Footballs Finest: 68 Out Of 100 Stars
I like Dick. Andy Dick, that is. If you don't, then this is probably not the movie for you.
The story of a disgraced ex football coach who is given one last shot at redemption coaching a Division 3 football program. It's dumb, it's sophmoric, it's got a cliched storyline about the backup QB and the pretty girl, but it's still pretty funny.
While the budget is clearly low, the film doesn't really suffer from it. All the football scenes are quite good and you can tell a lot of time went into them. This isn't like Married With Children where the field was about 10 yards long and they hiked the football 6 inches from the sidelines.
So yeah, gross out humor and lots of Andy Dick acting weird, that's what you'll get.
The story of a disgraced ex football coach who is given one last shot at redemption coaching a Division 3 football program. It's dumb, it's sophmoric, it's got a cliched storyline about the backup QB and the pretty girl, but it's still pretty funny.
While the budget is clearly low, the film doesn't really suffer from it. All the football scenes are quite good and you can tell a lot of time went into them. This isn't like Married With Children where the field was about 10 yards long and they hiked the football 6 inches from the sidelines.
So yeah, gross out humor and lots of Andy Dick acting weird, that's what you'll get.
Cashback: 72 Out Of 100 Stars
Fun movie that is more the collection of it's parts than the sum of it's whole. The problem with the movie is that it's not nearly as profound as it wants to be, with a lead actor who's the weakest character in the film. Still, the atmosphere, direction and pacing is all good. The supporting cast pretty much helps carry the movie.
Story of a lovelorn young man who can't sleep, but can stop time in it's tracks. It sounds very interesting but there are soliloquies that go on way too long. Lot's of narration.
The film does suffer a bit from being all over the place story wise. At one moment it's very deep and romantic, and then it sort of goes into broad comedy, and back again. While it can be distracting, it never took me out of things.
There's also a lot of nudity. Like, lots.
Story of a lovelorn young man who can't sleep, but can stop time in it's tracks. It sounds very interesting but there are soliloquies that go on way too long. Lot's of narration.
The film does suffer a bit from being all over the place story wise. At one moment it's very deep and romantic, and then it sort of goes into broad comedy, and back again. While it can be distracting, it never took me out of things.
There's also a lot of nudity. Like, lots.
This Is 40: 25 Out Of 100 Stars
Jesus H. Christ is this a whiny fucking shit fest of scenes masquerading as a film about something.
Annoying people, putting themselves in annoying situations with annoying spouses and annoying friends, leaving me nothing but annoyed.
Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann reprise their minor roles from Knocked Up, because people were just clamoring to see more of Leslie Mann bitching about shit.
His record company is failing, she's turning 40. That these two things are treated with the same weight is just maddening. That he just doesn't smack her upside the head and tell her to shut the fuck up with her fucking complaining is just maddening. The whole fucking thing is maddening.
Seriously, neither of these two dolts could be more unlikeable if Apatow were trying to get us to hate them. Such a bizarre take on marriage and life in general this film has.
Megan Fox is fun to watch and John Lithgow is great in a minor role, one can easily understand why the fuck he never wants to be around Manns character, who the fuck would?
Even with all the shitty characters and shitty story, the acutall presentation of the film is worse. It plays more as a series of sketches, very badly edited, flip flopping emotions and desires from scene to scene, it's as jumbled as the characters intentions towards life.
This is shit, is more like it.
Annoying people, putting themselves in annoying situations with annoying spouses and annoying friends, leaving me nothing but annoyed.
Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann reprise their minor roles from Knocked Up, because people were just clamoring to see more of Leslie Mann bitching about shit.
His record company is failing, she's turning 40. That these two things are treated with the same weight is just maddening. That he just doesn't smack her upside the head and tell her to shut the fuck up with her fucking complaining is just maddening. The whole fucking thing is maddening.
Seriously, neither of these two dolts could be more unlikeable if Apatow were trying to get us to hate them. Such a bizarre take on marriage and life in general this film has.
Megan Fox is fun to watch and John Lithgow is great in a minor role, one can easily understand why the fuck he never wants to be around Manns character, who the fuck would?
Even with all the shitty characters and shitty story, the acutall presentation of the film is worse. It plays more as a series of sketches, very badly edited, flip flopping emotions and desires from scene to scene, it's as jumbled as the characters intentions towards life.
This is shit, is more like it.
Terri: 74 Out Of 100 Stars
Slice of life, coming of age story about a fat 15 year old that just doesn't have enough in it to push it into the tier of really good movies.
Jacob Wysocki plays Terri, the titular character, he lives with his uncle who seems to be suffering from a bit of dementia, eats beans on toast a lot, and goes to school in his pajamas because that's what most comfortable to him.
It's a good movie, and although he's wise for his age, the film gives Terri enough flaws to really humanize him.
The story is sort of just there though. John Reilly is pretty good as the principal who can see, through all his odd quirks, brought on mostly by his weight and lack of self confidence, the potential in Terri. Not that I need or want everything to be wrapped up nicely, but it just didn't seem like the time spent in the movie went anywhere but the time spent in the movie, if that makes any sense.
There's some good stuff with Terri and a couple of friends and coming of age stuff, and the way he deals with his uncle, played by Creed from The Office is pretty sharp as well.
Really solid little film that feels like it could have been bigger.
Jacob Wysocki plays Terri, the titular character, he lives with his uncle who seems to be suffering from a bit of dementia, eats beans on toast a lot, and goes to school in his pajamas because that's what most comfortable to him.
It's a good movie, and although he's wise for his age, the film gives Terri enough flaws to really humanize him.
The story is sort of just there though. John Reilly is pretty good as the principal who can see, through all his odd quirks, brought on mostly by his weight and lack of self confidence, the potential in Terri. Not that I need or want everything to be wrapped up nicely, but it just didn't seem like the time spent in the movie went anywhere but the time spent in the movie, if that makes any sense.
There's some good stuff with Terri and a couple of friends and coming of age stuff, and the way he deals with his uncle, played by Creed from The Office is pretty sharp as well.
Really solid little film that feels like it could have been bigger.
Argo: 80 Out Of 100 Stars
I could have sworn I had written a review for this but I couldn't find it anywhere. But yeah, it's a really good film.
Goodman and Arkin are both awesome as Hollywood men who help in the concocting of the fake movie. Sometimes it felt like I was more interested in their side of the story than in the plight of the people stuck in Iran, but the movie walks the line nicely in showing us and pulling us into both sides of the story.
In fact the entire cast is really strong, and the story of course is just fascinating and well told.
Super solid film that probably deserved its Oscar cred, especially in a down year for movies in general.
Goodman and Arkin are both awesome as Hollywood men who help in the concocting of the fake movie. Sometimes it felt like I was more interested in their side of the story than in the plight of the people stuck in Iran, but the movie walks the line nicely in showing us and pulling us into both sides of the story.
In fact the entire cast is really strong, and the story of course is just fascinating and well told.
Super solid film that probably deserved its Oscar cred, especially in a down year for movies in general.
The Silver Linings Playbook: 70 Out Of 100 Stars
I liked this movie, I really did, but at the same time it was just so damn frustrating watching Cooper & Lawrence, two of the sexiest people on the planet, act like these downtrodden, mental defectives. It was just a tad bit maddening in and of itself.
So yeah, Cooper is all nuts because his wife left him, his mental problems never feel real because.....they just don't. I've been in two mental institutions, I know what nuts is, and trust me, it's hard to work up sympathy for a guy who's got Jennifer Lawrence offering herself up on a silver platter for 90 minutes.
Anyway, it feels like there's some real material here that sort of gets short shrift so Cooper and Lawrence can win a dance competetion and fall in love and all that shit. I dunno man, it's just too pretty and perfect to convey the kind of message it seems like it wants to convey about mental illness. But whatever, it's Hollywood.
So yeah, Cooper is all nuts because his wife left him, his mental problems never feel real because.....they just don't. I've been in two mental institutions, I know what nuts is, and trust me, it's hard to work up sympathy for a guy who's got Jennifer Lawrence offering herself up on a silver platter for 90 minutes.
Anyway, it feels like there's some real material here that sort of gets short shrift so Cooper and Lawrence can win a dance competetion and fall in love and all that shit. I dunno man, it's just too pretty and perfect to convey the kind of message it seems like it wants to convey about mental illness. But whatever, it's Hollywood.
Compliance: 25 Out Of 100 Stars
I fear I am not eloquent enough to explain how boring this movie is.
Starring Dreama Walker of Don't Trust The Bitch In Apartment 23, this is the true story of a prank call that goes way beyond Is Your Refrigerator Running?
I've read up on the story, and while it is true, and while the movie does stay pretty tight to the actual events, it doesn't mean that watching it wont be the longest 90 minutes of your fucking life.
The problem is that you can't really feel any sympathy for people this dumb. Even the victim, at some point you just have to shake your head and be done with giving a fuck what happens to her. This happens about a minute into the conversation. Luckily we're blessed with about 80 more minutes of movie.
I guess the actors did a good enough job of being close to retarded, I mean, I dunno what else they could have done.
As the film winds down and we get the natural sense that some conclusion has to come, I guess it gets a wee bit more interesting, but not really, it's just finding out the end of a boring story. At the very end there's a few quick scenes with the cops as they investigate some leads, it lasts about 2 minutes and is the most exciting part of the film.
Dreama Walker is topless a lot, if that interests you, but it's neither sexy or erotic.
I have never been this bored staring at pretty boobs for an hour.
Starring Dreama Walker of Don't Trust The Bitch In Apartment 23, this is the true story of a prank call that goes way beyond Is Your Refrigerator Running?
I've read up on the story, and while it is true, and while the movie does stay pretty tight to the actual events, it doesn't mean that watching it wont be the longest 90 minutes of your fucking life.
The problem is that you can't really feel any sympathy for people this dumb. Even the victim, at some point you just have to shake your head and be done with giving a fuck what happens to her. This happens about a minute into the conversation. Luckily we're blessed with about 80 more minutes of movie.
I guess the actors did a good enough job of being close to retarded, I mean, I dunno what else they could have done.
As the film winds down and we get the natural sense that some conclusion has to come, I guess it gets a wee bit more interesting, but not really, it's just finding out the end of a boring story. At the very end there's a few quick scenes with the cops as they investigate some leads, it lasts about 2 minutes and is the most exciting part of the film.
Dreama Walker is topless a lot, if that interests you, but it's neither sexy or erotic.
I have never been this bored staring at pretty boobs for an hour.
Safety Not Guaranteed: 75 Out Of 100 Stars
Lovely little film about a writer for a Seattle magazine (Jake Johnson) and two of his interns (Aubrey Plaza & Karan Soni) who set out to do a piece on add placed in a local paper asking for a time traveling partner.
The film is very quaint, very indie. Yes there are cutesy little musical drop ins that let us know how quaint and indie it is, but that's ok, the film is too good for that to be very distracting.
While the set up is very sci-fi, the film is more about the 4 leads and their emotional growth/struggles than it is time travel, although not knowing what exactly is going on, or going to happen next, gives the film a crispness and a constant. It never drags or bores you.
The performances are all excellent, the tone is near perfect, and the story expertly walks the tight rope between silliness and sincerity, never letting either extreme get in the way of itself.
Safety Not Guaranteed, but your enjoyment is.
The film is very quaint, very indie. Yes there are cutesy little musical drop ins that let us know how quaint and indie it is, but that's ok, the film is too good for that to be very distracting.
While the set up is very sci-fi, the film is more about the 4 leads and their emotional growth/struggles than it is time travel, although not knowing what exactly is going on, or going to happen next, gives the film a crispness and a constant. It never drags or bores you.
The performances are all excellent, the tone is near perfect, and the story expertly walks the tight rope between silliness and sincerity, never letting either extreme get in the way of itself.
Safety Not Guaranteed, but your enjoyment is.
Django Unchained: 80 Out Of 100 Stars
Easily the lesser of all of Tarantinos movies, with perhaps the greatest performance in any of Tarantinos movies. And that's saying something.
This is the Christoph Waltz show, no two ways about it. His Dr. King is so captivating that Django becomes an afterthought, which is kind of ok, because Jamie Fox doesn't exactly light the world on fire with his performance.
So yeah. It's a very visually appealing movie with an AMAZING performance by the lead, but a lot of it is not up to the usual Tarantino standards. Too much of it felt forced. And there's only so many times you can hear the word nigger before you start to wonder if some of the script is just trying to get a rise out of the audience.
Like I said earlier, I don't think Fox did all that great a job here. I didn't mind the Sam Jackson character as much as many others have said they did, but whatever.
I wont give any spoilers but after a certain event occurs, with about 30 minutes left in the film, I sort of stopped caring, which doesn't speak too much for the lead or how well the movie gets him over.
Really good movie, with a performance by Waltz that richly deserved the Oscar he won, but not quite the overall level of film I was hoping for or expecting.
This is the Christoph Waltz show, no two ways about it. His Dr. King is so captivating that Django becomes an afterthought, which is kind of ok, because Jamie Fox doesn't exactly light the world on fire with his performance.
So yeah. It's a very visually appealing movie with an AMAZING performance by the lead, but a lot of it is not up to the usual Tarantino standards. Too much of it felt forced. And there's only so many times you can hear the word nigger before you start to wonder if some of the script is just trying to get a rise out of the audience.
Like I said earlier, I don't think Fox did all that great a job here. I didn't mind the Sam Jackson character as much as many others have said they did, but whatever.
I wont give any spoilers but after a certain event occurs, with about 30 minutes left in the film, I sort of stopped caring, which doesn't speak too much for the lead or how well the movie gets him over.
Really good movie, with a performance by Waltz that richly deserved the Oscar he won, but not quite the overall level of film I was hoping for or expecting.
The Watch: 68 Out Of 100 Stars
Another comedy that sort of came and went that I enjoyed more than I expected. Stiller, Vaughn and Hill riff their way through a sci-fi comedy that plays pretty quaintly.
Stiller is a straight laced Costco manager who's night security guard meets an untimely end at the hand of......Well you'll see.
Anyhoo, Stiller forms a neighborhood watch at the behest of the police, and the only recruits he can get are an oversexed man child played by Vaughn and a gun nut played by Hill. Together they have to face down whoever, or whatever, is killing people in their town.
It's no Ghostbusters, but fuck, what is? Judged on it's own it's a fine film that always stays on tone and gives ample leash to its three funny leads, even if it does feel disjointed now and again.
Stiller is a straight laced Costco manager who's night security guard meets an untimely end at the hand of......Well you'll see.
Anyhoo, Stiller forms a neighborhood watch at the behest of the police, and the only recruits he can get are an oversexed man child played by Vaughn and a gun nut played by Hill. Together they have to face down whoever, or whatever, is killing people in their town.
It's no Ghostbusters, but fuck, what is? Judged on it's own it's a fine film that always stays on tone and gives ample leash to its three funny leads, even if it does feel disjointed now and again.
That's My Boy: 71 Out Of 100 Stars
Let's make no bones about it, this is an absurdly dumb movie. But it's funny. Tons of cheap laughs, site gags and ridiculous set ups, but given that the movie never really tries for a single moment to pretend it's serious, it all works.
Sandler plays a guy who as a kid, was seduced by his hot teacher and fathered a child of his own at only 15 years of age. I was surprised at how far they took this. First of all the kid doesn't really look a day over 12, second, even though it's a long shot with a strategically placed piano, they show the two of them fucking. I thought the set up was fresh, funny, and helped create a world in which Sandlers usual stupid comedy could exist comfortably.
So Sandlers character ostensibly becomes the worlds first reality star, for a little while, until people eventually get sick of him and his 15 minutes of fame ends.
I'll not spoil much more but Samberg plays the son, and there is of course conflict and dumb situation after dumb situation. It's crude, there's a lot of nudity and sexual situations.
The supporting cast is strong, from Tony Orlando to Vanilla Ice and Dan Patrick.
In summation, a movie full of toilet humor that works because it never makes much effort to be more than that. I laughed. I laughed a lot, what can I say.
Sandler plays a guy who as a kid, was seduced by his hot teacher and fathered a child of his own at only 15 years of age. I was surprised at how far they took this. First of all the kid doesn't really look a day over 12, second, even though it's a long shot with a strategically placed piano, they show the two of them fucking. I thought the set up was fresh, funny, and helped create a world in which Sandlers usual stupid comedy could exist comfortably.
So Sandlers character ostensibly becomes the worlds first reality star, for a little while, until people eventually get sick of him and his 15 minutes of fame ends.
I'll not spoil much more but Samberg plays the son, and there is of course conflict and dumb situation after dumb situation. It's crude, there's a lot of nudity and sexual situations.
The supporting cast is strong, from Tony Orlando to Vanilla Ice and Dan Patrick.
In summation, a movie full of toilet humor that works because it never makes much effort to be more than that. I laughed. I laughed a lot, what can I say.
The Sessions: 66 Out Of 100 Stars
Story about a guy confined for the most part to an Iron Lung, who can't move on his own and wants to have sex with a woman. Helen Hunt plays a sex therapist who helps him out, so to speak.
The good part of the film is that it's not overly sappy. The guy is just a guy, it doesn't try and make him more of a martyr than he already would be, just for the fact that he's in such a bad way. He has his quirks and bad parts just like anyone else. The part that's not so great, and this might be me being greedy, is that it didn't give me all that much empathy for the character outside of his health issue.
It just didn't resonate with me on the level I was hoping. William H. Macy is good playing a priest who tries to help the lead out, but man, the haircut was a bit much for me, it was distracting. It just screams out "I'm an old guy trying to look much younger than I am".
Helen Hunt is good too, but she's pretty much just playing Helen Hunt. She's very nude in the movie and it is pretty graphic in it's sexuality if that sort of thing bothers or interests you.
A solid film with a subject matter that's refreshingly out of the norm, but in no way are the script or performances so good that they deserve the Oscar hype they were receiving a month or two ago.
The Sessions is a well written, well acted movie with sweetness and tenderness that also features Helen Hunt sitting on a guys face for an extended period of time. You could do worse, I just always felt like I should have been enjoying it more than I was.
The good part of the film is that it's not overly sappy. The guy is just a guy, it doesn't try and make him more of a martyr than he already would be, just for the fact that he's in such a bad way. He has his quirks and bad parts just like anyone else. The part that's not so great, and this might be me being greedy, is that it didn't give me all that much empathy for the character outside of his health issue.
It just didn't resonate with me on the level I was hoping. William H. Macy is good playing a priest who tries to help the lead out, but man, the haircut was a bit much for me, it was distracting. It just screams out "I'm an old guy trying to look much younger than I am".
Helen Hunt is good too, but she's pretty much just playing Helen Hunt. She's very nude in the movie and it is pretty graphic in it's sexuality if that sort of thing bothers or interests you.
A solid film with a subject matter that's refreshingly out of the norm, but in no way are the script or performances so good that they deserve the Oscar hype they were receiving a month or two ago.
The Sessions is a well written, well acted movie with sweetness and tenderness that also features Helen Hunt sitting on a guys face for an extended period of time. You could do worse, I just always felt like I should have been enjoying it more than I was.
Resident Evil Retribution: 23 Out Of 100 Stars
I love Milla, my gosh do I love Milla. But enough is enough with this crap already.
I loved the first RE movie and liked the 3rd one, the even numbered ones were less enjoyable but I got through them. This one was just an exercise in tedium. It takes a lot of work to make 90 minutes of non stop action boring, but I'll be damned if this film doesn't pull that off to the nth degree.
Alice wakes up in an underground station run by the corporation, or whatever. Woman can't finish a job for the fucking life of her. Anyway, she conveniently gets helped by some Asian chick and then some mercenaries come down to help get them out. The station is somewhere in Russia underneath a frozen lake.
The commandos fight zombies and shit, and Alice fights zombies and shit, and there are scary monsters and shit and lot's of shit gets blown up and exploded and run over and shit. There are fight scenes between people that go on too long and are so over choreographed with music blaring over them that they might as well be a bad Norwegian techno dance video.
Characters we've seen for nary a few moments give soliloquies and we're supposed to be moved. The fucking Red Queen can make cities appear out of nowhere and conjure up an army of zombie soldiers and mutant monsters but she can't just spray some fucking nerve gas? It's all so silly.
Despite having 4 pretty hot chicks, there's nothing very sexy about the movie. It's just a jumbled pile of loud CGI.
The good news is that the ending sets up what appears to be yet another jumbled pile of loud CGI, so we have that to look forward to.
I loved the first RE movie and liked the 3rd one, the even numbered ones were less enjoyable but I got through them. This one was just an exercise in tedium. It takes a lot of work to make 90 minutes of non stop action boring, but I'll be damned if this film doesn't pull that off to the nth degree.
Alice wakes up in an underground station run by the corporation, or whatever. Woman can't finish a job for the fucking life of her. Anyway, she conveniently gets helped by some Asian chick and then some mercenaries come down to help get them out. The station is somewhere in Russia underneath a frozen lake.
The commandos fight zombies and shit, and Alice fights zombies and shit, and there are scary monsters and shit and lot's of shit gets blown up and exploded and run over and shit. There are fight scenes between people that go on too long and are so over choreographed with music blaring over them that they might as well be a bad Norwegian techno dance video.
Characters we've seen for nary a few moments give soliloquies and we're supposed to be moved. The fucking Red Queen can make cities appear out of nowhere and conjure up an army of zombie soldiers and mutant monsters but she can't just spray some fucking nerve gas? It's all so silly.
Despite having 4 pretty hot chicks, there's nothing very sexy about the movie. It's just a jumbled pile of loud CGI.
The good news is that the ending sets up what appears to be yet another jumbled pile of loud CGI, so we have that to look forward to.
Here Comes The Boom: 46 Out Of 100 Stars
It's nothing special, but it's not especially awful either. I really think Kevin James could be very good in the right vehicle, he's warm and sincere, and this may be his best film to date that puts that on display, but it's just too hokey. UFC shit is so shoehorned in, that at times it plays like a commercial instead of a movie. And the reality is that the film just isn't very laugh out loud funny.
The supporting cast is decent, although I have no idea why Salma Hayek is here. She isn't given much to do. Bas Rutten is decent, but there's something weird about his character that just didn't connect with me. Henry Winkler was.....fuck man, I dunno, he was good I guess, but I could never get over the idea that I was watching Fonzie.
It's a Sandler movie, so the script is about as generic sap as you would expect. In fact it plays a lot like an extended sitcom situation.
So yeah, a generic sitcom that thinks just having a heart is enough to make it worthwhile. It does not.
Here Comes The Boom, but it's more like A Bleh.
The supporting cast is decent, although I have no idea why Salma Hayek is here. She isn't given much to do. Bas Rutten is decent, but there's something weird about his character that just didn't connect with me. Henry Winkler was.....fuck man, I dunno, he was good I guess, but I could never get over the idea that I was watching Fonzie.
It's a Sandler movie, so the script is about as generic sap as you would expect. In fact it plays a lot like an extended sitcom situation.
So yeah, a generic sitcom that thinks just having a heart is enough to make it worthwhile. It does not.
Here Comes The Boom, but it's more like A Bleh.
Why Stop Now: 70 Out Of 100 Stars
Eisenberg plays a piano prodigy with a fucked up addict of a mother, and a little sister he pretty much has to take care of on his own.
While I thought it was a pretty solid film, it suffered from being a tad too dramedic. Tracy Morgan and Isiah Whitlock provide a lot of laughs as the drug dealers while they're featured, but when they aren't it reverts to a dramatic morality tale and the film really doesn't walk the line too finely.
The comedy is a bit absurd when placed in the middle of the story of an addicted, broken family. It's also, and I'm not gonna be too harsh here, but the setup for how Eisenberg and Leo end up with Morgan and Black is bit far fetched.
Maybe my biggest qualm with the film comes from the actor in it I love most. Melissa Leo has been a fave of mine since Homicide but god damn is it a bit exhausting watching her ramble on and on and extend multiple scenes by 30-45 seconds just because of repetition. I know the main fault lies in how the character is written but there's always been a manicness to her acting that can just wear you out if it's not reigned in correctly.
A smart and funny movie that's not quite as smart or funny as it thinks it is, but you could do much worse.
While I thought it was a pretty solid film, it suffered from being a tad too dramedic. Tracy Morgan and Isiah Whitlock provide a lot of laughs as the drug dealers while they're featured, but when they aren't it reverts to a dramatic morality tale and the film really doesn't walk the line too finely.
The comedy is a bit absurd when placed in the middle of the story of an addicted, broken family. It's also, and I'm not gonna be too harsh here, but the setup for how Eisenberg and Leo end up with Morgan and Black is bit far fetched.
Maybe my biggest qualm with the film comes from the actor in it I love most. Melissa Leo has been a fave of mine since Homicide but god damn is it a bit exhausting watching her ramble on and on and extend multiple scenes by 30-45 seconds just because of repetition. I know the main fault lies in how the character is written but there's always been a manicness to her acting that can just wear you out if it's not reigned in correctly.
A smart and funny movie that's not quite as smart or funny as it thinks it is, but you could do much worse.
The Campaign: 82 Out Of 100 Stars
Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianakis star in this political satire that hits all the right comedic notes, never really feels preachy, and sadly, rings truer than it should.
Ferrell is an incumbent Congressman running unopposed in his district, but his inability to keep his schlong penned up has created an opportunity for a couple of billionaire businessmen to run their own candidate and take over the seat. That's where Zach comes in.
Zack is an effeminate everyman, the son of an old school politico, played marvelously by Rip Torn. He's not a politician, but the brothers send in political star maker Dylan McDermot to whip Zack into shape.
Besides being very funny, The Campaign never comes across as preachy. Both men are flawed, both men at times seek redemption, this is not a Donkey Vs Elephant movie. The satire rests more in the total of the political system and how fucked up it's gotten, rather than in taking pot shots at ones ideology.
Both main characters teeter on the edge of the absurd and though it clearly leans that way, it never falls in. It also has a pretty big heart.
This Campaign is a winner.
Ferrell is an incumbent Congressman running unopposed in his district, but his inability to keep his schlong penned up has created an opportunity for a couple of billionaire businessmen to run their own candidate and take over the seat. That's where Zach comes in.
Zack is an effeminate everyman, the son of an old school politico, played marvelously by Rip Torn. He's not a politician, but the brothers send in political star maker Dylan McDermot to whip Zack into shape.
Besides being very funny, The Campaign never comes across as preachy. Both men are flawed, both men at times seek redemption, this is not a Donkey Vs Elephant movie. The satire rests more in the total of the political system and how fucked up it's gotten, rather than in taking pot shots at ones ideology.
Both main characters teeter on the edge of the absurd and though it clearly leans that way, it never falls in. It also has a pretty big heart.
This Campaign is a winner.
Taken: 57 Out Of 100 Stars
I let this one slip through when it first came out despite hearing good things and being intrigued by the trailers. With the sequel about to be released I figured I'd go back and watch the original. I don't know why my expectations were high for this film, but for some reason I had it in my head that it'd be a smart action movie. Unfortunately it's not at all smart, though Liam Neeson is stellar and the action is pretty good.
I suppose Neesons performance alone makes this worth watching, but it would have been nice if his job here was presented in a film that wasn't just so over the top silly. It'd be OK if the film understood how silly it is but it keeps tugging the heartstrings and getting all serious and shit.
I can't lie, I wasn't nearly as Taken as I though I'd be.
I suppose Neesons performance alone makes this worth watching, but it would have been nice if his job here was presented in a film that wasn't just so over the top silly. It'd be OK if the film understood how silly it is but it keeps tugging the heartstrings and getting all serious and shit.
I can't lie, I wasn't nearly as Taken as I though I'd be.
Prometheus: 68 Out Of 100 Stars
Solid, if underwhelming, is how I'd describe it. Maybe I was just looking forward to it too much and had my expectations in the clouds, but it felt like it gave me everything I wanted, just not enough of it.
There was stuff that was just a bit too silly (the abortion), not quite as sexy (Charlize & Noomi), and overall just not enough of the story. It's a rare instance where a film may have been bettered by having 30-40 extra minutes, but I think this is one of those cases. I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I was expecting a bit of a groundbreaking film, too much of it centers on stuff I've seen before. The guys break off from the group, the aliens are in the ship, firefights. I was honestly not expecting to feel so much "ok, this is the part of the movie where this stuff happens", kind of stuff.
Another letdown, and I'm willing to concede that this could be my fault, is that at times I just didn't get it. A lot of the times I was watching a scene that was at once stock and also baffling. I felt like there was a story here that could have been explained a lot deeper but was just vague for some reason.
Anyhoo, it's a solid movie and I enjoyed the whole thing, and I'm not a Sci-Fi guy. Noomi is a sexy creature and Charlize is captivating for what little she's given to do, but outside of the robot nobody else really had me into their characters.
A strong movie that I have a feeling I would have enjoyed more if I'd just waited for the extended edition DVD.
There was stuff that was just a bit too silly (the abortion), not quite as sexy (Charlize & Noomi), and overall just not enough of the story. It's a rare instance where a film may have been bettered by having 30-40 extra minutes, but I think this is one of those cases. I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I was expecting a bit of a groundbreaking film, too much of it centers on stuff I've seen before. The guys break off from the group, the aliens are in the ship, firefights. I was honestly not expecting to feel so much "ok, this is the part of the movie where this stuff happens", kind of stuff.
Another letdown, and I'm willing to concede that this could be my fault, is that at times I just didn't get it. A lot of the times I was watching a scene that was at once stock and also baffling. I felt like there was a story here that could have been explained a lot deeper but was just vague for some reason.
Anyhoo, it's a solid movie and I enjoyed the whole thing, and I'm not a Sci-Fi guy. Noomi is a sexy creature and Charlize is captivating for what little she's given to do, but outside of the robot nobody else really had me into their characters.
A strong movie that I have a feeling I would have enjoyed more if I'd just waited for the extended edition DVD.
Rampart: 64 Out Of 100 Stars
Set in LA in the early 90's, Rampart tells the tale of a cop who may or may not be a racist, murdering, corrupt, womanizer. And Woody Harrelson is fabulous at playing all those things. The main failing the movie had with me, is that it all sort of leads....not nowhere, but it doesn't finish strong.
It seems aimless, trying to tell too many stories at maybe the sacrifice of more important ones. It's slow and deliberate, but if that bothers you, Harrelson commands the screen at all times and never lets things drag as much they may have in the hands of a lesser presence.
Robin Wright, whom I've never found all that hot is extremely sexy here as well.
It seems aimless, trying to tell too many stories at maybe the sacrifice of more important ones. It's slow and deliberate, but if that bothers you, Harrelson commands the screen at all times and never lets things drag as much they may have in the hands of a lesser presence.
Robin Wright, whom I've never found all that hot is extremely sexy here as well.
Battleship: 21 Out Of 100 Stars
The film equivalent of watching an impotent man jerk off as hard as he can for 2 hours. Might very well be the worlds first full blown cut and paste movie, as I don't think I noticed a single original idea over the entire dreadful viewing experience.
Ok. So a dude who isn't in the Navy in the first scene of the movie, is 2nd in command of a battleship by the time his 2nd scene rolls around, wait.......what?
Battleships can be helmed by 5 people, who also double as soldiers in the event of an emergency, wait.......what? I could go on and on. There's is so much depressing about this movie and the people who wrote it, filmed it, financed it.
Even the actors, through no fault of their own, all look exactly like they're supposed to look. It's just sad.
Nothing in this fucking film makes any fucking sense.
I did however wonder while I was watching, why are advanced aliens always building technology bigger? When our most advanced weapon can be delivered on a 2 ton bomb, why do they need one 500 miles high?
The only joy derived from this abortion is if you find incompetence and ridiculousness amusing. But even that starts to wear thin at a point.
Ok. So a dude who isn't in the Navy in the first scene of the movie, is 2nd in command of a battleship by the time his 2nd scene rolls around, wait.......what?
Battleships can be helmed by 5 people, who also double as soldiers in the event of an emergency, wait.......what? I could go on and on. There's is so much depressing about this movie and the people who wrote it, filmed it, financed it.
Even the actors, through no fault of their own, all look exactly like they're supposed to look. It's just sad.
Nothing in this fucking film makes any fucking sense.
I did however wonder while I was watching, why are advanced aliens always building technology bigger? When our most advanced weapon can be delivered on a 2 ton bomb, why do they need one 500 miles high?
The only joy derived from this abortion is if you find incompetence and ridiculousness amusing. But even that starts to wear thin at a point.
The Avengers: 56 Out Of 100 Stars
A tale of two movies for me. And at over 2 hours of run time it needed to do better than that, because I was bored as shit until the final fight scene.
Firstly, I wasn't feeling the villains at all. I know it's a comic book movie and I know I'm not familiar with the history of Loki and whatever that blue thing was that brought him in, but it just came across as too much silliness.
The in fighting amongst The Avengers and lead up to the climactic battle is just fucking arduous and really had me hating the damn thing. But I'll give it credit, the final battle carried the movie. It sort of reminded me of the battle in Dragon Wars which was a god awful movie with maybe the best battle scene in movie history. This battle wasn't quite that good but it saved the film in my eyes.
Another problem I had was that I really don't like most of the heroes. Iron Man was awesome but the sequel was a major let down to me and here he's just more of the same here, the schtick is tiresome. Honestly, if this movie doesn't have Ruffalo and his Banner/Hulk, it's pretty worthless.
Firstly, I wasn't feeling the villains at all. I know it's a comic book movie and I know I'm not familiar with the history of Loki and whatever that blue thing was that brought him in, but it just came across as too much silliness.
The in fighting amongst The Avengers and lead up to the climactic battle is just fucking arduous and really had me hating the damn thing. But I'll give it credit, the final battle carried the movie. It sort of reminded me of the battle in Dragon Wars which was a god awful movie with maybe the best battle scene in movie history. This battle wasn't quite that good but it saved the film in my eyes.
Another problem I had was that I really don't like most of the heroes. Iron Man was awesome but the sequel was a major let down to me and here he's just more of the same here, the schtick is tiresome. Honestly, if this movie doesn't have Ruffalo and his Banner/Hulk, it's pretty worthless.
The Dark Knight Rises: 68 Out Of 100 Stars
Not gonna lie, I just wasn't feeling this baby.
More than the first two films, this one really felt like it was just a dude with pretty toys fighting other dudes with pretty toys. Didn't dig the Alfred storyline either.
The previews gave me major hope for Bane as a major shit kicker, but I never once got the feeling in the actual movie as I did from the trailers. The fight scenes in particular were majorly disappointing.
On the plus side I thought Bale and Hathaway were pretty good and it's not like it's a horrible film or anything, just not on the level of what I expected it to be.
More than the first two films, this one really felt like it was just a dude with pretty toys fighting other dudes with pretty toys. Didn't dig the Alfred storyline either.
The previews gave me major hope for Bane as a major shit kicker, but I never once got the feeling in the actual movie as I did from the trailers. The fight scenes in particular were majorly disappointing.
On the plus side I thought Bale and Hathaway were pretty good and it's not like it's a horrible film or anything, just not on the level of what I expected it to be.
American Reunion: 72 Out Of 100 Stars
It has some major belly laughs, mostly all due to Stiffler, and it has a nice collection of T&A, and really those are all I wanted from this one, hence the solid rating.
However, as I was watching, and this is coming from someone who's the perfect age to have appreciated the whole franchise from start to finish, I found myself just not caring that much about the characters. In other words, there was too much damn story here. The fuck do I care if Jim and the redhead are having marriage problems? Honestly, none of the secondary characters in this one made me give a shit about them. But that's ok. Stiffler shitting in a cooler and Jims neighbors strip show in the car were pretty much enough for me to enjoy the movie, I just wish there was more of that and less exposition.
Oh, and Rebecca DeMornay as Finches mom probably bumped this sucker up a few notches. I love Jennifer Coolidge, but Stiffler wins this battle hands down.
You wont be sorry you attended this reunion.
However, as I was watching, and this is coming from someone who's the perfect age to have appreciated the whole franchise from start to finish, I found myself just not caring that much about the characters. In other words, there was too much damn story here. The fuck do I care if Jim and the redhead are having marriage problems? Honestly, none of the secondary characters in this one made me give a shit about them. But that's ok. Stiffler shitting in a cooler and Jims neighbors strip show in the car were pretty much enough for me to enjoy the movie, I just wish there was more of that and less exposition.
Oh, and Rebecca DeMornay as Finches mom probably bumped this sucker up a few notches. I love Jennifer Coolidge, but Stiffler wins this battle hands down.
You wont be sorry you attended this reunion.
2012 Horror Fest: Cabin In The Woods: 53 Out Of 100 Stars
I'm torn between appreciating the premise of the film, and being disappointed by it's execution. Not that the execution did anything wrong, it's just that it.......Let's put it this way, as clever as it is at the start, is as clever as it ever gets, and about 40 minutes into the film you know you're watching a by the numbers horror movie. And the fact that they intend it to be by the numbers doesn't make it any less irritating because you still have to watch it unfold exactly as you expect it to.
Add on that the nudity wasn't really enjoyable and the kills and gore all seemed to be a secondary thought, it was just a let down.
Bradley Whitford is amazing though, so that's something. The ending also came across as very silly to me but by the time you see all the monsters it doesn't really matter, it's already shot it's wad of cuteness.
It's an interesting premise with a strong start that gets redundant and boring despite throwing the kitchen sink at you.
Add on that the nudity wasn't really enjoyable and the kills and gore all seemed to be a secondary thought, it was just a let down.
Bradley Whitford is amazing though, so that's something. The ending also came across as very silly to me but by the time you see all the monsters it doesn't really matter, it's already shot it's wad of cuteness.
It's an interesting premise with a strong start that gets redundant and boring despite throwing the kitchen sink at you.
2012 Horror Fest: Bite Marks: 34 Out Of 100 Stars
What a gay movie. Literally. Story of a young gay couple backpacking across America who get picked up by a bumpkin truck driver who may or may not have the same phallic tendencies.
The movie is pretty low budget and the director really has no idea what he's doing. The pacing is horrendous, scenes take much longer than they need to, and the dialog is stilted. There are some funny lines, but mainly the first 40 minutes is just sort of there. At this point it sort of devolves into a bad Halloween episode of Will And Grace with an insistence on social references and zingers. Now some of it is funny, but the sheer amount of jokes reaches a point of diminishing returns and it just gets tiresome.
While the film looks decent enough, the technical aspects, blocking, editing etc, are pretty bad. All of this could be forgiven if the film ever seemed like it was about something, but it doesn't. Two gay dudes pick up another gay dude and get attacked by vampires, that's the synopsis, but it doesn't get much deeper than that, even though I think at points it tries to get philosophical about being true to yourself and coming out of the closet. The script is so muddled and all over the place that it doesn't really build to anything, it just continues till it ends, if that makes any sense.
Minor cheese value, but not enough to really recommend, even on that level. Bite marks doesn't even break the skin.
The movie is pretty low budget and the director really has no idea what he's doing. The pacing is horrendous, scenes take much longer than they need to, and the dialog is stilted. There are some funny lines, but mainly the first 40 minutes is just sort of there. At this point it sort of devolves into a bad Halloween episode of Will And Grace with an insistence on social references and zingers. Now some of it is funny, but the sheer amount of jokes reaches a point of diminishing returns and it just gets tiresome.
While the film looks decent enough, the technical aspects, blocking, editing etc, are pretty bad. All of this could be forgiven if the film ever seemed like it was about something, but it doesn't. Two gay dudes pick up another gay dude and get attacked by vampires, that's the synopsis, but it doesn't get much deeper than that, even though I think at points it tries to get philosophical about being true to yourself and coming out of the closet. The script is so muddled and all over the place that it doesn't really build to anything, it just continues till it ends, if that makes any sense.
Minor cheese value, but not enough to really recommend, even on that level. Bite marks doesn't even break the skin.
2012 Horror Fest: Deadtime Stories: 70 Out Of 100 Stars
Had this one in the leftover pile from last year and had no idea what it was going in. Hah, turns out it's a film starring Scott Valentine from Family Ties, likely in the 7th of his 5 minutes, back in the late 80's. Holy crap, Melissa Leo is in this as well.
Ok, so right away I'm not sure what I'm watching. I think it's a comedy but it also might just be bad. It's a collection of horror stories set up by an Uncle telling his nephew stories at bedtime. Now there is no horror setup, the kid just wants a story told to him, so it seems kind of bizarre the Uncle would just start telling him some fucked up shit, but anyway. I should also mention that the opening credits are interminable, and an 80's hard rock song plays over them that again, I can't tell whether it's comedic or just bad.
The first tale features Scott Valentine as the adopted child of two witches. Valentine looks about 20 here, btw. Problem is, I didn't even realize it was Valentine till about 10 minutes into the scene since it's shot so horrendously. Jesus. The dialog plays as kids comedy but there's some bondage stuff, a dismembered priest and Scotts bare ass on display in all it's glory in a scene in which the witches bath him. Yes. This is wonderfully atrocious.
I've seen underground porn from the 70's shot outdoors at night that had better lighting than this.
So Scott is forced to capture a busty wench so his mothers can sacrifice her, which of course brings up a big moral dilemma.
Lots of close up reaction shots that highlight the acting abilities of Mr. Valentine. He's grossed out, he's worried, he's anxious. A few shots feature he and the wench in the background and I'm not sure they even realize the camera is rolling.
Oh dear. Scott and the wench are on the run and decide to stop in a cave. At which point a being in a robe shows up and Scott calmly asks "excuse me sir, do you know the way out here?" A way out of the cave they've been in for 3 seconds. The wench is thrown against the wall of the cave and the Styrofoam almost collapses. Marvelous. Ok, so the person following them is the resurrected dead sister and despite Scott pulling her heart out, the battle is not over, oh no. The heart attaches itself to his face, causing him to scream loudly and hysterically as if his nuts are being ripped out. Music blares, Scott screams, the scene builds to.......the girl grabs the heart, throws it against the wall and they both walk out like they're on a Sunday stroll. All this happens over the course of about 5 seconds.
The two kiss in a clearing as the first vignette comes to an end.
Where to start? This story looks like it was shot as a comedy, drama, horror movie and bondage porno, and then using random selection was spliced together with various scenes from all 4. The acting, camera work, lighting, all the technical shit are horrid. I think Scott was horrid too but I'm not sure Oliver could have gotten anything out of this.
Back to the kid and his Uncle. The kid is complaining that the story had a sucky ending. I'd think the 7 year old might be more interested in what S&M means, but perhaps I'm over thinking this.
The kid is so scared that he asks for another story, he wants to hear about Little Red Riding Hood. The Uncle is mad because he's missing the Miss Nude Bayone contest on Cablevision, ok, that was a great line.
As we lead into the next story, the Uncle explains that Little Red Riding Hood is a big breasted, high school cheerleader. Well then, maybe business is picking up here.
WTF WTF WTF. Some synth/jazz number, last seen in A Christy Canyon film, plays as the girl stands in her bra and panties and rubs her stomach while watching herself in the mirror. Her reflection is joined by a Princely looking gent who pulls her panties down slightly and licks her hip. This is now an 80's softcore film. I think they're just spinning a wheel. Her daydream is interrupted and in a bizarre cut away, we see that it was actually her dog licking her. What In The Holy Fuck.
So much awesome in this second vignette. The girl goes to the drug store for her grandmother and runs into a man who's buying sleeping pills. Their order gets mixed up and we learn that the poor guy needs to get to sleep before the full moon. Meanwhile the girl has been whisked off to the woods by her boyfriend so he can take her virginity in a storage shed on an air mattress. We switch between the couple and the werewolf, the couple getting smooth romantic music while the werewolf gets heavy jazz as he starts to morph. So great. The boyfriend puts his hand up the girls shirt and it looks like he's grabbing cans of soup off of the top shelf. Wolf dude looks like he's having an orgasm in the middle of a Herbie Hancock song and rips off his skinny tie.
Ahh geez, we almost see the boyfriends schlong as it veers back into porno territory. The werewolf has transformed, and apparently the director of this movie thinks werewolves look like David Brenner on no sleep. We get an action scene that features all the intensity of knitting. This really is funny, in a good way. The kid still can't sleep, despite being told a bed time story about a cheerleader losing her virginity and having to kill a wolfman, imagine that.
The 3rd story is a telling of Goldilocks And The Three Bears. The Bears are a father, mother and a mentally deficient son whom they've just broken out of an insane asylum. This one is played for pure comedy and it hits it out of the park. The family decides to hide out in their old house in Amityville. Unfortunately that dilapidated building is being inhabited by a cute little thing named Goldilocks who has telekinetic powers and likes to kill all her suitors and keep their corpses around the house. Yeah, you read that right.
Jeez this vignette is awesome. Borrowing some from Kentucky Fried Movie, Early SNL and even Benny Hill, this story is played for pure comedy and it works very nicely.
A pleasant surprise, this mix of comedy, good and bad, intended and unintended is a nice little diddy to fire up on an Autumn eve when you're looking for a good laugh or two.
Ok, so right away I'm not sure what I'm watching. I think it's a comedy but it also might just be bad. It's a collection of horror stories set up by an Uncle telling his nephew stories at bedtime. Now there is no horror setup, the kid just wants a story told to him, so it seems kind of bizarre the Uncle would just start telling him some fucked up shit, but anyway. I should also mention that the opening credits are interminable, and an 80's hard rock song plays over them that again, I can't tell whether it's comedic or just bad.
The first tale features Scott Valentine as the adopted child of two witches. Valentine looks about 20 here, btw. Problem is, I didn't even realize it was Valentine till about 10 minutes into the scene since it's shot so horrendously. Jesus. The dialog plays as kids comedy but there's some bondage stuff, a dismembered priest and Scotts bare ass on display in all it's glory in a scene in which the witches bath him. Yes. This is wonderfully atrocious.
I've seen underground porn from the 70's shot outdoors at night that had better lighting than this.
So Scott is forced to capture a busty wench so his mothers can sacrifice her, which of course brings up a big moral dilemma.
Lots of close up reaction shots that highlight the acting abilities of Mr. Valentine. He's grossed out, he's worried, he's anxious. A few shots feature he and the wench in the background and I'm not sure they even realize the camera is rolling.
Oh dear. Scott and the wench are on the run and decide to stop in a cave. At which point a being in a robe shows up and Scott calmly asks "excuse me sir, do you know the way out here?" A way out of the cave they've been in for 3 seconds. The wench is thrown against the wall of the cave and the Styrofoam almost collapses. Marvelous. Ok, so the person following them is the resurrected dead sister and despite Scott pulling her heart out, the battle is not over, oh no. The heart attaches itself to his face, causing him to scream loudly and hysterically as if his nuts are being ripped out. Music blares, Scott screams, the scene builds to.......the girl grabs the heart, throws it against the wall and they both walk out like they're on a Sunday stroll. All this happens over the course of about 5 seconds.
The two kiss in a clearing as the first vignette comes to an end.
Where to start? This story looks like it was shot as a comedy, drama, horror movie and bondage porno, and then using random selection was spliced together with various scenes from all 4. The acting, camera work, lighting, all the technical shit are horrid. I think Scott was horrid too but I'm not sure Oliver could have gotten anything out of this.
Back to the kid and his Uncle. The kid is complaining that the story had a sucky ending. I'd think the 7 year old might be more interested in what S&M means, but perhaps I'm over thinking this.
The kid is so scared that he asks for another story, he wants to hear about Little Red Riding Hood. The Uncle is mad because he's missing the Miss Nude Bayone contest on Cablevision, ok, that was a great line.
As we lead into the next story, the Uncle explains that Little Red Riding Hood is a big breasted, high school cheerleader. Well then, maybe business is picking up here.
WTF WTF WTF. Some synth/jazz number, last seen in A Christy Canyon film, plays as the girl stands in her bra and panties and rubs her stomach while watching herself in the mirror. Her reflection is joined by a Princely looking gent who pulls her panties down slightly and licks her hip. This is now an 80's softcore film. I think they're just spinning a wheel. Her daydream is interrupted and in a bizarre cut away, we see that it was actually her dog licking her. What In The Holy Fuck.
So much awesome in this second vignette. The girl goes to the drug store for her grandmother and runs into a man who's buying sleeping pills. Their order gets mixed up and we learn that the poor guy needs to get to sleep before the full moon. Meanwhile the girl has been whisked off to the woods by her boyfriend so he can take her virginity in a storage shed on an air mattress. We switch between the couple and the werewolf, the couple getting smooth romantic music while the werewolf gets heavy jazz as he starts to morph. So great. The boyfriend puts his hand up the girls shirt and it looks like he's grabbing cans of soup off of the top shelf. Wolf dude looks like he's having an orgasm in the middle of a Herbie Hancock song and rips off his skinny tie.
Ahh geez, we almost see the boyfriends schlong as it veers back into porno territory. The werewolf has transformed, and apparently the director of this movie thinks werewolves look like David Brenner on no sleep. We get an action scene that features all the intensity of knitting. This really is funny, in a good way. The kid still can't sleep, despite being told a bed time story about a cheerleader losing her virginity and having to kill a wolfman, imagine that.
The 3rd story is a telling of Goldilocks And The Three Bears. The Bears are a father, mother and a mentally deficient son whom they've just broken out of an insane asylum. This one is played for pure comedy and it hits it out of the park. The family decides to hide out in their old house in Amityville. Unfortunately that dilapidated building is being inhabited by a cute little thing named Goldilocks who has telekinetic powers and likes to kill all her suitors and keep their corpses around the house. Yeah, you read that right.
Jeez this vignette is awesome. Borrowing some from Kentucky Fried Movie, Early SNL and even Benny Hill, this story is played for pure comedy and it works very nicely.
A pleasant surprise, this mix of comedy, good and bad, intended and unintended is a nice little diddy to fire up on an Autumn eve when you're looking for a good laugh or two.
2012 Horror Fest: Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence): 83 Out Of 100 Stars
Being that I found the first Human Centipede a rather pedantic and boring film, completely undeserving of the hype, I was not in any rush to see the sequel. Boy was I wrong. Everything I expected the first film to be but wasn't, the second film was.
Led by the lead, a squat, little, fat man named Laurence Harvey, Human Centipede 2 spends the first hour building up a quease factor that is just delicious. There is some minor gore through the first two acts of the film, but mostly it's a mind fuck and a general uneasiness with Harveys appearance. Rarely does an actor fit his role as well as Harvey does here. And although the look is a big part of it, he acts his ass off. It's just disturbingly awesome. There were moments I wanted to vomit just looking at him.
Writer/Director Tom Six does a fantastic job building to the third act by using Harvey and simple words and allusions to create an atmosphere of creepiness. It's ocular rape is what it is. Everything you see and hear makes your stomach turn just a little bit more as the film builds to a crescendo.
Now then, while the first hour builds based less on gore and more on the anticipated gore, the last half hour pulls no punches. It's gross, it's sadistic and it's flat out beyond the pale, so much so that it doesn't take long to become humorous as the fat little man creates his human centipede, forces laxatives into them, rapes the end girl whilst having barbed wire wrapped around his cock, and more.
I've watched some hardcore torture porn in the past, and while this film could be categorized as such, I think it does a disservice to the wonderful job that Six does of setting up his payoff. With very few sets and very little dialog, he creates a twisted fucking world with a demented main character that is completely enGROSSing.
Led by the lead, a squat, little, fat man named Laurence Harvey, Human Centipede 2 spends the first hour building up a quease factor that is just delicious. There is some minor gore through the first two acts of the film, but mostly it's a mind fuck and a general uneasiness with Harveys appearance. Rarely does an actor fit his role as well as Harvey does here. And although the look is a big part of it, he acts his ass off. It's just disturbingly awesome. There were moments I wanted to vomit just looking at him.
Writer/Director Tom Six does a fantastic job building to the third act by using Harvey and simple words and allusions to create an atmosphere of creepiness. It's ocular rape is what it is. Everything you see and hear makes your stomach turn just a little bit more as the film builds to a crescendo.
Now then, while the first hour builds based less on gore and more on the anticipated gore, the last half hour pulls no punches. It's gross, it's sadistic and it's flat out beyond the pale, so much so that it doesn't take long to become humorous as the fat little man creates his human centipede, forces laxatives into them, rapes the end girl whilst having barbed wire wrapped around his cock, and more.
I've watched some hardcore torture porn in the past, and while this film could be categorized as such, I think it does a disservice to the wonderful job that Six does of setting up his payoff. With very few sets and very little dialog, he creates a twisted fucking world with a demented main character that is completely enGROSSing.
2012 Horror Fest: The Skin I Live In: 74 Out Of 100 Stars
Sweet beans! What an epically fucked up movie. I'm not sure how good it is, but I certainly couldn't stop watching it, especially when It reached a certain point and my stomach sort of went all oozy woozy.
Antonio Banderas is a renowned surgeon with a lab and an operating facility in his house. And if there's anything I've learned from movies, it's that no story about a surgeon with a lab and an operating room in his house can end up any way but messed up.
Elena Anaya is delicious as his patient, and I use that term loosely.
I can't really say much about the rest of the story without spoiling it so I'll just say that it builds wonderfully, and even though it clocks in at about two hours long, it never drags, in fact it keeps hitting you with new twists and turns and diverts off into different territories till you're not really sure at all how it all adds up, but when it does, hoo boy.
Psychologically fucked up, sexually explosive and downright twisted, it's a modern take on the mad scientist story that while not easy to watch at some points, is a very enthralling film.
Antonio Banderas is a renowned surgeon with a lab and an operating facility in his house. And if there's anything I've learned from movies, it's that no story about a surgeon with a lab and an operating room in his house can end up any way but messed up.
Elena Anaya is delicious as his patient, and I use that term loosely.
I can't really say much about the rest of the story without spoiling it so I'll just say that it builds wonderfully, and even though it clocks in at about two hours long, it never drags, in fact it keeps hitting you with new twists and turns and diverts off into different territories till you're not really sure at all how it all adds up, but when it does, hoo boy.
Psychologically fucked up, sexually explosive and downright twisted, it's a modern take on the mad scientist story that while not easy to watch at some points, is a very enthralling film.
2012 Horror Fest: Chernobyl Diaries: 40 Out Of 100 Stars
Ughh. Another really good set up that relies more on drama rather than horror for it's payoff and just let me down.
A guy, his fiance, and her friend are visiting his brother in Kiev and they join another couple on a tour of the town adjacent to Chernobyl. None of the characters are much more than stock, but the chicks were pretty hot and the build up had me sufficiently excited. Then it starts to rely on tension instead of letting loose the tits and gore and I just didn't care enough about the characters to stay interested.
The "villains" are barely shown even though the previews let us know who they are. So we wait, and wait, and there are chases and running, and some decent gore, but nothing that gripped me in the slightest.
In the end it feels like a PG version of Hostel without any of the ambiance.
A diary with nothing much to say.
A guy, his fiance, and her friend are visiting his brother in Kiev and they join another couple on a tour of the town adjacent to Chernobyl. None of the characters are much more than stock, but the chicks were pretty hot and the build up had me sufficiently excited. Then it starts to rely on tension instead of letting loose the tits and gore and I just didn't care enough about the characters to stay interested.
The "villains" are barely shown even though the previews let us know who they are. So we wait, and wait, and there are chases and running, and some decent gore, but nothing that gripped me in the slightest.
In the end it feels like a PG version of Hostel without any of the ambiance.
A diary with nothing much to say.
2012 Horror Fest: No Tell Motel: 29 Out Of 100 Stars
Dull, pedantic and silly, No Tell Motel starts off with a nice premise and devolves into boredom fairly quickly.
Five young adults, 3 of whom are hot chicks, end up stranded at an old abandoned, haunted hotel for the night. Sounds good right? Well that's where the good times end. The script has a solid base in that all five of the main characters have secrets that the motel forces them to face, unfortunately the more acting we get and the deeper the script gets, the less interesting the film becomes.
There's no nudity or titillation despite having three very hot female leads, which always annoys the hell out of me. There's not really any gore either, it's mostly just people always within 50 feet of each other who never know what anyone else is doing. Frustrating in it's laziness to get from point A to point B is how I'd describe it.
None of the characters connect at all, and the lead female borders on bad at worst, and boring at best. At times it almost feels like a Lifetime version of a horror movie.
No need to check in to this motel, there's nothing worth seeing.
Five young adults, 3 of whom are hot chicks, end up stranded at an old abandoned, haunted hotel for the night. Sounds good right? Well that's where the good times end. The script has a solid base in that all five of the main characters have secrets that the motel forces them to face, unfortunately the more acting we get and the deeper the script gets, the less interesting the film becomes.
There's no nudity or titillation despite having three very hot female leads, which always annoys the hell out of me. There's not really any gore either, it's mostly just people always within 50 feet of each other who never know what anyone else is doing. Frustrating in it's laziness to get from point A to point B is how I'd describe it.
None of the characters connect at all, and the lead female borders on bad at worst, and boring at best. At times it almost feels like a Lifetime version of a horror movie.
No need to check in to this motel, there's nothing worth seeing.
2012 Horror Fest: Cowboys And Zombies: 28 Out 100 Stars
I had this one sitting around for awhile and I actually thought it was an Asylum ripoff of Cowboys Vs Aliens. Instead it's just a standard, very low budget horror movie. It's not without it's pluses however, although none of them have anything to do with quality.
I'm fairly certain that the whole thing is built around the first and last scenes and the directors vision to see a cowboy gun down zombies. Unfortunately an entire movie has to fill the rest of the 81 minute run time and nobody involved is any where near up to the task.
The film opens with a cowboy in a gunfight with a gang of outlaws. I give this scene decent props as I know it's hard to do a good action scene and while it's clearly low rent, it's not awful, and even when it's bad it's cheesy enough to be fun.
From there we get an attempt at a movie, and save for the bad editing, bad music and bad acting, it's just a bunch of nothing much. The bad stuff is bad enough to be entertaining, including a Native American who I'd guess is not simply the best Native American actor they could find, but the only Native American they could find, there can be no other explanation for how bad this fella is. The sets are minimal. There are two "towns" in the film and I'm pretty sure they're the same 3 buildings used to make up each one.
The lead actor is decent enough I guess but he's not what I would call good, nor is he given much to work with. He's bounty hunting so he can collect money for an unspecified purpose that he doesn't reveal till late in the film. You see, he fell in love with a girl who was underage, she didn't want to give it up, so he raped her. Yes, he raped her. Now she's pregnant and her pa is dead and even though her ma doesn't want him around he figures that if he comes back with enough money to pay their mortgage all will be forgiven. I shit you not, that's the story.
There are zombies, and the makeup and gore is pretty good but there's never any tension cause it's just too dumb to care about any of the characters and there is a LOT of nothing much going on in between the "action".
There are some nice titties bouncing about, and a lot of long shots of folks walking or waiting.
Essentially a film that looks like a student film project that would get a C at best.
I'm fairly certain that the whole thing is built around the first and last scenes and the directors vision to see a cowboy gun down zombies. Unfortunately an entire movie has to fill the rest of the 81 minute run time and nobody involved is any where near up to the task.
The film opens with a cowboy in a gunfight with a gang of outlaws. I give this scene decent props as I know it's hard to do a good action scene and while it's clearly low rent, it's not awful, and even when it's bad it's cheesy enough to be fun.
From there we get an attempt at a movie, and save for the bad editing, bad music and bad acting, it's just a bunch of nothing much. The bad stuff is bad enough to be entertaining, including a Native American who I'd guess is not simply the best Native American actor they could find, but the only Native American they could find, there can be no other explanation for how bad this fella is. The sets are minimal. There are two "towns" in the film and I'm pretty sure they're the same 3 buildings used to make up each one.
The lead actor is decent enough I guess but he's not what I would call good, nor is he given much to work with. He's bounty hunting so he can collect money for an unspecified purpose that he doesn't reveal till late in the film. You see, he fell in love with a girl who was underage, she didn't want to give it up, so he raped her. Yes, he raped her. Now she's pregnant and her pa is dead and even though her ma doesn't want him around he figures that if he comes back with enough money to pay their mortgage all will be forgiven. I shit you not, that's the story.
There are zombies, and the makeup and gore is pretty good but there's never any tension cause it's just too dumb to care about any of the characters and there is a LOT of nothing much going on in between the "action".
There are some nice titties bouncing about, and a lot of long shots of folks walking or waiting.
Essentially a film that looks like a student film project that would get a C at best.
2012 Horror Fest: All The Boys Love Mandy Lane: 41 Out Of 100 Stars
Had high hopes given the first 10-15 minutes of the film had a cast full of hotties, great atmosphere, and a style that suggested something above the average teenage slasher film.
Unfortunately, the further the movie progresses, the less interesting it gets, till it just becomes a mundane exercise in sameness.
The cast is strong and the dialog is not all that bad. The chicks are hot and although there's a lot of tease, there isn't much nudity. Amber Heard as the lead is pretty damn captivating and her character is strong, it's just a shame it was wasted by a rather goreless, tension less script.
Mandy Lane looks nice, but there's not much to do there.
Unfortunately, the further the movie progresses, the less interesting it gets, till it just becomes a mundane exercise in sameness.
The cast is strong and the dialog is not all that bad. The chicks are hot and although there's a lot of tease, there isn't much nudity. Amber Heard as the lead is pretty damn captivating and her character is strong, it's just a shame it was wasted by a rather goreless, tension less script.
Mandy Lane looks nice, but there's not much to do there.
2012 Horror Fest: Wrong Turn 5: 65 Out Of 100 Stars
The franchise that mystifies me. The original, starring Eliza Dushku was decent, no better, no worse than average. That it spawned one sequel was not a shock. Given how horrible that sequel was, it surprised me greatly that they churned out two more, both as putrid as fresh dog poop.
But I'd be a liar if I said that I didn't get excited when I saw there was a new one out. Maybe I'm a glutton, maybe I just have such faith in the premise that I assume they'll stumble into getting it right eventually.
Well, they didn't exactly hit a homer, but Wrong Turn 5 is the first right turn the franchise has taken since......well ever.
This years version is a sequel to part 4 but still in prequel time compared to the original. It also returns the 3 main baddies from part 4.
This film continues the tradition of preposterous set ups that make no sense in regards to the story being told. Part two occurred during the filming of a reality TV show that had about 4 people working on it. This one takes place during a music festival in a small WV town that the characters reference as just as big as Coachella or Burning Man. Then those THOUSANDS of people promptly disappear for the entire film, making one wonder why the back story was even needed if it was going to be so blatantly ignored.
Don't get me wrong, the film is horrible on a storytelling level, but unlike previous versions, it moves quick. You wont have to watch an insufferable snow boarding montage as in part 4 or a tedious 45 minutes of characters walking, like in part 3.
More importantly, the film makers aim here seems to be to just have as much fun as possible making a gory fucking horror romp, adding the humor liberally and letting the guts flow freely.
The acting is pretty bad, the decision making of the characters is beyond retarded and the writing borders on appearing to be parody. But it works in the way good cheese should. It's laughable, but at least it's funny to watch these dip shits try and emote and reason. The biggest plus is the pacing. We never get bogged down. No character is not expendable. The kills are as fun as all get out, and the gore is top shelf, I even cringed on more than one occasion.
The "sets" add to the cheese factor. The entire town appears to be 3 streets the size of half blocks. The nudity is pretty decent, although I could have done with seeing a few more pairs of boobs. Oh yeah, one of the leads is a dude who looks like Ben Aflecks brother the way Patrick Swayzes brother does, like they removed a chromosome or something.
So yeah, if you like fun and inventive kills, if you like gore, if you like cheesy story so absurd you can't help but laugh, then this movie will suit you just fine.
I guess 5 wrongs make a right.
But I'd be a liar if I said that I didn't get excited when I saw there was a new one out. Maybe I'm a glutton, maybe I just have such faith in the premise that I assume they'll stumble into getting it right eventually.
Well, they didn't exactly hit a homer, but Wrong Turn 5 is the first right turn the franchise has taken since......well ever.
This years version is a sequel to part 4 but still in prequel time compared to the original. It also returns the 3 main baddies from part 4.
This film continues the tradition of preposterous set ups that make no sense in regards to the story being told. Part two occurred during the filming of a reality TV show that had about 4 people working on it. This one takes place during a music festival in a small WV town that the characters reference as just as big as Coachella or Burning Man. Then those THOUSANDS of people promptly disappear for the entire film, making one wonder why the back story was even needed if it was going to be so blatantly ignored.
Don't get me wrong, the film is horrible on a storytelling level, but unlike previous versions, it moves quick. You wont have to watch an insufferable snow boarding montage as in part 4 or a tedious 45 minutes of characters walking, like in part 3.
More importantly, the film makers aim here seems to be to just have as much fun as possible making a gory fucking horror romp, adding the humor liberally and letting the guts flow freely.
The acting is pretty bad, the decision making of the characters is beyond retarded and the writing borders on appearing to be parody. But it works in the way good cheese should. It's laughable, but at least it's funny to watch these dip shits try and emote and reason. The biggest plus is the pacing. We never get bogged down. No character is not expendable. The kills are as fun as all get out, and the gore is top shelf, I even cringed on more than one occasion.
The "sets" add to the cheese factor. The entire town appears to be 3 streets the size of half blocks. The nudity is pretty decent, although I could have done with seeing a few more pairs of boobs. Oh yeah, one of the leads is a dude who looks like Ben Aflecks brother the way Patrick Swayzes brother does, like they removed a chromosome or something.
So yeah, if you like fun and inventive kills, if you like gore, if you like cheesy story so absurd you can't help but laugh, then this movie will suit you just fine.
I guess 5 wrongs make a right.
2012 Horror Fest: Study Hell: 90 Out Of 100 Stars
Very low budget Canadian fare about a group of delinquents forced to stay after school in detention with a teacher so crazy that the principal tells him he could be fired any moment, but short of that she's putting him in charge of the entire building and this group of kids. Much of the writing follows the same nonsensical suit. It's also funny seeing people clearly ranging in ages from about 12 to 30 playing students, including one hairy, beer bellied, 30 year old, playing the jock.
So yeah, the teacher has some sort of back story with the janitor regarding Vietnam and a buddy of theirs who killed a bunch of cheerleaders and whose son is one of the kids in detention, I honestly couldn't follow it very well, but it doesn't take long for the teacher to start thinking that the school is the jungle, and holy shit it just goes from 0 to 60 in about a minute and makes very little sense.
The detention scenes try and play like The Breakfast Club with a low rent version of Judd Nelsons speech about his dad, and a girl pretty much doing an exact Ally Sheedy impersonation.
The fight scenes are remarkable in that I'm not sure they were choreographed much at all as it looks like the teacher is just flat out throwing one of the kids around at one point. On one hand it's funny in how bad it looks, on the other hand I was legit worried watching a dude fall and flail around a pile of desks, once hitting his leg on the corner of a desk and it looked pretty nasty.
LOL. Ok, so a girl and a guy sneak off to the teachers class room to share a drink and maybe do some in and out, but the crazy teacher finds them and the aforementioned fight scene occurs. Fight scene might be a bit of a stretch as it's just one dude throwing another around. Before crazy teacher finds them though, they open a hidden door in his class room that leads to a closet filled with weapons. The script and the editing get very bad here as they make no attempt convey what is going on. The teacher pulls the guy out of the closet, beats him up and slashes him with a giant knife, then he just lets him walk away. Ok. Now the girl is in the closet, but she's never acknowledged so I don't know if the teacher ever even saw her, she does react to the boy being slashed, even though the door is shut and she can't see him. God I love bad movies.
So the kid crawls down a pair of stairs and is found by the rest of the group. He proceeds to tell them that she's locked in the closet, even though we clearly saw that the teacher didn't do that. The next moment we see her walking through the halls, looking lost, even though it was clearly established the she was just a flight of stairs away from everyone else and, ya know, she's in her own school. This is magnificent. She's walking through the hall looking for a kid who was just knifed from side to side by a maniac as if she was lazily taking a Sunday stroll at a flea market. Fabulous.
So once the knifed kid gets found by the rest of the students, the jock, I think he's the jock, I dunno. Anyway, he sets out to find the girl and the crazy teacher and oh yeah, he looks like Chael Sonnen had a kid with Allanis Morrisette.
Sweet Jesus, the acting in this thing would make Anna Nicole Smith ashamed to call herself an actress.
Ok, so the rest of the kids are sitting on the steps all chill like Doug E. Doug, when the blonde returns. The other girl in the group looks up from reading a book and pronounces "thank god, we thought you were dead". I mean.....I just...I have no words. Oh, and the dude that got knifed? He's just chillaxin. Ok, so they want to plan an escape, but the blonde, who is delicious by the way, she says that the front doors are chained and locked, so the goth girl says that the keys are kept in the office, to which the nerd replies exasperatingly "HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW THAT?!" That's the thing I love about movies like this. They're so badly written that character motivations change from scene to scene, and lines are just handed out rather than roles being developed beyond a cursory outline.
Ok, now it's getting clearer. The teacher clearly thinks he's back in Vietnam and is having major shell shock, flashbacks or some shit. The humor comes from the fact that he looks like a Canadian version of Mark Lynn Baker but the acting is akin to Cousin Larry trying to win a role in The Deer Hunter. So on one hand you have a dude overacting to the upteenth degree, and that's juxtaposed by a group of kids, who are supposed to be fearful of their lives, just sort of blase in their attempts to escape. The two girls in particular are remarkable in their ability to look like they're in a different movie altogether.
So they can't unlock anything, or open a window, or use a phone or escape in any one of a hundred different ways, so they decide to make a bomb to blow the doors open. Lucky for them the goth girl carries around powdered chromium in her purse. Now normally I would take this is a moment of parody but I swear to fuck there isn't an ounce of sarcasm in this revelation.
JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER THIS BLONDE IS THE GREATEST ACTRESS I'VE EVER SEEN. I'm not sure this girl even knows what kind of movie she's in. She literally waits for her lines, says them while staring vacantly, regardless of what emotion she's supposed to be emoting, and then just moves on. I have no doubt she's in the this movie because someone wanted to bang her. Not that I can blame them.
So the nutso teacher lures the principal lady back to the school. The students see her from the chemistry room and the two girls go to find her. They run down stairs, they run up stairs, they run through catacombs, I have no fucking clue how getting down one floor can be so tumultuous. Meanwhile, back in the chem lab, an episode of Degrassi breaks out as the stoner and the geek have a bonding session in the middle of building a bomb to escape a psycho killer. It brought a tear to my eye and a nail to my brain. Of course they get attacked and the nerd is perilously trapped under a desk. Yeah, he gets trapped under a desk. Oh the perils of being trapped under 10 pounds of wood while the bff you just now made, who you previously hated before he got stabbed but then got better, gets beaten up by a crazy veteran. Luckily he musters up the strength to reach into his pocket protector and throw a pen at the teacher, knocking him silly. I'm not even exaggerating here or trying to make this sound dumber than it is.
We aren't even half way through yet and this is already a classic.
Ok ok ok ok ok. This is awesome. The 3 remaining kids decide to get a sledgehammer from shop class, to try and smash the locks. Of course in a room filled with potential weapons they ignore them all. They find the janitor hiding here and now we get a full explanation of the back story. Seems the nerd kids father used to be a janitor at the school and went to prison for killing a bunch of cheerleaders. BUT it wasn't him at all, but rather the crazy teacher. Seems the two of them were in Nam together and were friends, but the kids dad knew the teacher was unbalanced so he got a job as a janitor to keep an eye on him and ended up going to jail for the crimes that the teacher committed. When the kids ask the janitor why he didn't tell the cops he replies "who'd believe a janitor?" You cannot argue with that logic.
This is like one of those childrens learning shows where there's an adult teaching a group of kids about something. How do we know what Ducks like to eat? Well let's go down to the pond and find out! How do we know the backdoor isn't chained? Well let's go and find out. Yay! They're more excited to find out something new than they are scared of being MURDERED!
So the nerd and the goth girl find a hiding spot and an afterschool special about bravery and courage in the face of danger breaks out. They fall madly in love over the course of 45 seconds and then.......well I think we're supposed to think that they fucked because when the blonde girl finds them they're sound asleep, laying on top of each other. But they're fully clothed. It makes zero sense, but in the pantheon of things in this movie that make no sense this barely ranks.
With no way to escape and likely minutes away from being discovered by a psycho killer, the girls luckily remember that there are caves beneath the school. For the love of Dean Cameron, this movie is just levels of retarded piled upon levels of retarded. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that the blonde hid from the killer in the school pool, so she'll be running around the rest of the movie in wet, clingy, clothes. That's one on the plus side.
So in order to get to the caves below the school, they of course have to go UP to the rafters in the gym and crawl into the air ducts. I don't want this movie to ever end.
I should also mention that from time to time, psycho teacher will take to the PA and channel Robin Williams from Good Morning Vietnam. If you give the film makers credit you may think that these scenes are parody but I'm positive they think it comes across as chilling, which makes it so much more hilarious.
Down now to only two students and one psycho teacher, we're treated to a rather lengthy scene of them walking and him shaving his head. You haven't lived till you've watched a man shave his head......psychotically.
Now I have no idea what's going on. Despite crawling into the rafters and into an air duct and back down into the school and into a secret room and through a tunnel that leads into a cave, the teacher is there waiting for them. Mapquest really could have helped these kids out.
This leads to an amazingly bad fight scene in which for the 3rd time in the film the teacher headbutts his victim and doesn't jostle his glasses even slightly. Despite putting up a valiant effort against the man who framed his dad for murder, the nerd is no match for an insane Vietnam Vet, but this does give the girl enough time to escape. Escape where you might ask? Well through a door, up half a flight of stairs and back into the school. They went through an awful lot of trouble to get.....nevermind. It's like shooting dumb fish in a dumb barrel at this point.
Oh fuck me in the ass. At the start of the film, when detention first started, the teacher told the kids to write an essay on why they're in detention, ya know, just like in The Breakfast Club. Well now, instead of continuing to run, the girl just sits down on the floor and pulls out a piece of paper and begins to read it. It's the nerds essay, and we're treated to a knockoff of the end of The Breakfast Club where the principal reads Judd Nelsons essay. Again, it seems like this may be parody, but I swear it's not. Not only do we get a voice over but we're treated to a montage of the tender moments goth girl and nerd boy spent throughout the film, both of them. It's amazing how someone can be so inspired by such great films and yet have zero grasp of what those films were doing. It's fucking grand.
Ahaha. So the girl, inspired by reading nerd boys essay, decides to get on the PA and challenge the teacher to meet her on the roof. Here we get a glimpse of what a Jackie Chan movie would look like if Jackie Chan were a 16 year old girl and his nemesis was a middle aged white man. In this harrowing, edge of your seat fight scene, he has flashbacks of Nam, if Nam were the woods behind Shop N Bag. Realizing what he's done, the teacher decides to kill himself, which gives our heroin time to sit on a grate and cry as we now get to hear her essay, which sounds just like the boys essay. God, I love that whoever wrote this movie thinks he's saying something profound, I fucking love that he thinks this is deep, and I'm NOT being sarcastic. It's the only reason this piece of shit is as great as it is.
I can't even begin to explain the final scene of the movie. We flash forward two years. The girl returns to the school with her boyfriend and standing on the front step they tell jokes and laugh and then break down and cry in as inorganic a manner as possible. Again, it's just moving between emotions with no particular reason. It turns out her boyfriend is the brother of nerd boy because why not be as absurdly convoluted as possible. They go home and she strips down and gets in the bath while his phone rings. I really have no idea what is supposed to have happened here. He picks up the phone, then reaches into her coat for the gun she carries, then he walks into the bathroom, hands her the phone and slumps over dead from........something? Never minding that her boyfriend is laying there dead, she takes the phone and starts asking who it is, the voice on the other end of the phone menacingly says "find me", and we roll credits. You could threaten to cut my balls off and I still wouldn't be able to tell you what the fuck I just saw.
Sometimes a movie is good because of how bad it is, but then there are movies like this one, that aren't just good because of how bad they are, but because of how bad they are at trying to be good. This thing wants to be clever, it wants to be scary, it wants to tell a story, it's so engorged with story and ideas that it's overflowing, and it's all stammeringly awful. It's not quite The Room, but I'll be damned if it isn't close.
So yeah, the teacher has some sort of back story with the janitor regarding Vietnam and a buddy of theirs who killed a bunch of cheerleaders and whose son is one of the kids in detention, I honestly couldn't follow it very well, but it doesn't take long for the teacher to start thinking that the school is the jungle, and holy shit it just goes from 0 to 60 in about a minute and makes very little sense.
The detention scenes try and play like The Breakfast Club with a low rent version of Judd Nelsons speech about his dad, and a girl pretty much doing an exact Ally Sheedy impersonation.
The fight scenes are remarkable in that I'm not sure they were choreographed much at all as it looks like the teacher is just flat out throwing one of the kids around at one point. On one hand it's funny in how bad it looks, on the other hand I was legit worried watching a dude fall and flail around a pile of desks, once hitting his leg on the corner of a desk and it looked pretty nasty.
LOL. Ok, so a girl and a guy sneak off to the teachers class room to share a drink and maybe do some in and out, but the crazy teacher finds them and the aforementioned fight scene occurs. Fight scene might be a bit of a stretch as it's just one dude throwing another around. Before crazy teacher finds them though, they open a hidden door in his class room that leads to a closet filled with weapons. The script and the editing get very bad here as they make no attempt convey what is going on. The teacher pulls the guy out of the closet, beats him up and slashes him with a giant knife, then he just lets him walk away. Ok. Now the girl is in the closet, but she's never acknowledged so I don't know if the teacher ever even saw her, she does react to the boy being slashed, even though the door is shut and she can't see him. God I love bad movies.
So the kid crawls down a pair of stairs and is found by the rest of the group. He proceeds to tell them that she's locked in the closet, even though we clearly saw that the teacher didn't do that. The next moment we see her walking through the halls, looking lost, even though it was clearly established the she was just a flight of stairs away from everyone else and, ya know, she's in her own school. This is magnificent. She's walking through the hall looking for a kid who was just knifed from side to side by a maniac as if she was lazily taking a Sunday stroll at a flea market. Fabulous.
So once the knifed kid gets found by the rest of the students, the jock, I think he's the jock, I dunno. Anyway, he sets out to find the girl and the crazy teacher and oh yeah, he looks like Chael Sonnen had a kid with Allanis Morrisette.
Sweet Jesus, the acting in this thing would make Anna Nicole Smith ashamed to call herself an actress.
Ok, so the rest of the kids are sitting on the steps all chill like Doug E. Doug, when the blonde returns. The other girl in the group looks up from reading a book and pronounces "thank god, we thought you were dead". I mean.....I just...I have no words. Oh, and the dude that got knifed? He's just chillaxin. Ok, so they want to plan an escape, but the blonde, who is delicious by the way, she says that the front doors are chained and locked, so the goth girl says that the keys are kept in the office, to which the nerd replies exasperatingly "HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW THAT?!" That's the thing I love about movies like this. They're so badly written that character motivations change from scene to scene, and lines are just handed out rather than roles being developed beyond a cursory outline.
Ok, now it's getting clearer. The teacher clearly thinks he's back in Vietnam and is having major shell shock, flashbacks or some shit. The humor comes from the fact that he looks like a Canadian version of Mark Lynn Baker but the acting is akin to Cousin Larry trying to win a role in The Deer Hunter. So on one hand you have a dude overacting to the upteenth degree, and that's juxtaposed by a group of kids, who are supposed to be fearful of their lives, just sort of blase in their attempts to escape. The two girls in particular are remarkable in their ability to look like they're in a different movie altogether.
So they can't unlock anything, or open a window, or use a phone or escape in any one of a hundred different ways, so they decide to make a bomb to blow the doors open. Lucky for them the goth girl carries around powdered chromium in her purse. Now normally I would take this is a moment of parody but I swear to fuck there isn't an ounce of sarcasm in this revelation.
JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER THIS BLONDE IS THE GREATEST ACTRESS I'VE EVER SEEN. I'm not sure this girl even knows what kind of movie she's in. She literally waits for her lines, says them while staring vacantly, regardless of what emotion she's supposed to be emoting, and then just moves on. I have no doubt she's in the this movie because someone wanted to bang her. Not that I can blame them.
So the nutso teacher lures the principal lady back to the school. The students see her from the chemistry room and the two girls go to find her. They run down stairs, they run up stairs, they run through catacombs, I have no fucking clue how getting down one floor can be so tumultuous. Meanwhile, back in the chem lab, an episode of Degrassi breaks out as the stoner and the geek have a bonding session in the middle of building a bomb to escape a psycho killer. It brought a tear to my eye and a nail to my brain. Of course they get attacked and the nerd is perilously trapped under a desk. Yeah, he gets trapped under a desk. Oh the perils of being trapped under 10 pounds of wood while the bff you just now made, who you previously hated before he got stabbed but then got better, gets beaten up by a crazy veteran. Luckily he musters up the strength to reach into his pocket protector and throw a pen at the teacher, knocking him silly. I'm not even exaggerating here or trying to make this sound dumber than it is.
We aren't even half way through yet and this is already a classic.
Ok ok ok ok ok. This is awesome. The 3 remaining kids decide to get a sledgehammer from shop class, to try and smash the locks. Of course in a room filled with potential weapons they ignore them all. They find the janitor hiding here and now we get a full explanation of the back story. Seems the nerd kids father used to be a janitor at the school and went to prison for killing a bunch of cheerleaders. BUT it wasn't him at all, but rather the crazy teacher. Seems the two of them were in Nam together and were friends, but the kids dad knew the teacher was unbalanced so he got a job as a janitor to keep an eye on him and ended up going to jail for the crimes that the teacher committed. When the kids ask the janitor why he didn't tell the cops he replies "who'd believe a janitor?" You cannot argue with that logic.
This is like one of those childrens learning shows where there's an adult teaching a group of kids about something. How do we know what Ducks like to eat? Well let's go down to the pond and find out! How do we know the backdoor isn't chained? Well let's go and find out. Yay! They're more excited to find out something new than they are scared of being MURDERED!
So the nerd and the goth girl find a hiding spot and an afterschool special about bravery and courage in the face of danger breaks out. They fall madly in love over the course of 45 seconds and then.......well I think we're supposed to think that they fucked because when the blonde girl finds them they're sound asleep, laying on top of each other. But they're fully clothed. It makes zero sense, but in the pantheon of things in this movie that make no sense this barely ranks.
With no way to escape and likely minutes away from being discovered by a psycho killer, the girls luckily remember that there are caves beneath the school. For the love of Dean Cameron, this movie is just levels of retarded piled upon levels of retarded. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that the blonde hid from the killer in the school pool, so she'll be running around the rest of the movie in wet, clingy, clothes. That's one on the plus side.
So in order to get to the caves below the school, they of course have to go UP to the rafters in the gym and crawl into the air ducts. I don't want this movie to ever end.
I should also mention that from time to time, psycho teacher will take to the PA and channel Robin Williams from Good Morning Vietnam. If you give the film makers credit you may think that these scenes are parody but I'm positive they think it comes across as chilling, which makes it so much more hilarious.
Down now to only two students and one psycho teacher, we're treated to a rather lengthy scene of them walking and him shaving his head. You haven't lived till you've watched a man shave his head......psychotically.
Now I have no idea what's going on. Despite crawling into the rafters and into an air duct and back down into the school and into a secret room and through a tunnel that leads into a cave, the teacher is there waiting for them. Mapquest really could have helped these kids out.
This leads to an amazingly bad fight scene in which for the 3rd time in the film the teacher headbutts his victim and doesn't jostle his glasses even slightly. Despite putting up a valiant effort against the man who framed his dad for murder, the nerd is no match for an insane Vietnam Vet, but this does give the girl enough time to escape. Escape where you might ask? Well through a door, up half a flight of stairs and back into the school. They went through an awful lot of trouble to get.....nevermind. It's like shooting dumb fish in a dumb barrel at this point.
Oh fuck me in the ass. At the start of the film, when detention first started, the teacher told the kids to write an essay on why they're in detention, ya know, just like in The Breakfast Club. Well now, instead of continuing to run, the girl just sits down on the floor and pulls out a piece of paper and begins to read it. It's the nerds essay, and we're treated to a knockoff of the end of The Breakfast Club where the principal reads Judd Nelsons essay. Again, it seems like this may be parody, but I swear it's not. Not only do we get a voice over but we're treated to a montage of the tender moments goth girl and nerd boy spent throughout the film, both of them. It's amazing how someone can be so inspired by such great films and yet have zero grasp of what those films were doing. It's fucking grand.
Ahaha. So the girl, inspired by reading nerd boys essay, decides to get on the PA and challenge the teacher to meet her on the roof. Here we get a glimpse of what a Jackie Chan movie would look like if Jackie Chan were a 16 year old girl and his nemesis was a middle aged white man. In this harrowing, edge of your seat fight scene, he has flashbacks of Nam, if Nam were the woods behind Shop N Bag. Realizing what he's done, the teacher decides to kill himself, which gives our heroin time to sit on a grate and cry as we now get to hear her essay, which sounds just like the boys essay. God, I love that whoever wrote this movie thinks he's saying something profound, I fucking love that he thinks this is deep, and I'm NOT being sarcastic. It's the only reason this piece of shit is as great as it is.
I can't even begin to explain the final scene of the movie. We flash forward two years. The girl returns to the school with her boyfriend and standing on the front step they tell jokes and laugh and then break down and cry in as inorganic a manner as possible. Again, it's just moving between emotions with no particular reason. It turns out her boyfriend is the brother of nerd boy because why not be as absurdly convoluted as possible. They go home and she strips down and gets in the bath while his phone rings. I really have no idea what is supposed to have happened here. He picks up the phone, then reaches into her coat for the gun she carries, then he walks into the bathroom, hands her the phone and slumps over dead from........something? Never minding that her boyfriend is laying there dead, she takes the phone and starts asking who it is, the voice on the other end of the phone menacingly says "find me", and we roll credits. You could threaten to cut my balls off and I still wouldn't be able to tell you what the fuck I just saw.
Sometimes a movie is good because of how bad it is, but then there are movies like this one, that aren't just good because of how bad they are, but because of how bad they are at trying to be good. This thing wants to be clever, it wants to be scary, it wants to tell a story, it's so engorged with story and ideas that it's overflowing, and it's all stammeringly awful. It's not quite The Room, but I'll be damned if it isn't close.
2012 Horror Fest: Inbred: 72 Out Of 100 Stars
Delightfully disgusting and disturbing British tale of four young delinquents and their two caretakers, out on a weekend retreat in the middle of nowhere. But the story doesn't much matter, this movie is all about the twisted behavior of the locals and the top shelf gore.
Once the set up was established, I expected a more or less straight ahead slasher movie with some creepiness thrown in, given the state of the local population (It's called Inbred for a reason). But what I got was a gore fest above and beyond. And it's not just gore, it's fun gore. There is a ton of humor in this one, intentional humor. I was at times vacillating between cringing, wincing, and laughing my ass off, not an easy task for a movie to accomplish.
There isn't any nudity although I found myself strangely attracted to the female lead, Jo Hartley, a middle aged woman with an odd sex appeal. What we do have though is black face, vegetables used to plug orifices, manure used to fill orifices, old naked men playing piano, horses, and a ton of fucking twisted kills. I wouldn't go as far as to call it pure camp, because it's just too damn gross, but it is funny as all get out, especially the lead local
If you're in the mood for a balls to the wall kill fest, with enough blood and guts to fill a barn, then you can't go wrong with this baby.
Once the set up was established, I expected a more or less straight ahead slasher movie with some creepiness thrown in, given the state of the local population (It's called Inbred for a reason). But what I got was a gore fest above and beyond. And it's not just gore, it's fun gore. There is a ton of humor in this one, intentional humor. I was at times vacillating between cringing, wincing, and laughing my ass off, not an easy task for a movie to accomplish.
There isn't any nudity although I found myself strangely attracted to the female lead, Jo Hartley, a middle aged woman with an odd sex appeal. What we do have though is black face, vegetables used to plug orifices, manure used to fill orifices, old naked men playing piano, horses, and a ton of fucking twisted kills. I wouldn't go as far as to call it pure camp, because it's just too damn gross, but it is funny as all get out, especially the lead local
If you're in the mood for a balls to the wall kill fest, with enough blood and guts to fill a barn, then you can't go wrong with this baby.
Paul: 68 Out Of 100 Stars
This a movie that there's nothing wrong with, but not much of it is what I would called very good, either.
It's a pleasant little story about two chaps from England who come to America, go to Comic Con and then embark on a trip to visit some sites of alien folk lore. Along they way they meet Paul, an alien. Paul escaped from Area 51 and is trying to get to a place where his own kind can retrieve him, so he enlists our two main characters.
It's not that it's not funny or touching, but there's no real new ground broken or mighty laughs. It's fine enough, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping for a bit more than I got. Kristen Wig has some funny moments and the skinny lead is ok but the fat one is rather tough to watch. I dunno, it's like they had some British humor and some American humor and sort of got lost along the way trying to meld them into one.
Paul is no John, but it's no Ringo either, It's 90 minutes of George, which won't change your life, but isn't the worst you can do.
It's a pleasant little story about two chaps from England who come to America, go to Comic Con and then embark on a trip to visit some sites of alien folk lore. Along they way they meet Paul, an alien. Paul escaped from Area 51 and is trying to get to a place where his own kind can retrieve him, so he enlists our two main characters.
It's not that it's not funny or touching, but there's no real new ground broken or mighty laughs. It's fine enough, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping for a bit more than I got. Kristen Wig has some funny moments and the skinny lead is ok but the fat one is rather tough to watch. I dunno, it's like they had some British humor and some American humor and sort of got lost along the way trying to meld them into one.
Paul is no John, but it's no Ringo either, It's 90 minutes of George, which won't change your life, but isn't the worst you can do.
My Little Eye: 34 Out 100 Stars
Where do I start with this clunker? The premise is pretty solid, 5 strangers put into a house in the middle of nowhere as part of what they think is an internet reality show. The goal is for them all to stay within the house and a small outside perimeter for 6 months. If nobody leaves they all get a million dollars, if just one leaves, they all lose. Sounds solid enough right? The problem is that that's about as dramatic as it ever gets, I mean reading the premise is as dramatic as it ever gets.
From the start the film betrays itself with it's characters, 3 men and 2 women, whom all, save for 1 guy, are about as nondescript as it gets. Secondly, the film immediately takes you out of whatever hype you had going in by presenting it's plot in a very absurd way. None of the contestants knows the name of the site, has any idea about anything going on outside of they were contacted to be on this show and then put in this house. The very first thing we learn about the characters is that they're all dumb as shit, but that's ok, because being dumb as shit is the most personality any of them are given.
The next problem is that the film is really hard to watch. It's colors are dark and drab and a lot of the footage is night vision or low quality cam footage. If the film were in any way suspenseful I imagine this style would help, but it isn't in the slightest. Instead it's 5 people impossible to care about, in hard to follow shots that irritate from the word go. The first half of the movie just gets more and more irritating as it progresses.
The second half of the movie has some potential spots of excitement but they fade rather quickly. There's a lot of loud music and annoying effects that had me wanting to punch my tv in annoyance. It's trying to be stylized but it's just aggravating to no end. The story itself as it plays out is nothing impressive, despite all the technical bells and whistles they try to throw on top of it.
Let's see, there's some nudity but the chicks are fairly plain. The acting ranges from fine enough to bad. It's a cast full of people who could have been pulled from the line at an open audition for a Soap Opera, all have some degree of attractiveness, but it's daytime tv attractiveness. You know what I mean?
So yeah, a film whose premise and occasional jump scare are enough to keep you from turning it off, but once you credits roll you'll just be mad at yourself. Like when you're lactose intolerent but have a hankering for ice cream, but the only ice cream in the house is a kind you don't like, but you eat it anyway and then you've got diahrea and you didn't even enjoy it.
From the start the film betrays itself with it's characters, 3 men and 2 women, whom all, save for 1 guy, are about as nondescript as it gets. Secondly, the film immediately takes you out of whatever hype you had going in by presenting it's plot in a very absurd way. None of the contestants knows the name of the site, has any idea about anything going on outside of they were contacted to be on this show and then put in this house. The very first thing we learn about the characters is that they're all dumb as shit, but that's ok, because being dumb as shit is the most personality any of them are given.
The next problem is that the film is really hard to watch. It's colors are dark and drab and a lot of the footage is night vision or low quality cam footage. If the film were in any way suspenseful I imagine this style would help, but it isn't in the slightest. Instead it's 5 people impossible to care about, in hard to follow shots that irritate from the word go. The first half of the movie just gets more and more irritating as it progresses.
The second half of the movie has some potential spots of excitement but they fade rather quickly. There's a lot of loud music and annoying effects that had me wanting to punch my tv in annoyance. It's trying to be stylized but it's just aggravating to no end. The story itself as it plays out is nothing impressive, despite all the technical bells and whistles they try to throw on top of it.
Let's see, there's some nudity but the chicks are fairly plain. The acting ranges from fine enough to bad. It's a cast full of people who could have been pulled from the line at an open audition for a Soap Opera, all have some degree of attractiveness, but it's daytime tv attractiveness. You know what I mean?
So yeah, a film whose premise and occasional jump scare are enough to keep you from turning it off, but once you credits roll you'll just be mad at yourself. Like when you're lactose intolerent but have a hankering for ice cream, but the only ice cream in the house is a kind you don't like, but you eat it anyway and then you've got diahrea and you didn't even enjoy it.
Men In Black 3: 93 Out Of 100 Stars
I feel weird rating a blockbuster this high because it's not as great a film as say, Watchmen was. But there's not a thing about MIB 3 that isn't awesome. The effects, the writing, the story, it's all top caliber. I'll not get into the plot but it's at once elaborate and tight. Just perfect.
The alien hijinks are top notch. Even when they're fighting some ugly looking other worlders, there's a ton of slapstick that works perfectly.
Smith, Jones and Brolin are all at the top of their game. Brolin is so dead on playing a young Tommy Lee Jones that you can almost forget it is a different actor, it's amazing.
So yeah, MIB 3 is probably as much fun as you'll have at the theater this year. Go see it.
The alien hijinks are top notch. Even when they're fighting some ugly looking other worlders, there's a ton of slapstick that works perfectly.
Smith, Jones and Brolin are all at the top of their game. Brolin is so dead on playing a young Tommy Lee Jones that you can almost forget it is a different actor, it's amazing.
So yeah, MIB 3 is probably as much fun as you'll have at the theater this year. Go see it.
Two Headed Shark Attack: 35 Out Of 100 Stars
It's been awhile since I've been down to watch one of these Asylum schlock fests. The fact of the matter is that they're all pretty much the same, and can get a bit tedious once you realize you're goofing on the same things in every movie. But with an extended break I decided to re break my cherry and settled in for a doozy of an awful film.
The premise is that a group of college kids, for whatever reason, are spending a semester at sea, apparently somewhere near Polynesia. Their boat gets attacked by a two headed shark and the rest of the film of ensues.
Brooke Hogan is one of the students, looking as manly as ever. Carmen Electra plays a doctor or a scientist or something, I dunno. She is given nothing to do in the movie and still manages to turn in one of the worst acting jobs I've EVER seen. Charlie O'Connell, the brother of the real O'Connell actor, also co-stars, and is pretty awful in his own right.
So ok. Their ship gets damaged by a two headed shark. O'Connell insists that they're sinking, even though in the entire length of the movie the boat doesn't go down an inch and never appears to be taking on water. They spot an Island either very far away or very close, depending on which shot is used in the final cut. For some unknown reason, O'Connell decides it would be a good idea for the students to leave the boat and go to the Island to..........look for scrap metal.
So the students use a life boat to go this Island while a hot blonde girl whose job I do not remember, maybe she was the teacher, goes under the boat to try and weld the hull that has a crack in it. When they get to the island, O'Connell tells them that this is not an island, but atoll, built upon coral, which explains why the island randomly shakes and sinks a little bit. Ok. They find a few buildings on the island but they're empty. Charlie again explains that it's probably only used during fishing season. What other seasons are there in Polynesia? Do they work as accountants the rest of the year?
Alright, so as soon as they get on the island they begin to look for.........boats. Which they find. Two motor boats, that Brooke Hogan "tunes up", because that's her skill or something. A group of students get in each boat and they decide to race. Then the shark attacks one of them and from there it becomes a game of how do we get away from this monster shark.
The characters are pretty non descript except for a muscle head written as broadly as possible. Look at his guns. Then there's the smart one who has a giant nose and an answer for every dilemma. There are a bunch of big titted chicks, including two who decide to fulfill one of the guys dreams by having a 3 way as they stand in about 2 feet of water and get attacked by the shark.
Let's point out, if not discuss in great length, some of the problems with the movie. First of all, the shark is either 30 feet long or 3 feet long, depending on the boat it's attacking. When it's attacking the main boat it's as big as it, but when it's attacking a speed boat, it's smaller than it.
The teeth bend in a lot of the shots that bounce between photo shop and puppetry. Attack victims drain copious amounts of blood in one shot, but are fine in the next shot, then their head gets ripped off, and in the next shot it's still on. This giant shark is somehow able to not only sneak up on people standing in 3 feet of water, but actually get to them. The perspectives are ridiculous as I mentioned earlier. One scene they'll be looking at the boat off in the far distance from the island and the next minute we see a wide shot of the boat about 200 feet from the island. This happens the whole movie. And while it was funny at the moment, it's not really funny when it's intended to be like that. It's funny if the makers of the movie had no money and this is what happens, it's not funny when they have the ability to fix shit like but don't because it's funnier this way. It's really not.
The script is ludicrous of course. The acting is awful and the effects are horrid. But I guess I had fun watching it, mainly because I had someone to watch it with and we both enjoyed pointing out all the dumb shit, but that will only get you so far.
So unless you're stoned or absolutely into this type of film, I don't imagine you could put up with it very long. That being said, if you're looking for an MST3K type of experience, it probably doesn't get much better than this atrocity.
The premise is that a group of college kids, for whatever reason, are spending a semester at sea, apparently somewhere near Polynesia. Their boat gets attacked by a two headed shark and the rest of the film of ensues.
Brooke Hogan is one of the students, looking as manly as ever. Carmen Electra plays a doctor or a scientist or something, I dunno. She is given nothing to do in the movie and still manages to turn in one of the worst acting jobs I've EVER seen. Charlie O'Connell, the brother of the real O'Connell actor, also co-stars, and is pretty awful in his own right.
So ok. Their ship gets damaged by a two headed shark. O'Connell insists that they're sinking, even though in the entire length of the movie the boat doesn't go down an inch and never appears to be taking on water. They spot an Island either very far away or very close, depending on which shot is used in the final cut. For some unknown reason, O'Connell decides it would be a good idea for the students to leave the boat and go to the Island to..........look for scrap metal.
So the students use a life boat to go this Island while a hot blonde girl whose job I do not remember, maybe she was the teacher, goes under the boat to try and weld the hull that has a crack in it. When they get to the island, O'Connell tells them that this is not an island, but atoll, built upon coral, which explains why the island randomly shakes and sinks a little bit. Ok. They find a few buildings on the island but they're empty. Charlie again explains that it's probably only used during fishing season. What other seasons are there in Polynesia? Do they work as accountants the rest of the year?
Alright, so as soon as they get on the island they begin to look for.........boats. Which they find. Two motor boats, that Brooke Hogan "tunes up", because that's her skill or something. A group of students get in each boat and they decide to race. Then the shark attacks one of them and from there it becomes a game of how do we get away from this monster shark.
The characters are pretty non descript except for a muscle head written as broadly as possible. Look at his guns. Then there's the smart one who has a giant nose and an answer for every dilemma. There are a bunch of big titted chicks, including two who decide to fulfill one of the guys dreams by having a 3 way as they stand in about 2 feet of water and get attacked by the shark.
Let's point out, if not discuss in great length, some of the problems with the movie. First of all, the shark is either 30 feet long or 3 feet long, depending on the boat it's attacking. When it's attacking the main boat it's as big as it, but when it's attacking a speed boat, it's smaller than it.
The teeth bend in a lot of the shots that bounce between photo shop and puppetry. Attack victims drain copious amounts of blood in one shot, but are fine in the next shot, then their head gets ripped off, and in the next shot it's still on. This giant shark is somehow able to not only sneak up on people standing in 3 feet of water, but actually get to them. The perspectives are ridiculous as I mentioned earlier. One scene they'll be looking at the boat off in the far distance from the island and the next minute we see a wide shot of the boat about 200 feet from the island. This happens the whole movie. And while it was funny at the moment, it's not really funny when it's intended to be like that. It's funny if the makers of the movie had no money and this is what happens, it's not funny when they have the ability to fix shit like but don't because it's funnier this way. It's really not.
The script is ludicrous of course. The acting is awful and the effects are horrid. But I guess I had fun watching it, mainly because I had someone to watch it with and we both enjoyed pointing out all the dumb shit, but that will only get you so far.
So unless you're stoned or absolutely into this type of film, I don't imagine you could put up with it very long. That being said, if you're looking for an MST3K type of experience, it probably doesn't get much better than this atrocity.
2011 Year In Review
2011 Year In Review
Probably not much sense in me doing a top 10 list as I clearly didn't watch too many movies in 2011, but fuck it. Of the films I did see, I think the top 4 probably hold up real well against anything I didn't see. We Need To Talk About Kevin really knocked my cock in the dirt, just an awesome film and an awesome performance from Tilda Swinton.
Super 8 and Chronicle were, and still are, such breaths of fresh air in the monster/super hero movie world. I'd take either of those over anything else in the genre, save for The Watchmen, in the last 5 years.
Top 10 Movies Of 2011
1. We Need To Talk About Kevin
2. Super 8
3. Chronicle
4. Melancholia
5. Cedar Rapids
6. Planet Of The Apes
7. Barneys Version
8. 21 Jump Street
9. The Descendants
10. The Change Up
Probably not much sense in me doing a top 10 list as I clearly didn't watch too many movies in 2011, but fuck it. Of the films I did see, I think the top 4 probably hold up real well against anything I didn't see. We Need To Talk About Kevin really knocked my cock in the dirt, just an awesome film and an awesome performance from Tilda Swinton.
Super 8 and Chronicle were, and still are, such breaths of fresh air in the monster/super hero movie world. I'd take either of those over anything else in the genre, save for The Watchmen, in the last 5 years.
Top 10 Movies Of 2011
1. We Need To Talk About Kevin
2. Super 8
3. Chronicle
4. Melancholia
5. Cedar Rapids
6. Planet Of The Apes
7. Barneys Version
8. 21 Jump Street
9. The Descendants
10. The Change Up
Monday, August 5, 2013
Tower Heist: 56 Out Of 100 Stars
Tower Heist is a fun, frenetic, intriguing film, for about 45 minutes. Then it all pretty much goes to shit.
In that first 45 minutes we meet Stiller, who runs NY's highest high class building, full of wealthy fuckers whom he and his staff pamper. Casey Afleck plays his brother in law and concierge, and there's a Spaniard, funny dude, don't know his name, who just started working as an elevator operator. Alan Alda plays the richest of the rich whom it turns out has been embezzling or defrauding or whatever it's called. Anyway, at some point a while back Stiller gave Alda everyones pensions to invest and now it's all gone.
So our 3 main characters join up with solemn and down on his luck Matthew Broderick, who used to live in the building, but has gone bankrupt, to try and steal $20 Million in cash they believe to be hidden in Aldas penthouse.
While all these men have knowledge of the building and certain skills, none of them are thieves, which is where Eddie Murphy comes in as Stillers thug neighbor.
It's all pretty good up to here, but once the heist starts it's pretty much just wasted screen time for everyone. There's a rather absurd plot twist involving a car and so on and the last half of the movie kind of drags.
Very disappointing finish to what was a fun start.
In that first 45 minutes we meet Stiller, who runs NY's highest high class building, full of wealthy fuckers whom he and his staff pamper. Casey Afleck plays his brother in law and concierge, and there's a Spaniard, funny dude, don't know his name, who just started working as an elevator operator. Alan Alda plays the richest of the rich whom it turns out has been embezzling or defrauding or whatever it's called. Anyway, at some point a while back Stiller gave Alda everyones pensions to invest and now it's all gone.
So our 3 main characters join up with solemn and down on his luck Matthew Broderick, who used to live in the building, but has gone bankrupt, to try and steal $20 Million in cash they believe to be hidden in Aldas penthouse.
While all these men have knowledge of the building and certain skills, none of them are thieves, which is where Eddie Murphy comes in as Stillers thug neighbor.
It's all pretty good up to here, but once the heist starts it's pretty much just wasted screen time for everyone. There's a rather absurd plot twist involving a car and so on and the last half of the movie kind of drags.
Very disappointing finish to what was a fun start.
Haywire: 70 Out Of 100 Stars
I'll be honest, I couldn't really tell you much of what was going or who was who or what, but the action was good. Didn't like her picking up a dude and telling him the story as a means of narration. Why the fuck would she need him? And don't say to bandage her up.
I gotta admit, some the fight scenes, I was thinking about the sweat she was working up in her lady parts and it turned me on. The fight scenes were mostly realistic but they went on too long and with too much punch/block choreography. And I get it, chokes are the thing nowadays, but it got to be too much.
Maybe I didn't like this movie as much as I thought. Nah, I did. It was good enough I guess. It wont knock your socks off or nothing but it's good for what it tries to be.
I gotta admit, some the fight scenes, I was thinking about the sweat she was working up in her lady parts and it turned me on. The fight scenes were mostly realistic but they went on too long and with too much punch/block choreography. And I get it, chokes are the thing nowadays, but it got to be too much.
Maybe I didn't like this movie as much as I thought. Nah, I did. It was good enough I guess. It wont knock your socks off or nothing but it's good for what it tries to be.
21 Jump Street: 74 Out Of 100 Stars
It was fun. Channing Tatum is really interesting to watch on screen, no homo.
I thought this was a damn good film. The chase scenes added comedy and really worked. The relationship between the leads was believable and fun. The way they handled the movie being named 21 Jump Street was clever and didn't take itself so seriously.
Just an enjoyable romp.
I thought this was a damn good film. The chase scenes added comedy and really worked. The relationship between the leads was believable and fun. The way they handled the movie being named 21 Jump Street was clever and didn't take itself so seriously.
Just an enjoyable romp.
Chronicle: 81 Out Of 100 Stars
Chronicle is at all times a wonderful super hero, and coming of age movie for the first half, that segues brilliantly into a fantastic action packed drama in the second half.
I won't spoil much about the story but I will touch on a few things.
The excuse for the "Blair Witch" style is decent, and while it bothered me in the beginning, I got used to it as the film progressed and eventually it wasn't a distraction at all. In fact, the various styles of camera work they incorporated added to the film by the time things got rolling.
The cast, including the lead, are very good. It's very easy to make High School characters annoying and lessen your story, but not here. That aspect is done well.
The origins of the "powers" are dealt with and moved on from, that isn't what the film is about, and I'm glad they didn't waste a lot of time dwelling on things.
The movie traverses the initial excitement and fun of the powers with the eventual problems that they can cause, as well as the leads inner demons.
The last act was just a butt fuck ton of fun. I loved that a lot of the action was filmed from far away, it added a sense of destruction to things and probably allowed them to convey a lot more emotion and provide a lot more thunder than if everything was shot very tightly.
While I would put it slightly behind last years Super 8, Chronicle is a very strong film in it's own right.
This is a Chronicle of how to make a good super hero movie from scratch.
I won't spoil much about the story but I will touch on a few things.
The excuse for the "Blair Witch" style is decent, and while it bothered me in the beginning, I got used to it as the film progressed and eventually it wasn't a distraction at all. In fact, the various styles of camera work they incorporated added to the film by the time things got rolling.
The cast, including the lead, are very good. It's very easy to make High School characters annoying and lessen your story, but not here. That aspect is done well.
The origins of the "powers" are dealt with and moved on from, that isn't what the film is about, and I'm glad they didn't waste a lot of time dwelling on things.
The movie traverses the initial excitement and fun of the powers with the eventual problems that they can cause, as well as the leads inner demons.
The last act was just a butt fuck ton of fun. I loved that a lot of the action was filmed from far away, it added a sense of destruction to things and probably allowed them to convey a lot more emotion and provide a lot more thunder than if everything was shot very tightly.
While I would put it slightly behind last years Super 8, Chronicle is a very strong film in it's own right.
This is a Chronicle of how to make a good super hero movie from scratch.
Young Adult: 59 Out Of 100 Stars
Charlize Theron & Patton Oswalt play the leads, which excited me. Diablo Cody wrote it, which is a preamble for my agitation.
So Theron plays a chick who never really matured, she's a writer of tween books, which is fitting since she seems to be perpetually stuck in high school mode.
The film didn't really ring with me until a reveal about three quarters of the way through, which explained character motivations much better. I'd like to say it made me feel more sympathetic for the lead, but it really didn't.
I guess the reason the film really didn't work for me was the relationship between Theron & Oswalt. I just didn't really believe that she would attach herself to him in the way she does. Add on his rather dumb back story and it just became more effort than it was worth to accept their relationship, or their individual existences.
The dialog isn't completely annoying but it's agitating.
There's a decent story here, and I like all the actors, so I'm giving it a moderate thumbs up but I was certainly not as impressed as some reviews led me to believe I would be..
This Young Adult would be served just growing the fuck up already.
So Theron plays a chick who never really matured, she's a writer of tween books, which is fitting since she seems to be perpetually stuck in high school mode.
The film didn't really ring with me until a reveal about three quarters of the way through, which explained character motivations much better. I'd like to say it made me feel more sympathetic for the lead, but it really didn't.
I guess the reason the film really didn't work for me was the relationship between Theron & Oswalt. I just didn't really believe that she would attach herself to him in the way she does. Add on his rather dumb back story and it just became more effort than it was worth to accept their relationship, or their individual existences.
The dialog isn't completely annoying but it's agitating.
There's a decent story here, and I like all the actors, so I'm giving it a moderate thumbs up but I was certainly not as impressed as some reviews led me to believe I would be..
This Young Adult would be served just growing the fuck up already.
The Grey: 58 Out Of 100 Stars
A slightly good rating for a movie that has some real intense and interesting moments, but most of the time gets crushed under the weight of convenient action movie cliches.
Liam Neeson plays a sharpshooter hired by a big oil company to help protect the base and it's workers from wolves.
Neesons character is the sort of movie hero who has the stoic ability to do and know anything, a human jedi so to speak, although that's tempered by moments where he admits to fear and sometimes questions his own plan, we have no doubt that of all the people in this film, he's the one we'd want to be trapped with.
So anyway, if you've seen the trailer you know that he and a group of workers crash in the middle of nowhere and have to try and get back to civilization while being hunted by a pack of wolves. The wolf stuff is pretty awesome, but the group that Neeson is leading is fairly stock. Including the smart ass who wants to challenge everyone and wants to go another way. This shit bogs the film down.
The cat and mouse with the wolves is fun, but in the end it's just your normal characters in a film like this. There's a weird part at the end I couldn't quite figure out that included the group having to zip line off a mountain, but then there are still wolves and I'm left to wonder how the wolves got down there, but whatever.
The Grey is pretty much exactly that, shades of grey. Some good stuff underneath, but pretty much what you'd expect on the surface.
Liam Neeson plays a sharpshooter hired by a big oil company to help protect the base and it's workers from wolves.
Neesons character is the sort of movie hero who has the stoic ability to do and know anything, a human jedi so to speak, although that's tempered by moments where he admits to fear and sometimes questions his own plan, we have no doubt that of all the people in this film, he's the one we'd want to be trapped with.
So anyway, if you've seen the trailer you know that he and a group of workers crash in the middle of nowhere and have to try and get back to civilization while being hunted by a pack of wolves. The wolf stuff is pretty awesome, but the group that Neeson is leading is fairly stock. Including the smart ass who wants to challenge everyone and wants to go another way. This shit bogs the film down.
The cat and mouse with the wolves is fun, but in the end it's just your normal characters in a film like this. There's a weird part at the end I couldn't quite figure out that included the group having to zip line off a mountain, but then there are still wolves and I'm left to wonder how the wolves got down there, but whatever.
The Grey is pretty much exactly that, shades of grey. Some good stuff underneath, but pretty much what you'd expect on the surface.
We Need To Talk About Kevin: 90 Out Of 100 Stars
Tilda Swinton is the center of this film about a mothers relationship with her son, and she is a fucking tour de force.
The movie spans about 17 years in and out of flashbacks, and although it can be pieced together, it still pretty much leaves you on the edge of your seat constantly.
The gist is that Swinton and John C. Reilly meet and maybe they fall in love, they certainly seem happy at one point. A baby comes not long after, and everything pretty much changes.
I wont say much more about the script. The story is so damn sad because really what can be done? From the earliest moments of his life, Kevin is both trouble and troubled. Could mom have done more? Did she even know how to do more? Maybe, maybe not. At times it's easy to blame her because, well, she's a fully developed human being and maybe she ought to know better, but how do you deal with something that will not bend?
Swinton is the center of the story and has almost 100% of the screen time. Reilly is very miscast as the everyman dad but he doesn't detract too much if only because he isn't on screen much.
Kevin is played by three different actors at varying ages and they all convey exactly what needs to be conveyed. Can you imagine liking any of them? Probably not.
This should be Swintons coming out party as a big time actress, we need to talk about Oscar.
The movie spans about 17 years in and out of flashbacks, and although it can be pieced together, it still pretty much leaves you on the edge of your seat constantly.
The gist is that Swinton and John C. Reilly meet and maybe they fall in love, they certainly seem happy at one point. A baby comes not long after, and everything pretty much changes.
I wont say much more about the script. The story is so damn sad because really what can be done? From the earliest moments of his life, Kevin is both trouble and troubled. Could mom have done more? Did she even know how to do more? Maybe, maybe not. At times it's easy to blame her because, well, she's a fully developed human being and maybe she ought to know better, but how do you deal with something that will not bend?
Swinton is the center of the story and has almost 100% of the screen time. Reilly is very miscast as the everyman dad but he doesn't detract too much if only because he isn't on screen much.
Kevin is played by three different actors at varying ages and they all convey exactly what needs to be conveyed. Can you imagine liking any of them? Probably not.
This should be Swintons coming out party as a big time actress, we need to talk about Oscar.
Melancholia: 80 Out Of 100 Stars
A wonderful movie that uses the possibility of Earths destruction as a mere backdrop for a story about two sisters.
The movie may be seen by some as something fancy or what not, but really it's a story that for anything it lacks, it makes up for in simply wanting to see what happens next. That I care about a movie matters so much more than how I came to care.
Split into two halves, Justine and Claire, the film spends the Justine segment at her wedding reception. Here a large and diverse cast intermingle during what should be such a happy event, but underneath it is not. Not at all. And that brings us to Kristen Dunst, who is stunning and wonderful as Justine. The more we learn about her the more our feelings change, until there isn't much left but sadness. Kiefer Sutherland and John Hurt are both very strong, as is Alexander Skarsgard as the lucky husband.
The 2nd half of the film focuses on just the main four characters in the family, following them over days of solitude in a big estate just waiting for whatever is about to happen. It's slower and sparser than the first half of the film but is held together by the payoff we are anticipating.
Put it all together and you've got a sad, brilliant, beautiful movie, that shows just how insignificant we really are.
The movie may be seen by some as something fancy or what not, but really it's a story that for anything it lacks, it makes up for in simply wanting to see what happens next. That I care about a movie matters so much more than how I came to care.
Split into two halves, Justine and Claire, the film spends the Justine segment at her wedding reception. Here a large and diverse cast intermingle during what should be such a happy event, but underneath it is not. Not at all. And that brings us to Kristen Dunst, who is stunning and wonderful as Justine. The more we learn about her the more our feelings change, until there isn't much left but sadness. Kiefer Sutherland and John Hurt are both very strong, as is Alexander Skarsgard as the lucky husband.
The 2nd half of the film focuses on just the main four characters in the family, following them over days of solitude in a big estate just waiting for whatever is about to happen. It's slower and sparser than the first half of the film but is held together by the payoff we are anticipating.
Put it all together and you've got a sad, brilliant, beautiful movie, that shows just how insignificant we really are.
Harold & Kumar Part Three: 59 Out Of 100 Stars
It gets a slightly above average mark for making me laugh some, which is what a comedy is supposed to do. The problem is that the 2nd half of the movie, starting with the intro of Doogie, just goes downhill pretty damn fast and veers into retarded territory full steam.
I liked the set up. One is fat and the other is straight laced, blah blah, conflict, brought together with a mission. It was a decent story and had some strong jokes in the first half. Lt. Dangle and the other hanger on were funny. Was let down by the big reveal at the party, and then it just sort of slip slides away.
The 3D shit was sort of annoying but not as much as I thought it might be considering they did a ton of it.
Anyhoo, a let down considering how good the first two were but I get the impression that this was sort of cranked out in a couple weeks so whatevs. Here's hoping they spend some time on the 4th one and get it right.
Should have called this one, Harold & Kumar Go To The Well One Too Many Times.
I liked the set up. One is fat and the other is straight laced, blah blah, conflict, brought together with a mission. It was a decent story and had some strong jokes in the first half. Lt. Dangle and the other hanger on were funny. Was let down by the big reveal at the party, and then it just sort of slip slides away.
The 3D shit was sort of annoying but not as much as I thought it might be considering they did a ton of it.
Anyhoo, a let down considering how good the first two were but I get the impression that this was sort of cranked out in a couple weeks so whatevs. Here's hoping they spend some time on the 4th one and get it right.
Should have called this one, Harold & Kumar Go To The Well One Too Many Times.
The Descendants: 73 Out Of 100 Stars
So I popped this in expecting an Irish movie about a band, or an album by an Irish band. Turns out it's a movie and not an album and it has nothing to do with Ireland. In fact it's a George Clooney vehicle set on the island of Hawaii. But it's a movie, not an actual vehicle like a car or a train or something.
So what we have here is another one of these here Hollywood movies that are about something, but more or less just play out as slice of life films. Clooney is a land baron who has a decision to make regarding property that his family has owned in Hawaii for ever and ever. While he is the trustee, he has a boatload of cousins and relatives whom his decision will affect greatly. Monies and all that.
Anyhoo, that's sort of the subplot. The main plot surrounds his wife and an accident she just had, if she'll survive it, and other things that come to light about her recent activities.
The cast is good and strong and the story is solid but at times it gets frustrating watching George Fucking Clooney play an everyman. So many of his recent films have seen him play down to his character. While it may not be fair to judge a movie based on how you want its lead to act, I've done that anyway, so fuck off.
The film is well paced, though it does drag at points given its 2 hour run time.
The girl who plays his oldest daughter is pretty hot, and she's in a bikini or cut off shorts most of the film so there's that.
There is some heavy handed melodrama, but it's not played out in the usual way that makes you feel like you're watching Lifetime.
In the end it's a fine film and I guess it's what passes for "Oscar worthy" these days, but Christ Almighty it'd be nice if Hollywood started aiming bigger.
So what we have here is another one of these here Hollywood movies that are about something, but more or less just play out as slice of life films. Clooney is a land baron who has a decision to make regarding property that his family has owned in Hawaii for ever and ever. While he is the trustee, he has a boatload of cousins and relatives whom his decision will affect greatly. Monies and all that.
Anyhoo, that's sort of the subplot. The main plot surrounds his wife and an accident she just had, if she'll survive it, and other things that come to light about her recent activities.
The cast is good and strong and the story is solid but at times it gets frustrating watching George Fucking Clooney play an everyman. So many of his recent films have seen him play down to his character. While it may not be fair to judge a movie based on how you want its lead to act, I've done that anyway, so fuck off.
The film is well paced, though it does drag at points given its 2 hour run time.
The girl who plays his oldest daughter is pretty hot, and she's in a bikini or cut off shorts most of the film so there's that.
There is some heavy handed melodrama, but it's not played out in the usual way that makes you feel like you're watching Lifetime.
In the end it's a fine film and I guess it's what passes for "Oscar worthy" these days, but Christ Almighty it'd be nice if Hollywood started aiming bigger.
The Change Up: 69 Out Of 100 Stars
Silly little body switch movie where Bateman and Reynolds are pissing in a fountain, complaining about their lives, and voila, they wake up the next morning in each others bodies. That's about the extent of an explanation the movie offers, relying instead on the obvious comedic setups and the general charm of it's leads to carry a pretty thin script.
But I thought the movie was funny, and when it came time for the sappy third act where they both realize they want their bodies back, I was drawn in, what can I say.
The pace is good, the high comedy spots are really good, and the film stays funny enough all the way through that it's more than worth watching, dumb plot and all. There's also some nice titty and ass and general sexiness although Olivia Wilde is underused and even worse is obviously body doubled out in a big scene which was irritating, but whatever.
The Chang Up is no 90 mph fastball but it's in the strike zone.
But I thought the movie was funny, and when it came time for the sappy third act where they both realize they want their bodies back, I was drawn in, what can I say.
The pace is good, the high comedy spots are really good, and the film stays funny enough all the way through that it's more than worth watching, dumb plot and all. There's also some nice titty and ass and general sexiness although Olivia Wilde is underused and even worse is obviously body doubled out in a big scene which was irritating, but whatever.
The Chang Up is no 90 mph fastball but it's in the strike zone.
2011 Horror Fest: Wrong Turn 4: 26 Out Of 100 Stars
The first Wrong Turn was an adequate mainstream release horror movie, starring Eliza Dushku. The next two Wrong Turns were horrid straight to video shit fests that had decent premises but horrrrrrible execution.
This fourth installment spends the first 10 minutes showing us the origins of the hillbillies, and it's a pretty fun start. We segue into the future, but still our past, 2003 to be exact. I guess this supposed to be a prequel of sorts.
Anyway, in modern days we're treated to a very nice sex scene that features a male/female couple and a Black/Asian lesbian couple. All the chicks are smoking and it's a pretty lengthy scene that got my hopes up that this was gonna be a fun movie.
And for the first 40 minutes or so it is. The setup is fine enough, there are a bevy of hot chicks and the stage for some pretty nice gore is set. And then it all falls to shit.
The setup has a group of kids snowmobiling to a friends cabin in the backwoods when they get lost and stumble upon an old sanitarium that seems like a nice place to hunker down during the snow storm that's blasting through.
The 2nd half of the movie, once the kids realize they're in trouble, suffers from the same insane stupidity the previous films did. There really isn't a lot of chasing, they just sort of get picked off one by one, and we're treated to interminable scenes of hillbillies eating flesh that go on for fucking ever. The group is always arguing about what to do and always end up doing the obviously wrong thing. Someone gets captured, they hear his screams, and I swear they debate going to get him for a good 15 minutes. For 15 fucking minutes we see pieces of flesh being cut off the poor bastard intermixed with the rest of the group arguing whether or not to go get him. It literally had me screaming at the TV.
Then they rather easily capture the hillbillies and instead of just killing them, one of the girls argues that they don't deserve to die and guilts one of the dudes into not killing them. It's just so silly. At this point the movie becomes an exercise in futility, and we still got a long way to go.
Of course their dumb decisions come back to haunt them. There's just a mind numbing scene a little bit later when one of the men go missing, and moments later someone shows up with a sack over it's head. Subtle, this film is not. Of course the same girls who wanted to let the mutants live just a few hours ago have no problem knifing up sack head with vigor, only to remove the sack once they've gutted him and get a big surprise. Gee, I wonder........
There's a final chase scene out in the snow, and even after all they've gone through, the remaining group can't just stay the fuck together as they run away. I felt dumber and dumber the longer this fucking movie went on.
So yeah, the movie isn't really suspenseful, and while it's gory, you sort of get desensitized to it after a few moments. The scenes drag on and on, nobody does anything that remotely makes sense. It just sucks.
Outside of some very good sex scenes early and a good setup, this film offers nothing. Even the cast of hot chicks is mostly wasted in layers of clothing.
I guess I should hold out hope for the 5th installment because this many wrong turns has to eventually produce a right.
This fourth installment spends the first 10 minutes showing us the origins of the hillbillies, and it's a pretty fun start. We segue into the future, but still our past, 2003 to be exact. I guess this supposed to be a prequel of sorts.
Anyway, in modern days we're treated to a very nice sex scene that features a male/female couple and a Black/Asian lesbian couple. All the chicks are smoking and it's a pretty lengthy scene that got my hopes up that this was gonna be a fun movie.
And for the first 40 minutes or so it is. The setup is fine enough, there are a bevy of hot chicks and the stage for some pretty nice gore is set. And then it all falls to shit.
The setup has a group of kids snowmobiling to a friends cabin in the backwoods when they get lost and stumble upon an old sanitarium that seems like a nice place to hunker down during the snow storm that's blasting through.
The 2nd half of the movie, once the kids realize they're in trouble, suffers from the same insane stupidity the previous films did. There really isn't a lot of chasing, they just sort of get picked off one by one, and we're treated to interminable scenes of hillbillies eating flesh that go on for fucking ever. The group is always arguing about what to do and always end up doing the obviously wrong thing. Someone gets captured, they hear his screams, and I swear they debate going to get him for a good 15 minutes. For 15 fucking minutes we see pieces of flesh being cut off the poor bastard intermixed with the rest of the group arguing whether or not to go get him. It literally had me screaming at the TV.
Then they rather easily capture the hillbillies and instead of just killing them, one of the girls argues that they don't deserve to die and guilts one of the dudes into not killing them. It's just so silly. At this point the movie becomes an exercise in futility, and we still got a long way to go.
Of course their dumb decisions come back to haunt them. There's just a mind numbing scene a little bit later when one of the men go missing, and moments later someone shows up with a sack over it's head. Subtle, this film is not. Of course the same girls who wanted to let the mutants live just a few hours ago have no problem knifing up sack head with vigor, only to remove the sack once they've gutted him and get a big surprise. Gee, I wonder........
There's a final chase scene out in the snow, and even after all they've gone through, the remaining group can't just stay the fuck together as they run away. I felt dumber and dumber the longer this fucking movie went on.
So yeah, the movie isn't really suspenseful, and while it's gory, you sort of get desensitized to it after a few moments. The scenes drag on and on, nobody does anything that remotely makes sense. It just sucks.
Outside of some very good sex scenes early and a good setup, this film offers nothing. Even the cast of hot chicks is mostly wasted in layers of clothing.
I guess I should hold out hope for the 5th installment because this many wrong turns has to eventually produce a right.
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