Brick
August 31, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I like Bogart movies so when I read the description, I was expecting a B&W straight up period piece but Writer/Director Rian Johnson created something totally new, and totally cool.
If film noir and classic gumshoe detective stories are your cup of Joe then this flicker show is for you - sort of. Brick is set in modern times with a high school as it’s backdrop, and ‘teenagers’ as the primary players but the dialog and subject matter is straight out of the 30’s and 40’s. That may sound weird and your first instinct may be to ignore this and go on about your day, but that would be a mistake. Brick is loaded with hip original concepts and a quirky delivery but at the end of the day it’s a darn good movie.
Brendan (Gordon-Levitt) is a loner that’s on a quest to solve the mystery surrounding the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend Emily (de Ravin) by infiltrating the world she stumbled into to avoid him. Emily breaks up with Brendan and tells him not to come looking for her, and to leave her alone she doesn’t need to be ’saved’. Yeah Right, whatever, you know those are famous last words and sure enough Emily gets in too deep and calls on Brendan to save her. Brendan relies on the council and assistance of a cast of cliche 40’s detective flick inspired characters to piece the puzzle together. The mystery is revealed and to find out who is ultimately responsible, Brendan enters into a web of drugs and crime headed by a guy known only as The Pin (Haas), his band of flunkies and a sexy vixen that draws him deeper and deeper into the maze with every move he makes. I don’t like to spoil anything and Brick is a movie that it would spoil it to give away the slightest detail so I will leave you to your devices, and you can decide or not if you want to give this cool movie a shot.
Brick is a blend of old and new concepts and every element of both comes together perfectly.
Snakes on a Plane
August 18, 2006 | Leave a Comment
The beauty of Snakes on a Plane is that the title tells you everything you need to know about the movie. Obviously there are snakes, and they are on a plane, but it also tells you that this movie doesn’t take itself seriously and just wants to have a good time. Add in Samuel L. Jackson and you have more than a good time, you’ve got a great time.
There’s a very thin plot here to sting together the porn… er.. the snake scenes. A kid sees a notorious gangster type commit a murder and the FBI wants him to testify. The bad guy of course intends to kill the kid and as you have likely guessed by now decides the best way to do it is by releasing some poisonous snakes… on a plane.
I did mention it was a thin plot.
None of that matters though as it’s all part of the charm that makes this movie damn near perfect. The acting is top notch… at least when Mr. Jackson is acting. The effects are as cheesy as you’d expect, and the situational errors and obvious plot developments are quite amusing. For example, on a flight from Hawaii to Los Angles we all know there’s more than just two crewmen flying the plane, but we don’t care. We also know that the character that’s being a real prick near the beginning is going to get himself killed in a most amusing way. Oh, and it’s painfully obvious that the first people to die just has to be the young couple joining the mile high club since everyone know that kids having sex always die first in horror movies.
And speaking of the sex, kudos to New Line for going back and adding the gratuitous nudity! And thanks for also giving us the single best snake bite to ever be filmed! Let’s just say that snake might have been looking for some milk and leave it at that.
I could go on and on and on about Snakes on a Plane. It’s got every cliche, every expected plot turn, every spoken word of dialogue you’d want in this mother f’n movie. I suspect mainstream critics just won’t get this movie and will trash it. In fact, a quick peek at some comments proves that to be correct. But if you do get it, and since you’re on our site that means you do, then you’re gonna love this movie.
5 venom filled stars. If I could give 6 I would.
Poseidon
August 17, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Disaster films are all about nature reminding man just how small we are, and just how quickly we can be snuffed out by a force greater than we can ever hope to comprehend, and that is it! You don’t need the smarmy lounge lizard, or the jealous millionaire, or the evil storm chasers (so F’N stupid) to get emotional responses from your audience. You need good acting, a solid story, and great dialogue and if those pieces are well represented you will have a good movie. Period! So the question I had before seeing this 2006 offering of a classic genre was will it entertain me? Answer: Not really.
Poseidon is a juiced up special effects mess of a movie based on the 1972 “classic” The Poseidon Adventure. The original was all about the character’s and their approach to escaping a ship that has capsized by going up (down if you were upright) to the top (bottom) with a few special effects mishaps along the way, with a very strong emphasis on story telling and character development. The 2006 Poseidon has the same plot but has none of the character development and story telling and relies solely on the effects to tell the story. Not a good thing folks. Effects should enhance a story not dominate it!
The cast is made up of a former Navy Submariner (Lucas), a fireman that becomes the Mayor of NY turned billionaire (Russell), his daughter (Rossum) and future son in-law, a single mom (Barrett) and her son, a stowaway and a suicidal homosexual (Dreyfuss). Wow, what a mix of casting. Too bad the only time you see any actual character development occurs during the heroic moment of each survivor. I am all for each person contributing but the way this movie unfolds you will have to fight rolling your eyes every time they enter another section of the ship. Don’t think you will be the only one; I rolled mine so much I still feel cross eyed!
The movie as a whole sucks and if it hadn’t been for the quality of the effects, which are quite good, it would have sank just like Dark Water (arrrghhh!). The scene where the ship capsizes is cool but way too short. The original let the BIG moment build; this one shoves it down your throat and you don’t even get a chance to take it all in before it’s over. This movie is a prime example of less would have been more. Less blocked exits that our hero has to negotiate, and more story would have helped out but that just isn’t Petersen’s style anymore - I have no idea how that is considering he’s the man that brought us Das Boot but I digress, it is what it is.
2 in a row Warner Brothers (cough, cough -Troy- cough, cough) so you might strongly reconsider giving Wolfgang anymore of your cash until he actually turns a profit. 185 Mill for Troy and 140 Mill for this… ouch. I smell something stinky and it isn’t on my shoe.
Beavis and Butthead: The Mike Judge Collection - Volume 3
August 16, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Once upon a time MTV was a network that played music videos. After awhile they experimented with original programming and as a result the world was introduced to Beavis and Butthead. If MTV had stopped there we’d be happier, but at least we do have the memories of Beavis and Butthead to help console us. The memories, and a few collections on DVD.
Beavis and Butthead: The Mike Judge Collection - Volume 3 is comprised of 42 cartoons selected by B&B creator Mike Judge. There’s some classics on here including the one where B&B are assigned to grow a plant for class. They wanted to grow nachos (of course) so they are given a corn seed. After planting it by stomping it into the ground, they proceed to feed and water it using junk food. When it amazingly starts to grow anyway it’s too slow for them.. so they punish it by stomping on it. That might sound stupid, but it’s damned entertaining to watch.
Also on this DVD is the uncut version of Frog Baseball. You might recall the episode where B&B are in an abandoned lot hitting things with a baseball bat when they run across a frog… and proceed to use it as the ball. This episode was a bit rough for MTV at the time so much of the blood was edited out. Now you can see just what happened when you heard the splat.
To help pad out the 30 minute block when B&B was on TV, the boys would show music videos and make comments about them, much like you’d see on Mystery Science Theater 3000. They didn’t usually show the entire video, but they’d show enough so that they could make fun of it. A few of the bands included in this DVD collection are Poison, Soundgarden, Salt ‘N’ Pepa and Rollins Band. For me these video clips are just as good as the episodes, I especially love it when Beavis is expecting a video to change from viewing to viewing.
Beavis and Butthead certainly isn’t smart entertainment, but it’s fun entertainment… and sometimes that’s all you really want. Highly recommended.
Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector
August 14, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I’ll be the first to admit that I purchased and watched the Blue Collar Comedy Tour DVD as soon as it was available. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I loved it. It was freakin’ hi-larious! But when the success of the DVD continued to grow and grow, I was waiting for the inevitable tendancy of Hollywood to pile on and ride any good thing right into the ground. It didn’t take long for more DVDs to appear. Then there was the Blue Collar TV show that aired on Comedy Central. And, finally, there came the low-budget movie-that-should-have-never-been-made. This is that movie.
As a comedy, it’s pretty darn mediocre…and I’m being nice. The script is weak, at best, and they limited the dialog to PG-13 which means Larry couldn’t open up with both barrels. There are some good moments, but the lag time between them is quite long. At least they knew better than to try and get Larry to really act and, instead, just wanted him to be his normal funny self. Somebody should have told them not to hamstring him before setting him loose.
The supporting cast does a respectable job. Megyn Price plays Jane, a meek woman who becomes the love interest for Larry. Iris Bahr turns in a great performance as a less-than-feminine partner for Larry that he mistakenly thinks is a man all through the movie. Being a good straight man is hard to pull off but she does a pretty decent job of it. Thomas Wilson is the cliche’ ridden “boss with a rotten temper” but he does a pretty decent job, all things considered.
None of these talented folks can truly save this movie, though. If not for the fact that Larry is just an ultimately likeable guy, it would have been unwatchable. Thanks to his infectious nature, however, it is possible to sit through the non-funny parts and not be fidgeting or looking at your watch every 5 minutes. Sadly, if thats the best you can say for a movie, it’s only going to be worth 2 stars, at the most.
World Trade Center
August 11, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Ok, so maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I went to see this movie. I mean, imagine finding out that you have the winning lotto ticket…and then 5 minutes later someone comes up to you and says your Aunt Myrtle just fell and broke her hip. Normally that downer moment would be just that - a downer. But when you’ve just won the lottery? Aunt who? Quick! Here’s a thousand dollars! Go buy me a give-a-shit!
And so it was that I was in a state of nirvana when I ventured in to to see World Trade Center. No, I didn’t win the lottery. If I had, y’all would never see any reviews from my skinny little ass again! But suffice to say that I got some really good news and was really happy at the time.
And then some idiots rammed a couple planes into some skyscrapers. And then some police went to try and evacuate the buildings. And then the buildings came tumbling down. Some of the police were trapped. Then they waited to be rescued. Then I got bored. I looked at my watch. They were still trapped. Then I started daydreaming about my good fortune again. Then I tuned back into the movie and…they were still trapped. But then they were spotted! And a rescue was soon underway. Yay! It’s over. Can I go home now?
That is how I saw the movie. Yeah, I guess some people think I’m dead inside *cough* *John* *cough*. If you haven’t heard by now, World Trade Center is about the entrapment and subsequent rescue of John McLoughlin & Will Jimeno, the 18th and 19th people pulled out of the rubble of Ground Zero. There were only 20 that made it.
Oliver Stone, bless his little heart of darkness, somehow managed to put away all his politics and make a simple movie about some brave people that did their jobs in the face of extraordinary danger. Some of them made it, most of them didn’t. Stone, for all his faults, is a very competent moviemaker and the work that went into WTC is all very top notch and very professional. And for those who think that this was an attempt to sensationalize the attacks, your fears are unfounded. You never see a plane hit a building and almost all of the shots of the buildings themselves are either from the perspective of the port authority officers or from television news broadcasts being watched by the families of those officers. Whether or not you agree that the movie was respectful of that horrific day or not, I think you’ll agree that Stone was trying very hard to be respectful.
Cage (McLoughlin) and Pena (Jimeno) put in what I can only describe as couple of very nice performances. Bello and Gyllenhaal do serviceable work as the wives of the two men. And then there was Michael Shannon as Lt. Dave Karnes, the ex-marine who put on his uniform, went down to the rubble of ground zero, and kept on searching even after everyone else had been told to back off for the night. I was especially impressed with his performance though he didn’t have all that much screen time.
I seem to be writing some rather flattering things about the movie, don’t I? So why only two stars? Well, the best way I can say it is that it just didn’t grab me. The point of making a highly dramatic flick like this is to get your audience emotionally hooked into the main characters and, in this case, I never felt a thing. So, when you miss the point that badly, there’s only so much you can do to make up for it.
Again, I plead that I may have been unduly influenced beforehand and you, the reader, may find it very emotionally gripping if you go to see it. Me? I just found it slow and tedious. In a more normal state of mind, I quite probably could have given this movie 3 or perhaps even 4 stars. But that is just playing “woulda coulda shoulda” with how I feel about it.
Miller’s Crossing
August 6, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Miller’s Crossing was the third movie made by the Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, the duo that had previously brought us Blood Simple and Raising Arizona. If you ask a movie buff to name off the Coen brothers’ works, however, they will quite often forget to mention this one. Why has it flown under the radar all these years? That’s the question I set out to answer when I sat down to watch it recently.
The movie stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom Reagan, the right-hand man of irish gangster Leo O’Bannon (Finney). Leo has the city in his back pocket…almost literally. How tight IS his grip, you ask? The mayor and the chief of police are both sitting in HIS office in one scene and taking their orders with their hats in their hands. Things are running very smoothly for ol’ Tom and Leo. Smooth, that is, until an upstart Italian mobster named Johnny Caspar (Polito) starts moving in on Leo’s turf. That’s when it all goes to hell in a handbasket. And, of course, the obligatory “dame” (Harden) waltzes into the picture to REALLY screw things up.
All in all, it’s a well made movie, but I find it hard to recommend it. “Why is that?,” you might ask. Well, let me see if I can explain it. When an artist sits down to paint something of beauty, he will study the subject matter and, as he paints, he interprets what he sees, removing blemishes and ugliness, and leaves nothing but beauty on the canvas. Now you might be wondering what the hell this has to do with this movie review, but please bear with me a bit more.
When a director films a period piece, he does much the same as a painter. He takes his subject matter, filters out all the old and irrelevent elements, and creates a modern homage to something that is considered to be classic.
Unfortunately, that’s not what Joel and Ethan Coen did with Miller’s Crossing. Oh, as usual, they did a great job with the casting and the performances are just fine. As well, they did fine work with regards to the look and feel of city and the people that dwell in it. But what should have been a modern interpretation of the classic gangster film of the 30’s is, instead, a carbon copy of one. All the stuff you love about gangster movies is in there, but so is all the stuff you can’t stand about them.
To wit, all the characters are extremely two dimensional and seem more to represent archetypes instead of a real persons. How can you care what happens to a character if they seem more like a cartoon than flesh and blood?
And the dialogue…ugh! I mean, sure, sprinkle some of the old jargon in to preserve the flavor of the era and pay the proper respect, but don’t go overboard with it. Maybe you don’t agree with me, but that’s tough. But that’s the way Alex likes things, see?!? And if any of you mooks got a problem with my opinion, then gettin’ the high hat will be the least of yer problems, see? You’ll all end up with fat lips for your trouble. Some of yas will end up coolin’ on a slab at the morgue with the rest of the stiffs, see?!? You ain’t got no license to talk back and today I ain’t sellin’. So take yer flunky and dangle!
See what I mean? That just gets old after a while. Really old. And if all this wasn’t bad enough, remember those old shootouts from the movies of old where a poor schmuck gets riddled with bullets, involuntarily squeezes the trigger of his machine gun, and jerks around for a few seconds before falling? Yep, you even get that here. One guy starts getting hit with a tommy gun and proceeds to do the epileptic version of The Macarena, all the while firing all the rounds from HIS tommy gun into the air. He takes about 60 rounds to the chest over a period of about 30 seconds before he finally collapses. I actually burst out laughing by the end of that one. Somehow I don’t think it was intended to be funny.
Anyways, y’all get the idea by now. Take one old movie gumshoe’s opinion…or don’t. This one gets a weak three stars from me.
The Descent
August 6, 2006 | 1 Comment
The Descent earns it’s bread and butter by scaring you, and it has several tricks up it’s sleeves to get the job done. Afraid of the dark? Check. Don’t like tight spaces? Check. Monsters? Check. And it’s real (GOTCHA!) ace is the “jump out and scare you” moment, it has plenty of these.
We start off with a group of women doing a bit of whitewater rafting, and we’re not talking simple stuff here, I wouldn’t put my ass down that river. They get through it just fine and we learn that not only do they like some good adventure, they’re darn good at it. Things don’t go that well once they leave the river though, you get your first (GOTCHA!) though it’s kinda mild and we setup the emotional stuff for later in the movie. Gotta have that motivation for later you know, this is a group of women after all…
A year goes by and the ladies get together for the yearly adventure. This time they are doing a little spelunking / caving in the Eastern U.S. of A. After a couple of uncomfortable emotional scenes (women, remember?) at the cabin it’s off to the hole in the ground. Again, my ass wouldn’t be jumping into this hole… these are some tough chicks. Apparently a little too tough as the leader of the group decides that she doesn’t need to take the guide book since she’s “never been lost a day in her life”. They are so screwed.
As expected something goes wrong and they find creatures living in the caves that have a taste for meat, and they aren’t particular if it’s still breathing or not. Oh yeah, eaten alive? Check.
This movie is done exceptionally well. It’s tough to shoot a scene that gives the audience a sense of claustrophobia but director Neil Marshall pulls it off perfectly. He also had a knack for those (GOTCHA!) scenes, I stopped counting when it passed ten of them, but I’m guess it there were around 13 or so good ones in the movie. That’s a huge number and some of the later ones will still make you flinch even though by that point you’re very much on the lookout for them.
The amount of blood and gore is also quite impressive, and it’s good old-fashioned effects work and not the pansy-ass CGI that we’ve gotten used to these days. The only thing missing is a few nude scenes. You’d think with a movie all about adventurous women that at some point one of them would have at least gotten topless.
If you want to have your date squeezing your arm all night then this is the movie for you. If you don’t have a date, go anyway and just have fun watching the rest of the audience flinch every few minutes.
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Gun Play
Blood & Gore Car Chases T&A Chuckles |
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