Movies for Guys » Jeffrey Wright

The Invasion

Billy Bob — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 06:28:49 +0000

The Invasion is the latest big screen version of the classic Jack Finney science fiction novel “The Body Snatchers”. Most of us probably know it better as a remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.

What you have in this version is something that is a lot like a zombie movie except without all of the things that make a zombie movie fun to watch. They actually aren’t zombies, they are bodies that have been genetically reprogrammed, and now inhabited by, aliens. They get into your bloodstream and then reprogram your DNA during REM sleep. The whole “dont sleep!” thing happening on the screen is more likely there to plant a subliminal message to keep the audience awake.

The aliens don’t eat brains or anything cool like that. Instead they have desires to create this Hillary Clinton-esque world where individualism is totally dead. This means no war, no fights, no anything. In short, it sounds boring.

Nicole Kidman stars in a perfect role for her as she often gets to play an emotional character who cant show emotions. Daniel Craig is also in the movie. I would like to get my rope with the big knot in it to talk to him about better script selection.

This movie was shot in 2006 and in 2007 prior to release, the distribtor brought in the Wachowski Brothers from The Matrix to write some additional scenes and pnch the story up a little. Either they ruined or they couldn’t save it, take your choice. This puppy is 2 stars, skip it unless your other choice is an F-Troop marathon. No, I take that back….watch F-Troop, we love Larry Storch.

Shaft

Billy Bob — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:49:45 +0000

Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? SHAFT! They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother… SHUT YOUR MOUTH! I’m only talkin’ ’bout Shaft. THEN WE CAN DIG IT!

So sayeth the lyrics from the ultra funky smooth theme from Shaft by Isaac Hayes. However in the year 2000 John Shaft is actually a cop, and although he alludes to the LD there are no sex scenes. But he is definitely one bad mother.

Samuel L. Jackson gives us a Y2K version of John Shaft. And you’ll never find a cooler cat. He’s smooth with the ladies, has a snappy comeback for any insult and will have a clever solution for any problem. Although he wears nothing but black, he’s definitely a good guy, and the bad guys do not stand a chance. They can empty entire clips of automatic weapons at him, and he’ll just cooly duck out of the way and then take them out with a single returned shot.

And all of this is good! If it sounds predictable and cliche, it is, but it works. And it works well, mainly because Shaft is just so cool. If there’s any question about Samuel L. Jackson being able to play this role, they’ve been answered as he’s spectacular.

As for the movie, it has almost everything we look for in a movie. We get tons of gun play, a quality car chase, outstanding one liners and some major ass whippings. It need only add some large explosions and large tah tahs to be the perfect movie. However, this is one of those movies that virtually the entire review staff wanted to see, and the concensus was that it is definitely a 5 star movie.

Should you go see this movie on the big screen? You damn right!

Syriana

John — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 18:11:09 +0000

Syriana is one of the most complex movies I’ve seen in awhile, I really wanted a Prima guide to help me with the first 45 minutes! This isn’t really a complaint, the issues brought up are quite complex so it’s fitting that the movie itself mirror this.

Syriana is about the oil industry, from the workers in the field who become disenchanted at various points, to the Arab cultures, to the political moves behind the scenes that keep the crude flowing, to the analysts and advisers, all the way to the politicians and federal workers who keep the “best interests” of the country in mind when doing their jobs. And it covers all of this in about 2 hours.

Did I mention that it’s complex?

The story centers around one main event, the purchase of oiling rights in Kazakhstan by Killen, a small oil company and the subsequent purchase of that company by a large oil company, Connex. How did Killen get those rights? Did it bribe someone? Was Connex in on the deal from the beginning? Should the U.S. Government allow this purchase? At the same time one of the large Gulf States signs a deal to provide oil to China, possibly causing a disruption in the U.S. supply and at the very least giving China a good foothold in energy. Should the leader of that country have done that? Did the CIA know it was going to happen and not prevent it? Did it try? Should it have?

Hell, I give up.

The point of Syriana isn’t the story, it’s the ideas behind the story. Our dependency on oil is obvious, and we get a large percentage of our oil from regions that we may find politically distasteful. The question is do we care or not. As long as we get what we need is it any of our concern regarding the internal politics of those countries?

Syriana succeeds in raising these questions in a thoughtful way that doesn’t shove the liberal interpretation of the facts down our throats. Unfortunately the movie is so convoluted that it’s hard to follow and many people watching it on DVD will just hit stop before making it halfway through. If I hadn’t needed to write a review, I might have been one of those people. I’m glad I stuck around though as it is a subject worth some thought, they just need more explosions. And a few bikinis wouldn’t have hurt either.