Wow, I been hibernating. Well, DEVIL’S REJECTS is the most interesting movie I seen in a while so hopefully that makes for a good review. If not I also reviewed a straight to video called BLAST. It’s a DIE HARD ripoff but the hero is Eddie Griffin.
Archive for July, 2005
7/26/05
Tuesday, July 26th, 2005
LikeBlast
Tuesday, July 26th, 2005
Boys -
You know how it is with me, every time I get a screener for some shitty straight to video movie I get this idea somewhere in my brain… what if this is it? What if this is THE ONE? The one I’ve been looking for all these years? Well today we’re here to discuss BLAST, which is not the one. But it is one of those rare surprisingly competent ones. Destined for a Not As Bad As You Would Think award from the Direct to Video Academy of Well Who Are We Kidding There Is No Art Or Science In These Things.
Basically BLAST is DIE HARD on an oil rig. Or maybe UNDER SIEGE on an oil rig, but not ON DEADLY GROUND. Anyway the important thing is instead of Bruce or Seagal, we got wisecrackin Eddie Griffin. You know, from MY BABY’S DADDY. Now look, I wouldn’t watch 99% of the shit this guy has made. But I do think he can be funny. I’m more of a POOTIE TANG man, but I liked him in UNDERCOVER BROTHER. And his standup movie/family documentary DYSFUNKTIONAL FAMILY was funny. Here, he has a couple good smartass lines, but mostly plays the action hero.
That’s what had me excited about the movie because Eddie Griffin’s a little guy, nobody’s gonna be threatened by this man. And the box calls his character Lamont “Dix” Dixon a “former Navy Seal.” Turns out they meant to say that at one point he jokes that he is a former Navy Seal, then says, “No, that’s Steven Seagal.” You gotta wonder. Did the marketing people know that Dix is not a former Navy Seal, but have some kind of marketing rule that says movies about former Navy Seals are profitable? Or did they think ha ha ha, Eddie Griffin as a Navy Seal, that’s hilarious, people are gonna want to rent that as a joke? Or did they just not watch the movie, and guessed what it was about based on the cover art? Any of these are possible. (more…)
The Devil’s Rejects
Tuesday, July 26th, 2005
If you ever saw THE HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES, there’s one thing you probaly remember. It’s this montage set to “I Remember You” by Slim Whitman. It’s got lots of slow motion and you can’t hear anything but the music as the cops discover a couple of the house’s thousand corpses unexpectedly, then get gunned down by the Firefly family. The montage ends with Otis (Bill Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 Moseley) holding a gun to a cop’s head and it sits there with 20 full seconds of complete silence and stillness before he executes him.
That movie was pretty good, I liked it overall for it’s spunk and what not, but it was real sloppy and uneven. And that “I Remember You” scene was the one part where the director, a guy named Rob Zombie (yeah I know, I think it’s Hungarian or something), seemed like a real filmatist. Well good news, Mr. Zombie’s new one THE DEVIL’S REJECTS is not as much a sequel to HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES as it’s a sequel to that scene. It’s about the brother of the first cop killed in the montage hunting down the Fireflies for revenge. And all the sudden the Zombie guy knows what the fuck he’s doing: real good framing, way better acting, expert use of slow motion and effective montagings edited to old country music, blues and classic rock. Very dirty and raw, lots of ’70s techniques like Peckinpah slo-mo and fancy wipes. Kind of what Jim Van Bebber was going for with THE MANSON FAMILY. Maybe not quite as authentic but way better thought out and more involving. It’s almost changed genres – now it’s less straight up horror and more of one of those sicko ’70s serial killer/crime/road pictures, or a revenge picture like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. It’s just as sick and inexcusable but more fun. (more…)
Wedding Crashers
Friday, July 8th, 2005Boys -
First off, congratulations on the kid, Moriarty. I hope he doesn’t have too many problems being named after some freak from FORBIDDEN ZONE. But congratulations and in my opinion some credit should also go to the wife, who I bet performed some of the more difficult aspects of the birthing process unless there is something Harry is not telling us.
Second order of business, I saw some movie called WEDDING CRASHERS. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play a couple of dickheads who like to sneak into weddings because somehow it causes them to automatically get laid. When I first saw the trailer for this one I felt insulted. It seemed like one of those premises that would maybe seem funny when you first think of it but then you would realize before you got a chance to even write it down that it was not funny enough for anybody to actually make or especially watch. The trailer didn’t show any of the plot but I assumed it would be one of those generic romantic comedies where the protagonist lies and tricks people but then to his surprise he meets someone who he really falls in love with, and there are montages and flirting and laughing and they become close but it’s all based on a lie so then suddenly she finds out the truth and he has to admit that he’s a scumbag but then he publicly humiliates himself and proves to her that he really loves her and then… oh shit, what if in this one they got MARRIED AT THE END? Would that be ironic or what? The hunter becomes the huntress, or whatever.
But there was some good buzz on this one, some people saying it harkens to the glory days of raunchy R-rated comedy (what does that mean, Revenge of the Nerds 2?) and Entertainment Weekly did a big article a while back claiming it would be a huge sleeper hit. So maybe it’s not what it appears? I do like Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn sometimes and the movie was free and I quit drinking a long time ago so what the hell, man, I went. (more…)
7/1/05
Friday, July 1st, 2005Steve Spielberg (E.T.) is back with a new one, WAR OF THE WORLDS. This movie is actually scary as shit. I recommend this picture. I got a problem, the big summer movies I seen this year are so good I never get to complain anymore or talk shit about people. It’s almost like this isn’t the internet.
War of the Worlds
Friday, July 1st, 2005
Sometimes for scientifical type purposes I try to predict what bad puns the hack critics will use in reviews of upcoming movies. For WAR OF THE WORLDS I was leaning toward an “out of this world” or “worlds away from E.T.” type thing. Somebody suggested “Bore of the Worlds” but I was saving that for “Fantastic Bore” and “Fantastic Snore.”
But then I saw WAR OF THE WORLDS and you know what this is? The scariest PG-13 movie of all time. Fuck dinosaurs. Fuck a guy eating monkey brains. This is as hard as Steve Spielberg is gonna get. This is a well put together piece of work in my opinion. Usually making a movie PG-13 when it could be R is a copout, but in this case it’s almost subversive. Sorry about taking the guns out of E.T., to make it up to you I’m gonna give your kids the worst nightmares from now until they turn 16.
So now I’m thinking the pun headline should be CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE KIND WHERE YOU ALMOST SHIT YOUR PANTS. Or maybe E.T. – THE EXTRA-WE’REFUCKED-STRIAL.
This is, you probaly know, unless you’re stupid, the story of aliens invading earth, etc. They drive around in death machines with three giant spindly legs, vaporize people, grab people with tentacles, suck the blood out of people, and that sort of thing. They do not, at least as far as we know in the movie, eat reeses pieces. Or get drunk or dress up like a girl. Maybe on the extended dvd.
What’s really smart about the movie is that it’s from the point of view of the poor saps on the ground. Usually in an alien invasion movie you sit in the halls of power with the world leaders and the military strategists and whoever else has a big screen with maps on it to point to. And you see scenes from god’s point of view, all over the world, famous landmarks getting destroyed. And you’re right there with the biggest hero in the world when he figures out how to stop the aliens. This is the opposite. You get none of that shit. You just get what happens to some guy in a leather coat. How he happens to survive. What he sees. Which is the same as what everybody else sees: some fucked up shit. Bodies floating, those things walking over, people dying, buildings dropping. (more…)
