Archive for the ‘Drama’ Category
Monday, January 23rd, 2006
I had a good feeling about this movie from right about the time the title came on the screen. It was a shot of a pimp (Terence Howard) and a ho (Taryn Manning) driving in a car, and it freeze frames to write the title in yellow ’70s style lettering.
I always like Terence Howard but I’ve never seen him in a lead role before. He’s always the supporting role that steals the movie. Here he has a lead role that steals the movie. I haven’t seen GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN but I would be surprised if Terence Howard’s performance in this movie doesn’t run a hundred circles around his co-star in that movie, both as an actor and as a rapper. True, he does mumble alot in this movie (you almost need subtitles) but I still feel his enunciation is better than Fifty Cents. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Anderson, Craig Brewer, DJ Qualls, Elise Neal, hip hop, Isaac Hayes, pimps, Screen Actor's Guild Award Winner Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Taraji P. Henson, Terence Howard
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 11th, 2006
You know, MUNICH is almost the movie I was hoping SYRIANA would be. SYRIANA has alot to say about the complicated way the world works, but it doesn’t get you excited about it. You’re probaly not gonna be sitting on the edge of your seat. More likely you’ll be scratching your chin saying, “Interesting, interesting.” I’d rather see a movie that can be complex and political without sacrificing in the awesome department. A good balance of substance and badass. And that’s what this is.
Okay so maybe MUNICH isn’t as true to life as SYRIANA (in fact, some people think the real guy it’s based on made up the whole story and never worked for Mossad) but it sure is a more entertaining movie. Eric Bana (winner of the secret, recently declassified 2001 lead badass outlaw award for CHOPPER) plays Avner, a small time Israeli agent personally chosen by the prime minister to lead a team of assassins to kill 11 people believed to be involved in the planning of the massacre of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Daniel Craig, Eric Bana, Eric Roth, Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz, Michael York, revenge, Robert Joy, Rod Steiger, Steven Bauer, Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, January 4th, 2006
I never heard of this one before but the box caught my eye. It’s from ’86 and apparently made for TV. Tommy Lee Jones – after ROLLING THUNDER but before UNDER SIEGE – plays another angry veteran on a rampage. This one though is unusual because he basically inherits this rampage from a deceased friend. I mean can you imagine? A little bit of money, maybe some furniture or something. But inheriting a rampage? That’s rough.
The movie starts out with a guy jumping off a building. Tommy Lee is at the funeral and shortly after receives a letter, and a key, from his dead ‘Nam buddy. In the letter the dead guy explains that he’s been preparing an attack on Central Park for a long time. The key leads to a ridiculous stash of guns, bullets and bombs. There are also maps showing where this guy has already planted explosives around the park. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: crazed veterans, Tommy Lee Jones
Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 4 Comments »
Saturday, December 17th, 2005
For God’s sake man, when I go to see a western there are certain things I expect to see, and certain things I don’t expect to see, and one of the things I don’t expect to see–
Nah, I’m just fuckin with you. Everybody knows that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is “the gay cowboy movie.” Or that’s the hype anyway. So first thing’s first, I gotta tell you that the “gay cowboy” description is utter bullshit and if that’s what you wanna see you’re gonna be just as disappointed as I woulda been if I went in expecting THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES. Because this is not about gay cowboys. It’s about gay sheperds. They herd sheep. They shepherd. They are gay shepherds. Get it straight, America. Cowboys are dealing with cows and cattle and whatnot. If they herd sheep, they are shepherds. In this case, gay shepherds. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ang Lee, Anne Hathaway, gay shepherds, Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Larry McMurtry, Michelle Williams, Randy Quaid
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Romance | 5 Comments »
Monday, December 12th, 2005
SYRIANA is not the movie about the talking Jesus lion, that’s CHRONICLES OF NARNIA. CHRONICLES OF NARNIA is not the one where Vin Diesel says “I haven’t smelled beautiful in a long time,” that’s CHRONICLES OF RIDICK.
Sorry, my man Richard Pryor died this week, so the jokes are awkward. But seriously folks. “Syriana” and “Narnia” sound similar enough, and there are alot of people who space out on movie titles. There’s got to be somewhere in this great country of ours where some knucklehead mixed up the names and went into the wrong movie and hilarity ensued. Picture a guy sitting waiting for what he thinks is a political ensemble drama. Thinking, wow, I’m surprised this many kids are interested in global politics. Or vice versa. Get all the popcorn, load all the kids in, wait through the ads and the previews and make the people around you uncomfortable. Shhh, Gunnar, time to be quiet. Skyler, you too. Do you need a time out? And then all the sudden a chubby George Clooney is in the middle east somewhere trying to set up a deal to sell a missile launcher. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amanda Peet, Chris Cooper, George Clooney, Jeffrey Wright, Matt Damon, Stephen Gaghan
Posted in Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Sunday, December 11th, 2005
I actually saw this movie weeks ago, and I thought of this new technique to try: research. See, this is what happens. I see a movie and I like it, but it’s based on a book I haven’t read and I wonder how it compares. Maybe I wouldn’t feel the same about it if I knew my shit. This time I decided instead of reviewing the movie right away I would first read the book, then see what I thought.
The only problem is that after I read the book the movie wasn’t as fresh in my mind and it kind of blended in with the book. So I struggled with the review for a while until neither the book or the movie were fresh in my mind. What I’m trying to say is, this review might not be so hot. If I get all confused and start talking about leprechauns or a circus montage or something that doesn’t seem to fit what you know about the movie JARHEAD, do not take my word for it, assume that I am confused. Learn from my mistakes people, don’t read books or learn stuff. Because the more you find out, the more you forget about that you used to know. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Lucas Black, Peter Sarsgaard, Sam Mendes, War
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Monday, November 7th, 2005
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE meets THE WEATHER MAN
Okay first of all I gotta ask, why does every movie lately gotta be about a nasty divorce, somebody’s dad dying, or both? I guess that’s just what happens when the sky turns grey and the leaves start falling off the trees, all the sudden you get all these depressing movies about how either you or your dad is a novelist and you fucked up everything with your wife and kids and you want to fix your marriage but that’s completely delusional, your wife has a new guy and she hates you because you’re an asshole and she can do better. (that’s what both of these are about.)
Which brings me to my second comment, you better look up what these movies are about before you see them because the titles are misleading. I know, how could you go wrong with a movie called SQUID VS. WHALE, but unfortunately it turns out that title is some kind of a metaphor or something. Which answers my question of how this got a theatrical release. There is no squid vs. whale fight, at least not a living squid and whale. And the dead ones that fight is only in a museum and only in the very end. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anna Paquin, Gore Verbinski, Hope Davis, Jeff Daniels, Jesse Eisenberg, Laura Linney, Michael Caine, Nicolas Cage, Noah Baumbach, Steve Conrad, William Baldwin
Posted in Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 26th, 2005
In the type of acting tour de la force that everybody loves unless they’re some kind of a dick, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Truman Capote, the famous writer and weirdo. Although the use of only his last name as the movie’s title seems to imply that it will tell the entire story of his life and maybe even the entire story of the life of everybody with the last name Capote, this is actually not a full on biography. The story is narrowed down to the 4 or 5 years when he was working on his famous book IN COLD BLOOD, starring Robert Blake.
The movie starts out with a young girl discovering the dead bodies of a family murdered in a farmhouse. And before you know it Capote and his research assistant Harper Lee (author of the book TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, starring Gregory Peck) are nosing around asking everybody questions. So at first I thought this was gonna be kind of a LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN thing with famous authors going around solving crimes. I bet the Marquis De Sade did these murders. Or Edgar Alan Poe. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bennett Miller, Catherine Keener, Chris Cooper, Clifton Collins Jr., P.S. Hoffman
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Monday, October 24th, 2005
For those of you out there who enjoy smart, politically relevant, historically based black and white newsroom dramas directed by charming movie stars who used to be on Roseanne, today’s your lucky day motherfucker. Mr. George Clooney is about to climb down your chimney.
GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK is the short and simple story of Edward R. Murrow getting disgusted with Senator McCarthy’s hearings and deciding to use his show to expose them. Some guy called David Straitharn is great playing Murrow, expressing pretty much everything through either facial expressions or the comments he makes on the air. The story is confined almost entirely to the newroom and the bar. It’s not a biography. The only home life is a subplot about a couple who have to hide the fact that they’re married because its not allowed in the workplace. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: George Clooney, Jeff Daniels, Patricia Clarkson, Robert Downey Jr.
Posted in Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, September 23rd, 2005
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with our own Vern who tells ya’ straight about David Cronenberg’s A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, a film I was scheduled to see last night, but I ended up sneaking into a test screening for a much anticipated horror flick instead. I figured I can see HISTORY OF VIOLENCE much sooner than I’d see this other film, so I ditched out of the screening. I’m dying to see it, though!
Now Vern’s review doesn’t go into any deep spoilers, but he talks about a little bit of stuff not in the trailer, so I went ahead and smacked a spoiler warning for the purists out there. As always, Vern did a bang-up job and wrote a piece that had me laughing along. Enjoy!
Harry and friends,
First of all Moriarty, to finish up that debate we were having over in your talkback, porn is not boring. At least not if you’re jerkin off to it. And if you’re not jerkin off to it you’re not giving the picture the respect it deserves. That’s like doing a crossword puzzle during a subtitled movie and then saying the movie didn’t make any sense. I know Alberto Gonzales recently declared a “war on porn” one of the administration’s highest priorities, but don’t write off the merits of hardcore porn without giving it a fair chance. Let’s show some class here, bud. That’s first of all. Second of all, I got a review of David (JASON X) Cronenberg’s excellent new picture A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE starring Viggo Mortensen. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Cronenberg, Ed Harris, Josh Olson, Maria Bello, Viggo Mortensen, Viggronenberg, William Hurt
Posted in AICN, Drama, Reviews | 35 Comments »
