Archive for the ‘Mystery’ Category
Wednesday, May 8th, 2002
It took me a while to get to this one because 1) cartoons are only for children and 2) it wasn’t nominated for the best animated feature oscar so it must not have been any good. so I watched Jimmy Neutron instead.
Actually that is all bullshit. I know this movie was beloved by critics and people alike. I even talked to one dude who hates all Richard Linklaters other movies but liked this one. As you probaly already know this is a movie that Linklater shot on digital video, then had computer animators paint over the video in their computer programs and turn it into surreal computer art type business. What the plot is about is this kid is dreaming, but he can’t wake up, and everywhere he goes people talk to him about free will or lucid dreaming or show off that they have some wacky quirk like they pretend their car is a boat. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Richard Linklater
Posted in Cartoons and Shit, Drama, Fantasy/Swords, Mystery, Reviews | 25 Comments »
Friday, April 12th, 2002
[Originally Written for The Ain’t It Cool News – received no response]
HARRY — A while back you were real excited about a french picture called VIDOCQ. It’s directed by the fellow Pitof, who did special effects type work for CITY OF THE LOST CHILDREN and ALIENS RESURRECTED and the joan of arc picture with Milla Jovovich. Also Marc Caro – the only man in the world who can say he directed DELICATESSEN but has never done a romantic comedy – designed the look of the characters. It’s based on some old detective character called Vidocq, who I guess must be the french Sherlock Holmes although americans have never heard of him on account of his name is spelled weird. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: French, Gerard Depardieu, Pitof
Posted in Crime, Fantasy/Swords, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Saturday, December 15th, 2001
Vanilla Sky is an american remake of OPEN YOUR EYES, the second picture by the young spanish gentleman Alejandro Amenabar, who also did THESIS and THE OTHERS. After the movie I was saying to a gal that the ending was kinda different on the original, and the guy next to me was saying the same thing to his friend. Except he was just getting out of OCEAN’S 11.
Everything is fucking remakes now, huh? The above took place in Seattle, Washington, where as we speak the Dreamworks company is hard at work on an unneccesary remake of (the) RING. History has not been kind to american remakes of foreign pictures. Even when you get the same guy to remake it – like with THE VANISHING or NIGHTWATCH – the movie will piss everybody off and the director will be forgotten forever. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cameron Crowe, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, remakes, Tom Cruise
Posted in Mystery, Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Thriller | 5 Comments »
Sunday, October 28th, 2001
I gotta admit I was surprised by this picture. It is about a young man (named Donnie Darko [that is why the movie is called Donnie Darko, it is the dude’s name]) to whom all the weird shit happens. Like for example a demonic rabbit lures him out of bed to a golf course, whispering mysterious type business to him in a spooky voice. In the morning he comes home and, you know, a plane engine has fallen onto his bedroom. Only one thing is, nobody knows what happened to the plane the engine fell off of. And it would be bad enough to have a plane engine fall into your room in the first place, then you gotta throw in all this mysterious bermuda triangle type business too. I mean he has a hard enough time just with school work now he has to deal with this shit.
This movie didn’t get much of a release and I don’t know, maybe it’s because it’s coming out in a time when Donnie Darko’s life doesn’t seem all that different from ours. Engines do fall out of the sky. I mean they have ax fights on planes now. They have shoe bombs and shit. They’re gonna have baboon attacks pretty soon, the way things are going in my opinion. Pilots gored by elephants after that. I mean why do they allow elephants in the cargo hold anyway is what they’re gonna say. We shoulda seen that loophole. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Patrick Swayze, Richard Kelly
Posted in Drama, Mystery, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 1 Comment »
Friday, October 19th, 2001
Maybe I mentioned that I’ve been on a documentary kick. I mean I’ve been watching the works of documentationists left and right. Not just BIGGIE AND TUPAC, but all the Maysles brothers direct cinema shit, Pumping Iron, Hoop Dreams, you name it. If it’s a documentary, and I’ve seen it, then I’ve seen it lately. But as great as some of these movies are, only some of them are greater than 2000’s Outlaw Award Winning picture AMERICAN PIMP by the Hughes Brothers. This is the definitive pimpumentary, I don’t care what you say about PIMPS UP, HOES DOWN it’s no AMERICAN PIMP.
The Hughes brothers are identical twin brothers who look the same. Because they are identical twins. Other than that, they seem very down to earth. They got alot of attention very fast with the huge success of their first picture, MENACE II SOCIETY which basically started the whole “young black director makes first low budget movie about life in the hood” thing back in the ’90s. They followed that up with the underrated heist/Vietnam movie DEAD PRESIDENTS, which got bad reviews and which they disavow on every subsequent dvd release. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Heather Graham, Hughes Brothers, Ian Holm, Jack the Ripper, Johnny Depp
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Crime, Horror, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | 3 Comments »
Thursday, October 11th, 2001
Now I’m not saying there is anything wrong with being excited about a Mexican horror picture. This is from a fine director who did the CRONOS which the box is a picture of some blond gal but the movie is about an old grandpa who licks blood off a bathroom floor. This guy also came to Hollywood directed a picture called MIMIC which I will not mention in this article. It had some good parts though. But I won’t mention them.
However this is more important than your average mexican horror picture. You know why, because this is a mexican horror picture from the director of the most highly anticipated movie of next year. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: ghosts, Guillermo Del Toro
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Horror, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Monday, January 1st, 2001
Well this is one of those pictures you would call a hitchcockian type thriller, and yes that is named after Alfred Hitchcock. But one difference is that this is NOT directed by Hitchcock, it is the director debut of Mr. David Mamet.
In the opening scenes the acting is kind of stiff and everything is kind of dull and I was thinking of watching something else. But as soon as the story kicks in you see that that is to illustrate that this lady psychologist who is the main character, her life has grown banal and she is in need of adventure. Her everyday job scenes are almost draining they are so dull while the rest of the movie is full of suspense. One of her patients tells her what does she know, she hasn’t experienced anything. And through his gambling problem she goes and decides to thrust herself into some real experiences. She goes to a small bar called “house of games” (get it, that is also the title of the movie, house of games) where she meets a gambler named Joe Montegna. I mean that is the actor’s name anyway. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: cons, David Mamet, filmed in Seattle, J.T. Walsh, Joe Mantegna, Lindsay Crouse
Posted in Crime, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2000
BRUCE WILLIS’S UNBREAKABLE
Starring Bruce Willis
If you know Vern then you know I am not the kind of Film Writer who avoids giving away surprises or “spoilings” in movie reviews. The dude from Felicity is the killer in Scream 3 to name only one example. Apparently the girl in the Crying Game has a dick but I haven’t seen that one. I can verify that it does happen in one of the Sleepaway Camp pictures though so keep your eyes peeled for that one as well. Anyway point is if you want to go into a movie fresh you shouldn’t read my review first is the point. Especially when it comes to the films of Bruce Willis. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce, Bruce Willis, M. Night Shyamalan, Samuel L. Jackson
Posted in Bruce, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | 8 Comments »
Monday, October 23rd, 2000
Well here it is Halloween already and fuck if I’ve got into the spirit of the thing. I tried buying a compact disc of John Carpenter’s score to the movie Halloween and I put it on driving around in the pouring rain. And I try to picture that white masked bastard jumping out of nowhere onto my car right when the keyboards do their little electric BYYYOOOOOOO sound and okay, I’m halfway there. But other than that, I mean I got no pumpkins, I got no costume, I got shit.
So what do you do. You follow the halloween traditions our nation and culture have set forth for us. You go to the theater to see the one half assed horror movie that they decided to release right before Halloween. In this case, Book of Shadows: Revenge of the Blair Witch Project Part 2, Return to the Dark Woods of the Burkitsville Horror. (can’t remember the exact title actually so I made that one up, hope the boys at artisan like it.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: another fucking found footage movie
Posted in Horror, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller, Vern Tells It Like It Is | 7 Comments »
Friday, October 20th, 2000
big spoiler in this old review
Well there might be some individuals out there wondering, wouldn’t it be cool if you took a director like the dude who did Romper Stomper, and had him do a slasher movie. Well those individuals it turns out are wrong. Sorry boys.
Cherry Falls is the story of a killer in a small town who kills only virgins. In a small town called Cherry Falls.
You know what I mean? Virgins. In Cherry Falls. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brittany Murphy, Jay Mohr, Michael Biehn, slashers
Posted in Horror, Mystery, Reviews | 4 Comments »
