Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Man, this movie made me feel naive. It’s a documentary about black women’s hair, and it’s not really made for a white audience, it seems mainly designed to inspire discussion about beauty standards among the black community. But it was also fascinating for a white dude like me, and maybe more surprising. I had no idea. I never really thought about some of this stuff.
The director is Jeff Stilson, a writer for Letterman, The Chris Rock Show, Ali G, etc. But the movie is in the point of view of Chris Rock, who narrates and goes around talking to celebrities, hair stylists and experts. He explains that one of his young daughters asked him why she didn’t have “good hair,” and this sends him on a journey to understand why so many black women grow up hating the way their hair grows naturally. He explores straightening combs, relaxant and weaves, asking questions that draw out the absurdity of it all but rarely judging or directly commenting. Though sometimes the look on his face says it all. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chris Rock
Posted in Documentary, Reviews | 22 Comments »
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Here in the U.S. Sunday was Valentine’s Day, yesterday was President’s Day, and today is BLACK DYNAMITE Day. If you didn’t catch it at a random film festival or in its limited theatrical release (or even if you did) today is the day when you can finally buy or rent it on DVD or Blu-Ray.
I hope I haven’t raised expectations on this one talking about it so long, but I’ve seen it three times now and it definitely stands as one of my favorites of recent years, a really funny and affectionate blaxploitation homage that, while making fun of the absurdity of the genre also happens to capture exactly what I love about those movies. I will proudly put it on my shelf next to my previous favorite blaxploitation comedy, THE HUMAN TORNADO. (read the rest of this shit…)
Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog), Music | 41 Comments »
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
There was a time in our cultural history, or in our life’s journey or whatever, when the freaky grossout shit seemed real interesting. The odd top shelf Troma, the young and hungry Peter Jackson, the works of Frank Henenlotter. These are home made labors of love obsessed with bodily fuction and dumb humor, trying hard to disgust you but not really to scare you, and not to be taken very seriously. For a while it’s fun, but you can only go so far with that. It gets old after a while, or you get old after a while.
Still, I gotta admit, I had some fun with Henenlotter’s new one, BAD BIOLOGY, which is about a monstrous 7-clitorised vagina on a collision course with a detachable superdick that the vagina-possessor believes is God’s penis. (I know, I know… yet another movie about that. But bear with me.) The clean-cut-looking Charlee Danielson plays Jennifer, the woman whose orgasms are so intense she tends to accidentally beat her lovers to death in the process. You know, it’s about sex and relationships from a woman’s point of view, like Sex & the City. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Sneed, Charlee Danielson, Frank Hennenlotter, R.A. the Rugged Man
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 24 Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
I rented a PAL import of WHITE OF THE EYE after some of you guys were talking about it in the comments back around Halloween. I really didn’t know anything about it, so I was off balance from the beginning. The opening credits said in huge letters DONALD CAMMELL’S WHITE OF THE EYE so at first I assumed that was some writer like Dean R. Koontz or John Grisham. Turns out it’s the director, he co-directed PERFORMANCE, did a couple weird ones like this, then killed himself.
Also it was co-written by “China.” Who the fuck is that? It’s not the bodybuilder lady from WWF, that was Chyna. Could it be the entire country of China wrote it communistically? Turns out it’s Cammell’s wife. As the movie began I didn’t even know what time period it was made in. I honestly thought it was a ’90s movie with some retro ’80s touches, turns out it’s 1987 and just happens to be very stylized.
The opening murder is a tour-de-force, it actually kind of creeped me out how fetishistically it captured every detail of the murder scene. It starts by showing this woman in her fancy home, extreme closeups of the objects surrounding her – flower vase, goldfish bowl, kitchen utensils – then every one of them is knocked over in the struggle when an unseen man attacks her. We only see him by the extreme closeup of the eye, which is disconcerting. And it seems to treat the wreckage as a carefully planned art installation. Or some kind of druid ritual. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Keith, Donald Cammell
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 7 Comments »
Friday, February 12th, 2010
Cash is the full name of a big-shouldered, square-jawed, fresh-out-of-the-pen-and-eager-for-revenge individual on a rampage in an unnamed city that happens to have the Space Needle in it (more on that later). He’s a guy nobody should ever fuck with, but unfortunately for a couple guys it’s too late for that. They betrayed him on a messy bank job, and you never really know what could happen but I’m leaning toward him not accepting an apology. In the opening narration he says something like, “I was only ever good at two things. Killing’s one of ’em. I forget what the second one is.” So he goes to different clubs and back rooms roughing people up, shooting off heads, biting off ears, trying to get to the big man who betrayed him, or something. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, filmed in Seattle, Thom Doty
Posted in Action, Reviews | 19 Comments »
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
I laughed the first time I saw this DVD cover, Christian Slater with a combover and nerd glasses beneath that title, and clutching a bunch of dynamite. But I thought it was a serious movie. It turns out it’s a bit of a dark comedy and since it’s the only other movie from Frank Cappello, director of AMERICAN YAKUZA and NO WAY BACK, I decided to give it a shot.
The feel is very showed-a-couple-times-at-a-film-festival-somewhere, complete with low budget CGI, still-learning-supporting-actors and William H. Macy as the boss. But for what it is it’s pretty good.
Slater plays an ominously narrating fed up office drone who loads the gun in his desk and tells us who each bullet is meant for. But he decides today is not the day to go postal – timing is important. When he gets home his goldfish (a CGI cartoon like the one in the CAT IN THE HAT movie) scolds him for pussying out. “If I’d gone through with it nobody would be here to feed you,” he says, but the fish isn’t convinced. “I don’t care as long as the bastards are dead!” This is definitely one of the bitterest CGI animals outside of, obviously, Garfield. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christian Slater, Elisha Cuthbert, Frank A. Cappello, William H. Macy
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 24 Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
The new Steven Seagal picture comes out in the States today. I couldn’t wait so I already imported the UK version. I like the design of the American cover a little better, but I don’t regret a thing because the UK one has the all important “Steven Seagal is” before the title, something that’s been sorely lacking from Seagal movies lately, not to mention from movies in general.
(STEVEN SEAGAL IS A SERIOUS MAN. STEVEN SEAGAL IS A SINGLE MAN. STEVEN SEAGAL IS AN EDUCATION. STEVEN SEAGAL IS PRECIOUS BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE. etc. ) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Byron Mann, is..., Seagalogy
Posted in Action, Reviews, Seagal | 66 Comments »
Sunday, February 7th, 2010
I wasn’t planning to see THE BLIND SIDE, but I’d seen 8 out of the 10 best picture nominees already, and I heard it wasn’t that bad. So what the hell. Figured I could start filling out the checklist and have a review for Super Bowl Sunday.
Adapted from part of a Michael Lewis football book, this is the true story of how a completely uneducated homeless kid in Tennessee who barely spoke and didn’t know what an ocean was got brought into a private Christian school, adopted by rich white people, learned how to play football and got his grades up enough for a college football scholarship. He was Michael Oher, now an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: John Lee Hancock, Kathy Bates, Lily Collins, Ray McKinnon, Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, watchable but should be so much better feel good true story football movies
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Sport | 61 Comments »
Friday, February 5th, 2010
This is the kind of story that’s best to go in dark and just watch how things unfold. But I’m gonna have to describe some of it to explain the movie. At the start Jimmy (David Caruso) is on parole, he’s got a young daughter, and he and his wife (Helen Hunt) are both recovering alcoholics. She got a babysitter so they could go to a meeting together but he didn’t know that was the plan so he already went to a meeting by himself earlier. While he stays home watching the baby his cousin Ronnie (Michael Rappaport) shows up and begs him to come drive a truck loaded with stolen cars. Jimmy tries to throw Ronnie out (“I could go to jail just for talking to you”) but Ronnie has a broken finger and convinces his cousin that somebody’s gonna kill him if he doesn’t find a driver. And Jimmy’s the last on the list. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barbet Schroeder, David Caruso, Michael Rapaport, Nicolas Cage, Philip Baker Hall, Richard Price, Samuel L. Jackson, Ving Rhames
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 52 Comments »
