Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Sunday, May 10th, 2009
Never thought they’d be able to pull a trick like this, but somehow they made STAR TREK cool. I’m not even sure if I can say cool again. I guess when the first couple movies came out it passed as cool. Anyway, this is some top grade movie magic here because it takes this pop culture phenomenon that has for generations been the #1 cliche nerd obsession and makes it into something that we, as a society, can share peacefully and enjoy together.
Going on opening night of course I saw it in a sold out crowd that must’ve contained some hardcore Trekkos (that’s what they prefer to be called – the word “Trekkies” was made up for the classic documentary and to true Trekkos is considered ten times worse than the n-word) but I never even felt a twinge of that nerdophobic uncomfortableness I felt when I went to see SERENITY. Midnight show in Imax might’ve been a different story, I don’t know, but my point is this thing is reaching far outside of the nerd audience. They said we weren’t ready for a black president, and they were wrong. They never said we weren’t ready for a cool STAR TREK, because nobody was even gonna argue that one. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: based on a TV show, Eric Bana, Jay-Jay Abrams, Karl Urban, prebootquels, Winona Ryder
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 99 Comments »
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
Hey guys, good news: I got another review of a weird little inaccessible arthouse movie from last year! This time it’s MISTER LONELY, the most recent movie about a Michael Jackson impersonator in Paris who meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator who convinces him to come live in a commune where other impersonators live inside a Scottish castle, raise sheep and build a stage where they hope to put on a show. And you can imagine where it would go from there.
In my opinion MISTER LONELY writer/director Harmony Korine is a weird dude. He wrote KIDS for Larry Clark when he was 19, became a director with GUMMO and later did JULIEN DONKEY BOY. His movies are freak shows of improvisation, arty photography and the complete rejection of any mainstream idea of what a movie is supposed to be. As much as I have tried to push the idea of him directing a mainstream movie like a MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE it doesn’t seem to be something he’s interested in. Instead he hangs out with Werner Herzog, gets involved in that whole Dogme 95 deal, and makes weird books with titles like A Crack Up At the Race Riots. He’s also known for his bizarre interviews like on Letterman when he was younger or with a fan websight who he instructed to meet him in the projects, then spoke to them by phone for a while, then showed up and made them listen to Beyonce on a laptop while he sat in a lawnchair petting his dog. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Harmony Korine, Michael Jackson, Werner Herzog
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
Well, we had Butch and Sundance, we had Bonnie and Clyde, we had Thelma and Louise and Tango and Cash. And today on DVD we have WENDY AND LUCY.
Wendy and Lucy are an inseparable team, relying on their wits alone as they set forth on a harrowing cross-country trek from Indiana to Alaska. But when fate separates them, Wendy will stop at nothing to reunite with her friend… even if it means sacrificing everything she ah hell, I can’t make this shit sound exciting. This is actually a quiet, minimalistic movie about a girl and her dog stuck in a small town in Oregon with no money. Nice and simple. No explosions. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kelly Reichardt, Michelle Williams, Oscilloscope Laboratories
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 10 Comments »
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
By special request, and because I was planning on doing it anyway, here is my review of X-MEN 4: X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE: THE PREQUEL.
Word on X-MEN ORIGINS WOLVERINE has been toxic ever since some prick leaked it onto the internet a month ago. Nerds hated it, critics hated it, my buddy who was looking forward to it as much as I was hated it. I heard nothing but bad news. When I checked the San Francisco Chronicle for a followup on that kook that says her dad was the Zodiac I instead found a WOLVERINE review with the headline “Lower your X-pectations.” So I did. And it was a bummer because I genuinely had been X-cited. I enjoyed the X-MEN pictures… ALL THREE OF THEM. Do you find that shocking? EVEN PART THREE, MOTHERFUCKERS. I am 33% more into X-Men than most nerds. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Hugh Jackman, Scott Adkins
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 68 Comments »
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
My Brian Trenchard-Smith studies continue with this 1979 picture, not an Australian one but a USA-Spain-Mexico co-production. And you know with that many countries cooperating that it’s gotta be amazing. It stars Chuck Connors as a jovial freelance agent hired to retrieve a mysterious document from a South American dictator’s blown up yacht. There also might’ve been some money on that thing so the world’s best agents and assassins, including Richard Roundtree, are all in the area competing with him. Also Henry Silva is the head of police who has jurisdiction over the area, but he’s just in a couple scenes doing press conferences. He doesn’t reveal himself to be evil, but I don’t buy it.
It seems like everybody involved in this movie is just doing it for a quick paycheck, but that’s okay. It’s still cool to see them all together in this weird little movie. Glenn Ford plays the guy who hires Connors, and he looks like he’s either retired or on vacation. He’s wearing shades and a white Adidas track jacket, and he’s only in a few scenes, sitting next to the swimming pool. I bet whenever Trenchard-Smith called “cut” he jumped in. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Trenchard-Smith, Chuck Connors, Glenn Ford, Richard Roundtree
Posted in Action, Reviews | 9 Comments »
Friday, May 1st, 2009
Usually I prefer to wait to see a movie on the big screen, but when I saw an import DVD of ONG BAK 2 I just couldn’t resist. What on earth is that guy gonna jump off of or over in this one? Who or what will find their bones crushed by his bones? And the thought of that little guy running around on top of elephants… I don’t know man. I wasn’t gonna sit around waiting if I didn’t have to.
I think we all agree that Tony Jaa is the closest thing we got to a New Jackie Chan. Not that his persona or humor is the same or anything. But he’s an inhumanly great martial artist and stuntman whose movies make our jaws drop with feats of physical prowess and death defiance. They don’t make too many of those these days so it’s a big deal. I don’t know about you but I really hadn’t quite had a “holy shit, a guy really did that!?” reaction like that since the heyday of Jackie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: adventure, Panna Rittikrai, revenge, Thai action, Tony Jaa
Posted in Action, Reviews | 32 Comments »
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
MARTYRS is one seriously fucked up horror movie. It hails from France circa last year, but comes to region 1 DVD today. I went in knowing zero about the plot, just that it had a reputation as a good but brutal horror movie. This DVD actually has an introduction where the director, Pascal Laugier, introduces himself as “the director of the movie you’ve decided to watch tonight” and then says, “I’m not sure you’ve made the right decision.” Then he proceeds to apologize in advance.
And I think he’s only half joking. My recommendation: if you can take a really upsetting horror movie and want to see a good one, stop reading and see it fresh like I did. If you need some convincing or something you can click through. I’ll still try to be vague. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: French horror, Pascal Laugier
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 50 Comments »
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
FROST/NIXON also came out on DVD yesterday, so I figured I would dig out my unfinished review from when I saw it on the big screen and polish that up.
FROST/NIXON is the most highly anticipated battle since the first ALIEN VS. PREDATOR. But I gotta be honest, I only went to see it because it was the last “best picture” nominee I hadn’t seen. I mean it looked pretty interesting, but I’m not the biggest Ron Howard fan, so I probaly wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. The good news is I didn’t hate it like I did THE READER.
Frank Langella (MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE) plays Richard Nixon, who was apparently some sort of president. Michael Sheen (UNDERWORLD, UNDERWORLD EVOLUTION, UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS, THE QUEEN) plays David Frost, who I guess interviewed Nixon one time. This is the story of them negotiating and then filming an interview over a couple days and a couple other conversations they had in between and afterward and what not. Explosive! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Frank Langella, Oscar bait, Ron Howard
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 25 Comments »
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
NOTORIOUS, the biopic of the late rapper Christopher “Notorious (Biggie Smalls) B.I.G.” Wallace comes out on DVD today.
I don’t know about Gene Shalit or Tom Shales or some of these guys, but I gotta admit I don’t come to NOTORIOUS as a Biggie fan from day 1. I was a late adopter. I knew a couple of those catchy songs with the R&B choruses, so I thought he was just a gangster Heavy D or a fat Ladies Love Cool James. But years after his death when I finally heard the whole “Ready to Die” album I was converted immediately.
It’s true that Biggie (who was only 24 when he died) mostly had the same materialist tough guy obsessions that 50 Cent still has as a grown adult and business leader. He’s rhyming about money and guns but like a real slick director his execution elevates the subject matter. He was one of the best storytellers in hip hop. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: George Tillman Jr., hip hop, music biopic
Posted in Crime, Drama, Music, Reviews | 25 Comments »
Monday, April 20th, 2009
There are two Richard Stark based movies left that have never been released for the home video in the U.S. One is MISE A SAC, a French one based on The Score, where Parker and a crew try to rob an entire mining town. The other is THE SPLIT, based on The Seventh, where Jim Brown as the Parker character robs a football stadium and then has some trouble afterwords. My man David M. in France has seen both – he saw a restored print of MISE A SAC and told me it was great. As for THE SPLIT he did me one better than telling me about it, he sent me a recording from when it played letterboxed on the French Turner Classic Movies channel. (I don’t know who the French Ted Turner is, but it sounds like he plays better shit than the American one.)
If you’re reading this in the future maybe every movie ever made is available for instant download, but in my day you had to be patient. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to see this thing. The closest I came before now was an old movie magazine I bought at an antique mall because it had Barbarella on the cover (wait a minute, is Roger Vadim the French Ted Turner?) So I bought it for the Barbarella, because a man has needs, but it turned out there was also an “article” – really just a plot summary – about THE SPLIT. I’d been meaning to read it and write a book-to-movie-summary comparison until they get off their ass and release it. But now thanks to French Ted Turner I don’t have to stoop to that. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ernest Borgnine, Gene Hackman, heists, Jim Brown, Parker, Richard Stark, Warren Oates
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 12 Comments »
