"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (10 years later)

tn_finalfantasy
chapter 9

2001posterLet me tell you man, I’m not trying to commemorate the tenth anniversary of this movie. There’s no celebration here at all. It’s just analysis, I swear.

I saw FINAL FANTASY in the theater when it came out, found it incredibly boring, and really didn’t want to ever watch it again. Here is my review from back then. But I thought it was important to revisit for this study because, despite being a huge financial and artistic failure this movie did break alot of new ground that has turned out to be relevant to the movies of the decade since.

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July 11th, 2011 | 56 Comments »

Hobo With a Shotgun

tn_hobowshotgunHOBO WITH A SHOTGUN – which came out this week on the dvd and the blu-ray – stars Rutger Hauer (BLIND FURY) as the titleistical armed derelict. I don’t think he ever gets a name, he’s just an old drunk who rides the rails into Hope City, better known as “Fuck City,” a small Canadian town overrun with barbaric crime and ruled savagely by a psychotic crimelord called “The Drake” (Bryan Downey) and his two douchebag sons, who I think are supposed to be modeled after Tom Cruise in RISKY BUSINESS. They wear sunglasses and letterman’s jackets but participate in public beheadings and sex slavery. Some of the cops are corrupt too, and one likes to serenade the local prostitutes with smooth come-ons like “You’re so hot I wanna cut off my dick and rub it all over your tits.” (read the rest of this shit…)

July 8th, 2011 | 157 Comments »

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

tn_caveofforgottenIt’s been a lackluster-verging-on-so-so movie summer. I kinda liked the X-MEN one, THOR was okay, SUPER 8 was pretty good, TRANSFORMERS was enjoyably awful. Definitely my favorite so far is FAST FIVE, and I love that movie but let’s face it, it’s no RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. We want to see adventure. We want to see thrills. We want to see ancient artifacts, that’s what summer movies is about. CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS is no RAIDERS either, but it’s a worthwhile 3D extravaganza about adventurers exploring the contents of a mysterious cave that went untouched by man for 32,000 years. It’s full of amazing visuals and ideas and raises alot of questions.

I guess I should mention it’s a G-rated documentary about cave paintings directed by that weirdo Werner Herzog. So alot of it is just the camera slowly panning back and forth across the same cave wall while squeaky violins and creepy chants lull you into a trance. In 3D! (read the rest of this shit…)

July 6th, 2011 | 76 Comments »

Transformers’s Dark of the Moon

tn_transformers3Bnote: this review is excessively long and convoluted and takes forever to get to the point, but only as a clever form-is-an-extension-of-content type reference to the movie it describes, in my opinion. Unfortunately I could never match the feel of the movie no matter how hard I tried. It’s like when some asshole reviews a Dr. Seuss movie in rhymes or some shit like that.

introductory remarks/overture

My friends, we have lost. Michael Bay has defeated us. First he invaded the shores of the genre we hold most dear. He brought us gifts of explosions, while behind our backs he robbed us of the very language of geography and context we use to communicate what is exploding and who or what is endangered by said explosion. Then he confiscated our property, buying up our favorite low budget horror classics to rebuild as slick, soul-less product – just to crush our spirits. And now he has completely subjugated us.
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July 2nd, 2011 | 263 Comments »

A.I. – Artificial Intelligence (10 years later)

tn_ai
chapter 8

2001posterreleased June 29th, 2001
(ten years ago today!)

Today, as we celebrate the opening of the third Steven Spielberg produced Hasbro adaptation about overly detailed space robots with different accents wiggling around and smashing buildings, let’s also take a moment to note the tenth anniversary of that one time when Spielberg tried to make a thoughtful robot movie.

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June 29th, 2011 | 120 Comments »

recommended reading: GQ oral history of Michael Bay

tn_transformers3A friend of mine recommended this piece from GQ where friends, relatives and subjects of Michael Bay are quoted talking about him. As my buddy pointed out it’s kind of horrifying and also fascinating, just like Bay’s movies. It’s not a thorough career overview, because it completely skips BAD BOYS 2 (which is his FEMME FATALE or ON DEADLY GROUND, isn’t it?). I think it’s meant as a goofy but ultimately loving profile, but to me it makes him just seem like an asshole who gets away with yelling at people because of his job. There’s also an anecdote (one I’d heard before, but maybe it’s new to you) that implies that he was destined to make bad movies since he was a teenager.

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June 29th, 2011 | 256 Comments »

SUCKER PUNCH – mystery solved (?)

tn_suckerpunchwarning: contains major spoilers and possible enigma killers

I know some of you would probly prefer that this movie just be forgotten, but considering all the discussion and confusion we had a few months ago about outlawvern.com-commenter-favorite Zack Snyder’s filmatistic intentions I was compelled to watch the extended cut and the “Maximum Movie Mode” commentary-ish thing on the new blu-ray. So this is a short post to share with you my findings and my current understanding of the answer to the question “what in fuck’s name was the ending supposed to mean?” (read the rest of this shit…)

June 28th, 2011 | 103 Comments »

The Fast and the Furious (10th Anniversary Review)

chapter 7
chapter 7

2001posterreleased June 22nd, 2001
10 years ago today!

Wow, I never would’ve predicted this: THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS has aged well. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready for it back when I first saw it. Skimming over my intentionally pretentious and off-topic original review I can see that I saw it as an attempt to exploit a fad. This is supported by all the old dvd extras (now on blu-ray) which make a huge deal about it being based on a Vibe article about street racing, and how they went to watch races and ran from the cops and all the cars and extras in the car show scenes are real racers who responded to a web posting. They wanted us to know this “street racing” was a real thing happening somewhere at night, and director Rob Cohen and friends are on the front lines ready to show us what’s going down. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 22nd, 2011 | 171 Comments »

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

tn_laracroft
chapter 6

2001posterreleased June 15th, 2001

Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie)’s trade is a “tomb raider,” which is like an asskicking archaelogical adventurist. It’s just like whatsisdick, the guy with the hat from that other movie that also used the word “raider” in the title – but don’t worry, that’s a coincidence. Lara’s introduced in what looks like some sort of an ancient crypt. She’s wearing short shorts, a The Phantom belt, spinning two pistols. Her crotch and her large, pointy boobs are somewhat emphasized, in my opinion. Might just be me.

Wouldn’t you fuckin know it, her search for treasure is interrupted by a large robot. Cue the electronical music and the wire-assisted acrobatics (remember we’re just two years after THE MATRIX). The fight is too forced to be very exciting in my opinion, but it ends on a nice touch: after killing the robot Lara takes a breath, then laughs to herself.
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June 21st, 2011 | 199 Comments »

Evolution

tn_evolution
chapter 5

2001posterreleased June 8th, 2001

I skipped EVOLUTION in the summer of 2001 because it didn’t look very good. Hey, what do you know, it turns out me-of-ten-years-ago knew what he was doing. But for this important scholarly work it was crucial that I not just view the 2001 movies people remember. To truly get a feel for the period I had to watch at least one movie that came out that summer and then nobody ever thought about it again. (read the rest of this shit…)

June 20th, 2011 | 118 Comments »

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