Another Rant About Some Movies

Another Movie Rant.

So, I just got done watching Savages by Oliver Stone. It was pretty damned good. A sure sign I will like a movie is when I read reviews or listen to anyone else’s opinion and they hate a movie, it is a good sign I will love it.

The last time this happened was The Libertine. All the reviews were horrified that Johnny Depp was infected with syphilis and pissing on himself and there were midgets riding huge dildos. These are what convinced me I needed to go see it in the theater as soon as possible.

I take a lot of crap for having what I consider to be refined tastes. Sure, maybe I am a snob but I would like to think I just have a higher standard for my entertainment. Tonight was a perfect example. When I checked into the movie on getglue.com one girl said that she thought it was a horrible Friday night movie choice, however, it had everything I want in a Friday night movie and most of my favorite actors and actresses. While they were all playing roles that have almost become cliché for them at this point, they are roles I love them in. Savages displayed potheads rather poorly because everyone knows pot is not an addictive drug so why portray them like heroin addicts or people tripping? It was really the one point that bothered me, otherwise it was pretty violent and well written.

After years of Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino doing very marketable and commercial movies, it was nice to see one of them get back to doing what made us love them. Savages feels like an early Tarantino movie with flashes of the brilliance that was Natural Born Killers and a bit of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas just for good measure. Yeah, it is that good. Now we just need Quentin to sort himself out and stop making all these dumb comic book-ish movies like Inglorious Bastards, The Men with the Iron Fist and Django whatever with Jamie Foxx. Just because Kill Bill made him a bunch of money he is going to make movies that are basically the same over and over again now. Inglorious Bastards may be the last thing I ever watch by him because I do not care who you are, how cool think you are or how much a studio is paying you, the Nazi history is fairly well documented and you do not get to re write it.

I like fiction and all and I get he was making fiction but I like history more and diverging that much made me angry. Oliver Stone was always really good about historical accuracy and for that, I will always count him as one of the greatest directors of our time.

Lately there have been very few movies I have had any interest in watching but the ones I do take a chance on, end up being good enough to own. Cabin in the Woods and Prometheus, Dark Shadows, Lockout and The Hunger Games were the last movies we bought. A strange mix, I know. A mix that shows, I hope, that I will give almost anything a shot and judge it fairly. I am not afraid to call something a turd and I am not afraid to admit when that opinion gets changed. Even when that opinion has been held for years in either direction, when it changes, I embrace it. Buying a Tim Burton movie was not easy, admitting the best vampire movie to come out in years was done by my least favorite director was hard to admit to but I did it. I will not love everything someone does just because I loved everything they did before, it works both ways.

Sometimes I even watch things made by Pixar when I need to be reminded of what is wrong with kids these days. I have also kept up with all the comic book movies and I still say The Crow was the best one of those ever made. Who knows though, I have never been on the pulse of what is going on in the world, as I get older, I get grumpier and grumpier about things like this.

11/20/2012 2:26 AM

Then, There Was Eva

You Don’t Know Eva Green?

It has been a while since I have reviewed any movies; it has been a while since I have watched any worth a second thought really. Once again though tonight I find one with one of my favorite actresses called Womb. Eva Green consistently choses roles in really weird movies and personally, I love her for that and always will.

She is French born with a beautiful accent and eyes that give me shivers and could terrify anyone I am sure. Now and then she turns around and has this look that even full grown men in armor cower from. I have said before that I like my movies strange and somewhat disturbing, if they are from some other country, all the better. The first movie I ever found Eva Green in was called The Dreamers. Based on a book by Gilbert Adair and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, it was all about love, music, art and old movies, I fell in love with Eva Green and Michael Pitt, it might have been where I fell in love with weird foreign films too but I digress. I can’t recommend that movie enough if you know what you’re getting into with French movies, definitely not for the kids.

She might hurt you, but you might like it….

Then when I heard about Starz doing Camelot and her playing Morgan, I knew it would be brilliant but I was absolutely blown away by her performance. Much like Flash Forward and Lost, it is one of those great shows that didn’t get the chance to finish, and it was very unjust. Even though the kid who played King Arthur was a bit of a goober, Eva did a wonderful job of carrying the show along, holding her own against people like Joseph Fiennes who played Merlin. When the scariest thing in a room full of men in armor is a beautiful lady with intense eyes, you know she is going to be a handful.

A few months back, while flipping through on demand, we came across a movie called Perfect Sense with her and Ewan McGregor. The idea behind this one was that a plague takes people senses one by one all over the world and it shows humanity trying to deal with it. It turned out to be a rather sweet love story too so I will try not to ruin it for anyone but imagine losing your sense of smell, your sense of taste and falling in love while you lose your sense of sight then eventually your sense of touch, it was pretty intense and of course beautifully strange. Not for everyone, it was kind of slow, the Dreamers is not for everyone either but more for the strange brother/sister love affair.

That brings us to The Womb. I don’t really know where to begin because it was such a strange journey. Two kids fall in love, Eva and a kid who played a Dr. Who apparently meet when they are nine then reunite years later. Then the boy dies suddenly, Eva goes and finds a way to clone him despite his parents being depressed and against the idea. So she raises the cloned version of her lover as her son, away from society and alone with her on a secluded beach because boy version one had always loved the beach, it was where they had fallen in love when they were children. So cloned boy grows up into the man Eva had once loved and well, let’s say things get a bit complicated, complicated and uncomfortable. This movie is definitely not for everyone either, very slow and very, very strange. Personally I love things like that, things that show me what is out there for better or worse, things that challenge me to widen my horizons and think, things that have some sort of effect on me even if it makes me feel uncomfortable and disturbed. That is just me though. If you are someone who uses the term “motherfucker” you may decide to drop it from your vocabulary after watching The Womb.

Sure, Eva Green was a Bond girl and she has done some other things like The Golden Compass and the upcoming Dark Shadows, Tim Burton turd but I wouldn’t know much about them, it’s just not my style. I feel like instead of talking about the same crap everyone else is into, I want to be the one to tell you about something awesome you have never heard of before, I want people to check out this crazy stuff I am into so I can hear their thoughts after, maybe even so I can just push people out of the box a little, maybe think a little and maybe evolve a little.

5/8/2012 2:19 AM

Re-Make, Recycle, Regurgitate

Screw Your Re-Makes.

Here we go; another rant about how Hollywood is ruining movies, about how they have no original ideas anymore and how some of these fools really need a good punch in the head. So if you have no enjoyed these posts from me before, you have been warned.

This week I feel the need to express my absolute seething and complete hatred of Tim Burton. For years and years he has offended me to my freaky little core. Every single movie he makes is wonderful and weird; he creates these beautifully dark and creepy worlds. Then ruins it, always ruins it by dumping normalcy all over like egg shell white paint. Then he started ruining childhood favorites, demolishing them one by one. Usually he will cast actors and actresses I usually like when they step away from him and his crap factory of movies. Finding out that next up on his butchers block is Dark Shadows made me think he should be dragged out in the streets and beaten upside his head. I wish that I could blow it off as; hey everyone has to make a buck like everyone else does but seriously, have some self-respect, leave things alone that were done brilliantly the first time and try to think for yourself once in a while. We don’t need Pirates of the Caribbean part twenty; we need Johnny Depp to be free to make more movies like The Libertine.

Let’s say, Michael Bay needs a smack in the head too. I don’t care how many little girls now think that vampires sparkle in the sun; I don’t care how popular Michael Bay movies are… The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were NOT from space so how DARE he try to say so. I can get behind a remake of that but stick to the story. On that note, Markey Mark will be staring in the re-make of one of my all-time favorite movies, The Crow. If he dying in the same way as its first star Brandon Lee wouldn’t make him go down in history, I would hope for it to happen. Markey Mark doesn’t deserve that kind of recognition and fame.

This leads me to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. So much potential, so much hope, so many talented people involved to dumb down a brilliant story. Such a steaming pile of crap. I even went to a midnight release to get it on blue ray, sucker. First, if you are going to do a movie and have it take place in another country, speak the language. If people are too lazy to read the books or the subtitled version of something, well they lose don’t they? David Fincher is one of the best filmmakers in this country usually and when I heard Trent Reznor did the soundtrack I had a lot of hope, I really wanted to like it as much as I liked the other incarnations of the story but I should have gotten the soundtrack instead. The chick that played Lisbeth did really well, I didn’t think she had it in her, this is not an easy role and now there are armies of girls who identify with the character all over the world.  Get the books, get the Swedish version of the movies, and don’t bother with this new one. I should have trusted my gut, I knew better. In a movie full of rape, violence, Nazis and mystery, I know I am focusing on the wrong things but killing the kitten was completely uncalled for and just a waste of film, it ruined the whole thing. Right from the start, all I liked more about this version was that they gave him a kitten in the first place and the opening credits. A beautifully done pile of crap. Maybe they will pull it together with the next two installments when the story really gets going and hopefully Trent does the soundtracks for all of them because that was the best part.

After that I watched The Moth Diaries. I had heard about the book and figured you can’t go wrong with a storyline like passionate vampires at a prestigious all-girls school. It’s what I thought at least. Silly I thinking any new vampire anything would be worth watching. With a plot like that, it could have been great, if perhaps I had written it. Pretty rare for me to be disappointed with a foreign movie but since it was filmed in Canada, using all the little British girls; I guess it doesn’t really count. I would give the book a chance but I have already read the stories it was ripped off from.

The X-Files never fails to disappoint though so here I sit finishing the last few seasons that I never watched when they were on long ago. Sooner or later I will find some movies that don’t irritate me to write about but for now I am going to stick with what I know, stick with what I like until someone ruins it and makes a crappy remake of it.

3/21/2012 4:34 AM

Some Good Movies

Strange Visions and Ideas.

It was four in the morning when I tried to go to sleep last night and here we are again. Last night the issue keeping me from slumber was the idea that I could just put a movie on and pass out. Sometimes though, those movies end up being bad ass and I stay awake to see how it all plays out. Tonight though, those movies are still bouncing around and still taking up space in my head. I tried to distract myself but the fact that I have been drinking has left me incapable of focusing on anything else for the time being.

First I watched a movie called ‘The Way Back’ with Ed Harris and Colin Farrell. Supposedly based on a true story but the thing to watch it for is the incredible scenery. It starts at a Gulag camp in Siberia in the early days of World War 2 and it follows  a handful of escapees over mountains and deserts, documenting their incredible journey to freedom in India. Powerful stuff if you’re into that sort of thing, adventure and survival stories, wilderness and men being manly. Since it was made by National Geographic, it was done right, it was done beautifully and it focused more on the surroundings and the journey more than the heartfelt human interactions, even though all the characters were likeable and believable throughout. Setting in this case was the undeniable star of this movie.

As the sun started coming up I started a documentary called ‘Erasing David’ figuring it was a perfect one to nod off to. It only took about ten minutes to figure out how wrong I was. Not only did I say awake watching it but for most of the day just thinking about the movie. Netflix is great for someone like me but becoming paranoid about the internet and how much information I put on it was pretty terrifying. The film maker hired some private eyes and tried to disappear and hide from them by going off the grid and he gave them a month to find him. It took 18 days for him to be found just from data the private eyes found online. They tracked him with using his phone and it was fun watching David start going nuts over the course of the movie. Pretty amazing stuff and I was inspired to get a book about how to disappear, written by one of the experts in the movie.

Now I am watching one called Zenith. So far it’s about secret societies and a world where people a genetically enhanced to always be happy and they buy emotions like drugs. In this world, words have lost their meaning and the main character is trying to figure out how it all happened.  So far so good. Lots of strange ideas and unknown filmmakers are creating visions in my head. Nothing new there though, it’s better this way.

3/5/2012 9:49 PM

A Change of Heart

J. Edgar

I might have said once or twice that many, many movies are watched around here. Really the only thing that will be missing are crappy comedies so if that’s your thing, I suggest moving right along. There are plenty of other people out there filling the world with that vomit so I will leave it to them.

Over the years, I have been forced to change my opinions about some people. Justin Timberlake for example. The few movies I have seen him in have impressed me consistently. As hard as it is to admit it, I am starting too really like him. If you want to laugh or argue, go watch ‘In Time’ and ‘Southland Tales” and after that, we can talk. Those movies were good enough to almost make me forgive him for all that Mickey Mouse, boy band crap that he did before. Jada-fucking-Pinket-Smith is another one. Between her parts in ‘The Matrix” movies and her metal band, she proved herself bad ass enough to not only be forgiven movies like ‘Woo’ she earned herself a new middle name. On the other side of that though, there are people like Ice Cube and Dave Grohl, who should have stuck to their first creative outlets instead of destroying their coolness with other stuff.

Clint Eastwood has become an amazing director, I like him behind the camera much more than in front of it. The whole time we were watching J. Edgar, neither of us knew we were watching something directed by him. Usually it’s Martin Scorsese that likes to have Leo Dicaprio in all his movies so we assumed it was him. Poor Leo is another one who gets a lot of hate from people for some reason, love him or hate him though, he is one hell of an actor. His performance in this movie was unreal and brilliantly done. In a world full of Nick Cage and ripped off remade movies, it is good to see such an intense and complete depiction of someone else. It became easy to get lost and convinced, and absolutely sucked the story.

Granted, stories like this are not for most people. Politics, lies, history and conspiracy make a good story for me, add in some cross dressing and I am sold. This was an absolutely wonderfully done movie for people that are into things of that nature. Definitely one of the best movies to have come out recently. They timed it well with all these government corruption movies right around election time. It puts the real life stories and dramas under a very harsh microscope for me at least. We live in a crazy world, it’s up to us to decide for ourselves who to trust and where the line is drawn when it comes to what is simply entertainment and what might be terrifyingly close to the truth. This was one of those movies that left you with questions at the end instead of giving you all the answers. I applaud everyone involved in making it and recommend it to anyone with three hours or so to spend learning about an important figure in American history.

2/24/2012 4:25 AM

Date Night, in 3-D

Now In 3-D.

Like many aspects of technology, I have been very slow and hesitant to hop on this 3-D craze. Honestly I am still just starting my blue-ray collection and learning how to play video games. Sure, there were movies I would have liked to have seen in 3-D but I just never got around to it or never had enough interest to bother with going to see it in the theater. Admittedly, I am a snob, if Black Swan had been in 3-D or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had been in 3-D, I would have checked it out a long time ago.

Star Wars though, seemed like the perfect first 3-D experience. So we called a date night, ended up playing trivia in the bar of the restaurant we went to and found out that we really aren’t as smart as we think we are and then went over to the theater. There was a herd of teenagers when we got there and we looked at each other and rolled our eyes thinking they were going to the same movie as us. It was the exact reason why we usually just stay home. Luckily though, they went and watched something else, there was barely anyone watching the Phantom Menace with us. It was peaceful and we got to enjoy our over-priced candy and our nice buzz in the furthest row, like cute couples like us are supposed to do on date night.

Him and I had both seen the movie a million times and thought that 3-D was going to be pretty special. Honestly, the most effective 3-D moment was with the scrolling words at the beginning, the whole long ago in a galaxy far, far away part. Sure, the pod race was cool looking and a few other parts were really big and spectacular but over all I don’t get the fuss over 3-D. For the most part, I was left sitting there wondering how long it was going to take before all these geniuses who created this new wondrous technology are getting sued because people ended up with brain damage or they went blind.

The way my head felt after had little to do with the margarita I had earlier with dinner. I figure it’s a matter of time now that everyone has 3-D TV’s in their houses and they play video games in 3-D too. It can’t be good. Like all these prescription drugs that are now causing all sorts of problems now, it seems like eventually we are going to find out that there wasn’t enough research done in the long term effects. But, what do I know.

Ever since those first three Star Wars movies have come out, everyone has been pretty harsh on poor Jar Jar Binks. I don’t get it though, I think he is cute and he was even cuter in 3-D honestly. Clumsy and accident prone, I sort of feel for him. He doesn’t know when to shut up either so, we have a lot in common to be honest. On opening night when it first came out, I was offered some mushrooms by a hippy chick sitting next to me, even though I was there with my grandmother and some other ‘family’ I took her up on her offer. It was not enough to really make me trip, it was just a happy, floating place that could explain my love of Jar Jar Binks and why I wasn’t very impressed with all the 3-D hoopla. My hope though is that they do all of them again with the new effects, the third one, with the fire planet will be pretty amazing, it was without 3-D so I am looking forward to seeing that someday and knowing George Lucas, it’s just a matter of time.

All in all, it was an awesome date night, wrapped up with some Tetris with the two people I love most. This really is the life; I am completely and absolutely blessed. Now we just have to get rid of this crappy, half-assed winter so we can get back to our date nights at the beach watching fireworks. When we left the theater, it was snowing, in 3-D; we skipped and frolicked in 3-D; now I am officially ready for winter to be over.

2/22/2012 3:18 AM

Breaking Down Breaking Dawn.

Breaking Dawn,

I know, I know, it’s stupid, its pre-teen silliness. It almost pains me to admit that I have read the books and kept up with the movies but we all have our guilty pleasures in life and one of mine happens to be dark, brooding vampires with nice hair. My driving force with the Twilight series was simply to see what all the fuss was about so I read the books a few years ago, right after the first movie came out. Please though, do not misunderstand me, just because I don’t actively hate the poorly written story and the mediocre actors that brought it to life in the movie versions, it does not mean I am part of the cult that follow it like a religion. I am not team anything and if I would have to pick any side, it would be team Eric because that big, blonde, heartless Nordic god is the vampire of choice for grown-ups in my opinion. A few weeks back I read an article about a girl who was so obsessed with Twilight that she convinced herself that she was a vampire by eating her menstrual blood. She wanted to ‘turn’ her boyfriend, thinking he would magically turn into some pretty little creature of the night so she started sneaking her blood into his food that she cooked for him without him knowing. People are crazy; it’s really hard to understand how that could happen because of such crappy art. This more than anything makes me wonder what is wrong with humanity.

I will try not to get into plot lines or story points or any of that. By now I assume that people, who want to know, already do and will be able to keep up with what I am talking about. Anyone who doesn’t know, is not a fan, well, they can just sit back and enjoy the rant about something some commonly hated. If someone wants to know more, they can seek them out of their own but I don’t really recommend it. If you want a good trilogy of books and movies, try the Millennium movies from Sweden. Those are still some of the best movies I have seen since maybe the Matrixes but I digress, this is about mellow dramatic sparkly teen drama. I have to keep reminding myself sometimes that I am old now and I am not supposed to understand things like this, I am allowed to say things like how these damned kids these days don’t have anything about anything.

Breaking Dawn was my favorite of all the books in the series because it is where they finally get to the point and start figuring things out. Bella and her Romeo, I mean, Edward, are done with school and getting married. The highlight of the wedding was an appearance from the guy who played Dexter’s older brother. After three movies of them looking constipated at each other and sighing they fly off to a remote island to figure out if they can behave like adults or not. After one brief, anti-climactic scene of lovemaking, the dumb girl ends up pregnant. By a vampire, yeah. I know. How that one big huge plot hole is overlooked and dismissed by so many people is beyond me but I guess everyone just wants to believe in love and the magic of child birth or whatever. Either that or no one can get past vampires now being able to be out in the daylight enough to even give the potency of dead guy sperm any sort of acknowledgement or attention, fair enough.

So they get back, find out that the baby is feeding on the mother and since she one of ‘those girls’ she gets all motherly and protective of the demon that was growing inside her. This was the best part of the movie for me, not because of the suffering, not because of the flexing, whimpering puppy that was always fighting for Bella’s attentions. Admittedly I have my chick flick side but it is usually more like things like Whip It or Bound, the poorly written love story in these books appeal to that side as much as the rest of me hates it. I like mushiness as much as the next girl but again, I like it when it is well done and it has adults. No, the best part was the transformation that Kristen Stuart went through over the course of the movie as she was slowly dying for a baby she would never see. They made her look like an emaciated crack head and they did it so well that I am convinced that all they really did to achieve that effect was leave her alone and let her go. It looked natural, it looked like what she might look like if you ran into her in a grocery store or at the gym or like she is going to look like in real life in five years when she is blowing heroin dealers and pimps after this ‘career’ of hers is over. I try not to be too mean because she did do one hell of a good job as Joan Jett in the Runaways. I try to focus on that more than anything else.

She suffers and whines for a few more hours, and the pretty little vampire and the pretty little wolf flex at each other, whine, brood and stomp around for a few hours and then Bella gives birth to the demon child and dies. Edward bites her all over in hopes that he could turn her instead of losing her and the wolf pack breaks up and there are a few fights. Nothing really happens in the whole movie even though most people would say that everything happened in this installment. My argument to that would be to ask if anything happened in the whole mindless saga. Like I said, I am a romantic in ways but Twilight has pushed that tolerance to the absolute edges of sanity. I have never been able to let go of logic and just be entertained, I need to know why and how and I need to know how things work but if there are no answers I get frustrated.

Since Harry Potter did so well breaking up their last movie into two, of course they are going to follow suit with Twilight too and drag everything out for as long as possible. My guess is that as soon as the last part of Breaking Dawn is released, someone will remake them since that is what we do in this country. Someone will want to make it darker and edgier or someone will simply think they could do a better version, either way, I give it five to ten years before there are either three more movies added onto the end or they will be completely redone. There is just way too much money to be had and no one is going to miss out on their piece of it, that’s just the way the world seems to work.

2/18/2012 7:16 AM

 

Who Doesn’t Love Ryan Gosling?

Ryan Gosling Is Amazing.

My intention was to write a review of The Ides of March which was a very well done movie. Since it had a cast of really great famous people, all amazing actors and actresses, I was excited to watch it. George Clooney stared and also directed in this remake of the classic play and did a fantastic job on both counts. Since we are right in the middle of a political season and all that it entails, this movie coming out right now was incredibly well timed. Tis the season for government and all it’s debouched, most corrupt and most disgusting. The ending was well done too; I like any movie that leaves you with more questions than answers when the credits roll. Everything in this movie fit together perfectly and every cast member brought something special to the overall brilliance of the movie. I was pleasantly surprised and gained a new respect for Clooney, after watching that, there is a good chance that I might even vote for him in their fake world election, despite all the things that happen in the shady, shadowy underside of his campaign.

Once again though, I was reminded of all the reasons to love Ryan Gosling. Every movie that guy is in is better than the last, he is by far one of the most promising leading males of this generation. In almost every movie I have ever seen him in; he has worked his way up the list as one of my favorite actors. Beautiful and talented, he pulls off that smart, tough bad boy look better than most people ever could.

I feel like I should mention that I have yet to watch that recent movie with that not so funny comedian that he won a bunch of awards for. So this movie does not factor into my decisions about him. I consider him a serious actor and unless that other guy is animated and hanging out with little yellow minions I have no interest in watching anything with him in it. Maybe when it is free on TV I will give it a shot, late at night when I have nothing better to do.

Ever since I first saw The Believer, a movie where Ryan played a Jewish Nazi that was based on a true story; I was in known that this guy was going to be something special. Then, every movie I watched him in, right up to The Ides of March tonight, I have been blown away by him. In many movies he has been put up against some of the biggest names in entertainment and held his own against them.

I look forward to watching the world discover him more and more, if anyone deserves to be a star, it is him. It is nice to know that talent still pays off and that people still recognize it for what it is now and then.

The Ides of March came out on Blue Ray and DVD today and I recommend checking it out. As long as you have a high tolerance for slow, boring, conspiracy movies. If I was honest about it, I would have to admit that the almost two hour movie felt more like three. I live for movies like this though and will sit for days straight watching the same thing as long as it is keeping my interest and weaving a good enough world for me to get lost in while I watch. If you are not like me though, there are other movies out there with him in it, the important thing is to find something and check out one of the best actors around. You will not be sorry that you did, unless you watch that movie I talked about earlier that I had not seen, and then I make no guarantees for quality.

1/19/2012 3:36 AM