horselover_fat's Xanga

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:01:45 GMT

Movies I've turned off after only 20 minutes just in the last two days:

Australia

What.the.fuck was this overblown piece of shit? In just 20 minutes Nicole Kidman managed to piss me off, Hugh Jackman pissed me off, and even the little Aborigine kid pissed me off. Plus, since the movie is such a grandiose turd instead of just a regular one, I figure those first twenty minutes easily ran about a million kangaroo pelts (or whatever ridiculous currency they use on that continent). Darren Aronofsky can't find funding for his movies, but Ban Lurhmann gets to make this? If this spectacular dud wasn't enough of a wake up call for Mr. Luhrmann, somebody should get a shovel and remove his overconfidence the hard way.

Diner

Caught up in all the Oscar buzz about Mickey Rourke, I took a chance on Diner. However, when I saw Steve Guttenberg had a speaking part, I thought better of it and just turned it off. How good could it have been? If fucking Steve Guttenberg was playing the fucking dead horse's head in The fucking Godfather, I'd turn it off.

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

Finally! A male-tinted bookend to The Devil Wears Prada. Who is the audience for this movie and Simon Pegg, what else are you going to let your agent convince you to do? First, Run Fatboy Run and now this? You better hope Star Trek doesn't suck or your ass will find out how quickly Hollywood can spit you all the way back across the pond.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:42:53 GMT

Home Movie

Growing up in Honesdale, PA I'm already well aware of the saying, "It takes all kinds..." It's a saying usually reserved for life's weirdos and even then, it's bestowed only on the supremely happy ones. Typically followed by a flailing hand, a shrug of the shoulders, or a sigh of exasperation, it's a way of subtly criticizing somebody's life choices, but not necessarily their life.

You see, happy weirdos haven't just taken the road less traveled. They're the type who have taken their entire plane of existence and piloted it into a mountainside, correctly suspecting that afterwards, when they emerge physically unscathed from the crumpled cockpit, they'll somehow land on Xanadu. It's a method of living the rest of the screaming masses are incredibly uncomfortable with.

For some examples, take Chris Smith's Home Movie. The hour long documentary follows a handful of happy weirdos as they give tours of their outlandish homes: in one a couple has customized their house for their dozen cats. In another a former actress tours her custom built treehouse in Hawaii. Then there's the couple who converted an abandoned missile silo into a home.

How can you criticize them? Each family/couple/person is living out their dream life. Bill Tregle lives on a houseboat in the backwaters of the Louisiana bayou. He farms alligators. If he's hungry he eats, if he's tired he sleeps, and with that Gump-ish of an existence, I guarantee you he sleeps a helluva lot better than me. No taxes, no bills, no fucking people. Sure he shits over an open hole in a badly listing houseboat in part of the country where even a strong sneeze breaks a dike and washes him out to sea, but *shrug.* He's happy.

I wouldn't live in any of the houses profiled. Even the moldering treehouse in Hawaii with its own hydroelectric generator. I need my electricity and my outrageous $150 cable bill. I need my central air and I just couldn't live without my big windows that offer such lovely views of my neighbor's siding.

If Bill Tregle had a phone, I would call him and tell him I'll see him soon.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:32:11 GMT

My Name Is Bruce

Wikipedia provides a decent summation of Bruce Campbell's latest effort: "The plot revolves around Campbell, playing a sleazy version of himself, who, after being harassed and mistaken by fans to be a character much like Ash from the Evil Dead series of horror films, is abducted from his trailer park home to fight against Guan Di, a Chinese war deity."

If that sounds like a cool movie to you (like it did to me), then you'll like this. If it doesn't, then it won't. Simple as that.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:28:29 GMT

JCVD

I had heard plenty of things about JCVD before I watched it. Unimpressed by everything I read, I attributed most of the positive hype to internet fanboys who haven't quite progressed passed the whole let's-watch-Cyborg-on-late-night-cable-while-having-a-sleepover-in-the-late-80's era of their lives. I figured just like another fanboy favorite, Bloodsport, the positive reviews came from people who's lives were stuck in syndication.

I was wrong.

JCVD successfully builds on the recent trend of washed-up action star comebacks. Stallone was first with Rocky, Willis followed up with Die Hard, and now the Muscles-from-Brussels shows them all how it's proper done. Whereas Rocky was just meant to be a decent bookend for the series and Live Free or Die Hard was meant to be a watered-down money machine, JCVD takes an contrarian approach and feels like a film that just happens to have Jean-Claude Van Damme in it.

Oh, and happens to have him in it starring as himself.

The writer/director, a Mabrouk El Mechri (if that's his real name), does an excellent job of making the film seem to be about Jean-Claude Van Damme the celebrity and not Jean-Claude Van Varenberg the washed-up movie star. To the bad guys, Van Damme is the a hero, a common man who's never forgotten where's he's from and who can defeat an army of baddies using only his bare hands. To the cops, Van Damme is dangerous and mentally unstable, a joke and a liability. To Van Damme himself, he's none of those things - just Jean-Claude Van Varenberg caught up in yet another regrettable situation.

The story is blended together from all three persepectives, with Van Damme's as the lynchpin. The movie's no-name cast really relies on him and the movie's surprising success is not a result of Van Damme's muscles, but his acting chops. Who knew the Belgian could act? JCVD has me on the Van Damme bandwagon. Let's see if he can keep it rolling.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:39:47 GMT

Max Payne

I must be the only person in the country who thoroughly enjoyed Max Payne. It only got an "18% Fresh" rating on rottentomatos.com and last time I saw it listed on Netflix, its community rating was barely two stars. But, what can I say? I liked it.

Sure it was formulaic. Sure Chris O'Donnell had a speaking role. Sure Mila Kunis was awful. I mean, really awful (her performance as "Mona" was so bad, the only one worse that comes readily to mind is Mark Whalberg's in his other 2008 dud, The Happening). In the "Max Payne" video game, Mona is smart and sexy assassin, but here, Kunis couldn't be more wooden if she were reading her lines off a cue card. Olga Kurylenko - who plays Mona's sister but is unfortunately killed off in the first act - played a much better seductress/spy in Hitman. Kunis could have taken some notes from that, but decided to phone it in instead.

Whalberg's not going to win many fans out of this either, but I think the director, John Moore, did right by everyone in not asking him to do too much. Don't get me wrong, it's not that Marky-Mark can't act, it's that he doesn't have much range. He's a poor man's Keanu Reeves. Remember how the typically awful Reeves was perfect in the Matrix movies?  His sparse talents were exactly matched with what the movie required. Likewise, Whalberg was perfectly cast in The Departed and Boogie Nights mostly because he didn't have to push himself too far.

And that's ok.

He's good as "Max Payne," because he just so happens to be good at everything the character requires. Payne is a stone faced, killer; beaten down, despised, and treated like a ghost. His family hates him, his only "friend" hates him, and instead of being allowed a real policeman's beat he's been banished to a basement deskjob. Sound like anyone Whalberg knows? After The Happening he's lucky not to be banished to Bollywood.

Max Payne is also one of the better video game-to-movie adaptations I've seen and believe me, I've unfortunately seen a bunch. John Moore deftly combines the stylized imagery of the games with his own ideas to nicely fit the already established mold. He gives his actors all they can handle, controls the pace well, and makes excellent use of a modest budget. Other than Kunis really letting him down, it was a solid job.

I've played through both Max Payne game's and enjoyed them both immensely.  They weren't the best shooters I've played, but I played them the whole way through because they were fun and I wanted to see how the story played out. I have roughly the same feeling about this movie. It wasn't the best action movie I've seen, but it was fun and enjoyed it the whole way through.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:57:19 GMT

Right At Your Door

Over the last few months I've grown very wary of my Netflix queue. I've been a satisfied Netflix customer for almost three years now and as a result, my queue has become quite unwieldy. I'm sure I had a good reason (at least at the time) for adding each of the hundreds of movies currently queued up, but fuck if I remember now. I try to manage it as best I can, but sometimes shit sneaks in.

Within ten minutes of turning on Right At Your Door, I knew it. I knew it was going to be bad. I knew I was going to hate it and what's worse, I knew there was no way I was turning it off. I don't know if I sit through movies like this because of some inner self-destructive, mechanism (or alternately because they're so bad they stimulate my inner elitist), or simply because the remote is too far away and I'm too lazy to get up and go get it. Any way you look at it, it's unequivocably my fault.

Sadly, I watch enough bad movies that I think about this question quite often. Why do I do this? Why am I watching this? Why Aren't I Turning This Fucking Thing Off? I have no answers.

The movie starts with "Brad" (Rory "Slater" Cochrane) and his wife, Lexi, enjoying a typical sunny morning of passive-aggressively making each other miserable. Directly after Lexi leaves for work, dirty bombs explode across Los Angeles. Cell phones and television signals are wiped out, smoke billows across the sky, and there's panic in the streets. For some reason radios still work, though. Brad makes an abbreviated attempt to find his wife, but subsequently succumbs to his more cowardly side and quits. Instead, he heeds the authorities' advice and returns home to seal himself inside his house with plastic and duct tape. The drama truly begins when the supposedly dead Lexi finds her way home and finds herself sealed out and her husband Brad reluctant to let her in.
The premise is fine. It's interesting to think about not only what we would do immediately after the situation presents itself (Brad chooses to immediately return home instead of finding Lexi) and later what would happen after any natural "fight or flight" instincts subside (Brad again shafting Lexi and keeping her sealed out).

If the premise is fine and the actors are adequate why does the movie suck so much? Because it's put together poorly. Like a third-grader just learned how to cut film and somehow talked his way into this gig. The scenes are ordered all wrong and as a result, the story doesn't make much sense. It has more useless cuts than a music video and the big plot twist at the end? Please. It makes even less sense than me somehow sitting patiently through the preceding 90 minutes.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:47:54 GMT

Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire lives up to the hype. Even though its fronted by a bunch of foreign nobodies, it has nevertheless gained momentum and become a bonafide blockbuster. The money pile is too large to ignore and the fact it's a critical darling too (94% positive on rottentomatoes.com) means it has to at least have the inside track on the Best Picture nod this year.

The picture follows two timelines: in the present, an Indian pauper named Jamal is competing to win his country's version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire." It should be impossible for him to win, but after the first day of shooting, he's only two questions away from winning it all. How could a career coffee boy with no formal education at all win? The second timeline from his past, explains.

The set-up fits Danny Boyle's style. His frantic shooting techniques are perfect for a foot chase through the ghetto and his seemingly innate understanding of society's seedy underbelly can apply to anywhere, not just England. Crooks are crooks and underdogs are always just that. No matter the language. The bright coloring schemes he frequently employs can be used for shock value, like in 28 Days Later or Sunshine, but in India, bright colors fit the imagination.

Boyle has made good movies time after time, but I think with Slumdog Millionaire he's finally made a great film. Was it the best of 2008? I don't know. If I had two DVDs and one was Dark Knight and one was Slumdog..., I'd probably watch Dark Knight. I still think it's better.

Or maybe I'd toss them both and just watch Wall-E. Fuck it.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:40:16 GMT

Bangkok Dangerous

I don't know why I'm even bothering to review this turd of a movie. I don't know why it was made, I don't know who would ever want to watch it, and I don't understand how Nicholas Cage's career keeps going after movies like this.

Cage plays, Joe, a hitman who only has a few hits left in him before he retires. *Yawn* He needs help with his newest assignments, so he hires an enterprising street rat named "Kong" to do some light courier work. Lo and behold, Joe warms to Kong and begins to train him as his eventual replacement. *Yawn* Oh, and I almost forgot. Joe's love interest is a deaf, mute, girl who works in a pharmacy Joe frequently visits after the movie's poorly executed action sequences.

The movie is a remake and originally, it was Nic Cage's hitman character that was deaf and mute (a premise I infinitely prefer), not the pharmacist girlfriend. Presumably, they switched around the characters in the American release to assuage Cage's notorious ego.

I cannot recommend this film on any level and the first time I hear, "It is what it is," whoever said it is getting a punch in the face.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:53:50 GMT

Jinni.com

This website just went into beta and I decided to muck around with it a little today and see if it does anything interesting.

The folks behind Jinni.com think they have invented a better movie recommendation engine than either Amazon or Netflix currently have. Being a Netflix subscriber, I can tell you their recommendations aren't worth a shit. The only ones I ever add to my queue, I add because I just happened to watch something else with either the same lead or the same writer/director. I can look those up myself if I wanted and add them that way. Their engine adds virtually nothing to my queue.

Likewise, but even worse, Amazon's is an abomination. They don't care what you watch or what you like to watch, they only care about what you buy. As a result, any time I go to Amazon's recommendations page, most of the choices are either unrecognizable foreign movies or tv show box sets. Shows what happens when you buy the British version of "The Office" on DVD (But I don't understand how that means I want to buy or even stoop low enough to watch a full season of "Roseanne").

To get Jinni's engine to work, I had to click through what basically amounts to a movie-lover's personality test. Taste categories range from "The Hero" to "The Drama Addict" to "The Social Philosopher" and inside each category was a group of 12 movies to rate. Looking at the categories, I thought I would have scored highest in "The Hero," "The Extremist," and "The Introspector." Instead, I only scored well in "The Extremist" and medium to low in all the rest (lowest was "The Individualist").

Still after only having rated those hundred or so movies, they gave me a pretty decent list of recommendations -Insomnia, Hamburger Hill, Bottle Rocket, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and 48 Hours among others. I've seen all those, obviously, but I did like them all. The best part is, Jinni is already plugged in to Netflix, so if they do eventually recommend something I haven't seen, I can easily add it to my Netflix queue.

For at least the next little while, I'm going to keep rating things in Jinni and see if it spits back anything interesting. Even if it only works a little, it's gotta be better than what Amazon and Netflix have.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:06:03 GMT

Defiance

This is a story that shouldn't have been fucked with. Three brothers, from Belarus, lead a small pocket of Jewish resistance against the Nazi war machine. Outnumbered, outgunned, slowed by women, children, and the elderly, the three Bielski brothers managed to save and protect over a thousand Jews over the duration of the Nazi occupation.

That's how the story should go. I mean, the way it actually happened is good enough.

Instead, Defiance relies on a mishmash of character cliches and side plots meant to water down a story that was unfortunately as tragic as it was euphoric. Yes, the Bielski's save the day in the end, but a lot of friends were lost along the way. Here, Edward Zwick fails to show the same gusto and resolve that made some of his other pictures, like Blood Diamond and Glory, so successful. This version of the story is gutless, trite, and tedious. It relies so heavily on cheesy sentimentality, there were times where I literally had to turn my head away and stifle a groan.

Daniel Craig and Jaime Bell highlight the cast and despite speaking through terrible accents, are at least moderately convincing. The rest can go take a hike. Save your time. I can't recommend this movie to anyone for any reason.