Movie Review #63: Suicide Club

My girlfriend Jessica does not like gory stuff. She doesn’t seem to like to see people break things or hear things crack or see people get smashed.

So, the question is: why did she make me wait to watch it with her? Lets rank the reasons.

4. She’s lying to herself
I think secretly she loves it. Just like when all of us watch movies like this, we have to be masochists to even bother watching these. It’s self-torture, but we like it. This movie is super crazy and doesn’t have any real philosophical reason for being crazy. That’s most of J-Horror, but that’s what we seem to like about it.

3. It’s a well respected movie
I don’t know how it’s come to be, but this movie gets a lot of respect. It did do some really crazy things, I suppose. It breaks the rules in that the bad guy never even comes close to being caught, sorta. It’s both an interesting detective story and a gory murder horror thingy. They made 2 sequels of it and the director works a lot. It’s a hit.

2. People seem to like it
I swear I hear about this movie all the time. It’s this and Battle Royal that get all of the attention nowadays. Used to be Ringu and Ju-On, but not any more. These movies are doing something different that people seem to be into right now. More gory, lets ghosty. I think I like the ghost stuff more, but thats neither here nor there.

1. She likes me
I’m a sucker for this type of movie. Actually, I went out of my way to watch this movie. On my Watch Instant Queue, a movie called Nokito’s Dinner Table made it to the top of the queue. I started watching it and had no idea what was going on. I looked it up on Wikipedia and, whoops, it was this movie’s sequel. Welp, i went and rented this movie immediately and watched it.

Overall, I wouldn’t call this my favorite J-Horror. I think I’m more into the more surreal or ghost related ones. These gore, but somewhat realistic movies sit in an unsatisfying place for me. I’d rather be completely blown away scared or grossed out, but this lands somewhere short of both.

But thanks to Jessica for watching it with me, despite her fears.

Movie Review #62: Dancer in the Dark

Dude, this movie is bonk. Is that a good enough review for everyone?

Here’s the thing, this movie isn’t just bonkers, it’s really really brilliant too.

Have you ever met someone that is constantly doing insane things, but it turns out they’re really a super genius? And for the most part you’re all like “pshh, they’re not as brilliant as everyone says.” Then you see them do some ape-shit crazy thing and you’re like “….uh… ok. That… was pretty sweet.” That’s what this movie does.

Lars Von Trier, everyones favorite crazy person, has done some movies I don’t care for so much. And many times I think to myself that he’s more indie cred than actual performance, but then I go back and watch something brilliant like this.

This movie is a commentary on… everything!

It’s a commentary on Dogma 95. It takes the genre that he helped to invent and stands it on its head. We’re talking about a genre that consists of like 150 movies ever! Thats not even a genre! That’s a bookshelf. You can fit more DVDs than that in a 1990s rich kid’s CD binder.

Yet this movie shows what is both brilliant and lacking about that genre. It shows Dogma in most of the regular parts of the movie, but then adds Musical and dancing and singing to the dream sequences. It’s absurd and surreal mixed with the ultra real.

I’ll admit… Bjork is… not my favorite part of this movie. She does an oddly great job in the acting portion, but her musical contributions for the most part annoy me more than being awesome. But the story is so epic, the more I think about it. Its beautifully insane. I love it.

I’m a fan of Lars, but I try not to be just because it’s cool to be. There is so much to analyze about his work. lets put a list together of what i’ve seen of his:

6. Meloncholia
5. The Idiots
4. Breaking the Waves
3. Europa
2. Dancer in the Dark
1. Antichrist

Haven’t seen Dogville. It’s next on my To-Do List. Should I?

Spielberg Tournament Round 1 : Fight #4

Minority Report vs. The Adventures of Tin Tin
vs

Ok, so there’s some set of people in the world that were really excited that The Adventures of Tin Tin happened, right? I mean, did Spielberg pull one over on someone, or is there really a set of people that are fascinated by this old european cartoon? I’m pretty sure Spielberg is an evil genius.

I don’t know, the idea was strong, I guess. Basically, a kid adventurer and intrigue and foreign locations and such, but it never connects for me. First of all, its a little obsessed with 3D, which I’m getting a little sad about the more of those I see. But it’s just not that good of a movie overall. The story is just sorta happening.

Minority Report might not be the best movie I’ve ever seen, but its far superior in this fight. It’s a lot of fun. To be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I’m pretty sure I like that movie. It’s got some serious cultural significance, for sure. There’s a lot of great action and a great and interesting vision of the future. Heck, it might be Tom Cruises best movie for all that matters.

I think this is an easy fight, but what might be clear now is that I didn’t care for Tin Tin all that much. I’m not a fan. Maybe you are. Maybe you like that creepy action animation. Maybe you’d beg to differ me?

Movie Review #60: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

In a fit of boredom, mixed with a need for something to make fun of for the rest of the weekend, my friend Baker and I went to see AL:VH something like 1.5 months after it was released.

I had wanted to see it when it came out, but I never got around to it. It didn’t get good reviews and I tend to agree. Its a fun movie and there’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but it’s not great in any way and it seems to be too excited about 3d, especially given that I saw it in 2d.

That being said, I do continue to like the work of Timur Bekskeakksksnananananov, or however that’s spelled. I love me some Night Watch. Still haven’t seen Day Watch, which I can hardly forgive myself for, and I really like Wanted. I want this guy to have success, but this movie didn’t pay off for him. I’m not exactly sure what could have been done though.

I don’t think more ‘silliness’ would have suited this movie. To be honest, I think it almost lost in everyone’s mind already because it was too silly a concept for them. Even taking everything 100% serious, which thankfully this movie didn’t, would not have brought people into the theater to see this.

I enjoyed this movie. Lots of really goofy things for my friends and I to make fun of, but also some good action. I also liked the little bits of history that they stuck in there, despite however bonkers off reality they are.

I would definitely recommend you see this when it’s free to do so. It’s a fun time to be had by all. Wouldn’t you agree???

Spielberg Tournament: Round 1: Fight 3

Fight #3: The Color Purple vs. AI: Artificial Intelligence

Ok, everyone. Here’s your first chance to truly disagree with me. Because I’m about to make a passionate argument for why I think AI is one of Spielberg’s best.

1. Its Philosophical. I love anything that has to do with the epistemology or existentialism. AI is a great examination of what it is to be real. It also does some really interesting literary things, by drawing interesting parallels to Pinocchio. The Color Purple is passionate and historically relevant, but I like the philosophy more.

2. Its the more Spielberg-y movie. Robots and love. Friendship and aliens. The future and children. Need i say more to prove this is the better Spielberg movie?

3. I wont claim it has better performances by the actors, but I will claim it’s a better performance by the director. It takes a certain vision in order to do a great job with a sci-fi movie. It’s a lot easier to stage and direct a passionate script with actors at their absolute finest.

Here’s my point. I’d be willing to be convinced that The Color Purple is the better movie, but I don’t see how that makes it a better Spielberg movie. You can feel him in AI. You can see his vision. I think that matters in some cases and I think this is one. I think there are other non-spiel-y movies that could beat AI, but I don’t think this is the one. But what about you?

Movie Review #56: Taxidermia

Dude. This movie Gross! I left out the verb in that previous sentence because I was afraid it would throw up if it had to participate. I don’t need verb throw-up on my blog, a thank you very much!

UGH! TERRIFYING!

Ok, so there are three parts of this movie, showing the story of three generations of one family, which I will now rank and describe:

3. Part II – The Eater.
So this movie is supposed to be about the way that Eastern European society, following WWII has been a complete mess. That’s pretty obvious in this section, but I hated it. It was gross, but this section, I felt was more gross without substance. It was harsh and mean to society for sure, but I don’t think it added nearly as much as the other sections.

2. Part I – The sexually frustrated Private.
In the first part of the movie, this guy gets the sad end of life on this military installment. He cleans up after everyone and masturbates a lot. Then he has sex with a lady and the eater, described above, comes into existence. I’m not really sure what this part of the movie is supposed to be about. I guess that the generation 2 ago was the starting reason for the downward slide. Uh, whatever.

1. Part III – The Taxidermist.
So, in part 3, the kid has grown up to be a good taxidermist, but his dad is a sad sack of shit. He eats butter and chocolate and feeds butter to his cats. Whatever, eventually, the kid forgets to cage up the cats and they eat the dad. Boohoo. But I guess the kid feels bad for himself, cuz he is pretty ugly, so he taxidermies himself to death. His body is then displayed as art by our shitty decadent, heartless society. Got it. We suck.

Ok, so this movie is pretty damn disgusting and I wouldn’t recommend it to about 91% of the audience of this blog, but I will recommend it to the philosophy majors out there and the gross-out seekers. This is a must see if you like the gross-out, but a maybe see if you like Eastern European 20th century commentary.

Movie Review #55: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (Commentary)

(This review is #1 of 6 [or more] of the commentaries of the Star Wars Bluerays.)

No point in me reviewing this movie again. Heck, no point in me reviewing it in the first place. I had an idea though… should I mention it here? I had a fun idea to write reviews that were “Top # things that are stupid about (insert favorite movie)”. So I could be like “Top 4 things that are dumb in Terminator 2” even though I LOVE Terminator 2. Just a thought.

Anyway, I wanted to make an attempt to review the commentaries of these DVDs. I love dvd commentaries. Its a great way to watch a movie you’ve seen before but get something more out of it. Specifically movies I’ve seen 1000 times. Those movies can truly be spiced up by hearing a new commentary.

This movie’s commentary was a mixed bag. It was a combination of three people: Lucas, the sound editor who’s name I can’t remember and Carrie Fisher. They didn’t commentate together, which leads me to believe they hate each other, haha, but their commentaries were edited together. here’s how I’d rank how much I liked each of them being there:

3. Carrie Fisher
2. George Lucas
1. Sound Editor Guy

Let me start by saying that the stuff that Lucas said might have been interesting, but honestly I knew a lot of it. It was cool to hear what he had to say, but it wasn’t enlightening.

Carrie Fisher’s comments were crap. For the most part, she was being snarky and mean. She wasn’t funny though I’m sure she thought she was. She seemed so jaded about the entire thing.

The Sound Editor guy wasn’t the best, but at least he added a bunch of stuff I’d never thought of to hear about. He made up all of the sound effects from scratch for this movie. For example the sound of the lasers from the ships is created from him hearing electricity the twang of large cables that hold up radio towers. BET YOU DIDNT KNOW THAT!

Overall, not one of the best commentaries I’ve ever heard, but there are 11 more to go through, so here’s hoping.

Movie Review #54: Youth in Revolt

You know, a few years ago, this movie was filmed in Ferndale, MI. The great majority of it, was shot 2 doors away from the house I lived in. That close. 2 houses. They rented out our drive way for the entire shoot. I like to say that I played frisbee with Michael Cera on my front lawn, though really an errant throw just landed at my feet and I tossed it back to his game. I would bring my groceries home, and see the Kraft services table on my sidewalk. I’ll be honest… it was kinda cool.

My house is just out of frame in this picture, which is… not from the movie. Haha. You can see my house a few times in the movie, only for a moment, but its there. Also, a lot of the trailer park stuff was shot in the park directly adjacent to the park I grew up in in Wixom. I thought that was pretty cool, honestly, though I never went to the set over there.

Given all that you could say it took me forever to finally see this movie. I think there was some sort of weird social-awkwardness thing going on in my head. The more time went by that I didn’t see it, the more awkward I felt about eventually seeing it. People would ask if i had and I would lie and say of course! But it took until this summer for me to finally see it. Had to do it by myself too.

So anyway, I like this movie. Its cute, fun, awkward, and sweet. I’m not a huge fan of “coming of age” movies, but this one is pretty honest and doesn’t break the rules. There’s something admirable about that. Michael Cera does a good job being… himself. Not my favorite performance by him, but it was acceptable.

Not much review here, but I had to get that story out. How cathartic.

Spielberg Tournament: Round 1: Fight 2

Fight #2: Close Encounter of the Third Kind vs. Munich

We’re going to have an interesting question on our hands going on and on in this tournament. This tournament is going to be interesting because we could either attempt to figure out what the best movie is the most Spielbergian or what movie is the best by Spielberg. I’m not really sure what’s going to happen throughout, but I think it’s entirely true that the “Spielbergian” movies are going to get a little more credit throughout. There’s just a certain something that some of these movies have that are far more… Spielberg.

But that doesn’t make the movies that aren’t Spielbergian worse. As a matter of fact, they can be better. Hell, maybe the fact that he can leave his mindset behind from time to time makes these rare movies better.

Here’s the perfect example. It doesn’t get much more Spielberg than Close Encounters. And though there are touches throughout, I would hazard to claim that Munich is very far from the typical Spielberg movie. So, it would be easy to kick Munich out on it’s butt for being too “regular movie”-y. But not so fast my friend.

Munich is a hell-of-a movie. It’s action packed, its well acted. It’s a good movie. That being said…

This one is easy because the better movie is also the better Spielberg movie. Close Encounters is a great movie. I really love Dreyfus in this movie. He’s as good as he ever is in just about anything (cough*otherSpielbergmovies8cough). Eric Bana does a good job, but it’s not nearly as cool, nor as important to the industry as CEOT3K.

Unless you disagree…

Movie Review #53: Django

I love living in New York. There’s a theater less than a mile from my apartment that has spending the month celebrating “the spaghetti western”. They had all of the best ones, but most of them were sold out or at times that I couldn’t make it. One night though, i had the free time and I could wait no more. I went to see… Django!

Dude! This movie is awesome. Let me tell you a little something about Django. Have you ever seen Taken? Yea, of course you have. Well, take Taken, mix it together with Once Upon a Time in the West and now you’ve got yourself some Django. This movie is badassery mixed with awesome with a sprinkle of No-Fucks-Given.

It was such a fun movie to watch at the theater. I could see this being the type of movie that would be on TNN on a sunday afternoon… a grandpa sits down with his beer and starts watching a fine film like this, and his grandson comes over, watches it for a minute, tells him it sucks and tries to change the movie to Transformers: Dark of the Fallen or whatever.

But in the theater this movie was amazing. There were people hoopin and hollerin. Laughing and pointing. It was mostly older people when I went, I’ll admit it, but it was still a blasty. People really got behind the movie, like it was a sport that we were watching together. When the movie got ridiculous, we laughed with it. When it brought out a surprise, we cheered. When Django kicked ass, we looked for people to high five.

This movie isn’t great by any means. It’s just a western where a guy wanders into town and kicks ass. But the ability for people to get on the same page as a result of a movie they’ve never seen, Django brought that. He kicked ass right into our hearts.

I want to watch more spaghetti westerns. I’ll admit, I say that everytime I watch one and never really get around to it. Which would you suggest I see?

Movie Review #51: X-Files The Movie

It’s been a long long project, but I’m slowly cruising my way all the way through all of the X-Files shows. I know now, that I honestly haven’t seen most of them before. Somehow I managed to pick up a lot of the major plotlines, and the ones that I had seen were among the best ones I’ve seen still, but there’s a lot of new stuff too. I’m at the end of Season 6 now. (PS – Don’t forget to check out the first post of my effort to rank all of the X-Files episodes. I want to get back to that as it was quite fun, but I am stuck writing these posts instead).

Here’s the thing… there’s a movie in the middle of this series!

So, lets get to talking about that movie, am i right?!

The very first thing that happens in this movie is that it addresses one of the major concerns of the viewer. I had just finished watching some really awesome episodes at the end of season 5 and I said to myself… am I about to watch a 2 hour long episode?

That question is quickly answered with a resounding no. Some awesome FBI stuff happens, then some badass explosions, then it just keeps being awesome from there. The stuff that happens in this movie makes it so that the episodes in season 6 seem boring in comparison. The eps definitely don’t fit in as completely average and normal episodes.

The other question is would it have resolved stories? I mean, its a movie that takes place at the end of one season and before another. Would there be stories that were resolved? Short answer is… kinda. I mean, I think they did an OK job with this idea, but not a great one. They resolved it and if there hadn’t been an additional season, I would have said “BLAMO! Facts!” but in season 6 they basically act like nothing happened.

Do you agree with my assessments? Do you think that this movie is any good? If i remember correctly, people kinda hate this one. But maybe that opinion has changed.

Spielberg Tournament: Round 1: Fight 1

Welcome everyone to the first fight in the Spielberg Tournament. (My plan is to write 200-300 word fights here, and then shorten my usual reviews of the crappy old movies I watch in order to get them out more often. These come out in the afternoon. Mine come out in the morning. Perfect.)

Fight #1: 14. Hook vs. 19. The Terminal

I am one of the few suckers for The Terminal. I’m probably not enough of a sucker to allow it to beat a badass movie like Hook, but I do want to talk about it a bit. I consider The Terminal to be one heckuva Nap Movie. I haven’t tried it in years, but i bet its amazing. You could shut your eyes for a little bit, open them back up and… nothing will have happened. Tom Hanks will have continued to be adorable and stuck in an airport. It’s a good one.

But…….. it’s not as good as Hook. Hook is badass. It’s a quintessential Spielberg movie. So wonderful and fun. So family friendly and full of excellent performances. Kids having a great time, the power of childhood. Next awesome thing: one of Robin Williams’ best performances. Add to that: Dustin Hoffman in a completely unrecognizable performance. We’re going to see a lot of Hoff on this tournament, and this is one of the more interesting of those performances. What else should I add? How about an actually good performance by Julia Roberts? How about Charlie Korsmo pre-Can’t Hardly Wait (all movies are pre or post CHW to me)?

Nope all of this pales in comparison to one important thing…
RUFIO, RUFIO, RUFIO!!!

But do you agree?

Movie Review #50: Together

Together is a cute little movie that Netflix highly suggested to me. It’s the story of a lady who decides she’s fed up with her unhappy existence, so she takes her kids away from their crappy father and moves in with her brother. Trick is, her brother lives in a commune with a wild bunch of characters. Hilarity ensues. Lessons are learned. Family happens.

It’s a cute movie. Even having to read the subtitles I laughed out loud a few times and I recommend it to anyone that wants a laugh and can handle seeing a dong or two. That being said, it wasn’t the movie for me. Netflix thinks I should like it because there I like cute comedies from time to time with a cute lady. But it’s not really my favorite thing to watch.

I’m finding that I like comedies less and less, especially when by myself. I watch a lot of movies, and half the time it’s by myself, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I chose to watch a comedy other than this one. And as I said, its a good movie, but comedies just aren’t all that interesting to me…

Or maybe its that I’ve just already seen all of the good ones. I mean, am I stuck watching Norwegian comedies just to have something new?

Or maybe the reason I didn’t enjoy myself was that I had to watch the subtitles. Isn’t a comedy supposed to be fun? Reading starts to feel more like work, doesn’t it? Like I said, I laughed a bit, but there were way more jokes that I had to simply think to myself “oh, isn’t that funny”. That’s not great comedy.

Welp, sorry about the diatribe about comedies and where they live in my brain. I’ve been thinking about it often. Here’s a list of comedies that I am looking forward to watching most:

10. Our Idiot Brother
9. Due Date
8. Your Highness
7. Grown Ups
6. That’s My Boy
5. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy
4. Win Win
3. Cedar Rapids
2. Super
1. Date Night

Any suggestions? Bets are high that I’ve seen it…

Movie Review #61: The Dark Knight Rises

Welp, I’ve given you 2 whole days to see this movie. If you’ve made the decision to not see this movie by now, then you are a person that may want to know something about it. I do not plan on giving any spoilers in this post, but I do intend on writing a MovieFight style review, full of opinions and rankings. Be forewarned.

In the following there will be 2 lists. 1 will be a list of all of the batman movies. The second will be a listing of the characters in The Dark Knight Rises in ascending badassery rankings.

THE BATMAN RANKINGS:

7. Batman and Robin
6. Batman Forever
5. Batman
4. Batman Returns
3. Batman Begins
2. The Dark Knight Rises
1. The Dark Knight

Ok, so there is a lot to talk about here:

• Yes, I realize I put Batman Returns above Batman.  It may have been a long long time since you watched Batman Returns.  Hell, it’s been a long time since I’ve watched it.  But it is amaze-balls.  It’s complete insanity.  Tim Burton realized there were no rules he could not break, so he broke them all.  It’s grotesque, its beautiful, its sexy, its philosophical.  If the The Dark Knight trilogy weren’t so damn brilliant, I’d have it higher.  As a matter of fact, I’ve strongly considered putting it above Batman Begins.
• The Dark Knight, I have come to realize, as though I didn’t know already, is a work of art.  It is a masterpiece.  It is one of, if not possible THE greatest movie ever filmed.  It’s perfect.
• The Dark Knight Rises is great.  It’s a damn great movie.  Realistic, amazing, heartbreaking, action-packed, fun and unique.  But it’s no Dark Knight.  It’s not even in the same league.  The Dark Knight lives in a COMPLETELY different world.  It’s too damn good.

Ok, that’s enough of that.  Time for the list of badassery from this movie (PS – Did you notice my review in that last segment.  That was it.  Complete review.)

7. Batman – Lets be honest; Batman is kinda a bitch in a good portion of this movie. I mean, for the most part, Batman is just the reason we’re watching all the cool stuff in this city, but he doesn’t really need to be there, for the most part.
6. Gordon – The Commish is pretty badass in this movie, but he’s mostly out of the way. Spends a lot of it in bed. Later gets awesome, but maybe too little too late to get high on this list.
5. Blake – Our first fresh face. He does a lot of badassery. Most of the stuff that I wish Batman was doing throughout the movie. Foreshadow much?
4. Miranda – This one I’m going to leave alone, but just know this: Marion Cotillard is pretty awesome in this movie.
3. Bane – I’m not afraid to say that Bane is only my 3rd favorite thing about this movie. He is AMAZING, terrifying, confident, strong, evil. But he wasn’t as awesome as…
2. Catwoman – Dude, Anne Hathaway kicked ass in this role. She was amazing. She is able to embody what we need from Catwoman so much better than I could have ever expected. Sexy, dangerous, evil, angry, vindictive, sweet, naive, back to dangerous. The script didn’t just give her all that. Anne added it. I was blown away.
1. Alfred – Caine stole the show here. In his case it was mostly script, though he did a great job acting it, but without Alfred, there is no reason to care about Batman. He adds everything to this film. It’s amazing. I love him so so so much. I’m sad I wont get to see Caine play Alfred again after this.

So, that’s my review. Anyone… beg to differ?

Movie Review #58: Prometheus

The last post before the big triumphant The Dark Knight Rises post tomorrow, and then we get back to business as usual (with the strong potential of some fun exciting additions. News on that to come!).

So, what is there to say about Good-Old Prometheus. I’ll start by saying there are three topics that I’m not really going to get into:
1. It follows a formula we’ve seen once or twice
but…
2. The performances are strong
3. The action is fun

Ok, that’s done. The key point is that this movie is silly. It’s beyond silly. It’s damn goofy. When I left the theatre, my friend and I spent the next 15 minutes just laughing about this or that. Here’s a list of the stuff we laughed at…

4. Guy Pearce as Old Guy #1
So we have this super old guy in the movie, right? Who should we hire to play him? I mean, there are a ton of super old guys in hollywood. Hell. A few of em are even good actors. That seems like a good decision, right? Oh, you already hired the guy from Momento? That’s… a little weird. Welp, might as well go with it.

3. The Self-Abortion
So there’s this machine that does auto surgery. Pretty cool idea. It’s all like “need a heart transplant? cool. i got that.” but then later in the movie a lady gets pregnant with the alien, so she tricks the machine into giving her an abortion. I think i explained it way more normal than the way it happened.

2. The Robot Head
Classic Alien, AM I RIGHT!??! The robot is kinda a dick, then later someone asked “where’s the rest of that robot?” and I’m like “its just ahead.” That… joke doesn’t work as well on paper as it does in the movie Arthur.

1. The Run… TO FREEDOM
Ok, there are lots of crazy things in this movie, but none made me scratch my head in stupendous glee more than When Charlize is running from the ship. It’s one of the most bonkers things I’ve ever seen, but I can’t even imagine how it was written. “She runs away. The ship sorta rocks over on its side, like a rolling coin, but like, super slow and stuff. So slow in fact that taking a few steps left or right would PROBABLY do the trick…” HILARIOUS. WHY DOES SHE RUN STRAIGHT!? IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE!

Ok, thats all I’ve got. Liked the movie a ton though. It’s a good action movie and I think you should love it.

Two lists for the price of 1! Lets have a looksie at the list of movies I’ve seen in the theatre in 2012:

10. Chernobyl Diaries
9. Contraband
8. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
7. John Carter
6. Prometheus
5. The Amazing Spider-Man
4. The Hunger Games
3. The Avengers
2. Cabin in the Woods
1. The Raid