Dopest??

Better than I thought it might be(just), this heavy-handed condemnation of homophobic Christians almost creates three likable and believable characters but kills them off too fast for us to care. A haggard and limping John Goodman is a relief but the script hobbles him further, with his final monologue embarassingly long-winded, irrelevant and borderline incoherent (and he somehow shows he knows that). So too is the jab at post 9-11 curtailment of civil liberties. And the preacher nutjob leader is so badly cast and acted there's little satisfaction in the fast that this homophobe is likely to live out his life as some guy's (or guys') bitch. Not no satisfaction mind you, but little.

It's scary, in parts. I'll give you that TAZ. But once I realized there was no way the flick was letting any of those 3 kids live the chase scenes lost their kick. Lots of bullets between the eyes, or thereabouts. Lots of multi-tasking on my part.

How can you call this the dopest TAZ? Must be a post-30 lowering of standards. All I can give it is two stars. Eh, with some stretches of abysmal and maybe a little not bad for Goodman and one of the "believers" who tries, with some semi-plausible acting, to save the kids.

I may regret this

So TAZ says Red State is the dopest in a long time. I'm about to watch it. Hope I don't regret it. But I'm hoping he gets his lazy ass back here and starts reviewing again because we're the dopest, even if only one of is right most of the time.

Attack the Block, inner city vs outer space

This intense, close-quarters ensemble movie is just the kind of character-based, tightly scripted sci-fi I love. I know TAZ under-rates character development but if he watches this he'll see what I'm talking about. People change. Yeah they run and scream and get eaten by creatures--these ones with oddly glow-in-the-dark incisors--and the tension IS more important than emotion, but the two together make for entertainment and thought. Plus there's a lovely little expository lump of biology near the end, from a goofball pothead rich kid sidekick who justifies his existence, to the tough gang and in the movie all at once. yes saving the day Jeff Goldbloom style. Via pheromes again...a real sci-fi motif. But I think it works better here than I've ever seen it work. And the two pre-ten sidekicks who come through big time is top notch. An awesome movie all around. I think my first 5 star flick. Excellent. The script gets an excellent-plus. And the white guy with the heavy heavy south London accent in the gang is great.

Taz says it's near perfect - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I just saw it, loved it. Near perfect? Let's think about it. What IS a perfect movie? Holds your attention the whole time? Yes, but there were a few plot shortcuts. More soon.

pop and cob corny

K-Pax. Yes Kevin Spacey turns in a stunning and so forth but - hey how many violins can we fit in the recording studio Harry? And I guess I just don't like Jeff Bridges. And yet, some ideas, some science, and an excellent hypnosis scene, played well on both parts. Some fun minor characters too, and a seductive plot. Have it either way. Have it both ways. and float away on violinsyrup river. I give it three stars - not bad. But then i forwarded through the real thick scenes, so maybe 2 1/2.

no not this

Look at this review of The Human Centipede from Vulture, TAZ. You really want me to watch this? Could we take m-fkg turns suggesting movies pa-lz?

he's back

Look out now, TAZ is back. Back getting me to see movies I'd never even think of seeing. And maybe like them, or anyway appreciate their special genius which i might not see on my own. ttyl

TAZ on The Human Centipede Sick Fun I Must Admit

I First heard about this movie a few months ago on youtube I instantly thought Nah it looked like a low budget suckfest, but it still made me curious. Fast forward a few months of constant teasers,trailers and a promise of 100% medical accuracy and I was drooling the marketing for this movie was great. I'm not going to spoil any of this for anyone it can be seen in theaters and on paidperview on cable its a gem in the sense of a Texas chainsaw massacre tobe hooper great, U know what's going to happen from the title but somewhere in your sick mind U just want to see it happen. The cast is pretty bare bones with the setting being a rural great house in Germany U have the victims who are pretty much nameless in the movie But we will improvise It stars Akihiro Kitamura(The Head), Ashley C Williams(The Middle),Ashlynne Yelle(The Tail)and Dieter Laser(Hitler wait I mean the doctor when U see it U will get it). The movie starts randomly with a car sitting bye the side of the road and Hitler I mean the doctor looking at a picture of 3 dogs nose to tail in a line, A big rig pulls behind it and out runs a huge guy with toilet paper in hand running it to the wood to take a mean shit meanwhile out jumps Hitler with a dart gun in hand creeping up behind him to knock him out to kidnap him without even letting him wipe,and it fade to black. I don't want to spoil anything else but this movie has a few point the I don't know how to cover without sounding raciest but there's a lot of black comedy in this movie I don't know how much they meant to do but it works the movie just touches everyone I know that saw it the same way no matter the race its funny,scary,exciting and just down right interesting. Akihiro was great from the start being that he only spoke Japanese(wait subtitles its a foreign flick to everything I tell Ya!)He cursed him the hell out from his first shot it was great, and Dieter was a classic psycho in every sense of the word genius, after a little research I found it to be 100% medically accurate to and that's the farthest I will take it U have to see this movie. It has a few plot holes but what movie doesn't one word dope!

Jacob the Liar

omg I found a watch instantly Robin Williams film I haven't seen. It's next in the marathon. "Jacob the Liar." Has Alan Arkin in it too.

Williams was exec producer on this one. Like nearly every film he's starred in, the thesis is implausibly and powerfully healing. Suspend belief and believe.

Believe what? "That nothing in this world moves," as Mary Oliver writes, "but as a positive power." Whether he's a doctor, a teacher, a father, a robot or a Jewish cook trapped in a Nazi ghetto, he's a positive power. (Okay, he was a psychopathicly lonely film developer once, but even then all he did that time was peep on a happy family - could have been worse).

The film froze half way through...buffering now. It's slow, admittedly. Once the premise is set up it's all stilted dialogue and same-old WWII ghetto sets. No one looks hungry or cold really and the orphaned girl RW helps out is way too jovial. "When the war's over I'll be your waitress. You don't have to feed me I'll just eat as many pancakes as I like."

It's fairytale holocaust. It's a happy story of how one reluctant schmo brings hope to the hopeless.

Us.

Enough. If you like RW, watch it. I'll come back and rate it when it's over.

Not bad. *** 1/3 corny; 2/3 moving

Surrogates

Netflix will be the death of me yet, or of my job anyway. I better cancel soon. But here's another Robots take over flick, with Bruce Willis figuring things out just before (or maybe just after, I didn't watch it yet), it's too late. Here I go.

I like the documentary style opening; summarizes and makes plausible the leaps--technological, social, even judicial--that made robot surrogates possible then commonplace.

Of course I think of I Robot, and Willis isn't Will Smith when it comes to charisma and stage presence, but let's see if the script lets him act because he can. I'm interested, enough. Doesn't take much when you're evading reality. As 99% of humanity is in this movie. Except for Luddite types who life in surrogate-free reservations.

Good job world building. Handy to get most of the exposition into the documentary opening.

Ok let me enjoy now....will get back to you around half time.

"Get ready to live your life without any risk or danger," the digital billboard says. Get ready for a living death. That's what I like about sci-fi - the instructive possibilities.

I-Robot looks superior to this because of the design of the robots - remember? The robots here wear human skin so except for a stiff gait and low-level mechanical sounds, they look like people. And I-Robot's cityscape was more futuristic. But enough with comparisons. I'll let this movie be what it is and see how it works on that level.

Nice plot complications. Now if they can just limit the chase scenes we might have a movie.

"It appears. at least for now, that we're on our own." Always a god way to end. And Bruce saved all the meatbags on the planet while also, in another way, saving humanity. Oh, and his wife. That was his real motive. All the rest was chase scene and filler.

Has a TV-movie feel, but a pretty good TV movie. Not bad, not bad at all.

Raging Bull

I been going through a major movie fiending period. Blocked in my writing. Not good but I thought anyway I'd ad a few posts here.

So this afternoon it was Scorses's "Raging Bull." De Niro does dumb and crazy so well but you know I think this may be overrated. The fight scenes are powerful, skillfully cut - a dance. But Lamatta is unappealing; you get tired of watching him fume paranoia at his wife and brother. I guess for those who were around in the 30's and 40's and followed the guy's career it's a nostalgia trip. I'm not that old.

The one highlight was when his wife finally leaves him. Good thing she told him through a mostly rolled up car window. And De Niro's face - a truly beautiful man and a great actor. Unfortunately his nose what made-up to be swollen but still the wise-guy smile, the intelligent eyes, and cutely curly hair that isn't, I assume, natural. I never bought his slight build as a boxer's; but the fierce focus and pitbull personality sold me.

I guess classics get rated on an inflated scale, so I give those one four stars. To get five out of me it's got to be all this one is plus deep or mystical or, you know, about time travel.

The Book of Eli

Interesting that Eli is the only name mentioned in McCarthy's book The Road (as one of my RPI students pointed out), and in this more accessible post-apocalyptic/cowboy flic it's the lead character's name.

The first scene, with Denzel in a dead forest hunting a horribly starved cat, using a dead human as bait, could have been maybe should have been the style of The Road. Like you're on another planet, TAZ said of The Road (the book). But from that stark opening, the only sound labored breathing through a gas mask, The Book of Eli's staging appears to have switched to stage-sets from old westerns and it stopped being artistically interesting, but remained entertaining. Just barely though, and only if you thing "Remember the Titans" is one of the ten best movies ever (which I do).

But I couldn't quite buy DW as a Samurai-Matrix type swordsman. And the film's message is direct to the point of corny - save the Bible for posterity! In contrast to McCarthy's, which is subtly indirect and the more powerful for it. Plus the book arose from an individual vision - an intense love for the planet, nature, and humanity in the form of a young sensitive boy. Eli's vision is same-old same-old - greed tries to kill innocence and the people of God try to stop it.

The twist at the end was nice, if implausable. Won't spoil it for you. Another good movie I probably wouldn't have gone to if TAZ hadn't recommended it. I give it 3 stars for middling, with a plus for Jennifer Beals, of the L-Word. She plays a righteous and wronged damsel very well, and the villian's pretty darned villanous but the script just spent too much time on his greed and power-driven villany. We've seen it before. I want to see a post-apoc movie where the survivors find a new way to be. I believe they/we can do it, just as someone with heart disease suddenly turns their lifestyle around, or a convict comes out determined to serve.

Do these doomsdays that look lie our worst historical days make bleak futures more likely? Does movie-going itself? I'm not sure. So much work to do...but we need recreation, right?

The Road

I did see The Road finally. It was disappointing and confused, the screenwriter's additions undermining McCarthy's vision, which was communicated mainly through the intensity of the prose. It's like the movie didn't trust itself. Needed to back away. That, in a sense, is a tribute to the book.

Babies turning on a spit. What, after the last century, you can't film that? After the 6 million, you can't film that? After ten thousand rapes a year and a million-something murders, for our entertainment? You can't film the truth?

Everywhere babies turning on a spit above a cooking fire. The hungry adults waiting, adding sticks.

sorry, can't give this one better than eh

Terminator Salvation

TAZ must be too busy dealing that shit to bother with this old blog but I'll keep on w the sci-fi for now.

And since he's not here I'm telling everyone, he just had a b-day and won't be seeing much more of the twenties.

Let me go watch this movie. As TAZ said once when me him and his woman and mine-at-the-time (long story) and the triplets were waitings in line at the overpriced NJ Acquarium to see the overpriced new 3-D all-that show: "Please God don't let this suck."

B back soon...I love the lead in and music and everything. Must be movie-starved. Hope my old laptop DVD lets me watch the whole thing.

"Kill Kyle Reese, reset the future, no john Connor." Not a good plot if they have to telegraph it that way...and acting not great but I'm still interested.

Well it's over, thank God. Couldn't they find a writer? A heart transplant, in the post judgment day desert? Fight scene (in the steel plant again, sort of), chase scene, actor announcing the plot segment we're supposed to feel suspenseful about - others popping in to summarize for us, like the death-row cancer lady (her face anyway). Just boring, and what a rip-off on The last Matrix, which was truly epic and made you feel the fate of the surviving world really was at stake.

Why does John Connor have a lisp?

The musical score was good. "Tell them" -- busy but subdued music suddenly pauses, and you don't realize where it had take you until it does pause "I'll be back."

But in T2, lines like that had referential drama within the movie, like when Schwartz. says Hasta la vista baby we remember JC the kid trying to teach him to lighten up. This movie, like so many sequels, has to refer back to earlier flicks for its drama. That and explosions, which for me is not, sorry, drama, just stimulation.

Stimulation is not art; it's addiction's younger cousin.

And fuck you yes I am an addict. We are all. The machines don't need to defeat us these shitty movies and virulent videogames and fake food and treated week have already done it.

Or nearly. And do me a favor arright--leave a fucking comment why do we have all these hits and no mfing comments. Drones out there surfing the web? Chinese censors looking for suspicious anime?

Abysmal. Except for the score and the kid with the big hair. And sorry about all the cussing.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Watching it again in prep for watching the latest one, which TAZ persuades me is worth watching sespite reviews I read that said it's all violence. Need to review the back story. I think this is my favorite of the 3 first ones. But wondering now - why is Miles Tyson, creator of SkyNet, which destroys the world as we know it, black? Any thoughts? We love comments.

Mom Connor may be my favorite heroine. Unrelently serious - playing it like the whole depends on her every decision. And it does. Only Sigourney Weaver can do fem-tough better, and they both fight out of compassion. Back to the movie...

Standout lines (from many): "The future, always so clear to me, had become like a black highway at night. We were in uncharted territory now, making up history as we went long."

Cyberdine Systems - what a good name for a villanous corporation.

The details are authentic, the character development pretty darn good given the % of screen time devoted to action, and the action is kick ass. Screen play A+. Hey, this may be the first flick I give my highest rating - Excellent. But let me watch to the end and decide then.

I'm glad Miles is willing to sacrifice his life's work. I guess having three billion in the balance makes a difference. But, you know, a lot of people wouldn't: wouldn't believe it, couldn't. Ambition would block their good sense. Pretty good acting, right?

41 minutes left...if it's all flight and fight they're not getting the four stars from me. Let's see.

35 mins left. Action, yeah, but within major plot suspense: will Miles blow the place, will they get away, and WHY DIDN'T THEY DESTROY THE FRIGGIN CYBER HAND AND CHIP while they had the chance? And - when will they have the chance? Then a complication - the liquid silver copguy arrives. Then the long choppr chase that makes me wonder what I'm doing wasting my time watching movies...but still we care about John and his mom.

I forgot about the liquid nitrogen (temporary) demise of copguy. Four stars four stars! Excellent. And what a great setting for the finale - a working steel plant.

Makes me want to move to California. Maybe he can terminate this terrible economy, too.

A History of Violence

TAZ told me to see "A History of Violence" when we were talking about The Road and I admitted not knowing who Viggo Mortensen was.  So late one night . . .

I think TAZ is right when he says Mortensen is perfect for The Road.  A family man with tremendous power in reserve.  But why did all the Mafia guys in that movie have Irish names, and look Irish or not Italian anyway.  Strange.  I wouldn't say he was a brilliant actor who saved a mediocre script that didn't bother much to delve into motive or character development.  But he was very good, in a subdued way. 

I'm eager to see him in The Road, which opens today, somewhere.  Not here.  I think I may use McCarthy's novel in my fiction course next semester.  Three of my best students have been passing it around. I guess they're not put off by the religious talk and spiritual element?  Or did they miss it? 

2012 (spoiler)

I read enough reviews to know it was bad but I liked Independence Day so much I thought, same director, How bad can it be?

Laughably bad.  Just the acting, the plot, and the dialogue.  Oh and the casting.  And it was objectionable in a nostalgic sort of way - the old sexism: guys into the cockpit to make plans, women stay back to comfort the kids and make friends with each other.

Did they try to find the strangest, fakest Russian accents?  And would the Chinese people really build the Arcs and then stay behind to die? 

Special effects so heavy-handed -- how we see are twice made to see the name of the tumbling aircraft carrier as it turns over onto the capital building.  OMG! The John F Kennedy.  OMG! 

Yet I enjoyed it.  To sit in a theatre full of Americans, many with children, and watch an end of the world extravaganza.  Again. Only, oh, it's not really the end because the tsanamis did not cover Africa, as we thought, so we can land there and start Europe all over again.

But it's moving, when the cry to "open the gates" spreads through the Arcs and with minutes left thousands are saved.  And humanity's humanity is saved.  I believed that part - enough to reverse imagine and enjoy a movie with well-chosen actors who we cared about delivering the well-written lines of a tight script. 

Like Independece Day.

Eh is all I can say about this one.  What do you think, TAZ?  (or u2 busy getting ready for yr wedding?)

EKG chickens/zombies out

I didn't see Halloween 2 yet.  From TAZ'a review, looked like it had all the gore and none of the redeeming features like plot and character development.

But I did see Zombieland, with my brother, sister, and nephew Joe.  And boy am I glad. I am now immune to gore.  I screamed, oh, the first six times (sorry Joe!) that a vomiting, ravenous, stiff-legged goul popped out, or up if the popping happened in a bathroom stall (which it did, twice).  But laughter become an antedote to terror: by the end those zombies were no scarier than flies.  Their piling-up bodies just so much dirty laundry.

But what makes Zombieland more than zany-zombieflick-satire is the love story. I'm liking these new geekboy characters, played so well by Michael Cera in Juno. Jesse Eisenberg's gentleness stands out starkly against the exagerrated to the point of mania machismo of Woody Harrelson's Tallahassee. But even Tallahassee falls for the kid and starts coaching him in that brusque tough guy way. If these are the last four not-undead humans left, the future of mankind looks pretty good. As long as they can tear themselves away from World of Warcraft.

Jesse Eisenberg' character, Columbus, has devised these rules for surviving the zombie apocalyse.  Like always check the back seat (thank you) and always kill the zombie twice -- the double-tapp.  Rule 30, I think it is, adopted from the carefree Tallahasee (Woody Harrelson) says - Enjoy the little things.  And I did enjoy this little movie.  Only Bill Murray can get three, yes, three good laughs while dying of a gunshot wound to the chest.  And only Woody Harrelson can make finding an intact Twinkie the climax of a movie.

And, hey, in this ecomomy, any film that employs that many extras with that little talent deserves our disposable income.  So I'm going to have to suprise myself and give this gore-fest cum love story four stars (out of 5) - Way Cool.  Can't wait to see what TAZ thinks.

Halloween here I come

Well that's a relief - if TAZ doesn't think it's scary I may just survive it.  Review soon!

Rob Zombies Halloween 2

Sup people thanx 4 the hits been a little busy recording and remodeling but I promise I will not  stay away so long this time. Like my partner said Halloween is my favorite holiday and I can't wait, now as for the movie I'm a little pissed at Rob for this one. The movie isn't all bad it just lacked the Halloween spirit of the first one.  What I mean by this is Michael Myers didn't scare me at all.  Don't get me wrong Tyler Maine is a hulk of a damn near 7 foot dude but he just aint nail the creepiness of Michael. The first movie kind of got away with it but that's only because the powers that be didn't let rob into the editing room.  I saw his cut of the movie (Bootleg) the day after I saw the version in theaters and it lost a lot of its creepiness.  Michael was 2 damn out in the open, he lost his shadow figure aura and it pretty much with his size turned him into Jason Voorhees (Not Cool). Now as for H2 he kicked the shadow in the ass and threw him out of the window (Defiantly Not Cool). The sequel Almost picked up where it left off with the same cast of characters - Scout Taylor Compton (Laurie Strode) Brad Dourif (The Sheriff) Sherri Moon Zombie (The Mother) Malcolm McDowell (Dr Loomis)Danielle Harris (The Friend The Sheriffs Daughter and The Mother Hen) and Chase Vanek (Young Michael) who is the only replacement. Personally I like Daeg Faerch better as young Michael from the first movie but that kid got huge fast so they had to find a smaller kid. I think it would have been more interesting to show us Michael at a little bigger say 17 and keep the kid but I aint rob zombie, anyway. The start of the movie was great, paying homage to the original sequel well after a crash scene where he escapes the coroner van where we get a 4min scene of just a wounded passenger sayin fuck over and over again till mike splats him. Then it's on to the hospital to kill little sis and the night staff, This took me back to the original sequel and why I hate hospitals at night creepy as hell (Good Rob Zombie). After that we wake up a year later in suckville with Lorie living with The Sheriff and his daughter in what looked like a farm house that's supposed to be on the outskirts of Haddonfield but looked to me like they bought it from leatherface and his crazy ass family. Then Michael appears walking somewhere (U Know Where) no mask and lookin like 80's Wrestler Hill Billy Jim (Not Kidding Google Both And Judge). Anyway he gets beat up by 2 red necks kills them eats their dog which in some psychic way makes his sister get sick walks more kills a stripper a horny club owner and a bouncer (Good Gore) and then it gets weird because Lorie reads a new book by Loomis and finds out she is his sister and becomes a drunk party girl (Bad Rob Zombie). Lorrie is the good to Michaels evil what is wrong with u dude (Bad Bad Rob Zombie) she can't get drunk. And Sheri Moon Zombie and the white horse with the biggest feet I have ever seen pop in and out telling Michael what to do from time to time to annoy u because they have no clear meaning for being in the movie other than to say when Lorie is ready to die, why chase her if she is not ready yet (Bad Rob Zombie Leave Ur Wife At Home She Died In The First One) it just adds to the confusion.

Now on to the actual good part of the movie. Danielle Harris if u remember was the only victim that Michael spared in the first movie encounters him again in the best scene of the movie in my opinion I won't spoil it but she stole the movie here as she did playing his niece Jamie in the original movies (Good Good Rob Zombie). Sorry to say from here its downhill with an ending that's as bad as any since the original 3rd sequel with those damn masks and no Michael. This movie was 3 different movies edited in to 1 very badly just did not add up at any point. so For the 111 minutes I wasted of my life I just got one word - Nah!!