Netflix'd: Dead Snow

Special freaking thanks to Joe Cam and Kat!  Whooo!

Today is a treat.  Supposedly a movie so crazy, so violent, so ridiculous there's no way I can't dislike its obnoxious, over-the-top violent tendencies.  Also, it's Norwegian!

Dead Snow!!!

            The movie does start off a bit slowly, setting up that two groups are heading to a cabin for some skiing, drinking and all-around winter fun.  Those two groups are of course guys and girls.  Apparently in Norway it's frowned upon to mix genders in a vehicle. 

             Once they get to the cabin there is about half an hour of character introduction and a warning from some random crazy old guy.  Then, blood, gore and violence. 

            There's really not much more to it than that. 

            The plot is hair-thin.  There is no explanation as to why the Nazis are zombies or why they're after our 'heroes.'  (Well, until the end, and then it's kinda dumb.)  You barely care about the people as individuals and get only the vaguest hint of humanizing elements from any of them.  I don't mean you shouldn't care about them because they're all Norwegian and you probably don't speak their language, but because there's no real reason to learn their names since there's going to be a lot of dying.

             The special effects are pretty good.  The blood is over-the-top, and there is quite a bit of gore and guts.  (You know you're watching ridiculous horror when someone climbs a dead guy's intestines up a cliff.) 

            So yeah.  Not much else to talk about.  This isn't a terrible, low-budget movie.  This is a Norwegian horror movie and it's very interesting and different.  Also, violent and crazy.  Of course I don't recommend you just watching this on a whim, unless you're a fan of ridiculous horror.  However, if you have a few people over or get a few beers in ya, then you WILL be entertained.

As always, our comments are in regular font, movie subtitles are italicized.

"I don't mind watching a foreign horror movie, because people scream in the same language!"  "You're a retard."  "Yes."

"So...he's got a skimobile and..what?  He told everyone else to go fuck themselves and walk?" "That's the first time I've ever heard it called a skimobile."

"I swear she just said Evil Dead Anal 2."  "Damnit!  I still haven't seen Evil Dead Anal 1!  I'm so far behind the times!"

"In Norway, sexy-time means suffocating your girlfriend?"  "That definitely is NOT Business Time."  (Flight of the Concords joke.)

"It's the Norwegian version of Harvey Keitel."  "Damn, it really is!"

"Did he just say 'she's farting tiny tonight?'"

"Okay, Swedish Chef, in a Nazi Uniform as part of the zombie squad."

”We will be careful not to arouse the evil.”  "The evil is my penis."

"I wanna know which word they're saying sounds like 'fuck this' because I've heard it a half dozen times."

"These are fast zombies, are they like ninja zombies?"  "Dude, they're German Nazi zombies.  He just rolled up and was like 'guten tag'."

"I just like how his haircut matches his body type: round."  "He's like a skinnier, alive version of Chris Farley."

"The Nazi gold glows, that's a bad sign."  "It's also Nazi Uranium.  It's even more valuable because it has a half-life."

"He's gonna bump into a ton-ton any minutes now."

"Oh no, get off him, he's still got poop on his butt!"  "Let him wipe first, you filthy whore."

(At this point, Joe Cam is making horrible farting noises during a sex scene.)

"Your ass just got saaaaacked!"

"For some reason I want them to break into a rendition of Karma Chameleon and I have no idea why."

"Mutant Nazi Zombies from the Hood?"  "No, C. Thomas Howell isn't in this one."

"Why the fuck did we build this cabin out of balsa?"

"That is the proper response to zombies digging themselves out of the ground.  'Okay' and then run."

"The stench from the dreadlocks melted the snow."

"Never give a Norwegian power tools, that's how Vikings happen."

"Where's your friends, buddy?  Oh wait, you don't need them."  "Because your snowmobile doubles as a wood chipper."

"Never sneak up on a guy who is hacking a Nazi zombie with a hand axe, that's silly.  Didn't they teach you that in elementary school?"

"Hey there, you okay?  You're doing a little screaming.  Buddy, you okay? "

"There's nothing worse than the Zombie Nazi thaw in Norway.  Does this happen every year?"  "Yeah, it's not talked about too much."

"Good thing that wooden box didn't burn in the giant wood fire." "It didn't burn because it's that special irradiated wood."

Rubber

Rubber is NOT a movie about a condom.  It is also not an action, a comedy, a revenge movie or anything that can be 'pigeonholed' with a 'definition.' 

            Rubber is about a sentient tire that telekinetically blows stuff up.  Like human heads.

            On to the review!

            This is an indie film.  Let's get that out of the way right now.  *deep breath* Rubber is a movie about a movie being watched by a live audience that is being manipulated by the actors and director who are watching and/or interacting with a tire that's chasing a hot woman and killing everything in its path.  *gasp for air*  Didja get all that?

            Okay, fine.  I'll try again.

            Rubber is ostensibly a movie about a sentient tire that has the capability to blow things up with psychokinetic powers.  Early on the tire sees a beautiful woman and begins to stalk her, killing anything and anyone that gets in between him and his goal....and anyone that disrespects him.  Of course, showing disrespect to a tire is sort of easy since most people don't stop to consider a regular tire's nonexistent feelings, there end up being a lot of bodies.

            On top of the simple plot, the movie itself is also a meta commentary on audiences and their expectations.  How they interact with actors, writers and producers is all commented on to one degree or another via an actual live audience watching the scenes of the primary film unfold.  How the hell do you put people watching a movie into a movie?  Easy!

            You give them binoculars and have them stand around in the middle of the desert.  Yeah, I want a pair of those binoculars too.  Several times, the movie cuts between the events of the tire and the commentary of the actors.  The audience primarily interacts with an agent of the film who is simply called Accountant (Jack Plotnick, voice of Xandir in Drawn Together).  The only audience member you need to know about is Wings Hauser, who is most certainly slumming it here.

            The only other person who seems to be 'in' on the fact that all the events are for a film is the police Lieutenant, Chad (Stephen Spinella).  He gives the opening monologue and makes a mid-film commentary on audience expectations as well as providing the 'law' in this film. 

            There's not much else I can say about this movie without giving away some of the absurd humor or moments of overt hostility that seems to be directed directly at the viewer.  This movie was either directed by a genius auteur or an angry, disillusioned failed actor who never made it in Hollywood....oh, wait, no.  The writer/director is French.  That may explain it too.

            A word of advice:  This movie is DIVISIVE.  You will either love it as being clever and original and entertaining, or you will despise it as being heavy-handed, clunky and indecipherable.  I honestly believe the difference is in how you view it. 

            I've spoken to 6 other people who saw this, and counting myself it's 5 for and 2 against.  The big difference is that the two who absolutely despised it both saw it alone, at individual times.  All five of us that really enjoyed it saw it in a group.  Beer may have been involved.

            Now, I'm not saying this is a party movie.  It's too quiet and slow at times for a large audience.  But this is the perfect film for 3-5 people who really want to watch something different, laugh together at the right times and express disbelief or frustration when necessary.

As usual, the film's quotes are in italics, ours are....not.

"Watch out for the chairs!"  "It's an Asian woman driving!"  "This is the worst slalom course ever."

"This is like a fucked up version of the matrix."

"This guy looks like Thomas Hayden Church's and James Wood's love baby."

"Everybody turn around."  "The donkey's over there."

"The tire doesn't talk, does it?"  "No, it still has the properties of a tire."  "Yeah, why would a tire talk?  That would just be silly."

"The music makes it feel like an indie game, like on XBox Live or something."

"Our little tire is becoming a sociopath.  Awww."  "Man, PETA is gonna be pissed."

"While he was asleep, they turned him into a tire swing."

"I wonder if they had to pay for this movie watching experience?"

"Awwww, Daddy doesn't love you."  "No, no one does."

”Anyone got any food?"  "Eat Fat Neil."  "Got a cock meat sandwich for ya."

"Kill a rabbit and he gets awesome 70's victory music.  Kill a human, he gets Mmmbop by Hanson."

"Hello, police?  Someone flipped me off."

"I'm trying to watch tire porn, asshole!"

"Fuck it, let's get off this movie."

"If you took away the knives, that would be a very dirty scene."

"A boy and his tire."  "I would see that movie."  "It's actually the sequel."

"Why couldn't you collect Yu-Gi-Oh cards like other kids your age?"

"I'm taking my tire and going home!"

"You're just supporting actors."  "Well, are we getting paid?"  "Fuck no."

"OH MY GOD WHY AM I SO STUPID!??!?!??"

"When I am done with movie, will I get Green Card?"

"Is she Hispanic or German?  She's got a Tommy Wiseau accent."

*Someone points out an inconsistency.* "Well now I hate this movie."  "That really kills the sense of realism."

Killer Elite

Robert De Niro.  Clive Owen.  Jason Statham.  Three fantastic, well-known action movie stars from two-and-a-half generations of moviemaking.  A trailer that promises action and more action, followed by some more action.

            Why the hell is this movie so boring?

            Onto the review!

            The movie starts out with a little 'gotcha' text explaining that the world has devolved into war and corruption as we fight over resources and oil.  Assassins are used worldwide to eliminate targets and clandestine groups abound.  The year?  1980!  Wakka wakka!  No, I didn't ruin anything by telling you this.  It's a total groaner that does nothing to establish the story, only the setting.

            Our first scene is of Danny (Statham) and Hunter (De Niro) performing a hit on some Mexican  Politician....or drug lord...or something.  The hit goes bad when Danny sees *gasp!* a kid in the back seat.  I mean, it doesn't go wrong like "I couldn't kill the guy in front of the kid," more like "a kid saw me kill that guy.  Forget this, I'm out."

            Skip to one year later!  Danny boy (you'll hear that a lot, and it's annoying) is now retired in Australia.  See?  Even movies agree that Australia is made of nothing but poison, and if a hit man wants to retire, there's nowhere safer, because most assassins don't want to risk potentially getting killed by 500000000 different types of angry wildlife.

            So Danny is retired, but Hunter got himself held hostage!  In a plot twist everyone can see coming, it's all a lure to get Danny out of retirement because his agent (named Agent, played by Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje (thanks IMDB!!!)) wants his best man on the job.  Hunter will stay imprisoned by a rich Omani oil sheik until Danny kills three British Special Service troops who were responsible for killing three of the sheik's sons.

            Somehow Clive Owen's character, Spike, gets word of all this, and since he just happens to be a super-paranoid ex-British SS man working for an underground group of rich men called Featherlight, he starts keeping tabs on Danny and his crew.  At this point the movie goes batshit crazy and jumps scenes so often and so poorly that I spent the next half hour trying to figure out if I was watching the bad guys or the good guys. 

            I really have nothing else to say except Spike and Danny have a really good fight scene in a hospital, everyone you expect to die does, everyone you expect to live does, Danny has the exact change of heart you expect at exactly the moment you figure, the movie ends three different freaking times, and you stop giving a crap about an hour into the film, which is a total shame.

            The idea is there, but there are so many plot twists and threads to put together that the film could have been 45 minutes shorter and been very entertaining, or two hours longer and properly fleshed out everything.  Instead you get a muddled mess where you eventually stop caring who is doing what where, too many damn flashbacks and a terribly horned-in love story between Danny and *surprise!* a girl, Anne (Yvonne Strahovski) who grew up with him in the orphanage (farm?  collective?  child slave ring?).

            The other shame is the writing.  A few conversations and scenes are tight, fascinating or downright hilarious.  My favorite dialog was between Danny's two compatriots, one of whom is played by a nigh-unrecognizable Dominic Purcell, tattooed and  mutton-chopped.  They are arguing over how to accomplish an assignment and the following exchange takes place:

            "Would you like a lolly?"

            "I would love one."

            "Strawberry or fuck you?"

            Subtle and funny!  Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is anything but subtle, as they keep reminding the audience that these people are assassins!  They also do nothing in the way of acting.  As much as I like Statham, Owen and De Niro, they seem to just be reciting their lines and looking for a paycheck here.  De Niro especially looks like he's given up as he alternately appears haggard, bored, and distant.

            I really have nothing to recommend about Killer Elite.  There are better fight scenes elsewhere, the plot is too muddled and predictable, and the acting is pretty standard.  Everybody scowls and growls.  Go pull out your copy of Equilibrium if you need  to get your gunfight fix.  This may still be better than last year's stinker, Righteous Kill, but I'm not sure since I didn't start going out of my way to watch crappy movies until this year.

Netflix'd: Sex Galaxy

Today's film is...Sex Galaxy.  This is a comedy made entirely out of public domain material with a dubbed soundtrack and voice actors.  Also, there is lots of tits, and also tits.

            The movie is basically about a group of guys who leave an earth that is overpopulated and banned sex until marriage.  So yeah, the movie is a bunch of astronauts in a space ship talking about sex acts and then exploring a horny galaxy.  Yeah, that's about it.  Foul mouths, sex talk, bad marriage jokes and more tits.  That's the film.  There's really not much else to talk about except for the giant robot pimp.

            Oh yeah, there's also a giant robot pimp.  I'm sure it was a better idea on paper.

            Otherwise, it's just a space romp made out of a bunch of old sci-fi movies, public service films and dancing/stripping/nudie clips.

            It's kinda boring.  There's some funny stuff going on, and the idea is clever, but in the attempt to make it ridiculous, they forgot to make it FUN.  Or interesting.  Or good.

            The first 5 minutes are novel, the next 5-10 are amusing, and then it gets just...boring.  Also, kinda shitty and not funny.  The closing credits are mildly amusing though, if you can make it that far.

As always, we are in normal text and any quotes from the movie are in italics.  Special thanks to Zeiram, Jacob and the ever-steady-like-a-rock Joe Cam!

"This may be the greatest thing we ever watch."  "Yeah, it has promise."  "It has tits."  "It has tig ol' bitties."

"Is this a challenge to just see how many different film clips he can cram into one movie?"

"I appreciate how they're making absolutely no attempt to sync the words with the lip movement."

"Wow, that guy looks like a rapist."  "Which one?"  "Yes."

"Oh God we're totally going so fast....oh fuck!"

"Andy Richter?"  (No, seriously, one of the astronauts totally looks like Andy Richter.)

"I can at least appreciate the fact that they got the word fucko's into this movie."  "That guarantees them at least one star on Netflix."

"What if I just put my balls in it?  I checked the rules, it's not illegal!" "I wanna dip my balls in it!"

"Haha!  Moons of Venus!  Boobies!  Get it?"

"VU, that stands for Vagina Usurper."

 (For 'plot purposes' the movie switches to a Sex Hygiene video and has graphic penis disease close-ups.)  "I'm bird-sitting for my parents, and the bird has been strangely quiet for several minutes."  "This movie is making my soul hurt."  "Does this bring back memories of Japan?" "Fuck you that was crabs."

"So I was sick with a high fever and hallucinating a few days ago...it was kinda like this."  "You mean I'm NOT on acid right now?"

"Part of me regrets watching this movie, and part of me realizes that this is the point."

"Part of me regrets watching this movie, and part of me realizes it's still the best movie we've seen in a month."
"This movie just makes me want to watch Black Dynamite."  "This movie makes me really want to take a shit."

"This movie makes me miss Katherine Heigl."  "That's pretty harsh."  "At least stuff happened in those."  "But this one has tits!"

"What is it with the boy band references whenever I'm around?"

"The people in the movie are paying about as much attention to it as we are."

At this point, every single person had to take a #2, so we paused the movie for a few minutes.  Unfortunately, someone actually paused it.

"A dragon now?  Really?"  "Actually, it's Ridley."

"This just tells me that if we get together we can fuck around and make a movie."  "No, you are the movie, Joe."

"I'm sorry, are you looking for continuity in a recycled film?"

"Hey look it's the same two tits again!"

"Nudity is less fun when it's the same nudity over and over and over."

(One guy is making annoying noises during a terrible sex scene.)  "Shut the fuck up, you're ruining my rhythm."

"To the volcano!"  "So we can drive into it and end this piece of shit!"

"Oh no, not in the hot sauce!"

"There's still 11 minutes left and they beat the bad guy...what're they gonna do now?"  "Oh, I think you know."  "Oh god...no."  "Yup...get drunk and play DDR."  "Oh..yeah, okay."  "Then masturbate each other." "Damnit!"

Salo: Warning! This review is disgusting!

Warning:  This review is disgusting.  The movie is disgusting and disturbing and there is absolutely no way that I can discuss the film without going into some detail.  Do not read any further if you get queasy easily or if you are uninterested in this film.  You have been warned.

On to the review!

            Salo is a true testament of 'you can't do this anymore.'  Like Cannibal Holocaust, Salo is a European film that tries to tell a story while simultaneously testing the audience's ability to keep their gorge down. 

            The official title of the film is Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom.  It's based on the book 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade, a man whose writings were so graphic and 'morally wrong' when published that the word sadism is derived from his name. 

            Though I have not read the book, the movie seems to have taken it and just changed the location.  Now it is WWII Italy and 16 boys and girls have been taken from their families and locked inside a Chateau with a half dozen abso-fucking-lutely shit crazy psychotic hedonists.  The youths are given two choices:  Become sex slaves and do what they are told, or die.  Yes, this is most definitely not a heartwarming family drama.

            From there the movie performs a lazy circle down the drain of depravity.  The movie can be broken down into four Acts.  The first Act involves the collecting of our 16 teens and twenty something's, and each successive Act centers around some form of sick sexual addiction, each more disgusting than the last.

            There are three rich men enjoying themselves in the Chateau, with a fourth man as the disciplinarian of the sex slaves.  There are also three women who set up each act by telling stories of their own youth.  The rest of the cast are a handful of armed guards, a few other adults who simply play witness, a lady who plays the piano and a tiny group of actual servants. 

            Initially, the movie is just uncomfortable.  The first lady tells stories of sex and urination, including a story that took place when she was 7 and involved a professor.  During and in-between these bouts of storytelling we are subject to a lot of male and female nudity, 'training' of the sex slaves and lots and lots of rape and masturbation.  This movie does not play it straight, if you know what I mean.  Everybody is fucking everybody.  Guys masturbate guys and girls play with girls.  At one point  a guy starts fucking a sex slave and then another guest starts eating that guy's ass.  Yes, I wrote that.  No, it wasn't the most disturbing part of the scene.

            Act 3 made me gag a bit.  (Yeah, it wasn't until I was over an hour into the film that I actually gagged, but I've been challenging myself with revolting cinema for awhile now.  Actually being affected at all is a testament to how disturbing this film is.)  The title?  The Circle of Shit. 

            Yes, ladies and gentlemen, fecalphilia.  Mmm....disgusting!  When a 6 foot tall bearded man takes a shit on the floor and makes a naked blonde girl eat it with a fork, you know you're in for just a wee bit of 'fucking gross.'  I can't stand shit.  It is to be flushed and never acknowledged.  It is not to be kept in a giant tub for bathtime later on, and it is certainly not something I want to see an entire dining room full of people eating as if it's the tastiest shit ever.  (Pun intended.)

            The final act is the Circle of Blood.  Can you figure out what's going on there?  If you thought torture, then congratulations, you're right! 

            I really don't want to get into it except to say that after seeing five naked women soaking in a wooden tub of feces, I almost welcomed the torture because it was something you see often enough in American horror films as to seem LESS disgusting.  Maybe this says things about America, but I don't care, no more shit.

            Unfortunately, they really weren't fucking around in this film.  There is serious, disturbing torture going on here, and I'm impressed yet again with how realistic a 40 year old film managed to make torture look.  I wonder how long it took the one girl's scalp to grow back?  Scalps do grow back, right?

            So if you want to test yourself with a truly disturbing movie, then yes, you should watch Salo.  It is incredibly depraved and it's less a movie than a two hour test of willpower.  I don't feel like I learned anything other than to never trust an Italian filmmaker, but if you like staring at lots and lots of breasts, asses and uncircumcised cocks, then who knows?  You may actually get something out of this movie, you sick, sick little bastard.

Drive: The Movie, Not the Incubus Song

            I write these words knowing full well that they may be the last sane ones available to me for quite some time.  After I finish with this review I am going to watch Salo, courtesy of Netflix.  This is widely considered one of the most disturbing movies of all times and it may shatter my psyche.....nah, just 'effing with you.  Yes, I'm going to watch it, but graphic violence doesn't bother me as much as awkward, horrible situations.  So far in my quest to view the most disturbing films of all times, only the rape scene in Irreversible and every scene in Happiness have really bothered me.

            Now, that isn't to say I can't be bothered at all.  I just try not to let it linger (if any of you suddenly started humming a certain Cranberries song, HAHA!).  Drive is a perfect example of the sort of movie that can make the viewer uncomfortable for a myriad of reasons.  This is going to be a divisive flick!

On to the review!

            In case you haven't noticed, critics really, reaaaaaally like Drive.  It has received a big ol' 92% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic seems to like it too, giving it an 80 out of 100...or an 8.1 out of 10?  Something like that.  The problem with high rated films is that many of them are labeled 'critic's choice' movies.  What the hell does that mean?  It means that critics love it because it's something fresh and new and different, or at least different from the last fifty flicks they've just seen.  It does not in any way mean that it's palatable for the casual cinemagoer who couldn't give two fucks about camera angles, lens width or sound cues.  (I just made all that up, feel free to tell me if any of those are real movie-making considerations.)

            The reason I'm really enjoying doing these reviews is because I'm trying to write them from the point of view of the casual (if picky, kind of asshole-ish) movie watcher.  I have no knowledge of film studies and I haven't taken a single class in acting, directing, film, etc.  So when it comes to a movie like Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, I get the suspicion that lots of everyday folk are going to hate the shit out of it.

            The plot is pretty straightforward.  Ryan Gosling stars as a stunt driver/getaway driver who is never given a name.  They refer to him as Kid most of the time, so I'll go with that.  He falls for his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), but her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) gets back from jail and has to come up with protection money from when he was behind bars.  The Kid seems to just want to help, so he offers to be the driver for a heist.  Shit goes bad and Kid ends up on the outs with some seriously bad people.  Those bad people are Ron Perlman as Nino and Albert Brooks as Bernie.  Nino is a great character for Perlman to play because he gets to just walk around cursing up a storm and occasionally look menacing. 

            Also, Brian Cranston plays the Kid's mechanic boss/getaway job contact, Shannon.  He does an absolutely fantastic job of playing a low-level mafia type who has no real power and absolutely knows it.  But here's the thing: EVERYONE in this movie is phenomenal.  There is not a single weak link or middling performance in the entire film.  The Kid is a total cipher, which is kind of incredible in this day and age.  He has less lines in the entire film than most action movie protagonists get in the first ten minutes.  Perlman and Brooks ooze menace and confidence whenever it's called for.  Isaac plays the loving yet suspicious husband perfectly.  You would swear that Carey is actually in love with Ryan Gosling and is torn between him and her real life husband/boyfriend.  That's not what is going to turn away audiences.

            What is going to make some people hate this film is the fact that it is not the action movie that is advertised.  This is an indie action.  An auteur thriller, if you will.  The camera lingers on every scene, often spending long, potentially agonizing seconds just panning up to a character's face before lingering there for more moments before the character even utters a word.  If you were to cut out every tracking shot or establishing take, this movie would go from 100 minutes to about 45.  Many people are not going to like all this silence and establishment in their movie.

            For the patient people, you are going to get a very well-written and perfectly acted movie with lots of realistic violence.  Oh yeah, that's the other thing.  This movie is super realistically violent.  You will swear that when a guy gets his head bashed in, they paid a hobo down the street 50 bucks, got him drunk and then curb stomped him.  It's pretty brutal.

            So go see this if you want something different or are willing to wait for the payoff.  I promise it will be worth your time, but the theater I was in had lots and lots of restless shifting for the first half hour. 

            One other thing:  Do NOT be a complete shitstain and bring a kid to this movie.  About ten minutes before the preview starts, two girls and a guy sit down to the left of me where there are 4 seats open, leaving one between us.  Five minute later, a little girl comes walking up and the two girls have her sit right next to me. 

            So here I am, about to watch a hard R film next to a girl who could not be any older than 10.  Just as I'm about to politely get up and move a seat to the right because there are easily A DOZEN GODDAMN EMPTY CHAIRS THEY COULD HAVE CHOSEN, a group of a half-dozen guys files in and sits down to my right, leaving only one chair between us.  The rest of the theater is pretty packed, my row had been the only open one.

            My dilemma now being to either stay put and deal with some possibly uncomfortable moments or move right one seat and actively move closer to a male stranger, I chose door number 'you lose no matter what' and stayed put.  Then I spent the rest of the movie feeling really bad for this poor young lady.  You can tell she was not the sort of kid whose parents always let her watch whatever she wants.  It looked like her older sister was forced to babysit and just dragged her along, because the girl had her head buried in her hands for a good quarter of the film.

            So please, dear readers, don't be that person.  That makes you a terrible douchebox and nobody will be your friend because you're selfish and ignorant and a piece of shit that makes little kids have nightmares after watching a guy get stabbed repeatedly in the neck.

            Anyhow, this isn't my favorite 'action' movie this year, Warrior still holds that title in its frighteningly firm grasp.  It is a good film in the indie category, though.  Again, you have to be patient, but it's a solid, entertaining movie that definitely does not worry about silly things like words or exposition.

Killers

Killers

Note:  Any spelling errors are unintentional, but I don't care.  I refuse to spend any more time on this movie.

On to the review!

            My imagination only works so well.  I simply cannot ever believe Ashton Kutcher is amazing assassin and Katherine Heigl is not a bitchy shrew.  I also cannot believe that Mr. Kutcher would ever settle for an older woman....oh...wait.

            This is a very all-inclusive movie.  Every person watching it will probably hate it, because every aspect of this film is pretty much terrible.  Here are just a few examples:

Acting:  There really isn't any.  Catherine O'Hara and Tom Selleck are the only remotely bright spots.  They play the Katherine Heigl's parents, and we're pretty sure that it was real alcohol Mrs. O'Hara was chugging, just to get through her scenes.

Writing:  Terrible gun/penis jokes, boring conversations, worse scenes.

Action:  Hackneyed, hard to believe, and too cartoony.  It doesn't know if it wants to be a gritty Bond film or a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Continuity:  Joe Cam had to check Wikipedia just to find out how much time had passed between the 'proposing to Tom Selleck's moustache' scene and the 'hey look they're in a house now!' scene.  It isn't addressed until roughly 10 minutes into the second act.

Everything:  Everything pretty much blows.  It's not fun, it's not funny, the action scenes are not very good, the chemistry is terrible between all of our couples, and not a single minor character adds shit to the film.

Plus, the movie is so very, very predictable...not in a good way.  Then, just to piss on your complaints of it being predictable, the dumbest plot twist ever happens.

Rather than just go into examples of how terrible this film is, I'll just feed you lots of comments.

Comments:  (All movie quotes are in italics.)

"You are contractually obligated to watch Katherine O'Hara and Tom Selleck talk about fucking on an airplane."  "Because it's all downhill from there."

"Look at that Katherine Heigl.  Even your parents hate you."

"Yup.  Nothing suspicious about taking pictures sideways while wearing sunglasses and a trench coat."

"He's reverse 007.  He gets naked before the mission and then finds a woman to bang."

"No little Kutcher for you......that just sounds dirty, doesn't it?  'Little Kutcher."  "Do you say that to a guy or a girl?"  "You would say it to Chaz Bono."

"Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl."  "I hope that makes your list of quotes dozens of times."

"Unless you have something better to do."   "Yeah, like watch a better movie."

"Every time you kill someone you just hear the Kelso laugh."

"...and thousands of civilians died from the fallout of that crash."  "The magic of screen wipes."

"I was gonna trim my cuticles during this movie so I can at least feel like I accomplished something."

"Where the fuck was he hiding that thing?"  "In his little Kutcher!"

"Wait...how long have they been married?  Did I miss that?"  "I thought we were still in France....apparently the engagement is over."

"You're not funny, Rob Riggle!  Get off the movie!"

"Did he just have to convert hugs and kisses to binary?"

"He just Googled that shit!"  "I wanna see where Bond Googled his shit."

"This movie has been brought to you by Apple."

"That is a professional moustache.  That moustache is not fucking around."

"We're 40 minutes into this movie and I still don't know what's going on."  "You are the luckiest man on the couch right now."

"Rob Riggle yell!" 

"I kinda wanna see a Rob Riggle sex tape.  Would it just be an hour of him standing around, screaming?"

"Did anyone think in their lifetime that there would be a knife fight between Ashton Kutcher and Rob Riggle?"  "Did anyone think in their lifetime that someone would expect us to take it seriously?"

"Why did I marry a banshee?"

"This is Battle Mode from Mario Kart."

"Rob Riggle got punked!"  "Heaven got 47 times louder that day."

"She's oddly okay with all this."  "She can't say no to those killer abs."  "Hahaha, get it?  Killer abs!"  "Hahahaha....I'm not writing that down."  "You should totally write all of that down.  It's a Katherine Heigl movie, we don't have much to work with here."

"I really thought Usher had better things to do."  "Than work at K-Mart?  No...he has nothing better to do."

"There is nothing sexier than Katherine Heigl gumming a Slim Jim."  "She's pretending it's a Little Kutcher."

"I'm pregnant, mood swings, RAWR!"

(Louise Griffin voice.) "Come on Peter, get in the car, we have to go kill the neighbors."  "Damnit Meg, this is all your fault."

"I think Tom Selleck's moustache and William Shatner's toupee should team up for a buddy cop show."

"That is not a moustache, that's a pedostache."  "No, it's a Mexistache."

"If each generation's moustache gets successively smaller, does that mean their child is going to grow up to be John Waters?"

Special thanks to Joe Cam and Splync (a.k.a. Cancer Boy) for helping talk me down off the ledge.

To show my thanks, here you go guys:

"Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl.""Die in a fire, Katherine Heigl."

Contagion

Apparently, epidemic movies are the new war movies, because every-freaking-body is in Contagion.  I guess it's because unlike a war movie, the actresses can play something other than the army wife?  The cast includes such recognizable people as Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, John Hawkes, and....Demetri Martin?

            This gives me an idea...in the sequel, Contagion 2, everyone is cured by Demetri Martin's convictions that laughter is the best medicine, so he hooks himself up to the world's largest set of speakers and tells his brand of offbeat and observational humor until the entire world gets better...or Comedy Central cancels him.

            On to the review!

            I can't talk too much about the plot without ruining everything for everyone forever, but director Steven Soderbergh gets his hooks in early.  Contagion jumps around for the entire movie and only loosely connects the dots between all the characters, but he does a fantastic job of showing both the individual and global problems should an epidemic of such scale actually happen.  Nobody is safe from death, and there were a few points where I thought 'Oh yeah, this guy's effed' yet nothing happens.  The same holds true for the opposite.  The only guarantee is that poor Gwyneth is totally dead, but that's in the trailer, so nyah. 

            Matt Damon plays the husband of the recently deceased, Mitch, and finds out that he is immune.  His point of view fulfills the small-world perspective, while damn near everyone else works for the World Health Organization, Center for Disease Control or other government agencies.  Jude Law is the lone exception, playing the conspiracy blogger and clearly enjoying himself.  Oh, and in case you're curious, Demetri is a CDC employee who gets to wear one of the awesome body suits and handle the virus that is killing roughly one out of ten people.

            The big problem with this film is the fact that it doesn't actually end.  Shit happens and you're on the edge of your seat for over an hour, then shit stops happening for the last twenty minutes or so...and roll credits.  From the beginning until the last half-hour, the movie is genuinely interesting.  Every location has a different sub-plot and all the dialog is great.  Then, once one character makes the game-changing decision for better or worse, the movie just...peters out.  You get to say hello or goodbye to everyone one last time and then the movie ends.

            If you like Soderbergh, movies that involve lots of people dying or accurate socio- and psycho-logical depictions of mankind freaking the hell out, then check the movie out.  As for me, I'm going to make sure I see a super duper early show next week, because I damn near killed a dozen teenagers sitting behind me during this one.  Fortunately the movie was engrossing enough that they shut up after the previews, but I'm pretty sure the one kid had a combination of Tourrettes, Aspergers and being a complete social douchetard.

            For a movie starring an invisible-to-the-naked-eye pathogen as the antagonist, I'll give this one a hearty thumbs up. It's better than most, and it beats Outbreak hands down when it comes time to explaining where the virus came from.  Nobody will ever be able to think of a stranger place to get a virus from.  The only thing that stops me from calling these origins idiotic is the fact that it's absolutely plausible.

Warrior. Yeah, that's it. Just Warrior.

Well, it's official.  They're back to putting out a few movies that don't suck a giant amount of donkey cock.  For little while, at least, I won't want to stab myself or others every time I approach a movie theater.

            This weekend I have damn near no time to do absolutely nothing.  It's football kickoff weekend and I'll be doing homework while the TV is on.  Remind me to never stack 3 8-week college courses on top of each other.  I'm waaaay too lazy to enjoy this.  I volunteered to work at a festival on Sunday morning, I did chores and went to the gym on a lovely Saturday morning, and I'm currently watching my favorite college football team struggle against a very good foe.  Yet, despite all this business (and a small amount of whining), I've made time to watch not one, but two films this week. 

            Why?

           

             Because they look not suck, and I need a dose of not-suck in theaters.

            Unfortunately, I'm starting to worry about going to see Contagion tonight....because Warrior was that damn good.

On to the review!

            Warrior is not a new story.  The whole underdog sports story is old, but we love it.  Shit, Rocky, arguably the most popular fictional movie underdog, has his own damn statue in Philadelphia.  I'm both awesome AND real and I don't even warrant a shrine in someone's closet.  The Fighter came out last year and everyone loved it.  Who doesn't remember watching films like The Mighty Ducks and Major League?  America has a love affair with the little guy done good.  Unfortunately, a lot of films, while possibly fun to watch, aren't necessarily good. 

            I figured Warrior would fit into that category.  Fun to watch but not something that would stick with me afterwards.  Holy shit was I wrong.  I genuinely want to own this on Blu-Ray the moment it goes on sale.  That's serious business, because I barely buy movies anymore, and almost never want a new film on disc.

            So anyways, Warrior is basically two underdog films in one.  You follow the estranged brothers Conlon as they separately attempt to win the Spartan tournament and bag the $5 million reward, each for separate and not-douchebaggy reasons.  Tom Hardy plays the ex-Marine Tommy and holy shit do I not want to piss him off.  The dude is fearsome in this movie.  Meanwhile, his older brother Brendan is played by Joel Edgerton, whom I could also definitely not take down in a fight.  The only complaint here is that the brothers are from Pittsburgh, PA and Tom Hardy manages to disguise his British accent by sounding like he's from Jersey by way of the Bronx.  It doesn't quite work, but it's not bad enough to annoy anyone who doesn't actually know what people from Pitt are supposed to sound like.

            Brendan's wife, Tess, is former House regular Jennifer Morrison, and she does a fine job of filling in emotion when the movie actually allows her to be on scene.  However, that is very rarely.  You see, the meaty part of the plot isn't the brother's attempts to win a tournament.  The best part of this film is the only part that isn't completely predictable.  Previously mentioned Nick Nolte plays Paddy Conlon, their abusive, formerly alcoholic asshole of a fighter.  He plays a man who was such a terrible human being, he drove his entire family apart years ago.  His youngest son fled West with his now-deceased mother, and his oldest stayed with his High School girlfriend, married and had children whom Paddy is not allowed to see.  He can only communicate via phone or letters.

            The man is incredibly convincing as an old man who knows exactly what he's lost, is desperate to gain some of it back, wants to make good and has absolutely no idea how to do it.  Maybe his character affects me because I see a little sliver of a few people I've known in him.  He's also the sort of person I've always been afraid to become.

            The crap is very little, and not too crap-tastic.  There is one absolutely useless subplot, and the movie tries too hard to tie everything in.  Just when it felt like they should be tightening their view, the cameras keep pulling out to show you events somewhere else.  Again, it's not terrible, I just think they could have shaved a good 15-20 minutes off the film and nobody would have noticed a thing.

            The ending is abrupt, and I suppose it's the only way to end a movie like this without making it terrible.  Everyone's acting ranges from fine to amazing, and nobody drops the ball.  Like I said, an accent here and there is a little off, but holy shit, you should see this film.  In fact, I saw The Fighter just a month ago, and I honestly think Warrior takes the good, improves on the great, and makes for an even more compelling film.

            If you want a great drama with some well-shot action scenes, do yourself a favor and go see Warrior in theaters.  If you like any movie I've mentioned, you'll like this one.  If you just want to see people get the shit kicked out of them and think this movie will be a waste of time, do me a favor.  Go take your stupid self to the nearest Buffalo Wild Wings, order a beer and watch a pay-per-view fight.  Then, when it's over, go outside and jump into oncoming traffic.

The Debt (Owes me Five Bucks)

I perceived The Debt as one of the most ridiculously hyped films I have ever seen.  Its trailer played before almost every film I saw over the summer, whether or not it was appropriate (like playing before a comedy or a horror.  What the hell, Hollywood?).  Initially, I was very, very excited to see a movie that jumps through time, stars Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson, and has gorgeous semi-newcomer Jessica Chastain play the young version of Helen Mirren's character, Rachel.  Hell, even the threat of Sam Worthington was not enough to dissuade me from wanting to see the film.

Then I saw the trailer again...

and again...

and again...

Each time I viewed it, I started to worry a little bit more.  "Why are they pimping this movie so much?  Is it because it's going to be the first award-worthy film, kicking off the fall season a little early?...No...they don't do that until September or even October...Shit...this comes out in August...that's like the graveyard shift for movies...."

Then: "Why the hell have I not seen a single trailer for this on TV?  I know I don't watch too much television, but surely someone else has heard of this....No...nobody seems to know of this film.  Shit."

...and then I watched the movie.

On to the review!

The Debt is an action/murder/mystery/drama starring the aforementioned Miss Mirren and Mr.'s Wilkinson and, to a lesser extent, Worthington.  Mirren and Chastain play Rachel, Worthington and Ciaran Hinds play young and old David, respectively, and Wilkinson and Marton Csokas play the old and young Stephan.  I deliberately wrote that confusingly to give you a feel for the first twenty minutes of this film.  While your mind tries to get everyone right with their future/past selves, you get to miss chunks of dialog and, supposedly, plot.  The first misstep of the movie: confusing an audience.  Great for a murder mystery, not great for an amalgamation of several movies that ends less with a bang and more with a weird splat.

Ostensibly, Rachel, David and Stephan are Israeli special agents who have infiltrated East Berlin to find and kidnap a former Nazi, returning him to Israel so that he can be tried for war crimes.  Of course, nothing goes as planned, and shit hits the fan.  One part of the movie has this great idea of replaying an event more than once, changing the story a bit as the truth comes out.  Unfortunately, they do that by first showing you a ten minute scene, and then later showing you the exact same eight minutes of the same footage, followed by something different.  For a film that comes in under two hours, it is inexcusable to re-use footage.  Seriously, The Debt?  You couldn't have at least shot it from a different angle or something?  ESPECIALLY when the footage is half-boring and half-ridiculous?

Other offenses include: Not being mysterious, not being interesting, letting Sam Worthington try acting, having a cheesy, ham-fisted ending when the movie could have ended on such a better, more interesting note ( if you had just cut the camera off ten minutes earlier), and fooling me into thinking this was going to be a good, thought-provoking film on how special agents do their country's dirty work while trying to handle their own grief, a la Munich.

You sons of bitches, you fooled me into looking forward to another Munich!

So yeah, don't worry about seeing this one in theaters.  Don't worry about seeing it in red box, either, unless you have a thing for seeing Helen Mirren in a nightgown.  If you do...don't ever tell me about it.