I have not seen any one particular film that is worth speaking
about at length, but I have seen a few—both in theaters and on Netflix—that are
at least worth mentioning.
Let’s do a little bit of a movie round-up, shall we?
On to the review(s)!
Have you ever sat through a movie
that was listed at 100 minutes but seemed to last 3 hours? If you go see Broken City you can make that claim! A movie starring Mark Wahlberg, Russel Crowe,
Catherine Zeta-Jones and a half-dozen easily recognizable faces has no right to
be so damn uncomfortably boring. Even
worse, in an attempt to make a ‘gritty’ crime drama, Broken City manages to make every single main character so
disgusting, so hateful, so sickeningly selfish and pitiful that you are left
with (almost) nobody to cheer for.
Billy (Mark Wahlberg) is a cop
charged with homicide. Even though the
charges are dropped, he is booted from the force and becomes a private
eye. Years later, the current mayor of
NYC (Crowe) hires him to find out who has been sleeping with his wife
(Zeta-Jones). Once Billy returns with
photographic evidence that the mayor’s wife is doing something behind his back,
shit hits the fan.
The problem is, by the time the story
decides to be anything other than standard detective fare, the audience has
already decided that the entire cast consists of nothing but douchewaffles. Wahlberg’s character is a selfish, frightened
misogynist who has no idea how to handle his feelings. When he eventually turns to the bottle he
does it with such relish that I’m forced to wonder why the film’s writers even
bothered to start him off as a recovering alcoholic in the first place. It did nothing to the story other than add
another layer of loathing.
The mayor and his wife have such a hateful,
petty relationship you’re left wondering why anyone would even bother staying
in such a situation even if there were a political campaign involved. The petty back-and-forth bickering is
suitable for only those whose emotions never elevated beyond that of a 7th
grader.
The police chief, the opposition, the
friends, coworkers—all of them are horrible, wretched cockboxes with the
exception of Billy’s secretary Katy Bradshaw (Alona Tal). She was quite literally the only bright spot
in this film, and she does not get nearly enough screen time to make up for everyone
else’s stench.
Speaking of horrible, has anyone seen
The Devil Inside yet? Released last year to tepid reviews, I have
high hopes that it will eventually achieve the coveted 1-star review on Netflix
(it currently sits at 1.5 stars).
A film based on the idea of the
Vatican hiding possessed people that they are unable to cure could be a
fascinating, potentially horrific one. The Devil Inside is not that film.
This is yet another ‘handi-cam’ movie, but instead of found
footage, it pretends to be a documentary as Isabella (Fernanda Andrade) travels
to Rome to visit her mother nearly 20 years after Mom (Suzan Crowley) murdered
3 members of the church during an exorcism gone wrong.
Let’s just get this straight. Everyone sucks. The acting sucks, the lines suck, the actors suck
(with the exception of Suzan), and there are only two scenes out of the entire
90 minute film worth even watching. One
is when they try to perform a ninja exorcism on Isabella’s mother. The other is completely unrelated to the main
plot and involves the exorcism of a young Italian girl. (That one was fun to watch thanks to
contortionist Bonnie Morgan playing the role of the girl. Check out her IMDB picture and see if you can
strike the same pose.)
The
Devil Inside only got 1 star from me because Netflix does not let me give
out decimals.
And a few Netflix quick-hit reviews just for you, gentle
reader:
SerialKilling 101 (a.k.a. Serial Killing 4
Dummys) stars Lisa Loeb at 30 as a teenager, and it’s creepily
convincing. The movie itself is
ridiculous, but just the right amount.
It’s entertaining without actually being good. Also, Thomas Haden Church totally got snubbed
by the Oscars for his role as the gym teacher.
TheQueen of Versailles, which I may do a full review of someday, is about
billionaire David Siegel and his family.
When they started filming, it was going to be about the fact that the
Siegel’s were building America’s largest home.
Then the market crash of 2008 occurred, and the documentarians were
content to focus on how the family adapted to no longer being ‘insanely rich.’
Most fascinating is Siegel’s wife,
Jaqueline, who is 30 years his junior and has given him 8 children. Simultaneously spoiled and well-meaning, she
is truly the heart and soul of the film and watching her cluelessly interact
with the world around her is mesmerizing.
The Queen of Versailles does a
good job of demonstrating that even the fantastically wealthy have problems and
issues, yet still shows just how warped their reality is. I don’t hate these people, I pity them.
Finally, if you have yet to watch
Canadian TV show Todd and the Book of Pure Evil then you are doing yourself a serious disservice. I have not enjoyed a TV comedy this much in
years. It has a lot in common with David
Wong’s books John Dies at the End (now a movie!) and
This Book is Full of Spiders in that
they are all hilarious, screwed-up, occasionally disturbing takes on the horror
genre.
In Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, four high school kids have to deal
with the ridiculous and dangerous outcomes of a cursed book granting wishes to
their classmates. Enemies include
doppelgangers, a sentient penis, even a murderous guitar riff. So far every episode has been both original
and hilarious. Hell, when Jason Mewes
plays the wise janitor role you know you’ve got something special on your
hands.
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