analytics

Queue Total



NETFLIX QUEUE-
284 MOVIES (released titles only)

Note: Real spoilers are in black text on a black background. Highlight the black areas to read the spoilers.


Queue Numbers

#50- Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

#100- Black Swan

#200- Mysteries of Lisbon

Last- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Monday, February 28, 2011

Daybreakers

Daybreakers (20090


Writer: the Spierig Brothers!
Director: the Spierig Brothers!
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, some chick(Claudia Karvan), and Sam Neil

Synopsis
in a world where vampires rule (2019), there are so few humans left the vampires are starving and turning into the vampires from blade II except instead of super vampires, they're more like rabid vampires. mopey vampire hematologist, ethan hawke, is trying to find a cure for vampirism or a blood substitute to quench the crazy nosferatu looking guys. he works for the corporate asshole, sam neil vampire, who is just interested in making money! mopey ethan hawke runs into a bunch of humans one night, and eventually finds his cure through awesome generally-but-not-in-this-movie, willem dafoe. can ethan hawke become awesome and save all vampires by making them human again!?! maybe.

The Woman
um. i was entertained in the beginning. it held my interest. then the movie part happened and that kind of went towards the shme poop side of things. if you don't have to, i wouldn't watch this. it was better than "surrogates", but not by much. willem dafoe had a lot to do with that too simply because he is awesome. ethan hawke should stick to lisa loebe videos. there was the special guest star trans am as a plus. t-top and everything. maybe you should watch it for that.

The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story

The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story (2009)


Director: Gregory V. Sherman, Jeff Sherman
Synopsis
a documentary about the sherman brother's rise as the guys behind every disney song you knew as a kid, and there personal conflicts with one another

The Woman
this was interesting, but i felt it was a little white washed. it was brought to us by disney so i shouldn't be too surprised. the main topic of their brotherly relationship, the dysfunction, and arguments, that eventually led to them not speaking to one another for 40 years was never directly addressed. it was discussed at length how they didn't get along, but it was presented like they just drifted apart. i'm not sure i buy that because the animosity was pretty intense. not only did they not speak, but their families were pretty much instructed not to see each other either.

it was interesting to see how they worked, and how different their style and approach to work was. i also enjoyed hearing the behind the scenes stories about disney in it's heyday when walt was still alive. all the shenanigans and conflicts. but like i said, i felt there were some important things left out. 

Monday, February 21, 2011

Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer

Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer (2002)
Written (?) by Robert Trachtenberg
Directed by Robert Trachtenberg
Narrated by Stanley Tucci

Synopsis
a documentary biography of gene kelly

MOster
Here's an example of a documentary in which the material outpaces the production.  I couldn't get enough of watching him dance and hearing him sing, and the history itself was interesting; for one example I didn't know that he consulted with Michael Jackson.  It was also great to hear about his influence on cinema of the times and how that influence can still be felt today.

But the thing was a little too cloying.  They talk a bit about his perfectionism and a somewhat rocky relationship with Donen (who I didn't realize got his start as Kelly's assistant), but I feel there was more under the surface.  The reasons his first wife, one of the main sources of talking head footage, left him were left a little too vague for me.

At the end of the day I learned some things and I got to watch a good amount of his dancing, some of which I hadn't seen before.

Finally, and apropos of something, fuck you, "Glee."

The Woman
it's about gene kelly so it's good. it's also filled with clips of him dancing which who wouldn't want to watch that? his dancing just makes you smile because it's so awesome. i did fall asleep during the last 10 minutes, not because i was bored, but because my kid wore me out and it was way past my bedtime. kelly gets kind of that super perfectionist, therefore really demanding on other people reputation, but as a fellow perfectionist, i understand. you have to be demanding and kind of an ass to other people if you're going to get that good and that far with what you do. does that make sense? sometimes i just sit and ramble out on the keyboard and i'm not sure if i'm making sense to the readers. writing happens to be one of the things i am not a perfectionist or particularly good at...can you tell? i have never quite forgiven writing for the essay i had to do in 6th grade for the state testing things (topic: who is your hero?) and i had such a bad score, i was pulled from art class for a semester to go to the "special" writing class. i became an artist not an author so i would still like to spit in the eye of writing. mission accomplished with all my run on sentences and bad grammar, and commas, placed, in weird, spots.

gene kelly was the best, most masculine dancer ever. debbie gibson is still my hero.

The Extra Man

The Extra Man (2010)
Written by Robert Pulcini, Jonathan Ames (book also), Shari Springer Berman
Directed by Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Starring Paul Dano, Kevin Kline, Katie F. Holmes, John C. Reilly

Synopsis
Odd English professor gets kicked out of his teaching job in New Jersey and comes to Manhattan where he rents a room from an eccentric "Extra Man," or semi-gigolo.


The Woman
i though this was totally fantastic. i love stories with bizarre, yet totally awesome characters. i have already recommended this so there is my opinion on it. i usually don't find independent movies entertaining because they are usually just cerebral. is that a huge generalization or what? i'm tempted to read the book, but i don't want to ruin the movie for myself. plus my book queue is three books deep right now, and that's enough books to keep me busy for a year....shut up. paul dano was perfectly cast and well played, despite moster's incredulity. i have known guys like this. i can name at least two off of the top of my head and having gone to art school i'm sure i can think of more if i sit down and focus on it. so shme, my poopies. even though this movie is marred by the presence of 1 josephine potter, her role is minor, and an unintelligent, annoying nitwit. sooo i guess once again good casting choice? plus john c. reilly cancels her out. good, good, good. i watched it twice.

MOster
I'm not as enamored of this movie as my woman is.  While I might accept the existence of one of these three people in a single "filmic universe"--and it's even plausible to have Gershon and Henry living in the same building and being weird--I just don't buy the Dano character intersecting with this universe.  I just don't buy his utter naivete.  There are cell phones in this universe and it's supposed to be quaint that these people eschew the Interwebs and live in the 70s in their heads, but how did this dude get through high school and college without forming sufficient interpersonal skills?  I just couldn't suspend that, and so it got on my nerves.

That said, I did chuckle more than once and I was interested (if not invested) in what happened to these people; and by and large the actual goings on of the film were conveyed well.  This strange, grayish-brown New York was fully realized without feeling like any significant skill went into it.  This was equal parts frustration and entertainment; and I don't know how strongly I recommend it.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

I'm Still Here

I'm Still Here (2010)


Director: Casey Affleck
Writer: Casey Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix and two other guys and a couple of celebrities

Synopsis
a "documentary" into the transition of actor to hip hop artist...by joaquin phoenix

The Woman
if you want to watch an hour and a half of joaquin phoenix yelling at people you have discovered gold in this movie my friend! just yelling and boring and a big fat joke. i don't need yet another raw, edgy, inside look into celebrity. it's been done. it's been done far better. when i hit the play button i told myself, here we go. why am i going to subject myself to this? and the survey says.....i....don't...know. i've never liked joaquin. he is pretty much the epitome of the arrogance vibe in everything he's done. well, maybe not space camp. and this portrays him as mean and angry and egotistical, but not even in a cool way because he's got nothing to back it up with. i feel like sometimes you can say man, that guy is a douche, but at least he's got the chops. like angelo from "top chef" that guy is a total douche. i literally would like to hit him in the face, but the dude apparently can cook.

joaquin approaches hip hop as a sort of joke. he doesn't seem to take it seriously and yet he acts as if he's already made it in the industry. nobody wants to hear about how hard it is to be a celebrity. boo fucking hoo. are you blowing your snots with 100 dolla bills? life is so hard. fuck you. i think my favorite part was when he was yelling at the miami nightclub crowd by claiming how rich he was. yep. that will win them over. it sure won me over. moster is slightly mad i watched this without him. he doesn't realize what a blessing i have farted down upon him.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About his Father

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)


Director: Kurt Kuenne

Synopsis
a documentary about the murder of andrew bagby.

The Woman
this movie totally gutted me. if you know me, then you know i hate to be emotional about things, but i seriously cried through this whole movie, sobbed even. i'm getting emotional writing about it now. i couldn't sleep. totally and completely effected by this. it's been a week since i watched it because i couldn't write about it without feeling that raw wound.

it's presented while the events are still unfolding in the case. so the documentary keeps shifting in it's focus and intent. it was made by a childhood friend of the victim. the prime suspect is andrew bagby's obsessed ex girlfriend and the evidence is pretty damning. she flees to newfoundland where she announces through her lawyer that she is 4 months pregnant with andrew's baby. this is where the focus shifts and the director travels all over the country talking to relatives, friends and colleagues, collecting as much of andrew's life so the baby can know his father. extradition proceedings go so slowly, andrew's parents actually move to newfoundland to be close for their grandchild's birth. they also sue for custody.

i was concerned in the beginning of the film that this was one-sided and making the mother seem like a terrible human being, but by the middle i could see that, in fact, she was terrible and a psycho to boot. through phone call recordings and correspondences her psychosis begins to come to light. she uses the baby to manipulate andrew's parents, who are forced to deal with the accused murderer of their own child. they have to participate in this woman's existence to participate in their grandson's life. the justice system totally screws these poor people over. completely. i don't want to give too much away about it so i will stop here. this was an incredibly powerful and moving film. and that, coming from me, should tell you something.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Ninja Cheerleaders

Ninja Cheerleaders (2008)
Written by David Presley
Directed by David Presley
Starring Trishelle Cantannella, Ginny Weirick, Maitland McConnell, George Takei, Michael Pare

Synopsis
chicks with big boobs learn ninja things from their srtip club boss george takei who gets kidnapped by the mob. they then have to save him while simultaneously winning a stripping contest prize to give them enough money for brown tuition, dodging a "dark ninja" assassin named kenji, and cheerleading for their junior college.

MOster
This is another movie of which we caught a few minutes on cable and decided to add it to the queue.  It was probably before the commencement of this blog.

In two separate incidents I saw two different scenes.  The first was some kind of training thing with Takei talking to the girls; the second was the cheerleading coach (yes, they actually do cheers in the movie) taking crap from his friends for coaching cheer rather than basketball or something.  They were both pretty awful, but they had the inkling of "awe" in the awful that is sometimes too easy to spot.

This movie missed my expectations by just a little bit.  A detailed discussion of it will earn me more crap from el Woman.  Plus, I'm at work so I can't give it as much time as I might like to anyway.  With that said, the plot actually made sense and wasn't entirely linear.  The production and the acting were pretty darn poor, and there wasn't enough self-awareness to make it that kind of fun to watch.  And the little jump cuts to bare breasts were actually annoying in that they had zero connection to anything else.  It was almost as if someone thought, "Gee. People are going to see that poster and think this is a T&A movie.  We should give them a little T&A."

You don't have to watch this movie.  This movie will disappoint you.

The Woman
super lame. too lame and boring to be funny. nobody showed ant areola either. bad choice on our parts to watch it in it's entirety.

Legendary Weapons of China

Legendary Weapons of China (1982)
Written by Chia-Lang Liu
Directed by Chia-Lang Liu
Produced by The Shaw Brothers
Starring Tiet Wo Fu, Sheng Fu, Hou Hsiao, Chia Hui Liu (aka Gordon Liu)

Synopsis
It is discovered that one of the men sent to extend the reach of a major crime / kung fu organization has decided to work against that family.  The family sends assassins out to destroy him.  His reasons for doing this are basically that they use things like Mysical Boxing and he thinks that magic dilutes true kung fu.

The Woman (by proxy)
I'm bored of the Shaw Brothers.

MOster
NOW I'm bored of the Shaw Brothers.  This movie had all the elements.  There was a real plot and real character development; and there were a lot of great exhibitions of martial artistry.  The philosophical discussion at the end was even intellectually interesting.  But the fights themselves ended up being repetitive, even though the participants were pretty serious ass kickers.  It wasn't enough to hold my interest for a hundred minutes.

If you haven't seen one of these in a while and you like kung fu movies from the 70s and 80s then you'll probably get something out of it.  Otherwise, take a nap.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Barry Munday

Barry Munday (2010)


Writer: Chris D'Arienzo, Frank Turner Hollon
Director: Chris D'Arienzo
Starring: Patrick Wilson, Judy Greer

Synopsis
a womanizer gets what's coming to him (?) and both his testicles are removed because of a trumpet wielding father. he then finds out a woman he doesn't remember sleeping with is supposedly pregnant with his child. focus in his life shifts.

The Woman
i wanted to like this while i was watching it. i will even go as far as ignoring some of my issue with it and say: yes. i enjoyed it. i don't know why. i couldn't tell you why. perhaps because i can relate to it's tale of the pregnancy and birth and baby stage of  life? i don't know. i like judy greer. i like patrick wilson. i like chloe sevigny. i like malcolm  macdowell. i like charlene from designing women. i like KG who has a funny line about his penis. i like billy dee williams. i don't like cybil shepard. it even had a happy ending which usually makes me gag, but this didn't. i even found myself......smiling. eww. gross. i don't know. i'm not feeling particularly articulate today. he was a slimy gross guy too. but then he wasn't. he had all his reason for living taken away and replaced by a stand offish ugly duckling and a baby. this is the kind of romance movie i like, i guess. hmmm.

Repo Men

Repo Men (2010)


Writer: Eric Garcia (novel "the reposession mambo' and screen play), Garrett Lerner (screenplay)
Director: Miguel Sapochnik
Starring: Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Alicia Braga

Synopsis
dude works for "the union", a company that sells mechanized internal organs at exorbitant prices, repossessing those organs that are in arrears. he's all into it until he wakes up in a hospital with a union heart after an accident. so yeah. he *gasp* can't make his payments and now his former employer is after his heart.

The Woman
i liked "repo! the genetic opera" waaaay better and it had the square root of this movie's budget. i made a statement a while back on how i was starting to OD on the whole romantic comedy dime a dozen movies. i'm starting to feel the same way about "action" movies like this one. there's nothing inventive. i've seen the plot. i've seen the actors doing the same damn thing, and i found this movie's end insulting to the time in which i spent on the couch finishing one of my art collectives' projects. i had millions of questions about the plot not making sense (especially with the tardo ending), and i had problems understanding the relationships between characters and their motivations to do what they were doing. it's totally one of these movies where i roll my eyes when the credits are rolling and walk away forgetting the movie existed at all. it's ones like these where i have taken to militantly marking our stars on netflix so i will know that i've watched it and not enjoyed it if it ever comes up again.

now i'm going to talk about the ending so black highlighting away:

the end brings up the question of existence in the first place. forget about the fact that the last half of the movie takes place in a comatose brain. no. wait. let's not. ok. why would he put himself through such things? if it's dream like it doesn't matter about sequence. dreams don't make sense to the conscious brain. they're not linear. this goes back to the sort of plot cuts that irritate the boogs right out of my nose. lowest common denominator or short cutting= a lazy story teller. if it doesn't make sense don't write a story about it. if your answer is you are doing something for the audience's sake you fail! if there is some sort of obstacle course that could kill the character i feel cheated when i find out it never really existed in the first place. that's why "dallas" lost ratings after bobby wakes up when he was supposed to have died which means there was a whole season of plot that never really took place. even said obstacle course leaves me with questions. if forest whitaker was just going to blow up the big computer system, why were jude law and chick putting their hands inside each others incisions and scanning their organs back into the system for the last fifteen minutes? forest whitaker also went through an awful lot of bad guy time to just help them in the end. that was a total johnny lawrence karate kid "you're alright, larusso" moment.


 now back to the existence philosophical question. if this dude thinks he has succeeded and made his wildest dreams come true who cares if that's not real? it's real to him. it's in his brain. he will never ever know anything different. so i walk away completely indifferent to the characters situation which i think is the opposite of what the viewer is supposed to feel. i think i was supposed to pity poor jude law. nope. also if they turn it off on him like the "as long as you make the payments" comment was supposed to bring up in your brain, he'll be dead and therefore will not know the difference.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (2009)


Written by Ulf Reyberg, Steig Larsson (book)
Directed by Daniel Alfredson
Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre

Synopsis
Picking up very shortly after The Girl Who Played with Fire, this movie follows the trial of Lisbeth Salander as well as the conspiracy surrounding her father.

The Woman
the first one was best, but this was pretty good. i feel as if the middle one was not able to stand on it's own. this one, though like the second one, had more meat to it. good.

MOster
This is a more solid entry in the arc than the middle one.  In discussing it afterwards (so don't be surprised if you're reading this part twice), we agreed that one of the larger failures of the second installment was that it didn't stand very well on its own. However, neither comes close to Dragon Tattoo.

This  film does a great job of continuing the story while subtly providing enough background and slippstreamed exposition to orient new viewers.  It also finds a good middle ground between the stock action/drama of Fire and the slow, dark tension of Tattoo.  Things progress deliberately.  Tension rides a good rollercoaster, and the conclusion is satisfying and unforced.  It's great to finally see the great lengths of preparation and care taken by the "good" principals yield the effects desired by the characters.

Again, this is Rapace's movie to rock and she just comes off effortless in her craft.  She's supported by great actors on both sides of the conflict, with the creepier bad guys getting time to exist within their own spaces.  It's still a shame that we don't get a lot of screen time between Lisbeth and Mikke, but it makes a lot more sense to the plot this time, and not merely due to her incarceration.

On screen and off, everybody works together to a single purpose which is well-realized.  While one might argue that the filmmakers' chief goal was to see how many times they could make the characters say "Lisbeth Salander," this probably isn't the case.  Nevertheless it's excused by the overall quality of the outing.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Tokyo!

Tokyo! (2008)


Writers: Gabrielle Bell (graphic novel "Cecil and Jordan in New York"), Bong Joon-ho, Leos Carax, Michel                      Gondry
Directors: Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, Joon-ho Bong
Starring: Ayako Fujitani, Ryo Kase, Denis Lavant, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yu Aoi

Synopsis
three different segments by three different directors all take place in tokyo. one, a young bohemian couple moves to tokyo with big dreams and no cash. two, a strange one eyed "creature from the sewers" terrorizes the citizens of tokyo. three, a shut in who has everything delivered to him makes eye contact for the first time in ten years with his pizza delivery girl during an earthquake.

MOster
These were all really neat in their own rights, to the point where I'm going to go and seek features by Carax.  (In looking up, I've found that we have watched both Mother and The Host from Bong).  The connections between the three films are that they're set in Tokyo and they're a little weird.  It would be unfair to give away much more than the synopses.  Suffice it to say that each story is nicely self-contained, directed well and written well.  Even though the subject matter is drastically different, one of the greater pleasures of this experience was watching the differences between the three styles.

Please don't think that our reviews glow less because they're short.  I don't recommend this to everybody, but I recommend it highly to some and I think you know who yo are.

The Woman
after our 200th post terrible movie extravaganza it was wonderful to watch a good movie. i highly enjoyed this. three completely different stories, but all a little strange in their own way which connected them all. we could have watched lea michele pooping while singing "jesus christ superstar" and thought it was a great movie compared to the crap we've been exposing ourselves to. i'm pretty sure this still would have been entertaining and put on the more positive side of our hyper-critical nature.

Command Performance

Command Performance (2009)


Writer: Steve Latshaw, Dolph Lundgren
Director: Dolph Lundgren
Starring: Dolph Lundgren

Synopsis
a "heavy metal" rocker in russia is trying to thwart a russian militant group's attampt to extort the russian government when they hold the russian president and his two russian pre-teen girls hostage at an american pop princess's concert...in russia.

MOster
Hah.  Hah hah.  Hah hah hah.

Based on the name in the info, I came into this one at like the 20 minute mark.  After another five minutes or so I muted it and sought a later showing.  This is a movie which was quite fun to laugh at but which you really don't have to watch on your own.  I also have a feeling that our reviews will be quite similar here, in content if not in tone.

It kind of makes you feel sorry for Dolf.  Again he's trying to channel the success of Stallone, and failing miserably.  It's like he encapsulated every silly hostage movie he'd seen or read into an outline and let someone else fill in the details.  We had a hard time deciding if he was supposed to be Bruce Willis or Steven Sagal.  We were waiting for him to say some codeword or something and have the people on the outside recognize him either personally as a super agent or generally as a cop, but maybe to the story's credit he's actually supposed to be some dude who was just really good at bar fights in California.  But that's not a lot of credit, because it's the only story element which steps above "rote."

Similarly with the direction, you can really hear the voices of other directors in his head as he sets up the scenes and lays out the pieces.  In this scene the lights go out.  In this one he disarms someone by grabbing the gun which is pointed at him.  In this one people are creeping through an air duct.  He tried to manufacture tension, but he failed as both a director and a writer.  How do you expect people to be surprised by what happens in this movie?  The production itself is probably the easiest to understand.  This is exactly the amount of money that someone would put into a movie written by, directed by, and starring Dolf Lundgren; and these are exactly the caliber of supporting actors that could be afforded within that budget.

This movie is shit; but not, "You'd better come and take a look at this before I flush it," shit.
The Woman
this was a find on one of the movie channels where we just couldn't ignore the description. this was also a classic and obvious case of someone trying to regain their youth and former glory as a movie star and failing miserably. our dear dolph came off as creepy, old, and dated instead of the cool rocker. we kept having discussions in the midst of our viewing whether he was trying to be more like "die hard" or "under seige" so we came up with "under hard" for a working title. it also doesn't bode well for dolph being the writer. every girl under twenty kept telling him how hot he was.....ummmmmm...gross. he's a hard fifty something. age has not come gracefully to mr. lundgren. it looks like drago has begun to melt under the greenhouse effect. this was a laugh for a little while, but it got tiresome in it's desperateness. i yelled at moster for making us watch it and then doze through it. it was not cool in any way. unlike sly stallone's 'rambo" or the awesomeness that was "jcvd" i think dolph should watch those and take a couple of notes. intestinal confetti and burmese babies on pikes being thrown into structure fires is a plus, and being able to act might help as well. just sayin'.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Bound for Glory

Bound for Glory (1976)


Written by Robert Getchby, Woody Guthrie
Directed by Hal Ashby
Starring David Carradine, Ronny Cox (a distant second), Randy Quaid (a DISTANT third)

Synopsis
A biopic of the early life of Woody Guthrie, from before the first time he ditches his wife until shortly after the second time he ditches his wife.

The Woman
booooring. i guess carradine did a good job sounding like woody guthrie, but eh. i could have done something more exciting for two and a half hours. he did good things. he did cruddy things. he rose up during the dust bowl and encouraged the migrant people to unionize. there. now you don't have to watch it. your welcome.

MOster
I put this on the queue.  I have no idea why; and I guess that's one of the problems with the length of the queue.  C'est la vie, I suppose.

This movie was extremely long.  It covered some number of years of this guy's life, beginning as a sign painter in a small town in Texas (?)[ the woman says: "oklahoma!"] through some of his life in LA before he went back on the road.  It was well over two hours long and you felt every minute of it, mostly because the dude's life really wasn't that interesting.  It was directed well and acted well and--with the exception of some music cues which were supposed to inspire sympathy while dickish behavior was on the screen--produced well.

But either this guy was really pretty boring, or it wasn't written very well.  The only thing I might want to hear about would be the inspiration of some of his hits; but outside of a misguided effort to unionize people (Seriously, if there's not enough work union workers go on furlough. What's the difference between that and the situation we see on screen?)  we got almost none of that.  He was a dick, but that's not particularly exciting in itself.  He was selfish and immature and prideful while the movie wanted us to think he was peaceful and humanistic, but he was a creative genius or somesuch nonsense which did not make it to the screen.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Adam

Adam (2009)


Writer: Max Mayer
Director: Max Mayer
Starring: Hugh Dancy, Rose Byrne, and Peter "eyebrows" Gallagher

Synopsis
a lonely guy with aspergers syndrome and the new chick from upstairs start a relationship.

The Woman
i'm gross and girly sometimes. i liked this movie. it wasn't great or anything. it was kind of reminiscent of a lifetime movie, but i fell for it. who can't like the slow, but sweet guy from downstairs? eww. maybe it's hormones or something. the guy with aspergers played it unoffensively. he was pretty low functioning though. how this chick didn't know something was up before he told her...well maybe she's secretly a little slow herself. i must admit i started the day by watching that classic 80's teen romance/drama "lucas" i don't know why i always watch that when it's on either. i mean he doesn't even score a touchdown or anything, he's just the weird kid who got pummeled during the football game. i thought to myself at the end it must be the combination of the slow clap AND the freeze-frame ending that makes it so endearing to my soul. it must have put me in the mood to watch the outsider drama romance. like hitting a jar lid with a knife so you can open the damn thing.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Zardoz

Zardoz (1974)


Writer: John Boorman
Director: John Boorman
Starring: a red loin clothed, side burned, moustached, bad ass known as sean connery, boobies the way only a movie from 1974 can do them

Synopsis
an enforcer barbarian sneaks into the floating idol head of his fake god zardoz. he ends up in a "utopia" where the people live forever and yet there is no reason to live. he shakes things up with his super cool stache and loincloth and his acceptance of necessary violence.

MOster
Yeah, alright.  When you hear a title like Zardoz you think you're going to get a floating head and Sean Connery in a loincloth.  But you don't think you're going to actually be thinking about the plot afterwards.  This is another film where suspension of disbelief is critical to enjoyment, but it's set in a future which is largely devoid of real science and that makes it much easier to swallow. 

To an extent, this is a typical Eloi/Morlock story, but the film does a great job of showing how each race has its fair share of the supposedly-inherent traits of the other. There are complacents and malcontents on both sides, and the infusion of Connery's character--does he even have a name?--into the utopian society is just what's needed to get things churning.  Thinking through that churn elevates the giggling to heights of real accomplishment.

If this movie were made in any other era it might have been more focused on the cerebral stuff, and that would be a shame.  Now fucking Billy Joel is in my head.  Fuck you, Jevon.

The Woman
i put this on the queue because frank decaro posted a still of sean connery from this movie and it immediately spoke to me. much like the faux god, zardoz. i must say it started as a joke, and it is awesome, but it actually has a solid quality concept in there. if you haven't seen it i would recommend. you will laugh too. just seeing the red loin cloth with the pirate thigh boot ensemble and the matching red bandoleers....priceless. but like i said there is also that hefty and significant substance underneath. there is a valid message in this and yet it is still highly entertaining because of it's dated appearance.

Mega Python vs. Gataroid

Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (2011)


Writer: Naomi L. Selfman
Director: Mary Lambert
Starring: Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Tiffany's Cleavage

Synopsis
An idiotic animal activist releases experimental pythons into the wild.  These pythons attack the wildlife (specifically alligators) and grow to mega size, thus upsetting the local ecosystem. An idiotic park ranger feeds experimental steroids to the alligators, creating gatoroids to battle the mega pythons.  Off camera (and possibly independently from each other) these two women sing duets.  Spoiler alert: both characters die in ways which would be difficult even for a soap operauter to undo.

The Woman
 i tried not to pay attention to this nonsense, but i couldn't. by the end i was cheering and laughing along. this is totally a movie that knows exactly what it is. it walked that line and fell on the right side. i know syfy has had it's fair share of great original movies, but, dare i say it, this was the cream of the crop. i thought the hype surrounding it was a harbinger of doom because that's usually how that works. i stand corrected. good carrer movie ms. gibson, ms. tiffany. the ending was a bold move as well. i did not see it coming. plus! bonus original music tracks.

MOster 
This movie was thoroughly entertaining.  It hit exactly the note which Snakes on a Plane missed so egregiously.   It was blissfully self-aware.  It was excellent in its simplicity; and you could drive a tank over the suspension bridge of disbelief.  While I'm not entirely clear if gatoroidic consumption  led to further pythonic megification there is no doubt in my mind that the amount of dynamite employed would commit zero genocides rather than two.

I must mention (yet again, I suppose) how Ms. Tiffany's breasts deserve third billing.  Is this a covert episode of Project Runway?  Who makes a ranger's uniform to look like that?  I am not exaggerating when I say that one scene featured over ten cuts between a shot where front cleavage was immediately over the shoulder of the speaker and a shot where side boobage was in the center of the frame. 

Clash of the Titans

Clash of the Titans (2010)


"Writer": Travis Beecham, Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi (screenplay), Beverley Cross (1981 screenplay)
Director: Louis Leterrier
Starring: a bunch of muscles and liam neeson and that hardcore dude who played one-eye in "valhalla rising"

Synopsis
man has decided to rebel against their creator zeus. the gods are pissed off. "release the kraken"

The Woman
sometimes i think i'm too critical of the things we watch and i should lower my expectations a little and just enjoy. even if i did that it would not make a difference when it came to watching this. why does the machine feel the need to redo movies? there was nothing to this movie at all. it moved too fast (dare i say) and didn't make much sense motive wise, and was too and then they did this, and then they did this, and then "release the kraken". ralph  fiennes was just playing voldemort with hair and a nose. terrible. there was obviously too much penis involved with the reinvisioning because there was no focus on character at all. there was lots of focus on gigantic scorpions and weird bark skinned people and cg effects. the only thing that would surprise me about this "film" is if there was no sequel coming..... yep. i just looked things up and prepare yourselves for a clash of the titans trilogy. the first one wasn't enough of a disintegrating turd in the rain, we need more giant scorpions! we demand more god on demi-god action!!!!! why does everything have to be a trilogy. i want four! give me a quatorze-ology.  (that was a bono joke if you aren't hip enough)  yes. no. i desire more than macaroni pictures! i desire 14 clash of the titans in 3d! where the only thing differentiating them from a straight to dvd release is the massive amount of money spent on effects. with free taco bell to anyone who pays for a ticket. yessss. the smell of taco bell and 3d grecians. nothing sounds better to me. release the diarrhea!

Swept Away

as part of our 200th post extravaganza moster asked you viewers what you would like us to review. we decided this was horrible enough and neither one of us had seen it. was it meant to be?


Swept Away (2002)


Writer: Guy Ritchie (screenplay), Lina Wertmuller (1974 screenplay)
Director: guess
Starring: the man that used to be madonna or skeletor, if you prefer, and some bearded guy

Synopsis

Seemingly nice super-rich husband (spoiler alert: He's really a total piece of shit.) arranges as a vacation for his wife of atmospheric standards and two friend-couples a cruise from Italy to Greece on a small luxury yacht.  During the cruise, the wife is nothing but a cunt to the staff in general and one steward/part-time fisherman (?) in particular.  One day, she sleeps late and the others go on a dinghy-trip to an island.  So she orders that very same crew member to take her on a smaller boat to meet up.  The motor fails and they're stranded in this boat for two days before they see a ship and she wrests the flare gun out of his hands only to shoot a hole in the bottom of the boat.  Wait... did I say boat?  I meant the kind of enhanced rubber raft which one purchases at the Sports Authority. Anyway, they float their way to a deserted island where he takes the opportunity to treat her like garbage and truly degrade her to the point where she has no choice but to fall in love with him.  Eventually they're rescued.  Will their love endure the pressures of social difference?


The Woman, who understands that curves make a WOMAN
this was almost indescribably bad. i have never seen the original, but the story was a very classic movie theme that couldn't translate well to contemporary society. there's no reason why a socialite couldn't leave her professor husband. it happens all the time, i'm sure. this is only one reason why this movie didn't make any sense.

i think madonna had watched "overboard" too many times, and somehow convinced her then husband to make this movie so she could do a bad impression of goldie hawn. like we've stated throughout this thing, madonna has passed good shape and gone straight to body-builder manliness. you can't fight father time with muscles, madonna. i think you've caught on to that because now you are even more unrecognizable as yourself and now more closely resemble a poster child for reconstructive surgery barbie. she's 95, but doesn't look a day over freshly molded silicone. going back to the acting, she's too hard looking for an aristo. do they even work out at all? when they were on the dinghy getting lost at sea she was sitting like a street woman with her legs out wide. also, what's with falling in "love" with a guy who calls you his slave and tries to rape you? i kind of feel like the victim of an attempted rape by guy ritchie.  ugh. i'm glad it's over and done with. i think this may be a case for a director being forced to give back all money spent on this movie and to any fool who saw it in the theater. restitution.




The MOster, who understands that angles make a man, but who has no self control

From this movie's poster through to its closing credits, the irrefutable logic upon which formed the basis of each key production decision is evident.

Starting in the boardroom, funding this venture would be easy to justify.  Guy Ritchie, who in 2002 had only made the same action movie twice, was the perfect auteur for a claustrophobic love story. Madonna, who a mere six years earlier starred in a period piece about a for-the-people stateswoman, was the perfect choice to play a rich bitch with no empathetic personality traits. Expecting his straight male me like things go boom audience to get together with her gay male oh how sweet audience and watch this movie was no different than expecting yellow and green to get together and make purple.

This level of perfection in decision making extends right on through to the characters.  Beginning with the guests on the yacht, it makes utter sense that the three couples--the aforementioned seemingly nice person and super-shrew; an obviously gay man and his relatively harmless beard; and an undefined hound and his vagina transportation device--would best couple-friends and would want to spend however many days with nobody else for company.  Similarly, when chartering your yacht to such a wealthy and discerning man
as the husband of the shrew, it seems only natural to crew such a vessel by standing in a blindfold at the end of the dock where your friends work, spinning around three times, and throwing a bunch of darts.  A fisherman for a chief steward?  Why not?  A couple of guys to sit around the kitchen and make jokes, occasionally steering small boats?  Sold!

When circumstances come together in such a way as to force Veruca and MC Skat Kat into one of these small boats, we again face a situation where the course of action presented is the most sensible one for all involved.  Of course this boat wouldn't have a radio or a navigation device!  If it did, how could these people think that they had truly gotten away from it all?  Of course there would be no life jackets!  If you had to wear a life jacket, how could you tease the man you hate with your ribcage?  Of course the boat is plastic! Did you expect the captain to maybe go to the next yacht supply store down the pier when stocking this cruise?

Keeping all this in mind, it's actually a little hard to comprehend why the fisherman would be so ill-inclined to cowtow to the shrew, but only for a little while; his mastery of fabrication is evident.  He used his fingers to turn seaweed into a 20x20 fishing net. He used his hands to turn twigs into multiple fishing.  He used his wits to turn driftwood into a shanty (replete with bed-shelf).  It's therefore unfair to question when he uses his raw power to turn brutal degradation and a situation literally one thrust away from rape into true love.  When she's made her way back to him after being left, weeping, in the sand she opens the shanty door to find his warm arms waiting for her embrace and they spend the next few weeks in romantic bliss.  This bliss is so great that again we can't question the logic behind her hiding from him the presence of a rescue ship and certain medical aid.

I just realized that I've written four paragraphs and haven't discussed the direction.  I think that's because I don't want to tarnish such a glowing report as this with negativity.

Anyway, given the wealth of our reformed brat, it should come as no surprise that numerous rescue attempts are made and eventually she has to tell him that she's just so dedicated to him and only him that she doesn't want to leave the place of her bittersweet turning out.  He does, though.  He says it's because he wants to test his filly-breaking skills, but there's so much pain in the reading of that line that he might have an ulterior motive such as a desire to sleep under a roof which doesn't leak.  Or he might have detached his testicles.

Since the real world is a direct opposite of their island paradise, there is again no surprise when their personalities tragically shift from aggression to passivity.  But even passive people will long, and longing will prevail. So while she sits weeping like the dog he so quickly sold he realizes that he shouldn't have put her in the pound after all and goes to buy her a collar. We sigh with our empathy for a situation in which we've all found ourselves, at one time or another.  And  we are relieved when his passive proposal of marriage is thwarted by the husband whose doting was such a problem on the yacht.  The final shot of a very expensive ring falling gently to the ocean floor flips the mirror back to the correct orientation and we see that all is right with the world.  Rich for rich and poor for poor