Gosford Park

Gosford Park (2001)

Writer: Julian Fellowes
Director: Robert Altman
Starring: Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas, Kelly Macdonald, Ryan Phillipe, Helen Mirren, and almost any other british actor you can think of....and Bob Balaban

Synopsis
A slow-boiling murder mystery set in early 20th Century British upper-class society.  Includes a fair amount of that "upstairs/downstairs" thing of which we Colonists have very little knowledge.


The Woman
this was good. i think i would have enjoyed much more if it had not been interrupted by really stinky thick black  smoke cloud emanating from our basement, followed by three days of stink and furnace and hotel stayage drama. this is not the kind of movie one could only distractedly pay attention to and start and stop several times. there is a cast of hundreds, and it took awhile to figure out what was going on. despite the unfond circumstance under which this was viewed and now associated, there was quite the good movie underneath there. i guess i'm a sucker for any british period piece. i can admit it. especially now that my head has been turned by julian fellowes for "downton abbey" i would imbibe that shit full strength. anytime.

have i discussed this movie? sort of. you gotta pay attention. hundreds of characters. lots going on. stephen fry's character was a stand out, i must say. he was sort of the rock that bludgeoned the message of the movie into your brains. even if it sent skull fragments into your now brain pudding, it was done in an excellent way. you might even have said thank you. who needed that frontal lobe anyway.

MOster
This is good.  Direction serves the plot well without continually jumping out of the trench and aiming at the Gerries.  The average of the acting here is above average, so you get a couple of people who fall below the line by a bit (I'm looking at you, Phillippeeeee) and while it's hard to climb above it,  one breakdown in particular truly wrenched at my heart.

I haven't yet watched Downton Abbey or its predecessor or any number of similar things, but I understand that this is similar in style, tone, and even substance.  I don't think that's a detriment, as I am fascinated by this world; and it seems a pretty fertile field from which to reap some great stories.

Speaking of the story, it does that slow boil in a very good way.  The movie is something like 70% setup, 5% crime, 25% comedown.  Even though that distribution doesn't give us much of a chance to figure out the murder before the characters do, it's necessary for us to understand it at all.  And understanding it is worthwhile.

Best Worst Movie

Best Worst Movie (2009)


Director: Michael Stephenson

Synopsis
a documentary on "troll 2" by the kid who was in "troll 2" twenty years later.

MOster
This is a docu mentary in the strictest sense.  It's a chronicling of a series of events.  While the film has the point of view that Troll 2 is an awesomely bad viewing experience, that's not a conclusion for which it aims to slowly build a case but the point on which the tripod is placed.

Within those parameters, it's a fine movie.  It tends to repeat itself; and it doesn't give equal screen time to those who took the film seriously, which leads to a fair amount of repetition through the runtime.  (Nor does it give any real time to those who disagree with its appraisal as "the best worst movie.) How many times do we have to see dentist-so-nice-even-his-ex-wife-says-he's-great walk onto a stage to the applause of a couple hundred college kids?

You would get more vitriol from me if I disagreed with the premise, but I don't.  Troll 2 is an entertaining piece of cinema in spite of itself and this documentary is a fitting love letter thereto.


The Woman
i greatly enjoyed "troll 2" i do believe it is the best worst movie. this was a good and entertaining look at the what's up with the cast nowadays, and a chance to see that i am not alone in my feelings towards "troll 2". the stories of viewings similar to mine, since it came out on HBO in my target demographic days. the beginning of this documentary was really quite funny, but then, of course, you get into the middle-ish end-ish where it begins to drag, and the subject matter becomes a little more serious, when the flash in the pan cultdom kind of dies down and everybody's expectations are dragged back down to earth. it's totally true that a movie like "troll 2" couldn't have possibly been made on purpose. circumstances like that give us disappointments like "snakes on a plane" or just campiness for camp's sake, like "killer tongue". i'm glad that almost everybody involved in "troll 2" recognizes it's terrible, and amazingly badness, and embraces the hoakyness in what they were involved in, and it was great to get a kind of behind the scene documentary out of it. i loved the remaking of scenes 20 years later, with all the same enthusiasm from the actors, and george hardy seems like a really neat guy. and i guess that's all i have to say about that. i would recommend a screening of this if you dig "troll 2", heck, maybe if you haven't seen "troll 2". hey, you should totally watch "troll 2" because it's aaaaaaaaammmmazing!

A Christmas Delay in Posting

Our traditional holiday viewing of the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy (on our new fancy shmancy ridiculon tv with the fancy pants blu ray) will put a slight pause on our postings of our netflix queue. we know you understand.  oh yes, we know you understand. the precious makes us understand.

you could nag moster too. he has three postings he must finish... don't tell him i told you.

Red Riding Hood

Red Riding Hood (2011)

Writer: David "Johnson"
Director: Catherine "Hardwicke"
Starring: see synopsis

Synopsis
a werewolf terrorizes a small medieval village of daggarstrom or something like that. murder mystery party! amand seyfried plays the town beauty, crossed eyed guy plays the sketchy guy who is obviously the werewolf...or is he!, other dude plays the wealthy betrothed blacksmith... lucas haas plays the poor mislead guy,  virginia madsen plays the gold digging wife/mother, the guy who plays bella's dad in twilight is the poor lied to father, and gary oldman plays the bad guy who isn't really the bad, bad, guy. he's just evil. which character do you want to play? they all have secrets and most of them come out except for the only true innocent, the town simpleton who you know is going to be dead by the hour mark at least. i forgot to mention the love triangle. there's a love triangle between cross-eyed outsider, and wealthy blacksmith kid.

The Woman
this was HORRENDOUS! seriously and laughably. it was like a lifetime movie writer/plot with a big budget made by a person who loved kung fu movies as a pre teen. the direction was so ridiculous, there were these long zooms onto peoples faces that lingered too long, and all i could think of was parodies of shaw brothers movies. i almost laughed out loud several times, but then realized the effort put into this and stifled it. there were a couple of guffaws that did escape, however. and there was voice over almost pitch perfect with "twilight"

bad, bad, bad. and not in the good way either. in a strange indescribable way it was boring too.

SPOILER ALERT! I WILL TALK ABOUT WHODUNIT NOW. IF YOU WANT TO WATCH THIS NONSENSE I SUGGEST YOU STOP READING BECAUSE I COULDN'T IMAGINE PUTTING MYSELF THROUGH ALL THAT SET UP WHILE KNOWING THE END. THAT'S WORSE THAN JUST WANTING TO WATCH THIS MOVIE.
ok, so here's the thing. there is this way messed up undertone of some serious messed upness. turns out the werewolf is her father. being the favorite child, who everyone loves best, but who dreams of more, her father wants to take her to blossom somewhere else, like a big city or something. she says that she could never kill people and feast on them and stuff, and  kills her dad with the cut off hand of gary oldman that has his special manicure of silver pointy nails. but, not before daddy has tussled with her true love of sketchy cross eyed guy...and guess what. daddums bit that poor cross-eyed guy. oh no! but she couldn't possibly kill her true love, even though she just killed her father. it's different. she has the strong urge to have dealing with the penis of cross-eyed guy. so she let's him leave to train himself in the werewolf arts, and waits for him to return to her. last shot is of the werewolf in wolfy form appearing from the dark forest and she gets this penis lovin' smile on, and all i could think of was....yeah. so, all in all she would rather kill her father who offers her a better life than give up some wolf weiner.

who could kill those cross-eyes?

We Are the Night

We Are the Night (2010)

Writer: Jan Berger, Dennis Gansel
Director: Dennis Gansel
Starring: Karoline Herfurth, Nina Hoss, Jennifer Ulrich, Anna Fischer

Synopsis
the leader chick of a vampire chick trio decides to bring another chick into the fold. the newbie is a pick pocket cruddy JD.

The Woman
ok. #1. it was dubbed. what the fuck netflix? seriously? #2 the dubbing was horrible and distracting. #3 IT WAS FUCKING DUBBED! i didn't realized movies were still dubbed in this contemporary planet of higher intelligence. if you don't want to watch subtitles why choose to watch a foreign movie? maybe it was done as insulting way to get the kids involved since this whole vampire thing has taken a ridiculous turn? i don't know. you could perhaps broaden the minds of the young and introduce them to foreign cinema with fad-like topics like this and then not dub them? maybe? i shouldn't complain too much because this wasn't even a good movie. but come on. and this is the last i'll say about it: why are voice actors in dubbed movies the worst actors in the entire universe? get some real experienced people who work on cartoons for a living or something. jesus. it's not like their translating german while recording.

like i said in the midst of my complaining. this wasn't really a good movie. there was a lot lacking in character development. i couldn't believe it was almost over. i felt like 'was that all?' it came off as a sort of cheap action movie with just no substance. these were vampire chicks who had been alive for centuries. that implies a lot of stuff behind the curtains, but this was a ll surface. if we got anything at all about a past it was delivered as a one liner, and then dropped. this, with the 9 hour opening of showing these chicks in photos and portraiture throughout civilization. lame. i was disappointed to say the least. and the ending was terrible. but it was a german movie, afterall.

The Best and the Brightest

The Best and the Brightest (2010)

Writer: Josh Shelov, Michael Jaeger
Director: Josh Shelov
Starring: Bonnie Sommerville, Neil Patrick Harris, Amy Sedaris

Synopsis
a woman bent on getting her 5 year old into a good manhattan school tells the head mistress of one of those schools that her husband is a poet. hijinx- a print out of a friend's sexting gets mistaken for the poetry. hijinx.

The Woman
i really want to like this one, but i pause because there is issue. the main character is a horrible person. she wants to hang with the cool kids so desperately, and yet, she sees how horrible they are and doesn't care. supposedly, it's all for the good of her daughter because it's all about getting her into a good kindergarten, because public school is presented as a fate worse than the fiery bowels of satan who happens to be going through a flare up of IBS. what i'm about to say may sound horrible, but i would rather have my kid hang out with the non-psychotic and "stupid", than deal with the nonsense of upper crust manhattan. so i deluded myself throughout this entire film thinking she would see the light and the grossness behavior of the people in position that was mocked through the entire movie and realize it's not about whatever elite school her kid gets into because her kid is awesome the way she is. whether it be manhatten or delaware...nope. perhaps maybe she'll realize that her goal is all about her and not her child? no. maybe she'll see how miserable her family is scraping by in the city? no. whatever.

the actual naughty sexting turned poetry was mildly funny, because, truly. it was kind of poetic. but meh.

the only ray of light in this is amy sedaris. she bangs it out of mediocre and makes me want to like this movie despite it's incredible faults. seriously, she's awesome. if you are into her, watch this movie. just ignore the movie part. you could even fast forward through all the other scenes. it was nice to see that the really funny white chick from "in living color" is still alive too. yeah, i spotted you. i thought you were the bomb when i was 11. i should probably go check now to see if i'm right...please, of course i am. another shout out to an actress i haven't seen in awhile: the cold hearted bitch head mistress of the school ann shirley teaches at in "ann of avonlea" guess what she plays in this? the cold hearted bitch head mistress. who's on first? exactly. have i begun to ramble? i have a ton of holiday cards to go fill...i can't sit here and ramble. wonder pets is on so i only have a half hour left before i have to start cooking dinner.

final thought jerry springer style: if you need an amy sedaris fix to warm the cockles of your super caustic and sarcastic soul, you may want to expose yourself to this. if not, not even the presence of the NPH could save this movie.

Moon

Moon (2009)
Written by Duncan Jones, Nathan  Parker
Directed by Duncan Jones
Starring Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey


Synopsis
A lone man works supporting automated hydrogen gathering devices at a moon base.

The Woman
i highly enjoyed this movie. the subject of unoriginal plots has been coming up a lot for me lately so this was an excellent break of uniqueness. it mostly keeps the viewer guessing of which sci-fi plot has been ripped off here, and i was in suspense at the end. i will not say more because to talk about this movie may ruin it.

MOster
It's hard to write about this one.  It is quite good. It is original, and while it was easy to figure out many of the elements of the story it wasn't until very near the end that the entire picture came into focus. The story continually takes old tropes of SciFi and turns them on their ears.  Within the context of the story, everything makes sense, and it ekes along the line between SF and true SciFi.

Sam Rockwell was perfectly cast. He has just the right level of range and talent to express the kinds of craziness inherent in a long-term assignment with only a robot to keep him company.  Similarly, Kevin Spacey does everything possible as the voice of the robot.

Story-technically, this is right where it should be. Things move slowly in space and they act differently in microgravity.  Everything in the environment where he works has a function; nothing is superfluous.  Space suits are inherently clumsy, and vacuum doesn't happen immediately.  Film-technically, this was complicated to film and it worked very well.  Tension in close quarters, coupled with the instability of the Rockwell character, came together perfectly.  Impatience is palpable in this presentation.

Hollywood should make more movies like this. It was excellent and it must have cost about $15M.  This is a solid, high 4.  I recommend it highly and strenuously.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2011)


Writer: Thomas Dean Donnelly & Joshua Oppenheimer, Tiziano Sclavi (comic)
Director: KevinMunroe
Starring: superman 3.0 as the only human, yet still gigantically ripped and Sam Huntington

Synopsis
the human in charge of keeping all sorts of undeadkind in line but not anymore, comes out of "retirement" when he takes on the case of a human murdered by a werewolf.

The Woman
this was truly bad. just bad. it brought back memories of the first "hellboy" or "dick tracy" in their badness/boring level and such rich potential and source material. i've never read the comic of this, but it failed as an hour and a half movie. there was just too much there and it came off as rushed and yet totally boring at the same time. i watched this in two installments because naptime has seriously decreased in its duration, and i actually forgot all about it at bath time/bedtime (my next free spot of time) and only realized 10 minutes into naptime the next day that i still had 45 minutes left. that doesn't bode well at all. i could have walked away, never finished it, and been completely alright with that outcome.

the plot itself was totally unoriginal and predictable down to the double cross at the end. the main character didn't even defeat the big bad. some werewolf who had one scene and one line did. a glorified walk-on. the main character wasn't even in the same scene when this hard defeat was achieved. also, i didn't understand why, if this dylan dog is just human how he could get thrown two stories and get up to continue fighting a huge winged black demon that used to be the reason why stella got her groove back. merely a fleshwound!  and i would like to comment on the total wussy big bad with the gigantic weakness of being tied into this realm by a human with hordes of the undead with super human powers around. kill the meek human, and the demon that means to kill all the undead dies too. amazing that the battle lasted a mere 2 minutes. amazing that all the undead wanted this thing that would bring fear to their kind for as long as it takes to rip a jugular.

lastly, the comedy came off as so desperate in it's attempt to be funny that it was not funny at all.  liggity lame. i'd rather watch "daybreakers" 10 times. and i hate ethan hawke.

Slasher

Slasher (2004)


Director: John Landis

Synopsis
a documentary about a guy that gets hired by car dealerships to get rid of their old stock in one gigantic super sale weekend.

MOster 
I feel like there should have been more context here.  I know it's a doc, but the stakes weren't really there and there was no conflict to speak of.  The way the sales are run and how prices are determined is interesting in that "not surprising but still disgusting/annoying" way.  I do like how they showed customer dissatisfaction on multiple levels, but those were much more in the customers of the dealership rather than the customers of the "slasher."

John Landis did a really good documentary about Don Rickles; this one was nothing compared to that.


The Woman
meh. this was interesting, but forgettable. the slasher himself, was kind of a total stereotype of used car salesman which was sort of amusing. there was also an interesting parallel that developed between his services and used cars. meaning you pay a lot more and expect a lot more than you should.

Owning Mahowny

Owning Mahowny (2003)


Writer: Gary Steven Ross (book), Muarice Chauvet (screenplay),
Director: Richard Kwietniowski
Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver, John Hurt

Synopsis
This is the hypothetically true story of a Canadian banker who scams millions of dollars out of his bank and uses those dollars to gamble recklessly.


The Woman
for some reason movies about gambling addiction really bother me to the point where i just don't want to watch them. this was no exception. it was good, i guess, but i just have problems watching someone shoot down the tube of that downward spiral at the speed of light. i'll give a shout out to john hurt. his character kind of saved this movie for me. philip seymour hoffman did good as usual, but it's just not my bag.

MOster
This is a movie about desperation as much as it is about addiction; and it succeeds within those parameters.  Even without the title card and early scene in the interrogation room, it's clear from about three minutes in that this is not the sort of movie where the protagonist will miraculously win a big bet and walk away from the table.  The chief success of this movie for me was that it generated empathy; it was difficult not to hold my head in my hands as his scheme expanded.

Hoffman's range is pretty darned wide and you can almost smell the tired sweat embedded in his clothes.  Watching directly through the lens of the camera it's all about him.  Witnessing him over the shoulder of casino monitoring staff it comes across expertly in the two sets of angles involved.  A beautiful shot of a lone car in a commercial parking garage drives the point home with an eloquence which, while superfluous, could not be left on the cutting room floor.

All three principal performances here are perfectly understated.  Barely recognizable under blond hair and a Canadian accent, Minnie Driver works quite well as the girlfriend who deludes herself into taking far too long to pull her head out of the sand.  John Hurt's character could be the main one with a few edits and a little more exposition.  As neither foil for nor enabler of Mahowny he exists in parallel, knowing exactly how this type of person works but still curious as to his origins. 

I started this one by writing, "I think I liked this movie more than I should have," and that's only due to a score which (beginning with a mention in the opening credits) works too hard to underline points that require no emphasis.  But it became forgettable in the three days it's taken me to write this.

I enjoy it when I like a (mainstream(ish) American) movie more than my Woman.

Morning Glory

Morning Glory (2010)


Writer: Aline Brosh McKenna
Director: Roger Michell
Starring: Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford

Synopsis
 a jersey girl who has been dreaming of being a national morning show producer since elementary school finally finds an opportunity in the worst, most poorly rated, national morning show haling from the "ibs" channel. it's called "daybreak" and every time this titled was uttered i thought they said "date rape" so i had to do a double take. every time. of course she has to turn it around in a short amount of time to stop it from being canceled so she goes rogue...

The Woman
i know. yet another romantic comedy. however, this was not romantic, nor comedic. it tried to be comedic, but failed on an almost epic level. i can't say if it was trying to be a romantic comedy as the romance kind played on the backest burner, behind the new job drama, and the father figure drama. unfortunately, this had every romantic comedy's plot, just without the romantic comedy in the plot. the editing was distractingly weird too. i didn't understand the point in this movie at all. the focus was so scattered and the sidekicks who had such potential were wasted.

all in all i would say this was pretty horrible.

The Switch

The Switch (2010)

Writer: Allan Loeb (screenplay)
Director: Josh Gordon, Will Speck
Starring: Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston

Synopsis
the bestest friend of a woman who has decided to inseminate herself accidentally ruins the semen she plans to use so replaces it with his own swimming army.


The Woman
gross. i actually enjoyed this one. i don't know why. i recognize it wasn't a good movie, but it must have caught me on a good day. i would not tell anyone to watch this movie. i would never watch it again, but i enjoyed our time together. the little kid was totally awesome. bits of the personality reminded me of my dear grumbly husband. not the hypochondria, just the pessimism and attitude.

jason bateman's character was, indeed, a horrible person. he did an incredibly horrible thing, but that's ok because jennifer aniston really loved him in the end. it doesn't matter that the kid missed out on having a father for the first 6 years of his life. it was just destiny kid. you were just the vehicle to get horrible person and man issues low self esteem lady together. that last bit was a little harsher than i intended, but i'm keeping it in to emphasize that this was not a good movie despite my less than negative response whilst sitting on the couch. i'm a little bitter about my feelings towards this movie....

p.s. whenever i see jason bateman i think of "little house on the prairie" more specifically, the one where charles comes off the hinges and builds that massive plaster altar and god comes and heals little jason bateman from the coma he fell in after he was run over by the gig...you know the one.