Femme Fatale

Femme Fatale (2002)


Writer: Brian DePalma
Director: Brian DePalma
Starring: romjin-stamos before the non stamos status, Antonio Bandaras- sort of.

Synopsis
Female high-end thief conspires to double-cross her co-thieves on a big heist.  Things go badly for her; and in running away she gets confused for a woman who just lost her baby and takes a bath in that woman's parents' house and watches her commit suicide.  Then she impersonates that woman and becomes the wife of the American Ambassador to France and she gets blackmailed, but not for that.

She also fucks Antonio Bandaras on a pool table.  Through the course of this movie there are more double- and triple-crosses...

The Woman
sigh. i don't find the romjin attractive. she seems incredibly plain jane to me. i suppose she has a nice ass, but that's like saying a car is awesome because of the chrome fender. she is also a H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E actress. nothing like a starring role to point that small fact out. she was a way better actress in french which i find really funny.
so onto the actual movie: i felt like this movie was treating me, an audience member, like the kid that eats glue, hits his head on the wall, and has an excessive amount of drooliness. i was actually offended at how dumb i was being treated. people don't have to wear the same outfits when they're introduced 7 years later for me to figure out who they are. there were also amazing situations that were beyond the scope of suspending disbelief. and THEN the movie took the stupid jumping the shark patrick duffy wants his old dallas job back, but we killed off his character approach. which threw me into the anger and hatred stage of this movie.

i realize this was a kind of homage to the film noir of old hollywood. that fact was hammered into my face with all the subtly of a hammer in my face. however, the music was overbearing, and the directing and editing were crazy over the top. sophisticated homages to old school movies are possible. it's been done. i feel like this was an outdated, poorly acted, k-mart version of a burberry trench coat.

MOster
...Also there is a distinct lack of subtlety.

There are ways you can look at this movie where it's not quite as annoying as it actually is.  You could say that Ms. Stamos is attractive--and she is, if you don't mind a bit of the buttah--but she's pretty well on par with  Haley Berry in that fucking X Men movie.



You could say that Antonio Bandaras's over-the-top retardation is fun, but you'd be wrong about that one.  You could say that that one sex scene with the two chicks in the bathroom in the beginning is fairly hot.  You'd be right about that, but you'd only tease people into watching the rest of the movie for no real reason.  All I know for sure is that as far as this movie is concerned it's the greatest thing since The Sixth Sense.


True, it took us a bit (probably a little longer than it should, because we weren't rapt with attention) to work out the TWIST but in retrospect it was clear much earlier on.  And when the viewer is clued in to this masterstroke of 9th grade storytelling it, just like any good 9th grader, dances around in circles with its tongue out because it got you in this cosmic joke thingy.

Seriously, that's how this thing reads: like the final paper in a high school English course on literary devices.

Morvern Callar

Morvern Callar (2002)


Writer: Liana Dognini &Lynne Ramsay (screenplay?), alan someone (novel)
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Starring: Samantha Morton

Synopsis
a chick whose boyfriend commits suicide goes through some stuff. silently. she doesn't tell anyone he's dead. hacks up his body, takes his money, and gets the book he wrote for her published under her name. then she goes on holiday to spain, with her whore friend and then leaves town. all to the soundtrack of the music her dead boyfriend gave to her.

MOster
This wasn't an AV Club movie.  This was a Netflix recommendation that sounded a lot better when I read the description.  I put it on the queue and I take responsibility for that.  This was in English, so the scarf got longer or the intricate embroideries continued to expand or whatever.  People don't have to talk in a movie to make it a good movie, but they do have to talk in a movie so you can look at the screen less than 50% of the time.   The rules bite us both in the ass.  It's just another thing to grumble about in the short term that will not be on the "oh yeah?" list in another six months.

I suppose I should talk about the movie, which was not at all what I anticipated and not in a good way.  The first 20 minutes or so were captivating.  I was curious to find out what happened to the characters but I would have been more interested to see more about her blowing the money or whatever then what was actually on the screen.  That said, there were some nice shots and the acting was better than one could expect.

The Woman
goddammit i can't wait until this a.v.club list of movies that moster put on willy nilly because the a.v. club told him he should that have two lines of dialog every hour and are really, really, deep, man, comes to an end. moster keeps saying ,"but they're pretty and well directed" that does NOT make a good movie. there has to be substance that is attainable too. i don't care about this chick. i don't care what her motives are, and i certainly don't give a shit about a journey she takes to find out that life is shit wherever you go. you're still you, bitch. deal with it. i don't need 2 hours of "well directed" pointlessness to have that epiphany.

Tron: Legacy

Tron: Legacy (2010)


Writer: Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz...AND 6 OTHER PEOPLE (what, were they playing telephone around a conference table?)
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Jeff Bridges, and a terribly rendered CG Jeff Bridges

Synopsis
This is a coming-of-age story in which the protagonist is a smart rich kid.


The Woman 
jeeeeeesus boosteebus, this was bad. it didn't make any sense to me at all. i think having a digital world with programs running around like people is a little outdated too. tube technology has come far. those newfangled computers aren't so newfangled anymore. microchips and hula-hoops are more tangible for the modern man. it's no fantasy fantasy where god demands macaroni pictures. it's a piece of thing that fits on your fingertip.

it didn't help that we attempted to watch this during the megadisaster of the october blizzard where the trees were snapping all around us and the power kept flickering like we were in studio 54, and the 3 year old who resides with us was on an amphetamine-like binge of nonsleep. we had to stop and restart many electronics several times until we finally gave up an hour in and finished the rest the next day. by no means am i saying we would have enjoyed this had the fates not been heeding us to stop, but it certainly didn't help with the understanding of the nonsensical mythology. also. the guy, you know, the son? his face really irritated me. he's like a mix of a cat a monkey and disney's tweedle-dee and dum. it made me gnash my teeth.

MOster
This was another pretty movie. I guess the acting was OK.  I didn't see any real problems with the blocking, and I could always discern the dialog.  None of it was particularly special, except for the digital ashram.

I... I... I can't.  I just can't.  I just can't begin to think about beginning to think about dissecting the technical elements of the universe in the story, so I'll just simply give you the endpoint:  What would it have mattered if all these programs became corporeal?  You'd have however many people who you now need to feed and clothe and house and everything else, just to take over a planet filled with orders of magnitude of more people.  And NOBODY WOULD KNOW HOW TO FUNCTION IN OUR WORLD.


With that in mind, the stakes are reduced to practically zero.  OK, this kid wants to get his dad (and himself) back to the real world.  OK, that's really difficult.  But since the movie isn't framed this way we have no investment in their relationship. So what's the point?

The point is pretty pictures and a desire for delicious dollars.

Winnebago Man

Winnebago Man (2009)


Director: Ben Steinbauer

Synopsis
a documentary about Jack Rebney, a guy made famous by his winnebago industrial video outtakes, and how and what he's doing 20 years after they were made. that is a horrible sentence. i should get a job in the digital cable info button department.

MOster
This was pretty good all around. One of the problems that I tend to see in documentaries is a lack of clear vision, and this presented us with a single, cohesive narrative and little screwing around.  I don't know how much of that vision was clear to the filmmaker when he was obtaining the video, and that's all the more impressive.  One of the things which impresses me about a lot of documentaries--even the ones which waste my time--is how a small group of people stick with a subject for much longer than the length of a fictional feature. The filming here spans something like three years and it would have been impossible to know that it would even be possible for most of the first year of its production.  That's probably because the director is some rich white kid.

The subject matter here was interesting, even through the somewhat broken lens of time to which we are exposed.  There's some background into the guy and some information about those 20 years, but really just enough to contextualize the clips of the outtake videos and his current political stance.  His fame is no more justified than those Jersey Shore douches, but he's getting a lot less exposure.  That's OK, because he doesn't care. And the true success of the film is that we do.

Or, at least we did for an hour and a half.


The Woman
i enjoyed this. the journey that was made from the director finding the infamous jack rebney to jack rebney's discovery and acceptance (?) of his fan base. it's always great to see the life of a true, non-fiction, character. i also love ornery old guys. i believe i will be an ornery old lady myself one day. i picture overalls and a pipe as accessories in seclusion. i'm glad he had a kindred spirit in his friend as well. even hermits need someone to lean on. yay, for jack rebney.

this is a shining example of a documentary with a subject whose life before is not made clear, but is still a success in telling a biographical story. something which " cameraman: the life and work of jack cardiff" failed to do.

The Rite

The Rite (2011)

Writer: Michael Petroni, Matt Baglio
Director: Mikael Håfström
Starring:Colin O'Donoghue, Anthony Hopkins

Synopsis
a young priest who is going through a doubting his faith stage is sent to rome to become an exorcist. he falls under the guidance of an edgy older exorcist priest. they perform an exorcism together. things go awry. no, this is not "the exorcist" because of that slight difference of the priests are in rome.

The Woman
be glad, moster. be very, very glad you weren't a part of this one. you know it's going to be iffy when a "horror" movie is rated PG-13. it's just never a good sign. this was one of the most unoriginal movies i may have ever seen. can we approach exorcism from a different stand point? is it possible? not that i believe in any of it, but movies have the ability to pretend in different ways, right? i don't care about a faith crisis. maybe i have no tolerance for it because i am not a believer in the G-O-D. the whole premise of demons exist, therefore, there is a god, i've found my faith again, took waaaaaaaaaay too friggin' long. the audience makes this connection within the first ...i'll be generous and say half hour. to drag it out to the last 15 minutes in a 2 hour movie becomes irritating and the priest comes off as a whiny bitch who constantly needs a cheerleader to praise him. it's eye-roll inducing that this revelation is supposed to be the ta-dah moment. the end also comes off as a bit, pardon the pun, but preachy.

also the music queues are so ridiculously over dramatic it's almost funny.

Good Neighbours

Good Neighbours (2010)

Writer: Jacob Tierney (screenplay) Chrystine Brouillet
Director: Jacob Tierney
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire, Scott Speedman

Synopsis
a serial killer is on the loose in montreal. there are three neighbors who are weird and have dark quirkiness. one is in a wheelchair. one is in love with her cats, and one is a timid liar.

The Woman
this had some potential, but it just didn't do it for me. maybe the novel is better. i was not in suspense, nor was it very mysterious. i was actually a little bored. the last 10 minutes got a little suspenseful in who was going to fuck who over, but it was over pretty quick. they were all pretty gross and annoying people though, so i didn't really care. it sort of reminded me of ...simon....wait. let me look the title up... "henry fool". it was that sort of a pace. and emily hampshire could be parker posey's stand-in and only a couple people would notice the difference. maybe it was just her character, but i kept having to remind myself that it wasn't, in fact, parker posey.

plus i've seen "how to train your dragon" about 10 times with the little kid in the house so all i can picture when i hear jay bruchel is hiccup.

all in all this was pretty forgettable.

What Time is it There?

What Time is it There? (2001)


Writer: some people
Director: an asian guy from...malaysia?
Starring: some people...two-ish of them

Synopsis
a wathc vendor guy becomes obsessed with this chick he sold his watch to. he's sad because his father died. she's in paris because. and sad because she's experiencing loneliness and culture shock. they get run over by trains...i made that last sentence up.
MOster
This was pretty disappointing. It was on a list of top films of the decade from a site I trust; and I don't know if I should be disappointed in myself for COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT or if I should be disappointed in them for putting it forward.   The two storylines were supposed to be connected by some strange mystical force but I didn't see that at all.  The direction was trite and cliche, and the ending felt tacked-on.

I would go into more detail, but:
A) The odds of one of you watching this are extremely small.
B) We watched this a very long time ago.
C) Again, I got no passion from watching this.


The Woman
holy crap, i HATED this. i want my two hours back.