Movies Watched The Week of 4/27 - 5/3

A really short week gang, that jumps into many different levels of success.  One is good, one is eh, one is great, and the other is abysmal.  Work is keeping me busy, so the weeks may look more like this from now on.  But I hope you enjoy and thanks for reading, whoever the hell you 10 are.

 Dark Star (April 27th, 2014)

Director: John Carpenter
Starring: Brian Narelle, Carl Kuniholm, Dre Pahich, and Dan O'Bannon

John Carpenter may be my favorite director.  The man I want to be more than any other, maybe Tarantino or Leone.  So I've been looking for this, his first movie, for a while now.  So having finally gotten a hold of a copy and watching it, I can say I'm glad I saw it but will probably never watch it again.  It's a good first movie, essentially a student film stretched out with some good FX pre Star Wars. But there is a loose quality to the movie, barely feeling like a movie for the most part.  Scenes happen and then it ends.  It's got a weird little sense of humor and a game cast, but everyone is fresh and not really doing anything special.  Even Carpenter shows his rookie side, though showing brief flashes of the man who knew how to perfectly use a camera.  It's not a bad movie in any sense, it's just a light movie that kickstarted Carpenters career and Dan O'Bannon, the man who helped created Alien.  If you're curious to see where Carpenter started, you won't be irritated.   

Rating: 6/10

Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm (April 28th, 2014)
Director: Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski
Starring: Kevin Controy, Dana Delaney, Hart Bochner and Mark Hamill


Bruce Timm and his crew have made a career out of making cartoons out of DC properties and making iconic versions of them and some of the best damn cartoons ever.  And it all started with Batman: The Animated Series.  Dominating TV for alittle over a year, they were allowed to make a big screen movie of the show.  And they knocked the motherfucker out of the park.  A bit darker and much more epic in scope than the show could have done, Mask is a murder mystery, noir and action movie rolled into one perfect fucking package.  Seriously, I can't stress how good this damn movie is.  Every aspect is great.  The two stars of the show, the definitive portrayals of their respective characters, Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as Joker are legendary.  They bring an amazing level of gravitas and dedication to add a lot of legitimacy to the proceedings.  I'm not gonna talk about any plot stuff so as to keep it all fresh for anyone.  A damn good flick that stands in stark contrast to another comic flick I watched this week.

Rating: 10/10

The Mummy (April 30th, 2014)
Director: Karl Freund
Starring: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Edward Van Sloan

Another good flick coming at you from the Universal monsters, this time in the form of The Mummy.  It's got the same basic premise as the remake, but it's not an imbecilic yet enjoyable action movie.  It's a low key horror as was the case in the old days, with the horror either being off screen or more existential.  Karloff is his usual great self at bringing some humanity to what could be an empty vessel.  The rest of the cast is really good too, specifically Johann who manages to stand out as a strong woman in a time dominated by men.  This isn't the best movie Universal did with monsters, but it's a damn good time and a nice way to see how the genre progressed.

Rating: 8/10

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (May 2nd, 2012)
Director: Marc Webb
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx and Dane DeHaan

Where Mask of The Phantasm was a showcase for a group of creators who know and love the characters, this movie is a showcase for the opposite.  A complete misunderstanding of the characters, lore, and just basic movie making.  I honestly thought we were past the absolute mishandling of comic characters.  This feels like it belongs in the 90s, fucking up the franchise the way Batman Forever/& Robin did.  There is no plot.  Jamie Foxx shows up as a new age version of The Riddler from Batman Forever, with the new skin of Electro.  Electro is a nonsensical character with no believable motivations and no importance to the movie.  Cut him out, the movie is almost exactly the same.  Dane DeHaan is out at sea with a terribly written character and a performance that shows the director has no idea what to do.  His turn into the Goblin is a joke and, again, makes no sense.  The bullshit with Peters parents continues into this movie, making even less sense and just building to a bullshit reasoning for their actions.  But the worst thing is, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone really work.  Their chemistry is off the charts and they make the relationship work the same way they did in the first one.  But the writing is so atrocious, they decide to make Peter into Superman from Superman Returns.  He stalks Gwen.  It's a fucking joke.  Garfield is great as Spidey, but the way Peter is written he can't do anything to save it.  The movie is a mess and the future of the series is bleak, since this whole damn thing was a commercial for the sequels.  Hell, Paul Giamatti shows up for 5 minutes to set up the movies in the most blatant way possible.  An absolute embarassment for the most part, skip at all costs.  Lets hope Marvel gets him back at some point.

Rating: 4/10

- Tom Lorenzo

Top Ten Movies From The UK

There's a little secret I need to tell you guys.  America isn't the only place that makes movies.  Crazy, right?  Yes, many a countries do the movies.  Some have real good ones too!  So me and the usual crew have decided to make a list of the 10 best from a country closely related to our own, the drooling dandies that couldn't keep a hold of the raging beast that is Americas need to fight something.  Yes, I'm talking about the good ole, second place UK.  They are arranged in descending order so read on ahead.  Fair warning.  I haven't seen every British movie, being as I'm not British.  So take the list without however many grains of salt you want.  But there's enough range here I feel to be a good list.  Feel free to check out the lists of the crew, my fellows Josh Paige and Mike Natale, for their lists on the subject as well.  And at the bottom of the list is a poll for the next list we will do, it's entirely up to you (rhymes).  So continue on, and enjoy.  

10. In Bruges

Director: Martin McDonagh 

Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes

This movie is just a blast of fun.  If I only had to give one reason why it was on here, it's that.  Just a completely hilarious black comedy.  But a little more on the subject is necessary I guess.  The movie is written, directed and acted perfectly.  Following two hitmen on a forced retirement after a botched job, we see them as they interact with the locals of Bruges.  Farrell is just on fire, proving he has more to him than his looks while Gleeson is just perfect as the grizzled older hitman who tries to mentor Farrell.  Things don't go so well when boss Ralph Fiennes shows up and all comedic yet heartbreaking hell breaks loose.  A moral ambiguous picture about dealing with guilt and past mistakes, it manages to do something most movies find hard.  That's finding a balance between being funny and emotional without falling too deeply into one side, or not being as adept at one or the other.  It was a total surprise when I saw it and has stuck with me too this day.

9. Snatch

Director: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones, Dennis Farina, and Brad Pitt

There is nothing more going on underneath this movie.  This is all surface level but it is such a rollicking good time, the British version of a Tarantino movie.  Filled with a bunch of memorable characters played by great actors, the movie never stops.  It's at it's core, a movie about a diamond heist/missing diamond.  Guy Ritchie made a splash with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels but this is where he really broke out.  He is on fire here, keeping everything going and somehow being convoluted but not a mess.  When the movie ends, you get it.  It all comes together.  It's not some uber complicated, deep soul searching mystery.  This is a movie that is just pure fun, the only movie like that on the list.  Even if the rest of the movie sucked, it would be worth it for Brad Pitt as the mumbling gypsy.

8. A Clockwork Orange

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick McGee, and Michael Bates

I'm not gonna lie.  I have no idea how to write about this movie.  On one hand, I don't really love it like I do the two movies it ranks higher than.  But on the other hand, it is still a movie with an insane amount of power that still has the capability to shock an audience.  Set in a distant future, kids are basically running free and are just a bunch of little shits.  Following Alex DeLarge as he leads his own little gang of cocks, or Droogs as he calls them, we see how evil these bastards are.  But when he gets arrested, the government takes drastic steps to change him.  They essentially rewire his brain to have a killer migraine whenever he thinks of doing something bad.  An oddly prescient movie about kids being able to do what they want cause parents just have no control and don't really care.  It also deals with the politicos using this kid, an asshole of an extreme measure he may be, for their own gains no matter what it does to him.  And it also tackles the idea of free will by way of a piece of trash.  Kubrick forces us to really consider the idea of free will and if it's worth a damn by showing Alex be abused and basically tortured to try and be "good" which is against his very nature.  It's a very challenging movie and one I admire very much.  But it's a movie I'll never love, same with Kubricks other movies.  There's always something that rubs me the wrong way.  Then again, that might be the point.  Either way, it's important and deserves to be mentioned here.

7. 28 Days Later

Director: Danny Boyle

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomi Harris, Brendan Gleeson, and Christopher Eccleston 

The zombie sub genre of horror had been stuck in place for what seems like forever, the typically slow and shambling monsters.  Not that they were all bad or anything.  But there was no change.  So Danny Boyle decided to say fuck it and make a movie that changes it up.  Instead of a small little movie set in one location, it follows a group in a movie that plays more like an outbreak thriller than a zombie movie.  But the biggest change of all comes from the portrayal of zombies as running and snarling beasts.  People like to bitch and say they aren't zombies, they are just infected with a virus.  Which I counter with, "So a fucking a zombie?".  But this movie brings a dirty and gritty documentary-esque style to the zombie movie, so it feels all the more real and creepy when Cillian is standing in front of Big Ben and no one else is around.  Boyle directs the hell out of this movie, bringing the scares and the thrills.  Equally entertaining and scary.  It's a big game changer of a movie and even though I have some issues with how the third act unfolds, I dig what it was trying to do, it still deserves a mention as it changed and revitalized a genre.

6. Skyfall

Director: Sam Mendes

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, and Javier Bardem

As the universe would have it, a movie that every Bond fan was not anticipating after the mess that was Quantum of Solace ends up being the best Bond movie.  Is it the most iconic?  No, nothing in the franchise will ever reach the iconography of Connerys era.  But as a Bond movie, and just a movie in general, it is the best one in simple terms.  It is a movie about James Bond and his place in the world, looking back at his history and his future.  It finishes off the story of Bond becoming Bond that was started in Casino Royale and ignored in Solace.  Mendes, an obvious fan, brings his A game that has been missing for a while.  He nails the tone a Bond movie needs to have while molding it into the Craig era, so it's gritty and action packed and has real stakes but it also has fun and has a sense of humor.  Craig is at his best here, finally able to play the Bond the end of Royale hinted at.  Not to mention getting Bardem as maybe the best bad guy in the series, maybe only beaten by Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love.  He's the Joker for the Bond series, the twisted inversion of Bond and what he could become if he doesn't look out.  It's a beautiful damn movie, not surprising as it was shot by Roger Deakins.  It's honestly the pinnacle of the series and it brings the franchise full circle, with Bond back in that office from Dr No, about to get orders from the new and male M.  Bond is back and the UKs most iconic movie franchise gets its due.

5. Trainspotting

Director: Danny Boyle

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Kelly Macdonald, and Robert Carlyle 

Danny Boyle is back with a tale of a bunch of degenerate shits, a group of Scottish junkies.  Following Ewan as Renton, we fall down the rabbit hole of nastiness.  It really is just an absolute filthy looking and feeling movie.  These guys are all fucked up.  Some may not be evil, but they have so many issues that they just don't care what they have to do.  It's really set up perfectly with Renton sticking his hand down a shit filled toilet looking for the drugs he accidentally shat out of his ass he had hidden up there.  The movie has fun and is a breezy movie with plenty of hilarious moments, but it'll go dark.  So dark it really took me by surprise.  It doesn't get much darker than a baby dying.  Boyle again is on fire here, directing like his life depends on it.  The acting is superb, Ewan giving maybe his best performance.  Everyone brings there A game, even if it can be nearly impossible to hear them with their working class Scottish accents.  This is a movie that hits hard and leaves you feeling rotten.  It doesn't reach Requiem For A Dream level nastiness (thank fuck), but it isn't a fun ride by the end.  As dark as dark comedies get, it more than deserves its placement here.

4. The Bridge On The River Kwai
Director: David Lean
Starring: Alec Guinness, William Holden and Jack Hawkins

David Lean has made many movies before he tackled this legendary epic.  But this is a big leap and the sign of where he was gonna go with his film making and the mark he was gonna leave on cinema.  Tackling a story about POWs during WWII and the British way of getting the job done right, Lean makes a very epic yet human story.  Lean takes his time, letting everything sink in.  You get a feel for the place and the people.  He gets great performances out of the cast, specifically from Alec Guiness.  Guiness is iconic as the British officer who sticks to the rules explicitly and feels that a job should be done to the highest standards, even if it's done by force.  The fact that Lean made a close to 3 hour movie set during a war with almost no action, yet keep it totally engrossing is an amazing feat.  A movie this powerful, this masterfully made from top to bottom doesn't come around often.  So of course it has to show up on this list.

3. The Cornetto and Blood Trilogy

Director: Edgar Wright

Starring: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost

I cheated here and put three movies into one slot, but there is a reason.  This thematic trilogy of buddy comedies set in genre films with hearts of gold round out the three best comedies from the UK.  Hell, these three are some of the best in the world.  From taking on zombie, action movies, and invasion stories the trio at the helm here tackle what it means to grow up and the various friendships and relationships that one has to go through as they age.  The best of the bunch in my opinion is Shaun of The Dead, a perfect movie that still keep me laughing the entire time.  Hot Fuzz is hilarious but doesn't hit me as hard as it comes with a bit of fat on it.  Then there's The World's End, a funny fucking movie that loses steam in the third act.  But I won't go and say none of them are good.  They're great.  No embarrassing moments in the trio.  Edgar Wright proves his worth as a director through and through, maturing through each one.  If it wasn't for Gareth Evans, Wright would be the best at shooting close quarters combat.  Pegg made a name for himself in these roles and proves why he is a top tier comedian.  And Frost is the best sidekick, playing the loveable idiot and the straight man throughout the trilogy.  These are comedies at peak form, advancing the genre and making a mark on the industry.  True works of fucking art.

2. The Wind That Shakes The Barley

Director: Ken Loach

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Padraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham, and Orla Fitzgerald

This is a movie that is purely a personal pick. Personal in the fact that movies about the relationship between brothers usually gets to me.  Set during the hey day of the IRA and the fight against Britain for Irish freedom, this movie hit all the right buttons for me.  The cast is great, featuring Cillian's finest performance IMO.  Ken Loach directs with a firm hand, making everything real yet dramatic enough to sustain interest.  It's a visually gorgeous movie and makes me ache for a Blu Ray release of this.  It's a heartbreaking movie that needs to be seen by all.  It's an under the radar gem and I love every second of it.  A true powerhouse and deserves its place.

1. Lawrence Of Arabia

Director: David Lean

Starring: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, and Omar Shariff 

Not only is this movie the best fucking movie to come out of the UK, it's one one of the best damn movies anywhere.  It's a masterpiece of epic proportions that David Lean was apparently building to his entire career.  Epic is almost too small a word to describe this.  Momentous or game changing is the more apt.  This is film making at peak form.  Not many have outpaced the directing, acting, cinematography, story or impact of this movie.  And even fewer have merged them into one.  Lean lays down his legacy and could have walked away right after.  Peter O'Toole gives one of, if not, the best performance ever in his first God damned leading role.  Following the adventures of the famed TE Lawrence, this movie is just filled with the emotions and the feeling that this is something unseen before or after.  I don't have much to say that hasn't come before or can fit in anything even remotely brief enough for a list, so I'll just end it with this.  Cinema today would be a much different and very worse place without this movie.  A tour de force.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week of 4/20 - 4/26

Hey gang.  A smaller week than normal just due to outside circumstances.  But this was a damn good week minus a shit pile auteur jerk fest.  I'm gonna keep it short because I'm tired and have work tomorrow.  So enjoy and share with the world.  Thanks and enjoy the roundup.

Cloud Atlas (April 20th, 2014)

Directors: The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer

Starring: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Ben Whishaw and Jim Broadbent

Well, I can't say this wasn't an ambitious movie. A 3 hour movie that is set in 6 separate timelines with the cast playing roles in each one, dealing with karma and rebirth.  Which is a good idea in theory, but there are those out there that are gonna have a shit fit when they see Tom Hanks in blackface or Halle Berry in whiteface or whites playing Asian and Asians playing whites.  It's a big and bold idea, but fuck man.  It makes it hard to defend the movie.  Because I do like the movie.  Being a three hour anthology essentially, some segments work better than the others.  The only two I didn't like was the sci fi future story and the post apocalyptic story.  Because they are shorts, the worlds that they built are short changed.  I don't understand the worlds and how they work, so in that regard the stories don't work.  It also doesn't help that in the post apocalyptic story the characters are speaking in this broken english that sounds like a special needs person wrote it.  And the sci fi world they big looks big but they don't really get into it.  It boils down to a Logans Run esque story with a messiah twist, but it rings a bit false.  But other than those two stories, the rest works pretty well.  Everybody is good when they aren't being hindered by racist makeup.  Or the coup de grace, Hugo Weaving in makeup playing a female nurse in the vein of Nurse Ratchet.  But when they aren't encumbered by the makeup, they shine.  Tom Hanks seems revitalized after a long period of doing nothing worthy after Road To Perdition.  This seems like it is what reenergized him to do Saving Mr Banks and Captain Phillips.  Halle Berry is bearable for once, doing good work for the most part.  Ben Whishaw shows the talent he has and will be a good addition to any cast down the line.  Same goes for Jim Sturgess, another talented young man with a good future if he's smart.  Now there are tons of people in this cast, but the one who benefits the most might be Hugh Grant.  He plays completely against type, playing villainous roles in each segment and its really odd how good he is.  No bumbling British cutesiness he is known for.  He actually does villainous quite well.  But to wrap this up, the movie is a big movie that doesn't hit after target it aims at.  It can be kinda laughable at points.  But it is big and ambitious, so the moments that hit land quite well.  In the end though, you may hate it.  And that's fair.  The Wachowskis don't play any other way.  

Rating: 8/10

Used Cars (April 21st, 2014)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Kurt Russell, Jack Warden, Gerrit Graham, and Frank McRae

I wish Zemeckis would make movies like this again.  No more technical achievements that he is so desperate to pursue or Oscar bait movies like Flight.  I want to see him make a dirty, low down and surprisingly/hilarious amoral comedy like this movie.  Being his first movie, it is very rough around the edges.  The story is very flimsy, playing more like scenes strung together loosely.  But holy fuck is this movie funny.  Casting Kurt Russell against type as a slick amoral car salesman (before Carpenter truly muddied his image with Snake Plissken) is a stroke of genius.  Russell has miles and miles of charisma and he just nails the role of the sleazy shit he plays.  Jack Warden is also hilarious playing twins, owners of the dueling car dealerships.  But the best performance is the dachshund who just slayed me.  And while the story is almost non existent, there is some pointed satire in the movie.  It surprised me how angry it kinda seems, with Zemeckis just flipping off damn near everyone.  The only part of the movie I didn't like was the resolution, which kinda peters out.  But for the most part this is a surprisingly strong movie that just hit my funny bone.  Zemeckis hasn't been this hilarious or juvenile since.  He needs it after the decade of CGI.

Rating: 8.5/10

Noah (April 22nd, 2014)
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, and Ray Winstone

In my end of the year review, I had a section that looked toward 2014.  Noah was on the list and I wrote that it was gonna be a love it or hate it movie.  It was so ambitious that a middle ground couldn't be found.  And I was right.  People seem to love it and other hate it.  I fall in the latter category.  It was the self indulgent mess that I thought The Fountain was gonna be.  But where that was a beautiful movie with a spiritual bent, this movie was just shit.  Arronofky lost all sight of what he wanted to do.  And I can see what he was trying to do.  The goal was noble and I could have dug a movie that was about Noah and dealing with his PTSD of killing the entire planet.  But Darren lost the thread.  It is so self indulgent but at the same time really fucking stupid.  The only thing in the movie I liked was a sequence that merges evolution with the 7 days of creation of the Universe. Everyone is lost at sea, with Crowe the only one who manages to be watchable, by sheer will and conviction.   On a technical level the movie is impeccable so those guys should get a pat on the back.  But just everything else minus Crowe isn't worth a damn.  Which is a damn shame.

Rating: 4/10

History of The World Part I (April 24th, 2014)
Director: Mel Brooks
Starring: Mel Brooks, Gregory Hines, Madeline Kahn, and Harvey Korman

Mel Brooks has done many a movie in his day, but narrative isn't something he seems to care about.  He makes movies with a barebones plot and then just goes balls out with the funny.  He'll rip the form apart and just aim to make you laugh.  And this movie doesn't even try to have a plot.  It's literally just segments of various time periods and him just having fun.  This isn't the funniest movie he has done by a long shot.  But there are just moments where he hits the right chord and just kills me.  I really don't have much else to say.  It's a surface level movie with a decent amount of laughs to keep it moving along.

Rating: 7/10

Sorcerer (April 26th, 2014)
Director: William Friedkin
Starring: Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, and Amidou

The biggest surprise of the week was this little seen masterpiece from William Friedkin.  I had thought he basically floundered around until making To Live and Die In LA, but I started hearing this movie was an under appreciated gem.  And it certainly is.  One of the first movies killed by the golden age of Hollywood ending Star Wars, this movie has been lost to the ages.  But Friedkin has been fighting for a restored version released on Blu Ray and he won.  And we now have it and it is glorious.  Following four criminals as they have to hide away in a South American oil town, we are thrust into a dirty and masculine world.  When an oil drill blows up and starts spewing flames, it's up to these four disparate men to transport 6 crates of unstable dynamite 200 miles through the jungle to plug up the hole.  What follows is an intense journey through purgatory as these men have to fight the odds to survive and make enough money to go home.  This is a seriously epic movie that doesn't pull it's punches.  I won't say much more but to say that if he didn't make The Exorcist, this would be his best movie.  Friedkin is completely on point and gets believably rugged and worn out performances from his cast.  One of the best movies of the 70s (yep) was once lost but it is now found.  It is tense and much smarter than one would expect.  I highly suggest searching it out.

Rating: 10/10

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week of 4/13 - 4/19

Hey gang, welcome to the special Easter addition of the weekly update of my cinematic journey.  But there is nothing to do with the holiday so it isn't actually that special.  It also may be the weakest week so far, but whatever.  Shit happens man.  Anyway, I'll make this short and sweet.  So sit back, relax and let me know what you think please.  Share the wealth, and enjoy the holiday.

My Soul To Take (April 13th, 2014)

Director: Wes Craven

Starring: Max Thieriot, John Magaro, Denzel Whitaker, and Frank Grillo

Wes Craven is one of the masters of horror, but he can turn on a dime and make an embarrassment of a horror movie.  It's really quite odd.  He's like the Robert Rodriguez of horror, except much earlier.  I mean, this is a man who can go from New Nightmare to Vampire In Brooklyn to Scream or can go from The Hills Have Eyes Part II to A Nightmare On Elm Street.  But the only thing that runs through all his movies is that there is usually something more underneath.  He is a very smart man and tries to put some thematic heft into even the most ridiculous of movies, like Shocker, or a sequel like Scream 4.   So I guess it's just sometimes he doesn't always hit his stride or have a fire in him.  This movie is definitely a Wes Craven movie.  I won't get much into the plot since it's all very convoluted, which wasn't helped by the typical tampering his movies face at the hands of a studio (when will these company men assholes learn).  But it starts off with a bang, typical of Wes' movies.  Once the cool opening is done, we move into iffy territory.  Wes trying to make a high school drama with dialogue that could be described as Brick-esque.  Which would be fine if it wasn't written by Wes, an 70 plus year old man.  So we settle into the worst stretch of the movie, dealing with high school crap.  The kids are all good and ready to go but this seems to be lacking.  Probably due to reshoots.  But even throughout this, there is something so odd and unusual about it that I kinda enjoyed it.  It's playing to its own rhythms.  It's around the halfway mark when things really start going crazy, completely abandoning the rules of the slasher genre that by the end of the movie it has completely insane but not in a shark jumping way, kinda.  That's the movie to a T.  It kinda doesn't jump the shark.  There's two main things that make me like this movie a good bit.  One, it feels like an old slasher movie while tossing all the rules out without going meta.  Secondly, the crux of the story that I really don't feel like typing is all a metaphor for growing up/puberty.  It kinda gets lost in all the noise and the ambitious but chopped up ideas Wes was trying to convey, but there is something in this movie that is hard to hate.  At least for me.  I'm a big horror fan, even bigger of Wes so I may have a soft spot for it.  I know most will hate it, but with an open mind you may see something in the stars.  

Rating: 6/10

The Fountain (April 14th, 2014)
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weiss

Aronofsky is a man who will always swing for the fences and go big.  He's not always perfect, as the word from Noah tells me (haven't seen it so I can't speak).  But before Noah, there was The Fountain.  His first big budget, sci fi religious epic.  And it certainly doesn't lack for ambition.  Tying three narrative threads together that kind of run at the same time and kind of don't, while maybe dealing with one soul throughout his reincarnation.  But maybe it's just one story with another story within that is used to heighten the themes?  Most didn't take to this movie when it came out, and while I understand why I don't agree.  It doesn't completely hit the marks, but it reaches some damn fine highs that I really respect what he does here.  Visually, the movie is superb, different than anything before.  And acting wise, the main draw is Jackman.  He does tremendous work as essentially three different men and making them similar but different enough.  Weiss does decent work but doesn't have enough to work with to make as indelible an impression that Jackman does in what is the first serious role after playing Wolverine.  This is a poetic sort of movie, with no real plot to speak of.  Sure, we see Jackman try to save his wife in one story, Spain in another, and the Tree of Life in the third (surprised it bombed?).  But narrative isn't important.  It's the moments and the buildup to a realization, the character moments.  By the end of the movie, it all comes together in that trademark ambitious Aronofsky way.  Not completely clean but hard hitting nonetheless.  I can't wait to watch it a second time so I could bask in it more and come out with more to say.  But even on first viewing, it's a damn fine film.

Rating: 8.5/10

Frankenstein (April 15th, 2014)
Director: James Whale
Starring: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, and Boris Karloff

Having watched Dracula last week, I decided on continuing through the Universal Monster movies and watch Frankenstein.  This was a good decision, because this was an improvement on Dracula.  Everyone knows the story of Frankenstein, especially the movie because it is very different from the book.  Dr Frankenstein is obsessed with creating life, thereby creating the monster.  The monster is uncontrollable and dangerous, so he has to put it down.  It's all very simple but iconic nonetheless.  But where this movie is an improvement, the next step compared to Dracula is the ambiguity and the violence.  Ambiguity in the way that the monster was literally made that way and isn't trying to be bad, but is like a child who doesn't know what he's doing.  But should they sort of let him be a giant, impetuous child?  That's rattling around up there.  But for me, the violence shocked me.  Not because it's gruesome or anything.  But because this is a movie from the 1930s and has a scene where the monster hangs someone and throws a little girl into a lake where she drowns.  I was stunned, because you can't even kill kids in todays movies.  Just an insane moment that sort of pays off when there is a scene of the father walking down the road in town while he holds the dead girl in his arms, all in one long take.  Now that, is some haunting shit.  James Whale set out to make something great, and he did it.  Now, there is alot of talk that Whale made this movie as a metaphor for being a closet homosexual.  Knowing that and that Whale was a homosexual, it's almost kinda obvious that it is there.  I'm not gonna say the movie is great because of that, but it's an interesting thing to think about when watching.  This is a classic movie that helped change the game as the other Universal Monster movies did.  Like Dracula it is a bit rough in the story department, kinda choppy in some ways but better off than Dracula in that regard.    But it's still one of those movies sort of figuring out how to do these things.  Either way though, it has to be seen.  A classic for the ages.

Rating: 8.5/10

Reality Bites (April 17th, 2014)
Director: Ben Stiller
Starring: Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo

I don't know how it happened and I don't know why.  But somehow, Ethan Hawke became an actor I really like now.  Before he was that guy who was good in Training Day and Assault on Precinct 13, but nothing else I'd seen him in.  Then I saw him in the atrocious Daybreakers and thought those other two movies were flukes.  But then I saw Brooklyns Finest, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, and then recently I saw the coup de gras of the Before Sunrise trilogy.  He's in that group know of guys that I will watch in almost anything.  Add that, this being Ben Stillers directorial debut and the love of Winona Ryder that every young male who saw Beetlejuice still carries with them, I had to see this movie.  And it is a damn fine little movie.  It could honestly be a Hollywood-ized companion piece to Before Sunrise, before the sequels came out.  Following a group of younguns fresh out of college as they flounder about, trying to figure out what to do.  This is not a story driven movie.  It's kind of formless, with scenes of everyone hanging out or Winona on a date or shit like that.  A love triangle breaks out between Winona, Stiller and Hawke.  But the movie doesn't become dominated with it until the end.  It's a hang out movie featuring a group of fresh faces that we all like, so it's a fun time watching.  It's funny but not gut bustingly so.  It's romantic but kinda not, in the sense that Winona picks an absolute dickhead by the end of the movie.  But I have a weakness for movies about yoots in the 90s.  So I really liked this movie.  Even with my objective hat on, it's a damn good movie that wasn't reaching for game changing levels.  It was content to entertain and it did that.  And for a movie that helped Stiller end up making Tropic Thunder, it is an important damn movie.

Rating: 8.5/10

A Bridge Too Far (April 18th, 2014)
Director: Richard Attenborough
Starring: Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Caine, and Gene Hackman


I've only seen two of his movies, but I don't think Richard Attenborough is a very good director.  It's not that he's bad, but it between this and Gandhi he is very much a simple director.  Point and shoot, a gun for hire in a way.  Which is odd since Gandhi was a passion project.  He's also very boring, which shouldn't be a word mentioned in a 3 hour war movie that is 2 hours of fighting.  I won't say this is a bad movie.  But it never reaches any glorious heights of past war movies, nor does it do anything to set it apart.  The cast is a good cast, but they pretty much do the barest of minimums.  They aren't characters so much as themselves.  The action is serviceable but bland.  The story is stretched way too thin, doing what Band of Brothers did in an hour, over three hours.  It's a simple story of the many mistakes that doomed Operation Market Garden.  This isn't a bad movie, as I'm glad I saw it.  War movies are usually a good time for me.  It's just there's a level of disappointment that nags at me.

Rating: 7.5/10

Daredevil: Directors Cut (April 19th, 2014)
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Colin Farrell


Of all the failed comic book movies, this one was the closest to being good.  Ben could have been a good Daredevil with a better director and script.  Hell, all the problems fall to the director.  Even the much talked about directors cut features the numerous problems that plagued the theatrical release.  If anything, it kind of added more.  A wildly inconsistent tone and a smattering of ridiculous scenes don't help matters.  The fucking fight scene between Matt and Elektra in the playground is one of the dumbest things in all of comic book moviedom, and I've seen Galactus turned into a fucking cloud.  Or the worst damned soundtrack in not just a comic book movie, but an action movie.  And speaking of action movies, the fight scenes and FX are bad.  There is no weight to the movements, Daredevil moving like Spiderman and the FX looking like crap.  The costume is also a damn joke, with that stupid material it's made of looking like it's more of a hindrance than anything.  Added to the movie in this cut is a subplot dealing with a trial.  Which could have been good, if it didn't add Coolio in a role with some awful attempts at humor.  It's kind of a joke. It's not like the guy got fucked by the studio.  Johnson did Ghost Rider, and that was abysmal also.  Worse than this.  So this project was always gonna be a failure.  But despite the many bad elements, it features two phenomenal elements.  Michael Clarke Duncan is amazing as The Kingpin, bringing the necessary smarts and brutality to the role.  Despite the neckbeards protests to the contrary, his color didn't take away anything.  But the best part is Colin Farrell doing a fantastic Bullseye.  He brings the cockiness and the humor to the role, as well as the physicality needed to portray him as a dead eye marksman.  He is exactly what the character is in the books, and is a breathe of fresh air everytime he was on screen.  But in the end, the movie is not good and a big misfire.  Hopefully Marvel does right by the man without fear on Netflix, because this can't be his live action legacy.

Rating: 6/10

- Tom Lorenzo