I had a few things left on my “to review” list prior to taking time off from blogging (which quite obviously I haven’t, but instead have just taken the pressure off myself to blog, with surprising results), and I thought I’d just punch the rest I hadn’t finished off out the door and get some content up.
It’s a total mixed bag of movies as witnessed on TV and DVD (and even one in the theatre), and these reviews aren’t really about being reviews but rather just getting whatever comments I had about them put down somewhere where I can go back to them if need be.
The movies here span decades between each other, from back in the 1960’s through to stuff that came out this year, and one thing that isn’t technically even released yet. Enjoy. Or don’t.
20/11/2008
Short Rounds #22: Leftovers movies and remnant videos
15/09/2008
[Short Rounds vol.21] ketchup
(vol. 20)
Recently…
- I’m Gonna Git You Sucka
- Anchorman
- A Mighty Wind
- Snatch
- Secretary
- Running Scared
- Mean Girls
- Beverly Hills Cop
- Jeckyll
I’m Gonna Git You Sucka
Do you remember a time when the most prominent Wayans Brother was Keenan Ivory and not Marlon and Shawn. Few do. But he was responsible for both writing and directing (and starring) in this -some would consider- classic comedy from 1988 that became the precursor to the virtually unwatchable today In Living Color. I have been hearing about this film since I was 13 years old from friends, co-workers, video-store clerks, message boards, etc, and yet I’ve never seen it until now. For a film from the late 1980’s it’s definitely a product of its time, and yet it’s aged quite well. Arguably it would have been far funnier for me 15 … 20 (oy) years ago but still there’s plenty of humour that was intentionally written to step outside of the times. Sucka is a satire of 70’s blacksploitation movies, embracing their conventions but playing them for laughs and occasionally stepping out into absurdity, Naked Gun-style. The unfortunate part is Sucka strives to tell it’s cliched story cohesively more than it attempts generating laughs. Most of the comedy holds up, but the attempts at comedy are surprisingly sparse. I was actually expecting a plethora of dud jokes that were either too timely and thus irrelevant or too juvenile to qualify as funny once you’ve graduated high school, but the film is fairly clean. I think Wayans should have studied Zucker-Abrahms-Zucker and Mel Brooks films a little more closely to punch up the screenplay more, really get at the meat of the blacksploitation-exploitation, and work harder for his laughs. His film is full of 70’s screen idols, which leads me to think he was perhaps a little too enamored by the source genre to give it the roasting it deserved.
-3/5-
07/08/2008
[Re-Review] Sexy Beast, Office Space, Intolerable Cruelty
Source (purchased/given/borrowed/the wife’s): borrowed/purchased/the wife’s
Dates Acquired: 2006/2000/2007
Original Review(s): Intolerable Cruelty
( because it amuses me, here is GAK’s review of Sexy Beast, sent to me via emai, June 14, 2001)
SEXY BEAST is well worth a garner when you have an opp. ben kingsley in
showy cockney mode in the south of france and boulders and car doors and
shotguns that don’t fire and steam baths and NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
NO! NO FUCKING WAY! NO FUCKING WAY! NOFUCKING WAY! NO FUCKINGWAY! and
rabbit demons and cracked pool tiles.
Re-Review: Sexy Beast d. Jonathan Glazer, w.Lous Mellis & David Scinto
From the Summer of 2000 through the Summer of 2001, my buddy Ryan and I would gather with a big bag of Real Fruit gummies and some soda on Fridays to watch a variety of programming which included South Park and Sex and the City. Between the two, however, would be Muchmusic’s The Wedge, an hour long program at the time hosted by Sook-Yin Lee and featured the only dose of indie music videos around. There I discovered Badly Drawn Boy, The Beta Band and others, and in one particularly delightful episode, Jonathan Glazer. Glazer’s not a musician, but a video director, having done most notably some of my favourite Massive Attack and Radiohead videos. This particular interview spotlighted his good nature and his new film, Sexy Beast, showing the opening sequence, complete with nigh-impregnable cockney accents, a thudding Stranglers tune and revolving camera giving the POV of a giant rolling boulder. I knew I had to see this film (at the turn of the century, British mobster movies were the it thing). Like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry before him, I knew that there would be something different about this movie, something stylish and avant garde that would separate it from the masses…. it had hipster cache, before hipsters were hip. These days, Sexy Beast is remembered (rightly) for Ben Kingsly’s stereotype-busting performance (which unfortunately he’s now been coasting off of for about 7 years) as mad-dog Don, a bat-shit crazy mobster who inspires trembling fear in everyone who knows him. While on screen we only get a little taste of what makes him so fearful, it’s the trembling of Ray Winstone’s Gary “Gal” Dove trying to turn down a job Don’s proposing - thus taking him away from his comfortable life in a Spanish villa with his wife - that truly spells intimidation. Though Gal isn’t necessarily a tough guy to have Don practically wet him down to a timid, shivering chihuahua is testament to Don’s effect on people. Kingsly carries himself in an awkward, unreal manner, stiff in posture, featureless in his face, acting almost entirely with his eyes and body… it’s like watching a rubberband stretch and stretch, just waiting to snap, then protecting your eyes when it does. Pulp Fiction ushered in the sountrack as film score and some directors, like Glazer know how to get the maximum effect out of the songs they choose (obscurity only help). It’s a methodical, intense drama with incredible moments of suspense. Glazer has only done one film since (the Kubrick-ian Birth), but his talents are without question in this his first endeavour. Although not necessarily a masterpiece, Sexy Beast remains a tight little (89 minutes) film, full of great performances, vivid camera work, and conceptually intriguing elements throughout.
(PS - The AV Club also revisited Sexy Beast recently)
05/05/2008
Movies, Television, and TVO (not TiVo)
I don’t watch a lot of movies that are broadcast or on cable. My preferred method of film-viewing is in the theater, followed (sometimes distantly, sometimes closely) by watching them on DVD. Watching movies on television has always posed problems, first the commercial interruptions. Films were never meant to have commercial breaks and their insertion always has caused me frustration, the way commercials break up the flow of a film. As I can honestly say I’ve never liked watching a film that would be disrupted by advertising, even at a quite young age, I suppose I’ve always held that films should remain pure, unedited.
This opinion only solidified once I discovered laserdisc in the early 1990s, and thus letterboxing. I became a bit of a viewing snob afterward. Letterboxed laserdic movies allowed me for the first time to see rented films in their entirety, not formatted for 4:3. Can you imagine the impact watching the Letterboxed edition of Star Wars, Empire, and Return of the Jedi had on someone who’d fanatically watched pan-and-scan versions of these films for years? My mind was blown. Ever since pan-and-scanning was brought to my attention I can’t watch movies brutalized that way (explaining pan-and-scan: since the widescreen format and television square aren’t compatible, when films are edited for playing on TV, obviously about 1/3 of the picture is cropped off, and pan-and-scan is what the editors do to ensure that the focus is always at the center of the screen. A wide shot of, say, Lethal Weapon, where Murtaugh and Riggs are both in the chief’s office, sitting on either side of the screen, the formatted version will pan between Danny Glover and Mel Gibson as they speak… it’s dreadfully noticable once you become aware of it).
Then there’s the obvious failure of movies broadcast on TV for language and nudity and whatnot. Sometimes this can actually make the film unintentionally funny and thus entertaining in its own right (listening to the audio commentary for Mallrats makes me want to see the edited-for-TV version). The example I think most people would know is either the TBS versions of Striptease and Showgirls which both feature painted-on bras or bikinis as a means of bypassing the nudity. Why they would even bother showing films about stripping in the first place. Aden’s favourite redub for swearing is from The Big Lebowski where Walter starts smashing a car with a bat screaming “This is what happens when you FUCK a STRANGER in the ASS, Larry”, which became for broadcas “This is what happens when you FIND a FRIEND in the ALPS, Larry”.
26/03/2008
Review - The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Viewed: DVD rental
Release Date: January 29, 2008
director: Seth Gordon
Many a movie has tackled the figurative subject of David versus Goliath, routinely it’s the individual versus the corporation or institution, fighting the power as it were. There’s the Insider, Michael Clayton, Erin Brockovich, and dozens, perhaps hundreds of others. Though hardly “feel good” movies, they often end with the David triumphing, bringing down the corrupt government or dirty corporation. In documentaries, the little guy facing the huge obstacle ahead of them rarely is capable of bringing the institution to its knees, instead feeling satisfied by whatever little victories they can achieve. Michael Moore has built a career on being the little guy, and Al Gore has come to even bigger notoriety thanks to his cinematic achievement more than running for the US Presidency. If documentaries of this type have any happy endings, it’s usually the slightest glimmer of hope that the crusader is still on the job or that the movement is growing. It’s so unlikely in today’s world, given the anonymity, power, wealth, influence and control of governments and corporations that one person (or even a large organization of people) will be able to affect significant change.
The King of Kong isn’t your typical David v. Goliath story, in that the institutional Goliath is hardly one of much notable importance and the David hasn’t made it directly his mission to take it on. Dealing solely with the world of classic arcade gaming, and even more narrowly the game Donkey Kong, the film is surprisingly engrossing, tense and affecting. Even if you don’t care even a little about gaming, watching Steve Wiebe’s plight to get recognized as the top Donkey Kong player in the world is an infuriating and heartbreaking journey as he battles against a 20-year-old scorekeeping institution that seems more interested in supporting its tightly-knit geek-clique than actually administrating reliable and true rankings.
04/03/2008
Review - Once
Viewed: DVD rental
Release Date: December 18, 2007
writer: John Carney
director: John Carney
A tiny independent film made in Ireland for under 200,000 dollars, Once has become a bit of a cinematic darling since first making a splash on the festival circuit (winning the Audience Award at Sundance) and then going on to win (more than deservedly, especially given the competition) an Oscar for Best Song as well as Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards. At a brisk 85 minutes, it a small pill, but a sweet one, focussed and free of distraction. Filmed on the cheap, shot on the streets of Dublin without permits, it does look dark, grainy, and, at times, like a student film, complete with awkward edits and some less than exemplary camera work, but the skills of the actors involved and the music (oh, the music) more than forgive the technical weaknesses.
The story of Once recalls Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise, where a French woman (Julie Delpy) and American (Ethan Hawke) have a chance meeting in Paris, spending a long evening conversing and connecting, building towards a romantic encounter and an unavoidable destiny of going separate ways. Now Once has an Irishman (Glen Hansard, “Guy” in the credits) and a Czech immigrant (Markéta Irglová, “Girl” in the credits) meeting-cute on while he’s busking on the streets of Dublin. They too come together, establishing a powerful connection not through conversation, but song. The guy has created powerful and beautiful songs erupting from a failed relationship, and the girl provides the missing accompaniment that they need. She too has experienced the pain and difficulty of a relationship, leaving her husband behind and moving to Dublin with her daughter and mother.
Review - Justice League: The New Frontier
Viewed: DVD acquisition
Release Date: February 26, 2008
writer: Darwyn Cooke, Stan Berkowitz
director: Dave Bullock
This is the second of DC Comics’ new direct-to-video features with Warner Animation (the first being Superman: Doomsday), here adapting Darwyn Cooke’s esteemed 12-part story DC: The New Frontier. While I know that I’ve read The New Frontier (the trade collections sitting on my shelf behind the New Frontier Action Figures is a constant reminder), to be honest I can’t remember much about it, except that it was set in the 1950’s, had a strong focus on Hal Jordan, and embraced the vibrant aesthetic of the 1950’s new America. The story itself was completely not retained. Watching the film adaptation, you would figure that at some point there’d be some moment that would seem familiar — an action sequence or a phrase that was recognizable — alas, the entire movie unveiled itself before me and I had to wonder, afterwards, how true it was to the source because I just couldn’t recall. Pushing New Frontier Batman and New Frontier Green Arrow aside to get at the trades, I flipped through the books and was surprised to find that the story moved virtually in sequence with the film. The rapid pace at which I was revisiting things obviously didn’t allow me to take in the finer details, but the comics version appeared like storyboards for the film. Of course a lot of the dialogue and character development was passed over, as were some ancillary text material that helped enrich the comic book world, and the comic, my memory of the story now coming back to me, was much more character focussed than story focussed.
For one of DC’s premiere graphic novels, I’m a little surprised at how… forgettable the New Frontier story has proven itself to be. True, I do read a lot of comics, but the ones I really enjoy tend to stay with me. Without re-reading the books, I can’t do an honest contrast and compare with the film, so I’ll discuss it as it stands on its own.
12/02/2008
Review - Eastern Promises
Viewed: DVD rental
Release Date: December 27, 2007
writer: Steven Knight
director: David Cronenberg
Warning:Spoilers
I hate spoiling things in a review, but in this case I can’t help it. The first thing I need to talk about in regards to Eastern Promises is the four-minute fight sequence between Viggo Mortensen’s Nikolai and a duo of Chechen mafia thugs. It’s a brutal sequence in which the vulnerable Nikolai, naked in a steam bath, is taken by surprise by two broad-shouldered, leather jacketed, thick black-soled boot-wearing, blade wielding toughs. There’s an utter vulnerability to this stoic Russian mafioso, robbed of his dignity of a fair fight in any sense, it’s a horrifying proposition, an actually effective variation of the old horror trope of the unsuspecting assault in the bathtub. Unlike more vainglorious starring roles, Nikolai is not in any sense a superman or James Bond, and within just four minutes of straight-on fighting he’s completely depleted. Slashed and bleeding, his life seeping out of him from numerous locations, and having tussled for control of blades and guns, he’s exhausted, but can’t give into his fatigue until he’s sure he’s not threated anymore. It’s powerful filmmaking, full of meaning to be extracting, but the immediacy of its situation, that being the nakedness of the film’s star is utterly distracting.
It’s possible you might be uptight about male nudity and put off with the utter sight of the penis, or perhaps uncomfortable in your own sexuality and recoil in disgust, or you might be completely at ease with the whole nudity thing and unphased by any nakedess, or you could generally get quite excited the see the old manatomy on screen, but regardless of how you react, it has the same effect: it pulls you out of the film… immediately. Despite how you may feel about viewing private parts, and it’s the same when a noted female actress bears her breasts on screen, it’s just surprising. Halle Berry won an Academy Award for doing it, well that’s what people like to say anyway. Will the same magic happen for Viggo? Unlike most situations in which a woman winds up topless, there’s little in the way of sexualization to this scene and perhaps that’s even more alarming.
06/02/2008
Review: The Bourne Ultimatum
Viewed: DVD rental
Release Date: December 10, 2007
writer: Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns & George Nolfi
director: Paul Greengrass
Much has been said about this Bourne movie’s use of “shaky cam”, but honestly, shrink it down to TV letterbox and it really doesn’t matter, it’s a completely different viewing experience than in the theatres. GIven the fact that the DVD release of previous two installments of the trilogy have outperformed their box-office appearance, I can see how the studios wouldn’t have been concerned about the shaky cam’s affect on the cinematic audience. What I guess they hadn’t anticipated was the reception to the film would be so huge and thus the shaky cam blow-back equally so. Anyway, point made, moving on.
The Bourne series of films based upon the novels and characters of Robert Ludlum have been surprising in their continued quality, their intensity, and frankly, their simplicity. The first movie was the most complex of the three as it required the most set up, establishing the character, his amnesia, his mystery and his pursuers. The groundwork laid, the next two movies were able to dispense with establishing much more and unravel the mystery further, concluding with the third. The momentum of the action and espionage elements propel these films forward, but they’re also smart enough to layer some characterization in there, enough to establish Bourne as a modern spy-film legend, ranking right beneath James Bond and well above Jack Ryan in notoriety and brand in very quick order.
05/02/2008
Review - 3:10 To Yuma
Viewed: DVD rental
Release Date: January 8, 2008
writer: Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt & Derek Haas (based of a short story by Elmore Leonard)
director: James Mangold
Late fall last year the wife and I were discussing how the weather was putting us in a mood to watch Westerns. At the time two big features were in the theatre, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford and this one. We saw the former and loved it. Until earlier this week we passed on 3:10 To Yuma, and can’t really say much in favour of it. It’s a middling film, and just taking a peek at IMDB, it comes from a middling director. Mangold’s credits to now include such dramatic mediocrity as Girl, Interrupted, Identity, Walk The Line and CopLand.
3:10 is part action, part character piece, but its action is less than dynamic and its characters are unconvincing. Christian Bale and Russell Crowe co-star as Civil War vet-turned-farmer and notorious outlaw, respectively. Bale’s character, Dan Evans, is in debt, his land choked off from water and close to being claimed by his creditors, thus throwing his family, including a sick younger son, into utter destitution. Evans’ elder son, William, sees his father as a coward and less than a man, and as such has no respect for him, and appears to be forging his own disgruntled path into manhood.
29/01/2008
Re-Review: The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico (cd and dvd)
Source (purchased/given/ borrowed/the wife’s): purchased
Date Acquired: cd - November 27, 2005, dvd - May 14, 2006
Original Review: movie review - “It’s not as winged or sharp a mocumentary as “A Mighty Wind” or “This Is Spinal Tap” but I don’t think it intended to be. There is an affable candor to it that sweeps you in, and the character of Terrifico is almost larger than life, Elvis-esque in many ways, and though perhaps a little stiff as an actor, Murphy excels as a performer both vocally and physically… The movie comes off more as a doc, rather than mock.”
cd - I was pleasantly surprised. And not just surprised, these songs are country with that alt pop edge which Murphy excels at. In serving the needs of the film Murphy, with director Michael Mabbot, have created a fascinating and genuine country album that isn’t just kitschy mocumentary music.
Thoughts/Memories/ Remembrances: Okay, click on one of the reviews above and read how much I lurve me some Matt Murphy. From my first exposure to the Super Friendz (the Halifax-based pop band, not the cartoon) in high school through to the arrived-in-Toronto-just-as-I-did Flashing Lights, and then back again, and recently the ensemble City Field. He’s a pop-music machine and one hell of a live performer. So to find him doing -gasp- country music and not just ironically but classically, and for a film which he stars, and is actually good in, no less (or that’s what I recall anyway, in revisiting perhaps my cloud of adoration/apologizing will lift to see a different truth). The recent Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a less sincere, less earnest exploration of the world of country music, and the music, strong though it is, is still comedic in tone. I wanted to revisit Guy Terrifico to not just compare, but to see whether I can overcome my MM adoration and really see how I actually respond to it.
Re-Review: I honestly had some trepidation as I approached watching the film again. The CD wasn’t nearly as hard to engage, since I genuinely like the bulk of the songs on the soundtrack and have listened to them often, but the film, having only watched it once prior was a bit more of an unknown. Was it actually entertaining or had the music I like so much skewed my opinion?
07/01/2008
Re-Review: Steel Dawn
Source (purchased/given/borrowed/the wife’s): purchased
Date Acquired: February 21, 2007
Original Review: N/A
Thoughts/Memories/Remembrances: I don’t remember how many times my friend Mark and I watched Steel Dawn in the mid-’80’s, but it was a lot. Yet, for all the viewings, all I could remember of the film were the following: Patrick Swayze, a sword, a mullet, crimped blonde hair, a brief glimpse at boobies and lots of sand. A couple years ago Toast and I were having a discussion about his affinity for post-apocalyptic movies (including those with Kevin Costner) and this film came to mind. Of course, neither one of us could remember the title immediately, and not being near the internet at the time, over the course of the evening it became something notable. Once we discovered the title, it became a bit of an in-joke, but also an object of desire. I tried to track down a copy of the DVD for Toast’s birthday, but it’d long been out of print, but did find a copy on videocassette. A few months later, I happened upon the DVD in a used book/video store and it was a no-brainer purchase. The film, for those that recall it, has a stigma. I think it’s not the film but the stigma of Swayze that people only recall.
Re-Review: All you need to know is music by Brian May.
Okay, perhaps not.
The film opens with our hero, a mulleted, bearded, headbanded Swayze in the midst of the desert, standing on his head, as the sand around him stirs. Something from beneath emerges, is it a monster? Nope, it’s a… stick? And another, and another… oh, a hand, oh, some strange rags and/or tendrils. A half dozen sand creatures attack our dirty dancer who, we can only surmise, was on his head waiting in some post-apocalyptic battle-stance for these creatures to attack (it’s later revealed he was meditating). They wish to steal his stuff, but he and his unusual sword twirling slice them all to bits, and he’s on his way.
06/01/2008
Re-Review: Dr. Strangelove (or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb)
Source (purchased/given/borrowed/the wife’s): own
Date Purchased: January 08, 2007
Original Review: N/A
Thoughts/Memories/ Remembrances: I first watched Dr. Strangelove on laserdisc, likely in early 1997, but to be honest, I don’t remember watching the movie. Chances are I fell asleep while watching it. The great thing about laserdisc was there was no encoding so it was easy to export the image to a videocassette. At the time, I taped pretty much every laserdisc I rented, including this one, so if I fell asleep while watching one, I knew I had a back up so no biggie. Overall, I had a sense of disappointment, thinking it would be so much funnier (at the time I thought satire=funny), as well, to be honest, I don’t think I got it. Aden has much fonder memories of the film and an open slot in a 2/$30 purchase and her input led to the acquisition of this DVD.
Re-Review: None of it, besides the legendary climactic bomb-dropping sequence, had stuck with me. I didn’t remember Major Kong, or General Turgidson , Col. Mandrake, President Muffley or, really, even Strangelove himself. Some movies I watch and they stay with me, but almost nothing from my previous viewing ten years ago remained in my brain. For such a legendary movie, a Stanley Kubrick film no less, that’s pretty absurd.
26/10/2007
Planning that DVD money
Now, here’s the thing I was wondering… if I pre-buy something that doesn’t come out until 2008 can I still pick it up when it comes out. Also, if say I paid for a run of comics in advance, is that cheating.
The answer: yes.
Damn.
I’m making my own rules an disappointing myself. The thought came to me yesterday as I was trolling through HMV resisting the purchase of some 2 for $10 DVDs (mainly because I could only find one, The Omega Man, which I actually wanted) and balking at the $45 price tag on the Aquaman cartoon, when I noticed The Transformers movie came out this week (I honestly loved it) and want to own it, but don’t want to pay $25 for it (or $30 for the special edition) when I know it will be on the $2/30 pile in 6 months. So, if I put the $15 away now instead of buying the more expensive $30 version, and buy it when it’s cheaper, is it still cheating? It’s not the same as what I pose above, but it just spun out into those questions.
I still think, even though I’ll be saving more money if I do that, that it’s still a temptation to buying in the new year when I’m not supposed to. It’s still a cheat. And essentially if I’m not willing to pay the $30 now, will I actually still be eager to spend $15 in a year, and will it eventually wind up cheaper by 2009? Hmmm….
So, I have appx. $190 DVD dollars left… here’s what’s a possible vie for my attention:
The aforementioned Adventures of Aquaman cartoon - oh I know it’ll be bad, but how bad exactly? (Just released Appx. $45)
Metalocalypse - an Adult Swim cartoon I haven’t seen but it’s done by Home Movies’ Brendan Small, so I’m curious (Just released - about $33)
- The Best of the Colbert Report vol.1 - although it’s the sort of stuff that is of a timely nature so it may not have much longevity (Release date: Nov.6 - about $16… probably wind up on the 2/$30 shelf upon release)
- Sesame Street Old School, Vol. 2 (1975-1979) - everyone is enjoying the hell out of season one, so this is a definite purchase (Release date: Nov.6 - appx. $33 on Amazon)
- Lost Season 3 - I did actually catch all of this season as it aired, but with the long delay before season 4, it might be nice to revisit (Release Dec.11 - appx. $55)
-Day Watch - (Released October 30, about $30) or Day Watch/Night Watch 2-disc set for $32 (two bucks more for the first movie!)
-Ratatouille - (Released Nov.6, appx $25)
-Transformers - (Just released - appx $25)
- Superbad - (Dec.6 - appx $28)
What I won’t be buying
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force Vol. 5 - Released Jan.29
UPDATE - Saturday, Oct. 27
Purchased 4 items off the 2/$30 rack - total $68.40
Thus my remaining amount is: $123.22