So I finally got around to seeing Drag Me To Hell, Sam Raimi’s return to the horror genre after a lengthy detour through Marvel Comics territory with two of the best super-hero movies ever (Spider-Mans I and II) and one super-hero movie that kind of stunk (you know which one I mean). While not as loopy as Raimi’s earlier classics Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, and not as straight-up horrific as the original Evil Dead, DMTH is still a lot of fun — sort of like Darkman with maggots.
Category: Movies
Review: “District 9”
So over the holiday last week, we watched the movie District 9. Originally my wife had declined to screen this film, but after hearing from several friends about how good it was, she agreed to go see it. I had also told her it was supposed to be good, but apparently, after suggesting she might like Hellboy because it was made by Guillermo del Toro (she is a huge fan of his Spanish-language movies like The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth), suggesting she might like Kung Fu Hustle because because it was “probably like a Jackie Chan movie”, and trying to convince her that Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is a classic of 80s filmmaking, I lack credibility. Go figure.
gest revyoo of marley and me by dennis the vizsla dog!!!
hello dadas nice reederz all three of yoo sorry dada that was a cheep shot its dennis the vizsla dog hay gess wot??? dada has askd me to come and do a gest revyoo of the faymus dokyoomentry marley me and dupree wot we watchd this weekend and — wot??? oh dada sez the dokyoomentry wuz akchooaly calld marley and me sorry my bad ennyway dada shoor i wil lend yore silly blog sum of my star power ok heer goze!!!
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Not A Review Of “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”
From the “I Don’t Think That’s How They Described It In The Pitch Meeting” department:
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Review: “The Machinist”
We finally got around to watching The Machinist, a movie where Batman (Christian Bale) loses like a hundred pounds, starts messing up on his day job as an operator of heavy machinery, and starts seeing things that may or may not be there. He also finds mysterious and threatening cryptic notes stuck to his refrigerator. (At the risk of providing a spoiler, if you’ve read my short story “You“, then you already know who’s leaving those notes.)
I wasn’t sure quite what to make of The Machinist at first. I thought it might be a dystopian science fiction flick, one of those films where it’s always dark and gloomy and everyone toils in hopeless servitude for some nameless mega-corporation; so when Batman (I’m going to keep calling him that because my wife, while she was awake, just kept staring at Bale, shaking her head, and saying, “That’s Batman?”) ventures out into the bright California sunshine, the effect was actually quite jolting. The contrast between the hellish factory where he works and the sunny world beyond was effective and, I’m sure, quite deliberate.
The film does a good job portraying Batman’s spiraling isolation and paranoia, and contains some powerful scenes, particularly when Batman chaperones a boy on a ride at a theme park that neither one of them has any business riding. The final few scenes, when we get to see (in a flashback) Batman before he lost all that weight are also very well done. The big revelation didn’t come as a shock to me, as I had figured it out ages earlier (as I mentioned, I already wrote this story ten years ago), but seeing it actually play out was affecting nonetheless. The contrast between a flush and healthy Batman and his gaunt, haunted future self was simply astonishing. (I’ve no doubt that Batman had a doctor following him around the whole time they were filming.)
The Machinist put my wife to sleep almost immediately; I think she barely lasted fifteen minutes. Perhaps she would have stayed awake longer if Batman hadn’t been so frighteningly thin. This film is pushed as a thriller in its trailer and its description, but it’s really more of a character study, and is quite deliberately paced. If you go in expecting a lot of chases and action (or Batman eye candy), you’ll be disappointed; but if you want to see some moody cinematography and good acting from Batman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and a nearly unrecognizable Michael Ironside, then you might like it.
Review: “Sherrybaby”
This weekend we finished up watching Sherrybaby, a film in which Maggie Gyllenhaal expertly plays a blonde-haired, blue-eyed train wreck in a halter top. Sherry has just been released from prison after a stint for drug-related offenses, and spends the rest of the movie trying stay clean, hold down a job, and reconnect with her daughter (who is being raised by her brother and sister-in-law). Sherry seems to have only one way of relating to most men (hence the halter top); she’s spoiled, immature, narcissistic, and repeatedly displays staggeringly poor judgment. She fights, she lies, she manipulates; in particular, a scene in which she hijacks a dinner party to sing “Eternal Flame” is simply excruciating. At one point I said to my wife, “I keep waiting for her to make the right decision, and she never does.”
So now that I’ve made this movie sound unwatchable, let me add that it’s riveting. The performances are uniformly excellent, from Maggie Gyllenhaal (who’s in every scene) down to Ryan Simpkins as her daughter, Alexis. The film is gritty and believable but not sentimental and manages to let you see just how bleak Sherry’s situation is without being utterly depressing. The contrast between Sherry’s tawdry life of motel rooms and halfway houses contrasts sharply with the upper-class life of her father (his house is a palace in comparison) in a way that at first seems sad, but ultimately becomes infuriating. The pacing is just about perfect; when my wife said, “How did she get so messed up?”, we found out ten minutes later. Stop reading my wife’s mind, Laurie Collyer!
Sherrybaby put my wife to sleep in a little over an hour, at which point she made me turn it off so we could finish watching it later. It took us about two weeks to get back to it (we’ve been busy with the now-local Fred Astaire lately), but we finally did. You may find it painful to watch Sherry make one bad choice after another, but stick with her until the end of the film. It’s worth the ride.
Review: “La Femme Nikita” (1990)
Last week’s Netflix selection was “La Femme Nikita”, which is of course the trashy French remake of the famous American action/suspense classic “Point of No Return” featuring Bridget Fonda … oh, no, wait, I’ve got that backwards. Anyway, “La Femme Nikita” is the story of a homicidally strung-out young woman (Nikita, natch) who is the sole survivor of one seriously botched bloodbath of a robbery attempt. Everyone in her gang dies, the store owner dies, a number of cops die, and this is all in like the first five minutes. Blood flows liberally. Cue the stink-eye from my wife.
Instead of going to prison, Nikita is “recruited” (so to speak) into a secret government agency of spies and assassins. When she emerges three years later, she has been transformed from street harpy into a sort of female James Bond. The agency sets her up in an apartment in the guise of a normal woman. But then, something unexpected happens; instead of proceeding into one over-the-top gunfight after another, “La Femme Nikita” turns into something akin to a character study of a woman who slowly realizes that she has something to lose.
This movie is billed as a suspense film, and there are some top-notch action setpieces, most notably the famous battle in a restaurant kitchen that caps off her first assignment. Oh, and Jean Reno’s appearance as a rather less competent version of Harvey Keitel’s cleaner character from “Pulp Fiction” is a hoot, too. (I know, I know, “Pulp Fiction” came out later. But I saw “Pulp Fiction” first. So there.) However, these scenes are not actually what the movie is interested in; the heart of the story is what happens between the assassinations and skullduggery and sneaking around. The final scene is just remarkable, and not at all what I was expecting from my steady diet of American action flicks.
“La Femme Nikita” put my wife to sleep in a little over an hour. Before she fell asleep she had actually started to pay attention to it, so we had to stop and finish it up later. After it was over, she pronounced it good, which is high praise coming from her. (The last film to earn the coveted “good” rating from her was “The Illusionist“.) Anyway, if you’re in the mood for a little different take on the whole assassination game, this might be a good movie to check out.
Review: “The Host”
This week’s Netflix selection was The Host, a Korean monster/comedy/action/horror/satire film in which a giant mutant tadpole type thing terrorizes the vicinity of the River Han in Seoul. (No, seriously!)
Review: “The Dark Knight”
I’m sure it won’t surprise anyone to learn that I am (or used to be, anyway) an avid comic book reader. I mostly read Marvel titles, my favorites being Uncanny X-Men, Alpha Flight, and The Avengers. I was a casual reader of D.C. comics (except for Green Lantern, to which I subscribed for a while), reading the occasional Justice League or Batman issue. Therefore, it’s with a somewhat heavy heart that I must say that The Dark Knight is the
Best. Superhero. Movie. Ever.
Review: “Elizabethtown”
Well, the soundtrack was pretty good.
Gina reminded me that in my desire to be pithy I left off my rating scheme, so here it is: Elizabethtown put my wife to sleep in about an hour and a half. This does not mean that she liked it; she just kept shaking her head and muttering and making unfavorable comparisons to some of her other “favorite” movies such as August Rush and Hope Floats and giving me sidelong glances and saying “How did you pick this, again?”
Viscosity 