Closer

Closer

I don't know exactly what the director was thinking when he made this movie. Perhaps he was in the middle of a horrible divorce and figured, hey if I'm miserable, I might as well make everyone who watches this movie miserable too! Or maybe he's just this loveless little manic depressive freak who thinks that love doesn't exist.
Whatever the case may be, this was a horribly depressing movie. I guess he figured that if he put four beautiful people in it, then that would override the fact that you really just want to cry or kill yourself by the end. All of the characters were lying, cheating snakes without morals or values and the plot, honestly, felt like it went full-circle without getting to any sort of point other than if you fall in love, you will get kicked in the face for it because love doesn't exist. I mean, how can you watch a movie where you just don't care about any of the characters? I know I can't. And the really depressing thing about the movie was knowing I paid $8 to see it and not enjoy it!
I do have to say that I really enjoy Clive Owen. He is an incredible actor. Seeing him in this movie just made me like him even more, because I've seen him as a good guy, but he was sort of two-faced in this film. Natalie Portman did a great job too. She played the most likeable character in the movie, though that's not saying much.
Just... don't see this movie. Or at least don't repeat my mistake and pay to see it in the theatre. Either download it or wait till it comes out on video. And make sure you eat chocolate, or ice cream after you watch it... or watch Closer and then Monty Python or something... otherwise you might just... cry.

The Mouse That Roared

The Mouse That Roared

Watch this movie. Honestly, it's one of Peter Sellers' best, in my opinion. He plays three different characters, one of which is a woman. The plot is incredibly funny, as a small non-existent European country (The Duchy of Fenwick) is going bankrupt and decides to invade the United States, then surrender in order to get war reparations. Everything goes according to plan, until the army (consisting of 20 men dressed in ancient chainmail with bows and arrows) arrives in New York and finds no one to surrender to. It's a great movie and Sellers is amazing as: The Duchess of Fenwick, The Prime Minister AND the General of the army. One of the things that got me was the sign at the guard post on the border of Fenwick: "If guard is not on duty, go right in". I was laughing through the entire film. Though, I think Sellers' movies are a slightly more subtle humour than most comedies today. Anyone who's seen "The Party" will agree with me (and if you haven't seen it, rent that too... have a Peter Sellers night).

Saw

Saw

Those of you who don't like horror movies, STAY AWAY FROM THIS ONE... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
To tell you the truth, it wasn't the gore that scared me... it was the dummy. I don't know if you guys have seen him in the commercials, but fuckin A, he is the creepiest thing in the entire world. I can handle gore, obviously, considering the kinds of books I read... but guys kidnapped people and then putting them into situations where they kill themselves is just too frightening for me. One of the things I HATED about this film was the fact that some idiot out there could get the idea and try to make it work. There are some seriously fucked up people out there and I'm willing to bet someone will try it.
The acting, obviously, was terrible. Poor Cary Elwes, I thought you were better than that. VERY good twist at the end though. I think it was worth it just for the ending actually. Honestly though, there were parts that I couldn't watch, I had my hand over my eyes. If you go see it because you've been forced to, cover your eyes when a) Cary Elwes is using the phone in the parking lot and you can see a guy creeping up next to his car and b) when Alan is wandering around his pitch-black apartment, using his camera flash as a light, and he starts to open the door with the dart board on it... DO NOT WATCH DURING THOSE SCENES. I didn't... and I'm pretty sure I saved myself another two nights of little sleep.

Team America: World Police

Team America: World Police

I dunno if any of you guys have seen it, but it is so funny. You have to sort of be a South Park fan to get some of the jokes, or find some of them funny, but having an ENTIRE movie played by marionettes is just to good to pass up. It's so hard to describe it without giving stuff away, so I'm just going to ruin it for you if you haven't seen it. So... if you don't want it ruined, don't read the rest of this...
Considering the movie starts out with Team America blowing up every historic and recognizable site in Paris, I knew it had to be funny. And the song that comes on at least five times during the film goes "America... FUCK YEAH" etc etc... I was holding my sides through the entire movie. After a while, you kind of forget that it's marionettes... creepy. My favourite character though was definately Kim Jong Il with his "hewrooooooo" and "I'm so ronrey, oh so ronrey...".
Anyway, go see it if you haven't yet... there are parts where you're so shocked that they did stuff, or said stuff, and there's parts where you just can't stop laughing.

Shaun of the Dead

Shaun of the Dead

When you look at a poster for Shaun of the Dead, you see the tagline "A Romantic Comedy. With Zombies." That pretty much sums it up right there for you. It honestly is one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long, long time and that is saying a LOT coming from me.
It begins, in a typically British way, in a pub, where Shaun's girlfriend is complaining about all they ever do is sit in the pub and they never get to do anything really exciting. Well dear, that is all about to change. We then get some footage of how completely and utterly mundane Shaun's life is before the plot really begins to thicken. One of the best lines in the preview for this movie is "There is no 'I' in team, but there is an I in pie... um, meat pie, er, meat is an anagram for team, I dunno".
Shaun's undeniably great sidekick is Ed, a slob who he's known since pre-school. Not only does he spout hilarious lines, but there are actually some pretty emotional scenes between the two of them.
Even though the movie is advertised as a comedy, there are some incredibly disgusting scenes, one of which I actually had to look away from in order to keep my dinner in me. There are also some touching moments and the end of the film is actually rather sad.
Anyway, when it DOES come out in theatres, I plan to see it again. It is not only a freakin side-splitter of a comedy, it is actually well-acted. My only conclusion is GO SEE IT. September 24th, mark your calendars or zombies will come and eat your brains ("don't say that!"... "what?"... "the z-word!")

The Village

The Village

Even the previews to this movie were complete shit. I mean, if I go to a movie and the movie turns out to be horribly horribly crap, then at least I've seen previews for movies that look good (though obviously I feel quite ripped-off by the theatre for paying 14 bloody dollars to watch 20 mins of previews). But I digress...
I was excited that Joaquin Phoenix was in it, simply because he's a pretty good actor. Not bad to look at either. I also realised that M. Night Shymalan (I'm going to refer to him as M-Dog from now on cause his last name is too goddam hard to spell) er, what was I saying before I so rudely interrupted myself?? Oh, M-Dog has a pattern with actors. The Village is his fourth big movie and he's only really used two actors for his main characters: Bruce Willis (the disappointing Sixth Sense, and er... some other one that looked retarded, it had Samuel L. Jackson in it *Shaft! you damn right...*) and Joaquin Phoenix (Signs and The Village). M-Dog also likes to put himself into his films (just like Hitchcock! he must be similarly gifted!!! not) which is slightly annoying because you spend the entire film going "is that him?? no wait, is *that* him??" which is useless since he makes it pretty damn obvious when he makes a cameo.
The Village is all about a town basically in the middle of bumfuck nowhere U.S.A. (go through the field, take a left at the cows). It's the end of the 19th century and, of course, they're living in a harmonius commune... except for that little carnivourous creature problem. The town has this... understanding with these freakish beings that live in the woods: (to quote William Hurt) they don't go into the woods and the creatures don't go into the town. Oh, if it were only that easy. Why, oh why, must you ruin their hippie valley M-Dog? Have you no shame??
The main shit-disturber?? You guessed it. Joaquin Phoenix, acting both stupidly brave and laughibly cowardly all at once, steps into the woods and, whoops, one of the creatures sees him. Crazy shit starts to happen and then there's a huge twist (I'd call it a hole, but whatever...) occurs in the script. I won't give it away in case you actually DO want to go see it... I'd recommend just downloading it though.
You know, after letting it sink in, I realised it *is* kind of a creepy movie, but just because of the music and the sound effects. There's a scene where the town gets together to celebrate a wedding that's particularly creepy because they keep hearing sounds in the woods (ie twigs breaking, howls, equally scary noises). The creatures' appearances are revealed too early in the film, but the first sight is pretty freaky.
Actually, you know what? Go see it. It's worth seeing in the threatre. I keep going over scenes in my head and, yeah, it's good... I mean, it's not as scary as The Ring, but I've realised that M-Dog's movies aren't about making you an insomniac for 3 nights straight, but too be just slightly freaked out. And the twist in this is pretty good.

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

Ah hahaha.. no really.. don't pay full price for it anyway. But go see it, it's actually surprisingly funny. I was going to try and convince Jacqui to go see The Village, but we ended up seeing this instead. It's *so* refreshing, finally, to see a movie with non-caucasian males as the main characters. Both guys do an amazing job of keeping you entertained through their insanity.
Of course, it's the typical odd couple where one guy (Harold) is the straight man, hard worker type and the other (Kumar) is the partyer with no ambition even though he has the smarts. Being Asian and Indian respectively, they get a lot of shit from jerks who eventually get their come-uppance (if that's a word). It starts out with the two guys getting stoned and seeing a commercial for White Castle, a fast-food restaurant. So, obviously, they take the trek to New Brunswick. So they find the White Castle in New Brunswick is gone, but there is one relatively close by. Of course, nothing is *that* easy in the movies, so they run into a bunch of trouble including: a hippie with a huge bag of pot, a rascist cop, a horny Neil Patrick Harris (who promptly steals Harold's car), a guy covered in boils called Freakshow and an escaped cheetah. Okay, so it might not sound like the greatest movie, but it is worth seeing. There are a bunch of cameos by known actors (not great actors, but I recognised them from somewhere...) and the two main actors are hilarious.

The Bourne Supremacy

The Bourne Supremacy

Maybe it was just the fact that I had just come off work and had a mega-migraine, but I thought The Bourne Supremacy was absolute crap compared to The Bourne Identity. But I didn't think particularly highly of that film either, so it's not saying much.
I got really sick of seeing Matt Damon look: 1- incredibly confused during the entire movie and 2- really smug whenever he escaped the "bad guys". And he whined throughout the film about how the bad guys killed his girlfriend. Oh shut up. In the original book by Robert Ludlum, both his wife and his child are killed and he doesn't even remember, let alone grieve for a full MOVIE. So basically the movie is about Bourne (not his real name, duh, as those who have read The Bourne Identity know) going on a bloody vendetta in order to avenge his girlfriend's gruesome, yet predictable, death. The camera work in certain parts was really awful, especially to someone who's got a headache and is really, really tired. I kept rubbing my eyes and trying to figure out why the cameraman had turned into a manic squirrel.
The only good part about the film was, obviously, Karl Urban's character Kirill. He's a hired assassin, so of course he's awesome. From the very beginning you know he's evil cause he has a Russian accent... and he kills two guys and frames Bourne for it. But that's beside the point. Matt Damon got *so* annoying that I was secretly hoping Kirill would finally end my pain and put a final bullet in the amnesiac's head. But alas, my wishes were not fulfilled, since Bourne pulls an impossible stunt and they get into a car crash in a tunnel in... er... somewhere exotic... perhaps it was Berlin... anyways, so the camera, uncharacteristically still, pans in on Kirill's bloody face. BUT you can still see him breathing, so I'm hoping that they bring that character back when they inevitably make The Bourne Ultimadum into a movie... if only so I have someone to look at and cheer for while Matt Damon bumbles around again.

King Arthur (old review)

King Arthur

Saw King Arthur last night with Shel.

For the first twenty minutes or so, I didn't find much about it that I liked. I thought the focus on Lancelot at the beginning was extremely unnecessary, since the movie is called King ARTHUR. Sheesh. I also *hated* the fact that they passed Merlin off as an evil magician who fought Arthur and his knights (though this is probably due to the fact that I've been reading Mary Stewart's Crystal Cave series...) The only aspects of the film that I enjoyed in the first half an hour were the cinematography and the music.
It picked up after the knights go out on their "deadly" mission to rescue some stupid Roman kid, who, once he's back behind Hadrian's Wall, promptly disappears from the script (though he manages, in his short screen time, to mention to Arthur that his mentor was murdered *whoops*). Guinevere's discovered during this rescue mission and, *gasp*, turns out she's a... er... one of Merlin's henchmen, er, women, er, people... yeah, one of Merlin's henchpeople, meaning she can shoot a wicked bow and arrow and she wears crappy body paint that makes her look like some kind of native art. But I digress... by the end, I was sitting there going "okaaay... music good, Clive Owen good, sexual tension good, Arthur's knights good... " etc etc.
Speaking of Arthur's knights... Holy Mother of God and All Creation, were they good-lookin'. Of course, they kill off one of my favourites, the bastards, Tristan (ie, the one with the eagle and that Arthur is always telling to "Ride ahead"). He was KICK ASS. Kind of attractive, talented, smart, mysterious... *sigh*. Course, Hugh Dancy as Galahad totally rocked too. He was just enough innocence to pass off being "Galahad the Chaste". Gawain was also hot. I realised where I recognise that actor from too. He's the unfortunate young "Uncle Owen" in the latest travesty known as "Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of the Clones". He looks better with long dreadlocks. Lancelot is a story of his own. NOT hot. Sorry chiquitas, but his hair reminded me of one of the wigs on some Muppets character. Plus, he was too broody and he argued with Arthur a lot... and it pissed me off that the movie started with him... stupid. AND he's a total PERV, looking in on Guinevere when she was washing... sicko. Ioan Gruffald, my ass. Give me Star Wars dude *anytime*. wink wink.
So, all in all, it's a pretty good film. But Keira Knightley was really shafted with the part of Guinevere... though she *did* get to have a hot make-out scene with Clive Owen... *stares into space thoughtfully* It wasn't *really* what I expected it to be, which is good, because it exceeded my expectations. Go see it. GO SEE IT NOW.

The Notebook (old review)

The Notebook

Went to see The Notebook yesterday with Shel and here is what I think of it:

It starts out kind of crappy, since the beginning credits seem to take forever and the ducks seem quite computer-generated. Even the sunset looks kind of fake. And then it goes into the conventional voice-over of an old guy who claims he's "nothing special", when it's clear by the end of the movie that he is (or at least that's what you're supposed to think).

Anyway, then it goes back in time to go over this couple's summer romance. It's the typical "he's a poor country boy and she's a rich city girl". It's very sappy, but I couldn't help but feel that most of their conversations, even if just at the beginning, seemed realistic. There's a conversation between the two of them (Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams) on the street and both of them seem really nervous.
Then, of course, her parents bascially forbid them to see each other because he's "trash, trash, trash!!" and they blubber away. Then she goes home and, seven years later, *gasp*, gets engaged to someone who ISN'T RYAN GOSLING! that tramp. Meanwhile, he's joined the army and fought in the war, where he loses his best friend right in front of his eyes (though they don't bother to go into the certain emotional trauma he would have experienced because of this). He goes home and decides to rebuild a house in a vain attempt to draw Rachel McAdams back to him (must be the constant drinking that makes him think this). But, wait a second!, who's that in the driveway?? oh, how utterly cliche.
I don't care. I still loved it. It was predictable, sappy and most people in the theatre were bawling by the end of it. It's worth going to see simply for Ryan Gosling...

I was impressed by both Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams' acting. I already knew he was a good actor, but I was surprised by her, since the only movie I had seen her in was Mean Girls, which isn't exactly the most intellectually challenging movie.

I enjoyed it, even though the ending was incredibly stupid, simply because it was a chick flick, and every so often, you need a great chick flick to reassure you that you're not going to be alone forever and that you *can* get Ryan Gosling if you try hard enough... bwa hahaha

The Day After Tomorrow (old review)

The Day After Tomorrow

Saw The Day After Tomorrow last night... it was pretty good actually. It was everything I expected it to be and the animation was really good. Plus, you can't help but love a director that destroys American National landmarks not once, not twice, but THREE times. That's right, this director made Independence Day, which blew up the White House. He also made Godzilla, which, again, destroyed New York city in numerous ways.
Here's the breakdown for you:
It starts with a little wind, then progresses to a whole lot of tornados, climaxes with a few big hurricanes and ends with a disgusting amount of cheese.
It's a cool movie though, I'd recommend it to anyone who needs something to do on a rainy day.

Troy (old review)

Troy

Yeah, went to see Troy on Saturday afternoon with Jacq, Jeffrey, Lauren and Shel. I have to say that it wasn't *that* bad for the kind of movie it is. For those of us who have read The Iliad, it was rather inaccurate.
Here are the pros and cons:

Pros:

• Amazing CGI


• Detailed costumes and scenery


• Peter O'Toole rocks as Priam and Eric Bana is an excellent Hector


• Nice man candy in Eric Bana, Sean Bean and Orlando Bloom (and please don't try to convince me that Brad Pitt belongs here too.. I am not a fan and Troy just reinforced that)


• There is a cool little allusion to Virgil's Aeneid near the end... if you've read it, you'll know what I mean
  

Cons:

• Not even freakin filmed in Greece, they cheaped out and filmed in Mexico (jaysus, even Gladiator shot inside the Colisseum)


• Speaking of Gladiator, there were many aspects of Troy that ripped off the fine Oscar-winning film... so much so that Jeff kept whispering "Roman Victor!!!"


• Dear Wolfgang, the Trojan war lasted 10 years according to The Iliad, not 17 DAYS... idiot


• Dear Wolfgang, don't try to redeem Achilles at the end by throwing in a pointless romance... sheesh... besides, rumour has it that Achilles and his cousin Patroclus were lovers *gasp*
  

I know that sounds like a LOT of complaining, but I usually hate movies that are based on books... at least, movies that are based on legends. I mean, come on, if they're historical texts that you read in school, or are in Mr. Leitch's infamous "canon", then you shouldn't fuck with it too much. My BIGGEST complaint with Troy was the time thing... Petersen could have snuck in somewhere that the war was longer than Brad Pitt's interest in some temple chick. Even if there was a small note between two scenes saying "9 Years of War and Troy still did not fall" or SOMETHING...
Anyhoo, yeah, well, I WOULD recommend this movie just for the entertainment value... and the eye candy (bwa hahaha)...