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.