A whole lot of nothing!

The H-Bomb:   Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) is an A-list movie star living the Hollywood Bad Boy life; boozing, partying, women, so on and so forth.  Basically, all the drinking, all the drugging, all the screwing are supposed too compensate for the fact that, despite being filthy rich and successful, his life is pretty damn boring (just so you know, the word “boring” and its various synonyms are going to appear frequently in this review).  It’s all Johnny’s way of filling the utter emptiness of his existence.  That’s not to say his life isn’t without its little pleasures; he’s treated to a show by a couple of pole dancing stripper twins, which he falls asleep during, he’s receiving obscene text messages from an unknown sender, he’s asked stupid questions by idiot journalists with strange accents in a press conference, and he gives absolutely worthless advice to aspiring actors.

If I had his life, I’d probably bomb myself into a perpetual stupor, as well.  Oh, but there is a bright spot through Johnny’s chemically induced haze: his lovely little daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), who is dropped on his doorstep at the famed Chateau Marmont hotel one day out of the blue.  The mother explains to him that she has to go off to parts unknown for reasons unknown, and she charges Johnny with the crucial task of getting Cleo to summer camp by a certain date.  Failure to do so could bring about catastrophic consequences that could unravel the space-time continuum and destroy existence as we know it!  Actually, none of that would happen (God forbid that would make this movie interesting, if illogical), but she does have to get to camp by a certain date.

So, stuck with the kid for a few weeks, Johnny hauls her around on all his various exploits of nothingness.  To Italy, to Vegas, and all over L.A.  We sense that he doesn’t really know his daughter, and that this is the first time he’s spending any real time with her.  So, we get treated to the pleasure of seeing them bond by doing a whole lot of nothing together… like eat ice cream in bed while watching “Friends”, or playing “Guitar Hero”, or sunbathing, amongst many, many other edge-of-your-seat activities.  And it’s during all these thrilling non-adventures that they bond in a significant way… I guess, and Johnny learns a valuable life lesson about . . . something . . . or . . . nothing.  I’m leaning towards the latter.

I really would love to discuss more of the plot, except there isn’t any more to discuss.  Sofia Coppola’s fourth film, “Somewhere”, is the latest addition to that ever growing sub-genre of indie film, the “Nothing Happens” genre.  Standing alongside such gems as “The Brown Bunny” and that Jim Jarmusch snoozer “The Limits of Control”, “Somewhere” continues in that same stylistic vein of long, static shots with seemingly endless scenes of characters doing little-to-nothing in them.  And I am speaking very literally, folks.  Every single scene in the film either has Johnny and Cleo doing nothing, or doing something so fucking mundane that it’s really not worth mentioning or watching . . . for that matter.

At the least “The Brown Bunny” rewarded us at the end with Chloe Sevigny sucking off Vincent Gallo.  With “Somewhere”, we don’t get anything even remotely that interesting or memorable.  The only scene that I would qualify as notable, and I am reaching here, is the one involving Johnny and a naked male masseuse.  The only reason I remembered that was because it’s the one quasi-entertaining scene in the entire film.  That aside, Princess Coppola’s newest opus is one in which nothing happens, then more nothing happens, then even more nothing happens, and then, mercifully, after 90-plus minutes, it ends.  This kind of minimalist style can work sometimes, “Elephant” and “Blow Up” spring to mind, but in an instance like this, where there is no compelling story, no emotion, and no drama of any kind, then it just makes for one excruciatingly DULL movie.  It was duller than a butter knife in Al Gore’s drawers.

[Swift thought: while editing this paragraph, "The Simpsons- The D'oh-cial Network" JUST burned on Princess Coppola for making movies where nothing happens!]

I’ve been writing for iRATEfilms since mid-2009, and in that time, I have sat through some genuine shitbags, but I have to say, with all sincerity, this is the worst movie I have ever reviewed for this site.  I shit thee not, dear readers, I would not say it if I didn’t mean it, it is the absolute WORST, period.  I loathed it.  Despised it.  If the DVD weren’t a rental copy, I would smash it to pieces and fucking burn it!  Holy Hell, when crap like “My Soul to Take” and the pisss poor “Hisss” look good by comparison, something is really, truly wrong.  At least those movies tried to tell stories.  They failed miserably, but they at least tried to have actual characters taking part in an actual plot, with an actual beginning, middle, and end.  “Somewhere” doesn’t even attempt any of that.  It is cinematic vapor.  It’s like an entire movie made up of outtakes . . . outtakes that go on for eternity and aren’t even remotely amusing.  And that it was brought to me by an Academy Award Winning Filmmaker makes it all the more infuriating.  Jennifer Chambers Lynch, you are off the hook, there is a new nepotistic Daddy’s Girl director at the top of my shit list now.

Some of the apologists for this empty void of nada masquerading as a movie will argue that it’s a thoughtful (sigh), existential (eye roll) tone poem (face palm) about the life of a man burned out by the meaninglessness of his fast n’ hard lifestyle, and that it’s his relationship with his daughter that brings him true happiness and redemption.  Okay, that’s all well and good, except it’s presented in such a way that it isn’t at all touching or moving.  For Christ’s sake, the movie doesn’t move!  Maybe if Princess Coppola actually bothered to write a script, instead of just turning the camera on and telling the actors to do whatever, she possibly might have had something.  Sadly, she went the lazy route instead.  “But it won Best Picture at the Venice Film Festival!”  Well, to that I have two questions, what the hell movie did they watch, and haven’t the learned to stop sampling the water whilst on those over-priced gondolas?  Did Daddy Coppola have Nitrous Oxide leaked into the theater during that screening?

The damnable thing of it is, I am a fan of Princess Coppola as a director.  “The Virgin Suicides” was near brilliant, and “Lost in Translation” was one of the best films of the last decade (though I must confess, “Marie Antoinette” looked so fucking awful from the trailers I never bothered with it).  So, as a fan of hers, I wanted to see “Somewhere” and I went in expecting to like it, but . . . as I think I clearly stated, I didn’t!  She took the understated style and tone she established with “Lost in Translation” and amplified it to a point where it rendered the movie inert, lifeless, and… did I mention boring, already?

It is a stupefyingly pretentious, astonishingly over-indulgent waste of time.  In fact, it’s worse, it’s a waste of a waste of time, made by one of the most spoiled brats in all of Hollywood, and Daddy Coppola should give that brat a good spanking, send her to her room, and not let her out until she remembers how to make a good movie again.  “Somewhere” is a film that goes absolutely nowhere, and it would be smart of you to go nowhere near it!

For a film set in a world where organs and body parts can be replaced with cheap-looking metal and plastic substitutes, Repo Men is itself devoid of a brain and a heart. This hodgepodge of a film is made up of the rotten parts of Repo! The Genetic Opera, some Guy Ritchie film, and all the bad chase scenes you never wanted to remember. Even Alice Braga and her ambrosial smirk can’t help pull this bloody thriller out of cinematic obscurity.

The screenplay was scribed by Garret Lerner and Eric Garcia, who also wrote the novel, The Repossession Mambo, which Repo Men was both based on and plugged shamelessly at the end of the film. The story is light on plot and relishes more in the intense removal of body parts throughout the film. Forest Whitaker and Jude Law star as Remy and Jake, repossession men that are sent to collect artificial organs from anyone who can’t make payments. The only way to do this, of course, is to brutally execute on the spot surgeries using tazer guns, butcher knives, chest clamps, and really whatever is handy at the moment.

The two rack up organs like it’s what they were born to do, and according to Jake, that’s just the case. Of course, things take a turn for the predictable when Remy is forced to receive his own artificial heart. The cost is too much for a working man, though, and soon he finds himself running from the very jerks he used to swap stories with by the water cooler. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, and it doesn’t even reflect the ambitious statement the film could have made about bill collectors, the health care system, or surgical-sexual fetishes.

Violence and gore in this film are both over the top and underdone. They seem to straddle the uncomfortable line between showing what these repo men might do in the actual near future, and offering an outlandish, crazy-violent romp through a dystopian future city. I would have opted for the latter and left out all the family drama that seemed to be slipped into the plot in the hopes of grounding it…somewhere.

There are very few redeemable features in Repo Men, but the scenes with Liev Schreiber, who plays Remy and Jake’s by-the-book boss, were fun to watch. It’s not thanks to a stellar performance, though, but for the mere fact that he seems about to crack up in every scene. It’s always nice to see an actor who knows the kind of role he really shouldn’t take seriously.

There isn’t much more to say about this unfortunate film, except that I did feel like taking a cue from my lady friend to take a very long bathroom break a quarter of the way through. If you feel the need to see Repo Men, just wait to get it out of a Redbox, because you’re not going to want to waste much on it. Save your money, don’t see Repo Men, and you’ll be better for it in the end.

Waste of a soul

Swift shot: I don’t care.  It was boring, full of cliches and hack writing.  Jeff Bridges can act, and clearly taking on a terrible script and making it “shine” is what passes for Academy gold these days.  Based on that caveat alone, Bridges should get the Oscar, but to quote Metallica, “So Fucking What?”  Yes, Metallica is more my speed, but I can appreciate a good film regardless of genre.  Crazy Heart is one of those movies that everyone is telling you that you are supposed to like, so, if you don’t what the hell is your problem?

It’s about a loser, a sell-out, a drunk and an overall boring washed up country music singer (and I use that term loosely).  It starts off with little promise and only gets worse from there.  Tepid, like the piss he transports with him in his Silverado, or was it a Suburban, yea, who cares?  Nothing remotely interesting happens in this film!  And, if you think it does, god-damned, you are an incredibly boring person, go live a little.

No one is really ever challenged in any significant (believable) way, and when there are challenges, all the characters conveniently solve them within one montage – if only life were so damned simple.  Hey, I have fucked my my whole life, guess I just need to fish with Robert Duvall and join the happy tree friends for an AA meeting and voila, no more problems – AWESOME!

This character has the soul of a sociopath sans the whimsy and cutting up of coeds.  Yes, again, I wanted a lot more out of this script.  It was like being God and randomly flipping through your rollodex to check on one of your creations, and instead of having mercy on him and dropping a stage-light on his head, you keep him alive for some sick amusement – which even you don’t understand.  In fact, it was very much like watching bad Mexican TV in a dilapidated hotel room, so damned uninteresting it becomes like a laxative for your mind.  So, you are God, and just sitting there watching this loser’s life and thinking, man I should turn this off, but then I would have to get up and readjust my nads.

I get this a lot, but, Rick, you didn’t tell me what the movie was about . . .  so, go read a synopsis!  Fine, it was about a washed up has been, who sells out his integrity and is so selfish he can’t do one thing without regard to his immediate gratification.  He meets a young philly who happens to be smitten with him for some reason that I will never understand.  He has some cliche lines about being on the road, living the life of a traveler, regrets not seeing his son for twenty-four years (sound familiar, The Wrestler) returns home, fishes, and does the one thing his love-interest (Maggie Gyllenhaal) asks him not to do.

Let’s talk about “demographic” here, shall we?  My detractors will say, “well, that just wasn’t Rick Swift’s scene daddy-o” (because that is how I imagine my detractors talk, like hepcats).  Bullshit, I find myself watching all manner of film in my life, and appreciating a vast variety of the cornucopia of the industry.  In Norway I taught myself how to leser Norsk (read Norwegian) by watching Swedish movies with Norwegian subtitles, after several hours of Major Dad marathons with Norwegian subtitles, whilst hearing  English.  I love Swedish films, Danish films, German, French, you name it, I like films about angst, drama, passion, deceit, conflict, you know INTERESTING themes.

But, dear reader, Crazy Heart was vapidly exhausting and mind-numbing rubbish, void of anything worthwhile, except that Bridges really does (dry heave) BECOME Bad Blake – and . . . who cares?

I am starting to sound like H-Man when he rips into a Bin Bilger here, but, my level of detestation for this film knows no bounds.  See, that was kind of a cliche, you could make a whiskey shot drinking game out of every cliche in Crazy Heart – in fact, DO IT, maybe something REMOTELY interesting will happen to you during the game.! You know that Navy commercial, “If someone wrote a story about your life . . . would anybody read it?”   Life is short, please don’t waste 112 minutes watching this crap.

Read Iratefilms.com’s interview with Writer/Director Greg Mottola here.

It’s the summer of 1987, and James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) is looking forward to spending it touring Europe. His dreams are quickly dashed when he finds out his parents (Wendie Malick and Jack Gilpin) can no longer help him afford his trip or assist him in his future plans for grad school at Columbia. Sadly, this translates into James getting the only job he’s qualified for…at Adventureland.

I really expected more from this film. The credit for that goes to the guy editing the trailer. From the trailer, the film looks like it’s full of the funny, however, Adventureland does not deliver. All the hilarity is already represented in the two minute clip.

This is director Greg Mottola’s next effort after Superbad, except he decided to write it as well. Maybe he hoped Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg left some humor in the tank for him. Unfortunately, the tank was empty. All that was left inside was a contrived love triangle and boring characters – and he ran with it. The acting in Adventureland wasn’t bad, but the chemistry between all the actors were horrible except for Bill Hader (Manager Bobby) and Kristen Wiig (Paulette). They worked very well on screen together.

Do yourself a favor, if you’ve watched the trailer, leave it at that. Spend your money on better flicks, like Fast and Furious or Monsters vs. Aliens.

 

Hässlich.

Terrible, I never played the game, didn’t know it was even out – God only knows why I rented this one, it was a direct play title from Netflix, so it felt free.  If anyone paid so much as a nickel to see this film, I truly feel sorry for them – especially in these tough economic times.  

The film has tons of shock value, and I am sure it has a loyal cult following, but unlike Idiocracy, Postal was not funny.  Where wit and satire should meet, only disgusting slum humor exists.  Most of the roles were for character actors, and I wonder what other incredibly fat women were turned down for the role of trailer-park ho – can you imagine being told you weren’t good enough for that part?  

The film was directed by game-to-gag stand-by Uwe Boll, not to be confused with the Miami Dolphins former place-kicker, Uwe von Schamann.  The German angle was borderline retarded and uninspired, for a German director – I would expect more.  Again, I have never played the game, but I understand the film is accurate.  I have no desire to play such a game, since my testicles dropped years ago, and if this crap floats your boat, please make sure you are nowhere near me on I-95 – as I am sure you are one of those text-while-driving a-holes.   

I mean, Scut Farcus was the lead, that should have told me all I needed to know.  I have seen him in other things, and short of a war movie, he should stick to his day job (I sure hope it isn’t acting).  If you want to be teased by scantily-clad, terribly bad actresses, go rent some porn – I guarantee you will find yourself feeling less guilty than paying a pfennig to watch this tripe!