(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

Try saying that five times fast!

The H-Bomb:  Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) calls her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), out of the blue after two years of no contact.  Martha’s story is that she’s been living in the Catskills with some boyfriend all this time.  Lucy agrees to take her in for the time being and brings her to the gorgeous, lakefront vacation house in Connecticut that she shares with her husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy).

As glad as Lucy may be to have her younger sister back in her life, she and Ted both can’t help but notice that Martha’s behavior is a little… peculiar.  Martha’s quirks start out as strange but minor annoyances; saying inappropriate things (“Is it true that married people never fuck?”), doing inappropriate things (skinny dipping in the lake in broad daylight with people about), but it’s all nothing they can’t just shrug off and ignore.  However, Martha’s bizarre behavior soon escalates, with Lucy and Ted being especially disconcerted when Martha sneaks into their room and jumps into bed with them while they’re having sex, and from there they watch in alarm as she becomes increasingly erratic, confrontational, and even fearful that someone might be after her.

But why would anyone be after Martha?  Well, as we the viewers are already fully aware of, Martha has spent the last two years in the Catskills, but not with just some boyfriend…  she had fallen in with a cult.  A commune-like cult, of about twenty or so, run out of a farmhouse, and led by the charismatic, but quietly intimidating Patrick (John Hawkes).  We never really find out much about this cult, other than it takes in society’s young strays, teens and twenty-somethings, “cleanses” them, and gives them each a job on the farm.  For the women, it’s usually cooking, cleaning, working in the garden, or taking care of the many infants Patrick has fathered, all of whom, creepily, are boys.  It’s a patriarchal cult, with the men in charge of the women, and Patrick in charge of them all.  He even gives them all new names when they join his flock (in Martha‘s case, Marcy May), as one of his ways of asserting ownership of them.

At first Martha is happy here, but over time she sees things that make her disillusioned with her “new family,” and once she finally realizes how dangerous they and Patrick really are, she splits.  Now, living not so happily with her sister and brother-in-law, she has reason to believe that the cult members have found out where she is and are coming to get her…  or are they?

The film remains skillfully ambiguous about that, right up until the final frame, and that is part of what makes Martha Marcy May Marlene, a psychological drama from feature debuting writer/director Sean Durkin, so damn effective.  Maybe they’re really after her, maybe it’s all just in her head…  who knows?  The story is structured in a way that it’s constantly cutting back and forth between what’s happening with Martha at her sister’s house in the present, and glimpses of her time with Patrick’s cult.  Often times, it’s something Martha says or does in the present that triggers memories of the past.  And the more she remembers of what went on at that farmhouse, the more frightened and unhinged she becomes.

What really helps to elevate this understated thriller is the surprisingly incredible turn by Olsen, the younger sister of the Olsen Twins, and apparently sole heir to any acting talent in that family, as the title character (and many titles she does have).  She makes Martha (Marcy May Marlene) endearingly shy and awkward, and gives her a sense of paranoia that intensifies throughout.  This is a star making performance if I ever saw one, despite the film being a modest indie, and I can say with confidence that Olsen definitely has great things coming her way in the not so distant future.

Also delivering a knockout performance is veteran character actor Hawkes (Winter’s Bone), who is downright chilling as Patrick.  On the surface he’s calm and friendly, but almost immediately one can sense something much, much darker underneath that welcoming smile of his.  We see this when he “cleanses” the new women who come under his wing, by drugging them and then… doing something else.  He will scold his followers, should they step out of line, and get them to bow to his will, all the while never even raising his voice.  Hawkes makes it all look so damn easy, turning Patrick into one of the scarier movie characters I’ve seen in a while.

Paulson and Dancy are also terrific as the put upon sister and brother-in-law, Lucy and Ted.  They want to do the right thing by helping Martha, as they know that something has happened to her, but she’s not saying what, and they’re both gradually driven to the end of their patience by her crazy antics.  They do a fantastic job of conveying the couple’s feelings of helplessness and frustration.  Kudos to them both.

If there’s anything to put people off from seeing Martha Marcy May Marlene, it’s that it’s deliberately slow paced and quiet in it’s approach.  It’s a film, that while a thriller, prefers subtly disturbing the audience with suggestion over showing anything explicit.  In fact, there’s only one act of graphic violence, and even that is over very quickly.  In terms of being low key, it makes Drive look like a Michael Bay movie by comparison.  And much like Drive, Martha Marcy May Marlene is another terrific film that, despite some rave reviews, not very many people have seen.  I’d hate to fall back on this old cliché, but if Drive was the best film of 2011 that you didn’t see, then Martha Marcy May Marlene is most definitely the second best.  And now that it’s out on DVD, I’d say that now is the time to see it.

(1 People gave this 1.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

John Carter of Mars, actually.

The H-Bomb:  Because that sounds a lot better than John Carter of Earth, doesn’t it?  And just who is this John Carter (Taylor Kitsch)?  Well, he’s a decorated hero of the Civil War who, due to a tragedy in his past, has turned his back on his duty and his fellow man in favor of searching for a legendary cave of gold.  During this search, he comes upon a strange medallion that whisks him off to… a very, very strange place.

Soon after arriving in this strange desert place, John discovers that he can now jump abnormally high, as in hundreds of feet.  Unfortunately for him, before he can really enjoy his new found ability, he is attacked and captured by Tharks, a violent race of large, ugly green creatures with four arms and tusks growing out of their faces.  Most of the Tharks want to feed him to the big “white apes,” but their fearless leader, Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe), wants to hold him captive because… he really likes the way John can jump.

John, erstwhile, is just confused as hell, as he really has no clue where he is or how he got there.  Eventually, through the miracle of exposition, John comes to realize that he somehow transported to the planet Mars, or as the locals call it, Barsoom.  If that’s not bad enough, John finds out that the planet is in the middle of a war between the city states of Zodanga, a traveling city that has been conquering all the cities on the planet, and Helium, the last city that has been able to stand up to them.

In an effort to end the war, Tardos Mors (Ciaran Hinds), the leader of Helium, offers the leader of Zodanga, Sab Than (Dominic West), the hand of his daughter, Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins), in marriage.  She, of course, objects to this idea, sensing it is just a ploy, and runs off to go join her fellow countrymen in battle.  One of these battles happens near the Thark hideout, and while the Tharks are all placing bets on who will win, John sees Dejah in danger, and since these Martians look human, he saves her life.

They take one look at each other, and since he’s hot, and she’s hot, it’s love at first sight.  So now John must utilize his mad jumping skills to help the Princess defeat Zodanga once and for all, and find a way back to Earth.  But, aside from the obvious dangers, he will also have to be careful of the Thern, a shape shifting God-like race who “control things” on Mars, and who view John’s presence on the planet as a threat to the natural order of things.  Or something.

Adapted from the classic novel The Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter (of Mars) has apparently spent eight decades in development and finally comes to us via Disney with a jaw dropping budget of $250 million, making it one of the most expensive films ever made.  The influence of the novel has been far reaching and is quite evident in such films as Star Wars, Dune, Avatar, and even Stargate.  It’s that influence that causes John Carter to seem like too little, too late, as so much of what goes on is so familiar by now.

Also, if a film is going to cost $250 million to produce, then that film had better knock me on my ass and blow me away.  Sadly, this film does neither.  It has all the CGI money can buy, and a pretty epic look and feel to it, but as a whole, I found it all pretty underwhelming.  The battle scenes, as big as they tried to be, had little impact and just weren’t that exciting.  They were aided in no way by the 3D, which added absolutely nothing to the picture.  In fact, not only did the 3D not help to immerse me in the story, I found it to be distinctly flat and unimpressive.

The story often is bogged down by clunky exposition, explaining its convoluted Space Opera plot that, again, just seems old hat nowadays.  Not to mention it relies too heavily on convenient contrivances throughout, such as John drinking some kind of potion that magically makes him understand the Martian language (never read the book, don’t know if that was in there or not, but either way, it’s stupid).

When we first meet John, he is selfish and off-putting, and for the longest time, we don’t know why, and the few fleeting flashbacks of his dead family just don’t cut it.  I also didn’t get a clear reason why the bad guys wanted to take over every city on Mars, aside from that they’re bad guys and that’s what bad guys do.  Another thing, and I know that this book was written like a bagillion years ago and is supposed to be fantasy and whatnot, but the fact that the planet Mars looks absolutely nothing like this in reality kept nagging at me throughout.  The whole time I just couldn’t stop thinking, “Why the hell does Mars look so much like Utah?”

Okay, I’ve been beating up on John Carter pretty badly, so now I shall move on to one of its big positives: the cast.  Kitsch has a very strong screen presence and made for a very commanding lead.  He plays Carter with a sense of humor, even allowing himself to look foolish at times, which goes a long way in making him sympathetic, even when he’s being a dick, and keeps him from being just another “bland leading man.”  He’s well matched by Collins, who is not only a pretty convincing ass kicker in her own right, but also spends the bulk of the movie in skimpy, Princess Leia-style bikinis. That I do appreciate.

West is deliciously slimy (if a bit campy) as the villain, and Mark Strong is downright creepy as Matai Shang, the most prominent Thern.  He’s bald, evil, and scary… and that is why he is awesome.  My favorite of the entire cast would have to be Dafoe, as the voice of the Thark leader.  He gives this big, green ugly thing a sense of dignity and made me forget I was watching a special effect.  That takes talent.

Aside from making some very solid casting choices, director/co-writer Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) also helped by injecting a healthy dose of humor into the story, when appropriate, like the ridiculous game of charades that John plays with Tars when they first meet, or the loveable dog thing that follows John everywhere he goes.  Stanton also makes good use of the CGI, making creatures life like and environments eye catching (though again, the 3D did nothing to enhance it), as well as keeping the gigantic story moving at a fairly decent pace, so while I was never entirely engaged with it, I was never bored, either.

Overall, by the time John Carter (of Mars) ended, I was left with a film that I neither loved nor hated.  While I found it perfectly watchable, I just wasn’t that interested in its oh-so-ambitious narrative, nor was I all that invested in what was happening.  I take it this is meant to be the first of a possible franchise, but I must admit I’m not very curious to see where it goes from here.  Disney sure sank a crap-ton of money into this, I just wish they ended up with something more than this utterly generic epic.  Fans of the books may rate this higher, after all, they certainly did wait long enough for this movie, but I have the feeling that most will be as indifferent to it as I am.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

“We’re just having a little get-together…”

The H-Bomb:  Dorky high school kid Thomas is turning seventeen on the same weekend that his parents are going out of town for their anniversary.  So his best friend, Costa (a poor man’s Jonah Hill), sees the opportunity to throw a huge birthday party at Thomas’s house.  He plans on making it epic, the birthday party to end all birthday parties, even recruiting goth weirdo Dax, from the “Gay/V Club,” to videotape the whole thing.  Being that Costa is a deep and sensitive young man, his noble goal for this celebration is to get Thomas and himself laid by the hottest girls in school. [Swift note: shocking]

They’ll party all Friday night, spend the rest of the weekend cleaning up, and Thomas’s folks will be none the wiser.  Unfortunately for them, they did too good a job getting the word out, as practically every young person in Pasadena shows up (along with a creepy middle-aged guy), drinking and drugging and dry humping the night away.  Shit gets crazier and crazier as people jump off roofs, cars are driven into pools, and eventually the cops are called to the scene, followed by the news media, then the SWAT Team.  Finally, the roof is literally set on fire, and all Thomas and Costa can do is stand-by helplessly and watch the motherfucker burn, burn motherfucker, burn.

If you’re looking for any more story than that, then go see something else.  Take any teenage sex comedy you’ve ever seen, American Pie, Superbad, whatever, take the party scene from those movies, stretch it out to feature length, shoot it in “Found Footage/Faux-Doc” style, amp up the alcohol/drug use by about a million, then throw in a cute little dog, a guy with a flame thrower, a couple of overzealous twelve-year-old security guards, and a testicle punching midget (billed as “Angry Little Person”), and you have the sure to be modern masterpiece, the film that will most definitely sweep next years Oscars, and be studied by film students and scholars for generations to come…  Project X.

Okay, so Project X isn’t any kind of masterpiece, nor will it be studied by anyone (except as a “How to party” guide by socially challenged high schoolers).  When I first read the synopsis to this movie, I thought it sounded fucking terrible.  When I watched the trailer, I thought it looked fucking terrible.  I didn’t even like going to these kinds of parties when I was in high school, why in the hell would I want to watch a whole movie about one, especially one shot in that uber-cliched “Found Footage” style.  I really did drag my heels into the screening, fearing that this would be so Goddamn stupid that I would actually feel my brain cells die off as I watched it.

So, much to my own surprise, I have to say that Project X isn’t half bad.  Again, it’s no classic, but over the course of its eighty-something minutes, it actually won me over…  to an extent.  Yeah, the main characters are a couple of shallow idiots, and the story only barely qualifies as a story, but it did make me kind of like these characters (the not-Jonah Hill guy does grow on you, despite being an obnoxious douche), it did make me feel like I was in the middle of this shindig, and it did make me laugh with more than a few outrageous, what-the-fuck moments that kept me on my toes.  Of course, I won’t spoil them here, except to say the things they do to that poor little dog… oh, and the encounter with a psychotic drug dealer and his bird flippin’ garden gnome… hilarious!

Apparently, this is based on a true incident that happened in Australia, but I couldn’t tell you how much is actually based on fact, as it all does get pretty absurd towards the end.  I imagine, in real life, this party would have been broken up long before an entire army of cops had to roll in with full riot gear and tear gas.  Sorry, but by that point, where the film becomes somewhat serious and practically turns into Goddamn Die Hard, I really stopped believing in what I was seeing.  Also, if I were to nitpick, I would wonder why Thomas is so head over heels for the “school hottie,” whom he barely knows, when his best female friend, who is clearly interested in him, is equally as attractive.  Just sayin’.

I could go on with such nitpicks, but what’s the point.  This isn’t a movie for critics, this is a movie for the people who made things like Superbad and The Hangover the hits that they were.  Project X doesn’t quite have the charm, or the likeable characters, or even the quotable dialogue that those movies gave us, but it does supply the raunchiness in spades, and fans of that kind of un-PC, dick n’ fart toilet humor should definitely check it out.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

I’m afraid more rum was needed.

The H-Bomb:  I must confess off the bat that I’ve never read anything by Hunter S. Thompson, and my only real exposure to him was from Terry Gilliam’s bat shit crazy adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I do kind of like, but ultimately just got too obnoxiously bonkers for me to really, fully embrace.  That’s why the trailers for “The Rum Diary” looked promising.  It looked as though we were going to get another glimpse into Thompson’s very unique mind, only this time in a toned down, more palatable way.

Sadly, screenwriter/director Bruce Robinson toned things down to the point where any interest or fun to be had was just evaporated.  It was like “Fear and Loathing”, except instead of tripping on Acid, it was bombed into a complete stupor of Quaaludes and Valium, so much so that all it can do is slog along from one dramatically indifferent scene to another at a leaden pace.  That is The Rum Diary, Fear and Loathing gone dull.  There is a plot, things do happen, but there is absolutely zero dramatic tension.  There’s no sense of urgency or importance, nothing to hook us in or make us invested in what’s happening.  It’s like watching the movie drunk: we see what’s happening, but we’re only watching passively, and we’re completely detached from it all.

It’s starts out promisingly enough, with Johnny Depp once again stepping into the role of Thompson’s surrogate, this time named Paul Kemp.  The story is set in Puerto Rico in 1960, with boozy writer Kemp arriving fresh from the States to work as a reporter for some local rag that is slowly going the way of the Dodo.  Kemp is serious about being a journalist and wants to tackle important stories, but his cynical, toupee-topped editor (Richard Jenkins) just wants him to write fluff about fat American tourists at bowling alleys.   Kemp isn’t particularly happy about this, but just keep the rum flowing, and he’ll be fine (hey, sounds like me).

Eventually, he crosses paths with wealthy douche bag Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), who, we eventually find out, wants Kemp to write promotional pieces for an island resort that he’s trying to interest investors in.  Kemp becomes involved with Sanderson’s beautiful girlfriend, Chennault (Amber Heard), and soon discovers what a shady guy Sanderson really is.  It’s then that Kemp sets about finding a way to bring him down, with the power of the printed word.  All the while, the unfocused narrative sends Kemp on a series of misadventures with fellow alcoholic writers Moberg (Giovanni Ribisi) and Sala (Michael Rispoli).  These include scary altercations with gringo hating locals and accidentally setting a cop on fire.  Sometimes the antics rise to the level of mildly amusing, but never beyond that, and not often enough.

And again, that‘s the dang problem. The Rum Diary is the most bewilderingly boring film I have ever seen.  Overall it’s about Thompson discovering his voice as a writer, and that certainly had the potential to be a fascinating story, but the execution is just so Goddamn blasé that it‘s actually frustrating to think about what a squandered opportunity this movie is.  The actors do try, with Depp back in the Thompson role.  Only this time, instead of playing zany, drugged out Thompson, he’s playing restrained, drunk Thompson.  His performance is very understated, and sadly, that only adds to the film’s lack of dramatic oomph.

Eckhart is perfectly cast as the sleazy, rich slime ball, but the movie didn’t make me care enough to hate him.  Ribisi and Jenkins actually are funny as the more lively and eccentric characters in the piece, but they couldn’t salvage it.  Heard is not bad to look at, but writing wise, her role is terminally malnourished.  Here, she is eye candy, and nothing more.

This is a project that Depp, who also produced, had been nurturing for a long, long time, at least a decade, and I really wish the end result would have been more worth his while.  I wish it had been more worth my while, as well.  Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was certainly not a perfect film, but it was also certainly never boring for a second, either.  The Rum Diary just runs on the same flat tempo all the way through to its utterly “so what” ending.  It’s not funny enough to keep me entertained, as comedy-wise, all the best bits are in the trailer.  The limp attempts at drama are not engaging enough to make me care, and all I was left with at the end were two hours that I wished I had back.

out of – Because I can’t give it NEGATIVE SIX STARS!!!!

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

The “Meta” sequel to Rick Swift’s ‘favorite’ film of 2010!

The H-Bomb:  Wow.  Fine readers of iRATEFilms, I have seen some Baaad movies in my life.  Be it Princess Coppola’s recent pretentious non-movie, Somewhere, or the all time crud sucker, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4, I have plummeted to the deepest depths of cinematic depravity, and I have managed to survive most of them unscathed.  I weathered the uncensored international cut of A Serbian Film, and was able to laugh about it afterward.  I managed to sit through Irreversible, and managed to not only not get sick by all the spinney cam, but to actually love that film.  In fact, never, in the almost three decades of my movie watching life, has a film, no matter how hard it tried, made me physically ill . . . until tonight.

Normally I don’t sit down immediately after watching a movie to review it, but tonight, I have seen Hell with mine own two eye . . . and it is The Human Centipede II.  I knew enough about the first Human Centipede to know I had no interest in seeing it (I watched enough “caustic” video reviews of it to know the whole plot, including the ending, anyway), so what possibly could have drawn me to this “meta” sequel?  I don’t know, what draws us to smoke our first cigarette, or to try crack-cocaine, or to voluntarily eat at McDonald’s . . . we as human beings are sometimes just inexplicably pulled to things we know will be bad for us.  I knew this would be bad, and I had a plentiful supply of alcohol that I thought would help me through it, but Christ on his throne, I should have brought along a barf bag!

It happened at the extensive climax of the film.  Our “hero” has accomplished his “goal,” sewing up twelve people ass-to-mouth.  I had long passed the point of “I don’t give a fuck” and was just laughing my ass off at what was happening on screen . . . that’s when the film decided to wholly and completely one-up its predecessor in utter cinematic grossness:

[***SPOILER ALERT***] 

The “hero” goes up to the front human and force feeds her canned dog food through a tube.  This starts a chain reaction where each person sprays diarrhea into the mouth of the person behind them.  Then as a capper, the “hero” goes up to the lady at the end of the centipede and pulls down his pants, revealing his chubby little pecker wrapped in barbwire.  He penetrates her with his barbed-up thing . . . and  that’s when it happened . . . I gagged, then before I knew it, the contents of my stomach were all over the footrest in front of me.

[***END SPOILER ALERT***]

Congratulations to Tom Six, the writer/director of both Human Centipede films and real life Internet Troll, of all the gore-strewn movies I have seen, yours is the first to make me spew.  Fuck You!

Holy God, now that I have that off my chest, my review proper shall commence.  The Human Centipede II is a film that no person should ever, ever, EVER SEE!  If one ever had the option of watching this movie once or being water-boarded with un-flushed toilet water for twelve hours straight, I would, for their sake, recommend the water boarding.  Terrorists would not even fathom forcing infidels to watch this movie, because even they would consider it unconscionably cruel and unusual punishment.  Great Caesar’s Ball Sack, have I spelled it out enough for you people?!

Okay, I shall continue.  Ugggghhhh, is this “plot” even worth describing?  Fine, here it is, our “hero” is a short, fat, toad-crossed-with-a-slug like man named Martin (Laurence R. Harvey), hopefully no relation to Laurence Harvey of The Manchurian Candidate fame.  This human dung beetle lives a miserable life in a London flat with his horrible old witch-bitch of a mother, and works a solitary job as a parking garage attendant/security guard.  He’s a quiet type (in fact he never says a word the entire movie, though he does scream and make pig like grunts when he tries to assert himself) who apparently was molested by daddy, which is why he is apparently mentally challenged.  Oh, and he loves The Human Centipede, oh does he love it!  He’s obsessed with it.  He watches it on his laptop, when it ends he rewinds it and immediately watches it again, he keeps a scrapbook full of photos and notes from the movie, and he even wraps his schlong up with sandpaper as he beats off to the three way ass-to-mouth climax.

See, that’s what makes The Human Centipede II a “Meta Sequel” (latest bullshit term dreamed up by wannabe film hipsters), because it’s set in “the real world” where the original movie is just a movie, and this one is about the sad little fuck who worships it and its protagonist, Dr. Heiter, like gods.  In fact, Martin doesn’t just hold the fictional Dr. Heiter in high esteem, he takes detailed notes of Heiter’s ass-to-mouth methods because he aims not simply to follow in his footsteps, but to surpass him completely.

And that he does!  As I mentioned, he doesn’t get just three people chain-linked, but twelve!  Over the course of the film, he stalks his victims, some known to him, others complete strangers he chances upon in the parking garage . . . all in for a unfathomably horrible fate!  He incapacitates them, ties them up, and takes them to a dingy warehouse he “rented.”  Once he has all twelve, including one pregnant woman, he aims to finish what his make-believe mentor started!  Bring on the barf inducing climax I covered earlier!  Oh, and this time it’s in beautiful Black & White, because Tom “Sick-Fuck” Six thinks that makes it artistic!  Yes, it was a Black & White movie that made me toss my cookies.  Cannibal Holocaust, Day of the Dead, a B&W flick managed to make me do what you couldn’t.

I’m guessing this toad-slug Martin is the exact kind of person that director Six imagined would be the target audience for the first Human Centipede.  To that, I have to give it to Mr. Six, he’s probably absolutely, spot-on fucking right!  Martin is exactly the kind of anti-social, manic-depressive, psychotic, terminally fucked-up kind of individual who would enjoy and idolize these utterly worthless, witless, detestable sick-jokes masquerading as movies.

I just as soon assume Mr. Six had no fucking audience in mind, as he is a troll filmmaker, in the Uwe Boll mold, who is making these for what is known in the Internet parlance as the “Lulz.”  I honestly believe he made these atrocities simply so he could walk into a darkened theater with a pair of night vision goggles and laugh at all the people who are choking and puking in the aisles because of the wretch inducing garbage he created.

I can honestly think of no other reason why this movie exists.  I also can’t imagine why Ashlynn Yennie, one of the female stars of the original, agreed to come back to play “herself,”  who happens to be the object of Martin’s masturbatory fantasies.  Not only does she return, but she allows herself to be completely demeaned yet again by stripping naked, getting on her hands and knees, and becoming part of the twelve part human centipede.  Oh dear Ashlynn, I hope the money was worth it, sweetheart.

In case you haven’t caught on by now, people, I shall spell it out: I did not like The Human Centipede II.  Just thought I’d reiterate that, just in case one of you out there is more retarded than dear Martin.  Not just the worst film of 2011, not just the worst film of the past decade, but quite possibly the worst film I have ever fucking subjected myself to.  No, make that DEFINITELY the worst film!  Move over Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4, unholy piece of S-H-I-Tut that you are.  This is now the movie by which I will compare all other horrible movies.  I’m no prude, I can take the worst that cinema can dish out, but . . . again, this literally made me vomit!  It’s a reprehensible abomination, its existence is indefensible, and now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go clean the vomit off my footrest.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

What is it they said about politics and bedfellows?

The H-Bomb:  It’s the Ohio Democratic Primary, and presidential hopeful Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney) is running neck-and-neck with his rival, Senator Pullman.  Despite having one of the best campaign managers in the business, Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Zara’s wunderkind No. 2 Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling), heading his campaign, Morris is still trailing Pullman by a few points in the polls.  A lot hinges on which candidate will receive the endorsement of Senator Thompson (Jeffrey Wright), whose recommendation will go to the highest bidder (meaning whoever promises him the best job in their administration).

Stephen is a 30-year-old idealist who has worked on more campaigns than most guys in their forties, and who earnestly believes in his Morris and all that he stands for.  One day, Stephen is contacted by Pullman’s campaign manager, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), who asks to meet him for a drink.  After some finagling, Stephen agrees, against his better judgment, to meet with him.  It’s during this friendly little talk that Duffy tries to convince Stephen that Morris is a lost cause and to jump ship and join the Pullman campaign.  Although Stephen more or less tells Duffy to go suck a duck, if word ever got out that he had a one-on-one meeting with the opposition in secret, it could be very bad for him, career-wise.

To make matters even more complicated for Stephen, he has started a relationship with a young campaign intern named Molley (Evan Rachel Wood), who happens to be the daughter of the DNC Chairman.  After answering an ill-timed phone call at two in the morning, Stephen finds out that Molley has a skeleton in her closet . . . a big one.

For spoilers sake, I’ll stop there, except to say that from there a whole lot of back stabbing, double dealing, and blackmailing ensues.  The kind that could destroy Stephen’s idealism and force him to take actions that he never imagined he would be capable of taking.

The Ides of March, co-written and directed by George Clooney, is a sizzling, sharply penned thriller that has, above all else, reaffirmed my own feelings towards politicians: I don’t fucking trust them.  Any of them.  Democrat, Republican, it don’t matter, they are all about as straight as Quasimodo’s spinal chord.  It’s a film that shows that almost everything that a candidate says publicly is scripted and rehearsed, even when they’re allegedly speaking off the cuff, and that winning elections isn’t all about how many votes you can get, but how many you can buy through backroom deals and shady power plays.

It’s fitting that the day before I screened The Ides of March, I watched, for the first time, Frank Capra’s, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  These are both films about naive young men who enter the political world in order to do some good and become disillusioned.  But where Jimmy Stewart’s Mr. Smith managed to remain uncorrupted through it all (Jimmy Stewart cannot be corrupted), Gosling’s Stephen finds that he will have to “get down in the fuckin’ mud” if he wants to keep his career.  And that’s what it’s all about, folks, that even those who go into the political arena with noble intentions will eventually go bad because that’s the way the system is.  No one is immune.

This kind of cynical look at our political system is certainly nothing new, but this one does have an air of credibility to it in that it was adapted from the stage play, “Farragut North” by Beau Willimon, who worked on Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, and thus is savvy to the behind-the-scenes workings of a major political campaign in a way that your average writer is not.  How much is truth, and how much is drama, I of course can’t say for sure, just that I, with one exception I’ll get to in a bit, did believe it all the way through.

The dialogue and the drama all felt authentic, and the characters all come to life through the work of a uniformly excellent cast firing on all cylinders.  I was dumbfounded that Gosling wasn’t nominated for his incredible, understated turn in “Drive”, but after watching his powerhouse turn in this, where he’s actually allowed to speak, I’m convinced the Academy has something against the guy (maybe because he was once a Mouseketeer?).  Most actors in his age bracket would have shriveled up while standing alongside the likes of Hoffman, Giamatti, and Clooney, but Gosling managed to carry the film marvelously.  Oscar, dear boy, you are are this close to losing all credibility in my eyes.

As far the other names I mentioned go, they are all as brilliant as you would expect them to be, and since this is a true actor‘s piece, each and every one of them has copious moments to shine, be it Hoffman ranting about loyalty, or Giamatti warning Gosling to get out of the game before he ends up jaded just like him.  Of the whole supporting cast, it is Clooney, as smoothly charismatic as ever as the Obama-like Morris, who shines the most.  Watching him deliver a speech, I absolutely believe that he could run for office and win, if he so desired.  He also delivers with his assured direction, which is up for an Oscar.  His direction is slick but straightforward, focusing our attention right where it should be, on the actors and the story.

Which brings me back to that one thing I didn’t quite believe, the one aspect of the film that didn’t work; the fact that Gosling’s Stephen is pretty damn naive for a guy who’s allegedly worked on more campaigns than most guys a decade older than him.  Every time someone figuratively sticks a knife in his back, he is genuinely shocked.  He is thirty, not twenty, and one would think he would be considerably more wise to how ruthlessly cutthroat this business can be.  Like he himself says to one of his underlings, “This is the big leagues.  If you fuck up, you’re done.”

That one grievance aside, The Ides of March is a smart if surprisingly cynical drama that shows that there are no good guys in politics, there’s just the lesser of two evils, and good luck trying to figure out which one that is.  It is a fascinating, fantastically written film by an actor/director who is improving with each project, that deserves to be seen by more people than it has been.  Rent it today.

(3 People gave this 5.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

“I don’t sit in while you’re running it down.  I don’t carry a gun.  I drive.”

The H-Bomb:  A movie stunt driver/mechanic (Ryan Gosling) moonlights as a getaway driver for various underworld characters as they do their various underworld things (usually robberies).  He gives them exactly five minutes to do whatever they’re there to do, and if they’re even one second late, he’ll take off and leave them on their own.  We never learn much about this driver, not even his actual name, just that he’s very good at what he does, and he’s a strict believer in minding his own business.  He’s a loner by choice and only speaks when he has something to say, which isn’t very often, and the closest thing he has to a friend is his boss, garage owner Shannon (Bryan Cranston).

Shannon has a lofty plan of putting the driver on the racing circuit, where he believes, not unreasonably, that his driver will excel.  He goes to his old gangster friend, Bernie (Albert Brooks), to borrow four hundred grand for a stock car, and after Bernie gets a gander of what the driver can do on the racetrack, he agrees.  It seems that things are looking up for Shannon and the Driver, but then something happens… the Driver meets a girl (Carey Mulligan).

Her name is Irene, she lives on the same floor of his apartment building, and she’s taking care of her young son on her own while her husband is in prison.  They don‘t exchange many words, but there clearly is a connection between them, and as the Driver spends more time with Irene, he even becomes a kind of surrogate father to her son.  This makes things a little awkward at first when Irene’s husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), is released from prison.

But before Standard gets the chance to really grill the Driver about the affair he may or may not have had with his wife, his old prison buddies, who he owes protection money to, come calling, wanting him to hold up a pawn shop.  As a favor, the Driver agrees to sit behind the wheel of the getaway car.  It looks like a typical in and out job that he’s done a hundred times before, and nothing could go wrong…  famous last words.

Unfortunately for the Driver, nothing goes according to plan, and the fallout could have very violent repercussions for not only him, but for Irene, her son, and Shannon, as well.

I don’t think I’m overstating a thing when I say that “Drive” is quite possibly the best film of 2011 that you haven’t seen.  I myself was a little hesitant to sit down and watch it, because after all the positive buzz I’ve heard about it on the Internet, I was afraid that it might have been over-hyped for me.  I was dead fucking wrong.  It absolutely, for me, lived up to the hype, and now I couldn’t be more happy to join the chorus in singing its praises.

Based on the novel by James Sallis, “Drive” is a tense, slow burner where the dialogue is sparse and the violence is fast and brutal.  I’m talking point blank shotgun blast to the side of the head, fork jammed in the eyeball kind of brutality.  It’s a hard R-rated movie with a stiff dick and a hefty set of testies, with real brains and a sense of artistry behind it, the likes of which we don’t see nearly enough of these days.

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (“Bronson”, another bad ass motherfucker of a flick I highly recommend) does an excellent job creating the bleak, unforgiving world these people inhabit.  It’s a world where the shit is stacked so high that no one can stay completely above it, no matter how hard they try.  Refn gives the film a stark, modern Noir visual style, especially during the nighttime driving scenes, which is complemented perfectly by Cliff Martinez’s evocative score and his use of 80’s pop tracks at the beginning and end of the film.  It has the look and feel of a Michael Mann film, except on a significantly lower budget.

Refn also manages to pull some tremendous performances out of his top notch cast.  This isn’t really an Oscar movie, but the Academy shall forever live in shame for not recognizing Gosling’s turn for the award caliber performance that it is.  What he does in “Drive” is the epitome of an actor doing a whole lot with very little.  As stated, he has precious few lines in the movie, but he has a face that says so much that he really doesn’t need much dialogue.  His relationship with Mulligan’s Irene has the richest chemistry of any I’ve seen in recent memory, and it’s one that’s built mainly on silent gazes.  You can tell from his face whether or not he likes someone, and he does it in a way that is totally natural.  Gosling is the poo, shame on you, Academy!  Shame on you!

Also, shame on you for overlooking Albert Brooks’ terrific work in this.  Bernie the gangster is the kind of character you would never even think to cast Brooks as, but he’s brilliant. The guy plays a bad ass… and he’s completely, one hundred percent believable.  When he jams a knife into some poor schmuck’s throat, you will believe that he is the last person on the planet you would ever want to fuck with.

Bryan Cranston is also great as the gimp-legged Shannon, who provides a few laughs throughout.  Even when he’s bragging about how he shamelessly takes advantage of the Driver, he’s still likeable.  Ron Perlman gets a little hammy as Nino, a trash talkin’ Jewish gangster and Bernie’s partner in crime, but it’s still good to see him in there.

Now if all that isn’t enough to make you want to see “Drive”, then you obviously haven’t been paying any fucking attention.  This is one instance where the hype got it right.  It is one amazing, wild ass ride of a motion picture running on all cylinders.  It may sound like a B-movie from the plot description, but the A-list talent both in front of and behind the camera help raise it to a whole new level of awesome.  Don’t let this one leave you in the dust, check it out today!

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

Just let this sleeping dog lie.

The H-Bomb: Young, dull newlyweds David (James Marsden) and Amy (Kate Bosworth) move from L.A. to the small southern town where Amy grew up. David is a screenwriter, and he hopes that the peace and quiet of their isolated farm house will be the perfect place to work on his script. Unfortunately for him, the local hillbillies they hired to fix up the barn roof have other ideas. It’s bad enough that David is an outsider and a city boy with a condescending, intellectual air to him, but the fact that he hired Charlie (Alexander Skarsgard), Amy’s old high school beau, to work on the roof only makes matters worse. See, Charlie still has an eye for Amy, and he doesn’t much care for her running off and marrying this nerdy little Joe Hollywood douche bag, so… I think you can guess where this is going.

Charlie and his buddies’ taunts start out as minor annoyances; showing up to work at the crack of dawn with their shit-kicker music blasting, walking into David’s house uninvited and just helping themselves to whatever’s in his fridge, cutting out at midday to go hunting, so on and so forth. Being that David is a product of the Left Coast and a very principled pacifist (so he tells us), he is willing to turn the other cheek and try not to let it get to him.

But Charlie’s antics soon escalate and become more hostile and dangerous; David is run off the road by their truck, pet cats turn up dead (why does that sound familiar), and eventually a vicious assault takes place. If David and Amy had even an iota of common sense, they would just cut their losses and leave, but David isn’t about to be driven out of his home, and he now has a lot of manning up to do before the inevitable violent showdown.

You’d think after the dismal failure that was the “The Getaway” remake, that Hollywood would know better than to redo Sam Peckinpah, the guns n’ booze auteur who had an arresting, kick-to-the-dick style that no one could ever replicate, but that didn’t stop them from trying. This time, they tried doing it with “Straw Dogs”, his 1971 film about a non-violent man pushed to the breaking point. It was mucho controversial when released, but it’s kind of tame by today’s standards.

For this remake, the setting has been changed from rural England to the rural U.S., and the main character’s profession has been switched, inconsequentially, from mathematician to screenwriter, but everything else follows the plot of the original to the letter. The result is a banal, quasi-boring film which adds nothing new to the story thematically, and ultimately has no reason whatsoever to exist. The graphic violence of the Peckinpah film is retained, including the infamous use of a bear trap, but the potency is gone.

Writer/Director Rod Lurie (“The Contender”, a putrid film) also didn’t do himself any favors by making all the small town folk a bunch of tobaccy chewin’, beer swilling, narrow minded primates who enjoy bullying and tormenting outsiders when they’re not too busy fucking their own relatives. It’s the kind of lame, clichéd small town stereotype that could only have been written by some snotty writer who has never actually been to a small town in his life.

I also love how Lurie has his protagonists say and do the most stupid, illogical things imaginable simply because the plot needs them to, like having the atheist David wax philosophical about religion with Charlie by calling God a “bully,” or having him say shit like, “I’m a writer, that means I work for a living” to a blue collar guy who actually does work for a living. Jesus, a fucking first grader would know better.

But the real kicker, the one that truly insults the intelligence, is what Lurie has Amy do after she catches Charlie and his slobbering goons eyeballing her; she opens her bedroom window and strips naked in front of them. Seriously, is this chick retarded?! What was she thinking? Can she even think? Does she even have a brain? Apparently, Lurie forgot to give her one.

Lurie also forgot to fix the one aspect of the 1971 film that, at least I think, doesn’t work, the reason for the final confrontation. It doesn’t come about from the simmering hatred that builds between David and Charlie, but from a subplot about the town retard who likes to touch children. It bothered me in the Peckinpah version, and it only added to my list of reasons to dislike the Lurie version.

Moving on to the performances, it’s a mixed bag. Marsden and Bosworth are reunited from “Superman Returns” and display the exact same lack of chemistry that they had in that film. They are both big zeros, and it should be noted that James Marsden is no Dustin Hoffman. Skarsgard (son of Stellan) is actually quite menacing and subtle as Charlie. His performance is one of the movie’s few virtues, and for a Swede, he made a pretty convincing redneck. James Woods is fun to watch as the alcoholic ex-high school football coach who also makes trouble for David and Amy. The only problem I had with him was that I didn’t believe for a second that he could actually intimidate an entire barroom full of good ol’ boys the way he does here.

(H-Man Parenthetical: I just remembered that Woods was also in “The Getaway” remake, as well. Weird.)

After all is said and done, this new “Straw Dogs” isn’t a terrible movie, it’s just a terribly pointless one. There’s nothing in here that Peckinpah didn’t already do better in his original film some forty years ago, and there is just no reason for this watered down, dumbed down version to have been made at all. If you must see “Straw Dogs”, do yourself a huge favor and watch the original, and give this future piece of K-Mart bargain bin fodder a pass.

(Give us your rating!!)

 Loading ...

High on fun, low on believability.

The H-Bomb:  A mysterious man (Sam Worthington) checks into a Manhattan hotel alone.  He treats himself to an extravagant meal, then wipes the room clean of all fingerprints and climbs out the window and onto the ledge.  It’s not long before he’s spotted by some do-gooder on the street far down below, and a crowd gathers to see if he’ll jump.  Some even cheer for him to jump!  Soon the police and the media both show up, and the whole thing turns into a big fiasco.

Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), a police psychiatrist with a drinking problem and a sad back story, is called to the scene to try and talk the man down off the ledge, and in their back and forths she gets the feeling that he’s not really suicidal, and that there is something else going on.  Of course, we the audience, through some rather clumsy flashbacks, already know more about this man than Lydia.  We know that his name is Nick Cassidy, that he is an ex-cop who went to prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit, and that he’s an escaped fugitive trying to clear his name.

But what does all that have to do with Nick dangling off the ledge in full view of hundreds of people?  Well, maybe it’s to keep people’s eyes off of what his brother, Joey (Jamie Bell) and Joey’s girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are doing across the street, in the diamond vaults of slimy, big shot Wall Street broker David Englander (Ed Harris).  Normally, I’d be reluctant to give that much away, but the trailer already did it for me, so I figure, the hell with it.

In fact, for the audience to enjoy “Man on a Ledge”, they’ll have to say the hell with it, too, because that is exactly the kind of movie it is.  The kind of highly contrived, ridiculously illogical thriller that Hollywood cranks out every so often.  The kind where if you scrutinize the plot, the characters, or anything that’s happening, you’ll just end up frustrating yourself, but, if you can just kick back and go with it, you’ll find it fairly enjoyable.

Basically, “Man on a Ledge” is a popcorn movie, one that wouldn’t cut the muster in the summer, hence it’s being released in January, when movie theaters resemble post-apocalyptic wastelands, but essentially it is 90 some odd minutes of pure, dumb brain candy.  Those looking for a tense, single location thriller like “Phone Booth” may be disappointed, as this actually is an overly plotted heist movie in the “Inside Man” vein, only about a thousand times more improbable, and not nearly as memorable.  It’s entertaining, but you’ll be straining to remember anything that happens in it the day after you see it.

As far as performances go, this really, truly is not a performance movie, but everyone on hand does their best. Worthington is an actor who has never interested me at all.  Frankly, I find him about as exciting as a piece of plain toast and as charismatic as a bullfrog, but here, he’s actually all right.  He hasn’t converted me into a born again Worthington fan or anything, but on this occasion, he managed to make me root for him… even though the Hasselhoff hair he sports doesn’t do him any favors.  Banks, as the alcoholic police shrink, does okay, as well, but like Worthington, I find her kind of bland.

Fortunately, the solid supporting cast does help spice up the mix.  Bell is funny as Joey, Nick’s well meaning but clumsy brother, Anthony Mackie is smooth as Nick’s best friend and a fellow cop who’s a little too interested in his predicament, and Harris hams it up nicely as the stereotypical smug, cigar sucking, fat cat bad guy.  Fans of William Sadler will be pleased to see him in a smallish role as a helpful Bellhop, it’s just too bad he looks as though he aged twenty years in the past ten. I was disappointed to see Ed Burns relegated to the throwaway role of some generic detective who spends the whole movie on the sidelines.  This guy used to be a full fledged movie star.  He helped save Private Ryan, for Christ sake!  What happened?

Of everyone in the cast, the one true standout is Genesis Rodriguez.  Never heard of her before?  Don’t worry, neither have I, but I have a hunch we all will in the near future.  Her turn as Joey’s girlfriend/amateur cat burglar is sassy, sexy, and almost steals the show.  The moment where she strips down in her bra and panties to slip into her skintight catsuit is perhaps the most hysterically gratuitous thing I have ever seen in any movie, but in a movie this hokey, it’s allowed.

And hokeyness is the order of the day with this one.  There are some intensely suspenseful moments (the bit with the news chopper is great), some nifty action towards the end, and even some laugh out loud moments throughout (the old Hippie in the crowd shouting about Attica is priceless).  It all leads to a climax that is both howlingly absurd and a little under-whelming, but if you keep your expectations modest and your brain turned off, there is fun to be had… provided you have absolutely nothing better to do.