A Simple Tool

A minor confession: I am not a real fan of movies from the late 60s-70s.  This is for a wide variety of meanings, mostly because filmmakers from that era seemed to have lost the ability to pace their films (hello Deer Hunter!).   Also, action scenes from the era are often ridiculously bad (and I know I’m just imposing modern sensibilities on films from 30 years ago, but too bad).   Long story short, I can’t promise that any review of a movie from the period will be unbiased.

Anyway, on to The Boys from Brazil.  The first bit of awesomeness is the fact that Steve Gutenberg is in this movie, and he looks about 12, also he looks way buffer then in the Police Academy movies (does noticing that say something about me that I’d rather not say?  gee I hope not).  Whatever, it doesn’t really matter because you quickly gets the old Nazi-knife-in-the-gut and it’s left to ace Nazi hunter Laurence Olivier (who I thought was going to turn out to be the evil Nazi before I saw the movie, what after Marathon Man and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow)  to defeat the evil Joseph Mengele (played by Gregory Peck who honestly looks kinda fat, also it’s bullshit that Atticus Finch is the bad guy, fuck this movie) and his Hitler clones.  Ok, so evil Hitler clones is an awesome idea for a movie, especially for a 30 year old movie, although I liked it better when they just saved his brain (see: They Saved Hitler’s Brain).  Strangely enough (although the cast should give it away), this is actually a serious movie.

So, how is it? Actually pretty darn entertaining.  No long, unnecessary scenes or incredibly dated cinematography.  Plus mini-Hitlers!  The kid actor who plays the mini-Hitler kinda sucks, but what can you expect from that Nazi bastard?  On the other hand, Olivier is great (duh), Peck is pretty good too (looking very much like Stacy Keech) .  I mean the plot is ridiculous and all, but the movie is made well enough that you don’t really notice unless you stop and think.

<ASIDE> Speaking of stuff that you don’t really notice unless you stop and think: In the new season of Entourage Vince is all broke and whatnot and can’t get a job.  My question: what happened to Silo the movie he was going to make at the end of the 4th season?  It’s logical that the studio cancelled after Medellin bombed but they could at least include a throwaway line about it, seriously it’s like 4 episodes in and not a mention of it, or of Billy.  I know Entourage isn’t really supposed to be a show with a tight plot, but seriously folks. </ASIDE>

Plus, at the end (SPOILERS) they just leave a bunch of mini-Hitlers sprinkled all around the world.  I don’t know how good of an idea that really was.  (END SPOILERS).  Anyway, definitely a movie worth watching.  But you really should have known that after I mentioned clone Hitlers.  Put it on the Netflix queue.

Ick.  It’s pretty hard to watch a movie with a pedophile (played by Kevin Bacon) as the protagonist, especially when said pedophile is constantly on the verge of relapse.  A bad movie about this topic would be truly horrible, luckily The Woodsman is a very, very good movie, although not one which I’m in a particular mood to watch again (see: Requiem For A Dream).  The fact that Kevin Bacon wasn’t at least nominated for an Oscar for his depiction of the conflicted, unlikable, and compelling pedophile is uttery ridiculous, seriously he’s fantastic.  The scene with him and the little girl in the park is possibly one of the most uncomfortable and excellently acted scenes I’ve ever seen in my life.  I also thought that Mos Def, as a not-entirely by the books cop, was pretty fantastic as well.  The director, Nicole Kassell, makes great use of gray skies and an urban environemnt to paint a start picture of isolation within a city of millions that I feel many urban dwellers are familiar with.  Anyway, fantastic movie, not for the faint hearted…go watch it.

You know what’s better than watching a debate?  Watching John Wayne kick ass.  Word of warning: I love westerns, keep this in mind when reading the review.

So, basic plot: John Wayne arrests the bad dude at the very beginning of the movie and bad dudes buddies come guns ablazin’ to break him out of jail.  Short on deputies and outgunned, John Wayne faces a desperate battle for etc…etc….  Sound a little familiar?  It should because Rio Bravo, famously, is Howard Hawks and Wayne’s response to High Noon, which is of course one of the greatest movies in the universe.  Basically, while all the townspeople ditch Gary Cooper in High Noon they offer to help John Wayne in Rio Bravo (although he turns them down in favor of Dino and Walter Brennan).  Ignoring the underlying politics, which don’t really affect the film that much, the movie is pretty sweet.

The case is probably the best part of the film, John Wayne and Walter Brenan are as dependable as always (so is Ward Bond (who rules) in his all to brief role) and Dean Martin is pretty awesome as a recovering drunk (I’m pretty sure this character was the basis for Gene Wilder’s in Blazing Saddles).  Unlike your average western (especially John Ford’s), the female character isn’t utterly useless and Angie Dickinson pulls it offer pretty well, even managing some chemistry with John Wayne, who is roughly a million years older than her.  The only real problems with the cast are the stereotypical “kid” Colorado and the lack of a really menacing villain, which leads into my major complaint about the film.  Where High Noon ratcheded up the tension throughout, there’s really no menance here.  All the good guy gunfighters, minus Brenan, are portrayed as far too competant (especially once the drunk Dino gets over his little 3rd act crisis) for us to actually be worried about them.  Basically, you’re just waiting to see how exactly the bad guys are going to end up dead. It’s a testament to the quality of the filmmaking and cast that the movie is still captivating throughout.  If you’re into westerns at all, you should watch this movie…if you’re new to the genre it’s not that bad but I’d start with something like Stagecoach, Red River or High Noon first.

Oh, there’s also a painfully out of place Dean Martin (+whoever plays Colorado), musical number….I don’t really know what to say about it, but it’s there.  Not a movie killer or anything….just there and totally out of place.  Of course, completely out of place musical numbers are fairly common in films before the auteur era so it really shouldn’t be that unexpected.

p.s. I’m trying out Twitterfeed so all future blog posts should also end up on twitter.

Being the dirty little liberal that I am, I simply had to watch a movie about everyone’s favorite communist to grace a t-shirt.   Hence, the Che Guevera biopic The Motorcycle Diaries.  I meant to write a lot more but it all came out garbled the first time I tried so I’ll reform my thoughts in a briefer manner.  Basically, this is one of those movies that you watch and think “that was a very good movie”, this isn’t neccesarily a good thing, however.  After truly great (or even truly very good) movies you don’t say “that was good” you say things like “holy shit that kicked ass” or “can you believe it when that dude’s head fucking exploded?”.  Diaries was not super kick ass. Instead, it falls into that broad category of movies (which are released in bunches at this time of year, just in time for Oscar judging) that are well made, well acted, critically aclaimed and utterly forgotten within two years.  I never quite know how to react to these movies, I mean I liked it, but I wouldn’t rave to my friends about it or buy it or any of those extra steps that a truly good movie motivates me to do.  The final word, basically is that it’s a good movie, better then most and I certainly recommend it, but, if it fails to leave a lasting impression in your brain, don’t come after me with a pitchfork.

Well, another year, another Clambake.  Brief Highlights:

After arriving at Manchester, I started my weekend off on the right foot by pounding a number of beers at the Smutty Nose in the airport.  Thoroughly primed, I hitched a ride with Throat (who once again had a “don’t hook up with Throat” speech given in his honor by the ladies team).  Since by this point it was dark, I put my sunglasses on (people who wear sunglasses at night are cool).  Off to Bowdoin to play golf with 40s, 21 cup pong, and beer die.  I’m 90% certain that I won every single game I played and am 100% sure that I lost Futureman’s disc while playing golf.  Wedge —> Red Brick House couch.

Day one of the tournament:  Our first game was against DOG, fresh off their win at Worlds.  We did predictably poorly as they used the “We’re extremely old and embarrassingly good at ultimate” play, a lot.  However, Rodeo did sky Parinella twice, so that had to be fun.  Then we had a bye, which I used to good effect to hit on the women’s team and drink a 40.  The next game was a thoroughly forgettable trouncing at the hand of Run Silent Run Deep and finally got to the most important game of the day: OFC vs. Stoned Clown.  And boy did we kick the shit out of them, earning a win for the alumni for the first time since 2003.  The game was never in question, as we rolled to a 5-1 lead and never looked back.  The lesson is, as always, Chauncey sucks.  Afterwards, OFC celebrated by going to China Rose (never a bad decision) and getting temporary tattoos.

Then off to the party, Dougie, Capt. Jack, and myself piled into a car with Wiggum who DDed for us.  To repay him we played Carmina Burana roughly 30 times in a row and kept increasing the volume, while he bitched about it.  The party itself was tamer then normal, despite the best efforts of Dutch, who spearheaded at least 6 boat races in the opening half hour (all of which were won by my team, mostly because I’m a tank) then promptly wondering off to die.  Anyway, after that not much happened.  I ate a lobster, Capt. Jack did a landshark and trapped some unwitting girl underneath, about 30 people vomited on the way home, and Wiggum made a sophomore cry by being so pathetic.  At the end of the night I some how ended up in Howell (the chem-free house) passed out and pants-less on the couch, amazing considering that I know no one who lives in Howell.  The winner of the night was probably Konen, who was last observed unconscious in a chair at Red Brick and was never seen again (for serious, he never showed up for the second days games and no one knows where he went).

The second day started with a typically lackluster effort as Mary K8 and I led a bunch of rookie bitches to a mistake filled and depressing loss to Red Tired (who were, of course, typically ass-o-holic).  After picking up some additional Clown and regaining our full alumni strength, we beat RPI in a tough game and ended up winning the consolation bracket by forfeit.  Yay us!

So in all, decent bake, lot’s of fun seeing everyone.

Continuing my movie review odyssey:

Movie #3 Eurotrip (2004)

Okay, so I actually watched this movie before Clambake so I really don’t remember all that much.  Hence, short review.  Surprisingly good dumb-teenage comedy.  However, the movie is majorly handicapped by the actor who plays the comic relief best friend, he sucked.  Had his delivery been decent (seriously he butchers an absurd number of decent lines) this could have been a Van Wilder quality dumb comedy (in fact Ryan Reynolds would have been perfect as the comic relief).  Oh well and alas, I’d say this is worth a watch if it’s on TV but I wouldn’t go out of my way.

Movie #4 The Awful Truth (1937)

A romantic comedy in the vein of The Philadelphia Story where a divorced/soon to be divorced couple who still love each other try to screw with each others post divorce love life.  The always awesome Cary Grant, playing basically the same character he did in a million of these movies (His Girl Friday comes immediately to mind) does the whole “brutally insult the dull new boyfriend” thing with great success, although the film lacks the great chemistry between Grant and his female lead (in this case Irene Dunne) that really makes Philadelphia Story and His Girl Friday (one of my all time favorites) classics.  Overall, however, it’s a pretty good, if minor, screwball comedy.  Anyway, if you’re into the genre it’s worth a rental, if not, I’d avoid it.

Maybe another movie post soon (possibly as soon as tonight)

So Incredible Hulk was good, this movie on the other hand was shit.  The basic premise: Harold is a 13 year old who acts and looks (he’s bald) like a 50 year old, who moves to a new town and has to deal with the whole “school” thing.  This premise might work if the movie had been competantely acted or written.  The script simply isn’t funny, not at all.  It’s awful.  Seriously, I could do better.  Plus the actor who plays Harold is terrible, he simply can’t carry a film.  ugh, why did I watch this the whole way through?  Poor Cuba Gooding Jr. what happened to that guy?  Yeah, don’t see this movie…even if it’s just on tv.

In an effort to make me post more (and clear out my netflix queue which is growing quite rapidly), I’ve decided to start a somewhat regular feature.  Basically, I’m going to pound out brief reviews of the next fifty movies I watch.  I know a ton of other people have done similar things, but whatever, it’ll get me writing.  This isn’t going to be a 50 movies in 50 days/weeks/whenever. My schedule is in a bit of flux, so posting will be irregular, from multiple posts in a day to much longer gaps (I will after all be going to class and trying to get into a PhD. program).  Also, I cannot guarentee that I won’t utterly abandon this project once classes start in two weeks.  Without further ado:

Movie #1:

The Incredible Hulk (2008):

I hate Ang Lee.  That’s kind of a weird thing for a film nerd such as myself to say, but I seriously haven’t enjoyed a single film he’s made.  I think he, much like Terrance Malik, is more concerened with the landscapes and looking poetic than he is with actually telling a story or keeping the interest of the audience.  The first Hulk was no exception, and boy did those special effects suck.  The rebooted Hulk has been got some “wow, this is surprisingly decent” buzz this summer (see also: Kung Fu Panda.  No, seriously, go see Kung Fu Panda, it’s fucking good).  So I checked it out and wow, it’s a hell of a lot better then the Ang Lee version.  I’ve never read a Hulk comic, or found the character particularly compelling (which I guess is something that could have been intuited given that I’m watching this movie three months after it came out) so I’ve got no fanboy ranting (wait till I review an adaption of a Philip K. Dick story or some Cormac McCarthy).

Anyway, I think the greatest advantage of this version of the Hulk is the fact that they skipped the whole origin story.  I feel like superhero movies often get bogged down in the origins of the hero, when really who doesn’t already know?  I mean does anyone who’s going to see spiderman not know how Peter Parker gets superpowers?  Does anyone not know the Punisher’s family is dead and he’s angry (side recomendation: Punisher Warzone red band trailer = awesome…movie itself = we’ll see)?  This Hulk also ditches all the brooding that Ang Lee’s version focused on, which is great because (surprise surprise) no one wants to see a hero who’s a whiny bitch (see also: Superman Returns, only don’t see it because Superman sucks).  As a result, the whole movie is a hell of a lot tighter than the Ang Lee movie.  Plus the end battle (while still kinda fake looking) is much better then the comparable fight in Ironman, which honestly sucked.  All in all, a good entertaining movie, check it out when it’s released on DVD…it’s more than worth a rental.

During this election season, which is alternately boring and depressing the hell out of me, one thought keeps bubbling into my head.  Here it is:

All right, at this point most people agree that George W. Bush has been a pretty terrible president right? And that the Iraq war has been pretty much a quagmire that was poorly planned and run from the start? So, if this is true then surely you have to give some credit to the people who predicted this 8 and 5 years ago right? The people who said, “Bush will be a terrible president” and “The Iraq was is a really bad idea”. So now, when those same people are saying “Voting for John McCain is a really bad idea, Sarah Palin is a terrible choice for vp, etc. etc.” wouldn’t it be a good idea to listen to them? I mean they’ve got a good track record on the whole “being right” thing.  Certainly better then the “Iraq war will pay for itself”, “greeted as liberators”, “Thank god Bush is our president not Gore” crowd.  Maybe, just maybe, this time we should give them the benefit of the doubt?

Just something to think about.