Sunday, November 30, 2008

Guys, this is it.

Prom Night - 5.5/10. I feel like writing about how this movie *wasn't that bad,* but I know that would be wrong.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Seems like he never learns there's such a thing

as a critter that'll just keep comin' on.

Love it or leave it.

Wait, you're leaving?

Where are you going?

Oh god.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

People you me.

Australia - 7/10. Nicole Kidman's pre-mature aging, or I guess maybe just her aging like a normal human being, has made her a wonderful character actress. She's cheeky and stilted, but her wrinkles make it seem more intentional than it used to. Hugh Jackman is given too many lines. That's... pretty much the problem with the movie. It tries to do too much, it tries to fill every spare breath with something new and dramatic and it doesn't trust the scenery and our own wherewithal to do it for us. And in doing a lot, it doesn't really say anything. The same way 'Superman Returns' was at turns an action movie and a love story, 'Australia' takes a stab at every genre, but doesn't fit them together to make them say something all together now. It's crippled under the weight of its own ambitions. It's incomplete.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Tom Waits

for no man.

- Anti-Tom Waits picketer.

Pimp my soul.

I need a riced-out spiritual effervescence.

Poot

sweat.

Hey -

Y'all heard that new 50?

I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day,

rather than a sex symbol.

I Fucking Saw That Shit In 3-D™

Bolt - 4/10. Uh. Shockingly dull?

Monday, November 24, 2008

The Poonisher.

The Ass-Enders.

Transpooter.

The Transporter - 5.5/10. Plot aside, totally redeemable movie. Some clever fight scenes and car chases stuffed between a Nash Bridges episode. Jason Statham makes for us a hero who doesn't kill unless accidentally or absolutely necessary which is, I don't know, something to be admired. The fight scene in the oil is the jam.

The Transporter 2 - 6.5/10. The first one, plus some art direction and a decent villain and a film-sized plot. It touches on over-the-top but doesn't stop taking itself seriously, which is how fun movies are made. Only caveat is that the beginning of the movie hints at a villain who is equal in kung-fu to our hero, but we get a set-piece fight scene in an airplane instead.


I would totally watch the third one in a theater.

Assuming they were a fixed feature,

I neglected to record their latitude, their longitude, their approach.

The better organized a state,

the duller its humanity.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

People with cameras.

Assholes on bridges.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

My fiction

beats the hell out of my truth.

Good writing.

Realizing what's worth repeating.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

If you don't make a choice, the choice makes you.

Ghost Rider - 6/10. The right combination of awful and just-having-fun.

Monday, November 17, 2008

I got nothin' for you, man.

The Forbidden Kingdom - 6/10. It makes me sad that Jackie Chan grew old.

Midnight on the water.

I saw the ocean's daughter.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Yo, I ain't got any butter for da bread.

You want some-a da Arby sauce?

Underwear with pre-printed dookie stains.

Oops, wrong blog.

I hope when you think of me years down the line

you can't find one good thing to say.

I can say I hope it will be worth

what I give up.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

People who keep saying 'y'all.'

It's 'you all.'

Why they make shelves so high?

I can't even reach that shit.

The greatest trick.

Needful Things - 6.5/10. Wonderful idea for a movie, I am in love with this idea for a movie, but it's from the 'In The Mouth of Madness' school of either unskilled or uncaring filmmakers. The Debil comes to Castle Rock and opens an antique store, where everyone who enters finds something they've always wanted, or that they've lost, and he's willing to lower the price if they'll just do him this small favor. These small betrayals of their own morality, in order to get what they want. I love the idea of the devil as less of a guy who 'tries real hard' and more as moving one small thing and watching it roll downhill. Less prognostic, more deterministic. It's just here he's more of a 'haha, I'm the devil! What's a guy to do? What is a guy to do?' wink-wink nudge-nudge. I wish he didn't become so sinister and more just sat and watched, sat and watched. By the end, everything of course boils to a head and the movie just didn't sell itself as being big enough. It should have been more of what people are willing to sacrifice of themselves to get what they want, and their stubborn-ness in giving it back. I want to remake this. Also, one of my favorite movie titles.

Friday, November 14, 2008

From the visionary director

of '300.'

Thursday, November 13, 2008

I broke the toilet.

I used it too hard.

You're not making Christianity better.

You're making rock and roll worse.

Thoughts on Vanessa Hudgens:

I've seen her naked.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Words

can't.

Monday, November 10, 2008

It's not you, I just don't like having dinner with people.

Role Models - 7.5/10. Well, I loved it. The problem with the Stella guys, from The Baxter to this, is that they seem to write 'the comedy parts' and 'the drama parts' and they can't make it fit together, so the shifts are abrupt and obvious. But anyway. Nitpicking. Real sweet.

Critics:

Bad at parties.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

We Accidentally Ordered It On Pay-Per-View™

Home Movie - 7.5/10. Apparently, this is getting distributed. Told through a gimmick, I guess, but I don't give a fuck, shit. It's told through home movies by parents who, uh, really like to make home movies, I guess, as their lives dissolve after their kids start showing anti-social disorders. The two leads, Adrian Pasdar being the only notable, are frickin' light on their feet, dude, natural as all shit, laughing, cutting up, seem like they're genuinely having fun. The kids are de rigueur stone-walled creepy which blemishes the movie only a little. The movie wins because you genuinely grow to like the fun-loving parents and watching people you like fall apart is better than watching people you don't care about fall apart. Or at least I would hope.

Did the lawyer split?

Shoot 'Em Up - 3/10. I don't buy into the notion that if you intend for something to be bad, then you're excused for it being bad. However, when it's over-the-top, which is, uh, different from bad, I guess, it's hilarious. To sum up: when they're shooting people while falling out of a plane, when they're shooting people while having sex, when he's shooting the oil thing so that he can slide through the oil as he's shooting people, it's guilty fun. When they're talking, attempting characterization, or furthering the plot, it is awful.

Thir13en Ghosts - 4/10. It's a Scooby Doo plot and there's so much potential for fun in that which this thing only hints at. I wanted cool ghosts with cool back-stories killing people, and there simply weren't enough people to kill. Also, Matthew Lillard's drool. Apparently, the original 13 Ghosts had special glasses that you had to wear in order to see the ghosts. That is awesome. I only want to make movies where you can put the number in the letters of the title.

TMNT - 5/10. The bad guys:

1) The Immortal.
2) The Immortal's stone generals.
3) 13 immortal monsters.
4) The foot clan and their fill-in leader.
5) The Nightwatcher.
6) Mexican mercenaries.
7) The inability to come together as a team.

An overabundance of bad guys which just means a lot of faceless bad guys. The brunt of the story is on Raphael and Leonardo who are, like, the worst turtles, seriously. Michaelangelo and Donatello are fucking hilarious throughout this thing and there's, what, five minutes of screen time? Fucking. I don't know why they couldn't just put them back into the costumes. Those costumes fucking, they still hold up. Time hasn't aged that shit. Fuck.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Well, la-di-fucking-da.

You went to the Outer Banks.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Holding words

hostage.

History.

Or something.

I swear I way more than half believe it when I say:

That somewhere love and justice shine.

The crowd is singing along to the chorus.

They're ruining the song.

Monday, November 3, 2008

The World's Greatest Rock-And-Roll Singer.

The World's Greatest Sinner - 5/10. Written, directed, produced, distributed, starring Timothy Carey as, well, God. It's basically a promotional reel for boy,-can't-he-act, as our family man realizes his will is his own, and it is but for him to take up a guitar and usurp God's presence on earth, claiming that we are all of us, amen, Super-Human Beings, gods ourselves, as he fucks older women, as he fucks younger women, as he fucks his very wife on his way to the presidency of these here United States. As the story goes, he filmed this over two years with what money he could manage and set out to make the most offensive movie seen yet and while it's not that, it can be fun to watch because he is a wild honey bear of an actor, but it's a chore to trudge through to see it not go anywhere.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Making a point,

and then continuing to make that point.

A word

to describe how unfunny something becomes between conception and it appearing on TV.

It's also a drink.

I Walked With A Zombie - 7/10. Like 'The Cat People,' a Val Lewton production, and his trick seems to be placing fairly serious social drama on top of a superstitious background. While 'The Cat People' never got the social drama down, dragging one sentiment for far too long, here, it's wonderfully melodramatic, with one brother hiring a nurse to save his wife that he may have driven mad, while letting his brother continue to suffer. It's dense shit that reveals itself in pieces. But where 'The Cat People' got the horror bit right at the end, 'Zombie' never really capitalizes on the thick island and voodoo atmosphere that it creates for itself. What's interesting is that while the social drama is fun, it's sort of only fun knowing that there's a hint of what's-behind-the-door that could come out at any moment. It toys with you, and I think that's what horror movies are supposed to do or something.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Wilco.

Wilco.

Wilco will love you, baby.