Easy A - See it - Easy A is different take on the typical high school comedy genre. Where most of the films in the genre focus on a boys drive to lose his virginity, Easy A takes the girls point of view on the subject. Olive (Emma Stone) is a "good" girl who finds herself the focus of the school's vicious rumor mill when she mistakenly and foolishly allows herself to develop a reputation of the high school slut. The movie is an effective take on a modern day Scarlett Letter and get bonus point referencing some of our favorite teen comedies of the 80's like Can't Buy Me Love and Say Anything. The result is one of the smarter teen movies since Clueless. 
The Expendables - Skip it - Don't see this movie. There are only a couple of reasons for anyone to ever watch The Expendables. 1) You're gonna get stoned and you want to watch something ridiculously bad. 2) You just like watching old guys fight aka you're a heavy weight boxing fan. 3) You have nothing better to do but watch and review movies for your blog.
Remember in the movie Point Break Patrick Swayze's gang of armed robbers would wear ex-Presidents Halloween masks during bank jobs? Well, the cast of this movie is similar except they wear ex-action movie star masks. There's a guy wearing a Sly Stallone mask throughout the movie and he's got the voice down pretty good too. If the movie wasn't bad enough, they apparently had to write a scene specifically to explain away Randy Couture's cauliflour ear. As if the people interested in The Expendables wouldn't already know why his ears were like that. I did come away with one question though. Has Jason Statham ever read the script of a movie before he agreed to be in it? 
180° South - See it - I hate documentaries like this. The people in them are so driven by their passions they make me feel like giant lazy turd who's wasted his entire life. Now that may be true but they don't have to remind me. The documentary is exceptional. The film beautifully captures the South American landscape and sells you on preserving it's purity. Jeff Johnson's goal of duplicating the journey of his heroes, Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins, to Patagonia and climb Corcavado serves as just the back drop to this story of conservation and environmental activism. 
Sexy Beast - See it - This is one of those movies I'm embarrassed to admit I'd never seen. I'd always wanted to, it just never happened. I finally fixed that. Great movie with a stellar cast. I continue to be big Ray Winstone fan as long as I pretend that crappy Indiana Jones movie never happened. Ben Kingsley steps in to a role we are so unaccustomed to seeing him in it's hard not to find his performance a bit jarring. However, as jarring as it may be it's also pretty genius. The third member of this incredible movie's acting triumvrant is a very understated but powerful performance by Ian McShane. Incredibly he was able to make it through the entire film without a single "Cock Sucker." 
Dark Days - See it -Very good documentary about the people that lived in the NYC underground subway tunnels. The film focuses on about eight homeless individuals and how they get through each day. The back stories of how they ended up on the street are gut wrenching at best. The special features provides updates on these people we've gotten to know throughout the film. The most dissappointing moment for me was when I found out that the director Marc Singer wasn't of the Beastmaster variety.
Jesus Camp - See it -This was a real tough review. It's was very difficult for me to not let my personal feelings towards the films subjects influence what I felt about the movie itself. I'm a Christian and was raised in the Church but I absolutely despise the tactics people like Becky Fischer use to influence and brain wash children. The movie itself was very well done and did an OK job of presenting the subjects objectively. I think whenever you are trying to present something that most people would consider a freak show, it's very hard to stay objective and not capitalize on the circus aspect. Anytime a movie can entertain and piss me off I'm pretty sure I have to call it a success.
D-Day: The Total Story - Skip it - This is a History Channel series made in the mid 90's. Fifteen years later the film making looks dated but the information is still good. I found the fourth episode which told the history of the Airborne Division the most interesting. I'm sure this was partially due to Band of Brothers and getting to see interviews with people like Maj. Richard Winters. I wouldn't go out of my way to see this but if you happen to run across it on the History Channel one day, it's worth staying for a while.
Can't Buy Me Love? Say Anything? Easy A now at the top of the queue.
ReplyDeleteLiked Sexy Beast and had no idea that was probably the first time I ever saw Ian McSwearengen.
I'm curious, did you read "The Road"? I did and while I was disappointed that the movie skipped some of the more gut wrenching scenes, I thought it was a pretty solid adaptation.
ReplyDeleteBleak and boring is kinda the point no?
Maybe bleak and boring was the point. It took me 4 sittings to get through the movie though and not because I was being interrupted. The book was the same way for me though. I never reached a point where I was so engrossed I couldn't put it down.
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