07.29.07
Posted in Random Sunday Afternoon Movie, reviews at 5:27 pm by FilmFemme
OMG whatever you do don’t watch this, even the last 20 minutes. Here’s what I figured out this movie was about: high powered executive goes searching for his ex-wife in the jungle and finds out they have a kid and brings him back to New York where he is a fish out of water who falls in love with LeeLee Sobieski and kills flies with blowdarts and lets his pet tarantula escape occasionally (how did that get past customs?) with hilarious results. Apparently this crappy movie was based on some French screenplay called Un indien dans la ville. Yes, those people that love Jerry Lewis. I think I should bleach my keyboard after typing that summary. I can’t believe this kid got another role after this movie. Apparently he was in the new Superman. WTF?? Also, Tim Allen, I really hope you saved your Santa Clause money because I really really don’t ever want to see your face again. Thanks.
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Posted in drunk reviews, drama, reviews at 2:58 am by FilmFemme
SPOILER ALERT (anything I write while drunk will probably spoil something…)
Hey man, the whole plot of Kids is pretty fucked up. Here’s my problem, so this girl Jenny (Chloe Sevigny’s debut role) gets HIV from this totally immoral dude named Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick’s debut - and pretty much the last thing he did worth mentioning). Jenny goes searching for him to tell him or yell at him or something. Eventually she finds him - while he’s having sex with another virgin. But, she doesn’t stop him! Maybe this is supposed to be realistic or something but as far as I can tell all it does is demonize Jenny for losing her virginity. Well, maybe not for that specifc reason, but it definitely does demonize her when it seems like she’s kind of a victim. Although, calling her a victim is kind of taking away her agency because it’s not like Telly raped her or anything. So I don’t know, I’m torn about this. But still, why the fuck wouldn’t she STOP HIM??? Also, the conversations among the girls seem to imply to me that they have sex for pretty much every reason except for that they want to. Except Rosario Dawson - she seems totally horny.
Basically, this movie is the quintessentially (that word is hard to spell while drunk) 90s indie flick. The style is so familiar - saturated and shaky and low-budget. It’s OK in general, but not that great. For a similar style and better characters and dialogue and such I guess I would recommend something like Buffalo ‘66. Hey but it’s Rosario Dawson’s first movie and she is pretty awesome. And what’s the deal with this Larry Clark guy? Look out for his next appearance on To Catch a Predator…
Oh, my final problem with this movie is that the soundtrack mixing was totally out of whack. Like, I know it’s low budget and all, but I had to turn the TV up sooooo loud just to understand what the fuck these kids were saying but then the background noise, was like, deafening. Is this really so hard? To balance these things out? Oh yeah, and why are commercials so much louder than TV shows? That is fucking annoying.
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07.27.07
Posted in best of, drama, reviews at 1:39 pm by FilmFemme
We Don’t Live Here Anymore is my second deterioration-of-a-marriage movie in as many days. I didn’t like it as much as Two for the Road but it was adequate.
Jack (Mark Ruffalo, whose hair seems to get fluffier as his marriage gets worse) is married to Terry (Laura Dern, who gets bonier and drunker as her marriage gets worse) and they are BFF with Hank (Peter Krause, also incredibly scruffy - seriously, I know that associate professors at small liberal arts colleges (which both guys are) aren’t exactly rolling in dough, but neither of these guys can afford a razor?) and Edith (Naomi Watts who has incredibly pretty hair). Of course, Jack is fucking Edith and Hank is putting the moves on Terry and such is the impetus of plot! Most of the drama takes place in Jack & Terry’s house where Terry is usually drunk and screaming about how Jack doesn’t love her (because he doesn’t). Eventually Hank and Terry fuck too and then it’s just a big ol’ mess. Blah blah blah maybe love will conquer all again? Maybe.
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Posted in animated, guest reviews at 11:39 am by spectacle_triage
Once a prime-time lens that hilariously magnified the cracks in our crumbling society, The Simpsons has kind of sucked balls for about as long as Tupac has been pretending to be dead. Hype said that writers from “the good years” were used for the movie, but I had still resolved not to attend unless it hit greater than 90% on rottentomatoes‘ cream of the crop (it didn’t).
Still, I somehow found myself scheduled to see the film’s midnight showing at the ArcLight’s Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. Unfortunately, the crew I rolled in with centered around an omega-list celebrity high on his recent (non)mention half-way down the user-submitted sightings page on defamer. He wasn’t so bad, but his entourage (literally) kept shouting “We’re with someone FAMOUS!!!!” to any fellow ArcLight patron that would listen. This farcically Los Angeles bullshit made me decide to abscond before I could be further disappointed by the actual film.
Thus my “The Simpsons Movie” experience was as follows:
We were seated.
Some ArcLight douche came out and performed his best improv of “Howard Dean introduces The Simpsons Movie with too much enthusiasm and ruins his career… BYAAAAH!”
The lights went down, I got up, took a piss, and left.
I give the ArcLight dude an F+, the ArcLight men’s room an A-, and Empire Records a B+ for being somewhat generation defining and fun, but a bit overrated.
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07.26.07
Posted in documentary, reviews at 5:42 pm by FilmFemme
In 2001, when it came out, Hell House was probably a pretty cool movie for the religion-adverse. However, before I saw this movie I saw Jesus Camp and it was way better, way more disturbing and way more engaging. The most intriguing part of the people in Hell House is a weird side story that involves some guy’s wife cheating on him and now “she’s not with us anymore.” I assume that doesn’t mean he killed her, but maybe he did. But they really don’t delve into that story enough. Mostly it’s just a bunch of high school kids rehearsing for a play. Only their play is trying to scare you into the arms of Jesus or whatever. At least now I know why my parents never let me go to the Hell House in Colorado so I could watch girls pretend to bleed to death from abortions and get date raped at raves. Anyway. See Jesus Camp.
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Posted in classic, drama, reviews at 2:25 pm by FilmFemme
Boy is this poster misleading…
I once read a quote about Audrey Hepburn that said something like “She’s a woman that every woman wants to be like and every man forgets about.” I don’t know who said it and I couldn’t find in anywhere, but I am very curious as to the context of it because I can’t fathom how anyone could forget her.
I just finished watching Two for the Road. I don’t think I’d ever heard of this movie until Netflix told me I might like it. They were totally right. The gist of the plot is: a struggling architect named Mark (a young and strapping Albert Finney) meets a charming choir girl named Joanna (Audrey Hepburn), they get married, have a baby and have lots of problems. Usually while traveling. Wikipedia tells me that the film was considered experimental because the plot is revealed non-linearly “leaving the viewer to extrapolate what has intervened.” I guess I must be jaded by modern movies, because I didn’t think it took a lot of extrapolating.
I did find it particularly interesting how director Stanley Donen (of Singin’ in the Rain fame) used Hepburn’s fashion and hair to help guide the viewer along to which period of the marriage they were in: the youngest Audrey has long hair and skinny mom-jeans (the only woman who has ever looked sexy in skinny mom-jeans is Audrey Hepburn) while the oldest Audrey has a short Posh-style bob (minus the horrendous bleaching). The best parts are in the middle years when Hepburn’s Joanna seems to have had a brief obsession with vinyl. I couldn’t even find a good picture to link to but imagine an entire outfit that is yellow and shiny. Even Audrey couldn’t pull that off. Well, she almost did.
The movie is also very road oriented (hence the title). Mark and Joanna are constantly on the road and the style of the car they are in represents difference phases of their marriage. Though this motif may be the tiniest bit obvious, it does well at making a statement about relationships moving and traveling and changing and all of that. It also makes tense and intimate moments more tense and intimate because when you are traveling along a highway with someone, there’s really no escaping them.
Decidedly a drama, there are many light moments throughout (Benny Hill, anyone?). However, these can also be the most heartbreaking because they are usually overshadowed by a fight in the present where the couple almost or actually does break up. It’s all very dramatic and weepy and I cried buckets. But, spoiler alert, Love Conquers All. Aww.
Even if you completely hate Audrey Hepburn (WHO ARE YOU??) or relationship melodrama, there is also a really awesome party scene where everyone in their mod clothes is dancing. I wish I could describe it. I think at least one couple was doing The Monkey. Anyway, it’s very funny and probably worth fast forwarding to. Or just ask me later and I will show you the dances.
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07.25.07
Posted in drama, reviews at 5:57 pm by FilmFemme
This movie ought to be subtitled “Some Really Serious Shit.”
Hotel Rwanda definitely confirmed my suspicious that Don Cheadle is completely awesome. I haven’t seen Ray, but if I were Don, I would be pretty miffed that Jamie Foxx’s impression of Ray Charles beat me out for the most deserved Oscar in a long fucking time.
Basically, this is the story of Paul Rusesabagina (yeah, I definitely looked up how to spell that), a Rwandan hotel manager who saved like, a couple thousand people during the Hutu on Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in the early 90s. With little help from the UN (represented by Nick Nolte. No, seriously, he was actually pretty good) Paul begins to harbor refugees from the really seriously totally brutal fighting in his hotel.
All the performances here were really solid. I was somehow distracted by Sophie Okonedo who plays Paul’s wife because she kind of only had one face: really concerned. But then I thought, well, she probably is pretty concerned, I mean, what with her ‘race’ being the target of a brutal genocide. Also, they seem to take a quite a few beer/wine/whiskey breaks. Again, probably to be expected.
At times - mostly the very beginning and the very end - the movie did suffer the terrible fate of ultra-obvious over-scoring. Like, really, it was pretty serious already, I don’t need the cellos to swell for me to get the point.
But overall, a totally depressing, really good ‘make-you-think’ kind of movie. I’m going to go find out what Don Cheadle is up to.
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Posted in documentary, reviews at 5:51 pm by FilmFemme
Wow. This is some fucked up shit. Deliver Us From Evil is a documentary about this one particular Catholic priest in California named Oliver O’Grady who molested tons of kids and how the church covered it up and basically let him keep doing it because the head honcho in California wanted to be a cardinal. There are some really heartbreaking interviews with the survivors and their families. In one particularly devastating scene, the father of a girl who was molested - raped, actually - says that she never told him what was going on because she knew he would kill the guy and go to jail. Oh. My. God. Also, did you know that Pope Benedict XVI, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, was actually in charge of making sure shit like this didn’t happen beginning in 1978. Um, yeah, he didn’t really do a great job. Apparently over 100,000 victims of clergy abuse have come forward in recent years - and that’s just in the U.S. Why the fuck is he the pope? Anyway, this is a seriously interesting & well made (a tiny bit heavy handed at parts, but, I can’t really blame them) documentary about a totally fucked up situation.
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07.22.07
Posted in action, reviews at 9:57 pm by FilmFemme
The third installment of the Bourne trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum is packed with a lot of ass-kicking fight sequences and some just-satisfying-enough conclusions.
After three years of jetting around the world and beating lots of ass, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is finally getting close to figuring out who he is. Unfortunately, there’s a nosy journalist in London (Paddy Considine) who is also close to figuring some things out. The threat that this journalist creates sets off a chain of events back in the US with deputy CIA director Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) reopening the Jason Bourne project and bringing Pam Landy (Joan Allen) back to try to finally track down Bourne and ultimately eliminate him as a threat. Of course, Bourne evades and thwarts them at every turn and does a lot more incredibly entertaining ass beating.
By now, director Paul Greengrass definitely has a handle on making some really tense and awesome fight scenes - aided, of course, by Matt Damon’s total brooding sexiness. He also seems intent on creating a real sense of intimacy, especially early in the film. The handheld camera that is used for all conversations with Bourne definitely feels intimate, but it gets a little excessive to the point that the shakiness becomes a little nauseating.
The plot moves along at a nice clip. When there aren’t awesome fights happening, usually something interesting is being revealed. There was a bit of not-so-choice dialogue (Bourne to nosy journalist: This isn’t a story in a newspaper! This is real! Apparently Jason Bourne has little faith in the media…) I was less than thrilled with the Joan Allen/David Straithairn conflict. Something about their chemistry (they are supposed to hate each other) was just a little off. Like Joan Allen is just too nice about the whole thing.
But in general, the movie is really entertaining and I really hope they make another one. Really really.
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07.20.07
Posted in action, reviews at 2:13 pm by FilmFemme
Yes, apparently you can graduate from film school without ever seeing Die Hard. However, after finally watching it, I don’t think that should be the case because it is patently awesome.
I was going to skip over the plot, but then I realized there really isn’t that much plot to speak of. Basically John McClane (Bruce Willis) is in Los Angeles (Century City) visiting his wife (sort of ugly curly-haired executive type) at Christmas. Her Japanese-owned company is having their Christmas party when a group of terrorists, led by pre-Snape Alan Rickman, barges in and takes them all hostage. They ostensibly want some of the bonds (some sort of untraceable, internationally recognized currency) that are in the vault. When the company’s president won’t give them the passwords they need, they kill him. Luckily, McClane was in the bathroom when all of this happened and avoids being taken hostage. Instead, he proceeds to kick all kinds of ass all over the building while the LAPD stad by helplessly. Except for Carl from Family Matters who believes in McClane all along.
What’s truly great about this movie is not just the really awesome explosions and Bruce Willis’ total jaw-dropping sexiness, but the truly sharp and just the right amount of action-film-cheesy dialogue. This is my favorite exchange from the film that will endear me to Alan Rickman forever (courtesy of IMDb):
Hans: The following people are to be released from their captors : In Northern Ireland, the seven members of the New Provo Front. In Canada, the five imprisoned leaders of Liberte de Quebec… In Sri Lanka, the nine members of the Asian Dawn movement…
John McClane: [listening on the radio] What the fuck?
Karl: [mouthing silently] Asian Dawn?
Hans: [covers the radio] I read about them in Time magazine.
See? Isn’t that completely hilarious? Right after this, I’m sure something blows up or someone gets shot or beat to death so as not to interrupt the flow of violence & action. I guess you could say that the movie is a little predictable, but as I said, the plot is less than important. I loved this movie and I’m moving Die Hard 2 to the top of my queue right now.
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