Category: reviews

Tonight I saw a documentary about a scrub from Wisconsin whose dream had been, since he was 14, to make movies. And how he’d worked all his life to film one, 35-minute horror film, in spite of being up to his eyeballs in debt, and father to three kids with a woman who didn’t want him, and borrowing money from his elderly, frail uncle, and using his jailbird and stoned friends.

And how, after years of effort, he finally did it.

And all through the movie, I kept thinking, “the director of this documentary is more successful than the subject of the documentary.” How twisted is that?

Even though I’ve never smoked pot (OK, once, just to confirm that I don’t like it), I giggled so hard during the first half of “Pineapple Express” that I’m sure others in the audience thought I was stoned.

Stoner humor is some funny funny shit.

Take away the quirkiness, take away the omnipresence of the director’s favorite font, take away the almost painfully composed cinematography and the normal-speed-to-slow-speed-with-decades-old-musical-soundtrack scenes, even take away the constant use of specific actors, and I think you’re still left with a great story in “The Royal Tennenbaums”.

But I like it with all those things, too.

Last night I saw something in the Independent Film Revival’s showing of “The Squid and The Whale” that shocked me and turned the movie from being a dark comedy about an upper-middle-class family falling apart into a study of where I, personally, may have gone completely off the rails.

I’m still processing it.

In spite of being about a demon who is fated to destroy the Earth, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is surprisingly… cute.

Saw “Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson” last night, a documentary about one of my intellectual heroes.

It made me sad that he’s gone, and mad that he’s not here to excoriate the Bush Administration and other politicians, and it made me want to get really drunk and write a lot.

So I’d say it succeeded.

Strange that two of my heroes, Thompson and Philip Kindred Dick, shared so many traits. Both incredible and prolific writers, both addicted to drugs, both haunted and fearful of politicians and particularly President Nixon. Both reclusive but social, opening their homes to strangers and newfound friends (and young nubile women), to the detriment of their marriages.

And both of them with personality issues.

Hmm. Food for thought.

Since I plan on logging every movie I watch in a theater this year, I almost forgot to post that I saw “Secretary” last Monday, as part of the ongoing Independent Film Revival series.

I felt almost skeevy being there alone. Alone in the crowd, I mean. Lots of couples, both boy-girl and girl-girl. I couldn’t tell if the girl-girl couples were friends or lovers. I tried not to stare. Man, I’m self-conscious just thinking about it almost a week later.

And after the movie, I felt as if the movie confused and angered me. Yeah. I got issues.

In the past couple of days, I’ve seen two movies.

Thursday night I saw “War, Inc.” It’s a satire, a thinly-disguised story of a man, played by John Cusack, who is hired by the former vice-president, now C.E.O. of Tamerlane Industries, to conduct a trade show in Turaqistan. Oh, and to help conduct the world’s first-ever war run entirely by private industry. And by “conduct”, I mean political assassination. And also a political marriage between a Turaqistanian pop star (played by Hillary Duff) and the son of the Emirate.

I tried to get into the movie, I really did. But it all hits a little close to home for me. I found myself thinking, “this isn’t really that far from real life” and it kept drawing me out of the story. Dan Ackroyd’s Dick Cheney impersonation didn’t help. Ben Kingsley’s faux Southern accent didn’t help. Seeing Joan Cusack ham it up didn’t help. Marissa Tomei as an investigative journalist didn’t help. Even Montel Williams as the soothing voice of GuideStar (an OnStar clone) didn’t help.

Today, I saw “Hancock”. Reviews were mixed – on the one hand, Dustin at Pajiba said the second half of the movie ruined the easy-going first half. But Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, said it was good (with minor science nitpicks, which can be expected of a superhero movie). I was unsure if it was worth seeing or not.

I liked it. I liked it because of Will Smith, and because of Jason Bateman, and because of Charlize Theron. And it was funny, and Hancock’s character grew over the course of the movie. I was surprised that it was only 92 minutes – I suspect some backstory was cut. Maybe the backstory didn’t work; internet gossip has it that there were some last-minute re-shoots just two weeks prior to opening weekend, never a good sign.

But I liked it. It’s no “Iron Man” but it was funny.

“Wanted” is badass but shallow. It’s more cynical (cynical means assuming people and their motives are base, rather than noble) than “Fight Club”. It’s not as funny or as ultimately inspiring as “Office Space”. And it’s more misogynistic and unreal (bending bullets?) than “The Matrix”.

I enjoyed the spectacle but I didn’t like where it was going.

Thanks to Pajiba’s review for the comparison of “Wanted” to those three movies. Hard to believe they all came out in 1999, isn’t it?

“Get Smart” is mostly cute. My only major reservation (and I admit it’s kind of a big one) is a completely generic spy plot that could have been written at any time in the last 40 years. Seriously. Russian nukes? Talk about a throwback to the Cold War. Were the writers of the movie asleep for the past several decades?

Luckily I have a huge soft spot for Steve Carell and Dwayne Johnson and Alan Arkin and Masi Oka. And Anne Hathaway is leggy and kinda bitchy, which as anyone who knows me knows is a turn-on.

And the opening scene, when Carell as Maxwell Smart walks through a museum showcasing relics of the TV version of “Get Smart”, including the beloved red Sunbeam Tiger… ah, that tweaks the nostalgia bones.

It’s a little strange to see someone talking into a shoe phone to someone else on a cell phone. We’ve come a long way, baby. Cone of silence still doesn’t work, though.

And it really shouldn’t.