Taken (UR) - DVD Review
"White Dad Blues"
Liam Neeson (SW Episode I) is launched as an action star in this Luc Besson produced thriller. Former CIA agent Liam is tracking down and methodically murdering those who have kidnapped his daughter for the white slave trade in Europe. Fatalistic and plays to the paternal instincts, the movie succeeds more than not and is a sure crowd pleaser. Not much socially for me to relate to, however the unrealistic espionage, the snarling dialogue and the nasty violence kept me appeased.
6 Papa Bears out of 10 (GOOD)
Showing posts with label 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008. Show all posts
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008)
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (NR) Review
"The Turds"
Billed (ha ha) by its director as a new entry into his personally conceived genre of the Horror Romance movie, Birdemic is not the kind of bad you can sit around with your friends on a friday night and laugh about. Birdemic is such an utter embarrassment on every conceivable level (Editing, Sound, Writing, Special Effects, Acting) that its only success was how it got so famous. Much like William Hung's American Idol success was a pop culture phenomenon that centered on exploitating a terrible dreamer, so is James Nguyen's film about a couple finding new love amidst killer birds. It was self financed, self filmed and self promoted at Sundance by driving around in his family car plastered with fake birds. He bought a midnight showing and filled it up with indy movie producers and schlock fans, people knew a cash cow when they saw one and it was bought for one million dollars and then excreted into our lives.
Indy films like this I try to give some leeway and crow about their positive points, but Birdemic is only an excuse to laugh at Nguyen and his inept filmmaking skills. The first time the shoddy birds appeared on screen (shockingly late in the film) they squeezed a hearty laugh out of me. An hour later and the same shoddy birds in the same awkward poses made me squirm in my seat, the wooden acting and terribly recorded audio made me want to plug my ears and hug my wallet in thanks that I hadn't spent any single dime on watching it. The ham-fisted slapped on "environmental message" will set back the green movement for years, and I can't imagine anyone with half an IQ point not being redfaced over its lousy... well, everything! Shame on the films distributors for giving Bay Area Businessman/Crappy Film Director/Exploited Outsider Artist James Nguyen the ability to kill (cgi birds) ever again, I hear a sequel is in the works for 2013. A man who can produce such a piece of work and feel good about charging someone to watch it deserves to have his taxes audited and his drivers license revoked, his morals are suspect.
This is the kind of film you make but only show a handful of friends every couple years, projected on a white sheet in someone's basement, secure in the fact that the shame is all yours and the fake-grins on their friendly faces will tell no one of what they've seen or who is to blame.
Never has a subtitle been so accurate about its content.
1 Exploding Hawks out of 10 (AWFUL)
"The Turds"
Billed (ha ha) by its director as a new entry into his personally conceived genre of the Horror Romance movie, Birdemic is not the kind of bad you can sit around with your friends on a friday night and laugh about. Birdemic is such an utter embarrassment on every conceivable level (Editing, Sound, Writing, Special Effects, Acting) that its only success was how it got so famous. Much like William Hung's American Idol success was a pop culture phenomenon that centered on exploitating a terrible dreamer, so is James Nguyen's film about a couple finding new love amidst killer birds. It was self financed, self filmed and self promoted at Sundance by driving around in his family car plastered with fake birds. He bought a midnight showing and filled it up with indy movie producers and schlock fans, people knew a cash cow when they saw one and it was bought for one million dollars and then excreted into our lives.
Indy films like this I try to give some leeway and crow about their positive points, but Birdemic is only an excuse to laugh at Nguyen and his inept filmmaking skills. The first time the shoddy birds appeared on screen (shockingly late in the film) they squeezed a hearty laugh out of me. An hour later and the same shoddy birds in the same awkward poses made me squirm in my seat, the wooden acting and terribly recorded audio made me want to plug my ears and hug my wallet in thanks that I hadn't spent any single dime on watching it. The ham-fisted slapped on "environmental message" will set back the green movement for years, and I can't imagine anyone with half an IQ point not being redfaced over its lousy... well, everything! Shame on the films distributors for giving Bay Area Businessman/Crappy Film Director/Exploited Outsider Artist James Nguyen the ability to kill (cgi birds) ever again, I hear a sequel is in the works for 2013. A man who can produce such a piece of work and feel good about charging someone to watch it deserves to have his taxes audited and his drivers license revoked, his morals are suspect.
This is the kind of film you make but only show a handful of friends every couple years, projected on a white sheet in someone's basement, secure in the fact that the shame is all yours and the fake-grins on their friendly faces will tell no one of what they've seen or who is to blame.
Never has a subtitle been so accurate about its content.
1 Exploding Hawks out of 10 (AWFUL)
Ip Man (2008)
IP Man (R) Review
"IP IP Hooray?"
Melodramatic modern quasi-kungfu flick about the life and times of the mentor of Bruce Lee, Ip Man. A kungfu master living in pre WW2 China, once the extremely evil Japanese invade Ip Man must duel their best to save his fellow countrymen and his pride. A bit overcooked with some moments of violence and true martial-artistic beauty.
5.5 Whooshes out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"IP IP Hooray?"
Melodramatic modern quasi-kungfu flick about the life and times of the mentor of Bruce Lee, Ip Man. A kungfu master living in pre WW2 China, once the extremely evil Japanese invade Ip Man must duel their best to save his fellow countrymen and his pride. A bit overcooked with some moments of violence and true martial-artistic beauty.
5.5 Whooshes out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Synecdoche, New York (R)
"Acting Out"
Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is a stunner; a dark, dream like tale of a playwright (Phillip Semour Hoffman) struggling to achieve his life work: A play which portrays real life honestly while his real life becomes increasingly entangles with stalkers, wives and children. My favorite bit was the girlfriend with the continually burning house, this movie is moving, symbolic and complex. At one point Hoffman is directing the play about himself directing a play about himself directing the play. Struggles with honesty in art and life, the movie deserves acclaim, not the bad buzz that Cannes painted it with.
9 think pieces out of 10.(GREAT)
"Acting Out"
Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is a stunner; a dark, dream like tale of a playwright (Phillip Semour Hoffman) struggling to achieve his life work: A play which portrays real life honestly while his real life becomes increasingly entangles with stalkers, wives and children. My favorite bit was the girlfriend with the continually burning house, this movie is moving, symbolic and complex. At one point Hoffman is directing the play about himself directing a play about himself directing the play. Struggles with honesty in art and life, the movie deserves acclaim, not the bad buzz that Cannes painted it with.
9 think pieces out of 10.(GREAT)
Trick 'R Treat (2008)
Trick 'R Treat (R)
"Smell our Feet"
Anthology of horror centering around a town's Halloween celebrations, with intertwining stories with a little sack headed trick 'r treater tying them all together, Trick 'R Treat was shelved by a studio and then pushed to the video market without a wide release, where horror hungry cult fans found it and began carrying it around from door to door.
Despite a good cast and a great grasp of the holiday's bumps and scares, the film devolves quickly into horror tropes and is short on real originality (and good looking SFX). Structured kind of like a Tarratino narrative, with pieces hodge-podging and crossing paths, Trick 'R Treat unfortunately never obtains scary, and some moments are so eye rolling that you'll be reaching for the John Carpenter DVDs to get you back on track to creepy town. While the theme and inside jokes make the film re-watchable, this movie is more like those icky sweets your grandma still insists on handing out than the full size Snickers everyone wants. It's the Candy Corn of Halloween movies, and sure some people lap them up, but others can see their fructose flaws and would rather leave it at the bottom of the bag for their siblings with less discerning tastes.
4 That Guy From Happiness was the most convincing part out of 10 (BAD)
Standard Operating Procedure (2008)
Standard Operating Procedure (R)
"Say Cheese"
Important documentary regarding the Abu Grahib prison scandal of the early War on Terror, actually told by those who perpetrated and were blamed for it. Erroll Morris (Fog Of War) pulls no punches in parsing the facts and figures and the gray area of morality that allowed this black hole of morality to squander any or all of the world's post-9/11 sympathies. Told through the pictures that broke the scandal, the stories and photos are still unforgettable and stomach churning. The film speaks less to the zeal and bloodlust of the general US public and it's leaders after the NY Trade Center attacks than the condition of the lowly soldier far down on the totem pole following orders, orders both direct and ambiguous. From there emerges the bigger picture of CIA spooks, cabinet members and, yes, Presidents of the free world.
Featuring only the scapegoats for on-camera interviews is not by omission but necessity, yet Morris keeps objectivity in the viewfinder and prevents
7.5 Digital Cameras were new then, try not to feel old out of 10 (GOOD)
"Say Cheese"
Important documentary regarding the Abu Grahib prison scandal of the early War on Terror, actually told by those who perpetrated and were blamed for it. Erroll Morris (Fog Of War) pulls no punches in parsing the facts and figures and the gray area of morality that allowed this black hole of morality to squander any or all of the world's post-9/11 sympathies. Told through the pictures that broke the scandal, the stories and photos are still unforgettable and stomach churning. The film speaks less to the zeal and bloodlust of the general US public and it's leaders after the NY Trade Center attacks than the condition of the lowly soldier far down on the totem pole following orders, orders both direct and ambiguous. From there emerges the bigger picture of CIA spooks, cabinet members and, yes, Presidents of the free world.
Featuring only the scapegoats for on-camera interviews is not by omission but necessity, yet Morris keeps objectivity in the viewfinder and prevents
7.5 Digital Cameras were new then, try not to feel old out of 10 (GOOD)
Bad Biology (2008)
Bad Biology (UR)
"Sick and Violence"
Director Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case) once again jumps feet first into the horror-comedy genre, this time about two mutant freaky-freaks whose genetic-anomaly-genitals can kill. Tinted with hip-hop, bizarre laughs and truly twisted sexual violence (the male member stalking women ala Jaws-the-inch-worm was quite memorable), Bad Biology is neither standard fare nor palatable. It has some of that good ol' Henenlotter charm but the 2000's is a hard millennium for Frank's chosen field of bloody gut churning laughter. Ejaculating blood and other bodily fluids into the eye of Political Correctness Police may squeeze a giggle out of Frank but the rest of us are outside the joke.
4.5 Wheres the Killer Condom when you need it? Out of 10 (BAD)
"Sick and Violence"
Director Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case) once again jumps feet first into the horror-comedy genre, this time about two mutant freaky-freaks whose genetic-anomaly-genitals can kill. Tinted with hip-hop, bizarre laughs and truly twisted sexual violence (the male member stalking women ala Jaws-the-inch-worm was quite memorable), Bad Biology is neither standard fare nor palatable. It has some of that good ol' Henenlotter charm but the 2000's is a hard millennium for Frank's chosen field of bloody gut churning laughter. Ejaculating blood and other bodily fluids into the eye of Political Correctness Police may squeeze a giggle out of Frank but the rest of us are outside the joke.
4.5 Wheres the Killer Condom when you need it? Out of 10 (BAD)
Mesrine: Part 2: Public Enemy #1 (2008)
Mesrine: Part 2: Public Enemy #1 (R) - Review
"A History of Violence"
Vincent Cassel again plays Jacques Mesrine, a notorious French gangster who evaded capture while maintaining a spotlight, capturing his life through the 1970s until his capture. Vincent is the reason more than ever to watch as unfortunately his escapades become more ego-centric and less entertaining. Mesrine returns to France and becomes a political hot button, a media darling and an extremely wanted man. Overly long and slower paced than Part 1, Mesrine finds himself being tracked by a special task force while he kidnaps the rich and cajoles the press. However, in spite of Cassel's dynamite strutting and likeable sleazy air, if you've sat through both films its hard to stir any kind of sympathy at Mesrine's bloody conclusion, well perhaps some for the little dog.
6 Extrajudicial Vengeances out of 10 (GOOD)
"A History of Violence"
Vincent Cassel again plays Jacques Mesrine, a notorious French gangster who evaded capture while maintaining a spotlight, capturing his life through the 1970s until his capture. Vincent is the reason more than ever to watch as unfortunately his escapades become more ego-centric and less entertaining. Mesrine returns to France and becomes a political hot button, a media darling and an extremely wanted man. Overly long and slower paced than Part 1, Mesrine finds himself being tracked by a special task force while he kidnaps the rich and cajoles the press. However, in spite of Cassel's dynamite strutting and likeable sleazy air, if you've sat through both films its hard to stir any kind of sympathy at Mesrine's bloody conclusion, well perhaps some for the little dog.
6 Extrajudicial Vengeances out of 10 (GOOD)
Mesrine: Part 1: Killer Instinct (2008)
Mesrine: Part 1: Killer Instinct (R) - Review
"Natural Born French Killer"
Vincent Cassel plays Jacques Mesrine, the real-life French version of Scarface. Mesrine is an enigmatic low level hood that slowly gets pulled into a violent underworld of crime and corruption and finally ends up being Public Enemy No. 1 with a bullet. As a historical biopic about a relatively unknown gangster from France, this movie really delivers in both interest and entertainment. While the major motivations and reasons are lost in the time skipping narrative, the characters, acting and action are top notch and worthwhile. Based on the novel written by Mesrine himself, it is the first entry in a two part film.
6.5 Jail Breaks out of 10 (GOOD)
"Natural Born French Killer"
Vincent Cassel plays Jacques Mesrine, the real-life French version of Scarface. Mesrine is an enigmatic low level hood that slowly gets pulled into a violent underworld of crime and corruption and finally ends up being Public Enemy No. 1 with a bullet. As a historical biopic about a relatively unknown gangster from France, this movie really delivers in both interest and entertainment. While the major motivations and reasons are lost in the time skipping narrative, the characters, acting and action are top notch and worthwhile. Based on the novel written by Mesrine himself, it is the first entry in a two part film.
6.5 Jail Breaks out of 10 (GOOD)
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About Me
- Kevin Gasaway via HardDrawn
- Turlock, California, United States
- Media and Reviews by Kevin Gasaway