Movies-n-Stuff: Back in Action

So, in between Leslee puking her guts out, watching my Bengals whoop up on some Steelers and mowing the lawn, I watched some movies this weekend. We've also been watching the second season of Lost and I think, whether you like it or not, it's got to be one the most addictive shows ever, even if there is some dialogue that makes me violently ill.

Also, again, I would like to apologize for my lack of skill in the writing category… and most any other category. Please forgive me. All I hope is that you snicker every once in awhile. It doesn't even have to be out loud. Also, it doesn't really matter what my opinion is on any movie and you shouldn't take anything I say seriously, ever, because I'm an idiot.

Also, I've decided to add movie genres and my very own "Golden Sandwich" rating system to my reviews, let me know what you think.

6 in. Golden Sandwich – There are toenail clippings on this sandwich.
1 Ft. Golden Sandwich – This sandwich is about 2 weeks old and has mayo on it.

2 Ft. Golden Sandwich – Maybe 3 days old, but it's at least been kept in the fridge.

3 Ft. Golden Sandwich – Includes fancy mustard.

4 Ft. Golden Sandwich – The future of sandwiches, whatever that means.

5 Ft. Golden Sandwich - Best Sandwich EVER! It's got, like, fancy mustard with gold flakes in it....and probably has truffles on it, too. Horseradish...that sounds good.

Movies watched:

Bob le Flambeur (1955)

Dead Man's Shoes

13 Moons

Kicking and Screaming (not that one, the other one)

Undead

Bob le Flambeur:

Genre: Ol' School

Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) remade this into a decent Nick Nolte flick in 2002, but is incomparable to this 1955 French masterwork/piece/blaster. It's got a pretty simple plot: Lifetime gambler, one time bank robber, runs out of money and decides to try another heist. He gets a gang of dudes together to help him, one of which is his protégé of sorts. Bob meets a lady friend at a club, who his protégé quickly falls for and gets her to show us her boobies.
The DVD was released by Criterion, so the quality is fantastic, and that really helps, because the look and style is half of the movie.
4 ft. 6 in. Golden Sandwich

Dead Man's Shoes:

Genre: Nutty Revenge
Another simple plot: dude leaves town, his mentally handicapped brother gets picked on a lot while he's gone, then he comes back to exact some serious revenge, and perhaps some death. A stellar performance from Paddy Consodine, who I've only seen in "In America", but would now probably watch anything with him in it. My only complaint is that this movie is SUPER Irish and it's hard to understand some of what these dudes are saying. Usually that's not a problem, I just click on those totally sweet English subtitles and I'm golden, but they don't have English subtitles! So, I had to rewind some scenes, like, eight times to understand them. I know, that's more my fault then theirs, but it hurt the flow a little bit. Anyway, if you enjoy creepy dudes in gas masks, painful death or picking on the handicapped, this is your movie!
4 ft. Golden Sandwich

13 Moons:

Genre: Overly Indie
This is one of those indie flicks that has a lot of stars, Jennifer Beals, Steve Buscemi, Peter Dinklage, Peter Stormare, etc. and a critically acclaimed director, Alexandre Rockwell, but just doesn't have enough story to be good. In other words, it seems like all of these people just wanted to work together, but didn't have any great ideas, so they just decided to wing it. It's all shot on DV too, so it's got this weird home movie/soap opera kinda feel to it. Anyways, it's about a group of strangers who end up searching the big city for a guy who is escaped a hospital and is dying, so he can donate a kidney to a friend's kid. It kind of like "Cannonball Run" meets one of the not so good Woody Allen movies (perhaps Curse of the Jade Scorpion). Ouch.

2 Ft. Golden Sandwich

Kicking and Screaming:

Genre: Blablabla

I think I'm going to consider this the snotty sequel to "Dazed and Confused". Perhaps after those "D & C" kids go to college, get some smarts and don't know what to do with the rest of their lives. Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Co-writer on Life Aquatic) has definitely gotten better since this first attempt at writing and directing. This follows a group of "Gen-Xers" as they graduate college, break up with ladies, hook up with ladies and play fun little trivia games in bars. The ending made me feel all fuzzy and cuddly.
Leslee was fooled into thinking this was the "other" Kicking and Screaming, and now I'm being forced to watch "that" one. So, you'll probably see a review of "it" next week. It looks like a piece of crap, though.
3 Ft. Golden Sandwich

Undead:

Genre: Zombedy

I've been looking forward to reviewing this one. It's an Australian zombie flick with just a flare of science fiction thrown in there. A meteor storm hits a small fishing village in Australia turning everyone they hit into flesh-eating zombies, than aliens show up. This is not the best zombie movie, or the best comedy, and it's definitely not the best science fiction movie I've seen, but when you role those three genres together, I'm pretty sure this is the only movie left standing. It's also got a 50's horror throwback kinda feel. Anyways, the real reason to watch this movie is the zombie fish. ZOMBIE FISH! It's a short scene, but well worth it.
Oh yeah, the movie is about a beauty pageant winner who meets a dude who is really good at fighting zombies and they fight zombies together and run around. That's about it.

3 Ft. 6 Inches of Golden Zombie Sandwich

Movies-n-Things

Hey Folks. So, it's been a little while and I've definitely watched some things and stuff. Leslee and I have been doing a lot of sitting and thinking and looking at things and moseying. It's been fun. Let's get down to it.

Movies watched:

The Illusionist

Townies

101 Reykjavik

Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

The Naked Cosmos

Cars

Gas Light (1940)

Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)

Blackballed: The story of Bobby Dukes

Movies Rewatched:

Sexy Beast - Which has become one of my favorite movies ever. If you haven't seen it, you should punch yourself in the face and then go buy it.

Aristocrats - Not the best doc ever, but good for a laugh…a very dirty laugh.

The Illusionist: Good performances from Ed Norton and my main man Paul Giamatti and even that chick from 7^th Heaven. The movie looks incredible. It's got this really great silent film kinda feel to it. Some of the magic tricks are CG, but convincing enough that you don't really think about it. So, here's my problem: I don't want to say that the movie is a "little bit predictable", because just by saying that it's a "little bit predictable" might be giving something away. So, my solution is for you to just pretend like I didn't say anything and go see the movie.

Townies: This movie had potential as a good cult flick. Its most famous star being Toby Radloff (the genuine nerd from American Splendor), which is the only reason why I wanted to watch it in the first place. Everyone is as bad an actor or worse than Toby and the writing, directing and cinematography are just about the worst ever caught on film. This has not only been checked off of my list of movies to watch, it has been frantically gouged off with some sort of large knife (probably a machete, or at least something serrated).

101 Reykjavik: This ones a weirdy. It's an Icelandic film about a 30 something year old slacker who likes to party and nothing else. He hooks up with his mom's friend who he eventually finds out is his mom is a lesbian and this same friend is her lover. He's distraught and tries to commit suicide in a couple of goofy ways and doesn't succeed. Then he just accepts it and goes back to being a slacker who likes to party. It all equals out to be a movie that you probably don't need to watch.

Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story: Apparently "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" is an unadaptable modern classic. I've never heard of it, but the movie adaptation is great! It is, sort of a mockumentary, except for the parts where they are actually in the movie that this movie is supposed to be shooting. Got it? Very funny and very British.

The Naked Cosmos: Forget about that other movie, this movie is a weirdy. In no way can I suggest this to anyone, but I can review it. This stars Gilbert Hernandez, of "Love and Rockets" comic book fame. He plays our hero Quintas, his evil clone Kalisto, hippy teleportation expert Ego, and their announcer Mr. Mims. Gibert's wife, Carol, plays the Chief and Mistress Velda. This thing is a mess. Obviously shot by himself at his house or something. There are some funny moments, but overall, I watched it just to see the bad cheesy affects. It's shot like a bad children's public television show. The cool thing is a comic book came with the DVD and it rules. The comic book is waaaaay better than the show. So, in the end, if you are a fan his Gilbert Hernandez, you should probably stick to his comics.

Cars: They couldn't just leave the "Gitterdun" out of there. I was enjoying myself and then they threw that in there and I nearly had to get a refund on the one dollar I spent to see this movie. So, I generally agreed with most critics who have said this was good but not as good as the other Pixar movies. I think the reason is simple: Cars is geared toward a more specific audience. It's not like bugs, fish, or monsters, this is a movie for NASCAR fans (I like to call them rednecks), or at least racing fans, and although NASCAR is, like, the most popular thing on the planet, it is still more specific than superheroes or fish. It's still way better than any other animated film this summer, not that I've seen any others.

This here is an apology for anyone who is offended about me calling NASCAR fans rednecks: I'm sorry….that you like NASCAR. There are REAL sports that you could enjoy. Like sports that require skill…or have less death.

Gas Light (1940): Apparently there are two different versions of this film: this one and a more famous 1944 version with Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Angela Lansbury (Jessica Fletcher). I haven't seen the 1944 version, but this one is great. It's about a residence where an older woman was killed and the couple that move in many years later. The husband (who I will refer to as rat-face man from now on) is very controlling and suspicious. Rat-face man's wife is weak and falls for his mind games. You know that rat-face man is guilty, but you don't really know how he is going to be found out. It's very simple, but fun. Anton Walbrook plays rat-face man perfectly as you really do hate him and his rat-face guts throughout the movie.

Bunny Lake is Missing (1965): My "old" friend Nathan, who works with me, recommended this. I really enjoyed it a lot. It's about a young single woman and her daughter who moves to London to live with her brother. When they get there, she promptly checks her child, Bunny, into a daycare and goes about her day. She returns to find no sign that her daughter was ever there, nor does anyone remember her dropping bunny off…. Or maybe Bunny isn't real, maybe Bunny is a figment of her imagination. Maybe Bunny is really a bowl of pudding…that she ate, but doesn't remember eating, so she's confused and upset.

Blackballed: The story of Bobby Dukes: As much as I think the mockumentary genre is all played out, I still enjoyed this movie. It stars Rob Corddry (of Daily Show fame) as Bobby Dukes, an ex-paint ball star, humiliated out of the game after he was caught "wiping" paint off of himself mid-competition, trying to create a new paintball team to play with. They refer to "wiping" in many different fashions, as many times as possible, all of which are funny. Corddry's got a good dry sense of humor that makes the movie enjoyable. He pretty much plays the straight man, to his team members, all of which have some sort of "problem". A couple of Daily Show Alumn make appearances. If you are a Corddrey fan, you should enjoy this.

Seeya!

Movies-n-Stuff: The Return

Sorry its been so long since my last entry, Leslee and I have been dealing with the hairy beast we call life and all of the gigantic turds its been leaving around. Anyway, in between being addicted to a bunch of television series (Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 5, Weeds, Simpsons Season 8, Arrested Development Season 3 and my guilty pleasure, Veronica Mars) Ive watched some movies.

Movies Watched:

Snakes on an extremely overhyped but fun nonetheless Plane

Hopscotch (1980)

Little Miss Sunshine

Murder By Death (1976)

Brick

Modern Romance (1981)

Bartleby

Movies Re-watched:

Natural Born Killers

Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure (My brother-in-law Garys favorite movie of ALL-TIME!)

Heathers

Snakes on a Plane: Where to begin? Should I start with the snakes? With the Plane? Or the overabundance of total absurdity that makes this movie somehow watchable. It doesnt lie. It is what it is, man. Snakes+ plane+ absurdity=fun movie.

**SPOILER ALERT **

This movie is not just about snakes and planes. The snakes actually get on the plane and they kill people.

Hopscotch (1980): This is basically a James Bond movie starring Walter Matthau . Which makes it better than most any 007 flick. Mr. Matthau plays an aging CIA agent who gets down graded to a desk job and isnt happy. He then decides he is going to travel the world and write a tell-all book revealing all of the CIAs secrets and sending it to them copies chapter by chapter until the book is done. Lets just say the CIA isnt too happy about it and they go on a crazy wild goose chase all over the world to try and find him. Walter Matthau has monkey lips.

Little Miss Sunshine: I saw this and SOAP on the same day! What a day that was!! I laughed really hard while watching this. I would even say it was a hearty laugh. Not much of a plot: just a dysfunctional family, including a heroin-snorting grandpa, a motivational speaker, a gay uncle, a mute kid and a little girl who dreams of being a beauty pageant winner, taking a road trip together. Unfortunately, the bright yellow VW van they travel in is also dysfunctional. Some of the laughs are cheap, but theyre still laughs and I appreciate that. The cast is great, especially Alan Arkin. I give it four out of five golden sandwiches.

Murder By Death (1976): The plot: a millionaire, played by Truman Capote, who probably shouldnt have ever acted, ever, invites the 5 most brilliant private eyes in the world to a dinner to try and pull one over on them, and by one, I mean a murder.AMAZING cast: Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Eileen Brennan and a fairly young looking James Cromwell. Its a lot like the movie Clue but more clever and better actors. Check it.

Brick: A very stylish film noir about a dude whos ex-lady friend goes missing and he slithers his way through the underground high school crime syndicate trying to find clues to her disappearance. Its written perfectly for its category and well acted by a bunch of up-n-comers. I couldnt help thinking of Bugsy Malone while watching it. I highly suggest it.

Modern Romance (1981): Albert Brooks is so hairy. He took his shirt off in this movie and, unfortunately, thats all I can remember. I think I blacked out after that. Actually, I was really disappointed. I think Albert Brooks is hilarious, but nothing happens in this. Its just boring. One weird thing is that it co-stars James L. Brooks. Unfortunately, hes not funny either.

Bartleby: I love Crispin Glover. Hes such a weirdo and seems to pick really strange projects. But this movie was a total waste. Nothing happens. Its awful.

Were probably going to see The Illusionist this weekend. Im pretty stoked. Also, if were lucky, we might get to go see Nacho Libre at the dollar theater. Another thing, I wasnt sure if I should mention it or not, but, I also saw The Ringer starring Johnny Knoxville. Im trying to put the whole ugly mess behind me. Just dont mention it.

Coming up on the queueueueueueueu:

More Curb Your Enthusiasm

Tristam Shandy: a Cock and Bull Story

101 Reykjavik

Townies

Blackballed: the Bobby Dukes Story

More Veronica Mars

Reno 911: Season 3

Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)