AVATAR

For the past year and a half I have been going to see at least one newly released movie a week. Last February I decided to begin writing some of my thoughts down about the movies I was seeing and I Hate Movie Reviews blew up.

With millions now in the bank I needed a few months to figure out what my game plan for the future would be. During this time I took a class that focused about 50% of its attention on the Science Fiction genre. Over the past 4 months I have probably seen 17 or 18 Sci-Fi movies, sometimes viewing the same films several times. I ended up focusing a lot of my attention to James Cameron. I have viewed Terminator (1982) Aliens (1986) The Abyss (1989) and Terminator 2; Judgment Day (1991) at least once in the past 4 weeks, watching T2 three times as it was the focus of my final paper. All these films were directed by Cameron*.

During this time I have;
1. Not had the chance to see a movie in a theatre in 6 weeks
2. Read a copious amount of Science Fiction related essays and film criticisms and
3. Seen a ton of science fiction flicks all while trying to break them down while watching them.

Then I went to go see a movie called Avatar, Directed by James Cameron.

You probably did too.

If you haven’t, you’re planning on it.

And if it’s not on your radar during this Holiday season, then, well, I’m speechless.

I am not a Sci-Fi geek. I’m some other kind of geek… but I’m not a Star-Wars or Star-Trek or Lord of the Rings or anything else that’s geeky like that geek. I’m a good writing, solid stories and characters kinda geek. I hate CGI. I like the look of The Graduate. I think the mumblecore movement is cool.

So, with all this being said I would have to say that Avatar is a spectacle...and nothing less. For me, the experience of watching Avatar 3-D was the single most impressive theatre experience I have ever had. I felt like I was on a ride at Disneyland. I’d like to think this was how Cameron intended me to feel.

I have heard, read, and considered the critiques of the film that can mostly be summed up as a weak script with silly dialog and a predictable timeline of events.

Well, yeah…but so what?

I put up with the dialog that spoke to the 10 year olds seeing this movie because I knew in a few minutes I would stare in awe at the screen as I watched Jake Sully speak or one of those panther things that’s got 6 of the meanest looking legs I have ever seen run around and jump off of shit. It was nothing short of amazing. It was like Cameron took a little bit of something from every Sci-Fi flick I had just watched and put his own twist on it and made it better. And isn’t that where great shit comes from, other peoples okay shit?

I was excited when I left the theatre in a way I don’t ever think I have been. It’s not everyday you witness something like Avatar. I’m sure this technology will become pedestrian sooner than we think. Avatar “knock-off’s” will spring up in theatres and on the Sci-Fi channel but it will be years before you get the chance to witness technology catch up to such a practiced filmmakers vision the way Avatar has.

My Vote: Don’t let life get in the way. Escape to Pandora ASAP.

*Unfortunately, some of his other films like Piranha II: The Spawning (1981), True Lies (1994) or Titanic (1997) didn’t quite fall into the Sci-Fi category.

New Web Site Coming Soon/quick reviews

Hello Everyone-

Thanks for checking out I Hate Movie Reviews. We are building a new website at ihatemoviereviews.com and working on a new PODCAST for your listening pleasure. Also, the I Hate Movie Reviews staff is growing to allow for more coverage, new articles, reviews on older movies, and fresh perspectives. Bare with us and look forward to some new things to checkout in January 2010...

Thanks for the support.

Kyle Retter- i hate movie reviews

So...My opinions

Fantastic Mr. Fox...Please go see this.
Christmas Carol ( Jim Carey)... Good, 3-D was pretty amazing.
2012....Please don't waste your time.
The Box...Richard Kelly is an interresting dude...this is his most followable movie, and yes, I just said followable.
This is it...MJ is freakishly weird, but you knew that. Check it out on the big screen.
The House of the Devil...probably will be hard to find until DVD but well worth it. Great throw back to the 80's horror flicks.
Couples Retreat- Unfortunatley its everything you thought it would be...garbage.

Pulp Muppets....good enough I had to pass it along....

Anti-Christ ruined my sex life...by jonny davis

Not to mention my appetite and belief in the good of all people. Anti-Christ is the most shocking and disgusting film that I have ever seen in my life. After it was over I had nothing to say except, “Wow.” I wanted to go home and sleep forever. I called my brother on the phone like I was in some sort of depression, and I still felt a little shaky the next morning. This is not a date movie.

The story is about a woman whose child falls out of a window while she and her husband make love. Her husband, the therapist, turns her into his patient and tries to help her through the grief process. They go to a cabin in the woods that she is most afraid of in order to conquer her fears. Her grief over the child is psychologically connected to her act of sex with her husband. These feelings consume her and turn her into a monster. She blames herself. The beautiful act of love becomes one of punishment and pain, and the husband’s act of love becomes an aggressive one.

This movie is not your typical horror film, because the acts you see are not in any way meant to be exciting, fun, or scary. The images are meant to drag you down emotionally to the place where our two characters are in the story. A horror film is to scare and disgust you to a certain safe point. It’s like a rollercoaster: you can take anything as long as you understand you are strapped in and safe. Lars von Trier does not strap you in. There are images too disturbing to mention in this review and self-castration that is shown in its entirety.

Some of the images were so extreme that they became absurd. It is not unusual to hear laughing out loud among the gasping majority. One particularly amusing moment was when the husband finds a fox in the grass eating itself. This image was horrifying by itself and effective, until the fox opened its mouth and said “Chaos Reigns.” Others were laughing near the end because the wife was slowly devolving into an exaggerated form of the classic “crazy bitch.”

There is so much to be said and so much that can’t be said, that I should just leave it up to you. It’s a well-made film, but it’s a film with a heavy subject and highly esoteric and artistic approach. It definitely did its job as a film, which is to make me feel and experience, but a little too well. Anti-Christ was created by Lars von Trier in a state of extreme depression. Most people, including myself, would say that something like this is too personal to share. I want to feel sad, but I don’t want to feel hopeless after I watch something. Why would you want to put others or yourself through this experience? Proceed with extreme caution. I promise you have never seen anything like this.

Verdict: I will never watch this movie again.

"9" gets a 5...review by jonny davis

When I first saw the preview for “9,” it looked so neat. I’ll be honest and admit that I walked into the theater slightly excited but I found myself waiting for my interest to begin. One lesson I’ve learned is that you can sometimes spend an entire movie waiting for the movie.

“9” is a sci-fi adventure based on Shane Acker’s short film of the same name. This student film caught the eye of Tim Burton and Acker was able to direct a full-length version of his original vision.

The animation, which was my biggest attraction, never let me down. The graphics are really stunning, the story is cool, there are great moments of excitement and the creatures are awesome. However, an unfamiliar emotion was brewing inside of me. As I left the theatre, I felt nothing. As if I had paid for a massage but received only a pat on the back. The feeling I was trying to describe and maybe didn’t want to admit was boredom with a touch of apathy.

The concept is interesting and creative (another initial draw for me). Nine machines are the last “living” beings on earth after humans destroy themselves with their own technology. After activating a long-dead powerful machine, the 9th creation must destroy the evil he has awoken. Post-apocalyptic cautionary tales are always fascinating. So, why had such an aesthetically interesting and conceptually intriguing movie left me nothing at all?

Right off the bat we’re watching a movie that was stretched from a quarter of an hour to just under 80 minutes. It is difficult to fill that time without being repetitive or without contriving some scenes for time’s sake. Action is one reason I feel the film gets a little tedious. There is an attack from the bad guys, then a small victory or loss, the characters talk, and then they fight a different creature.

Another challenge for a movie like this is creating sympathy for characters that are not human. It’s not impossible (i.e. Watership Down, The Secret of Nymh), and the burlap rag-dolls are personified well, they do everything humans do—feel pain, love, live, die—but they still felt empty. It’s hard to feel sympathy for anything when dialogue feels like it was written and delivered by robots.

In my opinion, mediocrity is a sin worse than a total flop. It’s frustrating when a film has the potential to be better. It is also frustrating because this seems like one of the first American attempts to break into the “Adults Only” animation genre, which is influenced by Japanese anime. As an anime and animation fan, I want to see it get its deserved respect from adults, but part of me says America is not ready.

All the elements of a great movie are here, but it missed the mark. No amount of dazzling computer graphics can make this film stand out in our quickly fading memories. Every part and piece is in place, but ironically it lacks the one thing it seeks to find: soul.

Verdict: Check it out on DVD; a worthy attempt, a fun movie, and I hope audiences will stay open to animated features in the future.

by jonny davis/staff writer

A Serious Man....and Updates

Hello Everyone-

Thanks for checking out I Hate Movie Reviews. October is going to be a slow month for us as we are building a new website at ihatemoviereviews.com and working on a new PODCAST for your listening pleasure. Also, the I Hate Movie Reviews staff is growing to allow for more coverage, new articles, reviews on older movies, and fresh perspectives.

Thanks for the support.

Kyle Retter- i hate movie reviews

"I'd buy that for a dollar"

YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH SERIES: ARTICLE #1-ROBOCOP

I’ve been on this late 80’s early 90’s kick lately. I guess I am on some kind of very unfocused journey to figure out what still holds up, if only in my eyes, some 20 years later. I remember them vividly, if only in pieces. These movies I am diving into are typically movies that went over my head but made enough of an impact that I feel some sort of obligation to myself to reevaluate them now. As you will see, these movies tend to be geared towards adults and not 8-year-old boys, hence, youth without youth. These wont be movies that I watched or studied at any point in time (I don’t think) and should be fun for me and hopefully for you all as well.

Lets Begin.

“I’d buy that for a dollar”! Why I remember Murphy.

My first memory of Robocop, aside from the trailers, was my mother telling me that I could never see this movie. Bad move Mom; of course it was the only movie I wanted to see after she said this. Eventually, I managed to secure a VHS copy of Robocop and watched it with my jaw on the floor. It was pretty heavy then and in a lot of ways, after watching it again the other night, it’s still pretty heavy.

The Plot:

Set in the run down city of Detroit, MI in the near future this movie, if only on the surface, is a typical Sci-fi / action flick. Detroit is being taking over by a large corporation (OCP) who is aspiring to produce robots that will act as or accompany the police force.

In the first scene we see a completely robotic officer go haywire and kill an unsuspecting board member of OCP during a demonstration. Quickly they decide to opt for the more controllable model, one that comes with some human parts.

Enter Murphy and quite possibly the worst first day of work ever. During his first response to a call he is separated from his partner chasing down a bunch of ruthless bank robbers (I don’t say ruthless just cause it sounds good here people, these dudes are RUTHLESS). They blow Murphy to bits with shotguns at close range. OCP decides to turn Murphy into Robocop.

The people love him, then they hate him, the Police Officers go on strike, Murphy….errrr….. Robocop saves the day. Churn out 2 sequels, a TV series, a cartoon series, comic books and action figures.

Job well done.

So why do I remember Murphy?

Robocop could have been just another robot movie. There are plenty of them out there. Some, changed movies forever (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) while others just wasted our time. There is something special about a movie like Robocop, so lets explore.

Set Design/Wardrobe. Downtown Dallas Texas. The newly constructed futuristic looking buildings were the perfect backdrops for the future. The neon lights stuck to everything let us know its not 1987, but somehow remind us it was made in 1987.

The police officers look like a polished version of something out of Star Wars. Familiar and futuristic without going over the top. Spot on.

Social Commentary. Lots of movies attempt to comment on the current state of the world. Sci-Fi movies exist for this very purpose. The commercials for cars and the news channels in Robocop are a telling sign of things to come and they help to sprinkle in some comedy against the harsh backdrop of….

Gore. This movie is pretty gnarly, even by today’s standards. Don’t get me wrong, the effects aren’t great, this is a low budget movie, however, when shots are fired slugs are ripping through flesh and they do their best to show you the affects of it. Score.

Delivery. I would never consider Robocop to be groundbreaking but it did successfully combine and improve many elements from other movies that gave it a very unique feeling.

The build up to Robocop being unveiled is well constructed. Like a horror movie’s monster, our curiosity is at its peak when we finally get to see the newly constructed Murphy up close and personal, and he is pretty impressive, even by today’s standards.

In closing

I think part of the thing I appreciated about movies made before CGI became a cost effective alternative was the production value of a movie (think about Back to the Future II). While there are times when things in Robocop look pretty low budget but they are working with what they got. Robocop himself looks pretty legit, albeit there are a few moments when it is painstakingly obvious that it is a costume pieced together. More often than not it looks freakin’ awesome.

My Vote: If you haven’t seen this movie, you need to. If you have, it’s been too long, head to best buy and plop down your hard earned $12 on this instead of Transformers.

Gamer

So here’s what’s up. Gamer is not that bad; in fact I kind of liked it.

Kind of. 

If I really picked out all of the flaws in this movie I would never shut up. I tend to get annoyed at a movie that fails to do one or more of the following: make logical sense, contain a well-thought out story, subtly inserts themes, ideas, or plot devices. 

Gamer does all of these things but I guess I cared so little about this movie it made me capable of turning off my critical mind. Sometimes that’s okay.

Sometimes.

Set some 30 years into the future, Gamer  stars Gerard Butler(300, The Ugly Truth) and depicts a world where an injection allows your mind and thus your actions to be controlled by a “gamer” (now you see why it's such a clever title). This injection, initially used in a real life depiction of a “Sims” game called “Society” has now been developed into a real life war game called “Slayer”. Kable (Butler) is a convict who’s won 27 Slayer matches. Win 30 and they set you free. (Think “The Running Man, 1987). In my opinion if they spent more time raising the stakes and building some suspense on the way to the 30th match the movie would have worked better, but who cares about my opinion?

The problem with a movie like Gamer is that it tries to be funny at the wrong time. It winks at the camera when they are trying to set up a believable dramatic scene. I’m sure we could argue that this was the intention of the filmmaker and all that gibberish, but come on, when it doesn’t work it doesn’t matter. 

Gamer does this all too often, however, what Gamer does do well is set up the funny outside of the drama. The depiction of the “Society” game is a bright spot in the movie. Successfully reminding me of a bad music video set in the future, “Society” is comical. Along with the “society” scene(s) there is a musical sequence containing the song “I’ve got you under my skin” that is especially entertaining.

Gamer is obviously a rip off of several other films, all of which manage to have better action sequences, characters we care about, and on the whole are gonna be better movies.  Howard Hawks, a respected director of several different genres said “a good movie is three good scenes and no bad one’s”. Following this logic Gamer is definitely less than good, but it does have at least 3 good scenes that make it worth the effort to watch it.

My Vote: A rental for sure. (and maybe a bunch of friends and tall cans of beer too.)

A Side Note:

I’m not a gamer. My video game dominance begins and ends with Super Mario Bros. I think that this helped me relax a little bit during Gamer. I’m not usually a big fan of this type of movie. It took me a few years and multiple viewings of the Matrix to agree that it was a significant movie…perhaps because when put up against other movies of the same ideas it stood out, but that’s another review.

 

Extract

            Extract is written and directed by Mike Judge (Beavis and Butt-head, Idiocracy, Office Space) and stars Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, J.K. Simmons, and Ben Affleck. That’s a pretty solid group of talent and/or box office draw so why did I walk away feeling less than impressed? Billed as “the funniest comedy of the year”, this movie offered only a few laughs both in situations and one-liners and as the credits rolled I wondered what the hell I had just watched.

           

            The Plot: Joel is a chemistry guru who has mastered the art of food extracts and is on the verge of selling his plant to General Mills for a lot of money. He boasts about driving a 7-series BMW and lives in a phat house with a long driveway. Life at home is less than great, however. His wife won’t have sex with him and on the verge of the buy-out of his company an act of carelessness costs a factory worker a testicle and throws the thought of retirement into the furnace. Joel’s buddy Dean, (Affleck) thinks he can solve a few of his problems by offering him drugs and a Gigolo to seduce his wife so he doesn’t feel guilty about cheating on her with the newly hired (and unbearably sexy) Cindy (Kunis).

            The Good: Mila Kunis is not too hard to look at. Jason Batemen is solid in his role, although the story doesn’t do much to support him. David Koechner as Nathan, the annoying neighbor is always fun to watch and Extract is no exception.

            The Bad: I wasn’t turned on by the story or the way things unfolded. To bill this as a comedy is a stretch. "Black comedy" may have suited it better given the situations involved but undecided is where it seems to fall in my mind

            The Ugly: Ben Affleck kinda sucks…. again. I really don’t want to hate on anyone but he makes it pretty easy. His character is pretty unoriginal (not his fault, although he chooses his roles so I guess it is) but his take on the character is beyond unoriginal. He goes for a younger, dumber, less interesting Labowski and just made my eyes roll into the back of my head when he was on screen.

            I usually don’t like to comment on specific scenes but one comes to mind towards the end of the film that just stuck with me. Suzie, (Wigg) Joel’s cheating wife goes on a good 60 second rant telling Nathan, the annoying neighbor, how she really feels about him. The only problem is that the entire film it's Joel who has to fend off Nathan. The scene didn’t make much sense and like the rest of the movie it left me with a puzzled and unsatisfied feeling.

            My Vote: Office Space, Office Space, Office Space

"9" on 9.9.09 .....that's a whole lotta nine's.....

"9" was an Academy Award winning short (see below) turned feature with

Tim Burton's name attached...may have to check this out.

Click on any of the 9's in the title to view the official trailer.

LMAO at The Final Destination 3-D

Let’s be honest. The Final Destination is in no way a good movie. From the plot, to the dialog, to the amateur camera movement, it is the most basic movie I have seen in a long time. There were times when it was so completely obvious that someone was on the other side of the camera yelling “action” all I could do was LOL.

But no one expected anything new or interesting in terms of plot or characters. You expected to see fun, campy, outlandish deaths and you expected them to jump of the screen and in to your lap, and I must say, The Final Destination exceeded my expectation in that area. 

The original Final Destination (2000) was a fun look at a student who has unexplained premonitions about deaths before they occur. She experiences her and her friends deaths, along with dozens of others, just moments before they take place, prompting her to change her course of action and therefore altering Death’s pattern. As the story goes, you can’t escape death, and one by one, in order, everyone who was supposed to die, does. The fun part is these deaths are all gory and completely ridiculous. This story has been exhausted throughout the 3 sequels that have spawned.

I would not recommend this movie for DVD by any means. The appeal here is the 3-D. While other movies that I have recently seen in 3-D (My Bloody Valentine, Coraline) could have done with out the gimmicks (My Bloody Valentine could have just gone un-made) The Final Destination shows us the entire film in HD 3-D. This means that it’s not just the gross out death scenes that are popping out at you…it’s every painstaking moment, which made things unexpectedly more bearable.  Even the scenes that are filled only with expository dialog that take place in a living room, where I was bored out of my mind, gives you something to look at. It is a different kind of movie experience; one that I will hopefully be able to experience again with a better story. They have not perfected the 3-D technology and their will always be critics, but I think they have taken a step in the right direction. 

MY VOTE: If you have already seen Inglorious Basterds and want to head out this week and have a little fun at the movies go see this flick. If you see this at home your just a sucker.

Shakira is in the closet....

The movies have been put on hold until I can figure out which new release I am going to review this week. In the meantime I decided to take a second look at Shakira’s new video “She-Wolf”.

I am totally qualified to comment on this video.

To prove this to you I will qualify myself by telling you what I know about Shakira.

Shakira is a 32-year-old animal charmer. She is on loan to us from a galaxy far far away. She seems to be musically inclined but recent reports have considered that she may just simply be trying to communicate with her loved ones in said galaxy.  

The first 2-1/2 minutes kind of make my head spin. I got tired because I think she projected all of her hard work on me during the viewing…it’s one of her powers.

The final 60 seconds has now raised a few questions in my mind about what this galaxy is like.

I hated this song so much I bought it on iTunes today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aEW_Z5Va5s&feature=channel

Aloha, Mr. Hand......Dark City (1998)

Dark City is a 1998 film written, directed and produced by Alex Proyas (The Crow, I, Robot and Knowing) that has a substantial cult following and was hailed as The best film of 98’ by Roger Ebert, whom I admire and respect. 

So, dare I use the acronym, WTF? 

I dare. Like Tom Hanks in Big, I don’t get it.

Dark City opens with John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), passed out in an old hotel bathtub, with no recollection where or who he is. During a phone call from his psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Schreber (KieferSutherland) claiming to want to help him, he realizes there is a dead woman in the room. He flees and the party starts. 

The dark city in which this movie takes place is an obvious rip off of Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis (1927). “The Strangers”, led by Mr. Hand are group of soul sucking albino’s from another planet that reconstruct human’s memories and expand the dark city at midnight every night in an attempt to understand the human soul in order to save their race.

Like any Sci-Fi flick there are a set of contrived rules in order to make everything tick and a single person, John Murdoch, who posses the ability to over come these rules. Now, I don’t really have a problem with Sci-Fi films, nor dark/noir films. I do, however, have a problem with bad acting and terrible editing. Sutherland is a bumbling nerd and Dark City holds the title for movie with the shortest amount of screen time before a cut (did I say that right?) There is a cut every 1.8 seconds, on average. Yikes. This movie tries to deal with the complexities of the human mind, who we are, what makes us who we are, etc. etc. In any case, I think it sailed past its mark.

As a film student I had the pleasure of watching this in class with 40 other film students. When 20 + students are laughing hysterically during the entire climax sequence, you know you have something, errrr, special on your hands. While others seem to LOVE this movie, I found it rather boring and pretty unoriginal in plot with nothing too exciting to keep it afloat.

My Vote: If you are into poorly drawn film-noir/sci-fi/horror flicks, this is right up your ally. If you’re like me you’ll want to go re-watch a much better and very similar blockbuster from the following year, The Matrix.

Inglorious Basterds.....That's a Bingo!

You love him or you hate him. You get him or you don’t care to get him. Either way, when Quentin Tarantino gets to work he gives you something you have never seen before and everything you have seen before all at once. He accomplishes what others only dream of doing. He takes you to the movies.

Randall E. Auxier wrote; “ Tarintino is like a boy in a tree house. And you are invited to join the club. Yes, it’s his tree house, but all you need is the password, and he’ll give you the clues you need to get in. He doesn’t want to control you, or toy with you, he just wants to play. You already know the game. It’s just good (not so clean) fun, and time flies when your having it”.

Inglourious Basterds written and directed by Quentin Tarantino is like several other QT flicks as it is about revenge and more specifically, a woman’s revenge, a QT staple.  Emmanuelle Mimieux, the alias for the young Jewish girl who escaped Colonel Hans Landa, (Christoph Waltz), “The Jew Hunter”, after her family was massacred is out for blood…or crispy dead Nazi’s, I guess. 4 years later she is now operating a cinema in France and falls into the perfect situation to exact her revenge.

Aldo Raine, A.K.A. “Aldo the Apache” (Brad Pitt) is the leader of the Inglorious Basterds and assembles his crew of 8 Jewish American soldiers to help him in gaining 800 Nazi scalps, and that’s not just in expression, he’s taking scalps. Neither his motivation nor the scar on is neck is spoken of. We expected not to get that privileged information (see the Auxier quote above), all we need to know is Aldo is in the Nazi killin’ business….and cousin….well, you know what.

If not for “The Jew Hunter”, "Aldo the Apache" would have stolen the show. Instead, we are treated with two amazing performances and oddly enough, they both left me with a busted gut. I wasn’t prepared for how funny they would be, together, as well as on their own. Tarantino has once again created characters that are bigger than life in Aldo and Colonel Hans and once again his actors have delivered.

Two and a half hours is a long time to endure anything, so be prepared. A few scenes run a little bit too long for my taste, but don’t get discouraged. You get a lot of dialog (but you were expecting that, right? ) with a good portion of it in subtitles so rest assured you will miss something and more likely than not these little things will help IB to grow on you in subsequent visits. Aside from that, the only other down side to things is Eli Roth, “The Bear Jew”. “The Bear Jew” is definitely a bigger than life character, wielding a Louisville Slugger and beating the brains out of Nazis. Eli Roth, well, he directed Cabin Fever . It just wasn’t fair to any of us. 

Those two very small issues aside, Inglourious Basterds might turn out to be QT’s most famous film. In the middle of a summer filled with remakes and flops it will hold its place in people’s minds for the excitement surrounding it and the product it delivered. And who better to re-write history and get the ultimate revenge on “The Fuhrer” than QT.

My Vote: Even if you don’t think you like Tarantino, go see this film. The performances given and the final two scenes are enough to satisfy anyone.

Strange things are afoot in DISTRICT 9

From the opening moments of District 9 it seemed that the hype just might be true. The docu-style footage is well crafted and set up the story extremely well. Like the energizer bunny though, it keeps going and going and…. Finally, after what seemed like at least 20 minutes the story takes off in a pretty big way. The configuring of the plot aside, District 9 has a strong and interesting premise that will suck you in.

District 9 is the ghetto the South African government has provided for the aliens of a broken down space ship resting above Johannesburg. D-9 is a horrible place to make your home, even to creatures from another planet. The government has constructed a newer, better (smaller) concentration type camp 200 miles out-side of the city and plan to relocate the 1.8 million aliens to District 10 in an effort to calm the tensions between humans and non-humans. Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is in charge if the relocation process and is assigned to evict the aliens from their current home. Once inside D-9 amongst the life sized lobsters the tensions build between both sides as Wikus laughs as he aborts alien babies and torments the inferior race of aliens. Bad mistake.

Again, it seemed like all the hoopla surrounded this Peter Jackson produced Sci-Fi thriller was deserved. Then it dawned on me…the allegory that this film has been so obviously geared towards loses its direction and becomes what I had hopped it wouldn’t; a straight up action flick. Die Hard meets The Fly. I love me some action, don’t get it twisted, but this was an opportunity to say something about our society as a whole and they set us up for it. Unfortunately they forgot about what was really going on as soon as the shit hit the fan between the humans and the non-human. The story gets weaker and weaker and even manages to deliver some extremely cliché action-movie lines.

In the end, despite it’s meandering plot this is a movie worthy of the big screen. If you are into action flicks and the familiar story lines that they deliver this movie is for you. Don’t anticipate any huge emotional moments or revelations even though at times they try. 

My Vote: Buckle up and settle in for a lot of exploding body parts. Go see it on the big screen.

District 9....The Backstory

District 9 has an interesting story that is worth being explored. Niell Blomkamp, the writer/director of one of this summers most anticipated films is 29 years old. The fact that he has been tinkering with computer generated graphics for 15 years should strike you as surprising. With several commercials and advertisements under his belt, Blomkamp directed Alive in Joburg, a six-minute short film that would later become the feature District 9. 

Based mainly on the ideas and execution of Alive in Joburg, and with a little help and guidance from Lord of the Rings Director Peter Jackson, Blomkamp found himself at the helm of the motion picture adaptation of the widely popular video game HALO. With months of work already completed and over 200 workers already employed HALO, sputtered, stalled, and went back up on the self over copyright disputes.

With out skipping a beat, Jackson proposed that the budding filmmaker take his short film to the next level. District 9 was born. Blomkamp spent his first 18 years in Johanisberg South Africa and witnessed first hand the effects of Apartheid. It is no secret that District 9 was made as an allegory of sorts and has many paralleling story lines to the sad tales that have come out of South Africa in years past. 

Check out Alive in Joburg below

A Perfect Getaway

You must have seen the trailer for this movie (click the title if you haven't), I think it just runs in 2 minutes increments on every major network. Excessive marketing usually means, as far as I can tell, that the movie aint so great so they need a big opening weekend before the word of mouth gets around that it’s a bomb. Fortunately, in A Perfect Getaway, this isn’t completely true.

The story goes like this: Two newly weds, Steve Zahn (Management, Rescue Dawn) and Milli Jovovich (Resident Evil 1,2,3) are setting off on a camping expo through Hawaii to a secluded beach accessible only by foot or kayak. Coincidentally, two newly weds have just been murdered on the big island and the suspects have not been apprehended. 

Should they push on or go home and avoid the worst honeymoon ever? Well there wouldn’t be much a movie if they went home. 

They meet up with Timothy Olyphant (Hitman, Live Free or Die Hard) a former military special ops agent and Kiele Sanchez (Lost), a southern girl not afraid of....well, anything.  There is also a mysterious 3^rd couple that we need to keep our eye on.

This movie is billed as a thriller and mildly delivers at times. Some people have dared to utter the name Hitchcock in the same breath as director David Twohy (Pitch Black, Chronicles of Riddick), not necessarily as a compliment, but as a measuring stick. 

That just isn’t fair. 

Hitchcock is the Don of suspense. While this flick will pale in comparison to anything Hitchcock, Steve Zahn turns out a performance that was extremely fun to watch and helps to keep the movie interesting.

The fun thing about thrillers is trying to figure out what is going to happen next, to whom and why. One commercial I saw said something to the effect of “the best thriller in years” and “one of the biggest twist to an ending you will see this year”. Well, neither is true but I was engaged the whole time. You can see “the big twist” coming from pretty far away but I was still interested in how it was going to be delivered. I couple of scenes ran a little long (I hate when directors think the audience is too stupid to pick up on the obvious clues) but in the end this is a very fun and watchable flick.

My Vote: Might not need to see this in the theatre but you won’t be totally disappointed if you do. Don't hesitate to check out anything Hitchcock.

Coming Soon....

Life has been busy but the Funny People review is ready to go and a newly released movie will be reviewed shortly....

The Collector

The Collector, written and directed by Marcus Dunstun is about a handyman, Arkin, on the verge of having the unthinkable happen to his wife and young daughter at the hands of a loan shark. He can solve all of his problems if he steals a presumably expensive and/or rare stone from the house he has been working at. While the family of said house is scheduled to be on vacation he attempts to execute his plan. Unfortunately (for us) “The Collector” beat him to it, only not to steal the stone but to (cue scary music) torture the family. 

I accept this as the premise, therefore;

I will be manipulated!

I will laugh if you want me to laugh!

I will jump out of my seat if you will just let me!

Give me a reason!

I’m begging you Marcus Dunstan!

But no, you give me The Collector. 

I’m a pretty excitable guy. It’s a blessing and a curse alike. My excitable nature allows for me to be taken advantage of and I welcome that. This is part of the reason I love movies and more specifically, scary movies. To me there is nothing better than watching a movie while my whole body tenses up in fear. I have been making a conscience effort, however, to avoid most recent “scary movies” releases.  I use quotations here to emphasize the irony. I am not afraid of being scared I just rarely find my self scared or horrified at a recent motion picture aiming to do just that.

This movie, which I will not name again, has no suspenseful moments, poor direction, and offered nothing in the way of a story or a well played out plot. I am searching for something positive to mention but I have nothing. Sometimes a scary movie will succeed in capturing an audience because it is awesomely bad.

This movie is just bad.

My Vote: Appropriately bad enough for 15-year-old girls slumber party. Are you a 15-year-old girl? Don't bother. Rent the ORIGINAL Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

This Week: Funny People

Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill, Leslie Mann, and Eric Bana all in a Judd Apatow flick...tell me you're not excited! This is the 3rd movie coming from the Apatow camp and while it stays away from a lot of the juvenile gross out moments you have come to love it will still make you laugh and make you think....look for the review in the next few days and check out the trailer by clicking on the title.

Humpday…It’s beyond gay!

Gay porn doesn’t usually spark my interest (insert joke) but when I saw the trailer for the high concept 2009 Sundance Special Jury Prize winner for Spirit of Independence appropriately titled Humpday I have to admit, I got a little aroused. 

The thing that attracted me to this film initially was the honesty that seemed to be permeating into my bones as I watched the trailer. The same holds true for the actual movie; the first scene pulled me in and the story didn’t let up until the final frame. The premise of the story is a unique approach to the “buddy film”, and it’s no surprise to me that a female, Lynn Shelton (We go way back, 2006) who wrote and directed the movie, conceived it.

Humpday stars Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, 2006) and Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project, 1999) as two old friends who have lost touch while traveling down two very different paths. Ben (Duplass) is doing the married thing while Andrew (Leonard) is doing the vagabond artist thing. When Andrew stops into Ben’s small Seattle town for the weekend the two both take stock of what’s become of their lives.

During a drunken party with Andrew’s new Bohemian friends the discussion of an upcoming film festival presents itself; of course this isn’t your run-of-the-mill film fest. “Hump-Fest” is an amateur porn contest that anyone is eligible to enter. An innocent conversation turns into a pissing contest of sorts and the two decide to make a gay porn film with two totally straight dudes, themselves, which will become art while it reaches to be “beyond gay”. Brilliant? Maybe, maybe not.

Humpday is free from gimmicks even though the title may suggest otherwise. There is no porn, only minor nudity, and the jokes are much more circumstantial and personal as opposed to the manufactured variety. Shot in 10 days with a crew of only 12 and an almost totally improvised script this is what Independent filmmaking is all about.

My Vote: This is the most interesting 95 minutes I spent at the theatre in a long time.

(500) Days of Summer is almost as good as an actual 500 day summer.

I am going to apologize in advance here. I’ve been having my mind BLOWN by Paul Thomas Anderson for the past week and he is quickly becoming my new favorite director so everything else now seems inferior.

Lets get to it.

(500) Days of Summer is a romantic comedy with a little bit of a twist. Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who has been in a slew of small and interesting movies including Brick and Mysterious skin and who will also be in the new G.I. Joe flick coming out August 7^th) is a lover of epic proportion. Growing up listening too closely to British pop rock with inexperienced ears, Tom believes whole-heartedly in true love, fate, and destiny. I feel for Tom. I am Tom. Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel, who I have had a pretty sizable crush on since her performance in 2002’s Elf, is the exact opposite. Here lies the conflict. They meet, she’s wonderful, and he falls hopelessly in love while she remains unwilling to let go of her bitter beliefs about love. I know that girl. This movie had me at hello.

An appropriate tagline sums it up in a few words. This is not a love story. It is a story about love. Unconventional would sum it up in a word. I was tickled by the little vignettes sprinkled throughout this film, especially the nod to Fellini (or was it Bergman?)… either way, spot on. The story unfolds in a non-linear fashion, and to be honest, it felt like a gimmick. I really didn’t feel like it added anything to the plot and was just put to use in order to give the feeling of disorientation, which was unnecessary. Critics will dispute this and I understand why this choice was made, I just feel it would have felt like a fuller, more complete film if it had been told following a linear story line.

While I will applaud the climax of the movie for being unconventional, I really felt like the dénouement was in opposition to what they were trying to accomplish in the first place and therefore took away from the overall experience. The opening 10 minutes and closing 10 minutes of a film are important, not as important as I used to think, but important none-the-less. I suspect, however, that this was something imposed by the studio, at least that will be my excuse to help me sleep tonight.

I will certainly revisit this film on DVD and maybe my sentiments will change but as of right now I feel like the director Marc Webb was on the verge of a brilliant movie that fell a little short. With that being said, falling just a little short of brilliant isn’t too bad a place to be.

My Vote: A touching Rom-Com that breaks the mold. Check it out. 

Kyle Retter - i hate movie reviews

Copy and paste http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsD0NpFSADM to view the trailer.

GOSSIP is iTunes single of the week!

I know it's not movie related but I had to put it out there. My roommate turned me onto the band GOSSIP and they are pretty great. I was searching iTunes today and lo-and-behold their song HEAVY CROSS is the "single of the week"....which means it's FREE Check it out!

P.T.A. Marathon

Look out for my Paul Thomas Anderson marathon reviews. P.T.A. is one of my favorite directors working today. From his debut in 1996 with Hard Eight starring John C. Rielly  he has gone on to make a small but strong catalog of memorable films that include Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and his latest achievement There will be blood (2007). If you haven't seen any of these flicks you need to check them out...and I will tell you exactly why in the days to come!

Copy and paste this link ---->   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD7i3hWM6FU

"Looking at all the stars in the sky makes me think of all the hot guys in the world". -Bruno

Bruno has it all…moments of genius along with moments of penis. Yes, I said penis. And if you go see Bruno get ready for some penis. Not to say the entire 82 minutes revolves around penis…. sometimes the penis just revolves. 

For those of you who aren’t up to speed on the highbrow/lowbrow humor of Bruno, he is super gay. And if you don’t believe me go look at the official Bruno Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_(character).  Bruno is the fictional character invented by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. The Austrian fashion guru Bruno is on a mission to be famous. He will do anything to make his mark in Hollywood. It’s no surprise that he exposes others who have a similar agenda while reaching for his goal. God help those children.

 I didn’t find this movie as engaging as his previous ‘mockumentary” Borat but it’s definitely something we should all experience. While the flimsy story line causes it to feel more like an MTV sketch comedy show than a movie it shouldn’t matter too much given the material, no one was setting out to make Citizen Kane. 

I was shocked and horrified at almost all the situations that Bruno managed to cook up with some moments that really make you down right uncomfortable. Moments that present Bruno in Boot camp and on daytime television talk shows are funny but you know they are spoofs, put on’s, and the people involved are feeding off each others energy.  It’s the moments when it’s just him and an unsuspecting interviewee that are the best. These people can do or say anything. They can decline to comment or take the high road but never do and that’s when things become interesting. After a long speech from an Alabamian “gay converter” Bruno casually asks, “Are you coming on to me”? I lost it. 

Some will get it and take it for what it is while others will hate it and reject it as lowbrow bathroom humor, but Bruno, for what it’s worth is funny, thought provoking, eye opening, and racy. What more can you ask for?

My Vote: See this with some friends who like to talk about a movie afterwards and aren’t afraid of stationary bikes with dildos fixed to them. : \

Here is a funny link http://www.thebrunomovie.com/bruno-movie/bruno-dictionary-discover-brunoisms/

And be sure to check out The Birdcage (Mike Nichols, 1996) below.

The Birdcage

While thinking about Bruno and the controversy revolving around it I started to think about other mainstream movies that revolve around gay characters. If you haven’t seen The Birdcage you are missing out. The plot revolves around the son of homosexual Dad’s who own a South Beach drag club marrying the daughter of a conservative Republican Senator from Ohio. Let the hilarity begin. This movie has an all-star cast of Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Calista Flockhart and Hank Azaria that comes together to turn in fun and memorable performances and hey, Mike Nichols isn’t too bad behind a camera. Check this flick out!