http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1614989
headhunters was a pleasant surprise for me and a lovely reminder that i like a lot of norwegian films. honestly, i could do with less blood, but i am willing to take the good with the bad, especially in this case. the plot was complicated enough to be interesting, but not so intricate that i had to take notes to follow it. acting, sound, costumes, etc were all done well enough to be immersive. for some reason i am feeling a little moralistic, so i want to complain a bit about there not being much in the way of punishment for the protagonist. perhaps i should conclude that the experience itself was punishment enough, though.
headhunters gets four hunted heads.
2014-12-28
2014-12-26
looper
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276104
everything i heard about looper was bad, and i can see how you might condemn the film's handling of time travel with some variation on screaming and shaking your fists at the sky. the time travel part was definitely bad, to be sure, but i got a lot of mileage out of taking my cue from the diner scene where bruce willis says to ignore all the paradox stuff and just enjoy the ride. you cannot really do that wholeheartedly, because they then turn around and deliberately invoke paradoxical conditions. however, if you shut your eyes a little and concentrate on the characters, it is not a bad movie. well. not a horrible movie, anyway.
the most impressive part by far was the way they got the young bruce willis guy, an actor with his own style and such, to act like a young bruce willis, which i would never in a million years have expected. that for me was the real twist and reason to watch this movie.
looper gets two exploding bad guys.
everything i heard about looper was bad, and i can see how you might condemn the film's handling of time travel with some variation on screaming and shaking your fists at the sky. the time travel part was definitely bad, to be sure, but i got a lot of mileage out of taking my cue from the diner scene where bruce willis says to ignore all the paradox stuff and just enjoy the ride. you cannot really do that wholeheartedly, because they then turn around and deliberately invoke paradoxical conditions. however, if you shut your eyes a little and concentrate on the characters, it is not a bad movie. well. not a horrible movie, anyway.
the most impressive part by far was the way they got the young bruce willis guy, an actor with his own style and such, to act like a young bruce willis, which i would never in a million years have expected. that for me was the real twist and reason to watch this movie.
looper gets two exploding bad guys.
2014-12-22
whiteout
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365929
yaaaaaaaaaaawn. were they making the whiteout metaphorical? not sure. who cares.
they completely failed to translate the terror of an actual whiteout to the screen, much in the same way that one movie about the unstoppable train also did not translate well. how can you be afraid of a big, friendly choo-choo train? having a fight during a whiteout would be petrifying, of course, it just does does not *sound* scary. i bet you are doubting me right now, but i am going to help you out.
imagine that canadian terrorists said they were going to make you eat seven almond butter sandwiches. does not sound so bad, right? is that the worst they can come up with? ha! bring it on!
so ok, you wolf down the first sandwich, smirking *just* a little. you are going to show those canadians a thing or two, eh? the second sandwich goes down about the same, and your smirk gets a little bigger.
but then, around the third sandwich, things start to get a little thirsty. can you have a little milk to wash it down? sorry, no milk, says the terrorist, and you see that now *she* is starting to smirk. a cold pit forms in your stomach, and you finish number three a little more slowly, in discomfited silence. sandwich number four stares you in the face now, and even though you are pretty sure what the answer is going to be, you ask for water, ginger ale, and coconut milk, all to no avail. there will be no washing down of the almond butter sandwiches. there are only your mandibles and your saliva, and the saliva is pretty well used up, spent too early and unwisely on those first sandwiches. sandwich number four draws the remaining moisture from your mouth and now even your eyeballs seem to be drying up.
as you take your first bite of number five, a mad, giggly voice in the back of your head whispers to you that you could always drink your own urine, but no...surely you will not become that desperate? meanwhile, the first four sandwiches have congealed into a cannonball-like lump in your stomach, and it occurs to you for the first time that you are really, really, really in trouble. sandwich number five fights you the whole way, and by the time it is over, the only moisture left in your body is south of the small intestine. resigning yourself to the inevitable, you ask the canadian for a cup.
sorry, she says, evil grin splitting her face wide open. no cup.
like moisture, there is no surprise left in your body. you bend over and put your desiccated fingers to work on taking a shoe off. you will have to drink fast to avoid having too much of the...liquid...soak into the shoe. you do not even bother to ask for a privacy curtain.
later, when it is all over, you reflect back on your life Before and see how much simpler everything was. almond butter was tasty, canadians were harmless, and bear grylls memes were funny. and whiteouts? they were terrifying.
whiteout gets two almond butter sandwiches.
yaaaaaaaaaaawn. were they making the whiteout metaphorical? not sure. who cares.
they completely failed to translate the terror of an actual whiteout to the screen, much in the same way that one movie about the unstoppable train also did not translate well. how can you be afraid of a big, friendly choo-choo train? having a fight during a whiteout would be petrifying, of course, it just does does not *sound* scary. i bet you are doubting me right now, but i am going to help you out.
imagine that canadian terrorists said they were going to make you eat seven almond butter sandwiches. does not sound so bad, right? is that the worst they can come up with? ha! bring it on!
so ok, you wolf down the first sandwich, smirking *just* a little. you are going to show those canadians a thing or two, eh? the second sandwich goes down about the same, and your smirk gets a little bigger.
but then, around the third sandwich, things start to get a little thirsty. can you have a little milk to wash it down? sorry, no milk, says the terrorist, and you see that now *she* is starting to smirk. a cold pit forms in your stomach, and you finish number three a little more slowly, in discomfited silence. sandwich number four stares you in the face now, and even though you are pretty sure what the answer is going to be, you ask for water, ginger ale, and coconut milk, all to no avail. there will be no washing down of the almond butter sandwiches. there are only your mandibles and your saliva, and the saliva is pretty well used up, spent too early and unwisely on those first sandwiches. sandwich number four draws the remaining moisture from your mouth and now even your eyeballs seem to be drying up.
as you take your first bite of number five, a mad, giggly voice in the back of your head whispers to you that you could always drink your own urine, but no...surely you will not become that desperate? meanwhile, the first four sandwiches have congealed into a cannonball-like lump in your stomach, and it occurs to you for the first time that you are really, really, really in trouble. sandwich number five fights you the whole way, and by the time it is over, the only moisture left in your body is south of the small intestine. resigning yourself to the inevitable, you ask the canadian for a cup.
sorry, she says, evil grin splitting her face wide open. no cup.
like moisture, there is no surprise left in your body. you bend over and put your desiccated fingers to work on taking a shoe off. you will have to drink fast to avoid having too much of the...liquid...soak into the shoe. you do not even bother to ask for a privacy curtain.
later, when it is all over, you reflect back on your life Before and see how much simpler everything was. almond butter was tasty, canadians were harmless, and bear grylls memes were funny. and whiteouts? they were terrifying.
whiteout gets two almond butter sandwiches.
2014-12-12
after the dark
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1928340
after the dark is the philosophical version of masturbation. they pretty much came right out and said that by way of some tongue-in-cheek joke during the denouement, and i thought it was an absolutely correct, if not insightful, meta-meta-comment. the only thing which was at all surprising is that i figured the poet that kept getting shot in the head was going to turn out to somehow know the bunker's exit code.
the overall feeling and execution of this film was similar to the man from earth, but with a bigger location budget--which was quite frankly wasted because i can see pictures of pretty scenery on the intarwebs anytime--and more insipid actors. philosophy, my ass.
after the dark gets two bunker exit codes. i give them to you up front and recommend you use them to get out while you can.
after the dark is the philosophical version of masturbation. they pretty much came right out and said that by way of some tongue-in-cheek joke during the denouement, and i thought it was an absolutely correct, if not insightful, meta-meta-comment. the only thing which was at all surprising is that i figured the poet that kept getting shot in the head was going to turn out to somehow know the bunker's exit code.
the overall feeling and execution of this film was similar to the man from earth, but with a bigger location budget--which was quite frankly wasted because i can see pictures of pretty scenery on the intarwebs anytime--and more insipid actors. philosophy, my ass.
after the dark gets two bunker exit codes. i give them to you up front and recommend you use them to get out while you can.
teenage mutant ninja turtles
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1291150
tmnt is so much worse than you expect. to be fair, i did have overly generous expectations, mostly because the 1990 version was so incredibly epic. who could forget great lines like "never lower your eyes to an enemy" and characters like the inimitable casey jones? this remake is by comparison a line of baking soda disguised as cocaine--not a good idea in the first place and then, oops, you are dead. actually, i am not sure what happens if you snort baking soda, but i doubt it is good. at the very least, you are going to have to wipe all that powder off your nose.
tmnt gets one inexplicable plot line involving harvesting mutant blood to create an antidote to a toxin that has existed for a decade, thus mirroring some story about a thing that supposedly happened in japan?
tmnt is so much worse than you expect. to be fair, i did have overly generous expectations, mostly because the 1990 version was so incredibly epic. who could forget great lines like "never lower your eyes to an enemy" and characters like the inimitable casey jones? this remake is by comparison a line of baking soda disguised as cocaine--not a good idea in the first place and then, oops, you are dead. actually, i am not sure what happens if you snort baking soda, but i doubt it is good. at the very least, you are going to have to wipe all that powder off your nose.
tmnt gets one inexplicable plot line involving harvesting mutant blood to create an antidote to a toxin that has existed for a decade, thus mirroring some story about a thing that supposedly happened in japan?
2014-12-05
crazy heart
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1263670
crazy heart has got to win some kind of award for duration in my to-watch queue, followed by another award for the time it took me to finish watching it once i started. the last award is for biggest letdown.
i think jeff bridges is great, but even he could not quite bring this one off. he handily succeeded at making me *want* to like this film, but then almost everything else about it succeeded at convincing me not to. the other thing i want to give a nod to is the music; bad blake's big hits were pretty good. country music is full of feels, you know.
crazy heart gets two mcclure's. make 'em doubles.
crazy heart has got to win some kind of award for duration in my to-watch queue, followed by another award for the time it took me to finish watching it once i started. the last award is for biggest letdown.
i think jeff bridges is great, but even he could not quite bring this one off. he handily succeeded at making me *want* to like this film, but then almost everything else about it succeeded at convincing me not to. the other thing i want to give a nod to is the music; bad blake's big hits were pretty good. country music is full of feels, you know.
crazy heart gets two mcclure's. make 'em doubles.
sabotage
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1742334
sabotage is pure crap. half of it is completely transparent, like the part where everybody knows arnie took the money. the other half is just random, like the part where the crazy woman turns out to be the killer. why? because she is pissed off? not exactly a fulfilling payoff. and then we wrap back around to the cartel guys from guatemala? there are like five million ways this could have been done better.
sabotage gets ten million dollars split one way and then apparently used to bribe just one guy. you guys are killing me here.
sabotage is pure crap. half of it is completely transparent, like the part where everybody knows arnie took the money. the other half is just random, like the part where the crazy woman turns out to be the killer. why? because she is pissed off? not exactly a fulfilling payoff. and then we wrap back around to the cartel guys from guatemala? there are like five million ways this could have been done better.
sabotage gets ten million dollars split one way and then apparently used to bribe just one guy. you guys are killing me here.
snowpiercer
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620
in snowpiercer, we have a post-apocalyptic world where the world is frozen and the only people who survived are on board a train that completes a circle on its track once a year. i am going to give you a paragraph break to let that sink in.
really? the last bastion of humanity is a *train*? we were not able to survive anywhere else? and if the train stops moving, everybody dies? what kind of super train is this, anyway? who has been maintaining the track for the last 18 YEARS? i know a thing or two about system reliability, and let me tell you, on an earth where the environment is hostile enough to have extinguished all but a small pocket of human life, the outlier is not going to be a train, and if it is, i guarantee that it is not going to last 18 years. also, 18 years is obviously not long enough for the herd to need to be thinned out by three quarters, especially when it has been thinned on at least two prior occasions. unless, of course, post apocalyptic humans reproduce and mature much more quickly. but enough of the factual nitpicking. the facts are not there to advance the story, they are there to set up the elements that allow this story to function as a metaphor for...whatever it is a metaphor.
i absolutely detest movies that only work as metaphors. get it straight, people. first, the story has to make sense. then, and only then, are you allowed to add layers. metaphors are the challenge mode, not the top line priority. to do otherwise is to make a metaphor where the part which is supposed to be grounded in reality is...deconstructivism or something. you might as well light a match and blow it all to hell.
snowpiercer gets two protein bars. i am awarding a full protein bar for chris evans's recounting of the train's early days because it was that good.
in snowpiercer, we have a post-apocalyptic world where the world is frozen and the only people who survived are on board a train that completes a circle on its track once a year. i am going to give you a paragraph break to let that sink in.
really? the last bastion of humanity is a *train*? we were not able to survive anywhere else? and if the train stops moving, everybody dies? what kind of super train is this, anyway? who has been maintaining the track for the last 18 YEARS? i know a thing or two about system reliability, and let me tell you, on an earth where the environment is hostile enough to have extinguished all but a small pocket of human life, the outlier is not going to be a train, and if it is, i guarantee that it is not going to last 18 years. also, 18 years is obviously not long enough for the herd to need to be thinned out by three quarters, especially when it has been thinned on at least two prior occasions. unless, of course, post apocalyptic humans reproduce and mature much more quickly. but enough of the factual nitpicking. the facts are not there to advance the story, they are there to set up the elements that allow this story to function as a metaphor for...whatever it is a metaphor.
i absolutely detest movies that only work as metaphors. get it straight, people. first, the story has to make sense. then, and only then, are you allowed to add layers. metaphors are the challenge mode, not the top line priority. to do otherwise is to make a metaphor where the part which is supposed to be grounded in reality is...deconstructivism or something. you might as well light a match and blow it all to hell.
snowpiercer gets two protein bars. i am awarding a full protein bar for chris evans's recounting of the train's early days because it was that good.
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