wheelman

[IMDB] [Netflix]

i will just come right to the point. wheelman used this gimmicky story-telling thing where it always left the camera in the car, and it bothered me because there was no apparent point to doing so. unless it was to distract from the overall weakness of the film, but that would imply that this overall weakness was somehow foreseen. it is not like you would go back and reshoot the whole movie in goofy perspective after you realize your first attempt was crap. or would you?

i dunno. i watch movies, i do not make them. it just seems like a lot to me. why not hire new actors, or make a different movie? it is not like there was anything amazing going on here that absolutely demanded to be preserved. like for example, if samurai princess had left out the love rhombus, they would not have been all, "crap, nothing to salvage here." instead they would have obviously preserved the director's artistic vision and reshot whatever needed reshooting because samurai princess was a film whose time had come, a work of art that demanded to be released.

well, wheelman was no samurai princess. it gets two red trunks. by the way, if your authentication protocol involves just believing anything somebody tells you over the phone, then you have at least one problem which demands immediate attention.

also, in case you are wondering, i intentionally left out all the jokes about how an alternate explanation for the camera placement is that the director could see into the future and already knew about the film's weakness, and just shot it that way the first time.  it just seemed too obvious.

the number 23

[IMDB] [Amazon]

the number 23 would have been a lot creepier if i did not already have the habit of playing stupid number games in my head. it is not really that hard to turn a string of numbers into another number, usually. and it is way easier if you have a modicum of control over which numbers get to be in your string and in what order. and if you allow splicing, then it is easier still. so there was nothing scary about the number 23. 

with that said, it was not a terrible movie. i was pleasantly surprised to find jim carey doing well in a serious role, and the plot was entertaining enough to justify the time expenditure.

the number 23 gets three top secrets. three is twice three halves, three halves is basically 32, which is 23 reversed, for a grand total of 46. er, 64? then 64 is 2^6, which is 26. and 26 is of course 3 more than 23. scary, right? right?

hello? is this thing on?

too late

[IMDB] [Amazon]

too late is a real feat of directorial masturbation. i guess i am supposed to comment on how they made it look like they shot the whole movie in five takes, possibly by shooting the whole movie in five takes, but i feel like that is a little too obvious a thing to comment on. i could also comment on the nonlinear storytelling, but really they had to do that in order to make the story at all interesting.

well shit, that actually leaves me with very little to comment on. actually, i do have something to say about the take at the outdoor movie theater. just the sheer amount of wat in that sequence was mind-blowing. it is an outdoor theater, plus a boxing ring? and the lady runs them both, simultaneously? and she used to be partners with the detective guy? but she was an exotic dancer in the previous scene? was she undercover or something? and she forgot to go back to the boxing ring to introduce the subsequent round? how did the guy get uncuffed and run away? it was just a lot, you know?

too late gets one really really really really really really really very really incredibly long take. so long.

take me

[IMDB] [Amazon]

take me is a tale about nevermind because it does not matter.  the acting was just not good enough to pull this one off. the chemistry was not there, and neither of the leads held the screen very well on their own. do not even get me started on the writing. who signed off on this ridiculous premise?

i actually have a whole bunch of things i could say about running a kidnapping business, but i just cannot believe that i have to say them.  i also want to avoid making any more buzz for this drek fest. so let me summarize by saying that if you are going to kidnap somebody, do try not to be such a fucking amateur about it?

take me gets one preposterously flawed turn of events after another.

the dark tower

[IMDB] [Amazon]

so sure, i read and loved the dark tower books, as well as almost everything else Stephen King has written, but i do not expect anybody to make a movie which translates the books directly to the screen. King has been writing a long time and has a good idea how to fully utilize the novel format, which i expect to make it even harder to make a film which is "true" to the books. so i am not surprised that the filmmakers went a different direction with the assignment, as it were.

still.

what the fuck was that? it was like some kind of crazy mishmash of things that appeared across like eight different Stephen King novels. and Jake has the shine now? seriously. i would have been a lot happier if they had just movieified wolves of the calla or wizard and glass.

the dark tower gets two souls in the man in black's pocket. one of the souls was because i wanted to like it more than it actually deserved.