CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP – “It was like seeing Hitler up there, but a nicer version.” I liked seeing the behind the scenes, the angst and emotion, but now I’d like to see one of the shows in its entirety. I can’t help but come away thinking that Conan, while correct that he got screwed [...]
Read more →FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS – “We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.” With those words, begins a two hour film hallucination. I forgot how seriously messed up this film is; not just for depicting the fucked up adventures of Duke and Gonzo. [...]
Read more →GODFATHER – Fantastic movie – all three hours of it are important to the story of Don Corleone’s (Brando) fall and the rise of his replacement, son Michael (Pacino). I read the book one summer in high school, and never found the time to sit through the full film. It’s one solid piece of film… [...]
Read more →SAW – I haven’t re-watched this since initial release, and Knowing how this one ends does change my appreciation of the locked room scenario that introduces the story. In this film it still feels like Jigsaw is a moralistic killer – he has a very black and white view of the world and is sentencing [...]
Read more →THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU – Pervy dolphins spying, rich playboy scientists, bizarre action sequences, and claymation. It’s basically real life… Part cartoon, part music video, part parody. I popped this DVD in shortly after I picked it up, and I was interrupted before I actually watched it… unfortunate; I think this might be [...]
Read more →DIE HARD – John McClane (Bruce Willis) stumbles in to some action in possibly the best Christmas film made in the 80s. This is one of those “horrible bad day” films where nothing goes right for anyone – hero or villain. Anyone who survives does so mostly through luck and wise-cracks. It’s like McClane is [...]
Read more →YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN – This isn’t nearly as campy as I feared it might be… well, with the possible exception of the musical number… Funny at a relatively low-key, but constant pace. It’s much more even paced than SPACEBALLS or BLAZING SADDLES. Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [singing] If you’re blue, and you don’t know where to go [...]
Read more →THREE AND OUT – Along the same lines as the old urban legend in DEAD MAN ON CAMPUS; trying to find someone who’s suicidal to help you out in a sort of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ sort of way. In DEAD MAN, the rumor says you get straight A’s in the term’s [...]
Read more →THE EXPENDABLES (Netflix) – Quite bad technically; crappy CGI lasers, night vision, and the uncanny valley on some of these stars is a bit steep – Stallone almost looks human, but what is he, 80? The last 40 minutes of awesome explosions are ruined by “actors” being on screen. It’s possibly dumber than I imagined [...]
Read more →VIOLET & DAISY – Part Tarantino style quirky dialogue and characterization, this is the story of 8 and 9; a pair of teenage assassins need some cash to buy the latest and greatest Barbie Sunday dress, and they take an “easy” job… that becomes weirder and weirder. Really good, funny and disturbing in turns. ELLES [...]
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