Comedy

STUCK

John Meredith — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:22:59 +0000

STUCK (2007) Story and Directed by Stuart Gordon.

Opening titles say “Inspired by a true story.”

Okay, I almost turned this off immediately because in the opening scene a guy in a convalescent home shits his bed…

then…

CUT TO: Bed nurse Mena Suvari washing him off in a shower with a hose which is not a pretty site. I was reaching for my remote at that point.

Glad I hung there because it turns out she really is not that nice of a person and the story has some nice twists soon to come.

Mena’s character is up for a promotion, to “Captain” of the ward, which is a big deal for her.

We can see the horror roots of the director in many of the scenes (which I will leave out of the review) and there are some nice black comedy moments.

I wonder, though, if the Mena casting was done to be PC, like the gang in Death Sentence.

The poster gives you the gist of the movie.

The only spoiler is that the ending of the movie is not exactly the same as the "true story."

Check it out.

The Women: Heidi Martinuzzi's Review

cpparker — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:57:01 +0000

I just had to share this with you guys. This is Heidi Martinuzzi's (http://www.pretty-scary.net) EXCELLENT review of "The Women" I don't think she cared for it much.

’The Women’: Just don’t even bother okay?

I don't know what's more irritating: the new 90210,
which is just like the old one but with younger actors, skinnier
actors, meaner girls, and lots more Botox, or the crappy new remake of The Women?

I just interviewed the director, Diane English, and she has no idea her film is terrible. English wrote 37 episodes of Murphy Brown, and she has a reputation for being funny. Too bad her directing skills didn't make the grade with The Women,
which is not funny, boring, and mediocre. I was so disappointed in this
film that instead of taking the time to transcribe the crap that people
say at press days (you know nothing honest, just stupid generic white
bread crap about how great it is working with everyone); I'll just tell
you what I really think.

The Women
is my favorite film – of 1937. It starred Norma Shearer, and Rosalind
Russell won an Oscar for her portrayal of Sylvia Fowler, the evil
double-crossing society woman. Joan Crawford was hilarious and evil as
the seductress who lures away Mary Haines' husband Stephen. The
supporting cast was witty, dapper, dashing, and chock-full of
Cukor-executed timing and great writing. It's arguably sexist – the
wife who gets cheated on must scratch and claw to win back her
powerful, rich husband. But hey! The world was a sexist place in the
1930's. At any rate, it's an amazing little piece of fun classic 1930's
witty moviemaking that should be honored. It's especially famous for
having no men in the entire cast. Not even one.

It was remade in 1957 as The Opposite Sex
and starred Leslie Nielson and the irritating June Allyson as the
husband and wife who get torn apart by his affair with a sexy young
perfume counter girl (this time played by a young Joan Collins). This
time it was a musical. This time it sucked so badly you could cry. It
made the original play on which The Women was based, by Clare Booth Luce, look like The Iliad. Let's never speak of it again.

Now that it's the 21st
century they're trying to shove it down our throats once more, this
time with a bland, duck-billed Meg Ryan as a frazzled and rich woman
who gets cheated on. They're even trying to convince us Womenophiles
(you know, us chick critics who are always so damned excited about
women doing crap in Hollywood) that this film is good. Well, it's not.
I saw it. It stinks. It's directed by a woman! It has women over 40! It
still stinks.

The
first thing you're going to hear, when the reviews come out that the
film sucks, is that "critics are sexist because the women in the film
are over 40 (except for Eva Mendez, of course, who plays the young
seductress this time)" and "the critics don't like movies directed by
women!". Well, I will have to risk sounding like a hypocrite to all my
fellow women who work hard to get women's filmmaking vision "out there"
one way or another; this movie stinks because the script is bad and the
acting is bad and the director didn't do a good job. The reason people
will not like this movie has nothing to do with the fact that the
director was a woman and the cast is all women over 40.

Shall I tell you why I really didn't like this movie? Well, okay!

1) Meg
Ryan. She's terrible. There's just no other way to say it. Maybe she
knew how to act once, but now, like Julia Roberts, all she can do is
play herself just out of her trillion dollar trailer. Her face is so
severely disfigured from plastic surgery it's distracting, and her idea
of "acting" is to throw up her arms whenever she's upset and to shuffle
her feet. She plays the grieving woman with no grace, delicacy, or
facial expression. She only knows how to do base comedy and slip on
bananas. This is a film about feelings, and she
doesn't have it in her. BIG mistake on the part of casting. I think we
can all agree, as adults, that Meg Ryan's best performance to date was
in Top Gun when she was onscreen for a total of 5 minutes.

2) Jaida
Pinkett Smith plays the token black woman/lesbian in this film. She has
about 4 lines, and she delivers all of them with vilely stereotypical
husky rasp of a dyke on HBO. I feel embarrassed for her of her
performance in this film.

3) Meg
Ryan's daughter, played by India Ennenga, shows signs of developing a
serious eating disorder. More than once, her character claims she's
fat, that she's on a diet, that she wants to look like a model, and
that she wants to smoke to keep herself from gaining weight. Um, and
it's never addressed. Ever. It's laughed off as something all women
have to deal with. It's normal. I would have loved this film if, in the
midst of the martinis and female-hugs they suddenly discovered little
Molly dead because of an overdose of diet pills. But no such luck-
Molly is cured of her self-loathing by watching Mommy design clothes
for stick thin, anorexic… supermodels.?

4) To
"get her groove back", Meg Ryan's character borrows lots and lots of
money from her rich mother (played by Candace Bergen) to design a bunch
of ugly clothes and put on a fashion show. It works! Now, this movie is
about extremely rich people. Not ONCE do we hear about money. No "That
bastard, I'm divorcing him! I'll take everything he's got!" In real
life, as anyone can tell you (as you can probably tell me), the minute
Meg Ryan and her husband decided to split up there would have been
immediate issues about money. No one would be crying about broken
hearts. Divorce is about money. It is never mentioned. Someone keeps
paying the mortgage, paying the maid(s), little Molly's tuition, and
all of Meg Ryan's shopping bills. Everyone is fabulously wealthy.
Everyone in this movie can suck my dick. Oh! Excuse me, I didn't mean
to be so crass.

5) Little
Molly: aside from her eating disorder, Little Molly is annoying. She is
spoiled, irritating, and doesn't care one iota about her mother's
happiness. The awful Cult Of Children built up in film and TV today,
where adults have to constantly pander to their crying brat's every
need, is sickening. Molly is only concerned that her mom isn't "cool",
and in order to be a "good mom" Meg Ryan has to spend thousands of
dollars putting on a fashion show to impress Molly. How about instead
Meg Ryan says, "Shut up Molly. You are SO lucky to have a huge house in
Connecticut and a pony and a private school and a puppy. Your father
cheated on mommy. Mommy is hurt. Mommy doesn't want to be with Daddy,
so get it through your thick skull that we're divorced. You could have
it a lot worse, you ungrateful bitch."

6) This
is not a film about real women. It's an annoying, patronizing,
simplified view of the intellect and emotional maturity of grown women,
just like Sex in the City, which is why The Women
will be reviewed just as scathingly. Real women are complex and
cultured creatures that can articulate more than one thought or belief
at any given time, and who, by the time they are 45, have developed
much more intense skills for handling betrayal and mild annoyances
between friends than are even hinted at in The Women. This film has the maturity and respect for women of a play about zebra unicorns written by a 10-year-old.

7) Eva
Mendez. She stinks. She's sexy, but she's about as funny as Jessica
Alba, which is like saying she's as funny as a dead cat in the road.
Or, to say it simply, she's not funny at all. That's detrimental in a
comedy.

I'm
not saying it's the worst film I have ever seen. It's not. And I'm not
saying there aren't any good parts. Chloris Leachman for instance, as
the maid, is funny. She may be the best thing in the film. And Annette
Bening is, for once, the least bland actress in the movie! Debra
Messing is very good as an ever-pregnant wife and mom and shows a
surprising ability to take on a new persona. But that's where the good
things end. Carrie Fischer's cameo as a gossip columnist is reminiscent
of the rumors about Marlon Brando just showing up and reading his lines
off of cue cards because he couldn't care less about Apocalypse Now.

Diane
English is severely out of touch with women. How can that be? She's a
woman. I don't know. But I was insulted by the simplicity and dumbing
down of The Women. And now will
come the tirade: "Why can't women over 40 ever be cast in multi-million
dollar movies?" "Why can't there be a female lead over 40?" and all I
can think about is "Stop Making shitty movies and maybe the movies will
make money". And THEN I think about the original The Women,
for which Rosalind Russell won her Oscar, which starred only women, and
how that was a great film that people love. And I also think about Steel Magnolias, Thelma & Louise, The Hours, Fried Green Tomatoes, and A league of Their Own and I realize that good films with women over 40 in them DO make tons of money. Generally, good films do. I also realize that Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Valley Girl, Big, The Piano, Point Break, Little Man Tate, and countless others directed by women make tons of money.

Yes,
there are fewer female directors than men. Not all films made by women
make money. But I have a much simpler cure for how films with women
over 40 in them, and films directed by women, can get made more often
and make more money than by crying foul at sexism and critics: Stop
making shitty movies. Just stop. This version of The Women is shit. Anyone who says different is afraid of sounding sexist or betraying their fellow women.

Tropic Thunder

Turzman — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:53:23 +0000

Ben Stiller hits the cinematic trifecta as co-writer, co-producer, director and star of Tropic Thunder; a film that is laugh out loud funny, creative, beautifully shot and features perhaps the most impressive supporting cast in recent memory. It's not as star-laden as say, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (not even close), but the performances are memorable. Combine that with a plethora of hilarious one-liners, and Tropic Thunder delivers an instant classic. That's huge praise considering I'm not as easy to please at the movie-going experience as most people.

The film opens with three mock trailers introducing our main players (Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey, Jr.). They are, respectively, the hottest action star, comedy star and Oscar-winner in Hollywood, and they're teaming up to shoot Tropic Thunder, the most realistic, big budgeted, blow em up war flick, ever. On location in Viet Nam, the production is a mess as the crew face problem after problem, and the chemistry between these superb thespians, in a manner of speaking, just ain't there.

The director (Steve Coogan) is taking the brunt of the blame from the executive producer (Tom Cruise. Yes, the Tom Cruise. Who is, for the first time in my opinion, absolutely brilliant!) So the director, under advice from the author of the book that inspired this film (Nick Nolte!) decides that dropping his cast into authentic harm's way will produce the chemistry he needs. Stupid? Yes. Would that really happen? No f*cking way. But luckily for us, it happens here, for what follows is a string of hilarious mayhem and calamity that never grows tiresome.

The mix of Stiller, Black and Downey is effectively divided up, as each are able to showcase their particular talents evenly and effectively. Jack Black is the standard Jack Black, raised to the power of ten, rather than diluted as he was in Nacho Libre. Robert Downey, Jr. could not have hoped for a better follow-up to Iron Man, as he has done the equivalent of hitting two grand slam home runs in a row. Of course, there's Stiller who proves he can be brilliant both behind and in front of the camera, and Thunder is a refreshing break from his recent string of turds (ie: The Heartbreak Kid, Night at the Museum).

The trio is directly supported by Jay Baruchel and Brandon T. Jackson (as the other actors in this movie within a movie), Danny McBride (as the special fx guy) and Steve Coogan as the film's director. Throw in the support of Cruise, Nolte and Matthew McConaughy, and pepper in cameos from Tyra Banks, Jon Voight, Tobey Mcguire and others of their ilk, and you've got yourself one pretty enjoyable film.

Don't wait to rent this. Tropic Thunder should be experienced on the big screen. We, as audience members, owe the price of admission to a film that truly entertains at this level.

Consider the suggestion that Tobey McGuire and Robert Downey, Jr. play a pair of homosexual monks that use the rosary as anal beads in a film entitled Satan's Alley. Nuff said.

On A Dark And Stormy Night

BigSugar — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:06:25 +0000

You know you've been wantin' it, so let's get to it.

Here's the deal; psychotic, bugfuck, nutjob Grey decides to "help" his buddy out by smashing his (the buddy's) girlfriend's noggin into goo after a Halloween get-together. Obviously, more psycho mayhem ensues.

Here's the really cool thing about micro-budget flicks; you have no idea when they're going to go right the fuck off the handle. The contract that the audience has with Hollywood at large, that fucker's null and void when you sit down to watch something outside the Tinseltown bubble. And this flick is no exception.

Now, this flick's got two huge assets. The first is Ezequiel's direction. From the opening image, the screws are sunk and slowly turned throughout the rest of the film. That color correction he's always shit-hammering? Good Christ it'll make your skin crawl. This is going to sound strange, but it's almost as if you're watching the film rot before your very eyes, like that shit could spill off the screen and get on your shoes. Color comes and goes and pretty soon, you feel like you need a shower to undo the dirty that the flick has sprayed all over you. Make no mistake, this is a director's showcase. By constantly going for the weird and pushing it as far as possible through the visuals, Ez manages to keep us in a kind of tortured state where the shit's always one breath away from the fan and there's not a fucking thing that can be done about it.

The other half of this unholy union is Juan Riedinger. Sweet mother of fucking Christ, keep your eyes on this crazy bastard. Juan's Grey is as cynically unhinged as Ledger's Joker, but somehow seductive in a Cool Hand Luke way. Trust me, you'll want to buy him a drink and pepper spray his ass at the same time. That's how cool this cat is.

Now, all of that said, EZ must be taken to task on one thing; where in the good fuck is the nip shot of Marlies Pinto's tits? It is a violation of all that is good and right in this fucked-up world to spend that kind of time promising me a good long look at those magnificent fun-bags and then never deliver. Santa Clause is watching, EZ. Put those titties back in the show, man. We need it.

And Turz is funny as hell too.

Save Yourselves,

'Nuff Sugar

Bad Taste

BigSugar — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:41:39 +0000

Dereks don't run, motherfuckers!!!!

Here's the deal; a
corporate contigent of aliens have landed in a small New Zealand town
and have sliced and diced all the inhabitants thereof, propmting the
government to send in a crew of fuck-ups to deal with the
situation. Sick, sick, gory-assed mayhem ensues.

For some
reason, Peter Jackson has been named geek butt-boy of late. Joblo
and Aintitcool are fucking swarming with the Johnny-come-lately
attitude that usaully follows when someone makes some really good
movies then fucks up royally (King King. Three
hours. What else can I say). But, lest we all forget,
Jackson all but ass-fucked us right out of the gate with this cute,
cuddly little slice of kiddie flick. Yeah, this was his lead-off
hitter. He pointed like the Babe, and then snapped this flick off
all over our collective faces. Brass fucking balls,
fuck-sticks, that's what that was.

The first five minutes of this
flick have a guy getting the top of his head literally blown off.
And his brains slop out all over the shooter's "strides." From
there, well, you'll just have to watch it. Suffice it to say that
if you don't laugh your ass off at this flick, it's time to lock the
doors, bolt the windows, drive an internet connection into your temple
and dowload porn straight into your cerebral cortex untill your dick
blows up. The show's basically over for you.

Now there's
plenty to tear apart with this flick. Continuity is all but
absent and if you're looking for smooth editing, try elsewhere.
That said, none of it will matter. If you've ever laughed out
loud at Monty Python, this is basically that amped past 11. Each
and every shortcoming is more than made up for by sheer insanity of the
sweet-holy-fuck-did-I-just-see-that? variety. If you've got a gag
reflex at all something in this flick will trip it. The "chuck"
swallowing scene did me in, does it every time. As I told someone
long ago, there's plenty of cheese, but it's just enough to cover the
meat here.

If you're a fan of Lord of the Rings and would
like to know how Peter Jackson kicked it all off, here it is. If
you're one of those lip-flapping fucks who likes to jump on the
bandwagon du jour, please watch it again and just shut the fuck
up. Raw desire and talent got this cat on the big stage, and I
can't vouch for anything in the future, but this one gives me hope for
all times. If the cat that did this one can get to the Big Show,
anybody can. So say we all.

Get it and love it.

'Nuff Sugar.

Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn

BigSugar — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:13:35 +0000

I've discovered, much to my dismay, that there are actually people
alive, drawing good air into their fucking lungs, who've never seen
this flick. Those motherfuckers are the reason terrorists exist.

Here's
the deal; total dumbass, Ash, drags his bitch deep into the woods for
some nook-nook to a cabin where they discover tape recorded demon
ressurrection passages and, of course, they play the fucking
tape. Demon possession mayhem ensues. Then ensues some
more. Then gets to really fucking ensuing. Then just keeps
on ensuing.

Let me say this right off the bat; if you haven't
seen this movie, don't even bother trying to talk to me.
Seriously, go fuck yourself until you watch this one. There's
just no excuse. Not knowing this flick is, to me, the rough
equivalent of not knowing how to fuck. To me, this one is up
there with Jaws or The Godfather.
Unfuckingtouchable. And if you want to make independant films,
hell if you want to make movies at all, get to stepping
motherfucker. There's no good reason why this movie isn't in
regular rotaion on your DVD player.

This is Sam Rami's
masterpiece. Period. I know there is a small minority who
feel the first one is better and an even smaller group who feel that Army of Darkness
is better. Given my druthers, the populations of both those camps
would be shaved, sterilized and fucking destroyed. Neither of
those flicks- hell, no other movie in the history of film- has the
sheer insane velocity and wacked-out psychotic humor of this one.
Not fifteen minutes into the movie, one half of the onscreen characters
are beheaded, resurrected, and skull fucked with a chainsaw. And it gets even crazier from there!

While
the story itself is off-the-wall batshit, let's not forget that
everything else in play works like a champ here as well. Bruce
Campbell became a cult hero after this flick, and the character of Ash
is no less indelible than Indiana Jones or Michael Corleone. That
square-jawed fuck managed to make an idiot so beloved that, to this
day, he remains a geek hero of the highest order. The special f/x
are top-notch as well, representing Mark Shostrom's best work ever and
some of KNB's A-level efforts as well. Possessed Henrietta and
and the severed hand will forver be in my Top 10 F/X moments if for no
other reason than the fact that both have a character and story arc as
well as a fine sense of humor.

I'll be the first to admit
that Rami's career has spun right the fuck out of control, or into it,
depending on your point of view. But let's not forget that the
motherfucker gave us this one. He wants to make a three hour Spiderman, fine. Let him. Fuckit, the guy made Evil Dead 2.
But there will always be a piece of me that longs for him to get back
to what made him the hotshot that he is today. And while he may
make comicbook and baseball movies for the rest of his life, he'll
always be the guy who popped out a demon's eye and dropped it into a
girl's mouth to me. Open up and say AAAAAHHHHHHH, bitches!

Get it and really, really, really fucking love it!

Save Yourselves,

'Nuff Sugar

The Whole Nine Yards

Turzman — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:08:04 +0000

Matthew Perry made his mark on this biz as TV's Chandler Bing on Friends. In every subsequent role in his career since then, Perry has played no-one but Chandler. The smarmy, neurotic, nervous and timid characterization he carried into motion pictures was very annoying long before Friends finished its prime-time run and it proved that Perry, as an actor, is about as one-dimensional as the rest of the Friends cast. Of course, this proved to be detrimental to Perry's endeavors as a leading man. In a nutshell, he sucks. He does nothing different in The Whole Nine Yards. But the film shows us that, under the right circumstances, surrounded by true talent and subject to clever writing, even a hack like Matthew Perry can shine and deliver.

Perry's Chandler Bing is disguised as Nicholas "Oz" Oseransky, an American dentist living in misery in Montreal with his strumpet of a wife (Rosanna Arquette). His hum-drum life is turned topsey-turvey when he gets a new next door neighbor, Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Bruce Willis), a former hit man for the mob turned federal informant. What follows is a string of hilarious events that play directly (and perfectly) into the incapable hands of Perry's limited acting ability.

Oz is so far removed from his element and subjegated to things and people so foreign to him, that the quirky, neurotic nervousness that Perry can only play is a perfect fit and compliments the rest of the cast to a tee. The chemistry between the characters is on target, and stems directly from Perry; a tremendous feat considering the impressive, all-star cast the film boasts. Besides Willis and Arquette, there's Kevin Pollack, fantastic as Yanni Gogolak, Michael Clarke Duncan as Frankie (whose interactions with Oz are, in a word, golden), Natasha Henstridge as Oz's love interest once his bitch of a wife is out of the picture, Harland Williams in what is, I think, his most serious role (and he's still frigging hilarious), and the formerly over-hyped and way-too overated Amanda Peet; the film's sole weak link. But where she lacks in acting talent, she more than makes up for with some extended scenes of her bare breasts. Sorry, fans of the Peet, but that's all she's got going here and that's all she's able to deliver.

Otherwise, this film is a gem. Rent it, purchase it, enjoy it. If you've already seen it, see it again. It's one of those films that never gets dull.

Barenaked Survivor

Turzman — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:55:24 +0000

"No food, no men, NO CLOTHES." What a tagline, eh? Well, it served its purpose in my case, offering two tantilizing things; a parody of something I absolutely hate (reality TV), and beautiful, naked women. In a testament to how lame I am, I learned that I expected too much from something that offered so little; Penthouse pets on an island. To my shagrin, I found that I've become so "mature," that a film needs more than just tits on a beach to hold my interest. How depressing.

In my defense, the film offers a variatable "who's who" from softcore porn and Penthouse pages. Softcore legends Julie K. Smith and Shauna O'Brien head the cast that includes the super-sexy Alexus Winston, Aimee Sweet (who I adore), Aria Giovanni (who I have lusted after for about six years now) and the surprisingly butter-faced Tess Broussard, who I had never heard of before, and with good reason. Who would have thought that tits like those could be overshadowed by such an ugly face? Rounding out our merry cast is Lenny Juliano as Cliff Probate, the doofus in charge of the whole contest thing. Oh yeah, there's a contest.

In the retarded spirit of Survivor, the girls are supposed to do moronic tasks for points, and of course, there is voting out of the tribe, but the "plot" (HA!) is so mundane and the tasks are so idiotic that the viewer can't help but hope there is an active volcano, a giant gorilla, cannibalistic natives, malaria; something that will just kill these fuckers off. But that never happens. Instead, we are given ample titties, upon which the viewer says, "Hey look, tits." But they are hardly a saving grace.

This film is hardly what one might call "erotic cinema." So weak compared to other softcore films, Barenaked Survivor barely rates the hard "R", and dangerously toes the PG-13 line. The best part is a scene where Aimee Sweet strips of her panties, graciously and mercifully showing her bush as she's engaged in conversation with Winston. Yes, conversation. About lipstick. The film's promise of lesbian scenes are reduced to some watered down, soft petting and kissing. In a word, unsexy. Nobody thought to bring dildos to the island, I guess. Oh bother.

I cannot recommend this film at all. Unless you are a hopeless, infatuated fanatic of one of the girls, there's nothing here for you. To summarize, I'd like to quote Grey from Ezequiel's On a Dark and Stormy Night, where he so eloquently states, "What's the big deal? It's just a pair of tits." And how, brother.

Night of the Creeps

BigSugar — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:04:43 +0000

"Detective, other than confessing to murder, is there a point to this conversation?"

Fred Dekker fans are split basically into two camps; those who love The Monster Squad, and those who love Night of the Creeps. I belong to the latter group.

Here's
the deal; a rogue alien jettisons an "experiment" to Earth in the
Fifties, thus causing some headaches for people in the Eighties.
Alein worm havoc ensues.

Dig this, okay; This flick starts
out on an alien ship as a crazed little person in a rubber suit rolls
down the passenger side window and tosses out a Tupperware coantainer
full of worms which land on Earth in the Fifties, which leads to an axe
murder, and then we're in the Eighties. No, I'm not making that
up. That's really the first twenty minutes of the movie.
Now, I don't know about you, but if somebody just described that to me,
I'd want to see it just for the fucking genre-gymnastics. The
fact that it has tits and blood is just a bonus, a helluva bonus, but a
bonus nonetheless.

When I was a kid, this flick was a staple of USA Up All Night,
and I liked to flip back and forth between this and the '70's skin
flicks on Showtime, so it is entirely possible that my fondness for
this movie could be closely tied to discovering that my hard-on (such
as it is) actually had a purpose. Having rediscovered it recently
in bootleg (I know, I know, but Ill be the first one to buy it when
Columbia Tristar gets off its ass), I can say it's exactly as I
remember it. Only better.

Dekker managed to get Tom Atkins
to play the sardonic Det. Cameron, and if you've not seen his
performance in this flick, well you haven't seen Shakespeare the way it
was fucking meant. He's worth the price of admission, trust me on
that one. His interrogation of the boys is just about perfect.
And the scene where his attempted suicide is interrupted makes me laugh
out loud even now.

Now, the F/X in the movie come and go.
Some pretty good ones get followed up by some pretty bad ones, but the
script more than makes up for it. The only real complaint I have
about the flick is that I couldn't care less what happened to the
leads. They more or less sucked as human beings and I wanted to
see them get their fucking heads split open. Of course, I have
that same feeling anytime I have to walk through the local Wal-Mart, so
maybe it's just me.

As a footnote, apparently there
are two endings to the film; one that played in theaters and one for
T.V. I like the theatrical ending because it's a litte more
downbeat, but if you can find this flick on E-Bay, the DVD comes with
both endings. Go and do likewise.

Get it and love it.

Save Yourselves.

'Nuff Sugar

Sweet Home Alabama

BigSugar — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:26:56 +0000

Here's a new spin on the chick flick; girl leaves asshole husband in
Redneckland, moves to NYC, gets well in the meantime and meets great
guy who she gets engaged to before she goes back home to secure a
divorce from aforementioned asshole whom she gets back with because
he's now a successful buisness owner. Got all that?

I'm a
movie freak, and in effort to relate to me meaningfully, my girlfriend
at the time made me sit through this piece of shit six times.
Read that again. No, I'm not employing hyperbole. Six
fucking times folks. All out of my pocket. So if this
review comes off as bitter or angry, I think the court should allow me
a little lattitude. Reese Witherspoon plays Melanie Smooter, a
NYC fashion designer from Alabama who is finally in the big game.
Her career is on the rise and in a scene that would soak any
sorostitute's panties, she's allowed to choose her own engagement ring
after hours in some high-dollar jewlery store by her fiance, Patrick
Dempsey (Dr. McDreamy or what the fuck ever). Though it might not
sound like it, I'm totally fine with the movie up until this
point. Reese fulfills the dream of damn-near everyone, male or
female, who lives in the Deep South. She got the fuck out.

This is where things start to go wrong.

In
order to get married again, she's got to go back to her tiny little
home town and get her drunk asshole of an estranged husband to sign
divorce papers. Hijinx ensue.

Now, it isn't like I didn't
know what I was in for when I sat down to watch this movie. Reese
Witherspoon could play this kind of role in her sleep, and for what
it's worth, she's probably the best working actress doing this kind of
thing right now. That said, whover wrote this movie should be
flogged with a horsewhip in public. Every joke that's worth
chuckling at was in the trailer that played incessantly in the run-up
to this fucking mess. But even that isn't a transgression so bad
as to merit torture.

No, that would be the ending.

Here's
the thing; this movie wants to tell a romantic story about coming back
to what you left behind to find out what you're missing. That's
all well and good, but what it really tells the story of is a bitch who
can't make up her mind about any goddamned thing, and in her indecision
fucks over a decent guy who doesn't deserve it. So he has a bitch
for a mother. So what? Didn't they make that movie
too? Not only that, but her husband drove her all the way to New
York! He was that much of an asshole! And he doesn't become
any less of an asshole as the movie goes along. He never says
he's sorry for fucking up. He just says "Hey! Don't you miss all
this?" Fuck him. I like Josh Lucas, but he's got nothing to
work with here and you can tell by the almost constant loof
ain't-I-cool on his face the whole movie. Fred Ward apparently
forgot he wasn't making Tremors, and Candice Bergen cribbed all her shit from leftover Murphy Brown. Not that any of that matters much when the script is just one flat joke or cliche after the next.

I've
talked to a number of women about this movie over the years since its
release and I always hear the same thing; "She realized she loved her
first husband and went back to him." Fine. She realizes she
loves her first husband AFTER she realizes she's standing smack fucking
dab in the middle of his successful buisness. Not only that, but
he took something that was a sweet moment between the two of them and
turned it corporate. Now, I wouldn't have a problem with this if
every woman I know wasn't constantly throwing out shit about romance
and true love. Own up to it ladies; you all want men with bank
accounts, fuck romance, fuck looks, fuck cocksize. Money,
baby. And I don't even dissagree with that attitude, but quit
slinging bullshit about honesty and such. Guys want a lady in the
street and a whore in bedroom and women want a man who can afford
it. Leave the rest to the Gods.

As for this movie, fuck it. Get Rendition instead and call it a night.

Save yourselves.

'Nuff Sugar