Drama

DEATH SENTENCE (SPOILERS)

John Meredith — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:51:09 +0000

DEATH SENTENCE (SPOILERS)

First of all, I watch a lot of movies, but tend to leave out recommending the ones that most our members here would tend to not care for, IMHO.

Death Sentence is one I think you guys may like because of the gun fights and gun shot gore, but it does lack a good sex scene and the appropriate nudity, with all due respect.

It is from James Wan, the director of SAW 1, complete with a partial screenshot of Jigsaw towards the end, if you don’t blink.

You can tell Wan directed this because the majority of the last third of the movie looks like it was shot in Jigsaw’s lair.

I grew up on the Charles Bronson “Death Wish” revenge movies, always understood them, and still do.

This is a continuation/re-hash of the DW storyline. Chuck was much better though as the revenge fueled killer.

What happens is the protagonist’s son is killed by a “gang” and he seeks revenge.

One of the problems, among many other story holes and timeline issues you will notice like a headache, is the bad “gang” seems to be a non-descript politically correct one, concocted by Hollywood to not offend or make this a film that anyone would protest.

The action saves the movie though and if you let a few things slide, you may get the point of it, which is be careful who you mess with, albeit a fantastical one.

FELON (spoilers)

John Meredith — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:17:12 +0000

“I would wipe out every person on the face of the earth to protect my family” … John Smith, played by Val Kilmer

Tagline: A man kills an intruder fleeing from his family’s home and ends up fighting for his life in prison.

I put this film in after watching Don’t Mess With The Zohan but that is not important.

The beginning is contrived a bit, but the acting of Stephen Dorff, Harold Perrineau and Val Kilmer lift the movie up.

Basically, a family man with a small business ends up in prison because he defends his family. While there, he ends up sharing a cell with Val Kilmer’s character who is there under similar, although much worse and more motivated circumstances (he killed the entire bloodline of his transgressors).

Lot’s of fight scenes and a much better show than what is on TV.

Fight Club meets The Shawshank Redemption? Maybe ;)

Worth a watch. Highly recommended for Val Kilmer fans.

Son Of Rambow (spoilers)

John Meredith — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:59:17 +0000

I recently watched Son Of Rambow

Netflix describes it as:

Forbidden to watch TV or go to the movies by his ultra religious parents, young Will ) gets a hold of a camera, and his mind blossoms in this nostalgic comedy from the team behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Set in 1980s Britain, the film tells the tale of the friendship that blossoms between Will and class bully Lee when the latter recruits Will to help him make a home movie inspired by Rambo: First Blood.

It is that as described above but my take on it is a bit different.

I like to try to sum up movies in one line. I do this regularly, it is a habit I have, an exercise.

Here is my tagline for this movie: Two boys make a movie to cope with the loss of their fathers.

I really liked this movie because it combines the themes making movies, not fitting in, and growing up.

Walt Disney with Dumbo, Pinocchio, Snow White covered the same concepts of being the cast out and how difficult it is to grow up.

Anyway, this film takes two kids: One forbidden to watch TV and lorded over by a bible thumping “father figure” after his mom and the other one who would be a candidate for a regimen of ADD drugs in today’s society who is always in trouble.

What they share in common is the lack of a father. One of the kids Dad died while mowing the lawn (aneurism) and the other’s Dad works so much he is never around.

The no-TV kid’s restriction cannot keep down his imagination. He has a book of characters, drawings, and a wild imagination. The other ADD kid has a camera that he uses to make pirated movies (Rambo) to please his substitute father which is his older brother.

One cool turn in the movie is when the “cool kid” finds out that these two cast outs are making a movie, he stages an audition to “be in the movie” and a the girls in the school want the same from the producers and directors (the two boys).

In a way, it reminded me of all of us at Karma and myself as a kid with my home movie camera. They are making the film to enter it into a contest like OTL called "Screentest" but things don't go as planned.

This movie is very original, deep, and is one of the best I have seen in this genre in a long while.

A must see for any filmmaker that draws on his childhood for inspiration.

Requiem For A Dream

BigSugar — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:05:50 +0000

Anybody else here have the desire to cum all over Pink's face? No, nothin' to do with the movie, just lookin' to see how far I've strayed from the pack's all.

Here's the deal; mother, son, best friend and girfriend descend into hard-core drug addiction on Coney Island. Talking refrigerator, teeth-grinding, arm-sawing, ass-to-ass mayem ensues.

Pi was Aronofsky's shot across the film-going bow, but this fucker was a direct hit. Imagine Trainspotting without the humor and you're close. Not that there's not some funny shit here, it's just that it's buried so deep in irony that any laugh you may manage to get will be squashed pretty quick. The film starts off with the beloved Goldfarb son stealing his mom's T.V. for the umpteenth fucking time and selling it for dope (the short exchange with the guy who buys it is fantastic; it ends with the declaration that the mother needs her son, "like a moose needs a hat rack"). It al goes downhill from there. In a bid to loose poundage, the matriarch gets hooked on uppers, while her son, his girfriend, and his best chum drink deep from the heroin well. It all ends in tears and chaos.

The 90's brought that great urban legend of heroin chic, and this film is a calculated, blistering answer to that fucking shit. These people's lives suck at the top of the overture, and Aronofsky spares us nothing in the slow burning of each soul. The best part, the shit-'n'-giggles, is how the interrelations between the characters serve as the catalyst for their collapse. The son can't deal with his mom becoming a junky, so he turns to- you guessed it- dope. Jennifer Connelly, lovelorn for this douche of a son, follows him down the rabbit hole of One Big Score, as does the Wayans kid (who turns in a damn fine performance here). The final act of all of this is just too fucking sick to spoil.

The film is packed tight with top-notch performances and a script that allows the actors to stretch. But make no mistake, this is Aronofsky's show. Top to bottom, the work hometeam put on film is superb. Camera moves, editing the whole nine yards is fucking rock star. Kid's dick must be the size of a fucking elephant leg, 'cause there's not one safe play in this whole thing, from leaning on Jared Leto for the emotional core of the movie to the abasolutely stunning score put together by Kronos Quartet. If this one hasn't crossed your radar, lock up the booze and valium, toss the razor blades, and park the car down the block, a safe distance from the garage. This one will fucking get to you.

Get it and love it.

Save Yourselves,

'Nuff Sugar

Platoon

BigSugar — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:46:08 +0000

As we gear up for another cock wagging from Oliver Stone, I thought it'd be worth remembering that the fucker has at least one flick that still makes the grade.

Here's the deal: Charlie Sheen plays F.N.G. Chris Taylor, dropped into the bush with his bullets and balls and nothing else. A "battle for [his] soul" ensues.

Oliver Stone has pretty much always had a hard-on for controversy, and this film was his first to really shove it in our collective faces and make us fucking smell it. Anybody remember the Vets who protested this flick? Apparently they didn't like the fact that Stone had shown soldiers using drugs. The wiping out of a village didn't get much response, but the drug angle was over the line. Fighting a war even MacNamara thought was unwinnable, they skipped right over that part. And unfortunately, the phrase "Too Soon!!" hadn't yet entered the popular vernacular (in fairness, most of those Talkbacking twats weren't even swimming around in their daddy's balls in '86). Still, all of the fire and brimstone only served to underline the fact that Platoon is a powerful portrait of war as Hell on Earth.

Be that as it may, Stone, a vet himself, set the bar for Vietnam movies that has only been approached by Kubrick with Full Metal Jacket. Charlie Sheen at the peak of his career, long before Denise Richards, the ravages of white chunky blow, and an endless parade of hookers, delivered a servicable performance as the green kid who gets caught up in a power struggle beween Elias (Willem Dafoe) and Barnes (Tom Berenger). Sheen is okay, but Berenger and Dafoe are knockouts, and all of them are supported by a roster of actors that would now make any casting director cum in his trousers. Francesco Quinn as Rhah may very well be my favorite stoner in film history. John C. McGinley as the wired-tight O'Neill, Johnny Depp, Kevin Dillon, Mark Moses, Dale Dye, Forest Whitaker, the list is long and storied, friends. But the stand-out, at least for me, is Keith David as King. King has the best lines in the movie, the most truth about how it must be to have to adapt to something like constant, impending death. Why David isn't drawing down Denzel sums of money is beyond me.

I suppose the question of relevancy could follow. Anybody that draws parallels to our current situation is not only an asshole but a moron as well. No, the reason this flick is still relevant today is much simpler; it's a guy break-up flick. Yes, I know it's hard to imagine, but even your Uncle 'Sugar has fallen under the thumb of a few Hell-bent cunts in his time. and in those hours when whiskey just isn't cutting it (dark hours indeed), this movie soothes and calms the savage beast. Taking a quick breath to realize the harsh possibilities of fate and politics makes whatever evil has been visited on you by some vindictive twat melt into the background. Think of it as novacaine for a romantically busted jaw.

Get it and love it.

Save Yourselves,

'Nuff Sugar

PVC-1

BigSugar — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:25:41 +0000

Ever gotten one of those blowjobs that are just so good your whole body goes numb, you can't move, don't even want to? Well, this movie's exactly like that.

Here's the deal; Columbian thug cocksuckers decide to extort 15 million pesos from an innocent family by strapping a bomb around the mother's neck. Real-time mayhem ensues.

I was skeptical about a movie that was one shot. When I heard that, I couldn't help but think about the toys they package in breakfast cereal. No cuts? What if a character has to go from one place to another? What if somebody gets something to drink, or has to piss? We have to follow them. I mean, you ever notice how Jack Bauer never takes a shit or grabs a sandwich? I didn't think anybody could pull this one off.

Wrong, motherfucker, wrong.

Starting off on the pouch that's carrying the bomb, through an argument in the Jeep the thugs are riding in, through killing a an annoying dog, the first twenty minutes of the film essentially staple your fucking eyelids to your forehead. Whatever doubts I had going in were gone right about the time the lead thug dragged his nephew out of the Jeep and put a gun to his head. That's how we get started. It goes straight to Hell from there.

In my review of On a Dark and Stormy Night, I talked about how Indies tend to violate the contract with the audience, or at least threaten to. This flick not only violates the contract, it damn-near dares you give a shit about what's going down on screen. And yet, you can't help it. Right about the time one of the thugs takes out a measuring tape, your ass will be in for the long haul.

Perhaps the most astounding thing about this movie is that, after about twenty minutes, you completely forget about the technical achievement of one long shot. Spiros Stathoulopoulos not only designed a beautiful film in total, but managed to extract performances from a group of largely untrained actors that will break your fucking heart. It's not until the credits roll that you realize how full-tilt fucking nuts it is that thing was pulled off in the first place. But by then, the story and the actors are going to have you in a fucking daze.

The only place I know you can get this flick right now is on IFC On-Demand, and if you can get it, you fucking should. This movie deserves a lot better than it's gotten, and that needs to change. So, get off your fucking asses. You will not be disappointed.

Get it and love it.

Save Yourselves,

'Nuff Sugar

Oldboy

BigSugar — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:11:42 +0000

They don't don't get much more fucked-up than this one, ladies and gents.

Here's
the deal; Oh Dae-Su, not the sharpest of tools in the shed, gets his
ass locked in a shitty motel room for fifteen years. Upon his
release, he's given five days to find the cocksuckers who locked him up
and put a fuckin' hurtin' on them. Crazy-ass hammer violence
ensues.

This is one of those rare movies that actually lived up
to the geek hype. Remember a few years ago when you couldn't go to
aintitcoolnews.com without hearing how cool this movie was? Well,
they weren't bullshitting you. This flick is as fucked up as a
football bat or a soup sandwich. As far as the plot of this
one goes, you're not going to get anymore out of me than that.
Trust me, you don't want any more.

Now this is one of those
flicks that has a fantastic hook and follows up with a great
story. Nothing is out of place and as fucking nuts as the thing
gets, it never fails to make the shit hit home, which is tough
considering what's up its sleeves. And, as always, it's
beautifully realized. The now famous hammer fight has to be one
of the coolest shots ever put on film and it works both as eye candy
and heart-pounding moment. And the shit with the octopus is just
so beyond what you can imgine being filmed that once you get there, I
promise you'll be hooked.

Waste no time, folks. If you haven't seen this one, you have no business even talking about movies.

Get it and Love it.

Save Yourselves,

'Nuff Sugar

Requiem for a Heavyweight

Turzman — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:41:46 +0000

Sharks have Jaws, the mafia has The Godfather, Satan has The Excorcist and boxing has Raging Bull. It seems every film genre and sub-genre has it's crown jewel and the standard is usually a tremendous drop in all-around quality when discussing a "runner up." We're talking serious fallout of nuclear proportions. It's a rare occasion when a particular genre can have a second film even mentioned in the same breath as a classic, and the boxing genre, I believe, is exceptionally special because it offers two films. As evidence I suggest one either re-watch Rocky, or sample today's morsel, 1962's Requiem for a Heavyweight. It has a powerful performance from Anthony Quinn as the titular pugilist, it has a supporting cast that boasts the legends Jackie Gleason and Mickey Rooney and it has a brilliant screenplay from Rod Serling that elevates it (dare I say it?) past Rocky and makes a very serious run at Raging Bull as the greatest boxing movie of all time.

The film opens with Quinn's Louis "Mountain" Rivera, a punchy, seventeen year veteran of the squared circle in a heavyweight title fight against Cassius Clay, cameoed by Ali himself. In round seven, Rivera goes down for the count having sustained horrible damage to one of his eyes. So much in fact, that the ring doctor suggests Rivera retires because just a few more shots to the head could lead to blindness.

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s69/santino037/requiem_for_a_heavyweight01.jpg

The problem with retirement is, at age 35, Rivera has no other skills to make a living on. Also, his manager, Maish Rennick (Gleason) and trainer, Army (Rooney) have no other ponies in their stable. It's Rivera or nothing for Maish and Army, and for Rivera, it's the ring or nothing, until he meets Grace Miller (Julie Harris), a kind-hearted civil servant in the employment agency Rivera registers with. Grace thinks Mountain would be perfect as a counselor at a camp for troubled boys, while Maish is scrambling to get him into professional wrestling.

These two subplots are not only riveting as they stand alone, but they intertwine late in the third act most effectively, completing the totality of Requiem as a story, and is a wonderful testament to Serling the writer. Grace enters Mountain's world to better understand him, realizing he would be perfect as the counselor, and pulls every string she has to set him up with an interview. There is something very pleasing about watching the infancy of potential romance between the two bubble up. Meanwhile, Maish is in debt to the local hoods, laying promise upon promise that he is, in no way, capable of keeping. He sees pro wrestling as the only alternative, and in his defense he sincerely has the best interests of himself as well as Mountain and Army in mind. That is until he hears about the potential camp counselor thing, and this is where Maish goes from fairly likeable to moderate scumbag as he implements sabotage.

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s69/santino037/RequiemHeavyweight01.jpg

Mountain is too naive, childlike when it comes to nearly everything, as is evidenced in his social awkwardness with Grace, and his blind trust in Maish and Army, having been taken care of by them for his entire, seventeen year career. It's far too easy for Maish to get Mountain drunk (under the guise of celebration) and make him late for his interview, where the drunken Mountain makes a fool of himself, ruining any chance of being a counselor or hooking up with Grace. All the while, Army is torn between is loyalty to Maish, and what he knows is best for Mountain.

Quinn shines as Mountain Rivera, creating a character different than Robert DeNiro's Jake La Motta (as he was a wife-beating asshole) but it's also a character more sympathetic and loveable than Rocky Balboa, which is a feat in and of itself, despite preceding Rocky by about a decade. Put Requiem for a Heavyweight at the top of your "things to do" list immediately. You have the Turz guarantee that it will be wonderful.

Spartan

BigSugar — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 02:57:55 +0000

Lemme just say this and get it the fuck outta the way; I'd go gay
for David Mamet. On the off chance that pitching or catching for this
man, some iota of his talent would rub off on me. If that sounds a
little strange to you, you clearly haven't seen Spartan.

Here's
the deal; the First Daughter is kidnapped and Val Kilmer is brought in
to get her back from the international sex slave ring that has her.
Cerebral mayhem ensues.

Now, that's all the plot I'm going to
give you right there and you can read that on the back of the box.
Make no mistake, though, this a complex, twisted movie that sucks you
in quick and starts slapping you around without much lead time. And
while Mamet will never be confused for David Fincher, the real
fireworks come out of the script. Damn-near every line of dialogue is
perfect, the structure fires on all cylinders, and the story itself is
fucking cracker-jack. I have personally recommended this movie to a
couple of doezen people and they have all gone fucking crazy-go-nuts
over it.

We've got a lot of aspiring wrtiers here and as one of them, I can't
overstate the case that you need to get some Mamet in your diet.
Doesn't have to be daily, but it damn-sure won't hurt. The guy owns. And his film is absolutely no exception. The man can make partial sentences eat a fucking hole through your brain. Check out the interrogation scene if you think I'm full of shit.

I admit freely to not being a casual Mamet fan, I'm a
fucking rabid one, so the natural bias I have towards this film should
be, by now, quite obvious. That said, this one of
movies-you've-never-heard-of that does not disappoint. It goes
straight for the fucking throat and holds it until the credits
roll. If you haven't seen it, get off your fucking ass. If you
have seen it, watch it again. Trust me, it never gets old.

Get it and love it.

Save Yourselves,

'Nuff Sugar

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Evildirector — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:43:07 +0000

EvilDirector's Cynical Review of Elizabeth: The Golden Age

**1/2 out of ****

"I have a hurricane in me that will strip Spain bare if you dare to try me."

As a history teacher, I'm a sucker for historical films. If I see a trailer featuring characters in exquisite period costumes, armies clashing in clouds of powder smoke, or great princes giving rousing speeches of glory and honor, I'm hooked. My ass will be in a theatre seat come that film's release date. I was in such a seat when I first saw an unfamiliar actress, the beautiful Cate Blanchett, play England's greatest queen in 1998's Elizabeth. That Oscar-nominated film snuck up on viewers and gave us another reason to go the cinemas in one of our best years for historical pieces, with Shakespeare in Love, Saving Private Ryan, and The Thin Red Line all emerging to compete for a historian's affections. Now, nearly a decade later, Blanchett and director Shekhar Kapur have reunited to give us The Golden Age.

Despite the wise goverance of England's Virgin Queen, the tiny island nation is weak and beset by enemies. From across the seas, devout Catholic Phillip II of Spain is determined to unleash the forces of the Inquisition on Protestant England, and has begun construction of a Great Armada to bring the fires to the British shore. Catholic rebels plot to assassinate Elizabeth and place Mary, Queen of Scots, on her throne. It is a pivotal point in the history of the world, a lesson every school child should remember from classes otherwise long forgotten: the ascendency of one empire and the fall of another. Into this time of turmoil, explorerer and pirate Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen) pursues the lonely Elizabeth (and her handmaiden), while Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush) tries to unravel the pieces of the conspiracy that surround the Virgin Queen.

The first film provided high drama and beautiful camera work in abundunce; this second entry well emulates the latter, but is less successful with the former. The performances are sound and, sometimes, downright amazing, the settings are grandiose, the colors vivid, and the camera work glorious in revealing the scope of Elizabethan England...but the story fails to capture the tense sense of danger that the first film portrayed so well. This is possibly because the early years of Elizabeth's reign are far less known that events portrayed in The Golden Age, which have been seen over and over in Hollywood history. The story does it's part as well, serving to make Elizabeth seem like a spoiled and weak brat rather than the strong Queen we saw at the end of the first film; honestly, some of the film's romantic maudlings began to verge on the sophomoric. In trying to repeat the romantic entanglements of Elizabeth, Kapur has forgotten that we have moved a decade past the events of the Queen's younger life. He paints tragedy and triumph on an epic scale, and, in the midst of such earth-changing events, he shoehorns in such a silly sub-plot that we almost wonder why Elizabeth is known as a great monarch, if she could be so monumentally moved by such high-school level hormonal tripe.

Walter Raleigh was seemingly added to the film for two reasons: to provide the aforementioned romance, and to allow us to experience the Armada battle on a personal level, through the pirate's eyes (and to allow us a little action release at the climax). While Clive Owen steals almost every scene he is in, I found myself wishing his character had either been cut or had been written into the story a lot better. There was even a way to include a romance WITHOUT resorting the tepid juvenile love triangle with the handmaiden: bring back Joseph Fiennes character of Lord Robert Dudley from the original film, who, historically, was still a favorite at the time of The Golden Age and who played an important role during the Invasion. Seeing Raleigh and Dudley compete for the Queen's respect would have been a lot more subtle and a lot more dignified than seeing the greatest monarch England has known competing with a buxom teen for the love of a pirate. Nevertheless, Owen does do his best with the character, and his best is often spell-binding (like, for instance, the scene where he describes sailing to the new world).

Kapur has also apparently forgotten the nature of Sir Francis Walsingham from the first film: Dangerous, sly, mysterious, almost a force of nature in his cunning and Machiavellian sense of duty, Rush's portrayal ten years ago was mesmerizing. The Walsingham who appears in The Golden Age is not the same man; Kapur, with seemingly no need for the realist and hard spy-master from the original, instead wrote Walsingham into a weak and dying counselor who does nothing but echo threats of impending doom and encourage the Queen to marry. The Walsingham ten years ago was more historically accurate: a tall, upright shape in the shadows, ruthlessly loyal to his monarch.

In the end, The Golden Age is a nice way to spend an afternoon, especially if history interests you; for others, however, The Golden Age is better left on the shelf. Pick up the original Elizabeth, and, if you find yourself still interested, then puruse this interesting, but lesser, sequal.

****- Perfect in Execution, Riveting, and Bound to Be A Classic

*** 1/2- Nearly Perfect, Riveting

***- Flawed in Some Manner, But Overall well Made, Entertaining

** 1/2- Flawed, Entertaining on a Guilty-Pleasure Level

**- More Flawed Then Not, Only Occasionally Entertaining

* - Completely Flawed, Never Entertaining