A Painful Experience

How painful is the movie The Lovely Bones? My God. I don't think I'll ever sit down to watch it again...it is far too much for me. Not painful in the typical way I use the adjective, like in saying it's a piece of crap like Hot Dog...The Movie and difficult to watch. But rather painful in that it ripped out my freakin' heart. I can only imagine how I'd feel if I had kids and watched this; I would never let them out of my sight again.


I watched it last night and then couldn't sleep, and then slept but had nightmares about it, and then I got up to take a shower and it followed me there too. There have been few films I can think of that have haunted me so. Bergman's The Virgin Spring comes to mind, last year's Into the Wild stayed with me a while, and definitely Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker. That last one messed me up for like a week. And I think this one may last too.


Not to spoil the story or anything if you haven't heard of it yet or seen it, but it involves a young 14 year old girl who is murdered by a neighbor (we eventual find out he's a serial killer) and her family's attempt to deal, look for the killer, move on, etc. It doesn't specifically tell us she'd been raped but it's somewhat hinted at. So there you go, horrendous situation and story. So the normal story arc in these situations involve retribution and revenge, and as an audience that's where we then put our energy and mind to get us through the film, investing with hope that the killer will be caught or killed.


I think (no, I know) there's a lot of frustration for me with this movie specifically because I want some sort of Clint Eastwood dude to show up and torture this son of bitch. Like Dirty Harry from Sudden Impact, where he finds out a rape victim has started hunting down and killing her attackers, and then he decides to look the other way and then help her blow them away. Or at least like Liam Neeson's character in Taken. Instead, I feel the family and detectives drop the ball (and her mom leaves the family to deal with the crisis on her own instead of trying to catch the killer; ironic that she loses 1 child, and then leaves the other 2 for a couple of years to deal with the loss). There's plenty of ineptness to go around. I'm pissed at the detective who interviews the killer but then doesn't follow up, even though the killer had a huge doll house in his living room but doesn't have any children and lives alone and is a freakin' creeper! And I'm pissed that the sister finally has evidence he's the killer but wastes precious seconds to tell someone in deferment to her parents' reunion and in wasting time the killer's allowed to escape. And I'm pissed that various people, like her dad, just know that this guy is the killer and just can't do anything about it. So frustrating.


You know what else is frustrating??? Spoiler alert here, so you may not want to read if you're planning on seeing it. They never find her body. Because the killer keeps her corpse in a huge safe in his basement. At the end, when her sister should scream for someone to call the cops, he apparently has enough time to load the safe into the back of his truck and take off forever. It must weight like 200 lbs with her body in it but somehow he has enough time. Fucking frustrating. Where are you cops?!? And then he's dumping the safe (with her body in it) somewhere where it will never be seen again, and people are watching him slowly dumping this safe, and you just know they know there's something not right, and yet they do nothing about it.


I think why is because throughout the story she's still living on in this limbo/dream world supposedly between heaven and earth. So, she's not really gone, her body may be crammed into the safe, and her family has no idea where she is, but she's checking in on everything going on in the search for her killer, etc. up in limbo. So she's still 'going on', right, and we're supposed feel a bit better I guess because she's not really dead in the existentialist sense (not really fitting that her mom is reading Camus during an early scene, but Jackson may have just included this to let us know she's 'smart'). But no, her still up there is little consolation for me as a viewer or her family. That's what's heartbreaking about this film, is that you feel for the family, and I'm relating to them that they never find her body. I mean can you imagine that torture, of just not knowing? And then seeing him cart around her body (answers for the family) while no one does anything about it? Torture.



Something I didn't understand. One scene up in limbo, she meets other victims, and it's heartbreaking, and I don't understand why there's this one particular moment in which they gather. Is it time for them all to go the heaven together? And why? The killer isn't dead, or caught. In fact, at that very moment he escapes, and is going to kill another young girl. But for some reason they're all gathering at that moment. There's no closure with him still on the loose.


I guess that's the overall problem with these characters for me. They're moving on, dealing with their lives, while the danger is still there. Move on once the bastard is caught or killed I say. Do that much for her. The Lovely Bones refers to the people who have grown since her death, but where's the closure? They're moving on too soon! What's an apt analogy?? Like painting a house while it's still raining? Something like that.


Major spoiler alert again...the killer gets his in the end, but not in the way you'd expect. Since the scene doesn't have any other major characters in it, I think it's an add-on scene after test audiences wanted some sort of retribution. Spoiler...he slips on ice and falls and dies. Lame. He's obviously older when this happens, so in the meantime, while people are finding peace with closure and all the girls are up in limbo going off to heaven, he's still out there raping and killing little girls. I'm just saying.


I've been ranting about the story here, so you can see just how powerful it is. Other things in the movie...acting, editing, music (so disturbing as well), direction, color....they're all excellent. Filmically, spot on, but I still don't think I'll ever see it again. This is one of the only times I've said that because of how powerful a movie is instead of how horrible it is.

Close Encounters Redneck Version

Very clever.

Cry Me a River, Johnny

Don't get me wrong, I think Johnny Depp is a phenomenal actor; he's been great in so many movies and believable as so many different characters. But I don't like him using his pretty boy face to play historically disgusting figures. Not really disgusting figures looks-wise. I don't mean that (well maybe sort of a bit). I mean like people throughout history who were just bastards, killers, drugdealers and just guys who should get what's coming to them. In real life, if we met these people on the street, they'd spit in our face. But on the screen, since it's Johnny Depp, we care about them.

Case in point I just watched the mildly disappointing Michael Mann film Public Enemies, starring Depp and Christian Bale. It was ok but could've been a lot better. It's so sad when these films have so much potential and just don't live up to it. Typical Mann film in some ways...lyrical and visually pleasing but gets a little lost in itself. Depp plays John Dillinger, Depression era bank robber and cop killer. Yeah, that's right, convicted cop killer. But he gets the star treatment here as a sympathetic figure.


Depp is just too damn pretty to be a killer. There are some scenes where he's classic Depp, lips pursed, looking longingly with those big brown puppy dog eyes. But the real Dillinger was a hard-core sonofabitch. And he looked like this.



Instead of someone as pretty as Depp, I'm looking for an old movie simply called Dillinger, starring old school actor Lawrence Tierney. Somehow I need to get my hands on it, this old movie from the 40's. From what I hear Tierney lived a bit more of an authentic life in Dillinger's spirit, always drunk or in brawls, not committing acts of murder or robbery mind you but just more of a 'tough guy' than Depp in this film.



Does this guy look familiar? Probably not at this age. I didn't recognize him when I first saw it. But Lawrence Tierney, old school tough guy who starred as John Dillinger in the 1945 movie, is the same guy who appeared as Joe Cabot in Reservoir Dogs. Same dude, just aged about 50 years. Still tough as nails, still probably a more authentic Dillinger at 75 then Depp at 40 (Dillinger just turned 31 when he was killed).



On this same topic, do you want to know something that really pissed me off? It's the movie Blow, with Johnny Depp as cocaine importer and overall loser George Jung. It so glamorized the drug trade and used Depp, once again, as a sympathetic visual. We saw him spiral downward, sure, and at times he looked like crap, but it was still Johnny Depp, we still knew he was him, that still under a mountain of coke, that he was a genuine and beautiful soul deep down. But that's not right. The real person, George Jung, responsible for how many millions of tons of blow and destroyed lives in this country, that dude was/is just evil.

But here's Johnny Depp playing Jung on the big screen...



A frickin' tropical vacation. He looks like a Mai Tai. Wouldn't we all want to be him! C'mon everybody, let's have a glamorous life too, full of women and palm trees and money and cocaine.
But now here's his character in real life, the real George Jung...



Ugly loser of a person. Looks more like the Elephant Man or that kid from that Cher movie with the deformed face. Anyway I haven't seen that movie Blow since it first came out on video, about 6 years ago and was so pissed off about the glamorizing of coke that I vowed never to watch it again. Kinda of appropriate (I'm not saying I'm glad or anything and true I really liked his other work on Beautiful Girls and Rounders) that the director of Blow, Ted Demme, died of a heart attack a few years ago high on coke playing a basketball game. I'm just saying, preaching what your practicing and that shit is no good.

Land of the Lost is a Lot of Fun

I vaguely remember the original Land of the Lost tv show for really no other reason than those scary anthropomorphic reptiles the Sleestaks haunting my dreams by slowly chasing after me, succeeding in acting as a metaphor for my eventual death...not sure when it will happen, it may take years to get there, but the Sleestak will never stop searching for you and eventually you'll be dead. Little snippets of my cinematic mind remember them coming awake from their sleeping chambers after a character made too much noise or something, and you could guarantee I'd have nightmares for days after.


I really did enjoy the movie rendition of the tv show. Yeah, Will Farrell and that Kenny Powers guy are doing their same old schtick, but it's enjoyable. Actually, Kenny Powers is really toned down here but I love Eastbound and Down so it's always a delight to see Danny McBride. I had never seen Anna Friel in anything before but knew who she was and, yeah, I have a little crush on her now. She's super cute. I also saw some paparazzi photos of her sunbathing on the Riviera one time and they were awesome.



The Today Show co-host Matt Lauer makes a couple cameos here as Will Farrell's antagonist (or perhaps it's Farrell who is Lauer's), and he gives Farrell the beating I think we all wish he would've given Tom Cruise when that Scientologist freakazoid berated him for not knowing what that cult/church knows about psychology. We all saw how Lauer just sat there and took it like a little girl. Soooo unfortunate because someone needs to give that cult member a beatdown but here anyway Lauer as himself can push his weight around a little, all under the safety umbrella of a fake reality. It was mildly funny. Much more enjoyable and preferable are the scenes with the mssing link-like primate Chaka, played by Jorma Toccane. Some funny stuff there. He loves boobs and the simple primative things in life, like not being eaten by dinosaurs or Sleestaks.



All and all some enjoyable stuff here. Yeah, not the greatest movie on the planet, but you sorta know what you're getting into when you sit down to it. Farrell, like that skinny dorky guy Michael Cera, is always Will Ferrell. You know what you're going to get with him, regardless of who the character is, it's still Will Ferrell and all his mannerisms and everything that comes with hiring him for your movie. And when I watched this I was definitely looking forward to a Ferrell movie. Land of the Lost doesn't disappoint.

Notorious-ly Bad

I haven't written in a while and I need to write a paper today but I'm not feeling it, so just a warning, the reviews today might be total shite. Anyway...



I had heard good things about the Chris "Notorious B.I.G. aka Biggie Smalls" Wallace bio pic Notorious, but sadly it didn't live up to expectations. I'm not, in any way you look at it, an expert or even a connoisseur of hip hip culture but I picked up the movie because I really dug the Tupac Shakur documentary Tupac: Resurrection and was expecting something of the same with this pic. But it's vastly different. It's not a doc but rather a movie movie trying (and failing) to recreate how a black youth surrounded by the shit culture of drugs and violence rises to become a musical icon. This pic just isn't made very well, though, and the story is uneven, and ultimately to succeed, aren't I supposed to feel sympathy for the main character or at least understand him? You can argue I just wouldn't sympathize 'cause I'm a white boy but that doesn't improve a crappy screenplay and uneven pacing.



I thought about not commenting on this but here it goes: I'm really disgusted by obese people. And Biggie was definitely obese. I can hear it in his songs and whenever he breathes; it's gross and really turns me off from his music.


Music king or burger king?

So I didn't have that on my side while watching the movie. Of course the actor playing Biggie is fat too, but I don't think I wasn't feeling any kind of sympathy in part because of his weight issues, it had so much more to do with all these choices he had and not being a fan of what he eventually would settle on. Much like Tupac, he grew up in a home where a parent pushed education; Tupac's mom is a PhD and Biggie's mom, played by the usually brilliant Angela Bassett though even her performance falls flat, spends much of her time loving and lecturing him about smart choices. Bigs chose drugs, though, and had opportunities with his music, and still choose drugs, made bad decisions, etc. For a while there he actually was a neighborhood drug kingpin and, as highlighted in the film, sells crack to a pregnant lady and quips that it's only business. Oh, but don't worry faithful viewers, we see that same crackhead lady a few years later happily playing with her child after Biggie makes it big and one of his friends says something like "hey, look at her, wasn't she a crackhead?" Well, not no more, right, cause that's what always happens. And as far as his life, c'mon, you can blame the neighborhood and the culture only up to a certain point. After that, man up, take your talent and turn it into something more.

Anyway, that's about all I got on this movie. Part of me thinks it was highly influenced by artists who are still around that are featured in this biopic. Most notably, Puffy Combs and Lil Kim. How much influence did they have in the crafty of this story and how far into the truth were the filmmakers allowed to go. Of course it doesn't paint either of them in any kind of negative light at all, especially Puffy, what with his yellow turtlenecks and lectures to stay away from drugs and all. It just seemed a little to "clean" for my tastes. But then again what do I know?

Frustrated

All I wanted to watch tonight was Kill Bill Vol 1. But I can't find it. Do you know how frustrating this is? I mean I even keep all my dvds/blu-rays in alphabetical order, I'm so anal, but it's not there. I have no idea where it could be but so I'm pissed. It's an all yellow cover so it's not like it could be camouflaged or anything. Pissed. All I really wanted, to make my life complete, was to watch Kill Bill right now. Hmmm...I guess it's True Romance, then. Kinda in a Tarantino mood this evening to compliment my Friday dinner of doritos, smartfood, chips a'hoy and beer. Where the hell is my movie?

He's That Guy

I don't consider myself to have nearly a photographic memory but there are always actors and performances I file in the back of my mind and then come back to at some other point and realize "wow, is that the same actor who was in such and such back in the late seventies?" Somewhat a kin to a movie fan's first introduction to realizing who Rutger Hauer is and how he's that guy who seemlessly shows up in so many different things, if that makes sense.



Case in point as I was thinking about my Braveheart post and watching some of the included blu-ray extras. One of the most memorable characters in that movie is Stephen from Ireland. You remember, he's the crazy dude who claims Ireland is his island? Good stuff. Well, I'm watching the actor who played him, David O'Hara, talk about his experiences filming the movie and he looks nothing like his crazy Stephen character, and I'm thinking "I know this guy from other stuff". So I sit back and close my eyes and go through the catalog of cinematic memories in my brain. Come to find out the first thing that pops in there is a scene from The Departed where he argues with Leonardo DiCaprio over the spelling of the word "citizen's". A smile comes to my face as I place the two and realize Fitzy from The Departed is crazy Irish dude from Braveheart.



And then the cinematic rolodex continues and I pop out an immaculately dressed assassin giving himself some running room inside an office building and the sprinting into and crashing through a huge glass window as Mr. X in Wanted.



Good stuff! Not that great of a movie, but so cool matching these characters to one another. That movie needed much more of his British class and presence. For some reason those Brits excel at no-BS, well groomed killers.



In this final photo here, O'Hara's Fitzy is hanging with fellow mob mic Delahunt, played by Mark Rolston. Rolston himself is forever engrained in my memory from one of my favorite movies of all time, The Shawshank Redemption. There he plays Bogs, the lead anal rapist of Shawshank Prison. "Has anyone gotten to you yet"? shiver. Sometimes I have nightmares about that line.

I Demand More

Far be it for me to shy away from writing when I'm feeling venomous, but what else can I say, I'm a moody muthafucker. I picked up Braveheart on blu-ray last week, part of Paramount's new Sapphire series, due in part of blu-ray.com's review of the release.


I love Braveheart and own it on dvd, and shelling out the $27 or so took some deliberation. But I did it, and was expecting to be completely blown away. Don't get me wrong...it look good. But the transfer to blu-ray isn't, say, The Dark Knight good. Blu-ray.com gave the picture quality a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars; I'd bump that down to a 4.


Sometimes I feel the less I know about a movie star in real life the better off I am. It's the Tom Cruise syndrome. Huge fan of Tom up through Magnolia (or maybe even Minority Report), but really all the personal retardedness just got to me and I can't sit through his movies anymore. Same thing to a certain point with Mel though I've never been a big fan in general of his. Anyway, watching some of the dvd extras with him just talking make me want to shut the damn thing off. Case in point, he says dude a lot. You shouldn't be 60 years old and continuously using the term "dude". Especially like this: "Dude! You just have to film women over 28 frame per second because they're so beautiful". Ugh. In his interview, he's also off by about 150 years when speaking about the time in which Wallace lived. Just sayin'.



Also lacking...a huge amount of extras in general. Movie comes on one disk (with commentary that I haven't listened to yet) and the second disk contains a "brief" synopsis of the Braveheart battles, a shabby investigation into the "real" William Wallace, and a history on Smithfield (the part of London where he and many others were executed). The Smithfield documentary is the best one on there. Even though it's a bit lacking, I was enthralled with historian and author Lucy Moore. Brilliant and looks like Prince Williams girlfriend, only at age 40 or so.


One of my pet peeves is historical accuracy, so I had to sit through screenwriter and descendant Randall Wallace tell me he just wanted to capture the spirit of William and not particularly the historical truths...such as that the first battle happened over a bridge instead of a large field where they used those big ass pikes, and how he left Scotland after being defeated for something like 5 years before coming back and then being captured, and all that BS about an affair with the Princess of Wales. Screw the spirit of it all, I want to know what really happened. It's pretty sad to find out that in reality King Edward Longshanks died even before his gay son, the eventual Edward II, married Princess Isabella from France and so therefore she could have never whispered in his ear on his deathbed that she was carrying a child not of his lineage, which we're led to believe is the love child of William Wallace, and knowing our history we're thinking "wow, since the first born son of Ed II and Isabella is the eventual Edward III, one of the most powerful English monarchs ever, does this mean his daddy is really Wallace and every monarch since that time is from his line??" No, actually, it's all BS. Oh, and by the way, neither Edward Longshanks nor Edward the II actually spoke English; they only spoke French.

It's Been One of Those Weeks

Yeah, one of those weeks where now that the weekend is within sight I want nothing more than to get off from work and go spend a nice quiet night away from the chaos of the daily grind. All I want tonight, if its ok with you all, is to get a pizza, make a rum and coke, shut off my phone, and turn on the cinema in my apartment to watch a good movie. That, to me, would be perfect. No more work drama, no more boss breathing down my neck, no need to wake up at the crack of dawn tomorrow; thankfully, it's now the weekend. And I want is to relax in my man-cave. Because all work and no play makes me something, something, something...

Rambo 5 Coming Soon

In case you didn't get enough of a past-his-prime Stallone in Rocky Balboa and the fourth Rambo movie, you'll be thrilled to know Rambo 5 is greenlit and ready to go into production early next year.


Sylvester Stallone in Rambo: First Blood Part II

Call me crazy but I actually liked that latest Rambo movie. A bit too short really, but much better than First Blood II (I haven't seen III so I can't compare). Not a big enough Rambo fan to see this in the theatre, but I'd rent this newest installment for sure.


So what's the plot slated for Rambo 5? Well, according to Variety, "The upcoming project's storyline revolves around Rambo fighting his way through human traffickers and drug lords to rescue a young girl abducted near the U.S.-Mexico border." Nice!! We're all pissed at South of the Border drug lords and illegal Mexican immigrants so let's send Sly down here to San Diego and have him slip across to Tijuana. There will be blood!!!

Dog Soldiers - A Fun Monster Movie

This is my first movie review post and so I find it so totally appropriate that I'm going to review Neil Marshall's sophomore effort from 2002, Dog Soldiers, which centers around a bunch of armed lads duking it out with werewolves somewhere in the highlands of Scotland. I truly enjoyed it, I'll just say that. A lot of bloody fun, really.


We meet these hungry and constantly pissed off werewolves after just about 15 minutes into the movie, so I'm not giving anything away by telling you that they are the mystery creatures of the film. Quickly, the plot works like this: army soldiers dropped into the woods for field exercises. Find werewolves. Try to kill them, unsuccessfully. Saved by a pretty field scientist stationed in the woods. Hole up in a cottage. Try to kill werewolves again. Werewolves try to kill army guys. And on like that for a while. Like I said, bloody good fun.



A bunch of Scottish army blokes about to be dog food

I picked up this movie because Neil Marshall also wrote and directed The Descent, which I absolutely loved. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that one of the leads in Dog Soldiers was none other than Kevin McKidd, who I was reintroduced to through the miniseries Rome a couple years ago. He played Lucius Vorenus, a loyal Roman soldier employed to do Antony and Augustus Caesar's dirty work. I first saw him in Trainspotting as Tommy, and when I first started watching Rome I couldn't believe it was the same guy.



Kevin McKidd as Cooper in Dog Soldiers



Kevin McKidd as Tommy in Trainspotting (second from right)

So there are a few different plot twists in Dogs which work pretty well. Especially when you realize that they have somewhat of a vampire like ability in that if they bite or scratch you, sooner or later you'll change into one of them. And we learn early on that these werewolves are somewhat intelligent (they open the zipper of a tent in the beginning instead of just tearing it to shreds, unfortunately for a naughty couple inside who are into some heavy petting) and they taunt some of the soldiers with the body parts of their friends.


I think Dog Soldiers succeeds, too, in not taking itself too seriously. Sure, the script could've used a bit more humor, but it's a difficult task to make the audience actually care about the soldiers by setting up their backstories, and then have all hell break loose with limbs flying everywhere and big wolf creatures tearing everything all up. Marshall keeps it nice and even. The various characters aren't just one dimensional caricatures or cliches. The Descent worked that way too. Sooner or later we know a lot of the characters are gonna bite the big one, but Marshall invests plenty of time up front so we really get to know these ill-fated people.




The creatures themselves are scary enough...More full on wolf or dog head attached to about a 7 foot humanoid frame. Yeah, scary enough to not ever want to see one when you're walking through the woods. For my money, though, still not as scary as the gollum-like creatures living deep within The Descent's Appalachian caves. So, Dog Soldiers definitely gets my recommendation. You know, in some ways this movie is the anti-Twilight take on our traditional monsters...these particular werewolves here aren't trying to score with girls at the local highschool or trying to integrate into society. They're living out in the woods, they're hungry, and they love the flesh of Scottish people.


One of the cave crawlers from The Descent

Nice!

Yo! This is the best! Well done Matty, or should I say Stiles.
I'm too stupid to figure out how to create my own identity, but I'm totally calling dibs on Louis. Or is it Lewis? Either way, the shy nerdy kid... that's me.

Welcome to Sons of Teen Wolf

...a place where we can talk about movies. All movies, not just TW! I want to start by saying this blog is not meant to be a polished, scholarly work of film reviews...it's really just letting a bunch of us speak our mind about cinema stuff. The only qualification for a movie to be commented or featured upon here is that it has to be a movie. In other words, it doesn't matter if it's Schindler's List or Killer Klowns from Outer Space, as long as it's a movie, it belongs here!!



Orson Welles as Harry Lime in "The Third Man"

I feel a bit of trepidation in starting this blog and writing again; it's been quite some time since I've seriously maintained a blog. But as one of my professors once said "you should write everyday. It doesn't matter what you write, so long as you're writing" and I'm going to take that advice. Since eventually I need to write a thesis in an unrelated field, this blog may serve a purpose by keeping the juices flowing.



Steve Martin as Neal Page and John Candy as Del Griffith in "Planes, Trains & Automobiles"

So that being said I want to mention that many of my reviews and comments will not be polished, i.e. when I'm writing papers for class I am so very anal in making sure it's perfect; I go over it again and again. This blog will serve a different purpose. The writings will be more relaxed, perhaps flow of consciousness, perhaps right from the gut. I may get on a soapbox about Michael Bay and blast him all to hell for being a hack so be prepared for some venom too. I may also, on occasion, just be flat out wrong or in the minority about a movie and I hope you will give it to me when warranted. Like I may give Wall-E only 2 stars out of 5, and well if that's my opinion then that's what I'll write and it's a free country so you have every right to agree or disagree with me.



Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver"

Finally, one of the catalysts for finally starting this blog is my recent purchase of some entertainment wares which have made me a very, very happy man. I bought a 42" Panasonic plasma, a nice tv stand which lifts it up a bit, and a ps3 for Blu-Ray capability. Combine that with the surround system I already had, and the fact that my apartment can get very dark in a moment's notice, and let's just say I'm in cinematic heaven. So I have an ideal place to watch movies, and since I'm being furloughed by my job every so often, I just may have the time to write about it!! Ok, that's about it...happy blogging and welcome to Sons of Teen Wolf!



Michael J. Fox as Teen Wolf in "Teen Wolf"