We Are Sex Bob-Omb!

Forgive the lateness of this review but there comes a time when you see a movie that is so completely different and which refuses to follow any type of convention that the simple writing of a review is a near-impossible task. You find that words can't do it justice. A film that you have to experience in order to actually get it. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is such a film. Edgar Wright's adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's independent comic book is a cinematic orgasm of all things geek.

Mr. Wright made a name for himself by directing Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Two films, that in this reviewer's not-so-humble opinion, are perfect films. He already had a very frantic style to his editing and his visuals so the decision to follow those two masterpieces with this comic adaptation seemed like a great fit. He's a comic fan, a music aficionado and already has shown an incredible talent for balancing both style with substance. His talent has made Scott Pilgrim vs. The World into one of the best movies of the year and one of the most endlessly entertaining in recent cinema history. I dare you to watch this film and not have a smile on your face for 95% of it.

At it's heart is a deceptively simple story. Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). It's the epitome of a schoolboy crush. Ramona is the very definition of the cute "pixie" girl. Scott pursues her even though he's still in a kind-of relationship with a 17 year old schoolgirl named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Knives is a little obsessive with Scott and his pretty crappy band, Sex Bob-Omb. But she's not the only thing standing in Scott's way towards a relationship with Ramona. Her seven exes have formed a League of Evil Ex-Boyfriends. In order to be with her, Scott has to fight and defeat each one. But it isn't as easy as it sounds. The world Scott and the rest of these characters inhabit is a world where anything is possible. People shatter into coins when defeated. Pee status bars appear when relieving yourself. Where people have super strength and fighting styles straight out of Street Fighter. Vegans have telekinesis. Instruments produce gigantic id monsters that fight above concert audiences like the world's most insane light show. Instead of trying to ground the movie in reality, Wright fully embraces it unrealistic stylings and turns it into a living, breathing comic book.

Michael Cera brings a nice semi-grounded sense to Scott. He's a bit of a jerk and selfish but he doesn't do it out of malice. He just doesn't know how to go about things. Ramona, as played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is a beautiful cypher. The type of girl you so want to figure out but you're ok with knowing that you never will. As long as she's by your side, anything is possible. Ellen Wong is able to keep Knives Chau right on that precarious edge between being annoyingly clingy and adorable. Her character's arc is simply delightful. All of the actors portraying Scott's friends do great jobs. The standouts being Johnny Simmons as Young Neil. He's the quiet member of the group but one that is always vigilant. His aloofness is offset by his heart. Go see this movie and make an effort to just watch him during some scenes. You'll see that he's does so much with very little. Kieran Culkin does an amazing job as Scott's gay roommate, Wallace. Loyal but brutally honest when he has to be. He drags Scott back down to reality for his own good. Culkin has so many stand out scenes and has an unique ability to seduce straight men in record time.

Now we come to the ex-boyfriends. Each one is different from the other and each fight is it's own little set piece. It would have been boring if each one was a simple hand to hand fight. Matthew Patel is Ramona's first evil ex-boyfriend. His fight is more traditional but includes an uncomfortably hilarious Bollywood musical number. Chris Evans gives his evil ex-boyfriend/skater/actor character Lucas Lee just the right amount of douchebag-ness. The kind of typical fratboy dick that you love to hate. To make matters worse, he makes crappy movies. Except for "Action Doctor", I'd pay to see that. Brandon Routh's Todd Ingram is a total blank minded "him"bo. A vegan who doesn't even know the definition of the word. Then we have Roxy, Ramona's one evil ex-girlfriend. Just a tiny little ball of fury who just can't stomach the fact that Ramona went back to men. And she does not appreciate being punched in the boob. Kyle and Ken Katayanagi constitute Ramona's 5th and 6th evil ex-boyfriends. Their characters don't really do much but they're able to instill a hatred for them with a few simple cocky looks. And now we come to Gideon, Ramona's seventh and final evil ex-boyfriend. Jason Schwartzman has always been able to give us memorable smarmy rats in his films. Gideon may be the ultimate one. A petty and jealous man who decided to form the League simply out of his desire to keep Ramona for himself, he is the last and most difficult obstacle Scott has to face. Their fight is equally epic and emotional. The stakes are never higher when they finally face off. When they do, it's epic. Needless to say, Scott has his work cut out for him.

A good test for a film is to turn the sound off and still be able to follow the story and have an emotional investment in it. Scott Pilgrim passes that test. There is so much happening on screen at any one moment that every frame is like it's own self-contained comic book page. Literal representations of sounds, whip-pans, scene transitions without edits, multiple focus points within the frame that tell their own story, each one a tool used by Edgar Wright to pull you into story.

From the characters to the acting to the editing and the fights and the music, this is filmmaking at it's purest. There is not one bad moment in this film. It moves at a breathless pace and yet never forgets to keeps us interested in the characters. We want to see a happy ending for them cause we can see ourselves in them. The film speaks to us, a generation of young people and young adults raised on video games, comic books and anime. Not with random references made to elicit cheap laughs but with an actual respect for it's viewers and the material. General audiences are simply not getting it. But I can say with confidence that this movie will live on forever. It's a standout and while the box office isn't all that impressive, years from now we will still be talking about it and won't even be able to remember which movie beat it on it's opening weekend.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It's a world that I hated to leave and that I wish actually existed. Cause having my own pee status bar would actually be incredibly helpful

10/10

Dreams not involving your mother. A review of Inception.

Christopher Nolan is a man who likes to keep you guessing. When he isn't reinventing Batman with two almost perfect movies, he's making his own movies where he can roam free of studio sensibilities. Following, Memento, The Prestige and now Inception. These are his puzzle movies, the stuff he loves to do. Nolan places you within the world of the movie or inside the fractured mind of his protagonists and gives you all the pieces you need in order to solve the puzzle. He's used fractured chronology with all his films and takes it a step further by adding the dream world in Inception. A film that will keep people guessing and arguing about, hopefully, for years to come. All the answers are there. The question is whether you're able to see them with a different perspective.

In this movie, which is at it's most basic, a heist movie, Nolan expertly weaves a story about dreams, manipulation, guilt and ultimately, forgiveness. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, an expert extractor. A man hired by faceless corporations to go into the dreams of their competitors to find out their secrets. We pick him up at the beginning of the film while he's in the middle of a job. His right hand man, Arthur, played by Joseph-Gordon Levitt, joins him as his researcher and point man. The job turns out to be a recruitment exercise done by a mysterious businessman named Saito, played by Ken Watanabe. Saito is impressed by Cobb's work and wants to hire him for a dangerous job. Saito wants him to not simply enter a man's dreams but to also implant an idea. It's an almost impossible task and Cobb initially refuses but is lured back by a promise to get him back to the U.S. Cobb wants to get back to his two kids and is willing to do the job under that condition. It's the framework of a heist film. Along with Arthur, Cobb makes the rounds looking for a team. The mark is a man named Fischer (Cillian Murphy). Fischer is about to inherit a major energy company following the death of his father. Saito doesn't want him to continue on with his father's business. That's the idea that he wants Cobb to implant. Cobb assembles his team and with them he is ready to do the job. He has college student Ariadne (Ellen Page) become his Architect. The person who creates the dream world. He hires Eames (Tom Hardy) as his Forger. His job is to impersonate people in the dream. Yusef (Dileep Rao) is hired as the Chemist. He has to develop the chemicals needed to put people to sleep. Cobb explains to them that the only way to implant an idea is to delve further into Fischer's mind than anyone has been able to. Not only making dreams within dreams but going two and three levels deeper. Each level becomes more and more treacherous as they go in. Five minutes in the real world is equal to one hour in the dream world. Each level they further go down, that time grows exponentially. Four or five levels in, that time grows to decades. You may be dreaming for an hour but your mind has experienced decades of time. Dying inside a dream isn't so dangerous in a regular dream. You simply wake up. Dying in a dream that's 4 or 5 levels deep means your mind enters a state of limbo. It doesn't know it's dreaming and will stay in that state until your mind is finally convinced that it is. The plan seems difficult enough already but it gets more so when you realize that Cobb has the memory of his dead wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) appearing in the dreams. She represents his subconscious and tries to sabotage his jobs. He has unresolved guilt about her death and it bleeds into whatever work he's doing. He refuses to let go and it's this refusal that places him and his team in danger. He knows that he should tell them this but is confident that he's able to keep Mal at bay. He's wrong.

What follows is what can only be described as a third act that is one single sustained scene. From the moment they enter Fischer's dream they are thrown into chaos. Fischer has been trained by an Extractor how to protect his mind against intruders. Shootouts and car chases punctuate this sequence. They are forced to improvise and delve further into Fischer's mind while on the move. Weightless fights, snowmobile chases, exploding buildings all add to this sequence. Nolan juggles these moments with an expert touch. His editing is balanced and we're able to follow a moment as it happens in one level of the dream and it's ripples are felt in all subsequent levels. Hans Zimmer provides an immense score that rarely lets up. It's pounding and propulsive like his Dark Knight score. It even has some cool subtle touches that you'll only realize afterwards. The cinematography in this film is breathtaking. The dream imagery is quite amazing and imaginative. It's a nice balance between practical effects and computer generated effects. Nolan is one of the only filmmakers left who actually prefers to do as many things in camera as possible. Levitt has a fight in a hallway that we've all seen in the trailers that is done without CG. It's all practical and taken from Stanley Kubrick's idea for rotating sets in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's choreography is realistic and amazing. Nolan also prefers location shooting opposed to studio sets or green screen. It's refreshing to see this. The snow scenes feel like a nice homage to On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

The performances are all top notch. DiCaprio does admirable work. Levitt showcases a chemistry with all of the members of the team. I wish there was more of his interactions with them. Page is able to bring some heart into her role which is typically the entry point for the audience. I think Hardy is the standout here. He's suave and funny as Eames. He has a bit of a rivalry with Arthur which could have used a bit more. He's adept at the action and shows he has the chops to be a star. He's been cast as the new Mad Max. Here's hoping those films actually get made.

Much has been said about the secrets of the film and while I would love to dissect the multiple theories about the meanings of the dreams and the ending, I can't in this review. Possibly in a thread with people who haven't seen it yet? I will say this, Nolan is not the type of filmmaker who will lie to his audience. He likes to lay out all the puzzle pieces and have you do the work. Some will look at some points in this movie and say that it's a cheap trick but it's not. Close attention will reveal that you were shown certain details while you heard something different. Consider who is telling you these things and you'll being to unravel what the movie really is about. Here's a hint. Ignore the top.

Christopher Nolan has given us a shining beacon in this stale summer at the movies. He's proven that there's still an audience for smart stories that don't hold your hand throughout. Not everything has to be based on a comic, a video-game or a tv show. Original ideas can still flourish and open our minds to new experiences in film. The man is a genius and, in my opinion, the heir apparent to Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick made movies that. decades afterwards, still have us analyzing frame by frame and having discussions about their meanings. Nolan has achieved exactly that.

9.5/10

"I Love It When A Plan Comes Together"

I was never a big fan of the A-Team when I was growing up. I was more of a Magnum PI guy. That being said, I was looking forward to this "reimagining" of the show. Not cause I wanted to see how much they changed it but as a fan of the director and team-based action movies.

This movie had a long and troubled history. From 1996 till as recently as 2008, this movie had more aborted beginnings than a girl after prom night. John Singleton, director of Boyz In The Hood and 2 Fast 2 Furious, was the last guy to take a crack at it. I wasn't all to excited about it. His skills at action are dubious at best. Then the director of Narc and Smokin' Aces, Joe Carnahan stepped up and took a swing and actually managed to make the film. You may not be a fan of his previous movies like I am but his ability to stage action and keep momentum going is fairly obvious. I believe it's his skills at not being a cookie-cutter director that actually helped elevate what could have been another sad and tired remake into one of the most ridiculously fun movies so far this summer.

We all know the story by now, the A-Team is a group of Army Rangers who have been framed for a crime they didn't commit and sent to prison. They use their considerable skills to escape from prison and start on a mission to clear their names. It's within this framework that Joe Carnahan lets loose. All of the actors making up the A-Team are perfect for their roles. Liam Neeson brings a very paternal weight to Hannibal. Bradley Cooper shows considerable action chops as Face. Quinton "Rampage" Jackson quite ably steps into the role of B.A. Baracus and Sharlto Copley gives Murdock the perfect blend of insanity and actual talent. Jessica Biel does what she can as the obligatory role as the Army Lieutenant assigned to track them down. The role isn't really much. She's there to be eye candy and to be a constant threat to the guys. Patrick Wilson is quite smarmy and dickish as Lynch, the mysterious CIA operative who has old ties to the team. The real standout amongst the supporting cast is Brian Bloom as Pike, a mercenary and a quite capable one at that. Bloom also co-wrote the movie with Carnahan and almost certainly gave himself free reign to be both a badass but also a legitimate danger for our heroes. Pike has lots of great moments in the film, the standout being a scene in the backseat of a car which involves inept CIA agents. The man is unpredictable and proves as much when the final scenes come along.

Carnahan knows that this movie can't be taken seriously and uses that as an excuse to keep things light and fun throughout. This is not the type of movie you go into and start questioning the logic and physics behind it all. Murdock manages to fly a helicopter upside down and the team parachutes to safety in a tank. That right there shows that you just need to go along with it all. This is a guy movie, pure and simple. It's in those moments where Carnahan and company try to bring emotional weight to the proceedings that the movie stumbles a bit. It's a sudden tonal change that just feels out of place. The romantic history between Biel and Cooper also feels a little unnecessary but I can forgive them for it. She's the only real female in the movie and had to be there to get women to tag along with their boyfriends or husbands, "Look honey, it has the girl from 7th Heaven! Remember? The one who posed for Maxim and got fired." The movie starts strong and never really slows down. It's able to go from action piece to action piece with the greatest of ease. Even giving the characters moments to be funny within them. The third act feels a little rushed and out of place from the rest of the movie but you've had so much fun so far that it's tough to be mad about it.

There you have it, folks. One of the big surprises of the summer is that The A-Team is actually really, really good. It had a lot of problems getting to the screen and will be labeled as stupid and over the top but that's the point. It's summer popcorn entertainment at it's most fun.

8/10

Men in Suits!

Iron Man was an important film in the history of comic book movies. It elevated Robert Downey Jr. to the A-list where he belongs. It gave director Jon Favreau a chance to prove himself as a filmmaker that was able to direct more than kids movies, Elf and Zathura, and the "Swingers"-lite movie Made. At that moment comic book movies were becoming darker and darker, most to great success, but Iron Man required a lighter touch and it provided it in spades. Faverau was able to juggle both character and story without letting either overshadow the other. Downey as Tony Stark was a revelation, an amazing choice that I'm amazed no one had thought of earlier. The ideal combination of director and actor still encountered some stumbling blocks in the form of a poorly written villain and pretty flat action scenes. Jeff Bridges did an admirable job as the villain but the role just didn't have enough meat to it. The movie was obviously enough of a success that when the inevitable sequel came along it was a chance for Jon Favreau and team to fix all those small problems that, when added up, kept Iron Man from being a great movie. And I must say that with Iron Man 2, Faverau stepped up and fixed those problems, But what makes it suffer is a script that was rushed in order to make the release date.

Iron Man 2 picks up immediately after the first one. Tony Stark has just revealed to the world during a press conference that he is indeed Iron Man. Watching this press conference is Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), a man with a personal vendetta towards Tony Stark and his family's legacy. Meanwhile, Stark is getting lots of flack from the government who want the Iron Man technology to be handed over to them so they can use it as a weapon. Stark refuses and states that his reasoning is that it's not a weapon but a deterrent and that so far it's been working. On the other side of the argument is fellow billionaire and arms manufactuer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), who has been working on building his own version of the Iron Man armor but with disasterous yet funny results. Tony's friend Rhodes (Don Cheadle) is even brought in to reluctantly testify against him. None of this really bothers Tony because he knows he holds all the cards.

Stark is incredibly cocky like he always tends to be, but that cockiness hides a secret. He is slowly being killed by the same technology that is keeping him alive. The Arc reactor that powers his suit is slowly poisoning his blood and unless he can find a new power source then he'll die. It's a secret that he even keeps from his assistant/occasional girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). A woman he used to confide everything in but now he keeps secrets from. The story is an interesting tale of revenge and the difficulties of being a hero when everyone wants a piece of you and everyone knows you're a superhero. Stark seems happy on the outside but he is breaking under the pressure of both the government, Vanko's vendetta and his own health problems. The Tony Stark we see in this movie is a darker version of the one we saw in the first film. Robert Downey Jr. is able to portray him in a way where we see he's in a bad place but never does he fall too much into the "poor me" phase. But all is not doom and gloom for Tony. He meets and promptly hires as his new assistant, Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson), who is secretly a SHIELD agent named Black Widow. And he is also brought into SHIELD by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and given the opportunity to perhaps save himself and Iron Man.

This is one of those rare superhero movies where they hired actual actors instead of stars. Everyone in the movie comes to their roles with lots of talent behind them. Paltrow gives another good performance as Pepper, one of the few roles that I actually like her in. Rourke gives Vanko a very dangerous and scary vibe and does an admirable job with the stuff given him but while Vanko is in the movie from beginning to end, he isn't really active in the middle part. Cheadle steps into the role that Terrence Howard originated in the first movie. Rhodes has to be both Stark's best friend but also the voice of reason. A voice that sometimes has to kick Tony's ass once in a while to get him to stop acting like a spoiled brat. Cheadle was able to establish an easy chemistry with Downey and at no point do we question why they're such good friends. Johansson shows off a natural talent for action when her character is required to kick some ass. But the person who steals the show this time out and almost steals the entire movie away from Downey is Sam Rockwell. His performance as Justin Hammer is both hilarious, pathetic yet also scary at the same time. He's a man who is desperate to be the new Tony Stark but lacks the vision and intelligence needed to do it. Hammer is the type of guy who attempts at every possible moment to be cool only to fail to miserably. What makes him a dangerous villain is that he those billions of dollars at his disposal and no moral compass. He is so desperate to dethrone Stark that he makes a deal with Vanko to help him develop his own armor suits. A quite none too subtle deal with the devil.

Jon Favreau approaches the action scenes this time with the gained knowledge of what made the action in the first one somewhat stiff and lifeless. In this one he is able to give us action scenes that are thrilling and well-choreographed. Action beats that also allow there to be room for character moments. The Monaco fight scene is a good balance of actual danger and some comedic moments. There is a friendly fight scene shortly after that between Rhodes in the silver Iron Man armor and Tony in his armor. A fight that is basically to knock some sense into Tony because he is drunk and acting like a douche. It's a fun scene that really pulls no punches. Walls are torn down. Floors are blown through and windows shattered. They basically destroy Tony's house. Then we are treated to an amazing final action scene for which the reasons for have me approaching spoiler territory so I'll stop. I'll just say that it's a lot of fun but the actual final battle is needlessly short.

Now, you may have noticed that I didn't mention any other action scenes. The reason for that is that there are no more. The entire middle of the movie is lacking in any action at all. It's all plot and character scenes. I didn't really mind it because the acting and the banter between characters is so good but we did really need at least one action scene in the middle. I understand why they went with that in the script. Tony needs to get to a moment of catharsis in order to save himself and Iron Man and Vanko and Hammer need to set everything in place for the final act but I can't see a reason they couldn't have thrown in a quick action beat. It follows the "Open big. End big" philosophy of some films but the real meat in the movie is in the middle. It's there that the audience starts to look at their watches.

That is pretty much the only complaint I have about Iron Man 2. It is a superior sequel to an already good film. Jon Favreau and company fixed all the problems that the first one had, they got better villains and ramped up the action all without sacrificing character and story. The movie keeps you entertained throughout and you're never really bored but it's one weakness is that in pursuit of character they forgot to beef up the middle. It's an Iron Man movie with just not enough Iron Man in it.

8.5/10

Adam West and A Little Girl

In a world where Spider-Man is being needlessly rebooted along with Daredevil, The Fantastic Four and Superman. Where the X-Men franchise is in the toilet and hack directors are given the reins to important characters and promptly ram it into the ground. It's refreshing to see a super-hero movie that actually gets it right and not only brings a fresh take on an overly saturated genre but also opens up the door to a new wave of potentially more adult and R-rated comic-book films.

Director Matthew Vaughn started out producing films for Guy Ritchie. Films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch but he went off to do his own thing and has proven his own filmmaking abilities after directing Layer Cake and Stardust. Two films that have gone mostly unnoticed by the general public. Which is good cause I don't think they'd get it. He was once tapped by 20th Century Fox to direct X-Men 3. He left in the middle of pre-production due to not being able to meet the studio's release date. Brett Ratner was then brought in to replace Vaughn and gave X-Men 3 his patented stamp of blandness. But Vaughn still had that itch to make a super-hero movie. He flirted with making Thor but decided to adapt a smaller and lesser-known comic. Mark Millar's Kick-Ass.

After writing the script with his Stardust co-writer Jane Goldman, he presented it to various studios and was turned down by each one. Every single one complained about the violence and the film lacking a single nice bone in it's body. So Vaughn went the independent route and managed to wrangle up financing. And we all have to thank the movie gods that he did because he has delivered not only one of the most entertainingly wrong movies in a long time but also one of the best comic book movies ever. A movie that can proudly stand next to such great comic book movies such as Spider-Man 2, X-Men 2, Iron Man, The Dark Knight and Hellboy 2.

You probably already know the story thanks to the trailers. Aaron Johnson plays Dave, a regular high school kid without a dark tragedy in his past that pushes him towards crime fighting and also lacking the typical genetic mutations that give him superpowers. He's just a kid that decides that's had enough of people standing around and watching the helpless get pushed around and robbed by dirty criminals. So with a scuba outfit ordered from the internet and with no real training whatsoever, he goes out to make a difference as Kick-Ass. And he is promptly put in the hospital. He remains undeterred and after recovering tries again but with a more successful result. The ensuing internet video of his heroics is a hit and Kick-Ass attracts the attention of real heroes Damon and Mindy MacReady. The father/daughter vigilante team of Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz). He's an ex-cop with a grudge against mob boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) and has trained his little 11 year old daughter to be a perfect killing machine. Together they have made life difficult for Frank and his organization. Along the way Frank starts to think that it's Kick-Ass who is responsible for his number of men to be increasingly dwindling. D'Amico's son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) volunteer's to become Red Mist, another "hero" who will attract Kick-Ass to team up with him and then be lured into a trap where D'Amico will get rid of Kick-Ass. And thus the story builds bit by awesome bit to it's amazing conclusion. This a movie with actual stakes and stakes that involve people we actually care about. People die, violently. And we feel the impact of that.

Performances were spot on all around. Aaron Johnson gives Dave a nice awkwardness while also making it believable that he truly believes in doing right. Nicolas Cage plays Damon as a doting dad and when he is Big Daddy he makes the intriguing but hilarious choice to make him sound like Adam West. Chloe Moretz brings a cute innocence to Hit Girl. You see a little girl who is vulnerable but yet deadly when she has her costume on. Mark Strong continues his long line of awesome villains with Frank. The man knows how to be bad-ass without being a cliche mustache twirler. He sees these super-heroes as a temporary annoyance in his life. He'll take care of them and return to ruling the criminal world. And last but not least Christopher Mintz-Plasse. The former McLovin' portrays Chris D'Amico as the geeky son of a father who doesn't believe him capable of joining the family business. But he really wants his dad to see him as his successor and once he makes the choices he makes, you don't really blame him.

Matthew Vaughn shows an incredible ability to juggle drama, comedy and action. We feel for all these characters. They all have believable motivations. Dave just wants to help people. Damon wants to get revenge and is willing of sacrificing his daughter's childhood to achieve that. Chris wants to get his dad's approval. Some of them are ready to go to extreme lengths to get what they want. Vaughn never lets the story get too dark with some very black humor. Humor that also never takes away from the drama. It's a very tough trick to pull off. Most of time it's damn near impossible to balance the two, but Vaughn manages. He also is able to bring both a frenetic pace to his action scenes and yet make it all perfectly easy to distinguish what is going on. Editing and cinematography never getting in the way of the presentation of the action. And as the action gets more and more violent and the stakes are raised, Vaughn keeps it in line and doesn't let it explode into an orgy of non-sensical blood and guts. He has the most fun showing us Hit Girl turn large groups of mobsters into mincemeat. Her scenes are simply fun and satisfy our blood lust. Seeing her toss knives, cut off limbs and blow guys' heads off is easily the most memorable thing in the movie. I could go into a spoiler-filled list of all my favorite moments but then I ruin it for you. The joy is in seeing those moments play out and having them put a smile on your face. Let me just say this, bazookas.

This is the movie that I hope finally puts Matthew Vaughn in the spotlight. The man has made three amazing movies. Each one so different from the other. A British gangster movie, a swashbuckling fantasy film and now, a hyper-violent deconstruction of the super-hero genre. Keep your eye on him cause he's going places. And you should probably be jealous of him too. He's married to Claudia Schiffer. Lucky asshole.

Shooting and running. A review of Green Zone

Paul Greengrass is one of the most interesting and intelligent filmmakers working today. He's still pretty unknown to anyone who isn't a movie nerd but his work has been already very influential. After getting his start in British television and low budget films, Greengrass made an impact with his film Bloody Sunday. A film about the massacre of Irish protesters by the British military. It was a small film but with a grueling scene in the middle where we see dozens of unarmed people gunned down simply for protesting. The film and it's ability to be intimate and yet intense at the same time got the attention of Hollywood and they came knocking on Greengrass's door. He was given the reins of the Jason Bourne franchise after the director of The Bourne Identity, Doug Liman, chose to go off and make more interesting projects like Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Jumper. And by "interesting" I mean "shitty". With this newfound responsibility, Greengrass then proceeded to give us The Bourne Supremacy. A film that gets a lot of flack for it's camerawork but never any respect for it's smart script and perfectly executed car chase at the end. A chase that is not in purpose of a plot point like so many, but in service to achieve a character developing moment.

After that, Greengrass made United 93, a film that is incredibly powerful and the less said about it, the better. It's one of those movies you just have to experience. Then Greengrass went back to close out the Bourne trilogy with The Bourne Ultimatum. A film that never gives itself a chance to breathe. Everything in the movie moves and refuses to slow down. A perfect ending to a great series. Now, you may be thinking to yourself why am I talking so much about Greengrass? And to that I answer, it's not your place to ask questions! You're not the one sitting at his computer and trying to write this out and not collapse under the pressure! I have a family to support! I have no talents! I need this job! Wait, it's doesn't pay? Fuck...

Actually this is all to help you understand which angle I came from when I saw Green Zone. I wasn't seeing it as a Matt Damon action movie. I was seeing it as a Paul Greengrass film. A rare breed of action film that never insults your intelligence while it decides that it's not going to take you by the hand and point out all the plot points you should know. The movie hits the ground running and never stops. You have to pay attention to everything, every line of dialogue and every shot and edit. No matter how short, they each include information. Greengrass doesn't like to film things simply for the sake of filming. His shots each tell you something. They each contain information that flesh out the story and the characters.

In this movie Matt Damon plays Roy Miller. A Chief Warrant Officer tasked with going into suspected WMD sites in Iraq right after the 2003 invasion. Every site he hits has come up empty. He starts to question all the so-called "reliable" intelligence that the military is receiving from it's sources. Miller joins forces with a CIA agent, Martin Brown, played by Brendan Gleeson who agrees with Miller that something isn't right. Perhaps the reasons the U.S. invaded Iraq never existed in the first place. Greg Kinnear plays Clark Poundstone, a Department of Defense official who has been in contact with the "source" and stands by the intel. A little too much though. The movie is all about Miller trying to find the truth while Poundstone blocks him at every chance. Once Miller discovers the truth then it's a race to get to the source. A man that Miller desperately needs to find and a man that Poundstone will do anything to get rid of. To this end he sends a Special Ops soldier named Briggs, played by Jason Issacs. The ultimate bad-ass who gets a bad-ass introduction. He's a character who has no story, he is simply pointed in a direction and let loose. From then on it's Miller and Briggs racing to the same location but with drastically different goals.

The movie is the epitome of a Paul Greengrass movie. The camerawork, the editing, the pace. All signature. The story is told as the action moves. There is rarely a respite for character development or for a repetition of the plot. Everything you need to know is told in actions and dialogue said on the move. If you're not paying attention then you're going to be lost. That is why you cannot watch this film if it does not have your undivided attention. Do so and it'll reward you with amazing action scenes, refreshing authenticity and an intelligent script that raises some good points about the war in Iraq and the validity of the WMD threat. But it also does not condemn nor forgive. It leaves it all to you to decide which side you're on.

Go into the movie with an open mind and rapt attention. Watching it idly will only result in frustration. Keeping these expectations in mind with result in you enjoying another Paul Greengrass home run.

The Smiths and Ikea

I've been in a very melancholic mood recently so I figured that this was the best time to write a review of one of my favorite movies of 2009, (500) Days of Summer. A movie that I've championed ever since I saw it in the summer. My desire to see it was so much that I traveled to Boston to the only theater that was showing it. It was still in very limited release at that time and I just couldn't wait. What was shown to me was a movie that was able to show all the highs and lows of romance while never making things too depressing.

Joseph-Gordon Levitt plays Tom, a young guy who writes greeting cards. He wants to be an architect but life has brought him to this job in L.A.. He's kind of fallen into the routine of his 9 to 5 job when he meets Summer Finn, played by the ever cute Zooey Deschanel. A small town girl who is the type of girl that every guy with a pulse falls in love with. He's kinda shy, smart, idealistic, he believes in "true" love. She's spontaneous, funny, flighty, and doesn't believe in love. One day they share an elevator and Summer hears Tom listening to The Smiths on his headphones. She states her shared love for them and thus it starts. He is immediately smitten. He barely knows her and he doesn't believe that things like that are simple coincidence. He pursues her and they begin a relationship. But as the trailers and the poster for this film stated, this is not a love story but a story about love.

Director Marc Webb and writers Scott Neustadtler and Michael H. Weber structure the story in non-chronological order and don't feel an obligation to remain fully grounded in reality. They understand that when you're in love then things don't feel like they're on the same plane of reality as everything else. Things feel heightened, colors seem brighter, the world seems like it's moving to your beat. But they also know that when you're heart is broken then everything is drained of all those things that you were so appreciative of when you were in love.

The story jumps from point to point in Tom and Summer's relationship. A happy day is juxtaposed with a bad day. Some days are shown are failed attempts to rekindle a previous day that was tinged with excitement. At some points in the film we see the same day but with a different view on what was really going on. Of what was truly happening in front of those rose colored glasses that are ever present when you're in love. We see a relationship in it's first baby steps in one scene and then in it's final death throes in the next scene.

Bringing all of this together is one of the best soundtracks in recent memory. One of those types of soundtracks that stays with you long after you've finished the movie. The Smiths, The Pixies, Temper Trap, Regina Spektor and Wolfmother all add lots of appropriate fun and angst to fill out the movie. It perfectly marries itself to the story and it's now impossible for me to separate the two.

I think one of the reasons this movie resonates so much with me is that it feels so much like something that the late Francois Truffaut would have done. He was a filmmaker that believed that love was unconditional until reality started to set in. He made movies about idealized love. About men who refused to let the world tell them who they could love, no matter how many obstacles stood in their way. Men who would almost always end up broken hearted. I especially recommend a short film he did called "Antoine and Colette". It's encapsulates to perfection the concept of idealized love.

Now, some might complain that the movie makes love too black and white, it simplifies it in order to be cute. And my argument towards that is, who cares? This a movie that builds it's own reality and is content in living in it for most of the running time. It is only once the relationship is over that things stop being cute and Tom finally lets reality back in. He grows up and makes important life changes. He finally realizes that some relationships are there for you to learn from, to grow from. Meanwhile, the movie doesn't let go of it's cute streak and decides to give us one final ellipsis. A chance at something new for Tom. And a very appropriately named one too.

Who Is Patient 67?

Martin Scorsese has been absent from traditional films since winning his much deserved Oscar for directing 2006's The Departed. There was much speculation on what he would do to follow it up. Not many would have suspected him to choose an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel Shutter Island. He did so and gave us what I believe is 2010's best movie so far. Not saying much since we're still in February but I think this movie will have staying power.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels who, along with his new partner Chuck Aule, is sent to investigate the disappearance of convicted murderer Rachel Solando at Ashecliffe Hospital on Shutter Island. It's an island surrounded by fog in Boston Harbor. A place so far away from civilization that a person who even manages to escape outside of the hospital is bound to not make it beyond the frigid waters. Once there, Teddy and Chuck start to realize that not everything is as it seems.

This is one of those movies where you are asked to simply sit down and let yourself be taken on a trip. To be guided by one of the greatest director's who ever lived. Scorsese is having so much fun with this movie. He knows it's pulp entertainment with no real underlying message. And that doesn't bother him. He embraces it fully and throws every filmmaking trick into the movie. Cinematography, editing, score. All are up to his high standards. We are watching an A level director and A level actors relishing a chance to make a B level story. And he filled it with amazing supporting actors. Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Patricia Clarkson, John Carroll Lynch, Ted Levine, Mark Ruffalo, Emily Mortimer, Jackie Earle Hayley, Elias Koteas and Michelle Williams. Half of these people in one movie would make it amazing, all of them in one movie makes it great.

But one of the problems this movie is going to have and is already having is that it all hinges on the ending. Don't worry, I'm not going to give it away but it's one of those endings that throws audiences for a loop. An ending that encourages some to watch it al over again or causes some to walk away from the movie and never desire to talk about it again. There's very little middle ground. This ending in less talented hands would be so cliche but Scorsese is able to present it all in a way that doesn't insult us and doesn't feel the need to grab us by the hand and walk us through all the clues. They're all there. We just weren't looking.

It's a thriller, pure and simple. A thriller made with love and respect to all the B level thrillers to which it pays so much homage. It's bleeds atmosphere and dread. It never lets us get comfortable. And it loves doing so.

An appreciation of Friday the 13th

The Friday the 13th series is one of my favorite film series of all time. They are not well made movies but they are friggin' fun. I grew up watching them along with the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. If you want to trace back my love of movies then look at this series, Nightmare on Elm Street, Ghostbusters, Batman, Back to the Future, Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke 'Em High, Police Academy (my first glimpse of screen nudity!) series and Monster Squad. Those are the movies that I used to watch all the time as a kid. My parents didn't give a damn if things were appropriate for a kid and I thank them for that.

But for some reason the Friday movies have stuck in my head. They are forgettable trash or at least they would be for any normal person. I used to be scared shitless of these movies as a kid but grew out of that quickly. I just think that Jason is an icon of cinema that doesn't get recognized as often as he should be. I even have a 12 inch figure of him standing over me on my computer desk as I write this. In case you were wondering I also have Freddy, Chucky and Tiffany, Ash from Evil Dead, a Terminator, an Alien, a Predator, the Headless Horseman and Hellboy up there. Oh yeah and a couple of figures from John Carpenters "The Thing". Too much geek information there.

Back to topic. These movies have a special place in my heart. I used to watch them on USA as well on their usual Friday the 13th marathons. They used to show them on USA's Up at Night back then hosted by Rhonda Shear. Yeah they were edited but as a kid I didn't mind it as much cause when they went to commercial they used to cut back to Rhonda and her two big "reasons" that kept me glued to the tv. WInk wink.

So in honor of June 13th aka Friday the 13th and in order for me to get more writing practice, here's a little appreciation for the Friday series. In the order of worst to best, here we go.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1987) - Jesus Christ, where to begin with this one? It's the typical teenagers at Crystal Lake plot but for some unknown reason the main teenage girl has psychic powers. She also accidently killed her dad in the lake with her powers. You need to know that little nugget in order to appreciate the ending. This thing is so poorly directed and acted that I'm amazed they actually released it. It's also one of those movies where scenes that take place in the woods in the middle of the night seem lit from fluorescent lights. Some highlights, main teenage girl's psychic battle against Jason, therapist's buzz-saw to the midsection and Jason smashing a camper in a sleeping bag against a tree. And at the end the girl's dad jumps out of the lake after being dead for years and drags Jason back down to the bottom. Only really good thing that came out of this abortion is Kane Hodder as Jason. Best Jason Ever.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) - This sin against humanity decided to make Jason a demon that jumps from person to person and only has about 5 minutes of actual Jason in it. As a Friday movie it's a piece of shit but as a campy horror movie then it actually works. Not well but it keeps you busy for 90 minutes. Highlights include a girl getting sliced down the middle while in the middle of the sexual act, death by fry cooker and Freddy Kruger's glove popping up to take Jason's mask down to hell or whereever.

Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982) - Yeah, this is the one they made in 3-D. Oh how I wish I was old enough to go see it when it came out. I wanted to see the shit literally pop out at me. This thing just plain sucks, no tension, barely any nudity and seeing it in 2-D blows the big one. All it's lame attempts to point things at camera as an excuse to use 3-D are just more pathetic in 2-D. They showed this a few years back in 3-D somewhere and I wish I could have traveled across the country to see it. Just to say I did. Or I can just lie and say I did anyway. Highlights include a supposedly threatening motorcycle gang who look like they jumped out of Michael Jackson's Thriller video, death by speargun, fat guy sliced in half and the first time Jason wears his hockey mask.

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning - The one without Jason in it. It looks like it's him but it's actually a pissed off middle-aged ambulance driver who apparently can survive a lot of mortal wounds. This one isn't all that bad but mostly for all the wrong reasons. Annoying black kid, cheesey extended dancing scene ending in death and a Corey Feldman cameo. Need I say more? I do? Umm...it has a good beginning.

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) - The first one with Jason actually in it. He looks like a retared hillbilly in this one but I just need to put it up high on the list cause the other ones just suck so much. I can barely remember this one. The only memorable things were the girl survivor from the first one gets killed in the opening of this one. And oh yeah, handicapped kid gets a machete in the face and rolls down a bunch of stairs. Laughed my ass at that one.

Friday the 13th (1980) - It's this high cause without it then we wouldn't have all it's shitty sequels. It's the simplelest of plots and does not do a very good job but it's still fun in that typical unintentional way. Any movie where the villain turns out to be a 50+ year old lady in a sweater gets points in my book. She's also easily knock down-able, giving you time to run five feet and catch your breathe only to have her pop back up and scare you. Bonus points for having a young Kevin Bacon get an arrow to the throat.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1988) - The one wear Jason gets to New York in the last 15 minutes and where the filmmakers try to stay in affordable Canada as long as they can. For some reason I really like this one. It's just so stupid that I can't help but have fun. A punk rock chick getting stabbed with an electric guitar, a boxer getting his head punched off and Jason getting turned into a little kid thanks the toxic waste that flushes down New York's surprisingly well-lit sewers every night at midnight. Or so we're told. And for some reason the bad 80's rock song they play during the end credits has stuck in my head for 20 years.

Jason X (2002) - Jason in space. It shouldn't work but goddamn it, it does. The filmmakers just made this one plain fun. We get Kane Hodder as Jason, a hot android that exists for no reason other than to fight him at the end, a nice virtual reality scene that encompasses the things that have made these movies stick in my mind all these years. Nudity, premarital sex, drug use and violence. The things a growing boy needs. Such a stupid idea that turned into a decent flick. Bonus points for throwing in a Cyber Super-Jason and a girl getting her face frozen then smashed into pieces.

Friday the 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter (1984) - This one works because they don't take it so seriously. The filmmakers actually try having some fun with it for once. It isn't very good but it just works enough to make it fun. Corey Feldman's presence aside, this one has some good moments. Good nudity, creative kills, Crispin Glover getting a machete to the face and one of the funniest kills in film history. I don't know if they intended it to be funny but it is. It's a scene where this guy who wants to kill Jason in order to avenge his sister's death is in a basement looking for Jason when he pops up and starts introducing his knife to the guy's insides. During all of this the guy is screaming "Oh my god! He's killing me! He's killing me!" while the main girl screams in terror and runs away. Writing that makes me want to watch it again.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) - My favorite one. It has all the cliches but it just is so much fun. We get the unbelieving sheriff who gets folded in half, the old drunk bum who warns the girls but gets a broken bottle shoved in his face, a couple on a bike getting shish-kababed. There's also a heart getting ripped out and a triple decapitation with a single machete swing. Good, good shit. It's also the introduction of Zombie Jason. He gets resurrected by a lightning strike since that thing happens every day. I just love this one.

Wow, I didn't think I'd actually write all this. I even kept faithful to the series' jump to Roman numerals after part 6. Geek detail. I didn't include Freddy Vs. Jason since I don't consider it a Friday movie, more of a Freddy movie if you ask me. It was a fun time and had some good moments but too little Jason to satisfy me. If you actually read this whole thing then you have a lot more patience than I give you credit for. I hope you at least enjoyed a sentence of it.

Sydney Briar Is Alive

The radio play is a lost art form. It was from a day when story and writing were the most important things on the minds of our entertainers. Building a setting and characters using only words and sound effects. Letting our imaginations fill in all the gaps. Today we're so accustomed to having our hand held that we lose any appreciation for something that actually challenges us to dust off our imaginations. Pontypool is one of those.

In what is basically a live action radio play, we are thrown into a small Canadian town in the middle of a blizzard. Shock jock Grant Mazzy is working at a local radio station when he starts to get reports of people acting strangely and attacking their friends and family members. His producer Sydney and his technician Laurel-Ann are the only people working the station that morning. A station that is located in the basement of an old converted church. We are never given any real glimpses of the outside world except for what Mazzy gets from news reports and reporters calling in. There is an outbreak going on outside and, like our characters, we can only imagine what the hell is going on out there. Things are going crazy and bloody beyond the walls of that church but Mazzy has to keep on reporting. It's what he was made for and no potential apocalypse is going to stop that.

Bruce McDonald directs this tale with such a simplicity that you can't help but be jealous at his skill. Three characters, one location. What could be boring turns out to be scary as hell and incredibly effective in making us imagine the worse. You can even close your eyes and just listen and you can still get the crap scared out of you. Stephen McHattie plays Mazzy with such gravelly-voiced aplomb that you wish men like him would read you the news. He is our guide and so much of the movie is placed on his shoulders and he pulls it off. In a better world he would have been nominated for an Oscar but we all know that genre movies never get nominations. Just like the previous movie I reviewed, The House of the Devil, this movie requires patience and an active imagination. Which is what I've been blessed/cursed with much to the annoyance to people who know me.

Babysitter Wanted

There's a fine line between loving homage and fetishistic parody. You can either respect the thing you're homaging or go over the top with it and make fun of it. In this film director Ti West places his story in the early 1980's. Not because he wanted to make fun of the 80's but write a love letter to it's horror films. He could have easily have made a movie filled with cliche 80's references. Jabs at Reagan or Michael Jackson's original skin color could have peppered the script but he refrained from doing so. The movie is set in the 80's simply because it wants to be. And that is one of the charms of The House of the Devil. The 80's are recreated with no details being too small. From hair styles, Walkman's, rotary phones and even vintage Coke paper cups. It's all there to pull you into the story.

And it's quite the simple story. College student Samantha Hughes needs to raise money to put a deposit on an apartment. Living with her roommate is driving her nuts and she understandably needs to get out. She responds to an ad looking for a babysitter and, against her best friend's wishes, she accepts the job. Tom Noonan plays the homeowner Mr. Ulman with his typical creepy perfection. Samantha is hesitant and would much rather not have to accept the job but she really needs the money and Mr. Ulman and his wife are paying well. All Samantha needs to do is babysit until midnight. And it's no coincidence that tonight is the night of a rare lunar eclipse. But that can't have anything to do with the story, can it?

What follows is a perfect example of a slow burn. Things go at their own leisurely pace and West is in no hurry to shock you with cheap scares. He prefers the old Hitchcockian style of just letting you sit there gripping your seat cushions or digging your nails into your boyfriend's or girlfriend's arm. This is not a movie for people who want quick and cliche jump out of your seat moments. It's for those people who appreciate a movie that takes it's time to build up tension and let you get to know and sympathize the character you're spending every scene with. Patience is required but rewarded in the end.

A mother's love

On the opposite spectrum of the horror genre from Frontier(s) is this small and creepy film from first time director Paul Sollet. Grace tells the story of Madeline as played by Jordan Ladd. A beautiful young woman who has had trouble conceiving with her husband. After lots of trying she finally gets pregnant. But following a car accident her baby dies but she refuses to have it taken out. She decides to carry it to term and deliver naturally. And when she does, the baby is oddly born alive. But little baby Grace has a habit of attracting flies and not wanting to drink milk but for some reason, blood.

I can't tell you how much I loved this movie, so many moments of it are just so effectively creepy and skin-crawling. And that means a lot coming from a jaded horror fan like me. Ladd gives a great performance as a mother who refuses to acknowledge that something is seriously wrong with her daughter. It's a perfectly reasonable stance but one that gets more and more crazy as the film unravels.

Paul Sollet had a weird tendency to film close-ups of food and make it all seem disgusting. It was a way to get under our skin and make us uneasy throughout the film. Combine that with a very still and methodical camera and we can't help but be waiting for the shock to come. And that's what makes it so great. It's such a slow burn that comes to a boil fairly late in the film. But it's so satisfying and yet it brings us to another point in the film where we can't help but think, "what now?".

This is a movie that needs to be discovered and recommended to friends. Not only to let more people find out about it but to also see friends reactions and see which ones decide to stop speaking to you. Use it to weed out the uncool kids.

Incest and table saws.

Goddamn! It's been a while since I watched a horror film that actually had the balls to go all out and not care about offending anyone. A film that doesn't aim to give you a message. A film that's completely content to spill blood unrepentantly. That film is Xavier Gans' Frontier(s). Another in a growing line of French horror films that has cemented them as the reigning kings of international horror. High Tension, Inside, Martyrs and this. All able to not only be scary but also present the gory goods that we American horror fans have grown tired of Hollywood failing to deliver.

This particular one starts off during the French race riots of the mid '00s. It follows a group of characters that have just committed a heist of some sort. The details of the heist are never given and are not important. They split up in two groups and agree to meet at a small hotel in the French countryside. The first group gets there and meets the family that runs the place. As an audience member we know that things aren't right but the characters are typically ignorant of this fact until it's too late. Things go downhill for them fast and we are forced to watch as the second group, consisting of a girl named Yasmine and her former boyfriend, get to the same hotel. What follows is a brutal example of what human beings are capable of.

Without going into spoilers let me just say that tables are turned and a hell of a lot more blood is spilled. Yasmine is not going quietly into that dark night. This movie delivered exactly what I needed. It has proactive characters who tried different things to escape. One of the things that I hate the most in horror films are characters that ignore the dangers and are given every opportunity to escape and yet don't. Eden Lake being a recent example. One of the absolute worst films I've had the displeasure of sitting through. A 90 minute movie where the main characters ignore the danger for an hour and then do nothing to get back at their torturers besides running away. Inactive protagonists , one the worst sins a filmmaker can choose to commit.

In this movie the characters become aware of danger and then immediately attempt to flee and fail. That's all I need. Just an attempt and I'm able to agree with everything that follows. And in this one what follows is painful and absolutely delightful revenge. Xavier Gans makes the film feel dirty, you want to take a shower after seeing it. He keeps the tension up and is not afraid of showing us the gore in excruciating detail. He failed to follow this film up when he chose to make the adaptation of the video-game Hitman, but I have hope that he'll return to this type of film later on down the road.

Punters and cheaters

It took me a long time to get around to finally watching Mike Hodge's 1998 film Croupier but I'm glad I did. This is one of Clive Owen's first starring roles and with it he showed all the talent that we know associate with him. He plays a down on his luck writer named Jack. A guy who's struggling to write a commissioned novel about soccer while living in a cramped basement apartment in London. His father calls him up one day to tell him that he;s managed to get him an interview at a casino. Jack has skills as a dealer from his old life in South Africa so he decides that he'll take the job but only for a little while. He doesn't want to find himself in that world again after it's insinuated that it took him a lot to get out of it. But as one could guess, he starts to enjoy it again. He loves seeing people lose and he occasionally tries out little psychological experiments on the gamblers he deals cards to.

Jack sees his new environment and all the seedy characters that inhabit it as the perfect setting for a book. The job not only has provided him a source of income but of inspiration. He juggles his job, his book and his relationship with his needy girlfriend. As he maintains this tough balance he is thrown an offer by a seductive female gambler played by "ER"s Alex Kingston. She needs his help in staging a heist in his casino. He'll get 10,000 pounds at the start and another 10,000 after. But this movie isn't about this plot point. It's barely there and it's only one more thing in his life that he must deal with.

This is not a heist movie as I was led to believe. It is totally a character piece. A methodically paced and well written look into the psyche of Jack. A man who hates who he is but knows that changing his ways is only a way for him to lie to himself. He refuses to stray from his path. Mike Hodges makes his movie feel increasingly claustrophobic. Jack's apartment, the casino that's located in a basement as well, even the cars feel small. The walls are closing in on Jack and it's up to him to make a choice or stay trapped in it all forever. Hodges keeps the film well paced and has quite the eye for real locations. Not real as in "Hollywood" real. Real as in "I can almost smell the smoke and despair in the air".

Mike Hodges is a pro at giving us a look into the underworld of Britain. He proved it with his 1971 classic Get Carter and later reunited with Clive Owen for his 2003 film I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. A movie that I would have assumed would have had a cult following by now. Too bad I was wrong. Croupier is quite a unique movie and I'm glad I watched it. Even if it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

Highly Gifted Toddlers and Egg Men

Good satire is incredibly difficult to pull off. The writer is walking that tightrope between being relevant and being too goofy. The best satires are the ones that are able to bite back at institutions and the established status quo while revealing their hypocrisies and their ability to use dual personalities when it's convenient for them. Bad satire only makes you laugh at how ridiculous some people and groups are. Well made satire makes you laugh while instilling a sense of fear when you realize how right it is and how wrong it is that those people are in charge.

Armando Iannucci's 2009 film In The Loop walks that tightrope with admirable balance. It revolves around the chaos a British government minister, played with innocent clueless-ness by Tom Hollander, causes when he says in a radio interview that war in the Middle East is unforeseeable. This slip of the tongue sets off his public relations specialist Malcolm Tucker on a rampage of profanities and insults that would make David Mamet and Oliver Wilde blush. Tucker now has to try to salvage the situation and not let certain American interests use it as an excuse for war. Everything snowballs and pulls in tons of inept and two-faced characters. Each one with their own agenda. It's in this quagmire that Iannucci lets his characters loose with their beautiful and endlessly hilarious use of the King's English.

This movie is going to be remembered forever by those who are fans of the art of intelligent and vulgar insults. It's a movie that knows that profanity for the sake of profanity stops being funny after a while and is in no way smart. It understands that swears are to be used as an added kick to an insult and not just the insult itself.

I can't pick out one single supporting performance to shine a light on because they are all way too funny. James Gandolfini as a peace loving hypocritical general is a calm but intimidating presence, even when he's lost during a lunch party. Steve Coogan pops in as a resident of Hollander's village who is increasingly mad about a crumbling wall in his mother's backyard. A wall that is no way subtle in it's metaphor for the war. The always reliable David Rasche plays the assistant Secretary of State. A man who is the typical Republican bureaucrat and who knows all about the art of spin and who carries an easily understandable hatred for David O. Russell's pretentious two hour metaphysical masturbatory session I Heart Huckabee's. A movie that I recommend to you if you're on the fence about committing suicide. It'll help get you there.

The movie does hit some stumbling blocks when it comes to a lack of focus. It bounces off a few too many characters and as such loses it's forward momentum about half way through. That's not to say it's boring, it's the polar opposite of boring. It just needed a more controlled sense of order in it's plot's intentions. But the movie is one that I feel will improve upon future viewings and one that I will be quoting for years to come. Hell, I already am quoting it.

Femme Fatales and Dogs

I just noticed that I started this blog as a love letter to noir and horror and I haven't written anything on a film noir yet! Yep, I'm an idiot.

Well what can I say about The Killing that hasn't already been said before? This is Stanley Kubrick's third movie after Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss and it's my personal favorite of his. My second being Dr. Strangelove, but you didn't ask about that so let's move on.

This movie is a typical film noir. Criminals, femme fatales and a bleak ending. Sterling Hayden, in another great performance, plays Johnny Clay. A career criminal who finds out about a perfect heist. A plan to steal all the money at a racetrack during one of the year's biggest races.

Hayden goes about rounding up the best team for the job. But like most noirs, each comes with some baggage. One being the shrill wife of a character played by Elisha Cook Jr. An actor who has to hold the record for playing the most losers in film noir history. I can't help but imagine if Cook was shit upon as much in real life like he was in these movies. With his team in place, Hayden goes about setting the plan in motion.

The mechanics of the heist are what constitutes most of the movie and they are so expertly staged and played out that you can't help but stare intently at how perfect it all is. Kubrick keeps the pace up while holding our rapt attention. But no plan is perfect, no matter how many times you look it over. And this plan is unraveled by that most unpredictable factor of most film noirs, human nature. All working it's way to one of my all time favorite endings. An ending that makes the title of this review very appropriate.

Check this movie out and witness the birth of one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I first saw this movie on TCM when I was about 14 and I rewatch it every year or so. It's one of the first noirs I ever watched and it help kick start my obsession. I love this film so much and I hope whoever reads this decides to give it a shot.

Teenagers go into woods. Teenagers die.

I have an affinity for 70's and 80's horror. Well, not so much an affinity. More like an obsession. That was a time when those types of movies were pure unadulterated mayhem with no lofty goals of trying to be smart or relevant to the times. The 70's gave us down and dirty horror flicks like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and Last House on the Left. FIlms that were just oppressingly nihilistic. While the 80's gave us more fun, and a hell of a lot gorier, horror movies where the heroes, mostly the virgin, emerged victorious but not without the cost of a few dozen of their friends dying or the exposure of a good amount of boobage. Then the 90's came and tried to be post-modern and self-referential with their horror. Scream being the most obvious of these. They were cute at first but then very quickly became stale and too safe.

With The Hills Run Red we get a very entertaining pastiche of all of these distinctive eras of horror. It has the brutality of the 70's, the gore and boobs of the 80's and the self-awareness of the 90's. It's about three friends who venture into the woods to find the filming locations, and quite possibly a copy, of a lost horror film. A film that was so scary that it was pulled from theaters and no copies exist. It wouldn't be a horror film if things went well. The film manages to set up various horror cliches while turning them upside down. Cell phones work, characters bring guns and most of the characters act smartly. Problem for them is that the killer is smart too and not just a stupid mutant hillbilly.

The movie is short and never overstays it's welcome while managing to give reliable character actor William Sadler a good and memorable role as the lost film's director. A man dedicated to capturing true horror on film. And while it may not be the most original horror film, credit must be given to director Dave Parker for keeping this somewhat jaded horror fan quite happy for 80 mintues.

Mute Irishmen and the psycho women who love them.

Ah, one of my personal favorites. Duane Swierczynski first came to my attention back in 2006 with this book that was recommended by a forgotten blogger. I wish I could remember him so I could thank him for sending me onto this twisted and oh so satisfying ride.

What starts off as a simple job of being a getaway driver for Lennon, a mute Irishman, devolves into a journey into Philadelphia's underworld. A place filled with losers, fiends, dirty cops and the mob. Betrayal and murder is second nature for many of the citizens of it. Lennon has to navigate various tight spots, including, but not exclusively, a concrete drain pipe, in order to get out of his fucked up situation alive.

And any book where a woman handcuffed to a radiator is still able to be kick some ass, is a book I'm recommending!

Swierczynski followed this book up with The Blonde, which is even more over the top. It's a psuedo-sequel to this but I want him to write a full blown sequel one day. I really want to see how he tops the madness in this one.

Hitmen and middle-aged women.

Max Allan Collins is one of my favorite writers. His style is incredibly blunt and, at times, sensual. This is his second Quarry book for Hard Case Crime. I had read his first one, The Last Quarry, a couple of years ago without knowing that the main character, a hitman named just Quarry, was one of Collins' on-going characters. I loved it and just recently finally got around to reading this one.

Obviously it's a prequel and a great one at that. It's the story of Quarry's first professional job as a hitman. He has to take out a college professor who's writing a damaging book that certain powerful people don't want published. Along the way he gets involved with a seductive older woman and slimy private detectives. Saying anything more will spoil it.

It's a quick read and moves very fast. People drop dead likes flies and Quarry manages to solve lots of problems with quick thinking and a gun. Now I have to throw the third book, Quarry in the Middle, onto my pile of books to read.