X-Men: First Class (2011)
VERDICT:
8/10 Mutant Chronicles
Setting the bar for a superhero Summer.
Yup, it’s really that good. So much better than Thor. Word.
Hit the jump to get the full scoop, playa’.
http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/06/03/x-men-first-class-review/
I Saw the Devil (2010)
VERDICT:
8/10 Karma Kings
Talk about vicious.
I Saw the Devil is about a bonafide psychopath who kills a woman by the side of the road and then dumps her remains in a nearby river. Soon after, the woman’s fiancee (who happens to be detective on the police force) finds the remains, dries his tears and decides to take two weeks off to start hunting down the possible suspects. When he finally gets around to the guy responsible, he beats him senseless and plants him with a tracking device instead of locking him up or snuffing him out. So when the bonafide psychopath wakes up and tries to go back to his normal routine of rape and murder, the detective magically shows up without fail to maim him silly and drop him off in some remote location to go about his business. You’d think one surprise visit would be enough of a cue for him to maybe change his ways, but since this guy is evil personified, he keeps on keepin’ on until he can find a way to turn the tables and satisfy his own thirst for revenge.
So I don’t know why, but I’ve been dodging director Jee-Woon Kim’s movies for ages now. I’ve been bumping The Good, the Bad, the Weird down on my Netflix queue for months now, I still haven’t seen A Bittersweet Life even though my buddy Paul told me a dozen or so times to check it out over the past year, and A Tale of Two Sisters is apparently some pretty crazy shit. Anyway, I Saw the Devil is Kim’s latest effort, and while I’m not really sure why I decided to mark this as my first introduction to the guy, good lord, was this one hell of a place to get acquainted.
For starters, a word of warning: this movie is fucked up.
I like to think that I’ve got pretty thick skin when it comes to on-screen violence, but every once in a while a movie comes along that puts it all out there and straight-up rattles me to the marrow. The last time that happened was with High Tension, and if you’ve seen High Tension, you’ll understand how serious this movie is. It’s beyond grisly, it leaves nothing to the imagination, and its characters not only bear zero remorse towards the brutality of their actions, but often relish in the pain and anguish that they’re so damn good at dishing out. But while I’m on the subject, the thing that ultimately brought down High Tension was that the story made zero effing sense and in turn made it feel kinda like torture porn. With that being said, the reasons it’s hard to write off I Saw the Devil as being in same ranks as Hostel are that the story doesn’t exist for the sole sake of one-upping the shock value and there’s something strangely believable about everything that happens.
Yeah, this is something that you can’t exactly sit back and enjoy idly, but when all is said and done, the payoff is worth it. Because as much as this is absolutely a horror movie, it’s just as much a character study fueled by vengeance. The villain of our story is played by Min-Sik Choi (aka: Oh Dae-Su from Oldboy), and not only does Choi absolutely blow this thing out of the water, but his character is a whole new breed of evil. He’s ruthless personified, he slaughters for no reason until he’s given one by the detective, and his emotional depth ranges from laughing while he kills you to laughing at your corpse. Seriously, this guy would have gotten along famously with Jeffrey Dahmer before thumping his skull in just for the hell of it, and the worst part is that he doesn’t seem fake, he seems frighteningly real in both actions and demeanor. This is the guy you pray doesn’t exist in real life but you know probably does, and that’s the real kicker.
Then there’s the “protagonist” of our story, the vigilante detective played by Byung-Hun Lee, and not only does he also blow this thing out of the water, but the more his bloodlust grows, the more he gives this serial killer a serious run for his money. Not quite as emotionless, easy to root for, and he sure knows a thing or two about running train without breaking a sweat. And he also wears that kickass jacket the whole time, which is awesome.
But the whole point of their back-and-forth, aside from the revenge thing, is that the more involved they become with one another, the more their “good guy”/”bad guy” roles start to blur. Although even at his worst, it’s hard to ever really compare the desperate detective with a murdered fiancee to the stone cold psycho with a garage full of dead girls and a best friend who’s a cannibal. But nevertheless, the message is there and it comes out loud and clear. This is a movie about how seeking vengeance only serves to foster revenge, how evil begets evil. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel with this one and it’s a harrowing ride all along, but it’s fantastic to see such a dark movie that has the substance to match the style, as horrific as it may be.
And the other thing that saves this from being an exercise in depravity is that it’s just so freakin’ well-made. For a plot that’s pretty straightforward for a while and more or less boils down to one guy whupping another guy’s ass over and over until the other guy starts to wise up to what’s going on, it’s freakin’ nuts how intense this movie gets. Kim’s camerawork bleeds style and precision to a degree that I rarely come across in American-made films and it’s plain to see that the dude knows exactly what he’s doing right from the start. Also great to see fight scenes that are not only original, but are filmed so that we’re not just left with a mess of blurry limbs. Jesus Christ, I need to watch his other movies already.
Folks, I really liked I Saw the Devil and I can’t remember the last time I sat through such a thoroughly heart-stopping revenge movie. I was totally unprepared for it, but if you think you’re up for this nutso ride through the pitch-black depths of the soul, then I say give it a whirl. Either way, you’ll probably know the answer to those questions within the first 15 minutes. As jaw-droppingly extreme and graphic as it is from beginning to end, this is one outrageously well-conceived, well-acted and unforgettable thriller that’s so damn horrifying because, as gnarly as it is, history has unfortunately seen worse.
And what a great title. More than enough to put asses in those seats.
And the best superpower is…
TELEKINESIS/TELEPATHY!
Ya’ know, I’d have to agree. Hard to beat Jedi Mind Tricks.
Well played, folks. A fine combination of practical and kickass.
RESULTS:
– Telekinesis/Telepathy: 12 votes
– Teleportation: 9 votes
– Flight: 5 votes
– Healing factor: 4 votes
– Shapeshifting: 4 votes
– Invisibility: 3 votes
– Speed: 1 vote
– Strength: 0 votes
– X-Ray Vision: 0 votes
Days of Heaven (1978)
VERDICT:
9/10 Fields of Gold
Movies just don’t get any prettier.
Days of Heaven is about a factory worker from Chicago who kills his boss in a fit of rage and gets the hell out of dodge with his little sister and main squeeze. When their train reaches Texas, they settle down and start working the land for a wealthy farmer who’s on the way out due to an incurable illness. As time goes by, the farmer starts to fall for the ex-factory worker’s main squeeze since the two are pretending to be siblings, and instead of putting an end to it, the ex-factory worker convinces her to get involved with the farmer in the hopes that they’ll eventually inherit his riches when he finally kicks the bucket. As you can probably guess, this is a poorly thought out plan and a totally dick move to boot, but some folks just got it out for themselves, I suppose.
So this here is the sophomore effort by good ol’ Terrence Malick and the second of his films that I’ve seen in recent memory after Badlands. And while I didn’t quite fall head-over-heels for this in the same way that I did with Kit and Holly’s Midwest rampage, I just couldn’t bring myself to give this an 8 with so much stuff that would understandably warrant it a masterpiece in certain circles.
On that note, the most noteworthy thing about this movie that’ll continue to drop jaws 100 years from now and set the bar for anyone who ever picks up a camera is without a doubt it’s visuals. It’s pointless to start describing this as gorgeous, stunning, picturesque or whatever, because the stuff that Malick captures on camera simply defies description. As much as these three screenshots can give you a taste of how he utilizes the “magic hour“, they can’t do justice to sitting down and watching this doomed romance play out across endless seas of wheat, that train barrel through the countryside, and those damn locusts swarm through the fields. I really don’t know the first thing about the elbow grease that goes into making a movie from the cinematography to the editing, but even so, it’s pretty astounding to see something that could pass for straight up artwork.
Seriously, it’s effing insane how much of this movie is filmed during the magic hour and how the landscape ends up becoming just as much of a character as the people involved. Just as in Badlands, it’s these kinds of painstaking details that create this incredible sense of structure and intention from beginning to end that’s rare to come across in any medium. I mean, when you think about the scale of this movie and how so much of the plot is governed by how much of the land has been plowed from one scene to the next, it reaches this new height of methodical and it’s no surprise that it literally took Malick years to finish post-production on this sucker. Even if it probably cost the studio a shit-load to finance, this is carte blanche at its finest and risk absolutely paid off.
And while Malick’s writing doesn’t quite operate on the same level as his camerawork, that’s not to say his writing here is by any means weak. It’s just that in comparison to everything else I’ve mentioned that comes off like a cinematic epiphany, it’s a bummer that the weak love triangle fueling this story feels like something we’ve already seen before. I like how Malick isn’t out to make a statement by passing judgment on the actions of his characters and I also liked the way things started getting Biblical in a “reap what you sow” kinda way, but as much as I enjoyed the time I spent with these characters, I wasn’t very surprised by their motivations or how things played out for them. This is a love triangle that’s destined for failure in some shape or form and one that rings a bit out of place amidst so much originality.
But if there’s one thing I loved about this script, it’s the narration from the ex-factory worker’s little sister, Linda. Throughout the story she keeps giving all these fly-on-the-wall, matter-of-fact reflections on everything that goes down amongst her brother, his girl, and the farmer, and it’s her emotional passivity to the very things that everyone else gets so worked up over that prevents this story from coming off as old hat. She doesn’t sound like she’s reading a script, she sounds like a little girl with thick skin who’s just shooting the shit with the audience. It’s something else how Malick manages to draw such authentic, natural performances from his actors, and while that very much comes through with most everyone, it works best with Linda.
Then again, this is one of the best performances I’ve ever seen from Richard Gere. Well, it’s not like I’ve ever been bowled over by Richard Gere, but he’s got an interesting character in Bill and the perpetual hothead look actually suits him well. Fine performances from Brook Adams as Bill’s girl, Abby; and Sam Shepard as the farmer. Just nice to see a cast that knows how to underplay things. And what a freakin’ gorgeous, epic score by Ennio Morricone. Had no idea that he was the guy behind this track or that this movie was where it first showed up. Perfect complement to the visuals.
So as much as I wish I’d come away with a connection to the characters and the script in the way that I did with Badlands, they’re different movies entirely and it’s a relatively minor gripe that doesn’t take away from Days of Heaven‘s strengths. It’s not necessarily the most accessible movie out there, but it’s a great mini-education on why so many hold Malick in such high regard from a directorial standpoint. This is a movie that you could dissect from head to toe and one that probably deserves to be for all the time and effort that was put into it, although even just going off of one viewing, it’s impossible to ignore what an achievement this is on a purely aesthetic level.
The Hangover: Part II (2011)
VERDICT:
6/10 Bangkok Blackouts
More of the same, for better or worse.
And so marks the first review for Moviefone. Hit up the link below to get the full rundown on the movie you’ll all be seeing this Memorial Day weekend. Word to your mother.
http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/05/26/the-hangover-part-ii-review/
Jackass 3D (2010)
VERDICT:
6/10 Herniated Discs
Has its moments, but they’re getting too old for this shit.
Jackass 3D is about the same thing Jackass has always been about: dudes voluntarily getting their asses kicked, ingesting/regurgitating the most vile shit you can imagine, and every once in a while messing with the general public by dressing up as old farts, staging a bar fight with little people, or having a little person run after a fat guy. They catch it all on camera, they keep upping the ante and hope that no one dies, and, oh, how we laugh.
So as far as the stunts are concerned, it’s a bit all over the place. Some had me laughing here and there, others left me disturbed, and when push came to shove, there were only two skits of the whole bunch that had me howling like a bastard. The first involves hijinks with a jet engine and the second involves a horribly shaken-up Ehren Mcghehey trying to pin the tail on a real-life donkey without getting kicked in the taint. I don’t know if it translates as well in text, but, yeah, those two were gold. Other than that, I just couldn’t kick the feeling that I kinda feel bad for these guys.
The thing is, I’ve got history with Jackass. The show first hit the airwaves during my freshman or sophomore year of high school, and being part of the show’s ideal demographic, it was a comedic revelation if there ever was one. It was all the best parts of America’s Funniest Home Videos, it was a group of guys literally volunteering to get hit in the balls, and they were doing it all for me. Life couldn’t get any better, the world was at their fingertips, and I’ll still watch those MTV re-runs on the rare occasions when there isn’t a Jersey Shore marathon on.
And while part of me watches this and wants to say “more power to ’em” because I’ll always have a special place in my heart for nutshots, I think of the footage during the end credits where Johnny Knoxville is hanging out with his infant kid in a Baby Bjorn and it doesn’t seem as funny anymore. I mean, on the one hand, I can imagine that the options for a career change are pretty slim when your name is synonymous with movies where grown men shove toy cars up their asses. After all, they did start a phenomenon and there’s still very much an audience that’s all about grown men shoving toy cars up their asses. On the other, why the fuck are you still doing this shit when you’ve got a kid? It’s not that they can’t take the pain or anything because they’re clearly up for that challenge, it just seems like these guys are still stuck in their glory days when they might be better off moving on to greener pastures.
I don’t know, folks. The thing that bugs me more than anything is how they keep on upping the pain and the vomit with each new entry. When “Danger” Ehren gets his adult tooth pulled out by a Lamborghini or Steve-O gets bungeed in a fully stocked porta potty, the only thing that comes to mind is that these guys are losing sight about what was so awesome about Jackass to begin with. The best skits were never about shock value or surviving legitimately life-threatening situations, they were about setting off bullhorns during a golfer’s backswing and taking some hits without having to worry about having kids or ending up in the morgue. Like I said, there is some really funny stuff peppered into the mix here, but for the most part, most of this is some seriously gnarly, vile shit that doesn’t seem to fit when performed by men in their late 30s.
Although I’ve gotta give ’em credit when it comes to making the most out of 3D technology. After all, I don’t know think anyone was expecting any special effects with this one, so all the dildos flying at your face should come as no surprise. I don’t know if any porn studios have taken advantage of that yet, and something tells me that the same technology isn’t gonna be showcased in Avatar 2, so points for originality, I suppose.
Alright, I realize that this review is probably way heavier than it needs to be and that a more fitting write-up would have been “get drunk, watch this, laugh”, but for some reason this was exactly the kind of stuff that was running through my head during Jackass 3D. Sorry if any of it came off as contradictory, ’cause I’m still not really sure how I feel about the whole thing anyway. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy myself and I hope I don’t sound like the most hifalutin, snobby prick on the blogosphere right now, I guess I’m just hoping that this was the swan song for the Jackass crew. But if you’re looking for mindless comedy that takes slapstick to new bone-crushing, stomach-churning levels, this won’t disappoint. Didn’t have to be so gross and didn’t have to be so brutal, then again, it’s not like I wasn’t laughing.
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
VERDICT:
10/10 Disjointed Custodies
Talk about striking a chord.
Kramer vs. Kramer is about a stay-at-home mom who, after years of unhappiness, leaves her workaholic husband to discover herself while he raises their son on his own. Left to juggle his career with his newfound role as a single parent, the dad quickly comes to the realization that he hardly knows how to fill his ex-wife’s spot and that he hardly even knows his own son. But the more time passes and the more they work at it, things start becoming second nature and the father eventually finds himself fighting for the life they’ve built together.
Folks, this is emotional kryptonite for me. For a lot of guys, I think Field of Dreams is generally considered the foolproof way to get the waterworks a-flowin’, and while I’m very much a part of that proud majority, this is the quintessential fathers-and-sons movie that leaves me lookin’ a hot mess of tears and sniffles every damn time. Call me soft, call me menstrual, tell me to quit watching Lifetime, but I’d be flat-out effing shocked if any guy got through this thing with dry eyes.
From the perfect cast to the affecting script, there are a lot of great reasons why this movie stands above the rest, but it’s really the subject matter more than anything else that does it for me. Sure, this isn’t the first movie to use divorce as a focal point and it won’t be the last, but there just aren’t many movies out there that deal with divorce so honestly and candidly as this does. And being someone who went through it as a kid way back when, it definitely connects in true-to-life ways that family dramas rarely achieve without feeling cheap.
The best way I can describe it is that this plot seems like it was lived out rather than written out. It wasn’t so much that I could see my dad in Dustin Hoffman, my mom in Meryl Streep, or myself in Justin Henry, it was more their highs and lows that brought on the deja vu. It’s the son lashing out at his dad by helping himself to ice cream because he doesn’t want what’s on the dinner menu. It’s the dad demanding to be in the operating room when his son has to get stitches. It’s the father and son making french toast in silence as though they’ve been doing it for years. God, I’ve got a freakin’ lump in my throat just thinking about those scenes, and as much as I can credit Dustin Hoffman and Justin Henry for bringing that on, it ultimately works because I’ve been there.
I don’t know, a movie review doesn’t exactly seem the place to lay on the couch and get all Freud on you guys, but I’ll just say that writer/director Robert Benton did one hell of a job of adapting this script and bringing it to life. Just one heartbreaking, uplifting, and character-driven scene after the next that are all as memorable as the last.
But aside from the father and son’s relationship, I really dug the way Benton painted Meryl Streep’s character as the mom. When she walks out the door within the first five minutes, it’s easy to write her off as the “bad guy” for abandoning her son, but the more her presence is felt without her even being there and the more the father comes to terms with how he contributed to her leaving, those black-and-white labels end up being pretty hard to justify. It’s a great approach in that it gives the audience a chance to draw their own conclusions about who’s in the right or wrong at the very moment that everything falls apart instead of showing us everything that lead up to the divorce and making it obvious. It’s very reflective, it doesn’t take sides, and that was a smart way to go about things.
And not that it even needs mentioning, but Hoffman and Streep blow this sucker away. Streep is so strong and subtle as the mom and Hoffman is just one of the best damn movie dads you’ll ever find. But what does need mentioning is little Justin Henry as the son, and not only is he cute as hell with that mop top, but he really does hold his own against his Oscar-winning parents. Really phenomenal casting all around and what a nice surprise from Henry.
So Kramer vs. Kramer might not be perfect and I can see how some could write off certain aspects of the script as schmaltzy or Hollywood, but, holy hell, does it pack a punch. If you combined Searching for Bobby Fischer with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, you might be in somewhere in the same ballpark…might be. There’s nothing very extraordinary about these people outside of the lengths they go to become better parents in the wake of a failed marriage, but that alone is more than enough to make them unforgettable. Even if you can’t empathize with the kind of stuff that this family goes through, it’s one of the all-time great movies about real people with real problems, and it deserved every Oscar it got. Will stand by that last statement until I revisit Apocalypse Now, but for the time being, yeah, I love this movie.
And the best movie chase scene is from…
BULLITT!
Damn right it is! High thirties for everyone!
RESULTS:
– Bullitt: 10 votes
– Ronin: 8 votes (so awesome)
– The Matrix Reloaded: 7 votes (the best thing that either sequel brought to the table, IMHO)
– The Bourne Identity: 6 votes
– The Blues Brothers: 4 votes
– The Road Warrior: 4 votes
– The French Connection: 3 votes (I gotta see that again)
– Terminator 2: 1 vote
– The Italian Job: 1 vote (Mini Coopers just can’t win against muscle cars)
– The Fast and the Furious: 1 vote
– Vanishing Point: 0 votes (heard good things though)
– Other: 2 votes for To Live and Die in LA (never seen it, heard good things), 1 vote for Death Proof (good call, especially with Stuntman Mike involved), 1 vote for Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (never heard of it, will take your word for it), and 1 vote for The Bourne Supremacy (really need to watch those first two again).
Also, new post up from Moviefone on The Luckiest Guys to Ever Beat the Apocalypse in honor of our somehow dodging the reckoning this past weekend. Click John Cusack (aka: The Luckiest Mother Effer of All-Time) to check it out, yo.
Top Ten Movie Swashbucklers
Alright. It’s official. My first big post of sorts for Moviefone and it’s a list about pirates no less. Jesus H Murphy, I’m getting paid to write lists about pirates. Ridiculous.
So go ahead and click on any one of the fine buccaneers below to check out who made the list. Word to your mother and Happy Last Day Before the Apocalypse!
Bullitt (1968)
VERDICT:
9/10 Rad Lieutenants
More than just an iconic car chase, but, holy hell, what a freakin’ car chase.
Bullitt is about a Lieutenant with the San Francisco P.D. who’s tasked by an ambitious politician with protecting a witness on Saturday and keeping him alive so that the perp can testify in court on Monday. But thanks to a couple hitmen who are damn good at their job, the cop spends the next two days trying to figure out who wanted this witness dead before Monday comes around and the politician has his badge on a silver platter.
Alright, let’s get right to it. This may very well be the best car chase that’s ever been put to film, this is the antithesis of everything I hate about most of the car chases and action movies that Hollywood’s been churning out for ages now. These days, it seems like there are two options to choose from: action scenes that are filmed in super slow-mo, or action scenes where the camera is shaking like a polaroid picture from beginning to end until all we’re left with is a blurry mess of punches and peel-outs. I don’t know how we got to this point and it’s too bad that 300 and The Bourne Ultimatum are two of the select few that managed to pull it off, but none of it compares to action like this.
This is Steve McQueen – one the Top Three Ultimate Movie Badasses of All-Time – doing all his own stunts and gunning a Ford Mustang GT through the totally anti-car chase streets of San Fran until every hubcap has flown off and the sonsabitches in front of him are either cuffed or dead. No fancy cinematography, no bass-bumping soundtrack, just the revving engines of muscle cars, some insano camera placement, and the wise decision to let the cars do the talking. This is some Mad Max shit we’re talking about and it’ll get your heart racing. Hell yeah.
God, it’s no wonder that so many folks consider this the archetype for car chases and it’s a glaring testament to the many benefits of keeping things simple and playing to your strengths as a film maker. Freaking insane how wild this scene is and how well it holds up over four decades later. But like I said, that’s only ten minutes of the movie and the rest is pretty damn good, too.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen The Great Escape or Papillon, but this here seems to be a mighty fine measure of why Steve McQueen was cool personified. McQueen was one of these guys who doesn’t have to try very hard or say a whole lot to command the screen and establish himself as a seriously hardcore dude. He just had one of those faces that said a lot without changing expressions and was backed up by a calm, collected temperament that stood out in scenarios where most would be losing their shit. Then you throw in his reputation for doing stunts that would probably lead most action stars to die a fiery death, and not only do you make it onto the Cut The Crap banner with the likes of Newman and Eastwood (the other two Ultimate Movie Badasses of All-Time), but you’ve got one hell of a fit for the role of Frank Bullitt. What a freakin’ name, you could do whatever the hell you wanted with a name like that.
And McQueen’s underplayed approach works because it’s a pretty underplayed script that he’s working with. The dialogue is nothing fancy, the story is pretty straightforward for all its twists and turns, and while it may not be the flashiest cop movie out there, that’s also what sets it apart. You just don’t see movie like this anymore that take their time and work to build up a slow boil instead of trying to one-up itself from one shot of adrenaline to the next. Doesn’t have a whole to say about anything, but it sure is intense and it sure is awesome. Bonus points for a bit role from Robert Duvall as a cabbie and a Robert Vaughn who’s mighty convincing as our smarmy politician.
As a whole, the tone is dead-on and works like gangbusters, but the only aspect I wasn’t crazy about were the few times when Bullitt’s main squeeze tried to break though his tough exterior and get him to open up about his feelings and shit because his job is so gnarly. Just felt out of place amidst everything else that was so unflinchingly tough and stone-faced, and it’s not like it added anything to Bullitt’s character either. Not really sure why Bullitt’s love life was even included in the first place, strange direction to take the story in considering how every other minute is spent trying to crack this case. And Bullitt’s too many for that shit anyway. Bullitt.
So the story’s about as deep as a Law & Order episode and, for some reason, it works best when it doesn’t try to go any deeper than that, but those minor flaws are easily overshadowed by everything else that’s so effing boss about Bullitt. Reminded me a lot of The Friends of Eddie Coyle – another unreal movie directed by Peter Yates – it’s about the only introduction to Steve McQueen that you’ll need in order to get what all the hype’s about, and it’s such a great reminder of what a stone cold crime drama can be. And, yeah, worth it just for car chase.
Man, that Peter Yates sure knew how to make ’em.
Cut The Crap Movie Reviews 
