The Aristocrats (2005)
VERDICT:
3/10 Potty Mouths
Man, jokes are stupid.
The Aristocrats is a documentary about the most offensive joke of all time and the ways in which various comedians go about telling it.
In a nutshell, the joke is about a circus family that walk into a promoter’s office, perform the most cringe-inducing, effed up shit one can possible come up with. Then, once all their orifices are nice and vacant, they finish up and bow. The promoter wipes the vomit off his chin and says, “What’s your act called?” and the family replies, “The aristocrats!”
Cue crickets.
When it comes to compelling subject material for a documentary, I don’t really get this one. Then again, I don’t really like jokes to begin with. The only one I know is about a kid who thinks his mom farted and blew up their house, and that one’s not even that good. It’s not that I don’t like them because I don’t know how to tell them or anything, it’s just that jokes suck., simple as that So, yeah, having to listen to comedians tell the same crappy joke over and over for an hour and a half isn’t my idea of funny.
The whole thing is grounded in shock value and a whole lot of it isn’t even that shocking. Now, shock value can be hilarious, like Tarantino shock value or Borat shock value, but having to sit by and watch people try to out-gross each other ain’t exactly a recipe for success. Nor is it even much of an insight into the comedy world or “the comedic process” (if that’s even a thing) in the way that something like Comedian was.
But there are two high points of The Aristocrats: Gilbert Gottfried and freakin’ Bob Saget who is doing a bangup job of helping people forget about his Danny Tanner days. Everyone else in this movie does their best to be as foul as possible with the joke, but then Bob and Gilbert show up and make everyone else look like they’re members of the FCC.
Some of the stuff that comes out of these two unlikely comedians is nothing short of totally insane. Completely disregarding taste, decency and physics, their time on screen are the only instances where the movies reaches an apex of vulgarity that I couldn’t help but laugh at. This is the no-holds-barred stuff and they’re also the only things anybody even remembers from this movie.
Look, if you love jokes, if you right out shit yourself and grin from ear to ear when someone says, “KNOCK, KNOCK!” then The Aristocrats might be a fuckin’ hoot. But me, I’m all set with Eastbound and Down and Seinfeld reruns and a million other shows and movies that are a hell of a lot funnier than this was.
If I paid to see someone do standup and all they did was jokes and jokes and jokes, I would walk the hell out. Well, unless it was Rodney Dangerfield, but I don’t count those as jokes anyway.
And the Oscar prediction for Best Pic ’09 goes to…
THE HURT LOCKER!
It was a nail biter, folks, but the bomb squad has beaten out the G.I. Jews. Even though I was rooting for Basterds, both were great and worthy of Best Pic. As long as Avatar doesn’t win – even though it probably will – I will be a very happy man.
RESULTS:
– Avatar: 6 votes
– The Blind Side: 0 votes
– District 9: 5 votes
– An Education: 0 votes
– The Hurt Locker: 16 votes
– Inglourious Basterds: 13 votes
– Precious: 3 votes
– A Serious Man: 2 votes
– Up: 4 votes
– Up in the Air: 5 votes
Onto the next category!
Superbad (2007)
VERDICT:
9/10 Hawaiian Organ Donors
One of the funniest movies I’ve seen in the past ten years.
Superbad is about three unpopular High School Seniors that get invited to a house party by the most popular girls in school – girls that they incidentally all have crushes on. Being that they don’t want to look like losers, they volunteer to supply the booze, but since they’re underage and can’t actually buy the stuff, they spend the rest of the night doing everything in their power to get that liquor and be the life of the party.
For a while there, I was pretty set on giving this one a well-earned 8 out of 10, but after reading over reviews for The Hangover at Rotten Tomatoes and catching a number of critics praising it for being funny from start to finish, all I could think about was Superbad. The thing is, there aren’t a lot of comedies out there that actually are funny from start to finish where there isn’t any downtime from laughing your ass off, that right there is something special. And while The Hangover can be really damn funny, it’s not of those movies.
Superbad, on the other hand, is indeed one of those movies.
The short version of this review can be summed up in one word – “McLovin” – but this movie has a lot more going for it than just the best fake ID of all time. Every freakin’ scene, every freakin’ gag, every freakin’ character had me clutching my ribs and laughing my ass off well after I first left the theater and with each new time I see it. Everything about this movie works on so many levels that “teen comedies” rarely do because it never lets up, it’s not sugarcoated and in turn it’s believable.
The kids we’re dealing with here aren’t the jocks or the class presidents, these are the awkward wallflowers who curse like sailors while raiding their parents’ liquor cabinets before getting sauced in their basements. For once, they’re actual teenage boys with sex on their mind like they just got out of prison and no one thinks they’re very cool outside of their own tight knit circle. They’re not gonna get any noteworthy superlatives, but you know what, fuck superlatives, these are the kids I want to hang out with. Even though I could have only dreamt of experiencing one night of debauchery like these kids do, I connected with this trio and even now would be more than happy to get sloshed in the basement with them.
I remember hearing Seth Rogen talk about how he and Evan Goldberg started writing the script when they were 12, and aside from outright naming the two main characters Seth and Evan, it’s easy to tell that this movie was written with authenticity. ANd then there’s Michael Cera back before he started playing the same role every time, Jonah Hill in a career-launching role that made him a household name and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (turns out he has a real name) in a career-launching role that he’ll never escape from the rest of his days are all awesome in a Revenge of the Nerds kinda way. A really hilarious cast of up-and-comers right there.
Seth Rogen and Bill Hader especially are also a total riot as the world’s coolest cops.
Superbad might be a bit on the crude side for some, but if you’re looking to laugh and laugh hard, there aren’t a whole lot of other comedies as of late that I’d more readily suggest. Great writing, great characters and that scene where Jonah Hill goes into the supermarket and dreams up all the different scenarios about how he could get a hold of the booze still cracks me up like no other. Gotta love those dream sequences.
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
VERDICT:
4/10 Angsty Soliloquies
A poor man’s Clueless.
10 Things I Hate About You is the story of a High School boy who falls for a High School girl but can’t date her because her uptight dad will only allow it if her ice cold, seemingly undateable older sister has someone to go out with, too. So the kid comes up with a plan to get the most popular guy in school – who’s also got a jones for the younger sister – to pay the sketchy rebel to take out the psycho sister in a convoluted win-win scheme that I’m only now realizing is a hell of a lot harder to describe than I thought it would be.
It’s a re-imagining of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, so if you’re into that stuff or were forced to read it all throughout High School and college like I was, then hopefully you’ll get the gist better than I can give it to you. Or you could just Wikipedia it, that always works.
Anyway, I remember liking this when it first came out, but after watching it again the other night, something had changed. One of those refresher courses that ended up being so different than what I thought it would be that I couldn’t help but feel kind of sad at how disappointed I was. Maybe I’m giving this thing more credit than it deserved to begin with, but either way, it sucks when that happens.
So, yeah, this was a pretty frustrating movie to sit through. I’m all for these hip reboots of Shakespeare snoozefests that all the kids are talking about nowadays – hence the Clueless reference up there, even though it’s Jane Austen – but this is one of the rare instances where I actually found myself preferring the source material. But that’s what happens when you riddle your script with gags and one-liners that never land and dialogue that no teenager would ever speak. Absolutely. Infuriating.
I’d say roughly 90% of this movie is just flat out annoying to watch and annoying listen to, like nails on a chalkboard. It wasn’t until the very end when things started to look up for the characters and Julia Stiles stopped being such an unrealistically snooty beotch that I finally started to smile. Man, having to listen to unlikable kids who all have an awful sense of humor isn’t my idea of two hours well spent.
Geez, I need to tone this down, I’m writing this like I had a gun in my mouth from the second I hit “PLAY”. There are some redeeming qualities, like Heath for instance as the mysterious Australian bad boy, Patrick Verona. It’s bittersweet and all, but he carries the movie and has the most interesting character to boot.
Also fun to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Julia Stiles and Laris Oleynik (aka: Alex Mack) back in the day when I was still staying up “late” to watch All That.
And Allison Janney has a pretty amusing bit role. She’s awesome.
Other than that, I don’t know, drawing a blank. Not sure how everyone else feels about this movie, ’cause there was a time in my life where I dug it and I like to think that I wasn’t that easy to please in Middle School, but this kind of thing has happened before (eg: The Mask).
Man, sorry to be such a Debbie Downer on a Friday of all things, but hey, it’s the most recent movie I’ve seen, I’ve got a system going on here. 10 Things I Hate About You has one really crappy script and the cast can’t really salvage it, but it’s got enough little moments to at least make me smile a decent amount for the last half hour. Liked how the title plays into the movie though, that was good, too. There, didn’t completely shit all over this movie.
Forrest Gump (1994)
VERDICT:
9/10 Magic Legs
Still upsets me that this won Best Picture over Shawshank, but who am I kidding, this movie’s the bomb.
Forrest Gump is about a gifted and utterly endearing (if not a tad dimwitted) boy from the backwoods of Alabama who takes life as it comes to him, meets a handful of fascinating people as he grows up and ends up playing a major role in some of the biggest events of the ’60s and ’70s without even trying and without even caring all that much about it either.
This is one of those movies that I always find myself getting sucked into every time I come across it on TV and after seeing a lot of subpar character-driven movies as of late like Crazy Heart, it just makes me appreciate Forrest that much more. Honestly, the four big characters in this movie are nothing short of iconic and, with the exception of Hanks, the actors who played them are never ever going to escape their on-screen personas for the rest of their days.
Gary Sinise will always be Lieutenant Dan, Robin Wright will always be “Jen-nay” and Mykelti Williamson will always be “Bubba Gump” – who cares if his last name isn’t Gump, that’s just the way it is, dude. But the good thing is that these are all performances any actor would be more than proud to be recognized for. Jesus, I would get the biggest kick out of folks calling me “Lieutenant Dan” for the rest of my life, how cool would that be?
Anyway, the dialogue is great (even though the script is chock full of quotes that still make me shudder and think, “Please shut the eff up,” every time some douche thinks he’s time warped back to 1994), and the constant mix of fact with fiction never gets old, but the characters are really what tie it all together for me. Even though Hanks won the Oscar, it’s nice that it doesn’t feel like everyone else is just playing second fiddle. They’re all as integral to the story as Forrest himself because it’s the people in his life that end up being the most important things, far more so than showing his ass to LBJ or becoming a multi-millionaire for shrimpin’. I dig that on a number of levels.
Now, I’m pretty sure I’ve gone on a Tom Hanks rant in some past review, so I’m not gonna get all “We are not worthy!” on the guy, but let’s just say he earned all the acclaim he received. Forrest is one magical, fascinating guy that you really want to spend time with and really care about right off the bat. A wonderful character on paper turned into someone phenomenal in practice thanks to Tommy boy.
The only issue I have with this movie – aside from robbing Shawshank – is its ambiguous message and the whole thing serving as a kind of metaphor for the Baby Boomer generation. I remember talking about this movie a good while back with my stepdad and I brought up what a great moral it had, and without skipping a beat he replied quite politely, “Aiden, what is the message of Forrest Gump?” And so I quickly realized I was talking out of my ass and thus began stuttering a lot about how Jenny was a cokehead. So, yeah, my stepdad was dead on with that one and I’m still not really sure what the message is here. I bet there’s one there alright, but I’m leaving the discussion board wide open this time.
But other than that silliness, Forrest Gump is the whole package. That ending chokes me up every time, the soundtrack is one of the best out there, I still crack up when Forrest apologizes for breaking up the Black Panther party (among tons of other scenes) and the acting is just out of sight on behalf of the whole freakin’ cast. Nice to look back on the good old days when Robert Zemeckis made movies with human beings. Guy was on a roll there for a while.
And bonus points for Haley Joel Osment as Forrest, Jr. What the hell is that kid up to?
Food, Inc. (2009)
VERDICT:
8/10 Gardenburgers
Well, that’s the last time I question a vegetarian.
Food, Inc. is a documentary about what we eat, how it’s made, the stuff that gets put into it and everything else that the five head meat processors in the U.S. aren’t telling us about what they’re doing to all the fatty goodness that’s going into our bodies.
Being a proud carnivore, watching this movie was a big step for me. It’s the kind of movie I don’t want to see because it’s about things I should know, and it’s the kind of movie I should want to see for the same reason. I’m sure I’m not the only one riding this train, so I can sympathize with your hesitations. But the thing is, this movie’s important and despite how easy it is to tell yourself that ignorance is bliss, ignoring the stuff that just might kill ya’ isn’t always the best course of action.
And it’s important not because PETA wants you believe it’s important, it’s important because the last thing we need is to walk into McDonald’s with an empty stomach and walk out with hemorrhagic E. coli. Not that getting inhumanely chopped up in a factory isn’t something to be concerned about, but that E. colie shit’ll ruin your day right quick.
The closest thing I can compare this to is An Inconvenient Truth, not so much in its subject matter, but more in regards to how it goes about telling the story. It’s not a lecture or a slideshow, instead it jumps around in chapters going from one aspect of the food industry to another, tying it all back into the way food effects our economy, our society and ourselves. Our two main narrators – which is the only thing I could think to call them – are Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness (good book), and Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Needless to say, these guys know what they’re talking about and they’re engaging personalities to have at the forefront.
But the thing that Food, Inc. does very well is that it’s not trying to sway you with opinions and “experts”, it simply states the facts and presents the footage to back it all up like any good documentary should. It really is one thing to hear someone tell you what’s going on behind closed doors, it’s something else entirely to actually see the man behind the curtain. Some of it’s cringe-worthy and a lot of it will have you shaking your head in near disbelief, but that’s what’s going on, time to face the music.
The people that the filmmakers rounded up to speak about their experiences working in various facets of the food industry are also a great addition to the mix. Very well-spoken and very insightful testimonies from people you probably wouldn’t peg as the type at first glance.
My only complaint is that I wasn’t as angry by the end as I wished I had been. I thoroughly enjoy getting riled up by documentaries that make want to pimp slap all the naysayers, but I didn’t really get that here. Like I said, definitely an eye-opening experience, just not the kind that’ll make your blood boil.
If it weren’t for my good buddy Fred’s recent decision to pick up the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer – which is very much in the same vein as this – I’m not so sure I would have been all that open to Food, Inc. But ultimately, I’m very glad I gave it a shot. It’s good to be informed about this stuff and still not feel guilty for eating meat. This movie’s not trying to convert us into a nation of herbivores, it’s simply lifting the veil on a practice that affects all of us and has been hidden from the public eye in a most loathsome fashion. Trust me, steak will still taste good after seeing this and you’ll be much better off for taking the time.
Might seem utterly delusional to think that a movie or a movement like organic farming can change the way the entire food industry is run, but crazier things have happened. As Schlosser points out, just look at big tobacco, ten bucks a pack in New York.
How ’bout them apples?
Hey folks,
Recently got together with a couple of my fellow bloggers over at Ross v. Ross & Fandango Groovers to stage a Best Picture battle royale over at Metro.co.uk. My pick was for Basterds, and the more I think about it, the more I really would be giddy as all hell to see it win over the big dogs. Anywho, check it out over here, good stuff all around. That is all.
– Aiden R.
300 (2007)
VERDICT:
7/10 Atomic Situps
Almost makes me want to go work out. Almost.
300 is the re-telling of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC (good year) where an army of 300 Spartan warriors nearly took down an entire army of Persians that were aiming to burn their homeland to the ground.
Freakin’ Persians, man. No respect.
I remember the first time my roommates and I saw this back in college, our immediate consensus was to hit the gym pronto. Never before had we felt so emasculated by watching a movie. I think a lot of guys had that reaction after seeing dozens of badass actors donning 8-pack abs that would shatter your hand if you tried to punch them, then grabbing a chunk of flab from under our wifebeaters, wondering, “What the hell have I done to myself?”
But that ended right quick when we remembered how much easier it is to play video games and drink beer.
Point is, this is a guy movie. I’m sure some of the ladies out there will appreciate all the eye candy and how any guy will deny to the teeth that watching shirtless dudes sweat and grunt for lengthy periods of time is so not homoerotic (except for Xerxes, he’s pretty homoerotic), 300 is essentially about hardcore killing machines going on a bloody rampage for two hours. There’s one or two “romantic” plot lines thrown in there for good measure, but that’s probably not gonna make your girlfriend like in any more.
It’s directed by Zack Snyder and I’m still up in the air as to whether or not that’s a good thing. He follows Frank Miller’s source material to a tee and really does his best to make his movie look like a graphic novel in motion, but ever since Watchmen, I don’t know. It’s just that he’s so focused on the visuals and overall aesthetics that subtlety and storytelling end up playing second fiddle, which sucks. Granted, not sure how subtle he could have made this thing to begin with, but some of the macho shit and epic speeches are pretty ridiculous.
Nor does it help that the guy was apparently born with a slo-mo dial in his hand, which gets old fast. It’s just more fun to watch guys get rocked in real-time is all. Call me crazy.
But whatever, I’m being way too critical about this, time to tone it down and stop being such a snob. You boot up 300, you check your brain at the door, you get prepped for some masculine itching and you get ready for some crazy violence backed up by a verifiably kickass true story. Though some liberties are definitely taken – that was Miller’s call, not Snyder’s – the main story of the Battle of Thermopylae is pretty intact and that story is right up there with Gettysburg as one of the all-time great battles.
And even though he can be a little much at times, Gerard Butler is also pretty freakin’ awesome as Leonidas. Doesn’t take a whole lot to make a Spartan look cool, but he does it quite effortlessly. Too bad he’s done nothing but horse shit ever since.
A couple days ago I saw that the folks over at IGN hailed this as the best movie of 2007, and while I’m not really sure how many cupfuls of salt I need to take that one with, that’s some pretty high praise for an action epic. The action scenes are pretty sweet, the whole thing pretty much convinced every male viewer that they were born in the wrong century and for all its over-the-top bi-curious manliness, 300 is still a pretty boss time. Not a best-movie-of-’07 time, but “boss” works.
Alright, I’m off to go bust out a 300 workout session. I am gonna be so ripped, bro.
And the best Pixar movie (so far) is…
FINDING NEMO!
Gotta admit, I’m kinda surprised. Had no idea there was so much love for this movie, but hey, it’s Pixar, the sucker’s gold! Looks like another marathon is in order.
Good voting all around, folks. Biggest turnout yet! Woohoo!
RESULTS
– Toy Story: 8 votes (classic)
– A Bug’s Life: 3 votes
– Toy Story 2: 1 vote (surprised, always tops the Rotten Tomatoes poll for best animated movie of all-time. still, wouldn’t have been my vote)
– Monsters, Inc.: 1 vote (hilarious)
– Finding Nemo: 12 votes
– The Incredibles: 5 votes (awesome)
– Cars: 1 vote
– Ratatouille: 1 vote
– WALL-E: 7 votes
– Up: 8 votes (would have been my vote)
And so begins Oscar month…
In the Mood for Love (2000)
VERDICT:
8/10 Healing Processes
A fascinating take on getting two-timed by your spouse.
In the Mood for Love is about two couples in Hong Kong that move in next door to each other on the same day. Husband (A) works late hours and never gets to see his wife (A). Wife (B) also works late hours and never gets to see her husband (B). Being that these kinds of things are never good for relationships, husband (A) and wife (B) eventually use their detective skills to find out that that wife (A) is having an affair with husband (B) behind their backs, probably because their schedules match up. The two night owls form a bond in light of the said discovery and try to figure out where to go from here.
Sorry if that was more confusing than it needed to be, been racking my brain for the past day about the best way to word it. Point is that their spouses are cheating on them.
Ouch.
Didn’t hear about this movie until recently after perusing some of my fellow bloggers’ “BEST MOVIE OF THE DECADE” lists and found this one nabbing some top spots. So thanks to the wonders of modern technology that allow me to stream Netflix through my PS3, I got on this one stat.
Judging by its Skinemax title and the grope-a-thon poster, I went into this movie expecting things to start getting hot and heavy pretty damn fast. To my surprise, In the Mood for Love is not not the Chinese predecessor to Y tu mama tambien that I thought it would be, but is instead an incredibly insightful and refreshingly different view on a premise that’s old hat by now.
What sets it apart is writer/director Wong Kar-Wai. I love watching movies where you can just feel how personal it is for the director, that this movie is their baby and they are thoroughly involved in every step of the process. I really got that in Kar-Wai’s direction here and it’s something you don’t see a lot in movies.
For subject matter that’s typically handled as emotionally explosive, the tone of the story here is very, very subtle for a change. Through its characters and the way they go about their lives in dealing with their loved ones’ infidelities, the stroke of brilliance on Kar-Wai’s behalf is that he doesn’t let his characters fall into the people we expect them to be. Instead of having them freak out, start bawling like ninnies or have them go at it like jack rabbits to get even, they make a conscious effort to be the opposite of the people who hurt them and get over their pain and anger the right way.
A lot of writers and directors would probably use this story line as a shouting match showcase, but I quickly respected these two characters a lot more because they were morally sound and they weren’t melodramatic stereotypes. Folks in Hollywood could learn a thing or two from Kar-Wai in this regard.
At times it can be a little too subtle where you might just miss a huge plot development because you weren’t paying close enough attention or weren’t getting the miniscule hints that are dropped by the characters along the way, but I actually really liked that aspect, too. The reveals end up carrying a lot more weight when you figure them out on your own.
And from a visual standpoint, this baby sucks you in. The colors pop, everyone looks cool as hell like they’re all employed by Sterling Cooper‘s China branch, and there’s just an air of beauty in how Kar-Wai continually focuses on the littlest of details that most would overlook without thinking twice. Straight up gorgeous.
The acting from Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung is also wonderful and strong without being overpowering. Really complements the overall vibe this movie has going for it.
In the Mood for Love might be a little slow and inaccessible if you’re looking for a more predictable interpretation of this story (not sure those are the words I’m looking for, but hopefully you get what I’m saying), but it is an original. Then again, I don’t know you and you may very well be as impressed with this as I was. Very poignant, very honest, very good, I need to see more stuff by this guy.
(NOTE: Somehow this thing got posted before I was done writing it, so sorry about that and my apologies to anyone who’s comments accidentally got deleted when I trashed the first copy, didn’t know that was gonna happen. Freakin’ WordPress…)
Cut The Crap Movie Reviews 
