Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
VERDICT:
8/10 Ligers
Strange as hell, but freakin’ hilarious.
Napoleon Dynamite is pretty much about the life of a painfully nerdy, socially awkward High Schooler/fashion victim as he tries to help his best friend become class president over the most popular girl in school. He also has to find a date to the prom, he also has no skills to impress the ladies, and he also has to deal with his jerk uncle who’s moving in because Napoleon’s grandma is in the hospital after suffering a freak dune buggy injury. Life is tough for Napoleon Dynamite.
Yes, it’s different, but it’s also the closest thing we’re getting to a Revenge of the Nerds reincarnation in this decade, and that’s one hell of a compliment if I do say so myself.
Going off of the totally erratic synopsis, the thing about Napoleon Dynamite is that there’s not much of a story here to begin with. I guess it’s a character study more than anything else, but even that’s kind of a stretch. Director Jared Hess’ vision here more or less breaks down to, “Hi, folks. Meet Napoleon. He’s weird, but I think you’ll like him. Welp, see ya later!”
This kind of mindset usually works against most directors, but for some reason it works here. You don’t really end up caring about the lack of story because the characters are so freakin’ bizarre and the script is so damn funny that the formula of just watching them all go about their everyday lives ends up being more than enough to thoroughly entertain.
But the characters really are the selling point here, or rather the actors behind them. To call them eccentric would be to do them a favor, but let’s go down the list of the more memorable ones, shall we? Great, we shall.
So, this is Napoleon Dynamite. What a stud. Kinda hard to narrow down what makes Napoleon so peculiar, some might say it’s the obsessions with mythical creatures, “numbchucks”, and tater tots, but I like to think its because of Jon Heder. After catching the end of Blades of Glory on TBS last night, it quickly occurred to me that Jon Heder should stop being in movies. I remember when this first came out, everyone was wondering whether he was actually that nerdy in real life or whether he was just extremely convincing. Lucky for him it was the latter, but either way, Jon Heder will be trying to escape this role for the rest of his days until he finally snaps and finds himself bunking with Dustin Diamond on The Surreal Life: Season 28.
But lucky for us, he rocks from start to finish. One of the all-time great movie nerds.
And then there’s Napoleon’s cousin, Kip, played by some guy I’ve never heard of, Aaron Ruell. Kip is essentially a meeker version of Napoleon that has aspirations to be a cage fighter and is involved in a serious long-distance online relationship with a woman named Lafawnduh. He’s another interesting addition to the family and has some great lines going for him, too.
Thirdly is Napoleon’s uncle, Rico. He’s stuck in the ’80s, the only thing on his mind is how his life would have been so much different if his coach had let him play QB in the big game against state, he’s a dick, he’s a sleazebag, and he’s probably my favorite character out of them all. The whole time machine bit and him talking about how he could throw a football over a mountain range, then proving it by throwing a full steak into Napoleon’s face is just too good. Actor Jon Gries is also probably the only cast member here who managed to be hilarious without dooming himself to the this role for all eternity being that I’ve seen him turn up in Lost and some other shows and movies since. So way to go, Jon Gries. Glad to see you’re doing alright for yourself, man.
And Pedro is good, too. I like when he says, “Hot.”
I’ve heard a couple people call this movie mean-spirited, viewing it as a “Let’s watch this nerdy kid get shit on and make an ass of himself for two hours,” kind of experience, but I don’t get that. By the movie’s end, I didn’t find myself pitying or feeling bad for Napoleon and his odd little circle of family and friends, I was glad I got to know them. It’s their quirks that make them special, that make them endearing without making them look pathetic. It can be hard to strike that balance and not have your characters serve as helpless whipping posts for the brunt of every joke, and Hess avoids that pretty well.
But even so, the script here is just great. The humor is fantastically subtle, the dialogue is quotable to the point of frustration (God forbid you find yourself wearing a “VOTE FOR PEDRO” shirt in public nowadays – that is so 2004, you wannabe hipster, you), and who in the hell saw that dance routine coming? Talk about random, but whatever, five years later and that is still totally awesome. I sure as hell can’t do that.
I once heard the Farrelly brothers singing this movie’s praises in regards to how hard it is to write a movie this funny while keeping it PG, and you know what, those guys are spot on. Napoleon Dynamite is just a great, simple little comedy and I don’t think Jared Hess had any idea what kind of bar he was setting for himself when he set out to make this thing.
Nacho Libre…yeesh.
And the best Christmas movie is…
DIE HARD!
Proving once and for all that nothing spells Christmas quite like killing German terrorists. Suck on that, Scut Farkas!
RESULTS:
– It’s A Wonderful Life: 2 votes (my personal favorite, gets me every time)
– A Christmas Story: 8 votes (classic)
– Miracle on 34th Street: 1 vote
– Christmas Vacation: 1 vote (“Mornin’, Clark! Shitter’s full!”)
– Home Alone: 5 votes (suicide jokes and all)
– Elf: 3 votes
– Die Hard: 12 votes (Yippe-kai-yay indeed)
– Other: 4 votes – 1 for Bad Santa (solid choice), 1 for Love Actually (surprisingly not my good buddy Fred’s vote), 1 for Scrooged (need to give that one another watch), and 1 for Le père Noël est Une Ordure (translates to “Santa Claus is a Stinker”; not sure this movie actually exists)
Sorry, Arnie, I promise I’ll do a Jingle All The Way poll next year.
Brothers (2009)
VERDICT:
4/10 Misleading Titles
Scratches the surface of getting through to some pretty serious issues, but it never quite gets to where it wants to be.
Brothers is about a Marine who gets shipped off to Afghanistan and is presumed dead after his helicopter crashes over enemy lines. So the U.S. Military jumps the gun and tells his wife that her husband’s dead, so the not-quite dead Marine’s ex-convict brother gets his act together and steps in to help his sister-in-law cope and to serve as a father figure for her two daughters. A couple months go by, turns out the older brother’s still alive, he comes back home to a life he no longer knows, and he goes crazy.
The thing is, this movie really isn’t about the relationship between these two brothers, nor is it about the so-called “affair” between the ex-con brother and his sister-in-law that’s alluded to so heavily in the trailer. Turns out, Brothers is actually about post-traumatic stress disorder and how it affects those on the front lines and those at home.
Yup, that was one misleading trailer alright.
I was going into this expecting that I’d be writing a review later on about how the love triangle here is essentially the same one from Pearl Harbor, only without all the Japanese kamikaze attacks and such. And while I’m glad that it ended up being altogether different in this sense, there’s still not a whole lot going on here in regards to establishing a strong connection between the three main characters.
This one’s directed by Jim Sheridan, who’s done some freakin’ phenomenal movies in his time like My Left Foot and In The Name of the Father, but for some reason he signed up to do Get Rich or Die Tryin’ a couple years ago and it seems like the guy’s been slowly losing his touch ever since (maybe things would have gone better if Daniel-Day Lewis was playing 50 Cent instead). Right from the get-go, this movie felt rushed. The helicopter crash happens way to early on in the plot and by the time everyone thinks the guy is dead, the audience has hardly had any time to connect with the characters, so we really don’t have much of a reason to care about their grief, either. It took a good half-hour or so for me to get into the story after this horribly set up first Act, but even after that, it never really seems to find a good pace to settle on.
There are also a ton of scenes that felt like they were cut a minute or two short at their beginning or end, as though Sheridan up and assumed that we can already guess what happens next so there’s no real reason for us to actually have to see it, either. I don’t get when that happens in movies, but it’s never a good thing when it does.
The acting is also just so-so. Usually I like Jake Gyllenhaal, but he didn’t do much for me here as the ex-con brother, Tommy. Just seemed to be going through the motions. Same goes for Natalie Portman, who still hasn’t been as good as she was in The Professional back in ’94.
Look, Brothers pretty much has two things going for it. The first is Tobey Maguire as the Marine brother, Sam. Though Maguire has never exactly struck me as the military type, and the fact that he’s at an all-time skinny here doesn’t help this image much either, in a cast that seems to be faking it ’til they make it, Tobey ends up being the stand out. It takes a bit for the script and the audience to realize it, but the movie ends up being about him and his role quickly turns into a pretty demanding one as his character goes through some pretty hairy shit as a P.O.W. in Afghanistan and as a shell-shocked ghost of a father/husband back at home afterwards. Pretty good stuff. Forgot he was Peter Parker for a minute there.
The other thing Brothers does moderately well is the way it handles P.T.S.D. as it slowly pushes the issue to the forefront of the overall story. Not only is it the most pertinent aspect of the script, but it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than the other ambiguous and absurd romantics going on back at the home front. But like I said, it scratches at the surface of getting to the heart of the matter a couple of times, only to be bogged down by one overdramatic scene after another in lieu of subtly getting the point across.
As a result, a lot of the emotion here that could have felt genuine ends up feeling fake. It doesn’t feel like real life, it feels like Hollywood, and that takes a way a lot.
But what I don’t understand is that when Sam starts accusing his brother and his wife of fooling around, there isn’t one moment where they decide to clear everything up once and for all by saying, “No, Sam. We didn’t have sex.” Even when he starts waving a gun around, threatening to kill everyone in sight, they just stand by on the sidelines without saying the one thing that probably would have stopped him from picking up the gun in the first place. What gives?
Totally ridiculous.
It also wraps up with this anti-climactic non-ending that doesn’t really bring any closure to the story. Could have been a saving grace, but alas…
Anyway, I still need to get around to seeing the original Danish movie that this was based on, because I’m betting it does things a lot better. Brothers isn’t a bad movie per se, it’s just sloppy. There are a couple times where I thought it was really onto something, but ultimately, everything this movie has to say about P.T.S.D. is actually said just as well in The Hurt Locker – a much better war drama that came out this year that probably, and unfortunately, won’t get as many viewers as this movie will. I don’t know if it was the script, the director, the cast, or what, but something went wrong here and it could have gone very right.
Man, sometimes movies just need to settle down and take their time. Less yelling would be a good start; use your inside voices. Just a thought.
The Road (2009)
VERDICT:
9/10 Flame Bearers
Is it as good as the book? No. But it’s a damn good adaptation all the same.
The Road is about a father and son trying to survive in post-apocalyptic America as they make their way down to the southern coast, hoping to find a place where they can live and start anew in a world seemingly devoid of “good guys”.
So this review is being written from someone who absolutely loved Cormac McCarthy’s source material and still counts it as one of the best books he’s read in a good long while. The main reason I mention this is because I can see how this movie might be a bit much if you’re going into it blind, completely unfamiliar with what’s in store. This isn’t the apocalypse in 2o12, nor is this a Greenpeace PSA about the inevitable dangers of global warming, The Road is about hope in the face of doom, the depths of the human soul (and it goes pretty darn deep), and a father’s love for his son.
After seeing the trailer a couple times – which unfortunately sucked – a few months back, I was left very concerned about a couple liberties I thought director John Hillcoat was going to take with this story. But rather than go on and make this a book vs. movie review, let me just say that the trailer is wildly misleading in regards to the feel and overall context of the movie, straying in very few aspects – which all happen to work out for the better – and following the novel’s plot pretty religiously for the most part. Being that there isn’t anything that really needed changing to begin with, this was a relief.
Alright, back to John Hillcoat.
Don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of Hillcoat as this is only his sophomore effort, but hopefully this will serve as a launching pad of sorts for him. Despite his brief rap sheet, I couldn’t think of a better person to capture the look and feel of this grim-as-death story after I went head-over-heels for his debut film a couple years back, The Proposition (the best Westerns of the past ten years – check it out). The guy’s got an incredible eye for the gritty, dirty side of life and does wonders in somehow managing to turn a grey, barren wasteland into a thing of awesome beauty. It’s one of those things that needs to be seen to be fully understood, but the scenery here is just unreal, rivaling even that of Alfonso Cuaron’s England in Children of Men – and that’s saying something.
He keeps the pace up without turning it into The Road Warrior and does well not to beat his audience over the head with the subtle tone and message of the script. It can be a tough movie to get through, but Hillcoat keeps it at a nice shade of dark without taking things overboard. But like I said, you might not be thinking likewise if you don’t already know what’s coming.
And for those of you who read the book and were wondering, no, “the baby” does not make an appearance. That would be taking it overboard.
Thankfully, the acting here is also just as subtle and powerful as the technical aspects of this movie are. Viggo Mortensen is great as the father, going from protective parent to vulnerable husband at the flip of the switch and bringing it home as the real driving force of the cast. He’s got a couple of strong scenes where he breaks out the waterworks, but it’s not overdramatic and it’s very, very convincing. Good job, Viggo. Way to break away from Aragorn.
The son is played by newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee. For the most part I thought he was pretty good, maybe a little too whiney and a little older than I initially imagined him looking, but he gets a lot better by the last half-hour as his character starts to fully develop.
But probably the biggest surprise here is Charlize Theron as Viggo’s wife/Kodi’s mom. She ends up playing a pretty substantial role, which was surprising considering she’s more or less a footnote in the novel, but it actually works out for the best. She’s pretty solid and her presence really helps to flesh out the father’s and son’s characters in turn. Thought this was going to make the movie lose points, but hey, everything worked out.
There’s also a great cameo by Robert Duvall and a good cameo by Guy Pearce – both of whom are totally unrecognizable. Definitely wasn’t expecting to see them, but since they’re both A-okay in my book, I’m not complaining.
Now for those out there who saw the trailer, be forewarned – or relieved – that this is not a disaster movie. You’re never told why or how the end of days finally came around, but that’s the way it should be. The Road is about morally sound, yet morally struggling, human beings that have been placed in these dire circumstances and as the audience, we’re just along for the ride. It doesn’t matter what caused it, because to focus on that would be to misunderstand this movie altogether. You want answers, go ask the Mayans.
And while it doesn’t entirely carry the same emotional weight of the novel, The Road is still a fantastic movie that captures a lot of what made the story so incredible to begin with. Maybe I’m just a sucker for the book, maybe I just love me a good riff about the apocalypse, but I didn’t go into this with very high expectations and I came out a total convert.
My suggestion: read the book if you haven’t already – it’ll only take you a day or two – then go see the movie. It’s not a make-or-break thing, but it helped for me. Man, read the book even if you’re not gonna see the movie. You’ll thank me later.
There’s also a great, eerie score by Nick Cave (of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) – the same guy who did the score for The Proposition. Really complements the movie well and since the guy’s a badass to begin with, had to throw that in there.
There’s Something About Mary (1998)
VERDICT:
8/10 Canine Overdoses
Not my favorite Farrelly Brothers comedy, but still freakin’ hilarious. Probably my third favorite.
There’s Something About Mary is about a guy named Ted who hires a seedy private investigator to track down the whereabouts of his old High School flame, Mary, years after he blew the one chance he had with her by getting his franks and beans caught in his fly. So the private investigator finds Mary, ends up falling for her, and lies to Ted that she’s quadriplegic, morbidly obese, and wheelchair-bound so that he can have her to himself. But Ted doesn’t care, so he tracks her down himself, falls for he all over again, and before you know it, everyone’s trying to get with Mary.
So this was a pretty big movie for the Farrelly Brothers. This was the one that finally launched them into Hollywood’s stratosphere as the heavyweight kings of crude after the great Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin somehow failed to garner them that coveted title. But as much as I love Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin, it’s no mystery why Mary had everybody talking – I give you…Magda.
But aside from Magda and her banana split, this movie is just damn funny, and it’s funny on a couple different levels, too. It’s not high-brow stuff by any means, but you don’t need to be high-brow to be funny. The one thing this movie nails that a lot of comedies totally screw the pooch on is that it continually pushes the envelope without managing to gross its audience out to the point where it stops being “edgy humor” and nose-dives into “I think I just barfed in my mouth.” Granted, there are quite a few of these moments to be found, but for all its shock value, there’s a really well-written script backing it up.
There are a lot of awesome scenes here, but the thing I like the most about Mary is its characters. You actually kind of care about Ted and Mary getting together and even though practically every person in this movie is a stalker, there’s something about them that’s kind of endearing.
I’m still back-and-forth about whether Ben Stiller is funny (there’s Zoolander, but there’s also everything else where he plays the exact same character he always does) but he’s good here as Ted; well, most of the credit here probably goes to the Farrelly brothers and all the stuff they put him through. The Ted-vs.-Magda’s-dog-on-speed scene is a classic.
But the real scene-stealer for me here is Matt Dillon as the Ted’s private eye, Healy. God, just look at those teeth! He’s painfully desperate (the Healy-trying-to-revive-Magda’s-dog scene), he’s wildly inappropriate (“Those goofy bastards are about the only thing I’ve got going”), he’s got all of the best lines, and he really seems like he’s enjoying everything about being in this movie. Dillon wasn’t much of a comedian before this role, but nonetheless, a great casting choice on the Farrellys’ behalf. The guy’s a good actor to begin with, but there’s not a chance in hell that in he’ll ever stop being Healy to me after this one.
And not counting Being John Malkovich, Mary might just be the role of Cameron Diaz’s career. Kind of a double-edged sword on that one.
Some great side-characters here from Chris Elliott and Lee Evans, too. Good god, Lee Evans was awesome in this as Tucker. That shit where he dropped the keys…too good.
Maybe it’s me, but I feel like a lot of people walk away from Mary remembering this instead of the writing behind the “hair gel”. Shock value only works for so long and the Farrelly brothers seem to know that. That “Seven-Minute Abs” dialogue between Ted and the hitcher might be my favorite part of the movie and all that has is two guys in a car…and one in a bodybag.
Man, I hope I’m not making this review heavier than it needs to be, because this isn’t really comedy you need to think all that hard to get. Yeah, it’s cringe-worthy, but it’s also filled with great comic writing and has a nice smidge of heart that was missing from the first two Farrelly efforts. It’s great to come across movies that are still funny on repeat viewings even after the shock has worn off. Such a special, special moment.
And you gotta love that cameo by “Brett”.
My Bloody Valentine (2009)
VERDICT:
4/10 Irrelevant Holidays
Probably should have seen this one in the theaters when it was actually in 3-D, but still, special glasses can only help so much.
My Bloody Valentine is the story of Harry Ward, a coal miner that gets trapped in a mine on Valentine’s Day because the boss’ son’s a jackass, who for some reason decides to goes on a killing spree with a pickaxe while he’s down there until he finally gets rescued. So he gets out of the mine alive, slips into a coma, wakes up a year later, goes on another killing spree and is presumably shot dead by the town sheriff. Fast forward ten years, the boss’ son rolls back into town to sell off his father’s coal mine after conveniently disappearing for a decade, he tries to win back the girl of his dreams, and it turns out that Harry is also back in town killin’ folk like gangbusters.
Weird, huh?
With the exception of this whole calling card thing of Harry’s where he chips out his victim’s heart and puts it inside one of those heart-shaped boxes that usually have chocolate inside – which is charming – Valentine’s Day really doesn’t have much to do with the story whatsoever. It’s not like in Halloween where the holiday and the villain actually play into the movie’s title, but whatever, the original MBV was a Halloween knock-off anyway.
And while a more fitting bad guy for this movie would have been an angry cupid with razor-tipped arrows, Ward’s still a moderately cool serial killer, proving once and for all that pick axes can be pretty damn effective. Also kinda dig the whole Psycho Mantis/coal miner look he’s got going on.
Yup, I am resorting to nerd references.
But aside from Harry, MBV‘s got a lot of problems. The directing by Patrick Lussier (of White Noise 2: The Light and Dracula III: Legacy fame) is shit, the acting is also shit (especially on the behalf of this guy, Jensen Ackles – the mining boss’ jackass son), the characters are whatever, and the surprise ending is total horseshit. Yeah, you might not see the final twist coming, but that’s probably because it completely disregards key events that happened beforehand, thus managing to create even more glaring plot holes instead of providing the necessary answers so that everything comes full circle. Reminded me of the ending in High Tension, which also made no effing sense.
And while the characters aren’t overtly stupid for most of the movie, their I.Q.’s managed to drop at a staggering rate by the last half-hour (e.g.: NOT SHOOTING THE KILLER WHEN THE GUN IS POINT-BLANK IN HIS FACE). They’re definitely not the smartest gang in town, but there weren’t any occasions where I found myself rooting for someone to die just because they’re total idiots.
But hey, can’t say I’ve seen too many horror movies that have lengthy chase/murder scenes that start out with ten minutes of full-frontal nudity and end with dwarves getting their heads impaled in a most extreme manner. I’ll give that one to MBV, that was pretty crazy.
Not sure whether it was supposed to be funny or whether I was laughing because it was just bad, but when you have to ask yourself that question in a situation like this, it’s usually not in the movie’s favor.
Thought I was gonna like this movie more than I did, and while it does have its moments watching it in the comfort of your own home, I’m betting this would have been a lot more enjoyable seeing in a crowded theater. It’s only so much fun yelling “3-D!” at the TV screen, imagining what certain scenes would have looked like in…the third dimension! instead of actually seeing the bullet/eyeball/human jaw careening towards your face like it was intended to. Still not on the 3-D bandwagon like the rest of the world seems to be, but I can see how it could have been cool. Much cooler than Ebenezer Scrooge in 3-D.
It’s entertaining in spurts, but My Bloody Valentine‘s still isn’t a very good horror movie. Definitely not as good as the band of the same name, either. Google that shit.
Iron Man (2008)
VERDICT:
8/10 Pimp Suits
It’s too bad The Dark Knight had to come out and totally steal this movie’s glory, ’cause this was one kickass ride.
Iron Man is about weapons manufacturer Tony Stark who has a change of heart (pun intended) about his line of work after nearly dying at the hands of his own weapons that were being sold to Afghan terrorists. So, naturally, he decides to build a bodysuit out of iron that will both keep him alive and give him the power to fight back against the weapons he helped create. He throws some rocket jets on its feet and hands, jam-packs it with hidden missiles and such, and paints it red and gold so that everyone knows he is a total badass…far more so than his facial hair makes him out to be.
Since the first Iron Man 2 poster was released this week, and now that I’m giddy as all hell for May to roll around, figured this was as fitting a time as any to get around to reviewing this unfortunately overshadowed movie.
As far as comic book movies go, this is one’s up there. There’s not much of a message, nor is there a whole lot of depth to be found, but man is it fun as hell. One of those movies that goes by so fast it’ll have you doing a double-take at your watch to make sure you didn’t just take a quantum leap two hours into the future. I like when that happens.
The reason this here movie stands out amongst the droves of shitty comic book movies that come out each year is that it knows it has a cool superhero to work with it and it plays to its strengths. Iron Man has always been one cool bastard, inside and out of the suit, and it doesn’t take a whole lot to convince the audience of this either. It helps that the special effects are great, because once Tony Stark realizes how sweet it is to fly and blow shit up with pulsar beams, everyone else watching realizes it, too.
And being that Robert Downey, Jr. is one eccentric mofo to begin with, he does well here to keep that “I’m hot shit because I’m Iron Man and you’re not” vibe going without making him seem like a total dick. His character’s probably a little too brash and pompous in comparison to his personality in the comics, but still, you could cast Downey, Jr. as a corpse in a ditch and he’d still be watchable.
Gwyneth Paltrow is fine as Tony’s assistant/ambiguous love interest, Pepper Potts, Terrence Howard is fine as Tony’s military buddy, Rhodey, but the real kicker here is freakin’ Jeff Bridges taking a turn towards the dark/bald side as Tony’s surprise nemesis, Obadiah Stane. It’s not often you get to see Bridges play the bad guy, but since he’s the man, he’s pretty darn good at it. Only problem is that his character doesn’t exactly do anything super evil – aside from try to kill Tony – to the point where he’ll have you going, “This a-hole needs to gown down. NOW.” Might not be the most memorable supervillain out there, though he does fit quite snugly into Iron Monger (despite the fact that there’s not a man on Earth with shoulders wide enough to fit into those arms).
But who cares? Iron Man isn’t aiming to drop knowledge on nuclear physics, this bad boy’s about taking everything that went right with The Rocketeer, getting rid of all that crap from the 1950s, throwing some hot rod paint on it, and dousing it all in awesomeness from one scene to the next.
Tony’s one-man-army raid on the terrorist base in Afghanistan? Word to your mother.
Man, this is just one fun movie. There’s not much down time to found, it’s paced at the speed of jet engine, it’s a got a good sense of humor, and director Jon Favreau (who’s come a long way since Swingers – great movie all the same) does a fantastic job of ensuring that the novelty of a guy flying around and dropping fools in an iron suit for two hours never loses its novelty. I’ve only seen this one twice, but I’d be more than happy to give it a couple more runarounds.
Not quite as dominating as the Black Sabbath ditty, but still a time all the same.
A fitting adaptation for one of the best in Marvel’s roster.
Touching the Void (2003)
VERDICT:
9/10 Tough Calls
Can’t think of another movie that has ever had me so on edge for such a lengthy period of time. Pretty sure my death grip is still imprinted in the theater armrest.
Touching the Void is true story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, two experienced mountain climbers that headed to the Peruvian Andes and became the first men to reach the summit of the utterly dominating Siula Grande. So things were looking good for Joe and Simon, then they started to make their way down when Joe went and broke his leg, thus putting Simon in a situation where he had to either let Joe die in order to save his own life or stay with Joe at the risk of his own.
Can’t give away what happens next, but being that Joe and Simon are both here to tell their story, you know from the start that they both end up surviving. But trust me, this ruins absolutely nothing. Their account of how they managed to get out alive by the grace of some adrenaline junkie god is a true story you will not believe and stands as one of the most harrowing accounts of human survival I’ve ever come across. Sits itself right on up there with that of the Uruguayan rugby team from Alive.
It’s hard to categorize Touching the Void as a documentary because this is far from sitting down and listening to two guys talk about how they almost died for nearly two hours. That’s because director Kevin Macdonald splits this movie up into two genres; the first being the documentary side where Joe and Simon tell their story to the camera, the second being a complete dramatization of the events they’re conveying with real-life actors playing Joe and Simon up in the Andes. For those of you who’ve seen the show I Shouldn’t Be Alive on the Discovery Channel, this formula should sound familiar being that this is the movie that started that formula.
For those unfamiliar, it is freakin’ effective and will give you a new outlook on the kind of storytelling that’s possible through “documentaries”. It’s one thing to hear a guy tell the story of how he almost died, it’s another to see someone acting it all out at the same time. Macdonald does one hell of a job transporting his audience into Joe and Simon’s shoes as best he can and once this baby starts getting intense, it does not let up.
I saw this in a packed theater in New York when it first came out, and let me tell ya’, you’d have thought the lot of us were in a contest to see who could hold their breath the longest. It was like a communal weight off when the end credits finally rolled and we all walked out in total disbelief, shaking our heads, muttering, “That was effing NUTS!” to ourselves. I’m sure some part of it had to do with me having no idea what kind of experience I was getting myself into, but that explanation is practically irrelevant in relation to every other reason this movie will have you wishing you had Grandma’s oxygen tank handy.
Seeing this on a big screen is something I am still really grateful I got the chance to do, but even though that’s out of the question for those of us who haven’t been featured on MTV Cribs, I can only assume that this movie’s desired effect will continue to resound with its audience on a small screen. Regardless, that’s a stupid reason not to see any movie.
This is also one of the few instances I can recall where the screen adaptation was better than the book it was based off of, largely due to the fact that you actually get to see Joe and Simon’s story unfold as they recount it. And while Touching the Void has soundly served as the final nail in the coffin for any aspirations I ever had of tackling Everest, I’m pretty sure I’ll be grateful for it in the long run. I’ll just stick to snowboarding for the time being.
I feel like a lot of people haven’t heard of this movie, or Joe Simpson and Simon Yates for that matter, but, boy howdy, is theirs a story that deserves to be heard. It’ll have you in a cold sweat throughout, it’ll have you talking like crazy afterwards, and you’ll be wondering how in the hell you’ve never heard of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates before. Great subject matter, a lot of raw emotion that keeps that keeps this from becoming a thrill ride a-la’ Vertical Limit (which was still pretty sweet), and a phenomenal director who knows just how to tell it is a wonderful trifecta you don’t come across very often in movies.
Go check this sucker out. It’s much, much better than the weak title makes it out to be.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
VERDICT:
8/10 Forged Signatures
If only skipping school was actually this awesome…man, I wouldn’t have made it to Sophomore year.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is about the most popular kid in school/town/the universe that plays hooky for a day in downtown Chicago with the girlfriend that he’s gonna marry someday and his best friend who’s suffering a mid-life crisis at the age of 16. The school principal catches onto Ferris’ plans, so does Ferris’ tight-ass sister, and they both spend the rest of the day trying to catch Ferris red-handed, but since Ferris is such a badass, this task proves surprisingly difficult for the two.
The point is, my High School years have never seemed so lame. Score another one for John Hughes.
And that’s probably the biggest draw to this movie: creating the ultimate fake sick day. It’s the thing every High Schooler aspires to and I doubt anyone has ever had a day off like Ferris.
That’s because Ferris Bueller is the ideal teen – popular without trying, humble to boot, and full of life because there’s so much of it take advantage of. I’m impressed Matthew Broderick went on to establish himself as an accomplished actor after this came out – I’d thank Glory for that one – because Ferris is a role that I think would be hard to escape. You can’t help but like him, partly because he breaks through that fourth wall and actually talks to you for a good deal of the movie, partly because everyone inside and out of the movie wants to be him, and partly out of envy since there’s no way in hell you’re parents, let alone your principal, would ever let you get away with the kind of shit he pulls off.
But for some reason, Ferris always comes second to his best friend, Cameron, for me. Maybe it’s because he’s more like the personification of how we would actually spend a day off, but Cameron just feels more relatable in a endearingly pathetic kinda way. He’s got the most character development, the scene where he chews out Principal Rooney over the phone while pretending to be Sloan’s father is the funniest bit in the movie, and come on, he kills the car. He might be a mopey bastard, but I like Cameron.
Gotta love the jersey, too.
And what ever happened to Mia Sara? You’d think playing Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend would be a freakin’ launching pad for the girl. Eh, who knows.
Not really sure what to say about Jeffrey Jones nowadays either, but hey, he’s totally hilarious as Principal Rooney. At least he’s got that going for him.
But the heart of Ferris Bueller boils down to its final message: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Ferris Bueller‘s Day Off is about enjoying life and Ferris Bueller is the perfect embodiment of that very sentiment. Being that the most I’ve ever accomplished from faking sick is managing to play video games for eight hours straight – bathroom breaks excluded – the idea that we all have the potential to get off our asses and sing The Beatles on a parade float to thousands of adoring strangers is one that hits close to home.
Man, this is one of the John Hughes greats (voted by you readers as “THE BEST JOHN HUGHES MOVIE OF ALL-TIME!” in fact in a weekly poll a while back). It’s really funny, riddled with great, believable characters and a great plot line that only goes from awesome to more awesome, and, if anything, it just serves as one more example of how well Hughes could timelessly capture the voice and mindset of youth while keeping it funny and relevant for people of all ages. There’ve been countless imitators, but no one’s said it better and no one probably ever will.
Still not my favorite Hughes effort, but who am I kidding, Ferris Bueller is forever. And give it up for Ben Stein, folks.
Oh, and there’s a great cameo here by Charlie Sheen, too. Just thought I’d throw that in there.
200th REVIEW! EVERYBODY WANG CHUNG TONIGHT!
Cut The Crap Movie Reviews 
