And the worst video game movie of all time is…
DOOM!
Sorry, Duane “The Rock” Johnson (as you so like to be called), but your movie sucks. It sucks so hard that it beat out the likes of Super Mario Bros. and every movie ever made by Uwe Boll. An upset of epic proportions if you ask me.
Hate to be the guy to break it you, but no one is smelling what you’re cooking.
Burned.
The Hurt Locker (2009)
VERDICT:
8/10 Hardcore Dudes
Screw The Kingdom. This is the freakin’ movie to see about the war in Iraq.
The Hurt Locker is about three members of a U.S. military bomb squad stationed in Iraq. With a little over a month left to go before their tour of duty comes to a close, their team leader/bomb defuser is killed in the line of duty and is replaced by a hotshot Army Ranger whose antics might just get them all killed or save their lives.
See that poster? Yup, those are bombs. Pretty crazy.
The movie’s directed by Kathryn Bigelow, whose other big claim to fame was helming Point Break. And while I’d stand up for Point Break any day, Bigelow has seriously come a long way since the days of Johnny Utah. She has put together one hell of an intense action movie that not only puts you on the edge of your seat but also carries with it a number of really important messages on a lot of tough issues that people outside of the military will probably never really understand, myself included.
The driving theme behind the story is that “war is a drug”. The three members of the bomb squad all react differently to their circumstances; one is living in a constant state of shellshock, convinced that he’s going to die at any moment, another does his best to stay cool as he gradually breaks down from the inside out, and the hotshot takes it all in stride like an adrenaline junkie as he puts his life on the line without thinking twice. The movie does a great job of addressing how absolutely insane war is and the endless of multitude of ways in which it affects the soldiers on the front lines, their lives and families back home, and why, for some reason, we always keep on going back to war.
On that note, the acting is also really good on everyone’s part. This guy I’ve never heard of, Jeremy Renner, plays the hotshot new guy and he is totally awesome. Part of it is due to the fact that he’s written as the most entertaining character of the bunch, but you know good acting when you see it. Keep an eye out for Renner. Anthony Mackie, that smooth mofo, does a good job as Renner’s smooth mofo comrade, the one who’s crying on the inside, and so does the third nobody of the bunch, Brian Geharty, as the wimp of the group. The movie is also filled with a lot of unexpected A-lister cameos that are all pretty surprising, but hey, A-list cameos never hurt. Guess word got around about this movie.
Some of the best parts of Bigelow’s direction in Point Break (ie: the filming of the skydiving, surfing, and bank heist scenes – all really impressive from a filmmaking standpoint) have only been improved upon here. I don’t know how she got the feel of this movie to be so damn gritty, like they just up and dropped a guerrilla film crew into Iraq and shot the damn thing with complete disregard for the possibility of getting shot to hell by everyone around them, but it all feels very, very legit and she doesn’t sugarcoat it whatsoever. It’s really impressive to watch, and along with the colloquial feel of the script to back it up, the whole experience comes off as the closest thing I’ve seen to capturing what the war in Iraq is actually like without having to literally put you in the trenches.
Not only is this one seriously intense and realistic action movie, but it’s an important one as well. It has a lot of really profound things to say about something not a lot of people can truly vouch for and my hat’s off to Kathryn Bigelow and first-time screenwriter Mark Boal (double hats-off) for putting together something that’s far more than just a wild time at the movies.
So go see The Hurt Locker. I don’t know how much longer it’s going to be in theaters, but it’s worth looking around for. It’s sure as shit got to be better than that dungheap G-Force.
Great title for a movie, too. Fuckin’ badass.
The Orphanage (2007)
VERDICT:
9/10 Ghetto Adoption Agencies
I’m thoroughly convinced that if I had seen this movie when it was out in theaters that I probably would have crapped my pants in public. Not since the time someone called my house phone while I was watching The Ring for the first time have I been so completely terrified by such a good horror movie.
The Orphanage is about a woman, her husband, and her adopted son that return to live in the orphanage that the woman grew up in. One day the woman’s son goes missing during a party at their home and she spends the next eight months searching for him, all the while uncovering the dark past of the orphanage in the process.
You live in an abandoned orphanage. The whole dark past thing should pretty much be a given. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
I was trying to think of what other classic horror movies The Orphanage reminded me of while I was watching it, but after I while it all kind of blurred together. The Shining, The Devil’s Backbone, The Ring, The Others. The director, Juan Antonio Bayona, takes something from all of these movies and turns it into something all his own. It’s also just further proof of a tried and true formula for horror movies: creepy kids scare the shit out of people.
And it is so freakin’ great to be reminded that you don’t need blood, gore, or excessive special effects to make not only a truly frightening horror movie, but one that’s also very well made and very well told. It doesn’t rely on shock value, it’s not trying to gross you out, the scares aren’t cheap, and the characters aren’t stupid.
All these things are hard to come by in horror movies nowadays.
The story is fantastic, the acting is really good – especially from the son who goes missing – and even though there’s subtitles, you’ll hardly even notice ’em. The mess in your pants will take your mind off that anyway.
Look, I love horror movies, and even though I’m a total wuss when it comes to sitting through them, it’s not often that they really stick with me after the credits roll. But The Orphanage, man…I was tossing around in bed all last night just waiting for the closet door to open up and to see a kid with a sack on his head staring me in the face.
Needless to say, I am very tired as I write this review.
I don’t know what more I can say outside of The Orphanage is one of the best and most legitimately scary horror movies I’ve seen in ages. I’m recommending it to anyone and everyone that has the slightest interest in horror movies or is just looking for a good time.
Just don’t watch it alone. Not sure why I made the same mistake two nights in a row.
Splinter (2008)
VERDICT:
7/10 Great Reasons To Just Stay At A Hotel
Chances are you missed this one last year, but, man, this is some crazy shit.
Splinter is about a couple that head out to go camping for their anniversary, the two meth freaks running from the law that take them hostage on their way to Mexico, and the horribly fucked up parasite from the lowest depths of Hell that’s trying to kill them while they hole up in a gas station in the middle of nowhere.
Thanks a lot, meth freaks.
So as far as horror movies go, this one is far more eerie than it is flat-out scary. But at the same time, it continually managed to drop my jaw to the floor as I muttered “Holy shit!” to myself more times than I care to remember.
There’s absolutely God-awful acting on pretty much everyone’s part and the characters are all typical, stupid horror movie victims that will inevitably have you screaming, “Just stay in the fucking gas station!” time and again. And usually this kind of thing doesn’t bother me, but it’s just annoying having to listen to a script where everyone’s just cursing for the sake of cursing. I don’t hang out with people like that, why would I want to hang out with people like that? Good luck in that gas station.
So I realize this hasn’t exactly been the most glowing review, and I was tempted to give it a 6 out of 10 because of everything I just mentioned, but then again, there’s the “splinter monster”, which is the name I have given it. And no, I have no idea where I come up with these names.
The splinter monster is just one of the most original and straight-up horrifying movie creatures I’ve come across since John Carpenter’s The Thing (and if you like horror movies, dear God, see The Thing). It comes out of nowhere, it’s totally ruthless, and its only motivation is to kill. And kill it does…quite brutally in fact.
It’s pretty rare to see original horror movie monsters that don’t feel like knock-offs and actually tap into the realm of nightmares to the point where what you’re seeing on-screen completely goes against what you’re familiar with and defies explanation. Last one before this that I was impressed by was actually the Cloverfield monster; different kind of feel, but honorable mention all the same.
And that’s why Splinter works in spite of its flaws. The monster is fresh, it is messed up, and the ways in which it mindlessly butchers the human body will make your skin crawl. I’m trying not to give too much away without spoiling anything, but I’ll end my rant by reiterating that the splinter monster is absolutely awesome in a totally fucked up kind of way.
Splinter‘s not rewriting the genre or anything, but if you’re looking for a fun, twisted horror movie that will make you double check the locks on all your doors before hitting the sack, give this one a watch.
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
VERDICT:
0/10 Reasons Robin Williams Should Stick To Serious Roles
Watched it for ten minutes and turned it off. Couldn’t take it.
Good Morning, Vietnam is about a wiseacre DJ who gets set up at in a radio station in Vietnam to boost morale for the troops. Then, hello, he starts going crazy and saying edgy shit on the air, playing rock and roll. Needless to say, his military superiors are flabbergasted by his behavior, and so he gets in trouble for it.
Pretty sure the war in Vietnam gets addressed, too, but that’s what happens in the first ten minutes.
If there is any evidence that Robin Williams is a mental ward escapee living under the guise of a comedian, this is it. Maybe it’s me, but I don’t find it funny when people just ramble and verbalize all the voices that are screaming in their head. A painful experience in every way to sit down and watch this movie, let alone hear good things about it beforehand and thus try to enjoy it.
He was funny in Mrs. Doubtfire, but sadly for Robin, that’s the only exception to the rule.
Look, if you think Robin Williams is one funny bastard, then this is right up your alley. I’m sure there’s a good movie in here somewhere, but I’m content with never knowing.
Dude is fucking crazy.
The Strangers (2008)
VERDICT:
4/10 Backfired Honeymoons
Before reading this, check out the trailer for this movie first. Go ahead, the rest of this will make more sense if you do.
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Looks awesome, right? That’s what I thought, too.
But alas, we have been duped.
The Strangers is about a guy and a girl who spend a night at a getaway cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere after the guy proposed to her and she turned him down.
Awkward!
Then, as you can probably already tell, three weirdos with bags on their heads show up and start terrorizing the non-couple for reasons unknown.
Not the most original storyline, but crap, that was one awesome trailer. Made it look like the scariest, most original damn horror movie of the last decade. I like to think that the joke is on the filmmakers in this case, but hey, I’m the one who paid for the ticket.
It’s not garbage by any means, but as far as horror movies go, this one isn’t exactly paving new ground. It’s all pretty predictable and the scares are dirt cheap. And just when you think the main characters have their act together and are not going to behave like idiots and do stupid shit that will invetably get them killed, guess what, they panic and start acting a fool.
The cabin in the woods thing has been done before. The anonymous bad guys with bags on their heads has been done before. The whole thing’s pretty much been done before, only this time Liv Tyler’s in it.
I don’t know, I guess if the trailer hadn’t skyrocketed my expectations for this movie it would probably have been about as good a B-horror movie as I thought it would be. There’s some decent tension, a number of jump-out-of-your-seat moments that you can see coming from a mile away, but since there are so many other better and scarier horror movies out there, can’t recommend this as something worth going out of your way to go see.
But hey, if you’ve been hankering for something to instill a crippling fear of being the only person staying in an empty house, this mayjust be what you’ve been looking for.
And that shit on the poster about how it’s “INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS”? So fucking stupid.
Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
VERDICT:
8/10 Emergency Family Meetings
It’ll touch some nerves and it’s not exactly the feel-good movie of 2003, but a good, complex documentary all the same.
Capturing the Friedmans is about an otherwise normal Jewish family from Long Island – a husband, wife, and three sons. A shining example of the white picket fence, happy American family.
Then one day, the father of the family and one of his sons are arrested under child molestation charges and, as you might expect, the Friedmans’ lives are turned upside-down from that point on.
Nope, I didn’t see that one coming either.
Upon reading that synopsis over, it occurs to me that you probably already know whether you want to see this movie or not, but what the hell, I’ll keep on going.
I came across this movie after seeing it mentioned a couple times in various reviews of Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father, and since that was the best movie of 2008, figured this would be one worth watching. And like Dear Zachary, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.
The movie’s director, Andrew Jarecki, paints an impartial picture for the audience, leaving it up to us to decide whether the Friedmans are guilty or innocent based on the evidence at hand and a slew of reliable/unreliable testimonies from anyone and everyone that was affected by the events at hand. He’s not pointing the finger or trying to draw out your sympathies, and that’s a big reason why this movie works. And considering how touchy and ambiguous the subject matter is, the last thing people want to see is a movie defending guilty child molesters or lambasting innocent victims.
So all you really have to go off of is your gut, I guess. But I like that. I like movies that kind of mess with their audience’s moral frameworks and keeps you talking long after with other people that have similar or differing opinions on the matter.
The other thing that makes this story so compelling aside from how it’s presented is that the Friedmans are just a strangely compelling family to watch. All of them react differently to the circumstances at hand and it’s unreal how they all of open up about something so intensely personal.
It’s heartbreaking to watch their family slowly fall apart at the seams and, man, their grief sure takes some interesting forms. I like to believe that I’ll never be in a situation where I find myself getting ready to go to prison for the rest of my life, but if one day the feds finally catch up to me, you can bet your ass I won’t be obliviously joking and laughing while my kids film me parading around on the day before I get locked up. But then again, who am I to say anything.
Capturing the Friedmans is a tough movie to say the least, but it’s an incredibly revealing “behind closed doors” look into the underbelly of the American family that rarely gets this kind of raw exposure. The point is, don’t look at child pornography. Not a good path to go down.
There Will Be Blood (2007)
VERDICT:
7/10 Grumpy Old Men
Good movie, but what a freakin’ downer.
There Will Be Blood is about an oil tycoon that’s a real sonofabitch and his surrogate son who’s pretty much just along for the ride. One day, this rat bastard oil man stumbles upon a stretch of oil-rich, untapped land, but it’s owned by a family of religious nuts that refuse to fall for any of this a-hole’s cons. Being that this huge jerk doesn’t take no for an answer, he proceeds to do anything and everything in his power to show these hillbillies who’s boss.
Did I mention that Daniel Day-Lewis’ character is a dick in this movie?
So like most movies, There Will Be Blood has a story – a very, very dark and depressing story. But the problem is that it’s not a very good story. The thing I keep hearing is that it’s about a clash between ambition and faith, but that’s pretty weak and it’s a wild generalization of everything that goes on in this movie. It’s just that by the movie’s end, it’s hard to tell what the moral of the story was and when the credits finally roll, you’ll still be scratching your head about what it was all trying to say.
I’ve never really thought there was much of a pre-existing conflict between faith and ambition, but what do I know.
My advice is to take this movie for what it is: a vehicle to watch Daniel Day-Lewis act his ass off. The guy’s unreal and he steals the show in everything he’s done. It’s the same situation here and if you’ve never seen him in anything else (Gangs of New York doesn’t count – crap movie), then go out and Netflix this his resume’ pronto.
The plot might not be all that memorable, but watching Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, the wholly amoral and emotionally warped guy willing to sacrifice anything at any cost in order to achieve his wealth, is a performance you can’t look away from.
It’s also directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, a seriously talented guy that’s got some pretty boss movies under his belt like Punch-Drunk Love, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia. With There Will Be Blood, he has seriously upped his game as a filmmaker and put together one visually stunning movie filled with imagery that’s nothing short of unforgettable. The scenery and the settings, it’s beautiful, it’s stark, and it sears its way into your brain. Can’t properly describe something that you have to see for yourself. KnowhatImean?
Even more than the acting, the writing, and the bizarro surprise ending, the parts of this movie I keep coming back to are the breathtakingly epic visuals and what might just be my favorite aspect, the score by Radiohead lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood.
Normally, I don’t have half a shit about a movie’s score let alone go out and actually buy a movie’s soundtrack. But all that changed with There Will Be Blood. Call me biased for being a huge Radiohead fan, but I’m sticking to my guns regardless. Thinking back on this movie, it’s hard to differentiate any of the scenes from the music that was playing in the background. That doesn’t happen with me when I see a movie, that’s a new one. It’s a very different kind of score both in the way it’s composed and performed, but the ways in which it both clashes and blends with what’s happening on-screen is really something wild.
So if the story was as good as everything else this movie has going for it, I’d be tempted to bump up the score by an extra point or two. But even so, There Will Be Blood is still a really interesting example of creating something fresh by taking a step back to the days of character studies like Citizen Kane. It’s not flashy and it takes its time, but it works in ways a lot of movies today don’t.
The puma!
Seems like I accomplished my unintentional goal of confusing the hell out of everyone with this poll, but not surprisingly, the puma has eaten everyone.
Carrie, with zero votes, more or less offered herself up as the appetizer. Charlotte (with her bone-crushing glare) and Miranda served as the entree’s, coming up with one vote each. And Samantha fought to the death with two votes to her name, but alas, was soundly devoured.
So way to go puma! That Prada sure tastes good.
The Third Man (1949)
VERDICT:
9/10 Cuckoo Clocks
Might sound corny, but it’s too bad they don’t make movies like this anymore.
The Third Man is about a hack novelist that goes to Vienna to meet up with an old friend, only to find out upon his arrival that his friend kicked the bucket the day prior after getting hit by a car outside his apartment. So rather than book it home to the States, the novelist starts up his own investigation to find out what really happened to his friend and why someone would want him dead.
Sounds like trouble’s a-brewin’ in Vienna again.
I’ve had this movie on my Netflix queue for a while now but finally decided to give it a look after hearing it was Jack White’s favorite movie. Is that strange? Nonetheless, it’s an awesome movie.
So I’m just gonna go ahead and get on the soapbox now. Wanted to give you the heads up.
We live in a world where movies are judged by how A.D.D.-friendly they are, where the most financially successful blockbusters are the ones with the most explosions that require the least amount of thought. With that said, it’s damn refreshing and bittersweet to watch a great movie from a time when filmmakers just cared about good storytelling through good filmmaking.
Film noir is unfortunately a dying genre and, you know what, that really sucks. Some of the best movies of all time are film noir and with the exception of a strong handful that were mostly done by the Cohen brothers, the cream of the crop were all made before 1960. The most film-noir-y movie I can think of in recent memory that tried to reboot the genre was Sin City, and that was more like a snuff film if anything.
I don’t get what’s unappealing about a movie like this. Murder, mystery, romance, a freaking awesome cast that make being cool look like second nature, a great story that requires you to think and keeps you guessing, and an awesome, awesome score that kept reminding me of that great montage scene in Snatch where Boris the Blade gets hit by the car while cheery gypsy music plays in the background (might be overstepping my bounds here, but that’s what came to mind).
This is a dark movie (“dark movie” = “film noir” – good one, Aiden) that’s not really aiming to cheer anyone up in the least, but I couldn’t help but smile the whole time I was watching it. It’s just a fun time and I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
Look, there’s something here for everyone, movie buff or not. Just because it’s not in color doesn’t mean that it’s boring.
The Third Man is also a great reminder that Orson Welles was the freakin’ man. This is pre-boozehound/morbidly obese/hobo beard Welles we’re talking about and the screen literally lights up when he first appears. All the actors in this movie are great, but he hands-down steals the show. Come on, it’s Orson Welles. The guy was movies.
I hear this movie gets shown a lot in film classes and I’m not all that surprised. The Third Man is as good as you’ve always heard it was, and if you’ve never heard of it, no better time than the present to take a trip back to a time when movies didn’t the run the risk of giving you epilepsy.
Cut The Crap Movie Reviews 
