Bruno (2009)
VERDICT:
8/10 Talking Penises
Not as good as Borat, but freakin’ hilarious all the same.
Bruno is about Sacha Baron Cohen parading around the world, posing as a 19-year-old, flamboyantly gay, Austrian male model/fashionista that gets blacklisted from the fashion world and must find a way to get back into the public eye. It’s more or less the same story as Borat, only this time Borat is gay.
In one sense, the whole feeling that you’ve seen this before could be considered a drawback, but considering how damn good Borat was, it probably wasn’t such a bad call to stick with a winning formula. The movie really just ends up being a vehicle for Bruno to make everyone he comes in contact with as horribly uncomfortable as humanly possible. And considering that Sacha Baron Cohen obviously has no shame whatsoever, things get really, really awkward.
Before the movie started, I received a text message from a friend of mine informing me that he “Just saw Bruno. Can’t believe that it was rated R.” Consider this review a reiteration of that statement. If you thought Borat was pushing the envelope, dear lord…
I’m tempted to go ahead and list some of the bizarro shit that goes on in this movie, but since I had to go through it blind (and laugh my ass off as a result), I’d only be ruining it for you if you didn’t go into it the same way. In short, there’s a lot of “dude-ity” (see what I did there?) and if sitting through Milk or Brokeback Mountain was a little much, you might just want to go see Up instead.
My one complaint with Bruno is that it doesn’t really work as a social commentary against homophobia in the way that Borat worked as a big “fuck you” to ignorant Southern racists and drunk college kids with mean prejudices towards women. The problem is that while Bruno puts a lot of people on the spot and makes them visibly shudder with his wildly open displays of homosexuality, he doesn’t really go after the right people. Anyone, gay or straight, would be uncomfortable if they were forced to watch male genitalia flopping around in their faces…and then have to react when the penis starts talking.
It works at times because it’s not Baron Cohen that needs to be shocking to get that result, it’s when everyone else starts flaunting their prejudices that makes everyone in the theater gasp (ie: that racist bastard from the rodeo who told Borat to shave off his terrorist mustache). If he targeted more people on the other end of the spectrum, like some serious homophobes that are damn proud of their homophobic beliefs, the final product would have been much more effective.
So it might not be as good as Borat and it doesn’t really work all that well as a social commentary, but then again, I’m still laughing to myself to the point where I’m short of breath just by replaying scenes from this movie in my head. I took me like an hour to go to sleep last night just because I couldn’t stop laughing. The only other movie I can fathom being anywhere near as funny as this might be Funny People, but that’s a whole different kind of humor anyway.
If you’ve got strong nerves and you liked Borat, you won’t be disappointed with Bruno. I just hope to God people aren’t gonna be quoting this thing for the next four months.
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
VERDICT:
8/10 Lucky Bastards
Wasn’t the best movie that came out last year, but glad it won Best Picture all the same. Always great to see sleeper movies like this just take off and take the freakin’ world by storm.
Slumdog Millionaire is about a kid whose destiny leads him to be a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in hopes to find his long-lost love that he grew up with in the slums of India.
If I had a problem like that, I’d turn to Regis Philbin or Meredith Vieira, too.
Now I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, director Danny Boyle is the man and he’s one of the best in biz out there today. I’m sure India is a beautiful country, but man, Danny boy sure gave it the royal treatment. Absolutely stunning movie to watch from a visual and technical standpoint that just reaffirms why he’s the man and that he’s only getting better. If you liked this, go see his other stuff, it’s pretty much all great.
But aside from how good this movie is behind the scenes, it’s also just as good in every other aspect. It has a really fantastic story that moves along at an engaging, beautiful pace, all the while hitting every emotional chord you can possibly aim for over a span of two hours.
And don’t give me any of that crap about how you don’t like reading subtitles. Only, like, a third of the movie is in subtitles, they’re actually put together in a fun, new way, and honestly, it’s about time you got over it. Sorry, but it has to be said.
The characters in the story are also all very relatable and genuine, probably because the movie follows them from their days as slumdogs to when they grow up and blossom into slum…hounds (?), and all the actors are surprisingly damn good, too. It’s great to see movies featuring no-name casts that have never done a lick of acting in their life, but end up kicking ass regardless.
So even if you’ve never been to India, don’t care about India, and never eaten Indian food (you’re missing out), it’s still a movie that will glue you to your seat from the get-go.
So yeah, I liked Slumdog Millionaire, but at the same time, it didn’t really stick with me the way I think it did with a lot of other people. I had big expectations going into it, and while they were definitely met, they were also kind of expected. I think if I had been in the shoes of my good buddy Fred who got roped into seeing this movie with me without any real idea of what he was signing up for, I probably would have much fonder memories of the movie as a whole.
But don’t take that as a complaint, you should still go see this movie if you haven’t already. It’s a great movie and I always smile when I replay the same amazing images in my head of Danny Boyle’s unreal camerawork in the streets of Mumbai.
These are the kinds of movies that need to get recognized more often, the ones that make you want to get up out of your seat and cheer in a dark room full of strangers. Slumdog may not be the biggest Hollywood blockbuster of the year, but it’s got the heart to match and is a wonderful reminder of the power of storytelling through film.
Pretty deep, huh?
Groundhog Day (1993)
VERDICT:
9/10 Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth…Chances
It took me a couple viewings to really get how good and how funny this movie is, but it’s a freakin’ classic that doesn’t get it’s due.
Groundhog Day is about a d-bag weatherman named Phil that gets stranded with his news crew in Punxatawny, PA on Groundhog Day, his least favorite day of the year in a town he hates. So in order to get him to change his d-baggy ways, worlds collide, the sands of time get turned on their head, and Phil quickly realizes that he is being forced to continually relive Groundhog Day in Punxatawny with each new time he wakes up.
The great thing about Groundhog Day is that everyone’s had this idea before in some form or another, not just with déjà vu, but more like, “what kind of stuff would you do with your life if there weren’t any consequences for your actions and you could just start fresh the next morning?” Chances are you’d probably follow in Phil’s footsteps and steal money from an armored car, punch out that guy who annoys the hell out of you every day, and eat whatever you want in a manner that would normally lead you down the road to morbid obesity.
And why would you do all these things? Because you’ve always wanted to and, dammit, now you finally can.
It’s rare when comedies come along that are fuelled by hilarious running gags that always land and never get old; the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is The 40-Year-Old Virgin. And the gags all work because they’re all directed at finding as many ways as humanly possible to annoy Phil to the point where Punxatawny becomes a living hell. Being forced to wake up every morning to “I’ve Got You, Babe” by Sonny and Cher? Sucks to be you, Phil.
And it also doesn’t hurt that Phil is played by one of the all-time Gods of comedy, Bill Murray. I really shouldn’t have to explain or back up this fact of life, but I will anyway…in one word: Caddyshack.
And hey, look what we have here! Groundhog Day is written and directed by Harold Ramis, who also wrote and directed…CADDYSHACK! It’s a comedy miracle!
But aside from this being a really, really smart and funny movie with a brilliant premise, it also makes a lot of good, subtle points about the many benefits of leading a positive life and making a difference with the time you’ve got. While it’s funny to see Phil deal, or not deal, with his strange circumstances, you do get connected to him and you want see him change. Maybe it’s because he’s such a smarmy bastard to begin with, but he’s an endearing smarmy bastard, and you can’t help but root for him to turn things around.
I love Groundhog Day, it’s one of those movies that I’ll always stop and watch while channel surfing because I know I’m gonna laugh every time. Also a great movie to quote with friends who are part of the Groundhog Day cult. So get to it and watch this timeless comedy classic.
SIDE NOTE: Here’s a link to a great article that came out a couple years ago in the New York Times about how Groundhog Day is regarded as the most insightful and profound movies by religious clerics across the board. Cool stuff, definitely worth a read.
Pineapple Express (2008)
VERDICT:
7/10 Epic Blunts
Had pretty big expectations for this movie, mostly because it had the best trailer of 2008. Ended up being a pretty funny movie for the most part, but didn’t mess myself laughing like I was hoping to.
Pineapple Express is about a pothead with a dead-end job and his drug-dealing pothead friend who witness a cop and a drug kingpin murder some guy while smokin’ a doobie. The bad guys end up finding the doobie, which is filled with a rare strain of weed called Pineapple Express that only the drug-dealing pothead sells, and track down our two stoner heroes as they run for their lives.
Not the most effective anti-drug PSA of a movie, but I’m sure this kind of thing has happened to somebody somewhere.
For starters, this is a good idea for a movie – a stoner/action movie. Awesome. Ideally, this should turn out like the beautiful bastard love child of Half-Baked and Die Hard. In some instances it works out, but in actuality, it ends up being like Half-Baked with half the jokes and Die Hard with Steven Seagal instead of Bruce Willis. Probably should have left out all the guns and stuck with being 2008’s stoner comedy of the Summer.
It doesn’t work as an action movie because the action scenes just aren’t good. They’re not fun to watch, the movie is directed by David Gordon Green, a guy who has never done anything close to an action scene in his career, and every time there were shootouts and car chases and whatnot I was just hoping it would fastforward to more jokes about getting/being high.
I feel like it must be kind of hard to make action scenes boring to the point where you don’t want to watch them, but I guess when you’ve got a cast of people who are put in a movie to be funny, you don’t want to see them as action stars, you want to see them as comedians. Know what I mean? The whole tone and pacing if it all just felt really uneven, but nonetheless, it’s does end up being a pretty funny movie.
I’m a big fan of Seth Rogen, I think he’s hilarious and he has been since he got his start on Freaks and Geeks. But to my surprise, he wasn’t all that memorable in this movie. He’s got some funny lines here and there, but he ends up getting totally overshadowed by freakin’ James Franco of all people.
I’m glad James Franco isn’t just “that guy from the Spider-Man movies” any more, because apparently he’s the man now and he is the best part of this movie as Saul Silver, Seth Rogen’s drug-dealing pothead buddy. He plays the role of hardcore stoner convincingly well and it’s worth seeing Pineapple Express if only for his performance.
So hats off to you, Mr. Franco. You have earned your ticket out of the annals of obscurity.
Danny McBride from Eastbound and Down (must see) is also good in it, so there’s that.
Fucking Ken Jeong has a bit role, too. And while he sucks, he’s on-screen for a short enough period that you can more or less forget about it. But seriously, why is this guy in every comedy that’s come out over the last three or four years?
I’m getting off track here. So yeah, Pineapple Express could have been funnier, but it’s not exactly disappointing to the point where I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re looking to laugh. It’s still one of the funnier movies to come out this past year and who doesn’t like running gags about Jeff Goldblum impressions?
Rhetorical question. Everyone likes Jeff Goldblum impressions.
And Nic Cage’s worst movie is…
Ghost Rider!
Way to go, Nic! I was pulling for The Wicker Man, but the people have spoken.
Will get around to reviewing this marvel of a film once I actually see it. Can’t wait!
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
VERDICT:
10/10 Brass Balls
Terrible name for a movie, but it’s my favorite script of all time.
Glengarry Glen Ross is about four crooked real estate brokers who are given an ultimatum by their boss: sell as many properties as you can by the end of the day, the person with the most gets a car, the person with the least gets fired. Nice and straightforward.
So what makes this the best script of all time?
One: It’s written by David Mamet, who is one hell of a writer. He keeps things simple, he’s all about dialogue, he curses like it’s a comma, and he is razor-freakin’-sharp. If you’ve never read or heard anything he’s written, it’s kind of hard to describe what makes Mamet-speak different from other writers without hearing it for yourself. I was tempted to put a line from the movie in here, but it’s just not the same.
The point is, no one writes like David Mamet. He writes the way guys actually talk and he ain’t sugarcoating shit. He’s ruthless, he’s coarse, he’s funny, and you’ll want to go back and watch this sucker out of sheer quotability.
Two: Look at the cast. Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, and Alan Arkin play the brokers, Kevin Spacey plays their boss, and Alec Baldwin is only on-screen for maybe 10-15 minutes as a corporate rep who’s brought in to “motivate” everyone, but it’s the best bit of acting he’s ever done in his life. This movie shows why he’s the only Baldwin who hasn’t fallen into a dark pit of obscurity that hit rock bottom at I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!
Mamet’s dialogue is good on paper, but it’s a hundred times better when it’s delivered by some of the best male actors out there.
Three: Put those first two factors together and you’ve got one of the best talking heads movies of all time. You really don’t need anything but dialogue with this movie because it’s just so damn good. It’s an intense, believable, and ultimately sad movie about a group of hard-working American guys who get paid to swindle people for a living.
After recently spending a good couple weeks trying to find a new apartment in New York, I quickly found that a lot of the brokers out there are some real rat bastards who would love nothing more than to fuck you over so they can get their commission. And even though I’m no broker and have no desire to ever walk into a real estate office ever again, Mamet hit the nail on the head in giving his audience an inside look into a profession that could otherwise be pretty damn boring.
Not much of a date movie, but I love recommending Glengarry Glen Ross to people. You gotta see it. If anything, it’ll give you newfound respect for your job that you never knew existed.
Quantum of Solace (2008)
VERDICT:
4/10 Mopey Hitmen
Yeah, Casino Royale set the bar pretty damn high for this movie, but what a disappointment regardless.
Quantum of Solace picks up where Casino Royale left off, with our guy James Bond interrogating and icing everyone in his path to uncover a high-brow terrorist scheme to create a monopoly on water in Third-World countries (or something like that) and figure out who his former lover was working for before she died.
Maybe it’s me, but that’s a pretty lame terrorist plot. What happened to the tried and true Dr. Evil formula of grabbing a nuke and holding the world hostage?
Water’s overrated. I’d go with the nuke.
The problem with Quantum of Solace is that it looks real pretty, but there’s not a single scene in the entire running time that’s as fun or exciting as that opening scene in Casino Royale where Bond is chasing down that guy through the construction site. James Bond movies are supposed to be fun, and fun is something that Quantum of Solace is seriously lacking.
The pacing of the movie is really off, it’s pretty boring for lengths at a time, and, to add insult to injury, the action scenes aren’t all that good. Even with the car/foot chase scenes, the camera moves so fast that everything just ends up looking blurry to the point where you can’t even make out what’s going on outside of “I think the first grey car is hitting into the second grey car.” An unfortunate snooze-fest of an action movie.
Let’s see, what else is wrong with this. Remember in Casino Royale how James Bond was reinvented into this total badass who made Pierce Brosnan look like a skinny, brunette bitch? Well that’s gone. Now Bond just cries and sulks the whole time, he’s not funny anymore, he has the personality of a turd, and he’s about as cool as parachute pants. Booo!
The story is also outrageously confusing and all the bad guys are about as terrifying as an environmentally manipulative version of Gordon Gekko. It’s one of those movies that you try really hard to follow for about half an hour but then you just give up and zone out because you realize that none of it matters, you’re still going to be confused as hell when the credits roll.
And I hate it, absolutely hate it, when the evil scheme in a movie is something stupid that gets passed off as “sinister”, like the evil pharmaceutical agencies in The Fugitive (good movie) and The Constant Gardener (not a good movie). People like to root against actual villians, not corporate greed. Who cares about a movie where James Bond saves the world from a drought? Lame.
I really have no idea what happened here. The script was written by all the same guys who put together Casino Royale and I don’t think you can blame Daniel Craig or a new director for sabotaging what should have been a great sequel to a revamped series. I blame whoever thought Quantum of Solace would be a good title.
But the fact of the matter is that Quantum of Solace is not a completely forgettable addition to the series, serving only as a reminder of how great Casino Royale was. I really hope these guys bring it around in the next installment and haven’t just pulled a GoldenEye and given us one golden egg then a handful of rotten follow-ups.
Scarface (1983)
VERDICT:
2/10 Faux-Cubans
I’ve been writing a lot of positive reviews lately, so I figured I’d change things up a bit and write about a movie that I can’t freakin’ stand.
According to the poster, Scarface is about a Cuban immigrant named Tony Montana that comes over to America and makes it big as a drug kingpin because “He loved the American Dream. With a vengeance.” Wow, doesn’t that just send shivers up your spine.
So that is more or less what it’s about, but all I really seem to remember is Al Pacino doing cocaine for two hours and randomly killing people for no reason. I like to think my synopsis is a far more accurate account of what this movie boils down to.
It’s directed by Brian De Palma, who is pretty hit (The Untouchables) or miss (Mission to Mars). For those unfamiliar with De Palma, he has the potential to tell a really good story, but the one thing that always stays constant is that the guy likes his movies really, really violent. Not that violent movies are bad, but gratuitous ones generally are. His movies tend to fall in the latter category, and the bloodbath that is Scarface plays out as a kind of blank canvas for De Palma to go apeshit-sadistic on his audience.
Guys getting a chainsaw taken to them in a shower while tied up like frozen meat within the first 15 minutes of the movie? Charming, Brian, but it gets to be a little much.
So going off my plot synopsis from earlier, you can probably surmise that the storyline is garbage. It’s also backed up by a horrendous ’80s soundtrack that’s comprised entirely of moody synthesizers and hit songs that are best left forgotten for fear of corrupting future generations. But the real problem with this movie was casting Al Pacino, one of the most Italian people on the planet, as a fresh-off-the-boat Cuban immigrant.
Now I like Pacino, he’s a damn good actor, but what the hell? It’s not totally his fault, because the character sucks to begin with, but talk about overacting. You almost feel bad for the guy after a while, it’s embarrassing. Who wants to sit down for two hours and watch him yell every other line all while visibly struggling to lay on this thick Cuban accent that maybe a few select weirdos on Earth actually possess?
Al, man. What were you thinking?
I might not be preaching to the choir here, but I really don’t see the draw to this movie. There are so many other gangster movies out there, including other efforts by De Palma, that are so much better than this that it almost renders this movie’s existence null and void. Go watch the original Scarface from 1932, I hear that’s a hell of a lot better.
Just because everyone on MTV Cribs has a diamond-encrusted shrine to this movie doesn’t make it good. Has anyone on that show even seen the end of this movie? Things don’t end up going all that well for Tony Montana.
Man, screw this movie. I couldn’t wait for Tony Montana to get killed. He’s a totally unlikeable main character and there’s absolutely nothing about his story that makes me ever want to go back and watch this movie again. The moral of Scarface: don’t do coke, don’t kill people, and don’t be a greedy asshole. There’s a better way to lead your life and thousands of better ways to spend two hours.
Boy I hope I get to be on Cribs one day.
Up (2009)
VERDICT:
10/10 New Leases on Life
I need to get over this notion I have that Pixar movies are just for kids, because this bit of greatness is currently the front-runner for best movie of 2009. Man, kids always know what’s up.
Up is about an old man whose wife passes away, thus prompting him to attach a bagillion balloons onto his house and fly away to South America with a neighborhood boyscout to fulfill he and his wife’s lifelong dream of following in their hero’s footsteps.
Grief sure takes many strange forms.
After being completely surprised by how much I liked Pixar’s last movie, Wall-E, last year, I was pretty excited to see this. But for some reason there was still a voice in the back of my head telling me, “Come on, Aiden. You should be seeing this at your eight-year-old cousin’s birthday party.” I’m glad I didn’t give in to my doubts and I’m proud to say that the said voices in my head have been shut up for good.
I don’t think I’ve come out of a movie feeling so utterly great about myself and everything else on planet Earth since watching It’s A Wonderful Life at Christmas like I do every year. Up is a beautiful movie both visually and emotionally that really tugs on the audience’s heartstrings without being sappy or childish whatsoever.
You wouldn’t know it from the trailers, but this movie brings up a lot of mature and heavy issues that are pretty atypical for animated movies of any kind, except for Bambi of course…damn deer hunters. My good buddy Fred and I were both unabashedly tearing up at numerous times throughout this movie. It doesn’t help that we’re softies for this kind of thing, but we couldn’t help it. From the characters to the story, the whole thing is so genuine and heartfelt on such a empathetic level that the waterworks are just flat out inevitable.
But it’s not a sob-fest. It’s just about life, and life can be freakin’ tough. Am I right?
Up is also absolutely hilarious. Even though the humor is very different, I found myself laughing harder and more often at this movie than I did at The Hangover a couple weeks ago. I was literally howling in a theater filled with four people, including Fred and I, and I couldn’t stop. There are a ton of great running gags that don’t get old and I’m sure that if I went back and saw this again I’d still laugh my ass off. Good comic timing and consistently funny writing is something to be admired and appreciated whether it’s animated or real life.
The story is great, the characters are great, the script is great, the animation is great, the voice acting is great…and the credits were great. Sure, why not.
Look, instead of ranting about how fantastic this movie is, I’m going to wrap this up by just telling you to silence that “I’m-too-adult-for-this-kiddie-crap!” voice in your head and go see Up. There’s nothing better out there right now. Even if you didn’t like Wall-E because there wasn’t enough talking, don’t let that stop you from seeing this. I don’t know how Pixar keeps doing it, but they’ve got a perfect track record and this is one more truly impressive notch that’s been added to their belt.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)
VERDICT:
9/10 Hit Songs About Casper the Friendly Ghost
I really can’t remember what compelled me to bump this movie up to my number one slot on Netflix last year, but I’m glad I did and I still can’t stop thinking about it. It has a totally misleading title and poster, but it’s not a movie to be missed.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston is not about Satan and a headless guy playing a guitar over a crowd full of headless red people. Sorry to disappoint. But it is a documentary about the strange and brilliant life of manic-depressive singer/guitarist/songwriter/surrealist artist Daniel Johnston (he made the poster).
I’d never heard of Daniel Johnston before I saw this movie, so don’t be surprised if you haven’t either. He reached his heyday in the ’80s with his folk/rock songs that gained a devout underground following but never quite hit the mainstream. He’s not the best guitar player out there, and “rock star” might not be the first thing that comes to mind when he first shows up on screen, but the guy’s got heart and he knows how to write a song.
The thing that makes Johnston’s life worth making a movie out of, and worth watching, is that it’s as amazing as it is tragic. Born a musical and artistic prodigy, the movie plays out like the rollercoaster of his life as his genius and grasp on sanity slowly gives way to his inner demons that are beyond his ability to control.
Director Jeff Feuerzeig, who hasn’t really done anything else worth noting before or after this movie, puts the whole thing together like a scrap book of Johnston’s life. There’s interviews with his family about how he almost killed himself and his father…more than once, old recordings from a backlog of Johnston’s cassette tapes before he started distributing them to the public by hand, and what seems like every single drawing and painting that Johnston’s ever put to paper.
He does an amazing job of making the audience feel invested in Daniel’s struggles and he keeps you completely fascinated in the life of someone that you’ve never even heard of. It’s a really unique documentary both in the way it’s put together and in its subject matter, giving the audience a really up-close and personal insight to the debilitating mental illness of someone who is clearly one-of-a-kind beneath the surface.
But it’s not all sad. Daniel Johnston is still out there doing his thing and touring across the country, playing songs to sold out crowds about devil towns and The Beatles. Even if you don’t like his music, he’s got one hell of a life story.
I’ve been meaning to go out and buy this movie for a while now, and I think this review might just be the encouragement I’ve been needing. The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a great documentary and it is one crazy trip.
SIDE NOTE: I’ve been listening to a Beck cover of one of Johnston’s songs like gangbusters recently. It’s called True Love Will Find You In The End. Give it a listen, it’s a great song, and I hope you dig it as much as I do.
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