Oscar Recap 2013
Odds are I should have done this a few days ago but things are busy. Also odds are I should have actually watched the awards, but I figured out a couple years ago I could either watch 3-4 hours of bad production, lame jokes, and stars butt kissing each other and acting all out of breath or I could just spend five minutes reading off a list. So here I am with comments on each winner (all based on the ones I actually saw, of course).
Best Picture–Argo. I’m feeling pretty smug and self satisfied about this as Argo was my pick for best picture of last year. I saw most of the nominees for a change and will admit they were all admirable movies (except maybe Les Miserables. My opinion on that one has kind of soured in the months since reviewing it. I suspect if I were to sit through it a second time it would be pretty agonizing) but Argo was my choice. Well done.
Best Actor–Daniel Day Lewis for Lincoln. Again no real argument. I was really impressed by him. I was a little surprised that Hugh Jackman got a nomination for Les Mis. Not that he did a bad job or is not a really good actor, but can you really be said to be acting when you spend 90% of your screen time singing? (Lincoln image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
Best Actress-Jeniffer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook. Unfortunately this is one of the films that slipped my net. My cousin saw it and enjoyed it a lot. She wrote the review. I will have to see it. I think Jeniffer is a really talented actor and am glad she got it.
Best Supporting Actor-Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained. I thought he was awesome in this, although I also really like Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln.
Best Supporting Actress-Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables. Not sure about this one. She was only in about 1/3rd of the movie (yes I’m still bitter about that. I really wanted to see her throughout the film. I like her a lot) and again, if you spend all your time singing are you really acting? However, none of the other nominees really jump out at me so I don’t know.
Best Animated Feature Film-Brave. Ugh. Here is one where I really disagree. Wreck It Ralph was far superior in almost every regard except for maybe the art. It had a much better story, was funnier, and actually had a character arc and cool underlying message about accepting and loving who you are while not ascribing to labels. Brave was just another Disney pretty princess fairy tale about some little girl choosing her own husband (someone pack up this movie and set the Wayback machine for 1952 quick!). Trite in almost all regards whereas Wreck It Ralph worked incredibly well on multiple levels.
Best Cinimatography-the Life of Pi. Totally agree. This film was beautiful.
Costume Design-Anna Karenina. Didn’t see it. Not going to see it. Yes, I suck as a reviewer.
Best Directing-the Life of Pi. I am going to agree here as well. The director managed to take the smallest set in the universe and turn it into a complete world, as well as pace the film wonderfully.
Documentary and Documentary Short-I don’t watch documentaries for the most part, unless it’s about Star Trek fans or Warhammer. Sorry but I didn’t get into this to learn stuff.
Film Editing-Argo. I’m actually torn between this and the Life of Pi. Both films were brilliantly edited but the Life of Pi managed to take what could easily have been the most boring stretch of film in cinima history and keep me engaged. Argo kept me engaged as well but was working with easier to use footage. I think if I were in the Academy I would have voted for the Life of Pi.
Foreign Film–Being a typical poorly educated cultural tunnel vision American I didn’t see a lot of foreign film last year. During my movie selection process it usually goes like this: “Hmm. There’s a Bollywood film that is getting good reviews. Odds are it will be fun to watch a make for a good review. What’s this? Kevin James plays a 43 year old MMA guy in Here Comes the Boom!? Score!” and that’s it for my attempt at cultural self improvement for the month.
Makeup and Hairstyling-Les Miserables. I’ll give them that. They successfully transformed Anne Hathaway from my 100% dream woman into my 99.3% dream woman.
Musical Score-the Life of Pi. Music is something I really only notice in a film when it is bugging me (cough cough Rock of Ages cough cough). Otherwise it is literally background noise.
Music Best Original Song-Skyfall from Skyfall. Again, not something that registers well for me.
Production Design-Lincoln. I’d give it to them.
I’m going to skip a bunch of the technical awards I don’t have a real opinion on.
Writing Adapted Screenplay-Argo. No Argo-ment here.
Writing Original Story-Django Unchained. I’m glad Tarantino got something out of this. He does deserve way more credit than Hollywood gives him. 100 years ago Django will be far more remembered than Argo I suspect.
That’s pretty much it. I think it funny that the writing awards are listed last when if I were in charge they would be first. I think writing the the 800 pound monkey on the back of most of Hollywood right now. Oh, well. Thanks for reading. I’ll try to write up my review for Jack the Giant Slayer later on today. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on my remarks or the awards feel free to post them here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. By the way one of my readers asked me to add a link to his Kickstart campaign to get a pretty cool Street Fighter/Sesame Street mashup poster printed. I think it’s pretty kick ass. If you want to support him check out his campaign here. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Death Wish remake in the works
So I am taking a look at upcoming new movies and I see a whole slew of remakes rolling towards me like flaming barrels in a Donkey Kong game. I will probably talk about what is wrong with doing each in turn but today I wanted to do a quick blurb about the plans to remake Death Wish (by the way, I couldn’t find a good Charles Bronson image but did find this Charles Sheen one from the movie t-shirt category. It’s about the same, right?).
On the one hand it is being directed by the guy who did The Grey, a movie I enjoyed a great deal. From that point of view we should be good. The issue we are going to have is the original movie was so defined by Charles Bronson and his characterization that any rendition will look like a cheap Hollywood money grab and attempt to capitalize on better, more imaginative movies from back in the day (Heaven knows there is no way that could be the producers actual intention).
When a character is so defined by the actor playing it (Rambo, John McClane, Marty McFly, Captain Kirk, etc.) any reproduction, no matter well produced or made, will always seem a pale imitation. Also, a big part of this movie was about the old getting back at the young. Big social commentary, and if there is one thing Hollywood tries to avoid it’s social controversy (and general creativity). I predict this film will land dead center of mediocre (somewhere between 2 black holes and 2 stars on my scale).
Dave
A Good Day to Die Hard Review
Dead on arrival.
I think I have reached the evolutionary point in my movie reviewing career (yes I am starting to call it a career. Suck it if you can’t let me enjoy a little fantasy) where I will no longer allow myself to excuse a crap movie just because I am a fan of the star of the film. I am a Bruce Willis fan. Pulp Fiction, the Sixth Sense, the Fifth Element (what’s with him and number movies?), and the original Die Hard are among my favorite films and to date have carried enough credibility to forgive the occasional Hudson Hawk or Cop Out. Recent movies such as Moonrise Kingdom, Surrogates, and Looper continue to show his acting ability and general movie appeal.
However, as I watch more and more movies I have come to realize that each film is in and of itself a discrete particle that needs to be examined in isolation like lab rats to determine which one had the negative reaction to the massive overdose of hemorrhoid cream and which is just part of the control group. Taken as such A Good Day to Die Hard is the most disease ridden lab animal in the cruelest testing facility in history.
To beat another analogy into this review if a movie franchise could be likened to an aircraft either soaring sedately through the stratosphere or crashing and burning horrible than the maneuver that the Die Hard franchise has been executing for the last four films would best be called a death spiral. Each film in turn gets bigger, more elaborate, and stupider with more explosions and ridiculous plots. The first film was arguably one of the top ten best action films of all time with Bruce Willis playing John McClane, an ordinary cop fighting against a villain bent on robbing millions of dollars and destroying a building in LA. Die Hard 2: Die Harder decided the only way to make a better movie would be to have a bigger set and more evil plot so McClane is in a giant airport trying to stop some mercenaries from releasing a Latin American dictator. In Die Hard With a Vengeance the villain opts to blow up parts of New York as part of some kind of nefarious plot to destroy the US economy (hey, I earn money in the US! I should care about that!). Then, like a drug addict needing more and more smack we are given Live Free or Die Hard and the ultimate evil plot: some kind of computer virus that will disrupt all power, traffic, computers, and possibly even your own home computer (OMG save us!)
Which leads us to the latest installment where the bad guys plan to do…something? Honestly I’m not really clear on what the ultimate plan really was. There was something about killing the rival of some Russian political guy, and later on it turned out to be something about weapons grade uranium but I’m not sure what the deal was. I guess it was implied that they planned to build WMD’s but it’s not really clear (perhaps they left the nuke option out there in case they need an even bigger threat for Die Hard 6. This does not bode well for Die Hard 7. Once they have done nukes what is left? Destruction of the entire world? Perhaps by killing all the whales (which of you got that reference?)).
The vagueness of the dastardly plan is not what is bugging me about this film. In fact, I kind of liked it if only because it felt a little ramped back from the lameness in three of the four previous plots. No, what bugged me was the fact that the director really didn’t want to make a John McClane movie. You see, one of the greatest things about McClane is the fact that he is an ordinary guy prevailing in the face of horrific odds. In the first film every fight is a struggle and he has to use every resource he can to save his wife and her coworkers. He turns his feet into hamburger by running barefoot through broken glass, gets shot, beat up, blown up, and falls off the building. He starts off with his service gun and just improving his armament is a struggle. However as the series progresses he looks less like the lovable punching bag we saw in the first one and more like a T-800, except that even the Terminator could get crushed in a hydraulic press and John McClane is pretty much immune to everything including what should be radioactive water (at least he doesn’t have to worry about hair loss).
This trend is taken to the next level in A Good Day by making John McClane (and his son. More on that later) so indestructible that the combined military forces of the planet couldn’t take him out. This is why Superman sucks and Batman rules. There is no real struggle or bravery for a guy who is pretty much immune to everything on this planet except Krytonite (check out my article on how stupid the idea of Kryptonite on Earth really is) so we can’t care about his fight against 99.99999% of the villains out there. 
Meanwhile, Batman (comic book Batman, not movie Batman. Batman image courtesy of the Batman T Shirt category) is in constant danger from even the lowliest criminal. All it takes is for one punk to get lucky with a gun and it is all over. Thus is Batman the far superior hero (for other reasons too, but I don’t want to go too far off topic). So when you make it pretty apparent that John McClane (and his son) are never going to really have anything bad happen to them you drain away all the tension in the film and the biggest helicopter explosions, car wrecks, and flying stunts in the universe will not motivate the audience to really give a damn. Guns literally fall out of every cabinet and trunk they open, bad guys apparently trained at the Helen Keller School of Marksmenship and are all equipped with powerful bullet magnets, and injuries heal with nigh miraculous speed.
Sigh. 980 words in and I haven’t even started the story recap. I’m going to be pretty generous with the spoilers in a minute but honestly if you are going to this film to be astounded by the story why don’t you just slam you head in your refrigerator door for 98 minutes? (Incidentally, this film had a $92,000,000 budget and hired the guy who wrote the Wolverine movie. Are a million monkey banging on a million typewriters really that hard to find?) John McClane (Bruce Willis but if you didn’t know that what cave have you been living in?) has a grown son and daughter. Like most families the son (Jai Courtney-Jack Reacher, Sparticus: War of the Damned, Boys Grammer) is a huge disappointment and has been arrested in Russia for something(?). John flies to Russia to do something (really, what has that about? Is John McClane some kind of expert on Russian law? Was he going to go in guns blazing and bust his son out of the gulag? Hypnotize the judge with the spot of light reflected off his head? What?). Meanwhile Russian billionaire Komorov (Sebastion Koch I think. I might have these two guys reversed. If you see the movie you see why-Unknown, the Lives of Others, Suspension of Disbelief (ironic)) is in the same prison waiting for trial for something (?). He is the main rival of bigwig Anton (Roman Luknar-the Garden, Panelak, Lidice) who wants him killed because he has some file that will destroy him (again, very vague deals. Everyone kept banging on about this file and then later it meant nothing).
Here come the spoilers. I hope this doesn’t drain your excitement to the point you fall into a narcoleptic coma. Anton sends a hit team to kill Komorov in the middle of the courtroom where he and Jack McClane are sitting in glass boxes. Turns out Jack works for the CIA and is there to rescue Komorov. They escape in a truck and nearly run down John, who was on his way to the courthouse. Then we get the stupidest chase scene ever (I’m not kidding. It made the escape scene from 2012 look like Bullitt.) with McClane literally driving over other cars. They escape from the main henchman (Radivoje Bukvic-Taken, Three Worlds, Armed Hands). Kamorov has to pick up his daughter and the file before leaving the country.
You know, twists in a movie plot are like nuclear power; they can be used for both good and evil. In some films they greatly enhance the story and keep you really engaged, but in this one it seemed like they were throwing twists in whenever the writer got bored, which was like every 10 minutes. The daughter betrays the father and gets him captured. She then betrays the main evil dude and was secretly in league with her father all along, who instead of trying to atone for his sins and bring a bad man to justice had some secret plot to do something(?) with weapons grade uranium. The story thread ends up looking like the biggest string of Xmas lights all piled up in a big incoherent mess.
So stuff gets blown up. John and Jack kill about a million guys with each spray of their guns. The end.
The stars. I will give one for Bruce Willis doing his thing, but honestly since that is what I expected it’s like awarding a gold star to the best oxygen processor in 2nd grade. One star nevertheless. There was some attempt at character development between John and his son Jack, so I will award a star in the A for Effort category. One star. If you like guns, explosions, and pointless plot twists than you have found your Nirvana. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes. The plot could be considered a Crime Against Fiction. Two black holes. I think I have found a way to accurately describe the action in this film and that is it looked like Bruce and his buddy were playing a video game. Even they looked bored and nothing seemed a challenge (easy mode video game). Two black holes. The story was needlessly labyrinthine and hard to follow. If they had given me a reason to care I might not have resented the work it took to keep track of but they didn’t. One black hole. At no point did this film give me a real reason to give care other than it’s John McClane and my nostalgia should carry me through. One black hole. A chase scene that literally hurt my brain. One black hole. I’d say the explosions in this film rate 8/10 Micheal Beys. One black hole. I am going to hit them for drinking the “We must make things bigger in each film or else!” punch. One black hole. Crowbarring in a son and then have John show all the paternal instinct of Cronus (there’s a test of your education). Is there any father in the world who is OK with sending his son into a fight against trained mercenaries and his plan literally is to go in guns blazing? One black hole. Finally one more for being so wrapped up in the name Die Hard that they created one of the stupidest movie titles ever. One black hole. Total: eleven black holes.
A final total of eight black holes. It has been a while since I rained unholy hell on a film like this, but I feel justified doing it here. Die Hard was a masterpiece that should have been left to enjoy it’s success in the sun with a pina colada and a big umbrella. Instead they keep trotting it out of retirement to help move the furniture around and then then everyone acts surprised when it defecates on the carpet and dies. Who is to blame for this trend of exhuming corpses and using their bodies in puppet shows you ask? I am going to blame you, the audience. If you would only stop seeing this garbage then Hollywood would have no choice but to actually make something original and creative. Each Die Hard movie has made more money than the previous one, so why should Hollywood stop? Ugh. Should you see it? If you are a fan of John McClane or just want to kill 98 minutes than sure. If you are easily distracted by explosions and bright objects you will not feel any remorse. Date movie? Hell no. This film is an anti-date movie. Bathroom break? Since this film really only serves at an action delivery system (like the worlds stupidest t-shirt gun) then any of the non action scenes could be missed with ease. You might even enjoy the film more if you made up your own plot to connect the action sequences. If I had to be specific I’d say the scene where John starts off whining about how the whole opperation is blown before they head off to Chernobyl.
Thanks for reading. More to see soon. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Feel free to post comments on this film or my review here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Thanks and I will talk to you soon.
Dave
Snitch Review
Surprisingly good.
I can honestly say I have not to date really been a Dwayne Johnson fan. Not that I dislike him by any means. In action movies he has always delivered a solid action perfomance. It’s just that in my mind he never stood out. Until now I guess I thought of him as the carbon dioxide of action films; necessary on some level I’m sure (photosynthesis) but not nearly as interesting or fun as some of the other gases (oxygen or helium, for example).
The other thing about Dwayne Johnson is when you see him in a film you can pretty much put the movie into one of two categories: either an over the top action flick that stresses explosions over story or a dopey kids movie where he flies around on a giant bee or something. I honestly expected to see the first type when I rolled into the theater to see Snitch.
I now have to revise my opinion of Mr. Johnson. This film exceeds his normal boundaries in all ways by being well written, interesting, and founded on telling a story not showing car chases. I must applaud Dwayne for choosing it, and then proceeding to deliver a very credible performance. I was engaged with his character more than any other role I have seen him in and enjoyed his story very much. There were little character things I really liked, like his character staying at the warehouse to replace a shot out signal light on his brand new big rig.
That’s not to say the movie was flawless. There were a few issues, and you could occasionally see him revert to his super tough action guy persona. However, like a butterfly emerging timidly from it’s chrysalis and needed to flap it’s wings in order to dry and strengthen them I am going to say this film is the start of a more serious acting career and am very interested in seeing what he does next.
The other thing I enjoyed about this film is they managed to keep the action exciting and yet very believable. There were no monstrous explosions or gun fights where the good guy is effectively immune to bullets. What action there was seemed very realistic and there was a very believable Road Warrior-esque truck chase scene at the end that I really enjoyed. The truth is I’m getting sick of bigger explosions and car wrecks (just wait for my review of the new Die Hard film). Given that it has been established that the CGI and special effects technology is going to be amazing for any big budget film these days going bigger and more “exciting” just makes a film look more childish. This might be a positive symptom of a movie coming from a real life story (I remember thinking the same things about real life based movie Unstoppable) or it just might be a very smart and savvy decision made by the director to not gimmick his film up.
The story. John Mathews (Dwayne Johnson-Fast Five, Race to Witch Mountain, Journey 2: the Mysterious Island) owns a successful construction business in Missouri. His dopey 18 year old son (Rafi Gavron-the Cold Light of Day, Breaking and Entering, Mine Games) gets busted for receiving drugs in a way that has him being mostly innocent and due to draconian mandatory Federal sentencing laws gets 10 years. John begs the DA (Susan Sarandon-the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Thelma and Louise, Dead Man Walking) to help but she says she won’t do anything unless the kid helps her bust other drug dealers. 
John instead offers to help her himself and contacts a ex con working for him (Jon Bernthal-the Walking Dead, the Ghost Writer, Rampart. Walking Dead image courtesy of the Zombie T Shirt category) to introduce him to a local drug dealer (Michael Kenneth Williams-the Road, Gone Baby Gone, Brooklyn’s Finest). With the help of another DEA agent (Barry Pepper-Saving Private Ryan, True Grit, the Green Mile) they set up an operation where John uses one of his trucks to transport drugs.
The deal is soured when a rival drug cartel attacks them and John impresses the head guy with his coolness under fire. At the drop off bust rather than get the local guy the DEA agent opts to go up the chain to the bigger fish. John takes some convincing but in the end decides to help them out with a few twists of his own.
The stars. Good story. While it sounds like another drug action movie there were a lot of things going on, like a strong social commentary regarding the mandatory drug laws and the struggle of an ex con trying to get his life in order. Lots of plates spinning that made the story really engaging. Two stars. Good acting from pretty much everyone, especially Jon Bernthal IMO. One star. The limited action felt realistic and also felt like a necessary part of the story. In other words, the action facilitated the plot instead of the plot being a rickety rack to hang the action on. There were no tacked on scenes that made the film seem stupider. Two stars. Overall an impressive and enjoyable film. Two stars. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. While I understand the director was trying to say something about the unfairness of mandatory drug laws after a while I got a little tired of him beating it into our heads with the subtlety of a baseball bat with nails driven through it. One black hole. Once in a while you could see the old Dwayne Johnson acting style bleed through, setting him at odds with his characters main tone. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
Five stars total. A decent film worth watching. Date movie? Maybe. It’s not too action so she might get into the story but no real romance besides the fact that the two main dudes are married with kids and love their families. While nothing in this film will offend or turn her off, there is nothing here to really aid in your campaign to get her clothes off. Bathroom break? That’s easy. Any of the scenes where John goes to visit his son in prison. There is a plot point established there but it is running over three scenes so you could easily miss one and lose nothing.
Thanks for reading. Kind of a short review but honestly the ones I like end up getting the kid treatment. I did see the new Die Hard yesterday as well and just might have a few more words to share on that train wreck later on. Look for that review later today or tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Feel free to post comments on this film or my review at the bottom of this article. Off topic questions or comments can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Side Effects Review
One side effect was me being surprised how good it was.
Yes I’m back from one of the busiest and tiring weeks of my life. I started off Wednesday of last week driving to Burbank for the Grand Slam Star Trek show (it was decent and I met a lot of really cool fans, but at the end of the show when I added up everything I just didn’t make a ton of money and it was a huge headache. I’m putting a big question mark on going back next year). I got back Monday morning and then flew out Tuesday for a trade show in Vegas where I looked at a bunch of new T-shirts and had to keep seeing one of the two men on my permanent hate lists (I tend to be very forgiving and it takes a lot to make my permanent list. There are only two; one guy who cheats regularly at Warhammer (DIAF jackass) and one who cheated me out of an astronomical sum of money. The money guy was the one I had to keep seeing).
By the way before people start telling me how much fun I should be having spending a couple days in Las Vegas let me tell you that I am not really a Vegas guy. I don’t drink, I am too smart to gamble (and since I don’t drink I don’t enjoy free drinks while losing money), and I am too moral (and cheap) to hire the services of sex professionals. With all those off the table ask yourself what else is there to do in Vegas? I live in the Bay Area so generally food is better (and less expensive. When did food in Vegas get to be super spendy?) at home, I find most live theater boring, and for the most part the people are either really fake or the absolute dregs of humanity injected into an environment that encourages low brow activity. 
I know, I am dead boring and most of you would know how to have a blast in Vegas (usually doing stuff that seem to end with things that rhyme with “comet” and “luke”. Explain the appeal of drinking yourself into a coma. Dog Beers image courtesy of the Cheap T Shirt category) but I spent most of my free time watching Seinfeld reruns and wishing the hotel would enter the 21st century and have WiFi for my iPad (Luxor, suck it up and get with the times you 4 sided die. The Motel 6 I stayed at in Kettleman City two weeks ago had WiFi).
So, bored as hell I opted to see a movie and wound up in Side Effects (in a really crap theater. Vegas seems to hate anything that isn’t gambling. This theater looked, smelt, and felt like they should be showing classic X rated films to a bunch of guys in raincoats). Having seen Contagion I expected it to be the same sensationalist dry pap that writer Scott Burns seems to enjoy but was really pleasantly surprised. Instead of a pseudo documentary about the evils of psychotropic drugs, their side effects, and the pharmaceutical industries secret plan to keep the population safely medicated it was something else entirely. This film has some awesome twists so I am not going to go too deep into the story but trust me when I say it’s not what it appears on the surface.
Incidentally I am going to give the Side Effects marketing team a D- for selling this film. The trailers made it look exactly like the Contagion-esque documentary I wanted to avoid and thus really disinclined me to seeing it. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I would have had to wait 40 more minutes to see the new Die Hard I never would have watched it. Fail deluxe.
Like I said I really don’t want to throw out any spoilers so I am going to give this story the most tertiary treatment possible. Emily Talor (Mara Rooney-the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Social Network, Nightmare on Elm Street) plays the wife of insider trading prisoner Martin (Channing Tatum-21 Jump Street, the Vow, Magic Mike). He gets out of prison and finds his wife to be suffering from extreme depression. They go to a psychiatrist (Jude Law-Cold Mountain, Sherlock Holmes, Enemy at the Gates) who puts her on a series of psychotropic drugs.
Honestly I don’t want to get into it any more than that. The drugs have some unexpected side effects (oh, I see what they did there. Clever). Emily’s former psychiatrist (Catherine Zeta-Jones-Rock of Ages, Playing for Keeps, Entrapment. By the way, she was looking amazing in this film) surfaces to give some history. The plot goes in directions I didn’t expect in all the best ways.
The stars. Given the fact that most films seem to think audiences don’t want anything less predictable than riding on a merry-go-round for two hours I loved this film for the fact that the story honestly surprised me. Two stars. Excellent acting all around. Normally I have a jealousy driven hatred of Hollywood pretty boys like Channing Tatum (anyone know what kind of name Channing is? Is it possible his parents thought he would be some kind of amazing psychic medium but forgot an L on his birth certificate?) and Jude Law but in this film I thought they were both very appropriate and great. One star. Great dialog. One star. Mara Roomey and Catherine Zeta-Jones make up for some very pleasant scenes to look at. One star. At first the pacing felt slow but as the movie progressed I realized it was 100% correct for the story and by the end really appreciated it. One star. The story made sense and progressed in a logical, plot hole free manner. One star. Surprisingly fun and easy to enjoy. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. Not much, really. Given the experience of watching Mara in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I was expecting a lot more nudity but there was actually very little. I don’t know why they bothered with an R rating. The movie felt like PG-13. One black hole for unrealized potential I guess.
A grand total of six stars and a recommendation that you see it if you enjoy movies that engage more of your brain than the stem. Worth your time. Nothing on here demands that you see it on a big screen so you could easily NetFlix it but if you want to encourage quality film making drop a few bucks and see it in the theater. Date movie? Sort of. Nothing here to really get her motor started but she should enjoy it a great deal. On the other hand Channing Tatum does take off his shirt and Jude Law spends the whole movie talking with his dumb sexy British accent so if you feel you might suffer badly in comparison try to find a Kevin James marathon somewhere. Bathroom break? I am going to recommend you hold it for this one. The story has a very cool construction feel to it and if you miss the wrong scene you could end up not getting everything. If you really have to go I’d say your best bet is any scene involving Jude’s step son.
Thanks for reading. I have a lot of catching up to do, and have an idea for something new coming up using my completely defunct art degree. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu for updates on new posts and other thoughts. If you have a comment on this review or the movie itself please feel free to post it at the bottom of this article (if you don’t see a comment section click here). Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to me [email protected]. Thanks again and have a great day.
Dave
Stand Up Guys Review
Sit down, guys.
There’s a weird ego driven trend in Hollywood action movies these days. The fact is for stars who have achieved a certain level of success and notoriety there seems to be a hesitancy to give them roles that don’t have them be awesome in some way in spite of the fact that they are well past their action hero prime. It would seem to me after a while when it is obvious you don’t have the ability to go toe to toe with younger guys anymore you take the Clint Eastwood approach of one last signature movie (Unforgiven) and hang up your guns in favor of roles that stress your moral and character superiority (Gran Torino) or just show yourself in less appealing roles that display your acting ability. That does seem to be the path taken by some actors (Bill Murray was great in Lost in Translation and as himself in Zombieland for example) but for other stars it seems they can’t let go of the old magic (cough cough Expendables 2 cough cough).
I don’t even know if this is a reflection of the actors themselves per se. Christopher Walken was willing to play a doddering ex bad ass in Seven Psychopaths and Al Pacino took a role as himself that made him look like the biggest jackass in cinema history in Jack and Jill (did he even read the script before agreeing to do it?). I think in most cases this issue stems from the writer and the director. It’s like telling a kid to build a simple house out of Legos and them giving him a monstrously huge Lego collection (in other words, the contents of my office closet) complete with Medieval, space, Star Wars, pirate, and Harry Potter pieces. Sure, he could create a really good house with that, but the temptation to use this sudden wealth of resources is overpowering and by the time he is done the house has turned into a massive futuristic city with flying cars, space ships, monsters, gladiatorial arenas, defense turrets, and a standing army for defense against the mail man (in other words, a typical Saturday afternoon at my place).
How does this complex analogy apply to Stand Up Guys? (Spoilers incoming, so skip to the end of you will be annoyed by that) Well, the movie started out as an aging buddy picture with a really dark twist. Granted it was slow but it looked like it could actually move you to an emotional response (still waiting to see what that is like myself). However, given Al Pacino and Christopher Walken the director and writer opted to turn the whole thing into a dumb action movie for no apparent reason. Two old gangsters dealing with their mortality and friendship suddenly turn into action heroes, effectively robbing the majority of the gravitas built up until then and take what looked like a real film about real guys and made it into something George Lucas would be proud of (if it weren’t for the lack of annoying racist cartoon characters).
If a movie could be compared to building a castle (sorry now I’ve got my Medieval Legos on my brain) than Stand Up Guys would be made mostly of sand, ground up tire bits, and wood shavings glued together with spit and corn starch. The castle would be a dilapidated mess, but the only thing holding it up would be the most amazing buttresses ever in the form of Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin (Walken image courtesy of the Movie t shirt category). They really hold it together with their amazing characters and acting. In fact their talent is so out of place in this dross that you really wonder what they are all doing there.
The story is of Val (Al Pacino-the Godfather, Scarface, Heat) getting out of prison after 28 years. He is picked up by his best friend Doc (Christopher Walken-the Deerhunter, Things to do in Denver when you’re Dead, Suicide Kings) who takes him to his crappy apartment. They are both old gangsters. It is revealed quickly that Doc has been ordered by a gangster kingpin (Mark Margolis-Black Swan, Pi, the Wrestler) to kill Val for the death of his son and has given until 10 the next morning to do it. Val and Doc go out on the town to live it up one last time.
The two guys visit a brothel (a joke that gets beaten into the ground for way too long) and do some crime stuff such as steal Viagra and a sports car. They rescue their old friend Hirsh (Alan Arkin-Little Miss Sunshine, Argo, Edward Scissorhands) from an old age home who is still the most amazing drive ever or something.
At that point the movie stops being Godfather II meets Grumpy Old Men and starts being About Schmidt meets the Fast and the Furious with a smattering of Above the Law. Hirsh outraces a bunch of cops. They find a naked girl tied up in the trunk of their stolen car and go after the guys who kidnapped and raped her. They go back to the brothel for the 3rd time that night. With each disjointed action scene the connection you felt to the characters drains away. The ending the movie had been building up to all the way through gets dropped at the last minute for what was behind curtain number 2 (a huge pile of ass).
The stars. One each for Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin. Three stars. The rest of the supporting actors were much better than this script deserved. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Trying to make an action film out of a drama, and shifting the movie gears to an entirely different transmission in the last two minutes. One black hole. The running gag with the brothel scene took up about 1/3rd of the movie and really got old after a while. One black hole. The Madame of the brothel (Lucy Punch-Bad Teacher, Hot Fuzz, Dinner for Schmucks) is very easy on the eyes but she felt really miscast and consequently had the only part that felt fake to me (not really Lucy’s fault IMO). One black hole. The movie producers should go into time travel research because throughout the film they made each minute feel like three. One black hole. The ending of film managed to take an otherwise fairly tight script and riddle it with plot holes. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A total of one black hole. Worth seeing? Sure, if you want to concentrate on the performances of the three actors and aren’t concerned with the tone or story. A lot of my issues can be pretty esoteric so most of my specific points might be missed by someone not looking for nits to pick. However, there were long swaths of film that I would have found truly boring were it not for the actors. Odds are the viewer who doesn’t see the subtleties will find those to be a grind. See it in the comfort of your own home. Nothing on the screen requires a theater. Date movie? Meh. Most women aren’t into these guys as dudes are, and that will only leave her bored. Bathroom break? Any of the scenes in the brothel could be missed with impunity. The best parts of this film is the acting chemistry between Walken and Pacino so try to see all of those.
Thanks for reading. I am getting ready for the Star Trek show in Burbank this weekend and don’t know if I will have time to do much for a few days. If you have comments on this film or my review please post them at the bottom of this article (if you don’t see a comment section click here). Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu or email me with off topic suggestions and questions at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Bullet to the Head Review
And one for Jenny and the wimp.
Bonus points for anyone who knows where I got this one (search frantically). Anyway, this is going to be a bad month for aging action stars as the films by Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Pacino have all tanked horribly. As a fan of all three of these guys I am worried that Hollywood will pretty much pass on them in favor of younger, more androgynous action stars. While it is true that the old should make way for the new the problem is the new crop of action stars (with the possible exception of Jason Statham, but really he is in a weird category all by himself) are to a man so blasé and formulaic it’s like they are being cloned from the blandest handsome man ever and are truly forgettable.
I’m not kidding about this. When you are asked to name an action star the names that leap into mind are Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Eastwood, Willis, Cruise, and Gibson. 10 years from now are you really going to think of Gosling, Cooper, Worthington, or Lebeouf? There’s nothing distinctive about these guys (well, if being a whiny bitch is distinctive than Lebeouf has found his niche). This is actually the downside of actors trying to avoid getting typecast. If your talent is in action then it is OK to be an action star.
Anyway, Bullet to the Head. An enjoyable B movie. My issue is I really wanted it to be more. It is directed by Walter Hill who’s filmography reads like parts of my all time favorite movie list. 
Aliens, the Warriors, Deadwood (the HBO show. See it if you haven’t), Red Heat, Last Man Standing, and Demon Knight. Of course he also did Alien 3, Alien vrs. Predator, and Prometheus (many people love that movie but I have certain reservations. Caution Alien image courtesy of the Cheap T Shirt category), so he does not have the Midas touch. However, with all that film history I was hoping to see a true diamond in the rough. Some effort was made to create a Crescent City crime noir film (complete with private eye-style voice over monolog) but in the end the story is both extremely simple and lacking in a lot of motivation.
I will say that Stallone is still looking rock hard in this, as he did in Expendables 2. He’s definitely aged, but it has turned into that really cool “carved from a hunk of driftwood” Eastwood look that is even more bad ass. In the contest to see who’s aging best I think he’s got it over Arnold.
The story. Sylvester Stallone plays James Bonomo, hit man with a modest sense of honor (no women or kids. Why is it a lot of actors are willing to play the sociopath only to a certain level? More on that when I review Stand Up Guys). He and his partner (Jon Seda-12 Monkeys, Primal Fear, Bad Boys II) take out some guy. While waiting at a crowded bar to get paid mercenary Keegan (Jason Momoa-Stargate: Atlantis, Conan the Barbarian, Game of Thrones) kills his partner and tries to kill Bonomo. Afterwards he feels more or less indifferent about his ex partner but decides to avenge him because the guy never caused him any problem(?).
Before I go on I’d like to say that the low level of motivation is endemic to this movie. At no time are we given a reason why the head bad guy wants to kill Bonono rather than just pay him, what his reason is for hiring mercenaries and contract killers for some kind of real estate scheme when lawyers and lobbyist probably would have done it, why Keegan is even willing to work for him, or why the cop that teams up with Bonono even gives half a damn about the death of some known scumbag in a city 966 miles and several states away from his jurisdiction (this was the one point that really ground on me. Don’t the DC police have murders to deal with that they can actually prosecute? I doubt they have the budget to buy a cop a bus ticket to go to New Orleans). This lack of motivation really tends to disconnect the audience from the story.
Anyway, Washington DC cop Taylor Kwan (Sung Kang-Fast Five, Live Free or Die Hard, Ninja Assassin (never saw this movie, but for the record Sang is Korean not Japanese)) comes to New Orleans to investigate the first guy killed (there’s some back story about the guy being an ex WDCPD cop, but really there are a lot of ex cops out there). In the morgue he sees Bonono’s partner and uses his intuition to connect the two. He and Bonono meet up and after Bonono rescues him and has his hot tattoo artist daughter ((Sarah Shahi-Life (good show IMO), Old School, Fairly Legal) patch a bullet wound they team up to find the main guy .
At that point the story kind of just grinds itself out. They use a mix of cop techniques (i.e. calling the police department and having them track down guys) and criminal techniques (beating the hell out of guys for information) to track down the main bad guys. Kwan makes the decision that letting Stallone run around killing guys is an acceptable compromise in order to capturing this mysterious bigger bad guy neither of them have ever seen or heard of (another story disconnect for me. Don’t police swear some kind of oath to uphold the law and protect people, even criminals (and especially criminals tied to a chair?)). The crawl up the chain and get to the guy below the main guy Marcus Baptiste (Christain Slater. Good to see him working again. I’ve always like him. True Romance, 3000 Miles to Graceland, Pump Up the Volume) and through him get to the big bad guy Morel (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje-G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra, Lost, the Bourne Identity).
Anyway, stuff blows up. The hot daughter is kidnapped. Keegan does a bunch of stuff that makes little to no sense. He and Bonono have an axe duel. The end.
The stars. Stallone movie. One star. While the acting wasn’t much to write home about, this role suited Stallone’s personal style extremely well. His character was pretty cool. One star. The action was fun even if it smacked of over the top at times. One star. Normally I would black hole a movie for having the main character do a voice over monolog, but in this one it kind of worked (especially if you think of it as a noir homage). One black hole. I actually liked Kang as a supporting star, and it’s refreshing to see more Asians get roles normally reserved for Caucasian or African Americans. One star. I fell in love with Sarah Shahi when I watched Life and she is even hotter in this one. One star. In spite of the story limitations and all the other issues associated with a B movie this one was fun to watch. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The lack of character motivation was a continuous annoyance. It was like having a five year old kid kicking the back of the seat the whole time. Even now I can’t figure out what the hell everyone was trying to do. One black hole. The lack of motivation contributed to the story being extremely simple and non-challenging. One black hole. The whole thing with a cop letting a murderer (who has committed murders right in front of the cop) run around to kill more people was also very distracting. One black hole. The R rating felt really unnecessary. There was nudity but it was almost all side boob, and the action wasn’t particularity bloody or even that violent. If it weren’t for a gross autopsy scene I’d say this film could have easily toned down the language and gotten a PG-13 rating, and rated R for language is like eating ice cubes when you are really hungry. One black hole. Total: three stars.
Not great, but not unworthy of being watched. I’d say entertaining but not a whole lot more. See it in a theater if you feel a hankering for popcorn or on NetFlix if you want to drink beer (this film will rock with a couple of beers in you). Date movie? Probably not. Definitely a guys film. Bathroom break? There is a scene towards the end where Kang uses the daughters computer to look at a flash drive. It’s already been established that the evidence on the flash drive will destroy Morel so it’s beating a dead horse, and since they end up doing nothing with it anyway it’s a worthless scene. Short scene so go quickly.
Thanks for reading. I will be reviewing Stand Up Guys later today or tomorrow morning and want to see Side Effects or Identity Thief so check back soon. I’m leaving Wednesday for the Grand Slam, a decent Star Trek show in Burbank. If you are going stop by and say hi. Just ask for Dave the t-shirt guy. If things are slow I will be very happy to discuss movies with you (plus the girl working my booth is drop dead gorgeous. No joke). Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this movie or my review feel free to post them at the bottom of this post (or click here if you don’t see a comment section). Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Important Lessons Learned from Movies: Hudson Hawk
Last night at movie night (where we watched Johnny Dangerously, a movie that constantly hovered around good and funny but never went in like a very timid hummingbird with a flower phobia) the discussion turned to other bad/good movies from history. The subject of Hudson Hawk, Bruce Willis’s attempt to reinvent his Moonlighting character as the worlds greatest cat burglar came up. While this movie did indeed suck on many levels, on other levels it was hilarious. As I thought about it an important life lesson returned to my cerebral cortex.
The lesson is this: just because the plunger bomb gun plunger bomb stuck to you forehead turns out to be a dud does not mean the plunger bomb gun plunger bomb stuck to the wall behind you is (in case you missed it, the plunger bomb gun was my favorite part of the movie and I like saying plunger bomb gun). If you are faced with two forms of certain death it’s OK to run away from one of them in the hopes that the second one is less certain than it appears on paper. Sure, either one of them will probably kill you but if both of them are 99% than it’s better to have a 1% chance of survival than a 0.01% chance.
Bomb technician graphic courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category, by the way.
Dave
Hansel & Gretel Review
This film puts the “Gret” in “I regret watching it”.
I think this movie is a good opportunity to talk about a commodity in films knows as “suspension of disbelief”. Suspension of disbelief is needed to a lesser or greater extent in all films, if only because you know the people are all acting and not really getting killed, or falling in love, or shooting webs out of their wrists. This is why actual real footage of accidents or romance is so much more impactful than the greatest scenes ever created.
(movie image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category)
The problem is there is only so much suspension of disbelief available in the universe. Actively disbelieving something you know to be true (like aliens don’t really burst from the chest of humans) is a conscious decision you as the viewer opt to make, and like all conscious efforts it requires work. The more you have to suspend your disbelief the harder your brain is working, thus making the viewing experience more tiring.
There are ways of extending the amount of disbelief an audience will stomach. A great story, interesting characters, excellent special effects, or even something we really want to believe is true (like super heroes actually have super powers that work) will allow you to disbelieve more than you normally would. However, when you hear people talking about a story or character being really “real” what they are really saying is these things are easier to watch and enjoy because their brains don’t have to work so hard.
Unfortunately, Hansel & Gretel have none of the disbelief extending elements. The story is ass, the characters actually add to the disbelief by dressing like they were from 17th century Bavaria but sounding like they just got back from the Galleria, the special effects were nothing of note, and the Brothers Grimm story of Hansel and Gretel is not so beloved by anyone in Western Culture that we would want to believe that they could grow up to be witch killing super ninjas. Then, in what can only be some kind of evil science experiment to see how much disbelief it takes to break all the brains in a movie theater the need for disbelief gets ramped up to 11(000) by showing us some of the dopiest old school super technology ever. Ever wonder why the didn’t have monofiliment wire, miniguns, machinegun crossbows that don’t need ammo, beehive rounds, pump action shotguns, and insulin in the 17th century? That’s because it was all being used by Hansel and Gretel to kill witches, of course.
This weird super technology was remarkably similar to the idiotic contraptions from the epically bad the Three Musketeers. In fact, they were so similar that I decided it couldn’t be a coincidence and sure enough after a little digging I found that Stefen Kolbe was the prop maker for both films. He must have some kind of hypnotic super power over film directors because somehow he gets them to give him a green light to cook up anything he feels like making and put them in the films. The whole film looks like a prop makers ego trip and self gratification project.
The sad part is like I said in my review for the Three Musketeers all this dumb non-existent technology actually adds nothing to the movie and instead drags it down like an anchor. This film could have been decent if they had gotten rid of all this and the ninja super powers and just had Hansel and Gretel hunting witches using the technology of the period. Perhaps they had a team of henchmen who died like red shirts and a priest to back them up (if you have ever read the book Vampire$ by John Steakley you can imagine what this would look like. Don’t see the movie) and can only kill a witch with the blood of a half dozen guys killed in the effort.
How much more engaging would the characters be if we could believe that they were seriously taking their lives into their hands every time they went against a witch? In this film Hansel and Gretel almost always act like fighting witches is kind of easy. Even when they were in a hard fight they never had a moment of fear or real emotion. Remember the movie Aliens when all the super confident Colonial Marines got killed early on and from that moment on the entire cast was terrified because even a single alien could kill them? Think about how much more you identified with Ripley. Nothing bleeds tension from a film like having the protagonists act like killing their enemies is more an inconvenience than anything else.
Sigh. The story. Hansel and Gretel are abandoned by their parents in the woods for no apparent reason as children. They come to a witches house made of candy and she tries to eat them. They push her into an oven and grow up to be the worlds greatest witch hunters (Jeremy Renner-the Avengers, Hurt Locker, the Bourne Legacy and Gemma Arterton-Clash of the Titans, Quantum of Solace, Prince of Persia). Fast forward an ill defined number of years and they are hired by the mayor of a local village to find a bunch of missing children. They stop the sheriff from burning to death a super hot red head (who later shows us some bare ass. I hope my best friend is reading this. He loves red heads. Pihla Viitala-Tears of Helsinki, Must Have Been Love, Red Sky) as a witch. They go witch hunting but the head witch (Famke Janssen-Phoenix from the X-Men series, Taken 2, Down the Shore) has some secret plan to make witches immune to fire, thus making them immortal (can someone who saw this explain how this was a good plan? She seemed to think that burning was the only thing that witches were vulnerable too, but most of the witches in this film were either shot, dismembered, or decapitated). Some other guys get sent out into the forest by the sheriff and meet a gruesome end.
Ugh. Recounting this feels like trying to run a length of iron rebar through a hand crank meat grinder. The two find their old house and start to piece together the mystery of why their parents abandoned them in the woods Scooby Doo-style, but just when the story might have had some kind of interesting plot elements the head witch shows up and tells them in exacting details what happened to their parents like she was reading the script Cliff notes. They get their asses beat on and Gretel gets captured. Hansel finds an arsenal of weapons that have no business existing on the other side of 1992 and with the help of the super hot red head (turns out she actually was a witch, but a good one) and some local kid turn the witch ceremony into a comical gun fight.
The stars. A little nudity (very little, but what there was was of extremely high quality). One star. Gretel, the head witch, and the red head were all very easy on the eyes. One star. Total: two stars.
The black holes. The propmaker obviously wanted to be working on Star Trek, not this garbage. Also I’m pretty sure I spotted a zipper on Hansel’s off the rack leather Harley jacket. Two black holes. The story was about as dumb as possible. One black hole. Both Hansel and Gretel looked like they were bored through most of this film, pretty much killing the slightest amount of tension and giving us no reason to really give a damn. Two black holes. The action was laughable, but not in a it’s-fun-to-laugh-at-dumb-action sort of way. One black hole. It’s weird for me to ask for this given how I bitched about it in the Last Stand but this film really could have used a fish-out-of-water comic relief to help off set all the stupidity. All the jokes were delivered by Hansel and Gretel in the same bored affect that they delivered everything else. One black hole. I’m running out of funny predicable things to compare predictable movies to so I will just say this film was very predicable. One black hole. This movie pretty clearly ripped of the speeder bike scene from the Return of the Jedi. One black hole. Finally, two black holes for missing some decent opportunities and spending 88 minutes insulting my intelligence. Total: eleven black holes.
A grand total of nine black holes. How bad is it really? Well, it didn’t feel like this movie was causing me actual pain, and I did like most of the actresses in it. If this film had been done as a cartoon (manga) it might have been decent. I’d say if you were home sick with something that caused you to frequently run to bathroom and expel things from one end or the other this film would keep you from being totally bored. You could miss segments without losing out on the quality of the story. Overall I think this movie just got lazy. Maybe it started as a decent idea and had something of a budget but after a while the producers just figured “F it”. Date movie? Sure, if you are trying to get her to dump you to spare yourself the pain of dumping her. Bathroom break? Feel free at pretty much anytime you like (including the climactic final battle) but if you want a specific time I’d say the scene right after Gretel is rescued by Edward the Troll is an opportune moment.
Thanks for reading. Lots of new stuff out recently, so I will try to see something cool in the next day or two. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post comments on this movie or my review at the bottom of this article (or click here if you don’t see a comment section). Off topic questions and suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. Have a great day.
Dave
Warm Bodies Review
Definitely has a pulse.
Thousands of years from now when alien archeologists are sifting through the decayed ruins of our once mighty civilization some clever PhD student will write a thesis claiming that that the decline and fall of Western Civilization (if you know where that came from we should hang out and listen to music some time) started when the entertainment priests decreed that all forms of film need to appeal to to teenage girls. When you think about it, the film Interview with a Vampire turned vampires from horrible blood sucking monsters into teeny bopper dreamboats that goth girls swoon over, setting the stage for the inevitable worst case scenario, the entire Twilight series. We have recently seen the noble film role of brutal melee combat switched over with the Hunger Games, and now we see them make a stab at turning zombies into adolescent romance fulfillment.
First of all let me do a huge public service to any dumb teenage girls who think having a zombie boyfriend sounds like a good idea. The idea of zombies being so charmed by you and falling in love is ludicrous. No matter how much like a hipster dreamboat he may look like, when he gets close he will smell like death and try to eat your brains (new Caution sign courtesy of the Zombie T Shirt category). Of course, the same thing could be very well said about vampires (that they are evil blood suckers who only want your life essence and burst into flame in daylight, not pretty boy sparkle fairies) so I doubt any of you will listen.
On the drive home from this film I was worried that this, like Interview, would be patient zero for the deluge of zombie romance films but upon reflection I decided this is a seed not likely to take root. When you think about it Hollywood is fighting an uphill battle trying to convince us that zombies are sexy. They got away with in this film (more on that later) but the fact is they are animate rotting corpses and if there is anything remotely romantic about that for you do the world a favor and move to a pod at the bottom of the ocean please.
So this film was cute and I did indeed enjoy it. However, it could have been amazing and instead opted for trite and cute. This is the only real issue I have with this film. You see, the idea of societal integration of zombies has been well explored in great movies like Fido and Shaun of the Dead. In those films zombies are still rotting corpses but uses are found for them. In this film the zombies are coming back to life, but we only see ones who do are fortunate enough to not be missing their lower jaw, or have half their face rotted away.
Think how shocking and cool the story could have been if the main zombie had not been a hipster pretty boy (by the way, in retrospect it is pretty amazing how well hipster guys play zombies. When you think about it there is something zombie-ish about all hipsters: bad hair, pale skin, poor posture, and clothing that looks like they crawled out of a shallow grave wearing it. Put a picture of a zombie next to a picture of a guy stumbling home from Zeitgeist in San Francisco and I defy you to accurately tell the difference) but instead been a gross, rotting zombie missing half of one cheek (classic image) and most of one arm who starts to recover his faculties and falls in love with a living human. She then falls for him not because he looks like Elliot Smith but because he saves her life over and over again and shows that he cares for her. That would be a great story. Then imagine of all the zombies regained their facilities, even the Boneys, forcing humans to reintegrate with walking skeletons. But no, all the recovered zombies have to be more or less perfectly human and all the bad guys have to be horribly disfigured. Lazy.
By they way, for those of you who know me and believe me to be a zombie purist and are wondering why I am not incensed about the idea of zombies recovering their brains let me tell you that as a concept that one has been long established in books like The Omega Man and most of the Romero films. The idea is that as time goes by they learn more using what brains they have left. I don’t have an issue with it.
The story. It is eight years past the Zombie Apocalypse and power is still running in some airport. A zombie later named R (Nocholas Hoult-X-Men First Class, About a Boy, A Single Man) stumbles around with his friend M (Rob Corddry-Hot Tub Time Machine, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, What Happens in Vegas) running an inner monolog narrative that details the undead life. He collect things like vinyl records and knows how to play them (using batteries that have lasted eight years as well). Meanwhile in the last remaining human stronghold eight cool kids with no training or experience are sent out in the wild to recover drugs or something. Among them is Julie (Teresa Palmer-I am Number Four, Bedtime Stories, the Sorcerers Apprentice), the daughter of the local dictator (the great John Malkovich-Being John Malkovich, Burn After Reading, Con Air). They are in a hospital when R and a bunch of his cronies attack. The kids show how incompetent they are (one guy yells “Shoot the head!”. Thanks Captain Obvious) and get pretty much all chomped. R eats the brains of Julie’s boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco-21 Jump Street, Superbad, Fright Night) and gains some of his memories. He has some kind of emotional reawakening and falls in love with Julie. He rescues her from the group and hides her in his plane. At that point the film devolves into a goofy romantic survival movie, with R trying to keep Julie both alive and interested in him.
Meanwhile the “Boneys” (zombies who have degenerated to the point where they have no capacity for emotion at all and are walking skeletons) have a problem with all this newfound emotion. R’s reawakening spreads to M and then to all the others. The humans, zombies, and Boneys all scrum up in an epic battle. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but if you have any kind of deductive reasoning (and by any kind I mean if you can deduce that jumping into a swimming pool will get you wet) then literally no part of this film will surprise you.
The stars. Cute and fun. Two stars. Interesting twist on zombies. One star. Zombie movie. One star. John Malkovich. One star. The new creepy-old-man love of my life Analeigh Tipton (Crazy, Stupid Love, the Green Hornet, Damsel in Distress) was looking super cute in this, and Teresa Palmer is pretty easy on the eyes too. One star. Overall an enjoyable movies. Two stars. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. Trite, with missed opportunities to be awesome. One black hole. A four year old could have predicted how this film was going to end (and, for that matter, pretty much every scene in it). I guess plot twists are passé. One black hole. Every kid in this film, human or zombie, reminded me of every super cool kid in high school that I wanted to murder. Also the main kid might have been a zombie, but if hipster were a disease I know what he died of. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
So five stars total. A good movie, and worth seeing. Definitely on the light side, so don’t expect too much. I think even a hard core zombie fan could enjoy this as long as he or she doesn’t take it too seriously. Date movie? If she is into zombies, vampires, or anything even remotely nerdy than absolutely. If this doesn’t get you laid I don’t know what will. If she is not into any of these things she will probably still like it as it is cute and romantic, but she might be grossed out by some of the undead stuff. Bathroom break? There is a scene where R and Julie shack up in a house for the night that is not really critical for the story. Most of this film is worth seeing and it’s only 97 minutes so I’d say try to hold it.
Thanks for reading. I have been really kind in my reviews lately. I think I need to buckle down and see something awful so I can remember what is like to deliver righteous vengeance on to a deserving bad flick. Looks like Hansel & Gretal wins that honor. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Feel free to post any comments on this film or my review at the bottom of the page (if you don’t see a review section click here). Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
