Month: February 2012

Bottle Shock is a movie about Wine in the 1970s and how America is better than France. Honestly, if you made it past the first half of the sentence congrats, because you got to see the second half, and realized that it is in fact awesome. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Coming this summer on NBC.

Based on a real story, this tales the story of how Napa Valley, California made its mark in the world. They had winos there, but the rest of the world didn’t seem to care. Including Alan Rickman, a British man who really really loves his wine so he moved to France and opened up a wine shop. But none of the French people will invite him to their wine games. His friend says he is way too culturally wine-ist. He doesn’t even give USA wine a chance. So he says, fuck it, lets go to America.

In Napa, Bill Pullman is running his own wine colony. Left a high paying job, is a perfectionist, but no one cares. He is divorced, and his no good son Chris Pine is a damn hippie, despite it being the 70s still, and way too free spirited. Not to mention Freddy Rodriguez is working on his own secret bash. He also has to worry about the new intern Rachel Taylor screwing everyone really.

Rickman’s character travels around the US to find the best wines, even paying for samples. He wants to set up a blind taste test, the first of its kind. Where the judges give ratings without knowing what they are drinking. Something about French bias, but apparently it was never done before. Lot of drama occurs, lack of funds, wine going bad, fear that Rickman is just setting them up to bring them down, and questioning life choices. But since this is a real story, yes, the Pullman wine ends up winning, despite the judges best attempts to pick a french wine.

Those hippies have such soft hands.

Oh yeah, Eliza Dushku is in here too, as a sleezy bartender. What what!?

Now, parts of the movie seemed slow, and some of the drama associated with it seemed a bit unnecessary. The Rodriguez plot line, which you assume will be a major player, turned out to, well, not matter. Also, not as much Dushku as I’d have guessed. Also, pretty obvious at what would happen in the movie.

But hey, at least it was decently funny and entertaining!

I first saw the preview for Gentlemen Broncos years ago, but then forgot about it. I remember it sounded interesting, if not fucking weird. Unfortunately the box screams out don’t watch me. After all, its biggest selling point is from the creators of Napoleon Dynamite. Eugch.

Although I like weird movies, I generally prefer some sort of plot to go with them.

Michael Angarano (guy from Sky High. You should know that by now. Sky High may be my most linked to movie that I have never reviewed) is a home schooled student in a small town with strong morals. A simple life he leads, as his dad died a long time ago, and his mom, Jennifer Coolidge, makes night gowns and clothes, for hefty prices. She also has an obsession with making objects from popcorn balls.

Heh. Balls.

Anyways dude likes to write stories! Has his whole life, preferably sci-fi. His best tale is called The Yeast Lords, and is about a futuristic world and you know, lot of weird stuff. His main character is Bronco, played by Sam Rockwell. Mostly because throughout the movie when people read the sections, we get to see the story in all of its (wtf) glory. His mom does an awesome thing and sends him to a very small writing camp for home schooled people, where he meets controlling Halley Feiffer, and her friend Hector Jimenez (from Nacho Libre. HUGE MOUTH) who makes movies/trailers.

Anyways, he enters his story into a contest. The best story is supposed to get a small publishing deal. But famous sci-fi writer Jemaine Clement is in danger of losing his monies, because his last few stories have sucked. He is drawn into Yeast Lords, and changes it up, taking it as his own. He of course changes all the names, and makes Brutus a transsexual, and bam, best seller. At the same time, Mike has sold his film rights to Hector, and they are creating a short film based off of the Yeast Lords as well. Will Mike be able to prove that the Yeast Lords is his own story? Will Jemaine get away with it all? Why does Mike White looks so damn weird?

Just how badass are the Surveillance Does?

As you can probably guess, the parts of the movie starring Bronco/Brutus are amazingly cheesy and poor looking. This just gives them a better charm, because the story is in no way captivating. The films comedy thrives off of the general awkwardness of all the individuals involved that just will not go away. The movie had a believable ending, based on the type of world it set up anyways, and you more or less think everyone got what they deserved by the end.

So I thought it was great but it is definitely a weird one.

The Big Bang! Huh. Okay, but are they talking about guns? Or are they talking about the creation of the universe?

MAYBE. Just maybe! A gun that can create universes when it shoots. That’d be wicked, if not super sci-fi.

But Antonio Banderas is normally more subtle than a universe creating gun.

So AB is an LA PI. He is hired to find a missing stripper girlfriend (Sienna Guillory) of a russian boxer (Robert Maillet). She is missing, obviously. But she also has about 30 million dollars in diamonds. But this turns into a zany adventure that might involve the destruction of the world!

And the plot is hard to describe. Lets just say it involves people actually trying to recreate the big bang under New Mexico (inspired by a True story?), and the Feds trying to find out where and stop them, you know. But first AB has to explain is story to the cops! Sam Elliot plays the madman, with Jimmi Simpson as his Physicist. We also have William Fichtner playing an FBI guy, and the Dawson playing another guy.

Oh yeah, and Autumn Reeser plays a waitress in a small town, who gets turned on by particle physics, and is part of probably one of the hotter sex scenes in a movie that came out in 2011, probably. Just so you know. And it is super, super nerdtastic.

Maybe the only reason to watch the movie. Maybe not.

I am torn on my opinions on this movie, which is why I am giving it the 2 out of 4. It reminded me of The Spirit, in terms of CGI cheesyness, mostly involving backgrounds and stuff. Seemed like they were just having fun with it all. But also the first bits were more confusing and made me un interested. But the plot, it was actually pretty smart, in its terminology, and in what ended up happening. It involves a lot of physics, obviously. But also it was super weird? I think it might need to watch it again to understand it all.

I don’t even know how understandable that last paragraph is! This movie is either incredibly great, or incredible stupid, and I just do not know. Try it out? Let me know.

One of the central plots in The Invention of Lying was that the main guy was a writer/actor whatever, and in their world, all they did was read about the past for their movie. He got assigned the shitty years apparently, and the only event he had to work with really was the Black Plague. As they constantly joked in that movie, you can’t make a good movie about the Black Death!

When I heard that I called BS. Who wouldn’t want a nice movie about the Black Death? Shit was crazy! Disease, dead people, more diseases, populations wiped out. No real war I guess…probably some accusations of black magic. Maybe that is it. But you know?

Looks like SOMETHING is about to happen.

So obviously this movie is about disease. And one village that is getting destroyed by it hears rumors of another village that has not been plagued. Sean Bean, all knightly, wants to go investigate. He gets a group of people, including the priest monk dude Eddie Redmayne.

The journey takes awhile and then eventually they find the village! Lead by a woman, Carice van Houten, who might be a necromancer? What? She has apparently brought someone back to life. Oh shit, they aren’t Christians!

And yeah. The plot is basically that. They try to figure out if the woman really has powers, are trying to find out why the village has had no plague, and you know, not get killed in the process. But that plan also goes poorly. People get locked up, and maybe sacrificed.

The movie had a lot more pretty brutal violence than I was expecting, almost reminded me of Saw levels, just in action movie form not horror. So that torture porn stuff might be relevant.

She’s a witch! Burn her!

And yeah. I think I know what the movie was overall going for. Closer to the end the themes were a bit better to pick up on, and what might have been occurring with the main characters. BUT. It just took way too long to get to that point. By then I could barely find myself interested in the movie. I was actually turned off by the amount of violence in this movie, if you can believe that. So it wasn’t really the type of experience I was hoping for a Black Plague movie. But then again, not sure what kind of experience I’d expect.

Uh oh guys. Look out. A movie that deals with racism and the civil rights movement!

How can you mess a movie up like that? Those are generally automatically good. Right? Name a bad one. Do it. Try. You can’t. Unless the movie isn’t actually about racism though. That is a way around it!

Because this movie is about Bees. And if I know anything about bees, they are the opposite of Racism.

The Secret Life Of Bees first looks like another movie where white people solve racism. It opens with Dakota Fanning watching an argument between her mom and her dad, Paul Bettany. Looks like he is abusing her? So she tries to save her and shoots a gun, hitting her mom instead. Errr.

So yeah. Awkward family home. Thankfully they still have some help in Jennifer Hudson so that Bettany doesn’t completely ruin her. On Hudson’s way to sign up to vote (new rights!) she gets attacked, and definitely didn’t try to avoid it. This made Fanning mad, helped bust her out of her hospital bed and they ran away!

Eventually they get to a house in another city, and crazy thing, it is owned by a black woman! And its big! Lots of acres. And they farm bees/honey? For profit? WHAT? Queen Latifah is the breadwinner and oldest sister, August. Then there is Alicia Keys as Celloist / Teacher June, and Sophie Okonedo as weird May.

SO YEAH. Some things happen more. Like the dad searching for the daughter. Truth about the mom. A possible lover being arrested (for yes, being black). Kidnapping, lynching, and suicide. Yet this isn’t really about racism.

Right! It is about honey!!

What this movie really is about is a little girl, coming to terms with being a woman, learning the truth of her past, and you know, normal coming of age stuff. Like love, and taxes.

But I think overall the acting wasn’t up to par with normal movies of this similar type of theme. I felt like it didn’t really give me anything new, despite the obviously unique story. Is that weird? Parts felt overly dramatic, and left me asking myself why that would happen next.

So yeah, I am giving the lower review thanks to it messing up what should be easy good movie points.

From everything I heard about Drive, what I heard the most was how good the “cinematography” was. Camera choices were brilliant, chase and driving scenes sexy, and all of that. Well damn, I thought to myself, I have to see this on Blu-Ray then! Well unfortunately this is a DVD review. I know, I know, lame sauce.

Don’t worry. My website is still in HD quality.

Ryan Gosling plays the Driver! I like writing that because that is his cast name. So mysterious eh? Gosling works as a mechanic, and a stunt driver for movies, but also as a get away driver for criminals. He tells them the same thing every time, that he will wait for five minutes, and then get them to safety, then never talk again. He also works for Bryan Cranston for the mechanic/stunt work (not sure on the Criminal parts. Maybe). But they are looking to expand, possibly into real racing because man, Gosling is a Driver.

Cranston gets a 300k loan from some shady Albert Brooks fella to invest in a stock car to get them the monies. Also going on is that the Driver has a neighbor, Carey Mulligan, who he assumes is a single mom. TURNS OUT NO. Her husband / ex husband is still there, Oscar Isaac (named Standard wtf?). Turns out he is just gonna die possibly, and since Driver might like the neighbor, doesn’t want to see them all sad over that.

Driver agrees to help him get away from another crime that will pay off all of his debts, for Ron Perlman. Simple enough. And hey, Christina Hendricks is there too. What could go wrong?

“Fear/panic” face. Ignore stuff in the background. (cough).

Things go wrong, people die, can he save himself and the ones he might now care for?

It was a very interesting story, that really let the use of silence carry the story forward at points. Long scenes, that were yes, well shot were a great bonus. A little excessive violence never really hurt anyone either. I also loved the soundtrack. Full of weird electro synth pop stuff mostly.

I can also see why this movie could be polarizing. I think the ending was lacking, they could have done something more there. That is a common complaint you will hear. Other people may call it boring or not action-y enough. But eh, opinions are opinions. Mine is that this was pretty good but not top of the plateau.