Month: September 2013

Empire State‘s cover looks like your generic action movie with no substance. Maybe that is why it went straight to DVD?

That’s not nice. I know plenty of straight to DVD movies I have enjoyed watching. I have nothing else exciting to say before the plot outline. 🙁

I will note that only one of these two gents made it to the DVD cover. Behold, the two main stars.

Chris Potamitis (Liam Hemsworth) wants to do good in his life. He really does. But life just keeps screwing him over. His dad gets canned after a long career, and the bills are piling up. He wants to be a cop, but he fails that test because he was arrested a few years ago for pot at a concert with his friend, Eddie (Michael Angarano). Shit. A one time mistake, and it has cost him.

So instead he is able to get a job at the Empire State Armored Truck Company. Kind of like being a cop. He gets a gun and a uniform at least. He just drives around collecting and storing money. Turns out, this company is chill as shit. No one cares, it is very slack. They don’t even count the money at the end of the day, they just stack them on crates between transfers. He is pretty sure people are skimming money off the top. The security cameras don’t even face the money!

Maybe he should take some money. The company itself is pretty scummy as well…

Dwayne Johnson plays a cop who is sent as the lead investigator for the post robbery. Emma Roberts isn’t really in this movie at all. She is like, a sister, or something, and in two small scenes maybe. Yet full cover treatment. Gotta love that stuff.

No. Fuck that. That is stupid. The cover shows Hemsworth, The Rock, and Roberts on the cover. They don’t show Angarano, the other male lead. They show Emma Roberts and she isn’t really in the movie. She has top billing on IMDB, and Michael Angarano has sixth. They put two other random people over him too. What the fucking fuck?

Shit, even the Rock barely looks like himself in this movie. Hiding in plain sight?

This sack of shit is based on a true story. Biggest cash heist in American history or something. Wasn’t really successful, because obviously they eventually got caught.

Somehow, they were able to take this story and give us one of the most boring action movies I have seen in recent memory. I know, I say action movies are boring a lot. But this one barely had any action in it at all. Everything after they took the money just had me falling asleep. Oh no, cops and mob people are mad at them. Oh well.

Watching Liam Hemsworth get beat up a lot I guess sort of redeemed it. A little bit.

But this film had scummy advertising, bad plot and action, and just overall felt very insulting to call it a movie. Sure, it was a movie. But barely.

0 out of 4.

I don’t even remember why I first heard about Vamps. I think I heard it coming out to theaters, it never did, I was “sad”, then I moved on with my life as a normal human being.

But after watching Vamp U, I was trying to think of other shitty vampire movies. Holy crap, there is a lot of shitty vampire movie. Not even counting the Twilight Parodies, like Vampires Suck.

Thankfully I remembered it existed, and was able to rent it for like, a quarter or something. No one gave a fuck about this movie. I got the title though. Presumably, it is supposed to make you think of the word Tramps. If not, whoops, I am an asshole.

Well, you know. If the shoe fits.

Goody (Alicia Silverstone) and Stacy (Krysten Ritter) are two vampires living the high life in New York City. They love going tot he clubs, and spending their nights living it up. Why not, they are both roughly 20 year old girls, just looking for fun?

Well, Goody was bit in the 1800s by Cisserus (Sigourney Weaver), who later bite Stacy in the late 1980s. Big difference. But Goody doesn’t want it to be weird, so doesn’t tell Stacy that fact. They consider themselves to be ELFs, or Eternal Life Forms, vampire is tacky. They also don’t feed on human blood, it is not pleasant. Rat blood will do.

Goody gets worried when she finds out that if their creator ever dies, then they will revert back to their real age. Not a big deal for Stacy, but for Goody, that would end her life. Shit. This only matters because a Dr. Van Helsing (Wallace Shawn) is in town specifically to look for Cisserus. Shit.

To make matters worse, Stacy has fallen in love with a guy in her night class, Joey. JOEY VAN HELSING (Dan Stevens). He also may have made her pregnant. I won’t go into that.

Malcolm McDowell and Justin Kirk also play some pretty important vampires. Richard Lewis plays an ex lover of Goody’s from the 1960s who has returned into her life. Extra weird.

“Night, bitch. Let’s get some sausage. Blood sausage. And penis.”

Huh, this was directed and written by Amy Heckerling who brought us Clueless. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. That explains Silverstone and Shawn in the film, I guess.

I will say that the movie got better as time went on, up until the end. The beginning was shit right off the back, but eventually it found its footing. It is a shame the ending was just super tacky and not really exciting in any way.

The film is meant to be comedic, but everything basically falls flat. They go for the easy puns and small references, but nothing is able to stick.

Finally, the acting is just ugh. Ugh and a half. I strive for descriptive descriptions here. Krysten Ritter might be one of the worst actresses out there today. Stop giving her roles. They are bad.

Join me next week, when I somehow find another shitty vampire movie to get disgruntled over.

1 out of 4.

A ha, my first review of a movie that has been guest reviewed! Here I am, following up someone else’s opinion, on my website. Not even mad. I try not to read opinions about film before I write my own, so obviously, my review of The Iceman breaks that creed unfortunately. If you want to read their review of The Iceman, click that link I just linked.

The flipped across the vertical line version of this picture exists on the internet. I…I don’t know which one is real.

The Iceman tells the true story of Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), a famed Polish man who killed over 100 men as a contract killer in NYC. He was arrested in 1986, much to the surprise of his friends and family who did not know he was leading a double life for so many years to provide for his loved ones. Well, not his brother (Stephen Dorff), he was a dick and in prison already. For killing a man. What a criminal.

Of course, he didn’t start as a contract killer. He had a small time job, and came from humble beginnings. He met his future wife (Winona Ryder), and somehow charmed her into marriage, and had two kids. But when he accidentally fails the wrong customer, Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta), he has to repay a debt and does so through a nice assassination or two, which come with nice bonuses.

Eventually, his lives start to collide, as he is forced to work with a rival contract killer, Mr. Freezy (Chris Evans), and work amongst all the mob bosses in the city. The film begins and ends with his confession on the witness stand, and a whole shit ton of remorse. Kind of. Also, James Franco plays a small role who totally dies, and David Schwimmer awkwardly a mob man, and he freaks me out.

The Iceman Cream.

Michael Shannon has been a good actor for sometime. He was arguably the best parts of Man of Steel and Premium Rush, so it is nice to see him again in a leading role like this one. He knocked it out of the park, going completely in character, and nothing like his other recent roles. Dude knows how to act, yo.

In the early 90s, HBO released a documentary on the subject, called The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer, with actual dialogue with Richard. Presumably this fictionalized version was made to tell the twisted story after his death in 2005. I haven’t seen it, but I think it is on youtube, and I really kind of want to now.

A lot of the assassinations they show are generally really well done, with lots of planing/details gone in to making sure they are perfect.

By basing this movie on a true story, it adds an extra layer of chill as you watch it, knowing that it isn’t just another mob movie starring Ray Liotta. The ending is especially the most chilling aspect of the film, his final courtroom plead and communication with his family. You felt sorry for the guy, even though he killed hundreds of people. Shit, that is rough.

Definitely a movie I’d recommend as well. Even if you have to see David Schwimmer’s goofy face.

3 out of 4.

Arguably, this has been a great summer for Ethan Hawke.

In a few weeks, he was seen in two completely different movies. The first was The Purge, which doubled its budget in earnings and was a surprise early horror hit. The second was Before Midnight, the end of an eighteen year long trilogy, which featured some of the best acting I have seen all year. If that one isn’t nominated for awards, I will burn something.

I’d like to think he got greedy though. Why not add an action movie, Getaway, to his summer releases? Then the only thing he is missing is a comedy! This is what happens when you fly too close to the sun, Ethan. Tisk tisk.

Tisk motherfucking tisk. The movie starts right away with our “hero” walking into a home in complete disarray. The Christmas tree is in shambles! Brent (Hawke) receives a phone call from an unknown number on his wife’s phone (Rebecca Budig), who of course is now missing.

The phoneman tells him to steal a modified Shelby Mustang Super Snake (cool name car, I will admit) and await further instructions. If he gets caught by the police, his wife will die. If he disobeys his instructions, his wife will die. Basically, Brent is The Voice’s (Jon Voight) slave now.

During his tasks, The Girl (Selena Gomez) tries to steal the car from him with a gun! No, she isn’t actually playing a thug from the streets, like the trailer implies. She is just a rich girl, who also is really good at technology, and claims the car belongs to her. Brent has to keep her in the car, to help with the tasks at hand. Or at least, that is what The Voice tells him. Can this former NASCAR driver turned regular Joe Schmo save his wife? CAN HE!?

The exact moment in the trailer when you knew this movie would suck. Never before has it been so easily captured!I will try to be fair and start with the positives of this pile of excrement.

If anything, you can argue that this film offers nonstop action. As an action movie, that is something most can only dream about.

Unfortunately, that level of action is also one of the weakest aspects of Getaway. Car chases and crashes are fine, but to amp up the action, the director, Courtney Soloman, decided to try out a thousand different camera angles.

We have views of faces, of the car, from above, from the clutch, from the breaks, from security cameras, from the cameras in the car. Flash flash flash flash. This movie may induce seizures with how fast the camera angle changes constantly. I can tell you I developed a headache watching this movie, and one of the main reasons is the constant ADHD feeling of the camera.

Honestly, we only need to see him slam down on his break and change gears so many times during a single movie, not every single time he does it.

The other headache inducing parts of the film have to come from the very weak plot and acting. I am not saying Gomez and Hawke are bad at acting normally, just they are in this movie. It can only be blamed on the script and directing. I won’t even talk about the plot, it is just so unimportant and silly.

The ending leaves a lot to be desired as well. It technically gives us some sort of closure, while also kind of feeling like a kick in the metaphorical nuts.

Courtney Soloman has only directed two other movies. I haven’t seen An American Haunting, so I cannot comment on it, but thirteen years ago he directed Dungeons & Dragons which was a slap in the face for an entire culture with its level of badness. It is sad to see that after thirteen years, he has might have actually regressed in his directorial abilities.

0 out of 4.

Since 2009, we have been blessed as a culture and as a nation to receive a summer concert movie every year. In 3D, no less!

At first we were given the Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a single song I have ever heard from them, so I never even considered watching it. This one confuses me the most.

Then we were given Kenny Chesney: Summer In 3D, which is the only country artist to be given this treatment. I guess they were experimenting early on.

In 2011, we received the mac daddy of concert movies, as they kicked it up a notch with Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. If anything, we learned a valuable life lesson from his title alone.

In 2012, I can honestly say we were given the best 3D Concert movie yet, Katy Perry: Part Of Me. I laughed, I cried, I was entertained. I even became more of a fan.

Now, in the year the Mayans could not predict, we are given One Direction: This Is Us, a foreign band who I really don’t know anything about. From my research, these concert movies have been getting better and better each year, so I expect this one to make the most noise and win all of the awards.

They are in order of most important to least important.“Oh my god, a boy!” These are not the words I expected to hear when I entered the theater a few minutes before the movie began. What I saw was one entire row full of middle school girls. They quickly informed me that they didn’t know each other, and were all fans who just met. There was also one mom sitting behind them already asleep.

“Hey, who is YOUR favorite?!” Well, crap, I am not at all prepared for this! I make up a lie, and try to go back to blending in, but that is practically impossible. It ended up being 19 middle school girls, 1 mom, and a neck beard movie reviewer.  Apparently I was not the target demographic?

“Hey, you don’t care if we scream and yell during the movie right?”

Go ahead. Go crazy.

3D has really made leaps and bounds since Avatar, but little did I know that they would go to these lengths to improve the overall concert experience. From what I can tell, they decided to put a row of screaming middle school girls in every 3D showing of One Direction: This Is Us. What better way to enjoy the songs, than with a gaggle of girls singing and screaming every time a member of the band removes his shirt? What I really wonder is how they are going to include this feature with the eventual Blu-Ray 3D release?

Actual shot from the movie. No one is shirtless, for your dissatisfaction. One Direction is made up of five boys from the United Kingdom, who all auditioned for The X-Factor, and they decided to put them into a boy band! Plucked by Simon Cowell personally, Niall, Zayn, Harry, Liam, and Louis became an overnight sensation that rocked their island, then the world. They didn’t win The X-Factor, but that didn’t matter.

In this movie you get to hear a big selection of their catalog performed live and on stage for your enjoyment, while also hearing a few numbers acoustically while they practice. I will note, the 3D used during these concerts were incredibly well done, and high quality. You also get to see them with their families from their small home towns, superimposed with them wandering Europe, Asia, and more.

One Direction: This Is Us is definitely not the best 3D Summer Concert movie I have found, just the second best. Katy Perry made me cry, after all. Given the screaming girl fan base, I don’t see this movie bombing in any way, as it probably only took $10 million to make. As the great Drake once said, as long as the outcome is income, na’mean?

To answer your question little girl, I guess my favorite One Directioner is Zayn. He clearly has the most talent singing wise. I would follow that up with Niall, just because I feel bad for him. He has a strange name, doesn’t get to sing as much, and is (probably) the only one that can play guitar. Poor Niall.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go back to youtubing all of their songs.

 

2 out of 4.

Shit, this movie came out in like, May or so to theaters. Just didn’t come out where I was living in a 60 mile radius. Why not? It is an independent Rob Zombie horror movie. I thought people loved Rob Zombie stuff?

Either way, I found out like a month later The Lords of Salem was already out in Europe or VOD or something, so I quickly bought it and forgot it. A few months later, oh yeah.

I slack so hard some times.

See, even these old bitches love Rob Zombie.

Heidi Hawthorne (Sheri Moon Zombie, wife of Rob) is a local radio DJ in the town of Salem. She is a cohost of the most popular segment in town, along with her friends Whitey (Jeff Daniel Phillips) and Munster (Ken Foree). She personally receives a package in the mail from The Lords. It is a band they never heard of, but they listen to it anyway, and it sort of fucks with Heidi a lot.

So sure, why not play it on the radio? It is a strange eerie tribal chant like noise, with no actual lyrics, just noise. Pretty metal, in that regard. Their guest on the radio that night is Francis Matthias (Bruce Davison), a man who researches the Salem Witch Trials. He really finds the track they play unnerving, and the band name itself, so he goes on a research binge as the side story. The music itself causes all of the women in town who hear it to go into a trance like state. Very odd.

Anyways, long story short. Witches yo. Curses yo. They cursed Hawthorne’s bloodline, claiming it will eventually bring Satan into the world, and the witches will return and take over. Can they do it?! Judy Geeson, Meg Foster, Patricia Quinn all play witches.

My mind is all sorts of wat right now.

Well, this is a weird movie. I haven’t seen any of the other Rob Zombie horror movies, so I can’t tell you if this is weirder than them or not. But it has to be weirder than Halloween. How could have made that one super weird?

I HATE the song by The Lords of Salem so much. It really grinds to the bone, which I guess is the goal. It is just a horrible sound, and I find it hard to believe they would have ever played it on the radio in the first place.

I wouldn’t say the acting is bad in this movie, it is just not an important part to the movie. It isn’t bad acting, it just isn’t good either.

As a certified coward, I can say this movie didn’t scare me in the slightest, just made me feel all sorts of weird. There was very vivid imagery, with low levels of special effects that made the whole thing look cheesy. Grotesque imagery is not what this movie was advertised as, and I was just left mostly confused. No, not of the plot, but confused at why I watched the whole thing.

The ending also is pretty lackluster, not really ending the story, but almost feeling like a strange 10 minute Jazz Fusion set in the middle of a rock concert. What in the what?

1 out of 4.

When I put Kon-Tiki in my Blu-Ray player, I found out that Norway is a cocky country. Look at this picture. I took it myself. (No it is not my penis).

I won’t describe it because I want you to see it. But Damn, that is some serious ego shit. Who would do that to start a film? Someone who has too much pride in a language, I tell you what.

Or just pride in their original movie. Ohhhh, pretty.

Thor Heyerdahl (Pål Sverre Hagen), besides having a bad ass name, grew up to be a scientist. He is an ethnographer, so basically he helps figure out how humans moved throughout history, and where certain cultures evolved from. In a nutshell.

He has spent a long time in Polynesia, working on his theory that the culture came from South America. There are many similarities in statues, and they have a tale of a tribe who came from the sea. He has all this evidence! No one will publish his work, because no one would believe it. No way could primitive people have gone from Peru to Polynesia. No way. And he can’t prove that they could, either.

Or could he?

He decides to build a boat, calling it Kon-Tiki, and sailing the journey himself with a small crew, just as they would have built it 1500 years ago without the aid of technology. No, it will be strictly ancient. Can he make it across the ocean in a small raft, over three months? Yes.
Yes he can. Some of the other crew members were played by Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Tobias Santelmann, and Gustaf Skarsgård. Shit, those are all super Scandanavian.

I haven’t seen this many bearded Norwegians since prom!

So I found out why the DVD menu went super egotistical and language-ist. The mother fucking Weinstein Company did it again. They cut out like, 17 minutes of the original movie for the English movie. What?

To make matters even worse, every scene that needed it was filmed in both Norwegian and English, so that they could release the same thing in both places. They are identical. It isn’t bullshit dubbing. The words that come out of their mouth are English. So yes, I watched it in English, not knowing that so much was cut out, and I just feel wronged.

It is the exact same thing they are going to do for Snowpiercer. They want to remove 20 minutes of material to make it so the people in “Iowa and Oklahoma” will go see it. Fuck you fuckers. They are calling Americans stupid. And I live in Iowa.

That all has nothing to do with this movie, but everything. Since I haven’t seen the Norwegian version, I really cannot compare.

What I can say is the version I watched felt lacking in some way. Sure, it was beautiful as fuck. Gorgeous. Well shot. Sexy almost. So many beards. But it wasn’t completely interesting. Their story basically paved the way for many adventurers back in the 50s, and probably helped inspire the journey to the moon. But their accomplishment isn’t as powerful feeling because we have already done crazier things to surpass it.

It is still an interesting and awe inspiring story. But not as exciting as I would have hoped.

2 out of 4.

Pornography!

Sex!

Clitoris in the neck!

No, I am not just doing all that to increase traffic. I am hear to talk about Lovelace, the true story of Linda Lovelace, who starred in Deep Throat and helped changed the porno world forever. Kind of.

I also just realized that Lovelace is also the name of the Guru penguin in Happy Feet. Huh, I hope there is no connection.

This Lovelace doesn’t share the same talent. He can’t with that plastic around his neck!

Linda (Amanda Seyfried) USED to be such a sweet little girl. She used to to dance and go to school, and obey her parents! Her parents (Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick), mind you, are the type who would scold her just for sunbathing in a bikini in her own fenced in back yard.

While Go-Go dancing with her friend, Patsy (Juno Temple), they meet up with Chuck (Peter Sarsgaard), who will change her life forever. See, Chuck sees something special in her. He sees a beauty that can go far, do great things, and maybe even make a lot of money. Mmm, money.

After helping slowly tear away her inhibitions, he is even able to make her go down on him, despite her initial embarrassment. Wouldn’t you know it, it turns out that she doesn’t have a gag reflex, and has a unique talent in the industry. I don’t even know why I am being subtle.

Well, they need money, and she gets put into the lead role of an X-Rated feature, Deep Throat. It has comedy and it has something people haven’t really seen before, so it becomes a huge hit, making millions world wide, and catapulting Linda into a spotlight she could never before imagine. But a life of fame is always not something you want, especially if it comes at such high costs. Such as being married to Chuck, an abusive husband who takes all of your money, beats you, and gives you emotional scarring for years with no place to turn to.

Ah yes, the Linda Lovelace story, one of porn, and one of abuse.

Hank Azaria, Bobby Cannavale, and Chris Noth play “industry” people, and James Franco has a small cameo as a much younger Hugh Hefner.

This is all you are getting out of me, you creepy internet people you.

Linda’s story is definitely a sad one. It is a story that should be heard so that women out there no that dangerous things CAN happen, signs to look for, and how to get out of those situations and find the help you need.

Unfortunately, Lovelace seems to almost downplay the amount of abuse she actually receives. I found that portion of the movie to be far too short. It needed to be longer to really experience how a large portion of her life was, before she was finally able to get police intervention. Her story was a powerful enough one to write a book about and have restocking issues due to its popularity.

I think the movie has its heart in the right place, but fails to deliver the right emotions that one should expect from this picture. There are two important parts to this story. Linda’s transformation into a porn icon, and the abuse she took from someone she thought loved her. This definitely seems to care more about the former, and not the latter, which is a shame.

1 out of 4.