Tag: Alexander Skarsgård

There is one major reason why “average people” would want to see Melancholia.

I may be off my rocker declaring this, or pompous, not sure. But come on, that has got to be it.

That is why I wanted to see this movie. Not afraid to say that.

This movie is highly rated and an artsy indie movie. But also Kirsten Dunst is super naked in it.

This is not one of those times. But it might as well be.

The movie is split up into two parts and a prologue. The movie begins with Earth getting fucked up and getting hit by a giant planet. Like way bigger than Earth. All the scenes were in super slow motion and confusing me, because I saw the same characters doing different things, when I thought it was supposed to show their last seconds. Nope. The first part is called “Justine” played by Dunst. She is getting married! To Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). They have a big ceremony on a mountain and are late. Limos hate mountains.

It is a weird wedding. Family issues, etc. Dunst is some sort of depressed and her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is clearly trying to help her out. She is trying super hard to fix it all, but cant. And before her wedding night, she screws some other person and I guess Michael finds out and leaves her. That night. Wooo, take that Kim Kardashian.

The second half is called Claire, for some reason. The planet is getting close to earth, but everyone is saying it will miss the planet. Including Claire’s husband, played by Kiefer Sutherland, an amateur astronomer. But Claire freaks out anyways, and now her sister is living with her, barely able to do anything at all with her depression. She is even looking forward to the collision and hopes it will happen! And we all know it will right? It will miss, but sling shot back around and come fuck everything else up.

“OH FUCK!” – Earth in one collective groan.

Did I spoil it all? Hard to say.

I am kind of mad at the ending. It doesn’t happen at all like the beginning seemed to suggest. Maybe it was a metaphor, the beginning. Or something. I don’t know.

It is a super indie artsy movie and well, maybe it went over my head? If it did I don’t care. It made me not like it. The wedding was all long and sporatic, so I didn’t enjoy watching it. I didn’t understand Dunst’s character. I didn’t even realize her husband was trying to divorce her the same night. Id understand that he was mad since she said she’d be right back before wedding sex, and she took forever. But I don’t see how that is grounds for no longer seeing each other.

Took me awhile to realize what had happened, until it was spelled out for me (yay wikipedia) which I decided to read the first part of the plot summary before the second act.

And uhh yeah. If you want to see Kristen Dunst naked, you have the internet.

Hold your horses everyone. ANOTHER Hollywood remake!? For shame. After all, the first Straw Dogs is only 40 years old. It should still be fresh and in everyone’s minds. Clearly Hollywood is running out of ideas, if it has to remake something only 40 years old. The NEW Straw Dogs will automatically suck, by comparison. It has things like credit cards in it!

It is also full of thievery and shame.

The other option is to ignore all of that.

Done! James Marsden and Kate Bosworth are traveling down south to the town where Kate used to live. It is a smaller community, not all hustlin’ and bustlin’ like the big cities up north. Which is good! She has an old place there, and he needs a quiet place to write a screenplay. They also want the roof of the shed/barn thing repaired, for some reason (even if they are there temporarily). A friend of Kates, played by Alexander Skarsgård, and his posse, agree to fix the roof.

Then crazy shit happens. And by crazy, I mean subtle annoyances between the two groups. Coming too early to start work. Leaving too early. Coming too late. Drinking their beers. Playing loud music.

This also makes Kate and James argue. Because James is a pussy who hates confrontation, and Kate is running around braless and “asking for it”. Which just leads her to flash seductively the crew (and oh yeah, that guy is her former ex). As expected, this leads to further elevation of conflict. A dead cat, bizarre hunting antics, and a rape or two.

“Or two?! Let’s calm down here. I am a one and done kind of guy.” – Flynn

There is also a side story involving James Woods (a high school football coach), his cheerleading daughter, and Dominic Purcell who plays “local retarded boy”. She has taken a fancy to him, which Woods is sourly against. The two plot lines accumulate by the end, to create a standoff where James Marsden finally breaks, and protects his family at all costs.

So, a lot of this film had me cringing in my seat. The violence at the end, rape in the middle, a scene where bone was shown coming out of the arm. When the final final scene happened, which also happened in the original, I half expected to hear someone yell “FATALITY!”, it was that crazy.

Personally, the reason I can’t rate this higher is because I know I probably won’t ever watch this again. Although an enjoyable experience, I wouldn’t want to see it more than once, which is a weird feeling.

From what I can tell, the differences between the two movies are: Going down South instead of North, less boobs in the rape scene (despite the fact that her boobs are pretty much visible throughout with her clothing choices), the guy is a writer not a mathematician, the violence was upped a bit, and it ends sooner. The first is based on a book though (And this one is based off the movie). That should have been done, because changing medias is fine.

But remakes never. After all, The Wizard of Oz and Scarface were both remakes, and they failed horribly because of it.

Maybe the problem is that it is too similar to the original still, and thus doesn’t warrant being made. But, if it had a lot different, people would bitch about it not being Straw Dogs. Lose lose.

13 in a few ways reminded me of the movie Mean Guns. Okay. Barely. But lets just say people die, and there is money available in both movies.

Ice-T isn’t in 13. But 50 Cent is.

The beginning of this movie is pretty slow (and arguably the ending). Sam Riley, some no name, is an electrician at some dude’s house. Dude dies though. For some reason or another, he opens his mail and sees a message with a key, telling him to go to a lockbox. He does, finds another message and a train ticket. At this point, he is like, fuck it, lets do this shit. Despite not knowing anything, he keeps going along with the checkpoints, getting frisked, searched for wires, etc. And you know what? He is fucked.

He is now taking part in a weird “tournament” where very little skill is required, just luck. A group of about 20 or so individuals, complete with numbers on their shirts (guess which number is our main guy?) pretty much play russian roulette. They are made to stand in a circle, each with one bullet, spinning chambers and all, and pointing their gun at the person in front of them. When a light goes on, they shoot. If they survive, congrats! If not, well dead.

Why is this? Because of gambling! Lot of people are watching these games, making very high stake bets. I couldn’t really understand most of the betting terminology though passed around. Each shooter has a handler to help them through the rounds, and someone who represents them for bets and what not. 50 Cent had brought in Mickey Rourke to participate. They have an interesting side story themselves.

Jason Statham brought in his brother (for the fourth time) and Alexander Skarsgård ends up helping main guy. At the same time, David Zayas is playing a detective looking for this underground gambling ring (he is good at being a detective I guess). So overall, there are three rounds, each with increasing bullets. At the end, 2 people are randomly selected to stand face to face in a duel, with 3 bullets.

Yes, this is all for gambling. Yes people die. But hey, if you survive until the end you get lots of money too. That makes it okay?

I will admit, I think this poster is pretty cool.

So the acting isn’t the best. But you probably expected that. This is a pretty low budget movie. It is probably too long at 90 minutes. The scenes to get to the gambling arena place took awhile. But the tournament, I just described it, doesn’t take that long either. So the ending after the tournament, if not completely expected, is kinda of slow too. Nothing unpredictable happens after it either. So that kind of sucks. This is one of the times I would have preferred a 75~ minute movie or so. Or, if they wanted, they could have had a lot crazier good acting, in regards to how the different “contestants” were handling the pressure of the game.

But this movie if anything was interesting for the majority chunk of it, and I like that it tried something new, if not horrible to think about.