Tag: John Travolta

What? You didn’t see The Fanatic in theaters? I mean, it would have been impressive. It only opened on 52 screens and made a few thousand dollars, so it was a big bomb, but an expected big bomb.

Apparently it isn’t the 1970’s and John Travolta isn’t a big box office draw anymore. Did you know that? I hadn’t heard and neither did Fred Durst.

Fred Durst directed The Fanatic and it is his third directed movie, with this one being really not similar to anything else he has done before, and his first directed movie in over a decade.

There is a lot going wrong with the Fanatic, but I will go into more detail about that later.

And we are all just choking with anticipation over this film. 

Moose (John Travolta), don’t worry, it is a nickname, is a loser. He thinks he is awesome and thinks his movie knowledge should be celebrated, but no one cares. He dresses up on the street to get tips from tourists, but his accent is bad, his characters are bad, and his jokes are nonexistent. How dare the world not see his wonder!

He has a lot of passions that deal with movies, besides watching them, including getting things autographed and speaking to these celebrities. He gets an opportunity to see Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa), whom he regards as one of the greatest horror actors of his time! I honestly couldn’t tell if he actually thinks that, or if he thinks that purely because he happens to be in town at that moment. He seems like the type who would say that just because as a better chance of getting autographs.

Either way, he waits in a line for awhile, and right before his autograph, Hunter has to take a quick sidebar out back to talk to his ex wife about kid situations. Not a big deal. Until Moose decides he needs to go out right after, hearing his personal conversations and still trying to get an autograph at the worst time.

This pisses off Hunter. So he curses him out and vows to not sign his stuff, and stay away from him. So Moose does not stay away. He finds his house, talks to his kid, sneaks in, tries to apologize, you know all the grossest stuff he could have done. The Fan needs his closure damn it, and he is going to tie up Hunter and kidnap him if he has to.

Also starring Ana Golja, Jacob Grodnik, and James Paxton.

Sign the paper, or he’ll put on worse button up shirts!

Ooof. Where does one begin?

Travolta seems to be doing something very strange in this movie. I feel like he is for sure acting and trying to get into this role. But this role is terrible. Not in a “what a bad person, I am fascinated” type of situation, but just, badly written and designed. That part isn’t his fault, I guess.

But never do I feel scared about his character, or sorry for him, or really any emotion at all. I feel a little slimy mostly. And I feel a little stupid. Like myself, personally, somehow I am now stupid for this whole thing.

This is the type of story that could have been good, it could have felt threatening, like Misery! But it just absolutely feels like nothing and achieves nothing on the way to that point. A waste of time for everyone involved and the poor people like me who had to watch it.

Savages!

There is a bunch of them in this town, and they are barely even human.

That is all the pop culture I can pick up from that word. Two is a fair amount, hopefully this movie gives me another.

Look at those BRUTES, those SAVAGES, sitting in California and looking fantastic. Sickens me, every time.

O (Blake Lively), short for Ophelia, is the narrator of this tale, and born rich local of Laguna Beach, California. She meets Chon and Ben, working for their pot empire. POT EMPIRE? This movie is about drugs oh no!

Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is a former marine, serving in Iran and Afghanistan, and when asked by Ben, he assured him that Afghanistan had the world’s best pot. Ben (Aaron Johnson) is a free thinker, okay hippie, with big world visions involving giving water to Africa and stuff. But also hey drugs. He has a degree in Business and Botany, and he gets Chon to get some of those seeds back to the states. They are able to grow them with great attention, giving them ridiculously high THC percentages, and make an empire in California where they are rich and can donate a lot to the world charities. Chon is also the muscle, he has a few Iraq buddies to help them out in dire situations.

They’ve been giving cutbacks to a local DEA higher up (John Travolta) for years to keep their business sailing, but when a Mexican Cartel from Tijuana wants to hire them for three years, to use their pot, resources, and people, they get a little bit worried. Especally when the offer presented by one of their lawyers (Demian Bichir) turns out to be more of a demand, and them saying no can get them in a lot of shit.

More or less, it results in the kidnapping of O from both of them. Oh who is O? Their mutual girlfriend. She sexes up everyone. And she loves them both for different reasons, but it leads to nothing bad between the guys so it should be fine. So now Chon and Ben have to try and save her, not die, avoid their really bad ass hit man Lado (Benicio Del Toro) and convince Elena (Salma Hayek), the head of the organization to let them go freely with O, at any cost.

What a fucking great character. No jokes for you, just that fact bomb.

Turns out this movie has a lot of unlikable characters in it. Pretty much no one is the type of person you’d want to root for. So it was hard to really watch the movie on that aspect, as it was a lot of gray area. Unfortunately, the character I liked the least, O, was also the narrator. The dialogue for the narration was bad, and the character was like a spoiled rich kid who has no problems, until the movie. And I don’t think really anyone would care about her, or her kidnapping and constant danger. It sucks, but its true. Let her die, I say. Solves most of the movies problems.

The other big issue I felt was the ending. It didn’t really seem to fit the rest of the movie, almost felt lame. It was different, for sure. But not what I would have wanted. If you see it, you will understand.

But other than that, great performance from Benicio Del Toro, who looked completely different in this movie. Also, Aaron Johnson? He looks ten years older at least than he did from Kick-Ass, and not at all the same. I was shocked when I realized it was the same guy.

For some reason I thought From Paris With Love was a remake. Maybe I’ve just heard the phrase before. Maybe the trailers back then just looked so ridiculous that I figured it couldn’t be original? Not really sure.

Sexy time?

Movie begins with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, as some lame guy working for the US Embassy in Paris. That is in France! He wants to be an “Agent” of some sorts, and he does some secret mission. After successfully bugging an office, he finally gets the promotion he has been looking for. At the expense of a romantic night with his girlfriend (/fiance), Kasia Smutniak though, a local French girl.

Unfortunately first he must successfully help a different mission succeed, and he is only getting the shot because it is a time sensitive mission, and they are out of agents. Step one, he must help the american Agent clear customs at the Paris airport. That is of course the bald and extremely eccentric John Travolta.

The mission starts out as an investigation of a drug cartel that may have lead to the death of the niece of the US Secretary of Defense, but really being about Pakstani terrorists planning to attack the US ambassadors during a summit.

He also kicks some ass in slow mo.

In terms of action, this movie has pretty good action and plenty of it. Plot however could use a lot more work. I feel like with a lot of action movies, near the end, it seems less actiony, more seriousy, and I tend to care less what starts to happen. This took a lot longer in the film, though the changing of the missions was a bit difficult to keep track of at first. Thankfully it was confusing for the main character too, who never seemed to understand what Travolta was about to do. Loose cannon and what not.

Overall, way more interesting than I originally gave it credit for. Travolta can pretty much do whatever role he likes too.

You have to ask yourself. In the URL, why is there not double dashes between the 1/2/3 given my title? The world may never know. The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3 is more or less your typical negotiator + pseudo terrorist hostage situation movie. Of course the negotiator is not trained in negotiating, that way the bad guy wont have mind games played on them. But here is a different twist. This hostage situation takes place underground.

Damn it. Not like that, you hipsters.

By underground, I mean they took a part of a subway in NYC, and have themselves sealed underground where cell phones don’t work in one or two cars (You know, movies have to explain the cell phone stuff now in bad situations). John Travolta plays Crazy McCrazy, wanting 10 million within an hour or people die. People dieing sucks!

But thankfully Denzel Washington is now just working at a station, making sure trains are on time. Like Italy. And because he is the first person to communicate with Travolta, that is the only person he trusts. Basic hostage situation stuff happens, but this time the overall escape with the money scene afterwards seems to take a long time. Normally that is only a short bit of the film, but this thing is planned out and detailed. I found the escape the most boring part of the film. I kind of got lost with it too, as it involved tunnels and other ways of hiding. Since they no longer had hostages, it is kind of just like an action crime movie at the end (if you call Denzel a cop (he isn’t). In case you cannot tell, the ending was pretty meh to me. That makes the overall movie just okay, not great.

There was interesting dialogue too in the movie. When you find out Denzel’s secrets it gets super awkward, and thus interesting. Also, not sure if they answered how a dude got internet underground like that, nor do I think it lead anywhere either.