Tag: Willem Dafoe

Odd Thomas was definitely not on my original watch list. Not until I saw that it recently came out and had an young actor on the front who I tended to enjoy. Yep, then I dropped my plans, and decided I needed to see this movie instead.

Apparently it is based on a book series, but also it went under some legal trouble recently. According to the internet, it was delayed indefinitely for release due to funds not being spent as promised for ads or whatever. So they delayed it for over a year! I think other countries ended up getting it before us, because of that. I guess sucks most for the author, who was probably stoked his book was getting made into a movie, but then getting swept under the rug for legal reasons.

Oh well, I am still watching it author dude, don’t worry!

Well, that’s the most fucked up silver surfer I have seen.

Odd Thomas is not about a strange boy named Thomas. Nope. That is his first and last name, Odd Thomas (Anton Yelchin). There is a story behind that, but I won’t get into it.

Let’s just say that Odd’s upbringing has made things a bit weird for the boy. He can see dead people, and they tend to point out who killed them so he can avenge them. He also has other minor supernatural/spiritual abilities when it comes to seeing dead entities. Like the Bodachs above, which only appear when a great death will occur.

Unfortunately, in his small town Pico Mundo, California, he has started to see not just one Bodach, but a LOT of them. They are following around this Fungus Bob Robertson (Shuler Hensley), a nickname, don’t worry, who now Odd has a feeling is going to commit some very heinous crime on his small town. His girlfriend, Stormy (Addison Timlin), who he is destined to be with forever knows about his powers and is willing to help despite having none of her own. He also wants to win the support of her father, Wyatt Porter (Willem Dafoe), the local police chief.

As Odd begins to follow Fungus Bob around, he finds himself somewhere darker and more sinister than he has ever experienced before.

Also featuring Arnold Vosloo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Kyle McKeever, and Nico Tortorella.

Man, this guy is just a cook. I want my spiritual advisers to at least be Maître D’.

Oh man, a lot of stuff happened in this movie. In particular, I really enjoyed the ending over all. There were twists and turns, everything falling into place, action, death, demons, you name it. But at the same time, the film had a lot of slower parts that I didn’t enjoy as well.

Here is what I can say. I thought Yelchin did a good job. He felt very believable as his character. Despite the mediocre feeling towards parts of the film in the middle, I am giving it a passing grade overall because of how much I liked the ending.

In fact, this would be the third ever movie I review on my website based on a book, that really makes me want to read the book after the fact. The other two were Warm Bodies and The Perks of Being A Wallflower. The main difference of those two and this one is that they got a 4 out of 4, but this one definitely wasn’t a good enough movie to earn that. However, it is certainly interesting. The fact that there are multiple books and most likely no more movies to be made from that increases my chances of reading them.

If you want a weird and unique movie, you might give this a shot, just don’t expect high quality art as you do.

Hah. Wes Anderson. For those that don’t read every post I make, Wes Anderson is a strange guy for me. Every movie I reviewed for the site that he directed, I have love love loved. But that was only two movies. The other one I saw I just didn’t really get, and thought it was weird. Yet still, I was excited for this new one.

So excited, I am pretty pissed off that they forced The Grand Budapest Hotel to be a limited release. It broke some records for its release. Like, most money gained from a super super limited release. But only two cities? That is crap. There is no reason for that. I am lucky I even got to see it so soon as I had to drive three hours to see it, weeks after its “release date”. Maybe I am more annoyed because it wasn’t even advertised as a limited release, so I have to imagine it was just a last minute change.

But I guess I expected Anderson to be a dick if he could, so there is that.

This story in a story is about The Grand Budapest Hotel, as you might have guessed. It used to be a…grand old place, but recently, it has gone under some bad times. The clientele is no longer the elite, the staff is no longer extremely efficient, and really it is in shambles. That is why a young writer (Jude Law) is so interested to meet its current owner, Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), to hear his story about he acquired the hotel and his vast fortune.

M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) is a man amongst boys. He used to be the concierge, a god amongst men. Working morning to night, every day, he made sure the rich guests felt welcome at the hotel and would do anything to please them. Including the extremely rich Madame D (Tilda Swinton) who stays at the hotel for weeks every year.

Well, she dies, mysteriously. Also, her will was changed last minute as well it seems. Apparently M. Gustave was left her priceless painting, pissing off the ungrateful and evil family. Now, they also think M. Gustave killed her!

It is up to the help of his Lobby Boy, Zero (Tony Revolori) to help prove his innocence, get him out of jail, and in general, save the day!

Also featuring a shit ton of people. Here they are, roughly, in order of importance: Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldbloom, Saoirse Ronan, Mathieu Amalric, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson.

This scene represents birth.

Ahhhh, quirky Wes Anderson movie!

This one took a little bit to get going, trying to figure out just what the movie would be about. It takes place over three time periods, technically, so the story needs time to get started.

But when it does? Man. This movie was hilarious. Ralph Fiennes, although I don’t know how to say his name, is a terrific actor and a charismatic character in this film. You can’t take your eyes off of him whenever he is on the screen. And it works so well. Much laughter, much ridiculousness.

This film has a lot of Anderson standards, with his camera work and use of colors.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is also a bit more crass than his other recent movies. Some nakedness, some death scenes, all a bit extreme. But I think that made it a little bit better.

Definitely as good as the trailer made it seem to be, and one of the best early movies of 2014.

The Hunter came out almost a year ago, last July. I am pretty sure I got it sometime around then too. Whoops. One of those random gains that you forget about for apparently 10 or so months.

Let’s make this a metaphor about life. I just won’t explain that metaphor, to complete this very bad intro to a review.

Hopefully shitty enough to cause a bar fight. Or sexy enough. Shit, what causes bar fights again?

Red Leaf is a military biotech company. Yeah, didn’t you know that those were a thing? Because they totally are! Military. Biotech. Some sort of crazy weapon based thing. Well, they have reports that the Tasmanian Tiger has been spotted recently in Tasmania. Makes sense. Unless you realize that that they have been extinct since 1963! Oh hooray, a breakthrough for the species! Maybe they can breed them back to a populated state!

Wait. Hmm. Red Leaf isn’t a fan of that. In fact, they hire The Hunter (Willem Dafoe) to head to Tasmania, capture the tiger, extract its DNA and kill any other tigers he is able to find. Holy shit, that’s the opposite of saving them! It turns out they might have some paralyzing venom in their bite, and they want to weaponize the fuck out of it, charming. They also want no one else to get a hold of it. Evil!

He heads to Tasmania, pretending to be a Biology researcher, and stays at a local cabin. Lucy (Frances O’Connor) is drugged up on pain meds, despite having two children. Her husband died, he was a wildlife protection guy. Hah.

Either way, The Hunter goes into the wild 12 days at a time, setting traps, looking for the Tiger and then returns to the cabin. He begins to like the kids, fix their home life, and even the mom. They almost make a quaint little family. At the same time he has to deal with local battles between the environmentalists and the loggers, who get violent over each other.

Will the Hunter find the tiger and carry out the deed? Or will he give in to the pressures of other groups. After all, if he refuses, they will probably just keep sending people to do the job until it gets done. Sam Neill is also in this movie as random helpful neighbor guy/guide.

Ah, they got a picture of everyone who saw The Hunter on opening night.

The cool thing about The Hunter is that if you watch it, you are treated to some kick ass Tasmanian scenery. It is filmed entirely in the country, so it gives it some layers of authenticity. There are also people there who claim to see the Tigers, but have no real substantial proof, so it is based on local legends. If you like Willem Dafoe, you get a lot of him in the movie. Not shirtless or anything. Just it is mostly him being a bad ass (or pseudo badass).

However, the movie does move pretty slow. On top of that, even though the ending was unexpected, I didn’t like what it gave me. It all seemed completely out of left field, and probably not the best course of action to end it. They had the balls to end it that way, but I didn’t find the character change to be believable.

You know what that means? Average! Hooray. I’m bored.

Alright movie theaters, I am going to need you to calm the hell down. I want to watch some of my own dvds damn it, but its hard to do that when I see 4 new movies a week in theaters. Taking up all the review spots! So sometimes, I just have to put my foot down and say no. I am watching American Dreamz damn it. Err, it came out in 2006? Shit, I thought it was newer. My bad. But I am still writing this dang review!

Hmm, Hugh Grant looks kind of like an evil genius here.

The President of the United States, President Staton (Dennis Quaid, definitely not a Bush parody), is having a nervous breakdown. He just got reelected, but now he is reading the newspapers, first time in years, and people don’t like him or his war! What! He just refuses to leave the White House or do anything, hanging out in his pajamas. But he does like the TV show American Dreamz. What is that? A singing competition, where a group of singers move on round after round, and the winner gets a contract! (Definitely not a parody of any other American show).

Speaking of American Dreamz, they are in a pissy. They are the top rated show, but they want even MORE ratings. The showrunner/main judge, Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant) demands that they get something unique, not more of the same. An egotistical southern girl who sings decently, Sally (Mandy Moore)? That is boring. But if she has a boyfriend in the military (Chris Klein), that makes it a bit better. Maybe get a middle eastern guy too, like Omer (Sam Golzari). Who cares if the singing is shit, diversity like that can build ratings!

Know what else can build ratings? Convincing the president to be a guest judge on the season finale of the show. The president loves the show, maybe it can be enough to knock him out of his funk and be liked again? Hopefully no terrorist attack will ruin the occasion either. >.>

Also featuring Willem Dafoe, Seth Meyers and John Cho.

Will most of America find themselves Omar-sexual?

The problems with Satires is that if you don’t understand the satire, you won’t get it and probably hate it. But if you do get the satire, you will find yourself nodding in agreement and enjoying it, but you are already converted, so to speak. No one gains any new information really, so if it is satire to send a political message, you aren’t actually convincing any one of anything. Your side agrees, the other side doesn’t get it. Then that is it.

American Dreamz is a very silly film, and it isn’t subtle in the slightest what it is going for. It has some comedic potential, but I personally found a lot of it to be bland.

The ending, was both shocking and amazing. I didn’t see it coming, and was also over the top ridiculous.

No one really shined in the movie, and I can’t ever see myself wanting to see it again.

John Carter has been hit hard, right in the rear end, with piss poor advertising and some early reviews.

An expensive Disney movie, should have had a lot going for it, but nope. Nothing. Personally I have heard of John Carter before, vaguely, I knew it was sci-fi books from the yesteryears. But when I first saw a trailer for it, I only could think of how bad it looked. My first thought was that “What? They made a movie using all the left over prop parts from Prince of Persia. Who cares.”

Way too similar, the main peoples outfits, and both in deserts. Yeah, whatever. Some aliens too, cool.

Turns out Disney for whatever reason didn’t try too hard to market it, or get the facts right with their own movie. So they deserve it I guess. Next thing you know is Pixar will just assume everyone will go their movies if they make them (and they will).

“So you…don’t have access to the sands of time?” John Carter stammered, glancing towards his script.

The movie begins with….NOT JOHN CARTER (Taylor Kitsch). Instead he is dead. Sad times. He has left his rich later 1800s fortune to a nephew or something of his, Edgar (Daryl Sabara). He is told he only has access to his personal diary. In it he says all of his past stories he told him were true! But here is a re-telling of how it began…

Long ago, after the Civil war in the area not yet known as Arizona, Carter was just trying to get by, looking for gold. Well the local US army there wants to enlist him to help fight the Apache (Since he was a kick ass soldier/leader in the Civil War). John doesn’t want too, much to the general’s (Bryan Cranston) demands. He tries to escape multiple times, eventually does, and when they run into the Apache, he successfully escapes both groups into a cave. Some weird shit happens, and he is transported far and away to a different desert.

WHERE HE CAN FLY. Not really, but jump super awesomely far. Hells yeah. But then some aliens run into him. Behemoth ten foot tall monsters, with four arms. They are confused by him, but eventually capture him (not kill) to bring back to their base. The head mean guy Tal Hajus (Thomas Haden Church) wants to kill him so badly, but the king, Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) says no. Fuck that. Train that dude. He can jump like crazy.

Also there is other shit going on, between some kingdom called Helium and Zodanga. Helium is the good guys, war, the princess of Helium (Lynn Collins) has to marry someone in Zodanga, or else. She said nope. War stuff. Escapes, John saves her. Big war. Bald dude magic guy (Mark Strong) from Zodanga wants to fuck all the shit up.

Eventually a journey starts up to end the war, between the nations and the big alien things. With a dog like creature too. And the daughter of the alien king (Samantha Morton). Shit, details aren’t necessary. But a lot fighting ends up happening, some personal shit with John Carter’s nuclear family, and some other shenanigans (like you know, going back to Earth, obviously).

“Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” John Carter sighed, quite nonchalantly.

Holy shit, this movie was more than about a guy on Mars, fucking up some shit. There was some stuff about post civil war Arizona! Some history! Yeah!

I loved the beginning of the movie a lot. From his bumbling in Az, to his bumbling on Mars and having no idea what is going on. I’d say about halfway, I did lose a bit of the drive. I think the war between nations, and an alien nation could have been simplified a bit. Instead of just throwing out a bunch of people with weird names at me. I bet, I bet reading the book would have made it all simpler, which is not a good thing for a movie.

But in terms of action/adventure entertainment? I was definitely entertained. Well done. Unfortunately this monetary flop means not only probably no more John Carter movies, but that Disney will in general stay away from Mars forever.

Daybreakers took me awhile to watch mostly because I assumed it was supposed to be some sort of horror film. There is no elements of that though, just straight up action.

Action, with some science talk and lots of vampires.

It also has crossbows. You know. Because bullets “don’t hurt”.

Ethan Hawke is a vampire! But most people are. The world is mostly vampire, and they can all think still. No worries. But, there are less and less humans out there. And they are running out of blood. He works for a company that extracts blood, and has blood farms in order to help sustain the population, but if they don’t solve their issue, they will run out within a month. He is a farmer, while his brother, Michael Dorman, is a hunter who goes out to collect humans.

He also doesn’t drink human blood. Guess he feels guilty. Well accidentally he finds a group of humans, including Claudia Karvan, and protects them from being caught. Somehow they trust him, and he is a scientist, so they bring him back to their hide out. BUT WHY. There he finds a really weird looking Willem Dafoe…with bite marks! Yet he is in the sunlight. Heck, he is a human again. Somehow he found a cure.

So now that he is on the run anyways, he works on developing a cure for vampirism. Hopefully no one finds out, and tries to use this knowledge to solve the blood shortage by turning prisoners into humans. Like his boss, Sam Neill. Or his scientist buddy, Vince Colosimo.

I don’t know how to insert Isabel Lucas into the plot summary but she is a human too, and a rather important one.

Also, some weird ass shit is going on here.

I can’t help but think that a lot of this is supposed to mirror oil and energy. But if it is…what? It sounds like it is supposed too, but in the metaphor of the vampire world, the solution to the oil crisis seems to be forgo technology and go back to the way we used to be before oil. Aka return to being humans. Which is a stupid solution to energy use.

Doesn’t help that “use less” energy/blood and “find alternative solutions” to energy/blood have already been explored by these vampires, and it looks like they are fucked. Are they saying our world is fucked, and nothing will work except for a trip back to the 19th century?

I don’t know at all. Bad parallels. Bad acting. Weird cure and then additional way to cure at the very end. Not at all sensical.

Fireflies In The Garden is one of those movies that is finished and released to a festival in 2008, but takes over three damn years to come out on DVD. I hate those movies. Similar things happened for the movies The Joneses and Leaves Of Grass for me, prompting me to download them. Don’t worry, I bought them once they finally were released. But even if I had downloaded this one, I would for sure not buy the movie later.

Teen Angst and Hipster Glasses aside.

This movie is about a family, like so many are, and tells a story in the present and probably about 25 years in the past. The story is also mostly about Ryan Reynolds and his relationships with his parents, Willem Dafoe playing the dad, and Julia Roberts the mom. Childhood was rough. His dad was mean, belittled him a lot, and gave him unreasonable punishments. His mom didn’t like it, but she was powerless to stop it.

But in the present, he is now more successful and has a beard! He is a writer, of course, and people like it. But he has a new book coming out, a tale of a dysfunctional family and a tale of abuse. Oh man, reminds me of the plot of Peep World. On his way home, though, his mom dies in a car accident, but the dad is fine. Awkwarddd.

Ryan hates his dad, and it shows it. Lots of passive aggressive talk. His aunt of around the same age is also there, kind of awkwardly watching it go down. The aunt is played by Emily Watson, but in the past, was definitely Hayden Panettiere, who had to live with them for a month or so, making Ryan’s character have very impure thoughts.

Yeah, this picture is way weirder (creepier? awkwarder?) knowing that she is the aunt.

The movie conveys a lot of destructive behavior, throughout the movie. From catching of the fireflies (And then doing what you do to fireflies), to “fishing” (with explosives), there is a big expectation for a destructive final. But nope. It doesn’t happen. Just ends. It has an ending, the ending is just lamer than expected based off the clues of the movie. Super disappointing movie, almost makes you feel like the whole thing was pointless. I hate that feeling!

Now I know why it took three damn years, I guess. Technically the relationship conveyed between father and son is pretty powerful, and what becomes of it. But its not enough to redeem the movie for me.