Slow West, The Salvation

Slow West

Slow West is a pretty good title for this movie. Boring West would also work. It was helmed by Scottish director John Mclean who barely understands the genre. The film’s languid pacing makes this 84-minute film feel three times as long. The characters are barely characters at all, merely one-dimensional constructs for lurching the plot along incrementally. The only action scene comes at the end of the movie, and the main character retardedly throws himself into a bullet and dies. Michael F. Assbender stars in this, and it was the only reason I gave it a chance. The movie sucks, and even though he’s a good actor, he couldn’t save it. Westerns without a story or at least without a charismatic character are pointless. They thrive on personal drama, punctuated by violence that has come after slowly building suspense. Slow West delivers none of that, only the slowness.

Verdict: Shitty

The Salvation

The Salvation is about a Danish immigrant who travels across the old west. I liked this angle, because there were a lot of immigrants in this period of U.S. history, and until now they have been left out of the story on the silver screen. Mads Mikkelsen plays a former Danish sharpshooter who immigrates with his family, only to have tragedy strike at the hands of ruthless gang members. What follows is a dual tale of revenge, with gang leader Jeffrey Dean Morgan attempting to get revenge on Mikkelsen, and Mikkelsen attempting to get revenge against the entire gang. Morgan is completely over-the-top with his scene chewing, and almost ruins the movie, but manages to keep it reined in enough to not lose it altogether. Mikkelsen is pitch-perfect as a man-on-fire looking for vengeance, but who is also smart enough to know he needs to keep his cool in order to survive. I liked that he prefers a rifle over a revolver, which is a different choice for the genre, and set the action scenes apart from genre standards. Eva Green is underutilized as Morgan’s girlfriend, but she has a great scene at the end. The biggest problem is the movie doesn’t feel like a real, lived-in world. The town feels like a set, and none of the characters are fleshed out except for Mikkelsen. You don’t really get fully absorbed, and always know you are watching a movie. The Salvation has plenty of action, and will satisfy any fan of the genre. It’s worth a look, especially for Mikkelsen’s performance, and the fact that it’s a modern western that isn’t boring.

Verdict: Average

 

Shame Should Be Ashamed of Itself

The movie Shame is a nihilistic, pseudo-intellectual garbage bag of a film. It’s one of these movies that thinks if it’s about something controversial, that alone will be enough to make it good. Well, it’s not. You can’t just make a movie about sex addiction and have it automatically be good. It still requires all the other components of good movies: plot, acting, directing, pacing, etc. You can’t just film Michael F. Assbender’s giant dong and expect people to automatically love the movie.

One person may look at a nihilistic movie and declare it to be utterly brilliant. For me, just being nihilistic doesn’t make it good. Shame is a crushing black hole of bleakness without any attempt at having a message or moral or even a fucking theme.

Centurion

Mute Bond Chick, Assbender, and McNulty all in the same movie? Sign me up.

Michael F. Assbender is a favorite of mine. From his smoldering good looks to his suave English accent to his constant Assbending, he can do no wrong. Not even starring in Centurion can be considered a wrong move. No, despite the movie being a terrible mess, Assbender still comes out like a shining diamond. No matter how much the movie sucks, you can never find fault with Assbender.

Centurion takes place in ancient Roman times, and focuses on a group of Romans who are struggling to hold Britain against the barbarian hordes (i.e. British people). Naturally, all the Romans speak with English accents, completely confusing the matter. Assbender is taken captive at an outpost and later rescued by his comrades.

Haywire, Louie Season 2

Haywire

She looks better with her hair covering her face.

What do you get when you cross Ocean’s 11 with The Bourne Identity? A steaming pile of shit, that’s what. This 2011 movie was written by Lem Dobbs whose previous work included such gems as Dark City. It’s directed by Steven Soderbergh who filmed the aforementioned Ocean’s movies. Haywire is about a beautiful female spy (is there any other kind?) who gets betrayed on a mission and has to go on the run. 90% of the screentime is dedicated to Mallory (played by Gina Carano) avoiding capture by spies or police. At times she must outwit them, and other times she must beat the crap out of people. This is exactly what happens in all the Bourne movies. The espionage angle and the fights are portrayed realistically, just like in the Bourne movies. However, unlike the Bourne movies, this movie eschews madcap pacing necessary to build tension and keep viewers interested. Haywire insists on being slow and methodical, even during chase scenes. Mallory doesn’t seem particularly in a hurry even though everyone wants to kill her. For example, after she kills the man who was supposed to assassinate her, she takes a shower, does her makeup, and makes a phone call before vacating the premesis.

Carano, a former martial artist turned actor, is headlining in her first major motion picture. Her acting, as expected, is just as good as any former martial artist turned actor: shitty. You could easily replace her with Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal, and get the same caliber of wooden line delivery. The only difference is that Carano has a pair of tits, so I suppose that makes her better than those other guys. Soderbergh does a terrible job directing. Clearly, he wishes he had been a movie director in the 1970s. All the framings, the zoom-ins and zoom-outs, random use of black and white, and weird lens filters scream 1970s. Hey, guess what, Soderbergh? We aren’t living in the 1970s. Get over it. You can’t make a Bourne movie and film it like an Ocean’s movie. It just doesn’t work.

Haywire happens to have a pretty good cast, including Awesomely Shitty favorite Michael F. Assbender, Channing “C-Tates” Tatum, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Douglas. Sadly, the good actors (Douglas and Banderas) get the least amount of screen time possible. The majority of the film is taken up by the people who suck at acting, namely Carano and C-Tates. Lastly, the story is goddamn retarded. The double-cross against Mallory makes no sense. If the bad guys hadn’t involved her in the first place, their plan would have totally worked. Let’s not forget how Mallory, who is a fucking spy, has a bad case of verbal diarrhea, spilling the entire events of the movie to a hostage who looks like the poor man’s version of James McAvoy. Why did she do that? It is a narrative device, obviously, but they could have just as easily told the story through a flashback, and not made Mallory look so stupid. All in all, this movie sucks ass. The lethargic pacing, the crappy acting, the faux-70s directing, and the fact that Soderbergh just can’t handle the material all make this movie a big ole turd.

Verdict: Shitty

Louie Season 2

Louie doesn’t look too thrilled to have his own TV show.

The second season of Louie continues the harsh, honest, and hilarious look at the titular comedian’s life. After watching two seasons of the show, I realize that it doesn’t really conform to the typical narrative structure you see anywhere else. It is mostly a series of vignettes in the life of Louis C.K. If anything, you could say it is a bunch of disconnected short stories that can be pretty horrifying, but Louis somehow manages to extract humor from them. Although the first season was amazing, I think the second season was consistently better. Every episode was memorable, or at least had memorable parts. The two highlights for me were the episode where Louis meets comedian Dane Cook and they talk about Cook having been accused of stealing Louis’ jokes, and the hour-long episode where Louis inadvertently takes a duckling to Afghanistan while performing a few USO shows for the troops. Incredibly, the show manages to be extremely high quality with Louis taking on acting, writing, directing, producing, and editing duties. If he isn’t a one-man production team, then I don’t know what is. Season 2 continues the greatness of the first, and is highly recommended.

Verdict: Awesome

Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (And Other 80s Dance Movies)

Dance Dance Revolu– wait, nevermind, that didn’t exist yet.

One time, in a state of delirium, I thought it would be a great idea to watch dance movies from the 80s. Apparently, dancing was all the rage in the 80s. There were exactly 15,335 dance movies made between the years 1980-1989. So in my state of delirium I watched Flashdance (incomprehensible), Footloose (“When I get angry I just have to dance!”), and Dirty Dancing (The Swayze). All of these movies are terrible. Even though I was delirious I could still tell they were terrible. They are so bad they are likely to replace waterboarding as the next form of government-sanctioned torture interrogation.

This movie is all wet.

A lot of times movies will be derided for having “no plot.” Usually this is a slight exaggeration because even movies with “no plot” somehow get from Point A to Point B. Very little may happen, but most times there is at least some minuscule semblance of a storyline. Flashdance, however, truly has no plot. Absolutely nothing of consequence happens in this movie. It’s provisionally “about” a young, beautiful female steel welder (I can’t tell you how many hot lady steel welders I’ve met in my life) who aspires to be a ballet dancer. The best way she knows to achieve this goal is to go to a dive bar at night and “flash dance.” Flash dancing is kind of like stripping/spazzing-out on-stage, but not actually getting naked. The audience seems to really get into it. Apparently, having attacks of epilepsy on-stage is super erotic. At one point, she pulls a cord and water drops all over her body. Eventually, she auditions for a ballet school, but runs away, realizing she has no talent. That’s right. That bitch has no talent as a dancer at all. Watching her thrash around on-stage for 50 minutes of the 95 minute runtime was excruciating. It’s like this movie is just a bunch of music videos strung together with the most paper-thin character imaginable. They should have just made a movie out of a bunch of music videos. That would have at least made sense. In the end we don’t learn if she gets into the ballet school or not. It’s not important. It doesn’t matter because there is no plot. This movie is an abortion of storytelling coherence.

Prometheus is Retconned Crap

The Prometheus poster references better movies.

Prometheus marks the long-awaited (by fans, at least) return of director Ridley Scott to the Alien movie franchise. No doubt he’s a great director, and he launched a well-loved series of movies, which later branched off into comics, toys, video games, etc. Unfortunately, the Alien series as a whole is filled with more trash than a landfill. Let’s take a brief look:

1. Alien (1979) – Awesome.
2. Aliens (1986) – Awesome.
3. Alien 3 (1992) – Fucking terrible, depressing, prison setting, generally retarded.
4. Alien Resurrection (1997) – One of the hokiest pieces of shit ever put to celluloid.
5. Alien vs Predator (2004) – Directed by one of the 4 Horsemen of the Film-Making Apocalypse, Paul W.S. Anderson, need I say more?
6. Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007) – Still fucking terrible, but at least it embraced its idiocy and went full out with death and mayhem.

So, out of six movies, only two are good. I’m surprised they kept making these things. They must have made a lot of money, because I’m sure people weren’t out there comparing this shit to Casablanca. At least they nailed two of the three R’s of shitty franchise sequel titles: Resurrection and Requiem. The only one they are missing is Redemption. I’m sure Alien Redemption is somewhere on the horizon.

When it was announced that a new Alien movie would be made, there was a collective groan across the internet, as if a million voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. That groan became a cheer when Ridley Scott came on board as the director. At last, we would get another good Alien movie! It only took 27 years!

Happy (Shitty) Four Year Anniversary

Four years already, huh? That’s a long time filled with a lot of insults. If this blog was a four year old human, it would be able to do a lot of stuff by now, including:

• Cooperates with other children –> there is a blog roll on the side of the page
• Talks about interests and disinterests –> that much is obvious
• Can’t tell the difference between real and make-believe –> that would explain my unadulterated rage
• Knows basic rules of grammar such as “he” or “she” –> in light of the “irregardless” post, I’d say this is a yes
• Can sing a song or poem such as “Wheels on the bus” –> at least this involves singing
• Tells stories –> such as the Tale of the iPhone
• Can say first and last name –> you mean “Awesomely” and “Shitty”, right?
• Knows the names of some colors and numbers –> as long as they are black, white, red, orange, and blue – and let’s just forget the whole numbers thing
• Understands the idea of counting –> Transformers 1, Transformers 2, Transformers 3, etc.
• Uses scissors –> but only to cut out pictures of Michael F. Assbender and put them on my wall
• Plays board or card games –> do drinking games count?
• Hops and stands on one foot for two seconds –> too lazy to try
• Catches a bounced ball –> too lazy to try
• Can pour own drinks –> for the aforementioned drinking games

Wow, it’s just like this blog is a real person! So, happy (shitty) four year anniversary to me! Until next time, amigos (fuckos).

A Dangerous Method, Alias Season 4

A Dangerous Method

Freud, Jung, and some chick. What more could you want?

I really wanted to love this movie. After all, it stars Viggo “I’m a total badass” Mortesen as Sigmund Freud, Michael F. Assbender as Carl Jung, and Keira Knightley as Some Chick I’ve Never Heard Of. The cast is great. The director, David Cronenberg, has made some incredible films including Naked Lunch and Christmas-favorite Eastern Promises. Also, with this being about the friendship-to-adversaries relationship between Freud and Jung, I thought I was in for quite a cinematic treat. Something on par with Obi Wan and Darth Vader or Professor X and Magneto starting out as friends and then becoming enemies. Unfortunately, there were no lightsaber duels or mutant powers.

The problem with this movie wasn’t the acting (which was great), wasn’t the directing (which was quite good), and wasn’t the production values (which were excellent). The problem came from the script. There was no real climax to the movie. In fact, there was no real conflict. Yes, Freud and Jung had differing opinions about the fledgling field of psychoanalysis, but it was portrayed rather matter-of-factly with very little conflict or drama. The side drama of Jung’s affair with Spielrein (Knightley) was interesting but lacked punch. The whole thing seemed very dull in what could have been a psychological and emotional showdown. At least the positive and negative aspects of both Freud and Jung were explored. I know they were going for accuracy and realism, but it’s a movie, we need to have at least some kind of drama and climax. Oh well, at least everyone involved did a good job. Oh, and Keira Knightley got naked.

Verdict: Average

Alias Season 4

Alias season 4 cast.

After the complete trainwreck that was season 3, this season gets things back on track. Everything is vastly improved from the previous year. The writing is better, the acting has improved, and the overall insanity has been toned way way way down. The most noticeable difference between season 4 and all other seasons is that it is the most plausible. Obviously, it’s a TV spy show, and there is no way it is going to be realistic. However, in terms of believability in how the agents operate, what they do, the missions they go on, etc., everything is at least within the realm of reason. The overall story structure has a slower pace, a lot more episodes are self-contained, and there are far fewer ZOMG cliffhanger endings. Why bother with a cliffhanger ending if it’s just there to tease the audience? It also has two of the series best episodes: the one where Sydney and Vaughn infiltrate a Russian spy training camp that looks just like an American suburb, and the one where everyone is essentially incapacitated and Marshall single-handedly saves the world. Oh, and the stuff with Arvin Clone was pretty cool. While it still isn’t good enough to reach Awesome status, season 4 of Alias is probably the best the show has to offer.

Verdict: Good

Michael F. Assbender is in Everything

Hello, handsome.

Have you heard of this actor Michael F. Assbender? Well, you should have, because he was in every movie in 2011, and will be starring in every movie in 2012.

Michael F. Assbender is a mythological figure on par with Hercules or Vishnu or John McCain. In fact, Assbender didn’t even exist until the year 2009. He snapped into existence, seemingly at the will of Quentin Tarantino, in order to play a role in the film Inglourious Basterds. If you check out IMDB or Wikipedia, you’ll find an elaborate biography and many roles predating his 2009 debut. Don’t believe those. THEY ARE LIES! They are just an intricate backstory created by the Illuminati so people wouldn’t freak out about the implications of a famous actor being willed into existence.

I don't know what's going on here, either.

Tarantino’s cocaine-fueled revisionary history film was seen by throngs of people, and they were all exposed to their first glimpse of Assbender. People were so enthralled by his unfathomably good looks that they clamored for more. Immediately, Hollywood jumped aboard the Assbender train. After all, if a handsome white British actor can’t be popular, then who can?

Assbender quickly started to take roles in every movie known to man. Assbender didn’t discriminate. He took roles in indie-films and big budget Hollywood shit-spectaculars.

In 2010 he starred in Centurion, Jonah Hex, and videogame Fable III. In 2011 Assbender could be seen in Jane Eyre, X-Men: First Class, A Dangerous Method, Shame, and Pitch Black Heist. In 2012 he will be in Haywire, Prometheus, Twelve Years a Slave, and Your Mom’s Sexual Fantasies.

His acting style is best described as Assbending. He speaks both English AND German. He has smoldering good looks. He stares into the camera with steely eyes. His on-screen persona makes your girlfriend’s panties moist. His mere presence in a movie makes everything electrifying. That, my friends, is the essence of Assbending.

ACTING!

Of course, 2012 is only just getting underway so we should expect a lot more Assbending to come throughout the year. He seems to be experiencing exponential growth in terms of starring in movies. Take a look:

• 2009: one role
• 2010: three roles
• 2011: five roles
• 2012: nineteen roles
• 2013: one hundred thirty-seven roles
• 2014: nine hundred ninety-nine roles
• 2015: all movie roles portrayed by Assbender

We are well on our way to total movie domination by Assbender. And why shouldn’t we be? The guy is talented. He was able to play a spy, a psychiatrist, a rich dude, an angry mutant, and a sex fiend with a big Fasspenis. A multi-talented thespian such as him should really be in every movie.

Assbender makes psychiatry sexy.

The only people that can come close to rivaling him in being in everything are Natalie Portman and Samuel L. Jackson. Considering Assbender’s exponential rise to fame, he will overcome his two competitors in a matter of time.

Michael F. Assbender is unstoppable, just like that train from the movie Unstoppable. All we need now is for some talented director (e.g. George Lucas) to digitally remove actors from past movies and replace them with Assbender. There shouldn’t be a film in existence that doesn’t include Assbender in at least one role. Could you imagine how cool it would be to watch Gone With the Wind and see Assbender in a dress say: “Rhett! If you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?” only to see Assbender in a suit reply: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

That would be so awesome.

So here’s to Assbender and years of Assbending to come. Wait, what’s that? His name is Fassbender? Oh, goddammit.

Conan the Barbarian – Probably the Greatest Movie Ever Made

Conan the Barbarian is probably the greatest movie ever made. I recently rewatched it on Blu-Ray for the 11,000th time. The sheer bliss I experienced while watching all that cinematic sex and carnage led me to realize that this is probably the pinnacle of human creation. No one will ever make a piece of art more endearing, more inspiring than this film. So why is Conan the Barbarian the greatest movie ever made? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons.

1.) Sword Fighting – Whenever you include sword fighting, it ALWAYS improves the quality of your movie. Just try to think of one movie that wasn’t improved by sword fighting. You can’t. It doesn’t exist. A movie with sword fighting is going to be better than one without, every single time. Take a look at this picture from 500 Days of Summer.

JGL and Zooey: an indie match made in heaven.

It looks fine and all, but compare it to this picture from Conan the Barbarian.

Bloody swords improve everything 100 fold

The improvements are obvious. Clearly, the addition of the sword makes Conan the better film.