Seeking Justice, The Hateful Eight

Seeking Justice

This is yet another New Orleans-based Nicolas Cage movie. I haven’t seen every movie in his oeuvre, but this makes at least four to be set there (The Runner, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and Stolen were the other three for those playing along at home). Maybe the dude loves New Orleans, who knows? Anyway, this is a pretty pathetic excuse for a movie. Cage’s wife is raped, and he is approached by a mysterious stranger who promises to get revenge in exchange for a favor later. The bad guy, of course, wants Cage to kill someone, and he refuses. This turns into a boring back-and-forth between Cage and bad guys leading to a shootout in an abandoned mall. The problem with this movie is that it seems to not care about doing anything unique. They have a good setting and a decent premise, but just piss it away for generic plot points. Its ham-fisted plot and straight-forward directing style make it as generic as they come. Cage is perfect, though, he’s never been bad in anything.

Verdict: Shitty

The Hateful Eight

Quentin Tarantino’s newest film proves he doesn’t understand the definition of the word “brevity.” A sprawling three hours in length, his latest Western is a tale of loathsome people stuck in a cabin, riding out a snowstorm. It’s a story that could be taut and thrilling, easily told in a lean 90-minutes, but for some goddamn reason, it’s twice that long. Sally Menke had been Tarantino’s editor from Reservoir Dogs until Inglourious Basterds. After her untimely death, Tarantino has been off the reins. His new editor, Fred Raskin, either doesn’t have the balls or the wherewithal to tell Tarantino when enough is enough.

The movie contains all of Tarantino’s trademarks: rambling speeches, a growing sense of dread, anachronistic music, events out of synch, and ultra-violence. When this movie works, it absolutely works. From the point where Samuel L. Jackson’s character figures out who the bad guys are until the end, the movie is enthralling. But that comes over 90 minutes in. Almost everything up to that point is needless, and getting there is laborious.

The characters are great, the performance are great, and the music, by the legendary Ennio Morricone, is great. The problem is the fucking editing. I needed to take Adderall to stay awake during the first half of this movie, because nothing even remotely fucking interesting happens for the first 90 minutes. That’s an entire feature length! He really needed a better editor here. Even at two hours, this could have been a masterpiece. As it stands now, it’s needlessly bloated. Tarantino often indulges himself, frequently going in delightful tangents, but there is no delightful tangent here, The Hateful Eight just wastes time.

Verdict: Average

 

Brik Hates the Academy Awards: 00s Edition

It’s no mystery that I hate the Academy Awards. Hollywood spends half the year binging on cocaine and hookers and the other half praising themselves for it. No other industry exerts so much energy and spends so much money on self-congratulatory masturbation than the film industry. These sick fucks have the cushiest, easiest jobs in the world, and they act like what they do is some kind of goddamn accomplishment. “LOL OH LOOK I JUST RECITED SOME LINES SOMEONE ELSE WROTE FOR ME AND SHED A TEAR AT THE SAME TIME! I’M A FUCKING ACTING GOD! QUICK SOMEBODY GIVE ME FIFTY AWARDS LOL!” In theory, I could get behind the awards if they actually awarded things that were deserving. You know, giving a Best Picture award to the best movie of the year. But the Academy rarely gives that award to the best movie of the year. Hell, they don’t even give it to the most popular movie of the year. Usually, they give it to whatever cool person produced the movie, or to the most obscure, independent, foreign piece of shit they can find. Typically, no one in the mainstream public will have even seen the winner. They’ve been pulling this shit for years. So, I decided to analyze the past years, offer my own nominees, and declare new winners. Best movie isn’t the one that makes you cry or makes you think. Best movie is the one that you want to revisit over and over again. A movie you watch once and never again isn’t good. It’s only good if you can’t help but watch it a million times. Rewatchability is the hallmark of something great.

This time around, I’ll be taking a look at the Best Picture winners from the 2000s.

Natural Born Killers – Oliver Stone Has No Talent and He Must Scream

Oh, so that’s what this movie is called.

In case you were wondering why people have a tendency to hate on Oliver Stone, just take a look at Natural Born Killers. It pretty much sums up everything the “auteur” director is about. He goes into full on pretentious cunt mode with this movie. He tries hard to make an “artistic film,” but it turns out to be the movie version of Taco Bell diarrhea. Stinky, wet, and cheap.

Did you ever see the old 1960s Batman TV series starring Adam West? Half the time the scenes were filmed with the camera tilted to a 45 degree angle to make everything look all weird. Natural Born Killers is filmed like this for two fucking hours. I’m not sure if Stone was trying to evoke the old 60s Batman, but it sure looks like his audition tape to direct an episode. It becomes a chore to watch because you know he is doing it on purpose to be clever, but it comes off as stupid, and a lazy man’s way of making the movie “deep.”

Django Should Have Left the Chains On

Django is off the chain. Get it? Anyone? Hello?

Middle-school drop-out Quentin Tarantino brings us his newest film, a Western-inspired adventure through the South complete with his trademark dialog, excessive violence, and bizarre sense of humor. The movie begins with the date, 1858, and a statement, “Two years before the Civil War.” That would be true if the Civil War began in 1860. But it began in 1861. Maybe if Tarantino hadn’t dropped out of Middle-school, he would realize that 61 – 58 does not equal 2.

Django Unchained tells the story of Django, a slave who becomes a free man. The majority of the film is his quest to free his wife Broomhilda from slavery, as well. In doing so, he teams up with a bounty hunter and goes under-cover, so to speak, in order to accomplish his goals. At its heart, this movie is a revenge tale, an outlet of anger against slavery at the hands of white oppressors.

I Lost My Combination to The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker poster.

The Hurt Locker is a 2008 film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. What is it about? I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that it is overrated as hell. Supposedly, this movie is about a three-man U.S. Army bomb squad operating in the Iraq War. That’s what all of the movie’s scenes revolve around. However, it would be a stretch to say this movie is really about anything. But that’s not for a lack of trying.

In fact, The Hurt Locker tries to be about a lot of things, but fails at all of them. You know that old saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none”? Well, that’s this movie in a nutshell.

It tries to be an honest look at the Iraq War, but it isn’t realistic in the slightest. It tries to be a suspense-laden thriller, but the suspenseful scenes are few and far between. It tries to give us an in-depth look at the psychology of the men who experience war, but it doesn’t know how to pull that off. At best, The Hurt Locker could be described as schizophrenic. At worst, a piece of shit.

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.