B Movie

Campy horror at it’s finest:

Movies on DVD: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Probably the quintessential drug movie of our time (Easy Rider taking that crown for the previous generation in all liklihood), Hunter S. Thompson’s book of the same name about one of his experiences in Gonzo Journalism (Wikipedia and fear-loathing.com both have explanations) receives the cinematic treatment. It’s a tale of too many drugs and too few reality checks, and somehow has a lot to do with the Vietnam war. Light on the story, heavy on great acting from both Johnny Depp and Benecio Del Toro, this is not a film for anyone who is not interested in getting inside the mind of a weird and wild drug abuser. Raoul Duke’s epic journey to Las Vegas to cover a dirt bike race certainly turns into something that is quite different almost immediately; he and Dr. Gonzo engage in drug-fueled debauchery of all types, fueled of course, by the infamous list of substances any fan of the movie can probably quote to you: “We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole multi colored collection of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers… Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.” Terry Gilliam lends his special touch and penchant for unique visual styles to this movie, creating memorable scenes of fantastical imagery; the version of Circus Circus that appears in the movie is especially notable in this regard, even if you’ve never done any of these drugs before, you’ll feel like you have after this film is done with you. Although somewhat slow moving in parts (yeah, there’s two hours of this ridiculousness), Fear and Loathing is overall a very well done film in most aspects, and certainly well worth checking out, and who knows, maybe you’ll even have an acid flashback.

My IMDB Rating: 8 Stars

Movies on DVD: Death of a President

One wonders how a film about the assassination of President George Bush could be unbias in any way, yet Death of a President manages to accomplish this feat. At first I was also dubious that this subject matter could fill ninety minutes, thankfully, I was somewhat wrong in this regard. Death has a wide array of characters presenting the story of the assassination, obviously nobody who is real presents any sort of interview segment; Bush and the rest of the fearless leaders of the free world appear in archive format, with reused speeches and news footage amounting to Bush’s role in the movie. Highlights of the interview portions include Becky Ann Baker as Bush’s speech writer, namely because she’s one of the few likable characters; almost everyone else is presented in negative light one way or another. This is the reason I saw it manages to be unbias in it’s presentation: it’s like the bad side of everything and everyone. The protestors are violent and out-of-control; the Secret Service agents are paranoid, classist, and racist; and of course the American public is blissfully ignorant. And unfortunately, it is hard to listen to some of these highly unlikable characters after a while, especially when everything they’re saying has already been repeated ad nauseum; this is the film’s major weak point, it would be much better off with fifteen to thirty minutes cut out. At the end of the day though, this film points out a few things that you may not have thought of before, and at the very least, ought to make us wary with the bleak picture it paints, because I do truly believe that if someone did assassinate Bush, the backlash would be exactly what happens in this movie, if not worse.

My IMDB Rating: 6 Stars

New Release: Hot Fuzz

What Hot Shots Part Deux did for the military action movie, Hot Fuzz does for the buddy-cop action comedy, with style, more plot, on a bigger budget, in Britain… and with Timothy Dalton instead of Lloyd Bridges. With the minds that brought Shaun of the Dead to life at the helm, one wonders, what could possibly go wrong? Well, in reality, very little indeed; this is a hilarious film from top to bottom, that is, if you find extreme gore, murder, parodies of action movies and old ladies being kicked in the face funny. It would certainly seem that I do. Simon Pegg stars as Nicholas Angel, a badass cop who finds himself suddenly ‘promoted’ to a posting in the sleepy village of Stanford when his colleagues on the force (err squad) become green-eyed over his immaculate arrest record. Thus Angel finds himself patrolling a rural hamlet where seemingly nothing goes on, and to boot, he has the unwanted help and admiration of the Chief Inspector’s son and fellow constable Danny Butterman (Nick Frost). The annual Village of the Year contest is imminently looming, just as a series of grisly accidents start to rock Stanford, however Angel seems to be the only one suspecting foul play; just so, he asks: “Haven’t you ever wondered why the crime rate is so low, but the accident rate is so high?”

Hot Fuzz is immaculately directed by Edgar Wright, who obviously put forth an effort to study the mechanics of the action movies he’s parodying. He manages to capture the run ‘n gun feel of the fast paced thrillers, all without ruining the comedic timing of the jokes or making it seem too dumb, despite that fact that it’s all very preposterous. And surprisingly, the large amounts of gore coupled with the extremely violent death scenes tend to be the only things played for gross-out laughs, the snappily written and delivered dialogue is by far the most humorous and appealing part of this movie; whether it’s the characters using a crossword puzzle to call each other names or just the relentless drubbing of action movie clichés, this film delivers almost as many punchlines as it does bullets.

My IMDB Rating: 8 Stars

Movies on DVD: I’m Gonna Git You Sucka

I have a special place in my heart for well done parody and spoof movies, and I’m Gonna Git You Sucka certainly qualifies. It’s a shame that more recent fare from director Keenan Ivory Wayans is certainly not as good and falls a lot lower on the ladder. In this film, he takes the lead role as Jack Spade as well as writes and directs. Somehow he manages to keep a straight face even when listening to or saying some of the most ridiculous lines ever written. Of course, like any good spoof though, so many of the jokes are placed subtley in the background of the picture; be sure to pay attention during the urban games segment (featuring such events as fleeing with a television). The plot itself is pretty weak, and serves as merely a mechanism to move Spade to the next humorous locale; of course the movie knows this and even takes a few shots at itself through villain Mr. Big (John Vernon). If you’ve ever seen and enjoyed Airplane, The Naked Gun, or any serious blaxploitation movie for that matter, you will find something to laugh at in this all-together too ridiculous tale of the happenings in “any ghetto, USA.”

My IMDB Rating: 6 Stars

Movies on DVD: The Last King of Scotland

The Last King of Scotland, or Ghost Dog as Dictator of Uganda as I like to think of it, is a film that attempts to take a gritty look at the Warlord Amin’s (Forest Whitaker, in his Oscar-winning role) dictatorship of the African country in a fictionalized account through the eyes of his doctor, Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy). Garrigan comes from a wealthy Scottish family, and after receiving his degree, and longing to get away from his overbearing father, he sets out to the first (well, second) country that he randomly picks off the globe, little does he know what he’s getting himself into. The hardest thing about watching this movie is that you know what is inevitably coming, you know that the fictional play-world that Amin crafts for Garrigan cannot last long and is bound to come crashing down. Garrigan’s somewhat willful ignorance to everything else Amin does is probably the most interesting point of this movie, as it shows what those of privilege will do to maintain their status, knowingly or otherwise. My main point of nitpick about the way the plot unfolds though, is that the conflict is always the same, it is rather obvious that Amin commits atrocities while serving up plates of lies about improving the country to Garrigan, wash, rinse, repeat and you have almost every scene after the first thirty minutes until the last twenty. Thusly, it is the ending that picks this movie back up, and works up some real emotional concern for the well being of our protagonist. While the acting may be the supposed thing to watch in this film, I found the cinematography to be well done, albeit similarly captured to Hotel Rwanda, a lot of handheld, shaky camera shots during the scenes of action, as well as epic angles capturing the charisma and charm that Amin could sometimes possess. In the end, this film is interesting, if not entertaining, and certainly worth watching at least once.

My IMDB Rating: 8 Stars

Movies on DVD: Reservoir Dogs

The first written/directed by Quentin Tarantino venture, and probably the second best, stands out as far as crime movies go, mainly for a few highly notable scenes (the walk out of the diner, the ear, the mexican standoff). Overall though, this is one of those dialogue heavy Tarantino films (see: Jackie Brown, Grindhouse), and thus probably not for everybody; however, I find the dialogue in this to be far superior to the other two films. Performances are top notch here as well, Tim Roth and Harvey Keitel have a palpable on-screen chemestry as Mr. Orange and Mr. White respectively. For the most part, all the actors perform well, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi and even Chris Penn all have good turns in their roles. The structure and setting of the story belie Tarantino’s original intentions for this film, as he was going to make it on a $30,000 budget with his friends, when he managed to actually acquire other backing and thus a much larger budget, and so he didn’t have to put up his paycheck from selling True Romance. So, armed with a much larger budget and better actors than he ever good have anticipated, it’s no wonder Tarantino puts forth such a magnificent effort and provides such a quality film. Perhaps my slight bias towards Reservoir Dogs comes from having seen Pulp Fiction (easily a superior movie) first, and thus I can’t help judging by comparison.

My IMDB Rating: 8 Stars

Movies on DVD: Old School

One of my favorite lowbrow comedies of the recent years, Old School is the height of hilarity, even if you haven’t even gone to college. The premise is thus, Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell play the types of characters that they often do: a fast-talking, selfish man and a hilarious yet thick manchild respectively. Oh yeah, Luke Wilson is in this movie too, mostly just to react to the other two and move along that pesky plot thing. The basic plot turns out to be along these lines: faced with the revelation that his girlfriend is a bit more sexually risky than he, Mitch (Wilson) moves into a new pad on the outskirts of Harrison University. After a kickoff party thrown by Bernard (Vaughn) is a hit, university Dean and old nemesis of our heroes, Gordon Pritchard (Jeremy Piven) swings by to inform the boys that Mitch’s new house is now zoned for campus use only, and so begins Bernard’s brilliant plan to start a fraternity for anybody and everybody. Personally, I see this as one of the movies that sparked the sparked the Starsky & Hutch, Dodgeball, Anchorman, etc. trend of comedies (they all have a lot of actors and crew members in common), and I see this one as by far one of the funniest. It is bursting with both auditory and visual gags of a wide range; some may gross you out, some may seem distasteful, but most will make you laugh. Old School is worth watching to see top-notch comedy game from both Ferrell and Vaughn before they started cranking out yearly to bi-yearly mediocre comedies.

My IMDB Rating: 6 Stars

New Release: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters

Wow, I can make this review pretty short: if you have ever watched the television show in marathon form, and have been able to stand it, you will probably like this movie; I can’t speak for the rest of you, but my money would be on it not being the best introduction to the humor of ATHF. This movie is ultimately just a 90 minute version of the formulaic by not being formulaic and weird for the sake of weird television program; thus everything you like about the show, you will probably like about the movie, but everything you don’t like will be there too. I guess they figured they ought not to mess with what is proven to work. Oh yeah, don’t be late to the movie when you go, the very beginning is easily the funniest part, in my opinion.

My IMDB Rating: 6 Stars

Movies on DVD: Little Miss Sunshine

One of the ultimate indie films, picked up by Fox Searchlight at the Sundance Film Festival, Little Miss Sunshine is both heartwarming and hilarious. This is the type of movie that allows the audience to watch each and every character grow and change over the course of the movie, and it handles its charge of balancing multi-character drama rather well. The story focuses on the beauty taspirations of young Olive (Abigail Breslin), who strangely does not seem to possess the figure of a normal beauty-pageant-goer. The rest of her life is very much driven by the activities and attitudes of her exceedingly dysfunctional family; highlights include Steve Carell as Frank, Olive’s scholarly uncle with a recent suicide attempt under his belt, and Alan Arkin as the heroin-snorting, foul-mouthed Grandpa. The overarching plot of reaching the beauty pageant is very secondary to the interactions between the various characters, and how they mold, bond and otherwise react to each other. It is very well written in this regard, setting up numerous payoffs from the very beginning, thus keeping the story interesting, even when it may seem like nothing material has been accomplished. As great and idealistic as the message of this movie is, and as awesome as the dramatic acting is, humor is still probably the main reason to view this film. There are way too many classic lines to pass this one up (namely from the Grandpa). Finally, one might think that spending 50% of the movie in a van could get a little boring, not so, the cinematography is dynamic and the shots well composed, thus holding the viewer’s attention until the end.

-My IMDB Rating: 9 Stars