Weekly Recap 4/30/10

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: The Messenger, It's Complicated, Say Anything, Better Luck Tomorrow, North by Northwest, M:I3, The Terminator, Iron Man, The Road Warrior, Natural Born Killers, Brick
The Bad: Gangster No. 1, Ride with the Devil, Disgrace, Edge of Darkness
The Ugly: None


Trips to the Theater: Kick-Ass

Actors of the Week: Woody Harrelson, Alec Baldwin, Chloe Grace Moretz
Directors of the Week: Matthew Vaughn, Cameron Crowe pre-Vanilla Sky



TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
Say Anything...


Jonah Hex

Kick-Ass

3 1/2 stars. First of all, the movie shouldn't be called Kick-Ass. It should be called HIT GIRL. I had very low expectations going in despite a great red band trailer and a concept I thought was pretty clever. Roger Ebert and I agree 99.9% of the time, he gave the movie one star, and this along with his review of Fight Club is part of the .1% where we disagree. Kick-Ass kicks some serious ass.

Dave Lizewski is an average geek kid who decides one day to buy a green scuba diving suit online and go out and fight crime. He is strangely ok at it and his MySpace page blows up with hits. At the same time, a father-daughter duo of Big Daddy(Nic Cage) and Hit Girl(500 Days of Summer's Chloe Moretz) are real deal superheroes with an arsenal of heavy duty weapons and a lot of skills. I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but there is a big bad villain, there are henchman, but man is thing a lot of fun.

It started off a little rough with some clunky voice-over, but once Kick-Ass starts walking the streets of New York, things really do take off. At the very core of these types of movies, you gotta care about the good guys so that when they are put in danger it genuinely gets tense. That seems so simple but how many movies do you see where you don't care at all? Where there's obviously no real jeopardy like in bad Bond movies. Despite all of the craziness going on, I was surprised myself at how much I cared about these 3 heroes. And since they do not have any sci-fi superpowers, I honestly could not predict how they could get out of the situations they find themselves in. But that's the pleasure of the movie. There's a real sense that Kick-Ass could really be killed or at very least severely injured(he does actually get severely injured more than once). The script actually accomplishes that much emotional investment in a guy in green tights and a girl wearing a purple wig.

The action is very, very good and I doubt I'll see a better action movie this year. The action is understandable, insanely well choreographed, and really a hell of a good time. The R-rating certainly helps but the whole concept allows for so much more than your usual comic book movie. You can have a guy carrying a bazooka and someone firing Gatling guns and it all seems plausible. Big tent pole movies like Batman and Superman have to stay grounded to please the masses. Kick-Ass at an independently financed $30 million can be whatever it wants to be.

I have to talk about Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl. She truly will go down as of the one greatest little bad asses in movie history. Some may have understandable moral objections to the idea of a 11 year-old girl holding a handgun(and she drops the c-bomb), but if something as grotesque as Saw can spawn 6 sequels with the same MPAA rating, I think it's safe to say we shouldn't go to movies for morality. She is amazing in a role that could've been so easily ludicrous and offensive. She gets 2 butterfly knives for her birthday, she chops a guy's leg off with a spear, and she does some trick with long cable and a gun that has to be seen to be believed. Somehow this little girl doing somersaults and spin kicks and firing automatic weapons isn't the least bit silly. It is very, very cool. If anyone has anything to say about the movie, it will be about her. Her final run through a hallway of bad guys is pretty great, but her strobe light assault in hyper slow motion is off its ass awesome.

A lot of credit should go to director Matthew Vaughn(Layer Cake, Stardust, both movies I did not like) who maintains a great tone and pace and creates what I believe to be the epitome of a fan boy's wet dream. I thought it was going to be more of a comedy or maybe a spoof of the genre. It turns out to be just a great superhero movie. What are people talking about, it's not a satire. More than anything I respect the level of difficulty. It can't be too silly even though there's a villain named Red Mist and it can't be too serious even though there's an enormous amount R-rated violence. It threads that needle pretty well straight through and that's to be admired. The song choices are great, British actor Aaron Johnson is very well cast and completely avoids being annoying, Nicolas Cage re-gains some street cred, and composer John Murphy(Sunshine) cranks out another great score. Not many movies get me half as going as this one did, let alone a movie that includes a scene of a schoolgirl shooting a doorman through the cheek. Who are you? I'm Kick-Ass.

Top 5: JFK

JFK is in my top five of all time. I first saw it back in 1992 when I rented the double VHS version from the Skokie Public Library. I seriously doubt I understood all that was going on back then, but I remember being blown away by it all the same. It was so intelligent and dense and stunning in its construction. It still is. Not that I used those words back when I was 14.

JFK is of course Oliver Stone’s film following New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Let me say it first, I don’t believe Oswald acted alone. Does anyone anymore? “Back and to the left”. That’s enough to convince me. The film more than anything is about information. Tons of it. The CIA, the Cubans, Castro, the mob, special forces, black ops, Secret Service procedures, LBJ, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, the Texas Book Depository, the Zapruder film, the works. The film doesn’t know, and I don’t think it claims to, but it has theory upon theory about what could’ve happened both pre and post assassination.

Everyone always talks about the conspiracies and the inaccuracies and the validity of the information. The glorious thing that no one talks about is how the information is presented to us. It is sometimes a group of investigators talking across a dinner table but Stone shows us what they are thinking what they are perceiving and everything else. We see real documentary footage, we see dramatic representations, we see full out fictional sequences. Home video, black and white, different film stocks. It was and is an insanely bold cinematic choice and it works wonders. And for all that is told to us about exit wounds and Oswald’s defection to Russia or about Kennedy’s plans to dismantle the CIA, all of it is clear and understandable. That is the real accomplishment of the film. History has never ever been so freaking exciting.

Hardly anyone talks about the great performances in the film starting with Gary Oldman who frankly is Lee Harvey Oswald. When I think of Oswald, I think of Gary Oldman. He’s done something with his face here where he seems almost unrecognizable as the actor. He doesn’t really have full out scenes, but short clips and glimpses of this man who I believe was a patsy. It’s a deep and complex performance of a mysterious and still very unknown character. Other standouts are Joe Pesci in a rage of revved up energy, Tommy Lee Jones never more aristocratic, and Kevin Bacon in a sensational sequence as he describes first meeting Lee Harvey Oswald. There are hundreds of characters in the movie and we remember them all. Cameos from John Candy, Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Donald Sutherland who still stuns me when he shows up in the last third of the movie. His sequence is about 10-15 minutes long but the sheer volume of dialogue and information he has to convey must break some sort of record. The way he serves it up is unbelievable. Compelling, passionate, fiercely intelligent. How many other actors could’ve possibly accomplished that? Lastly, Kevin Costner(despite his latter celluloid sins) is really amazing as the lead in this movie whether it be in the rhythm of his speeches or his silent scenes where he has to spend so much time simply listening. I wished he had stayed doing these types of adult roles but he wanted to go off and be the hero one time too many.

JFK really is like no other movie before or since and the movie is nearly 20 years old. Stories aren’t told this way. Movies aren’t put together this way. The movie somehow plays as if someone is in fact analyzing this information in their head. It is as immediate and visceral as thought. Also, this is a time when there was no digital editing. That means someone was cutting the film with scissors and connecting two shots together with scotch tape. It deserved its Oscar for Best Editing. As someone who so loves the craft of movie making, I can’t think of another film that so fulfills that love. Goodfellas comes close, but JFK is still the best example of how exciting movie making can be. It is mastery of cinematic grammar.

And for all of this, it still means so much to me personally. It’s the spirit of the film. It’s the pursuit of unanswered truth and obsession. It’s the discovery of new truths and how we can never go back to who we were after we know. Maybe that’s what is most important to me. I’ve never been a particularly political person nor at all a conspiracy theorist, but this movie is very special to me. I doubt it will ever be knocked out of my top 5.

Weekly Recap 4/23/10

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: Crazy Heart, Set it Off, The Untouchables, Live Free or Die Hard, Elizabeth, The Godfather Parts I-III, The Incredible Hulk, Braveheart, Forrest Gump, The Freshman, 30 Rock Season 1-2
The Bad: Avatar, The Young Victoria, Tales from the Script
The Ugly: The Lovely Bones, Red Heat, Uncertainty

Trips to the Theater: None(been over a month now)

Actors of the Week: Marlon Brando, Kevin Costner
Directors of the Week: Francis Ford Coppola, Mel Gibson




TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
The Untouchables. Don't be distracted by the low res trailer. The Blu-ray looks unbelievable.

April 2010 Reviews (The Young Victoria)

The Young Victoria 2 1/2 stars. It's no secret, my dislike of costume period dramas. They are the quickest things to cause yawns. All of those corsets, and petticoats, and waist coats. All of the emotional repression and conformity and fighting against the conformity, but you're only a little successful and it's all so tragic. I've never been able to get through Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. The best is still Scorsese's Age of Innocence which still contains those cliches but with so much life in its filmmaking. The Young Victoria started off very well, with a sumptuous coronation of the young Queen. It is something to see. The royals certainly know how to put on a show. However, too much of the film feels like a better film, Elizabeth with Cate Blanchett. Both are about queens thought to be too young to take their thrones and much of both movies are about plots to steal away their authority. Elizabeth is a masterful thriller. The Young Victoria is more of a coming of age romance with a bit of palace intrigue. Emily Blunt is still my #1 on screen crush and she is very good in the role, but the genre is just too tired and it needs to be special for me to enjoy it. Other good alternatives are Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility and The Wings of the Dove with Helena Bonham Carter.



44 Inch Chest 3 stars. From the writers of Sexy Beast, still one of the most memorable British crime movies I've ever seen. Ray Winstone(one of my favorites) is Colin Diamond whose wife has just revealed that she is leaving him for a younger man. If you don't know who Ray Winstone is, what the hell's wrong with you? Haha. He had great roles in The Departed, Cold Mountain, and as the voice of Beowulf. He's the definition of stocky. The movie brings together 5 fine British actors(Tom Wilkinson(Batman Begins), Stephen Dillane(Spy Game), John Hurt(Alien), Ian McShane(Deadwood) and gives them simply phenomenal cockney dialogue to serve up. It is some great writing. Their characters are all over the hill but they still got some juice left in the plumbing. They spend a good deal of the movie deciding what terrible things to do to this younger man while Colin spends a lot of the time in shock about what has happened since he loved his wife so much. Maybe too much he says. The movie is somewhat of a contained play as so much of it is spent in one room and that was a bit disappointing. It isn't nearly as good as Sexy Beast nor as dramatically satisfying, but there's too much fun with these veteran actors not to recommend it. A powerful opening sequence and geez, what a great title.





Avatar 2 stars. First of all, it looks better on Blu-ray in regular 2D. Colors pop and Pandora seems like more of a special place. Maybe because this time it's all in focus and I don't have to strain my eyes underneath a pair of smudgy plastic glasses. Still, despite the quality of the disc, the movie is a big dull dud to me. Everytime a blue person came on screen my mind starting to go into standby. I don't care about your chanting or your connection to nature or your big tree. I want to spend more time with the spaceships and the Robotech hardware. What sticks out most on second viewing is the seriously bad dialogue.

"In cryo, you don't dream at all. It doesn't feel like six years - more like a fifth of Tequila and an ass kicking. Tommy was a scientist, not me. He was the one who wanted to get shot light years out in space to find the answers."

This is bad writing. I think it's trying to show Jake as some articulate tough guy, but he just sounds dumb. I don't want a dumb person telling me his life story about being a big blue person with a tail. My original review http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2009/12/avatar.html


Crazy on the Outside 1 star. Tim Allen directed this "comedy" about a guy getting out of jail and attempting to open a painting business. Sigourney Weaver is his sister, Ray Liotta is actually pretty funny as his criminal friend. This isn't The Shaggy Dog or those awful Santa Clause movies but it isn't Galaxy Quest either. Despite his pitiful movies I kind of like Tim Allen. He was good in Mamet's Redbelt and especially in Galaxy Quest. But don't bother with this one. Look how stupid that poster is.









Defendor 2 stars. Woody Harrelson is a cheerfully mentally unbalanced person who puts on a costume to fight crime at night. This strangely seems like a smaller version of Kick Ass. And it has been done before in a tiny indie movie called Special. I don't know, despite some geek concept interest, it all feels like something I don't care about. As if someone had a good idea for a movie but didn't know how to actually make a good movie. I guess comic book movies have been around long enough that it's time for some ironic musings on the genre, but they have to be sharper and better than this.








Uncertainty 1 1/2 stars. This is a straight to video indie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt(Brick) and Lynn Collins(Wolverine). I don't think any of you know Lynn Collins, but I think she is beautiful, with a lot of talent, and unfortunately starring in some bad movies like Wolverine, The Number 23, and some Joel Schumacher movie called Blood Creek. I think this movie says a lot about the state of indie films today. First, it went straight to video. Second, there's no heart or soul. It's film school, cinematic masturbation. A what if decided by a coin toss takes you to two separate plot lines. What a bore. It really is Run Lola Run without any of the flare, competence, or anything remotely interesting going on. Uncertainty is the perfect title.







My Blueberry Nights 4 stars. I love Wong Kar-Wai. In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express, 2046. I think he is a unique director not only in Hong Kong but anywhere. His style is so specific - lush colors, shooting from behind glass and reflections, songs that play as motifs, so much romance. I don't think his films are necessarily all that deep but I have to admit they really hit home for me. There is always that romantic longing. All of his characters are plagued with it. Norah Jones is a wonderful choice as the lead whose boyfriend has left her and she decides to go cross country to get away from everything. It's not a road trip movie, more of a destination movie. She's in Memphis for a while with Rachel Weisz and then in Reno with Natalie Portman. I honestly don't know why I love the film so much. I can't quantify it. I just know I do. I love those opening 30 minutes in Jude Law's cafe. I love the innocence of Norah's character. And that Cat Power song is the best song ever for when you want to drive around and be depressed.




The Godfather Classic. It's true. Once you start it, you cannot turn it off. This is my favorite of the three, mostly because of Marlon Brando. He is unbeatable as Vito Corleone. It's truly one of the top 5 most memorable movie characters in cinema history. It's still amazing how great the story is. We learn about the Corelone family midstream during a huge wedding, they don't want to get into the drug business, then all hell breaks loose when Don Corleone goes to buy some oranges. This time around I really noticed the huge change Michael(Al Pacino) makes in the movie. I identify so much with him in the beginning, this kid who doesn't want anything to do with the family business. But then it's almost as if it's his destiny to rule. That last moment when he closes that door on Diane Keaton is so deeply layered and so tragic I let out a big exhale everytime I see it. So many great characters - Clemenza, Sonny, the funeral director who believes in America, and Tessio asking to be let off the hook for old time's sake. Joe Mantegna called it the Italian Star Wars. That's a LOL. But in terms of movies, it's place and importance cannot be measured. This is absolutely required in your collection.

Weekly Recap 4/16/10

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: 44 Inch Chest, JFK, Apocalypse Now, The Killer, My Blueberry Nights, Ocean's Twelve, Ocean's Thirteen, Sunshine, The Girl in the Cafe, Sex Lies and Videotape, Office Space, Last Action Hero, Predator, Eraser, Raw Deal, Mission:Impossible, 30 Rock Season 3
The Bad: Tenderness, Defendor, Crazy on the Outside, Valkyrie, Sports Night Season 1
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: None

Actors of the Week: Martin Sheen, Kelly MacDonald
Directors of the Week: Steven Soderbergh, John McTiernan


TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
My Blueberry Nights. My favorite movie of '08. Wong Kar-Wai rules.

The Unbearable Saga of Buying a HDTV

Friday April 9th, 2010

• After months of research and after weeks of waiting for the price to go down, Amazon delivers the 2010 Panasonic Plasma 42” G25 to my home. They also kindly carry my 160 lb. Sony Wega Tube TV down to the street. I leave it on the grass. I check 1 hour later and the remote control is gone but the TV is still there. Later that night, the TV is gone as well.
• The plasma is in my living room. I’m giddy. Like a little girl. The picture looks phenomenal. Deep blacks, gorgeous. Even standard DVDs look fantastic. Better than I expected.
• As the day turns to night, and as things quiet down, I notice that the TV is emitting a significant buzzing sound.
• It cannot be ignored, it’s undeniably annoying, and I get an anxiety rush like there’s a final I haven’t studied for.
• Apparently, despite all of my research, I did not know that all plasma Televisions buzz.
• Very disappointed is an understatement. Done with plasma tvs.
  

Saturday April 10th, 2010

• I call Amazon first thing in the morning and request a return. They painlessly agree and will come and pick it up at a scheduled date(this upcoming Friday)

Sunday April 11th, 2010

• Go to Best Buy and purchase the Sony 40EX500 LCD. I’m pleasantly surprised the box fits easily in the back seat of my Camry.
• I plug my Blu-ray player in. Wow does this TV look awful. My worst fears about going HDTV come true. Standard DVDs look piss poor to horrible. They look like low-res YouTube and 80% of what I watch is not yet on Blu-ray. We’re talking older movies, TV shows on DVD, even big movies like Star Wars or Seven aren’t on Blu-ray. I rarely watch TV, all I watch is movies, and this is a big deal.
• Even the Blu-rays themselves look bad. Noticeable ghosting during Goodfellas.
• I realize I hate matte screens and require a glossy.
• On a side note, if I keep the Blu-ray player on, say I pause the movie and turn off the TV. Then when I turn the TV back on, it says there is no signal as if the Blu-ray player is disconnected. I have to shutdown the Blu-ray player and start it back up, then the TV recognizes the connection. And both the player and the TV are Sony. That’s just stupid.
• After 2 decades of Sony TVs, it’s time to break up. It’s not me, it’s you.

Monday April 12th, 2010

• Return the Sony LCD to Best Buy. Thankfully, no restocking fee. They take it back. Easy. I distract the customer service worker from critical analysis by asking him about his tattoos and if they hurt when he got them. He cheerfully processes my return.
• I stop by one of my video rental places and admire the TV they have on display. It’s playing an older DVD and it looks great. Toshiba Regza 40zv50u.
• I look online and it’s last year’s model and pretty much gone from stores.

Tuesday April 13th, 2010

• I find the Toshiba at Fry’s in City of Industry. but going to the store, they only have the display model.
• After discounts and including tax, and a lot of risk on my part, it’s about $700. Fairly cheap. They wrap it in sophisticated bubble wrap. No box, no manual. 30 days to return. At the very least I consider it a test drive.
• I take it home. Standard DVDs do look good but the blacks are not black. They are washed out gray. Overall the TV looks plain bad and in general I don’t trust Toshiba as their products seem to die with no reason. ARGH.
• And to add insult to serious injury, the TV buzzes. Probably because it was on 12 hours a day for months in store, but still. BUZZZZZ!
• On a side note, I'm so consumed with my mission, I eat less than 1000 calories this day.
  

Wednesday April 14th, 2010

• I wake up early(very unusual for me) and take the TV back to Fry’s which surprisingly is open at 8am. I haven't slept much this week but my mind is winning over my body.
• The young Hispanic woman doesn’t really ask many questions and just accepts the return. I feel relieved.
• While at Fry’s I notice a high end 2009 Samsung LN40B750 LCD is almost 50% off. $850 down from around $1600. I do my research online and it has great reviews, great picture quality, a glossy screen, and standard definition DVDs evidently look good.
• I order it online to pick it up at the Fry’s in Burbank. I cross my fingers because no matter what the thing looks like in the store or what the reviews have been, the real test is in my apartment. I pray it doesn’t buzz. I pray standard DVDs look good.
• 8:00pm. After working late, I fly up the 5 freeway and get to Fry’s in Burbank. The box thankfully fits in my car and I take it home. I have a moment where I realize this is the third TV I’ve lugged up the stairs of my apartment building. I wonder if my neighbors think I’m secretly rich. Or a thief.
• I open it. I don’t even bother putting it on the stand or unwrapping the remote. I plug it in and plug the HDMI cable into the back.
  
• EUREKA. We've got a winner. Blu-rays look very good and standard DVDs are fine and tolerable. I get giddy watching Star Trek. Giddy is a good thing to get after all of this madness. And it's mercifully silent. As it should be as this is bloody new technology for goodness sake.
  

What a f—king nightmare this week has been. 4 TVs, 3 returned, 6 days. Nothing beat the Panasonic Plasma in terms of picture quality, but buzz buzz buzz, it drove me insane.

In the end, I’m glad I finally went HD. I’ve started to notice things in movies I never did on my 32” CRT Tube. Like during Office Space, when Peter brings a fish to the office and guts it, he has a sunburn. I’ve also noticed lots of pores and moles but that’s probably not a good thing. We’ll see how things go from now on. It’ll be exciting to see a lot of oldies on Blu-ray. It’ll be exciting to see new stuff on Blu-ray. It’ll be exciting to watch Lost in full HD. Thank God for 30 day return policies and geeks over-reviewing things on the internet. We're done. Well, give me 30 days and I'll say it for real.

Arnold Reviews

In honor of that phenomenal video up on Youtube chronicling the best/worst 160 quotes of Arnold Schwarzenegger's illustrious career, I thought about writing some reviews. Everyone has seen Terminator 2 and Predator, but not everyone has seen the 1986 classic Raw Deal. And I refuse to review his real duds like The 6th Day, Collateral Damage, Jingle All the Way, or the horrendously painful Batman and Robin. I've also never actually seen either Conan movies. That's probably a good thing.

I honestly miss Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's my governor now, but he was a huge movie star and we loved him. Bigger than life, enormous screen presence. This guy with a terrible accent but massive biceps. Now we have Jason Statham and The Rock. Now sucks.



Total Recall(1990) 3 ½ stars Watching it again, the one thing that sticks out more than the Mars mutants or the lady with 3 breasts or a very young Sharon Stone is the unbelievable and hilarious amount of violence. I mean, this movie is 20 years old and this wasn’t some small horror movie, this was a summer blockbuster that everybody saw. The body count has to be in the triple digits. Imagine going to see Transformers and a little person stabs a guy in the crotch, Shia rips the arms off a guy, and the bullet hits are gargantuan. My favorite part is that whenever a henchman gets shot, he decides to do a little jump into the air. The movie itself is still exciting and even the effects that were mind blowing at the time are still okay for now. The story and concept are surprisingly what still works. What if your entire life was mplanted into your memory? “MY NAME IS NOT QUAID!” And what I noticed more is that the whole movie could really be a dream. There’s a scene where a doctor explains that this is all just a delusion and that Arnold will get lost in his fantasy of becoming the hero of Mars and it will all end in a lobotomy. The movie ends in an odd fade to white and that could very well be what happens. For all of the carnage, director Paul Verhoeven(Robocop, Starship Troopers, Showgirls) never lets things get dull and it’s still one of the most quotable for us guys who watched it back when we were in junior high. "Two weeks." “Get ready for a surprise!” “See you at the party Richter!” And after he shoots Sharon Stone in the forehead - “Consider that a divorce.” I miss the 90s.


True Lies(1994) 3 ½ stars Completely underrated. One of the best summer movies ever. I love True Lies. I think it’s one of James Cameron’s best films. Certainly the one with the best dialogue. “Have you killed anyone?” “Yeah, but they were all bad.” Jamie Lee Curtis is hilarious and surprisingly sexy and Arnold and Tom Arnold could not be more funny together. It goes to show that the director has a huge effect on an actor’s performance. Compare this to how bad Arnold is in The 6th Day (which is terrible). Cameron knows how to put a set piece together and the Harrier attack on that bridge in Key West is still amazing. When that limo goes into the ocean and the helicopter flies over, there’s no way to stop the goose bumps. Maybe terrorism isn’t funny anymore, but the movie is. The best line is Arnold’s response to sleaze car sales man Bill Paxton who brags about sleeping with bored housewives.

Harry: But what about their husbands?
Simon: D--kless! I mean, let's face it, if they took care of business, I'd be out of business. You know what I mean?
Harry: [fake laughs] Those idiots.




Raw Deal(1986) 3 stars The system gave him a raw deal. Nobody gives him a Raw Deal.
I doubt any of you have seen this one. Arnold is a US Marshal who goes undercover in the Chicago mafia to find out who killed the son of a friend of his. Strangely, this may be the character closest to the real Schwarzenegger. If you’ve seen Pumping Iron(a great documentary) Arnold is so magnificently, charmingly arrogant and just the ultimate alpha male. He gets away with it because he probably deserves to. He does in this movie. Raw Deal is cheap 80s action with more stunt guy bad acting, but I can’t help but like it. It was always on late Saturday night on channel 7. The big ending consists of Arnold in a white convertible, popping in a cassette tape of Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones, and taking an Uzi to a lot of a bad guys. I smile just thinking about it.





End of Days(1999) 2 stars This was Arnold’s journey into dark and tortured. Again, how many wives, how many children have died in movie history just so our hero can have some sort of emotional motivation? I remember him promoting this one pretty hard. I think he was on WWE Raw with Steve Austin where he clothes-lined someone and took a sip of a beer while Stone Cold poured one all over his face. The movie looks great with director Peter Hyams(Timecop, The Relic) acting as his own DP(director of photography). Gabriel Bryne is nice casting for the devil, but the whole thing was just another end of the millennium Catholic horror movie along with Stigmata and Bless the Child and a couple of other lesser known Satan vs. the world movies. “You’re a choir boy compared to me! A choir boy!” is one of Arnold’s best cheese quotes. This is also the one where he really started showing his age. He’s more stocky than muscular and it had been a long time since the 80s. A mild hit that I didn’t watch in the theater. I used to see everything starring Arnold in the theater.




Last Action Hero(1993) 3 stars I still really like this one. It’s too long and the script isn’t as sharp as it could be, but I love director John McTiernan(Die Hard 1&3, The Hunt for Red October, Predator). I think he’s one of the best action directors and he should direct more. Hollywood still hasn’t forgiven him for Rollerball. If you don’t remember, a magic ticket takes a teenage boy into the made up Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Jack Slater 4. Btw, Jack is of course invincible, unstoppable, and never messes when he shoots. The whole thing’s a semi-spoof on the entire genre that made Arnold a movie star and a lot of it is pretty good. Arnold gives a really smart subtle comedic performance. I still roar when Jack tries to take a dead body out of a funeral and uses his big line to distract the crowd - “Look, an elephant!”. This was a bomb for Arnold after a string of huge hits. It got horrible press and no one went to the theater. C'mon, Arnold shooting bad guys to the tune of Big Gun by AC/DC – still a lot of fun.



Eraser(1996) 3 stars I think this was the last one of his I liked. The awesome rail guns, the out of nowhere mafia comic relief, the last time Arnold was lean and mean. And for some reason Vanessa Williams was chosen as a corporate whistle blower with vital technical information that could take down the government. And he fights alligators. I love it!




The Running Man(1987) 1 ½ stars Wonderfully horrible. "Here is Sub-Zero. Now plain zero." Genius. Maybe one of the best lines ever. I remember as a kid dying to see this movie, but I was 9 and I couldn't get in. The whole concept of this human hunt game show seemed so cool. I thought the title was so cool. Even the poster seemed cool. Then I saw the movie. Nooooooo!
It was "directed" by Paul M. Glaser who was formerly Starsky on the original Starsky and Hutch. He became a better director(The Cutting Edge) but maybe altogether he's just a bad one(Shaquille O'Neal is Kazaam!). Original Family Feud host Richard Dawson is awesomely nutso as the sadistic host and Jesse the Body Ventura dances in a workout video at some point. I think it wants to say something about post-apocalyptic totalitarian governments but all I think of is Arnold running around in a yellow jumpsuit. The hell with you!

Weekly Recap 4/9/10

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: Pirate Radio, Bad Lieutenant:Port of Call New Orleans, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Total Recall, True Lies, Kindergarten Cop, The Boxer, In America, Nixon, Primary Colors, Sid and Nancy, Toy Story, West Wing Season 6
The Bad: Street Kings, Get Rich or Die Tryin', The Running Man
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: None

Actors of the Week: Michelle Yeoh, Arnold Schwarzenegger
Directors of the Week: Paul Verhoeven, Ang Lee

TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
Animal Kingdom.

HBO's Boardwalk Empire Trailer

Pilot directed by Martin Scorsese. Can't wait.

"This is America ain't it? Who the f--s stopping ya."

Weekly Recap 4/2/10

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: The American President, Casualties of War, Bowfinger, In the Name of the Father, Stand by Me, The Contender, Good Night and Good Luck, Toy Story 2, You've Got Mail, The West Wing Seasons 3-4&7
The Bad: None
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: None

Actors of the Week: Annette Bening, Tom Hanks, Heather Graham, Alan Alda
Directors of the Week: Jim Sheridan, Rob Reiner pre-1996

TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
Arnold.

April Trailers

Micmacs. From Jean-Pierre Jeunet, director of Amelie.



Despicable Me. After numerous teasers, the trailer is pretty good.


The A-Team. The movie has been in development so long I originally heard it was Mel Gibson as Hannibal, Ving Rhames as BA, and Jim Carrey as Murdock.



The Expendables. Stallone and a lot of other large men.



Best Worst Movie. I really want to watch this.



Mission:Impossible. Has it really been 14 years?