Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post about some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to choosing good movies to watch yourself!
Wknd Box Office: Gravity, Parkland, Runner Runner, Inequality for All
By Debbie Schlussel
One fabulous new movie in theaters, this weekend, as we get closer and closer to the better movies in the Thanksgiving and Christmas season.
* “Gravity“: A great movie adventure. The best thing about this movie is that it is visually stunning. Although I saw it in 2D, this is one of those that is worth shelling out the extra few bucks for 3D and/or IMAX. It makes it even more real when space debris is traveling at the astronauts in this movie (and you) at 100,000 miles an hour. The worst thing about this movie: the male astronaut, who knows exactly what he’s doing and does everything right, isn’t rewarded. The female astronaut, who is in a panic, doesn’t listen, and doesn’t stop talking, is.
The story: George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are American astronauts up in space to repair satellites. Suddenly, space debris from a destroyed satellite is traveling at them at very high speed and velocity, putting them in danger. Soon, they are stuck floating in space alone and without help, as their space shuttle is destroyed, and everyone on it is dead. And they are unable to communicate with NASA or anyone else but each other. They have limited oxygen supply and need to find a way out and home.
George Clooney is only in about a fifth of the movie. The real star is Sandra Bullock. I like this kind of movie, where survival is the goal and those trying to survive are all alone in an environment in which they must rely on brainpower and wit to stay alive. So, I enjoyed this. Add to that, space and beautiful visuals and special effects, and you have a great movie.
I didn’t need to hear or know the tragic sob story behind Sandra Bullock’s life on earth, but that’s very brief and a tiny part of the movie, and doesn’t really take away from it much.
This is the first of Oscar-hyped movies about survival. The next one, which is very similar, is “All is Lost,” coming out later this month, with Robert Redford playing a man trying to survive while lost at sea in the Indian Ocean. The movies have interesting similarities and differences and make great companion movie viewing about survival in different atmospheres. Stay tuned for my review on that one.
And, for now, go see this. It’s fun, thrilling, suspenseful, and entertaining. A great escapist movie. Odds are that you’ll enjoy it, as I did.
THREE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS
* “Parkland“: This is about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the days surrounding it, and the hospital, Parkland, to where the bodies of both the dead President and his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, were taken. At first, I expected to hate this movie and wondered what it could possibly show us. After all, half of Kennedy’s head was blown off, so I wondered, what is there to show? As we all know, efforts to revive the President were futile, and even if they were able to, were we gonna have a President walking around with half of a head? But I was pleasantly surprised, and the movie–even if overly sad and melodramatic–was much better than I expected, and it made me think a lot, including about angles that weren’t covered in it.
In an age where many Americans know only the history of the Kardashians and/or the Jay-Z/Beyonce Knowles Carters but not actual, real American history, this is a nice tutorial on the JFK assassination, the 50th anniversary of which takes place this November. However, for the rest of us, you won’t learn much new stuff, but the movie does explore interesting points, such as the reaction of Oswald’s brother and his encounter with the assassin sibling at the police station after the shooting. One glaring omission: the movie never mentions Jack Ruby, though there is notice of the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, and it never explores or even quickly asks why Ruby killed Oswald.
Still, I found the movie interesting and entertaining, and American history buffs will probably still enjoy it. One caveat: there are more men crying onscreen in this movie than at a showing of “Brokeback Mountain” in West Hollywood. It’s a little unsettling.
Paul Giamatti is probably the most memorable actor in the movie, as his portrayal of a morally centered and deeply affected Abraham Zapruder, the Jewish immigrant clothing maker who took the only film of the assassination. In the age of TMZ, it is touching to see his negotiations with LIFE Magazine, in which he insists that LIFE not publish stills from his movie that show “a dignified President in an undignified position.” Today, those pictures would be all over the place, as we now live in undignified times where anything goes and all gruesome death photos are published, except the ones of the only man we’ve (actually Obama has) raised as more holy than the rest of us, Osama Bin Laden. Zapruder talks about how his father took them away from Europe to escape certain death, and he is extremely sensitive to the situation in which he finds himself now.
If you are looking for conspiracy theories here, you won’t find them, except for the crazed, delusional ravings from Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother (Jacki Weaver), who insists that her son was a trained CIA agent and is deserving of full burial in Arlington National Cemetery.
The movie is a little maudlin and macabre at times. We see Mrs. Kennedy giving an emergency room nurse a piece of the President’s skull and brain that landed on her during the assassination. And there is a scene in which Secret Service agents struggle to get Kennedy’s coffin onto the plane and have to cut out sections of it.
But there are touching moments and interesting ones, such as the scene in which Catholic Secret Service agents kneel and pray at the President’s coffin on the plane in mid-air, and the scene contrasting the funerals of the President and his assassin. (Billy Bob Thornton co-stars in this as a senior Secret Service agent.)
The movie is based on the book “Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy ,” by Vincent Bugliosi. I wondered about the accuracy of certain things. Is it true, for instance, that the FBI received a bomb threat from Oswald, ten days before the JFK assassination and ignored it? Is it true that, after Oswald was assassinated, agents in the Dallas FBI office burned the bomb threat letter, destroying all evidence of that?
The postscripts in the movie are interesting, telling us what happened to the doctors who tried to revive Kennedy, the Secret Service agents on his detail, Oswald’s mother, and so on. But the postscripts are lacking. They don’t tell us what happened to Oswald’s wife and kids, who remained in Texas. Check out the video interview of Oswald’s daughter, June, below; I don’t agree with her conspiracy theories, but the interview is interesting, nonetheles). The postscripts also don’t tell us that the Zapruder family got $16 million from the federal government as compensation for the feds taking the Zapruder film under eminent domain laws. And, again, Jack Ruby is just never mentioned anywhere.
Still, if you like history, you’ll probably like this, as I did, if you can ignore the overwrought melodramatics. And, as with me, it might inspire you to look further into the matters covered in the movie.
TWO-AND-A-HALF REAGANS
* “Runner Runner“: Two annoying words: Ben Affleck. I hated this movie, and I felt like I’d seen it a million times before, including the first time, when I saw the movie, “Wall Street.” This is a different setting, but it’s basically the same story, minus the “Greed is Good” speech. The movie was long, boring, pointless, and I struggled to stay awake, as it moves very slowly.
Justin Timberlake plays a working class student at Princeton University who is an “affiliate” of an online gambling site owned by Ben Affleck. The site primarily specializes in poker. An affiliate has customers (gamblers) he brings to the site (using coupons and other enticements), and he earns a cut of the action or some other form of payment. One day, Timberlake decides to gamble his $17,000 tuition money on the site and loses it all, even though he’s an excellent poker player and knows the precise mathematical odds for each move. He discovers that the site conned and cheated him, knowing his cards in advance.
Timberlake goes to Costa Rica to confront Affleck. Affleck apologizes, returns the money, and ultimately hires Timberlake. Then, he has Timberlake, a naive guy who thinks everything is aboveboard, do his dirty work. Timberlake pays off officials with bribes and soon finds friends missing. His life is threatened, as is his working class gambling father’s life, and he wants to get out, after finally realizing Affleck is a crook, a mobster, and a scammer. Believe me, I’m making it sound more simple than it actually is, as the movie is confusing, nonsensical, and ridiculous.
The movie is incredibly violent, and in one disturbing scene, Affleck and his henchmen pour chicken fat over public officials they’ve handcuffed. Then, they dump them in the water to be eaten by alligators. Or is it crocodiles? I didn’t care which, because I was so disgusted and already so bored and annoyed by sitting through this 1.5 hour pointless bore that seems like 5.5 hours.
Skip this.
TWO-AND-A-HALF MARXES
* “Inequality For All“: Should have been called, “Inequality For You Compared With Hypocrite Multi-Millionaire Fraud Robert Reich.” This is a “documentary” by and about Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary. The diminutive Reich explains why he is short (he has a disease, and his parents are normal-sized). And that is about the only explanation that is reasonable in this highly skip-able lecture of a movie. If you get orgasms over Occupy Wall Street, which is highly lauded in this movie, this is your flick. For those of us who are not Neo-Marxists, stay away.
Robert Reich tells us that the economy is bad and getting worse because of greedy shareholders who don’t work hard and just sit around and collect millions. He doesn’t tell us about his shares in the stock market and how greedy he is. Or about how he doesn’t work too hard giving once a week boring lectures as a highly-paid professor at UC Berkeley, although he does show us that he is a professor there.
Reich shows us some multi-millionaire original investor in Google (or Facebook, I can’t remember which and don’t care either). The guy tells us how his family is very wealthy from making pillows and investing. But, then, the guy whines that you only need six pairs of pants in life and that he has too much money because he’s made so much by investing. Well, then, give it to me, instead of hypocritically whining about it and imposing your left-wing, anti-free-market principles on the rest of us, while you continue to sit on your gazillions. Fraud.
The rest of the movie is Reich’s socialist clap-trap and fakery while he jets around America like the rich capitalist hypocrite limousine liberal that he is. He shows us some Hispanic people in California, whining about how hard life is for them because they live in a generously sized apartment (not a house–sad sad, too bad), and they might not be able to afford to continue to give their kids iPhones so their kids can call them in an emergency. Wow, that’s poverty?! Hilarious. Cry me a river. I don’t have an iPhone, but I don’t use that as an excuse for why the government should impose socialism and tell shareholders how much money they can make. Reich does.
There is only one good point in this movie, which is that when American workers make less or have less jobs, they don’t buy things, and, therefore, businesses die, and the economy sinks. We have turned into a purely service and consumer economy, not a manufacturing economy, and if we don’t manufacture things, we will die.
But he doesn’t point out a big reason a lot of people are losing their jobs and can’t afford to buy things and keep the economy humming: his precious ObamaCare. This is the biggest reason that people are either losing their jobs or being reduced to part-time and not making enough to survive. It’s glaring that this is never addressed in the movie. But, then, that’s what socialists do. They focus on the problems with capitalism, rather than the disasters they impose on our already weak economy.
If you want to get a survey of Marxist theology, better to read Das Kapital than to pay ten bucks to left-wing capitalist hypocrite Robert Reich.
FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR OBAMAS
Showing posts with label Justin Timberlake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justin Timberlake. Show all posts
Monday, October 7, 2013
Monday, October 31, 2011
Wknd Box Office: In Time, Anonymous, Rum Diary, Love Crime, Paranormal Activity 3
Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!
Wknd Box Office: In Time, Anonymous, Rum Diary, Love Crime, Paranormal Activity 3
By Debbie Schlussel
The best new movie, out this weekend, is a foreign language arthouse film. Plus I really liked “Paranormal Activity 3,” which I couldn’t review for you, last week, due to Jewish holidays. And speaking of Jewish, it’s no shocker that one of the biggest releases this weekend is not-so-veiled anti-Semitic cinematic rantings of the Occupy Wall Street smellies.
* “In Time“: This is “high-styled Occupy Wall Street cinema.” So obvious, so absurd. And, yes, so anti-Semitic. What a coincidence that the bad people in this movie are the wealthy. And that the biggest villain of them all is a stingy moneylender, er . . . “timelender,” named Philippe Weis (pronounced, “Weiss”). Historically, Jews have been the money changers and money lender villains of Europe. No surprise that Hollywood Jew-haters repeated the Jew scapegoating and stingy canards here. They don’t say he’s Jewish–they don’t have to. Oh, and then there’s that “numbers on your arm” thing. Looks just like the tattoo my cousin Avraham had after his time in the camps.
The plot of this silly OWS flick: it’s the future. The aging gene shuts off at age 25, and that’s how you look for the rest of your life, except that you need to earn or inherit time to live longer. Everyone has a clock on their arm that begins running at age 25. The poor have only a few hours to live at a time. They get paid in time and pay for goods and services in time. The social hierarchy is such that the rate of cost in time constantly goes up in order that the poor will die more quickly. The rich live outside the ghetto and “unfairly” have a lot of time. Yup, in this movie, time–not money–is the currency. The rich ask their fellow rich, “Do you come from time?” (instead of the old, “Do you come from money?”).
Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) is out to fight the “injustice” of it all. He is from the ghetto and is poor. But, one night, he saves the life of a man rich in time. The man gives him more than a century in time. Just as Will runs to give some of it to his mother, she dies–she runs out of time. And Will sets to buy himself into the wealthy neighborhood of New Greenwich, so he can get revenge on the wealthy for his mother’s death. There he meets a rich girl, Amanda Seyfried a/k/a Sylvia Weis (hmmm . . . sounds like a Jewish grandmother’s name–why didn’t they just name her, “Rachel Horowitz,” and be even more obvious about their animus toward Jews?). She’s the daughter of the evil rich guy money-lender. Soon, there is a whole Bonnie and Clyde/Robin Hood story going on, too.
Sound like OWS fantasy? That’s exactly what it is. One movie critic chastised me for saying so, claiming that the movie was made two years ago so that means it has nothing to do with Occupy Wall Street. Really? Anyone listening to Hollywood’s hypocritical, limousine liberal views on entrepreneurs and businessmen over the last several decades knows where OWS was born and where it finds kindred spirits by the gazillion actor/waiters.
The thing is, just like Justin Timberlake’s character in the movie says and thinks it’s not fair that he works so hard and has little, while the wealthy work little and have so much, I think I work far harder than Timberlake. While he lolls around Hollywood and New York drinking and supping and barely working, I toil daily. And yet, I have far less than he. So, maybe, as he claims in this movie, I have a right to his multi-millions and should rob him of them, as he does the wealthy in this flick.
But I’d never get away with it because just like the rest of Hollywood, Timberlake is a do as I say, not as I do kind o’ guy.
And that’s the real moral of this movie. I loved the style of the movie and the cool cars. Hated the message and the not-so-subtle agitprop about the JOOOOS. Skip it. If ever there was a Marx-worthy movie, this is it.
FOUR MARXES PLUS
* “Anonymous“: Even putting aside that this movie co-stars the butt-ugliest woman on earth, Vanessa “Zionist Hoodlums” Redgrave (and I cannot put that aside–sorry!), it’s long, slow, boring, confusing, and frankly, silly.
While it’s long been rumored and theorized by some that William Shakespeare did not write his plays, this movie isn’t the story of Sir Francis Bacon, who is believed to be the real author of the plays. Instead, it’s some stupid contrived soap opera about an effeminate, philandering girlieman noble, Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who allegedly wrote the plays. It’s absurd and there are so many constant flashbacks and flash forwards, it’s hard to understand exactly what is going on until the movie is more than half over. And, by then, you’re bored to tears, if still awake. (I suppose I should be happy that Hollywood isn’t claiming the Muslims wrote the plays and were victimized by Shakespeare.)
I’d love to know what motivated whoever it was that wrote this stuff to write Macbeth or the steretypical Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. But this was none of that. Instead, it’s just a froofy, flowery set of men in ancient English royal costumes pretending to play “Desperate Housewives.” And even the real thing is being canceled by ABC. If you’re a gay man and like to dress like a woman, you’ll probably like this. For everyone else, stay away. You were warned.
After watching this, I couldn’t care less who really wrote Shakespeare’s stuff and why. It’s miserable. Forget this. . . unless you have trouble falling asleep and warm milk won’t do.
TWO MARXES
* “The Rum Diary“: This was boring, silly, and mostly not funny. No surprise, as it was written by the vastly overrated late druggie nutcase, Hunter S. Thompson. I never understood the fascination with that wack job, and this renews my global thought on everything Thompson: “Huh????” If this movie is what it means to be a “gonzo journalist,” it’s no wonder Gonzo is the name of a muppet.
I’m not sure what the point of this movie without an interesting plot or resolution was. Clearly, the point wasn’t to entertain, as this is slow and boring, and nothing gets accomplished. It takes place in the 1960s Puerto Rico with your typical anti-business plot. Evil, mostly-White businessmen want to colonize an unnamed island that is just off the coast of Puerto Rico and part of the territory. Although its name is never mentioned, I presume it’s Vieques, since the U.S. military is conducting test bombing exercises nearby. It’s irrelevant, though, because nothing ever happens. The stale Johnny Depp comes to a dying newspaper in Puerto Rico, where he meets a publicist (Aaron Eckhart) looking for a writer to pimp and promote his island hotel idea. Depp falls in love with Eckhart’s beautiful young fiancee. And, again, nothing much happens. And the movie ends.
Congrats, you just wasted ten bucks and two hours for nothing. The dead pothead, Hunter S. Thompson, is having the last laugh from hell, after all. Sucker. Like “Anonymous,” this is great for the sleep-deprived. Will put you out in a quick minute. One more thing: the Johnny-Depp-I’m-Cool-In-a-Weird-Offbeat-Way act is old, tired, and hackneyed. Time for it to retire.
FOUR MARXES
* “Love Crime [Crime D'Amour]“: I enjoyed this tight and suspenseful thriller, which is in French with English subtitles. It’s a “get revenge on the boss” flick, but far superior to the dumb and mean-spirited “Horrible Bosses” (read my review). Isabelle (a de-glammed Ludivine Sagnier) stars as the hard-working, bright assistant to Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas), a heartless, cold boss. Christine steals Isabelle’s ideas, takes credit for them, and does what she can to keep Isabelle down. But when she publicly humiliates her, Isabelle can take no more. And that’s when the thrills begin. To say more would give away too much.
This is well edited and fast-paced, interesting and entertaining. It’s playing mostly at arthouse theaters, so if you can’t find it playing nearby, it’s a great rental to watch at home.
THREE REAGANS
* “Paranormal Activity 3“: I liked this the best, by far, of the three Paranormal Activity movies. It’s a great “scary movie,” and it frightens without graphic violence or otherwise base manipulation. Instead, this movie goes back to the oldtime great horror flicks, which relied on mind games and psychology to scare you. That’s what makes a great horror thriller, and that’s what this is. You needn’t have seen any of the other Paranormal Activity movies to get this. It was well done.
A couple of pregnant women who are somehow related find a box of VCR videotapes of family from the ’80s. When they look again, the box of tapes is missing. Suddenly, we are shown what’s on the tapes. It’s the late ’80s. A 20- or 3o-something guy marries a woman with two daughters and has moved in with them to their very cool house. The guy has a wedding videotape business. Soon, weird things are happening in the house–noises at night, things being moved, etc. The guy sets up video cameras to record what’s happening as they are sleeping. It’s creepy.
I can’t say more, except that it builds slowly to a lot of frightful chills and shivers. I hated the first “Paranormal Activity” (read my review). I liked the second one slightly better (read my review). But this one was really good. If you like a good horror flick without the blood, guts, and gore, this is it. Spooky and creepy the way it’s supposed to be done.
THREE REAGANS
Wknd Box Office: In Time, Anonymous, Rum Diary, Love Crime, Paranormal Activity 3
By Debbie Schlussel
The best new movie, out this weekend, is a foreign language arthouse film. Plus I really liked “Paranormal Activity 3,” which I couldn’t review for you, last week, due to Jewish holidays. And speaking of Jewish, it’s no shocker that one of the biggest releases this weekend is not-so-veiled anti-Semitic cinematic rantings of the Occupy Wall Street smellies.
* “In Time“: This is “high-styled Occupy Wall Street cinema.” So obvious, so absurd. And, yes, so anti-Semitic. What a coincidence that the bad people in this movie are the wealthy. And that the biggest villain of them all is a stingy moneylender, er . . . “timelender,” named Philippe Weis (pronounced, “Weiss”). Historically, Jews have been the money changers and money lender villains of Europe. No surprise that Hollywood Jew-haters repeated the Jew scapegoating and stingy canards here. They don’t say he’s Jewish–they don’t have to. Oh, and then there’s that “numbers on your arm” thing. Looks just like the tattoo my cousin Avraham had after his time in the camps.
The plot of this silly OWS flick: it’s the future. The aging gene shuts off at age 25, and that’s how you look for the rest of your life, except that you need to earn or inherit time to live longer. Everyone has a clock on their arm that begins running at age 25. The poor have only a few hours to live at a time. They get paid in time and pay for goods and services in time. The social hierarchy is such that the rate of cost in time constantly goes up in order that the poor will die more quickly. The rich live outside the ghetto and “unfairly” have a lot of time. Yup, in this movie, time–not money–is the currency. The rich ask their fellow rich, “Do you come from time?” (instead of the old, “Do you come from money?”).
Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) is out to fight the “injustice” of it all. He is from the ghetto and is poor. But, one night, he saves the life of a man rich in time. The man gives him more than a century in time. Just as Will runs to give some of it to his mother, she dies–she runs out of time. And Will sets to buy himself into the wealthy neighborhood of New Greenwich, so he can get revenge on the wealthy for his mother’s death. There he meets a rich girl, Amanda Seyfried a/k/a Sylvia Weis (hmmm . . . sounds like a Jewish grandmother’s name–why didn’t they just name her, “Rachel Horowitz,” and be even more obvious about their animus toward Jews?). She’s the daughter of the evil rich guy money-lender. Soon, there is a whole Bonnie and Clyde/Robin Hood story going on, too.
Sound like OWS fantasy? That’s exactly what it is. One movie critic chastised me for saying so, claiming that the movie was made two years ago so that means it has nothing to do with Occupy Wall Street. Really? Anyone listening to Hollywood’s hypocritical, limousine liberal views on entrepreneurs and businessmen over the last several decades knows where OWS was born and where it finds kindred spirits by the gazillion actor/waiters.
The thing is, just like Justin Timberlake’s character in the movie says and thinks it’s not fair that he works so hard and has little, while the wealthy work little and have so much, I think I work far harder than Timberlake. While he lolls around Hollywood and New York drinking and supping and barely working, I toil daily. And yet, I have far less than he. So, maybe, as he claims in this movie, I have a right to his multi-millions and should rob him of them, as he does the wealthy in this flick.
But I’d never get away with it because just like the rest of Hollywood, Timberlake is a do as I say, not as I do kind o’ guy.
And that’s the real moral of this movie. I loved the style of the movie and the cool cars. Hated the message and the not-so-subtle agitprop about the JOOOOS. Skip it. If ever there was a Marx-worthy movie, this is it.
FOUR MARXES PLUS
* “Anonymous“: Even putting aside that this movie co-stars the butt-ugliest woman on earth, Vanessa “Zionist Hoodlums” Redgrave (and I cannot put that aside–sorry!), it’s long, slow, boring, confusing, and frankly, silly.
While it’s long been rumored and theorized by some that William Shakespeare did not write his plays, this movie isn’t the story of Sir Francis Bacon, who is believed to be the real author of the plays. Instead, it’s some stupid contrived soap opera about an effeminate, philandering girlieman noble, Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who allegedly wrote the plays. It’s absurd and there are so many constant flashbacks and flash forwards, it’s hard to understand exactly what is going on until the movie is more than half over. And, by then, you’re bored to tears, if still awake. (I suppose I should be happy that Hollywood isn’t claiming the Muslims wrote the plays and were victimized by Shakespeare.)
I’d love to know what motivated whoever it was that wrote this stuff to write Macbeth or the steretypical Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. But this was none of that. Instead, it’s just a froofy, flowery set of men in ancient English royal costumes pretending to play “Desperate Housewives.” And even the real thing is being canceled by ABC. If you’re a gay man and like to dress like a woman, you’ll probably like this. For everyone else, stay away. You were warned.
After watching this, I couldn’t care less who really wrote Shakespeare’s stuff and why. It’s miserable. Forget this. . . unless you have trouble falling asleep and warm milk won’t do.
TWO MARXES
* “The Rum Diary“: This was boring, silly, and mostly not funny. No surprise, as it was written by the vastly overrated late druggie nutcase, Hunter S. Thompson. I never understood the fascination with that wack job, and this renews my global thought on everything Thompson: “Huh????” If this movie is what it means to be a “gonzo journalist,” it’s no wonder Gonzo is the name of a muppet.
I’m not sure what the point of this movie without an interesting plot or resolution was. Clearly, the point wasn’t to entertain, as this is slow and boring, and nothing gets accomplished. It takes place in the 1960s Puerto Rico with your typical anti-business plot. Evil, mostly-White businessmen want to colonize an unnamed island that is just off the coast of Puerto Rico and part of the territory. Although its name is never mentioned, I presume it’s Vieques, since the U.S. military is conducting test bombing exercises nearby. It’s irrelevant, though, because nothing ever happens. The stale Johnny Depp comes to a dying newspaper in Puerto Rico, where he meets a publicist (Aaron Eckhart) looking for a writer to pimp and promote his island hotel idea. Depp falls in love with Eckhart’s beautiful young fiancee. And, again, nothing much happens. And the movie ends.
Congrats, you just wasted ten bucks and two hours for nothing. The dead pothead, Hunter S. Thompson, is having the last laugh from hell, after all. Sucker. Like “Anonymous,” this is great for the sleep-deprived. Will put you out in a quick minute. One more thing: the Johnny-Depp-I’m-Cool-In-a-Weird-Offbeat-Way act is old, tired, and hackneyed. Time for it to retire.
FOUR MARXES
* “Love Crime [Crime D'Amour]“: I enjoyed this tight and suspenseful thriller, which is in French with English subtitles. It’s a “get revenge on the boss” flick, but far superior to the dumb and mean-spirited “Horrible Bosses” (read my review). Isabelle (a de-glammed Ludivine Sagnier) stars as the hard-working, bright assistant to Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas), a heartless, cold boss. Christine steals Isabelle’s ideas, takes credit for them, and does what she can to keep Isabelle down. But when she publicly humiliates her, Isabelle can take no more. And that’s when the thrills begin. To say more would give away too much.
This is well edited and fast-paced, interesting and entertaining. It’s playing mostly at arthouse theaters, so if you can’t find it playing nearby, it’s a great rental to watch at home.
THREE REAGANS
* “Paranormal Activity 3“: I liked this the best, by far, of the three Paranormal Activity movies. It’s a great “scary movie,” and it frightens without graphic violence or otherwise base manipulation. Instead, this movie goes back to the oldtime great horror flicks, which relied on mind games and psychology to scare you. That’s what makes a great horror thriller, and that’s what this is. You needn’t have seen any of the other Paranormal Activity movies to get this. It was well done.
A couple of pregnant women who are somehow related find a box of VCR videotapes of family from the ’80s. When they look again, the box of tapes is missing. Suddenly, we are shown what’s on the tapes. It’s the late ’80s. A 20- or 3o-something guy marries a woman with two daughters and has moved in with them to their very cool house. The guy has a wedding videotape business. Soon, weird things are happening in the house–noises at night, things being moved, etc. The guy sets up video cameras to record what’s happening as they are sleeping. It’s creepy.
I can’t say more, except that it builds slowly to a lot of frightful chills and shivers. I hated the first “Paranormal Activity” (read my review). I liked the second one slightly better (read my review). But this one was really good. If you like a good horror flick without the blood, guts, and gore, this is it. Spooky and creepy the way it’s supposed to be done.
THREE REAGANS
Monday, July 25, 2011
Wknd Box Office: Captain America, Friends w/ Benefits, Tabloid
Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!
Wknd Box Office: Captain America, Friends w/ Benefits, Tabloid
By Debbie Schlussel
Per usual, there isn’t anything spectacular at the box office, but the best pick–very relatively-speaking is “Captain America: The First Avenger.”
* “Captain America: The First Avenger“: Steve Rogers is proud to be American and wants more than anything to kill Nazis. Problem is that the filmmakers ain’t so proud to be American and don’t really want people to hate Nazis, so they eliminated American military insignia and Nazi swastikas from the equation.
Why did “Captain America” filmmakers erase all swastikas from the Nazis and mute U.S. Insignia on American Soldiers?
I’m not gushing over “Captain America: The First Avenger,” unlike most other movie critics. The movie was okay. It’s fine. But it isn’t great. And I question just how “American” it actually is. While I loved the first third or so of the movie, the rest is a long, boring, amorphous fight between American soldiers with no American insignia on their uniforms and Nazis who don’t bear swastikas. The barely visible eagle on helmets isn’t the American eagle, but the symbol of the SSR–Strategic Scientific Reserve–division of the Army in which Captain America is placed. The references to the U.S. become more and more muted as the movie goes on.
This Has Almost None of This
I guess this was done to please the Nazi-lovers and America-haters around the world (including most Muslims who continue to make Mein Kampf a best-seller), who might be offended if bad guys actually wore swastikas and the guys wearing “U.S.” pins on their lapels were actually the good guys. I mean, it is called, “Captain America,” after all. Not Captain Mohammed or Captain Switzerland. That’s the reason for the second title. The studio planned to just call the movie, “The First Avenger.” And all future movies with Captain America are set to use the name “Avenger” in them.
Yes, unlike in the Captain America comic books, the Nazis are barely in the picture in this flick. They are mentioned at the beginning as is Hitler (who is mocked in a musical number on a stage), but that quickly ends. And swastikas are completely whitewashed out of it. The only swastika you’ll see in the entire film is during newsreel footage before a movie that the characters go to see. Instead of swastikas, we are shown an octopus with a skull’s head, apparently the symbol of the Hydra division, that becomes a rogue offshoot of the Nazis studying supernatural science. We never hear “Heil Hitler,” just “Hail Hydra.” It’s absurd. Oh, and hey, the Nazis aren’t that bad. They’re “moderates” because they try to get rid of the mad scientist bad guy in their midst. Yeah, like that ever happened. Mengele, anyone?
Why not just call this “Captain Avoid America?” Would be more appropriate.
And then there’s the English woman (Agent Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell) who gives orders to Army recruits at boot camp and thereafter. Yeah, right, a woman–much less a female “agent” from England–gave orders to American soldiers in World War II. PUH-LEEZE. Oh, and she saves Captain America from being burned alive by being the she-man who shoots the evil Hydra guy with a machine gun. Yeah, ‘cuz we had soooo many women shootin’ machine guns at Nazi, er . . . “Hydrazis,” during World War II. Absurd.
The story: Steve Rogers is a scrawny, short guy who longs to be in the U.S. Army during World War II, so he can fight for America against the Nazis and Hitler. He is repeatedly rejected and sees his best friend, a more robust guy, get shipped off to Europe. But a German doctor working for the Americans overhears Rogers complaining about it to his friend and soon recruits Rogers to his special supernatural science division, planning to inject him with a super serum he developed in Germany. The serum makes a man extremely muscular and powerful, and he’s already done the same with a Nazi, Schmidt, who becomes the Red Skull and heads the Hydra division.
But after the injection, while Rogers becomes super strong, the doctor is murdered by a German spy and there isn’t any more serum to replicate an Army of American supermen like Captain America. Rogers finds himself in the Army but not fighting Nazis as he’d dreamed. Instead he performs in patriotic musical numbers to raise money for bonds and entertain troops, and he’s a laughing stock. He seeks to prove himself, and ultimately he is fighting for and leading some amorphous Army of American soldiers without U.S. insignia against the Hydra fighters.
Like I said, it’s not a great movie. It’s just okay and waaaay toooo looong. They could have cut 30-40 minutes off this thing, and you’d miss nothing. The special effects aren’t that spectacular, either. And the whitewashing of swastikas and American identity out of it is disturbing and stupid. And it’s hypocritical, since the movie poster has the American flag on it and the closing credits are filled with patriotic music and pics of Uncle Sam, etc. Why are we so afraid to show swastikas in their place in history? Again, it’s “Hey, we might offend someone.” Political correctness ad absurdum.
BTW, if you do go see this, you can see a “stinger,” including a preview of “The Avengers,” if you sit through ALL of the credits at the end. And I mean all of ‘em. It’s insufferable and not worth the “reward” at the end.
ONE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS
* “Friends With Benefits“: I liked this better than the first time I saw it back in January, when it was called, “No Strings Attached” (read my review). But not that much better. It was still vile, pointless, and predictable from the first five minutes forward. And, yes, it’s nearly the identical plot as the awful “No Strings”: guy and girl who are attracted to each other but not dating agree to just have sex with no romance or emotions. And predictably, as in the first incarnation, one or both start to have romantic feelings, they have a big melodramatic shouting and crying match, and then make up and live happily ever after, after all that empty sex. Awww . . . touching. Yes, it’s a chick flick that tries to cross dress as a vile Judd Apatow movie but just can’t go both ways. And I hate both genres, so it’s even worse when they mix. And I could do without the usual measure of melodrama, crying, and yelling. Yuck.
I despise Justin Timberlake and I used to like Mila Kunis, until I saw her in this movie. He cannot act, and she got on my nerves. And it’s the usual story of how the girl didn’t have a dad because her loser mother slept around. Who cares? I didn’t. There are some funny lines in this, but mostly it’s just groanworthy, cheesy, and vulgar. No charm here. If you want to see the over-rated Timberlake’s naked butt and the same for Kunis, this is your movie. For everyone with taste, this ain’t your movie. It’s all about promoting promiscuity, which we’ve already had decades of . . . and the results: diseases, kids born out of wedlock and having no fathers in their lives, millions of single mothers, the breakdown of the American family, etc.
In watching this movie, I was like the stereotype of a guy having sex (as promoted in a joke in this movie). After a minute, I was done.
TWO MARXES
* “Tabloid“: During this whole movie, I kept thinking, “Why the heck am I still sitting through this f–king movie?” Answer: because if I walk out in the middle of a screening, I’m not allowed to review the movie. The movie wasn’t just anti-Mormon, it was nuts. And it made me waste two hours of my life on a trivial, insignificant trollop. Is there really such a dearth of valid documentary topics and material that the crazy Joyce McKinney is now worthy of wasting my time and the big screen near you?
This “documentary” is about a bleeping crazy woman, McKinney, who was once Miss Wyoming in the Miss USA Pageant. A nutjob bimbo, in the mid-1970s, she fell in love with a Mormon missionary (Kirk Anderson) because she drove a Corvette and he drove a Corvette. But she wasn’t a Mormon and after they allegedly slept together, she thought they would get married. He disappeared to England to go on his Mormon mission.
Joyce worked three jobs (or so she says), one of them being a prostitute, another being a nude model, so she could save enough money to charter a jet to fly to England, kidnap the Mormon, chain him to a bed on the English countryside, and rape him back to liking her. She carried out her plans, then got arrested for kidnapping and was about to stand trial, which she escapes by using disguises and fleeing Great Britain.
I absolutely hated this woman and couldn’t stand to hear her talk after about the first ten minutes. Oh, and did I mention that later in life she spends $150,000 to clone her favorite dog, Booger, in South Korea. Yup, she’s “barking mad,” as one of the English commentators in the movie noted. And why was it necessary to constantly bash and mock Mormons throughout this movie, when it was clear they are the relatively normal and moral ones, not this crazy lady skank and the gay activist dude?
Not that I cared about this crazy chick, the story, or anything in this movie, but the documentarians didn’t really do much of a documentary. They mostly just interviewed this nutjob, along with an anti-Mormon gay activist, the charter pilot, and a couple of English reporters. And they failed to answer the only questions I had: what the heck does this lunatic loser do for a living that she can afford to sit around and do nothing and has $150,000 to spend on cloning a dog? Where did she get the money? They don’t think to tell you. But, again, like the rest of this crazy movie, I really didn’t care much.
THREE MARXES
Wknd Box Office: Captain America, Friends w/ Benefits, Tabloid
By Debbie Schlussel
Per usual, there isn’t anything spectacular at the box office, but the best pick–very relatively-speaking is “Captain America: The First Avenger.”
* “Captain America: The First Avenger“: Steve Rogers is proud to be American and wants more than anything to kill Nazis. Problem is that the filmmakers ain’t so proud to be American and don’t really want people to hate Nazis, so they eliminated American military insignia and Nazi swastikas from the equation.
Why did “Captain America” filmmakers erase all swastikas from the Nazis and mute U.S. Insignia on American Soldiers?
I’m not gushing over “Captain America: The First Avenger,” unlike most other movie critics. The movie was okay. It’s fine. But it isn’t great. And I question just how “American” it actually is. While I loved the first third or so of the movie, the rest is a long, boring, amorphous fight between American soldiers with no American insignia on their uniforms and Nazis who don’t bear swastikas. The barely visible eagle on helmets isn’t the American eagle, but the symbol of the SSR–Strategic Scientific Reserve–division of the Army in which Captain America is placed. The references to the U.S. become more and more muted as the movie goes on.
This Has Almost None of This
I guess this was done to please the Nazi-lovers and America-haters around the world (including most Muslims who continue to make Mein Kampf a best-seller), who might be offended if bad guys actually wore swastikas and the guys wearing “U.S.” pins on their lapels were actually the good guys. I mean, it is called, “Captain America,” after all. Not Captain Mohammed or Captain Switzerland. That’s the reason for the second title. The studio planned to just call the movie, “The First Avenger.” And all future movies with Captain America are set to use the name “Avenger” in them.
Yes, unlike in the Captain America comic books, the Nazis are barely in the picture in this flick. They are mentioned at the beginning as is Hitler (who is mocked in a musical number on a stage), but that quickly ends. And swastikas are completely whitewashed out of it. The only swastika you’ll see in the entire film is during newsreel footage before a movie that the characters go to see. Instead of swastikas, we are shown an octopus with a skull’s head, apparently the symbol of the Hydra division, that becomes a rogue offshoot of the Nazis studying supernatural science. We never hear “Heil Hitler,” just “Hail Hydra.” It’s absurd. Oh, and hey, the Nazis aren’t that bad. They’re “moderates” because they try to get rid of the mad scientist bad guy in their midst. Yeah, like that ever happened. Mengele, anyone?
Why not just call this “Captain Avoid America?” Would be more appropriate.
And then there’s the English woman (Agent Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell) who gives orders to Army recruits at boot camp and thereafter. Yeah, right, a woman–much less a female “agent” from England–gave orders to American soldiers in World War II. PUH-LEEZE. Oh, and she saves Captain America from being burned alive by being the she-man who shoots the evil Hydra guy with a machine gun. Yeah, ‘cuz we had soooo many women shootin’ machine guns at Nazi, er . . . “Hydrazis,” during World War II. Absurd.
The story: Steve Rogers is a scrawny, short guy who longs to be in the U.S. Army during World War II, so he can fight for America against the Nazis and Hitler. He is repeatedly rejected and sees his best friend, a more robust guy, get shipped off to Europe. But a German doctor working for the Americans overhears Rogers complaining about it to his friend and soon recruits Rogers to his special supernatural science division, planning to inject him with a super serum he developed in Germany. The serum makes a man extremely muscular and powerful, and he’s already done the same with a Nazi, Schmidt, who becomes the Red Skull and heads the Hydra division.
But after the injection, while Rogers becomes super strong, the doctor is murdered by a German spy and there isn’t any more serum to replicate an Army of American supermen like Captain America. Rogers finds himself in the Army but not fighting Nazis as he’d dreamed. Instead he performs in patriotic musical numbers to raise money for bonds and entertain troops, and he’s a laughing stock. He seeks to prove himself, and ultimately he is fighting for and leading some amorphous Army of American soldiers without U.S. insignia against the Hydra fighters.
Like I said, it’s not a great movie. It’s just okay and waaaay toooo looong. They could have cut 30-40 minutes off this thing, and you’d miss nothing. The special effects aren’t that spectacular, either. And the whitewashing of swastikas and American identity out of it is disturbing and stupid. And it’s hypocritical, since the movie poster has the American flag on it and the closing credits are filled with patriotic music and pics of Uncle Sam, etc. Why are we so afraid to show swastikas in their place in history? Again, it’s “Hey, we might offend someone.” Political correctness ad absurdum.
BTW, if you do go see this, you can see a “stinger,” including a preview of “The Avengers,” if you sit through ALL of the credits at the end. And I mean all of ‘em. It’s insufferable and not worth the “reward” at the end.
ONE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS
* “Friends With Benefits“: I liked this better than the first time I saw it back in January, when it was called, “No Strings Attached” (read my review). But not that much better. It was still vile, pointless, and predictable from the first five minutes forward. And, yes, it’s nearly the identical plot as the awful “No Strings”: guy and girl who are attracted to each other but not dating agree to just have sex with no romance or emotions. And predictably, as in the first incarnation, one or both start to have romantic feelings, they have a big melodramatic shouting and crying match, and then make up and live happily ever after, after all that empty sex. Awww . . . touching. Yes, it’s a chick flick that tries to cross dress as a vile Judd Apatow movie but just can’t go both ways. And I hate both genres, so it’s even worse when they mix. And I could do without the usual measure of melodrama, crying, and yelling. Yuck.
I despise Justin Timberlake and I used to like Mila Kunis, until I saw her in this movie. He cannot act, and she got on my nerves. And it’s the usual story of how the girl didn’t have a dad because her loser mother slept around. Who cares? I didn’t. There are some funny lines in this, but mostly it’s just groanworthy, cheesy, and vulgar. No charm here. If you want to see the over-rated Timberlake’s naked butt and the same for Kunis, this is your movie. For everyone with taste, this ain’t your movie. It’s all about promoting promiscuity, which we’ve already had decades of . . . and the results: diseases, kids born out of wedlock and having no fathers in their lives, millions of single mothers, the breakdown of the American family, etc.
In watching this movie, I was like the stereotype of a guy having sex (as promoted in a joke in this movie). After a minute, I was done.
TWO MARXES
* “Tabloid“: During this whole movie, I kept thinking, “Why the heck am I still sitting through this f–king movie?” Answer: because if I walk out in the middle of a screening, I’m not allowed to review the movie. The movie wasn’t just anti-Mormon, it was nuts. And it made me waste two hours of my life on a trivial, insignificant trollop. Is there really such a dearth of valid documentary topics and material that the crazy Joyce McKinney is now worthy of wasting my time and the big screen near you?
This “documentary” is about a bleeping crazy woman, McKinney, who was once Miss Wyoming in the Miss USA Pageant. A nutjob bimbo, in the mid-1970s, she fell in love with a Mormon missionary (Kirk Anderson) because she drove a Corvette and he drove a Corvette. But she wasn’t a Mormon and after they allegedly slept together, she thought they would get married. He disappeared to England to go on his Mormon mission.
Joyce worked three jobs (or so she says), one of them being a prostitute, another being a nude model, so she could save enough money to charter a jet to fly to England, kidnap the Mormon, chain him to a bed on the English countryside, and rape him back to liking her. She carried out her plans, then got arrested for kidnapping and was about to stand trial, which she escapes by using disguises and fleeing Great Britain.
I absolutely hated this woman and couldn’t stand to hear her talk after about the first ten minutes. Oh, and did I mention that later in life she spends $150,000 to clone her favorite dog, Booger, in South Korea. Yup, she’s “barking mad,” as one of the English commentators in the movie noted. And why was it necessary to constantly bash and mock Mormons throughout this movie, when it was clear they are the relatively normal and moral ones, not this crazy lady skank and the gay activist dude?
Not that I cared about this crazy chick, the story, or anything in this movie, but the documentarians didn’t really do much of a documentary. They mostly just interviewed this nutjob, along with an anti-Mormon gay activist, the charter pilot, and a couple of English reporters. And they failed to answer the only questions I had: what the heck does this lunatic loser do for a living that she can afford to sit around and do nothing and has $150,000 to spend on cloning a dog? Where did she get the money? They don’t think to tell you. But, again, like the rest of this crazy movie, I really didn’t care much.
THREE MARXES
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Weekend Box Office: “Bad Teacher,” “Buck”
Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!
Weekend Box Office: “Bad Teacher,” “Buck”
By Debbie Schlussel
I did not see “Cars 2″ because I did not see the first “Cars,” and that wouldn’t have been fair since, per my rules, I saw “Breakin’” before I saw “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.” (To those of you who really believe I actually threw away two hours of my life on “Breakin’ 2,” I’m just kidding.) However, “Cars 2″ does feature a fan/friend of this site, Larry the Cable Guy a/k/a Dan Whitney, a true conservative and a great guy (I have even been on the Git’R'Done 1.) So, I support whatever he’s doing. Here’s what I did see:
* “Bad Teacher“: There are a lot of movies I like about bad people–bad Santas (“Bad Santa”), bad cops (“Bad Lieutenant”), etc. But “Bad Teacher?” Um, no thanks. Sometimes bad is good. This ain’t one of those times. Sorry.
While this was better than I expected, it was still pretty awful. Vile, juvenile, disgusting, and laced with four-letter words, gratuitous shots of naked breasts and erections. Yup, most movies these days have been brought down under the rush to imitate the vulgar Judd Apatow. I laughed a few times, but not as much as I should have for a comedy. Oh, and of course, the pro-life character is a geek in this movie. Aren’t they always, in the world according to Hollywood? The thing I liked most–no, the only thing I liked–about this movie was Cameron Diaz’s awesome haute couture designer wardrobe and shoes. Diaz is looking tired and haggard, these days. The body still has it, but the face has hit the wall along with this horrible script and storyline.
Diaz plays a vain, shallow, alcoholic, pothead, lazy, incompetent middle school teacher who’s been dumped by her rich boyfriend. She thinks that if she gets breast implants, she will attract a rich guy. So she steals, cajoles, and otherwise scams her way into getting the nearly $10,000 she needs to pay for the implants. While a gym teacher (Jason Segel) chases after her, she chases after the wealthy substitute teacher, played by Justin Timberlake. Timberlake turns out to be geeky and strange, and pro-life. As I noted, this is deliberate. The conservatives are always weirdos in Hollywood’s telling of any story.
Diaz spends all day showing her students movies, while she sleeps at her desk, smokes pot in her car and displays other bad behavior. All the while, she is being shadowed by a goody-goody teacher who is jealous of her success in “just getting by” and scamming and is trying to take her down. Predictably, like most Hollywood movies these days, the good teacher is the villain and the bad teacher is the heroine and gets rewarded. Yay, Hollywood. Great message. And Diaz’s character is so miserable, with zero charm. Yet, we’re supposed to root for this con-man criminalette in a skirt. HUH?
If you liked this and you are over 30, you really need to grow up. This movie wasn’t aimed at me or my demographic. It’s clearly for 2o-something slacker frat boys and moronic girls who smoke pot, love the slutty Kardashians, and loathe good taste and behavior. And for them, there is a scene of Cameron Diaz in a sexy car wash romp along with the in-your-face erection. Classy. And, like everything else in this movie, it’s gratuitous and pointless . . . other than to separate you from your $10. Don’t fall for the ruse.
THREE MARXES
* “Buck“: Loved this documentary about a great American cowboy and one of the many decent, real men still left rural, G-d’s Country America. Buck Brannaman is “The Horse Whisperer,” on whom the Robert Redford movie was based. And Redford makes an appearance in the movie. But don’t let that fool ya. This is about a down to earth man who lives modestly in an RV he drives around North America for most of the year. Some people are street wise. And some, like Buck, are barn wise or great rural outdoors wise.
Brannaman trains people how to tame their horses in a humane and gentle way and has a magic and sparkle that leaves the animals quiet and docile without any sort of harsh discipline. He learned that in reaction to his abusive alcoholic father’s beatings and as a way to make something of himself as he lived in a foster home. Although I am often annoyed by the need to portray every great American somehow “damaged” by abuse, I still loved this movie for the story it told of a quintessential American in a working class environment. Brannaman is also a businessman and small business owner, but you’d hardly know it as you watch him and his folksy ways and skill.
I could have done without Brannaman telling about how he watches Oprah and how she says men should help with chores. Even he seems embarrassed by saying so and chortles at this revelation. But other than that, it’s simply a fun, relaxing, escapist look at Americana. It’s kind of an unvarnished Ralph Lauren ad with working class cowboys instead of the wealthy polo player/male model types the designer presents.
Brannaman speaks occasionally about his brother, who is also a horse whisperer, but we never see the brother anywhere in the movie, something that’s never explained. Perhaps they do not get along and in researching this, it appears they are something of competitors in the business and have strikingly different personalities. But we meet Buck’s daughter, a cowgirl in the making, Buck’s wife, and Buck’s foster mother.
I enjoyed this. Even if you’ve never ridden horses and aren’t a horse person, you will still enjoy this.
THREE REAGANS
Weekend Box Office: “Bad Teacher,” “Buck”
By Debbie Schlussel
I did not see “Cars 2″ because I did not see the first “Cars,” and that wouldn’t have been fair since, per my rules, I saw “Breakin’” before I saw “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.” (To those of you who really believe I actually threw away two hours of my life on “Breakin’ 2,” I’m just kidding.) However, “Cars 2″ does feature a fan/friend of this site, Larry the Cable Guy a/k/a Dan Whitney, a true conservative and a great guy (I have even been on the Git’R'Done 1.) So, I support whatever he’s doing. Here’s what I did see:
* “Bad Teacher“: There are a lot of movies I like about bad people–bad Santas (“Bad Santa”), bad cops (“Bad Lieutenant”), etc. But “Bad Teacher?” Um, no thanks. Sometimes bad is good. This ain’t one of those times. Sorry.
While this was better than I expected, it was still pretty awful. Vile, juvenile, disgusting, and laced with four-letter words, gratuitous shots of naked breasts and erections. Yup, most movies these days have been brought down under the rush to imitate the vulgar Judd Apatow. I laughed a few times, but not as much as I should have for a comedy. Oh, and of course, the pro-life character is a geek in this movie. Aren’t they always, in the world according to Hollywood? The thing I liked most–no, the only thing I liked–about this movie was Cameron Diaz’s awesome haute couture designer wardrobe and shoes. Diaz is looking tired and haggard, these days. The body still has it, but the face has hit the wall along with this horrible script and storyline.
Diaz plays a vain, shallow, alcoholic, pothead, lazy, incompetent middle school teacher who’s been dumped by her rich boyfriend. She thinks that if she gets breast implants, she will attract a rich guy. So she steals, cajoles, and otherwise scams her way into getting the nearly $10,000 she needs to pay for the implants. While a gym teacher (Jason Segel) chases after her, she chases after the wealthy substitute teacher, played by Justin Timberlake. Timberlake turns out to be geeky and strange, and pro-life. As I noted, this is deliberate. The conservatives are always weirdos in Hollywood’s telling of any story.
Diaz spends all day showing her students movies, while she sleeps at her desk, smokes pot in her car and displays other bad behavior. All the while, she is being shadowed by a goody-goody teacher who is jealous of her success in “just getting by” and scamming and is trying to take her down. Predictably, like most Hollywood movies these days, the good teacher is the villain and the bad teacher is the heroine and gets rewarded. Yay, Hollywood. Great message. And Diaz’s character is so miserable, with zero charm. Yet, we’re supposed to root for this con-man criminalette in a skirt. HUH?
If you liked this and you are over 30, you really need to grow up. This movie wasn’t aimed at me or my demographic. It’s clearly for 2o-something slacker frat boys and moronic girls who smoke pot, love the slutty Kardashians, and loathe good taste and behavior. And for them, there is a scene of Cameron Diaz in a sexy car wash romp along with the in-your-face erection. Classy. And, like everything else in this movie, it’s gratuitous and pointless . . . other than to separate you from your $10. Don’t fall for the ruse.
THREE MARXES
* “Buck“: Loved this documentary about a great American cowboy and one of the many decent, real men still left rural, G-d’s Country America. Buck Brannaman is “The Horse Whisperer,” on whom the Robert Redford movie was based. And Redford makes an appearance in the movie. But don’t let that fool ya. This is about a down to earth man who lives modestly in an RV he drives around North America for most of the year. Some people are street wise. And some, like Buck, are barn wise or great rural outdoors wise.
Brannaman trains people how to tame their horses in a humane and gentle way and has a magic and sparkle that leaves the animals quiet and docile without any sort of harsh discipline. He learned that in reaction to his abusive alcoholic father’s beatings and as a way to make something of himself as he lived in a foster home. Although I am often annoyed by the need to portray every great American somehow “damaged” by abuse, I still loved this movie for the story it told of a quintessential American in a working class environment. Brannaman is also a businessman and small business owner, but you’d hardly know it as you watch him and his folksy ways and skill.
I could have done without Brannaman telling about how he watches Oprah and how she says men should help with chores. Even he seems embarrassed by saying so and chortles at this revelation. But other than that, it’s simply a fun, relaxing, escapist look at Americana. It’s kind of an unvarnished Ralph Lauren ad with working class cowboys instead of the wealthy polo player/male model types the designer presents.
Brannaman speaks occasionally about his brother, who is also a horse whisperer, but we never see the brother anywhere in the movie, something that’s never explained. Perhaps they do not get along and in researching this, it appears they are something of competitors in the business and have strikingly different personalities. But we meet Buck’s daughter, a cowgirl in the making, Buck’s wife, and Buck’s foster mother.
I enjoyed this. Even if you’ve never ridden horses and aren’t a horse person, you will still enjoy this.
THREE REAGANS
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