Thursday, December 27, 2018

The Mummy

The Mummy

My mom is in town for a few more days, and she likes very similar movies to me. She also(like me) doesn't mind watching terrible films. Enter The Mummy. Not to be confused with The Mummy. Seemed apropos to be watching it with my Mommy. Faithful readers and friends will know I'm a big fan of Tom Cruise. Or at least have been. he is losing me with every film he makes. He's always yelling, and always running. It's tedious. Don't get me started on his portrayal of Jack Reacher. Aaaaanyways...
This movie is really terrible. My mother lives in Egypt now, and couldn't stop complaining that they didn't seem to do any research into the region. They inexplicably involved Dr Jeckyl/Mr. Hyde really really poorly. The female love interest in for some reason a whopping 22 years younger than Cruise. It's 2018 people, can we please at least pretend women are important for like one movie? Please?
The lone bright spot is Jake Johnson, who acts like himself in everything, but was good.

I'd pass on this for sure, just watch the preview, it's way better than the actual movie. 

Monday, December 24, 2018

Midnight Meat Train

Midnight Meat Train.
Sounds like a late night skinimax right? Well, it's actually a B-movie horror film starring Bradley Cooper and Vinnie Jones. Weird, right? Yes, definitely.
Stylistically it felt like a Korean indie film, or a pretty mild Miike v-cinema project.
Interesting tidbit from IMDB :

Budget:

$15,000,000


Gross USA:

 $83,361

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

 $3,533,227

Oucha magouch. Well, it isn't that bad. It may you wondering what the hell you just did with your life for 100 minutes, but it's certainly interesting. Check it out of you want to see something pretty outside the box. 

Terminator Salvation

Terminator Salvation. If you know me, and judging by my ever dwindling following, chances are you do, you know that I like Terminator. I like the movies, I like the TV show, I like the concept, I like the music. You get the picture. T3 was pretty lame, and seemed like a terrible way to end this very interesting franchise.
But this year we got the TV show, which I love, and now a new Terminator installment starring none other than Christian Bale. Best actor in the series since Linda Hamilton. Well, that's where the good news stops. This movie is a confused mess, and none of it makes any sense at all. it's not even worth getting into. They're making yet another Terminator movie this year, this one ignoring that 3 and Salvation ever happened. You should do the same. 

Adventureland

Adventureland
I thought it was going to be a goofy buddy movie. Not so. Very cute coming of age tale. Should hold up over time. Jesse Eisenberg before he started playing exclusively insufferable characters was actually good. I think at this point I trust Martin Starr's judgement to watch pretty much anything he's in. Ok I watched this in 2009 and started the review then, but just realized the female lead is Kristin Stewart. This is right around when Twilight came out, how her life has changed since...

Worth watching for sure, you won'd be disappointed. 

Afro Samurai

Afro Samurai : Resurrection.
Wow. Holy freaking wow. It's like Samurai Champloo but with better music and none of the annoying anime mugging for the camera. BTW, if you like samurai and animation you need to check out Samurai Champloo, quickly. The tale of Afro Samurai is long and very cool, and you should really watch the TV show(an extremely watchable 5 part series). Terrific animation, cool story, lots of violence and the voice work stylings of one Mr. Samuel L. Jackson. I think he's a very good actor, but his voice work is even better.

[the above was written in 2008: since then Samuel has made some really really bad movies, but his voice work is still top notch]

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Appaloosa

Appaloosa.
Western starring someone or other. I'm in. I like modern westerns. The movie is fairly long, which is why it took me a while to get around to watching it, but here we go.

A-Ha! The stars are Ed Harris and Viggo Mortenson. This is a good thing. I like Ed Harris a lot, and he seems made for a good western(though I've never seen him in one), with his steely stares and uncompromising hardness. I'm also a big Viggo fan. While he did get a little boring in the Lord of the Rings movies, he was thoroughly enjoyable in A History of Violence, and Eastern Promises(which had a crazy nude fight to the death). Viggo seems like one of those way too intense guys like Val Kilmer. While they're both very good actors, people sometimes don't like being in movies with them because they get too intensely into their character, 'bump' too hard when doing their own stunts, and other things casual actors get annoyed/intimidated by.

[2018 Edit - Maybe this was the inspiration for Harris' amazing role in Westworld

Taken

Taken.
[2008 take] Holy kick ass Liam Neeson. Old guys can still bring it I guess. Not since Rob Roy(in fact, including Rob Roy) has Liam been this action starry.

[2018 take] Welp, this hasn't really aged well. Neeson went on to make Taken 2, 3, maybe 4? He has parodied himself, and was kind of everywhere for a while. Sadly, when he wife died he started taking any movie offered to distract him from his depression, and it shows unfortunately.

In 2014, Neeson opened up about losing Richardson in an interview with 60 Minutes, saying that he turned to work to help him through his grief. 

“I’m not good without work,” he said. “I just don’t – I just don’t wallow too much. You know? And I just didn’t want to – especially for my boys – seem to be wallowing in sadness or depression.”

Batman : The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight.
Most anticipated movie of the time. I finally made it out to see it at the iMax in Reading. We went with a group of 9, and managed to all sit together, which was quite a feat. Laurel must have felt like Elaine in that Seinfeld episode saving seats for our friends who made it late.

What did they do right with this movie? Almost everything. The opening is good, the action gripping. Great production, great cast. Well directed, well costumed. I really liked this film.

[UPDATE 10 years later] - we will all remember this as Heath Ledger's masterpiece. He will forever be the standard of what other Jokers are compared against. See this for him if nothing else.

Combo post - few old drafts combined

The King of Kong. I'm kind of into documentaries about niche activities. I really enjoyed Scrabble, Crosswords, real life RPG, Starbucking, Confessions of a Superhero(really, really good), among others. I like learning about weird stuff people are into, and I like seeing the insanity these people sink to. The King of Kong features a doozy.

People love video games. I love video games. I am, however, not really into the current spate of First Person Shooter(fps) games, or the waaaay over complicated gaming systems currently representing game consoles. King of Kong brings us back to a simpler time. A time when people played in arcades, with quarters. There's even a follow-up scandal [SPOILER ALERT]

Slipstream. Weird movie. Weird weird weird movie. Disjointed and nonsensical, this movie could easily trigger and epileptic fit with its intentionally frenzied editing. Really cool cast, but I wouldn't recommend.

Waitress.
Really fun movie. Well acted, good characters. Under 2 hours, and some really good baking. If you like Keri Russell or Nathan Fillion you shouldn't miss it.

Baby Mama.
I don't understand why no one liked this movie. I thought it was very funny. Poehler and Fey have great chemistry and goof around for 99 minutes. It's like they never stopped doing weekend update!

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Old / new - Updates!

Hey folks. I have watched a few movies lately, and I am going to read a bunch of comic books.

When I logged on here to post, I see a big bunch of old drafts that I never published.

Over the next week or so I'll be putting up some old posts, and some new ones.
Stay tuned!

other things I'll do :
new top 5 TV shows
top 5 books? maybe
Update top 5 movies, though I'm not sure it's changed at all

Also, check out my podcast here :
https://soundcloud.com/small-talk-big-guys