The Guard...

....or how you have to watch movies from another country to be entertained.

     When I was moving to Houston in July of 2011 I listened to a lot of NPR on the 14 hour drive down from Kentucky. I like NPR for the most part though and that is good seeing that my CD player went out about 3 years ago. I have heard about more music and books by listening to NPR than just about any other source. Sure you can read reviews for movies on the IMDB but like everything on the internet you get just arguments over opinion. That and I find the message boards seem to be rampant with teenage twits that think Twilight and Transformers are the most awesomest movies ever and can't understand a movie like Another Year in which the cast was "full of ugly people".
    Anyway, I was listening to NPR in Arkansas and I heard an interview with Brenden Gleeson the Irish actor in such movies such as Braveheart, 28 Days Later, Harry Potter and In Bruges. They were discussing his latest movie with Don Cheadle called The Guard, set in Ireland and his role. The entire I am thinking this sounds like such a great movie I will never get a chance to see it. I was thinking like I still lived in little old Kentucky not moving to the 3rd Largest city in America.

     I actually got to see a cool movie. I finally paid money to watch a movie and wasn't disappointed afterwards. Thank you Sweet Jesus. I could go into all the details of what makes this movie work, the humor, the characters, the scenery but you don't have to take my word for it.

Captain America:The Last of my Patience

or Captain America:Filmed Exclusively at Shepperton Studios London, UK.

      First let me start off by saying that as a child and a teenage I loved movies. It was always such an interesting medium, visuals and sounds, plots and ideas, music and emotions. I good movie can illicit an emotional response. It can make you laugh, cry or get you angered. It was an experience when I was a kid to sit in the dark waiting for the kid in the booth to flip the switch on the projector and watch MAGIC come from light and sound. Those days are gone sadly I am afraid now it is cookie cutter movies feeding off pop culture as far back as anyone can remember. You can't just sit in the cool darkness alone with your thoughts or talking to your friend or girl anymore now you have to have COMMERCIALS SHOT at your head until the movie begin and even when the projector starts you have to watch TRAILERS for at least 15 minutes.
      Shit, I miss just getting asked to buy a coke or popcorn but I had to sit through ads for new ABC shows. One was about PAN AM Stewardesses during the early 60's when you used to have to wear a coat and tie to fly plus have a shit ton of money as well I imagine. How is that going to be a TV series? How many seasons can that last? Until Pan Am goes out of business? The Early 60's is the thing now thanks to Mad Men so why not a series about Stewardess, I'm sure they have as much of a story to tell as Madison Avenue Ad Men. I think the difference is Mad Men is on cable they have really been pushing the edge in TV like HBO the last few years with things like Rescue Me, Mad Men, Louie and Breaking Bad. ABC is owned by Disney, I doubt if the Mouse is going to get to risque.
     Then there was a commercial for the NEW Charlies Angels TV series set in Miami like it matters. This time the Angels are Detectives and Bosley isn't just some alcoholic that helps ever so often but a ladies man so plenty of sex appeal for everyone that watches. I will not be one of those watchers.
      Then,( yes I am using another THEN) there was a commercial asking if your computer had to load in seconds could it. They demonstrated by have a laptop connected to a laptop in free fall, when the OS was loaded the DVD tray would open triggering the chute and the PC would gently land on terra firma. I get it, idea is in my head. I understand commercial what you are saying are those few seconds while I get a cup of coffee at starbucks are important, THIS IS AMERICA. LAND OF THE NOW! Why those seconds that it takes for my PC to load keeps me from vital information such as funny tweets, stupid facebook messages that end in "if you aren't a coward or you are a true friend you will repost" and pictures of kids that I don't care about and don't care to see.
     So I sat through that 30 second commercial and what comes next but a fucking behind the scenes on the making of the commercial. Are you kidding me? Who cares how they made the commercial? Seriously. You strap a parachute onto a laptop and threw it out of a plane, stop me if you ALREADY FIGURED THAT OUT! Why did they make a behind the scenes for a commercial? Is it for when the DVD comes out? Will they have an audio commentary as well?
     You see, they got you in the theater because you can't leave at all. You have to get there early enough to get a seat that isn't in the front row or off to the far corners so you are at least stuck 10-15 minutes. This is made worse if you go by yourself because you can't talk away the Violent Eyeball Injections on Screen. Texting is only good for your unemployed friends and who wants to talk in a crowded theater on a cell.
      You must not leave your chair and no matter where you do set, management will provide a 6 year old boy to sit behind you to kick your seat and ask stupid questions throughout the movie. Thank you. The only highlight I can think of before the movie started was a preview for a Mexican movies called "Saving Private Perez" that looked both cheap and funny. After that it was back to anger.

Craptain Americano!

   So quick movie review. First half good, second half filler and let's just get to the fucking Avengers Movie already. A movie in which Robert Downey is going to steal the entire show because he is the most likable and charismatic of all the proposed characters. Sorry but that is about the truth of it all, Thor is going to stand their looking pissed, Cap will be flexing and Tony Stark will be drinking a martini looking suave.

Missed Connection

Dear 30-40yo Rotund Man who was in the Evansville Barnes and Noble Bathroom Saturday June 11, 2011,


Please seek help for whatever ailment that you suffer from because I don't think  it is natural to leave a bathroom stall wheezing like you have just ran The Boston Marathon. Of course upon entering said stall maybe it was just your lungs trying to pull in some much needed oxygen like a fish out of water. From the looks of what was splattered on the back of the bowl I would suggest you to start removing the husks from your corn on the cob like most civilized people have been doing for at over a thousand years. We all can't wait to remove the wrapper from that corny goodness but one must all the same. 


As a side note to Barnes and Noble, you might think you are saving money by replacing the toilet paper with single-ply wax paper but rest assured I just used 23x as much to get my asshole squeaky clean. If you are willing to spend money to put a new Nook Kiosk in the entrance of every store with some poor schmuck trying to pawn one off on customers as soon as they enter the least you can do is spend the extra .78 cents on toilet paper.  Shitting is inevitable; buying electronics that will be out dated as soon as you leave the store is not. Plus seeing that you have a Starbucks in each store and coffee being a natural laxative I would assume you'd put two and two together.




In other news looks like I am back to writing.

The Silence

Hillbilly is Brazil Edition Tie In:

     I went to the SP Film Festival last weekend with Ana to, you guessed it, watch some movies. We had to be careful about our selection and unfortunately with me tagging along we had to narrow our choices down to anything in English or with English subtitles. So we settled on two movies that had english subtitles and one of those was the German movie The Silence or Das letzte Schweigen.

  How we chose this movie was a systematic process in which Ana did most of the real work because I still can't read Portuguese all that well. She has one habit that I wish I had, that is taking copious amounts of notes and being organized. So she came to me with a long list of movies that were playing over the weekend that we could both watch and understand. This one just happened to be about a serial killer/murder mystery kind of deal which is always intriguing. 

     So after we nestled into our seats I learned what could even be more intriguing than a German dramatic film and that is trying to follow along without the aforementioned English Subtitles. Oops, seems that somewhere along the line there was a miscommunication between the catalog printer and the film distributor and I had to try and figure out what was going on with Portuguese subtitles and the German audio. Which wasn't as difficult as it might sound, the acting was decent enough that I pretty much could follow along with the actions of the characters. I am sure I missed out on some of the smaller nuances but still  I got the gist of it.

     

     At least I think I got the gist of it. either way Ana talked them into giving me a free ticket to anything I wanted to see afterwards which is pretty sweet. Especially seeing that I watched the entire movie with or without the English Subs. All it took was some subtle yelling and saying that she was a lawyer and before you know it I have a free ticket OR she asked nicely and explained our situation in a calm clear manner with which the woman working their could relate to and offered to see what she could do for us. That is like getting a steak dinner that was cooked well done when you ordered medium rare. Then with some friendly complaining after cleaning your plate, they give you another steak dinner. So it was sort of a half assed twofer, the first wasn't exactly what you ordered but the next has the possibility and  besides that it's free.

   The movie was advertised in the Mostra Film Book ($1R) as a murder mystery but it would be more apt to say that a murder takes place and we watch as it effects different people in different ways. The prologue of the movie is set in the early 80's and the rape and murder of a 12 year old girl by a two men in a wheat field. Flash forward 23 years later and another girl disappears but her bike and effects are found in the exact same spot in which the first girl was murdered. That is the action that brings all the characters together which is the real basis of the film as the second murder/disappearance is just a catalyst. You have the mother of the first girl, the cop that worked the case who just retired, another cop whose is falling apart because wife just died of cancer, the parents of the girl that just disappeared. Also the two men that murdered the first girl., one of whom still lives and works in the apartment buildings as a grounds keeper were they first met and the other who soon after the first murder packed up, changed his name and started a new life and family. You get to watch and follow these people deal with their lives after the horrific events and with their own lives.
     Anyway that is what I pieced together from my German and Portuguese. I could be totally wrong about everything it wouldn't be the first time that has happened.

Calm Down, Dr Wang Has Arrived....

     The second movie that we choose through our process was a Chinese/Canadian/Australian production titled The Red Light Revolution. Set in present day Bejing it is a lovely story about a thirty year old trying to find himself and a career to get back his self respect.

When A Man Loves A Woman

     The career is selling sex toys in a small neighborhood which has a mostly conservative geriatric clientele. I have to say it was rather enlightening to watch a comedy that didn't involve someone being knocked up throughout most of the film or involve bad child acting. I mean I really enjoyed Knocked Up and The Switch but why does every other movie now have to have an actress walking around in a latex belly. Anyway as the story goes along and the shop becomes successful and accepted in the neighborhood which of course is seen in montage, an effect used in comedies for nearly 100 years. As usually happens in these sorts of comedies though, the shit hits the fan. We can't just be happy go lucky because we still have 45 minutes to go in our film and who wants to watch people with no adversity in their lives. That is the point of these movies isn't it, the guy that used to just give up in the face of a challenge now meets it head on because he has grown. Our young hero forgot to get the proper permit to open a Sex Shop in this location so of course he gets busted and seeing that he got all his product from what can only be explained as The Dildo Mafioso he is in serious trouble of getting his legs broke. 

      I really won't go into the last bit of the movie but if you have watched films for oh say the last 30 years you probably know how things are going to work out in the end. And while the movie might follow a formula perfected in comedies during the 80's with people like Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Rodney Dangerfield. That doesn't mean the formula doesn't work because it does work in this film. It works because the actors and the direction and good but also because this movie has something that a lot of new comedies in America don't have much of anymore, jokes. I love jokes, especially in my comedies. Even more so in my Chinese Sex Shop comedies. 

Wall Street 2 - Electric Snoozaroo....

      Ana and I went to see Wall Street 2:The Dollar Ain't What It Once Was last night at the Cinemark Theater located in the shopping mall next door. It was the only English film playing that we hadn't already seen or involved fighting a Resident Evil.

Makes me want to watch the Godfather

     First though we saw trailers and while I won't get into the Brazilian movie trailers because I couldn't understand them, there was a trailer for Unstoppable starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. I would like announce right here and now that I think I might have found the biggest comedy hit of the year. I haven't laughed out loud during a movie trailer in such a long time, this could possibly be the silliest idea for a movie that I have ever seen. I might have missed some clues as how the movie was supposed to be a suspenseful thriller because the trailer was cut together by a meth addicted, espresso drinking rabid monkey. I thought it was so ludicrous that I started laughing again in the end credits for Wall Street. Maybe I was just trying to take the pain away from the feature presentation.

Unstoppable

     About WS2; let me start out by saying that I think Shia LeBouf is the Ben Affleck of his day. You place him next to Michael Douglas and you see this loud and clear. Douglas is Gordon Gekko, LePoff is "look mommy, I'm acting, I'm a man". The sad part is we are stuck with LePoff through most of the movie and only get a glimpse of the more interesting Gekko occasionally which kind of sucks. 

• Shia LeBouf is no Charlie Sheen all he has is talk normal to show normal and fast and loud to show anger, fear, sadness, gas pain and anal itch.

• His girlfriend has 100 million locked up in a trust fund in Switzerland, we learn this halfway through the movie and she says she planned on donating it to a charity. Only someone that has never been poor or middle class could ever think like that, especially someone that lives in NYC one of the most expensive cities in the world. LAME

• Oliver tries to put a message in the movie but it is really lost on shitty acting, too many plots that lead nowhere, an unrealistic sentimental ending 

• CGI effects that are there for no real reason but to say LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME

• Who am I supposed to care about in this movie? Gordon Gekko the man who steal loves only money (till the end). Shia LePuff who in the first ten minutes gets a bonus check for $1.5 million? His whiny unattractive girlfriend that works for a non-profit? Why do I care?

     You can't make a movie decrying unfettered greed that's only aim is too make as much money as possible. Why else would it get a world wide release everywhere on the same day unless they knew that word of mouth would probably kill it in two weeks. Not that it matters here in Brazil the line for Resident Evil 4 was standing outside the theater, Wall Street 2 was rather spacious for a Friday night. The best thing that could happen to Oliver Stone is if someone cut his budget in half and force him to return to his roots of Platoon or Salvador instead of giving him shit piles of money hoping to get the next JFK or Nixon. 

Coincidências do Amor (The Switch)

      I watched The Switch in Brazil though the title has been changed to something completely bizarre, Coincidências do Amor (Coincidences of Love). Why, who knows maybe there isn’t a word in Portuguese that means Switch or cheesy romantic comedy. I mean, most romantic comedies are cheesy so I guess that was redundant. Then again, romantic comedies aren't supposed to make you rethink your life, quit your job and move to NYC and start a punk rock band. They are supposed to do something though but what, no one knows.

      The movie is about a pregnancy but all movies these days has to have at least one person knocked up in it, it seems. Every since the superior movie Knocked Up came out 2 years ago there has been an onslaught of these movies showing how inadequate people deal with the little parasites. I guess if you think about it this has been going on longer than the last 2 years, I remember Hugh Grant had that movie with Julianne Moore 9 Months (I thought it was a sequel to 9 1/2 Weeks) or something back in the 90’s. There was also Father of the Bride 2 were both mother and daughter were pregnant and I am sure I am missing a few in between 1990 and 2010. I guess Switch is different in that it has the awkward “how she got pregnant” scenes and then skips 7 years later to the kid being 6 years old. So we miss out on Jennifer Aniston wearing a ridiculous latex pregnant belly appliance, the funny building the crib buying toys scene, the breathing scene, the stupid rushing to the hospital scene, the hilarious I don't want to be a dad scenes and the funny comic relief doctor scenes. Right past all that bullshit and straight into the comedy and romance.

     I have to give the movie some props for deviating from the mold of the last 20 years of oops I'm pregnant films. They even kind of deviate from the romantic comedy mold by not making Jason Bateman such a loser that in real life he would never get the girl. He is just a little neurotic, not a pot smoking, beer guzzling slob whose friends are either the fat guy or the nervous guy. Which is funny if you think about it because the guy that has been playing nervous guy for the last 5 years used to play Jason's son in Arrested Development.
     The only time I thought the movie got boring was when it was focusing on Jennifer Aniston. When we are with Bateman it gets at least some chuckles but when we stick with Jennifer it kind of just hits bottom. Probably because she isn't really all that funny or interesting which isn't her fault, they didn't hire Meryl Strep and Jennifer Aniston plays the role just right, pretty, successful and able to get a huge apartment in NYC plus a TV executive job even after being out of the business for 7 years. Like I said in the beginning it is a romantic comedy, the Light Beers of movies so we can't really expect to get drunk on watching it. Though in her defense, the scene in which she gets locked outside in a sheer white nightgown in chilly NYC was probably the best acting I have seen in a long time.
     So even though I wouldn't suggest it unless you are just a Bateman fan I would say rent it or steal it off the internet if you have time to kill.