Thursday, June 30

TALES FROM THE HOOD (1995)

I love anthology movies.  They are almost always horror movies, they are almost always unsuccessful, and they are almost always awesome.  I don't know why audiences by and large avoid them; maybe nobody wants to learn a bunch of new names every twenty minutes or so.  I think that's the best part; no story can wear out it's welcome.  Most anthologies have three or more stories, and frequently a frame story, and they never seem to run more than two hours (some of them not even close) so they can really condense concepts and speed up the storytelling.  This might not be the best anthology movie I've seen, but its definitely the best so called 'urban horror' movie I've seen.

Wednesday, June 29

13 ASSASSINS (2010)

The men-on-a-mission sub-genre benefits greatly from a worthy threat, an adversary so substantial that the team of heroes assembled feels not only necessary but outmatched.  That could be why so many of the most popular men-on-a-mission movies involve sticking it to the Nazis.  Well, no Nazis necessary here to make an all-time classic.  This stunning film provides quite the sinister antagonist: Lord Naritsugu.  He's so young and handsome that he feels like the star of a different movie, but here, he is a stone cold psychopathic butcher, a man who barely even seems to enjoy his wanton killing sprees and impulsive rape-murder sessions.  Thirteen might seem like plenty of assassins to end his reign of terror, but since Lord Naritsugu is the Shogun's half brother and travels with a small army of bodyguards, the titular group has their work cut out for them.

Tuesday, June 28

BAD TEACHER

Comedy is better when it's not heartwarming.  Possibly because in most film comedies, especially romantic comedies, the characters are sociopaths.  That's not really a problem, but those movies seem to lack the self awareness to realize how unlikable and abnormal their supposedly likable and normal protagonists are.  A hip twenty-or-thirty-something with a gigantic apartment and a job at a newspaper or a magazine or something that totally still exists in the 21st century who talks about their life constantly in sweeping pronouncements and who hatches zany schemes to get love or keep love or test love and they're always lying and they're selfish and they don't know what they want and they use people, they just use people endlessly.  Why is this always the hero/heroine of a comedy?  Better question, why do those movies seem to think those people are normal and/or likable?  Anyway, this movie is different from that, and better for it.  It's about a bad teacher spoiler.

Monday, June 27

I SAW THE DEVIL (2010)

Although the actual Devil fails to make an appearance, rest assured, this movie is filled with vile, unholy things that would make him proud.  A simple description technically covers most of the plot: A serial killer takes his latest victim and her fiancee vows revenge.  Any chance this movie is six kinds of bat-shit crazy? Hint: it's Korean.

Saturday, June 25

DREAMLAND (2007)

UPDATED 6/28 This is a recommendation from my pal Schifty.  Well, more like a request for me to see if I could figure out what the hell happens in this movie.  Short answer: Probably not.   But he has such idiosyncratic taste that I was intrigued to see what could lie in store for me.  This just might be one of the most unpredictable movies I've ever seen, and it's only 77 minutes long.

Thursday, June 23

SUPER 8

JJ Abrams put a bunch of Spielberg movies in a blender and when they were all chopped up and mixed together into a soup he tried a taste and said to himself, 'not bad.'  I'd have to agree.  In short, the Goonies are in Close Encounters but the alien is Jaws until the very end when he is ET.

GREEN LANTERN

Bland but capable Ryan Reynolds is Hal Jordan, a pilot who is the best of the best at destroying other planes when he isn't supposed to, destroying his own plane when he isn't supposed to, and making his company lose a contract and lay off its workforce.  That sounds pretty damn interesting, but that's not actually what the movie is about.