Dead Man on Campus (1998)
It’s funny how much different the meaning of the word “facebook” is in this movie. Other than that, it might just be the last nail in Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s career’s coffin. Ain’t that a bitch.
If you think you’re about to watch this movie, cannonball some weed and Wild Irish Rose and start playing russian roulette. It’s that time.
1:35 am • 25 May 2012 • 1 note
Clay Pigeons (1998)
This is one of the oddest movies I’ve ever seen. As tense as anything else I can imagine in the strangest campiest way.
Vince Vaughn plays a strange homicidal maniac of a “good buddy” to Joaquin’s tortured morality.
On top of all this is a very strange and quirky soundtrack. I can’t help but lol as I wonder what will happen next as the situation gets worse and worse for Clay. It’s a sark comedy of a crime thriller, if I had to call it anything.
On the bright side, there are bewbs. SO you can’t lose, know what I mean?

I live in Miami. It is flat as fuck here. It never ceases to amaze me that geography can add so much texture to a film.

If for nothing else, one should see this movie just to see Vince Vaughn seriously showing his chops. I have rarely seen a more spooky performance out of anyone. Especially him. And, of course, Garofolo gives a turn as her normally butchy self but shows a surprisingly cute side for a second next to Vaughn. Telling you, he’s good in this.
Grab yourself a six of Bud, a good ol’ fashioned American cheeseburger wrapped in greasy wax paper, and get ready for a fun, white-knuckle ride through some Western mystery. Actually Im a vegetarian. I ate Indian food and drank Mandarin soda the whole flick. Fuck do I know. Why are you even reading this?
For good measure:

And this is why I watch the credits:

9:03 pm • 24 May 2012
Midnight in Paris (2011)
I hate Woody Allen. My friend does too. But he said to watch this. So here we go.
I hope he stays behind the camera. (Iknow absolutely zero about this film’s premise)

I lost count of the establishing shots of “Hey look how gorgeous Paris is.” Fuck Paris.
OK, credits are rolling. don’t see woody’s name in the actors… Brody. nice… Carla Bruni.. sounds familiar…
Has a sorta Carnage vibe.
So, like, it was a rom-com thing and now he’s back in the 20’s?? OK I can dig that. I was a professional time traveler as a matter of fact. Back from 1998-2004 I worked the Byzantine Corridor and the early medieval circuit.
The Hemingway character seems a little more gruff than I would’ve imagined him. And Owen Wilson seems super cool with the whole situation. I don’t get this. And then he walks out. You never leave the room if you’re magically back in time. Duh.
I knew it. The cafe turned into a laundromat.
Needless to say he tries to show his fiancee the place and she leaves right before the time-travelling antique car sputters up. Gil (Wilson) hops in the car and Hemingway starts doing his run-on thing again. Let’s see where this goes…
—
OK. Fuck. I loved it. Damnit. The pacing was marvelous. I felt like I was dancing with all the characters. How interesting. And I’m not sure what happened but I never noticed how much Owen Wilson sounds like Woody Allen. Mannerisms and speech and all. He really does. In a strange lazy-confident sort of way.
And this is the second time in a month I’ve heard a character in a movie say they need to be shut up with their work in order to truly produce anything valuable. (The other film being Howl).
Hmmmm.
It’s making me think which is the best thing that can happen in a movie.
See this. It’s fun. It touches on love without soaking you in it like an over-syruped crepe.
5:17 pm • 20 May 2012 • 2 notes
Summer of Sam (1999)
FINALLY. BEWBS.
This movie has a super corny idea of what punk rock is, coupled with a rather typical idea or image of the 70’s Disco scene. It’s a fun film but altogether a bit hysterical. The fun part though is the scumbag Vinny (John Leguizamo). He’s basically banging his way around New York the whole movie, in a haze of denial and amphetamine.
Plenty of nudity so even if everything sucks (which not all of it does, really), there’s still something to catch your eye (get it? like your eye? singular? one eye??). The scene where he bangs the Italian cousin in a ‘68 Camaro is especially fun. Bravo!

4:54 pm • 20 May 2012
We Were Soldiers (2002)
Was not a huge fan of this movie the first time around, and the second time I’m still not into it. Seems like a reckless Mel Gibson vehicle really. I try to take it seriously I really do. But this horrible Barry Pepper montage scene just kills it for me….
I mean. The rest of the movie might have something going on. But this just has to be the cheesiest bit of editing I’ve ever seen. Like, I expect this sort of style from the dorks that videotape prom and are used to laying out yearbooks for melodramatic effect.
I woulda made a gif of the scene but im not into opening photoshop right now. Deal.

Barry Pepper makes for his camera after seeing an N.V.A. whose face looks like pad thai because of napalm.
Then it turns into this wal-mart family photo studio double exposure nonsense:



Also, check out Sam Elliott in one of his few less-mustached roles Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley (Horrible name…but I suppose it might’ve been real person, so like, oops, I guess).
4:43 pm • 20 May 2012
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
With a backlog of some 81 movies to review, it occurs to me I’ll never do it unless I do it as I watch. So, without further ado:

My brain has been soaking in noir films lately. A western is certainly a brighter, dustier, genre. At least I thought so till the montage scene. All blues and blacks. I’m reminded of Spielberg saying he de-saturated all the color from Saving Private Ryan. Must be a war thing. Also, not sure de-saturate is a word at all.
So this is gonna be sorta stream of consciousness:
- Never heard the word poultice in a movie. Nice.
- So far I’m liking everything, but I really don’t know if I know who the bad guys are. It seems like the “bad guy” is civilization. Which is cool.
This guy rules, Ten Bears:

So many great quotes come out of this one scene alone. “Dyin’ ain’t hard for men like you and me. It’s livin’ that’s hard.” ”Governments don’t live together. People do.” “It’s a shame governments are chiefed by the double-tongued.” “There is iron in your words of death. There is iron in your words of life.”
YouTube this scene if you’re not into the whole feature-length thing. More or less sums it all up.
—
As for the rest of the movie, this is a fascinating time period to document in film. The Civil War just over, nearly wrenching the country asunder. Desperate outlaws who see nothing left turning west, with no regard for the their own civilization, and coming into contact with a world where a native american is a fact of life, not something you rarely see (as in the south). The Old West is seen here as a newborn. The Frontier—if it’s a process and not a place—is taking its first deep gulps of air and firing to life as the vicious old fight between slave and free states winds down.
All the violent energies of places like Bleeding Kansas have to find a new outlet.
Josey Wales is among the earliest in a line that will go all the way down and end with men like Jesse James. To ultimately become a farce embodied in men like Wild Bill.
—

classic.
4:22 pm • 20 May 2012 • 1 note
Consenting Adults (1992)
I’ve seen this movie about 3 times. And it just hit me that it’s sort of a noir film, except it’s missing the “City”. Although I don’t know that that is always a necessary ingredient.
Anyway, at 1’ 19” Kevin Kline’s character starts running up some stairs and everything is all topsy-turvy all over again. Classic noir. Even the lighting is ever-so-chiaroscuro. The music matches everything and is slightly evocative of his jingles in the beginning of the film. Echoing how his world has gone to shit.
This movie rules.

2:33 am • 20 May 2012
Audrey Hepburn and William Holden in Sabrina (1954)
goddamn she’s hot.
(Source: filmcrack)
11:00 pm • 18 May 2012 • 60 notes