August Reviews, Part 1

I can't really believe I'm still not caught up with this shit yet. It's my goal to be caught up by the end of the year. It's also my goal to make a couple non-review posts before that time, too.

8/1

Reservoir Dogs (Rewatch, 1992, Quentin Tarantino, 35mm, Castro) - 9.5
A group of mostly strangers rob a jewelry store, but things go wrong because they’ve been set up. The cast is fucking awesome (especially Buscemi), the story is well-told, and it’s violent and great, and I fucking love this movie. AND, there’s even a reference to Tony DeFranco & The DeFranco Family’s Heartbeat (It’s a Love Beat), which is one of my favorite songs.

8/4 & 11/9

Moon (2009, Duncan Jones, 35mm, Balboa/Red Vic) - 9.0
Sam Rockwell is working on the moon, harvesting some shit that provides energy for Earth, and his contract is almost up, and he ends up encountering another Sam Rockwell, and that’s as much as can be given away. It’s kind of a sad movie, and I liked the way it unfolded, and some of Rockwell’s interactions with himself and with his robot pal are really great.

8/5

The Ugly Truth (2009, Robert Luketic, 35mm, Presidio) - 3.0
Katherine Heigl is a TV producer, and her show hires a chauvinist who gives love advice, played by Gerard Butler, who is puffy-faced and ugly, and they hate each other, but then while he’s helping her land another guy, they both discover that they may just find love in the likeliest of places (MAJOR SPOILER: it’s with each other). This movie looked really awful, but I wanted to see it because I liked Katherine Heigl in 27 Dresses, but it’s actually just as awful as it looked. Cheryl Hines is pretty funny, and Heigl does have some good moments where she acts all spazzy, but yeah, it’s fucking terrible.

8/6

Funny People (2009, Judd Apatow, 35mm, Marina) - 6.0
Adam Sandler is a comedy actor who also does stand-up sometimes, and he finds out he’s dying, and he ends up hiring Seth Rogen as his joke-writer/assistant, and then he finds out he’s not dying anymore, and he’s still in love with his ex. With the exception of some limited moments from Jonah Hill, the under-used Aubrey Plaza, and Eric Bana, the movie is almost never funny, and it was often hard to tell if it was even supposed to be. This was a little disappointing at first, but I didn’t mind for long because it’s obviously a drama with moments of comedy, instead of the other way around. Adam Sandler mostly just acts like an asshole, and there’s not much reason to give a shit about his character. And Seth Rogen is ok, but I never developed much of a connection to him, either. Somehow, though, the movie works. There’s something realistic about it, and it’s sort of an interesting insight into the lives of rich and famous celebrities, which I guess is what pulled me in. I also really liked Eric Bana’s role in the movie. He’s not only probably the funniest person in the movie, oddly (maybe sadly) enough, but his character was much different than I expected, and he steers his storyline in a direction I was very pleased with.

Julie & Julia (2009, Nora Ephron, 35mm, Balboa) - 7.5
Meryl Streep is Julia Child and she learns to cook in France and co-writes a cookbook, and Amy Adams is lowly cubicle worker Julie Powell, who starts a blog about cooking every recipe in Child’s book within a year. The only part of the movie I really cared to see was the Amy Adams part, and I definitely preferred her story, but the Julia Child stuff ended up being pretty good, too. I used to have something against Meryl Streep, but I'm over it. I think the only reason I didn’t like her was because I fucking hated her in the trailer for The Devil Wears Prada. I never saw the movie, just couldn’t stand her in the trailer. She’s not so bad, though. She’s alright in Sophie’s Choice and Mamma Mia!, and sort of bad in Doubt but that was the director’s fault, and I liked her in She-Devil. However, critics were saying that the Julia segment of this movie is the only thing worthwhile, and the Julie stuff just drags it down. But they’re fucking retarded, because sure, Streep gives a great performance, but Amy Adams may just be the best working actress out there right now, and any story with her is going to be much more intriguing than everything else. It’s possible this may stem from a slight crush I have on her, but I had the exact opposite response as the critics, to the point that toward the end of the movie, when Amy Adams is distraught to learn that Julia Child doesn’t approve of her blog, I thought “That cunt.” and when it went back to the JC story, I was like “I don’t give a shit about this fucking woman, she doesn’t love Amy!” Which I will admit is a bit of an overreaction. Seriously, though, Adams is fucking great.

8/8

Pink Flamingos (Rewatch, 1972, John Waters, 35mm, Bridge) - 11.0
Divine and her family are the filthiest people alive, but Connie and Raymond Marble feel that they are actually filthier, so they wage a filth war against Divine. I watched this movie so often in high school that I still find myself mouthing the words to every single line of dialogue. And yet, the deliveries are so fucking good that it still makes me laugh. The entire cast is amazing, all managing to give long and ridiculous diatribes in single takes (not to mention the various acts of filthiness they all go through), and Divine gives a truly intense tour-de-force performance. It also holds up amazingly well at being shocking and disgusting. It was far too influential on my life for me to ever be objective about it, but seriously, this is an incredible movie.

8/15

Poltergeist (Rewatch, 1982, Tobe Hooper, 35mm, Bridge) - 10.0
A family is living in a house, and it’s haunted by ghosts who communicate to the youngest daughter through the TV, and eventually kidnap her through the closet, then start throwing shit around a lot, and the parents (Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams, both brilliant) hire some ghost experts and Zelda Rubinstein to help get her back. This movie is not only perfectly told with well-rounded, likable characters, offbeat humor, convincing performances, and an awesomely random bit of gore, and it not only has a great score and incredible fucking editing, but on top of all of that, it’s one of very few movies that I actually find fucking terrifying. This movie is amazing and brilliant in every single way, and I love it more every time I see it. It’s perfect.

8/19 & 8/31

Inglourious Basterds (2009, Quentin Tarantino, 35mm, Castro/Kabuki) - 10.0
In Nazi-occupied France in the ‘40s, Brad Pitt leads a group of Nazi-killing Jewish soldiers, and meanwhile, a Jew-in-hiding (Melanie Laurent) who escaped the brutal attack of her family is selected to host a huge German premiere at her movie theater, and by the end, their stories and a couple other stories converge brilliantly. Everything about it worked flawlessly for me, and the actors (Pitt, Laurent, and Christoph Waltz, in particular) were fucking incredible. My favorite part of the movie was probably the segment with the Basterds killing the Nazis. In general, Jews aren’t exactly intimidating, and when we first see the group, they look short and scrawny. But they are fucking ruthless, and they slaughter without mercy, and it is incredible to watch. I could’ve watched them killing Nazis for an entire movie, but the other story was great enough, and Melanie Laurent was fucking badass enough, that I didn’t mind the other direction it took. I loved the shit out of every scene, and I think this might just be Tarantino’s best film, and very possibly the best film of the year.

8/20

Rambo (Rewatch, 2008, Sylvester Stallone, Blu-ray) - 9.5
Rambo is asked by some Christians to take them into war-torn Burma, and he doesn’t want to, but one of them is Julie Benz, and he has a quiet Rambo crush on her, so he agrees, but then they get captured, so he goes back with some mercenaries to rescue her, and the rest of them, and in the process, kills a ton of people in the bloodiest, most ridiculous ways possible. It’s insanely violent and fun and fucking awesome. Rambo even pulls a Swayze, and rips someone’s throat out. The tagline is “Heroes never die… They just reload.” Amazing.

Rewatches - Click for previous reviews
8/1 - Showgirls (Rewatch, 1995, Paul Verhoeven, 35mm, Bridge) - ∞
(Full review, deserving of it's own post, coming Monday)

8/3 - The Great Muppet Caper (1981, Jim Henson, 35mm, Red Vic) - 9.0
8/8 - School, Girls, and You! (Short, 1978, David Wechter, Youtube) - 9.0

Comments

[mel]

i read that before eric bana became a star in america he was a huge comedy star in australia and was know as the will ferrel of australia. i had a disagreement with steve about funny people, steve thought it was supposed to be about seth rogen's character changing and i thought it was supposed to be more about adam sandler's character. he seemed to be the obvious focus of the movie to me...what do you think?

[Austin Wolf-Sothern]

The movie tries to tackle so fucking much that I think it's safe to say it was about both of them equally. Steve is still wrong, though, because Seth Rogen's character doesn't really change.