Friday, July 30, 2004

Movie Madness, Mania and other cool M Words

Today was maybe the biggest most important movie day in the history of the world, or at least in my little corner of it. I caught a four peat, for the price of 3 matinee's. That is what we like to call special and/or disturbed. I am going to have 2 different posts; the first will deal with the 4 movies I saw and the second will deal with the myriad of bad previews I saw. Here are the 4 movies in order of review, The Village, Farenheit 9/11, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and Napoleon Dynamite.

The Village is perhaps the most anticipated movie of the summer (sans Garfield of course) and to me it was not a dissappointment as so many "experts" have stated. Honestly, you can't say too much about this movie without giving it away. I am sure all of you know the premise by now and I will say that it is fairly predictable, except for the final twist. The movie starts off very very slow and seems to drag on at the beggining until we get to the real character development. There is only one time were Shyamalan wants you to jump out of your seat and I must say it worked for everyone in the theatre including yours truly. The film is certainly carried by the strong cast, probably the best ensemble I have seen in awhile. Phoenix, Brody, and Hurt are all super strong and Bryce Howard (daughter of Ron Howard) is absouletly marvelous. The last time I saw a new actress with that much magnatism on screen was Kate Hudson in Almost Famous, during the entire film your eyes are just drawn to her and everything she is doing. Lastly, Shyamalan has a magnificent cameo (he uses that Hitchcockian technique in all his films) near the end. I thought the Sixth Sense was good and I was not a fan of Shyamalan's efforst in Unbreakable & Signs, but I feel he redeems himself here. This is a good film with great acting and very cerebral.

Now we get to Farenheit 9/11, which has again picked up steem with the Democratic National Convention. Michael Moore is an absolutely brilliant filmmaker which has been known for some time. He uses great pop references, music and humor all at the correct time. And yes this film does make one step back and think about certain things. However, it goes to great lengths to crucify George Bush in every matter under the sun. I believe Bush conspired with the CIA, Jack Ruby, Caiphas, and Pouintus Pilot to kill Jesus, John Kennedy and Thousands of Americans on Septemeber 11. The main breadth if the movie talks about the Bush family and Bin Laden family connections in the oil business, well no shit they are both rich oil families it would seem to reason that they have similar interests and investments. He talks of how Bush and his friend from the Army National Guard James Bath have invested in companies together and one of those companies had investors that were in the Bin Laden family. Well me and Lionel Dahmer worked on the assembly line next to one another and ate lunch three together times a week at the House of Pancakes so I should be held responsible for Jeffrey Dahmer murdering young men? I am just saying in a lot of the movie he is reaching for things to try and prove his point. No doubt the film was well thought out, well directed and well recieved by audiences, I wish Michael Moore the best and hope he dies in a fiery auto wreck on the way home tonite.

Harodl and Kumar should have never gone to the set. And unfrotunately if this movie makes money they are going to Amsterdam in the sequel. Not much I can say about this piece of trash. It is a buddy/advneture picture that is supposed to make you laugh and slap the guy next to you and say "dude that same thing happened to us one night." Unfortunately I never got mistaken as an emergency room doctor and had to save a mans life in surgery, never picked up a washed up child star like Neil Patrick Harris and watched him steal my car, and never hang glided down a cliff for a hamburger. Outside of that yeah me, Harold and Kumar have so much in common, we all like tits & weed. Fred Willard has a scene at the beginning that is great and there is one time where they are driving down the road and they catch each other head bobbing to Wilson Phillips "Hold On" and they begin to sing along as we all have. I do not recommend this, like most of the summer comedies you can see where the humor is supposed to be but the jokes just never deliver. I will leave you with the funniest part of the move, one of the secondary characters is wearing a T-shirt that says the following:
Ass...............The other Vagina

Finally I ended my day with Napoleon Dynamite. How one describes this movie I do not know. It follows the life of the nerdiest guy in the history of school out in a little podunk town in Idaho. Now having been to Idaho and Wyoming and met a number of teens and young 20 somethings from these areas I understand the total despair of lifestyle these people live in. Napoleon lives with his grandmother and loser brother. His aging hipster Uncle comes to take care of them, all while Napoleon finds a friend at school and a girl he can actually talk to. The movie is slow at points and sometimes hard to figure out what the point is. Mainly I took it as everyones life has some meaning even if it is their own weird world. There is nobody really of note in this movie except for Deidrich Bader (Drew Carey Show & Office Space) and Hailey Duff (who has really fat legs). I doubt many people will like it, it is strange very much in the same way brilliant movies like Rusmore, Clerks, Welcome to the Dollhouse and Bottle Rocket were strange. I would go see it again over any of the other summer comedies like Dodgeball, Anchorman, and Harold and Kumar.

So that was my big day at the movies, if their is a bigger loser in the house please stand and be recognized.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am a bigger loser. I am a single guy sitting here reading this article at 1 am on Friday night/saturday morning all alone, and laughing my ass off to an empty home.
Signed
Your Brother, Kyle

1:08 AM  

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