Movie Review: Brooklyn's Finest

If I don't look good in these pants, you have to tell me. 

We are no strangers to the violence, blood, and cruelty found in all facets of media. But, the real trick is to depict the horrible truths of a city’s savage side and still somehow maintain an emotional connection with the audience.  In “Brooklyn’s Finest,” director Antoine Fuqua presents us with converging tales of 3 cops in very different points in their lives and careers where every shot fired has impact, and there are a whole lot of shots.  For an hour and forty-five minutes the ability to turn away in response to the endless barrage of bad news, is impossible.  “Brooklyn’s Finest” portrays terrible truths in the actions of desperate men on diverging paths at the crossroads of right and wrong.  It shocks and fascinates with 3 intricate stories that could be stand alone movies themselves.  Its raw palette seamlessly mixes with its graceful structure and makes for a gritty surprise.  A tragic film inspired by the worst elements of both cop and robber, “Brooklyn’s Finest” takes a dark look into those dark alleys of men’s souls.

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Quick Bite: The Crazies

 Hey, you guys..is Main Street usually on fire so much?

I learned a few things last night whilst watching the remake of George Romero's 1973 horror fest, The Crazies.  #1: if the school principal of my small town turns into homicidal zombie is about to impale me with a pitchfork while I'm strapped to a hospital gourney, I'm gonna say a lot more than, "Oh, shit."  #2: During an unpredictable situation, especially if there are killer zombies around, if some one says to you, "Stay here. I'll be right back."  Tell them to fuck off and politely inform them that there is safety in numbers. Now, #2 might get you into trouble because if you're all together that eliminates the possibility of your friend coming out of nowhere mutiple times to shoot a zombie seconds before said zombie is about to kill you.  I guess you have to make your own rules.  See Zombieland for help on that.  #3: Don't eat a pound of frickin' Pad Thai before a gory movie.  Jeez, I'm such an idiot.

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Movie Review: Shutter Island

"Is it raining, is it snowing?  Is a hurricane a-blowing?  Not a spec of light is showing, so the danger must be growing."

Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese’s 21st narrative feature film, is a divine study of redemption, tragedy and madness.  It’s a saturated color noir thriller with dream sequences that would have made Hitchcock whimper with delight.  Scorsese is both student and master of the medium with each frame of his new film reflecting his vast understanding of the craft and a drive to guide the viewer to a higher plane of movie watching.  This man is in love with film and that love is infectious.  Very worthy of the little bit of work it takes to fully appreciate all 138 minutes of this sometimes slow, but always elegant film, I’ll wager Shutter Island is even better upon another viewing.  From dream sequences dripping with symbolism and grim flashbacks (the traumatic kind, not the back story kind) to the unsettling tone that is both seductive and repulsive, it hypnotizes. 

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Movie Review: I, Wolfman

 Grr, argh!

A remake in the vein of the 1941 creature feature, The Wolfman is a garish costume drama and ode to the horror films of a long gone era, but with more innards and blood.  Forgoing the more contemporary portrayal of the werewolf The Wolfman has Benecio Del Toro (and another) looking like Lon Chaney in the seminal role and while it’s a nice nod its horror forefathers, the werewolf makeup also looks pretty silly.  It’s more Jack Nicholson in Wolf, less David Naughton in An American Werewolf in London.  Call me crazy, but I like my sufferers of lycanthrope to have a good snout on them, otherwise they just look like really hairy dudes with dog teeth.  Del Toro as the lead does dark and brooding quite well, but all semblances of real spookiness and drama are lost as soon as he opens his mouth. Speaking is not his strong point, especially when opposite the precise and elegant elocution of Hugo Weaving, Emily Blunt and Sir Anthony Hopkins.  But, the mist saturated English countryside at midnight, the moon lurking through the trees and Weaving’s bit part brilliantly executed almost make up for the lack of chemistry between Del Toro and Blunt and his propensity to make trite dialogue intolerable.  No less cheesy than the original, The Wolfman is gory, silly fun.

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Hot Link - Extended Review of A Serious Man

OK, just 'cause I didn't post anything last week, doesn't mean I didn't write anything, Jeez. I get easily distracted. I didn't quite bounce back from the January film doldrums as quickly as I hope and then there came all that dang snow. Apparently, I am easily distracted by snow.  I turn into the middle school aged me except I drink more wine than I did back then (but I smoke way less).  My attention span reverts to about 4.3 seconds, reading suddenly seems super boring and I don't even need an excuse to venture out into a blizzard. Snow is so awesome! But even though Wednesday and Thursday were rare city-wide snow days last week, I managed to see not one but two movies, both opened Friday. So, I've got reviews of Saint John of Las Vegas starring Steve Buscemi and The Wolfman with Benecio Del Toro and Sir Anthony Hopkins in the pipline.  Should be up later today.




But for now, please check out this piece I wrote on A Serious Man (one of ten Best Pic noms) for The Large Association of Movie Blogs!


No, thank you, for reading.

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Friday Fun!

Lots going in the world this week, the gravity of most I can't really address here.  Since you are reading this, I can only assume that life is going pretty well for you. You own a computer, you have internet access and you have room in your busy schedule and cluttered brain for semi-useless information and my humble opinions. Let's just keep our relationship positive, OK?  The weight of the world has no place here. I got complaints when I addressed shark cruelty, so I'm thinking you don't want me to weigh in on Haiti, the State of the Union, or any other issue that is remotely depressing or complex.  Don't worry, I'm down with keeping it surface.

Here are some highlights that aim to please. Gotta start the weekend off on a high note.

Friday Fun starts....now!

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Useless Info: Lasers and Bubble Wrap - Golden Anniversaries

"I am going to focus like a laser beam on this economy.”

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

Yep, that's right, laser is an acronym, like many other things that sound super cool to say, like NASA or DEFCON or SyFy.  And it's super old.  50 years old to be exact. Though the first working laser performed successfully in May of 1960, 2010 is the the year of the laser.  Just check out LaserFest 2010 if you need to get your geek on.  If it weren't for lasers we wouldn't have the CD's that we never listen to or the DVD's that are about to become obsolete. We wouldn't have an even more tripped out way to experience Floyd or a way to make U2 tolerable. We wouldn't have gotten to hear Dr. Evil say,"You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!"  Terrible movie, great quote. Then there's this guy who built a working Phaser, but I think it can only be set to balloon stun, thankfully.  Check out the dude's video here.

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Talk Shows Blow

 Oh, wait a sec, I think Google image messed up.

It was the mid to late 90's.  I didn't sleep a lot.  I regularly drank at Philly's best dive bar; recalling it now, I swear I can smell hot dogs and Jack.  It was a magical time.  I didn't even have an email address and I never missed Late Night with Conan O'Brien.  Back then Conan did bits about how nobody watched him, he featured bands not many of heard of and he featured lots of wacky skits and characters (Pimpbot5000, that golf cart studio tour thing, The Year 2000, Triumph, those weird talking mouth and lots of odd bit actors that looked strangely enough like writers).  Without the pressure of a good time slot, he was free to do crazy shit.  Sure, I hadn't even watched Late Night since Andy left when Conan took over the coveted Tonight Show slot in June from the head of the Evil League of Evil, and I can only assume he was still being relatively edgy and entertaining.  But, Andy was coming back and that seemed to make up for Conan's move to LA.  I swore I would stay up late or at least DVR it or something.  I did neither.  I get up really early in the morning, fair readers.

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The Year of Living Awesomely

Leela: "I feel like I just went ten rounds with Mighty Thor."    Fry: "I feel like I was mauled by Jesus."

Man, am I glad 2009 is so over.  And now I'm one week down in my little Messianic gge (as someone named Bob just reminded me).  That's right for a whole week now I've been the same age Jesus might have been probably quite possibly when he was killed.  Wow. Makes you think. Or...wait...it makes me think.  At 33 he sort of founded a religion, was persecuted hence beginning a legacy that resulted in millions and millions of people believing in love, peace on earth and some of them for some reason believing that dudes shouldn't marry other dudes, or goats 'cause that's like the same thing.  What have I done in the last 33 years?  Holy crap, I only have 51 more weeks to make something frickin' awesome happen.

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WGA apparently just as lazy as I am.

Happy Tuesday, fair readers!

Did you see the musical number at the end of How I Met Your Mother last night?  $10 to anyone who can tell me why the hell it was written in a key that was clearly uncomfortable for all involved.  There is a moment when NPH is standing on cab and his voice actually enters the "dog only" range.  Check it out here if that appeals to you for some reason.

"Words can only hurt you if you try to read them. Don't play their game."

In other news of mediocrity, the Writers Guild of America released its nominations for their 2009 honors yesterday.  For the first time ever, I have see or intentionally skipped nearly all of the flicks on the list.  And this is not because I saw everything this year. I'm a mainstream critic (as you know by now) because it's just way easier than art house shit. I went to art school, I have no desire to dip back into that land of theory and fruitless effort. Anyway, I know all the nominees this year because the Guild has apparently grown tired of working at watching too. How cool is that?

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