Movie reviews

I love Judd Apatow’s movies. They have no structure, they make the third Lord of the Rings movies seem short, and they’re full of talented comedians standing in front of a camera and just saying funny stuff until something hits – then they move on. But, there’s always something missing – he has these great characters (in Funny People it’s Aziz Ansari as Randy) who are in his movies for, like, 30 seconds, and then they’re gone. Any other filmmaker would have left that character on the cutting room floor, but Apatow included him. He includes a lot of little flourishes that are completely pointless, and just add to the bladder-busting runtimes.

And I think I figured out why that is: Judd Apatow should go back to doing TV. I never watched Freaks and Geeks and I feel like I should, because I enjoy his work. I feel like what’ll happen is that I’ll watch it and get into it, and then be bummed that Apatow isn’t working in the medium he’s best suited for.

That being said, Adam Sandler was great in this. Seth Rogen only has three facial expressions, and a lot of times you can see him furrowing his brow and thinking act, act, act really hard. But I still love him. This movie is very funny.

This documentary follows Eugene Hutz – lead singer of Gogol Bordello – reconnecting with his gypsy roots during a trip across Eastern Europe. It’s not a long documentary, and it’s not even that in-depth. Hutz and director Pavla Fleischer travel through Ukraine and Russia, visiting gypsy camps and local musicians. There is a ton of regional history and politics that could have padded the running time, but instead Fleischer lets Hutz’s music and the gypsy culture breathe.

Whether it’s an impromptu concert, the expression of a young gypsy girl who’s face travels through a range of emotions in seconds, or a gentle admonishment from Hutz’s grandmother, Fleischer captures the spirit of a different culture without having to talk at us ad nauseam. That’s a rare thing for a documentary.

I’m a big fan of Hutz, and not just Gogol Bordello. His side-project, J.U.F., is also pretty amazing. To me it’s what music should sound like. He’s not some tool crooning on an acoustic guitar hoping some girl will throw her panties at him. Hutz connects to people through frantic, exciting music, which this documentary makes very evident. And having seen him play live, I’ve never known anyone to throw themselves into something as violently as he does, and you have to respect that.

I watched this movie in a lakehouse in the Adirondacks, 45 minutes from any kind of actual town. No cell phone signal. Totally middle of nowhere. After the movie me and my friend went outside to have a drink on the dock, at like 2 in the morning, and I should have been a little scared.

But I wasn’t.

The problem was that in the time it took me to pour a glass of whisky and walk outside, I had pretty much completely forgotten I had watched this movie.

It was a total paint-by-numbers effort. Like, the director had a checklist of horror movie tropes and he was trying to get them all in. Virginal survivor girl? Check. Minority sidekicks? Check. Dialogue that doesn’t sound like how people really talk? Check. One-dimensional characters painted in broad strokes? Check. Boobs? Check check checkity check.

This is a great example of creators getting wrapped up in paying respect to a genre and injecting homages that they strangle themselves. Instead of doing something new and interesting they stick so close to the source material that they do what’s been done in NINE MOVIES ALREADY.

This is a series about a retarded zombie slaughtering people in the woods. Taking it seriously is your first mistake.

For real, I was getting excited about the direction they were taking this series. Did you see Jason X? Jason in space! They made him a cyborg! Was it a good movie? Hell yes. Jason freezes some chick’s face in liquid nitrogen and smashes it against a desk. It was one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

How many times can you make a movie about Jason killing teenagers in the woods? Apparently, at least one more. I imagine a sequel is inherent. I hope they take a nod from the guys who put him in space and do something off-the-wall.

Maybe he can be on a presidential ticket with Sarah Palin. They’re both against teen sex! I would watch that movie.

Friday the 13th: You Betcha – Summer 2010

Jenna Jameson quoting Nietzsche. This is something that actually happens.

Apparently this movie is based on Rhinoceros, a French play written by Eugene Ionesco. It’s about a small provincial town where everyone turns into rhinoceroses, except for one guy. It’s read as a response to a sudden upsurge in Communism, Fascism and Nazism after World War II, and explores themes of conformity, culture, philosophy and morality. At least, that’s what Wikipedia tells me. This movie explores similar themes, except during the Bush era, which means there are a lot of people making bad decisions and the military shows up to make a mess of things.

My friend used the word ‘existentialist’ to describe one of the scenes in this movie. And then Jenna Jameson shot pool balls out of her vagina.

I feel like this movie may have been smarter than me. Or it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. Not sure. I need to watch it again. And not just because it’s full of half-naked women for nearly the entire runtime. Although that helps.

Ray Stevenson looked positively furious throughout this movie, except when he was thinking about his dead family, and then he made a sad face. That’s pretty much the entire emotional range of the character of Frank Castle, and that’s why you can’t make a good movie about The Punisher. He’s pretty thin. Dolph Lundgren tried. Thomas Jane tried. Next, I want to see them take it ghetto. Maybe Martin Lawrence.

The movie itself is reasonably entertaining, but it’s sort of like porn. When people are standing around talking, you just want them to get back to the killing.

There’s this one really great sequence, where these three idiots are doing parkour moves to this really weak psuedo-punk song, and then one of them gets blown out of the air with a handheld rocket. Adding parkour to your movie doesn’t make it good, and I applaud Lexi Alexander for calling out this obnoxious action-movie trend. The problem, though, is that these moments are very few and way too far between.

I feel like my being sober severely handicapped this movie.