The Avengers (2012) [REVIEW]

May 9, 2012 8 Comments

Even though I saw this movie three days after it opened, I felt like it might as well have been three weeks after its release. Last summer, there were four superhero movies and I saw every one of them on their opening day, first show of the day. Unfortunately, this just wasn’t possible with The Avengers, but considering that it made over $200 million in three days, I don’t think Marvel really noticed my missing $10. Also, with all the money it made, I don’t really feel like I need to go over the WHOLE plot for you guys because it feels like everyone has already seen it. Instead, just like I did with Iron Man 2, it’s going to be much easier to just go over how well I think each character/actor did in this movie, and that’ll also be a lot more fun for me. Before I do, I suppose I can just briefly say that Loki, as made famous in Thor, also made famous by just being Thor’s brother, uses the “Tesseract”, which all comic book fans should recognize as the Cosmic Cube, to teleport an intergalactic army to destroy the world. In retaliation, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, the Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow are called together to fight the impending galactic war. Brief enough? Now I get to talk about everybody!

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man

Maybe it’s RDJ’s public personality that gets me kind of annoyed with him and the fact that he is kind of full of himself, but considering his financial and critical success has warranted him being a tad “bragadocious”. I was also nervous that the whole movie would focus on him, considering he’s already got two Iron Man movies under his belt and I always associate Captain America as the leading Avenger. Even though I had these reservations, I was glad to see that Tony Stark didn’t have much more screen time than anyone else, and considering he didn’t have to burden the weight of the whole film on his shoulders, he was able to be a more comical Tony Stark than we’d already seen. Lots of one-liners, jabs at other characters, and an overall tendency to downplay the seriousness of a situation. Steve Rogers even called him out on the fact that he was self-centered and narcissistic, which made me nervous that there’d be a scene where Steve Rogers would have to say some “You really are a hero!” bullshit, but we were spared. Even though Iron Man was a key part of defeating the aliens, nobody made a big deal out of it, which really fits in with the Tony Stark I know. That despite no matter how many successes he might have, he’s still kind of an egotistical prick and nobody wants to pay him ANY compliments.

Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America

I love Captain America. Call me old-fashioned for loving America, and I’ll call you a goddamned Communist. What I love about his character is that he ALWAYS knows what is right, and does everything in his power to stand up for it. Whether it was in the Civil War storyline where he had to allow himself to be arrested or sacrificing himself at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger, he knows what to do and doesn’t hesitate. One scene in particular near the end of the film, despite not being the most powerful member of the team, he told everyone exactly what to do and exactly when to do it, and everyone fell into rank. They knew that this guy had fought evil incarnate in World War II and trust him with everything. Whether he was breaking up a fight between Thor and Iron Man or jumping across the helicarrier to literally SMACK a grenade out of the air to protect Stark, Cap really proved that he’s more than just a science experiment. I also stand by my opinion that Chris Evans is handsome enough and funny enough to put him into any superhero outfit and do a great job.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor

Remember how I mentioned that the Thor movie really only served as a stepping stone to build up to The Avengers? Boy howdy, was I right. Even though Thor wasn’t the best superhero movie last summer, it introduced you to a regal character who lives in a world completely removed from and much more vast than anything us humans on Earth could even wrap our heads around. He proves himself not only wise in the way he tries to handle Loki and his desire to merely take him back to Asgard, but also showed how powerful and essentially God-like when he knocks Hulk on his ass with one punch or summons lightning to vaporize and shit ton of aliens. I’d say that in films, just like in the comics, Thor works much better as a supporting cast member than as a the major player. He could basically solve everything problem with a giant hammer and some lightning.

Tom Hiddleston as Loki

You might have found Loki to be a quivering, whining prick in Thor, so imagine how big of a douchebag he got after floating around the universe with nothing but the thought of vengeance in mind? They were able to play up the “God of Mischief” aspect much more in this movie as we saw how easy it was for him to manipulate humans, rather than in Thor and he was just playing tricks on his brother. We were able to see how cowardly he was and knew he wasn’t nearly as powerful as any one of the Avengers and had to call on someone else’s army to fight for him. He strategically manipulated every character to feed off of one another’s insecurities, and even though he wasn’t physically some sort of powerhouse, you could see how annoying he could be to deal with. Hiddleston was also showing some vulnerability as an adopted son who never received the love of his father, and even though you knew he was the villain, had a tiny bit of sympathy for his situation.

Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Bruce Banner/the Hulk

This was the part of the movie I was most worried about, considering that after two movies based on Hulk, there’s yet to be a successful incarnation of him on film. The thing about this character that people want to see most is actually what’s easiest to put on the big screen, which is a big green monster destroying everything. The more interesting parts of the character are figuring out how he deals with this timebomb that’s inside of him and the effect it had on his psychological state. Luckily, through the nature of this being an ensemble film, Dr. Banner was only used in small doses, mostly to show off his level of intelligence. There were a few scenes between Dr. Banner and Tony Stark that were really fun to watch, because they both felt like they had found an intellectual peer and playmate. When Dr. Banner left and Hulk showed up, obviously it was fucking awesome. HE SMASHED EVERYTHING. I went get into everything he smashed, but the smashing scenes were fun. I also kept doing double-takes when a character said “Banner” because I thought our dog might be in the theater.

Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow

I made a pretty bold claim with Iron Man 2 which was that Scarlett Johansson was a good choice to play Black Widow AND that she was one of the best parts of that movie, but most people thought I was just distracted by her tits. I suppose there might be a little truth to that, but just because she was good in this role doesn’t mean I think she’s a good actress. In fact, I think she’s not a good actress and every other movie I’ve seen her in she just seems distant and emotionally apathetic to everything going on around her. Luckily, while portraying a Russian assassin and spy, having an outward appearance of not giving a shit about anything or being emotionally involved in anything going on, things work out pretty well. Granted, in this movie, she had a few moments that seemed a little too superhuman and far-fetched in regards to her abilities, but it was really only one sequence so I can forgive her. Mostly because of, well, you know, boobs.

Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye

Having only really appeared as a silhouette in Thor and having no other film appearances, Hawkeye was obviously going to be a tough sell as an Avenger. Rather than try to give him a long backstory, we instead spend most of the film seeing Barton as a villain who is having his mind controlled by Loki. One reason I really liked them doing this was that it removed the need for a backstory because all you saw was Hawkeye being a badass with a bow and arrow and showing of a multitude of different trick arrows. Another reason I liked this was because in the Marvel Universe, Hawkeye was introduced as a villain. He might have only been a villain for three issues before joining the Avengers, but still, it’s something that’s constantly referenced in the books and I think that using him as a villain for the first half of the movie not only showed you his abilities, but also made you enjoy the heroic things he was doing that much more. Two things I didn’t like, however, was the fact that the mind control he was under was undone by Black Widow just punching him a whole bunch, and I figured Loki’s spells would be a little more powerful. I also think that Hawkeye should have been played by Alan Alda, but I guess Jeremy Renner was an acceptable substitute.

Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury

Although I thought his cameo in Iron Man was pretty cool, the other times this incarnation of Nick Fury haven’t been as faithful to the character as I had liked. Granted, that basically means I didn’t really care for his scenes in Iron Man 2, but Samuel L. Jackson is a character on his own. He has a reputation of coming across like a badass, but also being really funny, talented, and can deliver these badass lines or insults while adding a smirk to the end of them to let you know he’s just fucking with you. The Nick Fury I wanted to see wasn’t a jokester or anything other than a grizzled war veteran who has gone to Hell and back to ensure the safety of the country he so loves to defend. It’s almost like he has the heart of Captain America but with the skills of Black Widow. Well, maybe not the bazongas of Black Widow, but the covert spy stuff. Lucky for me, they toned down Fury’s interactions with the team so you knew he was the one in charge and wasn’t taking shit from anybody. There was also a scene that involved him motivating the team by showing them something taken out of a dead agent’s coat, but once the team leaves, another character pointed out that they weren’t actually in his coat, but in the agent’s locker. This showed that Fury was willing to do anything and everything to get the reaction from people that he knew had to be sparked in them, even if that meant lying to them. His role in this film definitely made up for the doubts I had going into it.

Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson

Someone who was introduced a few years ago to plant the seed of what S.H.I.E.L.D was and where all these Marvel movies were going, Agent Coulson has become a loved character to many fans. Even though he is typically only in Marvel movies delivering half a dozen lines, those lines are well-timed with great delivery by Gregg, even giving Robert Downey Jr. a run for his money in a few scenes. We got that sense from Coulson again in Avengers, and adding in the obsession that a S.H.I.E.L.D agent would clearly have for Captain America, the fanboy moments between Coulson and Steve Rogers were really charming and endearing. And congratulations to Mr. Gregg for having the character take a permanent seat in the Marvel Universe in not just films, but being introduced into the comics as well!

Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill

If there’s one show I hate hearing people tell me is funny, it’s The Big Bang Theory. If there’s two shows that I hate hearing people tell me is funny, it’s The Big Bang Theory and How I Met You Mother. Knowing that Smulders was on that show, I figured the only reason she landed the role was to get audiences of that show interested. Lucky for me, I was wrong. DEAD WRONG! Well, not dead wrong, but I wanted to say that. Maria Hill is a tough character because she is essentially Nick Fury’s right-hand man, but considering she is younger and a female, the relationship could easily fall into a stereotype. This is typically avoided, and I always viewed the Nick Fury/Maria Hill relationship to be a lot like the Yoda/Luke Skywalker relationship in The Empire Strikes Back. We know that the apprentice can clearly handle their shit, but they still also have a lot to learn. We saw Maria Hill questioning Fury on his actions, even doubting his choices, but knew her rank and never opposed his views, clearly knowing that he was the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a reason. She handled what she needed to handle and stepped up when necessary, letting the audience know that she’s be okay in the event that Fury was ever compromised and she would have to take the reins.

In short, EVERYONE DID A GOOD JOB IN VARYING DEGREES. Wow, I could have just said that instead of typing up all those other things. I knew this movie was going to be good. Everyone knew this movie was going to be good. In fact, I’d even say this movie was a GREAT superhero movie. As far as things I didn’t like, I’d say there were only two issues, maybe only one and a half…AND THEY’RE ONLY ISSUES! Let me clarify: I had ZERO problems with this movie. One issue was that I was disappointed that nobody ever shouted “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!”, but considering this was their very first gathering, I could understand that not showing up naturally. I guess I hoped that in the epilogue, after all of the action, Fury would have mentioned assembling in some way. I know that any lines of dialogue I could come up with right now would be cheesy, but Joss Whedon is a much better writer than I am and I guess I hoped he had found a natural way to slip that in. The other issue was that even though this was a great superhero movie, it was just that…a great SUPERHERO movie. This movie won’t win any Oscars, any acting or directing awards, or be recognized with any other outstanding achievements. This movie is by no means a bad movie, not by a long shot. It was a witty, smart, action-packed, fist-pumping, stand up in your seat and high-five your friends FUN movie. After seeing the trailer for Prometheus and The Dark Knight Rises, it was hard to thing of The Avengers as being any sort of game-changer in the superhero genre. I’m also not saying that this movie needed to change the way we view superhero movies, it just felt very safe. Safe isn’t bad, safe is good! That’s why people where helmets and seatbelts! For some reason, which I can’t quite put my finger on, I kept having flashbacks to when I first saw Independence Day. Maybe it was because it was just a big, fun summer movie, or the fact that there were alien invaders, or the fact that you knew the good guys would win, I had the same excited feelings for The Avengers as I had almost twenty years ago with Will Smith. Whether you’re a comic book fan or not, you will have fun with this movie, and even though we spent close to two and a half hours watching this movie, this only felt like the beginning. I was totally willing to watch these characters interacting with another for two and a half more hours, just to see what kind of trouble they’d get into. Oh yeah, and I think I predicted a few years ago how closely this movie would mirror the events of The Ultimates comic book series, and I am glad to know I was right. What the fuck are these Chitauri aliens? JUST CALL THEM GODDAMNED SKRULLS AND BE DONE WITH IT!

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Filed under 5 Stars, 5 Stars, Comics, Non-Horror Film Tagged with black widow, captain america, hawkeye, iron man, joss whedon, loki, scarlett johansson, the avengers, the incredible hulk

Akmareul boatda (I Saw the Devil) (2010) [REVIEW]

April 22, 2012 1 Comment

This movie has been staring at me right in the fucking face for months. It was at the top of my Netflix Instant queue ever since it was available, but I kept finding reasons not to watch it. The biggest being the subtitles and my inability to focus on anything because I’m kind of dumb. The reason I finally bit the bullet was because I had recently gone to theaters to see The Raid: Redemption (which was pretty crazy, if you’re into those action-y martial arts type movies) which featured subtitles. It helped me realize that reading subtitles wasn’t as big of a pain as I always think it’s going to be, which built up my reading confidence! Hoo-ray! And even though I posted this review in the “horror movie” category, I only did that because it’s got a lot of gore in it. It’s more of a revenge thriller, which are typically more tense than they are scary or creepy.

Must have been one intense sled ride.

There’s this nice, sweet couple who are planning on having a baby, when the pregnant lady gets raped and murdered as fuck by a psychopath named Kyung-chul (Min-sik Choi). The dad of that baby, named Kim Soo-hyeon (Byung-hun Lee) happens to be a secret agent who is able to track down Kyung-chul, and rather than just killing him, tries to bring him the kind of torture that was felt when his wife and unborn baby were murdered. Soo-hyeon forces a tracking device down Kyung-chul’s throat to keep track of his whereabouts, and then Soo-hyeon goes on a catch/injure/release program with Kyung-chul, including breaking arms and slicing Achilles tendons. Kyung-chul realizes who is doing this to him and why, and goes on a hunt of his own for the remaining family members of the happy couple. After every sick and twisted thing that these two have done to each other, it’s ultimately Soo-hyeon who gains an “upper hand” and creates a makeshift guillotine for Kyung-chul that doesn’t go off until Kyung-chul’s mom, dad, and son show up. Their arrival is the final piece whose attempts to save Kyung-chul triggers the guillotine, so when they open the door, they are greeted by Kyung-chul’s head rolling across it.

This man hates plants!

Did you see how a few sentences I used the term “upper hand” and put it in quotes? That’s because it’s really not any sort of upper hand, because Soo-hyeon’s wife and child are still dead. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the titular devil in the film is Kyung-chul’s character, and we are mostly concerned with how far Soo-hyeon will go before he turns into someone as evil. The idea of finding the person who has caused you an incredible amount of emotional trauma isn’t really anything new, in fact, it’s old as shit. All those movies where we empathize with a main character who has been wronged and the viewer must decide what they’d do in that situation. The enjoyable part of this film is the fact that in most other movies, the moment where you question what to do with the person you’ve apprehended is typically a short-lived moment, and the resolution comes quickly, but instead we are shown those few scenes stretched out over almost the entirety of the movie. We see a sick and sadistic cat and mouse game being played, where you almost, almost have sympathy for Kyung-chul because of all the things he is forced to survive. Then we realize how good of an actor Min-sik Choi is and really convinces you how depraved the character really is and we go back to wanting him to be tortured even further. The movie did run a little long for a revenge thriller, and those typically aren’t the kinds of movies I’m drawn to, but I think this one might set the standard for ways you can innovate and surprise people within the limitations of the genre.

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Filed under 4 Stars, 4 Stars, Horror Film, Non-Horror Film Tagged with akmareul boatda, byung-hun lee, i saw the devil, min-sik choi

Le pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) (2001) [REVIEW]

April 9, 2012 Leave a comment

Not to flex nuts or anything about how cool I am, but I saw this movie in theaters. Yup, that’s right, that’s me bragging about a movie a saw in theaters. In retrospect, that’s really not a big deal. However, ten years ago in western Massachusetts, having to track down a French movie to see it in theaters was kind of a dig deal. In addition to seeing this movie in theaters, I remember renting it on VHS to watch it again! Can you believe it?! If I’ve seen this movie twice, why am I reviewing it now? Because in retrospect, I HAVEN’T SEEN THE WHOLE THING. This movie is two and a half hours long, and fell asleep both times I tried watching it. I remembered the beginning and remembered the end, but whatever happened in the middle was completely unknown to me. But now! I know what happened! In the middle! After ten long years! FINALLLLLLLY!!!!!

SIQQ TRIBALS, BR–wait, this guy actually belongs to a tribe. I take back my tattoo mockery.

Some old dude is telling this story when he’s getting close to dying or something, but we don’t know who that old guy was. Apparently there is some “beast”, who we’ll call a “wolf”, stalking this one small town in France. NOBODY CAN KILL IT! Two dudes show up in town, the King of France’s royal taxidermist/naturalist, and his buddy, a Native American. Apparently in France in the late 1700′s, a Native American was super fucked up and crazy to have just hanging out. This naturalist does some investigating and is basically saying, “Sorry guys, this thing is not a wolf because wolves are awesome and this beast is being a real dickhead.” Unfortunately, this only adds fuel to the fire because this town is pretty religious and they say that if it’s not a wolf, then it’s a beast sent from God to call everyone on their bullshit. While there, the naturalist is trying to bone this girl who has a creepy brother, but also has time to bone Monica Bellucci, who plays a prostitute. Uhhhh, to cut to the chase, the beast was some crazy unnamed animal from Africa that the creepy brother had brought back and trained to kill anyone he wanted after he covered it in super badass animal warrior armor because he wanted to fuck his sister. I hope you guys don’t mind me cutting out the boring parts, because I wish someone had done that for me.

I guess the computer effects were a little dated, but they didn’t really show the “wolf” often enough to be that annoyed.

I’m sure after reading that summary, you guys probably thought I hated this movie. WRONG. The shit I left out was just about the main dude who looked like Christopher Lambert trying to decide who he wants to pursue, Monica Bellucci or whatever royal lady. One problem? HE DREW PICTURES FOR BOTH OF THEM. And one got all sad. I don’t know, there was a whole hour of boringness in this movie, and were that hour to be removed, you’d have an AWESOME hour and a half movie. Everything looked really cool, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the director, Christophe Gans, went on to direct the Silent Hill movie. There was a conspiracy and religious cults being dickheads and someone calling them out on it, and wolves. I guess those wolves were getting killed, so maybe that wasn’t good, but it had “wolf” in the title, which gets at least 2 stars in my book. I guess I understand why the director had all that relationship shit going on, and it was kind of cool because it was based on “true events”. In the “true” event, the beast was killed and it was just a big wolf, but the movie explained that it was a big hoax, with the taxidermist being involved. It’s still a pretty good movie, but I would have liked it a little more had it been more concise.

Bonus Monica Bellucci picture because I thought I needed one more picture in this post than I actually did. WHOOPS.

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Filed under 4 Stars, 4 Stars, Horror Film, Non-Horror Film Tagged with brotherhood of the wolf, christophe gans, france, le pactes des loups, monica bellucci, silent hill, Vincent Cassel, wolves

Evan Glodell talks Bellflower, autobiographical movies, and the time he went missing for two weeks [INTERVIEW]

April 6, 2012 Leave a comment

Any time that I hear a director or an actor or pretty much anyone being described as “having potential”, it almost seems like a really sneaky insult. I’m sure most people take the idea of having potential as a compliment, but I hear it as “that thing you didn’t wasn’t completely awful, but I’m sure you’ll make something better in the future”. With his first feature film “Bellflower”, writer/director/actor Evan Glodell has been described by a few critics as “having potential”. I say “fuck you” to those people. Not because I think they are wrong, but because he has already capitalized on that “potential” in his debut film. It was through multiple mentions of the movie on the podcast “Doug Loves Movies” that drove me to check out Bellflower, and you can read my review for it here. After watching that movie, I can understand where these critics were coming from by saying they’d be on the lookout for what comes from Mr. Glodell next, because I know I will be. To label him as a filmmaker “with potential” doesn’t give him nearly enough credit, because even if he never makes another movie after Bellflower, he’s already turned that potential talent into realized, kinetic talent.

WolfMan: Considering that the character of “Aiden” is based on a real friend of yours, and considering your personal background of building flamethrowers, clearly there were a lot of personal experiences that you put into Bellflower. I read that the first draft you wrote was a very angry script, and you set it aside for a few years before rewriting it. Without going into explicit detail, how much of the relationship between Woodrow and Milly and the movie as a whole do you consider biographical? Was it difficult, as an actor or a director, to recreate scenes from personal experiences?

Evan Glodell: Oh, wow. That’s a tricky one. I guess I’d have to really look at the movie to answer 100 percent accurately, if you’re looking at emotionally, it’s autobiographical, 100 percent. As far as the events and the way things played out…each event in the movie I could tie to an event that was significant in a relationship, but they’re not the same. As far as the actual events, they’re obviously all fabricated or maybe a little bit taken from here or there with relationships in my life or relationships I’ve seen friends go through.

WM: I guess the bigger question was how autobiographical the movie was, but it sounded like you kind of answered that question, in that it was based on emotional experience, and the specific course of events weren’t really grounded in reality.

EG: Exactly. Off of my head, I remember one of my first girlfriends in high school, when we met, we got so wrapped up in how exciting it was that we disappeared on a road trip for two weeks. It was unplanned and we were only 16 years old and we were so oblivious because we were having so much fun that we didn’t think to call our parents. When I got back, I saw my friends before I saw my mom, and everybody was like “Where the fuck have you been? The police have been here and everybody’s looking for you.” When I think of the roadtrip (in Bellflower), I think about that time period. There’s probably some connection like that with everything, especially in the first half of the movie.

WM: I’ve tried recommending the movie to a lot of people but I have a hard time describing what it’s about. The closest I’ve come is from a poster I saw using some sort of tagline like “John Hughes plus Mad Max plus Fight Club”, which I felt was somewhat accurate with some scenes in the movie. While you were writing the movie, were you intentionally trying to surprise the audience by delving into all these different thematic elements?

EG: As far as the specific references…when I saw that quote, I had to look up who John Hughes was. I should know who he is and I’ve seen his movies before. For the story, I realized that the experiences I had and the idea that got me excited was how extremely intense a breakup can be, especially when you’re younger and you don’t really understand how things work. I realized the only way to show that was…well, there’s been lots of movies that show the intricacies of how things play out in reality, but that’s not really what it feels like when you’re the person going through it. It feels much more extreme. Using that idea of the two halves of the movies, the first half to really build the relationships and the world and the characters and let people settle into it, and pray that when it switched into a very different style that people would go with it, and that was the hope. That the people who did go with it, it would be more of an experience than just watching the relationship play out in a breakup.

WM: Going along with the genre constraints that you broke, did anyone ever try to tell you your movie was too ambitious? Obviously there wasn’t a large studio behind the movie to interfere with what you were trying to do, but when you were trying to sell the movie did people ask for more of “this” or less of “that”? How would you describe your movie to people?

EG: That’s definitely the thing I’ve been the worst at. I remember, before we started shooting, I’d try to explain the movie and the only way I could do it was play-by-play and then I quickly realized it was kind of pointless. It never got much better afterwards. It’s funny, one of the things I was most excited about was when this movie got the funding and people were gonna see it, I thought, “Someone else is going to write a synopsis for the movie that’s going to make sense, someone who’s good at that.” The synopsis that ended up getting used, the main one, was one that I wrote and I hated. I wrote it just because I needed one at some point, and apparently no one ever came up with a better one. For me, I don’t know how I would pitch the movie to get someone to watch it. To me, what it’s about is the experience of going through a relationship and a break-up, and something to do with friendship as well…which is pretty vague (laughs).

WM: I do the same thing, where I say, “There’s a relationship and things go bad and he goes cra–” and then I realize I’m saying far too much because I’m trying to sell it. It’s hard to believe that’s an actual movie and a movie that’s being recommended to other people.

EG: Yeah, you’re saying that’s good. I know a lot of us were worried, at first, that the car and the flamethrower being pushed so much, if that was misleading. But so many times, someone sees the movie and they like it and they want to tell their friends, and they don’t want to describe the movie as “there’s a relationship or there’s a this or that…” because it all sounds lame, but instead “there’s a cool car”. I guess in the end, that was how the people watching it chose to represent it.

WM: At one point in the movie, my girlfriend started shouting “This is why! This is why!”, and I had no goddamned idea what she was talking about, and then when we got to the credits, I realized she was talking about the band “Why”. Considering what the budget was for the movie, how difficult was it for you to put the soundtrack together and what was that process like?

EG: That was the most difficult part…aside from just the making of the movie, once we had actually made the movie, none of us had ever made one before so we didn’t know about all the legal stuff so we were just making it and we put in music that we thought fit and we were going to figure out the next step when we got there. After the movie got to Sundance and we started getting help from some people to get ready to bring it to Sundance, the music thing came up, they said there were people saying there was no way in Hell we were going to get all that music. It was the better part of, how long was it…well, it’s still going on right now. I think we have three music licenses that are still coming in, but we have the agreements, we didn’t release the movie without getting the “OK”. It ended up being a very long, intense process, because our choice was either to go through and remove most of the music and just put in stuff we didn’t really want, or just make stuff from scratch, which would also end up not being as good as what was int here. We decided to go on the journey of contacting every band and sending out packages to people and begging them with “This is our budget, we can do this, is there any way you could work with us?” That’s what took so long, and eventually almost everybody worked out…it was a long journey.

WM: One of the things I was most surprised by was reading about how many of the gags or the effects, like the flamethrower and Medusa, were all real. Obviously your engineering background was helpful with those things, but how much of the movie’s budget went right into Medusa? Was this movie just an excuse to build Medusa?

EG: I get asked that a lot, but it’s definitely quite the opposite. The script that I first wrote didn’t have a car or even a flamethrower. The flamethrower came pretty early on, but it was literally just relationships between people. The car and the flamethrower and all of that stuff came in over time of working on it as a way of telling the story better. I worked things in that I thought that we could figure out a way to make because we didn’t have any money. For example, the Medusa car cost more than the movie. We totaled up everything we had spent after three years and it was around $17,000 and more than $10,000 was just Medusa which…drove everybody insane. I was crazy adamant about, “No, the car has to be awesome! It’s going to help the movie! It’s what this needs!”, and we got through it.

WM: Without giving anything away, the end of the movie kind of blends fantasy with reality, and we’re not quite sure what happens to all the different characters. As the writer, do you personally know what happened to Woodrow and Aiden and Milly in the movie and chose not to show it, or did you end the story there because that was all you wanted to invest in these characters?

EG: The real answer to that question is that all of these people are heavily based on people I know, and obviously my character is very heavily based on me. In my mind, what happened to those characters, I know those people so I know where they are. The end of the movie was, I guess, the end of the particular story.

WM: You wrote, directed, and starred in your own movie, is this going to be a regular thing going forward, where you take on multiple responsibilities, or from here on out are you going to focus on just directing or trying to write more?

EG: Definitely going to be writing and directing. I’ve been writing something, which will be my next project. As far as acting…I have no idea. I kind of hope that it doesn’t work out that way, because it was so insanely stressful on Bellflower to do all that stuff and add more on top of it. I guess those answers will be found when I cast the next movie. I never had access to really good actors, it was kind of the luck of the draw of who you could come across or find through casting, but it was only people who were just starting out who’d reply to you. In a movie that you’re writing, even if it’s not supposed to be you, it feels like it’s you and you’re writing from your perspective. I’m hoping to find someone to play the lead in the next movie that I’m really excited about.

Bellflower Official Site
Coatwolf Productions Official Site

Filed under Inane Bullshit, Non-Horror Film Tagged with bellflower, evan glodell, flamethrowers, independent spirit awards, mad max, mother medusa

Yup, I’m Seeing That (Volume 2)

March 31, 2012 5 Comments

One post that I did last year that was really helpful for me was a post where I listed all the movies I wanted to see that were coming out between March and September. Once I hit September I was running out of movies, which was why I arbitrarily stopped finding movies. I ended up seeing all the movies on that list, with the exception of Cowboys & Aliens because I heard it was kind of poopy. Haha, I called a movie “poopy”. Anyways, these are the movies I want to see, and I encourage you guys to share your thoughts on what I might have left out!

DISCLAIMER: I know there are plenty of movies that are going to come out in this time that I haven’t seen the trailer for yet and I did not include it on this list. I did that on purpose. I try to avoid trailers as much as possible, because it turns into an endless spiral of watching more and more bits from the movie that are edited together by someone trying to coax you into watching it. In other words, you don’t need to sell me on a movie that’s coming out then, because if it comes out and I hear good things, I might still check it out.

The Cabin in the Woods – April 13th

I know that this is a Joss Whedon movie and is supposedly a tribute film to movies that involve cabins being in the woods. I’m trying to avoid the trailer because I’ve heard this movie has a similar tone as Drag Me to Hell? I think? I don’t know, I hope it’s good. Then there’s that OTHER Joss Whedon movie…

The Avengers – May 4th

WELL OF COURSE I’M GOING TO SEE THIS! I think the most difficult part about the whole thing will be who the movie focuses on. Iron Man already has two movies under his belt, so the obvious choice would be to have his character driving the story. Then again, you have Captain America getting involved, who most would agree is THE leader of the Avengers, were you to pick only one person. Thor will most likely just show up out of nowhere and fuck things up, but that’s okay, because his movie last year didn’t impress many people. Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Hulk will probably all just poop around in the background, and then Samuel L. Jackson will say something very Samuel L. Jackson-y, and everyone in the audience will giggle. I can pretty much guarantee that this movie will be a lot of fun, but might not necessarily be all that good.

Chernobyl Diaries – May 25th

Something from some guy who apparently had something to do with Paranormal Activity? Okay, maybe not the biggest selling point (just ask that TV show The River), but shit going down at Chernobyl is something I can get behind.

Piranha 3DD – June 1st

The first one was a lot of fun, and what this movie lacks in Adam Scott I hope it makes up for with Katrina Bowden. It’s possible that this installment will get TOO wacky, considering the addition of David Hasselhoff, but I guess wackiness isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Alexandre Aja isn’t directing this time, and directing duties have been passed over to John Gulager, who I feel was kind of hit and miss with his Feast movies. I guess as long as there are boobs in 3D, this should be worth price of admission.

Prometheus – June 8th

I really, really, really, really, really don’t want to consider this the best movie of the year after only having seen a trailer, but how can I not? The confusion over whether this is or isn’t a prequel to Alien or if it just takes place in the same universe or whatever doesn’t really matter, because it’s Ridley Scott coming back to sci-fi with the help of Damon Lindelof. I am also glad that no one really has any goddamn idea what this is about, and since it’s a prequel, it’s hard to have any preconceived notion of what might happen. It just….looks so….awesome.

The Amazing Spider-Man – July 6th

I wish I could be more excited for this than I am, but I’m not. Did that make sense? Shut up. At its best, I’m pretty sure this movie will only be considered “pretty good”. At its worst, it will probably be considered “bad”. Some of the footage from the trailers looks kind of cool, but there wasn’t one sequence or bit of casting that made you sit there and think “WOW” the way the trailer for Raimi’s version did in 2002. I mentioned last summer how I did get chills when I watched the video of Andrew Garfield at SDCC going up in front of an audience to proclaim how proud he was to be Peter Parker, so I’m happy for him, but I guess we all just have to wait and see.

The Dark Knight Rises – July 20th

The way I feel about Prometheus might just be my way of taking the pressure off of this movie. Everyone knows that at its worst, this movie will still be good, and at its best, it will be fucking incredible. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is one of the best superhero movies of all time, and I don’t there is any way he can fuck this up. This is another one that I don’t want to look too much into, because the more I see now, the less stuff there will be to blow my fucking mind when I see it in theaters. I guess I just wonder if Nolan will have the balls to permanently cripple Bruce Wayne so someone needs to take over forever, or if Bane will hurt him just enough to take a nap or something. AHHHHH I SHOULD JUST STOP THINKING ABOUT IT NOW!!!!

HOLY SHIT, IS THAT IT?! Last year I had a bunch of movies and I was totally stoked. I thought this summer was going to be just as good, but clearly it won’t. I guess last year there were a lot of movies I kind of wanted to see, but between Avengers, Prometheus, and Dark Knight Rises, there are a few films that I really want to see. And next thing you know, it’ll be the summer of 2013 and we’ll all get to watch Anchorman 2! Yay!

Filed under Comics, Horror Film, Inane Bullshit, Non-Horror Film Tagged with piranha 3dd, prometheus, the amazing spider-man, the avengers, the cabin in the woods, the chernobyl diaries, the dark knight rises

Bellflower (2011) [REVIEW]

March 8, 2012 4 Comments

According to my calculations, it’s been almost three weeks since my last review. Holy shit! That’s a long time! Hopefully I remember what I’m doing. The first I knew of this movie was seeing a poster for it where I worked, and having someone else tell me that the guy who had made it was an employee for that movie theater chain. I guess I thought that was pretty cool, but that didn’t mean the movie would be good or anything. I had then heard someone talk about it on a podcast, saying it was one of their favorite movies of 2011. Another podcast reference was when the writer/director/star Evan Glodell appeared on the podcast “Doug Loves Movies” and was made fun of for the website for the movie. I had heard how low the budget was for this movie, around $17,000, and thought it was cool that a guy who worked at a theater could pull that much money together. I found out later that Mr. Glodell hadn’t worked for the company I worked for, so someone was lying to me. Either way, I found this to be quite a good film, and I am going to spoil things for you. That means you should see it and come back to me!

This is a real, working flamethrower, just in case you were wondering. Awesome.

Best friends Woodrow (Glodell) and Aiden (Tyler Dawson) are two dudes who just like to hang out and build their own flamethrowers and while also building a post-apocalyptic car named “Mother Medusa”. Woodrow meets Milly (Jessie Wiseman) and the two have one of those romances where their first dates is a multiple day and state spanning roadtrip. Clearly they love each other, and that’s great for them. That is, of course, until Woodrow walks in on Milly having sex with her roommate. WOODROW DOES NOT LIKE THIS. His life starts a downward spiral of setting Milly’s belongings on fire, having people confront him on her behalf, Woodrow starting a relationship with Milly’s best friend, and Aiden just kind of exists in the middle of all of this madness. The revenge escalates to the point of Milly knocking out Woodrow and having someone tattoo his face, her best friend kills herself in an attempt to get Woodrow’s attention, and everything just getting bonkers. The movie then cuts to Woodrow on a couch, staring at Milly’s belongings, and realize that most of what we just saw was his revenge fantasy. Sure, Woodrow burns some of her stuff, but he realizes there are more important things in life, like getting into a car with his best friend Aiden and driving through the desert for the rest of their lives in the badass Mother Medusa.

Woodrow was pretty upset with his new face tattoos, but I think mustache tattoos will be a new trend.

I really enjoyed this movie as I was watching it, even when everything was starting to get insane and out of control. I felt really cheated when I learned that most of what I had just seen, which I think is at least a full thirty minutes of the movie, was completely fake. Other movies have done this kind of thing and leave a bad enough taste in my mouth to regret watching any of it. This wasn’t the case with Bellflower, as even though I was disappointed at the trick that was played on me, I was happy to see that these characters that I enjoyed had slightly better futures than what had been portrayed on film. I think that’s the biggest selling point of the film, which is just how much you enjoy the characters that you hate seeing them turn out this way. We all know people like Woodrow and we all know people like Aiden, and even though characters similar to these have been seen before, Glodell was able to show a new take on those clichés.

This is the Mother Medusa. It’s the car that says “MEDUSA” on the side, in case you don’t see what I’m talking about.

I think the most frustrating thing about this movie is how hard it is to recommend to other people. I don’t mean that I don’t want other people to see it, because I do, because I really enjoyed it. The problem is trying to describe to people what the fuck it’s about. At its core, this movie was able to manifest the intense emotions of betrayal that you could experience when you’re in a situation like Woodrow’s. It’s easy to lose sight of what’s most important in life when you go through something like that, and it feels like it could be the end of the world. Rather than show a metaphorical end of the world, Bellflower questioned whether or not an apocalypse really would be worth going through to forget about one person. It’s really not all that much different from a movie like (500) Days of Summer, but rather than using indie music and pretty people to tell that story, Bellflower uses flamethrowers and Mad Max. It should also be noted that the relationship between Woodrow and Aiden really helps to sell the movie and really helps to remind the viewer that nothing really is more important than hanging out with your best friend and pursuing all that which is awesome. If you like romantic comedies, stories about the apocalypse, and daydream about the end of the world, then Bellflower is a movie worth checking out.

Wolfman Moon Scale

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Filed under 4 Stars, Non-Horror Film Tagged with (500) days of summer, bellflower, evan glodell, fight club, mad max, mother medusa, sundance, tyler dawson

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) [REVIEW]

January 26, 2012 2 Comments

Despite the critical acclaim of this movie, I didn’t understand why a comedy about John C. Reilly helping a fat kid at school deal with bullies. Then I realized that this movie was not at all the other movie with a person’s name as the title that came out in 2011 called “Terri”. I also recently saw an article talking about the poster design of this film and ways that it is reminiscent of Rosemary’s Baby, which got me interested. Some might even say it piqued my interest, if you’re the type of person who enjoys using words with the letter “Q” in them. I still had no idea whether or not this movie was any sort of horror or thriller or anything like that, because everyone kind of knew it was about the character “Kevin” needing a talking to because he was going to take part in some sort of school shooting or something. Why couldn’t you have taken time out of your schedule to talk to Terri AND Kevin, John C. Reilly?!

Talk about Kevin? How about we talk about that tomato soup!

Eva (Tilda Swinton) wakes up from a dream/memory of being in one of those giant tomato fights that happen in places where people don’t speak English. When she wakes up, she sees her car covered in red paint, as well as her house. You know what? I’m giving up on describing things in the order they happen in the movie because the movie was constantly jumping around to different timelines and this will be easier. Eva and Franklin (John C. Reilly) have a child together named, believe it or not, Kevin. Given their professions, it ends up being Eva who spends most of her time at home with Kevin while Franklin is typically away. The child seems unresponsive, dismissive of any attention or stimulus, as well as confrontational. He’s a little cocksucker and Franklin thinks Eva is just making it up. Doctors say that there’s nothing wrong with him and people think Eva is just kind of exaggerating. The older he gets, the more extreme the dual personalities become, being a great son when Franklin is around and being a shithead around Eva. As a toddler, Kevin intentionally shits his diapers every time he gets changed, as well as ruins Eva’s belongings, and as he get older he graduates to creating computer viruses and feeding his sister drain cleaner, which results in her having her eye removed. What an asshole!

And then Will Ferrell busted in and did some of his patented funny yelling!

The douchebaggery climaxes with Kevin taking his bow and arrow to his school, takes a shitload of Prozac, and starts locking people in and shooting a bunch of people. While jumping back and forth between timelines, we also see Eva having to deal with the community’s reaction to these events, including strangers walking up to her and slapping her and having her groceries fucked with. All the while we can’t help but wonder where Franklin and the daughter are in all of this, as most of the film focused on the relationship between Kevin and Eva, including her visiting him in prison. Towards the end of the film we learn that they were both killed by Kevin before he had gone to the school. We also learn that since he took a shitload of Prozac and wasn’t even 16 when he did those things, he was only going to be in prison for a few more years. The film ends with Eva painting a room for Kevin in her new home and getting all of his clothes ready for when he is eventually released. I think it was symbolic of her forgiving him for everything? Or something? Who fucking knows.

The original title was actually “We Need to Talk About Kevin…..’s Problem of Buying Small Clothes”.

I don’t say this too often about films, but I didn’t really understand the point of it. Granted, it was based on a novel, so its possible there are a lot of rewarding elements of the book, but I didn’t really feel much with the film. Both Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller, who played the older Kevin, were quite good, but I still didn’t really feel anything in regards to the story. I think the points they were trying to make were about how Eva was ambivalent to the idea of motherhood from the beginning and how that could have played a part in why Kevin grew up this way, and that there can be closure at the end because she finally accepted him for all his flaws. The problem with this is that I thought she did a relatively decent job of dealing with a shitty kid and only really let her frustrations show when she shoved him once and he broke his arm. I figured that if she was having such a hard time dealing with the community after what Kevin did, she could have, I don’t know, FUCKING MOVED SOMEWHERE ELSE. I think it would have been a little bit easier to summarize the movie by saying “Tilda Swinton is from another planet and is stuck with a shitty kid who grows up to be a shitty teenager but she hugs him anyway”. It got a little tense in a few moments when you knew Kevin was about to go bonkers and get all Green Arrow on everyone, but those moments seemed to be intentionally underplayed as to not make it some gore-fest.

I’m certainly no DNA scientist, but how does Tilda Swinton + John C. Reilly = this?

When it comes to school shooting movies, the only one I could say I “liked” was Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant”. To say I liked the movie might not necessarily be the appropriate word. Elephant had only been released a few years after the Columbine Massacre and even though it wasn’t based on that, it was certainly the event that it was repeatedly compared to. I felt as though Elephant had humanized these two kids who weren’t the monsters that everyone had portrayed them to be, and tried to show that these two kids had some fucked up experience that caused them to focus effort on a terrible, violent event. Maybe had they grown up differently or worn different clothes or had different hair, maybe there could have been enough small changes in their lives that they could have handled things in a more productive way, but clearly fell down a slippery slope of anger and hate. This film, however, didn’t really seem to address room for error in a child’s upbringing. Kevin was such a piece of shit even as a toddler, that even though Eva tried to do her best, her best wasn’t good enough. Maybe the point was that if Eva had shown such devotion to Kevin early in his life that she had shown towards the end of it, things would have been different, but I feel it missed that mark. Although I didn’t really enjoy this film, I did think there were two good performances in it, so it wasn’t a complete waste of my time. Oh yeah, and you kind of see John C. Reilly’s butt! IN A SEX SCENE!

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Filed under 2 Stars, Non-Horror Film Tagged with columbine, elephant, ezra miller, gus van sant, John C. Reilly, stepbrothers, tilda swinton, we need to talk about kevin

Melancholia (2011) [REVIEW]

January 3, 2012 4 Comments

What better way to ring in the year that our world is supposed to end than to review a movie where the world really does end! Whoops, spoiler alert. No, not really a spoiler alert, because I’m pretty sure that in the trailer they let you know we’re doomed. Considered by some to be one of the best movies of 2011, it was also surrounded by some of the most controversy, thanks to the ever outspoken director Lars von Trier. At the Cannes Film Festival, there was a press conference to promote the film where some of von Trier’s awkward answers made him sound like a Nazi sympathizer, escalating to the point of claiming to be a Nazi, resulting in him not being allowed to attend the rest of the festival. He’s a German, in France, holding a press conference in English. Not to say that he should be absolved of what he said, but give me a fucking break. From watching the footage, it’s obvious that he was trying to make an inappropriate joke that didn’t go over well, admitted it wasn’t going over well, which dug him deeper into a hole. This wasn’t a Michael Richards situation, this was a guy trying to make a joke that didn’t go over well, and rather than changing the subject, turned the ridicule on himself. I’ve been there plenty of times, when I make a joke that is appropriate (but usually inappropriate), and when it doesn’t go over well end up making myself look worse. And that’s when I’m speaking English to people who also speak English! That language barrier seemed to fuck up the intended humor and self-deprecating intent and now he’s never doing press conferences again. Thanks a lot, France! By the way, in addition to knowing the world ends, there’ll be some spoilers coming up, and I recommend skipping my review and just watching the movie because I thought it was awesome.

Friendly reminder: the Earth gets smashed.

The first few moments of this movie we see some surreal images that foreshadow what we’ll see in the rest of the film. Lots of images of Justine (Kirsten Dunst) being sad and trudging through mud, weird weather effects, and a planet crashing into Earth and completely obliterating it. The title card pops on screen, then we start “Chapter 1″ of the film, which is titled “Justine”. Justine has just gotten married and is on her way to her own reception with her new husband Michael (Alexander Skarsgård). When the pair arrive, they are yelled at by Justine’s sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband John (Keifer Sutherland), which is understandable because they were the ones paying for it. The next hour of the film reveals that Justine has been struggling with depression and is doing her best to hold it back on even this, her supposed day of celebration. She manages to remain completely cold and distant to her new husband, tell off her boss, who then fires her, as well as having sex with someone she just met. The night ends with the pair going their separate ways, and everyone is pretty much just bummed out or angry about life sucking.

How can you be sad while dancing around with John Hurt!?

This is when we jump to Chapter 2, entitled “Claire”. Early on in Chapter 1 the characters noticed some sort of bright star or planet or something in the sky and John, a scientist, mentions it’s peculiar, but not in any sort of ominous way. We learn in Chapter 2 that this light is a planet called “Melancholia” that is supposed to swing past Earth, but miss it completely. This doesn’t stop Claire from getting really worked up over it, leaving John to be the one calming her down. Considering the huge depression Justine sinks into because of the incidents at the wedding, she becomes Claire’s responsibility for the time being. For the entirety of this chapter, Justine is either asleep or acting like a bitch towards everyone. I guess single-handedly destroying your own wedding hours after getting married does that to you, which would also explain why Claire found pills that would cause someone to overdose and die if they were taken. As Melancholia approaches, everyone gathers to watch it get closer and closer, then eventually further and further away. After seeing John scrawling some things in a notebook, we see Claire go searching for him. She uses a toy her son made that he was using to measure how close Melancholia was to Earth and becomes upset when it appears to be coming back towards Earth. When she ultimately finds John, it is in a barn, where he’s died from an overdose on Justine’s pills. having this confirm her worst fears, she tries to make peace with her sister and provide her son with a peaceful few hours, their last on Earth. The planet gets closer and closer, and Justine, Claire, and Claire’s son all sit down inside a small fort they’ve made with sticks as they wait for Melancholia to completely obliterate the planet, which we ultimately see it do firsthand.

Does that telescope shoot planet-destroying lazers? No? Then you’re fucked.

Goddamn you, Lars, and your ability to crush everyone’s souls. Although I wouldn’t say I “liked” his previous films, they have certainly had an impact on me. I really would like to say that Melancholia was actually two separate films, considering the difference in subject matter in each chapter, but I don’t think either would have the same impact were they not viewed together. At least in terms of visuals, especially with his work on Antichrist, I think von Trier is incredibly talented. Watching his take on the apocalyptic/sci-fi subject matter of this film, it reminded me of feelings I had when I first saw Danny Boyle’s foray into sci-fi with Sunshine. Even though the opening sequence didn’t have the same exact shots being recreated later in the film, it let you know the tone of the film with all of its strange, haunting, and surreal imagery. From lightning shooting off of Justine’s fingers to a horse sinking into the Earth, you knew that you were about to endure a slow struggle for happiness, that despite moments of happiness or excitement, these things were just harbingers of the eventual end of all things. The mixing of the sound is also something to make note of, as the musical segments of a wedding reception in Chapter 1 to the ominous, deafening, crushing sounds of a planet swooping past our own, only to slingshot back to completely destroy it. Pretty fucking intense stuff.

Whoops, forgot to mention this takes place on Tattooine. Hahaha, just kidding, Tattooine has two SUNS, not two MOONS you idiots!

Even after all the controversy at Cannes, Dunst was able to walk away with the Best Actress Award for her performance. While glancing over her filmography, I see that she’s been in multiple movies every single year since 1994, when she was 12 years old. Having seen her grow up on film, she’s always had the whole “girl next door” vibe to her, that is, if your next door neighbor was exceptionally attractive. It really wasn’t until Spider-Man in 2002 (where she played the girl next door who was exceptionally attractive) that she became a household name, and seems to have played that type of character ever since this. The first choice for the character of Justine and the actress who had helped develop the movie with von Trier was Penelope Cruz, who dropped out to do Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I couldn’t help but watch every single scene thinking of how Cruz would have fared, and made me really want to see how that film would have turned out. Despite being constantly compared to another actress, I still think Dunst was able to stand out, even though she wasn’t necessarily stepping too far out of her comfort zone. The first half of the movie took you through a range of emotions, thinking everything from her being a self-centered bitch, to feeling sympathy for her sadness, to rage at cheating on her new husband, to pity on a character who was hellbent on self-destruction. The second half really belongs to Gainsbourg for showing the sympathetic vulnerability of a person who is willing to sacrifice themselves if it means helping someone they care about. Certainly a far stretch from her role in Antichrist and featured far less genital mutilation. The entire supporting cast was great also, from Sutherland, to Stellan Skarsgård who played Justine’s boss, to John Hurt as Justine and Claire’s father, and even the wedding planner, played by Udo Kier, was a hilarious juxtaposition from his typical roles of “scary German guy”.

Kirsten Dunst’s boobs and wolves. I know that’s what everybody came here for. I only mildly edited the original image, and I apologize for delving into the “NSFW” realm.

But the question remains: did any of this actually happen? Von Trier has said that the intent of his film was to examine the human psyche when confronted with disaster, and he himself was battling with depression while developing and making this film. Could one interpretation of what happens in the film be that Justine is so overwhelmed with sadness and depression that she manifests the end of the world herself? Maybe that “star” she saw at her wedding really was just a star, but through the events that transpired on her wedding night, she hoped for it to be another planet hurtling towards Earth. Some would argue that this could negate the whole point of the film, having it take place inside one character’s head, and other could argue this theory would only emphasize how omnipresent and powerful a force depression can be for someone. Something that could back that theory up has to do with a bit of dialogue that’s repeated multiple times. John’s character mentions there being 18 holes on his golf course a few times, yet when Claire realizes that Melancholia is going to hit Earth, she tries to escape on a golf cart with her son. Sadly, that golf cart stops working at hole 19. Is this symbolizing a break in reality? Is any of this actually happening? Do these events lose importance for the audience if it’s all happening in Justine’s head? I don’t think so. Whether you take this film in its most literal sense, which would be a group of characters last moments on Earth, or the more symbolic idea that depression can make someone feel like the world is ending and embraces that end with peace, I find it to be a powerful piece of work. I wish I had seen this movie in 2011 so i could have included it in my list of favorite movies, but I guess it is stuck with this super-long review instead. Oh, and even though I liked it, it’s still no Armageddon. I mean, come on! Steve Buscemi AND Ben Affleck?! When Affleck is crying because Bruce Willis is staying on the meteor?! Now THAT is some fucking ART! That’s so much art that it makes Melancholia look like a piece of FART.

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Filed under 5 Stars, Non-Horror Film Tagged with antichrist, boobs, cannes film festival, charlotte gainsbourg, controversy, kirsten dunst, lars von trier, melancholia

The Worst Best of 2011 List

December 31, 2011 2 Comments

Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, that I am by no means compiling a list of the best AND worst movies of 2011. Rather, this is probably the most half-assed, thrown together list of movies that kind of came out in 2011 you might see anywhere on the internet. I started trying to think of my top 5 horror movies to post at the end of the year, but couldn’t come up with any. I then decided to just do the top 3 horror movies, then remembered some good movies that weren’t horror, and thought of doing top 3 of each genre. I then looked up some of these movies on IMDb to realize that a lot of them technically came out at festivals or in limited release in 2010, and then all bets were off. Rather than try to compile all the films I wanted to make note of that had a wider release in 2011, I’m just make a shitload of lists, each list compiling of 1 movie and 1 movie only. Deal with it.

Best Movie where Ryan Gosling wears a Scorpion

Jacket

Drive

I’m willing to bet that the winner of this category will cause the most controversy, especially considering the competition. I think that 2011 will go down in history as the year of Ryan Gosling, between Drive, Ides of March, Crazy Sexy Love, and Blue Valentine, everyone wanted to fuck him. I remember the good old days of watching Lars and the Real Girl and Half Nelson and thinking this guy was pretty awesome, so I’m glad he got some great roles and put in some great performances. From the soundtrack to the cinematography to the ensemble cast, this will probably be considered my favorite movie of the year.

Best Movie featuring a 30 Rock Cast Member in their Underwear

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (and that’s Katrina Bowden)

As far as the expectations to entertainment ratio, this is another winner. I knew nothing about it, other than it had a funny name, and I hadn’t even seen a trailer when I watched this movie. Maybe I’m idealizing the movie a little bit, considering everyone I have recommended this movie to has given it a resounding “meh”, I was thoroughly entertained by the melding of genres. Sure, it wasn’t actually scary at any moment, but the way it took advantage of typical horror movie segments and made fun of them was pretty funny to me. I was also glad to have a horror/comedy that wasn’t Scary Movie 11.

Best Love Story

Monsters

Maybe it’s a stretch to call this movie a love story, especially because the female was kind of sort of developing feelings for a guy who wasn’t her husband, but I couldn’t think of a funnier title. Although it’s called “Monsters“, we barely see the titular creatures and instead focused on two relative strangers trying to make their way from Point A to Point B without being killed by aliens. Even though the two characters develop a relationship and make their way to the destination, through a nice twist in editing, we learn that they are both killed shortly after their arrival. I mean, talk about ’til death do us part, am I right?! Whoops, spoiler alert, yeah they died.

Best Film featuring an Actor from Blade Runner

Hobo with a Shotgun

Finally someone has come to put Edward James Olmos in his place! This throwback to grindhouse splatter film with absurd plots managed to be original while also convincingly reminding you of an overlooked genre of film. I guess that depends on what you mean by “overlooked”, considering there really aren’t too many grindhouse films that I would consider “classics”, but certainly have a cult following. The opening credit sequence alone is enough to convince you the dedication the filmmakers had in recreating a specific style, no matter how drawn out and boring that opening credit sequence was.

Best Comic Book Movie

Captain America: The First Avenger

This wasn’t really too hard of a decision, considering there were four comic book movies that came out this year. Thor felt like the only reason it existed was to establish a two characters that were meant to play larger parts in the Avengers movie in 2012. Green Lantern attempted to cash in on one of its most popular characters, who also happens to be one of the ones who exists in a much larger scope than a lot of other DC or Marvel titles. Captain America was the only one I saw where I felt I could keep watching for a few more hours. All of his missions of Nazi ass-beatings were fun, because who doesn’t love seeing Nazis get their asses kicked? Sure, X-Men: First Class showed us what a young and pissed off Magneto was capable of, and it was fun to see the X-Men in a completely different generation and all, but wasn’t as enjoyable a package (hehe, package) as Captain America was. I also think Chris Evans solidified himself as capable of playing every superhero, no matter who the publishing company is.

Best Movie about Hunting Trolls

Trollhunter

It’s been a hard few years for trolls, with the success of Troll 2 being a laughing-stock and the documentary about it, Best Worst Movie, showcasing its terrible-ness. How do you make trolls fun again? Let Norwegians make a movie about them! Clearly approaching this sci-fi/fantasy film with their tongues in their cheeks, the audience learned that not only are trolls real, but there is a government funded agency who are in charge of dispatching said trolls and blaming their havoc on bear attacks. This movie was a lot of fun, especially to see all the funny symbols people slip into their Norwegian names.

Best Metallica-related Anything

Hesher

Surprising to nobody, Metallica themselves are not responsible for producing anything entertaining. However, seeing Joseph Gordon Levitt as a nihilist metal enthusiast created feelings similar to those we have for Metallica; even though you resemble something we should relate to and enjoy, we hate you for everything you are. Jordo Gordo Levitt, as I call him, played the titular character “Hesher” in this film about losing what’s most important to you and having nothing to show for it. Whether it was your mother, wife, grandmother, or ideal woman, nothing in this movie was safe from destruction. Despite being included as one of my favorite movies of the year, this isn’t a movie I can ever see myself sitting down to watch again (or standing up to watch again, for that matter). With promotional materials implying Hesher could be something of a life coach to a young boy, he was nothing but a piece of shit, but a piece of shit that reminded us that no matter how bad life was, at least we’re still alive. Oh yeah, and the trailer for this movie was pretty awesome too.

Best Movie featuring Dwight Schrute crushing Skulls with a Monkey Wrench

Super

One of the most frustrating terms to hear, as a fan of both comedic films and films with dark subject matter, is the term “dark comedy”. To me, that’s typically an excuse people label their movie with when it’s not actually funny. “You didn’t laugh at my movie? Oh, well, it’s a dark comedy, so you probably didn’t get it.” Then comes along a movie like Super, which has depressingly crushing emotional moments, as well as hilarious comedic moments. In fact, some of these moments happen within the same scene, and you are laughing your balls off until you realize how sad and pathetic some of these character’s lives are. It was also nice to see Rainn Wilson as the leading man in a somewhat toned down version of his oddball sidekick schtick and prove that he’s capable of range in his characters and emotions. Ellen Page is also weirdly attractive in this movie, but I’m too afraid to think too much about her appeal right now.

Best “Wait, what movie are you talking about?” Movie

Paul

Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, voice of Seth Rogen, Bill Hader, Jeffrey Tambor, Jane Lynch, Jason Bateman, Joe Lo Truglio, Sigourney Weaver, and Kristen Wiig all starred in a movie that was directed by Greg Mottola, who also brought us Superbad. HOW THE FUCK DID THIS MOVIE NOT RECEIVE MORE PRAISE?! It was made by nerds, for nerds, starring nerds, whose characters were nerds, making nerd references while at the biggest nerd convention in the country. It was clever, wacky, and made just enough subtle references to movies we all know and love without having to spoon feed them to you. I don’t know if it was poor timing as far as when it was released, which wouldn’t surprise me because I think I forgot about this movie a few times when thinking about my favorites of this year. This was some poseur Big Bang Theory nerd shit either, it was awesome. Go rent it now if you haven’t seen it, and go watch it again if you already have.

Best Movie to feature a Merkin (wig for your pubes)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Maybe I’m stretching a bit for making this a specific category, but because I didn’t include a review and only mentioned it in the SEND MORE COPS podcast, I didn’t want it to feel left out. The story of the pubes wig is that the character of Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) was written to be a girl with strawberry blonde hair who has dyed it black. If something seems odd about Lisbeth’s eyebrows, it’s because they are blonde and not black. This means that in a love scene between Lisbeth and Daniel Craig‘s character where we see her, to use the grossest term ever, “pubic mound”, David Fincher wanted to make sure everyone knew the carpet matched the…eyebrows? Talk about detail! I’m assuming Rooney Mara brought this up in multiple interviews just so that she could, with subtlety of course, let America know she shaves her pubes. Otherwise she just could have bleached them, right? Is that how pubes work? I wouldn’t know, I haven’t gotten any yet.

This brings another year to an end here at The Wolfman Cometh. Before I let you guys go, I figured I’d post some stats for the year. Not specifically for this year, because that would take too much work, but some totals for the end of the year. Shut up.

ALL-TIME VIEWS: 246,112

BUSIEST DAY: 10/31/11 (2,401 views)

Top 5 Most Visited Posts

5) Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead – 4,689 views

4) A Nightmare on Elm Street – 4,904 views

3) Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine – 5,513 views

2) The Human Centipede (First Sequence) – 5,822 views

1) Insidious – 5,849 views

Top 5 Search Terms

5) Katrina Bowden – 1,354

4) Johnny Depp Nightmare on Elm St – 1,399

3) Wrong Turn 3 – 1,511

2) Michael Myers – 2,308

1) Wrong Turn – 2,850

Top 5 Viewed Images

5) “ultimate wolverine vs hulk ripping in two half”

4) “Wrong Turn 3 III Left for Dead Louise Cliffe bikini boobs”

3) “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Michael Cera Mary Elizabeth Winstead“

2) “Wormwood Gentleman Corpse Issue 0 Ben Templesmith“

1) “Stan Helsing Diora Baird Kenan Thompson Good Burger”

There’s other shit that I saw this year that I’m failing to remember, so you’re stuck with this list. I’d also like to point out that Hugo was pretty awesome, and one of the few movies I’ve seen where the 3D actually added to the film, rather than distract you from it. There’s also a bunch of movies that came out this year that I’ve heard were good, but never got around too. I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually, but I remind you, I already said this list was going to be shitty, so stop complaining. Next year is going to be pretty huge as far as movies are concerned, between The Dark Knight Rises, Avengers, that Hobbit movie, and Prometheus, I see some awesome things to look forward to. I hope you enjoyed the rantings and ravings of mine in 2011, and look forward to you coming back in 2012. Don’t forget to go download and subscribe to SEND MORE COPS for even more Wolfman anger! Rot in Hell, everyone! Hail Satan!

Filed under Horror Film, Inane Bullshit, Non-Horror Film Tagged with best of 2011, dark knight rises, diora baird, drive, girl with the dragon tattoo, prometheus, rooney mara, ryan gosling, top 10 movies

Red State (2011) [REVIEW]

December 20, 2011 Leave a comment

Remember how a few reviews back I had mentioned Attack the Block and how I had a limited time frame when it came to watching it? Yeah, well, same goes for this movie. I had heard mixed reviews about Kevin Smith and his foray into a genre that was quite different from what gained him notoriety. I don’t want to say he delved into the “horror” genre, because when I first heard about this movie and the genre he claimed it fell under, he seemed to avoid lumping into the “horror” category. I’m not sure if this was to avoid people setting expectations at what the film would be early on, or maybe it was because he was nervous for claiming he made a horror movie, but either way, his publicity for this film seemed to change. This means the way I perceived the film changed as well, now that he had been calling it a “nasty-ass $4mil horror flick”. I have been putting this off and putting this off, but when I had seen his reactions on Twitter over the lack of nominations it had received with the Independent Spirit Awards, I wanted to see for myself if this tantrum was warranted or not. SO HERE WE FUCKING GO.

Wait a second, you’re trying to tell me that Kevin Smith put his wife in a movie? YA DON’T SAY!

As Travis (played by Michael Angarano, better known as the little kid from Almost Famous) is driven to school by his mom (played by Anna Gunn, better known as Skylar from Breaking Bad), they pass by a funeral being protested by members of an extreme religious sect known as the “Five Points Church”, which is led by Abin Cooper (played by Michael Parks, better known as that guy Quentin Tarantino loves to put in movies). When Travis meets up with his friends, Jarod (played by Kyle Gallner, better known as the kind of creepy kid from a shitload of movies but I remember from Veronica Mars) lets them know there is a woman he met online who promised to do all of them. Thinking this sounded like a great idea, the friends go to meet Sara (played by Melissa Leo, better known as the crazy mom in The Fighter), who end up drugging them and taking them hostage. When they come to, they realize they have been taken captive by Abin and the Five Points Church, and see someone attached to a cross get executed. Unfortunately for the church, these shenanigans don’t go on for too long before being discovered by the local police department, at which time the ATF is called in to take care of the situation.

A church based on high-fives? I’M IN. WHERE DO I SIGN UP AND WHO DO I MURDER?

The main ATF agent in charge of the raid is Keenan (played by John Goodman, better known as King Ralph) whose orders are to raid the complex and kill every witness. Having difficulties carrying out these orders, there’s a standoff between the agents and the church, that leaves deaths on both sides. Uncertain of which side will win, both sides are surprised at the sound of loud trumpet blasts, which the Five Points Church seems to interpret as God coming to kill all the bad guys. Having no fear of their salvation, they drop their guns and walk out of the complex to confront the ATF agents, and we then cut to see Keenan being interrogated by his superiors. Apparently the sounds that everyone was hearing were created by neighbors of the church who were playing a prank on the church, completely oblivious to the standoff. Rather than all the members of the church being killed, the important members are thrown in jail, where it is implied that their butts will be fucked repeatedly, which is probably something they won’t enjoy.

If you fuck up his cocoon, how do you expect him to turn into a butterfly?

After watching the movie, I completely understand why Kevin Smith was hesitant at first when calling it a horror movie. This film all too closely holds a mirror up to the state of this country and its religious fanatics that to call it a “horror movie” implies that everything in it is a work of fiction. Whether a horror movie is based on “true events” or claims to be “found footage”, we know it’s all fake and dramatized just to make us jump or get creeped out. Instead, it seems as though Red State is a far more subtle and subdued type of fear, because of how true to life it is. To anyone familiar with the terrible things that the Westboro Baptist Church has done and is capable of, tone it down just a tiny bit, and that’s how the Five Points Church is portrayed. never once do they act crazy or maniacal, because they are constantly portrayed as calm, rational people who actually think what they’re doing is right. I’m sure that a more appropriate genre could even be “drama”, but I can see how that would cause some controversies as well. And maybe it’s just because I watched the Bill Hicks documentary recently, but there also seemed to be quite a few similarities between Red State and the situation that happened in Waco, TX in the early 90′s. A guy was in a complex with a bunch of other people, doing things that the government didn’t want them to do, so the government just killed everyone.

This isn’t actually from Red State. This was the face John Goodman made when someone called him up to tell him what happened in the series finale of Roseanne.

Smith is known for his witty, clever, and oftentimes filthy dialogue, and don’t worry, you get plenty of that in this movie as well. Not to say at all that this movie is a comedy, but all of the humor in it is quite smart. I guess that’s kind of a strange thing about all of Smith’s movies, in that no matter how “dumb” a character is supposed to be, they still have some smart humor to them, almost making it seem like the Kevin Smith universe is something that’s…askew. Yes, you might say that there is something askew about his view…get it? Because his company is called View Askew? Oh man, that was great. Anyways, his dialogue is what made him famous, and it was nice to see his visual experiments with this film, being new to the genre and not really needing to adhere to his comedic style. For example, one shot/concept I was really impressed with was that one character was attached to a cross through the use of plastic wrap, and his head was ultimately covered as well. Once it was wrapped, a different character shot him in the head, and the plastic wrap caught all of the blood. To see the faceless head of this character slowly fill with blood was pretty cool, and was a relatively simple idea that didn’t rely on gore or special effects to be creepy.

I’d let this man do my taxes, Rapture or no Rapture.

So was Kevin Smith justified for going on Twitter and calling the Film Independent an “idiotic organization” for not nominating Melissa Leo, John Goodman, or Michael Parks? No, I can’t say that they deserve those nominations. This isn’t because I’m biased as to who was nominated, because I don’t even fucking know who else was nominated. Don’t get me wrong, Melissa Leo, John Goodman, and Michael Parks were all quite good in this film, in particular was Parks as the terrifying preacher. I think the reason I don’t think they necessarily deserve to be nominated is because their performances were too grounded in reality and were all too human, making it hard to stand out. Does that even make sense what I just said? I guess what I mean is that it didn’t seem that either of the three needed to work too hard to successfully portray their characters. Firstly, Melissa Leo didn’t really have enough screen time, in my opinion, to warrant a nomination. John Goodman played a government agent who didn’t want to kill an entire house full of people just because he was ordered to. I have a feeling that I would react the same exact way as his character would, so it seemed as though John Goodman was just playing himself and how any other human would react, but while wearing an ATF costume. And again, Michael Parks was good, but not mind-blowing, but this goes back to the idea that this film was all too real to be considered all that much of a stretch for any of the actors, and that these were watered-down performances of what the real members of the Westboro Baptist Church are capable of actually living. I didn’t want to give this movie too good of a review because my immediate feelings were underwhelmed and combined with the upset comments on Smith made on Twitter, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was being a baby. This movie might not give you nightmares, it might not make you fear a boogeyman, but this movie is hopefully a wake-up call to people who put too much faith in anything. Whether it be whatever God you worship, your government, or the girl who offers to fuck you and your friends after talking to her on the internet. If you think this movie is creepy, just keep in mind that this is a toned down version of the world we live in, we’re all fucked, are going to die, the government is lying to us, and there is no God. Sorry!

Wolfman Moon Scale

Official Site
IMDb
Netflix
Amazon Blu-ray

Filed under 4 Stars, 4 Stars, Horror Film, Non-Horror Film Tagged with film independent, god, independent spirit awards, john goodman, kevin smith, melissa leo, michael parks, red state, twitter, westboro baptist church

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The Wolfman Cometh

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The Worst Best of 2011 List

Best Movie where Ryan Gosling wears a Scorpion

Jacket

Best Movie featuring a 30 Rock Cast Member in their Underwear

Best Love Story

Best Film featuring an Actor from Blade Runner

Best Comic Book Movie

Best Movie about Hunting Trolls

Best Metallica-related Anything

Best Movie featuring Dwight Schrute crushing Skulls with a Monkey Wrench

Best “Wait, what movie are you talking about?” Movie

Best Movie to feature a Merkin (wig for your pubes)

Red State (2011) [REVIEW]

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