Mr. Brooks

Going into this one, I was expecting something kind of like an American Psycho/Silence Of the Lambs hybrid; now, this isn't too far from the truth, but it's just a hint of the genre fuck fest Mr. Brooks attempts to be. Kevin "I'm the last Postman on Earth" Costner is the movie's namesake, a charming family man and successful entrepreneur whose favorite past time is NOT baseball, favoring the less popular, but apparently more exhilarating, late night serial killing outings. Oh, and he also likes to make pottery. The glazed kind.

Within the first few minutes, the movie quickly establishes that Costner's character bumps elbows with the best of them, has a family that adores him, and has an imaginary friend that has more on his mind than a nude tea party in the Bluth family attic. After receiving the "Man Of the Year" award [????] Mr. Brooks treats himself and his alter ego, innocently named Marshall, to a double homicide involving a mid-coitus couple and a horny Dane "I once made out with Jessica Alba" Cook, secretly watching the act from his nearby apartment. And we're off!! The rest of the flick is a bit of a mess, as it follows:

1. Dane Cook's attempts to blackmail Costner for a course in Serial Killing 101
2. Mr. Brooks' dodging the long arm of the law, specifically that of the lovely, cradle robbing Demi Moore
3. Demi's nightmare of a divorce and the legal proceedings that follow
4. Mr. Brooks' daughter, who seems to have inherited her father's taste for man blood
5. Meeks, a pissed off killer on the lam seeking revenge on the previously mentioned cradle robber

The movie goes everywhere all the fucking time, and at times it's hard to keep track of why we need to be privy to such inane matters such as the haggling over Demi's divorce settlement or daughter Brooks' struggle with the fact that she's carrying the lovechild of a mystery man she met during a tryst midway through her freshman year. I understand that these subplots need to be there because they tie together all the loose ends, but these devices are so obvious it makes for a clunky, unnecessarily convoluted movie simply about a dude who enjoys killing people for a recreational activity, like fishing or whittling small wood figures that tell the future. The movie transitions awkwardly between moments that examine Coster's inner turmoil concerning his addiction to brutal slayings and other instances involving Demi having a little target practice in seedy motel hallways to The Matrix theme. Mr. Brooks is pretty much like taking Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, Se7en, and American Psycho, throw them in a pot, add some broth, a potato, and make a nice stew, as per Carl Weathers' specific instructions. Except that it's not a nice stew, but more like a gazpacho [Note: I apologize to anyone who enjoys gazpacho or other cold soups].

I enjoyed the good majority of Mr. Brooks. Although it may not be entirely original, it's a fresh take on the serial killer genre made popular by Natural Born Killers and American Psycho. I would have liked to see Coster take out a few more people, maybe in like a dance club just like Tom Cruise in Collateral, or maybe Dane Cook piss his pants a few more times, but hey, I guess seeing a grown man wet himself once is all you really need. And with that...


1. Is it really that hard to shoot down a hallway?
2. Who's a more charming serial killer: Mr. Brooks or Patrick Bateman?
3. What's the return rate on an investment in a cemetery?
4. What's a better front for a serial killer: investment banker or box maker?

Diary Of The Dead

There's a few things I like to experience in a zombie flick:

1. Zombies that eat people
2. A protagonist(s) I care about and don't want to see eaten by said zombies
3. Hot chicks
4. Guns, explosives, swords, or some combination thereof
5. Brains, guts, and flesh ripped apart

That being said, Diary Of the Dead fulfills all criteria with flying colors. Great, right? WRONG. This movie was far from great. For some reason, Romero got all the ingredients right, yet somehow managed to fuck up the zombie pot pie. Don't get me wrong, though; the movie wasn't outright awful, it just tried too hard to be the creme de la creme of zombie brain fests. The film tries - and fails - to whip a little message at the viewer through clumsy Sarah Connor-esque voice overs concerning the fact that the dead have risen while simultaneously splattering brains about. Now, this would work perfectly if the characters weren't college students waxing intellectual about the meaning of a new world where you can't die without wanting to eat your little brother. Unfortunately, this isn't the case and instead of a regression to animalistic survival behavior a la 28 Days Later, we're treated to long diatribes about why the world's going to hell in a handbasket. Pleasant. Diary Of the Dead's not completely over thought, thank the gods, because there are plenty of awesome moments that made me not wish I'd rented season one of Entourage instead. For instance, have you ever seen a deaf Amish dude throw a stick of dynamite at a mob of zombies and get a triple kill? Yeah, neither had I, until I saw one do it in Diary. Ever see a swimming pool full of a zombie family like a bunch of goldfish? What about a zombie boy take an arrow to the head like he was a target in high school archery class? And a zombie mummy rip the clothes off a damsel in distress [nudity!! yes!] ? You can imagine my inability to take these well armed college kids' woes to heart, due to the rapid switch from serious zombie drama to slapstick zombie tomfoolery. That, in a nutshell, is Romero's supposed revival of his beloved Dead series. And with that...


1. Are all Amish dudes packing a shed full of dynamite?
2. Why is Jason Creed such a failure? Damn film students...
3. Did Diary rip off [REC] near the end with the old couple?
4. Could I really still watch youtube in a zombie apocalypse?

AVP:R

a.k.a. “Alien vs. Predator: Requiem”

Ok, we realize that this movie came out last Christmas, but thought it’d be cool to discuss, seeing as how it was recently released on DVD. The original Alien and Predator hold a special place in our hearts, and what better way to appreciate them than rant about this flick for a bit. Plus it’s Friday, and being not far off from Ice Cube, you could say “we ain’t got shit to do.”

There was speculation on imdb.com discussion boards that AVP:R was in the running for the worst film of 2007. That is obviously not true, as anyone who has ventured into straight-to-DVD releases can tell you. What AVP:R is, is a more refined and less accessible addition to the series. That’s no reason for the movie not to kick ass though, and here’s why:

For those not familiar with Aliens or Predators, here’s a very brief review of the franchise:

--Predator 1& 2: 8’ tall aliens that like to hunt people for sport and can cloak. Apparently frequent South American jungles and Los Angeles.

--Alien quadrilogy: Creatures that kill on sight, have acid for blood, and are generally unpleasant.

--Alien vs. Predator: Add these two sci-fi monsters and have them fight in an ancient temple under ice in Antarctica. Toss in an exploration team lead by the dude who played Bishop in Aliens and you have a good movie right? Well, no. It was like combining two good Kool-Aid flavors, but then you add too much water and realize you’re also out of sugar. Maybe this movie was trying too hard to be safe and mainstream. And whose idea was it to have Predators go 80% of AVP without their shoulder cannons? For those who don’t know, the plasma weapon is what took off Carl Weathers’s arm in Predator, and is preceded by three laser dots of doom. Predator is to plasma castor as Ash is to boomstick. It’s as straightforward as an SAT analogy. (R.I.P you bastard portion of that test…)

AVP:R is not a simple AVP # 2. The plot picks up right where AVP left off, with a “Predalien” hatching and starting shit on the Predator’s ship, which immediately crashes into the American Northwest. A father and son hunting duo provide the escaped alien face-huggers with victims, and voila, you’ve got an alien problem. Meanwhile in Predator land, a badass Predator sees the ship crash on TV and busts ass over to Earth to clean things up. The first 5 minutes of AVP:R have just elapsed.

The rest of the story loosely follows a set of first-name-only characters in this small town as they try to escape. But most of us know what happens when you mix a small town disaster and the government (*coughs* Outbreak). Perhaps the only thing the number “2” applies to in AVP:R is to describe the main Predator’s dual shoulder plasma casters. The theme for this movie is “excess” – maybe a response to overcompensate for the mild graphical nature of AVP. This flick really holds nothing back and plays up every dangerous aspect of each alien creature, which is what we think redeems the movie and makes it awesome. On top of that, it’s filled with “fatalities” that would make Mortal Kombat jealous. In this way AVP:R brings back the horror captured perfectly with the start of the franchise. A similar feeling of satisfaction that you’d get by tossing some f-bombs into Die Hard 4.

There’s definitely a nostalgia aspect to this flick too, which peaks once the National Guard starts blasting at xenomorphs (a wiki search revealed this was the official name for the insect-like creatures). As the high-pitched screams start to echo over the radio you almost feel like you’re back in Aliens. Did humans even kill aliens in AVP? Those goons dropped faster than the first 3 stormtroopers through a set of blast doors.

Be on the lookout too for a cameo from Francoise Yip (Black Mask, Rumble in the Bronx), who is introduced as Ms. Yatani – presumably representing half of the Wayland-Yatani group (referred to as “The Company” throughout Alien movies) that will eventually dominate space technology and corporate evildoing. We have to give AVP:R, released almost 30 years after Alien, at least some credit for this attempt at continuity. And was that a hint for third AVP film we saw at the end? In a suggestive John Stewart voice, we say “hmmm….go on”.

Things we wanted more of from AVP:R:

- A main hero we could follow (Arnold, Ripley, Danny Glover, anything). But I guess if you’re looking for plot, you’re in the wrong place.

- A handful of B-list actors to balance it out (Bill Paxton, Gary Busey, Warrick from CSI).

- Awesome underwater shots of aliens swimming (a la Resurrection)

Teeth

We weren't too sure what to do with this movie. The synopsis of the flick is fairly straighforward: a young girl, Dawn, who favors abstinence discovers her vagina is equipped with teeth that mean business. You can imagine what happens once she's sexually assaulted by one of her peers. Seems like a pretty interesting watch, right? Well, after viewing Teeth our first reaction was to just rip it to pieces, but we were reminded of Janitor's words of wisdom: "Troy. That's not how we do it." The best word to describe most of this movie is "unnecessary", as embodied in the following examples:

1. The incestuous step-brother who likes to shoot airsoft pistols.
2. Guard dogs who have a taste for male genitalia.
3. The Goosebumps-esque soundtrack drowning out mediocre dialogue
4. The whole after-school-special-keep-it in-your pants message

We would have enjoyed this movie a lot more if we were more patient and hadn't seen so many rape revenge films that took less time to escalate into a mess of tension and bloody castration scenes (Last House on the Left & I Spit on Your Grave). Not to say we weren't freaked out at times. The best scene in this flick by far is the gynecologist scene: a concerned Dawn decides she's got to get herself checked out and make sure nothing's out of the ordinary down south. What a mistake. This scene is the perfect combination of moments of anticipation and horror that eventually results in a phalanges-less physician and screaming match better than Adam Smith and the city of Quahog. It's reminiscent of the of the feeling you get watching an Alien film, when some fool is slowly leaning over a hatching egg. You know the egg's gonna hatch and release a face-hugger onto the guy, but he doesn't, and no amount of his verbal speculation can stop it.

But to wrap things up, or maybe a more appropriate phrase -- to cut this off-- this film was a challenge to watch. True, it was the scariest set of teeth since the chompers Jaws sported in Moonraker, but that could only carry the movie so far. And with that...

Questions we're left with:

Are caged guard dogs really all that effective?
Was this soundtrack lifted from Ernest Scared Stupid?
When it's right, is it really Wong?

Street Kings

Once we realized our local theater only had one showing of Street Kings each day late at night, our eyebrows raised. Was it hiding from us or simply stuck with a shitty showtime because of its lackluster box office numbers? Whatever the case, we were treading on egg shells with this one because a) it might suck and b) we didn't really want to get mugged walking back home from the theater. But come on, we had a laundry list of reasons to not avoid this one:

1. It's fucking Keanu.
2. Dirty cops in L.A. a la Training Day are always good for sweet shootouts.
3. Forest Whitaker scored an Oscar for Best Actor in The Last King Of Scotland.


What we quickly learned is that there's a lot more hiding under the surface. This doesn't necessarily make it a better film, but most definitely kept us glued to the screen. Street Kings doesn't try to pretend like it's not a dark, gritty exploration of the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles. In fact, it goes the route of Training Day, but quickly abandons the good cop/bad cop binary for a more plot driven alternative. Keanu's character, Detective Ludlow, is a good cop who lies and kills in order to put dangerous thugs behind bars - or more often they end up dead. Too bad for them. Conflict builds up when Ludlow's ex-partner starts ratting his fellow officers out and Keanu finds himself in some serious shit. The action and plot ramp up and before you know it you're watching Keanu throw chairs at Mexicans on rooftops, convenience store clerks get mowed down by automatic weapons, and fucking House, M.D. shows up. In a hospital. To boot. But he isn't a doctor. This is pretty indicative of the confusion we felt during the first half hour, but Street Kings does a good job of explaining its porous dialogue and the more complicated plot points that just went over our heads. No matter, the story unravels fairly smoothly and the ending wasn't as disappointing as Ethan Hawke busting a cap in Denzel's ass and just driving home.

Street Kings doesn't tell us anything new about gang violence in Los Angeles or the vigilante cops pulling some Dirty Harry "interrogation," which is, of course, code for killing the poor bastards. The movie does a good job of throwing in multiple plot twists that keep you guessing until the end, almost as good as The Departed when Marky Mark offs Matt Damon in his little booties. We enjoyed this movie, which makes us think about how this flick was marketed. The only way you were probably going to see a trailer for Street Kings was if you frequent movie blogs or check Apple's trailer page religiously. Maybe if these few cop movies were given a little more limelight on TV and attached to bigger budget releases, we could see a return to greater stories about law enforcement. [Although this is not our endorsement for another Lethal Weapon or Rush Hour.] And with that...


Things we learned from Street Kings:

Don't hide your drugs in mustard containers.
If you get shot at on a regular basis, have a hot nurse sugar mama who can stitch you up.
Don't forget to change out your ammo if you're going on a house bust.
Drinking little bottles of vodka is pretty manly.

Iron Man

By the time we’d seen this movie, we’d seen numerous TV spots, online trailers and lame-ass video game commercials, not to mention slashfilm had a post about this movie pretty much every day. We saw Gwyneth catch Tony Stark changing out of the Iron Man suit, but let’s face it, it wasn’t the worst thing she caught him doing. Such early, seemingly in-depth exposure to the film through these outlets gave us the fear that we’d seen it all. An example of this to cite would be the Die Hard 4 trailer, since it basically showed everything – McClane vs. Maggie Q, McClane vs. a helicopter, McClane vs. a truck, McClane vs. an F-35 fighter jet….etc. As Tobias so aptly put it, this trailer really got a little carried away, prematurely blew its wad and left itself with quite a mess in its hands – there was nothing left for viewers to “ooOOo” at.

Even though we’ve seen what a guy in a super suit can do, (yea Master Chief) Iron Man still felt pretty fresh. Having a fairly strong knowledge of comic books, we were definitely looking forward to seeing yet another comic adaptation on the big screen, but not for the best of reasons. Spider Man 3 was so disappointing [what the hell Raimi..] that maybe Marvel was just plain fucked. Jon "You're so money and you don't even know it" Favreau's take on Tony Stark was up in the air, since this was the first time he’d tackled a big summer blockbuster, but "goddamn!!” I say. The action beats come pretty quickly within the first few minutes: just after Downey establishes his suave, confident take on Tony Stark/Iron Man, US soldiers get owned quicker than the convoy attack in Clear and Present Danger. The backstory within the film isn't convoluted and we quickly forgot that this was a superhero flick from the same studio that produced Rise of the Silver Surfer and Hulk [shudder]. As comic fans we dug it. There are enough fanboy tid bits throughout the film to make the inner nerd in you feel like you were getting a lapdance from a gold-bikini-clad Carrie Fischer.

But even if this isn’t your cup of tea, and if the names Harvey Dent and Two Face seem as unrelated as David Caruso’s one-liners in CSI: Miami, have no fear! Because with a solid story, witty dialogue and believable acting, you could walk into this movie not knowing what the hell’s an “Iron Man” and not know any better. Even for a PG-13 flick, we get to see a shit ton of Iron Man beat downs, ginormous explosions, gratuitous sex [no Paltrow side boobs, sad face], and wait for it... Jeff "Mind if I do a J?" Bridges. Mr. Lebowski is by far, a perfect villain, baldness aside. The only let down by his performance was that not once did he ever drink a White Russian.

Iron Man's great. We couldn't have asked for a better start to this Summer's blockbusters. In fact, the film's done so well that it's sparked an influx of Marvel flicks up through 2011 [Captain America = McConaughey? Count us in!!] The less enjoyable parts of the movie were few and far between. This movie probably would have benefited from an R-rating: the whole "arms dealing kills innocent people halfway around the world" spin would have been a little more heartfelt if we were seeing arms and legs blown off little kids riding bicycles, but we understand graphic violence isn't always the best route, especially when you're in Marvel's position, trying to dig yourself out of a hole in the ground by selling more toys to said kids on bicycles. And with that…

Questions we're left with...

1. Why don’t all girls at Brown look like that reporter?
2. How did Tony Stark figure out the ice problem?
3. Why wasn’t that Burger King an In ‘n’ Out Double-Double?

PS – Stick around after the credits to catch a cool add-on to the plot. Don’t worry, it’s not as plot-upsetting as Xavier waking up in the body of a coma patient.

The Mist

When this flick first hit theaters, I had absolutely no desire to see it. At all. I must say, I've been pleasantly surprised:

Things that surprised me about The Mist:

1. That it was actually pretty damn good.
2. When the shit hits the fan, being completely rational isn't always the best way to stay alive.
3. If the military rolls into town, get the fuck out.
4. Even when playing a painter in a quiet New England town, Tom Jane still kicks ass.
5. Lowly grocery store clerks are great shots.

Things I was not surprised by:

1. That bikers carry knives.
2. The military is always to blame.
3. Even when playing a painter in a quiet New England town, Tom Jane still kicks ass.
4. Religious fanatics are always fun to hate.

We've seen our fair share of horror/suspense flicks and know perfectly well what happens when you throw a bunch of average folk in an isolated place: people get paranoid, fight about how to survive, all the while slowly getting picked off by whatever the hell's lurking outside. The Mist goes the extra yard. Sort of. It's a pretty riveting addition to a genre already packed with mediocre flicks that follow the tried and true formula: You got a level-headed dude [Tom "I just want my kids back" Jane] squaring off against a religious fanatic who's got more converts than Gaius Baltar, all the while fighting off hungry creatures from another dimension [supposedly] with one six-shooter, broomsticks, kitchen knives, and three useless dudes in the military. Sounds like a hoot, right? Well, it worked for me. Not only were the monsters pretty cool [think Alien meets Arachnophobia], but the film was unexpectedly gory, and I like my horror/suspense flicks with a hefty dose of blood and guts. Oh, and did I mention Tom Jane kicks ass?

The “God’s gonna sit this one out”-attitude of Tom Jane from The Punisher is not an inaccurate way to describe his role in The Mist. The film is full of some classic Jane tough guy moments – gruffly-delivered lines, window smashing, axe wielding, punching out a dumbass…the usual. Perhaps on a less extreme scale than The Punisher, this movie did well at portraying the transformation of an “average” dude into a leader and monster fighter (more a la Shaun of the Dead). The reaction from seeing Jane painting a Clint Eastwood portrait may have been similar to Sam Jackson’s kilt in Formula 51. Sure, it was unexpected and atypical in a way, but in both cases you were not laughing at the guy by the end, since he was one bad mother… (shut your mouth!) We’re just talking about Tom Jane…If only he could’ve replaced a not so super Tom Welling in The Fog and gained a monopoly over recent cloud-caused suspense/thriller movies with two word titles.

The Mist is no The Shining, but if the movie as a whole doesn't impress you, than the twist at the end is an amazing "what the fuck!?" moment, almost as bad as when Steven Segal gets offed in the first ten minutes of Executive Decision. And with that...

Questions we're left with:

Why are bugs- even ones from another dimension - attracted to bright lights?
Who kills bugs better: Tom Jane or Johnny Rico?

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