Kick-Ass Review

Kick-Ass

Top 5 Worst Movies I've Ever Seen

Every one has certain films they hate, and want to erase the memory of seeing it. These are my most hated films of all time:


1. North

The premise alone indicates that North is a contender for the worst movie ever made. Directed by the usually great Rob Reiner, (When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men) North is about a boy whose parents become paralyzed - and North (the protagonist) goes out and searches for his new parents, because he thinks his parents don't appreciate his talents. And it all goes downhill from there.

Roger Ebert, film critic of the Chicago Tribune once said in a movie review of North, "I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering, stupid, vacant, audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility of the thought that anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by it's belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

My thoughts exactly Mr. Ebert.

Fringe Review

Sure, call Fringe a rip-off of X-Files, Quantum Leap, and The Twilight Zone all you want - but Fringe is still one of the most consistently enjoyable, ambitious and first-rate shows currently shown on network television. Judging from the last three episodes over the past two months, Fringe will be around for a long time.

Fringe, now nearly at the end of their second season, follows a Federal Bureau of Investigation "Fringe Division" team based in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Homeland Security, who deal with and investigate "The Pattern" a series of unexplained occurences that are happening all over the world.

The main reason why this show is so succesfful is very easy to see while watching the show - the powerhouse acting by John Noble as Peter Bishop, a mix of Einstein and Dr. Frankenstein, is incredible.

Is Hollywood running out of ideas?

Remakes. Sequels. Reboots. Re-imaginings.

These are the words that movie producers love to hear. Why? Because these movies are mostly easy to film and write, they already have a particularly large fan base, which is a positive sign that the film will earn a substantial amount of money, regardless of the quality of the film itself. In fact their are already 30 planned remakes and reboots that you probably don't even know about.

Kick-Ass

With the release of Kick-Ass this week, a comic book adaption of a series of books by Mark Millar,has been generating a great deal of hype among comic book aficionados, and also a great deal of controversy among parents and christian groups. Kick-Ass, appropriately named, tells the story of teenage Dave Lizewski, who sets out to become a real life superhero. He meets Big Daddy (a Batman clone) and his eleven year old daughter, Hit-Girl. In the film she says the word coc*. And the word cun*. And also shoots someones head off and cuts off there limbs. This was shown in a preview screening, and naturally the audience was polarized in their opinions about a foul mouthed, killing eleven year old. The young actress, Clhoe Moretz, stated in an interview, "If I ever uttered one word that I said in Kick-Ass, I would be grounded for years! I'm an average every day girl."

Scarface - as school play?

Elementary school renditions of R-Rated films aren't exactly a dime dozen, which is why this rendition of elementary school kids performing the 1983 crime epic Scarface is utterly priceless.

But of course the retelling of the Al Pacino flick for the kiddies substitutes popcorn for cocaine, and the "F" word is censored by the word fudge, which frankly would make me hungry. But while I was watching this I was laughing beyond belief, yet I was horrified at the same time. What kind of rightminded adult would let these kids perform Scarface? The kids brandish guns, talk about cocaine, and infidelity. Now THAT'S some family entertainment!

2010 NCAA Tournament: The Movie

No doubt about it, inprobable upsets, breathtaking comebacks and shocking buzzer beaters are what make great sports films. There have been a handful of those in the NCAA Tournament this year - and we haven't even reached the final four yet. Personally, (and because of this) I think this years NCAA Tournament would make a killer movie. Who would have thought that Kansas would end up losing in the second round - and to Northern Iowa nonetheless? Who would have even imagined that Syracuse, Ohio, and Kentucky would lose and not even reach the Final Four? Hardly anyone, which resulted in millions of broken brackets that were tossed in the trash in the very first week of the tournament.

Shutter Island: Scorsese's Second B Movie?

In 1991, Scorsese crafted a tense, sadistic thriller called Cape Fear, which tells the story of Sam Bowden, a former pubic defender whose family is threatened by a convicted rapist who wants revenge for having been wrongly accused. The film, which garnered two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, was far different than anything Scorsese had ever done before. It was pulpy, over the top, unabashedly commercial in it's appeal, and gleefully manipulative towards it's audience.

Enter Scorsese' Shutter Island, an adaption of Dennis Lehane's widely successful novel. Shutter Island stars Leonardo DiCaprio (a Scorsese favorite for the past decade) and Mark Ruffalo as U.S Marshalls assigned to investigate the escape of a mental patient at Shutter Island, a hospitl/prison for the criminally insane. After this introduction, every other scene seems like an acid trip, going back and forth between DeCaprio's involvement as a soldier seeing Holocaust concentration camps firsthand, and his dealing with his failing marriage.

Although Martin Scorsese's intentions are to create another tense thriller like Cape Fear that delves deep into the psychosis, this film is an utter mess from the very start. From the over the top art direction and the ludicrously ear splitting score, Scorsese has never been so desperate to mold two things togther, a throwback of a 40's film noir and a modern psychological thriller. It just dosen't work. This is a kind of film that purely relies on a twist ending - which most people will figure out long before the credits roll.

Top 3 Movies of 2010

1. District 9

District 9 is simply amazing. District 9, written and directed by Neill Blomkamp, (and based on his own short film) is a science-fiction film set in South Africa in the future where extra- terrestrials have become refugees and sent into internment camps. The film is centered around Wikus Van De Merwe, an operative who is charge of foribly evicting the population of extra-terrestrials. Without giving any of the plot points away: everything goes wrong from there. Blomkamp has given us a fantastic, gritty masterpiece. Not only is it eye openeing, but it's darly funny, entertaining and thoughtful all at the same time.


2. The Hurt Locker

Much like District 9, The Hurt Locker is made on a shoe string budget, yet looks phenominal. And where much war films about Iraq fail, this one utterly succeeds. It's a gripping and searing look at a bomb diffusing soldier who is obssessed with war. Unlike war films such as Saving Private Ryan, The Hurt Locker doesen't hammer us with self prophesying speeches, it feels all too real.

3. Up

If Pixar ever fails at making a film, then this one is definitely not it. The film centers around a 72 year old curmudgen, aided by a an 8 year old stowaway, traveling to South America, finishing a long dream he and his wife once had. The first ten minutes alone are one of the most poingant moments I've ever experienced in an animated film.

Attack of the 3-D movies!

Back in 1923, the film, "The Power of Love" premiered at the Ambassador Hotel Theater in Los Angelas, and was given little attention by the American audience. Little is known about the obscure film and it is now considered to be lost among various film archives. But it has a rather mportant distinction among pop culture: it was the first 3-D film to be shown to a paying audience. 3-D (an abbreviation for three dimensional) in essence provides the allusion of depth perception, aided by a special camera that is used to record images as seen from both prespectives. Using





Fast foward to 1952 and 3

Why Low Budget Movies Are Saving Hollywood

Big budget movies that apeal to the masses are pretty much killing the integrity of modern film making. Being my very first post on this blog - this accusation probably seems harsh, unamerican even. I enjoy a movie that's bombarded with special effects, violence and sex (all at once) as much as the next guy - but it gets tiring after a while. Take the summer blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen directed by Michael Bay, which to me is one of the worst films of the year; it's basically two and a half hours of noise and special effects with lame humor (a six inch robot calling a young actress a bitch just doesen't strike my funny bone) and racial stereotypes (another robot calling another robot the "N" word isn't funny either.)

But enter recent films like District 9 and Paranormal Activity, a complete godsend compared to the dreck of G.I: Joe and X-Men Origins. Both of these films cost under 30 million dollars, and made it to the top of the box office without millions of dollars being thrown at the screen. Oh yeah...and they have great stories to tell.