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missnobody717
Reviews
The Road (2009)
Depressing and pointless (which I suppose is the point, but)
When my husband and I went to see this movie, we chose it purely because a) it wasn't one of the ridiculous movies already out, and b) it got a good rating on Rotten Tomatoes. At the snack counter, a poster proclaimed, "One of the most uplifting and optimistic movies of the year!"
After watching that movie, we concluded that the poster reviewer either was completely high, wandered into the wrong theater by mistake, or thinks that Schindler's List was a wacky comedy. The Road has to be one of the most depressing, pointless, excruciating movies you could ever see. It will make you want to go home and stick your head in the oven.
The first 7 hours of the movie contain an endless slog through a desolate landscape bereft of plant and animal life. Only bugs and humans remain, somehow. Everything else on Earth has been burnt or smashed by some unacknowledged Doomsday Event. The director leaves it up to the audience to somehow figure out what kind of reasonable scientific explanation could account for anyone surviving for any amount of time after all the oxygen-producing plant life plus everything else in the food chain between bugs and people bit the dust. Apparently it happens through the magic of Dole Pineapple Chunks, the search for which takes up another 4 hours of movie.
Once you get inured to this laugh riot, you eventually start to disassociate from the main characters. The Boy in the book is supposed to be 6 or 7. In the movie, though, he looks to be about 10 or 11, but seems to still act 6 or 7. He comes across as a total feeb and you start to wonder how a kid born on the cusp of a complete apocalypse manages to have such poor coping skills. The Kid was supposed to have been running into dead bodies and cannibals practically every day of his life so you'd think he'd be over it after 9-10 years, but no, he manages to seem traumatized at every instance.
Dad doesn't help things out much as he spends his days talking to the kid like he's three and tucking him in and carrying him around every chance he gets. I'm sure that'll help grow hair on his chest, Dad! It's nice to see that no matter how shitty the world gets, there's always a parent willing to overshelter their kid from the reality of their situation.
Dad also seems to make poor survival decisions. The poorest decision comes when the two find a friggin' BOMB SHELTER FILLED WITH FOOD AND WARM BEDS, but after a couple days they need to abandon it because they heard somebody walking around up top. Apparently this is the only bomb shelter in existence that didn't come with a lock on the hatch, and everyone knows how easy it is for a starving bum to breach a cement bunker with a steel trap door on it. It's much easier to pile a bunch of crap in an old push wagon and hit the road again to defend it in the open air against every marauder and sneak thief that walks by, while you slowly die from exposure.
But one can't point fingers at such glaring plot holes, because This Is Such A Serious, Award-Winning Oscar Contender! You can tell this movie is an Oscar contender because the kid cries real tears and there are at least a couple scenes where the audience gets treated to a rear view of Viggo's naked ass and nutsack. Everyone knows that if Viggo is letting you see his junk, he's very much into his role and you should respect his process by taking his nuts very seriously like he does.
There's a scene somewhere in the middle where The Mom (Charlize Theron) decides to end it by walking out into the freezing winter in her sleep shirt to die in the woods, because she can't take it anymore. By the end of the movie, you'll be wishing you'd walked out in the middle too.
There was one very uplifting part to our experience, though: After leaving the theater, my husband found a five dollar bill on the ground. That cheered us up immensely. There is life after this movie!
Pauly Shore Is Dead (2003)
I don't know whether this movie is extremely stupid or extremely clever. Probably both.
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS STARTING IN THE 2ND PARAGRAPH.
As I said in my summary, this movie is like watching two different movies mixed up into one. If you can appreciate the movie for what it is (and I'm not sure I myself accomplished that with the first viewing), then you should actually find the movie to be pretty funny.
Half the story is your typical Wiezal fare- extra trite plot, courtesy-laugh jokes, Pauly blatantly mugging for the camera like a 10th grader who's never been on TV before. There's not much to say about this plot line except that it's basically about Pauly's #1 redneck fan who's seen Son in Law 200 times and is devastated at Pauly's "death." Then finds out it's a hoax, and sets out to kill Pauly himself as revenge for playing such a cruel trick.
The other half of the story is a jarringly clever commentary and satire about being a Q-list has-been actor in Hollywood, getting recognized by the great unwashed yet desperately trying to resuscitate a career that's more over than mall hair. The platitudes, the glad-handing, the hangers-on, the competition, and the fickleness of the industry are on display in all their banal glory. Pauly Shore's brutal analysis of his own career and downfall is hilariously harsh but refreshingly honest and dare I say it? Kind of deep. Pauly Shore commentary- deep? I barely believe it myself, but I think it could be so!
This part of the movie is chock-full of cameos which aren't only entertaining for the sheer celebrity factor, but hilarious once you realize that nearly every one of them is famous for some schtick they've either done or still do, famous for being famous, or heading down the road to formerly famous. Whoopie Goldberg, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Paris and Nicky Hilton, Britney Spears, Carrot Top, Bill Maher, Charlie Sheen, Tommy Lee, Fred Durst, Jay Mewes, Verne Troyer, the list goes on and on. Not to mention the nice sprinkling of 15-minute famers and notorious characters like Kato Kaelin, Rico Suave, Heidi Fleiss, and Todd Bridges in hilariously self-deprecating parts. You have to give all these guys credit for having a pretty darn good sense of humor about themselves.
Pauly Shore actually co-wrote this movie in addition to directing and starring in it. I guess that's why it's such a mixed message- it's about Pauly instinctively capitalizing on still being The Wiezal, yet also trying to separate himself from that character so he can be reinvented. Yet that's exactly the reason why the movie doesn't quite work. It tries to be a clever satirical movie but hedge its bets as a Wiezal movie, but neither is quite enough.
So, Pauly, a message about your latest direction: Your movie is still pretty retarded, but I think you're really onto something. But next time, if you really don't want us to think you're The Wiezal, then don't put The Wiezal in your movie. Pauly Shore's not dead. The Wiezal? Dead.
Fantastic Four (2005)
The title of this movie should read: Chris Evans is HOT.
I just saw this movie at a sneak preview last night. As far as comicbook movies go, this one was pretty shallow.
(Keep in mind that I don't read the comics, so I'm coming from the point of view of the audience segment not already familiar with the back story. And obviously the creators are looking to broaden their audience to include people like me as opposed to specifically addressing comic fans, so all you nerds getting your light sabers in a twist because there was some nuance I didn't catch, get a grip.) This movie had the feel of those movie sequels where all the returning characters mail it in with glib remarks instead of conveying any depth of emotion or intimacy, because you were supposed to "gotten" that in the previous movies.
In this movie, all these characters know each other, worked with each other, and in a couple cases, are related to each other and dated each other. So where's the chemistry? Sue and Reed act more like lab partners than pining lovers. Sue and Johnny are brother and sister, and you're supposed to get that connection because she tells him to grow up, and he jokes that he's going to be "scarred for life" when she strips to her underwear to be invisible. Clichéd but still doesn't work. First of all, she's not hideous, sister or not. Second of all, she's in her underwear, not a gangbang video. What's the big deal?
Another thing is, except for Reed, I never got any impression that any of the other scientists were, well, smart. Much less brilliant. Where was the technobabble, the certifications and qualifications, the science talk? So, as far as comic book movies go, I'd say this one is the most mediocre. The acting is only okay, the character development is only okay, the action is only okay, the spec effects are only okay, and I get the impression that most of the connection made with the audience is through comic book references so that comicon nerds can feel comfortable that the characters are being represented accurately.
There is one saving grace to this movie, which I mentioned in the summary. Chris Evans is hot! Smoking hot! Get it? Get it? He's smoking hot because he catches fire, and also because he's a fine piece of man meat! Which you get to see, a LOT, because his clothes keep burning off! Because he's smoking hot!! Ha ha! Not only does it make for a continually amusing double entendre, (at least it did for me) it also makes for continually appreciable gratuitous semi-nudity. Whenever Chris Evans isn't running around in a skintight jumpsuit, he's running around half or mostly naked. In a movie world where Bo and Luke Duke got recast with Stiffler and Jackass, it's extremely refreshing to see that some directors still care enough about their female audience to include attractive actors and gratuitous male nudity. Thank you, Tim Story. It made your movie watchable.
(And thank YOU, Chris Evans. Keep up the good work!)