INCEPTION

OH GOD HOLY CRAP. Inception is straight up one of the best movies you can see this year. I've already seen it twice, and the special effects still blew me away the second time. I mean, antigravity? How the hell do you do that without any CGI, on Earth? Friggin' blows my mind, man. And seeing the movie the second time made the entire plot abundantly clear. It makes great sense. The first time through is like a first high on some crazy-ass Christopher Nolan brand drug where you have no idea what the hell is gonna happen, and they when you come down you shit your pants out of sheer amazement.

Seriously. It's Glourious. With a capital G. And the Tarantino spelling.

11/10. Go see it, by any means possible. I need to see it in IMAX and then I won't have to see any other movies ever again. Also, JGL is a total badass. I think I'm gonna go buy a three-piece suit. [Click on that image to see it huge.]

Cyrus

I wouldn't recommend spending money on Cyrus. It's a bit of a laugh if you know what John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill normally do, but otherwise it's just weird and sad. The movie doesn't really have a point; if it was meant to be a comedy, it fell short; if it was meant to be a romantic comedy, it fell short; if it was meant to be dramatic, it failed miserably. I mean, it's apparent that with Reilly and Hill on the cast that it should have been funny. But they add the awkward factor in such a strange way that it largely obscures the comedic portions.

Same with the romantic parts: Marissa Tomei is beautiful. Reilly is fugly. How did this entire movie even happen? Does Tomei's character have a hidden penchant for pathetic ugly dudes? I mean it would make sense if Jonah Hill's father was one. At the very least it would show where he gets it.

Jonah Hill is the definition of Fat as hell. Seriously. One of my friends described him as a balloon, which is entirely accurate given the fact that he has like, weird womanly stick legs under a two hundred pound upper body. It's weird and scary. It also brings a strange sense of comeuppance when John C. Reilly just straight up says "Listen up, you little weirdo."

So yeah, my short description would definitely be "pretty terrible." Not worth the time or the money.

Cyrus/Inception

Sneak peek time! The Spectrum is showing a Thursday midnight showing of the new Christopher Nolan movie, Inception. It looks to be a really original idea and an absolutely spectacular movie.




Someone called the box office today, and of course I had the misfortune to pick up.

"Hello, Spectrum Theater."
"Yeah hi, I saw on the website that you'll be having a preview of that movie Inception on Thursday?"
"Mhmm"
"Does that mean it's gonna be free?"

Seriously. Same answer as to the question "Will you guuuuys be showing Eclippssssseee when it comes ouuuuutttttt?" Let me answer that with another question. SHUT UP.

I digress.

Inception is going to be like the greatest thing ever. With a "star-studded cast" and the "award-winning director of Memento and the Dark Knight", you definitely don't want to miss it.

The other part of today's preview is a movie that's already come out, Cyrus. Jonah Hill I can deal with. John C. Reilly I can deal with in anything that doesn't also have Will Farrell in it. Because he's a horse's ass. And then there's Marisa Tomei. If there was ever anyone to not fit in with weird-looking fat men, it's her. I'm skeptical yet optimistic that this will be any good, and at the very least it'll be entertaining. We'll see how it goes. Review to come tomorrow!

I'm super excited about Inception.

For realz.

Ondine

The scene opens to Squinty McGee, the ridiculous man that he is, and seemingly still in his character from "In Bruges", fishing. [Second link NSFW.] He catches a beautiful female humanoid (BFH) in his humanoid catching net, but unfortunately doesn't seem to catch any character believability along with her. He's just Colin Farrell with long hair. So she's rescued, we learn about Colin's past (his name's Syracuse, but whatever), and about how he's got a daughter on dialysis because she's got kidney failure of some sort, and how his ex-wife married an arsehole. So the BFH starts living in Colin's dead mother's old cabin-type-deal and the kid on dialysis does a bunch of research on Selkie, which she suspects BFH of being. Gorram kids, I'm tellin' ya.

So anyway. Selkie or not, the BFH goes with Colin on a Fantastic Fishing Excursion, the feature ride in Colin-land, singing all the while, which of course brings ole Colin there a massive haul. So she's a Selkie, and a bunch of legends come into effect due to a know-it-all ailing child-shaped plot device with nothing better to do except research old myths and read lines worse than this guy. Scary legend-related shit goes down, and we emerge during the credits sopping wet, disgruntled, and trying to figure out if it was worth the 111 minutes sitting in a dark room with strangers.

5/10. See it if it's free or you have nothing else to do.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

So. This French guy comes to the US. French guy starts filming everything. French guy films people tagging any wall big enough to see from the street on your boring-ass morning commute, and suddenly makes a living out of it. He's filmed every street artist he can find, traveled from coast to coast, and even done a few himself. So what's the intrigue? Finding someone who is deliberately keeping himself unfilmed. Banksy.

I mean, he completely fails to film him, but it's worth the journey I guess. Banksy does find him, and asks French dude to film some of his work in action, but the finished movie product, essentially what became of all of this guy's maniacal filming, is the film itself; it's a movie about a filmmaker who makes a movie about himself. Kind of weird.

It's really difficult to write a review of a documentary, mainly because almost all documentaries can be summed up in two or less sentences. Supersize Me is about this guy who wants to show how unhealthy McDonald's is by eating it for a month straight. Man on Wire is about a guy who wants to walk a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers. Doesn't make the movie uninteresting, it just makes it difficult to describe without just straight up showing the movie to you.

It's a blast though, definitely worth a watch.

Prince of Persia

How often have movies based on video games worked out? Let's see...

Pretty much never. Like nothing ever has been a good idea. Hitman is awesome, and anyone who knows me knows I love Resident Evil. But other than that, Prince of Persia was all around doomed so suck. Firstly: Jake Gyllenhaal has the most God-awful English accent. Secondly: why the hell does everyone have an English accent? This is ancient Persia. Thirdly: Doesn't anyone actually realize it's ancient Persia? Doesn't anyone on the entire staff know what historical accuracy is? If the games are better written than the movie, you know something's wrong. I went to go see it with a friend of mine

The tribulations of life are often forgotten during a good movie, but sometimes there's just no getting around bare facts. I'm starting to get frustrated with mundane life at home. I find myself wanting to just move to New York City and get an internship somewhere, while at the same time working for some independent movie theater to pay the bills. I don't know of anyone else who has random life-changing urges. Hopefully I can get through another year of college without any holdups and move down there for an extended period of time.

Robin Hood

So I watched Robin Hood last night. 3/10. One point for Russel Crowe, one point for Cate Blanchett (one of my most favorite actresses ever) and one point for trying. Almost a total waste of time, if I didn't have so much fun bashing the crap out of it with my dad. It's hilarious how inaccurate you can be with history (see also: things that have definitely already happened). I mean, just to give you a taste, the opening scene says "Turn of the 12th Century--1199". hmm... Turn of the century would have implied the beginning of the 12th century, or 1101. (Or in this case, 1099.) I won't get into the absolutely asinine things these supposed thirteenth century English people do that seem so out of place they're not even in good comedies set in modern times.

So anyway. On to a good movie. I mean, hell. Sweden, where have you been all my life? I watched Dead Snow while I was at school, and that was amazing. Now, I just watched Let the Right One In. This thing is just fantastic. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a movie whose horror is at the same time completely out in the open and almost entirely obscured by subtlety. The movie gets progressively creepier, and you don't realize til the end how freaked out you are. It's riveting until it's over, at which point you want to run the f*ck away and surround yourself with cats and garlic.

I'll say it once, and I'll say it again. Twilight is a load of crap. Vampires don't glow in sunlight. They BURN. [Picture is directly from the aforementioned Swedish horrorgasm. It's what happens to a real vampire when it's exposed to total sunlight.] The main character of LtROI is a (two hundred year old) twelve year old who attacks and drains people when she gets too hungry. No ancient high elders led by a fifteen year old, no sparkling, no Volvos, no random idiotic flying through the woods. Just pure horrific bloodthirst, hampered only by the conditions of being a real vampire (doors, sunlight, etc.). Not to mention the 97% it has on Rotten Tomatoes. A complete must see if you're into the whole logical suspension of disbelief thing the young 'uns can't seem to grasp.

And then of course there's another Swedish movie out in theaters now, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This time around it's a 153 minute crime thriller with a hot goth chick in the lead. This girl is belligerent from start to finish, pausing only a few times for plot-developing research. If you've got the time, it's worth it.