“Hi
Mr. Disneyland representative (we’ll call him Mr. Dr), we’d like to film a
movie here,” said the writer/director.
“Sure, let’s see the script and see
what kind of movie it is. Huh, father loses job while on vacation at
Disneyland, ignores family to stare at teenage French girls to the point that
his wife is uncomfortable and irritated, then the father has an affair – “
“Or does he!” Mr. Dr looks at the writer/director
from over the top of his glasses for a moment and then continues to read
silently to himself before finishing the script and placing it down on his
desk. He looks at the writer/director, and the producer or whoever lost the bet
to present the movie to Mr. Dr.
“What happens at the end?”
“What do you mean?” The writer/director
is trying to hide the fact that he’s not trying all that hard to hide his
smiling.
“I mean what is that ending all
about?” The writer/director grins like an idiot and answers with:
“What do you think it’s about?”
Mr. Dr sighs and think of probably
many other more important things he has on his schedule for the day. He says
that they cannot film that movie in the park.
“Because you are so close minded!”
The writer/director yells. “You must have such a tight grip on movies shot here
that it kills the creativity that you feign to support!”
Mr. Dr. pinches the bridge of his
nose and closes his eyes for a moment while he shakes his head and says, “No,
this movie is horrible, that’s why.” He opens his eyes and looks to the men
before him. “It doesn’t even portray the park in a negative light. What you
present here as the inner-workings of the park is complete fantasy and so
obviously fantastical that it makes you look idiotic if you think we would be
offended or even threatened by anything presented in this movie. As a bit of a
part-time writer, though, I do take offense to your lack of detail in the main
character whose mental instability you have reduced to being nothing more than
a horny old man who pines for two young French girls at the risk of his
children’s safety. It is offensive, you taking the idea of a man’s mental
breakdown while in a theme park, and making it completely and utterly pointless.”
The writer/director, missing the
point, responds with: “Then if you will not allow us to film in the park, I
will film without you knowing about it, using guerilla style filmmaking, and
then I will tell everyone that’s how I filmed it!”
Mr. Dr says with a shrug, “I don’t
care.” Then, when really thinking about it, he adds: “Actually, I bet that will
be the most interesting thing about this movie and that will be the only reason
anyone would be interested in it. You go ahead, idiot, film your movie and we’ll
pretend like we don’t know you, which is how your family and friends will act
after this is released.”
That’s how I imagine it went down. I
cannot believe I fell for it, but I did. I heard about this movie so I thought
I’d check it out and boy oh boy was it dull. The idea that it was trying to put
to film was mildly interesting but it’s like the people making the film did not
have the nerve to go all the way with it.
This movie is such a waste of time
that it’s really not even funny – though if the movie had been funny it maybe
wouldn’t have been such a waste of time.
The actor is on the left, the character is on the right.
This
officially makes me excited for Daredevil to appear on Netflix. The movie actor
God that is Vincent D’Onofrio will be in the Netflix original Daredevil series
as Kingpin. Now if they can just put a moment in the show that gives him the opportunity
to say the word: “Sugar” I would seriously lose my shit.
Normally it’s a concern when a show
replaces the showrunner, but it sure seems like with the replacement the show
is starting to move. Of course all of this could have already been in the
works, but I like to think that Netflix wasn’t happy so they put a new guy in
charge and that new guy has brought about all the advancement with casting the
show.
I’m normally a glass half empty type
of guy, but when it comes to Netflix original shows I tend to think and hope
and expect the best and have not been let down so far (I’m not counting OITNB).
I am a child of the 80’s, a white suburban child of the
80’s, I went to a private catholic school, and I believe it was the 5thgrade when I met my best friend Jason.
Jason’s mom was white, but he was black and tall for his age, and I was very
short for my age and he and I hit it off right away. Jason’s mom worked her ass
off for him to grow up and go to school where he did and because of that she
wasn’t around much. Jason and I never got into much trouble mostly because we
never got caught.
I bring this all up for the sole reason that were it not for Jason I truly
believe I would not have ever seen Eddie Murphy’s Delirious, much less at the
age of 12, nor would I have had any clue as to who the NWA were. I don’t know
how Jason even heard about it all as he was also an owner of a Tiffany cassette
(though I do honestly believe he had it only because the majority of the people
he hung out with had it and liked it). He was also a fan of Guns N’ Roses and
he probably liked those guys as much as he enjoyed NWA. Either way he lived in
both worlds, and being his friend and spending as much time around him as I
did, I ended up living in both worlds as well. I remember he stayed the night
at my house one night and we stayed up late and listened to an NWA cassette as
low as possible so that we didn’t wake my parents but loud enough that we could
just barely hear it even with our ears pressed to the speakers of the little
player.
Jason was and still is – though I don’t talk to him much anymore – my best
friend and had a huge part in making me who I am today; my odd sense of humor
and eclectic selection of music and movies, pretty much he helped me become the
oddity that I am now.
These were the sort of things I was thinking about while watching Eddie
Murphy’s Delirious. I remember both Jason and I laughing hysterically while
watching the VHS one weekend at his house. The mom throwing shoes at her kids
was especially a big hit with us, as was the ice cream bit. I remembered bits
and pieces of Delirious, but the first thing I took note was how it started. It
had the look and feel of a VHS movie, almost a home movie feel as we follow
Eddie Murphy on the tour bus and stuff, mostly it was all awkward watching it
(I swear Eddie Murphy had something stuffed into his underwear at one point. My
wife told me to just get over it because I kept bringing it up, but seriously,
it looked like a baseball was in his underwear, it looked like his testes were
severely swollen and I almost became concerned, but eventually I did let it go,
but seriously, if you get a chance check out Eddie Murphy’s junk, it’s weird in
how perfectly spherical it is – or maybe mine is the one that’s jacked up and
no one has ever told me).
The beginning of his act was painful to watch. He starts off talking about how
“faggots” (his word) better not be looking at his ass! The audience thought it
was hilarious. He worked that joke for a solid minute or so, and then went into
Mr. T being gay which I kind of remembered.
For the most part Delirious wasn’t too entertaining until towards the last half
and then it got funny. It was mostly just interesting watching Eddie Murphy and
seeing how young he was and full of promise with his spot-on impressions and
his energy. Is comedy just different now that his routine wasn’t as funny now
as the audience thought it was back then?
I would say maybe half of his routine was funny, and the other half was just a
bit toodated.
I Liked It
Richard Pryor starts off about how
ever since Reagan was elected nobody was fucking.
That’s probably about as dated as you can get (making fun of Mr. T has more
timelessness than making fun of Ronald Reagan – I think), and though I rated
them both the same as liking them, Richard Pryor’s film is just a bit better.
The comedy may be about the same, they both set the cussing bar to a new high
and at times they both have moments that made me genuinely laugh, but Richard
Pryor’s performance, and the production of his performance was just a bit more
fine tuned than Eddie Murphy’s.
I realize that I’m criticizing them not on the comedy or their performances,
but on the quality of the movie, but when you have two comics were performances
are so similar it doesn’t give you much more to look at other than the movie as
a whole.
And I get it when you say – it’s Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor
is a freaking legend while Eddie has become a vague shadow of his former self,
how can you say they are the same – but just watch both of these films.
To be fair and clear, Richard Pryor’s performance came first, by like a year or
two I believe, so any comparison between the two – Pryor is the clear winner
because he paved the way for Eddie, and Eddie followed the way without
bettering it.
Eddie Murphy’s Delirious is well known for his red outfit. Red leather jacket
and pants, it looks uncomfortable and smelly and the jacket is half open the
entire time showing off the fact that Eddie is not wearing a shirt underneath.
He looks like a wanna-be rock star, or a wanna-be Michael Jackson. Richard
Pryor wears a red suit as well, but he wears it well, and that’s something I
wouldn’t have noticed had I not seen Eddie first. Pryor wears a black shirt
under his red jacket that matches his red pants and what I believe to be gold
shoes – doesn’t matter though because Pryor looks cool.
They both interact with the audience well: Eddie borrows a camera from an
audience member and takes some photos, and even tells a joke directly to a kid
who was brought to the show. Pryor’s whole show feels like a one-on-one with
the audience, his stage is close to the audience, and at one point he comes
down the steps and sits down almost square on with the audience, and at one
point an audience member calls out a bit of Pryor’s that they like and want him
to do, and Pryor acknowledges the request and does it. They both act out skits
and conversations between people (Eddie) and conversations between animals
(Pryor), showing off both their fantastic abilities to act and give each
character they’re doing a personality that makes the whole thing just that much
more entertaining.
Pryor of course has an ace hidden up his sleeve with the stories of his being
burned and having to go through recovery. As he points out in his show, people
were wondering what really happened, and he addresses it. It is an entertaining
and interesting look into the life of someone addicted to drugs that doesn’t
change the show or bring it down in anyway. The entire time he’s on stage Pryor
gives off the sense of cracking jokes with friends, and when he gets to the
heavy stuff, he keeps it funny by commenting on his experience, but also
serious with a few stories of how drugs were slowly taking over his life and
how others were noticing and trying to help. It makes the show a symbol of
Pryor’s return to comedy as well as a return to life. It is awesome to know how
far down he sank and then seeing him back on stage, performing, you can see how
far back he rose.
I may have fond memories of watching Delirious with Jason when I was a kid, but
I have much more fond memories of watching The Toy with my brothers, watching
Stir Crazy with Jason, and Brewster’s Millions, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and
Silver Streak on my own.
I did some research into the documentary before watching it
because it sounded kind of suspect. Like when you read an article or watch a
show thinking it’s going to take one slant and then it turns out to have a
totally different angle than what you thought.
I watched the preview for this documentary before
watching the movie, and my apprehension was reinforced. It sure seemed to me
that a lot of the people being interviewed in this poorly produced documentary
were of the mind that society has gotten the wrong impression about pedophiles!
Which is good to know, right? I instantly began to feel regret for all those
times I’d heard about an adult molesting and having sex with a child. Damn you
left-wing media for painting all pedophiles in a negative light! Damn you
advertising agencies for paying teen girls to be models and so in turn making
adult men molest and have sex with kids! I mean, how could one expect an adult
to NOT do it with all the advertising surrounding them daily?
Oh wait. Yeah, that’s right, because it’s not just illegal but also horribly
morally and ethically wrong on all levels of existence. Like, however many
parallel universes you can imagine there being, the one constant stretching
throughout them all is how wrong it is to have sex with a child.
With the understanding that this documentary will be horribly off the mark and
probably pretty offensive, I watched it. As much as my initial reaction to the
preview for the movie was one of repulsion, I couldn’t bring myself to really
denounce the documentary without seeing it.
Of course it wasn’t as bad as I had thought. It wasn’t like a pro-commercial
for pedophiles, and as dangerous as it is for me to say that the documentary
did have some interesting points after my rant, I will say that . . . well, it
had some interesting points.
First, a story: I was with my son’s pre-K class at the zoo this summer. I was
the only father in the group of moms, and the teacher told me that there was a
little girl in the class who is – for lack of a better word – a bit of a
“daddy’s girl” and I was warned that since I was the only guy in the group she
would probably be hanging out around me instead of the kids. No problem, I
said, but when the girl came up to me and took my hand and pretty much wouldn’t
let go the entire time, I felt extremely self conscious. Now of course I knew
there was no danger, but I also knew that no one else knew that. None of the
mothers knew me, and it may have been my imagination, but it seemed as the day
went on and the girl continued to hold my hand that a few of the mothers would
look away from my direction when I looked at them. I tried to get the girl to
play with the other kids, but she wanted to stay with me. Short of yelling at
her and pulling free and running from her while yelling how I wasn’t a pedo, I
didn’t know what to do but to keep holding the girls hand. The teacher was very
nice and would often walk with me and crack jokes about how she bet I was
having fun at the zoo and I’d laugh and then say to the little girl “Don’t you
wanna hold your teachers hand?” The little girl would simply say no and the
teacher would laugh and go check on the other kids.
Though it was uncomfortable, holding the girl’s hand and
having the moms keeping an eye on me, I need to be honest that were it my
daughter and another man, I’d WANT those moms to keep an eye on the guy who was
holding her hand. It’s the world we live in, as much as it sucks, it’s the way
it is. I may not like it, being a man and being scrutinized more for that fact,
but I totally and completely understand it. It’s because of the bad guys that
all guys are watched, so it is up to the good guys to change the world’s
perceptions – unfortunately it just seems like there are more bad guys (or the
bad guys are getting more notice) than good.
The documentary touches on stuff like that, how even with the rise of female
teachers having sex with young boys; it is still kind of creepier when it’s an
older guy with a young girl. The documentary talks about how some airlines will
not sit a child next to a strange man (I am okay with that and understand it),
while a strange woman is okay (not so sure about that. Haven’t women been known
to do bad things, even with kids, and even with kids that aren’t their own?);
and some daycares that allow fathers to drop the children off but not inside
the building (that’s a bit weird – if it’s true).
The documentary did dip into the art of blaming others for those who have sex
with teens, because of advertising, and genetics is why an older man has sex
with a teenage girl. I didn’t buy that at all. I know the legal age is like 16
or something, but even if it’s legal, I don’t see why one would want to try and
start a relationship with someone who has such a large age difference (and the
documentary states that a teen is attracted to an older man genetically for a
relationship, not just sex). Age may just be a number (as the creepy narrator
says at the end, which was just almost too gross) but it is also about
experience – experiences that prepare you for relationships with other people,
experiences that prepare you for love and loss, and eventually experiences that
make you bold enough to try and start a family and pass all that you have
learned from said experiences down to your children. You cannot do that within
a relationship between a 40 year old man and a 16 year old girl. What youcando is have sex and have fun and
pretend like age is just a number until it eventually becomes something more
than that.
It seems the documentary’s main point was a distinction between pedophiles
(attraction to kids before puberty), hebephiles (attraction to kids during the
age of puberty), and ephebophiles (attraction to kids after the age of
puberty). I’m not entirely sure why the distinction needed to be made. A kid is
a kid, no matter their age and no matter the name you give the man (or woman,
as the documentary pointed out) who is attracted to them and anyone who thinks
it okay is very wrong.
The documentary lost me around the time it felt the need to point out that
there are two different types of pedophiles; those who act on their urges and
those who don’t. A person who is attracted to little kids is a pedophile but that
doesn’t mean they’ll act on it, so based on that thinking there are acting
pedophiles and just pedophiles – or something like that – and eventually
pedophilia will be accepted just as homosexuality has steadily become accepted.
It actually makes that comparison, I’m not shitting you! The documentary is
flawed to say the least, and even at times offensive in its ignorance as to the
way the world works. It may never come right out and say its agenda is the
defense of pedophiles, but then again I don’t need to be told something is
complete shit to know that it is.
At the end of the documentary the narrator asks if all men are pedophiles, and
he says that according to the general interpretation of the word, when a guy
looks at a teen model and thinks she’s attractive, then yes, all men a
pedophiles. So obviously – wait, what? If I see a picture of a teen girl who is
on the cover of Vogue and think, she’s cute, I’m a pedo? If I buy a dress for
my daughter and shoes and a thing for her hair and she dresses up and I think,
man she is so beautiful, I’m a pedo? To be clear! When I look at Bradley Cooper
and I can ABSOLUTELY see why women find him cute, I’m – what? Gay? Or if I see
George Clooney (seriously, the guy just has the personality of an awesome guy
that goes so well with his looks) and again I can say without a doubt that the
man is attractive, that defines me entirely? I don’t even think society – for
the most part mind you, because sure there are some people who – would assume
that meant that I was gay? Nor would me thinking a cover girl is cute make me a
pedophile, not even by society’s take on it all.
I hated the documentary because it wasn’t good. The topic was obviously one
that inspired a mental discussion with myself, but the documentary is poorly done
and has the feel of ickyness – and that’s not from the topic, it’s from the
quality. The sound was at times distorted a bit, the video looked as though it
was recorded with a camcorder instead of a real camera, and I’m sorry but none
of the people interviewed seemed real. I honestly thought about looking in to
see if any of the doctors and scientists were real people because they just did
not sound like they knew what they were talking about, and that may be due to
the quality of the documentary. It just all had a staged feel to it that made
it just not good.
My
wife and I have a thing for found footage movies. They are, for the most part,
horrible. There are some that aren’t bad. I will always be a fan of the
original, the one that started it all, The Blair Witch Project. Of course found
footage movies were popular with the invention of the camcorder that any
average person could buy and film movies on. The Blair Witch Project was the
first to make it mainstream, but what it also did was utilize the internet as a
way of marketing and keeping up the illusion of the whole movie being found
footage. At the time there were some who believed it entirely because of the
back story and reports that showed up on the internet claiming to be real.
I Really Liked It
There are found footage movies that
are not completely horrible, and I can think of only one that is pretty good.
Barry Levinson’s The Bay is a movie that any person who is thinking of making a
found footage film should watch. The Bay is paced perfectly, and that is
something that is completely free and yet most people who make a found footage
film act as though creating steady pace
within their movie is way too expensive and they’d rather spend it on the
effects they’re gonna use for the last five minutes of the movie. The Bay may
have more production value than littler films but that doesn’t really show,
what shows more than anything is the acting and the story. I think the best
thing one could say about The Bay is that when you hear that Barry Levinson is
making a found footage film you are pretty certain his career is over, but when
you see the movie you see that he’s still making good movies. Sure it’s not his
best but it may not even be his worse either.
The Paranormal Activity movies
aren’t bad either. The first one was good, and though the rest have steadily
declined in quality, they are still movies that my wife and I check out and
enjoy watching how horrible the movies have become. We have started betting
each other on when a body is going to be thrown at the camera. The main reason
we continue to watch these movies is because – like The Bay – the camera is
usually pretty steady and not all herky jerky all over the place.
I Didn't Like It
The two Grave Encounters movies are
about the average of found footage movies. They’re bad, but bearable, opting to
let you get to know the irritating people who will be having the “grave
encounters” for over an hour, and then giving you the “grave encounters”
throughout the last few minutes of the movie. I am aware that the sarcasm did
not come through so let me be clear that these movies are more than dull and
then they end with something mildly interesting.
It’s the really bad ones that are
dull – spend too much time letting us get to know the characters – and then
they end with something that is supposed to be a surprise? A cliffhanger? Who
cares! If you’re going to show us over an hour’s worth of footage of these
people, then something pretty concrete had better happen to them instead of
leaving it all open. It’s such a waste of our time that it’s almost painful.
I Hated It
We anxiously checked out the V/H/S
movies, which sucked, and then the sequel, which surprise! Sucked too; and that
is a real testament to how horrible the stories are in the V/H/S movies because
all found footage movies waste so much time trying to create characters that we
should care about when the shit hits the fan, but we never do. The stories in
the V/H/S movies are short and still we don’t give a crap about them. To be
fair the V/H/S movies aren’t the worst because you can tell they got money, and
some of the stories have moments that are interesting, but all together as a
movie the stories are just not good and leave too much open. I like open
endings if the ending is a fair ending to the rest of the movie, but when you
have a movie that’s got tons of insane shit and then you end it without any
sort of explanation – well, that’s just lazy.
We even saw one found footage movie
that was streaming at the time, and I can’t recall the name of the movie, but
freaking Oliver Stone was in it. Seriously, and then I found out that his son
made the movie! This is no shit, and it was horrible! It’s gems like that which
make it totally worth our incessant viewing of any and all found footage
movies.
The found footage movie Evidence was
interesting because it wasn’t the usual plot. This time it was the police
searching through video evidence in the aftermath of one hell of a bad night
that left many dead and a few barely surviving. So that was a good thing, and
the cast was a good thing. The guy from True Blood and the mom from the Silent
Hill movies. Okay, we got some stars here, so let’s check it out. The opening
scene was interesting. The camera moving around the aftermath that is all
frozen in time meant that they had some money to throw at this movie, and then
once it starts going . . . well . . .
Without giving too much away I’ll
just say this movie sucked and you should not watch it. Trust me, the ending
was completely stupid and unbelievable, but the whole movie was like that. Too
much of the movie was watching the cops watch the found footage, which is worse
than watching it yourself! And the True Blood guy spouts awesomely horrible
technical jargon about enhancing, and zooming in, and cleaning up the video,
and stuff that – whether it’s real or not – just came off as so fake that it
was laughable, which is what my wife and I did during this movie – a lot.
No one puts Radha Mitchell in a movie this bad, and if you do you atleast make her the freaking star!
The people involved are so much
better than a movie like this, seriously. Though I haven’t seen the True Blood
guy in a movie or TV show that I’ve liked, I know the Silent Hill lady can act
and can pick great movies (Radha Mitchell will always be cool to me because she
was in Pitch Black and Henry Poole is Here – this movie, as bad as it was, did
not have her in it enough for me to hate her), but this movie
was a horrible waste of time. I can’t even think of a way for this movie to be
good because it just doesn’t have a story. The Tue Blood guy has a history that
is touched upon but has nothing to do with anything going on, nor does it
really have anything do with the investigation, and the Silent Hill lady
doesn’t even need to be in the movie which is a shame because she can be a good
actress when she has the right direction.
There are a number of found footage
movies streaming on Netflix, and though they mostly all reside in the horror
genre I’d suggest checking them out instead of this one. My wife and I were
anxious to see a found footage movie that was not the usual horror movie, but
this was bad enough that we really would rather have watched a bad horror found
footage than a horrible mystery found footage.
I have a friend who hates movies based on true stories, ever since he saw Fargo and found out it wasn’t really based on a true story, he sort of looked into other movies and found that most movies based on true stories are 99% made up. I can see his complaint – Texas Chainsaw Massacre, based on a true story, sure, but a story that has nothing to do with chainsaws – at the same time, life is very rarely as exciting as it is in the movies, and were something to stick to the truth, generally it’s gonna be pretty dull, and to that point it ain’t gonna sell many tickets – which is the whole point of making a movie.
I don’t look into the factual history of a movie I just saw that was based on a true story. I do enjoy when the movie uses actual footage throughout or at the end of the movie, a sort of acknowledgement or nod to those involved in the true story the movie was based on; also, there’s nothing like seeing pictures of the actual people the movie was based on and seeing how much they look nothing like the actors portraying them – kind of introduces the idea that a lot of the movie is better looking than the facts.
So Pain and Gain is based on / inspired by a true crime; what is fake and what is fact I have no idea but I bet it’s safe to say the more exciting moments, the funny moments, and possibly even the heartfelt scenes were all fake, does that make it a bad movie? My friend would say so. Why watch a movie based on a true crime when so much of the movie’s version of events turns out to be fake? Because I’m bored, because I don’t care? Take your pick.
This is a Michael Bay film, and though he gets a lot of crap for being an explosion happy director, if you’re looking for his usual style of over-the-top action you will be sorely disappointed. Bay has a flashy almost candy-colored style to his films that is unmistakable; a style that most consider a bad thing, but I say what’s wrong with candy? It’s like a sci-fi movie that’s all special effects (who really went to see Avatar for the story?); this is a movie that is all about colors, sexy women and insanely muscular men. It’s got something for both the husband and the wife, right?
My wife loves movies based on true crimes, and she loves Tony Shalhoub – she just hated this movie. Well, she left before more than five minutes had passed, so I’m taking that as a point for the hate column. She is not a fan of Bay’s movies, and obviously they’re geared more towards the stereotypical male, and though this is a tamer version of his regular movies (take that as a good thing or a bad thing), I loved it.
The movie had enough of Bay’s usual ingredients to keep my wife from being interested. The first problem she had was Mark Wahlberg doing sit-ups on the side of a building (because it looks cool I guess) and then Tony Shalhoub – while not the bad guy – was not a very likable person in the least, and she did not want that picture of Monk in her head, so she left, which meant I got to watch this on the computer with headphones. Normally the headphones are turned up for the action, but since there was none, this time I had it turned up for the music. I really really liked the music in this movie.
The opening music put me in the perfect mood to watch a movie like this, a movie of three guys, lacking in brains what they have in biceps, who are essentially tired of not having any money and turn to crime to make up for their lack of money. Of course it’s more than just money, they want to teach the spoiled rotten a lesson. The music perfectly captures the emotions of one who wants the best and goes about the wrong way to get it, and fails. If they did not show the cops arriving and Mark Wahlberg’s character running, and still played the music I would know exactly how things were going to play out. The music sets everything up. I was talking to my wife about the music and she said she didn’t remember any music, just the sit-ups and the cops showing up. I played her the opening again and she did not think the music was anything special, so there’s that, but I was surprised how moving the music was, as if Bay – knowing that he wasn’t gonna have explosions and special effects to get people in the seats, put all his effort into actually directing and finding good music for the movie.
The energy from the beginning is carried pretty much throughout the whole movie; it gets a bit slow towards the end but not so much that it’s a mark against it. The story is still interesting and the characters are . . . well, you can’t really root for them because the main characters are all bad guys, but I’ll be damned if Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson didn’t do a kick ass job of acting in this movie. I know, I know, hard to believe, but I’ll be honest, they did really good work. Mark Wahlberg did his best since Boogie Nights, and Dwayne Johnson did his best since ever. Dwayne Johnson just really seemed to be the character he was playing, sort of innocent in many ways but fully aware of the sort of damage he could do at the same time. There’s a point in the movie when Wahlberg is yelling at Johnson to do something and Johnson really does not want to do it, doesn’t even think he can, but he does it anyway and it was really sad seeing the pain in his eyes as he was doing it. It was a moment of good acting – I thought.
Also the narration helped with the characters. Narration is normally a nuisance and basically a crutch that the guy writing the story is using to get points of the story across without having to really show us, but here the acting was so well done by everyone involved in the movie that when they narrated a moment or two it wasn’t being used to convey something we weren’t already seeing, it was there as though they were talking to us, explaining themselves and even at times defending themselves. The narration wasn’t important to the movie or the story, but having it there wasn’t distracting because the movie worked so well on its own.
I Liked It
My wife and I sat through The Frozen Ground, a Nicolas Cage and John Cusack movie based on a true serial killer in Alaska. This was a movie that I almost left about halfway through because it was so slow. I was expecting it to follow events through a large period of time, but instead it follows the events of the police trying to find enough evidence to charge the man they believe to be the killer. To me that just took some of the fun of the movie out of it. We know instantly who the killer is and so what we have is a movie about Nicolas Cage running around trying to get evidence and then trying to get things signed so he can search the killer’s house for evidence. Not really all that exciting, so like I said, I was ready to call it a night and head to bed, and I don’t know why I stayed, but I did, and I was pretty glad I did.
Nicolas Cage and I have a pretty good history. It comes down to the fact that I’ll watch anything with him in it, and I’ll enjoy it as well. Whether he’s the insane Nicolas Cage or the weird one, or the calm one, I love watching him. I wish he’d make more big budget movies, movies that would help his career, but at the same time I love that he keeps making movies like this – movies that don’t get a lot of attention and end up streaming on Netflix in no time, which means I get to see them quicker than I would were they big budget movies. So I’m torn in my rooting for Nicolas Cage’s career, but oh well.
I am not a fan of John Cusack. I thought he was funny in the early 80’s movies, and he was fine in Con Air and The Grifters was so great it pretty much made me want to see any movie he ever does, but The Raven was so horrible that it did what I thought was impossible, and that was make me go back and look at previous movies he’d been in, and when I did I saw that he wore the same flaccid face for all of them. The guy cannot act, at all. For all the craziness that Nicolas Cage does, and then he does cool quite and calm movies, the guy has range – John Cusack does not, he is the same always.
My wife argues with me on this because she watched The Paperboy, a movie streaming on Netflix that I have not seen yet. She said he was good in that movie, but The Raven was so bad that I find myself wanting to stay away from movies with him in it.
The only saving grace is that he is not in The Frozen Ground much, so I stuck with it, even though I felt it was a bit too slow and boring. Then he does show up, and though it wasn’t enough to change my attitude towards the man, it was enough to change my attitude towards the movie. John Cusack did a great job of acting when his character becomes a more central point to the story, I was genuinely surprised at his portrayal of the killer, his emotionless face now had a reason behind it – but then at the end, when the rage seeps out, was really amazing.
I blame my lack of interest in John Cusack to even see the possibility of this movie being a slow burn movie, I just thought it was a dull movie, but when Cage and Cusack square off at the end, it was good, almost interesting. A bit too much like the last five minutes of a Criminal Intent episode, but The Frozen Ground was a fine movie and good step for me to becoming a fan of John Cusack again, though I don’t really hold much hope of that happening any time soon.
Sanctum
probably looked pretty good on an IMAX screen in 3D. I watched this movie on my
Vita with headphones, so needless to say the experience for me was a bit
different from someone who saw it on an IMAX screen – right? I mean, the movie
itself didn’t really need to be in IMAX or in 3D and I’ll prove that when I say
that by the end (while watching it on my Vita) I thought it was a pretty good
movie.
Yes there were scenes that in 3D and
on an IMAX screen would probably have been awesome to see, but I feel that it
would have done very little for the story. I saw the last Batman movie on IMAX
and it was still not as good as the previous two movies that I saw on regular
screens. I saw Prometheus on IMAX in 3D, and yes there were some parts where
the 3D was very cool, but those moments did nothing for the story.
I remember seeing previews for
Sanctum when it came out and I remember talking to my friend Mike (the guy who
doesn’t like movies based on real crimes) and he thought it looked cool and we
both talked about how it would be worth seeing it on the IMAX screen and in 3D.
Of course it wasn’t, though, because we never did it. Do you have any idea how expensive
those movies are?
Anyway, I wasn’t really too into
Sanctum at the start. It kind of reminded me of a movie that would have come
out in the early 90’s. Now a lot of good movies came from them, but in my
comparison this movie would not be one of those.
Everything you think will happen,
does; to the point that I truly believe one could keep the movie playing and
walk away so that you couldn’t see or hear it for like five or ten minutes, and
when you come back you’d know exactly what was going on. It’s obvious that the
time and energy spent on this movie was on the 3D and IMAX stuff, and not the
story. The acting was okay, but nothing to pay IMAX prices for.
The one good thing about the movie
is the father and son, who are together a lot for the movie but don’t really
click until the end, and then the movie got good! I was surprised at how
emotional it was and had the movie managed to muster that kind of stuff up for
more than just the end of the movie then it wouldn’t be that bad of a movie.
Unfortunately it’s only at the end
of the movie that the actors seem comfortable as the characters they are
playing and the story has a touching and emotional end that – though it doesn’t
end the way I wanted it to (which means the way it should have) – was a
surprise when the rest of the movie was so dull and predictable.
