Manic Movie Madness Spectacular Bam Wow!

Because I waited too long after seeing most of these movies to write a review, I really can't remember many details about them (or I just don't have much to say about them in the first place). Therefore, I'm gonna get them all out of the way all together as... Manic Movie Madness Spectacular Bam Wow!

The Title: Paprika. 

The Skinny: After so much hype, I was expecting something mind-blowing. Instead, it's just relatively weird, confusing, sometimes pretty, but mostly strange.

The Score:

Feed Me, Seymour!

The Title: Kamikaze Girls. 

The Skinny: Think what would happen if you mixed Amelie with Ghost World (with a tone closer to the former). It's humorous, though not laugh-out-loud funny. There are some good visuals, though nothing mind-blowing. The movie is more character-driven than plot-driven. It lost my attention around the 2/3s mark, but got it back soon thereafter. Overall, a pretty good movie. 

The Score:

I Am McLovin!

The Title: RocknRolla. 

The Skinny: It's Guy Ritchie... what do you expect? It's fast-paced and sometimes difficult to follow. Though sometimes it felt like Burn After Reading with the pointlessness of it all. Or maybe I just wasn't grabbing the plot very well, which is likely (I had some difficulties following Ritchie's Snatch, as well). 

The Score:

I Am McLovin!

The Title: Heathers. 

The Skinny: Incredibly dated, but still a really good movie. The acting between Winona Ryder and Christian Slater (especially Slater) is fantastic, though Slater does drift into Jack Nicholson territory from time to time. Though the movie has one of the coolest (albeit a bit unrealistic) endings ever. My only major gripe is that the editing of the film felt choppy and rushed at times, and half the time I expected something to be a dream sequence, but it wasn't (which, to me, isn't a good thing). But still a really fun movie. 

The Score:

A Keanu 'Whoa'

The Title: Mind Hunters. 

The Skinny: I've been wanting to see this film for a few years now, though now I'm not sure why. The idea is a good one, but it just doesn't pull itself off in my opinion. There are a couple fun scenes, but the others are negated by the fact that the characters are supposed to be these smart profilers, yet act like some horror movie idiots. Not to mention the ending makes no sense whatsoever. They try to pull a double-twist that totally backfires because it's completely illogical in its execution. 

The Score:

Feed Me, Seymour!

The Title: The Onion Movie. 

The Skinny: Some funny moments, some 'okay then...' moments. The movie is basically long string of skits, about half of which involve running gags throughout. And then that half culminates together for a pretty fun ending. Otherwise, it's just a pretty decent comedy movie (if you can really call it a movie). 

The Score:

I Am McLovin!

The Title: Midnight Movie. 

The Skinny: Besides the fact that this movie had a useless appearance by the actress who played Daphne on Heroes, the movie was pretty much a waste of time. Most horror movies, even ones with 'unkillable killers' (Jason, Freddy), have rules to follow where the good guys can still win or get an upper hand. This one keeps making rules, changing them, and refusing to make up its mind on how the killer works. And in the end, they really do make an 'unkillable killer', which is pretty lame when it comes to horror movies. Oh, and of course, you don't really care about any of the characters... and it's likely that the one you want to die because of annoyances is the one who actually lives. 

The Score:

The Zed Word

The Title: Beowulf. 

The Skinny: In a movie with monsters, dragons, and a naked Angelina Jolie, you wouldn't expect to be so bored. The first half of the movie was drug out unnecessarily. And the random use of Old English was just weird. I like Crispin Glover, but I hated this movie's portrayal of Grendel. Totally unmenacing, and even marginally annoying. Grendel's mother was better, though, thankfully. And the dragon bit was really cool, though the way Beowulf takes it down doesn't make any sense (Spoiler: If he couldn't reach the heart with the extended reach of a sword, how the hell does he reach it with his bare hand?). Brendan Gleeson's Wiglaf was the best performance in the film, I thought. And his animation seemed to be the best. While on the subject, sometimes the animation was really good, and sometimes it just looked like crap. Oh, and "I. Am. BEOWULF." is equally as stupid in the context of the movie as it was in the trailers. 

The Score:

Feed Me, Seymour!

The Title: Knowing. 

The Skinny: Not Nic Cage's best film, but certainly not his worst. It had some good suspenseful moments and some decent CGI (some better than others, though). The 3 minute long shot is pretty cool, too. Though the son's need of a hearing aide was pointless, as he could still hear and speak just as well without it as he did with it. I'm not sure if I liked the ending, though. I went into the movie expecting a supernatural thriller, and only in the final act do you realize it's an apocalypse film... which totally changes the mood of the whole thing. It just kinda leaves you with a "well... that was pointless" feeling at the end. Still, the majority of it is entertaining enough. 

The Score:

I Am McLovin!

The Title: Fanboys. 

The Skinny: Mildly entertaining, though never really laugh-out-loud funny. Kristen Bell is hot, though, even as a brunette. Some fun Star Wars parallels. Decent acting all around. Though the film relies a bit too much on dramatic irony (where the audience knows something the characters don't), specifically that Episode 1 is bad. 

The Score:

I Am McLovin!

Manic Movie Madness Spectacular Bam Wow!

Because I waited too long after seeing most of these movies to write a review, I really can't remember many details about them (or I just don't have much to say about them in the first place). Therefore, I'm gonna get them all out of the way all together as... Manic Movie Madness Spectacular Bam Wow!


The Title: The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The Skinny: I finally got around to just sitting down and watching this. They say you have to not only go in open minded, but have an acquired taste for it. I'm about as open-minded as they come, I love musicals, and I do love me some camp... but apparently I don't have the acquired taste. Tim Curry was excellent. But I didn't care for the music at all, with the exception of "Time Warp." Repo! The Genetic Opera is compared a lot to this film, but I suppose only in that it's a musical that one must be open minded about. And it has a cult following. Needless to say, I much prefer the quite excellent Repo! over this (nothing against you fans out there! Don't hate me).

The Score:

The Zed Word



The Title: Interstella 5555.

The Skinny: It's only an hour long, but feels longer. It's basically a long music video for Daft Punk. Because of this, there's no dialogue, as the whole movie is a string of their songs put together one story. It's a great concept. If you like Daft Punk, I'd suggest at least one viewing. I like Daft Punk, but apparently not enough to want to watch this again. The animation was decent, though the story was hard to follow at times. And it did get a bit boring after a while.

The Score:

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.



The Title: Film Geek.

The Skinny: This movie had so much potential, but ultimately falls flat. The movie is about an uber-film geek who gets fired from his rental store job for being annoying. He ends up meeting a girl who apparently likes movies on his own level, but not in his obsessed way. Of course, he gets obsessed over her and basically stalks her. There were some really funny moments, especially in the first act before he's fired. But there's no redemption to the character. This movie tries to be Napoleon Dynamite for film buffs, but the one liners aren't funny half the time. And you mostly find yourself as annoyed with the main character as the supporting cast does. And as I said, there's no redemption. The movie goes nowhere. Nobody learns any lessons. It's just... over.

The Score:

Feed Me, Seymour!



The Title: Gray Matters.

The Skinny: I really like Tom Cavanaugh, and I think he's vastly underrated. Unfortunately, this movie hardly focuses on him. Instead, it focuses on Heather Graham's character, Gray, who realizes she's falling in love with her brother's (Cavanaugh) new wife. This movie tries so hard to be quirky and original, and it shows. It tries too hard, and I think that's why it fails. There's one scene I really liked, but otherwise, the movie as a whole is rather 'bleh'. It's a romantic comedy without the romance. Or the comedy.

The Score:

Feed Me, Seymour!



The Title: Howl's Moving Castle.

The Skinny: Yet another Miyazaki. It came on IFC (or some similar channel), so while it was uncut and without commercial interruptions, it was the dubbed version. Luckily, one of the voice actors is Christian Bale, and another is Billy Crystal, so it's really not that bad. The beginning drags a bit up until Howl is shown to us for the first time, though unknowingly. The movie plays with a lot of great ideas, probably coming from the book it's based on. Though it does have its flaws. First, it seems like (due to Miyazaki's involvement) the movie is British-based with some strange Japanese influences (like the book is British, but Miyazaki tries to alter it for the anime). It feels strange at times. And it's never explained why the main character is constantly shifting in age throughout the film (there are quite a few things not explained). For the majority of the movie, though, I was at least enjoying it... until the ending. The ending is so rushed and awful, it's like they ran out of budget and realized they still needed to resolve every single character in the film, so they had to do it all within a 3 minute time frame. It was such a piss-poor way of doing it, that it made me really dislike the rest of the film (of which I was already only slightly above-average' on). I've seen better from Miyazaki, though I've seen worse.

The Score:

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.



The Title: The Gamers.

The Skinny: This is the original short film that the recently reviewed The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is a spin-off from. While there are a few who liked this short film better than Dorkness, the vast majority saw Dorkness as a vast improvement. I'm with the latter. The idea is very similar to Dorkness, though. The Gamers takes place almost entirely in the fantasy world and doesn't focus much on the outside lives. Overall, I didn't really laugh much (maybe once) at this one. It just seemed to fall flat for me. There were some good ideas, but they weren't executed very well, in my opinion. Most of my issues stemmed from the characters over-explaining everything, as if they were afraid their audience wouldn't get it. One idea I do wish they would have expanded on and done again in Dorkness (though done it a bit better than in this) was the idea of what to do with a character whose gamer isn't present. I liked how, in the fantasy world, the character just stood there until the guy would show up. And then the idea of the DM taking over the character, etc. If done right, it would have been a hilarious bit. But alas, I didn't really care much for this one. Still, check out Dorkness. You won't regret it.

The Score:

Feed Me, Seymour!


The Title: The Happiness of the Katakuris.

The Skinny: This movie is f**king weird. I'm tempted to leave my review at that, but I'll explain. This movie is a dark comedy musical directed by Takashi Miike. Let me explain that for those who don't realize what I just said. Takashi Miike is known for making some of the most brutual horror films in Japan (Audition, for instance). This is a (darkly) comedic musical. This would be the equivalent of having Clive Barker directing Mary Poppins or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. There is so much strangeness surrounding this movie, it would take me ages to discuss. In fact, I almost wrote a "WTF Did I Just Watch?" for this movie, but it's so sporadic and bat-shit crazy that I wouldn't have been able to talk about it in any linear fashion. I think an entire movie made up of the "bowling daydream" from The Big Lebowski would have made more sense.

The Score: Are you kidding me? I can't score this.

Manic Movie Madness Spectacular Bam Wow!

Because I waited too long after seeing most of these movies to write a review, I really can't remember many details about them (or I just don't have much to say about them in the first place). Therefore, I'm gonna get them all out of the way all together as... Manic Movie Madness Spectacular Bam Wow!


The Title: Daywatch.

The Skinny: Talking about the sequel to Nightwatch (the Russian film, not the Ewan McGregor film). It was quite the mind trip, and I loved what they did with the subtitles. The action was fun and imaginative. But outside that, much like the first, it was confusing and not very memorable.

The Score:

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.



The Title: How To Lose Friends & Alienate People.

The Skinny: My love of Simon Pegg seems to have some limits. He did brilliantly well in this role, but the movie itself just wasn't all that and a bag of chips... or something. It's a movie about a dispisable guy. Well... what do you think reactions are gonna be? I didn't hate it. I just didn't love it.

The Score:

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.



The Title: Funny Games U.S.

The Skinny: I was incredibly torn on this movie. I wanted to like it, but... couldn't. It was just self-indulgant crap. And it has to be one of the most boring thrillers ever. The Strangers was better than this, and I hated that movie, too. Though I did like the random breaking of the fourth wall (oddly, those are the parts most people hate the most).

The Score:

The Zed Word



The Title: In The Mouth Of Madness.

The Skinny: Imagine if Stephen King had the rabid fan base of JK Rowling x2 (he has an enormous fan base, of course, but I wouldn't call them as fanatic as JKR's). And then imagine if John Carpenter made a movie about it and how all of King's books were real. This movie was just plain weird. Not necessarily scary. Just weird.

The Score:

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.



The Title: Death Note & Death Note II: The Last Name.

The Skinny: I put these two together mostly because they're just two parts of the same movie. Based on the incredibly popular and incredibly brilliant Japanese manga and anime, these give us a live action view of the story. An like most adaptations, they don't even come close to living up to the source material. They have their moments, of course, but the source material is just too intricate to fully capture it in a 2.5 hour movie (even split up into two 2.5 hour movies). I am glad that they removed the last part of the story after the 5 year jump or whatever, and just stopped it at the end of the Light vs. L battle of wits. And L was at least done well (he was even played by the same guy who did the voice in the Japanese anime). But the story was too crammed, too much was changed (and not all for the better), and the CGI was God-awful. Hopefully the American remake is better (ha... who am I kidding?).

The Score:

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.



The Title: Sex Drive.

The Skinny: Some really funny parts, particularly with Seth Green, but overall just a convoluted mix of stupid. It tried to do way too much and often didn't make sense. And the director's cut, though funny in idea, is even worse (it throws in randomly naked people just walking about, as well as obvious mixes of alternate takes and bloopers). This was a movie that really could have been whittled down into something a bit more coherant.

The Score:

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.



The Title: Graduation.

The Skinny: This was a great little heist film. I would have liked a little more character development with one or two of the characters, and perhaps a less cheesy ending. But overall, it was a really smart and fun heist movie.

The Score:

I Am McLovin!



The Title: Dancer in the Dark.

The Skinny: Ugh... how did this movie win all those awards again? The opening sequence should have warned me (3 minutes of weird crap). The majority of the first 40 minutes is boring as hell... because that's how long it takes to actually get to the musical aspect of this supposed musical. And when it finally did get to the music, I wanted to claw my eardrums out. The music and the "singing" was just terrible... not that you could understand half of what they were saying. I actually turned the movie off... and I never do that... about halfway through the third musical number (which is a little past the halfway mark of the film). I'll say that I appreciate what the movie was trying to do, and I appreciate the actual lyrics of the songs... but the delivery of everything was just an epic fail. But none of the characters are sympathetic except maybe Peter Stormare. It was just... ugh.

The Score:

She's Gone From Suck to Blow!



The Title: 16 Blocks.

The Skinny: Great thriller... but wtf was Mos Def thinking doing that voice throughout the movie? That was really the only major downfall of the film, I thought. You get used to it after a while, but I can imagine a lot of people would turn off the movie before waiting long enough to actually get used to it. So yeah, if you can get past Mos Def's nasal voice of doom, you'll have yourself a pretty good little thriller.

The Score:

I Am McLovin!

Manic Movie Madness Spectacular Bam Wow!

NOTE: This post is in both the MOVIES and TV sections because of a mix of MST3K and regular movies.

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Also known as "I've been too lazy to write some reviews for a while, so now I've gotten to the point where I've seen a bunch of movies through Netflix but haven't gotten around to reviewing them because I'm lazy and now I'm getting redundant." But I thought that was a bit long. And redundant. So I figured I'd mesh them all together here in one very short, to-the-point review post. Okay, and so I only have three this time, but if I ever do this in the future, there will probably be more.

While I'm at it, I'll let you know of some other reviews I have planned to give in the future... a TV Review of all 3 seasons of Dexter, a 2 In 1 for Son of Rambow and Driving Lessons (the latter of which I've owned for a while, but thought it felt appropriate to pair with the former), and most probably a review of Amelie, which I'm finally going to be getting around to seeing. Anywho, let's get on to the reviews.


The Title: Mystery Science Theater 3000: Hobgoblins.

The Skinny: Funny in some parts. Only slightly humorous in others. Kept me entertained.

The Score:

I Am McLovin



The Title: My Name Is Bruce.
The Skinny: Great fun. Nice homages. Very cheesy/classic Bruce Campbell. Sometimes tries a bit too hard. For Bruce Campbell fans only.
The Score:

I Am McLovin



The Title: Mystery Science Theater 3000: "Manos" The Hands of Fate.

The Skinny: Freakin' hilarious. For the first time in my life, I nearly almost peed myself because I was laughing so hard at a movie. I actually got so tired of laughing by the end that I nearly felt like turning it off because I didn't want to laugh any more. However, the in-between skits were, as usual, a bit on the lame side. But that can't detract from the overall hilarity.

The Score:

Royale With Cheese

(P.S. I was very tempted to use a picture of the creepy sales dude holding a Sham Wow from the Sham Wow commercials for my picture... but I didn't).