Movie Backlog

So I have been a bit remiss in keeping up with what I have been doing, pop culturally speaking. This has been partially out of laziness, and partially because I wanted to keep Pat O'D's amazing review of Fifty Shades of Grey on top as long as can be. But, I have gotten backed up on the things I have been watching. Yes, watching. There will be more books to come, I am reading a couple long ones at the same time right now. I am sure everyone is on the edge of their seat for me to get to them.

Haywire (2012) (28/50 movies)

I thought this was a new little, compact action/revenge movie from Steven Soderbergh. I like Soderbergh working outside of his comfort zone, somewhat. I also really liked Dave Holmes' jazzy score, which happened to work well, even though, at times it seemed incongruous with what was going on. Of course, there was nothing but natural sound when Gina Carano has to beat down an enemy. Gina Carano is the real revelation here, I think, she has a presence and a natural athletic ability, and being an MMA fighter in real life, can really make these moves. She plays a private-security(?) agent who is betrayed by her superiors and goes through everyone involved, looking for who decided to have her killed. I'm not sure about her actually acting ability, but I mean, when you can pull off what she can pull off and make it look good, it probably doesn't matter. In that way, if she keeps getting the right parts she could become the female Jason Statham. In fact, find a way to put them in a  movie together, it would be great.

Juice (1992) (29/50 movies)

I can't believe I hadn't seen this movie before. I am not sure how I had escaped it. But I was glad that I rectified it. I mean in the first three minutes it started with Rakim's classic them "Juice" then when Omar Epps steps into the shower he cranks up Big Daddy Kane's "Nuff Respect". Consider my mind blown. This was interesting because it seemed like it was much more hip hop related then other movies like it at that came out at the time, Omar Epps plays "Q" who is trying to make it big as a DJ. What happens as that he and is friends fall into a world of crime that they aren't ready for, but feel like it is the only way to survive where they are living. Of course it made me think of Tupac, who plays one of Q's friend but also, SPOILER, eventually becomes the villain. And he is so good here, and so magnetic, and if given time he would have only gotten better. He could have been a better double threat than even Will Smith because Tupac wouldn't have been afraid, maybe, to take the harder and more challenging roles. But unfortunately Tupac's life sort of sadly ended up mirroring what goes down in Juice and that's waaaay too many "could'ves" for a young life to have.

Tiny Furniture (2010) (30/50 Movies)

I've started watching Lena Dunham's Girls on HBO and, at first, I really disliked it. But after going back and having a marathon of the episodes that had since come out after the original, I found that my original idea about the show was wrong, and now you can count me as a Lena Dunham fan. I feel like her writing is really good, and in some ways, I feel like she is really brave, especially with what she does with her body onscreen. Luckily, Tiny Furniture happened to be On Demand for free so I thought I would check it out. I enjoyed it for the most part, but I can see this as her first feature, which it was and a precursor to Girls. It covers the similar ground: college graduate comes home and has to deal with life after college, basically. But in Tiny Furniture she comes home to her Mom and her Sister (her real life Mom and Sister in her Mom's real-life apartment) Mom is a NY artist (as she is in real life), while on Girls her character is on her own in Manhattan. I still like her writing, but I found that this movie did not have a lot of narrative momentum. But then I thought that that was perhaps by design. Personally, my year after I graduated college was one of the hardest years of my life, when I often felt like I was treading water and had no real idea what was going on, even though I was in graduate school and living on my own. I feel like that is sort of why there is no real narrative momentum, because it reflects that feeling of all of a sudden realizing you have no real clue what is going on. But I do feel like this has become sharper on Girls but to see where Lena Dunham started, writing-wise is pretty interesting.

Everything Must Go (2010) (31/50 Movies)

Well, definitely the most melancholy performance by Will Ferrell in a story taken from a Raymond Carver short story. Will Ferrell plays an alcoholic whose life pretty much collapses in the span of a day, and then he has about 5 days to try and get it together. Sort of. I never read the short story it was based on so I can't comment about how that ended,  so I am not sure if the movie ending was similar, but I can say that I was glad about how it ended, it went one way and then through me a curveball. And it didn't end in a triumphant way either, but still it suited the rest of the story. And I thought Ferrell acquired himself well in a mostly dramatic role. I also thought Christopher C.J. Wallace did a good job as the boy that he befriends during this week. If that name sounds familiar it is because he is the son of Christopher Wallace AKA Biggie Smalls AKA Notorious B.I.G. and he uncannily looks and sounds like his dad. I thought he was really good and hope that it leads to more for him. That's him below:

-Kevin

Use Your Illusionist: Gina Carano, At Home

At Home – Bill Bryson (Book 5 of 25)

One of the rules of the challenge is if a book is 500 pages, it can count as two. Well consider this a tactical error. At Home, coming in at 452 pages, just misses the cut. It was a MONSTER. I had a crink in my neck last weekend so I pretty much sat around and read this for 8 hours a day, and it still took me a week. Although my pace became glacially slow once I went back to work.

All that said, with Bill Bryson writing, you know this shit will at least be interesting, even if it’s a history of the home and domesticity. Yeah, it sounds boring, who wants to know the history of the dining room? But Bryson always asks interesting questions that lead to a greater story. For example: of all the flavorings and spices in the world, why did the West settle on salt and pepper? Turns out the salt and pepper trade have a pretty violent history, replete with intrigue, colonial brutality and high sodium content.

Unfortunately, the book’s particular focus is on Britain in the Victorian period, which I could give fuckall about. How shitty was the Victorian era? You have the Industrial Revolution in its laissez-faire glory, with kids working 16 hours a day and everyone getting a single day off a week, if they were lucky. People were regularly dying of cholera, amongst other preventable diseases. Of course, the upper classes totally shat on the poor, saying they were responsible for their own ills.

Why are people so obsessed with this time? Why all the costume dramas and period pieces that show shitass nobility and their lives? All I know is that my ancestors were barely clinging to life as tenant farmers in the motherland, along with millions of my other Irish brothers and sisters, many of whom died of hunger in a famine where their country was EXPORTING food. Fuck that noise.

So anyway…the book was long, but good, although I’m not in a rush to read it again. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to move on from the Victorian era.

Movies:

The Illusionist (Movie 7 of 50)

Except I decided to watch the Illusionist, which meant I was stuck it that time a little bit longer. Yeah, yeah, I know. Technically it’s probably not Victorian because A) it’s not England and B) I think it takes place a bit after her death. But close enough. I do think it’s kind of funny that two magician movies that took place in the late 19^th/early 20^th century were released in the same year, 2006. I still think the weirdest example of something like that is when they released two films about Steve Prefontaine, a runner who never even got an Olympic medal, at the same time (although Without Limits is seriously dope).

I really didn’t know what this one was about beforehand, only that it had magick! When it turned out to be a period piece, I almost shut the damn thing off. However, since I have no friends and had nothing else to do, I decided to watch the entire thing. My complaining aside, the movie was solid. I’m always a fan of Ed Norton and Paul Giamatti is regarded as a great character actor, although I’m not smart enough to really say that with authority and will only parrot the sentiment. For a movie that took itself so seriously I had to suspend logic (and disbelief) a little more than I would have liked. But shit, it’s a movie about magick! Honestly, it felt like a Masterpiece Theater set in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I kept waiting for the pledge drive where they try to sell you some John Denver records.

Anyway, not in my wheelhouse, but not terrible. At least nobody died of cholera.

Haywire (Movie 8 of 50)

First off, this movie was ILLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!

Fucking finally! Due to the ridiculous embargo on the Santa Barbara area, I had to go to god damn Hollywood to see this one. Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, to be exact (thanks again, Santa Barbara!). I missed the first five minutes or so because the entrance to the actual movie theater is not at the famous façade area, but instead in the mall next door. Nevertheless, I paid my $13.75 (!!!!!!!) and settled in. I was kind of annoyed by a lady who was STANDING behind me making weird noises with her mouth for the first half of the movie, but she eventually sat her annoying ass down and stopped causing such a racket.

I must say I really enjoyed this flick and it’s always cool to see a chick who can actually kick some ass. It’s nice to have a woman who looks like she can actually do it, unlike the waifish Angelina Jolie and Milla Jovovich. Sorry ladies, I can’t take either of you seriously as athletes or ass-kickers. Gina Carano would woop your ass, straight up.

Then again, she is a former champion cage fighter.

Speaking of which, this had some of the coolest fight scenes I’ve witnessed, with some truly graphic shit mixed with some ill-ass acrobatics, but not in that corny ass Matrix or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon way. I guess it was sort of like the Bourne movies, but 70 percent as intelligent. Which is totally fine with me. I also have to Gina her props. Besides delivering some of the coolest moves I have ever seen during a fight, her acting wasn’t terrible. Not that she had to do much, but still.

Full disclosure: I find her quite alluring and her looks definitely won’t be a hindrance in Tinsel Town. Whether or not she has a long career, nobody knows. But she has some pieces in place to play some fun action roles. Gina, you could definitely holla at me anytime. As long as you don’t put me in armbars.