Pat's Twitter Reviews: 50 movies/25 books - Part 2

Well, your boy Perspicacious P aka Vanilla Thrilla aka YUNG DOSTOYEVSKY back again with Part 2 of the 2014 Twitter-length reviews. 

 Like Depeche Mode once said, "I just can't get enough":

26: Pacific Rim: Robots fighting space alien sea monsters? Sounded like a boring mumblecore indie flick but I liked it nonetheless. 

27: Lee Daniels' The Butler: Obvious Oscar bait, but still a great movie. The only people that didn't like it are cynical assholes, unlike me, an eternal optimist. 

28. Ironclad: Movie about the Knights Templar or some old shit and a rather odd place to find Paul Giamatti as a king, right? 

29. Enough Said: Last role for Gandolfini and he knocked it out of the park. Sweet story about puppy love in middle age and the complications it can bring.

30. Blue Jasmine: I hated Cate Blanchett's character so much that it ruined the movie for me. Unsurprisingly, Andrew Dice Clay was its moral center.

31. Gravity: Space in 3D and shit. Incredibly beautifully shot movie. Great year for Sandra Bullock.

32. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: Interesting, if heavy handed, take on Immanuel Kant's Metamorphosis and Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf. German philosophy is never easy. 

33. The Counselor: Holy shit this movie was terrible. Except when Cameron Diaz fucks a car. Actually, that was even more terrible. 

34. Before Midnight: Best movie of the year. Best couple fight I've ever seen on-screen. It erodes the myth of "Happily Ever After."

35: Free Birds: Revisionist take on European colonialism in North America, heavily influenced by Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".

36. Slap Shot: Cynical, chauvinistic and not very funny, except for the Hanson brothers, who were transcendent. They should make a movie about just them.

37. Frozen: Modern adaptation of Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women. The interpretation of the class issues is a bit reductive.

38. Inspector Gadget: This was terrible. Wish I could unsee it, like every time I go to 4Chan.

39. Homefront: Kept calling this Homeland to my friends. Despite this, James Franco's facial expressions make the movie worth watching.

40. Hunger Games: Catching Fire: It was a mistake going into this thinking I was seeing the sequel to Silver Linings Playbook.

41. Chopper: Incomprehensible Aussie accent by Eric Bana and low budget production. Kept waiting for him to put a shrimp on the barbie.

42. Anchorman 2: Unfunny + too long. 2nd worst movie of 2014. The good news is that there wasn't an annoying marketing blitz before it was released.

43. Elysium: Good Will Hunting in outer space and shit. 

44. Computer Chess: Interesting enough oddball movie. Didn't really 'get' it although it appeared on a lot of year-end lists. Then again, I'm not that smart.

45. Italian for Beginners: Danish movie about people falling in love in their 30s and not annoying about it. Why they didn't just talk English is weird though.

46. 2 Guns: In this nuanced take on US-Mexico relations, Denzel and Marky Mark shoot and kill every fucking living thing they see. 

47. Captain Phillips: 2nd best movie of the year although I advise against watching it with Thai subtitles superimposed over Chinese ones. My Somali isn't good.

48. Drumline: Pretty much the story of my undergrad years at UMass. 

49. The Wolf of Wall Street: Great movie, DiCaprio was on fire, but seeing shit like this is why the rest of the world hates us. 

50. American Hustle: Enjoyable caper flick and MY GOD AMY ADAMS. Bradley Cooper looks good in a perm as well.

That's the movies I saw in 2014. Some old, some new, all pretty decent except for The Counselor and shitass Anchorman 2. Maybe the director's cut will be the non-shitass version? 

Coming soon: my 25 books. They are things you read that aren't the internet.

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

Moving Pictures! I watched them so you don't have to.

Yo yo yo, everyone! This is your boy Perspicacious P aka the Vanilla Thrilla checking in again. I apologize for the long delay, but hustlin is a full-time job, I'm sure you all know about that. Stacking chips and paper can definitely cut into your blogging efficiency. There's a lot to write about, so I'm splitting it into two parts. First, the movies. Let's get our Roger Ebert on:

Act of Valor (Movie 9 of 50)

I thought this was movie was pretty ill, actually. I’ve read that it was originally conceived as a recruitment video for the Navy Seals, and it definitely has that feel. There’s one part where a guy is getting interrogated and the American tells the terrorist dude in the midst of everything, “You will be in a jail the rest of your life, and treated humanely, but you’ll never see the light of day”. It was an overtly self-aware move to prove just how humane these Seals can be. No breaching of the Geneva Convention here, fellas! But on the heels of what happened in Afghanistan, with that American soldier shooting up a bunch of Afghan villagers, we see that war sucks the humanity out of people and/or gives mentally unbalanced folks access to deadly weapons. In war, bad shit is always going to happen.

ANYWAYS I’m way off topic here. The action scenes are top-tier and you get a sense of how good these guys are at their jobs, as well as how much they have to sacrifice to do them. A lot is made of the conflict between being a soldier and having a family. If I was on the front lines, I don’t think I could conscionably have a family. I would hate to leave my loved ones twisting in the wind if I got killed or maimed. I guess all parties involved (well, the husband and wife, at least--the kids, not so much) know the deal going in, but everyone is still taking a huge chance.

The stars are said to be active-duty Navy Seals, and their sense of mission and their ruthless efficiency in carrying it out is transmitted on screen better than any other military movie I have ever seen. And they used live ammunition, w00t!

Although it is rah-rah America to some extent, it’s more an homage to a particular brotherhood (and sisterhood!) of soldiers than an apology or defense of American foreign policy. Say what you will, these guys give up a lot to do what they do and you have to have some respect for it, even if you don’t agree with how they are used.

OK I’m writing too much. Final thought: if you don’t mind a movie with stiff acting, great action and a bit of “America, Fuck Yeah!”, then you’ll like this.  

Safe House (Movie 10 of 50)

Bill Simmons said that Safe House is exactly what you would expect after seeing the trailer. What you see is exactly what you get. It was a solid movie with enough twists and turns to keep you interested throughout. It was well-acted by both Denzel and Ryan Reynolds, with Reynolds even throwing in a bit of Afrikaans in a couple of scenes. I know this is off topic, but am I the only one who thinks that Denzel plays more or less the same character in all his movies? Angry, sullen, incisive and confident. His character in Safe House was not far removed from his role in Training Day, which was not far from his character in Glory.

Now, I’m not hating here, it may be a narrow band of roles but he plays that band perfectly. I’m just saying he has no range, at least none that we’ve seen. He’s kind of like Kobe Bryant. Jason Whitlock wrote a great column this week about Kobe being a truly one-dimensional player. He doesn’t get assists or rebounds and hasn’t been a great defender in years. He doesn’t elevate the players around him in any way, unless being petulant and yelling at teammates when they fuck up counts as inspiration. But he is one of the greatest scorers of all-time. Denzel is like that. He has his thing and sticks with it. He makes it work and is even one of the all-time greats in that one regard, but he isn’t going to be doing comedy any time soon. Game respects game. As I once famously said, “Can’t knock the hustle.”

Morning Glory (Movie 11 of 50)

I live with a 60 year-old woman who told me to watch it because it was “Harrison Ford’s best role.” I thought this was high praise, especially since this is a movie I’ve never even heard of. Rachel McAdams, who I not-so-secretly would like to marry, stars as this neurotic workaholic TV producer in New York who gets fired from her job. Never fear however, she finds redemption through crusty old TV newscaster Harrison Ford. This was the type of movie where, if you know it is 90 minutes long, you keep looking at the clock to see how much of it you have left to watch. Rachel McAdams comes across as a grating, self-absorbed woman who cares way too much about her job for me to really care about her character. And I wish Hollywood would stop with the “super hot chick just can’t find a date” trope. Short, bald, hairy guys who are poor and have no friends can’t get dates. Hot chicks don’t have trouble finding men. The quality of men may be lacking at times, I’ll grant that, but the quantity is surely there. I’m positive my large and loyal hot female readership can attest to this. Anyway, this movie was solidly below average and I hope to never encounter it again. This is the type of movie they show on long bus rides in Spain, and I don’t mean that in a good way.

Grosse Point Blank (Movie 12 of 50)

There are fewer holes in my movie-watching resume than this. Let me explain. From about 12 or so, I wanted to be John Cusack. I saw Better Off Dead on TV one day and thought he was the coolest, funniest motherfucker on the planet, plus he got with a hot French chick. I then saw Eight Men Out and thought he brought the heat as one of the Chicago Black Sox, right at the time I was becoming obsessed with baseball. The role that really locked it for me was Say Anything. I wanted to be Lloyd Dobler. Shit, I still want to be Lloyd Dobler. He was smart, sensitive, cool, fun and genuine. He was the vulnerable one in their relationship. But he was a kickboxer, so he still retained masculine street cred. I wanted to be all those things. From that point on, I was down with John Cusack. For some reason, however, I just never got around to seeing Grosse Point Blank. I remember when it came out and saying, “Oh man, I gots to see this!” But I was probably depressed at the time because I was stuck at UMass-Lowell, aka Dante’s 4^th circle of hell. It became a 16-year black hole in the John Cusack canon for me.

So, there was a free screening of this movie at a local theater run by the university and off I went. They opened the show with trivia, where I won the Dawes CD by answering a question on how many movies John and Joan Cusack have starred in together. It’s eight, incidentally, but I actually didn’t know and just shouted a random number that happened to be right. BALLER! Then they showed the trailer for Pump Up the Volume(!!!), a movie they’ll be screening next month.

So was it worth waiting 16 years? Well, it was a fucking good movie man. The dialogue was funny in a detached, knowing, ironic way. Cusack is pretty much Lloyd Dobler if he grew up to be a hitman. The film also reminded me that I had a bit of a crush on Minnie Driver around this time, which is convenient since she is the main love interest and all. It also had an excellent soundtrack, which is not surprising because during trivia we found out that Joe Strummer was the one who compiled the songs. It was a nice touch in the high school when you see graffiti that read “The Future Is Unwritten.” The movie was about coming home and making amends for the wrongs you’ve done, and of course getting the girl in the process. Who wouldn’t want that? Well played, Mr. Cusack. Well played.

Perfunctory, Half-Formed Opinions on Movies and Books

OK OK OK. So it’s been awhile since I last blogged. In the interest of being a more regular contributor, or rather, a contributor at all, K-Diddy and me (or is it I), P-Phunk (aka Based Child aka The White Falcon aka Pusha P aka P Dilla aka The PZA aka The White Pterodactyl aka The Human Philosoraptor) have decided to embark on  the 25/50 challenge. This is a variation of the 50/50 Challenge, something on Facebook that calls on people to read 50 books and see 50 movies this year. Well, me and K-Dawg decided to twist it to our own needs and made it the 25/50 challenge. I hardly ever read, and when I do I am slow, so there’s no way I’m reading 50 books in a year. I don’t think I’ve read 50 in my life. Movies I can handle. But I’m going to review movies I have already seen, because I am lazy, whereas K-Dawg will not. Largely because he is a 1-Upper.

I will be keeping an Excel spreadsheet of everything, so you know this is some serious shit.

Before getting to my reviews, what’s with the holier-than-thou attitude of some people who read a lot? Oh, you read, please go on about how intelligent you are. Oh, you don’t own a TV, you must be so much more cultured than the rest of us. Please tell me more!

Well, hopefully I end up just like them. I can move to Portland, shop at Whole Foods, complain about Republicans and tell everyone I only eat organic food. Consider this a first step in that direction. Without further ado, here are P-Phunk’s book and movie reviews, all 120 words or less, for your pleasure! Enjoy!

The Grey

I actually wanted to see Haywire, but the shitass movie theaters up here of course didn’t carry it. You know, since we’re 90 miles from Hollywood and all. That would be far too much to ask. Desperate to get out of the house, I decide to see this, despite not caring about dogs or mountains particularly. Anyway, I enjoyed it. It was darker than I thought it would be, PLUS it had a wicked awesome plane crash scene…er…if you’re into that sort of thing. Remember, I was the guy who was disappointed when I found out Faces of Death was fake.

Contraband

I went into this with high hopes since it was Marky Mark and a heist, how could you go wrong? Well, although it wasn’t awful, it was really slow. I am not that critical of a movie watcher, but even for me it lagged. For a movie that took itself so seriously, some parts strained credulity. It would be worth seeing on DVD, but not forking over your hard-earned dollars at the cinema. But yea, I did. I really wanted to see Haywire, but of course it wasn’t playing, and I needed some excuse to get out of the house.  

War Horse

This movie was aaaaaaaiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhtttttt. I’ve never been a horse or animal person, so I’m never going to care as much about a horse as I am the millions of people who died in World War I. Not that I want to see horses killed by mechanical warfare, I’m just saying it’s never going to connect with me. I’m sure a lot of squirrels died in World War I and nobody’s made a movie about them. Why do horses get such exalted status?

Mission Impossible 3

Not much to say on this one. It’s the brainless action movie I have gotten into over the last year or so. It meets your expectations, no more, no less, and I’m just fine with that.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I actually saw the Swedish version with Spanish subtitles a couple of years ago when I was living in Spain (yes, I am better than you). I didn’t think the American version could match its brutality, but my homeboy David Fincher came correct. Rooney Mara did a great job inhabiting the role and Daniel Craig always puts in a good effort. I did think it weird that they sort of spoke with Scandinavian accents. Well, some of them did and some of them didn’t. And some began the movie with the accent and then lost it. Which made it weirder.

The Artist

I got around to seeing The Artist a bit late, thanks once again to the shitass cinemas here 90 miles from Hollywood. BECAUSE GOD FORBID YOU GET MILDLY ARTY MOVIES SO CLOSE TO LA. I think some of the critical praise is excessive. This is a nice novelty movie but nothing really, really amazing. Although I admit the lead guy, Jean Dujardin, was pretty brilliant. And I think I fell in love with the female lead, Berenice Bejo, as I am wont to do with French –Argentine girls. Then again, who couldn’t fall in love with them?

Book reviews! Or, Yes!, I Do Actually Read!

The Hunger Games

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It’s a book for 13 year-old-girls. But I saw the trailer for the movie and it looked pretty ill and I have no friends where I live so I needed something to pass the time. ANYWAY, the book is super tightly well-written and a fun read. You can tell it’s a bit of a chicklit book because there’s like 30 pages devoted to the girl’s clothes and wardrobe staff. It was tough to get through that, but let’s face it, 33 year-old dudes weren’t what she was after. Irregardless, it was a fun read and I’m pretty psyched to see the movie.

Catching Fire (Book 2 of the Hunger Games)

We’re back to seeing our intrepid heroine rage against the machine. It’s wack in that it repeats some of the same elements of the first book, but I still really liked it. Kind of like in Star Wars when they were writing Return of the Jedi and were like, “Let’s do the Death Star again!” It’s not terribly original, but it is good. Except for the Ewoks, but I didn’t think they were all that bad when I was a kid. Anyway, although there was too much talk once again in the book about dresses and shit, it’s still good.

The Professor and the Madman

This was an ill book. It’s about this schizo American guy who killed some random dude in London and then got locked away with those insane asylum cats. But he was hella smart and when those intellectual cats started to write the Oxford English Dictionary, he made literally thousands of contributions. I am a bit of a etymology and history dork, so this book was right up my alley. Although, it was a bit shocking when, out of nowhere, there’s 10 pages devoted to the American guy cutting his dick off. I’m not kidding.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen! Expect more literary and insightful reviews as the project moves forward. As always, it’s been a pleasure, and the pleasure’s all yours.

Made In Massachusetts

One thing, among many, that I find interesting about living in Massachusetts, particularly the Boston area is how amped people get when a movie is made in these parts. Probably because of the tax breaks offered by Massachusetts to people who want to come and make movies in the state, the amount of movies made in the area have been going up. I have to admit that I get swept up in the excitement, particularly when the movie is good (which, obviously, makes sense.) This Friday, The Town opens up and just had its premiere at Fenway. It was directed by Ben Affleck, another Massachusetts native, who made Gone Baby Gone here, and hopefully it will be as good as that. Its funny though, because I can bet that people in New York don't get this excited when a movie is made around town, or one is released that was made in the city. Because it pretty much happens all the time. I'm sure their heads would fall off being THAT excited all the time. Massachusetts can definitely be an odd place. I mean, I wonder if people (including me) will ever just become like New York citizens and a movie made in the area just becomes sort of commonplace. I sort of hope not because its kind of fun. And it is also fun to gripe later about how close the actors got to replicating the local accents.

And, it's not stopping. There's another coming out in December thats a true life story of a boxer from Lowell called The Fighter:

I think it looks good. And I think there is a wealth of interesting characters in stories here and in the whole Northeast. Just like any region, a certain type of, shall we say, character lives here. It's pretty specific and hard to explain. But a lot of characters in the above trailer, in the trailer at least, we'll see about the movie seems to inhabit that sort of character. Again, I am excited to see it. And can we just give Christian Bale some sort of special Oscar for putting on and taking off weight.


I have written a bit about this somewhere before. (Sure, go check out my back catalog, I'll wait....) I am quoting myself here, but not only Massachusetts: " I have been reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and have been wondering 1) Why has no one made that into a movie. Small colleges dotting the New England landscape have to be ripe for a lot of things-drama and horror being right up there. I mean look at what Lovecraft did. And 2) I guess my number 2 was in there but yeah...why not more films set in the Northeast, I feel like its ripe for these kinds of things, the Northeastern mentality and all, and hasn't been used to its full potential. Even watching Jaws the other night, and this might also be because of the good writing, I was thinking of this watching the cast of colorful characters, many who seemed uniquely New England, who filled out the town/island of Amity. Of course, it would probably take someone from the area to get it exactly right, I suppose, but that goes without saying."

-K

Welcome to Three tha Hard Way!

Let’s begin at the beginning.

One day I was having a debate with two of my friends on Facebook over whether or not the Beatles deserve all the accolades that have been heaped on them by every music critic since 1970 (they don’t). The gentlemen I was debating with, Matt and Kevin, are smart, funny and articulate. They love music. They love movies. They love pop culture. So I thought to myself, why not bring our incredible insights from the shadows of Facebook into the light for all the world to see?  I mean, a blog dedicated to music, movies and pop culture? Totally unique and not-at-all a saturated concept, amirite? How could it not work?

I have no idea where this will all go. Maybe we each do one entry and then we’re done. Maybe we blow up and I finally realize my dream of making over $30,000 over a two-year span. The bar of expectation has been set low. I would like this to be a place for our friends to debate and discuss those things that move us in life. Whether it’s reminiscing over the Webster episode where he hid in the clock to evade the burglars, the first concert we went to, how crappy the new Weezer album is or how dope the new Kanye single is, I hope this can be a place where people interact and share what they love about the world of pop culture. It should be funny, classless, occasionally insightful and never dull.

The base will be me and Matty and Kevin. Hence the name of the blog, Three tha Hard Way. But we’re totally open to putting up posts by anyone else who is interested, especially if that person loves Eddie Money. So come one, come all. Let’s talk about how rad life is.

(For the record, Matty genuinely believes that the Beatles don’t get nearly enough credit for whatever it is that they did. I think he said if Beethoven were in Liverpool at the time they formed, he wouldn’t have been fit to wipe Ringo’s ass.)