Fuck Insects!

Although it may look like I'm a diseased rat, that is actually what happens to me immediately after I get bit by any mosquito. It's like a plateau! Yeah...goddamned insects. I can't imagine how some people would ever be so inclined as to go into Entomology as a career...fucking disgusting. If I could have a constant psionic wave emanating from my brain, killing every insect in one square mile of myself, oh you can believe that I would be blasting that shit constantly. Insects serve no purpose other than scheming to find a way to bite my ass while I am walking the short distance from my mailbox to the front door.

On a secondary note, I have to apologize for not posting any movies as of late, but seriously...what has come out that is actually worth spending any money on? I've been DLing and watching a ton of Asian movies, but since most of you don't care for subtitled, foreign flicks, I won't bore you by posting a review on something you will most likely never watch. So yeah, if you know of a movie that you think is good or one that I should watch, please do tell. I find myself being more and more picky as to the movies that I'm willing to watch because my time has become much more important; and by time I mean sleep. I'm sure everyone can relate to that.

Friends with Money (Drama 2006)

I'm so glad that I can look in the mirror and see that I'm not Jennifer Aniston. I mean damn, to know that one's career peeked while playing Rachel on Friends is one hell of a thing to wake up to every morning. She's not even that attractive! If I saw her as a waitress at Denny's or something, I honestly wouldn't think much of it at all. I see so many hotter girls prancing around campus everyday. It's an amazing feat that such an average person made it so far.

To sum it up, this movie was both un-engaging and pointless. All it did was follow around a rich group of female friends who were all in their 30s. Yeah, the only thing I thought of when I read the synopsis was "Humm, exactly what could they do to make this plot more interesting?" The writer obviously didn't think of this question in advance because, nothing was done about it.

The film was a farce. It tried to show how all of these rich women had problems and how their money could not solve anything because the issues were all related to external people or their internal selves. Yeah, I call partial bullshit on that whole idea. You give me 20 million right now and lemme tell ya, I might not be happy, but I sure as hell would not be in the same ridiculous scenarios that these characters were in. After you look at each individual and analyze their issue, you soon discover that the situations are all of their own doing, which is usually related to a bad decision on their part. All of the female characters have horrible skills in gauging the quality of their husbands/boyfriends. What's so Earth-shattering about that? Isn't every fucking movie like this about the same thing? A girl picks a druggie, a girl picks a swindler, a girl picks a gambler, a girl picks a mobster, a girl picks a wife-beater. It's just like the Lifetime channel.

In this movie, one of the husbands is probably gay, the other is an insensitive, selfish fuck, and the last one is just too rich for his own good. And of course, Jennifer Aniston's character is being played by some ex-fratboy-looking schmuck. The story didn't have a point because it didn't try to develop the characters through their problems. There was no growth, no eureka, no light bulb. All you had was four female actors bitch about problems that they themselves chose to get into. I have no pity for that shit. Yeah, this is the crap I'm forced to review when no good movies are available.
Rating - D

In Her Shoes (Comedy 2005)

I'll start by saying that I never knew that Cameron Diaz had such a smokin' body, but boy was I delighted to see all of it from different angles throughout this film. A ton of scenes could've totally been mistaken as an intro to a late nite Skinnemax flick, so needless to say, it was damn good viewing. Anyway, the story itself was actually better than average. I was totally surprised because I thought it would be another superficial movie about general crap, with only a pretty face on the cover to sell it, like Raising Helen, but it wasn't like that at all.

What won this movie some points was that it had more than two plots going on. Usually movies of this type are limited to only two plots: one for the relationship, because there always has to be a love interest of some sort, and the second being the primary plot that the movie flows on. This one had around six plots going on, so that made it the story all the more interesting.

One thing of note that this film showed, was exactly how much difference clothes and makeup can change the appearance of a woman. The lead supporting actor, Toni Collette, did an unbelievable number of jumping from pretty to ugly to pretty. The wardrobe and makeup artists totally changed her appearance each time. It really makes me wonder what girls would look like if they were all 100% souped up.

Although I can't say that this movie was a top-notch Oscar winner, it was definitely better than average for its genre, and is a perfect watch for a lazy weekend afternoon.
Rating - B

District B13 (French Action 2004)

This movie was a perfect combination of Escape from L.A., The Transporter, and Kiss of the Dragon; but sadly, that's not saying much. I'm not sure if French popular culture is currently a big fan of this new fangled urban acrobatics, but this movie sure has a lot of it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just go onto YouTube and search for silly people who enjoy jumping through staircases, from rooftop to rooftop, and from building to building in dense urban sprawls.

Anyway, as you may have expected, the story was predominantly action-based and pretty weak everywhere else. There should be no expectations of practicality or logic while watching this mishmash of fighting and fast camera shots. I guess it was ok for what is was, because I don't remember ever being bored, but the story was super lame. Some of the choreographed fighting was pretty cool, but overall it was still on the low end of the action genre. Theses French movie-makers have to know that there still has to be a mildly, cohesive story when making a film, even if it is an action one.
Rating - C

The Illusionist (Drama 2006)

Different: is what I'll start off by saying. This movie was a nice change from the regular shit that has been presented in theatres as of late. The time frame, costumes, story, and setting are all a welcoming change from the norm; more peeps should jump on the bandwagon and maybe that will revitalize the industry. Interestingly enough, there will soon to be another movie released that's based along the same lines of magic, called The Prestige. This should be an interesting watch and hopefully a good comparison review will follow.

The story was pretty good, but for some reason I kept on feeling like I've seen it before, but when I tried to think of a comparable movie, nothing really came to mind. Oh well. Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti did a pretty good job, while Jessica Biel seems to still give off the impression of a talentless hack. Maybe I'm being a little too cruel considering that her lines were kept to a minimum, but whenever I see her in a movie all I remember is Blade: Trinity and how much feta cheese she blew in it. Do you know who should play every female role in modern movies? Scarlett Johansson. Why? Cuz she's hot, and it wouldn't matter if she had speaking lines or not; everyone would remember the movie because her oh so super fine ass would be in it. Hehe

So anyway, the movie was enjoyable but the ending was way too predictable. After watching enough movies that baffle the brain, most of us tend to be more attuned to plot twists, which results in the audience seeing right through this film. Overall it was good, but not fantastic. We'll see about Hugh Jackman's upcoming film later.
Rating - B

A New Low

So, can anyone guess what's wrong with the picture below?
Give up? It used to be the location of my big green garbage can and big blue recycling can. They have been stolen! What the fuck man...they're free from the city assuming that you actually have a house that needs them. What kind of sick fuck would go and steal these things? I swear this town has sunk to a new low. Fuck Tucson. This place is cursed; and of course it only happens to me because both my neighbors still have their stuff.

United 93 (Drama 2006)

The original trailer for this movie was an "edge of your seat" ride when I first saw it. It had a pretty simple setup, with a black radar screen and a plane blip traveling within it. With only voices in the background and blip updates on the radar, the trailer was very simple yet haunting enough to get the heart pumping. I didn't really know how they would even try to make a whole movie based on this one event, but I had hoped that they would not overly-dramatize anything that was based on conjecture, considering that, as far as I know, all they had were snippets of information that came from various calls that passengers made off the plane and nobody had a real distinct play-by-play of what happened. Luckily, I was not disappointed.

The cinematic style used in this film was perfect considering the content. It ended up having one concrete attribute that made the whole package work in its favor, and that was realism. While watching the movie, it felt more like you were a fly on the wall and less like you were being entertained from afar. Every scene, from the waiting area, to the FAA, to the military HQ, to the control towers were all very realistic and very believable. Nobody seemed like they were actors and nobody seemed like they had rehearsed lines, for it was just like these were the real peeps going through this crisis. Normal, human confusion, pauses, emotions, and reactions all sounded and seemed real. I'm not sure how they did it, but it was just like you were there, in all of those locations watching the whole situation play out.

Because the movie wasn't filmed with normal, Hollywood entertainment value in mind, it actually turned out great, and a lot more human. I believed the film; if that makes any sense at all. Nobody tried to be a tough hero, nobody was 100% gung-ho to retake the plane, there was mass confusion on the ground, and there was hardly an organized plan in place. In the end it was just a group of average people placed in a panicked situation who wanted to survive and to talk to their families one last time. I'm totally sure that this type of emotional chaos occurred on the other hijacked planes of 9/11, but one advantage that the passengers had on this flight was time: people + time = ideas and that's the simple truth.

One interesting part of the film I noticed was that a little more than half of the phone calls to home or loved ones were sent to voicemail. Think about how shitty those people must've felt after finding out that it was the last time they would hear their peeps' voices. And think about the tones too...all freaked out and such. Man, I'm sure a lot of them are not pushing the ignore button anymore.

This film got its rating for being the most real reenactment of any tragic event. It was probably very difficult to get the emotional scenes just right for all of the actors, and that definitely deserves some props. I think this movie succeeded in using its subtly of shots and scarcity of music to fully illustrate the human characteristics of all of the people involved. Hats off.
Rating - A

Nine Lives (Drama 2005)

Now this was an interesting little movie. It was composed of nine separate snippets from nine different women, which kinda gave you a peek into each of their lives. The film tried to interconnect the characters together, kinda like what Crash did, but not to the same level. Many of the stories were way too subtle to catch a lot of the interconnectedness. I had to rewatch multiple parts of the DVD in order to map out how everyone's story was related with each other, and even then, it didn't seem like there was a point to any of the results.

I'll describe the finer points of this movie by starting with the shots themselves. Each story was one whole take, so these actors had to do a perfect job throughout all of it, or else the whole scene would have to be re-shot. I've seen this done once before in a foreign film called Russian Ark. That movie was crazy stuff because the whole film was one huge-ass shot...all of it! Hundreds of actors and extras, it was quite a sight; but sadly, reading subtitles for that long became very tedious and I sorta lost it towards the end.

But anyway, the next aspect of this movie worth mentioning was the acting. Although most of the actors did OK jobs, the most memorable was Lisa Gay Hamilton's depiction of a daughter who comes back to her family home after being away for many years as she prepares to confront her father who she had some "history" with. Yeah, I would guess that she was probably molested as a kid, but that's just a guess because they kept that info ambiguous. To sum it up, her acting was super convincing; like edge of your seat convincing. And again, taking note that the whole scene was shot under one, long take gives it even greater props. I think people should see the movie just for this scene because it was so damn good.

The film was better than average because it was different, but I really didn't understand the main theme and what it had to do with a cat's nine lives; and yes, a cat was symbolically placed in both the middle and at the end of the movie. All I can say is that a lot of these peeps' lives were way too "out there" to be categorized under an "average person's life", so thus, relating to it was a little harder to do. I don't feel like there was any global take away from this film other than watching other peoples' lives, but thankfully, that's a fun thing to do. You don't know how many times I walk by a person and want to know their "story". Everyone has one and there's always something new to learn from it.
Rating - B