The Room (2003)

Oh hi, internet.

Last weekend I saw a movie. It wasn't a regular movie, you see. This film has been called everything, from "The Citizen Kane of bad movies", to "the best worst movie ever made", and let me tell you, the people who called it that are probably right. Never before has a movie so awful got etched so deep into my mind that I can't stop quoting it, I can't stop thinking about it, and I need to exorcize that, so I'm writing this review. I need to get it out of my system.

That movie, my friends, was Tommy Wiseau's magnum opus The Room.

Tommy Wiseau, a man with hopes and dreams of breaking through in the movie business, managed to somehow gather 7 million dollars and actually direct a movie from a script he wrote himself. He not only wrote and directed this movie, no, Tommy, as a true jack of all trades, also starred, produced and executive produced. Where he spent the 7 million dollars filming this turd is what I'd like to know, because this movie looks worse than most of the low budget horror movies I watch, and those are made with a few thousand dollars at best. This one was made with 7 million. It baffles me.
Another interesting thing about Tommy Wiseau is that no one seems to know exactly where he's from. He claims to be American, but his accent is as thick as they come (someone described the way he sounds as " like Borat trying to do an impression of Christopher Walken playing a mental patient" and that pretty much hits the nail in the head). Some people speculate he's actually from somewhere in Eastern Europe, but no one knows. The man is a mistery!

Now, on to the movie itself. The Room is a filme about a saintly man called Johnny (played by Tommy Wiseau) and his beautiful "future wife" Lisa (they never use the word fiancée, it's always "future wife" or "future husband"). Johnny is beloved by everyone, he is the kindest of men, has a successful career (something about the bank business... it's never really clear what exactly is it that he does) and showers his future wife with gifts and attention (saintly as he is though, I bet you'll be creeped out by him. His strange accent, hulking figure, and face that is a mix between Fabio and the melting Nazis from Indiana Jones, all blend together to form an avatar of creepiness that you'll start seeing in your nightmares). Lisa, for some incomprehensible reason, decides she's had it with Johnny and procedes to seduce his best friend Mark (don't worry if you don't get he's "Johnny's best friend" right away, they'll remind you of that fact every 5 minutes). This treacherous back-stabbing sends them, and everyone they know, into a spiral of drama, nonsense and hilarity so incredibly poorly acted, scripted and directed that you'll wonder just what the hell you are seeing.

Johnny and one of his many gifts for Lisa.

Don't worry, that's perfectly normal. At first you might think "Oh my god, I am definitely going mad, no movie can possibly be this bad", but no. I reassure you, your sanity is untouched. The movie really is astoundingly bad. Let's break down some of the things that are deeply wrong with The Room:

- Tommy Wiseau is easily the worst actor I've ever seen in a movie (and keep in mind I did see that abomination with Britney Spears). It's not just because of his accent and his haunting face - his delivery is unbelievable! He chuckles at the end of almost every sentence. He even laughs after his himbo best friend tells him the story of a girl who got beat up so bad she ended up in the hospital (something that shouldn't be funny at all). Also, he (and everyone else) seem to greet everyone as if they were LOLcats. When someone comes in the room, it's "Oh hi Lisa!", "Oh hi Mark", "Oh hi Denny", and so on and so forth (there's even a bit where he greets a dog by saying "Oh hi doggie!"). He has the most hilarious line in this film, the line that everyone knows, which is "YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, LISA!!". In this scene we see how badly this man wants to show emotion, and how much he fails.

Art by Fernando Lucas

- Lisa, the female lead, is always being called "beautiful", "sexy" and generally being worshipped as some kind of beauty goddess, but she's average at best. I mean, I'm not one to talk, but it's so exxagerated that it becomes hilarious. She has her hair colored in this unnatural shade of blonde, yet her eyebrows remain dark brown, and her neck seems to have this weird bulge sometimes when she talks. She's definitely a strange character. When engaging in conversations, Lisa commonly brings up subjects that, when asked more about, she claims to not want to discuss. It's always "I don't want to talk about it", or "It'll be fine". Lisa's mother drops by every god damn morning to have annoying quick conversations that never lead anywhere. The most famous part is when she does what would normally be a shocking and life-altering revelation, when she tells her daughter: "Well, the test results came back - I definitely have breast cancer". Lisa doesn't even bat an eyelid, says "It'll be fine", and the subject is never adress AGAIN.

- Denny, Denny, Denny. Denny is a huge enigma in this movie. He's sort of Johnny and Lisa's man-child neighbor. We know he's an orphan and that Johnny, angel on earth that he is, got him an apartment right next door and is paying for his college tuition. What a kind heart! Despite the fact we are told that Denny's in college, it's open for discussion if he has some kind of mental problem or not. He certainly looks and sounds as if he has one - he acts like a 5 year, despite being 18 or over - but we're never told anything that leads us to believe that. One of the creepiest moments of the movie is right at the beginning, after Johnny comes home from work with a new red dress for Lisa. She tries it on, and who should drop by but jolly boy Denny, who claims she looks very sexy. Johnny and Lisa then try to kick him out so they can go practice the horizontal tango, but Denny apparently can't take a hint. He sticks around, picks up an apple, and then sneaks into Johnny and Lisa's room, jumps in the bed with them and then, when try to kick him out again, he drops this bomb: "I like to watch you guys!". Way to go, sleazy perv Denny. Instead of being disgusted and horrified, Johnny and Lisa just laugh and push him out the door. And then... oh god, then...

- The soft-core sex scenes. Yes, there are 4 unnecessarily long, incredibly cheesy, horrifiyingly shot sex scenes in this movie. They are the worst thing I've ever seen. Afterwards I felt like washing my eyes with soap. Naked Tommy Wiseau is quite a vision. He's strangely muscular, but he just looks frightening, like Frankenstein's monster. I don't know if it seems that his muscles are in all the wrong places or what, he's weird. And then there are prolonged shots of his naked ass when he's humping what's, apparently, Lisa's belly button (all I know is he's not doing it in the right place). Terrifying. As if this wasn't enough, all the sex scenes have this horrendous R&B soundtrack. These are the cheesiest damn songs you'll ever hear and they'll make you want to vomit, be warned. The sight of Tommy Wiseau's ass combined with the gut-churning R&B songs is a spirit crushing experience, but hopefully you'll be at least laughing hard enough to muffle the sugary disgust of the R&B tunes. There's also a highly amusing sex scene between Lisa and Mark on a spiral staircase. Comfortable! I can't help wondering how she felt with the edges of the stairs lodged between her ribs.

Tommy Wiseau learned how to frame his shots in the best soap operas.

- The dropping of subjects. This movie is constantly bringing up problems and issues that never see any kind of resolution and instead are immediately dropped. I understand that Tommy Wiseau probably wanted to adress a lot of society's bigger problems now a days, - like cheating, drugs, cancer, job issues - but he just didn't know where to go with any of it. I already mentioned the cancer bit, but another famous instance is when Denny is bullied by a drug dealer of sorts (who I think was the best actor in the movie). This guy, Chris-R, points a gun at Denny and demands some money, but of course he's quickly subdued by our hero Tommy and his sleazy backstabber "best friend" Mark, leaving Denny to face the wrath and circular dialogue of Lisa's mother. Really, I swear, it's 5 minutes of the same dialogue just going back and forth. She asks what "that horrible man" wanted, Denny says he bought some drugs off him, she asks "WHAT KIND OF DRUGS?", Denny says it doesn't matter, she asks again, Denny says it doesn't matter again, and it goes on ad nauseum until Denny screams "You're not my fucking mother!!", which is a great line in this movie. After this, they all just go to dinner or something, and Denny and his drug problem are never heard from again.

I forgot to mention that there's some rooftop scenes which were very clearly shot with a green screen.

- The downright "WTF" moments, like the tuxedo football - in this one scene, Johnny and all his friends are shown dressed in tuxedos. You'd think it's Johnny wedding day - after all, why would they all be dressed like that in the same day - but it turns out it's not. Apparently the whole gang just likes to tux up once in a while and go out to play football. Yeah, they go to a dirty back alley to throw a football back and forth while dressed in tuxedos. Not to mention this one guy trips, falls and never appears on the movie again (so it's not only subjects being dropped, entire characters disappear suddendly). Also, why are there framed pictures of spoons on the Wiseau household? Why is the tv behind the couch? Why does Lisa's neck bulge? All these are questions left unanswered, and as such will haunt you for a long time.

It's "Tuxedo Thursday" in San Francisco.

Well, this is already a pretty long sum up of what goes on in The Room. The movie is incredibly bad, but what's truly astonishing about it is how Tommy Wiseau managed to create not just a mind-bendingly awful movie... but a hilariously entertaining one. You'll be laughing from beginning to end. Tommy is now marketing this movie as a "Black Comedy", but there's no doubt in my mind that he only chose to do so after attending many screenings where he watched people crying with laughter - it's clear when you see the movie that any comedy that's happening is unintentional. Poor Wiseau, he set out to do a deep study of human nature and interactions and ended up with a laugh riot. Well, it's better than nothing, since the movie now has a widely recognized cult status and enjoys several screenings all throughout the USA every month, always with an emphasis on audience participation (it's common to see people throwing plastic spoons at the screen, throwing footballs around, and screaming "YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, LISA!!"). Its popularity just keeps growing, and amongst its fans are people like David Cross, Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill.

I recommend, no, I urge you to see this movie if you have a good sense of humor. If not, you should stear clear, but if you're the kind of person who enjoys the "so bad it's good" kind of movies, you'll have a blast with this one. Trust me.

Nightmare City (1980) Review

Well, well, well. This weekend I saw a movie that made me want to write a good old fashioned long review. What movie was it, you might think? Was it "Choke"? Was it "The Ruins"? Was it "Let the Right One In"? No, it wasn't any of these, although I saw them all - and actually felt like reviewing The Ruins just to really dwell on how impossibly dumb it was. The movie I saw that made me want to spend a few minutes writing in the internet about it like anyone actually cares was... Nightmare City.

Nightmare City is an Italian horror movie, also known as Incubo sulla città contaminata, City of the Walking Dead or, my personal favorite, Invasion by the Atomic Zombies. Being a lesser known Italian zombie movie, you know you have to expect horrible acting, atrocious dubbing, muted colors, and lots of gore and boobs, and this movie delivers on all of this. If you're not yet convinced that this movie is an awesome pile of cheese, check out the tagline:

"An airplane exposed to radiation lands, and blood drinking zombies emerge armed with knives, guns and teeth! They go on a rampage slicing, dicing, and biting their way across the Italian countryside."

If by now you still don't want to see this movie, go away. We can't be friends anymore.

Directed by Umberto Lenzi, Nightmare City begins when a reporter and his cameraman head to the airport to interview a very famous nuclear scientist, who is about to arrive there. The plane he's traveling in does not respond to the airports requests for identification, so the crew prepares a landing strip for an emergency landing. The plane lands, and immediately the airport's security heads there, shouting to the pilot to open the doors to the plane and to come down and explain why he didn't respond to the control tower. They eventually notice there is no one in the cockpit, and in a matter of seconds a whole military squadron is in situ (as well as the reporter - who happens to be our hero - and the cameraman). There is still no answer from inside, even though now there is some high patent military guy shouting to the plane. After a few minutes of shouting, the door of the plane starts descending, and... out bursts a gang of, I guess, zombies, armed with machine guns, knifes, revolvers and whatever else, and they just start butchering the military (which is ridiculous, because these military dudes, supposedly expert shooters and what not, can't kill a zombie for shit. Really, they just don't hit them! Shoot them, you fuckers, geesh!!). You have realized by know that these are not ordinary zombies, because they are really fast, they punch you, shoot you, strangle you, and stab you instead of just gutting you with their teeth or whatever zombies usually do. They run, plot and scheme. They also drink blood, which makes them a weird mix of zombie and vampire. But they don't eat the victims, they just leave their dead bodies on a trail through the airport. I guess these zombies aren't very hungry, they crave blood instead of brains.

Since we're on the topic, I'll take this chance to say that this has to be the worst zombie make-up I've ever seen. In most of the cases they just look like some mud (best case cenario) was thrown on their faces, and in most of the cases their hands don't even have make-up, so you're looking at a bunch of dudes with brown faces and clean hands. It's just stupid.

Back to the plot, the reporter and his cameraman manage to escape the maiming, and head to the TV station, where some sort of dancing program is being broadcast. I think the director was really gung ho on making sure we knew there was a dancing program going on, because there must be about 5 whole minutes of just these guys and girls dancing in blue spandex, to the sound of some of the cheesiest music I've ever heard. The show has no host whatsoever, just these guys and girls dancing on a stage. Fascinating. At one point, they stop dancing and actually talk to each other, which I found hilarious because the movie is dubbed in english, but the dubbers somehow found it was necessary to try and make voices with Italian accents!

Well, when the reporter gets there, he orders some guy to interrupt the Dancing broadcast because he needs to make an emergency news broadcast. The guy obbeys and the reporter starts saying that some shit went down on the airport, but his job description apparently didn't include "interrupt the awesome Dancing show", because 10 seconds in, his annoucement was cut again and the TV was back to broacasting the Dancing show (to the delight of thousands of viewers, I'm sure). He goes around shouting for a while, until his boss, along with another dude from the military, tell him that he shouldn't cause panic in the population until they were sure of what was going on. DAMN THE GOVERNMENT!
Our brave reporter (who, by the way, is one of the worst actors I've ever seen in my life - his emotional range is zero, I've seen cardboard boxes with more emotional versatility than this guy) thinks the public had the right to know, he resigns his job because he is all badass and the government can't tell him to do, and then decides to go look for his wife so they can flee to the countryside. And so, the movie goes on.


I won't describe the whole movie here because that would probably ruin any pleasure you might derive from watching this, but what happens is probably what you're guessing - the zombies just go around killing while the survivors try to escape the overun city. Yeah, pretty much that. I won't even describe the ending, but I can tell you you'll probably want to stab the director in the eyes with a fork, because it's so outstandingly lazy and lame.

This movie is filled with vapid, one-dimensional characters trying to act natural but appearing fake as hell. There is a lot of moralizing dialogue about how we cause all this crap by living in out concrete jungles or something, but it all falls in deaf ears because by this point the movie is so utterly devoid of plot and coherent dialogue that you just have to laugh at the drivel the characters spill out from time to time. It also stars the most incompetent military I've ever, ever seen. It's hilarious.
The soundtrack is another remarkable source of cheesyness, it's so bad that some of the times I didn't even know if we were listening to the "music" or just to shit falling around on set.

All in all, this movie really has to be seen to be believed. I don't think you can tell how cheesy and bad this flick really is just by a blog post - you need to go out and get it. Bad as it was, it's awfullness was hilarious and actually entertaining - which is more than you can say for some big budget horror movies of these days like, oh I don't know, The goddamned Ruins. And if you are at all a fan of zombie or cheesy flicks, gather around a bunch of friends, pop this on and I guarantee 100% that you will have a laugh riot. Me and my boyfriend sure laughed a lot :D

Latest Movies I've Seen part 1003

Ah, I miss those times when I had time to get over here and write lengthy reviews about all the movies I've been watching. I've been swamped lately, and with little patience to write, but at the same time I feel the urge to post about what I've been seeing, if only for my own future reference. So here is the list of the past few weeks, along with bite-sized reviews.

1. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Blatant continuity issues, too many characters for its own sake (some of them very poorly handed, others just plain ruined), Wolverine was too "softy"... What can I say? I really like Hugh Jackman, but he played a better Wolverine on the X-Men movies. This one was just a disappointment. 2 adamantium claws out of 5.

2. Star Trek

This, on the other hand, was awesome. Very well handled reboot, with great visuals (even with all those lens flares), compelling acting by most of the cast (I especially liked the new Spock, and the old Spock played by Leonard Nimoy), and a solid story. It was very entertaining and I had a great time. 4 out of 5 Spocks for this one.

3. Fright Night

Classic vampire movie from the 80s, so you know what you're getting into. It's super cheesy, unintentionally funny at parts, with a ridiculous storyline, but it entertains you and there are actually a couple of scenes with cool special effects for the time. If you're into 80s cheesy horror, definitely give this one a look, you'll have fun. 3 out of 5 shapeshifting vampires.

4. Once

This may seem like the outsider on this list, but it was probably the one I enjoyed most. It's easy to be entertained by spaceships, outlandish aliens, mutants and whatnot, but when the simple story of two people connecting through music really gets you, then you know you're watching something special. Once is wonderful: very touching, very human, and with a beautiful soundtrack. Definitely recommend it, and give it 4.5 out of 5 Irish singers.

5. Dead Snow

Ah, my home turf. A zombie movie. But not just any kind of zombie movie: the kind with Nazi Zombies. Yeah. Let that concept sink in. This norwegian movie managed to be one of the best zombie movies I've seen lately (I think the last I had seen was Virus Undead, which was crap), with the right balance of humor and gore (reminding us of Evil Dead and Braindead, although much inferior to either one). I really enjoyed it, and I'm giving it 3.5 out of 5 zombies.

What have you been watching?

Latest movies I've seen part 1000

You might have noticed I haven't talked about any of the movies I saw before the Oscars ceremony because yeah, like every common mortal, I shed my b-movie lover cover and watched a few of the nominees - namely the big (and fair) winner Slumdog Millionaire. I confess I disagree with the dude who called it "the feel-good movie of the year", but whatever, it ended in a moderatelly happy way and I guess that Bollywood-style dance at the end made up for all the crap that happened to Jamal throughout the movie. It was really good, nonetheless.

The reason why I haven't talked about them is that, besides me being lazy, I think there are already plenty of good reviews about those movies, done by knowleadgeable people whose writing doesn't resemble that of a monkey with ADD. But what about crappy movies? Who reviews those? Well, I DO. That is my job in this world. So I have to cut back on the amount of good movies I review in favor of bad movies. Those need loving too.

Anyway, this was a great weekend of movies. I did watch a good one, and I guess that's the one I'll get out of the way right now. I'm talking about Coraline.

Coraline is a stop-motion animation movie directed by Henry Sellick - yeah, the same guy who did the wonderful Nightmare Before Christmas. He hasn't done anything in 8 years, but it seems the little sabatical did him good because Coraline is quite astonishing work. I saw it in 3D (complete with dorky glasses) and the 3D was very impressive, but even more than that I was awed by the animation (as I had already been in Nightmare before Christmas). The amount of detail in this movie, from the characters expressions to their environment, clothing, everything, is amazing. I can't begin to imagine the amount of work it takes to do one scene, let alone a whole movie.

The story goes that a little girl named Coraline (and not Caroline!) has just moved, and is incredibly bored on her new house. She doesn't know anyone, has no friends, and her parents always seem too busy to play with her. One day, after investigating her new house and listing how many windows and doors there are on that place, Coraline finds a tiny door hidden behind the wallpaper. The first time she opens it, the door is shut with bricks... but the second time she tries, she finds out the door leads to an alternate world where her button-eyed replica parents cater to her every wish. The food is better, there are magical gardens, new clothes and games... but is it all that good? It's not. And Coraline will find that out the hard way.

I loved the incredible visuals in this movie. Did I mention the crazy amount of detail? Yeah. The characters are all well-designed, albeit probably not as iconic as the ones in Nightmare, except perhaps the final look of the Other Mother. The stuff that happens is quite unbelievable, it almost looks like a drug trip (I can't imagine what it would be like watching this high haha). It's not exactly a kid's movie, as I'm sure a lot of kids will be freaked out by what's going on on the screen, but it has a childish magic and appeal to it that one can't deny. Besides, being scared as a kid builds character - and now I sound like Calvin's dad.
I've heard a lot of comparisons to Alice in Wonderland, and I guess I have to agree, at the core they are pretty similar stories. But Coraline is filled with details of its own that give the movie its identity.
It was a great tale of adventure and mystery and it takes 3.5 bouncing rats out of 5.


As you may, or may not, know, the Oporto International Film Festival (Fantasporto) is currently taking place. It's usually one of my favorite times of the year, and I always try to catch a few movies there, especially if those are movies out of the commercial circuit. This year's first was a german zombie movie called Virus Undead.

(crappy poster, I know. The movie wasn't much better also.)

Virus Undead tries to cash in on the bird flu panic that went around a short time ago. An old scientist called, er, Mr. Whatshisface, is trying to find out a cure for the flu when he stumbles upon a mutation of the virus. Sadly, he is killed by none other than a flock of birds, in his own massive mansion. His grandson Robert has to go back to his grandfathers village to take care of the inheritance paperwork and decides to take his "friends" (I say "friends" because not once in this movie do we feel any tingle of real friendship or any kind of relation between them.) Patrick and Eugen along for the ride, and hopefully spend a weekend of great fun in his dead grandfather's mansion. When they stop at a gas station to buy supplies, they run into Robert's ex-girlfriend (still baffled and hurt at why he ever left her) and into her co-worker, Miss Tits McGee, and of course horny James Dean look-alike Patrick decides to invite them over to the house. Things start going awry when people eat infected bird meat and start turning into zombies.

Well, well. Where do I begin? Maybe with the zero character development. These characters are cardboard cutouts. You have the responsible, level-headed one (Robert), the horny, careless one (Patrick) and the poor picked-on geek (Eugen). The girls are just another cliché, and an excuse to show some boobage. They are such stereotypes that I think the movie would have beneffited a lot from playing with this humorously, because taking the characters serious was nearly impossible. There was also a cliché cop, unprofessional dude always munching down on donuts, but there was a great moment when the cop, already turned into a zombie (oops spoiler), tries to keep eating the donuts, only to end up spitting it out. It was a good gag that poked fun at the stereotype, and it worked - now if only they had done it more! We could have a cool splatter comedy, but this way we only had a suckfest. The way these characters act is ridiculous and predictable, and Eugen suffers the quickest mental breakdown I ever saw in a movie.

The story tries to take a fresh turn with the bird flu thing, but it basically just comes down to being another zombie movie. And what zombies... these are super strong and fast zombies, a kind I'm not too fond of. I prefer the slow ominous zombie. But I can't deny it, the bits with the zombies were the best. There was a LOT of cheeseball action, and the gore was not bad either! Not bad for a low budget movie. The ending sucked, in my opinion - the "climatic" fight was just ridiculous and I could have done without those stupid CGI birds. We never find out what happened to Tits McGee, but she went out with a bang, her final part was one of the stupidest and yet funniest things about this movie. Sure made the audience laugh, and I think that's good because it means we're actually being entertained instead of just being bored out of our minds. Yes, we were laughing at the movie instead of with it, but that's better than nothing.

All in all, this movie was pretty bad, but I still gotta give props to it - for a low budget horror and with all its character and plot flaws, it managed to keep me mildly entertained, and that's more than I can say for a lot of big-budget hollywood shit. My biggest gripe with it is that it could have been much, much better if it didn't take itself as seriously. It takes 2 out of 5 burning zombies from me.

Stay tuned for part 1001 for a couple more reviews!

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Last weekend I had the pleasure of watch this movie with Cosmic. After browsing through the list of movies currently showing at a nearby multiplex, we decided on Vicky Cristina Barcelona for simple reasons: it was Woody Allen, and it looked like a nice movie - neither of us had great expectations or ideas about it, it just looked... well, nice.

And what we got was somewhat more than that.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona tells us the story of two American friends (the sensible Vicky and the free-spirited Cristina) who spend the summer in Barcelona. Vicky is engaged to be married and is working on her master's thesis on Catalan Studies, and thinks she knows what she wants out of life and love until one night, she and Cristina meet Juan Antonio, a local painter, who makes them an unusual proposal. Despite initial refusal, Vicky decided to go along with it mostly to protect the impulsive Cristina from potential harm, and this will lead them in a spiral of feelings, relationships, and complications, especially when Juan Antonio's troubled and fiery ex-wife, Maria Elena, steps back into the picture.

Where can I start? First things first, the acting. Javier Bardem is a great actor, and he is brilliant in this. He plays his Juan Antonio in such a seductive and enigmatic way that he just keep you glued to the screen whenever he's on it. Penelope Cruz (Maria Elena( also does a great job, as does Rebecca Hall (Vicky), but my absolute favorite was Javier Bardem, no doubt. He is charming, he is sexy, he has one hell of a presence. Scarlett Johansson does not particularly stand out, but she does a pretty decent job.
The writing and dialogue is perfect. It's very wordy and lengthy at times, but so sharp and witty that it charms you, and you wish you could hear these people talk for hours.
I do have to point out something else: the setting. The city of Barcelona was the perfect choice for a movie like this. Everything looks beautiful, charming and golden... I always loved Barcelona, and after seeing this movie I wished I could travel there the next day. It's almost like a character in itself.

It turned out to be a great surprise, because it was a very fullfilling movie, and not just "nice". It was funny, sad, poignant, sexy, and gave you something to think about. An highly enjoyable movie, and I definitely recommend it.

4.5 out of 5 spanish painters.

Feel the Thunder

I'll be honest with you: the prospect of the animated Dreamworks movie Kung-Fu Panda never really excited me much. I watched a few trailers, and a few promos, and I even wanted to like it simply because it had Jack Black doing voice-acting - and I have a soft spot for Jack Black - but none of these things really delivered to me. The trailers just seemed bland and sort of unfunny, like they had a lot of stuff that would be funny for kids (like the panda tumbling down a bunch of stairs and hitting the vilain in the face with his big panda ass), but would it be funny for me, even if I'm sillier and more childish than your average 23 year old? I wasn't thinking about watching it, until some reviews started rolling in. People were really enjoying this flick. Random comments on Deviantart stated that the animation was really good, and that the movie was actually a pretty decent, nice one. So last night, it was decided that Kung Fu Panda would be a laid-back movie to watch, and could even hopefully create some good spirits for the upcoming week.

The sinopsis of the movie is very simple: the main character, a fat and loveable panda named Po (like the damn Teletubbie) is "accidentaly" chosen by an old Kung Fu master to be the Dragon Warrior, the mightiest warrior ever and the only one that could defend the Peace Valley from the menace of Tai Lung. None too happy with this are the Furious Five, the 5 legends of Kung Fu - Tigress, Monkey, Crane, Viper and Mantis - that hoped one of them would be the One. Now it's up to Master Shifu to train Po from clumsy bum to kung fu master before his former pupil Tai Lung escapes and wreaks havoc in the valley.

First, I have to say the animation is amazing, very well-done indeed. The first couple of minutes of the movie are actually done more traditionally and were beautiful, they made my eyes shine with glee, I was so happy :D The fight scenes were all wonderful as well, with smooth kung fu movements and great choreography.

My next concern was about the HUMOR, this being a kid's movie I was worried it would rely too much on childish fart jokes or something, but I was so glad I was wrong. Of course there are a lot of instances of Po falling down stairs, knocking his head on walls, and generally being clumsy, but they are all so well done and intertwined with the story that it doesn't get annoying. It was great, and although I wasn't rolling on the floor laughing, I did laugh out loud a few times, and had a smile almost throughout the whole movie. It was pretty funny.


The voices... I thought Jack Black was on the spot as Po. He was great, and his little quirks really fit the character. Most of the Furious Five only had a couple of lines or so, which was a shame. Ian McShane did a pretty good job as the villain, and I also really dug James Wong as Po's father (who, by the way, I would have liked to see more of).

Overall, I had a great time watching it, more than in any of the latest movies I watched. I definitely recommend Kung Fu Panda!

It takes 4 out of 5 stars from me.

Wanted

Another of one of this year's summer blockbusters is the movie Wanted, adapted from the Mark Millar's graphic novel of the same name. The movie stars James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, and was the first american movie directed by Timur Bekmambetov (known for his 2004 movie Night Watch). I saw Wanted last night. I wasn't expecting much out of it - I was only hoping to be entertained.


I can't speak for the movie's fidelity to its original source, because I never read the graphic novel, but I'm aware that some parts of the story were cut, and in my opinion it was probably for the best. If the adaptation tried to be completely faithful, it would probably be too scattered and would fail on the big screen. That's just my two cents though, and I can be totally wrong.
The movie follows the events that change the life of the "most insignificant asshole in the world", Wesley Gibson, as he morphs from a boring, stepped-on accountant into a member of an elite society of killers, called The Fraternity. It's a violent process, but also a funny one, as the movie is filled with a sort of dark sense of humor I really enjoyed.
James McAvoy does a decent acting job, and so do the other cast members - nothing to write home about, but not bad either. The special effects are all pretty stylish, but it's obvious the movie took a lot out of earlier classics like The Matrix, and even, in my opinion, Equilibrium - the gun fight at the end really reminded me of this poorly-known flick. Still, they work well and provide eye candy, even if they're not overly original. The story has some clichés - I won't point them out because I don't want to spoil anything - and is very predictable at times, and that was probably my biggest problem with the movie, along with, maybe, the excess of slow motion scenes.
Ultimately, the movie's message is to take control of your life and make your own choices, but not all of us were fated to bend bullets :P
Of course, this movie is no Godfather, so don't go in there expecting to see the best movie of all time - but if you pay your ticket in hopes of seeing an action-packed movie that will entertain you and not insult your intelligence too much, you might just get what you're going for.



It takes 3 out of 5 stars from me.

Saw IV

I have to confess I enjoyed the first Saw movie. I think the story was fairly well-written, it was suspenseful enough, and the twist was very good (at least I didn't see it coming), so despite a few over-the-top performances, the movie held its own, entertained me and surprised me.
The sequel was not that good anymore. It just inserted a few more characters to be killed off, and the story took a back place. If the first one was violent, the second one is more so, and more gratuitously.
The third one... don't even get me started. It was bad. The movies just started to be an excuse for showing some gruesome violence.
But my brother somehow conned me into watching the fourth installment of the Saw series, and so I did.


And it was bad, even worse than the previous one (by the way, this poster cracked me up. It could have a picture of Admiral Ackbar in there, screaming "IT'S A TRAP!!"). The story has become so convoluted, so anxious to be complex, that it fails to even create a glimmer of attention in me. The actors are C-list actors, at best, and their interpretations are all pretty weak - if that's all their fault, or if it's the writer's faults, I don't know. But they sure weren't given much to work with, I'll tell you that. The dialogues are terrible. The games Jigsaw creates are so intricate, and so spread out in their locations, that they really push your suspension of disbelief - you can't for one minute believe he'd pull all that off. Also, the timeline got me confused, it seems like the events take place simultaneously to the 3rd movie, but that couldn't possible, because Jigsaw is dead, and this movie actually begins with his authopsy. By the time we got to the run-of-the-mill plot twist, I had already lost any interest in the movie whatsoever. I was just glad it was over. The good part was that it was short, so I didn't lose much valuable time with it.
I did another photoshop sketch today for practice, and I decided it'd be the weird little puppet thing, from Saw. Enjoy!