May 2012, Movies #107-128

128. Going Places (1974)

Rating: 8/10

Review: This is easily the best  Gérard Depardieumovie I've ever seen.  I've read that this was compared to Clockwork Orange and I understand why because the two leads are both twenty something criminals on the prowl and looking to rape or steal anything they come across. but as you would expect they do have a few redeeming qualities to keep the audience interested, but they are mostly bad seeds.

127. In The Realm of Senses (1976)

Rating: 6/10

Review: Controversial movie because of the depiction of the sexual relationship that makes up the core of the film.  But once you get past the sexuality of the film I didn't really see anything else going on to keep my interest.

126. The American Friend (1977)

Rating: 7.5/10

Review: Wim Wenders directing.  Well done character study of a desperate man and an art dealer who befriends him.  Good seeing Dennis Hopper in his prime.

125. Klown The Movie (2010)

Rating: 7.5/10

Review: Extremely funny Swedish movie that is going to get the American remake in the near future, but this version is just fine for me.  I thought this was a lot funnier than either Hangover.

124. Ghosts of Mars (2001)

Rating: 5/10

Review: John Carpenter? Ugh.  This is basically a poorly done remake of Assault Precinct 13 but has Ice Cube, Mars, and mutant half breeds that were obviously ad-libing a language as they shot. Yikes.

123. Prince of Darkness (1987)

Rating: 5/10

Review: John Carpenter did this??? Oh god this movie is bad, watching it I was reminded that it could have been a choice for MST3K in it's hay day because they did quite a few of these terrible horror movies that had no budget. This poster for the japanese release is more interesting than the film.

122. This Means War (2012)

Rating: 5/10

Review: Even with Tom Hardy this movie just lays there like a long expired fish.

121. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)

Rating: 6/10

Review: Many times better than the first Ghost Rider but Cage is still here so it can only be so good.  Neveldine/Taylor of Crank fame take the directing reins this time and produce only a slightly more coherent film than Crank. Idris Elba's character is never really properly introduced or explained to the audience and wastes his acting talents.

120. Tiny Furniture (2010)

Rating: 6/10

Review: I've gotten into the HBO series Girls and this is movie that the creator/writer/director did before hand.  To tell you the truth if I had seen this movie first I probably wouldn't have been interested in the series because this movie is incredibly boring.  The series Girls is vast improvement over this film.

 119. Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

Rating: 6/10

Review: I re-watched John Carpenter's The Fog recently and wanted to fill in some of the holes in my  Carpenter filmography which was a let down. I tried watching Christine but couldn't even get halfway through the movie because it's so dumb.  This movie reminds me of The Fog somewhat because we have a faceless violent hoard heading towards our helpless surviving characters.  The title is incorrect because over the radio at the beginning of the movie the police officer is sent to Precinct 9, Division 13, kind of odd it was overlooked during the Additional Dialogue Replacement process on the film.

118. Timecrimes (2007)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Clever time travel movie that I read is getting the American remake treatment but I really enjoy this movie because its so small an unassuming but achieves quite a bit in it's limited framework.  Similar to Source Code in the broad strokes if you were just reading the summaries but both are unique on their own using similar concepts.

117. Silent Running (1972)

Rating: 5/10

Review: Great concept that was exceedingly boring to watch, would not be against remaking this one.

116. House of the Devil (2009)

Rating: 6/10

Review: Impressed with what was achieved on a small budget but I felt that introductory message that opens the movie tipped it's hand too much as to where the movie goes.

115. John Carter (2012)

Rating: 7/10

Review: With all the bad press about how bad this movie did at the box office people forgot about the actual movie.  The box office failure I put on the terrible promotion for the movie and not the quality of the movie because I enjoyed this quite a bit and it's a great adaption of the story.

114. Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

Rating: 8.5/10

Review: Highly recommended.  This is from the same director of the Anime film Paprika so I had to check it out.  Really well conceived and executed story with great act structure.  Don't really want to give away any more but it really surprised me with how good it was.

113. A Very Harold And Kumar Christmas (2011)

Rating: 6/10

Review: Goes well with the other movies in the series but not something that could bring new fans to the series.  Fun but completely disposable.

112. Outland (1981)

Rating: 6.5/10

Review: It was about half way though the movie when I realized this was just High Noon in space.  This movie is alright, standard space picture but nothing revelatory.

111.The Muppets (2011)

Rating: 6/10

Review: I had been watching a lot of the original Muppet show recently so I was primed for this movie, and it feels pretty lifeless even though I like the people involved.  Either way hopefully this will spark interest in another Muppet movie that is good is isn't the crap the Henson company had turned out in the past with Muppets in Space and Muppet Treasure Island.

110. Pootie Tang (2001)

Rating: 4/10

Review: Being that I'm a big fan of Louis CK I had kind of persuaded myself that this movie didn't exist and that the Louis we think of now has always existed.  Well in doing research Louis has disowned this movie because of how much was changed when it was taken away from him and very little of what he wanted made it to the final cut.  Which is good to know because this movie is just as bad as the hype of the years has made it up to be.  Black Dynamite succeed at every level this movie was trying to in terms of blaxsploitation parody.

109. Red Tails (2012)

Rating: 6/10

Review: The two oscar winners and Ne-yo some of the biggest problems with the movie because of how badly they act on screen, they take away from the other actor's performances.  Every time Ne-yo came on screen I would cringe because I knew I would be hearing that awful Louisiana accent he picked up in acting 101.  The fighter pilot scenes are obviously the highlight of the film, so in one aspect this does work as an action movie but it should have been more than than considering the historical significance of this squadron.

108. Mystery Team (2009)

Rating: 6.5/10

Review: Being a big fan of Donald Glover I had to check out this movie that he stars in and co-wrote, while it's a low budget affair they get the most out of the writing and i thought there was enough laughs spread throughout the movie to keep me watching.

107. Chronicle (2012)

Rating: 7.5/10

Review: Even though the found footage genre is old hat by now there does come an interesting take on it everyone in awhile and this is definitely one that stands out above most of the found footage movies.

April 2012, Movies #72-106

106. The Dictator (2012)
 

Rating: 7/10

Review: I got to catch an advanced screening of this movie a few days ago and I went in expecting the worse because the trailers promoting the movie have been pretty terrible.  But I'm glad to report that I found the movie really funny, it's so un-pc though that it's probably going to slammed in the reviews because it will make people really uncomfortable but definitely worth the watch.

105. Tekkonkinkreet (2006)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Amazing animation, but honestly the plot left me a little cold.  One of the few times that I thought an animated movie was too long.  I really like the vast majority of the ideas though that the movie encapsulates.

104. Blue Collar (1978)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Paul Schrader's directorial debut is a low key working man's heist movie.  It's was refreshing to see Richard Pryor in a dramatic role and Yahet Kotto a year before he shot Alien.  Movie drags a bit but overall movie has good chore character development.

103. Black Death (2010)

Rating: 7/10

Review:  Good but brutal movie that goes great with watching the current season of Game of Thrones.  There was a little more torture and dismemberment in this than I was expecting.

102. Holy Rollers (2010)

Rating: 6/10

Review: Average movie that was executed well on the small budget they must have had for this movie.

101. Sound of Noise (2010)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Clever heist movie that has a wacky cadre of characters that comes off as more serious than the movie's tone because everyone is German.  Charming movie that I could see Hollywood doing a remake of, but the original is just fine for me.

100. Centurion (2010)

Rating: 6/10

Review: Held my interest because I've been watching anything with Michael Fassbender in it.  But while watching this all I really wanted to do was put the HBO series Rome on again.

99. Tiptoes (2003)

Rating: 5/10

Review: Came across this because of a recent Peter Dinklage interview about it and one of my favorite podcast "How Did This Get Made?" also chose to feature this movie on it's most recent podcast.  Um so yea, it's exactly as awful as you would expect a movie that features Matthew McConaughey with a little person brother played by Gary Oldman.  So many things wrong with this movie it's hard to get into, it really does feel like it was made a good a decade earlier than the release date of 2003.  Only worth watching if you revel in watching terrible movies.

98. Spriggan (2001)

Rating: 5/10

Review: Had been told this was a good ultra violent anime, but it just bored me to tears.

97. Haywire (2011)

Rating: 8/10

Review: I'm a sucker for anything Soderbergh directs and he has been on a hot streak, so I'm biased but I really enjoyed the subtlety of the movie.

96. Crude: The Real Price of Oil (2009)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Engaging doc about the environmental effects felt by the people that actually live around the oil refineries after they have become long dormant.

95. The Breakfast Club (1985)

Rating: 5/10

Review: I hated every character is this movie, I guess this was a product of the times and really has to put into context but really I couldn't be bothered.  Love the portrayal of weed making one of the characters a raging maniac that shatters a glass door by screaming, yet another film that portrays an acid trip when characters smoke.

94. Being Elmo (2011)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Engaging behind the scenes documentary showing the growth of the Elmo character through the years and Kevin Clash's personal story and interactions with Jim Henson.  After watching this I'm primed for someone to try a feature length doc on Henson himself.

93. The War Room (1993)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Having seen clips of this on TV over the years I had always wanted to watch this in one unbroken stretch and I'm really glad I did because this is just as good any other Pennebaker documentary I've seen.  Doc focuses on the nuts and bolts of a campaign and how to run it instead of a portrait of the candidate which would have been the more traditional way of doing this documentary.

92. Shame (2011)

Rating: 8/10

Review: Watching this back to back with Hunger really allowed me to take in perceived style of director Steven McQueen.  I really enjoy his lengthy takes that aren't gimmicky like other new directors would make of it, each scene that runs with an extended take really adds to the characters development.

91. Hunger (2008)

Rating: 8/10

Review: The middle of the film features a 30 minute scene of dialogue that is brilliant because of the extremely long take it really allows the actors to breathe life into the scene, it was the high point of the film and was worth getting through this brutally difficult watch for that scene.

90. The Courier (2012)

Rating: 5/10

Review: The only reason why i gave this movie a chance is because the director did the amazing Paradise Now, but its seems like he completely sold out just to get an english language movie made because I don't think he brothered reading the script.  Total waste of time.

89. The Secret of Arrietty (2010)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Anime take on the Borrowers story.  I never liked the live action film that came out in the 90's and this is finally a properly done take on the story.

88. The Illusionist (2010)

Rating: 8/10

Review: Extremely well animated film with a minimal amount of dialogue, but that doesn't mean there is a lack of story at all but its told through physical actions rather than dialogue.  Can't recommend it enough but definitely watch the Blu-Ray if you get a chance because the animation really comes alive with the extra resolution.

87. Five Deadly Venoms (1978)

Rating: 6/10

Review: I had been sold that this was a great kung fu mystery movie, but even with the additional of the different fighting styles this movie didn't really hold my interest at all.

86. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)

Rating: 6/10

Review: This was the only Miyazaki film that i hadn't seen yet and I guess I had too high a bar set for this movie because nothing happens for the first 3/4ths of the movie and then it wraps up nicely, but its slow going until the ending that i probably would have turned it off if not for the Miyazaki connection.

85. Starship Troopers (1988)

Rating: 7/10

Review: This anime adaptation is something I had been looking for since reading the book as a teen, while the plot is very slow, it's the most faithful adaption of the novel that has been done so far.  The only gripe I have is that the aliens are not designed well at all, that's the only thing that the live action film does better.

84. Spirit: Stallion of The Cimmarron (2002)
 

Rating: 6/10

Review:  This movie would easily get two more points on my rating scale if this didn't include the soul grating singing of Bryan Adams, it really makes the movie feel a good decade older than it is. Animation is well done for the time period featuring a combination of CG and traditional cell animation that doesn't clash thankfully.

83. Pocket Money (1972)

Rating: 5/10

Review: This movie never lives up to the pairing of these two cinema icons, what a wasted effort.

82. 9 (2009)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Well written post apocalyptic tale told from the point of view of reconstituted sock puppets about how machines took over the world.  Great voice cast assembled for this one.

81. The Secret of Kells (2009)
 

Rating: 8/10

Review: Amazingly well done animation really pops off the screen and the story is engaging enough to help rather than hinder the animation style.

80. Turn Me On, Dammit (2011)

Rating: 7.5/10

Review: The first honest portrayal of teenage female sexuality that I've seen recently, I don't think this could be made in the same frank way in America without it getting vilified as pornography by the intellectual elites that decide societal discourse in the media.

79. Forbidden Games (1952)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Moving portait of a misplaced child during wartime that really gets the punches across in it's 80 minute run time.

78. The Darkest Hour (2011)

Rating: 5/10

Review: I put this on because I wanted to see Joel Kinnaman (cast as Robocop in the new reboot) in a feature because I've enjoyed his work in AMC's The Killing, but he doesn't really have much of a presence in this movie.  Moscow certainly looks great though.

77. Lone Star (1996)

Rating: 8/10

Review: Catching up on John Sayles' backlog of movies.  This is easily the best feature of Sayles that I've seen so far, the transitions from past to present are so well done and all are practical effects that it really helps the movie flow extremely well and this is clearly Sayles showing how much command of narrative he had achieved at this point in his career.  As I watch more of Sayles backlog I may change my mind but this is his best film that I've seen so far.

76.  Young Adult (2011)

Rating: 5/10

Review: I hated Charlize Theron's character so much in this movie that I didn't care about the second half of the film.

75. Brother From Another Planet (1984)

Rating: 6/10

Review: Catching up on John Sayles' backlog of movies.  This features quite a few of the stable of actors that Sayles used throughout his career including David Strathairn and Joe Morton.  This is more of a nice addition to his stable of films rather than a main focus.

74. Eight Men Out (1988)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Catching up on John Sayles' backlog of movies.  Well done depiction of the throwing of the 1919 World Series, in the movie there is particular note given about how little the players are getting payed allowing for insurgence of corruption.  And then the players who did decide to throw the game got stiffed on the payday also.  Best period baseball movie I've seen in awhile.

73. Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011)

Rating: 7/10

Review: Brad Bird makes his live action feature debut here to great effect, the sandstorm sequence and the other scenes in Dubai are extremely well crafted.  I didn't really feel like a forth go around for this franchise was needed but to my surprise there was still some fun to be had.

72. Wizards (1977)

Rating: 5/10

Review: The graphic novel this is adapted from has an iconic cover that i came to know well growing up going to comic book coventions through my childhood.  But time has not been kind to film, the animation leaves alot to be desired and the way the plot of the graphic novel is diffused for this really doesn't hold my interest.  There's way too much footage of walking armies that has been rotoscoped into the movie, it felt like I was watching a series of loops.