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Infinitely Polar Bear (2014)
Rocks and Socks
Maya Forbes skillfully directs a loving tail about a man's frail grip with his emotions, and with his sanity. Even looser is his connection with his daughters and wife. Mark Ruffalo's character is attempting to reign in more things than an octopi cowboy while drinking enough to whet Nick Nolte's appetite.
His character makes me think that Adam Sandler and Hunter S. Thompson hopped in the Brundle teleportation machines to create a fragile but dominating human embodiment of a flailing bee. Or High Fidelity occurring inside your hippocampus set to a groovy soundtrack.
The only issue I had with the film was the director's attempt at painting too many biographies in such a short screen time. I related most with Ruffalo's character (being manic depressive myself), and found it very difficult to do this when the true centerpiece of the film rests in the children (who Ruffalo and Saldana also focus on, with an occasional squint at each other for the first half of the film).
All in all, a fun movie that doesn't demand much of your time. It's a delicate character study of a brilliant but fragile man's relationship with his initially frightened peers.
The Toxic Avenger (1984)
Simple Jacked
Joe Ritter's script felt like the lines from Commando extras infused with a tinge of glamour and a Dante/Raimi darkness. The lead protagonist is a C.H.U.Dian built superhero version of Day of the Dead's "Bud". (So, in essence, it's Bud the C.H.U.D...) Andree Miranda plays the attractive but flat testosterone absorbing female better than Roxanne Kernohan.
The gore is cartoonish but satisfying for those who expect the entire movie to be like Emil's toxic demise in Robocop.
Lloyd Kaufman's direction was perfectly lackluster, being sure to get plenty of gore and cheese without any substance to throw off the taste. While Mark Torgl's lead feels eerily similar to Simple Jack, in a good way.
If anything, this movie shows that, in order to go full vengeance, sometimes you have to go full retard.
The Dark Knight (2008)
The Snark Blight
I've given the film a rating of 1 for two reasons:
Film is of poor quality.
Film is overrated to the point that I can no longer conjure images of it without immediate hate. This film is my 9/11.
Why I didn't enjoy the film? Batman's voice resembled a cigarette smoked by Joe Cocker. Plot holes. Dialog written by a 15 year old who read a wiki article on philosophy but wants everyone to speak in Matrix vernacular. Poor choreography.
In a film that had the presence of Michael Jai White, the fight sequences somehow felt like an episode of Kung Fu. On the bright side, we got to discover Batman's weakness through a un-Lucky surprise attack from....killer robots? No. Aliens? No. Superman? No. Dogs? Yes, Batman was incapacitated by two dogs. Not even Cerberus dogs, who would have 1.5 heads per limb on Batman.
"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain." Because, uh, um, it's convenient to say the plot. Seriously, I've only had this statement come up in casual conversation when talking to interns.
Boring, pretentious, clumsy movie with a soundtrack that sounds like beached whales emulating a dying keyboardist.
Step Brothers (2008)
Two wigs plastered against a rotting wall.
The movie serves as yet another vehicle for Ferrell's witless drivel. Reilly provides a slightly more amusing performance but fails to achieve anything beyond vulgar childish reprimanding of Ferrell.
It's Thelma and Louise meets Dumb and Dumber, except their goal meant nothing and the movie's even more childish than the latter. If only Scanners pervaded the movie and caused the lead characters' heads to explode inside the chewbacca masks, spraying brain matter and wookie hair all over the audience like a bad day at the groomers.
All in all, another sad excuse for a comedy, and a laughable excuse for remnants of drama.
Fight Club (1999)
Worse than the credits of Alien 3
If there's any lesson to be learned from this film, it's that good leadership involves fighting yourself. Yes, not a soldier stifled under Washington as he pummeled himself while crossing the Delaware. The Rumble in the Jungle, except the Jungle manifested as a convoluted and nonsensical plot.
The movie can be summed up with having Walter Mitty go through a traumatic childhood, and now lives out violent fantasies. Except the movie has no humor, no semblance of calculated dialog, a plot filled with more holes than a road sign off a southern highway.
And that would have been bearable... If the movie wasn't so entrenched in pretense and a faux philosophical atmosphere. If Inception were Camus, then Fight Club is Eco. When Norton rolled down the stairs I expected his notes from Philosophy 101 to fly out of his pockets like a pinata from Goodwill.
Boring movie, pretentious movie, garbage movie. Fincher possibly at his worst.
The Expendables (2010)
Explaindables
Woe are ye critics who went into the theater expecting a character driven biopic. Stallone neither builds a computer nor does he solve Enigma in this film, however, I'm sure Dolph Lundgren could.
This movie is a muscle fest of TRT and TNT. It's like a bodybuilding convention being held inside Cabela's.
Where it fails is where it should have been more cheesy. We finally get to see Lundgren, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Statham, etc, in a movie together, and it's a bloody lead fest with a toned up love story of attachment when the only attachments should be a foregrip and an ACOG.
Character idiosyncratic combat is great. Statham with knives, Stallone's revolver, Crew's shotgun, Dolph's blade, and Li's fists. Even the hand-to -hand allowed all the characters to bleed their own specific choreography into what felt like a live-action Mortal Kombat meets Commando meets When Mustang Met Sally (er, uh, Harry.)
All in all, a satisfying movie that just left me wanting more of what could have been, should have been, and has-been.
Death Sentence (2007)
Death Wish 33 and a third
The tragic death of a jock results in the indignation from his untrained but enraged paternal guardian in what could be summed up with conjuring an image of flinging blood onto your own DVD copy of Death Wish.
Kevin Bacon unconvincingly turns into a human weapon after vindictively reloading firearms, a training method only known to the elite soldiers of Bosnia, who would agree that this movie doesn't do justice to just how long one must load/reload a gun to become a one man death squad.
Goodman's performance was amusing, as a gangster that smells like Arby's and talks with a bite of horsey sauce. Cliché' and uncompelling, but thoroughly fun to watch with his limited screen time.
Bacon supplies great moments of drama that unfortunately coincide with spotty directing and screen writing spottier than a jaguar with leprosy who habitually leaves ink pens in its pockets.
All in all, a movie that could've been great, but fell short due to plot holes and, like most fast food places, simply didn't have enough real Bacon.
Act of Valor (2012)
Crack or Valium?
The title describes what this movie needs. The acting was poor to the point of my belief being suspended, then having the bungee cord severed by stray gunfire as I cascade into the river of monotonal performances.
Groovy scenes of action felt formulaic, with the typical heroic sacrifice to upset the audience over a character that was as developed as a Flash Game beta. (Not to bash flash games, I'd rather play Palisade Guardian than watch this again.)
Any meaningful connections were lost with cringe worthy acting, as the character's emotions were unfortunately lost to roadside bombs inside the epiglottis.
Bad movie, good action, bad acting.
Casa de mi padre (2012)
El Bad
Watching this movie was like eating a Taco Bell burrito, only to find human blood in it. I'd still probably eat it, and I still sat through this movie in its entirety.
The jokes fell flatter than a tortilla trying to do a backflip for the first time. There was no realistic character development, (not that I expected any).
This movie was simply a vehicle for the typically vulgar and uncreative humor generator that is Will Ferrell. Who functions as an ice cream truck that only delivers the cone and expects full price. (Yes, a vague allusion to Last Action Hero's "To Cone A Phrase.")
I wouldn't recommend watching this film unless you're bent on watching every Ferrell movie in existence, which is like binge watching Bergman, only really bad in every way.
So it's not like watching Bergman, but like watching Seth Macfarlane watch Bergman and attempt to MST3K it with penis references and jew jokes. But with a burrito also cracking jokes.
Of the Will Ferrell garbage, this is the juice that flows from under the dumpster.