More To Come

I apologize, dear readers, for essentially disappearing for the last thirty days or so. I assure you, I had watched a shit tonne of movies and have had wide ranging emotional responses to pretty much all of them. I've just been too exhausted and burned out to actually write anything. This will change in the days to come. Until then, know this: the Bounty Hunter, the Back Up Plan, and Killers are not funny or particularly watchable; Clash of the Titans is a fast paced action adventure flick that ends with the cinematic equivalent to a kick in the balls (or ovaries); and MacGruber is a fucked up highly offensive comedy that almost all of you will hate but which I loved. My banned actor's list has expanded to include Ashton Kutcher and Catherine Heigl. And Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince still pisses me off. See you in a few days.

Gunless

Here in Canada we feel we put up with an awful lot of American bullshit. Watch a Canadian newscast and you’ll find intelligent, reasoned discourse on the wisdom of the latest policy decision and its potential impact on our larger socio-economic structure. You’ll find coverage of local municipal issues, stories presented with a minimum of hyperbole. Now go and watch Fox News. You’d swear Hitler and Mussolini walked down the middle of Washington, DC in an attempt to steal everyone’s gun, abort their women’s babies, force white hetero sexual couples into marrying unemployed black homosexuals so that illegal Hispanic immigrants can set up radical muslim mosques in Christian neighbourhoods and train terrorists to take American jobs.

We combat such ridiculousness with irony, satire, and razor sharp wit. We can do everything our Yankee counterparts do, just with one tenth of the money, manpower and audience. We send in our most talented actors and comedians to take over Hollywood, entice big productions north with our skilled and superior production teams, tax breaks and abundance of Tim Horton’s, but tell someone you saw a great Canadian film and you’re likely to be met with, “Aw, that’s just super”.

Paul Gross is on a mission to change all that. Probably the most talented Canadian actor who’s never really broken out to US audiences, he is the gift that keeps on giving to the modest masses north of the border. Gunless is a wonderfully incisive satire about American gun culture and the wild west mentality that still pervades an unfortunately large percentage of our neighbour’s way of life. Here he plays the Montana Kid, a gunfighter on the run who accidently crosses into the polite confines of small town western Canada. He lives by a code, a very rigid, inflexible code that is an unhealthy blend of ego, testosterone and male pride.

Right off the hop, he takes offense to the local blacksmith daring to touch and tend to his horse, and demands a showdown. The rest of the movie is about the wild and elaborate lengths he will go to for retribution. There is an awful lot to enjoy about this movie. It has a cheeky subversiveness about it, where every tense dramatic moment gets undercut by hilarity, it plays to the stereotype of our overly hospitable nature - how we’re so eager to please even those looking to kill us. There is a classroom scene which I felt brilliantly lays waste to the current second amendment debate raging south of the border and is a shining example of the wit inherent throughout the script.

Of particular delight was the performance of Tyler Mane. I have become quite a fan of his work over the years – at about 6’7” and about 275lbs, he is a menacing presence on screen. As Sabretooth in the first X-Men film, Ajax in Troy, and Michael Myers in the most recent Halloween movies, he has shown an ability to dominate the screen with his physicality and surly demeanour. In Gunless, they actually let him talk. He is quite funny and delivers his lines well – he’s capable of so much more than Hollywood has been willing to give him and I hope this role kickstarts a long and interesting career in film.

Watch and enjoy Gunless. Stick around for the credits – this PG movie gets decidedly R-rated during the outtakes. I give it 8 out of 10

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I am not a gamer. When I was young, my parents bought me the Atari 2600, which came with 2 games. Then they realised how fucking expensive games were and I never got another one. My beloved and utterly amazing fiancé bought me a PS3 for Christmas this past year so now I’ve been able to try some new games, and frankly, I suck. My life is frustrating and stressful enough without me trying to figure out how to beat the overwhelming odds of the major boss battle I don’t have the skill to win.

The only arcade I ever visited was the one in Fort Edward Mall in Windsor, my home away from chemistry, French, math and sociology. I stuck to a couple of games, mostly a chintzy basketball one that was easy and provided me with the best bang for my quarter, because I could play one game for about 20-30 minutes before crapping out. I do not have the fondness for such things that most of my other friends possess so a lot of historical gaming references go right over my head.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World resides at the intersection between comic book heaven and 16 bit gaming geekitude. Based on a comic book and constructed like a classic arcade game, I am prepared to say this has supplanted Iron Man as my favourite movie of all time. If you haven’t seen the previews or promos for this “epic of epic epicness”, then here’s the skinny:

Scott Pilgrim is a scrawny awkward 22 year old bass player who falls in love with an aloof American chick, and must defeat her seven evil exes in battle in order to pursue a relationship. Of course, if you need a scrawny, awkward 20 something in Hollywood, you need Michael Cera. I’m sure studios have their own Cera searchlight, kind of like Gotham’s batsignal. Therein lies the rub – if you are predisposed to hate Cera’s work (he’s the same in every movie), you will likely not enjoy this either.

However, if you avoid watching it solely because of its’ star, you will be depriving yourself of a hilarious, brilliantly written action comedy. For me, this movie succeeds because the script is so smart and well developed, the action sequences are outstanding – paying homage to such diverse influences as Street Fighter, Manga style anime, classic Saturday morning cartoons and Super Mario. Visually, this is a masterpiece – CGI, lighting, perspective, editing all come together flawlessly in ways both subtle and obvious.

Performances were fantastic all round, but I will heap special praise on all of the evil exes, especially Chris Evans and Brandon Routh. Seriously people, all of the hype surrounding this film is spot on. It moves along quickly, you never have far to go between the next great laugh or action sequence. Imaginative, well executed and utterly brilliant, this is what movies are supposed to be.

I rate this 10 out of 10. See it in theatres, buy it when it comes out but please don’t download it illegally. Support great art.

Triage

A highly overlooked talent for actors is their ability to pick good projects for themselves. Russell Crowe, to my mind, is the best in this regard right now. Look at his body of work – how many really bad movies has he been in and how often has he been bad in them? Denzel Washington also makes mostly smart choices. When they drop the inevitable turd, it’s disappointing but no one bats 1.000 and you can be fairly certain they’ll redeem themselves next time. Some actors will take almost anything offered them – Nicole Kidman, I’m looking at you – which makes it impossible to handicap the likelihood of getting a quality experience out of your rental. Then there’s Colin Farrell.

I imagine that Mr.Farrell would be an awesome dude to sit down and have lunch with. He’s a smart and charming lad, obviously very talented. I also think he has great intentions. Dude enjoys a good time, I’m sure he looks to bring that to every set he’s on and I believe he works hard. I just wish he had a better track record with his film projects. Watch him in Phone Booth and the Recruit and you can see untapped potential just waiting to come out. If you watched him in Daredevil and Alexander, well, I’m sorry. That was embarrassing for a lot of people. Now, there’s Triage. Sweet mother of God what a performance!

It’s like he went shopping at the Academy Award giftshop for this role. Pop quiz – how does a young actor get on the fast track to winning an Oscar? Lose 44 pounds at risk to your long term health, make sure your character has some kind of disability, make yourself ugly, and if you have an accent, use a different accent. Mission accomplished.

The movie itself is about Mark Walsh, a freelance photojournalist covering the Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq in the early 80’s. While camping with the rebel forces, he is witness to gruesome conditions - a doctor forced into committing triage via mercy killings, failed assaults, isolation, despair and food that would gag a maggot. While there he suffers a serious injury which the film is in no hurry to explain and comes home to London struggling with the burden of what he’s seen and what he knows. He is not the same man he was before and his wife/girlfriend calls in her grandfather (played by Christopher Lee) to offer him psychological purification.

Not gonna lie, I felt somewhat manipulated by the structure of this film. The score and cinematography seems familiar and borrowed from other Oscar type movies, almost like it was assembled more for film academy juries than to service the story. Be that as it may, I still liked Triage. Colin Farrell is phenominal – the story was less interesting to me than his performance. Christopher Lee in a supporting role is fantastic. I read that he had to learn more lines of dialogue for this role than in any other movie he’s ever done. Dude is 86 years old and has been in almost every movie ever made. That is impressive to me.

I give Triage 7 out of 10

The Joneses

I am very good at selling things. I get paid very poorly to sell as much as inhumanly possible for an entity that does not care if I live or die – if my stinking corpse could move high margin product, they’d slap a uniform on it, prop it up and complain it doesn’t sell enough. This is the nature of corporations. People live on food, oxygen, water and love. Corporations live on marketing, profits, productivity and not giving a fuck about the people who buy their shit or the people selling it. We’re all in the cross hairs. Yes, I know that in theory, people run corporations. However, the bigger the company, the less humanity you’ll find at the helm. Something has to be sacrificed for the sake of the job.

Yes, this is an extremely cynical view of our world but if it’s not entirely true, it’s more true than you’re comfortable admitting. Origin of species? We’ve evolved from eking out an existence in unforgiving environments for the sake of survival, to creating the unforgiving environments we struggle to survive in so people will one day remember we existed at all. Conspicuous consumption. I have all I need but I demean myself every day to acquire the means to get everything I want. How do I know what I want? Corporations tell me. I would buy a solid gold turd if it came in a cool looking box and would proudly buy a display case to put it in if I thought it might one day come in a collector’s edition gift set.

So what’s the point of all this then? My point is, watch the Joneses. This is a brilliantly satirical look at how we don’t know what it is we want until someone else tells us we want it. Demi Moore and David Duchovny star as Karen and Steve Jones, a pretend married couple who are paid to live in the most gorgeous fucking house you’ve ever seen, drive the newest and hottest Audis on the market, wear the trendiest clothes, and generally set an example for all their neighbours to follow. Even their pretend kids – played by Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth – are sexy and awesome. So, how’d the Joneses get all this shit? Well, they are part of the next great corporate innovation – stealth marketing.

Basically, some big corporate entity does a marketing survey determining where all the high income status seeking douchebags live. They send out a team of four salespeople to infiltrate every possible high value market they can and move a shit tonne of product on behalf of a wide range of clients. The goal is to create an illusion of awesome to drive demand for the latest and greatest of everything ... it’s like having a living, breathing Neiman Marcus catalogue move in next door. The genius of this approach is, the less genuine and more obviously full of shit your sales people are, the greater the sales, because everyone in this demographic is as fake as a three breasted sea monkey anyway.

Duchovny is the Joneses sole link to humanity. He is the newest to the game, and only came to it because he was so lonely and lost, living as a fake family seemed more appealing than having none at all. Everyone in the cast is phenomenal and I don’t want to give away too much of the story, other than to say, it is a thought provoking, intelligent and well constructed satire that is absolutely worth the rental. I loved the execution of the concept as much as the concept itself. More than anything, the Joneses left me thinking of the following paradox:

As a salesperson, your job is entirely based on your ability to close the sale. Numbers are everything – this is a cold, harsh, results oriented world. But don’t act like a salesperson, because real people hate that. Salespeople aren’t real people, they’re pretend people who get paid to sell things nobody wants to real people. So, ideally, sell without selling. Be real people and not salespeople, because only then will real people want to buy from you. But always be closing. And structure each interaction so that you emphasize the products your employer wants you to sell the most of, because if you don’t sell what you're told to sell, you won’t be selling anything at all from the unemployment line. Sell your company's products as a solution to the clients’ need. If the client determines a different product, one that you don’t sell is what fits their need best, then you’re not a good enough sales person. Happy selling!

I rate the Joneses 8 out of 10.

Repo Men

I don’t get this movie. People have accused me of being fairly intelligent with an unusual taste in film but after watching this I am at a loss of words. What exactly was the fucking point of this?

Repo Men takes place in a future where organ replacement has become a monopolized industry involving synthetic, universal/interchangeable parts. Salesman pitch you on the value of the life saving service and repo men stand at the ready should you not be able to make the financial commitment. Basically, the Live Organ Donation sketch from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life? They found a way to stretch it out to 2 hours and strip the humour from it all. They kept the gore though.

It’s kind of science fiction, sort of a super super dark comedy. I guess. Elements of horror. Some action. Basically the only genres this film doesn’t adopt are westerns and porn. Jude Law and Forest Whitaker star, Liev Schriber plays the corporate sleazeball. There are other people and other stuff happens but honestly, I couldn’t force myself to give a shit. It’s gross. And weird. And what the fuck is wrong with Forest Whitaker? No, I’m not talking about his eye, I’m talking about how sweaty he is. He always looks like he just walked through a lawn sprinkler.

There’s a plot twist, but there was that whole me not giving a shit thing and that did nothing to change it. Watching this movie I thought about Equilibrium, V for Vendetta, Children of Men, the Fifth Element, and I, Robot. I enjoyed all of those movies more than this. Go ahead and watch this movie and if you get the point of it, that’s just super. Drop me a line and let me know what it was.

I rate Repo Men 3 out of 10 (for having the balls to actually show Jude Law and Forest Whitaker watching the Monty Python Live Organ Donation sketch)

Kick Ass

Ever since I was a young boy, I have dreamed of being a hero. The hours I spent with a bully’s foot on my throat while others stood unable or unwilling to help, the days spent hiding in my room from an abusive sister and alcoholic parents, the years of relying on the generosity of others in order to survive – the idea that I might be able to save someone else who felt the despair I knew all too well, made the helplessness easier to bear.

Kick Ass is a teenage action/comedy that asks the question – why don’t people try to become super heroes in real life? Why do we think we have to be bitten by a radioactive spider or have an alien fall from the sky in order to save us? Tired of being invisible, Dave Lizewski takes it upon himself to stand up and say enough is enough. He orders a wetsuit and mask online that makes him look like a sausage sponsored by John Deere and takes to the streets to fight crime.

What special skills does he have to make him a super hero? Well, um, none actually. Just the will to do it. His first rescue is predictably bad and very nearly kills him. Rather than discourage him, he learns that getting stabbed and run over by a car has damaged his nerve endings which means he feels no pain. Courage mixed with the absence of skill is a dangerous combination but in short order, Dave’s alter ego Kick Ass becomes a YouTube sensation and a legend is born. This draws attention of all kinds – the local crime lord is on a mission to murder him, kids his age are on a mission to worship him, and an actual crime fighting duo are on a mission to develop his skills.

And here we get to the highlight of Kick Ass. The true stars of this film are Chloe Moretz as Hitgirl and Nicholas Cage as Big Daddy. Chloe plays an 11 year old ass kicking dynamo who curses like a sailor and is tutored in rather shocking and horrific ways by her father. They are driven by revenge and are out to take down the criminal enterprise run by the deliciously malevolent Mark Strong.

I loved this movie. I loved the writing by Matthew Vaughn & Jane Goldman – it is sadly uncommon to see teenagers written so well in an action movie. I loved Nicholas Cage’s homage to Adam West whenever he dons his Batmanesque super hero garb. The performances all round were solid. The movie has a fantastic pace, McLovin as a double dealing douchebag in a sexy red sports car ... but mostly, Chloe Moretz. Her athleticism, the courage it took to take her character as far as she took it (both as an actor and as filmmakers, this was a ballsy choice). The scene’s epic final battle was beautifully shot and directed and I couldn’t have been more thrilled with the casting choices.

This movie, as great as I think it is, will not appeal to everyone. Watching Mark Strong towering over a 13 year old girl and trying to punch a hole in her face is pretty shocking to see. It’s also rather jarring to see someone so young and sweet looking toss around a word like cunt, but it was so worth it. This is not a family friendly movie at all, and I think the subversive /bad influence streak adds to it’s appeal to me.

I rate Kick Ass 8 out of 10