watching movies one cup at a time

Nicolas Cage makes about 3 or 4 mediocre movies a year. I guess it pays the bills. Every once in a while he does an exceptional performance that justifies why he got an Oscar all those years ago. However, this film is not one of those exceptions. Now having said that, it’s really not that bad. I kind of enjoyed this movie.

Cage plays an assassin-for-hire named Joe. He is on one last job in Bangkok and things don’t go as planned. But Cage’s role doesn’t slip into a two-dimensional one-note character. It could very easily but he gives it some edge, some depth. Not a lot, but just enough to make you pay attention. This isn’t Shakespeare and most likely this movie will be forgotten, but for what it is, it’s pretty decent.

Holy crap this movie SUCKED! I had low expectations going into it but this even blew those away. It was just a straight up terrible movie. And guess who the female lead is? Jessica Alba. She should be crowned the queen of god-awful movies because she is in nothing but garbage.

Mike Meyers wrote and stars in this goof on spiritual gurus and he recycles a LOT of jokes from Austin Powers. And even though the Austin Powers series of films got progressively worse with each sequel, The Love Guru doesn’t even come close to being as funny as the worst Austin Powers movie. The plot is ridiculous, the acting is horrible, the jokes are bad and often tasteless, and the whole experience is unbearable. NOT FUNNY AT ALL.

Avoid this movie at all costs. Jessica Alba and Mike Meyers need to be banned from making any more films.

This was actually better than I expected. Shia Lebouf left a bad taste in my mouth after Indiana Jones this summer. But when he’s in something more his speed, he does pretty good. This is directed by the same guy as Disturbia, another unexpectedly good Lebouf movie.

In this movie a rogue government intelligence computer starts it’s own coup attempt using a vast amount of resources to manipulate people into doing it’s bidding. It’s very fast-paced and the action is very believeable. Essentially it’s a chase movie and it is pretty fun to watch. The supporting cast all does an excellent job of keeping things from bring too flat. And it’s nice to see Michael Chiklis get to play an intelligent good-guy character for a change.

Nothing earth-shaking here, but it’s enjoyable.

Another pointless remake. It just wasn’t scary. And for god’s sake, what the hell does it take to make this lady grab her kids and GET THE HELL OUT OF THE HOUSE!!?? The whole movie this messed-up stuff keeps happening and she STAYS IN THE HOUSE! WTF!!?? Most mom’s I know would be like “Walls are bleeding, ghost kids are telling my daughter to jump off the roof…. yea, time to get the HELL OUT OF HERE!” Does she think that this whole “crazy devil nonsense” is just going to go away on it’s own? Beyond stupid. And again, there is some bizarre plot twists at the end that just seem pointless and made up. I didn’t buy it. This movie is a waste of time.

This is Rob Zombie’s much-hyped remake of John Capenter’s 1978 Halloween movie about Michael Meyers. Rob Zombie adds his typical trademarks like lots of swearing and violence but doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the table. The remake spends a lot more time on the actual character of Michael Meyers and his childhood than the original one did. And it is interesting to see his disturbing behavior develop. But eventually it just devolves into another slasher movie where the psycho must kill everything for no real reason.

And the character of Dr. Loomis is pretty ridiculous. Michael starts out as a disturbed kid and this doctor is supposed to be helping him. But Michael just slides into a worse and worse psychosis, making Loomis clearly the worst doctor ever. After awhile I had no idea what was going on in this movie. People are getting killed pointlessly left and right. The convoluted story about his sister is just a mess and contrived. Overall there was just no point to this flick. Why bother remaking it at all? Just to add more gore, violence, rape scenes, and foul language? Skip it.

This movie falls into the genre of ripoffs of The Ring. It’s trying to be as good as that and as creepy but it falls very short. It’s a very weak story and the characters make very sudden jumps in logic that doesn’t feel natural. They go from “You’re crazy. You need to get help” to “oh my god, you’re right! The mirrors are trying to kill us!” in a matter of minutes. Kiefer figures it all out pretty damn fast considering no one else could or even came close. There are a few gory, bloody scenes that feel very tacked on to appease the gore porn crowd. And in general this movie feels very unoriginal and spit out just to pass the time. Don’t bother.

Forget this movie. It wasn’t so much that it was bad, it was actually better than I expected. It just wasn’t very funny. There were a few good jokes in there but overall I was pretty bored. And it could have been about an hour shorter considering it’s a pretty thin plot. I think since 40 Year Old Virgin was successful we’ve had this onslaught of these Aptow side projects that are really not as great as they are hyped up to be. Kind of like what happened to the Farelly Brothers after Something About Mary. One hit unleashes piles of “lesser than” projects all trying to recapture that comedy gold. Yawn.

Bottom Line: it’s not bad and there are a few laughs, but overall it’s pretty blah.

Way stupid. Pointless. Why bother? This movie is the direct-to-DVD sequel to 1987′s The Lost Boys, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Keifer Sutherland, Jason Patric, and several other fine actors. The Lost Boys was a big deal to me in 1987. As a 16 yr old spending time in the 80′s punk/goth/alternative scene, it was right up my alley. And it was well done with a decent story and acting. So why are we getting a sequel 21 years later? They are about 19 years too late and must have spent all of those 19 years watering down this story into something paper-thin and ridiculous. All the good things about The Lost Boys are not here at all. Instead we get a lame story that would barely hold up on basic cable, the tiniest possible plot connection to the first film, uninspired and lazy directing, hacky and cliche’d acting, and no clear reason why this movie had to get made at all. Yuck. Don’t waste your time.

This is the sequel to Rob Zombie’s first film The House of 1000 Corpses and it’s not even half as good. Basically this sequel took out all the things I liked about the first movie and just left a run-of-the-mill “serial killers on the loose” movie with no real point or original idea. There was none of the style and flair of the first movie. And all of the bizarre Satan stuff was dropped like it never happened, which is weird to me because I felt that was a big part of the first movie. This flick is just dirty people doing disgusting things and swearing a lot like we’ve seen a million times in movies like Natural Born Killers, From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, Near Dark, and a ton of other b-grade white trash slasher flicks. Except done much more poorly. It just had no character, no style, no flair.

This is Rob Zombie’s directorial debut and it carries on the campy horror vibe he’s cultivated his entire career. Yea, this movie was pretty f*cked up. But honestly it did have an interesting flair to it. It really was better than a lot of the flicks in this genre. Sure there was a lot of blood and guts but it wasn’t too over-the-top believe it or not. And some of the scenes had some really rich flavor to them. The whole Satan thing at the end was really bizarre and the filmed crossed over from blood and guts to demonic and supernatural, like a lost sequel to Hellraiser. And I actually liked it, as twisted as it was. Overall the film delivers exactly what it promises and does it with a lot of style.

Bottom Line: Not for the timid, but better than 90% of the other blood and guts flicks.