1.7.2010

9. Kissing A Fool
10. Sorority Row (2009)

I had some issues getting connected to the internet this morning so I figured I'd squeeze in some movies while waiting for Verizon to get their shit together and fix my connection. Here's what I watched...

Kissing A Fool stars Jason Lee, David Scwhimmer and Mili Avital as the inhabitants of a love triangle. Schwimmer and Lee have been best friends since childhood. Schwimmer is a sportscaster and Lee is a writer. Avital is Lee's editor. Lee decides to set Schwimmer and Avital up despite the fact that he is already developing feelings for her himself. This is a decent enough flick. It's nothing spectacular. It's the type of movie that you can see once and be all set with. Once you know how it ends, it's really not worth re-watching honestly. This came out in 1998 at the height of Friends-mania so it is interesting to watch Schwimmer playing a character that is essentially the complete opposite of his character on the show. I'm a pretty big Jason Lee fan thanks to his work in the Kevin Smith movies. He's pretty solid here, as always.

Sorority Row (2009) is a remake of the 1983 film The House on Sorority Row. Lots of eye candy here with Briana Evigan, Rumer Willis, Leah Pipes, Margo Harshman and Audrina Partridge starring. The story here has been done countless times in the past. What starts off as a harmless prank winds up leading to a death and a terrible decision to try and cover it up. This movie would have fared a lot better at the box office back in the late 90s when everyone who was on a WB or UPN show was popping up in horror flicks and making big money doing so. This one hit about 10 years too late for that trend. I wanted to catch it at the theater and it was in and out in the blink of an eye with a total domestic gross of under $12 million. Overall, the movie was just alright. I'm a huge fan of the slasher sub-genre and this one is just your typical slasher flick consisting of good looking people getting undressed and good looking people dying in fairly gruesome ways. Nothing worth screaming about.
If you're interested in seeing it, Sorority Row hits Blu-ray and dvd on February 23rd.

1.6.2010

7. Lost and Found
8. House of the Devil

Lost and Found is one of my guilty pleasures. It's the type of movie that I'd stumble upon on cable and just be drawn to it. It's not great or anything but it's entertaining and has enough laughs to make you keep watching. David Spade stars in it along with French actress Sophie Marceau. Artie Lange is here as well as someone who idolizes Spade just a bit too much. Here's the basic story...Marceau is Spade's new neighbor. She owns a dog. Dog keeps escaping from her and getting loose. Spade manages to continually find the dog. Eventually, Spade decides to just keep the dog and use its disappearance as a means to get closer to Marceau so she can see what a swell fella he really is. It doesn't sound like much (and it's really not). But the cast manages to make it work.

House of the Devil is set in the 1980s. It's a time when talk of satanic cults was running rampant. There were lots of stories in the news back then of folks being abducted and sexually abused by these cults. It's referred to now as the "Satanic Panic". I remember hearing stories of cult members in long robes performing rituals in the woods on stretches of dark and lonely roads. The stories used to freak me out because, as a kid, I didn't really know any better. But I digress. House of the Devil is a 1980s movie, through and through. It looks, feels and sounds like the 80s. It's set in the 80s. Check out the huge Walkman and the rotary phone!
Director/writer Ti West seems to be pretty heavily inspired by those days as it plays as something of a love letter to the films of the decade. The biggest knock on this flick that I'd heard prior to seeing it is that it's fairly slow going. It is. It definitely takes a bit of time to really get rolling. However, I thought it worked. The fact that it took some time really allowed for the feeling of tension and dread to rise. You know something bad is going to befall our protagonist. Watching and waiting for it to finally arrive makes it that much more effective.

1.4.2010 and 1.5.2010

Two days in a row with nothing to show for it. Last night, I was transported back to 1998 with an evening chock full of pro wrestling. I've been a wrestling fan since I was 8. There have been good times and bad times for the product. The late 90s were a great time. There were two big companies, the WWF and WCW. Both aired live programs on Monday nights. There was typically a lot of excitement, as anything could happen. My roommate at the time, John, was a WCW fan and I was a WWF guy. We'd usually just compromise by flipping channels during both shows so we could have the best of both worlds. That ended in March of 2001 when WCW was essentially put out of business and then purchased by WWF. Since that day, there has only been one big Monday night show. Until last night. TNA, a new-ish promotion based out of Orlando, Florida signed wrestling legend Hulk Hogan and decided to host a live 3 hour special. When I first heard about it, I was giddy with excitement. The days passed and rumors were spreading about what was going to happen, who was going to be making surprise appearances, etc. Well, last night was the night. I spent the hours from 8pm-11pm on the couch with the tv remote in my hand flipping back and forth as though the very fabric of my being depended on it. Instead of having John in the folding chair next to my dilapidated recliner, I had the wife on the couch next to me. She's not a wrestling fan at all but last night she temporarily became one to humor me.

As for tonight's goose egg, I've got nothing. I tried to start one but I wound up falling asleep. I guess we can chalk it up to an insanely long 8 day stretch of work finally catching up to me. It's killed me mentally and now it's knocked my dick in the dirt physically. As it stands right now, I'm more than likely going to post this blog and head straight to bed. I should be back to the movie watching tomorrow.

1.3.2010

5. Most Wanted

6. Missing in Action


Day 3 of the new year is another random pick night. I'm a bit disappointed in myself for only getting in two. I got out of work at 10am so by my normal standards, I should have squeezed in a couple more. Serves me right for a)falling asleep on the couch and b)getting restless enough to constantly keep checking the internet. Anyway, let's get on with it.

Most Wanted is a late 90's action flick starring Keenen Ivory Wayans. This was around the time that he was seemingly trying to become an action hero. This was the last attempt at it and pretty much his last leading role. It's too bad because I think he pulls it off pretty well. The plot in this one is nothing new. It had been seen prior to this and has been seen countless times since. A convict gets a second chance only to be double crossed and set up by shady folks.
*yawn*
The cast is engaging enough to make it work though. Alongside Wayans, you've got Jill Hennessy and Simon Baker in some pretty early roles, Jon Voight, Robert Culp, Paul Sorvino and Eric Roberts. Not all big names but certainly recognizable enough. There is a fairly cool scene here where Wayans is on the run with a huge bounty on his head. He's walking down the street, attempting to keep a low profile when suddenly he's spotted by someone. This turns into a big foot chase scene with dozens of folks chasing after him in an attempt to get some of that reward money. This actually leads to a large action set piece with crashing cars and people being struck by vehicles. Actually a pretty good scene.

Missing in Action is one of Chuck Norris' (seemingly)18,000 1980s action flicks. It's a solid one, as were most of them. It's tough to go wrong with the bearded one in an ass-kicking role. Here he plays Colonel James Braddock, a retired Army vet and a former prisoner of war. He knows that Vietnam is still holding Americans prisoner years after the war and decides to go in and set them free. Basically, he kills people with grenades, knives, guns and his hands. It's pretty much one of the quintessential action movies of the 80s and a concrete evidence of Norris' star power back during this time frame.

1.2.2010

3. Birthday Girl

4. Spring Breakdown


Tonight was completely random movie night. I've got literally a ton of dvds in binders that have no rhyme or reason to them whatsoever. I always say that I'm going to alphabetize them and catalog them but then apathy catches on and the idea falls by the wayside. Occasionally, I'll sort through them and choose stuff to watch but typically, I have movies in mind before watching. Not tonight. Basically, I just popped a binder open and grabbed the first title that caught my eye. I suspect that random movie nights will happen fairly often during the course of this event. Those binders are kind of the main inspiration for this whole thing actually but I digress...

Birthday Girl is a 2001 film starring Ben Chaplin and Nicole Kidman. Chaplin is a lonely British bank teller who decides to order himself up a Russian mail order bride. Enter Kidman. Of course, not all is as it seems. If it were, the movie would have lasted about 10 minutes and we'd have been done with it. But, noooooo. Eventually, a couple of Kidman's male friends from Russia show up at their doorstep and that's when things take an interesting turn. This is kind of a tough flick to categorize. IMDB lists it as "crime/romance/thriller". It's actually kind of a bit on the dark comedy side, I'd say. There are a few scenes that made me chuckle that others might not have gotten amusement from. My biggest complaint about this one is the ending. It really just doesn't make a ton of sense in the grand scheme of things. Biggest highlight is Kidman. I'm not really a fan but she looks damn good here. Not sure what it is but playing a skeezy Russian chick suits her quite well. Chaplin is also pretty solid in his role as a banker who might have a little something going on under the surface. I remember that he was supposedly the "next big thing" back in the mid to late 90s. Not really sure what happened in the years following but he's a decent enough actor.

Spring Breakdown. This was a direct-to-video flick from Warner Premiere. It's about 3 older gals who head down to South Padre Island to spend spring break keeping a watchful eye on the daughter of a senator. This one had a really solid cast with lots of familiar faces. Parker Posey, Rachel Dratch, Amy Poehler, Sophie Monk, Amber Tamblyn, Jane Lynch and even Kristin Cavallari from MTV's The Hills all appear. Also, Poehler's real-life husband Will Arnett turns up for a cameo. All in all, you've got a good cast but with everything else landing on the poor side. The story is pretty silly and the laughs are practically non-existent. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much from this one and somehow, it managed to give me even less than I was expecting it to. Odd. Oh well...can't win them all.