The Raven

TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? Because I sat through this POS of a movie! That's why! This movie really was a letdown, guys. I'm sorry to say it, but this really sucked. The best way I can describe it is to compare it to many of Poe's characters, mostly the narrator from The Tell Tale Heart and Usher from The Fall of the House of Usher. In both cases, they start out well, and then slowly decline into oblivion. And that is how I feel about this movie. The beginning was good, but over time, it just got worse and worse. The movie starts out with Edgar Allan Poe's death and then goes back to about a week earlier, claiming that the events leading to his death are forever a mystery... UNTIL NOW. You get the idea. The premise is that there is a serial killer loose in Baltimore who is killing people using techniques that have been described in Edgar Allan Poe's novels. And so a police constable (played by some dude who reminds me of an older, stone-faced Joseph Gordon Levitt) recruits Mr. Poe to help them predict the killer's next move. So far, the movie had me interested, it had an interesting story, it was interesting to see how the killer pulled off these amazing feats, and I was excited to see a movie about one of my favorite writers. The only real problem that I had so far was the casting of John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe. Don't get me wrong, Cusack is a fine actor, but in all of the movies I've seen him in, he has always been the normal everyday guy. Whenever we talked about Poe, I always imagined him being very eccentric and reserved, yet also very over the top in the way he spoke. Cusack was able to nail down the over the top speaking manner, but I never got the feeling that he was either reserved or eccentric. I wouldn't be surprised if they originally wanted someone like Edward Norton or Johnny Depp to play the part, but just couldn't get them, but if I had to make a list of people who could play Poe, Cusack would be far from the top of it.

The rest of the movie seemed okay until the end. There was another issue that I had with it as a whole, but we can get to that later. In the end, we have this big twist as to who the killer is, and it's some guy that only had one or two lines throughout the rest of the movie. And once we come to the scene where his identity is revealed, he just becomes silly, and his motivations are kind of retarded. Without giving to much away, his ultimate end game was he wanted Poe to crank out one last good story before he died, being that Poe was going though a bit of a dry spell in the final years of his life. Aren't there better ways of doing this? On top of that, I was really hoping for that scene (that's in every mystery movie like this) where it is explained how the killer was able to pull off all of this. We sort of had it in the movie Se7en where the detectives figure it out themselves, there were scenes like that in the most recent Sherlock Holmes movies, even in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, they explain what was going on, or they at least give you enough information so you can figure out the rest of it for yourself. And there was no scene like that in this movie. Whenever we saw the killer do something, I kept thinking to myself "There is either more than one of them, or this guy is going to have some sort of weird other-worldly abilities". And on top of that, the killer just acted goofy when he finally came out. He got this weird smile and this goofy evil laugh that were kind of reminiscent of Willem Dafoe when he played the Green Goblin, now that I think about it.

There is one other problem that I would be willing to look past if it hadn't been for the ending. And that is the tone and feel that this movie was going for. At the start, I got the feeling that they were going for a Se7en type feel. But then there was a point where I feel like they decided to go with something along the lines of the Sherlock Holmes movies. Neither one was very fitting, considering that this is too intense to have the fun feel of the Sherlock Holmes movies, and it's far too silly to be in the same league as Se7en. What they should have done is go for more of a Hammer Horror Films feel to it. Kind of try to give it an old-school feeling. A good example of what I mean would be that Sleepy Hollow movie that came out years back. That was a movie that took itself seriously, but was also aware of the fact that it was silly and the people that made it looked like they were having a blast doing just that, being seriously silly. At least that's what I think it was doing, considering that movie had Hammer written all over it, people aren't really sure what that movie was going for. But anyway, if they had taken that approach, this movie could have at least been enjoyable, but it took itself seriously and thought it was something that could be taken seriously. Sorry guys, it just doesn't work out that way. I could go on about all of the historical innacuracies and the other details that were never explained or explored leading to the events of Poe's demise. I could go on about the fact that they used all of Poe's lesser known stories rather than the ones that practically defined both the genre and his career and how, even though the title is The Raven, there is little mention of the original poem and how I was hoping that they could squeeze some of that story into this movie, but if I did, this review would never end.

Honestly, I was really hoping for them to just do a biopic about Poe. You would think that would have already happened, seeing as how he was one of the most influential writers of all time and was a very interesting (to say the least) person. You could do a character study diving into his psychology and exploring the life events that troubled him so much and how that may have had an influence on his work. Come on guys! Really? After making movies like The Aviator and J. Edgar, you would think something like that would be in the works already! Whatever, I'm not bitter.

Final Grade: C-

Carrie remake

Stephen King has had a rather interesting history with movies. When a movie is made based off of one of his books, it goes either one of two ways: It's either phenomenal, or it sucks hard. Some of you know that the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of The Shining is one of my favorite movies, even though it goes away from the subject material. For the most part, the rest of his adaptations tend to suck. The one exception is Carrie, which is a story about a sheltered high school girl who discovers that she has special abilities and uses it to exact her revenge after being pushed too far by her classmates. While Brian De Palma also tends to be hit and miss with me (love Scarface, hate The Untouchables), I will say that his version of Carrie is one of his better films. And now, with this constant stream of re imaginings and remakes coming out, it seems that a remake of Carrie has made the line up.

Being that this was one of the better Stephen King adaptations, I thought it was kind of odd that this would be the movie that they decided to remake. I would really love to see a movie based off of some of his other works, such as some of the short stories in one of his most recent works, Full Dark, No Stars. At first, I thought that this was just going to be another botched Hollywood remake, but then I saw who was being cast as Carrie herself. Turns out it is no one other than Chloe Grace Moretz, aka Hit Girl from Kickass. That is actually one of the better casting choices that I have seen in recent years. In fact, I'm actually kind of excited to see what will happen with this movie now that I know that such a talented young actress has been given the part. If Hit Girl taught us anything, it's that she can go from innocent and wide-eyed to ravenous and full of rage. Call me crazy, but if they do this right, she may be looking at an Oscar nod. That is probably a stretch, but Moretz has definitely shown that she has the chops. Only time will tell if this will live up to my recently increased hopes.

100th review: My Ultimate GUILTY PLEASURE

I looked up images for "Guilty Pleasure" and got some pretty messed up stuff, so I just went with this...  Don't look it up! Creep.

Okay, so the other day, I realized that I was on the brink of writing 100 reviews. And being as such, I saw myself with a few options: I could either A) wait until The Avengers comes out next week and just do a whole special on that (Which I probably will do, it just won't be the 100th special), or I could B) review a really bad movie. At first I thought about reviewing something like Battlefield Earth or The Room, something so horrendously bad that it is on the cusp of being good in a messed up way. But then I decided to do neither, I just thought that I would talk about my ultimate guilty pleasure. Now you may remember back in November when I did a list of my top 5 guilty pleasure movies. And for the most part, I was being honest about those. However I will admit that putting Anaconda on there was a bit of a cop out. I couldn't think of anything to fill the spot and just thought that Anaconda would do. But then I was thinking about this other movie the other day, and ultimately decided that I wouldn't do either A or B, I would just talk about this movie. Considering that the 100 mark is not that big a deal, I'll talk about Battlefield Earth or The Room another day. Also, I will admit that some of these posts were kind of foned in, so I shouldn't make a big deal out of this one. Some of them, I am rather proud of. I have no regrets about the Hero of the Day bit, or my Sean Bean rant, I had fun writing the Batman Forever review, and I really enjoyed talking about the best Christmas movies. Others (pop culture deaths for example), I would just like to say Yes, I did fone that in, mostly because I was bored and just threw that together in about 5 minutes.

Today, we're going to talk about a motion picture that is chock full of HAM. The movie is Man in the Iron Mask.

Didn't see that coming did you? But it's true, this movie is just chock full of respectable actors hamming the shit out of themselves. And when you look at the cast, that is actually kind of surprising. Except for Jon Malkovich, of course. If you don't think Malkovich can ham it up, I'd tell you that you haven't seen enough of his movies, or any of them for that matter. Just watch Con-Air (or this) and get back to me. The rest of the cast, including Jeremy Irons, Gabriel Byrne and Gerard Depardieu shockingly does a bit of hamming as well. Which is especially surprising coming from a guy like Jeremy Irons who gives us less ham than the rest of the cast, but for Irons's standards, we might as well call it hamming.

And before you assholes comment on this or text me telling me I left out Leonardo DiCaprio, I have one thing to say: KISS IT. I already knew Leo was in this, you already knew Leo was in this. The whole world knew Leo was in this. I'm the only guy in the world that remembers that Jeremy Irons was in this and even he probably forgets from time to time! Leo is all anybody remembers about this, and the fact that there were 2 Leo's in the same room just made it even better. Teenage girls everywhere got weird fantasies when that scene happened. And don't even try telling me that you didn't! If you haven't I would like to invoke rule 34 and say that "You do now". You are locked in a room with two young Leonardo DiCaprio look alikes. And this was Leo from after Titanic, so he still has that semi-boyish look about him. One of them is a well groomed king that smells like spring while the other is a prisoner in shanty, torn, DIRTY clothes that you just want to get him out of... I would complete the fantasy, but let's face it, you already have (assuming that you are reading this and you are a girl). You're welcome ladies.


Wait a minute... What the hell was I just talking about?

So anyway, this was a movie that took itself seriously and at the same time, didn't take itself seriously at all. Let me explain, when you look at the setting and the costumes and the props, you can really tell that they went all out with this. They really went balls to the wall in trying to recreate France in the 1600's. They even got a well made cast of classical actors (and Leo DiCaprio) to tell this story. So when you look at the trailers for this movie, you would think that it would be pretty awesome. Also, take into account that this is one of the only Alexandre Dumas adaptations that actually hits it on the head as to what Dumas novels were all about. While I can't say that I blame Hollywood for wanting to make certain novels into actions flicks, it really irks me the way they have taken Three Musketeers and turned it into a kid's flick. Particularly this last one with Chirstoph Waltz (I cry every time I mention his name with that movie). Contrary to popular belief, Dumas' novels didn't really come across as being action flicks. They were really more along the lines of political thrillers, something Tom Clancy would write. So the idea of taking something like Three Musketeers and turning it into action shclock with Cardinal Richelieu (if that is how you spell his name) as this cartoony badguy really pisses me off. The real life Cardinal Richelieu wasn't a bad guy perse, he was just shady, he was a guy that played everybody and schemed into getting his way. Not to mention there were a ton of rumors started about him and what he may or may not have done. Kind of like Rodrigo Borgia (aka Pope Alexander VI). He was really a guy who thought the ends justified the means and was a controversial figure at the time. So naturally, being a character surrounded in such mystery, Dumas cast him as the villain in his novel, and it really worked out, he made for a cool antagonist. In the films, they always try to make him like a weaker Bond villain or a batman villain that you would see in one of Joel Schumacher's films, and the less I talk about those, the better.

The most recent film is just one example of how Hollywood has raped this classic. Another Dumas novel that was very different from the subject material was The Count of Monte Cristo, with Jim Caveizel and Guy Pearce. This one, I like as a movie, but the fact that it went off from the source material was a bother to me. The movie itself wasn't bad, it was compelling, it had enjoyable characters, a good story and some cool sword fights. But... have you read the novel? There isn't a single sword fight in it (I don't think). If they had just changed the names, called it something other than Count of Monte Cristo, I would like it a lot more.

So yeah, I love Alexander Dumas novels, though they are hard to read at times, and I really don't like the fact that they have been treated as kids' stuff when they could be done a lot better. This is the only movie that actually did treat it like the political conspiracy that was in the original book, and it is based off of a rumor that was floating around France at the time, and still puzzles people even to this day.

Now let's move on to what is silly about this movie, and why this movie contains enough ham to feed a homeless shelter on Christmas. While I said that the sets and costumes were well put together, it was everything else that missed the mark. The script, the music, the camerawork, the direction, everything. It's one of those situations where I think the actors that played the musketeers (Irons, Malkovich, Byrne and Depardieu) got really hyped when they signed on, and then they read the script, arrived on set, met the pipsqueak that they would be working with, and just said "Screw it! Nobody's winning an oscar for this one" cut their losses and hammed their way through this movie. And after listening to some of the dialogue, I really have to say... Can you blame them? These are four of the most well respected actors in the business, and this is what they were given to work with? Some of the lines are cool, like when they are kidnapping the king, and Jeremy Irons looks at him and says "It's Judgement Day". Yeah, that was pretty cool, but overall, there is just so much corniness and a tongue-in-cheek atitude that didn't need to be there. Quite frankly, it shouldn't have been there because if you had just given the script more thought, you could have had a real oscar contender on your hands. Everything else is pretty generic and cliche, from the music to the ending fight scene, and it's just horrendous.

So, okay, I've bashed the film enough, why then, do I like it so much? Like I said, you can tell that the actors knew this movie was basically dead on arrival, and they decided to write this one off and do whatever they wanted... And to be honest, I love it when that happens. I love when an actor realizes that they are in a shitty movie and treat it as such. It adds a certain level of dignity to the movie that wouldn't be there if they had just tried to worm their way out of it. You see this happen with Nicolas Cage all the time. Whether you like him or not, you have to admit that the guy really knows how to act (or not act) his way through a shitty movie.

And those are my thoughts on Man in the Iron Mask. Stupid? YES! Enjoyable to watch? Yes, but not in the way they wanted me to enjoy it. Either way, they got my money, so what do they care?

Cabin in the Woods

Okay, now that my review of Bully is done and over with, lets talk about the movie that I was really hyped to see today. And by the way, if you are reading this and you received a text message from me saying that you had to see this movie, that is for one simple reason, and that is that in the time that I have known you, you have exhibited a liking of one or more of the following things: Science fiction, horror, or Joss Whedon. In some cases, you have a liking for all 3. The film was written by Joss Whedon, who is better known for creating the show Firefly as well as being tasked with directing the upcoming Avengers movie. Now while I will say that I was never a huge fan of his before, I can also say with confidence that I am a huge fan now after seeing this movie. My guess is that he decided to write this movie after taking a sick week and decided to kill time by watching movies like Evil Dead, Scream and any other Wes Craven or Sam Raimi movie because this definitely has elements of all those movies packed into these 2 hours. That is all I can really say about this movie without giving too much of it away. Now if you would like to know a bit more (and I promise I will keep the spoilers to a minimum even here because I want you to see this movie), read on. For those of you who don't want to read on, but want to know my final thoughts, all I can say without giving to much away is that I FREAKING LOVE THIS MOVIE. At first, I saw the trailer and thought "Oh, its just another movie about a bunch of idiots who walk into the wrong part of the woods and get slaughtered while getting drunk and having sex" Which isn't that far off, but there is so much to it that I can't really get into it because it would take forever. I have to say, this really is one of the most creative movies I have seen in a while. Not much else to say accept that if somebody wants to tell you the ending (which even I wouldn't dare spoil, not even on here), you are within your rights to shoot them in the face, because the movie is that trippy and that awesome. Much like Woman in Black, I think this deserves to be listed as a classic horror film, even though they are both very different. While Woman in Black had a classic, spooky, Hammer feel to it (it was actually made by Hammer Films) and took itself very seriously, this one had more of a satirical and comedic feel to it at times. This was a fun, creative and even humorous horror flick that, like I said before, had quite a few nods to the films of Wes Craven and Sam Raimi. Both work great to serving their specific purposes and deserve your viewing. Bottom line: GO SEE THIS MOVIE.
Final Grade: A+

I love that picture.

Anyways, if you made it this far, you obviously don't care about minor spoilers. You are also probably fat, and smell like a deteriorating unicorn carcass. Moving on, basically the rest of this post is going to be all the things I wanted to say, but couldn't because it would be spoiling this epic motion picture. Again, while this is a spoilers section, I still don't want to give too much away, but I will say that this movie involves all of the following:

1. zombies
2. torturing redneck zombies
3. swat teams
4. giant spiders
5. killer clowns
6. ancient, demonic gods
7. unicorns (don't ask)
8. Joss Whedon
9. creepy old rednecks foretelling doom
10. mer-men
11. a cameo by Sigourney Weaver
12. giant snakes
13. werewolves
14. ghosts
15. just about every other monster that has, at one point, shown up in a horror flick

Are you still here? Because if you made it to the end of that list, and you haven't decided to see it yet, you really have a problem... You really need to go see this movie... GO NOW!

Bully

It's not very often that I say this, but this movie deserves to be shown in every school, particularly in 6th or 7th grade classes. I know that most schools already do something like this to show the affects that bullying can have on a person, both in the short term and the long term, but this movie really hits it spot on as to how much bullying can mess a person up. However, I think the movie missed an opportunity by only showing the person being bullied and not showing us much about the bullies themselves. If we got a reason as to why people say or do these terrible things, it would have made an already strong message even stronger. Side note: I think it is total BS that this movie got an R-rating all because of 2 f-bombs being dropped.
Final Grade: A-

Rome on HBO

As if I needed another show to get hooked on, a friend of mine decided to introduce the show Rome to me, and all I have to say is: DAMN.

Okay, so a little history, the show Rome was on HBO for a few years, and while the show was insanely popular, it was also insanely expensive, so the powers that be decided to pull it from the air after the end of the second season. While that is unfortunate and it would be interesting to see where they would have taken the show, this is a classic example of quitting while one is ahead. Now, to be honest, I'm only about 3/4 of the way through the first season, and I have to say that I am beyond impressed. One of the things that I like about HBO is that while I do enjoy shows like Entourage or The Sopranos where it is set in a modern day setting with characters that are like everyday people, I really love it when HBO goes all out with shows like Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Band of Brothers, and now this. As much as I love Gladiator, I never got the feeling that we saw what Rome itself was really like during this time period, considering that Gladiator was primarily about the politicians and the schemers. With Rome, you really get an idea as to what a shithole of a place Rome actually was during this time, we see how the higher class lived as well as the bottom of the barrel and how they survived in this world. Of course with a show like this, it is only reasonable to expect some pretty epic war scenes and while there are a few, they are like walk-by war scenes. You see about 30 seconds worth of fighting and then you see the aftermath. But you will learn to forgive that because the show isn't about big battles and fighting for honor and all that stuff. The first few episodes of the season basically tell the story of how Rome went from being a republic to being an empire, and it didn't happen overnight like Revenge of the Sith, it was a pretty long process that involved a lot of backstabbing, death and hurt feelings. And being that this is HBO, the acting is top notch with Ciarian Hinds (I mentioned him back in my John Carter review as being that guy that shows up everywhere but you never know his name) as Gaius Julius Caesar and many other top notch actors, some of whom I think are just plain underrated (such as the Australian dude from The Other Guys). And of course, the other thing that is almost a guarantee with HBO is an absolute abundance of nudity (mainly from women). I think it's almost redundant for me to even bring that up, but some people are still surprised that HBO takes pride in being one of the few networks that can get away with naked people. And they really flaunt that in this show. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of naked women as much as any guy, but there are times where I have to ask "Really guys? Is it THAT necessary? This is the 6th time we have seen this person's ass!" But I digress. All in all, I think this is a great show that is well worth the watch. You can rent them, but I will tell you now that the replay value of this show is pretty high... And NO, it's not because of the abundance of naked women... Though let's be honest, that does play a part... A small part... Hey don't call me gross! Every other guy is saying the exact same thing!

John Carter (of Mars)

Some of you are probably asking why I put "of Mars" in parenthesis. Well, for starters, when I saw the trailer and everything that went into it, I thought a title like John Carter was a bit underwhelming. And then I found out that it's based off a book called John Carter or Mars, which I think is much more fitting, considering that this takes place on Mars, and is all about the planet Mars and all of the life forms that are on it that we have apparently been missing all these years. But I digress. What did I think of the movie? Thats a good question, because I'm not entirely sure. Some parts of it were good, others were just okay. For example, I thought the effects were good, I thought the story was interesting, the lore of this planet, which they call Barsuhm, or something like that, was pretty cool, and a lot of the creatures that lived there were cool. I've heard that this book helped inspire George Lucas when he was first writing the original Star Wars, and I can see why, there were a lot of moments where I said "wow, that's a lot like Star Wars". Okay, now onto what I didn't like. Being that this is a film that relied very heavily on CGI, you can already guess that some of the human acting was not as good as it could have been. Some actors were pretty good, like that one Irish actor who shows up in everything, but for the life of me, I have no idea what his name is. He was Mr Daily in Woman in Black, one of the men being investigated in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, he played Dumbledore's brother in the last Harry Potter movie, Ceasar in Rome and the Russian president in The Sum of all Fears. Do you know who he is? Yeah. Do you know his name? If you do, please be so kind as to leave it in the comments below. Forgive me, I digress. The other thing that I didn't care for was the fact that while some of the lore was cool, there were times where I felt like they were spoon feeding it to me with a shovel. It made it kind of convoluted and a little hard to follow, and fell into the same trap that all of the Pirates sequels fell into. Also, I have to say that some of the casting kind of irked me. For example the main villain was that one guy from 300 who was bribed by the Persians. I'm guessing whoever directed this said "You were a bad guy in that? Alright, we'll cast you". I thought he was kind of bland and not all that interesting. As for the real villains, they are led by a guy who I think is played by Mark Strong, who is one of those people who has shown talent in other movies, but just keeps on getting really bland roles. I thought he was pretty good in Sherlock Holmes and was great in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. But everything else I've seen him in, he's just playing your typical villain. I mean, sure he has a creepy face and haunting voice, but seriously, do more with this guy, give him a part with more substance.

Okay, all that aside, this is a well made movie that I can see perhaps getting a cult following. Now I generally love cult movies, being that Memento, Bladerunner and The Big Lebowski are some of my favorite movies. This one, I'm gonna have to pass on however, because there were no moments that wowed me the way I think they were hoping.

Final Grade: C+