First Snow

"Don't snow the snowman."

2 Stars

This was a waste of time dude.
This salesman ( Guy Pierce), busts his car in the middle of nowhere, and decides to kill time by visiting a fortune teller.
Seen it!
He later tells him he's gonna die come the first snow.
So he figures some old friend of his is out to kill him because of a money laundering scheme gone wrong.
So now we spend the majority of the movie watching this this guy become totally paranoid that he's going to be murdered, and chasing this fortune teller around for answers. I understand the film was supposed to be building tension, but it just didn't read. It also seems that Pierce is getting pigeonholed in this character since his role in Memento. Too bad.

Finally we get to a climax of cash, and guns, and a loony, and you think "Alright we're gettin somewhere!"
But it ended up to be anti-climactic. After all the crap they put us through, homie gets hit by a car on the first snow...?!

I was so happy to just be done with it.

Loverboy

"Your Mother is correct.
They are ugly."

2 Stars

I think the folks behind this movie (including director Kevin Bacon) probably thought this was going to spark up conversation, or shock and for me it didn't do either.
It actually kinda blew.

They way Netflix explained it, it sounded alright.
But then I just re-read it and now I have no idea what I was thinking

Emily (played by Kevin Bacon's true wife Kira Sedgwick) wants to have a baby. Real bad. So she does her own version of the movie Twins, where she bangs a lot of different dudes across the nation that have the qualities she would like for a father. She even bangs John Legend!!?
But none of those didn't really pan out. Until... she bangs some dude that is staying at the same hotel and ya'll know...
it only takes one.

So she has this kid, nicknames him Loverboy and is totally obsessed. She wants to be the only thing in his life and him in hers. Throughout the movie he's about 7-ish. She won't let him go to school, interact with others, and the moment he shows any Independence she panics. Does she realize that he won't stay a boy forever? For a minute there I thought she was gonna kill him. You know that "If I can't have you" type thing.
And a very annoying thing is that they don't use contactions when talking to each other. "I do not want to/ I cannot", SHUT UP!! I have a really hard time with fantasy talk like they do throughout. It's retarded.

In and out of the movie there are flashbacks of her childhood. Bacon plays her father and is hot!! I hate that I couldn't find a picture of him for this. He had the tight poly pants, the satin shirts, and the best rose colored aviator shades on, and smoking at all times. Marisa Tomei plays her mom, and while the movie was trying to portraySedgwick as the sex pot while she's banging-cross-America, really Marisa was way hotter.


This movie was a real waste of time.
Thank God I had paperwork to do while it was on.
If you plan on watching it I advise you do the same.

Sublime

"Welcome to Outback Steakhouse."

2 Stars

I really don't see the point.
This movies goes round and round and there's no real pay off. I'm all good with the un-fairytale endings, I dig 'em! But this was just, well retarded. It reminded me of those pointless jokes that keep going and going only to have the punchline be simple and obvious and not funny. "Hey clown! Fuck you!" I'll tell you that one later. Just like this movie, it sucks.

Dude goes into the hospital for this first colonoscopy.
Soon one weird thing after another starts happening. They switched his chart and he got someone else's surgery. There's some mysterious wing of the hospital that is doing raw and dirty surgeries to people. He gets his leg amputated, bangs a nurse, witnesses a murder, wheels in on his wife banging his doctor, and some dude named Mandingo cuts off his fingers and toes!! On top of all this wackiness there's a shrieking eagle throughout the whole movie, and it doesn't tie into anything. Like I was watching The Falconer sketch on SNL.

With all of this going on could you believe it felt like absolutely nothing was happening? I was watching this with some friends. Freaky said "I feel like I'm just waiting for something to happen already."
I'm sure this would make for a better TV movie on the SciFi channel.
This movie was a recommendation as well. And I was feeling so bad while watching it. Sorry V.
But hey, it's not like she made it, right?

A Scanner Darkly

"Your life and watching you live it is like a gag-reel of ineffective bodily functions."

2 Stars

I had such a hard time watching/finishing this movie. I started to look at it like a kid whose been told to eat all of their vegetables. "You're not leaving this table until that movie is finished!" Okay, okay!! Gulp.

Only after watching the special features did I understand what the movie was about. This is an adapted screenplay from Philip K. Dick written in 1977 during the paranoia crazed Nixon administration. He felt no one is safe from surveillance and in the future it can only get worse. An undercover cop (Keanu Reeves) becomes involved with a dangerous new drug, and begins to loose his own identity and his mind.
Dick's question was can an undercover cop become so whacked out that he could sting, and bust himself?

I discovered all of this after watching the movie. Too bad. That would have made it more interesting for me watch. But the dialogue was so ssssllllooooow-ah.
So many pauses, and hardly any voice inflections. Mono and dry, not to mention confusing.

No doubt visually it is stunning. But after this and Waking Life (which I didn't get 10 minutes into before turning it off), I am always going to equate this style with the words slow and tedious.

Am I excused?

10th & Wolf

"Can I stab you?"

2 Stars

Geeze this movie was dumb. But it did have Giovanni Ribisi in it, and he's on "My List", and it dealt with organized crime, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

From the same writer of Crash, comes the true story of 10th & Wolf. I thought that would give it a little credit. Tommy played by James Marsden (Who by the way is really going bald! I guess the X-Men set can afford to cover that up, but there may not have been the budget in this one for some hair flocking.). Tommy comes from a "connected" family. Parents are dead, so he and his younger brother are raised by his Aunt Tina (Lesley Ann Warren) and Uncle Matty (Dennis Hopper. Yup.). Tommy joins the Marines, gets thrown in the brig, and the Feds want to make a deal with him to turn in a big mafia guy, to save his cousin (Ribisi) to whom he is very close, and his brother.

This movie was very miscast. It's too bad. I really like Giovanni, but it seemed like he was doing an impression on Robert De Niro. Boy, what a head of hair on that kid! What can I say, I love the greasy look. Lesley Ann Warren. I really just don't like her. Val Kilmer has a cameo in this too, and he's terrible. Poor guy, he's desperate for work.
A couple actors were actually worth watching.

Brad Renfro as Vincent, Tommy's younger brother. He is sort of slow, and while his brother has been in Iraq he started in the family business. He really wants to prove himself, and Renfro did a great job. Look for him, he's going to be good with some time.

Also Piper Perabo is the Girl Around the Way that they all grew up with. She played something like a poor mans J-Lo, but she was refreshing to watch. You may know her best from Coyote Ugly. She did some good drama, and I'll be watching out for more of her as well.

Last, a surprising yet short role for Tommy Lee. No kidding. He played a mob guy that was really stupid.
The top quote is directed to him actually. I was happy for him! He did some great comic relief for the film. You go, Tommy.

As good as these few actors were, it wasn't enough to hold the movie. It was a drug/crime/mafia movie and it didn't even have a good times montage! Those are gold to me. For me you could make a whole 3 hour mafia movie with only good times montages, and a just a 10 minute finale of gunfire and violence, and I'm happy.

I know we have all had the TV movie or show that is terrible, but for some reason you just have to finish it, right? For me I got really stuck on this cheap TV movie with Stefanie Powers called Deceptions. I was tired and latched on to it, and for the life of me, I had to finish it before going to bed. The same syndrome occur ed with this one too.
Who knows why we do that?

District B13

"He's like, uh...
Like a bar of soap."

2 Stars

This is a real guys movie. The previews were awesome! That's what dragged me into all this. But this plot is so retarded.

Set in 2010 Paris, the government has fenced off "problem area's" into different districts.
Barrio 13 is supposed to be the most hard-core. Yet one of our heroes grew up there and chose not to sell crack, and become the local do-gooder instead. After he dumps millions of dollars worth of coke down the drain, the big drug lord want him dead, and they kidnap his sister to lure him into their trap.

Our other hero is a cop sent into District B13 to, get this, detonate a nuclear bomb that was stolen from the government and is now on a 23 hour countdown. Of course it's the very predictable red digital numbers that beep as every second passes. OOooo.

Some how these two hook up, and it really reminded me of playing Double Dragon on Sega Genesis. Two buff dudes kickin' ass in baggy pants and tank tops. Chain link fences, and loads of bad guys to beat up.
There were a bunch of fight scenes, and a super cool acrobatics scene in the beginning of the movie. If you are a fan of that stuff, you'll love this movie. This guy jumps from rooftop to rooftop, and can easily slip through the most narrow of passages. It is from the makers of the Transporter so think along those lines.

It was just too predicable for me. It is in French, but the dubbed version isn't that bad. If you do choose to watch it in French be warned that they talk really fast, and the subs are really quick. If you wear glasses use 'em.
So if you are an action buff, or know the name of the last Steven Segal movie you could really enjoy this movie.

The Believer

"How can you say all this when
you're a Jew yourself?"

2 Stars

Yeah, that's right. A Nazi that is Jewish. I looked it up, I guess these folks really do exist.

As interesting as this story sounds the movie itself really falls flat. Ryan Gosling stars in this way before his hunky Notebook fame. That was strange to see, but it shows he does have range. He got the New York Jewish dialect down perfectly. He's lately gotten some acclaim for his performance in Half Nelson, which I'm not sure I'm going to watch yet. So this movie was defiantly a practice run for him dramatically.

Other than him the names were none. There was a Billy Zane appearance, but he doesn't count for me.
As you can imagine, his cover is exposed and he is faced with having to decide between his heritage, and his beliefs. OOOooo... More like, BOOooo. I did give it 2 Stars only because it kept me interested enough to finish it.

Music and Lyrics

"That song was dinner!"

2 Stars

Music and Lyrics would have made a better MTV or VH1 TV movie, or on DVD. It's a great movie if your sick in bed, or just need something running in the background. Since I was in an actual movie theater I felt this movie was very rushed and put together with scotch tape. I can just imagine a couple of Hollywood executives..."Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant. They would be perfect in a romantic comedy! Make it happen."

A "has been" pop star from the 80's (Hugh) is looking for a comeback. He gets the opportunity to write a song for the newest teenage pop star, and searches for a lyricist. The lyricist the record label provides is bad, and the lady that waters his plants (Drew) shows a little talent for rhyming and we're off!

When asked to take the job of writing for him she says no, and he chases her all over NY. Now this whole "cat and mouse" thing was cute for a second, but it was really dragged out. He goes to her work, she says no. He invites her to a performance to ask her again, she says no. He takes her to a piano shop and sings to her, she says no. Honestly, I can't remember when she said yes but I guess she did. Because I was in the theater for another hour watching these two rhyme "head" with "bed", and literally watching the sun go down, and come up.

I'm giving this movie 2 Stars. One Star just for being a movie, and the second Star is for Kristen Johnston.
She plays Drew's older sister, and she was great! She has always had perfect comic timing, and is not afraid to look silly. Also she really looks like the white counter part to Monique. Dead ringer, check it out.
Come back Kristen we miss you!

The only way this could qualify for being a date movie, is if you have a good date watching it with you, like I did. I found the best laughs I had through this movie were from my best friend sitting next to me as we goofed on the it. Thanx Mimi.

Artie Lange's Beer League

"I've lined up some primo whooas for the event."

2 Stars

Now, it's not the best movie ever. But being the devoted Howard Stern fan that I am, it was my duty to support my Artie and watch the movie. I almost feel like I'm a part of it! I've been hearing about this movie for years on the show. From Artie's excitement that he got some money to make it, to the antics that happened on the set from day to day,
and the topper was the movie's premiere which aired live on Sirius.

The jokes are cheap. The film is cheap. And Artie's spray on hair is cheap.

What was really fun though was watching Artie so thin! Which on the show is now called "Beer League Artie". He has since ballooned to 296! In the special features on disc 2 you can see his weight gain, and the piles of Devil Dogs that seem to be everywhere he turns.

Fun Fact : Artie revealed the shocking news last year that he was on heroin during the production of
Beer League. He claims he was never high while actually filming. So I was watching for that.

This movie is truly for the fans. It was great to see the cameos. Tina Fey, Joey G, Jim Florentine,
Jim Brewer, Nick Dipaolo, and I hear that Artie's then girlfriend Dana was in it too, but I couldn't find her.
The Jersey accents are thick and that could probably be the funniest part of this movie.

I love Artie, and the show, so I was just happy to see that it was finished. Also his fans are buying it and raising it's sales. Good job Artie, but I'd rather buy Dirty Work.