Thursday, February 23, 2012

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012) dir. Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor

Hey, remember that video game Twisted Metal? That was fun.
I was in Austin, TX, last week on vacation and for months prior, I had been super amped to finally get to see some movies at the nerd Valhalla chain of movie houses known as The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. In addition to showing first run flicks while offering incredible beer and food options to patrons, they do tons of nerdy film programming for classics and obscure flicks alike and have pretty much single-handedly created a massive market for arty screen print movie posters through their Mondo imprint. The Drafthouse is basically everything I like about movies, the theater going experience, artwork and beer all in one place.

So, naturally, I would choose a steaming CG turd pile of a movie like "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" to be the first flick I see there. Here was my thought process:

  1. Is Nic Cage in it? Yes.
  2. Is it in 3D? Of course.
  3. Can I get buzzed while watching it? Why, yes!
  4. ...........?????
  5. LET'S ROCK!
And I'm glad I did because lord knows this blog needs some fresh Nic Cage content.

So, Ghost Rider is actually one of my favorite Marvel characters. He's right up there with The Punisher for me. His head is on fire, he rides a motorcycle (also on fire), he fights freaky satanic cults and demons, and he dispatches the wicked with extreme prejudice. Subtlety is not his strong suit. Recent runs by writers Garth Ennis and Jason Aaron have continued to update and modernize the character in very natural ways. Ghost Rider is always a blast to read.

I think I watched maybe half of the first Nic Cage Ghost Rider movie on cable once. It was really, really bad. Like "Season of the Witch" bad, almost. No one was exactly clammoring for a sequel to that abortion of a movie, but along came the guys who made the awesome "Crank" movies with a script co-written by the guy who wrote "The Dark Knight" and here we are. How could Cage say no? (Answer: he couldn't)

"Spirit of Vengeance" loosely borrows a plotline from the comics about how the Rider has to protect this kid who is apparently the anti-christ from falling into the hands of a cult (duh). Remarkable how similar that sentence is to something I probably wrote about "Drive Angry 3D." Anyways, Cage rages his way through Europe, incinerating a lot of nameless eurothugs (sidenote: Attn people who write action movies, you need to start picking a new continent to stage your movies on. Europe is done played out).

Visually, everything about this movie is offensive to the eyes, from the constant blue lens filter to the awful CG to Cage's bird hair. My main dude Idris Elba tags along as a drunken French priest, possibly feeding Cage lines during scenes while contemplating if he should fire his agent if he EVER makes him go in for another Marvel Comics movie audition. I hope all these bit parts he keeps playing will help him land a big ol' starring role in something good because he deserves better material than this.

If you voluntarily pay to see this movie sober, you'll probably wish you hadn't. I, on the other hand, had a blast while drinking this and eating a giant pretzel with hot mustard. Choose your own adventure, bros.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

One Sentence Reviews of the 2012 Oscar Nominated Best Pictures

Pssssh, lens flare!? What a hack!



It's time for my second annual "witty" one-liner reviews of all the Oscar Nominated Best Pictures and guess what? I've seen even fewer of them this year! 3 out of 10 to be exact. Why? Because they're total garbage! Worse than usual, even. Let's do this!

The Artist - Fun fact: the French hate sound engineers as much as they hate bathing!

The Descendants - Maybe I'll watch this someday when I'm feeling too content with my life and need a good reminder that life is indeed bullshit.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - This is the "American Beauty" of 9/11 movies and that is not a compliment.

The Help - Ah yes, the Oscar-nominated film where a sassy black maid tricked Bryce Dallas Howard into eating pie made of human shit.

Hugo - I actually do want to see this, but only if it's as WICKED AWESOME as THE DE-PAAAHTED.

Midnight In Paris - I've suffered through "Match Point" and "Scoop" so there is no fucking way I'm wasting my time with another latter-day Woody Allen flick, which is only nominated as some kind of misguided attempt at a lifetime achievement award.

Moneyball - I love the book and they fudged the facts enough to make a more compelling narrative, so I'm okay with this winning because, you know, baseball.

The Tree of Life - I cannot help but love this movie because of the effort and the uncompromising strength of Malick's visual style, but I don't act like it's a flawless work of art that everyone should see and worship.

War Horse - I love me some Spielberg, but not one review I read called it "Saving Private Ryan" with a horse, so consider me nonplussed.

Man, those nominees are so bad I struggled to even make coherent jokes. Good night, everybody!

Monday, February 6, 2012

The Grey (2012) dir. Joe Carnahan

"Well...shit."

First of all, this is not a movie about Liam Neeson fighting wolves with broken bottles taped to his hands. Just go ahead and banish that thought from your mind. This is a movie that equally examines both the defiant nature of the human spirit, as well as the hopelessness we feel in the most dire of situations. It's about the handful of things we can draw on for strength when we find ourselves in horrible situations. Needless to say, this movie impressed me.

Neeson has been on a roll the last few years with starring in action movie vehicles like "Taken" and "The Unknown" where he suddenly starts destroying every nameless Eurotrash hood that stands in his way. This one is quite a bit more serious, despite what the previews would have you think. I'm really glad that the makers of this movie recognized that Neeson is very capable of bringing some real depth to any role and he really takes this role and knocks it out of the park.

The first 5 minutes of "The Grey" expertly sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Neeson is a gun for hire, protecting oil rig workers from the wildlife out in the Alaskan wilderness. We gather that something went wrong along the way for him find himself in this position, but Carnahan leaves things just vague enough to keep the story moving forward. Then before we know it, we're thrown into the most harrowing and fucking terrifying plane crash since the "Lost" pilot episode.

I'll spare you the rest of the plot details, but I have to say that I was utterly captivated by this movie. It's a huge bummer and it's way more serious than you'd expect, but an overall fantastic and engrossing ride. My friend Keith summed it up best when he told me, "it was like a Damnation AD record in movie form. Just unrelenting sadness."