IHAO on ... Horns

Joe Hill is a writer I've enjoyed for quite awhile.  Locke and Key is a comic book I could not put down and loved getting until my local comic shop screwed up my order and got me behind and missing pieces.  I'll eventually fix it.  In the back of one such comic of Locke and Key, Joe Hill put a few chapters of his book "Horns."  It was awesome.  I've been excited about it for a long time.  Then I found out about the film version, and I got more excited!  And I finally got it on blu ray after it never came around my town for a cinema release, and ...

Street Sharks drum roll ...

It is fantastic!  It is super super duper good.  With a few minor problems objectively and one really really petty subjective problem, it is absolutely a great film, and probably would have made my list of Best movies of 2014 if I had been able to see it then.  Luckily, is a frontrunner for this year instead!

Horns is a fantasy thriller about a depressed and downtrodden Ig, a young man who is seemingly wrongly charged with the murder of his long-time girlfriend.  The entire town hates him, telling him to go to hell.  Also, he wakes up with horns growing out of his head.  And things just start going weirder, a little darker, a little funnier, and a lot more thrillingly.

Horns revels in its characters, its actors, and its story.  It is an emotionally powerful narrative with awesome actors like Daniel Radcliffe and Juno Temple, and a truly edge of your seat mystery, all brought to a fever pitch because of all the imagery and actual demonic powers happening.  The film has a very familiar narrative format, probably because Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King and the two of them have an incredible way of stringing a narrative together.  Better than all of that, Alexander Aja, the director, does an amazing job with really pushing what a film can do.  He uses amazing visuals, awesome camera work, and breakneck pacing to crank this film to 11.  I mean, truly amazing visuals.  The makeup work is just phenomenal.  Probably the best makeup work I've seen in a film in years.

The film is mostly flawless.  There are very few female characters, and most of them we only hear their dark and dirty secrets which wouldn't paint any character favorably, and in fact it doesn't beyond a small handful.  And the treatment of its lead female for the purpose of plot could possibly really hurt some folks who are sensitive to women being "fridged."  I understand the problem, but don't personally think it hurts things in this film.  Much like the Bechdel test, women being fridged is not a quality problem, but a litmus test that shows a larger problem in writing.  There are stories that need to be told and can be told when unfortunate things happen to people, and love and revenge and murder are all thrilling story components.  But I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fridging.  Also, I'm being purposefully obtuse about that wording just in case it is a little too spoilery for some.

This was the best fridge gif I could find.  Also, link here for learning more about women in fridges.

The other objective problem is that there are CGI snakes, and sometimes, the layering is pretty lazy.  Like, they are clearly fake snakes.  And ... yup, that's it.  That's all the negatives I have from a filmmaking perspective.  And they are completely negligable, in my opinion, because of the ride and performances this film gives us.  The film is a DEEP film, with lots to sift through and a whole lot of amazing shots, effects, and symbolism, but none of it so in your face to ruin the experience.

I have one incredibly lame subjective problem that is not a problem, but I figured I'd share it: this film has a real pulpy feel to it.  It is a dark, thrilling fantasy murder mystery.  And there is some awesome nudity and emotional stuff (that is not a phrase I thought I'd write, huh) as well as satire and comic stuff as well as action, just ... so so much great stuff.  And ... the emotional stuff didn't quite get me.  I've become a softy, and the film didn't make me cry.  Yeah, my only other negative is that this awesome movie didn't make me cry.  Shut up, me.

Grade: A++

IHAO on ... Fate/Zero

Normally, I try to make sure I have watched everything I review completely at least once, many times twice, to get a strong critical opinion, as well as personal opinion of the subject.  But television shows become difficult to review because of that.  I can put three or four hours into watching a film twice, or six hours for a wrestling PPV, but even the smallest of television shows take almost twice that long for me to watch and review.  So I thought for this review I would instead give my impressions on the first five episodes, and a lengthy and personal backstory to the franchise it belongs to.  Plus, the next collection of One Piece is coming to my home the day you all can read this because Amazon pre-orders are great, and I'm just in a crazy excited anime mood.

Fate is the ... prefix? category? ... think like "Dragonball" - it is a set of entertainment stories that all take place in a shared universe.  That universe is a modern fantasy world, where mages and arcane pedigrees and ancient relics exist.  Where the Holy Grail is summoned into being every somethingorother years and is fought over by seven Masters, all who have summoned Servants, each connected to a particular class of Servant: Saber, Archer, Lancer, Assassin, Rider, Caster, and Berserker.  It is a crazy imaginative world, and Fate/Zero is a pre-sequel to the main story, Fate/Stay Night.

In college, a friend took a chance and thought I may enjoy Fate/Stay Night, a visual novel video game semi-adult entertainment ... thing.  It is like a voice-acted, slightly animated choose-your-own-adventure novel.  It was amazing.  It was mindboggling, and kept me up many evenings as I went through its massive story.  The story is so massive it requires time travel-y, alternate future shenanigans to hear it all to completion.  It got an anime I cannot wait to own and watch of its own.  The plot of Fate/Stay Night is the events of the Fifth Holy Grail War.

Fate/Zero is the events of the Fourth Holy Grail War.  And it is realized completely in one story, which is the anime I just started.  So let's talk about that anime.

The first thing to know is it is a dense show.  The entire first episode introduces you to so many characters and concepts, you almost have to know what Fate is before you start watching.  I knew bits and pieces of the story that was told to me during the events of Fate/Stay Night, and I still got lost a little first time through.  The second thing to know is that it is a beautiful animated anime.  It reminds me of Attack on Titan and DeathNote, both of which are shows with amazing animation (and a whole lot of ridiculously overblown terrible plot ... man, I need to write my thoughts on DeathNote I guess ... or just point out I have the same opinion of it as I do on Attack on Titan ... yup, I did that.  Mini-review, DeathNote gets a C+-).  It is almost on par with a Studio Ghibli production of sheer artistic skill, though it is achieved in a different way.  I ALSO really need to get more Ghibli films a chance, considering how much I love My Neighbor Totoro ... here we go, another mini-review: My Neighbor Totoro is an amazing film.  Completely amazing.  Grade: A+++

I can go on and on about the technicals of Fate/Zero.  The voice actors all do a GREAT job, with some recognizable voice talents in there like Crispin Freeman, Kari Wahlgren, Jamieson Price ... really, go look at the imdb page and just check out these actor's workloads. The animation is smooth and beautiful in all its magic and all its fantastical details and even beautiful in its mundane elements.  They do an awesome job of using 3D animation represent a lot of the magic and the backgrounds, so that every move and cut and slash and fight and stab and magical attack and effect all have actual effects on the background.  You ever notice how in cartoons, if a character was going to interact with something in the background, it would be a different color?  Yeah, that is completely mitigated here and looks really great.  Oh man, and the music!  The score is absolutely gorgeous, and I've really come to love the opening theme.

The first episode should absolutely hook most anime watchers, though it is dense.  The second episode should do even more.  And if you aren't hooked by the third, I just don't know what is wrong with you, but I suppose there is no point in pushing on, to be quite honest.  There is absolutely a barrier to the enjoyment of this anime, but by episode three Fate/Zero has established everything you need in a good way that has you invested in the story, hopefully.  But, there is a huge problem ... this is absolutely a sequel.  Yes, it takes place chronologically before Fate/Stay Night, but it assumes you understand the premise, it introduces elements that you are supposed to understand how they work quickly so it can move to new stories.  It is not an easy anime.  I like that, personally.  It was the thing that got me interested in Attack on Titan and DeathNote, and while my opinion on both of those shows soured, that comes from them lasting much too long, in my opinion (obviously).

Fate/Zero has two seasons.  Both on Netflix.  Both no more than 13 episodes.  And it finishes its story then and there.  I think it is absolutely worth any one who found anything I said interesting so far a chance to give this show.  That sentence was very poorly worded, but I'm not gonna change it.  Watch Fate/Zero.  I recommend, as a fan, and as a critic.  I cannot wait to dive in even farther to the show.

Grade: A++

Edit: I try to write these reviews ahead of time so that I can have a nice bank and keep myself up to date, just in case I get sick or busy and am unable to find time to watch things like I need to.  Well, I did get sick, with a sore throat, so I spent this entire morning before my review got posted tearing through the first season of the show.  I can say, without a single doubt, that this show is phenomenal.  I would still recommend that if you are at all interested in the Visual Novel of Fate/Stay Night to not watch Fate/Zero yet, but if you aren't interested in the enormous amount of hours to put into Stay Night then I cannot recommend Fate/Zero enough.  The fights are amazing, the animation is immaculate, and the story is intense and thrilling, all in one of the coolest anime worlds I've seen.  This is probably the second best anime I've ever watched.  It is intense, thrilling, and awesome.  I have gone ahead and added a grading because I feel much more confidant in that grade now.

Arbitrary Numbers: Top # Christmas Movies (in my collection)

Holiday times are upon us!  As I run around shopping for presents and planning parties and getting ready for Christmas wrestling this weekend, I find I am running out of time to just sit and watch films, even less to head to the movie theatre.  So I though I'd look about my collection, and the holiday spirit hit me!  I have so many wonderful things I own and want to watch in time for Christmas, and I know I won't have enough time!  So I decided I'll go ahead and just do an Arbitrary Numbers so I can talk about as many as I can as soon as I could so that you all can try to find them and add them to your shopping carts and get them just in time for the Holidays!  So let's begin this special Christmas task!

The Top 7 Christmas Movies 

(in my collection)

((that I feel like talking about))

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I really love Rankin and Bass cartoons.  Their claymation stuff gets a lot of attention, but their cartoons are especially ... special for me.  The Hobbit, the Last Unicorn, these were for me the first forays into my favorite genre, just as I was reading the Hobbit and the Belgariad and the Dragonlance books.  The Rankin and Bass Christmas stuff is probably even more well known, but I want to talk about my favorite one, which like I said, is animated.

Twas the Night Before Christmas is a fun musical addition to the poem, talking about a clockmaker trying to help the town but everything gets screwed up because of the mice in his house, who are anthropomorphic (big plus for my viewing as a kid).  The entire special, which is not long, ends with the poem itself.  I love this little thing, and am so happy to have it in my collection.  It isn't perfect, it's short, and the animation is probably too off-putting or "ugly" for some I suspect.  But like I said, I love it.

Grade: B++

It is very sad to know that Arthur Rankin Jr. had passed away this January.  I didn't even hear about it until recently.  Thank you very much for this little special, and so many others that touched my heart, as well as basically everyone else's.  RIP.

Ernest Saves Christmas

I talked about this in my machine gun style review RIGHT HERE.  Go check that out, because this is great.

Grade: B++

Mickey's Christmas Carol and The Muppet Christmas Carol

I bunched these two together because they are my favorite Christmas Carols on film!  These are filled with music and characters and wonder.  But they also do not miss the tone of the book, the ghost story and morality story.  You see Mickey cry for goodness sakes!  I love them both and watch them both every year.

I should also point out that I have the blu-ray of Mickey's and the DVD of Muppet.  Why?  Well the new blu-ray of Mickey's has a bunch of other winter and Christmas specials that make the whole thing a wonderful collection piece to own, only missing one Donald Duck short I remember from my childhood that I wish I had, which is hardly a knock for all the other things it adds.  But why didn't I upgrade Muppet Christmas Carol?  Because the blu-ray is missing a song!  A beautiful song sung by Michael Caine and Scrooge's lost love.  It is amazing and heartwrenching and beautiful and necessary in my eyes for the story.  You see, it isn't in widescreen, so the blu-ray just didn't include it.  But it is in fullscreen, which I can watch with an option on my DVD.  So there you go!  I'm sure you were all curious.

Grade: A+++ for both

Rare Exports

Wanna watch a weird quirky adventure film about Christmas and demons and hunting and little boys and Norway?  Rare Exports is a beautiful film.  It is a touching film.  And it is an exciting film!  Most people talk about Die Hard when they need a Christmas action movie, or Gremlins for a Christmas fun comedy horror.  But both of those films are really only kind of Christmas-y.  Rare Exports hits all the buttons those two films do, but it is all so much more about Christmas.  Rare Exports should not replace either, but it should sit beside them!

Included on the blu-ray are the two original shorts that brought the full film into being.  Both shorts are great, with the second being my absolute favorite, and are both a little more tongue-in-cheek and crazy.  As an entire package, it has become a yearly tradition, and I love sharing it with people.  So I'm sharing it with you.  See it!  Find it!  Do it!!

Grade: A++

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

I feel like I talk about this special all the time.  There are actually two versions of the Sesame Street special for Christmas that came out at the same time.  THIS one is perfect.  The other one is garbage.  This one is about a sweet story of Big Bird worried that Santa can't fit down the chimneys, it is filled with wonder, it is filled with amazing music and great jokes, it has Bert and Ernie being ridiculous and doing the Gift of the Magi, it has Oscar singing a song about hating Christmas, it has the most amazing pratt fall sequence just ... at ALL.  *sigh*

I love this little special.  Even better, it is on DVD, and I'm pretty sure it can be found at Best Buys just around.  So take a look!  You will not regret it.

Grade: A++

Now, I could talk about a lot more movies and specials I own that mean something to me and I love watching, like Jingle all the Way or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation or Reindeer Games, which are all great and different for a bunch of reasons.  And who knows, I may just write reviews for them anyway later on this month.  But I really want to talk about a cool documentary I bought for my wife as a gift instead to close this little article out ...

I am Santa Claus

In this documentary, we follow five men, all "real beard Santas."  We see their life struggles, their regular world life, and we even get to see one man's quest to be a good Santa.  That man is Mick Foley, Hardcore Legend.  This documentary is not for families.  It is very adult.  And it is very touching.  

We watch four men, all vastly different, talk about what it means to be Santa Claus to them, all of them from different parts of the country, all from different walks of life, and all of them real people.  This isn't a "happy endings" kind of documentary.  This followed all of these guys for one year and cuts between and juxtaposes them as the film goes along.  You are allowed into their lives and get to see their hardships, their delights, just ... life.  It was a great documentary, and really touching as well as sad and poignant.  I cannot recommend it enough, and I am NOT a documentary person.

Grade: A+

There we go!  Now, I gotta go wrap more presents and other stuff.  Oh, did I tell you, I'm hosting a Dirty Santa party?  Do you wanna know what that is?  Well you are in luck, because I will be explaining it entirely and showing pictures of our game and party in ONE WEEK, on the 18th, which is one week before Christmas!  See ya then for that!  Also look forward to lots more Christmas reviews, wrestling reviews this Friday and on Monday, and a lot of great End of Year reviews!  Buh-bye!

IHAO on ... a bunch of movies!! - 26 Reviews

Hello everyone! 

Time is an enemy to everyone who is trying to do anything important.  Or at least time-sensitive.   I love being able to write reviews for everyone about everything, current, old, wrestling, television, just on everything, as well as writing all the sillier or more intricate reviews, like the Arbitrary Numbers and the Fantasy Bookings.  But that leaves very little time for me to be able to actually cover everything.  I can’t put out two reviews a day, because that is too much to ask you folks to read.  And I only put out 5 a week, but every week there is probably on average one new film or wrestling event to writing about, and that takes a slot.  Then there are weeks with many films, like I’ve had recently and will be moving into with Oscar season continuing.

So I came up with an idea.  I asked my facebook to give me a list of movies that they did not think I had seen.  I absorb entertainment and media like a sponge, and have watched a LOT of movies.  This way I can give shorter reviews on a bunch of things people might not think I’ve seen, as well as have a fun bank of things to come back to when I need inspiration.  In the nice long list of films, I probably saw a fifth of them, which is a great number.  So I’m going to review all 26 of the movies that were suggested that I have seen.  This will be a rapid fire barrage of reviews.  Let’s get going!

 Dinosaurs! – Nicole Clockel
An edu-tainment Claymation-y fun short about dinosaur life.  I remember specifically sitting with my best friend at the time, Karl, when we were 7 or 8 at his house, and between playing TMNT SNES games or with figures or running around outside, we watched this little video.  I’ve seen it since then as well, but it is a silly thing to talk about.  It is purposefully silly, and all kinds of weird, but really enjoyable.  It is on youtube, and I’ll linky it here.  I definitely think it is worth your time, because of nostalgia for some of you and just for fun in general.  It isn’t great by any means, but it is fun.
Grade: C+



Rat Race – Lenton Lees 
The semi-rebooting, more “another version” of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Rat Race features an incredible cast, and is a big ole chase/race comedy.  It is hilarious, has some heart, and some awesome music.  It is probably one of the best comedies to introduce people to a bunch of great comedians all at once, including Mr. Bean, Seth Green, Whoopi Goldberg, John Cleese, Breckin Mayer, Amy Smart, and Jon Lovitz.  Really enjoyable, though it doesn’t quite shoot that extra mile.  It sits in a nice comfortable zone that most good comedies do, where it is real good, but the actual film never tries to be any greater than that.  Highly recommend.
Grade: B++

The Longest Yard – Lenton Lees
Wrestlers!  Sandler the last time he was funny!  Except there’s sequences of it totally not being funny, too, because Sandler has to always ALWAYS write his characters as having enormous penises or getting the hottest women in the world.  But that’s fine, because that has very little actual impact on the movie.  This is probably one of my favorite sports films I’ve seen.  It actually goes that extra mile in film quality and technique, as well as just having incredible actors in Burt Reynolds, William Fichtner, Terry Crews, and a slew of awesome wrestler … not “cameos” as everyone’s screentime and character weight is larger than that.  It is an incredibly fun sports movie with a moving story, it is really funny, and even though it blatantly steals an entire scene from the British remake of the Longest Yard, Mean Machine, it is still a really fun movie that is also really good.  Probably my favorite Sandler film, and easily the one I think that is his best film.
Grade: A++

Ernest Saves Christmas – Lenton Lees
Here’s the thing about Ernest: you either love Jim Varney’s shenanigans, or you just don’t get it or see a point.  I personally find Ernest endearing.  In fact, this is the first Ernest film I saw, which is good, because it is also easily his highest budgeted, best looking, best acted, best directed, BEST Ernest film.  It tells a great story, has fun comedy, and is a Christmas classic in the Jessel household.  On top of that, I do believe it has my absolute favorite Santa Claus in film, played by the same dude who is the Sultan and Jasmine’s father in Aladdin!  He is perfect as Santa, and adds some amazing gravitas to what could have just been a frivolous and silly kids movie.  It isn’t one of the best movies ever made, and the effects are absolutely dated, but it is a wonderful movie.
Grade: B++

South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut – Lenton Lees
Trey Parker and Matt Stone have made all of two things I like: South Park and Book of Mormon.  I do not like BASEketball, I don’t like Cannibal: the Musical, I don’t like Orgazmo.  But this movie is excellent.  It is an amazingly well made musical parody of just about every single style of musical, from Les Mis to Disney to Sound of Music.  The story itself has a purpose to exist as a film because it is about censorship, parental choices, and really nice satire of the “crusade” against cursing.  I really think this movie does everything right.  And its unique animation style makes it in a sense timeless, which is great!  Great movie.
Grade: A+

Much Ado About Nothing (Whedon version) – Lenton Lees
Not every movie that is a good movie I like.  Wes Anderson movies prove that.  As does this one.  One of the best things about Shakespeare is that every adaptation is 100% the director’s intention.  And some of Joss’ choices are awesome.  And some are not.  I think Whedon was able to really elevate the parts of Claudio and Don Pedro fantastically, making both parts have a lot more weight and interest than most versions of the show.  He also made some very good comedic choices early in the film.  But very quickly, the comedy of this comedy goes away.  And that’s … just … wrong.  Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy, pure and simple.  And Whedon treated it as a drama.  And that is a disservice to a lot of the characters, a lot of the language, and a lot of other choices.  Dogberry wasn’t particularly funny, even though he’s written to be.  Don Jon isn’t very menacing because everything is treated so seriously so he isn’t a foil.  Benedict and Beatrice don’t have a banter-filled romance because the banter is more catty and snide than humorous and joyful.  There are some bits I really enjoyed, generally whenever he had the actors get more physical, because otherwise they just pontificate into the wind at each other.  In the end, Whedon focused on the “Much Ado” while forgetting the point that it is all about “Nothing.”
Grade: B-

Oversexed Rugsuckers From Mars! – Jason Abraham
I’ve been saving this one for a Nanarsday review, but I’m MORE than happy to talk about this HORRIBLE MOVIE now!  It is a gloriously terrible movie about a man who has sex with an alien vacuum cleaner, and it becomes a rapist and rapes a woman, who gives birth to a human-vacuum hybrid baby.  It is gross, and hilarious, and terrible.  One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen and I LOVE IT!  I found it randomly years ago, and it is a pride of my collection of films because of its ridiculous-ness.  Really, if anyone ever wanted to watch it, FIND ME and we’ll watch it that second.
Grade: F+

Chasing Amy – Jason Abraham
I have a love/hate relationship with Kevin Smith.  I either love his films and buy into them completely, or hate them and find them worthless.  Chasing Amy falls in the worthless category.  The script is preachy, the situation is so narrow that no one can relate to it, making the characters unlikable and just complainers.  Smith doesn’t direct Affleck very well here, which is crazy considering how great Affleck is in other Smith films.  It just … I just hate this movie.  Give me Dogma, Mallrats, or Clerks II any day.
Grade: C--


Dawn of the Dead; Day of the Dead; Land of the Dead – Tony Daniel
I love this little bit.  I may have never seen Night of the Living Dead, but I have absolutely seen and own all of the Romero trilogy of Dead films.  Comes with being married to a zombie lover.  Let’s touch on all of these:

Dawn of the Dead – This film is perfect.  Acting, tension, shots, characters, story, everything.  This may just be my favorite zombie movie, period.  I was blown away because what I THOUGHT this movie was and what it actually is are two VERY different things.  The effects are real old and not very good looking, but I like to see them like a time capsule of effects, and completely buy into them.  I say it all the time, but dated-ness is not a real negative, and these may not be the best effects, but they are great effects for what they are.  I cannot recommend this film more highly.  Grade: A++

Day of the Dead – I thought this would be my favorite, and I do really like it.  It is much more of what I thought it would be.  And it easily has one of the best villains a zombie film has ever had in it.  It also explores the zombie mythos more, which is very cool, and Romero continues to push the envelope with his characters.  It has better effects and is really interesting … but just not as good as Dawn.  I don’t know if I can put my finger really on why, but I think it is something to do with our protagonist, who while being interesting just isn’t as good of an actress, and the pacing of the film itself is a little off, leading to some boring stretches.  But the effects, and the other characters, are all well worth price of admission here.  Grade: B+

Land of the Dead – So Dawn of the Dead got a remake, and Romero was all “I can make a ‘modern’ zombie film better than that.”  So he continued the story of his world of zombies.  And man, I love it.  It isn’t as good as the last few, but it has some GREAT characters, some awesome world building, and while the plot is less interesting, the overall effect leaves me very happy.  I love this movie, even if it began the decline in quality of Romero’s writing.  Grade: B++

The Man Who Knew Too Little – Beth Lyons
This comedy was actually suggested to me by Beth probably a year or so ago, so I bought it, and I watched it.  I wish I had been writing reviews then, because then I wouldn’t have to think about this movie again.  Oh, yeah, that should make it obvious, I don’t like the movie.  I don’t think it is bad, I just didn’t find most of its comedy very good.  The entire idea is fine, and some of the scenes are fine, but the whole product just leaves me cold, as our protagonist has to be continually stupider and stupider to allow the very thin premise of “believes all the spy stuff is fake, accidentally gets caught in real spy stuff” to continue.  The climax of the film is just long and tedious with the whole Russian dance sequence and the bomb and … ugh.  I just did not care for the film, and really do not think it is very good, and mostly forgettable.
Grade: C--

The Bank Job – Jason Schmidt
Good ole Jason Statham.  Action star, good actor, British.  Ok, so Bank Job isn’t a GREAT movie.  It’s a real good one, though.  Based on a real heist, with some good actors and some great camera work, the film works.  I’ve seen a lot less memorable Statham films, though this one only barely jumps above that pack.  It isn’t great, but it is fun.  And if you are a history person or a heist person, this one may do even more for you.  For me, it was just a good movie.
Grade: B

Jackie Brown – Jason Schmidt
Jackie Brown is a neat little movie.  That actually sounds more belittling than I mean it to.  It has a slow first act, but not a BAD first act, just a slow one, that builds really well to an amazingly well made finish.  Lots of great actors all throughout the film, including the wonderful Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson playing the character that we all actually attribute to him in the modern zeitgeist, and Robert De Niro who may have … 8 lines in the whole movie?  But it is still one of his best roles.  I really like this movie.  It isn’t the easiest sit because of that long first act that really needed an editor, and Robert Foster is good but doesn’t quite keep me as interested for those long sections as Tarantino has found Christoph Waltz can.  But it is still a very good, very ambitious movie.
Grade: B+

State and Main – Jason Schmidt
David Mamet is a playwright, director, and a screenwriter and director.  He is known for things like Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo, but he’s done a lot of other stuff.  State and Main is one of those other stuffs.  It … isn’t particularly good.  There are bits and pieces I really like in there, but there is also some stunt casting that does nothing for me and some of the comedy beats come across VERY Mamet, in that every character rushes through their dialogue as fast as they can.  The actual movie is about the filming of a movie in a little town because they like a stained glass window, and all the turmoil it causes everyone.  I don’t really think it is worth a watch, but for some people, all that fast-talking is actually a turn-on.  If you are a Aaron Sorkin fan, this may just be up your alley.
Grade: C-

Devil’s Advocate – Jason Schmidt
I love talking about good Keanu Reeves films.  Mostly because I think he is an underrated actor.  As an actor myself, I can see the actual “craft” in what he is doing, and I get why for some he doesn’t come across like he acts.  He is very stoic faced a lot of the time, and his voice is generally calm no matter the emotion.  But what Keanu does really well is expression of emotion through his eyes and his body.  There are very few actors who can pull of supreme confidence just by standing there saying nothing like Keanu can.  And there are very few that can show the deterioration of a soul like Keanu can, that slow wearing down that was necessary for this film.  Devil’s Advocate is a GREAT movie.  It is a morality play in a time period when morality was pretty gauche to begin with.  Al Pacino is fantastic in the movie as well.  It is a great film.  One I used to own, and I need to buy again.  I recommend.
Grade: A+

Man on the Moon – Jason Schmidt
The biopic on Andy Kaufman, made by dear friends of Andy Kaufman, paying homage to the man, played by the only person anyone that knew Kaufman thought could play him.  This is a great biopic.  It has great music.  It has great acting.  It has a compelling, albeit very movie-fied as admitted by the prologue of the film, story of the real life of this enigmatic actor.  I own the soundtrack.  I own the film.  I love both.  It is a shame that Jim Carrey did not get the Oscar for this performance, but of course he should have since 1999 was the year of terrible Oscar decisions and Shakespeare in Love sweeping through almost everything.  Man on the Moon was called by some the best picture of 1999, and others just didn’t get it.  Which is kind of perfect when it comes to talking about Andy Kaufman.  I highly recommend to anyone that loves comedy and the history of comedy.
Grade: A++

Mars Attacks! – Jason Schmidt
My dad took me to see this movie.  My mom didn’t like that he did.  It is a weird, silly, off-putting, crazy kind of film.  Definitely not for everyone.  It is absolutely unique, and everything I want from a Tim Burton film.  It also holds the honor of being the only live-action film based on a trading card series, which is a mindboggling piece of information by itself.  A tongue-in-cheek homage to 50s sci-fi horror films, and filled with just … craziness.  Man, I just … this is a weird movie kids.  Too weird to be good, too weird to be bad, it is its own brand of quality.
Grade: W (for weird … I actually give it a C)

The Departed – Jason Schmidt
Hey, wanna know a great movie?  The Departed.  Done.  Go watch a great movie.  What you need more?  How about its pedigree of actors and directors and cinematographers?  I’ll wait while you imdb it.  I know right?  How about the incredible filmmaking just in general?  Or the tight script?  Or the intriguing characters?  Or the amazing conceit?  Or the original that is ALSO good, but this remakes for western audiences in an old school mafia way that transcends the original?  This movie is great.  Period.  Watch it.
Grade: A+

Black Swan – Jason Schmidt
Darren Aronofsky is so so good.  And Black Swan is amazing.  Tense, thrilling, psychological, amazing acting from Natalie Portman (got an Oscar for it, well deserved), this movie is phenomenal.  The music is of course going to be great because it is Swan Lake.  But really, this movie is amazing.  It should have gotten at least a cinematography and a best director nod.  It got neither.  These kind of psychological thinky thrillers tend to not do well in the Oscars.  Aronofsky deserves awards.  And this film is one of his best, written as if tailored to his style specifically even though it wasn’t.  Watch this very very intense film some time.
Grade: A++

Waterworld – Jason Schmidt
Waterworld is one of the biggest financial flops in history.  Doesn’t make it a bad movie, though.  It makes it a great punchline, but as a fantasy movie, it is actually all kinds of AWESOME.  The setting is all practical and all amazing.  The acting is great from Dennis Hopper and even Kevin Costner.  The script is a great story filled with little nods and secrets to the what happened in the world.  The action is awesome.  I love the movie, and really don’t understand why others don’t.  Maybe because they only know the joke and never actually watched the thing.  Give it a chance.
Grade: A++

12 Monkeys – Jason Schmidt
Time travel movies are difficult, and sometimes their plots just don’t quite add up.  Other times they are too simple.  12 Monkeys is both.  Confusing and simple.  I don’t think it is a bad movie, it has some real interesting parts to it and some good acting.  But I ultimately found it boring.
Grade: B-

Four Rooms – Jason Schmidt
Four very different vignettes from four pretty different directors all based around rooms in a hotel.  Uh … I guess I’ll say this: Tim Roth is great.  Each individual sequence is so incredibly different I’ll just grade each one.
Part 1: D
Part 2: C-
Part 3: A+
Part 4: B+
So when I watch it, I just skip to the middle.  Yup.

Deathproof – Jason Schmidt
Man, I do not know how to talk about this one ... ok, lemme list the things that are good. The direction is fantastic. The movie looks and FEELS good, from a filmmaking and thematic standpoint. Kurt Russel is AMAZING as Stuntman Mike. The action and car sequences are really amazing and frenetic. A lot of the things that I love from Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained are here and this is the prototype for him directing like that. This movie is a bridge from his old style (which I generally don't care for) and his new style. There is a lot to like. But this movie SERIOUSLY needed an editor. A stronger edit would have helped this movie incredibly. And another sequence of Stuntman Mike doing what he does would have been perfect. Trim down all the standard Tarantino talky talk that didn't really do very much and give us another Stuntman Mike sequence. Tarantino learned to trim himself for Basterds and Django, making much stronger, engaging films. And that's the problem, I suppose. I really wanted to be engaged the whole time, and was really only engaged when Kurt Russel was onscreen and for the basics of the chicks. The genre subversion at the end was interesting, but for me, abrupt, and right at the end, I actually found myself rooting for Stuntman Mike because I knew more about him and understood him better, and he had less dialog than the chicks that I was supposed to be rooting for. Showing, not telling, made him a stronger, more engaging character. And they just left Mary Elizabeth Winestead with the crazy redneck! What the heck!? This movie is hard to grade. I can see myself wanting to watch it again, and I LOVED everything with Kurt Russel, but I dunno if I wanna slog through the rest.Grade: B-

High Fidelity – Jason Schmidt
One of the first “serious” comedies I’ve ever seen, it made a huge impact on me.  I am a collector and sponge for media much like John Cusack is in the film, though my own life and his represented in the film has nothing in common, and I don’t actually relate to him, but that doesn’t actually matter.  He resonates.  And his relationship struggles opened my eyes.  The film is unique, which is a huge plus.  It is a really well written and well acted film, so that’s real cool.  Honestly, though, it just didn’t stick with me like I thought it would, and I don’t care to see it again.  I don’t hate it.  I just don’t like it.  I remember how good it was, but that’s the extent of it.
Grade: A

Harvey – Cindy Carrin
The only Jimmy Stewart film I’ve seen and loved.  It is a great play, a great old movie, and just awesome all around.  A classic.  You absolutely should watch it.  Everyone.  Do it.
Grade: A+






And there we have it!  A LOT of films reviewed in a handy dandy quick way with beautiful pictures that took me way too long to format.  Thanks everyone, and I am positive I will do an exercise like this again!  Until tomorrow, where we have some newer films, a Wes Anderson film, some wrestling, and probably other stuff!

IHAO on ... House of Cards

Binge watching and Netflix-ing helps my insomnia.  I recently talked about going through all of Frasier.  I watched all of Wings after that.  No, that one isn't worth talking about.  It is a fine sitcom, and that's the end.  Next ... well, I tried Coach, because the sitcom train hadn't gone badly.  I did not last long in Coach.  If I go back, I'll just skip the first season entirely.  House of Cards had been sitting on my "To Watch List" for awhile, so I decided to go ahead and start watching it.

Three days later, I finish.

This show is super duper good.

End review.  Roll credits.

It is not often that a show this high in quality comes along.  It is filmed like a movie, it has great actors, and its plots are superb.  Even the simply episodic episodes feel like they have purpose and meaning, and are my favorites of both seasons.

A quick rundown of the show: Francis Underwood is a politician screwed one too many times as he tries to move up the political ladder.  So with good old fashioned politics, intrigue, blackmail, extortion, charm, threats, and greasing the wheels in even more unscrupulous ways, Frank tries to make his way to the top.  His wife, a charity head and lobbyist, is also working on her own schemes.  And journalists are also working their way in.

The show is dense, rewarding, with incredible ... everything, really.  The mystique of why Francis turns to the camera to give us little asides is wonderful, and used many different ways to great effect.  Kevin Spacey, who I normally don't care much about, is able to do what he loves best: completely dissolve into his character.  But since this is a show instead of a film, he is given so much more to work with, and can do so much.  Kevin Spacey deserves and Oscar for Best Actor for this television show.  That is the level of quality on this show, and he deserves every award.

If you have Netflix, you are doing yourself a disservice to not watch House of Cards.

Grade: A++

IHAO on ... Nightcrawler

Some movies are great films because of the firm hand directing them.  Many Fincher films are like that, like Gone Girl.  Some films are strong because of their ensemble's chemistry with each other, like Our Idiot Brother.  Some films are excellent because they have a tight script, or their sound is spectacular.  But some films are great films based solely on the single lead actor's performance.  Nightcrawler is one of those movies.

I do not like Jake Gyllenhaal.  He is not an actor I have come to like, and in fact, I have in the past said that he makes a bad leading man that brings down films he is the leading man of.  And Gyllenhaal knocks this movie right out of the park with his spectacular performance.  Nightcrawler is a character study about an odd thief who finds a new line of work in "night crawling" or following the police scanner for violent and terrible crimes, filming it, and selling it to networks for their morning news.  And that is what this movie is, watching Lou Bloom, Gyllenhaal's character, and slowly picking apart and learning what kind of man he is.

As an actor, I love a character study.  And as a film guy, I love a character study.  The Hurt Locker I've said many times before is one of my favorite films because it is an intense character study of what makes the lead man, Jeremy Renner's character, do what he does.  Pain & Gain is another film I love with some intense ensemble character acting.  Birdman has some incredible acting in it, Oscar award nominee deserving acting.  And Nightcrawler is ... almost as good as those films.  It isn't Gyllenhaal's fault, let me be clear.

Explain yourself then, me!  To them, because I already know.  Because I add the gifs after I finish the review.  So yeah, me, tell 'em!

Film is a collaborative effort.  I mentioned and linked to Gone Girl above, and that film I gave a B+ to because even though the directing is phenomenal, the script and dialogue left some to be desired.  Nightcrawler has an incredible leading performance that has drastically turned me around on my thoughts of Jake Gyllenhaal ... but the direction by first-time director, multi-time writer Dan Gilroy made some odd choices that took me out of the film.  A lot of heavy-handed imagery, some odd choices for how to portray tension in a scene with obnoxious close-ups, and some fatty bits of other characters and scenes that really needed to be as slickly edited as the rest of the film all left me a little colder to the overall product.  All understandable for a first time director, but nonetheless a little on the nose.

This is a good movie.  A very good one.  And it tries to be great.  Gilroy writes a fantastic script.  And Gyllenhaal was more than excellent.  Small acting choices, or the disturbing lack of expression or wit makes Lou Bloom a fascinating character that will keep me coming back to the film over and over.  But every time I come back, I will once again see a heavy-handed montage of satellites and wires to show news being broadcast, or the final shot's slow obnoxious zoom, or myriad other things that all make this film a little harder to stay invested with.  This is the perfect example of a "B" film under my grading system.  It is a great movie, with some large flaws that keep it from reaching what it really could have been.

Grade: B++

EDIT: I made a huge mistake in my original posting of this review, attributing the film to Michael Mann.  I do not know why or how I confused Michael Mann into the mix of this film, as he is nowhere near this movie.  The closest he was ... was in the trailer for Blackhat that was before this movie.  Somehow I mashed them together.  So I need to say now that knowing that this is a first time directing part for Dan Gilroy, who wrote the wonderful Real Steel and the AMAZING The Fall, I really have come to like this movie a lot more.  It is still a B for me on the pure objective side of things, but I love Gilroy, and as weird as it sounds, to hear this is his first gig as a director makes me like the movie even more than I already did.

My apologies to anyone I steered wrong earlier, but there we go, caught it and fixed it.

IHAO on ... Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

Oscar season is upon us.  I've always liked Oscar season.  And every year I say that I'm going to watch all the nominees for Best Picture, and I never do.  I also see movies that to me absolutely deserve to get a lot of nominations, like Pain & Gain should have gotten for Walberg, Johnson, and Shalhoub, as well as for cinematography and editing.  But invariably, I am very wrong on those thoughts.  But this year, I have this site up and running in a good way, and I hope to actually see all the nominees for best picture this year.  And review them.  And I'm gonna start with Birdman!

Something like this.

This movie was really good.  It is a film about a lot of things, filmed in an incredible way, with really strong performances, some amazing effects mixed into all the really strong human drama, and an interesting bedrock premise to ground a much more difficult to put into words true premise.

The story of the film; We follow Michael Keaton's Riggan, a 90s superhero film actor whose career has tanked since then, and the play he adapted, directed, and stars in on Broadway through the five days leading to opening night.  Edward Norton plays a broadway actor who is amazing at his job, but terrible at just about everything else.  Naomi Watts is an actress working to finally make her dream of getting to broadway.  Emma Stone plays Riggan's daughter and personal assistant, and Zach Galifinakas plays Riggan's lawyer, manager, and best friend.  Oh, and Keaton also plays Birdman, a delusion that plagues Riggan with doubt, fear, and worry.

This movie is really good.  Like, super super good.  I very much hope we get a directing nod for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu who did the almost impossible of filming the entire movie in the illusion of one-shot without a single edit or cut, so that we, the audience, are a ghost watching the entire film with an insider's perspective.  I very much hope Michael Keaton gets a best actor nod, and Edward Norton a supporting actor, because both of those guys just killed it, especially on scenes they had together.

And I very much think it is a Best Picture nod.  This movie is about acting, about the relationship of audience to actor to director to producer to critic.  About the entire behind the scenes process of a stage show.  About how celebrity and talent are different.  About how social media changes how the world is perceived.  About the influx of superhero films.  About whether or not acting in a big ole bird suit is award-worthy acting or not.  There is a scene where a critic relates superhero movies in acting skill basically to porn and cartoons, as things that have no merit in "real" acting.  I don't agree, but many people do.  And that is interesting.

The whole movie is interesting.  And the subtitle even more interesting.  The "unexpected virtue of ignorance" is a thought I know I've had before as an actor, as a wrestling fan, and so on.  The entire film builds up to explaining what that is, and it is beautiful.  The film is wonderful.  Really great.  I hope that anyone who has ever acted or worked on a show or a movie gives it a watch.  And I hope it does very well this year at the Oscars.

Grade: A++

IHAO on ... Saw VI

Let's get this out of the way: Saw, Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, Saw V

I've been waiting for the shoe to drop since the third movie.  I've been waiting for that really terrible movie that ruins the series, turns it into torture porn and a gorefest, that strips away all the character drama and storytelling.  And, you know what?  It still hasn't happened.  In fact, The quality has become pretty consistent, and even better, in someways, it continues to improve.  Saw VI continues the trend of telling good stories, with interesting traps, and surprisingly deep characters.  I saw surprising because ... ok, let me do the plot set up first.

Spoilers (very minor) ...

Jigsaw is dead.  His apprentice has taken over completely by this point.  But John Kramer has one more trap he needs done, one last will and testament.  And it is all around the insurance guy who would not allow Kramer to do an experimental drug course on their insurance.  Even more interesting, the insurance guy, played by the really excellent Peter Outerbridge, ISN'T wrong!  The experimental treatment has a less than 50% chance, and that is just too high for an insurance company, especially for someone as old as John Kramer.  It isn't fair, it sucks, but he's right.  So he is tested.  At the same time, the Apprentice is trying to get his name cleared, but some unexpected turns happen as he finds himself in a seemingly losing battle to cover his tracks.

Saw VI has some HUGE PROBLEMS to begin with.  Some of the bad actors return, though the good actors that return all more than hold their weight.  It has a LOT of "color-coded" scenes, which drives me nuts.  You know what I'm talking about?  When a movie color tints EVERYTHING, generally with the REALLY stupid blue-orange color dynamic.  It gets really really irritating, and it took me out of the film.  A lot.  We are also introduced to a whole bunch of characters very quickly, so they are all basically just swathes of two-dimensional characters, including Outerbridge's character.  But that is just to begin with.

After about ... 15 minutes, things change.  And Saw VI becomes ... almost my favorite of the series!  The traps, all of them, are incredibly well done.  Sometimes the traps in these movies go a little crazy and overboard.  Saw V was really overboard with its traps, the ones that weren't stupid.  But there is a great combination of inventive, unique, and simple traps.  They are all visceral without being incredibly gorier, other than the very first trap of the film, which is a wonderfully difficult to watch section based on Shakespeare's "a pound of flesh."  The acting is so good, the writing is incredible, the cop plot is fantastic, the test of Outerbridge is wonderful, and ... I cannot say enough good things about MOST of the movie.

The opening makes me SO ANGRY because of how good everything else it.  But what is really great about it all is that the only really cringe worthy moment, for me, was an extended replay of the last movie.  And this film not only makes an excellent trilogy-ender for Saw's IV, V, and IV, but it is a fantastic stand alone.  I really really loved the parts I loved in this film.  But the parts I hated ... oooooo did I hate it.  Hopefully it will not get any worse than that stuff.

Grade: B++-

IHAO on ... Saw IV

Coming off the heels of Saw 3, Bousman once again creates a new film, but now with a new writer.  How well does this one go?  Well, let's give a quick plot.

The cops find the body of one of their own, a detective trying to figure out who Jigsaw is.  A SWAT member, Rigg, has now seen two of his close friends die in their pursuit of Jigsaw, and it makes him entirely unhinged and angry, so he is sent home.  There, he is thrust into his own series of tests as Jigsaw tries to get him to truly understand Jigsaw's purpose.  In the other story, two new detectives, Perez and Strahm, come in trying to figure out who Jigsaw is, but who his second apprentice is, as the evidence shows that there is another person helping Jigsaw.  We also get to learn the backstory to Jigsaw himself as a man, John Kramer, and how he became Jigsaw.

The film opens with an amazing sequence of an autopsy.  Bousman shows his skill as a director in this scene, once more showing the "gore" and "torture" aspects of the film series in another subversion, as this is the absolute goriest part of the film.  Empathic-ly it is not the most disturbing, but it absolutely is the goriest, and the film tricks used to show it on an actor who was actually there on set is incredible.  It also is the "opening kill" which is a nice subversion of the entire series.

The traps in Saw 4 lack the skill of those written by Whannell.  Not completely, but partially.  Such as, the first trap we see does not have the signature Jigsaw story element of the explanation of the poetic justice of the trap.  There's a reason, but it is a very lame one.  Also, the characters we deal with this film are mostly uninteresting.  I personally like Rigg and I have no problem with the actors, but they certainly are not as compelling as Jeff or Lynn.

The themes and plot of the film are great, but under realized.  This movie is doing a LOT, and most of it works, but it doesn't go as deep as I wanted.  There is this subtheme of who the new apprentice to Jigsaw could be, and with Rigg being prepped to possibly become the new apprentice, but it doesn't quite come to fruition.

I need to say, by the way, something I haven't mentioned yet in these Saw reviews (Saw, Saw II, and Saw III): Charlie Clouser is incredible with the music.  He does so many small things that are wonderful with the music, and the actual Saw theme itself is one of the best parts about these films.  It is Tubular Bells or the Halloween Theme; it has a character of its own.

The writing of this film, like I mentioned above, is just a little off.  Not bad, just not as great as a cohesive whole.  But this is also Bousman's best work as a director.  The film flows beautifully, and is truly one of the best directed films I've seen.  The writing leaves a little bit to be wanted on the plotting, and the acting isn't great, especially the actress brought in to play John Kramer's ex-wife.

Despite its few missteps, this is easily another of my favorites in the series.  Just like 1, 2, and 3 made an excellent trilogy, an even stronger trilogy, in my opinion, is 2, 3, and 4.  Watching those films all with each other has made me really come to love this franchise.  Especially in 3 and 4, I'm so incredibly happy to have found this series and given it another chance.  I can understand if other folks do no want to give this one a chance, and it isn't as good as the previous one, but I really think it finishes the story in an amazing way.  Of course, it isn't the end of the story.  We still have three more films!  I cannot wait!

Cherish your life.

Grade: B++