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 ... Tusk

So Kevin Smith got high, did a podcast, and came up with a concept for a film.  Three films, as best as I can tell, actually.  And Tusk is the first.  And Tusk is ... pretty damn unique.  How should I tackle this one? Ok, let's start like this:

Tusk is a bad movie.

It isn't a terrible movie.  It is in fact somewhere between forty-five minutes and an hour of a really solid thriller, an A++  kind of movie with some quirk but some great editing, writing, character, acting, and tension.  The first act, the entire first act, is actually pretty superb.  I would suggest to all of you reading that if you wanted to watch this movie, the weird body horror thriller, watch right up to that spot.  Which spot is that?  For lack of better word, it is the money shot.  What does that mean?  Do I have to stop being vague?  UGH, fine!

Tusk tells the totally-not-Kevin-Smith-stand-in-character Wallace (Justin Long), a failed comedian now very successful podcaster, as he travels to Canada to interview an internet face guy.  When that falls through, he spots an old man saying he has stories, so to not have wasted the trip he meets that old man, played by Michael Parks.  Things go crazy fast, as the old man tries to turn Wallace into a walrus, as the title alludes.

As kind of dumb as that premise sounds, the first hour really succeeds.  There is some great acting, great editing, and awesome tension.  It isn't perfect, as there are some strictly not good jokes in there, but a lot of that is because the lead character himself is failed comedian, so he thinks a podcast called a Not-See Party is  a good joke, and we understand him.  Kevin Smith does a great job, Justin Long does as well, and Micheal Parks does some really nice stuff as well.  And the theme is really great, with this driving rhythm and real tension to it.

So what happens at the "money shot" that kills the movie?  And I mean, kills it, kills it dead, makes it lose all momentum and never regains it.  Part of it might be that all the camerawork and filmmaking turns to a farce to instead focus on really terrible camerawork, bad framing, stupid music, and a script that likes to hear itself make stupid jokes.  Part of it might be the extended extended cameo of Johnny Depp, playing an awful, time-wasting former detective Quebecer.  That is really painful.  Maybe its that all the lighting loses that tense warm glow that is both inviting and still dark and terrifying.  Maybe its that the writing has moved on since the movie finally did what it wanted to do, showed the walrus-man, and now it is just expedient to plot and fills up the rest of the run time with bad jokes.  Maybe it is all those things.  Except no maybe, it is indeed all of those things.

I haven't turned a movie so fast in a long time.  And it sucks, because Tusk was actually a really good short film!  End the movie on that money shot, even with it being awful, jokey camerawork, and you have a really good, really succinct film.  But the second half is so atrociously bad, that I can barely recommend it at all.  Watch if you are curious or thinking you could potentially like it, and once the halfway point happens, know you are in for a bumpy, terrible finish.

Grade: D+-

IHAO on ... Black Mirror

In the vein of Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits, Black Mirror has a unique theme that every one of its six episodes over three seasons deals with.  If I can put this theme into my own words, Black Mirror is about the ever-expanding uses of technology, as well as a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" approach to storytelling.  Much like Twilight Zone worked towards poetic justice and Night Gallery was about gothic horror, Black Mirror tells stories about protagonists who are in lose-lose situations, all based around science fiction trappings focusing on new technologies or futures where we take technology to a new step.  The "black mirror" of the title of the show itself is a reference to a broken smart phone, which now is just that, just a black mirror.  Charlie Brooker, the series creator and writer of almost every episode, likes to call the show "techno-paranoia," which I think is a LITTLE bit of an overstatement, since paranoia does not actually factor into most episodes, in my opinion anyway.  But hey, he did make the show, and I do think it is (mostly) great, so what do I know?

The show is pretty phenomenal.  It is currently on Netflix and has been able to cover in six episodes a lot of crazy topics, though the two seasons each featured an episode on each of the following types: a political narrative, an alternate future societal story, and a single relationship changed by a new technology.  On top of that, each episode has a great budget with some fantastic actors, including Jason Fleming, Daniel Kaluuya, Rory Kinnear, Toby Kebbell, Domhnall Gleeson, and so many more, though I did list my favorites right then.

Of the six episodes, I loved the first four completely.  The last two ... they aren't bad or anything, they just personally didn't do much for me.  But the quality of the first four absolutely make up for that.  My favorite is the third episode of the first series, "The Entire History of You."  I found it amazing in a show I was already blown away by.  I really cannot wait for more.  Speaking of ...

How is Black Mirror Christmas related?  I mean, I should be reviewing Scrooge (it's coming) or some other stuff that is holiday themed, right?  Well, you see, a special Christmas episode will be coming out THIS EVENING!  It is not often I am able to talk about things that are cool, new, exciting, on Netflix, and also advertise for a brand new special, let alone a Christmas one!  Let alone a Christmas one that stars Jon Hamm!  I implore you, find some way to watch this episode on Channel 4 if you live across the pond, or see if you can watch it online if they show it there folks in America or Russia or Canada or wherever.  And watch the other episodes.  They are not easy to watch, absolutely are R in rating, and are glorious.

Oh, let me sum up with a quick grade for each episode:

The National Anthem: A++

Fifteen Million Merits: A++

The Entire History of You: A++

Be Right Back: A++

White Bear: B

The Waldo Moment: B

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 ... Zodiac

What happens when a very good director gets his hands on an uninteresting script?  Zodiac.

Ok, uninteresting isn't fair.  The story of the Zodiac killer is very interesting.  But how this film goes about presenting it over two and a half hours is almost completely unenjoyable.  It has too many characters that none get enough focus, and is incredibly unbalanced in how it tells its "story."  I put "story" in quotes because this is very much presented as an Unsolved Mysteries episode, except it is actually a nice long marathon of episodes all about the same dude.

The Zodiac killer is a case all about possibly the greatest "unsolved" serial killings in the United States.  We follow a group of people all working towards solving the case, specifically an editorial cartoonist played by Jake Gyllenhaal and an FBI guy on the case played by Mark Ruffalo.  We shift from one to the other for a short time before we officially stick on Gyllenhaal's character as he gathers all the information again to write his book.  This whole thing is very much based on that book.  It is a historical fiction, in that it takes a collection of facts and history and then weaves bits of fiction between to present the story.

Let me talk about the good things: Fincher directs this movie, and in some moments, he is wonderful.  Most moments, he is unremarkable.  Really the whole film is unremarkable, except for ... ultimately three sequences.  There are three sequences that really put on the tension and the interest in this film.  Those sequences are probably three or four minutes long each.  So let's be generous and say 12 minutes of this film is worth watching.  That's not a high percentage.

The movie is not a bad one.  It is just an unremarkable one, other than a few major successes in tension and storytelling.  I would not suggest anyone watch this film, though if you do, and you are really into serial killer stuff, this may be a nice way to spend an afternoon, I suppose.

Grade: C

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 ... A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Hitchcock meets Edgar Wright.  That is exactly what this film feels like to me.  If that isn't enough to sell you, then I don't know what is.  Oh, right, the rest of my review will be.  Or won't be, as the case may be.

Simon Pegg plays an author with crippling paranoia and suffering from delusions and hallucinations.  The film starts out as a clever deconstruction of the author and all the difficulties he is having with his paranoia and fears as we slowly learn more about him, his life that has been a very sad series of events and traumas.  It actually continues to be that as we watch the very solid cinematography and direction pile on the crazy and blur the lines between reality and paranoia.

Then the entire movie throws all of that out at the 2/3 mark and just becomes a comedic thriller where Simon Pegg has to save the hot girl he just made a fool of himself in front of from a silly serial killer.

Talk about the villain from the second Iron Man film, which is totally underrated, by the way.

It is very frustrating to me as a movie viewer to sit down to a movie that starts off promising to be a certain kind of film and then shifts to some ridiculous parody without any connection to the film before it.  It is painful to sit through.  Simon Pegg had such an incredible character, and the first 50-ish minutes were so incredibly fun to watch.  And then it became ... blah.

The direction is very Edgar Wright styled, which worked really well.  The writing was missing Wright's style of character depth and dialogue, but Pegg had something really interesting going on.  "Had" is the operative word here.  I can't even recommend the movie with how just awful the final act is.  It doesn't even feel like it was directed by the same guy, with crazy sound editing mistakes and horrible lighting.  My wife said a thing that I want to quote: "On the one hand, I'm really relieved that he gets a happy ending, but that makes it a worse movie."

I am not relieved.  I am not relieved the film is over.  I'm tired.  I'm sad.  I wanted this to be as good as Paul was, the film that got me writing these reviews in earnest again.  Or at least as good as The World's End, which also had a disheartening finale, though nowhere near as bad as this film's.

Grade: C-

IHAO on ... Gone Girl

David Fincher.  I'm shocked this is the first film of his I've talked about, considering how few I've seen and how well liked he seems to be in the general public.  For me he is a mixed bag.  Se7en is flawless, Fight Club I found incredibly dumb, Social Network was uninteresting and unlikable, Zodiac boring.  I dunno, I guess I respect the dude but just generally haven't cared for his films.  And that isn't particularly his fault, I don't believe.  Fincher seems drawn to very complicated plots and scripts, which I very much like.  But he also doesn't have a great ear for believable characters or dialogue.  I believe he eschews those things and prefers to focus on crafting a thrilling plot.

Gone Girl is no exception to anything I've said above.  I was very lucky to have found a movie friend who can go with me to matinees, which means I can hopefully be seeing a lot more "just out in theaters" films, and I was lucky enough to get a chance to see Gone Girl, which I'm positive will get some Oscar buzz.  Of course, I said that last year with Pain & Gain, so I'm probably super wrong.

Gone Girl is a tremendously tense thriller.  It is filled with complicated characters making difficult decisions, lies, and false public faces.  There are a lot of twists and turns, none of which I will spoil, but let me give a quick basic plot rundown.  A dude, Ben Affleck (who after seeing the film, neither I or my movie friend could remember his character's name, which is bad writing) is an unhappy husband who, on the day of his fifth anniversary, comes home to find his wife missing.  His wife, Amy (played by the phenomenal Rosamund Pike), is a semi-celebrity, being the inspiration for very popular children's books written by her mother, so the crime is immediately followed up on.  But things start to unravel quickly, as the crime ends up being more than originally thought.

The movie is tremendous.  And it is still flawed.  Some of the flaws are super super obvious, like the ridiculous amount of product placement.  And not just reality product placement, like at one point Ben Affleck has a headache, so he puts a Diet Coke to his head, though the logo is covered.  Nah, I'm talking center screen, characters move props to better show logos, ridiculous riDICulous garbage.  It completely junks up the movie around the halfway point and is terribly distracting, especially this one Mountain Dew bottle.  BAH!

On top of that, these characters are ... difficult.  They aren't quite real.  They aren't quite grounded.  That isn't necessarily bad, but it means that a lot of time in Act 1, before the plot really gets moving, we are listening to these not quite believable characters say not quite believable dialogue.  The movie is FILLED with great actors all acting very very well, including Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry of all people.  But the dialogue writing and character choices written in the script boggle my mind a little.  Also, a few plot points are brought up more than once but never followed up on, which was incredibly odd to me.  It makes that dialogue come across as completely useless and a waste of time, and the movie is not short.

So yeah, I said a bunch of bad stuff with some good stuff mixed in, but let me reiterate: this was a phenomenal movie.  The ending is a little odd and might turn some viewers off, but the ride is incredible.  Amazingly enjoyable, and Rosamund Pike just does an amazing job.  I really really enjoyed this film.  I want to watch it at least one more time in an attempt to spot little things in Act 1, now that I know where Act 2 and 3 go.  And I bet you it'll still be a little distracting, and still incredibly engaging.  I would definitely suggest people see the movie.

Grade: A+  ... no, it needs to be a B+ ... oh gosh, this one's hard.  The negatives are just a little too distracting for me, so I'm going with the B+, but that is NOT an easy call to make.

IHAO on ... Resolution

Tension is a very powerful tool in film.  You create tension through music, cinematography, editing, and strong acting.  And it is not an easy to accomplish.  Even great films do not build and build tension throughout the film.  It isn't a requirement for greatness, but some films thrive on their tension.  The Hurt Locker, for example, is the most tense film I've ever seen.  It just builds and builds and builds as we see the life of Jeremy Renner's character.  The Conjuring and Oculus are horror movies that built tension amazingly well to boot.

I say all that because Resolution is EXCELLENT at tension building.  Extremely good.  It had me very very worried and eventually looking half at the movie as I watched, as it got too tense.  It just got thicker and thicker as the characters waded into the climax.  The finish of the film was underwhelming, but the tension ...

Ok, plot time.  Michael is a good friend to a terrible dude, Chris.  Chris is a meth addict who has ruined his life with his addiction.  Michael comes to give Chris one last chance ... by force.  He handcuffs Chris to the wall of the house he is squatting in and stays with him as he detoxes for a week.  But strange pieces of media start showing up, showing imminent death.  And meth heads, missing scientists, and Native American thugs round out the story.

The tension is the best part of the film.  Vinny Curran's Chris is the second best thing.  He has to play a meth addict slowly sobering, and stay likable the entire time, and he does an excellent job.  The rest of the film is ... fine.  It sort of strives for something great and just kind of flounders.  It is shot as a found footage film, but it is not treated as one.  There is no camera man per-say.  I don't wish to spoil things, so I will say that this film's largest problem is that it fails in having any real horror or scares.  It is very clever, with some clever bits, but its script is just too simple, and its filming even simpler, to make the actual idea work.  I wish a higher quality, larger budget version could be made, much like Oculus.  It is a perfectly fine film, but it doesn't reach for the points it strives for.

Grade: C

IHAO on ... Saw III

Combine the creative script and concepts of the first Saw and the excellent direction of the second Saw, and you have Saw III.  How is it as a film?  Spoiler ...

It is flipping amazing!  Easily the best I've seen so far, and a hard bar to for the rest of the series to reach.  It does a fantastic job of creative a surprising narrative and work in the traps themselves as a narrative feature as well.  The violence is more brutal, yet still not torture porn levels of ... casualness.

Actually, let me take a moment here to actually talk about "torture porn."  The terminology, as best as I can tell, was thrown around casually right about when Saw II came out.  You see, there were many Saw imitators that started to crop up, films that focused on the violent aspects of these films.  The Saw films (so far) have not been about the violence, not truly.  The violence has always been present, as the crucible of choosing to live over letting yourself die is a very large theme of the series (so far).  But the imitators did not have such a deft hand.  They thought that the torture was the point, and preyed on viewers giving them just that, and nothing much else.  The Hostel films, a Serbian Film, High Tension, the I Spit on Your Grave remake, and so many others are films that torture its protagonists and other characters as its goal.

Well what is the difference between what those films do and what Saw does?  It is about weight.  Torture porn treats torture and violence and gore as casual, much as actual pornography treats sex as casual.  There is no weight, meaning, thematic impact, character, or story.  There is just the violence and torture.  Sure, you might get a torture porn film that has a flimsy "pizza guy shows up and his penis his hidden inside the pizza" plot that many porns have, but that is really it.  The violence, gore, and torture are treated as casual aspects of the film.  They are just what happens.  And that is what separates the Saw films (so far) from the entire conceit of torture porn.

As an example, as I said there is a lot of violence, and it is shown more graphically.  Yet it is shown with character, and just a little detachment so the audience can feel comfortable knowing that the person getting hurt is a character, and not real life.  Yes, I cringed at the broken foot parts, and the many times the poor dude got his broken foot smashed.  But it was getting smashed not just because someone was smashing it.  It was plot, character, and story driven.  The traps are complicated and difficult, and there is one near the climax that will probably be very hard to watch, though it isn't unwatchable or even grossly overdone and gory.  There is a level of artifice there that actually allows you to be able to be more calm even though your empathy as you watch has you feeling their pain.  And with the interlocked story that you see the traps through, it gives you another deeper character driven level to these sequences.

Saw III even has a specific moment that subverts the "torture porn" conceit by being the goriest and most frightening scene in the film, and it truly is torturous ... and it is a surgery procedure.  Think about that.  It is a thing we've seen in countless films and television shows, and none of them have this label "torture porn" thrown on the.  It is a very clever use of subversion.

Forgive the long diatribe.  Talking about film intellectually is just kind of a thing I love doing.  If you couldn't tell.

Plot time.  A doctor is stolen from the hospital so that she can perform emergency surgery to keep Jigsaw alive.  Not cure him, as his brain cancer is killing him.  But to keep him alive just a little while longer.  This is the A-plot, and it deals with much more than just that, but I cannot say much more without really getting into spoilers.  The B-plot is your traditional "man in a test/trap" sequence that every Saw film has.  This one features a father, depressed from the lack of justice in his son's unfortunate death.  His story is heartbreaking.  And amazingly well acted by Angus Macfayden.  Bahar Soomekh is also wonderfully cast, and seeing her character's conversations with Jigsaw are easily some of the best scenes in any of these films.  The test that Macfayden's character Jeff has to go through are just as heartbreaking, and different from what we saw in Saw II and in Saw.

This film really perfectly finishes Whannel's trilogy of stories.  Each film gets better, and this film is damn near perfect.  I loved it.  It does everything a horror film should do, as well as a thriller.  It stuck with me and made me think about the deeper aspects of the film, as well as shocked and terrified me at the more horror-film style points without ever causing me distress.  The script is almost completely flawless, and the Darren Lynn Bousman just continues to get better and better as a director.

Can the fourth be just as good?  Or better?  Man oh man, do I hope so.

Grade: A++

IHAO on ... The Human Race

You know how sometimes you go wandering around Wal Mart with some birthday money, looking for things to buy.  You know that feeling?  Is that a thing you’ve done?  Well, it is important for this story that I did.  I actually bought Bee Movie.  And my wife stopped and pointed out this movie.  Look at the cover here:

The Human Race, with a guy getting his head blown off, and a one-legged dude with bladed barbed wire crutches!  There was no way this was going to be terrible.  Except it could TOTALLY be terrible.  Look at it, it doesn’t have a single big name actor ... other than the one-legged dude who is only “big” because of being on Big Brother season 1.  It has ridiculous overblown color-correcting like an episode of Supernatural, and … ok, let me just quote its IMDB here:

"In THE HUMAN RACE a group of 80 people are ripped out of their daily lives

 and all re-appear in an undisclosed location. These people are from all walks of life: 

young and old, athletic and disabled, white-collared and homeless. The rules 

to a race boom in their heads, in their own voice and language, 

laying out what will become a horrific race of terror: 

'If you are lapped twice, you die. If you step off the path, you die. 

If you touch the grass, you will die. Race... or die.'"

LOOK AT THAT DESCRIPTION!!!  I love watching thrillers, and this feels a whole bunch like a Battle Royale style movie, which was great by the way, A++.  Battle Royale with a touch of 13, which was also great, check the link for my thoughts on it.  So how great was this?

Pretty great actually!

I love seeing a competent film that was made on a shoestring budget that is actually real well written and incredibly well shot.  The mechanical aspects of this film, other than CGI-touched-up blood spurts and the obvious film grain thrown over top of everything and one prop that is fake (but very purposefully so to make sure there is some distance between the audience and the film, because it is DARK and if it looked more real it would easily be too disturbing to recommend this film), all the cinematography, the locations, the pacing, the lighting, the special effects, the casting, just all of those aspects are pitch perfect.  And the acting is across the board realistic.  And that’s rough.  Why?  Well, lemme tell you the setup.

80 people all currently on the same block at the same time are all transported by a white light to a sidewalk in a neighborhood surrounded by spikes and razor wire and given some simple rules: if you don’t follow the arrows, you will die; if you step on the grass, you will die; if you get lapped twice, you will die; only one can win the race.  And the race is then on.  We meet a handful of the people as they try to survive in this absolutely horrific circumstance.

This movie is not easy to watch.  It is tense and thrilling and dark and difficult.  I cannot recommend it to everyone.  But if you think you have a slightly stronger stomach, I cannot recommend this ten dollar film more highly.  I was blown away by the way the story was woven, the way it was told, and even how it ended up playing out.  It was shocking, thrilling, and touching in a weird, dark, and disturbing way. 

I feel like I need to give this film a “B” because of its shoestring budget and lack of big actors … but that is a huge disservice!  Everything about this film succeeds at its goals, and goes above and beyond, in my opinion.  I understand why some critics gave this film a medium-high rating: it is a little cheap looking, and a lacks star power.  But the cheapness only makes the film better, and the actors in the film are perfect.  Absolutely perfect.  No big name actors could have done this film better.  Well, maybe Christopher Walken.  This movie DESERVES to have an A.  More than deserves, because a bigger budget would have probably made this thing worse.  And starred Jaden Smith.

Grade: A++