Goddamnit.

I am angry with one thing and one person: this movie and myself.  The former for sucking balls and the latter for expecting great things from another failed movie-going venture.

I was intrigued by the concept of Button when I first saw previews for it: person born as an old man and ages backwards .  Then I discovered that it was an adaptation of an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story and decided to read the story first.  Then I received an illustrated, super-sweet hard back copy of the story as a Christmas present from a friend of mine two days later.  Then I read the short story and loved it.  Then I went with a couple friends on Christmas afternoon to see the film.  Then I got angry.

It is a great story.  Period.  However, I read it all in probably half the time it took to sit through Brad Pitt’s three hour excursion.  Now I’ve got nothing against long movies…Braveheart, The Dark Knight, Once Upon A Time in America, Heat, The Departed, Lord of The Rings Trilogy-the list of quality flicks clocking in at 2.5+ hours goes on and on…but this one kept going and going and going.  Button attempted to be a sprawling and touching epic about this man’s life as he aged backwards-the things he saw, the way he experienced life, the losses he went through.  The book succeeded; the movie failed.

To add insult to injury, director David Fincher (you might recognize his name from badass titles like Seven, The Game and Fight Club…so we know he’s capable) chose to have the story told in flashback form.  The result is a dying woman and a daughter reading through Button’s journal during the onset of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (where the movie…not the book…is also based).  I don’t know who thought that would be a good idea, but it wasn’t.  All it did was piss me off.

And of course, the main points of the movie were not in the book and the main points of the book were not in the movie.

Goddamnit.

S (story) = good basis but too flawed by the flashback storytelling and departure from original short story…5

A (acting) = Brad’s a good actor in my book but considering it was three hours of ONLY him…6

T (technical) = nothing to write home about…5

S A T cumulative = 5 6 5

So I was watching a rerun (not the guy from “What’s Happening!!”) on tv, and a trailer for Valkyrie came on.  This got me thinking.  And I said to myself, “Selfie, that Tom Cruise sure can’t act.”  Lets first look at the definition for “acting”.  According to Webster: the art or practice of representing a character on a stage or before cameras.  If Tom Cruise is acting like Tom Cruise in every movie that he does, well then congratu-fucking-lations.  Then of course, this got me thinking of other famous people that can’t act.  So I thought I would start a list.  Here is where I call out to other Reelmen authors and commentors (authors feel free to edit the post in the admin file) to continue the list.  This is what makes up the Un-Oscars list.  So let me start it off:

1 (a) Tom Cruise:  I can’t decide who to put in the number one slot.  Its more or less a tie for me.  But since Tommy boy here inspired the list, he gets the ‘a’ spot.  Granted that Tom makes one bad ass fighter jet pilot or nascar driver…but that isn’t a roll for every movie.  I don’t always need to feel that Tom is on the brink of adreniline.  I won’t even bother bringing up his fuck up religious beliefs.

1(b) Keanu Reeves:  Bill and Ted…yes, this was a perfect role for him.  A brainless surfer moron.  But where do you go from that.  No where, when you act like yourself, you can’t act like anything else.  Sure, Matrix you say.  Yes, a bad ass trilogy.  But I dare anyone out there to convince me that the movies were great because of Neo.  Riddle me this: Could it be possible that the script was so good, that it shadowed Keanu’s horrible acting.  Yes, go watch it again!

3.  Nicolas Cage:  Those of you that have read some of my previous reviews, know that I like me some cage.  But!, that doesn’t take away from the fact that he can’t act.  He is also one of those that is the exact same person in every role he plays.  I for one like that role, but also acknowledge that this isn’t acting, and he is not an actor.  I don’t think it will take much here to convince my fellow authors that cage deserves this number 3 spot.

4.  Samuel L. Jackson: That’s right, he may have a wallet that proclaims that he is a Bad Mother Fucker, but that doesn’t mean he can act.  Let me set the record straight, he is a Bad Mother Fucker, especially in Pulp Fiction, one of my favorite movies of all time.  I mean I even have the, “Ezekiel 25:17, The path of the righteous man…” burn into memorization.  But Sammy boy, mobster, jedi knight, super hero villain, its all the same.  He can’t act.

So the gauntlet has been laid, carry on my wayward son….no…lets try that again.  Carry on this list, and make it an un-oscar list for one and all.

I’m a sucker for the Blues. When I was 16, I wrote a report for a sociology class about the history of the Blues, tracing its roots back to the call and response songs of Africa, that crossed the ocean and became the worksongs of slaves in Amercia. My main influence back then was Muddy Waters. Who took his acoustic delta blues from Mississippi to Chicago, made it electric and created a new form of music. As a boy and even to this day, Muddy Water’s voice and guitar playing; raw, powerful, sexual and wise, emulates what the blues is to me.

This movie is the story of Chess Records, started in the 40’s in Chicago by Leonard Chess, who saw an opportunity to make music and money by recording vocalists and musicians at a time when it was simply labelled “race music”. He recorded Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Etta James, Howlin Wolf, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry and many others.

The movie itself is simple and perhaps falls a little flat at times. The soundtrack, however, is amazing for anyone who loves the blues. Adrian Brody plays Leonard Chess, a character who was probably much more complex than the script allowed. He and Jeffery Wright, who play Muddy Waters, are the central characters, their inital relationship and the founding of the label make up the first part of the movie. Wrights portrayal of Muddy is just as a blues fan would have him; strong, swaggering, a lover and ladies man, loyal and little headstrong. There is also a sense of a city man trying to cover his country boy roots.

Of note is the too-brief performance by Eamonn Walker as Howlin’ Wolf. You can feel the power that the Wolf carried and personified in his music. Also, battles of alcoholism and heroin addiction are rightly addressed by Columbus Short as Little Walter and Beyonce’ as Etta James. I’m not a big Beyonce’ Knowles fan, but she nails her covers of “At Last” and “All I Could is Cry”. That girl’s got some lungs! And let’s not forget Mos Def as Chuck Berry, which initially seemed a miscast to me until I saw him on screen. They really do look alike, and Mos captures the naturally playfulness the Berry had, that perhaps made him more palatable and less “scary” to white audiences. Although, truth be told, Chuck liked him some white tail.

Obviously the soundtrack is brilliant, but rather than purchasing it, I would recommend “The Best of Chess Records: Original Recordings of the Songs in the Film Cadillac Recordings” for the real thing by the real musicians.

Lumped into the genre “holocaust movies”, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas may not be so attractive to some moviegoers. Let me say upfront, GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

It is beautifully written, acted and directed. There is not a spare shot, scene, dialogue or emotion in this film. What is allowed is the story of  8 year old Bruno’s understanding, or misunderstanding of concentration camps in Nazi Germany. His family moves to the country where Bruno’s father, played by David Thewlis, is the commanding officer of the camp.

I will not spoil this movie at all in this review, but simply request that you see it for yourself. It left me stunned and unable to move as the end-credits rolled by.

I had previously seen the movie Twilight, it being so extremely lame I felt sorry for the 12 year old audience it was probably targetting. They probably thought it sucked too. I almost lost faith in cinema from that truly awful movie. That faith was restored by The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It does what movies should.

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed RocknRolla.  Does that make it a good movie?  Yes, yes it does.  From the opening scene of “get ready, this is gonna be badass”(that’s what she said) to the credits, I was absolutely entertained, impressed and satisfied with my overpriced movie-going experience which is more than I can say about many of the few flicks I’ve chosen to actually catch at the theatre.  The last two were X-Files (blow me Mulder-I wanted to believe) and that horror of a new M. Night Shamamamlallanana movie a while back.  I figured I’d give the big screen another chance last weekend after being extremely impressed by another of Guy Richie’s efforts a couple months back when I picked up the DVD of Revolver upon a friend’s recommendation.

RocknRolla was for me the perfect blend of intrigue, complexity and comedy to keep me engaged for the whole show.  It’s a moderately complex (seemed more complex due to the fast paced nature of the film) story of a big shot mob-like dude who runs the city (played by Tom Wilkinson), a group of hired-hands peeps, a suppose to be dead rockstar, some Russian mob guys, an accountant, a lawyer, a couple of music producers, and a few various other people.  Basically, everybody’s jumbled together in this big cluster-fuck situation that begins with a sketchy real-estate deal and leads into a hunt for a lucky painting.  There is even some philosophy thrown in during one scene-seemingly out of the blue-but it worked for me.

In consideration of the greater good via, in this case, the cohesiveness of all the parts of this movie reviewing interweb mechanism, I’ll go ahead and adopt the aforementioned SAT scoring system.

S:  nice work-lot of stuff pulled together in a mostly acceptable manner…8
A:  no complaints here-solid all around (side note-why does cussing sound so much cooler with accents?)…7
T:  again, solid, fast-paced work, good music, Thandie Newton is smoking sexy, yada yada…7

Cumulative SAT score for RocknRolla…877

Go ahead and check out the trailer:

What do you get when you mix bad acting, bad story line, and yet bad ass visual effects?  Ghost Rider, that’s what! 

First, I need to make a confession. I have never read, or laid eyes on, Ghost Rider the comic. Somehow, much like a great Mongolian proverb, that may have made a difference. Ok, now that we settled that, on with the review!

I think they spent so much money on the visual effects, that they couldn’t afford decent writers.  I would also like to mention that I said good visual effects and not special effects because that would include sound effects. The sounds he makes once he transforms into the Ghost Rider are just horrendous. Story line is so bad, here is my summation of it:
Ghost Rider sells soul to Devil in turn for father being cancer free.
Devil frees Ghost Rider’s dad of cancer, but kills him in a motorcycle accident.
Ghost Rider then fights these demons for some contract of evil souls.
Ghost Rider wins.
Ghost Rider swears vengeance against the Devil for killing his father.

One question: Why can’t the devil take care of this himself if it’s so important?

So lets get some things out. Unlike most of the other reviewers on this site, I actually…usually…like the Cage. Sure, he can be too Cagey at times, but that’s the beauty of the Cage. How is that possible, well here is a list of some that I, unlike the others here, actually enjoyed: National Treasure (the first one), Matchstick Men, Adaptation, Next, Face Off, and The Rock. When you look at IMDB for the Cage, he has 12 movies either in post-production, filming, pre-production, or announced…so you better get used to the Cage.

That being said…he was sooooo bad in this movie. Lines were lame, forced, and over acted (more so than the typical Cage). His hair look liked a cheap wig made from a chinchilla that has been taking a dust bath in something that wasn’t dust. The only saving grace was the presence of Sam Elliot. He is one cool mo-fo. He has the look, the voice, and the mustache to prove it! All that he asks is if you have to use so many cuss words? Where is my sarsaparilla woman!

Another clarification point. Typically, I like the movies based on comic books. There is a certain amount of un-realism that you have to accept when you watch these movies, and I’m good with that. Infact, the parts of this movie that I did like, were the unrealistic parts. Oh, and the part where Eva Mendes shows cleavage. I mean come on…the name of this website is reelmenwatchmovies.

So lets sum this movie up with a new scoring system me and Brad are conceiving. We call it an SAT score. S stands for Story, A stands for Acting, T stands for Technical (cinematography, special effects, general aesthetics, etc.). Each letter is on a 1-9, they combine to a three digit number. Lets take this movie as the first example:

S: Boring and didn’t make a whole lot of sense – 3
A: Yea…I would score it a 1, but as always, Sam Elliot is a badass! – 3
T: The flames looked cool – 5

So the SAT score for this movie is 339. Final word…don’t see it. They set it up for a good sequel, where he turns against the Devil for revenge of his father. Unfortunately, this movie was so bad, I hope no one in their right mind would agree to making a sequel.

Keep in mind, higher overall number is not necessarily better. A movie could be 921, which overall is not that good of a movie. This is a work in progress scale, and we have not run it by the other members, so…comments welcomed, work in progress this is…

Arash did a good job summarizing the plot and everything, so scroll down and read his review first to get those details.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

OK. I should preface this with saying that this was an Official Reel Men Movie Event. Basically, that consists of us all getting together and eating giant burgers while dropping the words “pussy” and “taint” until it alienates all the girls who are watching too. Sweet.

The best parts of Mongol lie with the setting and the photography. The harsh terrain of the Mongols is a very picturesque backdrop. Great effort seems to have been undertaken to create the villages, armor and weaponry of the Mongol warriors. The premise of a trilogy about Genghis Khan seems badass enough.

The pacing is all whack, however. Termudjin spends the whole movie running around handcuffed getting captured all the time. There’s talk in the beginning about the Mongol ethos of “being strong,” but at no point does Termudjin display any strength. In fairness, I was looking down at my burger while a crucial Mongol proverb was displayed at the beginning of the film, but I don’t think that would have brought everything together. There’s a chronic lack of expository dialogue, something to let me know the lay of the land, the alignment of different Mongol tribes, and the method by which Termudjin learns how to actually be a warrior. The climactic scene shows Genghis having assembled many warriors and united the Mongol people. How about spending more time showing how he got all those people together?

Genghis Khan, ultimate bad ass, right?  You wouldn’t know it from this movie.  Lets start at the begining. As IMDB puts it, Mongol is an epic story of a young Genghis Khan and how events in his early life lead him to become a legendary conqueror.

The only thing saving this movie is that it is part 1, of a supposed trilogy. But there has yet to be any evidence that I can find for the making of part 2. The movie starts off with Temudjin (read Genghis Khan) at a very young age picking his wife from a selection of very young girls. The scene then leads to his father become poisoned to death. From this point on, Temudjin does the same thing throughout this movie. He is either running away, or being held captive. He finally gets old enough to where he stands his ground and puts up a fight, but loses…and yes, is captured again. He is captured by the same people, for no other reason than who his father was and that he is supposed to be the next Khan. Not sure which is more sad, Temudjin getting captured countless times or the captors letting him escape countless times. At the end of the movie, for Temudjin’s last stand, he miraculously assembles an army of men over a short period of time. Not really sure where these people came from, or why they have chosen to fight beside Temudjin…remember at this point he really has not done anything but run or be captured.

In summary, this movie is a blend of scenery from Lord of the Rings, fighting from Braveheart, and battles from the movie 300. Of course, with the exception of the qualities that made those three movies good. The only part I felt was bad ass was the unsheathing of dual swords; however, they failed to do any good choreography with it.

My favorite part of the movie had nothing to do with the story. This may be found offensive to some. If you are one that is offended by sexual vulgarity, then pass this paragraph! One scene in the movie Temudjin’s wife makes a very obvious and purposeful sexual reference, this is then immediately followed by a cut-scene of a close-up of camel hooves. Not sure if ‘camel toes’ carry the same reference in Russia, but hats off to you Sergei Bodrov (the director), well played!

Is it worth seeing? Sure. Will I go on and rave about the evil that is Genghis Khan? Hopefully in Part II.

Death Proof is Quentin Tarantino’s offering for the Grandhouse double feature with Robert Rodriguez, and the only one I’ve seen as yet. (They’ve since been broken up into separate movies.) I recently had the privilege of seeing an original grindhouse genre film at a backyard reel projector movie showing here in Jackson. It was a 1970s slasher movie where couples were at a sex therapy island, and there was a mysterious slasher killing people one by one. The budget was terrible, the acting and dialogue horrible, and the film itself had been damaged because it was so old. It was a lot of fun to watch, however, with titties and violence galore.

I feel like with that film as a foundation, I can better understand where Tarantino’s coming from with this movie. In the first half especially, Tarantino nails it. The 70s style and grainy film are all there. There’s free discussion of sexuality, and you get the sense that the most sexual women are most apt to die, based on some morality code. A lot of time is spent with the main characters in seemingly innocuous conversation, then the killer will appear. Luckily for the viewers, the dialogue and acting are natural and funny the whole way through.

The plot of Death Proof is simple: Kurt Russell plays ‘Stuntman Mike,’ who may or may not be a real stuntman, who drives around the backroads of America in his “death proof” stunt car and terrorizes sexy women. Watch to see whether or not Stuntman Mike gets his comeuppance. Minor complaint: I do feel like Tarantino was holding back on the grindhouse style in the second half of the film, not utilizing the film grain and cut frames that populate the first half. The filming in the second half is pretty straightforward, although it does create a real sense of the speed of the cars. I give this film four stars for pacing, enjoyment, and car crashes. However, I award this film ZERO titties because that is exactly how many you will see. C’mon, Tarantino, let’s get some mileage out of that R rating!

After a queue-stalling two weeks of sitting on my coffee table, I finally got a chance to watch Amores Perros. I usually watch movies while I’m working on design projects, which isn’t really a good M.O. when I have to read subtitles.

The phrasing loosely translates to “Love’s a bitch.” This film is constructed of three storylines. They do intersect at one point, and you can pick up on clues in the various stories to piece the timeline together, but I wouldn’t say this is a film where all the storylines culminate in one big ending. Rather, the stories are all more thematically related. They all deal with people pushed to desperate extremes for the sake of love. Also, the main characters in each storyline are sustained by positive relationships with dogs.

I think contemporary Mexican cinema is pretty badass, with directors like this film’s Alejandro González Iñárritu (also 21 Grams & Babel), Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Children of Men), and Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth) doing really great work. It’s tough to peg exactly what characterizes their work, but I’d say it’s a mix of gorgeous visual composition, the oftentimes intertwined storytelling, and a way of making profound truths out of innocuous daily events.

This movie’s definitely gritty, dealing in a blurry line of regular life and associations with street-level crime. It’s disturbing to see the devolution of the characters as they make bad choices in the name of love. The storytelling’s very believable, though, with the characters all acting in nuanced, purposeful ways. See this if you’re feeling philosophical, or if you’re a travel junkie craving a look at big-city Mexican life.