Film is Pwn

Bronson is the story of a man. A man completely detached from the realities of the world and what it means to be human. He’s not nice, good or really evil in the typical sense of the word. What he does is evil but to him it appears that it’s nothing more than a game, a foray into the woods rather than being the very real actions with tangible consequences that they are.

I don’t believe I’ve enjoyed watching a movie more in a very long time. It seems clear to me that Director Nicolas Winding Refn had a clear vision when he chose to venture into this film. He was determined and he pulled together an outstanding cast and crew to see it into fruition. Tom Hardy as “England’s most violent criminal” is spot-on. His performance is dark and menacing, without remorse and completely insane. Exactly the type of man I rather imagine Bronson to be. There is no sanity to this film. No character to stabilize you. You feel constantly at odds against the main character, much, I imagine, like the prison guards must have felt these thirty years.

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We’re not just talking the Fog, we’re talking John Carpenter’s The Fog, people!  I assume having the auteur behind the original Halloween is supposed to be some kind of enticement, but it’s unclear why someone would want their name above this movie or attempt to entice someone to see it.  I came to it more or less on accident, as John Carpenter’s the Fog happened to air on HDNet Movies the very same night I was bored and looking to kill an hour and a half.  No matter what else I’ll say about it, the Fog did manage to kill that time, so I guess I do owe Mr. Carpenter some measure of thanks, but not much!

The Fog is a ghost story about lots and lots of mundane yet somehow spooky coincidences, which are only somewhat validated by the fact that there are some undead ghost pirate lepers that kill some local yokels.

The film opens with an actual ghost story where some old dude (John Houseman) straight off of posing for the Old Spice bottle covers, tells a bunch of kids the tale of an old pirate vessel that their town founders destroyed in order to found the very town they are living in.  And soon the entire town is besieged with a fiendish evil of inconceivable proportions as the uncanny, procrastinating pirates use their newfound supernatural prowess to exact extremely tardy reprisals on the inhabitants of the town 100 years after they were wronged.   Ooooooooh!  I will have my revenge on the inhabitants of Antonio Bay, in a century or so, we don’t want to rush anything — ooooooooh!
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As a half-Scandinavian, my heritage doesn’t really get a lot of respect from Hollywood or the fine people at the EPCOT Center.  In fairness, what do we have that’s really exotic other than the Viking thing?  Still, is it too much to ask that after 100+ years of movies, we get one great Viking movie?  And a documentary about the Minnesota Vikings doesn’t count!

What have we had up until now?  The 13th Warrior, the crappy Michael Crichton adaption where Vikings team with Islamic Cleric Antonio Banderas (no, seriously) to fight weird guys who live in a cave?  Pathfinder was a relatively entertaining action flick featuring Native Americans warding off invading Vikings, though I wouldn’t call it “good.”  There’s always Erik The Viking, a farsical comedy starring Tim Robbins as the titular Viking, which should tip you off to the quality of the film.  They are making a major movie out of the Mighty Thor comic book to be released in two years, but that’s got as much of a chance of being as bad as Howard the Duck as it does of being as good as Iron Man.

So, I would like to, on behalf of my fellow Scandinavians, I would like to officially pronounce Outlander as the best Vikings movie ever.  What is Outlander?  It’s a semi-big budget flick that sadly didn’t get a major theatrical release, and is now sneaking onto DVD under the radar, but — by golly! — it’s a really entertaining film.  Outlander the cover boasts a critic saying “Beowulf meets Predator!” and that’s the truest, shortest definition I can provide.  Yes, we Vikings have to play second fiddle to otherworldly monsters and charismatically handsome aliens, but beggars can’t be choosers. (more…)

I generally avoid foreign language films — they are to me like garlic is to a vampire.  One major problem I have with foreign language films is that they are films in a foreign language.  One of the most surreal film experiences of my life came while studying Spanish in (community) college, witnessing the talking pig-musical Babe in Spanish with English sub-titles. That was the closest thing I’ve had to a acid trip, methinks.

Other than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I can’t think of a foreign language movie I ever thought was “great,” and I tend to pass over reportedly great movies in favor of the latest action movie cranked out of the Hollywood sausage factory. I made an exception, however, for Tell No One, strictly on the fact that it is based on a great novel with the same name by Harlan Coben.

I’ve enjoyed Coben’s stuff for years now, Tell No One being my favorite book of his.  Coben is a thriller writer whose books books you can’t put down, and it’s not just because they come with those sticky covers; they are thoroughly readable, the kind of novel you can plow through in a day.  Every time I read one of his books I walk away thinking, “Man, that would make a great movie!”  So I’m glad someone finally did make a Coben movie, but why did it have to be the French?  I already read the book, now I have to read the movie as well.  Darn French. (more…)

It may seem somewhat hypocritical of me to condemn violence, considering approximately 93.8% of the movies I blog on here are action/thrillers that range between PG-13 and R.  But, in my defense (and if I don’t who will?), these are the movies that entertain me – where stuff is happening.  If the events make sense like with Taken, hey, that’s great; if not, I can still have a good time chuckling at the absurdity, as in 12 Rounds.

But the subject of today’s blog, Punisher: War Zone, is disgustingly violent, far beyond my ability to enjoy.  Characters are decapitated, impaled, stabbed, disemboweled, various limbs severed by gunfire, and any other manner of violent demise, often played for laughs.  The last line of the film is even a punchline about the inconvenience caused by a thug’s grisly demise: “now I’ve got brains all over me.”  The almost arbitrary bursts of violence are so frequent they become commonplace and therefore ineffective on any scale.
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For some reason the title “Ghosts of Mars” makes me think of a Scooby Doo feature film, something akin to Scooby Doo & The Ghosts of Mars.  Scooby Doo always had those silly villains that sported a combination of gimmicks like the Pirate Ghost, the Loch Ness Phantom, and the Bigfoot’s Personal Assistant.  “Zoinks, Scoob!  It’s like *gulp* th-th-th-the guh-Ghost of Mars!” (Ghost of Mars is unmasked.)  “Actually, it was Old Man McGulley.  He wanted to scare everyone off of Mars so that he could have all the Mars Bars to himself!” “And I’d have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been fer you durn space kids!”

Thanks to attaching the prefix “John Carpenter’s” it is reasonable to deduce that Scooby Doo is not involved, as Mr. Carpenter is the man who brought us John Carpenter’s Halloween, John Carpenter’s the Thing, John Carpenter’s Escape From New York, and John Carpenter’s Muppet Babies.  Though it does give me an idea for the ultimate franchise crossover: Scooby Doo & Halloween.  I don’t like slasher-horror movies, but if Michael Myers were to hunt down Fred and his smug little ascot, I might make an exception.  Then there would be no one standing between me and my one true love, Daphne.  But I digress . . .

John Grisham’s John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars is the touching, true story of a team of soldiers who go to one of those unruly Mars mining towns in order extract a notorious prisoner named James “Desolation” Williams.  A moment to ponder on touch guy nicknames: How does a rough, tough, and all-around bad dude with his own gang acquire the moniker “Desolation?”  Desolation implies loneliness, dreariness, and solitude, and I would think that the whole “loyal gang” thing would nullify being “desolate.”  Or did Desolation not realize that “desolation” isn’t remotely cool or desirable in any capacity?  He’d be better off branding himself as James “Mittens” Williams, for Pete’s sake! . . . I digressed again, didn’t I?
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How is it that Steven Seagal, an actor who is amiable in his way, never did a single “good” movie?  He’s done some “OK,” fun/bad action movies and lots of flippin’ awful stuff, but not a single good movie.  The one enormous caveat in that statement is that Seagal, without a good movie to his resume, has one GREAT movie to his name: Under Siege. 

Under Siege in a nutshell is “Die Hard on a Battleship.”  But in my personal opinion after rewatching both great action films in the past two months, Under Siege eclipses Die Hard.  Yeah, I said it, you die hard Die Hard enthusiasts, and I didn’t stutter: Under Siege is better than Die Hard.  (Random thought: If you are a lukewarm Die Hard fan does that make you an oxymoron?)
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Darren Aronofsky’s the Wrestler is a very good, very gripping, and profoundly sad movie about a fallen star, holding on to the last straws of faded glory. 
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To be frank, I’ve never been relieved to detest a movie before, but that day and that movie is here. 

You must understand that I just turned 30 years old and I was worried that some magic switch would be turned in my head and I would stop finding a perverted sense of delight in incompetent action movies like The Order of the Black Eagle and instead start thinking that the Coen Brothers are geniuses.  Well, I’m 30, crappy action movies are still totally freakin’ fun, and as far as the latest effort by the revered Joel & Ethan Coen, Burn After Reading, I hated it.  To say that “I hated” Burn After Reading doesn’t really cover my sentiment fully.  I absolutely despised it.  It was hideous.  Ninety minutes of my life I’ll never get back.  I’m only revisiting the memories long enough to write this review in order to prevent as many of you good readers from enduring the torture that is Burn After Reading.  With every minute of free time I have at my disposal I will spend at my local Hollywood Video blocking people from getting a copy of this steaming pile o’ crap DVD.
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Cry Wolf is a thriller masquerading as a horror film, and I mean that as a compliment. 

Call me a coward or a man with a weak stomach, but I don’t like to witness grotesque violence on the big screen or on my personal 1080p HD screen.  I’m talking about the repulsive torture-porn of the Saw franchise and all its appalling imitators; virtually all action movies and genuine thrillers I can abide with a splattering of violence, with some exceptions like the recent Rambo revival that showed the self-control of a cat chasing a flashlight.
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When it comes to fun/bad, Broken Arrow is one of the worst, or best, depending on your standard.  Broken Arrow is aggressively, laughably absurd, and I mean that as a compliment.  But more than being ridiculous escapism, society owes John Woo’s Broken Arrow a deep debt, for without it in ‘96, would there have ever been the Woo-Nicolas Cage-John Travolta crapfest Face/Off in ’97?  I shudder to think.  A world without Face/Off is not a world that I, for one, care to fathom.  Thank you, Broken Arrow, thank you for paving the way for even more absurd movies throughout the rest of the 90s. 

Broken Arrow is directed by the aforementioned Woo, the man who never met an object he didn’t think wouldn’t explode if struck by a bullet.  Seriously, if anything is struck by anything else in a John Woo movie it will explode in spectacular fashion, up to and including people punching other people.  The list of items that John Woo thinks will burst into flames on impact from projectiles includes: Car doors, dry wall, iPhones, Kleenex, Muppets, cotton candy, Tupperware, polar bears, algae, and Pete Rose. 
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Film is Pwn is honored to feature an interview with the star of the new Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon . . . Gary GuYeti, Hollywood’s most prolific and mysterious abominable snowman.  Gary GuYeti sat down with our own Daniel J. Roos for an exclusive interview:

Film Is Pwn: “Mr. GuYeti, thanks for taking the time to speak with us.”

Gary GuYeti: “Call me Gary, please.”

Film Is Pwn: “Certainly, Gary.  First question: If you had a drinking problem where would you go?”

Gary GuYeti: “I’m . . . not sure.”

Film Is Pwn:  “The Yeti Ford Clinic!  Ha!  Sorry, couldn’t help myself.  Seriously, tell me, how did you break into the movie business?”

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