The Brothers Fame Can Do Big Moon Loops By Halloween II
DVD Releases /
Intern Rusty
DVD Releases | January 12, 2010 | Comments (9)
Moon: “Moon may not be right up there with the best that the genre has to offer, but it’s damn good. And given the usual crop of crap science fiction that’s thrown at us, it’s a welcome relief. No aliens, dystopic futures, or killer robots. Just a dude living on the moon. That dude would be Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a contracted employee of a company called Lunar Industries, which has mostly solved Earth’s energy crisis by figuring out how to harvest helium from sun-soaked moon rocks. Most of the process is automatic, but the company needs someone chilling out on the moon, overseeing operations and getting canisters of the wonderful He3 back to Earth.” - Seth Freilich
Halloween II: “Rob Zombie, who not only directed but also wrote this latest installment in the Halloween franchise, has clearly intended to separate his vision from that of the legendary John Carpenter. As such, this movie is not a remake of Carpenter’s Halloween II. Instead, this is Zombie’s sequel to his own Halloween (2007) remake, and Zombie takes much more, how do you say, artistic license, to both positive but mostly negative effect, in this installment of the Michael Myers story. Instead of merely placing his serial killer in stalk-and-kill mode, Zombie’s sequel picks up right after his last movie ended and deals with how the characters are coping in the aftermath of Myers’ recent slaughterfest. In this way, this sequel is better than the last movie for the mere fact that Myers doesn’t have his ass in every frame, so the story has room to let a little suspense unfold and allow the other central characters a chance to expand past their previous one-dimensional confines. By the time the ride is over, however, it’s hard to believe that these are the very same characters, for Zombie pretty much pretends that original version of this sequel never happened and runs in an entirely different direction. If Zombie entirely intended to abandon his predecessor’s themes and desecrate the souls of certain central characters, perhaps he should have passed on Halloween II and made an altogether different project instead. Ahh, but that would defeat the point of a sequel, which is to capitalize upon an already-established audience.” - Agent Bedhead
The Brothers Bloom: “Whatever magical ability Wes Anderson once had to mesh well-crafted, supremely acted films with heart-bump, pitter-patter, soul-tug whimsy may have left him in 2001, but the spirit of Anderson’s first three films has been transplanted into the talent of Rian Johnson. In tone and aesthetic, The Brothers Bloom is the spiritual successor to The Royal Tenenbaums, but it’s less wink/nudge, less precocious, less satisfied with its own sense of cleverness, and even more novelistic in its approach. It possess the same heightened sense of reality, though; the same offbeat sensibility, and the same fairy-tale quality that Tenenbaums radiated, only The Brothers Bloom is the sort of fairy tale you might hear Ricky Jay recite to distract you from a 90-minute sleight of hand trick. And it’d work, too; so engrossed would you be in the tale of The Brothers Bloom that Jay could empty your bank accounts, unload all the contents of your house, and steal your wife without your notice.” - Dustin Rowles
In The Loop: “Simon Foster (Tom Hollander, The Pirates of the Caribbean), a British politician, accidentally starts an uproar when he misspeaks on a radio program, implying that war between the U.S. and The Middle East would be “unforeseeable.” It’s a bizarrely small gaff, which spirals out of control as he tries to verbally tap dance his way free. Suddenly, an empty platitude becomes a rally cry for the more militant among the Americans: “Climbing the Mountain of Conflict.” Which prompts one character to spout, “You sound like a fucking Nazi Julie Andrews!” The movie is deliciously profane, with curse words and insults being hurled around like explosions in a Michael Bay Christmas Special. A cursory glance at the curriculum vitae of the four or five authors who worked on this project lets you know it would be brilliant, but the fact that you can appreciate it without really understanding the meat of the humor proves just how brilliant it is. It’s awe-inspiring, hitting on four different levels: puns, broad scatological humor, slurs and nicknames, and dry wit. It’s infinitely quotable, most of it as exchanges of the whipcrack dialogue.” - Brian Prisco
I Can Do Bad All By Myself: “It’s predictable stuff, and it unfolds just as you’d expect it to, particularly if you’re familiar Tyler Perry’s movies. However, I Can Do Bad All By Myself boasts strong performances by Taraji P. Henson and the eldest daughter, Hope Olaide Wilson, a hard-ass kid who’ll stop at nothing to protect her younger brothers. They manage, together, to elevate Perry’s earnest, cliche-ridden material to something approximating mediocrity. Moreover, the sledgehammer preachiness has taken a backseat to a more conventional narrative. Granted, it’s one punctuated by the occasional musical number, gospel or otherwise, but it’s the voices of Gladys Knight, Mary J. Blige and, especially, Marvin Winan’s pastor that helps up-sell the TP experience. There are some motherfucking crowd-pleasing numbers in this movie, and I’m not ashamed to admit that they were a little stirring.” - Dustin Rowles
Fame: “But in the moment, trapped in front of a giant screen, you’re almost paralyzed by the earnest fervor of Fame — putting it down would be like booing a junior-high production of Grease, or catcalling at a toddler beauty contest. It’s just so intensely, cloyingly, painfully sincere that you kind of just want to hug the cast and hide them from the wedgie mob. Those poor, naive, bright-eyed teenagers, whose own parents must have spent thousands of dollars and countless hours of instruction, of acting and dancing, of modeling classes, and of voice lessons, so that they could one day get their big break: Being cast in 2009’s most sanitized, whitebread film. Fame: I’m 17 and My Career is Already Over!” - Dustin Rowles
Big Fan: “Paul Aufiero works a night-shift at a parking garage in Staten Island, collecting money from patrons while listening to local sports talk radio. He spends much of his shift composing anti-Philadelphia Eagle rants on a notepad that he delivers on the talk-radio program once he gets home, to the immense pleasure of his equally pathetic best friend, Saul (Kevin Corrigan), who listens in awe each night from his bed. Paul lives with his mother in what’s clearly the same room he grew up in — it’s plastered with New York Giants paraphernalia, highlighted by a huge poster of his favorite Giant, defensive lineman Quantrell Bishop (Jonathon Hamm). Each night, after delivering his talk-radio spiel, Paul gets under his NFL sheets and masturbates himself to sleep, content with his day singularly obsessing over the Giants. The one break in Paul’s pitiable routine comes on Sundays, when he and Saul go to the Meadowlands for the tailgate party before hooking up a small television to the car and watching the game from the parking lot outside of the stadium.” - Dustin Rowles
Intern Rusty is a Masters student at the University of Miami. You can learn more about her at Rusty’s Ventures.
Comments
Posted by: Optimus Rhyme at January 12, 2010 6:42 PM
Is Brothers Bloom a Blu-Ray release or something? Because I seem to remember getting it from the Family Video ages ago.