Naked Hobo

First off, this is not your typical Will Ferrel movie.  It is not just a series of loosely joined sophomoric humor, it actually has a pretty good story.  Ferrel plays an IRS auditor who awakens to find that a mysterious voice is narrating his life.  When the narrator announces that Ferrel will soon be dead it spurs him into action.  With the help of a college professor, played rather poorly I think by Dustin Hoffman, he tracks down the author and…well, I am not gonna spoil that little bit for you.  It is a happy and tragic tale at the same time and Ferrel does a commendable job, relying on actual acting other than simply his ability to be a giant moronic goof.  When this first came out I was kinda meh about the whole thing, I am leary of comedic actors trying more serious roles as it often fails.  I was gladly surprised by this sleeper, 3 axes out of 5.

As of late I find most action flicks to be crappy and annoying.  This one wasn’t quite crappy, and it wasn’t quite annoying.  It has two guys I like a lot, Jason Statham, star of both crappy and decent action flicks, and Jet LI, more decent than crappy.  To be honest I felt it really spent a little bit too much time getting to the actiony goodness that I came to see.  Jet Li and Jason Statham…man, I want to see some asses kicked.  There is a story about revenge and betrayal, but I didn’t really care all that much.  The ending seemed forced, all of a sudden we need to have a twist and here it is, even though there was never really anything that hinted at it.  So, slow to start, disappointing ending, some good action in between, 2 axes.

When an alien force tries to invade Earth to steal a powerful new rocket fuel, a mysterious hero intervenes.  So is the description on IMDB.  This would be one of the movies shown on “Crimson Theater” that is beyond awful.  Apparently it has been covered by MST3K as well, though I seem to have missed that episode.  I can only guess that it must be a wonderfully fun episode as this movie stinks so bad it makes the dead vomit.  Now, Japan has released some amazing films, “Seven Samurai”, “Gojira”, and yet they have made some of the worst films ever conceived.

To add to the effects of the utter badness of the movie, the dubbing is atrocious.  The lead alien villain, his laugh, well, it pretty much is a nasaly “Ha ha ha”.  You need to make sure you draw out each Ha as much as possible.  There is also a lot of running in the film, villain chasing hero, hero chasing villain.  At times it seems more like the running of the idiots than a sci-fi film.  Oh yeah, and what is it that makes the aliens so different from us….really long noses and funny helmets.  That’s it.  Kinda like most of the aliens on the original Star Trek.  Oh look, its a girl painted green…no..it’s an alien.  This movie wasn’t even one of those, its so bad it is kinda fun to watch.  Nope, it is just bad from start to it couldn’t have come soon enough finish, 0, that’s right zero, axes.

Now this film I liked. Cigarrettes and hats everywhere, what a grand time it was then, before the 60’s subculture ruined everything. Great cast too, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Russel Crowe, Guy Pearce. The story revolves around three LA policemen and a shooting at an all-nite diner. Each investigates in their own way to unravel the deeper truths behind the shootings, as well as corruption in the department. Crowe plays a great thug cop, known more for his brawn than any detective work he could do, while Pearce is nearly flawless as the by the book cop that slowly learns how to work in a flawed system. Spacey, well, I like Spacey in just about everything he does, and he plays Hollywood cop Jack Vincennes, a celebrity in his own right, both for his help on a popular tv show as well as the cover shots he gets from “Hush Hush” magazine, run by DeVito. The movie felt real and gritty and had one or two twists that I did not entirely expect.

The true filth underneath is a great contrast to the sunny voiceover at the beginning of the film. “Come to Los Angeles! The sun shines bright, the beaches are wide and inviting, and the orange groves stretch as far as the eye can see. There are jobs aplenty, and land is cheap. Every working man can have his own house, and inside every house, a happy, all-American family. You can have all this, and who knows… you could even be discovered, become a movie star… or at least see one. Life is good in Los Angeles… it’s paradise on Earth.” Ha ha ha ha. That’s what they tell you, anyway.” I am amazed I hadn’t seen this until now, but I am glad I finally did, 4 axes out of 5.

What can I say about “Tideland” that wouldn’t be better expressed by injecting 20 grams of heroin directly into your eyeballs? It was just simply fucked up from the start, and then it really went kinda crazy after that. It is a tale as seen through the eyes of a child, a completely demented and somewhat insane child. I reall can’t explain it, so I let the official tagline speak for me. ” The squirrels made it seem less lonely.” There, that helps doesn’t it? Or how about the official plot outline on IMDB. ” A lonely girl gets trapped in an eerie fantasy world after her irresponsible parents die.” Nope, that doesn’t really help either. I guess it kinda gives you an idea. I know, this should sum up how weird it all is, Terry Gilliam. Yeah, that works, 3 1/2 axes.

Well, I can say that there is one acting job Orlando Bloom can do well, playing an unconcious soldier.  I will also add, we have the prettiest army in the world, I mean, Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana.

Based on actual events, which most likely means the movie is about 10% fact and the rest is Hollywood.  I don’t know that for sure, but that seems like the normal formula, though 10% may be too high.  There is a lot of gun play in the movie, little character development.  That is actually okay, there are way too many characters to give any of them any real depth, and we don’t have 12 hours to tell the story.  I am always kinda iffy on these types of movies.  I mean, there is the tribute to those heroic few, but on the flip side is the profit generated from the losses those few suffered, some making the ultimate scarifice.  I know why Hollywood made it, or I will assume I know as Hollywood is a money making machine.  Still, if I watch it in the spirit of remembrance, and I know how I feel about our soldiers, so I can watch this and not feel terribly guilty about it.  I will also avoid going into depth on the complete clusterfuck that the entire Somalia operation was and how then President Clinton made a bad mistake by pulling out.  Politicians need to let the generals handle the war details.

The film is quick paced and has a frenzied look to it at times.  This is good, it helps add to the realism, though I am sure it is nothing compared to the hell that is a real battle.  I hope that I am never faced with the reality version, I’ll stick to celluloid fighting.  The soldiers dialogue does seem a bit too refined for me.  I am not saying that soldiers are stupid, I know quite a few very smart ones.  I just think that in the heat of battle one does not always use perfect diction and complete sentences.

I knew the story going into the film as I read all the news about it as well as reading some partial accounts from men that were in Somalia at the time, so there were no surprises.  That is expected when I see a semi-factual film.  A pretty decent flick all around, 3 axes out of 5.

I admit I am a fan of Rowan Atkinson, and he does seem to play a good reverend.  I also like Maggie Smith, plus this film has Patrick Swayze.  How can anyone pass that up?  Afterall, “Roadhouse” is one of the greatest cinematic marvels of all time.  So three great actors, okay two great actor and one Jed, tells me that this should be an enjoyable film, and it was.  It is British, so if you don’t find their dry wit funny, well, then you need to watch fewer Adam Sandler movies.

The film revolves primarily around the Reverend Goodfellow, Atkinson, and his family with their new housekeeper, Grace (Smith).  Grace has a unique way of handling problems that face the family, not exactly legal either.   The movie is fun and Smith is a delight to watch.  Playing the wife to the good reverend is Kristen Scott Thomas, you may remember here from “The Valet”, or at least I do.  Swayze is the golf instructor and if the size of his belt buckle is any indication, he will be a problem that Grace will have to deal with at some point.  Overall, it was funny and smart and I loved it from start to finish, 4 axes out of 5.

Pierce Brosnan plays an ex-Union captain being stalked by Liam Neeson, a former Confederate for reasons that don’t become clear until nearly the end of the movie.  It is fairly easy to guess why, but you don’t know for sure until the end.  Neeson will let nothing stand in his way of killing Brosnan.  Now, I can understand that.  After watching “Goldeneye” I wanted to kill Pierce Brosnan as well.  Anyways, the film is like a Rambo 1868 version, with Brosnan killing off Neeson’s henchmen along the way.  My wife made a good point in that the whole film had a made for TV feel to it.  The only part I really liked was the badass nature of Brosnan’s character.  The story was predictable and overused, along with the partial nightmare flashbacks that give hints to why Neeson wants revenge.  You wait for this great climax, only to be completely blown away by the utter lameness of the ending.  A measly 1 1/2 axes, most of which is due in part to the Ramboesque quality of Brosnan.

Here I go again, stuck in the Wolrd War 2 era.  The film revolves primarily around a young girl and something she sees and how she incorrectly interprets it and the results of her misunderstanding.  Visually a very good movie, also good acting.  The directing however I think could have been better.  As I said, visually it was beautiful, but the pacing seemed off.  The film really felt as if it was creeping along for the most part and at times I wish I had a watch so I could see how much longer it would go on.  It is also a horribly depressing story.  However, the story itself is good, depressing or not, and it is still a fairly good movie.  I think with some tightening of a few of the scenes it would be a great movie.  The other bit that bothered me is that the movie skips back and forth in time and you never really know for sure when what is happening.  One instance it flashes to three weeks earlier and apparently then it goes back to three weeks later without letting you know.  You have to guess how much time lapses in parts and it detracts from the cohesiveness of the film.  Despite the problems I still enjoyed it for the most part, good, not great.  The Viking says 2 1/2 axes out of 5.