Archive for the ‘Movie Review’ Category
Swingers: My Generation’s Citizen Kane
Posted by: chilly17 in Movie Review on October 9th, 2009
For people of a certain (middle) age, one film from the mid-90′s resonates like no other. God that sounds terrible – how about one is really fucking excellent and awesome? That’s better. (I can’t really tease this further since the title of the post gives away what movie we are talking about). Swingers fucking ruled/still rules. Why post about a 13 year old movie? I was taken aback when a recent Bill Simmons article on espn.com suggested that The Hangover had replaced Swingers as the go-to film for Vegas references. Listen, I loved The Hangover – but it was no Swingers. NFW. Swingers perfectly captured the essence of 90′s friendships – the competitions over chicks/sports/video games, the epic drinking nights, the steady guidance in the face of (often-temporary) insecurities, the fights. So many perfectly-rendered scenes, so many breakout stars, so much alcohol, so many hotties that never exploded like the guys did - it’s all there.
In real life, I’ve quaffed a few drinks at the Dresden Room and drunkenly explained to Marty and Elayne how meaningful the movie was for Generation Old. The only real downside I can think of to Swingers was how big swing dancing became, and how my roommate at the time became a huge swing dancer with the wallet chains and whatnot. (Allegedly, it was a good way to meet women, but I think it was perhaps another accessory for his personal closet. Time will tell.) As lame and overused as “Vegas, baby, Vegas” has become, it’s still a calming salve to one’s ears upon arriving in Las Vegas, Nevada.
5 Reasons Swingers Is Awesome
1. Swingers injected more new talent than any other movie in recent Hollywood history
I would enjoy having some drinks with Double Down
Doug Liman and Jon Favreau have both directed huge tent-pole franchises (the first Bourne flick, Iron Man). Vince Vaughn became a $20 million per movie actor and has starred in some of the highest grossing R-rated comedies ever. Heather Graham emerged from her post-Drugstore Cowboy career coma and became a borderline A-lister. Ron Livingston was in Office Space, which should make him eligible for a career achievement Oscar one day. Even Nikki (Brooke Langton), the girl Mikey left 15 ill-advised messages for, was the female lead in a Keanu Reeves movie! That’s an incredible post-Swingers group resume (even though Charles and Sue are nowhere to be seen).
I honestly can’t think of another movie that launched so many substantial careers – maybe The Blair Witch Project?
2. The resultant Swingers‘ drinking games have been outlawed in many states
Playing by standard rules – take one drink any time you hear a character say “baby” or “money” – most normal humans will be sporting a Miguel Cabrera-esque BAC before Mikey and Trent exit the casino. Even if the drink of choice is Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Seriously, give it a shot*. (Unless you live in SD, ND, FL, AL, AK, HI, MO, MS or ID.)
I make that face sometimes, too, T.
3. There’s lots of solid trivia throughout to amaze and annoy other people who are watching
The guy winning big at the $100 table is Vince Vaughn’s dad; the older woman who hits a hard seventeen (even though the biker guy next to her is silently imploring her to stay) is Favreau’s mom. During the famous answering machine scene, the answering machine itself disappears intermittently throughout the scene, even though it is the focal point of the shot and at one point is speaking to Mikey (about how big of a tool he is). Spielberg casting VV in the Jurassic Park sequel after watching the “Groucho” scene to approve its use of the Jaws music. The Goodfellas and Reservoir Dogs homages are nice touches, as well. Any real fan should be able to run his/her own commentary track.
4. There’s hot chicks
I honestly thought that Deena Martin (Christy, the Vegas waitress that Trent picked up – the one who wasn’t Dorothy) had star potential. She was easy on the eyes and appeared to even have some acting chops when consoling Trent following the “brother” story and helping deal with Mikey’s lameness. Haven’t seen her since, and it appears that the only thing she’s done recently is update her facebook page. Sadly there’s not even a decent picture available on google. The aforementioned Nikki was also insanely attractive while carving Mike up as she recalled him asking for an application at her coffee shop. Heather Graham actually managed to look un-attractive in this, but the part required her to turn down the hotness a bit. (That didn’t effect her standing in my world rankings.) Strong work by the casting director.
Even in b&w, swing dancing is stupid
5. The movie remains hilarious…
Despite having seen it like 800 times, I still find practically every scene funny. Lots of good stuff going on in the background (the aforementioned biker begging grandma to stay on 17, Mikey quietly calling T “Double Down” during the epic “Jenny Eat Something” monologue, Trent embarrassing Mikey with questions about the delivery guy, the fact that delivery was only 40s of malt liquor, etc). I especially enjoy the final bar scene, with the guys celebrating as Mikey is finally making a move, Trent raking Sue over the coals about this girl (“we were playing football, I don’t remember you stepping away to call her”)…even the dramatic scenes had subtle stuff baked in (snowman on the par three course, “at least it’s Disney,” among others).
Apparently a lot of the material stemmed from the main cast’s real life interactions – Favreau, Vaughn and Livingston were really friends when they were coming up. The “you’re like a bear, with fangs” speech was one Vaughn had given Favreau almost verbatim as he was trying to get over a breakup and re-enter the world, so that’s probably why much of the movie rings true.
5a. …and still provides a vivid reminder of what it was like back in the good old days
Now that I’m old, when I hang out with friends we usually drink wine (and discuss tannins), play golf (and complain of back pain), talk about our meds, etc. But Swingers is a nice reminder of the good old days, when we used to rag on each other constantly, talk shit, drink, play video games, talk more shit, try to pick up chicks, drink more, talk shit about who’s picking up more chicks, drink more while ineffectively trying to pick up chicks, do shots because your loser buddy is actually trying to pick up a chick, talk a smidge more shit, drink something out of a test tube, eat some greasy food at 3:15 AM, get close to starting fights with strangers….sigh….those were the days. I’ve always maintained that Trent was the best friend in movie history, especially in light of his trailer park sacrifice (that part I do not remember from the good old days; I’m pretty sure most of my cronies would’ve said “you should go check your messages” and tried to hook up with Christy and Dorothy). God bless you, Trents of the world, if you exist.
Somebody's head is about to bleed - hopefully not because of Sue and a curb
Sadly, I’m writing this without the benefit of a recent screening, so I’m probably leaving out some important bits of analysis. Swingers is the only movie I’ve ever purchased three times: twice on DVD and once on VHS, but sadly my copy is still in storage. I might have to hit up the playstation network to make it 4x I’ve paid for it….
Have a nice weekend,
Chilly17
* wastedpotentialz.com is not responsible or liable for any injuries, monetary damages or hospital charges associated with such efforts. For recreation only, not to be used for gambling or proprietary trading. White zinfandel not included.
Wow, Three In a Row? District 9 is Very Good / Greatish
Posted by: chilly17 in Movie Review on August 17th, 2009
Three good movies in a row? Pretty amazing given all the crap that’s made its way to the big screen this summer. This hits especially close to home as it’s set in Johannesburg, South Africa; as you may be aware, I recently spent a significant amount of time (eight hours) in “the Burg,” as we townies call it. I intentionally avoided any plot description given how spoiler-filled the world is now. All I knew was that the film was made by a first-time director (Neill Blomkamp), with a no-name South African cast, set in South Africa and was some kind of apartheid allegory. Producer Peter Jackson apparently owed Blomkamp a favor as he’d been scheduled to direct the Halo film, only to see it fall through due to studio squabbling. So Jackson helped District 9 get made (it’s somewhat an expansion of an earlier Blomkamp short film).
I will not give away too much of the plot here, not for spoilery concerns, but because I’m pretty fucking lazy and want to get this done quickly, with not a lot of concern for quality of content. The first and last bits of the film are in the increasingly popular “mockumentary” format, detailing how aliens landed in the Burg twenty years ago and how they’ve been integrated with South African society. Did I say integrated with? I meant segregated by. (Hint: I smell allegory!) The documentary focuses on the main character, Wikus Van De Merwe, (channeling both Michael Scott and David Brent at the onset) who is in charge of the movement of the entire alien ghetto (District 9) to a smaller, more-removed-from-Joburg ghetto (District 10). This documentary foreshadows that our Michael/David is going to deal with some adversity – the rest of the movie details those adverse situations and how he deals with them. That’s enough about the plot.
The actors are all great, you’ve probably seen most of them on Law & Order or CSI: Salt Lake City at some point. Actually, no, not a familiar face to be seen. Honestly, I think movies benefit from casting unknowns in major roles, it’s becoming more and more difficult to separate oversatured actors from their most prominent roles (and near continuous media coverage). (For example, maybe Christian Bale could star in less than eight movies per year? He is bringing his (intentionally) wooden Batman persona to all his roles. And he’s also apparently a dick.) The lead is a 35 year old first-time actor named Sharlto Copley – I enjoyed his work here. He was pretty entertaining from the onset as the naive office manager happy to enforce species discrimination for his monolithic multinational employer, but with a bit of a soft spot for the aliens (lovingly called “prawns”). At some points his transformation doesn’t ring true, but I attribute that more to the script. It’s unclear what his motivation would be for a couple of his actions in the last act of the movie. Everybody else is largely a stock character ably brought to life – evil corporate CEO, evil military guy, too-hot and somewhat disbelieving wife, sentient alien lizard named Christopher Johnson – you’ve seen them all before.
Just hangin
The broad plot outline is fine, but there are some gaping holes in the will-be-important-later details. Even if the mother ship landed in the Burg, it seems to me there would be a multi-national team of scientists/military covering every square inch of the area to figure out what’s what. That’s not how it’s depicted here and the local police/military overlook some pretty important details. I thought the Nigerian gang that ran the black market in the ghetto was a nice touch and rang pretty true, except they took a few extraordinary risks late in the movie and ran fewer email scams than I would’ve expected. Is this an outlandishly fresh concept? No, you’ve seen similar in 80′s fare like V, Alien Nation and They Live, but this is a nice extension of the concept, with some grown-up ideas integrated with the basic alien shoot-em-up.
Did I say shoot-em-up? Yeah, there is a lot of shit blowing up in this flick. Lots of heads/bodies exploding, limbs torn off, etc. Several scenes evoke The Fly, and several evoke any number of video games involving big fucking guns that cause people to burst. At one point a gun is shot that apparently shoots a fucking pig at someone – the porcine ammo does a surprising amount of damage. (And I assume the shrapnel is bacon, which is pretty delicious during a firefight) I’ve seen some complaints of shakey-cam, but I didn’t really notice. In that regard this was less offensive to me than the typical fight scene in a Jason Bourne movie. Probably the coolest part of the movie is a very Transformer-like exoskeleton that possesses the heaviest of alien artillery. They made this movie for $30 millionish and it looks friggin great, making one wonder why X-Men Origins, Transformers, etc don’t look 5 times better than they do. To summarize: if you enjoy a side of shit blowing up with your apartheid allegory, then this is probably the movie for you.
Where do I rank this? I have to say it’s behind The Hurt Locker, although it’s probably 85% as intense, which is a high compliment indeed. I enjoyed it slightly more than (500) Days of Summer, so I’ll rank it #2 in my summer 2009 rankings. Does Inglorious Basterds dare make it four in a row? We will see….
Later,
Chilly17
Weeds Sucks; (500) Days of Summer Does Not
Posted by: chilly17 in Movie Review, TV Review on July 29th, 2009
Weeds was once a pretty interesting, if far-fetched, Showtime dramedy about a suburban widow keeping her family afloat by dealing marijuana. The cast and performances were strong – Mary-Louise Parker, Elizabeth Perkins, Romany Malco, Kevin Nealon, Justin Kirk each brought something unique to the table, be it comedic perspective, empathetic longing or whatnot. The storylines were interesting and there were some pretty staggering plot twists to keep things lively in the first two seasons. The third and fourth seasons starting veering out of control to unrestrained silliness.
Now it’s the fifth season, and essentially none of the above plaudits still hold true. Call it The Curse of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Ghost – Weeds is now as fucking stupid as Grey’s Anatomy, maybe (shudder) even worse. Parker’s “eyes wandering to the far left or right of the screen as she silently slurps the last of her Diet Coke/iced coffee” scenes were heralded as a nuanced take on a widow’s disociation in the first couple of seasons. Now it just seems like she’s got undiagnosed Asperger’s. Kevin Nealon’s character is beyond cartoonish and 100% unfunny – you are better off fastforwarding once you see his face, only pressing play when there is no trace off him left. Perkins’ Celia, initially the meddling bitch that made dicey situation dicier, is now a zero dimensional character that is just a hair beyond Nealon’s in prompting suicidal/homicidal urges. All that He Said, She Said potential sadly wasted…wait, what? Wasted potential? Elizabeth, perhaps you’ve found a home. Call us.
The writers seem far more interested in having an interesting opening credit sequence. Hey, Jenji Kohan, we fucking get it – you created Weeds! Ha – you carved that in a bar of soap! You are clever, great. Now make the show stop sucking. Bring back Conrad, Heylia, and Sanjay. Kill off Doug, Celia and all Mexican gangsters (except maybe Ignacio). Thanks, much appreciated.
(500) Days of Summer
Hey, what do you know, two good movies in a row! What a streak, particularly in this barren summer. Most of you probably assume I will love any movie with parentheses in the title, but that isn’t true. (Although parentheses are awesome, allowing you to “break the fourth wall” even though you are already speaking directly to your audience) Is (500) Days as good as The Hurt Locker? No, too precious in spots and also featuring a couple of (unneccessary) standard romantic comedy staples – the bumbling friends with no advice to offer and the wise (and profane) beyond-their-years sibling with way too much (good) advice to offer. Other than those quibbles, though, (500) Days was pretty fresh – I loved the fact that they tell you up front (and in the trailers) that it isn’t a love story and doesn’t really work out for the couple.
It’s a pretty typical story: straight-laced boy Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets quirky, not-that-conventionally-beautiful-yet-uniformly-desired girl Summer (Zooey Deschanel). The story is not told in chronological order, so you don’t get the straightforward “does she like me? she likes me! she doesn’t like me…” routine. I think every guy has probably encountered some loopy chick like Summer (and does Zooey Deschanel play any other type role? And is she the same exact person as Maggie Gyllenhaal or what?) at some point, leading to much consternation. Gordon-Levitt is a great actor, although this is the first time I’ve seen him in something this light since his seminal work in Third Rock From the Sun. He works just fine here, maybe a tad too earnest at times, but he was able to bridge the gap from breezy to (literally) cartoonish well. As a bonus, there’s a big dose of Hall & Oates in here, too. If you are going to go to a romantic comedy, I highly recommend this over that garbage with Katherine Heigl and that 300 dude. (Side note: Doesn’t that Gerard Butler look a bit too Quagmirey to be starring in romantic comedies?)
Giggety?
One other thing, Geoffrey Arend, who I saw in the liquor store the other day, is one of the goofy friends in this movie. As you may recall, he is engaged to Christina Hendricks of Mad Men fame. Geoffrey may be a great guy, but we still couldn’t figure out how this all adds up.
Maybe they just hope "Arendricks" will catch on?
About to go on safari, yall,
Chilly17
