With a fall season shooting out some big name video games and an important World Series for STL fans, the Cardinals, Batman, and Nathan Drake have been keeping me a little too busy to slip some movies in. Ok, there might have also been a Teen Wolf marathon on MTV at some point… However, with those games in the bag (for the most part) and the Cardinals coming out the victors, it is now time that I get back to watching some rentals. Other than Red State, I probably should have chosen a few better titles to come back with though… [Read more...]
For Your Renting Pleasure
11/07/2011 by Leave a Comment
For Your Renting Pleasure
10/17/2011 by Leave a Comment
Week after week I apparently find ways to theme my rentals without realizing it beforehand. Scratch that, I totally did it on purpose, and you know it’s true cuz I said totally. A couple of weeks ago I went with creature features, and this week’s selection of The Nines and Being John Malkovich has me going for films in which reality is not really all it seems to be, creating odd words that raise questions, both for the betterment, and detrimental to, the film. [Read more...]
For Your Renting Pleasure
10/02/2011 by 3 Comments
This week I apparently decided to go with slightly older creature features (also reading Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, which both stays in the same vain and explains why I have only gotten two movies in). Both films wear their age in similar ways; however, From Dusk Till Dawn rises above this in other ways by creating a fun B-Film, while The Thing fails to do the same. [Read more...]
For Your Renting Pleasure
09/25/2011 by 2 Comments
This week of non-new-releases includes Griff the Invisible (which is technically in theaters, but deserves to be in this post because of it’s short run), Priest, and Uncertainty. [Read more...]
For Your Renting Pleasure
09/19/2011 by Leave a Comment
And I am back with “For Your Renting Pleasure,” a supposed-to-be-weekly post that made it maybe 2 weeks tops before fizzling out. My bad. For those of you who don’t remember this is basically a compilation post of movies I watched that week of the non-new-release variety, whether they be rentals, watched through the Netflix instant queue, or what have you. This week we’ve got Last Night (2010), Wind Chill (2007), and The Good Guy (2009). [Read more...]
Rental Review – Year One
03/17/2010 by Leave a Comment
Year One takes a trip back to prehistoric times for its inspiration, but unfortunately no one remembered to pack the comedy.
Going off of survival of the fittest standards, Zed and Oh would have been bred out of the species a long time ago. In a nutshell, they are lazy outcasts who are unskilled at both aspects of their hunter/gatherer way of life and cannot get the girls they want to “lay with.” When the tribe has had enough of them following Zed’s light snack from the tree of knowledge, he is exiled from the tribe, with Oh choosing to accompany him because two people are just so much funnier than one. Eventually they cross the distant mountain range from their home, discovering that it isn’t actually the end of the world and that there is a lot they were not aware of (insert random highlights from the bible and history books here). [Read more...]
While I was Streaming: New York, I Love You
02/18/2010 by Leave a Comment
The 2nd anthology film in the I Love You series this time stops in New York and the results are just as great as the Paris anthology, Paris, je t’aime.
The film follows a loosely connected group of individuals as we watch their experiences with love through a series of short films and connecting vignettes. The stories involve a just dumped boy who gets a last minute prom date, a composer and an assistant who bond through their many phone calls, a couple of strangers outside a restaurant, a confident and tad overzealous smoker trying to pick up a not so forth coming women, a pick pocket and a girl that catches his eye, an jeweler and his client, an long lived and nagging couple, an assumed one night stand deciding to meet again, an aging star revisiting an old hotel, a painter and his longed for muse, a video artist capturing people around town, and the bond between father and daughter even if no one believes they are related. [Read more...]
While I Was Streaming: World's Greatest Dad
01/17/2010 by Leave a Comment
Bobcat Goldthwait’s latest film is a pitch black comedy revolving around the struggle of a writer who wants to be famous and the revisionist history nature of high school and the results are a solid effort that tells a touching if a bit disturbed story of family.
Goldthwait’s film revolves around a single dad, Lance, and his annoying douche of a son, Kyle, and Lance’s attempt at being a good father to a son that has no desire or direction. Kyle is sex obsessed, talks a game a million times bigger than he really is, and treats his only friend and father like dirt; unless the conversation revolves around something involving sex. Lance is an English teacher whose elective poetry class is unpopular and he views himself as more or less a failure as he has been rejected by every publisher and magazine under the sun. When an unfortunate circumstance arises in the family’s life Lance is given the opportunity to share his literary voice in a new way that creates adoration for Kyle. [Read more...]
While I Was Streaming: The Girlfriend Experience
01/08/2010 by Leave a Comment
Steven Soderbergh’s latest small budget “experimental” film is a triumph in both story telling and originality while successfully taking us into a world few of us understand while pairing it with a theme we can all relate to with the timely issue surrounding the downturn in the economy.
First off, for being such a low budget film Soderbergh’s film looks pretty darn good and does a lot of really interesting and unique things with the camera, look, and feel of the picture; but this isn’t really a surprise coming from someone as talented as Soderbergh. The film’s style also gives us an intimate feeling with our two leads and we feel right there in the room with these people listening in on their comings and goings. Soderbergh does a great job at pulling us in and connecting us to the story even though it is told so scatter shot and out of sequence, but more on that later.
The film follows two individuals that happen to be together, or maybe not; one is a high class call girl, Chelsea, who is trying to give her profile a boost to make more money and get bigger clients the other is her boyfriend, Chris, who is a personal trainer who is trying to lock in more steady work as getting people to commit long term is kind of tough in the worsening economy. Now, your probably thinking that the drama is going to surround the boyfriend finding out she isn’t a waitress or something she lied about and flip out when he learns she has sex for money but that isn’t the case. [Read more...]
Rental Review – Rise: Blood Hunter
12/11/2009 by Leave a Comment
My willingness to watch predictably horrible horror films has struck again. I am ashamed…
Lucy Liu has a problem. The most obvious of which is that she agreed to star in this film. Okay, let me start over… Lucy Liu’s character, Sadie Blake, has a problem. For starters, she is an investigative journalist, and curiosity comes with the territory. Unfortunately for her, this curiosity has broken her “better judgment” part of the brain, allowing her to stumble upon something she was not supposed to see. So now she must die. However, instead of taking the route most do after this step in their life, she wakes up in a morgue drawer, naked, alone (well, those are to be expected), thirsty for blood, and with a bone to pick.
TV Review – Harper's Island: The Complete Series
11/30/2009 by Leave a Comment
Harper’s Island may choose to wade through the waters of TV’s tamer horror genre rather than create major ripples with a cannonball into the deep end, but for me it still manages to be a welcome allusion to the campier horror films I grew up with.
It follows Henry Dunn (Christopher Gorham), Trish Wellington (Katie Cassidy), and their wedding guests as they spend the week on the island before the ceremony. Included in this party is Henry’s best childhood friend, Abby Mills (Elaine Cassidy), who hasn’t returned for 7 years because of a string of horrific murders that claimed her mother as a victim. As a welcome gift to all the wedding party members, someone begins killing them off, one by one. Whether or not these two events are connected, clearly someone is not willing to hold their peace.
Rental Review – P2
10/31/2009 by Leave a Comment
In the spirit of the holiday I decided that I would treat myself to a little horror film. The problem is I am not always the best judge in selecting something because my love of the genre tends to block out the part of my brain that warns me as to how stupid the movie I am about to sit through is probably going to be. That’s how I got stuck watching Skinwalkers last year, and that’s why I ended up watching P2 tonight.
Angela (Rachel Nichols) devotes most of her time to her job, spending the majority of her time at the office. Unfortunately for her, the wrong person has taken notice of this, deciding that he will be the one to bring a little fun to her life. However, this security guard, Thomas (Wes Bentley), doesn’t choose to go about making her acquaintance in an acceptable way, but instead, decides to kidnap her on Christmas Eve, locking her in the parking garage with him.
