6 reasons to LOVE Tropic Thunder

I saw a double feature of war movies this Sunday. Back to back Tropic Thunder and Star Wars The Clone Wars. I enjoyed them both so here are my thoughts.

TROPIC THUNDER!!!

6. Unconventional Casting - You've probably already heard about Tom Cruise being in the film. He is, and he is funny. I don't want to spoil it for you but Stiller really has a great eye for casting and this decision is inspired. Mathew McConaghey is in the flick also and he is funny as ever. His agent would fit perfectly in the world of HBO's Entourage. I'd love to see a Pecker Gold buddy agent flick. 

 

5. Tugg "Tuggernuts" Speedman - Stiller's action movie hero would fit in perfectly with Derek Zoolander. Speedman isn't smart, but he looks awesome with shit blowing up behind him. Stiller spends half the flick acting like a mentally handicapped person. I don't really understand how people are offended by this. It's not done with negativity it is simply a little bit of politically incorrect comedy. 

4. The Presentation - The film opens with a fake drink commercial starring one of the stars of the fake film in Tropic Thunder Alpa Chino. This fake advertisement is hilarious and surreal because for the length of it your not sure if this ridiculousness is actually real or not. It's then followed by fake trailers for Stiller, Black, and Downey Jr.'s characters. It's genius even though it looked a lot more realistic when Tarantino and Rodrigues did it in Grindhouse.  Also this film succeeds where Pineapple Express failed it delivered fun unique interesting and large scale action and mixed it effectively with comedy.

3&2. Jeff Portnoy and Kirk Lazarus - The performance everyone talks about at the end of this movie is usually about Robert Downey Jr.'s awesome performance. In fact, my favorite line in the film comes from Downey. This is really his summer between Iron Man and this Downey is at the top of Hollywood. 

I love Jack Black Nacho Libre is one of the funniest movies ever as far as I'm concerned. Black's performance is really over shadowed. He spends half the movie strung out and in withdrawal spouting insane statements, and screaming his head off. The character he plays in the film although understated is that sort of tough talking city guy in every war movie. 

 

1. The Ensemble - This group of actors together really works well. It almost feels like the comedy version of Ocean's Eleven. The character's play well off of each other and watching them go in and out of their characters is hilarious. Danny McBride also kicks ass in this flick as a pyromaniac special effects guy. Nolte also owns as a Vietnam Vet.

  

Each character is clearly defined and has a lot more comedy to mine. I would be all for Tropic Thunder 2, with a maybe a bigger more diverse cast  possible collaborators Dave Chappelle, Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Chris Rock, Dane Cook, Bill Murray, etc.

 

666 reasons to love Hell Ride

I'd like to preface this review by saying that one of my all time favorite movies is Easy Rider. Also, I'm a sucker for any bike movie in general. This movie is about to rival biker gangs warring with each other to track down a lost treasure from 1976.  Without further ado I give you my review of Hell Ride.

HELL RIDE!!!

666. Rock n' Roll - This movie's soundtrack is perfection. From ans awesome motor cycle riding montage set to C.C. Rider. 

This movie is wall to wall sound like a spaghetti western. It is complex and clever with it's musical choices. Especially in a scene in the film where our Biker hero Pistolero trips on Peyote to think. The music really fills the music up and makes the conflict feel epic.

665. Weaponry - Everyone is armed to the teeth and everyone has their own unique signature weapon. Pistolero has his pistol. The gent has his Revolver. Comanche has his revolver, cross bow, and scalping knife. Eddie Zero has a whole armory in his side car. Billy Wings has his arrow shooter gun thing which is really cool. The action this unique weaponry lends to the film makes it feel like a western and makes for some great gore. 

664. Bikes - All these motorcycles are lovely. Some are classic others are more modern looking but their are no suzukis or gopeds. Everyone in this flick rides american steel. The bikes are extremely detailed and the production design is exquisite. 

663. Characters - Most of the characters are one-dimensional and that's fine, hell that's what makes it fun. All you need to understand anyone is there name a look at a tattoo, or a look at their motorcycle.c Every prop and stitch of clothing defines the characters. Thei dialogue reinforces their look but is almost unnecessary. Pistolero. The Gent. Comanche. Billy Wings. Eddie Zero. The Deuce. Everyone has a moment to shine and each character is cool in their own way. This film is really a bunch of bad asses fighting out whose the most bad ass.

 

662-2. Women - This movie is filled with some of the hottest women in large numbers than I've seen in a long time. Every woman in this movie except for a 1 is perfect looking. The best part is that Bishop mr number 1 is a sex god in the film.

1. Larry Bishop - has written himself a terrific character, and a terrific bike movie. Pistolero is a genius character as embodied by the Paul Ruebens looking Bishop. He exudes sexuality, every woman in the film propositions him for sex, and his tattooed covered arms emphasize his  toughness. His voice is the voice of the grittiest bad ass biker who ever lived. If his performance comes across cheesy to some to me it is simply fun. Tarantino was right to encourage Bishop in his biker epic. The movie would fit perfectly playing after Death Proof or Planet Terror. It feels like a real grind house picture.

Below is the trailer and I encourage you to see this movie if it's playing your area. I'm sure this film will become a cult classic over time if not already, so I'm sure we'll be able to enjoy it on DVD in the future. .  

Have you seen it?

Go see Hell Ride!

6 reasons to HATE Pineapple Express

Pineapple Express did not deliver for me. I was very hyped for this move. I loved Superbad and I am a big Apatow fan. I thought this movie was going to blow Step Brothers away but it didn't at all. The wierd thing is that i hated this move and Ebert liked it, and I loved Step Brothers and Ebert ripped it. 

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS!!!

6. Poor Plotting - A film that mixes genres successfully is From Dusk Till Dawn the first half is action the second horror. The style changes halfway through and there's never any foreshadowing or tease that the characters can expect to run into vampires it just happens. Like it would in real life. This film doesn't do that. Going from stoner comedy to buddy action isn't smooth at all. They just begin flailing about punching and shooting each other out of nowhere. The action or tension never rises. In action movies things usually escalate in this movie things only fizzle out.

5. 4o minutes too long -The film is 15 minutes too long but it feels like forty. A comedy shouldn't be more than 90 minutes especially a bad one. The film drags maybe its the plot that never seems to develop a goal or motivation beyond find those guys.

4. Rogen and Franco - - Rogen's Dale Denton is hard to like. He has a girlfriend in high school which requires some suspension of disbelief. His dialogue just doesn't work with him in the lead. Superbad, and Knocked Up were ensemble enough that everyones acting and screen time is equal so you never really get sick of anyones one dimensional personality. In this buddy flick Rogen and Franco own the screen time and they got on my nerves. There is only so much ineptitude I can stand to watch. 

I love Franco I think he is the best actor of our time His portrayal of James Dean is magnificent and his work on Freaks and Geeks is so honest he looks like he's in a documentary half the time. This movie doesn;t show off his range. It doesn;t even give him that out there a character. Saul Silver is basically a quiet drug dealer who is contemplative but quick to action. He isn't horrible but he isn;t all that great in the flick.

3. Red - Red is played by Danny Mc Bride and he is hilarious. He almost saves the movie. He is probably the only good performance in the film simply because he has a schtick. Therest of the movies villains are lame and kind of standard.

 

2. Shitty Action - This films intent seems to me, to be to marry the stoner comedy genre and the buddy action movie genre. In doing so it serves neither master. The action is lame, and not in a funny lame like Steven Seagal where its funny because it takes it self overly serious. It's lame because it's really trying to be cool but is only mediocre. I've seen better production value on tv. The Killpoint which was a mini-series on spiketv which proably didn't have half the money this flick had, had superior action.

1. It didn't deliver- This movie's trailer was perfect.

 

It had an awesome song, the promise of cool action, and few laugh lines. It is still probably my favorite trailer of the year. However, MIA's Paper Planes is never used in the movie only the trailer. I guess this is good because they probably would have wasted it and now some other director like Guy Ritchie, or Rob Zombie can take it and use it for one of their films right.

What did you think?

Did I dissuade you enough?

Are you still interested in seeing Rogen's Green Hornet?

6 lines to LOVE Step Brothers for

Step Brothers!!!

Since it's hard to dissect a comedy with out giving up the best jokes. I'm going to highly recommend this film. I thought it was hilarious. It's dirty as hell, the musical choices are perfect, the setting is unique, the characterizations are very innocent and extremely creative.  The trailer which i thought was hilarious actually doesn't give the funniest parts of the movie like most comedies do. 

Instead of listing performances or themes, I am going to give the top 6 lines from the movie in no particular order.

6. "I want to roll you into a little ball and stick you in my vagina. Where you can live..."

5. "I smoked pot with Johnny Hopkins."

4.  "Eat shit Derek!"

3. "Boats n' hoes"

 

2. "Call me Dragon" "Call me Night Hawk"

1. "You and your mom are a bunch of hillbillies. This is a house of learned doctors."

6 reason to LOVE The Dark Knight

THE DARK KNIGHT

6. MAYOR BAT-MANUEL - Nestor Carbonell of Cane, Lost, and The Tick(live action tv series). Has a small part as the Mayor of Gotham. Why should anyone care? He helped lampoon the elements of the Batman mythos ad the one and only  Batmanuel. This inside joke is almost worth the price of admission. Nestor is also a terrific actor and a fellow cuban-american like myself so I'm a big fan of the guy and I hope this flick gets him more film work. 

5. BATMAN UNIVERSE - The universe truly is Batman's. The same way the Incredible Hulk and Iron Man realy seel the Marvel Universe. This film sells the Batman Universe and Gotham city. It makes the city a real world place and treats its characters like real people. Gotham is busy and complex. The fact that Batman first faces of against the Scarecrow makes the city feel busy and it helps you believe that a Batman villain is hiding behind every alley. 

4. THEMES - The Dark Knight plays expands upon the themes of the last film. Choas and order. Crime, the law, and vigilantism are questioned. The movie really gives you more to chew on after the film than any comic book movie I've ever seen. My favorite theme is the way that Joker gets caught with his human experiment which proves Batman right for believing in humanity. 

3. HARVEY "TWO-FACE" DENT - Two Face for some inexplicable reason is quite possibly my favorite bat villain. I love his origin and love the way it ties to and affects Bruce. I always imagine and this movie almost supports it, Harvey Dent was Bruce's plan to fix the earth. I think wayne imagined one day Harvey becoming president and reforming the entire country. This film supports the idea that Dent is more hero than Batman and what happens to him helps prove why batman needs to wear a mask.  Eckhart's performance is outshown by Ledger but it is equally as good his anger is fearsome and his two-face logic (shooting the driver) is spot on perfect.

2. BATMAN - This is be far my favorite batsuit of the films it moves better although I don;t like the all black but I'll talk about that later. The Bat's gadgets were better than last time. The batpod was super cool. Wayne's playboy penthouse was pretty cool. I'm still don't like the way Bale portrays the bat. The voice is horrible and his soulless Bruce Wayne isn't as emotional or endearing as he should be.  

1. JOKER - Ledger is perfect. His intro in the opening sequence is cool, effective, and classic. The Joker is a criminal genius. He makes you laugh and feel terror for his next move. He is sadistic and represents all the worst and wild elements of Gotham. He is every bit a match for Batman and his dialogue is amazing. "You complete me" is the most genius Joker line ever. He never asked "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" 

Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

What did you think?

Un-Wanted

I was going to review the Wanted movie but it sucked so instead I'll do a Wanted comic book review soon. This si the best part of the Wanted movie and you can enjoy it alot more alone. 

I liked Batman Gotham Knight

In anticipation of The Dark Knight tonight. Here is my Gotham Knight review. 

I am not an anime fan but i really enjoyed this batman. The stories were well constructed and fun. Kevin Conroy voices Batman and Bruce and shows once again why he is the best voice for Batman ever. Nothing ground breaking but solid Batman tales with emphasis on the way that different people see what they want to to in Batman, but I'm getting ahead of myself lets break it down. Usually I break it down to 6 reasons I enjoyed it. Since this film is six short stories I'm just going to review each part on it's own.

Batman Gotham Knight

"Have I Got A Story For You" - Great Story. It's kind of a classic Batman style to show how kids imagine Batman. I espeically enjoyed the Marvel version of Batman that is in an Ironman Suit and jumps around like the Hulk. 

"Crossfire" - Crispus Allen meets animation. I like him as the spectre in the comics and he works in this short with out the ghost. Montoya isn't in this instead we get some other female cop named Ramirez. The gotham crime families are on display and the way the cops view Batman is shown in a fresh way that helps build the movie universe up. 

"Field Test" - This was one of the better stories. It showed some neat tech. It's cool to see Batman decide that he has to be vulnerable to fight crime the way that's right. 

"In Darkness Dwells" - Anime Gotham Sewers are awesome. Killer Croc was pretty lame and was just a rampaging monster. Scarecrow sported a great outfit and the scythe he was tossing around were very slick. I like the pacing in the story but I wish they had done Killer Croc better.

"Working Through Pain" - I felt this story was the weakest of them all. It was confusing. I thought the guns in the garbage can was some metaphor and that Bruce was hallucinating in his pain but it wasn't so it felt kind of lame. The parts of Bruce remembering his training is kind of lame and not very captivating. 

"Deadshot" - Deadshot is truly the anti-Batman. The two are evenly matched despite Deadshot's heavy armaments.

 

The anime Deadshot is more weaselly than the justice league version and I wasn't very impressed with his costume design.

  

The train fight was pretty cool and had a very epic feel which I dug.

 The ending is perfect with Batman looking up into the Bat-Signal pondering his parents death.

 

Also it's interesting to see Bruce admire the beauty of a gun. 

 

What did you think of Batmanime?