True Romance

I got feedback from Tommy, my one known reader of this "fan review" deal I got going here. He understands this is a work in progress, and I don't really know how to review a movie "the real way" so he gave me a little constructive criticism. So I am going to try to shy away from too much movie recap, and more how I liked it and shit like that.

I got True Romance in the mail last week, and just finally got around to watching it. Quentin Tarantino wrote it, and Tony Scott directed. I can honestly say I am not the biggest Tarantino supporter, but I do like his writing. I like most of what I've seen from Tony Scott, specifically Enemy of the State and Man on Fire, and this movie was done five years before EOS.

Anyhow, there is a pretty good ensemble cast of characters, many of which have gone on to obviously larger roles than what they have in this. Brad Pitt, Samuel L. before Pulp Fiction, James Gandolfini and so on all played good minor roles, and have since gone on to be humongous stars, while leading man Christian Slater has dropped off the face of the planet.

The story revolves around a hooker (Patricia Arquette and her juicy juggernauts) who meets up with Clarence (Slater) as a job and winds up falling for him. She tells him her pimp beat her and he takes matters into his own hands and takes vengence for her. Unknowingly, thinking he is taking her belongings, he winds up taking a huge some of cocaine, which of course leads to the shit hitting the fan*** and they have the drug dealers and cops on to them.

The coke obviously belongs to terrible people, and one of those terrible people turns out to be Christopher Walken who has a pretty sweet scene in the movie with Dennis Hopper, but is never to be seen again which was plenty dissapointing.

I think the movie was decent, although for some reason it seemed to drag a little bit. There is plenty of intense violence, blood, gun play, tit shots and for the ladies and guys who like Christian Slater, they get to see his ass too. Pretty good dialogue and good acting all around. It was a nice surprise to see Balkei (Bronson Pinchot) and he has a pretty funny scene when he is pulled over for speeding.

The ending in the hotel reminded me of the ending of Reservoir Dogs on a much grander scale, and it makes sense since Tarantino wrote both. I agree with a friend where the ending is pretty far fetched, but I dont want to get into what specific detail, because it might ruin the ending. If you've seen it and would like to discuss, feel free to leave a comment and give a spoiler alert or what have you. All 1 of you reading this.

I'd recommend the movie to watch if you want to see a violent love story that came out a year before Natural Born Killers, story by who else but Tarantino right? Has some sweet gun action and intense violence as I said already.

I read a user comment on IMDB about this being someones favorite movie of all time because you couldn't see where it was going. While thats a good opinion for her, I disagree and saw a lot of the movie coming and thought parts were pretty predictable. This didnt stop me from enjoying it and wanting to see what happened though.

I'll give this one 3 and a half out of 5 I guess.

Soon enough I will figure out how to structure these, and in a couple of months, people can re-read the first however many and hopefully see how much of a difference there is.

Any feedback is welcome with how I could do these better, or how people would want me to review them without ripping off anybody elses style. For now though, enjoy my shitty take on shitty movies, and LIKE IT JERKS!!

***Watch the movie Airplane for the classic shit hitting the fan scene.

Jet Li's Fearless

I havent seen a ton of Jet Li movies, but the few that I have, I've liked. I think hes pretty good in all of the fighting scenes I've watched, and has a general "coolness" about him. So I decided I'd get Fearless sent to me to see his last martial arts epic. Last until when? Who knows. Maybe he will stick to his guns and never do another, but we will see.

His character in the movie is named Huo Yuanjia, and he is a master of Wushu fighting. The movie opens with him fighting in a tournament, and he easily takes on three people in a row. His next opponent is the best fighter from Japan, and as they are about to come to blows, the movie cuts back 30 years so we see how he got there.

The movie recaps his childhood and why his father doesnt want him to be involved in Wushu fighting. It flashes forward and his father has died, and Huo wants to keep the family namesake alive in the fighting. He has become one of the best and takes on all comers.

His best friend from childhood sees that a lot of the friends and students around Huo, might not have the purest of intentions or motivations for their relationships and he tries to warn him to watch out for himself, or something bad will happen..... Of course something bad happens.

The story gets juicy here, even though its not the most original. It goes from having Huo as the cocky, arrogant, almost bad guy of the movie, to the sympathetic good guy with one turn of events.

He goes out to find himself and leaves the city because of events that have transpired, and he finds redemption for himself before returning years later, and seeing that Westerners have changed his city upon arrival.

The Chinese people are taken advantage of, and are looked at as a weak breed of human being. Huo realizes the problem, and his solution is to get back into fighting, to unite the Chinese people and show everybody that they will not tolerate the abuse. Thus leading to the tournament, and back into present day.

I liked the movie, and thought the fight sequences were great. I am always a fan of a fight that is well choreographed, and the movie actually lets you witness how good it is. Too many american action movies go for the frenetically paced fight scenes where the camera is way too close to the action, and bouncing around so maybe you will see a fist or something recognizable once in a while. Not this movie, you can see everything and it is well shot, and well edited.

All of the locations are visually impressive as well. What I've noticed about movie involving asian culture and stories, is that they all capture how beautiful the landscapes of the countries are, and this is no different. Some of the scenery was very nice. It made the whole feel of the movie calm and relaxing when you see where all the violent fights are taking place.

The director of the movie was Ronny Yu, which surprised me immensely. I had never seen anything he was a part of from China before, and all I've known him from is Bride of Chucky and Freddy vs. Jason, so this was a welcome change for me to see a serious movie he directed as opposed to the Horror Comedies hes done in the past (which I liked both a lot). It was a good change too.

The acting was as good as I could tell, because its all in Chinese and I read subtitles. So for all I actually know, the acting was horrible ya know? Bottom line, I had no complaints about any of the actors, and the blind girl he winds up being friends with later in the movie was appealing to my eyes, which is some sweet irony right there.

I liked the storys climax at the end of the movie, and it really made me get behind Jet Li at the turning point of the movie. The whole western invasion too made me want the Chinese people to come out triumphant, and the ending was a little surprising for me with what happened.

Anyways, I dont want to give away anything huge, but it was a good ending. Then when the credits rolled, I found out that this was based off of real life events. I had no idea. That makes it all the more interesting for me.

Bottom line, it was entertaining, the fights were really good, and it was nice to look at. If you dont like subtitles, dont worry too much, the story is easy enough to follow and they are not a pain in the ass. Plus, when people are speaking English, they are subtitled in English too which I thought was funny.

I would recommend it to anybody who likes martial arts movies. So I guess I'll give it 4 out of 5 assholes on the overall entertainment value for me personally.

Dead and Breakfast

So I signed up for the Blockbuster version of Netflix the other day. I find it more appealing because they have more to it, (you can return dvds to the store and take them there, you get free video game rentals, and with the envelopes, you can buy previously viewed DVDs at 3 for 20 dollars, which is a pretty good deal). Netflix I know is the proven commodity, and it already has people that swear by it, but I like to be different, and not only that, I still like going to the video store.

Anyhow, the first movie that came was called Dead and Breakfast. I had heard about it a while back, and never thought to look for it at the store, so I put it on my list and watched it last night.

It has David Carradine and Deidrich Bader from the Drew Carey show as the only notable actors in it. This wasn't a bad thing to be honest, and they were in it for all of three minutes anyways.

The main crew of characters, some of which I recognized from other movies, are on an RV trip to a wedding. On the road, its getting late and they are lost. Instead of trying to trek on and find the place, they decide to hole up in hicksville USA, which of course leads them to the creepy bed and breakfast, owned by Carradine.

It gets into the gory horror parody pretty quickly, and the first death shown is such a bloody mess. I wasn't expecting too much in terms of gore or special effects or anything, but was pleasantly surprised by the old school style of make up effects using legitimate makeup, latex, and tubes to shoot fountains of blood as opposed to everything having to be done with CGI like a lot of shit these days.

There are plenty of corny jokes, and humor poking fun of horror movies and the movie itself, which was cool. It didnt take itself too seriously at all.

Anyways, back to the story. They run into a drifter at said hicktown, who later turns out to be a monk who has a background in all this weird black magic type shit. This is relevant, because at the bed and breakfast, there is a little box that "holds spirits" inside of it. It is accidentally opened, and the spirit takes the body of one of the guys, and he becomes a zombie, all things considered.

The zombies in the movie are different from other movies in the fact that they can talk, think, and are pretty much regular people. If they get a piece of your hair or a drop of your blood, they can put it in the box, and you become cast under the spell and in turn you are a zombie as well. They dont eat people though, they are just trying to get everybody on "Team Zombie"

There is a nice Night of Living Dead/any zombie movie showdown where they board themselves in the bed and breakfast and start fighting off the zombies. There are lots of good kills in this scene, and at the country ho down which takes place just before. Heads exploding a plenty. One part cracked me and my brother up when they are attacking a guy and pull his ear off and he screams out "Thats my fucking ear!"

It was sweet, trust me. Watch it and see. So the big zombie apocolypse happens and then the ending happens which I cant give away.

Overall I'd give it 3 1/2 assholes out of 5, and give it two thumbs up as far as entertainment value goes.

For me personally, thats what its all about. I sat down for the 80 some odd minutes and it blew by, which is all I ask for in a movie. I'd recommend it to anybody who likes gory, comedy, faux horror movies.

The acting was pretty decent, minus one of the girls who was terrible. She is redeemed though because her last name is Lawson in real life. If not for that, she sucked in the movie aside from being good to look at.

Bottom line, fun to watch.

Up next: True Romance or Jet Li's Fearless