Sunday, July 31, 2011

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Extract (2009)

Jason Bateman?...gets dumped by someone, or has a bad marriage with someone, and gets involved with...Mila Kunis? (yes, Mila Kunis, because I remember seeing an interview with her where she said she had fake breasts for the movie and everybody treated her differently on set)...and they go to a motel and she steals his wallet and/or car. Something else happens with some lawsuit...riiight, some guy loses a testicle in an accident and is going to sue Jason Bateman; I'm pretty sure that's it. This is a Mike Judge movie and it basically just came out and I'm sorry I don't remember it. I'M SORRY, OK?

In other news, Jason Bateman and Mila Kunis are in every movie. (Yes including Schindler's List.)

Oh, right...CGI smoke? That was dumb.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Carrie (1976)

Carrie has her period in the shower, she has an abusive religious lunatic for a mom ("They're all gonna laugh at you!"—right?), she has pig blood dumped on her at the prom, she telekinetically kills everyone, including her mom, with flying knives, and then she grabs some girl's ankle from her grave. But that last part's a dream. OR IS IT?

[NOTES: (1) It may be that I've actually successfully summarized the entire plot of the movie: this is another one that I can't see as being much longer than 20 minutes long. (2) When I saw the Sex and the City 2 teaser poster, I honestly thought that it was for a Carrie sequel, but of course it wasn't. OR WAS IT?]

But, you know, in the end it's a pretty happy story.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

A Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Some kind of skeleton (or rag doll) finds out that Santa Claus was kidnapped by a creepy pin cushion (or rag doll). I remember this movie being about as dark, subversive, and interesting as the doodles of a 12-year-old girl who recently learned that it's cool to wear black.

Oh, and it's a musical! Remember, kids: it can't be schmaltz
or sentimentality if there's graveyard imagery in it.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

Keanu Reeves has a microchip in his head that bad guys want, one of the bad guys has some kind of laser whip, and Henry Rollins helps Keanu out and then drives a tank or something. When The Matrix trailers started running, I was like, "What is this, Johnny Mnemonic Too?"

This movie is about the Internet. Hahahaha, Nineties.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Transformers (2007)

For some reason Bumblebee is not a Volkswagen beetle.* Shia LaBeouf buys Bullshit-Bumblebee, Megan Fox leans over the hood of a car in short shorts, and then Transformers start fighting. They fight on a highway, they fight in a city, they fight in a way that is impossible to tell which one is which—just a bunch of indistinguishable metal-colored CGI. John Turturro's a crazy general, Optimus Prime has a sword, and soldiers comport themselves with grace and nobility (because Michael Bay masturbates to Army recruiting commercials). This movie is one of the most disappointing-ever products of man.

I remember this part pretty well.

* This is very difficult for me to move beyond. It would be like making an X-Men movie in which Wolverine has baseball bats coming out of his hands [see also].

Monday, July 11, 2011

Children of the Corn (1984)

Some kids in a farming town kill all their parents and then stand around like creepy American Gothic Babies. I think this happens under the opening credits. Then probably some attractive teenagers get lost there and the children of the corn kill most of them but one or two escape; this I'm more guessing than remembering. (I think Stephen King wrote this; of course, he wrote most movies, including Stand By Me, The Running ManThe Shawshank Redemption—this is all true!—and Madea's Family Reunion.)

Looks like a nice boy.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

The Anniversary Party (2001)

Some guy looks like Peter Sellers, and I'm pretty sure that's the only part of the movie I liked. Jennifer Jason Leigh is pregnant...no, she tells Alan Cummings that she had an abortion without his knowing, and they yell at each other outside in the dark—Hollywood Hills? John C. Reilly tries to drown himself in the pool, maybe, and some actress I like swims naked (but I can't remember which). I know I felt like this was a movie by and for actors, and I wasn't too into it.

[Another thing I'm not too into: this post. I wrote it, like, a million years ago and keep postponing it in favor of newer ones I write. Time to just get it out of the way: fuck off, Anniversary Party post!]

It's probably a function of the title, but it was very difficult to
find photographic evidence of the existence of this film online.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

I remember thinking that this movie was like a weird sandwich with unbefuckinglievably amazing war scenes as the bread and a lot of boring stuff (in the sandwich metaphor, maybe dry slices of turkey?) in the middle. And then they wrapped the whole thing in treacle.

Of course they're looking for this lost soldier, and Tom Hanks is the officer in charge. In the storming-the-beaches scene, somebody gets his leg blown off and then walks around carrying it for a second. In the other big battle scene, there's an amazingly long sequence in which a Nazi is trying to stab a Jew (and maybe actually ends up succeeding?). And Tom Hanks shoots a little gun at a tank and the tank actually blows up for some reason not actually having to do with the gun.

Oh, and the insufferable "frame story" involves a girl with big breasts being respectful in a graveyard.

What kind of inhuman monster would want to punch this man?