I saw the Ten the other day and I have to say it was pretty great. It might have something to do with the fact I know or have met half the cast but it was still very funny. It’s the second feature from David Wain who directed Wet Hot American Summer. He also directed the amazing sketch comedy TV show the State in the early ’90’s and he is of course one third of Stella. The Ten features ever cast member of the State as well as more established actors such as Winona Rider, Janine Garofalo, and Paul Rudd. Rudd is fantastic as always. The movie has ten parts that weave together, one story loosely based on each commandment. Very funny, very worth seeing. Also, stay for the credits because their is a pretty amazing rap song during them based on the movie.
Spider pig, spider pig…. When I saw this on the trailer I almost started crying I laughed so hard. The Simpsons movie does not look that great to me. Clearly I am going to see it, but this part is the most fantastic thing on earth.
So I watched this movie yesterday about Washington, DC radio icon Petey Green. I am very interested in 60-70s black radicalism, so Green is very appealing to me. I am also from DC, so that made me want to see it more. It was a pretty solid film which did not really have much of a point or a plot. It is about an ex-con who got a job as a radio DJ. He was upsetting to people, but then a lot of people liked him anyway. Sort of like a black version of Howard Stern’s Private Parts only less funny. The he just sort of quit and then they flash forward many years and he died. Not very exciting. That being said, there are funny moments and some mostly exaggerated details about Green. I Googled him to find out more, and there is not much on him, but a bunch of things in the movie aren’t true. However, there is a scene where he comes out of my favorite restaurant in DC called Ben’s Chili Bowl, so I was pretty excited about that. And then I found this amazing video and I was even more excited.
Last night I went to the premier of Nerve.com’s new web series Tight Shots. It was pretty great. The Gaskets do all the music for the show and my little brother has a cameo in one of the later episodes, although he says nothing. It is very funny and I think it gets better as it goes on. I took like 5 photos at the after party and they are here. You should watch the first episode below and then check the site out every week for more.
As you probably know by now from reading this blog, my favorite director is Werner Herzog. I am sort of obsessed with him. Anyway his first “fictional” film since 2001 came out yesterday. It is called Rescue Dawn and it stars the amazing Christan Bale and the often hilarious Steve Zahn. The thing about Herzog’s films are that the documentaries have moments of fiction and the fictional films are filmed like documentaries. This one was based on my favorite of his documentaries, Little Deiter Needs To Fly, about a pilot who is imprisoned in a POW camp in Laos in the late 60’s. Everyone I saw Recuse Dawn loved it, and while it was more commercial than most of his films held true to the Herzogian cannon. The only noticeable difference was its lack of slow sweeping landscape shots. They were missed, and the film was faster paced than I am used to for a Herzog film. Oh yeah, and there was also a pretty cheesy Hollywood ending… that being said, the film is way better than anything else in the theaters right now and would be a good introduction to Herzog for people who keep to the multiplexes. So, go see it, now. Lots of explosions and guns and gross bugs! Woo…
I have seen a bunch of films in the last three days. (Helpful Hint: Don’t see Die Hard or Evan Almighty, even on a plane) Today I saw Zebraman, and snuck into Troublemakers, but I didn’t stay too long because I had some stuff to do. After said stuff, I went to see Michael Moore’s Sicko. I used to be a huge Moore fan until he became the mouth piece for leftist politics. I like his movies and TV shows, but I don’t really want him speaking for me as a liberal. He is sort of a douche. Anyway, his movie is probably really important to see. You will get all riled up and upset and then get pissed on the car ride home, and then you will go to McDonald’s and forget all about it. I know I will. My friend Teddy has had this horrible pain behind his eyes for the last two weeks, but he won’t go to the doctor until next week because his insurance hasn’t kicked in yet. I am going to lose my insurance in about 10 months. It is pretty upsetting. Once my friends and I got in a huge brawl. I had to take a few of them to the hospital. I had a black eye and a shovel had been broken over my back, it made a cool imprint, but I was completely fine. The woman at intake at the hospital convinced me the doctors should have a look at me. I agreed. I was there for about 20 minutes and I walked out with a 1500 dollar bill which included 8 dollars for two Advil. Luckily I have insurance, but there are 46 million US citizens who don’t. So, the movie was enjoyable, probably the least funny, least stunt filled effort of Moore’s career, but it certainly didn’t blow me away like Roger and Me did the first time I saw it.
This is the second Takashi Miike film I have seen that was made for little kids. This is the second time I have left the theater thinking how fucked up Japanese kids must be. With in 5 minutes of the film starting one of the main characters is talking about how he got crabs from a prostitute. Anyway, the movie is about this pathetic third grade teacher who dreams of being a 70’s TV super hero that no one has ever heard of because it was canceled after only 7 episodes. He makes a costume and once he puts it on, the episodes start becoming reality and he lives out the life of Zebraman fighting crab monsters and aliens for 2 hours. Completely different from Big Bang Love that I saw the other day, but just as twisted as his other kids movie The Great Yokai War. I would recommend you see every Miike film you can get a hold of, but he does like 5 a year, so who knows, there has to be a lot of mediocre films out there. Zebraman is pretty great though, just don’t bring your kids.
Yesterday I got to see Takashi Miike’s new film Big Bang Love. It was one of his more beautiful films. It was almost a love story between two murderers in prison, although they don’t express the love in any physical way. The film deals with one gay inmates struggle in prison and another inmate who protects him for seemingly no reason. The protector is murdered at the start of the film, with the gay inmate confessing. The rest of the movie is spent in flash backs with detectives trying to figure out what really happened. There are several unreal sequences when the characters discus freedom and death using rocket-ships and pyramids as metaphors. It was very surreal and probably the best of the films I have seen at the Asian Film Fest. This movie is playing again in a few days at the Japan Center and will probably get a wider release later this year. I highly recommend you checking it out.
The IFC is doing an Asian film festival right now and I plan on seeing maybe 6 of the films over the next week or two. The first I saw was Park Chen-Wook’s I’m A Cyborg But That’s OK. I didn’t really know what to expect from a romantic comedy from the guy who directed three of the best revenge films I have even seen. The answer of course was attempted suicide, a cyborg with guns for fingers, a world ending bomb and lots of people brutally murdered by aforementioned gun fingers. The story basically is about a girl who thinks she is a robot who has a grandmother who thinks she is a mouse and is in love with a boy who thinks he is inviable. The movie makes about as much sense as that plot description, but it is very pretty and very enjoyable. It is playing again this week, so check it out if you can. I plan on seeing movies on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday so expect more write ups and weird trailers soon.
