Sexy Cineplexy: Reviews

I agree with you that The Missouri Breaks is odd. I saw it at the theatre... twice. But in truth, it's a beautiful-looking mess with Brando hamming it up so relentlessly that he makes it impossible to take the film seriously. A little of his antics may have worked (for me) but since it was non-stop, it made everyone and everything ridiculous. I suppose my favorite scene was when Brando "ad-libbed" by sticking a live grasshopper in unsuspecting Randy Quaid's mouth. That was funny and disgusting, but Brando's accents and costume changes got monotonous after awhile.

It's hard to believe that director Arthur Penn made Little Big Man which was unusual but understood how to balance the different tones of the western genre while giving it a modern perspective.

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I liked The Missouri Breaks just fine, but I was put off by something. I can't quite recall what tha something was though. I remember writing a movie tab entry about it. Will look that up once I have more time.

Nice review Sexy I own this movie

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Good review of Source Code. It looked pretty good from the trailers. Plus, I liked Moon a lot.

Keep it up.

Really enjoyed your Source Code review though I may not rate it quite as highly as you did.

Made me now want to go back and read all your older reviews

I liked your review of Source code sexy I also found Gyllenhaal to be the best part of the film. I would not rate it as high, but I still thought it was an enjoyable film. Also enjoyed your review for Candy. I haven't seen it but I am a fan of Ledger's and I heard some pretty good things about it. I'll have to get around to that one.

I liked Source Code....then the last ten minutes of the movie happened.

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Suspect's Reviews

The Missouri Breaks was one of the worst movies I have ever seen, a huge bore, with Marlon Brando not giving a performance, just trying out weird accents and voices. He and Nicholson seem to be in different movies, Nicholson's is just boring, while Brando's is self indulgent boring. I saw that once when it came out and would never watch it again. I don't own it, wouldn't rent it, and almost glad it killed Arthur Penn's career.

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HAPPY HOUR
(directed by Mike Bencivenga, 2003)



The first thirty minutes of this movie were interesting, but I can only say that now after watching the whole movie. Those first thirty minutes felt more like two hours. I was ready to give up on this baby. Anthony LaPaglia stars as Tulley, an advertising copy editor that's working on a novel, so of course he is an alcoholic. One night (at the beginning of this movie) he meets Natalie (Caroleen Feeney), who matches him drink for drink at a bar -- I suppose as a way to attract his attention. It works and next thing you know, they're back at his place sexin' it up. The next morning, they leave for work together and all is blissful. We later meet his best friend Levine (Eric Stoltz), who works with him, and some of the colorful characters at his job, which includes his boss (and former sex partner) as well as the guy who played the Italian gay guy on Sex and the City.

Basically, the first thirty minutes sets up these characters. Natalie is in love with Tulley and it was sickening to me because he seemed like such a loser who'd break her heart. I wanted him to die and I wanted this stupid movie to end.

- THEN -

Then Tulley wakes up one morning and notices his bed soaked with blood or something. He's got cirrhosis of the liver.

At this point, the movie completely changed on me. I wanted Tulley to die and I was getting my wish. Now I was starting to like this thing.

The great thing about Happy Hour is that it doesn't play out like some typical, boring, ho-hum melodrama where you're supposed to feel sorry for Tulley and we watch him make amends and it's sad and depressing and makes you wanna die right along with him. This movie has colostomy bags being thrown at people. This movie has 1-900 number BDSM mistresses that like to give spankings. This movie has jokes and bitchiness and feuding office workers and it also gives an honest look at people and adult life.

It's set in New York City and it's got that indie film vibe to it, yet, with actors like Eric Stoltz in it, it's actually got a much stronger indie film presence. The writing, the directing and the acting were all top notch. I was loving Caroleen Feeney's character at first, but then she was getting on my nerves a little. She did get a little too mushy. Eric Stoltz did the best job out of everyone. Anthony LaPaglia wasn't bad - I don't know what this man is really like in other things, but he did a good job considering he had to get sick and be an *******.

It turned into a much better movie than I expected. It ended well. They threw in an extra scene that didn't really need to be there, and I was afraid at first that it was gonna be overkill and end up ending on a note like Source Code (see the review) but the extra scene actually added to the movie and made it more complete, so it was a big bonus. Yes, the first thirty minutes of the movie made it seem like it might not go anywhere, but the death sentence for Tulley was a life sentence for this movie... that did not sound right. But you understand.

The Money Pit
(directed by Richard Benjamin, 1986)


The Money Pit stars Tom Hanks and Shelley Long as a soon-to-be married couple that buys a big house from a funny old lady at a very good price. The problem is the house is a lemon -- in this little slapstick comedy, we're treated to a bunch of scenes in which Tom and Shelley discover something horrendous happening to their house. They should have given up on the thing the first day they moved in -- when the whole god damn spiraling staircase collapsed!

Although the film has some pretty funny moments, the majority of the picture is as dilapidated as the house Tom and Shelley move into. This was a very boring 90 minute film with one central joke that got old very early. It actually surprised me how fast they started up with the house falling apart. When I read the description of this movie on TV -- can't On Demand cable offer better free movies?! -- I thought I'd give it a try because I like Tom Hanks and I even like Shelley Long from the Brady Bunch movies she did. I figured they'd start off with small bad things happening to the house, leading up to bigger and funnier nightmarish occurances. No. As I said -- their spiraling staircase competely collapsed on day one. They had to use a LADDER to get upstairs. Eventually, everything falls apart. The kitchen is demolished. The bathtub falls through the ceiling and explodes into pieces. The front door falls off. It rains and water leaks through the roof everywhere. MOST OF THIS HAPPENS IN THE FIRST COUPLE OF DAYS THEY MOVE IN!

Steven Spielberg produced this movie, so I thought after seeing his name in the credits that it wasn't gonna be a bad time at all. Well, lemme tell ya, E.T. is rolling in his spaceship over this. I know that doesn't make sense, but I'm sure it's happening.

One of the thing this movie does a lot is introduce us to a lot of bizarre, wacky characters. That's not a bad thing. I've seen lots of good movies with good wacky characters. The sad thing is there's really only one wacky character that's good enough -- and she stole the show, too -- Maureen Stapleton as Estelle, the old woman Tom and Shelley buy the house from. What a great character. Too bad she's in a horrible movie. Other wacky characters - the majority of them - are construction workers that come to fix up the house, which takes up the majority of the movie. Most of them are stereotypes and boring ones at that. There was a crossdressing band that called themselves "Cheap Girls" and they did have a funny moment, but only one.

Shelley Long's character has an ex-husband, some Russian guy who conducts the orchestra she's in and is apparently very famous, and this plays along with the movie's theme about sturdy foundations and sticking together or something. I dunno. It may have been a nice message overall -- you'll understand if you see it -- but it's not really worth the time and effort getting it from this movie. If you enjoy sight gags and relationship drama, this is your movie.

Final word: Don't fall into The Money Pit. Yawnfestation.

The inspiration for Money Pit (rip off) was Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House, which was one of Cary Grant's better post war comedies.

All Good Things
(directed by Andrew Jarecki, 2010)



All Good Things is a queer little movie that is based on the real life events of Robert Durst and Kathleen McCormack, although in this movie their names have been changed to David Marks (Ryan Gosling) and Katie McCarthy (Kirsten Dunst). David is the rich son of a New York real estate mogul who falls in love with poor little Katie. Soon, they've opened up a health food store in Vermant called "All Good Things", much to David's father's chagrin. However, his father, Sanford (Frank Langella) soon convinces his son to pick up his litte family and go back to New York and work for him.

David starts getting mean and strange. He talks to himself. Katie starts living by herself in their second home and becomes more independent by attending medical school. We learn that David's mother died when he was a child -- by suicide -- and that he saw the whole thing. Eventually, things progress even worse and Katie disappears from the world. She - that is, Kathleen McCormack - has not been seen to this day since 1982. After quite a long time of developing David and Katie and their troubled marriage, the movie abruptly skips ahead to 2000 where we find David Marks living in Texas as a mute woman.

Okay... soooooo... I knew the bizarre twist going into this movie. It takes quite awhile for it to happen. Once it does, though, I'm afraid this movie turned into something else. I felt that pacing was off with this movie and Kirsten Dunst's removal from the film to bring us Ryan Gosling in drag hanging out with an old man neighbor that sort of becomes like a surrogate lover to him was a little... well... inconvenient. Suddenly, this romantic little movie became Psycho V: Tootsie's Room.

It has a Zodiac-like feel to it, or something. There's not really any closure here. I'm kind of at a loss about what really might have happened. There are a couple of murders that happen, a disappearance, a strange crossdressing man that gets away with everything, if indeed he is guilty of anything -- Robert Durst even does a commentary track for this movie!! I have not listened to it, yet. Should be fascinating.

Ryan Gosling was hot. Weird, but hot. Apparently, the man he's playing, Robert Durst, was later diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, which is a form of autism. So, that explains his odd behavior. There's also the issue of him seeing his mom commit suicide and all of the other things that have occured in his life.

I'm not in total love with this movie. While it was very engaging and never boring, I do have a sense of... what the hell did I just watch? Seriously... Ryan Gosling's character wound up fleeing from his life to hide as a mute woman? Kirsten Dunst fans should be pissed to suddenly lose her character to this bizarre change of events. But, I guess that's life. That's how it really happened.

We do get some scenes with Ryan walking around all wet in his underwear and Kirsten fans will be glad to know she goes topless in a shower. But the really memorable moment is Ryan Gosling walking around a store with a short old man, doing some shopping. Life Lesson: You never know how your life might turn out.

I didn't know they made a movie about that. The real guy if I remember correctly was ugly (too lazy to look it uo)

Blue Valentine
(directed by Derek Cianfrance, 2010)



Blue Valentine is difficult to love. While it was a great movie, it disappoints in the end and the disappointment is not a flaw of the film itself, but rather the point of the film. This is a movie that tells us love at first sight does not exist. It is about a marriage that's coming to an end. It has a lot of beautiful moments and a lot of moments that would work divinely in happier romantic movies, but in this one, those moments craft a depressing, tragic story about two people who never should have met.

Those two people are played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, as Dean and Cindy. They have a young daughter, Frankie, played by Faith Wladyka. The story begins with Frankie discovering that her dog is missing. Soon, it's revealed that the dog is dead. Dean and Cindy go away to one of those hotels that have themed rooms designed to let you enjoy fantasy sex. Dean and Cindy get the "Future" room, an outer space themed room with a revolving bed. Before they get there, Cindy bumps into her old boyfriend from a few years back and we realize that she's still got feelings for him. Cindy basically turns into a downer for the rest of the little getaway with her husband. Dean -- who is redneck hot and very, very sweet and playful -- just wants to make love and get drunk. Cindy confines herself to her moodiness and inner world.

Oh my god. Michelle Williams' character, Cindy, is the BIGGEST BITCH ever. I don't think I've hated a movie character more. I'm serious. Dean is the PERFECT guy --- for one thing, he has Ryan Gosling's body! On top of all of that, he's the most adorable guy you could meet. While I understand Cindy's attraction to her old boyfriend -- who used to be a hot wrestler -- you do what you gotta do and MOVE THE F--K ON.

The movie goes back and forth a lot between the past and the present, which irritated me somewhat because there was one scene where I got completely lost because I didn't realize we were back to the present already. We learn how Dean and Cindy meet. We see her past relationship with her ex-boyfriend, their breakup and how she moves on to Dean. We meet Cindy's family. We see a lot of sweet moments where Dean courted Cindy -- he's gorgeous. Think of Rocky Balboa to Adrian in the original Rocky movie.

But the problem is Cindy. I COULDN'T STAND HER! There was nothing all that sad about that breakup, really, because I'm glad for Dean -- I'm glad he's getting the hell away from that woman. She's a messed up person, herself. Her dad was violent and abusive. We see a scene where Cindy wants to be hit by Dean -- obviously, her dad has really screwed her up. But I don't care, SHE'S SCREWING UP RYAN GOSLING! So, the saddest thing about this breakup is that Dean wasted all of his time with her. This is a guy who really deserves someone special. He doesn't cheat on her or anything. He doesn't even look at other women. He does drink and smoke and he's not the richest guy in the world, but he was an absolutely adorable man and Cindy just trashes him. It just goes to prove that sometimes you do nothing wrong at all in a relationship -- it's the other person that's the problem. They f--k it all up. They think they deserve something better. Or they're so screwed up that they can't help but demolish something special they had. People who are dealing with issues involving relationships and breakups and are still questioning what happened should see Blue Valentine -- it is a refreshing examination of shi++y people and shi++y relationships.

And --- by the way --- thanks a lot, Michelle Williams, for taking up too much time showing your naked filthy ass. GUESS WHAT!!! Ryan Gosling finally gets naked and shows his ass! It was magnificent. But he shows it only ONE time... Michelle Williams is CONSTANTLY getting naked, though. URGH! She's naked having sex with her ex-boyfriend, naked in the shower, naked having sex with Ryan Gosling, who's on top of her -- why the hell would they aim the camera at her breasts during that?! She's naked when he goes down on her, she's spreading her legs wide open at the doctor's office for an abortion. This character was the WORST character in all of cinematic history -- why the hell does she have to get more nude scenes?!

Honestly, when this movie ended, I hoped her character died soon after. Or I hope there's gonna be a Blue Valentine 2 where she dies an agonizing death -- hopefully a quick one at 80 minutes or less. I really, really, really hated her mistreatment of Ryan Gosling. Ryan Gosling, by the way... I just watched him in All Good Things, too... that is one FINE MoFo. Jake Gyllenhaal, I think it might be over between us. I'd hate to treat ya like Michelle Williams treated Ryan in this movie, though... could we possibly have a triad relationship, maybe? Or maybe you guys could become one big, giant mass of sexy man -- the two of them should be siamese twins. Oooooh, I'd love to trap myself between that sandwich. Get the Hellmann's!

Final Word: I'm not sure what to make of this movie. I'll say this -- damn realistic. Very good movie, regardless of the outcome. Ryan Gosling's character is single again -- considering his former wife was a witch, it's actually the happiest ending ever.

So she's a woman, then. Excellent. I'm up to speed.

So you want me to think about two ugly people getting together?

Surely everyone knows this, don't they?

Yep, that's them.

That's a very good idea. This sounds like the sort of film that kids should see at school when they're about 15/16.

Because they're breasts!!

Because she's a woman and that's what we want to see.



Keep the reviews up, SC. I love 'em.

VIDEODROME
(directed by David Cronenberg, 1983)



My mind is still trying to reboot itself after watching Videodrome -- for the first time ever, in fact. I'm not exactly sure where to go with this review. I liked it. Videodrome was weird and surreal and sexy and classic and worthy of attention. See, I had always known of Videodrome, but I never got the chance to watch it. Seeing it listed on On Demand cable, though -- in HD -- I decided to take the adventure.

Videodrome is a massively strange movie about a small TV channel owner in the early 1980's. His name is Max (James Woods) and he specializes in random, out of the blue TV programming that you wouldn't find on regular channels -- he mostly shows softcore porn. So, basically, he runs Cinemax. Well, not really -- actually it's called CIVIC TV. Channel 83. Anyway, Max is looking for something stronger and harder and more intense to run on his TV channel and he comes across a show that's being broadcast in Pittsburgh called "Videodrome". He watches it, he becomes obsessed by it -- it's a show where people basically get murdered, although Max doesn't believe it's real murder.

Deborah Harry from the band, Blondie, has an interesting role in this movie -- Wikipedia describes her as a "sadomasochistic psychiatrist" -- basically, she's sort of the love interest of Max, though this is not a romantic movie, and their love doesn't last long. But she appears, every now and then, in video cassettes, or her lips come smacking out of a television in a weird hallucination that Max experiences. For "Videodrome" has made Max crazy -- reality is not the same anymore for Max. The TV comes to life, his body becomes something else and people around him take on a new meaning as well.

There's a couple of other wacky characters. There's some guy who refuses to show himself except through recordings he makes of himself on video cassettes. There's a bizarre owner of an eyeglasses company that's really a front for the whole "Videodrome" conspiracy. This movie is dated in that everything revolves around VCRs. There's even a VCR-like opening on James Woods' stomach, though it looks more like a vaginal opening, to me. There's blood and guts (literally), there's freakshow bodily transformations -- reminds me of another crazy movie I once saw, Tetsuo: The Iron Man. There's a LOT of television worship, but it doesn't get boring. Thankfully, Videodrome moves and works with ease and strength and never gets tiresome or dull. There's always something new and strange ready to pop up.

I'm not really sure what the exact point of the movie was, but, there is a sense of completion and of duties fulfilled by the time Videodrome is over. It seemed to turn religious on me -- there is a church in this movie devoted to helping derelicts get their television fix, afterall. What fascinated me most of all was the subject matter -- Videodrome deals with the mind, with subliminal programming, there's even talk of Freud and the movie feels like one big playground for the subconscious, or whatever you want to call the areas of your mind that aren't active. The era of videotapes may be over, television may have been replaced with the internet, but the message of this movie -- or, at least, the intent -- is still relevant and still vital and Videodrome does not disappoint almost 30 years after its release. Give it a watch.

Great Review. I love Videodrome.

A L I E N
(directed by Ridley Scott, 1979)



If God exists and he wrote and directed one movie, I think it would have been Alien. I'm serious -- this movie (which I watched on Blu-ray) totally blew me away. I have seen it before, but it's been many years, and I saw it on VHS and didn't really care for it. I had just seen Aliens and I was mesmerized and I thought that Alien was bland compared to its sequel. But now, I have changed my mind. Alien is far better than Aliens, although Aliens is still really good (more on Aliens in its own review, coming soon).

The story concerns a seven member crew aboard a spaceship carrying mineral ore. They have completed a job they were supposed to do in space and they are on their way back home to Earth. They are sleeping the entire way home, but in the middle of their long journey, they are awakened. They are summoned to what is supposedly a barren planet by a strange computer code that appears to be sending a distress signal. It is actually the aliens ringing the dinner bell. The crew - lead by Kane, Dallas and Ripley - land on the planet and investigate. Kane discovers some weird alien eggs. One of them opens up and a small, multi-legged creature jumps up at him and attaches itself to its face. Bringing him back on board, they attempt to remove it -- they can't. I won't reveal anything else in case you don't know what happens (I'm sure most people do, though) but basically all hell breaks loose in space.

Alien is an extremely suspenseful film. It is a breathtaking horror film with a science fiction theme. It is an intense battle between humanity and evil in the form of a "perfect" species - ruthless, intelligent, hellbent on survival and hard to kill. Sigourney Weaver leads the pack as a commanding, forceful, motherly team leader that knows the right thing to do yet has to put up with people who don't always cooperate. It is she that makes it out alive and does the most battle with the monster she's barely got to know. This is the movie of her career, the movie she will always be remembered for. She is like Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz here -- and boy, does she have a witch to kill.

Stick this one out -- the first twenty minutes were a little boring, I think -- and let it engulf you. Yes, it's a little silly watching such a futuristic event happen while all of their computers are NOTHING like what we have today. In that regard, Alien is dated, but the rest of it -- and if you watch it on Blu-ray, especially -- it'll look better than anything they could release today. The set design by H.R. Giger is masterful enough, but there's also the weirdness of the alien itself -- acid blood that dissolves things, needing human hosts to give birth to the aliens after they've already laid eggs, the multiple mouths... this is some pretty intense stuff that is enormously creative and rare. Who out there is thinking up stuff as strange as this today? Where is it being made so wonderfully on film? I'm certainly not seeing it.

See your Alien, though, and let it show you its teeth.

ALIENS
(directed by James Cameron, 1986)



Sigourney Weaver is back and more badass than ever in Aliens, a story that picks up right where Alien left off, though it's 57 years later. Ripley has been drifting through space for that long in her shuttle while in stasis. Luckily, the company which she works for finds her and saves her. She tells the story about what happened to her, though nobody cares, but soon, Burke (Paul Reiser), a representative, informs her that the planet she just escaped from has had human inhabitants on it -- only now, there's no contact from them. Assuming the worst, she and some Marines fly to the alien planet where they discover only one survivor - a lost little girl - and of course, the aliens.

Aliens is an old love of mine that I haven't watched in a few years. Once upon a time, I considered it my favorite movie. Revisiting it on Blu-ray now, I fully understand why I did. It's completely balls-to-the-wall. Alien is a slow haunted house ride while Aliens is the scariest roller coaster at the theme park. This is an action movie with sci-fi elements. The horror and suspense of the first movie isn't really plain-as-day here -- you might feel differently, but to me, something about it isn't that scary. It has a bunch of Marines all geared up and psyched to kill aliens and most of them end up getting killed by the aliens, but unlike the first film, the death scenes aren't really all that traumatic to the characters. In fact, this movie had several instances where the horror made me laugh.

The great thing about all of this, though, is that Aliens is extremely enjoyable and doesn't need the tension and terror of the first movie -- I think. There are times where I wondered why they were doing what they did. In the first movie, you got a sense that Ripley was out to survive, no matter what. In this movie, the little girl she's been protecting seems to get snatched away by the aliens and chances of her being alive are slim, but Ripley, with very little time left, goes on a hunt to save her, risking her own life. I wondered why they even needed to do that, but no worries. All is corrected with scenes that entertain at the right moment and keep you happy.

What Ripley goes through this time looks like hell. The first movie was bad enough for her, but this time, her ordeal just looks exhausting, dark and hopeless. To think that if she hadn't volunteered to go and help some Marines with a mission, she'd be back on some safe spaceship in a little apartment with her cat. But of course, keeping characters safe is not what Alien films are meant to do.

There's a lot more aliens in this film - hence the title. There's even a much larger Queen Alien with a long fallopian tube-like thing that's laying eggs everywhere and there's a great fight scene between her and Ripley. Paul Reiser does a good job playing this movie's *******, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein turn in great performances as badass Marines. Lance Henriksen plays a friendly android, unlike the first film's android. The little girl, Newt, played by Carrie Henn, was good, but I was annoyed at the script for having her and Ripley say the silliest things at the stupidest moments -- "Ripley, I'm scared!!!" "Me, too, Newt. Me too."

Overall, I liked how the movie used a lot of the same elements used previously in Alien, though this time the execution has been given high-octane gas. It's too bad that it's really all down hill from here in the Alien series -- I never got into Alien 3, but I need to rewatch it, too. Nevertheless, we have two enormously powerful and classic Alien films with us forever and that's good enough for me. Is it good enough for you?