Sexy Cineplexy: Reviews

This Boy's Life
(directed by Michael Caton-Jones, 1993)



Ever feel like you've ended up in a trap and can't get out? That's what happens to Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Jack, AKA Tobias Wolff, in this true story based on the autobiographical novel, This Boy's Life.

The trap is Robert De Niro, who convincingly plays a psychotic ******* that Jack's mother, Caroline (Ellen Barkin), unfortunately gets involved with. The movie begins with carefree, free-spirited -- but reckless -- Caroline and her son escaping to a new life via their beat up car. They've got a plan to become rich off uranium in Salt Lake City. Anyway, Jack's dad is out of the picture -- he left a long time ago to be with a millionaire wife. Utah doesn't really work out for Caroline and Jack (Jack is a nickname he invents after liking Jack London books) so they take the Greyhound bus and go to Seattle. Caroline eventually meets Dwight (De Niro) and after Jack gets in trouble at school, they're off to a small boondock town to live with Dwight and his kids. At first it seems like Dwight is the most perfect man you could possibly meet... but don't be fooled. Soon enough, they learn that Dwight is a jealous, crazy, alcohol lovin' old pain in the ass who makes Jack's life a LIVING HELL. He's bent on "correcting" Jack, trying to mold him into a good boy, but all the while he really has no plans on making Jack's life any better. His jealousy and anger only wants to keep Jack behind -- and this threatens his chances of getting the hell out of the boondock town, which is called Concrete.

The movie is set in the late 1950's and into the 1960's. I found one of the most shocking and interesting twists in the story to be Jack befriending a flamboyant homosexual teenager named Arthur (Jonah Blechman), whom he keeps as a friend despite having several hooligan friends. With a positive and sassy attitude, Arthur keeps Jack happy and entertained, through singing and piano playing, and he even boldly plants a kiss on his cheek. This relationship didn't start off on the right foot, though -- a fight between Arthur and Jack takes place, which includes Arthur's protective little biter dog, Pepper. But it soon cools once they have an encounter after a Boy Scout meeting and you might even say it saves Jack's life.

Anyway, as I said, Robert De Niro convincingly plays an *******. He even made me hate him, which is hard for him to do. I mean, he's really a big jerk and you're just waiting and waiting for Jack to kick the crap out of him. The only time I forgot about this was when he forced Ellen Barkin to have sex with him doggy style, and she complained, "No! No! I want to be able to see your face!" I was like, lady... it might be Dwight, but it's Robert De Niro's body. Stuff your damn face into the pillow.

The movie really connected with me. I could relate to it in ways. Translated into another life, it is my life, though not the same story and not the same situation. The movie was never boring and never made me lose focus with it. Leonardo DiCaprio was a very talented actor even at a young age. He owned this role and the movie feels very organic. Even though I hated Robert De Niro's character, he's still not completely loathsome and without sympathy. There is a bond between him and Jack, even though it's a bad bond. It was certainly worth writing about - and it certainly did become a very wonderful film.

Repo Man
(directed by Alex Cox, 1984)



I really should hold off on writing this review until after I've watched Repo Man again -- 'cause I'm still not totally clear on all that happened. This movie got off on the right foot but by thirty minutes in, it was like a roller coaster after it had dropped off the first hill -- going every which way! And I don't say that as a compliment. Scenes constantly cut to something else, making the film feel choppy and incoherent. I wasn't impressed by how this was all handled. When movies behave this way, I feel stupid, as if I'm making a mistake in the way I'm processing things. The fact of the matter is, Repo Man -- a movie I wanted to love because it has a hot as hell Emilio Estevez in a very badass role inside an intriguing, weird storyline -- Repo Man is sort of mediocre. But it's not terrible.

An 18 year old punk named Otto (Estevez) wants money to go to Europe after high school. His parents had $1,000 for him, but they gave it all to a televangelist and now it's being spent on bibles for people in El Salvador. One day, he ends up driving a car for some man who offers to pay him $25 -- turns out that by doing this, he is accidentally beginning his career as a repo man, a repossessor of cars. Repo men have a life full of action and danger -- there's never a dull moment. So, it's no surprise that Otto would eventually get involved with a girl who's got a secret involving a car filled with alien bodies in the trunk. And, of course, that car is out there on the road and will be around to crash into Otto's life very shortly.

There's a bunch of different characters in Repo Man who show up at times. My favorite was an early Napoleon Dynamite-like friend of Otto's, named Kevin, who repeatedly appears in a funny situation that doesn't do him any favors. The rest of the characters weren't memorable. The other repo men don't even thrill me. Some of Otto's punk friends were cool and so were a couple of random citizens that Otto encounters, but that was it. You basically have to love Repo Man as this thing, its own entity, the film itself. The characters are pretty much disposable and interchangeable, even Otto, who basically plays like a weak comic book hero that just can't be killed off, for that would be the end of the movie. I have to say, though -- it's a shame there wasn't a sequel. I could see Otto and the Repo Man world progressing to something better. Was there ever a comic book series? This is ripe material for one.

I loved the theme song to the movie, which was performed by Iggy Pop and contains no lyrics:



I loved the fact that the movie was produced by Mike Nesmith of The Monkees.

I liked a few other things about the movie, but I felt that Repo Man was basically a movie that was in a class right above a Troma film. Better actors, better cinematography, but with a similar kind of chaotic, random story -- one that doesn't even really pay off that much in the end, either. Speaking of the chaotic, perhaps the best thing about Repo Man is its depiction of a "f**k you, every man for himself" kind of attitude that is taken to some entertaining, humorous levels and isn't really seen that much at all in other films. It is downright nasty, but wonderfully channeled and spirited. I just wish the film had more weight to it. I wouldn't say it's like watching paint dry, but it's kinda like watching a snowman melt. A punk snowman, of course.

Dark City
(directed by Alex Proyas, 1998)



Dark City: a disappointing movie. Oh, how I just can't feel the love. I found this movie to be somewhat interesting and intriguing, but I also found it dismal and dreary, complicated and boring, and by the end of the film, I felt there wasn't much to it.

It got off on a good start, though: Rufus Sewell is the star, playing a man who can't remember his life. We see him get out of a bathtub totally naked. Then we also see Kiefer Sutherland, playing Sewell's psychiatrist. There's also Jennifer Connelly as Sewell's wife. Old Rufy, it seems, is suspected of murdering hookers, so there's William Hurt as an inspector hot on Sewell's trail. And there's also Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Richard O'Brien, as a creepy guy named Mr. Hand.

I guess this movie is supposed to be science fiction meets film noir. Creepy alien guys are living underneath a dark city, controlling the people above them, aided by Kiefer Sutherland's help. Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connelly and Kiefer Sutherland kept it interesting, but everything else was rather blah. I'm not interested in seeing this film again anytime soon. Dreary movies like this - dark and lacking excitement - drain the life out of me. I watched hoping that the movie's secrets would be breathtaking and original, but I found that things turned only dull and resorted to typical action sequences where the bad guys fight and get defeated. It also felt kind of like a banal Tim Burton movie, but without the more eccentric set designs, although this movie does have some unusual things going on for it.

The story and the screenplay didn't get hold of me. If it's supposed to have some sort of deeper message, it either went past me or I just can't seem to care. I'm a little confused about something at the end, but I think I know what happened. I just... can't recommend this. It's a shame because I really wanted to like it since it has Kiefer Sutherland in it.

^^^

Wow. Put me down for the complete opposite. Maybe its because i saw it in the theatres originally, so everything unfolded was a shared Whoa with the audience.

On the other hand i snapped up the Directors Cut and its in the regular Queue. The Commentary by Roger Ebert is terriffic if you decide to give it another go down the line.

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

I'm glad someone feels the same way I do about Dark City.

The Dark Knight Rises
(directed by Christopher Nolan, 2012)



Emotional, compact, entertaining, lustrous, bold and glorious. These are just some of the words I feel sums up The Dark Knight Rises after watching it. I am not disappointed. It could have been better, it could have been warmer, it could have been more exciting, but, overall, The Dark Knight Rises is a fitting companion piece to The Dark Knight.

It's a small movie, I think -- a bookend -- but it feels right. It's calmer and not as riotous as The Dark Knight. It feels like an afterthought, but a good afterthought. The world in which these characters exist doesn't crumble and fall apart just because Heath Ledger has died and there's no more Joker to be had. I think this movie probably would have been a lot more entertaining, though, if Heath had lived and The Joker was very much a part of this film, but nothing can be done about that. At least they didn't go completely insane and replace Heath, like some other lesser film might do.

I don't really want to go into explaining the plot and what happens. I would rather talk about what I thought worked. Although, I will say that I liked the whole story about Batman being out of commission for many years -- however, I think eight years is an extremely long time. Why not make it four since it's been four years since The Dark Knight? This is kind of ridiculous. But I liked the whole story about people rising out from something that's disabled them.

I loved Bane. I loved Selina Kyle, AKA Catwoman. Bane was much better than I thought he was going to be. He seems like a cross between Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now and Count Dracula. He is one of the best villains I have seen in a Batman movie, yet. Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker cannot be forgotten, and Bane's use in The Dark Knight Rises doesn't "rise" up to the level of The Joker, but, for a more subdued, tough, muscular performance, Bane is almost an equal. He exudes primal, masculine sexuality, and that is something the giddier and flakier Joker was lacking. This is also not the cartoonish Bane from Batman and Robin, nor is it a dumb hoodlum, as I originally felt this Bane was going to be. The only problem he's got going for him, though, involves the script and the story direction -- my complaint is that Bane wasn't given enough power and showtime. But, perhaps this saved him from being something worse.

I really do not like Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon. I am irritated by him and his glasses, hairstyle and mustache. Everytime I saw him on the screen, I wanted him off immediately! He strikes me as the most wrong, most ill cast of these movies. He's like some big, goofy nerd. In this movie, he spends too much time appearing as a nuisance, at least to me. I would like him to die, please.

The film ends on a good note. I have some other irritation regarding this movie, due to the way it plays out, but I mean, that cannot be fixed now and the way it all plays out is typical for the kind of movie it is. I am just happy to report that the basic things you should be coming for in regards to The Dark Knight Rises are good. It's definitely not the movie to end all movies, but it's something to be taken seriously. It's more than just a summer blockbuster. Hell, in some ways, I think it might even be the best film in the Nolan trilogy because, seriously, The Dark Knight is only really, really good because of The Joker and all of his insane chaos. This one at least has the balls to forget all about that and close up the whole story while being smart and beautiful. Batman Begins is a movie I've only seen twice and that was years ago. It doesn't live strongly in my memory. So, this one, The Dark Knight Rises, is really a very good film.

Nice reviews, another member who puts a lot of time into there reviews.

Nice review on Texas chainsaw Masacre 2, just reviewed that my self.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
(directed by Guy Ritchie, 2011)



Guy Ritchie directs Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the sequel to 2009's Sherlock Holmes. I saw that movie once back in 2010 - wasn't crazy about it. So, I surprised myself by picking up a copy of A Game of Shadows, having no idea if it was good or not. I vaguely remembered hearing it was bad, which is probably why I was interested in seeing it, since I tend to like movies that are deemed bad.

I'm glad I bought it. A Game of Shadows was definitely a better experience for me than the first film (which I now want to rewatch so I can reconsider its merit.) I absolutely love Robert Downey Jr. I was hoping he'd steal the whole damn movie -- he did. I was chuckling five minutes into it. A Game of Shadows is not a mind-blowing experience, but for the most part, it kept me awake and entertained. It did, however, get boring somewhere near the end of the film. There's just too much action and at one point, too much of nothing really going on. The main characters -- Downey's Sherlock, Jude Law's Watson, and a gypsy played by Noomi Rapace -- spend too much time running from place to place, avoiding bad guys with guns and such. There was a long stretch starting somewhere around an hour into the film where these people just traveled and traveled and planned things and it felt like such an exhausted, empty, redundant and cliched kind of plot. My mind wandered. I feel like I haven't completely and properly processed the events of this movie. I can see why many people were turned off by this film.

Don't ask me to tell you anything about Sherlock Holmes and the stories about him because I know zilch. This movie concerns Sherlock going up against a bad guy I had heard about, though -- Professor Moriarty, who is portrayed by Jared Harris. He's a real *******. But he probably could have been portrayed by a better actor, one that would have been better fitted against Downey.

Fabulously, there's a great scene where Robert Downey Jr. is on board a train crossdressed as a lady. We see him all strong and feminine and resourceful. We also get to witness a slightly naked Stephen Fry, who plays Sherlock's brother. Robert Downey Jr. also dons plenty of other silly and amusing disguises. There's strange but hilariously placed humor that seems to imply Sherlock is gay or maybe even transgendered (I had already heard about the gay rumors), and there's some cool action scenes where Sherlock describes what he's doing as he's hitting and kicking his enemies.

I enjoyed A Game of Shadows, but I wish it had played out better. I think it's better than the first movie, but don't be surprised if I watch that one again and change my mind. My tastes may have changed, especially since I dared to even blindly buy this film.

This movie is not without its flaws. But, it wouldn't hurt to pass a little time with it if you're in the mood for Downey, Jude Law or something that involves guns and bombs. Tell 'em Sexy sent ya -- tell Sherlock and Watson, that is. They might not hear ya, though, because they are inside the movie. But if they do hear ya -- well, I'm jealous, 'cause they wouldn't talk back to me.

Really nice review Sexy. Though I have to say I preferred the first film over this. Struggled to put my finger on what it was exactly but I just felt the sequel was lacking as much spark as the first film. Still very good fun though.

Oh and Guy Ritchie really has to get over his little trick when it comes to the fight scenes. Having Sherlock play it out in his mind beforehand was a neat little element to start with but was just overdone in the end.

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Bellflower
(directed by Evan Glodell, 2011)



I've been owing Akatemple a review of this movie for I-don't-know-how-long, so here it is, buddy.

Bellflower is a flawed, but interesting piece dealing with a guy named Woodrow (Evan Glodell, the writer and director) who earns his place in the world of masculinity by becoming romantically involved with a slutty, young, crazy chick named Milly (Jessie Wiseman) while he's also building a Mad Max car and flame throwers with his best friend, Aiden (Tyler Dawson). The film is set in California -- all of the characers live in an L.A. suburb called Bellflower -- amongst little apartment buildings. The two dudes, Woodrow and Aiden, are ridiculously dedicated to their childish and dark dreams of crafting together a real Mad Max world of their own -- dreams of apocalypse and doom, freedom and anarchy, aggression and annihilation, masculine sexuality on tap. They get it when they bring women into their lives, which also includes a needy, mentally ill best friend of Milly's named Courtney (Rebekah Brandes).

First of all, even though I mentioned things like apocalypse, anarchy, aggression and masculine sexuality on tap, it's not all here in Bellflower. And it takes an hour into the movie before Doomsday comes, in the form of Milly cheating on Woodrow with her roommate, Mike (Vincent Grashaw). Until this movie completely ended, I waffled on whether I really liked it or not, especially during the final hour. The first hour is a long and slow setup establishing Woodrow and Milly's relationship -- they meet at a grasshopper eating contest. From there, they take a road trip to Texas, in a car that has a built-in whiskey on tap device, so they can both drink whiskey out of little Dixie cups. They trade in the cool alcoholic's car for a motorcycle. Aiden, back in Bellflower, finishes building a flamethrower.

Evan Glodell, in the final half hour of this movie, channels the dark, intense, sexually appealing look of Mel Gibson's Max Rockatansky character from Mad Max, especially the way he looked in The Road Warrior. He also drives around in a similar looking car, which he calls Medusa. His traumas and experiences thanks to Milly's free spirited sexual self builds and molds him into a real man, a nihilistic man. He spends much of the movie appearing weak and soft and feminine and chilidish, and by the end of the film, he is reborn tougher, stronger and more sexy. Meanwhile, his best friend Aiden, who earlier had seemed much more macho, is suddenly sinking into the abyss of obscurity and foolishness. A new order is taking place.

Love the ideas behind this movie -- not entirely in love with its total execution. BUT, it is a very low budget indie film ($17,000!) and it looks like, to me, at least, that it would have cost much, much more. It's a beautifully shot movie. I don't currently own it, but I think I'm gonna get it. I think this movie could have been shorter and I hated things like parts of the movie being broken up into chapters (with different titles and such appearing on the screen at times) and I disliked the way a lot of the drama unfolded and played out --- I personally don't think it was serious and intense enough. The relationship drama played too hokey and unoriginal. Fierceness to the whole aspect of Woodrow basically turning into Mad Max (his best friend incorrectly judges him to be Lord Humongous from Road Warrior) wasn't as on fire as much as it could have been -- maybe Evan Glodell isn't totally there himself in real life.

Thanks, Akatemple, for allowing me to discover this one-of-a-kind film. I'm satisfied with it.

Love this one. Great review.

Wow, SC, good review, I want to see this one

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Under-the-radar Movie Awesomeness.
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Zombie '90: Extreme Pestilence
(directed by Andreas Schnaas, 1991)



I don't know much about this movie. I don't really know for sure if it is a sequel to something else - like Lucio Fulci's Zombie - I doubt it is. It's probably just a fan's companion piece or something, but this movie - Zombie '90: Extreme Pestilence - I decided to watch it on a whim, totally expecting complete garbage. It absolutely was complete garbage, but I LIKED IT.

Funny as hell at times -- by being insane. It's a film shot in Germany and redubbed with American voices, who are trying to be funny and making a joke out of the whole thing. It's not serious at all. I don't even know if there was meant to be a real script to this thing or not. The redubbed American voices is basically a long, 70 minute comedy sketch. "Wuz up, dude? Zombies are on the loose!" kind of thing. I didn't care much for the dialogue, but I loved the zombie scenes.

I took notes so I could remember all that I had witnessed. First of all, there's a chainsaw wielding James Franco lookalike zombie, in a white suit so that the blood can splash all over it. There's also a zombie that wears a white Ghostbusters sweatshirt. There's a prostitute zombie. There's a supposedly Jimi Hendrix zombie. There's a "trippy" dream sequence filled with zombies. There's a rockin' soundtrack filled with screams and distortions (and also featuring Gloria Estefan.) But most importantly....

There's a woman in a wheelchair, who (after the guy pushing her gets killed) ends up decapitated by an axe wielding zombie. But that's not all. The woman in the wheelchair is also pregnant and the zombie rips the baby out of her stomach (it's a plastic baby doll). But, the plastic baby doll gets ripped apart and we see that it has been filled with baby intestines. All this after the woman in the wheelchair has been strolling through a forest talking about how much she hates life and plans on giving her unborn baby the best life possible.

Gore, gore, gore. This movie is nothing but gore. It's a splatter horror movie. I don't really watch those. There are so many pink intestines on display, getting chewed on, along with things that look like spines and other body parts. These zombies get one thing you don't see in a lot of other zombie films: respect. I felt that they really showcased the life of a German zombie, as well as the lives of German zombies that live in a German doctor's unconscious when he gets knocked out and has a zombie dream.

There's also a scene that takes place in a sauna/shower room. A fat woman who is hoping to lose weight in a sauna so that her boyfriend will stop making fun of her ends up leaving the sauna to go take a shower while her skinny friend stays in the sauna and listens to Gloria Estefan music on a radio. Two female zombies attack them both. The fat chick gets one of her breasts ripped off and eaten. The skinny chick gets sliced open from her stomach to her fake, dummy body vagina, which is quite hairy.

All this because some military plane containing zombie chemicals crashed over the area these Germans are living in.

If you liked Troll 2, I think you might like Zombie '90: Extreme Pestilence. The full movie is on Youtube. I think it's one of the best zombie films I've seen. I can't believe I watched the whole thing, but I'm glad I did.

The Hunger
(directed by Tony Scott, 1983)



The Hunger is a beautiful, moving movie that unfortunately falls off track after David Bowie finishes his major scenes halfway through it.

Catherine Deneuve stars as an immortal, Egyptian vampire named Miriam Blaylock, who lives somewhat eccentrically in an upper class townhome in New York with her lover, John (David Bowie), a lover she chose in 18th century France. They pass off their existence as music teachers during the day, since apparently these vampires can stay out in the sunlight.

Susan Sarandon stars as Sarah Roberts, an author and researcher who studies aging. John the vampire is starting to age - rapidly - so he goes to Sarah for help, but she thinks he's crazy. Eventually he ends up aging so badly that Miriam has no choice but to lock up in a room with her former vampire lovers, all who aged grotesquely as well to the point that they are nothing but the living dead. With John out of the picture, Miriam sets her sights on a new lover - Sarah.

The Hunger opens with a powerhouse of an opening scene, in which John and Miriam choose victims to feed on at a Bauhaus concert while Bauhaus performs the very memorable song for this film, "Bela Lugosi's Dead", which plays during the opening credits. The moments focusing on John as he deals with turning into an old man are some of the strongest things the movie has got going for it -- in fact, this is one hell of a movie when it comes to showing us the nightmare of getting older. The most beautiful - and possibly even the most scariest - moment is just watching as Miriam puts John into a coffin up in her room with all of her other old lovers, who are each in their own coffin. Pigeons coo and flutter around; Miriam sweetly asks her coffin-bound lovers to "be good to him tonight": this is death, folks. Undead or not, we all end up as wasted as these worthless vampires.

Then comes the worst stuff. Susan Sarandon - that lesbian Transformer who also suddenly turned lesbian mid-movie in the recent film, Jeff, Who Lives at Home - has sex with Catherine Deneuve and becomes a vampire. Why is Susan Sarandon to go-to woman for cinema's surprise lesbianism moments? Do people feel safe with her thanks to Rocky Horror Picture Show or something? Seriously, folks, do not scream "SLUT!" when Janet Weiss appears at your next Rocky Horror midnight show - scream "LESBIAN!"

The lesbian sex isn't even the very worst part, though. The film basically collapses on itself in its conclusion. Things wrap up without much explanation or excitement. I just read that even Susan Sarandon herself is disappointed with the ending, which was changed from something else. To tell you the truth, though, in my opinion, the changed ending is better -- it's just not handled right. Right before the very end, we witness something quick and silly. A wrapping up of Miriam Blaylock's story. Complete with monsters. It just doesn't feel elegant and sophisticated. That's a shame because the majority of The Hunger is brilliant and unique. But maybe it's more of a problem with tone than execution -- although, maybe it's simply a mixture of both. I don't know. I just felt the ending was its biggest flaw.

I recommend The Hunger to everybody. See it before you die.

I used to be obsessed with this movie and I still love it. Bela Lugosi's dead is the perfect song for the opening. I may watch this tonight. It's been awhile and I'm in the mood for something like it.

Zombie '90...

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

Watching it now!

"Keep your chins up..."

"I think I got the solution without even an analysis!"

Best dubbing EVER.

"There's something about the woods that just make you wanna ***** outside."

SC, thank you for bringing this film to my attention.