C'est Non Un Blog

Sorry about the delay in getting these to you, but in a decision made to give you the best possible reviews instead of just rushing off a few reviews before I went to bed the Monday Movie Review had to be postponed until today. Enjoy.

——Fists of Fury (AKA The Chinese Connection)——

(B+)

Easily the best Bruce Lee film I’ve seen, this could be an A movie if the middle didn’t drag on FOREVER. The movie opens fantastically: Bruce Lee comes home to find his master dead, a rival karate school comes and tells them to move out of town, and Bruce Lee takes vengence against the wishes of his school against the rival school, leading to a big fight that Tarantino obviously based the House of Blue Leaves fight on. Everything from him being surrounded, flinching and having everyone take a step back, to the move where he spins around on the ground hitting everyone in the shins with his nunchucks, to the scene where he walks away with everyone laying on the ground holding onto their shins and moaning finds its way into Kill Bill, and it all looks fantastic with Lee’s awesome choreography.

Then the movie hits a snag. The middle section of the movie acts like it is stalling to set up the third act. Scenes go on WAY too long. I thought at first maybe they were cushioning the movie to hit the ninety-minute mark, but no, the movie is an hour and forty-five minutes long. And you could EASILY cut out fifteen minutes from the middle, so I have no idea what the hell they were thinking. It’s soooooo boring.

But then finally Lee uncovers the plot to kill his master and takes revenge against the Japanese. He takes on two guys with samurai swords, once barehanded and once with his nunchucks, and a karate expert, and expertly kicks all of their asses. Damn he’s so cool. If only the middle were edited down a little to something more manageable.

——The Way of the Dragon (AKA Return of the Dragon)——

(D+)

This movie…not so good. It’s the only movie both written and directed by Bruce Lee, and all I have to say is thank God he died before he got another chance at it. His direction is acceptable if subpar, but damn, his writing is bad. It’s like that shit you used to write in the sixth grade. He actually has a mob boss tell his gangsters not to show their guns in public and makes a big deal of it just so that he can stage a fight in the alley, even though this alley from all appearances is a dead end. The rest of the movie makes less sense. Even the action isn’t that great, aside from the final fight against Chuck Norris, and even that fight is hampered a little bit by Lee intercutting the action between the reaction shots of a kitten (I shit you not). This one is a pass, unless you happen to have a copy of it there and want to fast forward to the Norris fight.

——Foxy Brown——

(A-)

The final fifteen minutes of this are just a perfect example of exploitation cinema. It’s just so damn good and so fun to watch. You’re like, “Damn girl! You go Foxy!” While the rest of this movie isn’t quite as crazy and over the top as Coffy (and frankly that’s damn near impossible to top) the plot and acting is much tighter in Foxy Brown. Pam Grier is a delight and the soundtrack kicks ass (I totally want a Foxy Brown theme song MP3). I was a little disappointed by the fact that there isn’t nearly as much nudity in this one as Coffy, that’s not saying in the slightest that there is no nudity in this one, just that there’s a lot less. Of course when there is a naked chest on the screen every ten minutes, that is a pretty hard number to top. But when Grier pulls a gun out of her afro all is good and watching this movie is insanely fun.

——So Close——

(C+)

This recent Hong Kong movie featuring three hot Asian chicks has a few good action sequences, but otherwise suffers from acting like every other action movie made in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The movie seriously tries to do way too much, and rarely succeeds in doing anything very well. When it finished I could have sworn it ran over 2 hours and 10 minutes, and I was shocked to see that it was only an hour and like 48 minutes long. It just tries to do way too much, trying to cram in back stories and love lives where they really don’t need to be to enjoy the film. It’s about female assassins who are getting tracked down by a female cop and trying to be killed by their previous employers. There doesn’t really need to be more than that, but obviously the writer and director didn’t think so. I’d pass on this one, unless you really like watching people kick up guns to catch them and go into a John Woo type Mexican standoff.

——The Big Bounce——

(B+)

This is surprisingly better than most reviews of it would have you believe. I’m guessing that most of that negativity comes from the fact that the actual heist of the film seems rushed and tacked onto the end of the film, offering more double- and triple-crosses than the movie actually has earned. But that’s all just five minutes in the entire film and I don’t think they should take away from the fact that the rest of the film is actually extremely funny and entertaining, with a slow-burn plot that doesn’t really go anywhere and yet rejoices in that fact, building instead on excellent character interaction, great acting and really funny dialog. Owen Wilson needs more roles where he just lounges around in Hawaii, saying funny shit and occasionally stealing something.

——Mad Max——

(C-)

I don’t know if it is the movie or the fact that I watched it on TV, but what started out as a pretty cool low budget action movie just got more obscure and hard to follow as it went on, with unfortunately no more action sequences to really rival that which opens the film. I kept hoping something cool would happen, but all I got was a story that rambled on from one thing to another. Maybe I should check out Road Warrior instead.

——Out of Time——

(B)

This is a nice suspense story that’s pretty fun to watch, but really only once. Denzel plays a pretty good part as the morally ambiguous chief of police who falls in love with a girl only to see TV’s Superman frame him for murder. Like I said, the movie is a lot of fun to watch, but nothing special, and by the time the movie wants to tack on a Hollywood ending at the last minute you want to vomit. One character I found really interesting though was the Chief’s best friend who was mainly the kookie sidekick, but at times displays the same moral ambiguity as his best friend, repeatedly saying they should just take some drug money and get on a plane to Costa Rica. I would have liked to see his character fleshed out a little bit more.

——Thirteen——

(A-)

Not since Requiem for a Dream have I seen a movie that was so relentlessly depressing, although fortunately this movie ends on a slightly up note and doesn’t make you want to kill yourself when it’s all over (somewhere in there is a compliment, since I really do love Requiem for a Dream). While the plot sometimes drifts into stereotypical territory, all of that is overwhelmed by some extremely excellent acting, especially by Holly Hunter who gives what could have been a anonymous role a much needed punch in the arm, bringing to it a real life mentality and such a wide range of depth and emotion that it really is amazing. The girls are really good too, but for me Holly Hunter really stole the show. This is a pretty amazing movie.

To give you an idea of how my mom reacted to it, even though halfway through she said, “This is nominated for Oscars? For what? This is so bizarre!” she did sit through the whole thing AND stayed awake for the whole thing. I think that’s a pretty accurate depiction of the movie. You may get really uncomfortable watching it, but its so compelling that you are going to watch the whole thing.

——Totals for January——

Movies I’ve Seen: 33
New Movies I’ve Seen: 29
Movies Seen in the Theater: 5

This is great, you’ve got to read all of this; ESPECIALLY the last paragraph.

——

Late Monday, Janet Jackson finally spoke out about Hootergate, acknowledging that she and Justin Timberlake planned the ”costume reveal” that scandalized viewers of their Super Bowl halftime performance on Sunday and prompted an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. But she also echoed Timberlake’s blame of a ”wardrobe malfunction” for displaying more than she and Timberlake intended. Her publicist, Stephen Huvane, issued a statement saying the bodice-ripping stunt was supposed to reveal only Jackson’s red lace bra, ”but the garment collapsed.”

A statement in Jackson’s own words confirmed the denials by MTV (which produced the concert), CBS (which aired it), and the National Football League that the networks or football officials had any advance knowledge of the stunt. ”The decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my halftime show performance was made after final rehearsals,” Jackson said. ”MTV was completely unaware of it. It was not my intention that it go as far as it did. I apologize to anyone offended — including the audience, MTV, CBS and the N.F.L.” Timberlake sounded less apologetic, telling ”Access Hollywood”’s Pat O’Brien after the game: ”Hey man, we love giving you all something to talk about.”

Other repercussions: Radio stations rushed to add Jackson’s new single, ”Just a Little While” (from her upcoming album, ”Damita Jo,” which comes out March 30) to playlists on Monday, though her label cited the leak of the single to the Internet for its decision to ship the song to radio, Billboard reports. TiVo issued a press release calling Jackson’s flash the most viewed (and re-viewed) moment in the digital video recording company’s history. Network execs wrung their hands over the unwanted federal attention at a time when Congress is considering multiplying the FCC fines for indecency tenfold, the New York Times reports. And USA Today reports that jewelry stores and piercing studios are seeing increased customer interest in silver sunburst-shaped nipple shields.

Because of time constraints (and my lazy ass) I have to post the Monday Movie Review tomorrow. I hope you rabid MMR fans will be tided over until tomorrow with my lame ass Super Bowl write up. Give me a little slack though; I had my first auto accident today, and ran from the law!

Wait, who am I kidding. No one reads the Monday Movie Review. Silly me. Ignore all mention of accidents and running from the law (and the fact that I drove by another cop today speeding and didn’t get caught.)

So for probably the first time in history, or at least as long as I can remember, the actually Super Bowl game was more fun to watch than the Super Bowl commercials. Granted, there were a few good commercials, but nothing near the level of quality one expects on the Super Bowl. Budwiser seemed to be the only one really even trying. There were a few good ones though. The donkey who wanted to be a Clydesdale was classic. The Pepsi commercial about Jimmy Hendrix was awesome, and yet again stuck it to Coke for sucking. The Willy Nelson advice doll was also hilarious. And the FedEx alien was funny in all of the wrong ways, but I loved it. Unfortunately, those really the highlights. Everything else was like a regular commercial. Yawn. Chrystler, oh yeah, you really suck.

First of all, Beyonce did probably the classiest National Anthem I’ve ever heard. Usually I yawn through Whitney Houston going above and beyond to be annoying, but Beyonce was just amazing. Best version ever.

As for the game, all I have to say is DAMN. At first the game looked like a snooze-fest, with it going scoreless for over a quarter and a half. Then BAM! In five minutes the score goes from 0-0 to 14-10. Sweet.

And then there was halftime.

Wow.

I didn’t really like the fact that they tried to fit in like FIFTY songs for the show. But most of the songs were pretty good (except for really P. Diddy who was yawntastic). And then Justin Timberlake comes out and rips off Janet Jackson’s top.

Holy shit.

Did I just see what I thought I saw? Yep, there is her tit for all the world to see. CBS quickly cuts to commercial. And then just as the second half is about to start, a streaker runs across the field. CBS tries to cover that up as best as they can, acting like nothing is even happening, but you know what’s going on. CBS is crapping its pants at this point. What next?

Thankfully a down to the last 8 seconds football game was what was next. Lots of great play, great action, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. The last Super Bowl I could remember that was this good was two years ago when New England kicked a field goal to win in the last few seconds. Sound familiar?

Then there was Survivor All-Stars. Fan-freaking-tastic! Oh man is this season going to be good. I love that you already know everyone, and everyone knows everyone else. Everyone is nervous. It’s fantastic. Richard is still a naked asshole. And funny thing is, I really think he could win it again. Rudy is as great as ever. Alicia is already causing trouble. Boston Rob is just as annoying as ever. Oh man, it’s all just too good.

And man is it hardcore! You get a canteen, and your camp gets just a bucket and a machete. THAT’S IT! No one has even had anything to drink yet! Oh man I’m going to love this season of Survivor, maybe more than any that came before. Sorry Tina, but somebody had to go first.

——The Next Day——

This morning I had my interview at Bose. I think it went pretty well. Of course I have to go back Wednesday for ANOTHER interview. I talked with Rachel and Jim today, Wednesday I have to talk to Jeremy who wasn’t there today. Jeez. But otherwise I think it went well. I hope I get this job. It looks pretty cool. I’ll keep you all updated.

NOTE: As I’m driving out of the parking lot this dumb bitch gets me stuck in a hard place where I have to try to get around her and a parked car, while she’s halfway in the lane I’d need to do that. I make the turn without hitting her car (Whew) when suddenly I feel something from my back end. OH FUCK. I rubbed up my back end against this guy’s bumper. I just pushed against it, and there doesn’t seem to be any scratches, but I did press in my paneling a little bit. D’oh.

God, my ear is still bothering me (see last post). It’s gotten bigger and painful to the touch, messes with my hearing and all sort of bogus shit. I can’t even sleep on my left side. What a pain in the ass.

Question: Does anyone know what the chorus to Missy Elliot’s “Work It” is? All I’ve got is: Is your thiwpatdokhpoicehaewe yet?

Super Bowl tonight folks!

Ghah! I’ve got a freakin’ zit in my ear. Not ON my ear, mind you, but right there IN my ear. It’s about one of the most annoying variety you can get. It places second only behind the lip zit. Those are a real bitch, ain’t they. I guess an eyelid zit would be more annoying, but I’ve never had one of those, so I wouldn’t know. God, I can’t wait for the day when I grow out of this shit.

In more bad news (kinda) I found more movies by the Versus director and Battle Royale II on eBay, but I have no money in my checking account! What am I to do?

You know what’s really stupid? All these different websites (livejournal included) you need a user name and a password, right? Well, in some idiotic attempt of not wanting my identity stolen I have given myself a different password for just about every website I visit. Which would be fine if I did one of two things: 1) Wrote down what passwords go to what websites or 2) actually had a system that made sense.

As it is I use the same building blocks, and then just fuck with them from there. Say one of my passwords is dumbass99. Not wanting to copy that, I use just dumbass. Then I do something really stupid like dumbass9. Then, if the password just asks for 6 letters and a number, you get dumbas9. But say you need more letters. Then you invent some new word phrase that has nothing to do with the old one. Next thing you know you’re throwing out passwords like dumbass88. What the hell is that? I’m suppose to remember that? What the hell is wrong with me?

What’s worse is that I usually ask the computer to remember all of my passwords for me, and just type them in when I need them. That’s really great, but then every month or so my computer purges all of my data. Well fuck. Now I try to log onto a webpage I haven’t visited in three months and I’m sitting here trying different password combos for a half hour, trying to remember what I have and haven’t already put in.

I hate it. You’d think I’d go in and change all of my passwords to one thing or write it all down or something, but no. I keep the idiotic system in place. And you can bet the next time I have to come up with a password, it’s going to be something like dum8a5566.

Once you get me writing, I just can’t stop…

——Kill Bill: Volume 2 Teaser——

Have you all seen this yet? No? What the hell’s wrong with you?

Anyway, aside from the sad fact that this contains almost no new footage from Volume 2, it is still one of the single greatest teasers of all time. Everything is perfect about it, and it does exactly what a teaser should do: TEASE. You know Volume 1 was badass. Well so do we. And we really promise that 2 is even MORE badass. TRUST US. Don’t worry, I’m with you all the way Quentin.

——-Reality TV——

Couples Fear Factor is easily the most disgusting Fear Factor I’ve ever seen. Even I am sitting there going, “eww. Ew. EWWW!”

And I love it.

But what the hell is up with Average Joe Hawaii? Is this thing rigged against the average guys or what? After the hot guys show up their first challenge involves them going back to high school and completing a best two out of three contest for a chance to go to a dance with the girl. OK, IQ test. Fine. Physical education. Fine. One for the average guys, one for the jocks. But what is the third contest? Dodge fucking ball. Isn’t that Phys. Ed.? Good lord. Why’d the average guys even show up? It’s nice that they’re smarter than models, but can I really afford to go through another Adam thing while the girl picks the pretty boy?

——Y Tu Mama Tambien——

(A)

I enjoyed watching this movie even more the second go around. The more you think about it, the more layers the film possesses. For example, one of the main boys talks about not wanting to go to college for economics and instead wants to become a writer. And yet he has had no real experiences in his life needed to become a successful writer. The voice over that comes out of nowhere to explain certain things to the audience helps flesh out scenes where we would know no more than what we were shown. For instance, when they drive by some crosses on the side of the road, the voice over lets us know all about the accident that happened years before, and that gives the story a kind of experience beyond the story. Stories are happening all around us. And when the boys can’t handle where their story is heading, woken up to their situation by a woman who is struggling with her own unknown story, they stop seeing each other. He gives up his dream of being a writer to go to school for economics. It’s one of those things you maybe don’t pick up on every detail the first time around, but really enjoy noticing the second viewing.

——Princess Blade——

(C-)

This movie starts out on a really high note with an awesome battle sequence containing several men with samurai swords ambushing a car and killing everyone inside, including a cool slo-mo shot of the main character spinning in the air to avoid bullets, which ricochet off of her sword. There are a few more cool action sequences, but unfortunately they are few and far between, and stuck between an extremely lame and boring plot.

The plot feels right out of a Final Fantasy game, only not as cool. Before the kick ass action sequence mentioned above, there is like a two minute section of film just of exposition, aka someone reading writing on a screen. It goes on FOREVER. The whole movie is like that. Scenes of dialog are shot like you would anime, with a nice composition where nothing moves except for the actors’ mouths. Major dullsville. This movie was based on like a 2,000 page manga series, and it feels exactly like a compressed 2,000 page manga series. While it looks like a cool music video, unless you are a hardcore action fan I wouldn’t give this more than a single rental.

——The Big Boss (AKA Fists of Fury)——

(B-)

I’d rate this movie a little higher but the story is just too simple for too long to make most of it entertaining, which is a shame because this is still a really kick ass Bruce Lee movie. It’s also a shame Lee died so early, since if he had lived at least another ten more years things might have turned out a little different for the kung fu genre. Hong Kong was ready to explode into a major worldwide film mecca, and kung fu would have entered into Hollywood mainstream. Unfortunately he died too young and kung fu became a passing fad, putting Hong Kong kung fu back decades until something like the Matrix came out.

Anyway, back to the movie. Bruce Lee moves in with his cousins to work at an ice factory and stay out of trouble. The ice factory is just a front for drug running though, and workers start disappearing when they figure this out. Unfortunately Lee has made a promise not to fight anymore, which kills the movie since the first half of the movie suffers monumentally from his lack of signature ass kicking. As it is though, the final 20-30 minutes of the film are amazing. Bruce Lee seriously kicks ass better than anyone I can think of. He’s just that cool. So damn fast, it’s amazing. Anyway, I can’t wait to check out the rest of the box set.

——Underworld——

(B+)

This movie was surprisingly a lot better than I was led to believe it would be. While it does have some fatal flaws and I can see why a lot of people didn’t like it (seriously, does it make any sense that the vampires are the ones hunting down the lycans when the vampires are about as threatening as a wet puppy while the lycans appear to be neigh invincible?) I thought it was still pretty damn cool. The movie looks magnificent, from the cinematography that looks like an amazing Chris Cunningham video to the amazing sets and costumes and even the werewolves, which surprisingly look pretty bitching. Even the story was pretty great…up to a point. Which brings me to where the movie’s shortcomings are. The final twenty minutes or so of the movie where everything is revealed just suck. The movie was so much more interesting with some gaps in the narrative and some of the mysteries left unanswered. The writing was just so piss poor at the end that it looked like the writer took a dump on an otherwise cool movie. This isn’t really a great A movie, but a fantastic B movie. I’d see it again.

——Cold Mountain——

(A-)

I actually liked this movie more the second go around (my dad wanted to see it). Some things still annoyed me, like the pretentious way the love scene is cut together and the way that Jude Law and Nicole Kidman don’t seem to go together at all. But the fact that they are almost in none of the movie together benefits the film immensely. Rene is still fantastic, and the battle sequence is brilliantly put together. I think it’s pretty worth seeing for those who haven’t already seen it.

——Spellbound——

(A)

Not the Hitchcock movie I reviewed a few months ago, but the new documentary on the National Spelling Bee. I really liked how this was put together like a great Hollywood blockbuster and yet stayed true to its documentary routes in finding eight very different but all interesting kids. Some are complete nerds, but others are actually pretty well rounded and extremely likable people. The documentary does an excellent job of making everyone three dimensional, and its just amazing that they happened to pick kids who ranked so high (and even won) the Bee. Worth seeing, even if you don’t like documentaries.

——Buffalo Soldiers——

(B)

This was a movie that was delayed quite a bit after September 11th, mainly because it painted the military in an ugly light, but I think more so because it’s a crappy movie. The good guy isn’t very likable, and the bad guy is even more unlikable. The storyline is actually pretty interesting, but it is handled so poorly they you don’t really want to root for anyone, since the person you’re suppose to like is a total asshole. This is all right, but if you are looking for a movie like this to watch, I recommend you rewatch Three Kings instead.