I Hate to Do It, But....

.....Goshdarnit,

Is a.....

Well duh!! You might say. And to you who say that I say, "I know right?" But dammit all! I really wanted to see this film! I adore Juliet Lewis, like Drew Barrymore, I can stomach Ellen Page enough to watch a film about the very intriguing sport of Roller Derby, and I was excited to see a nice "Girl Power" film. Alas, it was as corny as an Ohio field, and almost as long, oh, and twice as boring.

Did it have some good moments? Yes. What movie doesn't? The Roller Derby scenes are exciting and fast-paced, some of the characters were amusing like the seldom seen Wilson brother's character Razor and Ellen Page's character Bliss' best friend Pash and coworker Birdman.

The problem is, the parts of this movie that fell short of being generally okay were horribly contrived. Everything was too simple. And corny. And everything got wrapped up in a cute little boring, linear, predictable, amateur bow.  A bow shooting laser beams of bore at everyone from atop a large pile of corn.

Man.

Movie snob! Yes, I am weird about movies. I pick them apart as I watch them, as I enjoy them, and when I am unable to find anything badly done, badly written, implausible; when I can safely say that a film is not laden with unbearable saccharine sweetness---I can deem it good.

However, it's all my opinion. Some people, those who like bad movies, might have loved Whip It!

Also, don't think I don't take into account the fact that I tend to gravitate toward darker fare, therefore a feel good Simple Simon film like Whip It! isn't my cup of tea in the first place. All I know is after being subjected to a five minute long scene of Bliss and her love interest doing synchronized swimming moves underwater while making out, I lost all interest and began wandering about my house doing some cleaning of all things, and eventually I ended up sitting in front of my laptop and writing a blog post about it in the last quarter of the movie.

So yeah. Cornfest Supreme. Stay away. Unless you like corn, in which case you should Netflix this film as fast as your fingertips allow!!


Peacy Weacy!!

The First Addition to Prosepunk's Certified Corn List is...

Clubbed

A British stinker full of cliche's, implausibilities, comical death scenes, gaping plot holes, and downright cringe worthy corniness. No bueno.

This one is a....

You've been warned.

There are movies one might view that may not exactly scream out for an Oscar nod but hold up as completely good and enjoyable filmmaking. One such movie is Kathryn Bigelow's 1995 film "Strange Days" (written by James Cameron whom I like more and more everyday. Avatar anyone?).

The movie stars the beautiful and always classy Angela Bassett and the smoldering Ralph Fiennes who boasts a great head of hair and an intensity that matches the sleazy other worldliness of the film. "Strange Days" depicts a unique and realistic future where the clock is ticking toward the year 1999, and the world is eerily messed up. Still.

There are no flying cars, no presentations of  higher human function and power, no drastic technological advances--no technological advances in the beneficial, wholesome vein, anyway. We are introduced to a new drug of choice; a piece of deviant technology called a SQUID device that commits a person's experiences directly from their cerebral cortex to a disc that is sold to any willing customer that wishes to live and experience a different existence or relive a particular memory. Make sense?

People become strung out on the SQUID so to speak, addicted to the varied experiences of others or in Ralph Fiennes' character Leonard Nero's case, addicted to the nostalgia inducing memories of time with his ex-girlfriend Faith played by the ever magnetizing Juliette Lewis.

Alongside this flashy display of humanity's ever enduring propensity for addiction and debauchery  exists the story of the slaying of a popular black public figure by racist cops that leads to a cover-up that if exposed could disrupt the entire foundation of an already shaky social climate. Strange Days shows a future laced with many of the same defects as the time in which the film was created, and the film handles it all the gritty simplicity that characterized a lot of films of that period.

My series on black women kicking butt in good films in good roles treats the woman as an integral and amazing part of the whole. I want to display movies that Hollywood got right, a film where the director present a strong black female character that is human above all else and not a slave to, or caricature of their pigment.

Angela Bassett's character Mace was complex, she fought to shed light on the cover-up while she pined for a man whose brain was fried with memories of a woman that no longer wanted him or even  possessed the very qualities that promoted his longing. Mace was beautiful and confident amidst a cast of flawed, well drawn characters who helped tell a story about race in a stark and memorable way.

So watch Strange Days. See a black woman help make cinematic gold and kick ass both literally and figuratively.

And the soundtrack rocks. It has Skunk Anansie on it!!!

You know I'm about to give you the discography!


Strange Days Motion Picture Soundtrack (1995)

1. Skunk Anansie – "Selling Jesus"
2. Lords of Acid – "The Real Thing"
3. Tricky – "Overcome"
4. Deep Forest – "Coral Lounge"
5. Strange Fruit – "No White Clouds"
6. Juliette Lewis – "Hardly Wait"
7. Me Phi Me/Jeriko One – "Here We Come"
8. Skunk Anansie – "Feed"
9. Prong/Ray Manzarek – "Strange Days"
10. Satchel – "Walk In Freedom"
11. Kate Gibson – "Dance Me to the End of Love"
12. Lori Carson/Graeme Revell – "Fall in the Light"
13. Deep Forest feat. Peter Gabriel – "While the Earth Sleeps"

Peacy Weacy!!

When Soundtracks Attack Lite: Watchmen: Music From the Motion Picture

So today was a cool day,  I'm going to ramble on at length--or at short--about the Watchmen Soundtrack depending on how long I can resist the urge to dash back down to my television to finish watching Adventure Time. I spent some of my day off work viewing Watchmen for the third of fourth time and I was of course aware of how expertly the soundtrack was chosen, it fit the tone perfectly and doused me in a wave of nostalgia for a time that I didn't have the pleasure of living in. (I will ignore the fact that living in the 1960's/1970's/1980's as a black woman might have been less than stellar as far as lifestyle, opportunities and rights but I'm not talking about that today and it is irrelevant to my discussion on the soundtrack so quit getting me off track, reader).

I imagined living in the time of these songs' creation  and hearing this music so close to it's inception, so soon after these artists had penned and recorded these masterpieces of American music. Nice. Many of the songs were either on my Zune already (like one of my ABSOLUTE favorite pieces of music of all time from bomb-ass composer Philip Glass, a version of "Pruit Igoe" called "Pruit Igoe & Prophecies") or should have been, like Billie Holiday's amazing "You're My Thrill", Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence", or Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Really good songs. But then I was introduced to the voice of Nina Simone for the first time.

I've heard her name numerous times but never took the time to see what this woman was about. I wish I'd discovered her earlier because needless to say, she blew my mind. Her cover of Kurt Weill's "Pirate Jenny" from The Threepenny Opera, is absolutely perfect, haunting, memorable, amazing, look, I'll  even put it here for you to listen to because it's just that good:

Whoa. So once again, as it happened when I viewed Pirate Radio, a Watchmen sent  me to download its soundtrack and discover all sorts of amazing old music that needs to be spread in this century to remind us that music can be as transcendent as we always hope for it to be. Nina Simone, this post is for you. I was truly inspired and I am on my way to becoming a big fan.

Oh, and stay tuned for my post about the movie Watchmen, it will interesting and titillating, I promise.

Peacy Weacy!!

TRON: Legacy-- A Late Review--I just recovered from the shocking visual effects!!!

I don't know about you, dear reader, but on a cold winter morning in Toledo, Ohio the first thing I'm thinking about is the movie I saw a week ago and how I need to write the review for it before my mind--which although comparable to a well oiled steel trap--begins to forget the details of the wonderful light show that is TRON: Legacy.

Die hard fans of the first Tron which was released in 1982 will scramble to navigate away from this review when I reveal that I have seen but do not remember the details of the first Tron film, which was panned by the critics when it was first released for its convoluted storyline and its over-abundance of shocking visual effects. The film went over audiences heads back then--the special effects were too jarring and revolutionary which is most-likely why it failed to even be nominated for a Visual-Effects Oscar--we all know people fear what they do not understand, which is why I fear Steven Seagal films but that's another blog post altogether.

At any rate,  the many merits and ambitious production values of 1982's Tron allowed it to redeem itself and it's earned itself a bevy of cult followers like this guy and spawned the sequel of which we speak today, Tron: Legacy.

Ah Tron:Legacy, doomed to repeat the sins of your father...your plot and storyline is horrible-laughable really  and weak as a cup of coffee purchased from a greasy spoon at 1 a.m. though decidedly more delicious going down. I always told myself that when the actors in the movie are saddled with the task of explaining what the heck is going on, the writer did not do what a writer is supposed to do: show, not tell. The plot focuses on Jeff Bridges' character Kevin Flynn's son Sam Flynn as he engages in a battle of economic moral ideals< (my words lol) with the money hungry board that runs his estranged/presumed dead father's company ENCOM.

One fateful night, his father's old business partner Alan Bradley--who also served as a sort of father figure for Sam after Kevin's disappearance--tells Sam that he got a call from his father's office at Flynn's Arcade, which has been closed since1982 I presume--though the power still works when Sam goes to investigate the place and the games are all in top form--but that's a movie for you.

You can probably guess what happens next if you know even a little bit about the film. Sam hacks into the alternate universe his father created within the computer world on The Grid, and then the fun really starts--and by fun I mean the most shocking and mesmerizing special effects I've seen in a while! This is when the plot holes, implausibilities and scratch your head moments cease to matter and you watch the light show before you with an expression of shock and awe hidden behind your stylish RealD 3D glasses! Lasers and clunky transportation vehicles move through a technological wasteland like neon signs with anthropomorphic capabilities!

Tron City is gritty, cold and impersonal and populated with inhabitants called "Programs" because that's what they are in this world within the computer, and human beings are therefore coined "Users"--a name not uttered by any Program sans disdain. Sam is arrested and labeled a criminal because he is un-scannable by the law men's instruments. He is then sentenced to fight on The Grid, a fate that is apparently so horrible that a fellow detainee kills himself rather than be subjected to it. I felt like the suicide was a little dramatic being that The Grid didn't seem that hardcore to me; the prisoners simply had to fight for their lives against a disc wielding neon clad ninja man in a transparent box that shatters under the slightest strike from the discs being thrown wantonly through the electric air before being forced to engage in a high speed motorcycle fight on The Grid--I'd do that in no time rather than jump into an air duct like the aforementioned prisoner, might as well go out having fun, right? 

What follows is a feast for the eyes, especially when the audience is introduced to the Jeff Bridges of yesteryear as the character Clu--walking around, talking, and generally being a badass born entirely of the shocking advancements of visual technology. The storyline became mere background noise to me in an experience that like its predecessor, was created for the sole purpose of showing what the men behind the computers that create most of our films in this age of 3D mind control are capable of, and it's amazing stuff.

I won't continue to summarize the plot because honestly it was too convoluted and loose for me to waste much more time on it, but know that there's a semi happy ending, the film is interspersed with beautiful women like Olivia Wilde who plays Quorra, Kevin Flynn's precocious apprentice. Michael Sheen makes an animated if not a little underwhelming appearance as the flashy and eccentric night life connoisseur Castor--and Jeff Bridges, whom I love, did the best with the frothy material he was given. I'm sure they paid him well for his efforts.

Do I recommend this movie? Yes I do, especially since some may see no problems with the plot because most people aren't a self-important movie snob like me, you know the type--I watch slow moving foreign films with subtitles and immerse myself in moody character studies that put my significant others, friends and families into comas. Yet with that said, the visuals in the movies are top notch and not to be missed, a glorious use of the overused 3D features--and Sam played by the piping hot Garrett Hedlund is shirtless at least once ladies. Go and enjoy.

A deft depiction of the human capacity for deceit and violence....

I'm sure the title above has never before been used to describe the movie Unfaithful, but it is a fitting one all the same. I watched the movie a few days ago and saw it and its characters in a new light.

My mother owns the film and I remember seeing it when it first came out in 2001however it didn't move me then as it did during my latest viewing. The movie's title, of course, denotes its plot--a married woman played by the beautiful Diane Lane engages in a heated affair with a handsome and sexy Parisian played by Olivier Martinez. The cuckolded husband is played by the also very handsome Richard Gere. The affair ends tragically as affairs often do, and I won't give away much more than that.

On the surface this movie seems straightforward and simple, but the darkness and intricacy of the film cannot be ignored. I watch A LOT of movies so the ones that totally get it right always strike a chord with me, Unfaithful definitely got "it" right.

At first encounter, the movie seems to be nothing more than an archetypical story of infidelity and betrayal within a marriage, but it is about much more than that--it brims with underlying themes of submission, responsiblity, and even human folly. You have to pay attention and/ or engage in repeated viewing of this film to truly feel the message and impact of the story.

Directed by Adrian Lyne whose impressive credits include Lolita, Nine 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal and the psychologically arresting Jacob's Ladder, Unfaithful is multi-layered, moody and smart. What's more, the soundtrack is spot on--when I heard a piano driven cover of Radiohead's "Exit Music (For A Film)" performed by jazz pianist Brad Mehldau  resounding over scenes of Lane's foray into sexual deceit I was floored and even further impressed.

The most vivid message I gleaned from the film was spoken by Martinez's character Paul to Lane's character Connie, "there is no such thing as a mistake, it's what you do or don't do," forgive me if this isn't the exact quote but I typed it from memory and you can be certain it's darn close to what was said verbatim. This is a truth that applies perfectly to the movie's main conflict and to life itself as we as people are called to make earth shattering decisions in everyday life.

I'm not speaking of anything as trivial as a mistake at work, an erasure of a math problem, the breaking of a dish, it applies to those choices that are actual forks in the road before us; the ones that force us to take the path that will lead to monumental disruption and pain, or the path that leads to smooth waters and comfort and peace of mind. Only, the choice isn't always so easy, and the right path is not always appealing--a fact that may force a person to choose the path of pitfall and regret. Sometimes a spark of passion or instant gratification dwarfs our need to keep the boat steady on the right course.

See the movie and experience all the subtle hints, the words spoken as afterthought, the slip ups, the sloppiness, the anger, the masks worn, the nature of human relationships that hearken to the mating habits of animals and therefore human beings--submission and dominance, mundanity versus risk and heart pumping passion. See it all and more, in Unfaithful!!

What do YOU think. Is it just a film about a cheating woman being selfish and uncaring or is it much deeper than that? Speak on Richard Gere's character while you're at it, I could write an entire blog post about his character, but I won't. I didn't realize how good and well made this movie was before, and now I'm paying proper homage and I trust you'll feel inclined to do the same.

Peacy Weacy!!

The Pentagon Wars!!:

Watching the film: The Pentagon Wars reiterates  how much the government tries to hide/gloss over their past faux pas’. This movie depicted the struggle that ensued between Air Force Lt. Col. James Burton and Maj. Gen. Partridge, who according the movie, served as the main authority over the Bradley “Reconnaissance Vehicle” development.

Lt. Col Burton thought the vehicle unsafe and as the film shows many changes had been made to the original and more functional prototype in order to pacify the tastes of high ranking military officials.

Listen….I hate writing summaries, you want a good summary go here: Pentagon Wars Summary that makes sense unlike the one I was about to write and then if you have enough energy left click the x on the right upper hand corner of the window that contains the summary to close the window and BAM! My blog is still here!<you're very welcome for the impromptu Windows Internet Expolorerer tutorial.

Now I know my opinion means next to nothing because I'm just a very intelligent person who might one day be your boss-but I digress...that movie laid bare a couple of things I would think the Army wouldn't want us fair citizens to be aware of. It's not as if they don't already pull the wool over our eyes about a myriad of things but listen I'm just a talker not a conspiracy theorist so here is my point. I'm not into rehashing conspiracy theories and I also don't want the government to poison my Honey Smacks for blabbing know what I'm sayin'? (As if they would read this blog because I'm sure no one will ever see it other than whoever happens to be sitting beside me while I'm writing it!) Self deprecating humor ladies and gentlemen.

Here is the promised point: watch the movie. Then let it simmer.

But...your thankless assignment is not over...you must then mosey on over to this link, which is an official wiki article on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and see how the Bradley people spin that movie, it's under the section titled Production History. Hilarious. Now I don't know which version (the movie or the wiki article) is true but it's a funny thing all the same.

So what do you think phantom readers, you think the government made shoddy war equipment or was it ALL JUST A BIG MISUNDERSTANDING *said in an army General voice*.

  The Pentagon Wars

The Pentagon Wars wasn't the most entertaining thing I ever saw, but it gets kudos for its content!

Peacy Weacy!