Subtle Bluntness

So I saw Cop Out, and I’m in the minority since I actually enjoyed the movie.  For me, it works as a direct homage to those 80’s buddy cop movies, before they got all worn out by overuse.  Most people apparently didn’t dig it, but I liked it and apparently the audience did too, since it was second in the top 10 this weekend.

I also managed to get out and see The Crazies, the 2010 Breck Eisner remake of the 1973 George Romero virus panic horror flick, except this time The Crazies are basically zombies, and the Romero framework is used to support a greatest-hits of postmodern zombie movies.  I also enjoyed it, and it seems more people enjoyed it than did Cop Out, at least in terms of critical indices and whatnot.  Not like I care what critics say, but it’s nice to know I’m not the only person out there in the wilderness, screeching at the top of my lungs that a movie is adequately entertaining.

So, Pierre Morel is really making a play to break out of Luc Besson’s shadow, at least in terms of directorial skill.  I mean, he’s still working in Camp Besson, but he’s at least in charge of the productions, rather than just the cinematographer.  District B13 was awesome, Taken was way awesome, and the verdict for From Paris With Love, at least from me, is fairly awesome.

It’s not novel like B13, or as well done and tense as Taken, but it’s still a really fun action movie and worth checking out if you like European action flicks, John Travolta, or lots of people getting shot in Paris.  As I described the movie in my Den of Geek review, “It’s like The Odd Couple, but one of them kills dozens of people!”

Wouldn’t Camp Besson be the real most magical place on earth?  I mean, you run from explosions down a hallway, you shoot down dozens of people in cold blood, you have ripping action sequences and car chases, and you’re generally the most awesome guy around.  There’s no way I wouldn’t go to Camp Besson every summer for a refresher course in ass-kickery.

I reviewed Legion over at Den of Geek.  Look on these works, ye Paul Bettany fans, and despair.  Also, there’s Charles S. Dutton and Dennis Quaid, so despair a little extra for those two.

Yes, I know I just mixed Shakespeare’s Hamlet with Shelley’s Ozymandias.  I did that in much the same way Legion mixes The Bible, action movies, zombies, and ham-fisted CGI:  deliberately and with malice aforethought.  It’s not that Legion is bad, it’s just that Legion is incredibly dumb.  I have no doubt that it’ll make a great Rifftrax one day.

I got to indulge my inner child this weekend by going to see Ninja Assassin, the new martial arts movie starring Korean pop star Rain, Naomie Harris, and Sho Kosugi, the king of the ninja.  I can honestly say I went in expecting something awful, but what I got was a slice of deliciously brainless martial arts action cinema thanks in no small part to the Wachowskis and James McTeigue.  When they decide to stow their politics and attempts at intelligence, they can put together a fun movie.

Here’s my review of the wonderfully bloody ninja throwback.  Number six at the box office, number one in my (stabbed) heart.  Still, there was a problem.

One of the reasons I stopped going to the theater closest to me is because of the clientel.  People just don’t know how to behave in movies anymore.  It really ruins my enjoyment of a movie when I have assholes sitting around me.

For example, during Ninja Assassin, this black couple (who sat right behind me for no apparently reason when there was plenty of other rows open) ate dinner during the movie.  Not just popcorn or a snack or a hamburger or something, I mean four styrofoam cartons of food that they brought in with a garbage-bag sized plastic sack to hold it all.  And they proceeded to just throw down on their chow mein or whatever the hell they had in the styrofoam, rattling and squeaking and generally being so completely and totally obnoxious that I really wanted to go narc on them, which is against every fiber of my being.

I admit I was impressed that they got four whole meals into the theater, but aside from that?  No, dude.  If you’re going to eat, eat the crappy food they provide.  if you’re going to sneak in food, don’t spent 45 minutes scraping it around with your spork.  Be considerate of the people who are sitting right in front of you, in your spit/scrape/spill zone.  If you have to rattle your plastic bags, at least go sit on pervert row where your annoyance capabilities are reduced.

If they were just dumb teens, that’s one thing.  Teens don’t know they’re dumb and obnoxious, that’s what makes them teenagers (and explains why everyone hates Tyler on V).  These were two adults in their 30’s or 40’s.  People who ought to know better than to eat their whole take-out meal in the middle of the freaking movie theater.

Long story short, unless they have tables, don’t eat a whole meal there.  If they do have tables, then grub away.  If you’re going to sneak in a whole garbage bag of food, at least offer to share a burrito or give me a piece of your KFC.  If possible, try not to be a noisy asshole, too.

I’ve decided that Michael C. Hall is completely incapable of acting in any role where the character is supposed to be a heterosexual.  Every role I’ve seen him in, from David Fisher to Dexter to Ken Castle in Gamer, comes across as the character being gay, even if the character isn’t supposed to be gay.  Maybe it’s just the way he learned to act, or maybe it’s just me, but I described Castle in my Gamer review as a gay Foghorn Leghorn.

It’s really starting to get distracting.  No matter how much he works out or how many people Dexter slices up, I just see a repressed homosexual.  Maybe he’ll always be David Fisher to me, I don’t know.  Here’s hoping he grows a beard and butches up for his next movie.

I don’t think I’ve ever gone into a movie, watched it, and come out with this thought: “That movie could’ve used the soothing directorial touch of Uwe Boll.” Then again, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a film as potentially ludicrous as Max Payne refuse to embrace the brain-searing incomprehensibility of its stated premise. Call it wasted potential.

Read the rest of the bad news over at Den of Geek.

Frighteningly, his performance in The Departed made me think Marky Mark Wahlberg had finally turned the corner as an actor towards some level of consistency.  I meant the good kind of consistency in that he could routinely turn out a good performance, not consistency as in never changing his facial expression for a whole 2 hour movie.  I fail, hardcore.