My predictions for Friday, April 2nd - Sunday, April 4th
(no stars. zero.)
As an American Idol judge would do, let’s start with the positive… the acting was fine. As for every other aspect of this torturous, lame, and utterly disturbing piece of (pardon my language) shit, Antichrist is terrible. It’s so bad, and mind blowingly so, that I can’t possibly fathom how it was made. To start, the film begins with a porno style close up of insertion…that’s right…insertion. And if that had been the worst of it, it might have been able to be described as artful. However, over the next hour and half nothing of any substance comes from the actions of the story.
It really is about as offensive to the eyes as a film could be. I would rather watch a 24 hour loop of the most grisly horror scenes from Hostel and Saw then to watch another 2 minutes of this abortion. What the filmmakers were thinking is far beyond my knowledge and whatever symbolism they were trying to create is just wrong. You failed.
Here is the movie’s spoiler, its sucks all the way through. Unrelenting crap. Not even a single redeeming quality. Unless, you’re a sex crazed sadist without the slightest bit of dignity… then you might very well enjoy yourself.
Antichrist is not like many bad movies in the way that you can find some humor in its shortcomings. I had hoped the film was going to be a pretentious hipster nightmare but what it actually is, is a test of endurance. I forced myself to finish for the sole fact that I never wanted to see it again. I wasn’t looking for a redeeming quality because no surprise was going to erase the first 80 minutes.
I wish I could go into detail about some of the scenes and their advanced perversion but sitting here writing about it actually brings me to physical pain.
If you watch this movie, I will be mad at you. Andy the Movie Man has laid a solid warning. Don’t watch this shit.
My predictions for Friday, March 26th - Sunday, March 28th
$70.1 --- How to Train Your Dragon
$23.0 --- Hot Tub Time Machine
$17.1 --- Alice in Wonderland
$12.9 --- Diary of a Wimpy Kid
$9.8 --- The Bounty Hunter
$3.4 --- Green Zone
$3.1 --- Shutter Island
$3.0 --- She's Out of My League
$2.5 --- Avatar
$2.3 --- Repo Men
Check out the Derby
(0 for 1) Best Picture: in an upset, Inglorious Basterds THE HURT LOCKER
(0 for 2) Director: James Cameron KATHRYN BIGELOW for THE HURT LOCKER
(1 for 3) Lead Actor: Jeff Bridges
(1 for 4) Lead Actress: Meryl Streep SANDRA BULLOCK
(2 for 5) Supporting Actor: Chirstoph Waltz
(3 for 6) Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique
(3 for 7) Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino THE HURT LOCKER
(3 for 8) Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman PRECIOUS
(4 for 9) Animated Feature: Up …duh
(5 for 10) Art Direction: Avatar
(5 for 11) Cinematography: Inglorious Basterds AVATAR
(6 for 12) Costume Design: The Young Victoria
(7 for 13) Documentary Feature: The Cove
(8 for 14) Film Editing: The Hurt Locker
(8 for 15) Foreign Language Film: The Prophet THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES
(9 for 16) Make Up: Star Trek
(9 for 17) Music (original score): The Hurt Locker UP
(10 for 18) Music (original song): Weary Kind (Crazy Heart)
(11 for 19) Sound Editing: The Hurt Locker
(12 for 20) Sound Mixing: The Hurt Locker
(13 for 21) Visual Effects: Avatar
For a total percentage of 62%
Now, a good second guess would be to put anything related to The Hurt Locker in as a winner. (If i listened to myself here, my percentage would have been 76%). A huge sweep for The Hurt Locker is possible if voters find it more appealing than the big bad blockbuster that is Avatar. So watch out for it to sneak up and walk away with Best Picture (yep), Director (yep), Actor, and Original Screenplay (yep).
I’m a sucker for the kind of story Crazy Heart puts on the screen. Maybe it’s from my days working with a group of burnt out, chain smoking, fifty-something-year-old drunk landscapers. Whatever is, I feel drawn to this sad world of self deprecation. The story behind why people allow themselves to fall so far past the realm "normal" is extremely interesting to me. Perhaps it’s why I like shows like Intervention; to see a pathetic life, a wasted life, a train wreck of existence... I can’t turn away. Though it may be because it’s not my life.
That being said, Jeff Bridges arguably gives his best performance ever. Every inch of his Bad Blake character seems real. I’ve seen a man with nothing but a bottle, his pain suppressed only until the buzz is gone. And his performance is the real thing.
I don’t like country music, not because of the story the songs tell, but just because it’s slow and the fact I never really heard it as a kid. However, I like the music that is Crazy Heart. It works.
The filmmakers and song writers did a great job making Bad Blake seem like a country performer. A fatal flaw was avoided when they made the music good enough that even a kid from the Northeast, who’d rather listen to The Doors than Hank Williams, actually enjoyed the country twang.
Bad is so bad to himself that even after a car wreck leaves him with a broken ankle and a concussion, the doctor tells him; “I’m not worried about the ankle, I’m worried about your general condition.” Put yourself in Bad’s shoes, you’re 57 years old, four broken marriages, a kid somewhere who won’t talk to you, a dying career... why wouldn’t bury yourself in a bottle of whisky and chain smoke cigs from your soft pack? Because killing yourself with regret is still killing yourself. A slow suicide is still suicide. It’s a dark way to live but this kind of role brings out the best in many actors.
Crazy Heart to me was more of a character study than anything. I would love to be able to create a character as Thomas Cobb (the novel) did.
Bridges will most likely win the Oscar. He’s due. His performance, much like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler last year, steals the show from any other aspect of the film. Maggie Gyllenhaal is up for Best Supporting Actress, she won’t win. I feel the nomination is more of a tribute to how good Bridges was. He made every character in the film believable because you knew he was. Even Colin Farrell as a country singer stud, Tommy Sweet.
Hats off and cup up Mr. Bridges. Wonderful film.
First is the quote, unquote return of Mel Gibson in Edge Of Darkness. Crazy, drunk, and racist are terms all too easily linked to Mr. Gibson over the past decade. With Edge of Darkness, some of the old school actor in him bleeds out to the point you’re actually able to forget the recent nonsense.
Gibson plays Thomas Craven, a Boston detective, gone rogue in the search for his daughter’s murderers. The action starts hot and heavy with a great splatter death that gives the restaurant scene in History of Violence a run for its money on the gore-o-meter.
As Craven picks apart the life of his daughter, he begins to unravel what may have been more than just a random act of violence. What seemed like a normal parental revenge flick, ala Death Wish and Death Sentence, shows slight signs of turning into a political minded thriller.
The film was a good choice for Mel as it gets back to his successful revenge-themed movies of the ‘80s and ‘90s. His dark, one minded character is heavy on the rugged intensity, light on emotion, and driven to madness. This madness makes for some of the film’s best scenes, as he stumbles, weathered and beaten through gun battle after gun battle. There is a craziness in his eyes that connects to the audience and allows the viewer into his mind process.
Darkness is aptly directed by Martin Campbell, who shows a knack at illuminating his protagonist’s inner battles in most of his films. Campbell is the same director who made James Bond a sadist, revenge driven man in Casino Royale. Here, there are similarities in the glare and the mood between Daniel Craig’s Bond, and Mel Gibson’s Craven.
Also drenching the mid February snow with carnage is the re-imaging of the horror classic, The Wolfman. The film, a moody period piece, looks beautiful on screen. Director Joe Johnston (October Sky, Jurassic Park III) knows how sculpt an amazing imaginary world of Werewolves and curses. However, the films main curse is the screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self. With every nerve awakening jolt, comes a soggy back and forth between the characters. The second curse was the casting of Benicio Del Toro as the title character. You sit, watching this fine actor, in bewilderment at how bad he is for this part. Again, he doesn’t have the opportunity for many good lines because of the poor script but it’s a far cry from his performances in Traffic or Usual Suspects.
Anthony Hopkins is devilishly good in supporting role and Emily Blunt proves again she can be relevant in any role given to her. But it’s hard to get away from the dialogue that seemed written for a modern day scare-fest and not rooted in the 1891 setting.
On the upside, there are chilling moments and it is fun to watch the transformation of human to Lycan but all of this was shown in the full length trailer of the film.
The Wolfman ends in less than stunning fashion with a face off of fur that seemed more like a cat fight than a junkyard dog brawl.
