Weekend In Reviews

Busy weekend. Finished watching the third season of ER and started on the 4th. Did I forget how big an asswad Dr. Greene was circa S3 and S4 or had I not noticed before? There were a number of episodes I kept wanting someone on staff to punch him in the nose. Then when he got severely beaten in the bathroom, I felt a little bad that I'd wished a beating on him. Once he came back and was even assier, I stopped feeling bad and started wishing they'd brain-tumored the man way earlier on. What a freaking kill-joy that guy was!

Anyway, also managed to watch some movies.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - This was a decent movie for what it was - which is two teens on a night-long adventure in New York City that leads to them falling in love. I suspect that Michael Cera isn't a very good actor and is rather just extremely likable playing the same stammering, dorky, sweet, clueless kid over and over again. Kat Denning on the other hand is a good actress and her strength - even as reluctantly pretty teen with low self esteem - is a great contrast to Cera's mealy-mouthed wimp. The supporting cast was fun though the story was as thin as it could be. There were too many gross-out moments centering on Norah's friend Caroline for my taste, but I can anticipate disgusting shit pretty well and avert my eyes. Overall, I thought it was a cute movie that I'd look forward to watching again on cable some day, but I wouldn't necessarily need to own it or ever have the urge to watch it unprompted.

The International - Ok, I should tell you the plot...oy! So there is this huge bank, The International, that is involved in so much shady shit (selling weapons and financing insurgencies around the world to profit on the dept of war. Yeah, I didn't really get it either) that they're being investigated by, like, everyone. The Manhattan District Attorney (Naomi Watts) and Interpol (Clive Owen) in particular want a piece of them. But the bank is so shady that they just keep having people knocked off rather than chance anyone squealing.

The entire movie is a series of thickly accented conversations about international banking interspersed with people being killed. It's sort of boring and hard to follow (because could there possibly be anything less interesting than a movie about BANKING?) except for the one bright spot in the film which was a massive shoot-out that took place at the Guggenheim and was completely awesome.

I would not go out of my way to see this movie again but if I turn on TNT some day and this is on, I might stay tuned-in long enough to see the Guggenheim scene again and then bail.

My Bloody Valentine - This is easily in my Top 5 Worst Movies of All Time. Holy crap was this movie a pile of total shite!

So Jensen Ackles plays Tom Hanniger who's dad owns a coal mine in a small town. One day, Tom forgets to bleed the lines when he's leaving for the day and that causes an explosion and a cave in that traps a bunch of guys in Tunnel No. 5. One of the guys trapped in the mine, Harry Warden, wants to preserve the oxygen for himself so he kills all the other trapped miners with a pick axe. Once he's out and they've seen what's happened down there he's obviously busted, though for some reason he's in a coma (they really don't make the 'how' clear there) so he doesn't go to jail, and is instead in the hospital. In a regular wing with all the other patients and not strapped down or under any kind of guard.

One Valentines Day (see, that's how they get the title) he wakes up and essentially rips everyone in the hospital limb from limb with his bare hands. Honest to God, when the Sheriff comes in to investigate there are pieces of the fakest dismembered bodies you've ever seen in your life laying all around. A leg here, an arm there, a torso tossed on the bed with the arm bent all cockeyed like only a plastic dummy's arm could bend. So once he's out of the hospital, he heads back to the tunnel at the mine which, since it's too dangerous to work in, is now a favorite party spot of the local teens. Natch. Harry dons his mine working duds, including his mask and hard hat with the spotlight on top and starts offing the local kids in heinous ways. Including this one girl who's head he cuts in half when he catches her in the mouth mid-scream with a shovel. That was the worst "special" effect of the entire movie.

With just three kids left alive in the mine - Sarah (Jaime King), Axel (Kerr Smith) and Irene (Betsy Rue) - in runs Tom who'd forgotten his beer in the car. Of course Harry would like to keep his record clean and kill them all so he sets out after Tom which pisses his girlfriend, Sarah, off and that in turn scares the shit out of Axel and Irene so the two of them grab Sarah and get her the eff out of there, leaving Tom behind to defend himself. Axel was never a big fan of Tom anyway. Tom is nearly killed but the Sheriff and his deputy shoot Harry who doesn't die but rather runs away, deeper into the tunnel.

Cut to 10 years later when Axel is the Sheriff and is married to Sarah but banging the stock girl from the grocery store in a dilapidated shack in the woods. Romantic no? Tom had disappeared abruptly after his drama in the mine and now that his dad has dropped dead, he's back in town to sell the mine. But upon his return, up start the pick axe murders once again.

I don't want to spoil it for anyone who really wants to see this, so if that's you, divert your eyes starting now. Turns out Tom has spent the last 7 years in the booby hatch 'cause he's a hat full of CRAZY. He digs up the corpse of Harry - who the Sheriff and some local bad asses did finally catch, kill, and bury a decade ago - dresses in his stupid getup and kills people himself. For no fucking reason. The gorgeous, bow-legged bastard gutted poor Irene who did absolutely nothing wrong other than having an affair with a skeevy trucker and running around town completely naked in a pair of platform sandals. COMPLETELY naked. Yeah.

Sarah and Axel THINK they kill Tom in the end but they don't. Instead he kills a rescue worker, steals his outfit (he can't help it, he just really loves masks!) and gets out alive to walk right up to the camera and give us a menacing devilish smile.

The worst part about this seriously BAD movie is that it was released theatrically in 3D which means that there is constantly shit coming right at the screen in the cheesiest way you can imagine.

If you're going to suffer through this, don't expect suspense or horror. Be prepared to roll your eyes clean out of your head. Maybe you could play a drinking game where you take a shot every time something comes flying at your face aggressively though. You'll be so drunk by the end that you won't even care what a steaming pile this was!