Endless Bag of Gold

I really liked Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (especially this shot), but I think in order to really understand whats happening it requires multiple viewings. It had a nice slow pace at the beginning and Oldmans silent treatment throughout the first half of the film gave you the sense that he really was an intelligence badass, ever watchful. But the ending didn’t exactly gel for me and I think they may have tried to crunch it all together to meet a time limitation. All in all a solid spy flick, worth a look see.

Yesterday I went and saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was great, I loved it, and I’ll see it again. The problem I had was with the three assholes behind me who added commentary the entire time. 3 film nerds who needed to dissect the work right then and there. Let us watch the movie first, take it all in, and then when it comes out on blu-ray, DVD, On-demand (I’m not playing favorites) you can gather round the television and probe it to no end. 

I’ve seen at least one movie a week, every week, for the past year and folks talking during the movie is becoming common place. Just shut the fuck up for two hours. If you have questions about the film, save it for the end. Most likely the person sitting next to you doesn’t have the answers because they’re also seeing the movie for the first time. Take the film in, let it sit for awhile, its probably not that complicated. Most movies these days are popcorn fodder anyway. 

If all else fails we hire new ushers, my vote is the creatures from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode “Hush”, and have them take your voice box until the movie is over. Don’t forget to pick it up on the way out.

After several long years of waiting, I’ve finally gotten around to watching The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It started strong, with an all star cast whose names have now become everyday speak, but became incredibly long winded in the end. I enjoyed the narration over blurry telescope effect and the cinematography was a joy to watch.

I wish I would have seen this in theaters though. I find I am more inclined to enjoy the overextension of a film when sitting in a dark room with nothing but my thoughts and the movie.

Well, its been not to long of a time coming but Pixels and Popcorn is finally a go! Now its a little rough around the edges to be sure, but its the start of something bigger. 

Check out the first episode at Pixels and Popcorn.com and follow us on twitter if you’re a tweeter. We talk Resident Evil Afterlife and Halo Reach, while eating some Vitner’s Baja BBQ Chips. Fly to 24:00 to see our midnight Halo Reach launch experience.

Also, we are giving away our review copy of Halo Reach, so watch the show for details. Tumblr Hint Exclusive: Details are toward the end.

Hot Tub Time Machine

Something happened in this movie that I don’t really understand. Let me start off by saying this wasn’t funny. You had your loud guy, sarcastic kid, deep talking black man, and an ironic 80’s icon (who is starting to talk like his sister), put them all together and it should be great, but it was just all over the place.

What saved the movie from being a complete disasterpiece was Crispin Glovers role. It was as if a different writer came in a made up this hilarious subplot better than the actually film script. Every time he was on screen I was laughing. It was a really great game the movie played and when he wasn’t on screen I was thinking about how he was going to lose that arm of his.

(Quick Synopsis: When he is first introduce he is missing an arm, so when they go back in time he has his arm and the running gag is how much suspense they build around him losing it.)

I can’t believe I am saying this, but I would go see the movie just for those moments…also Lizzy Caplan.

I Must Watch - The Assassination of Jesse James

I have been sitting on this for far to long. I may have even started it a few times only to start doing busy work and shut it off 10 min in. I love a good western and I have only heard good things about the film. 

Thankfully it was brought to my attention again after the rumor started that Brad Pitt could be a candidate to play John Marston of Red Dead Redemption fame in the big screen adaptation. Personally I would like someone a little grizzlier, but he could probably pull it off.

Happy Campers

My friend Matt put this in the other night with promises of romping through the woods good times and surprisingly enough, I didn’t roll my eyes once throughout the film. Its as if they took Heavyweights and threw in a a lot of sex, also Justin Long. Being made in 2001, it had a very “this is one of the last movies of the 90’s” vibe to it that I enjoyed, but the films two main characters (Brad Renfro and Dominique Swain) were a little all over the place. One moment they were normal, likable characters and the next they turned into insane goofy side characters while remaining in the spot light. I didn’t really enjoy the up and down character arcs, but the counselors interactions with the kids is what made the film watchable and at moments chuckle out loud funny.

Also a strange choice, every time they went out into the woods, there was a blue filter on the film, giving everyone a very cold, dead look. If it was meant to be meaningful it was more distracting and probably could have been left out.

If you’ve got a hot and sticky summer afternoon, give it a whirl. Peter Stormare is in there as the crazy camp owner too, so why not.

I knew I was going to like this. Most of my doubts over the film came from seeing Michael Cera play a nerdy sad sack again, but I was pleasantly surprised by his performance. Yes he was a sad sack, but with a little bit of an ego and he kinda turned out to be a jerk, which was a nice little character build beyond just getting the girl. 

I feel like all the credit goes to the people that weren’t on screen, most notably Edgar Wright. I don’t think his style of directing over film making will ever get stale. He’s able to add reference on top of reference in ways other directors in the same genre only dream of. It also helped that in making a comic book movie, you can either go way left, trying to make it serious and nixing all comic book style elements to ground it in reality or go way right, fucking the rules of reality and creating exactly whats on the page. Edgar Wright always seems to fall towards the latter and it makes for great writing and film making. 

The movie inspired me to order Vol. 1 and 2 of the series from Amazon. We’ll see how it holds up against the original work. Something tells me I won’t be “too” disappointed though.

Tranny 3 Copter.

Brick

I don’t know why I wait so long to watch certain movies but I wish I would have seen this day one. What an incredible piece of film. It was shot for shot one of the most gorgeous things I’ve seen to date as well as wonderfully scribed. It also had me liking Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the hard boiled detective. It put me in high spirits about his acting chops, which were in a grey area before.

I hope Rian Johnson keeps making films for a long, long time.