Thats a funny story. We went down to Florida...right?.....

MIAMI VICE
















I guess for a cops-go-undercover-for-a-giant-drug-bust kind of movie, it wasn't bad in a Michael Mann-ish sorta way. I'm not particularly fond of Michael Mann's style but I can appreciate it to a degree. That being said, for a movie being made from the 80s classic tv drama,'Miami Vice', I was pretty disappointed. For all the potential it had for style, it just didn't do anything Miami Vice-y or even gave you a clue that this movie was a remake of an old show. You didn't even get any Miami-ish atmosphere or any atmosphere at all through the whole movie. If they didn't mention that they were taking a boatride over to Cuba, I wouldn't even have guessed it was Florida.

I felt Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell had nothing to add to the movie. They could have easily been replaced by anyone and I wouldn't have noticed. Colin Farrell didn't do anything Don Johnson-y ever or even dress cool. He wore black and grey throughout the movie. Who wears drab shit like that in Miami? And the soundtrack was pathetic. Totally sucked balls. Crappy Rapcore we can get any day of the week on our pathetic Indiana rock station. I was hoping for a soundtrack like GTA Vice City or something cool like that. I thought that was the least they could do. NO, we get a bunch of Audioslave and a laughable cover of "In the Air Tonight" during the big climax, done by some genaric band called Nonpoint. Nonpoint is right, there really was no point to that.

I would have liked this movie a lot better if they just called it something else. It really had no relation whatsoever to Miami Vice, which bugged me. I felt if they were going to remake a show like that, they could have done so much more. Add some more colorful lighting, play up the Miami wardrobe, a little more character developement...y'KNOW? Gimme something Miami Vice. I didn't think that was expecting too much.

Beautiful chicks with dicks that would put mine to shame...

Cillina Murphy Marathon day 6
Breakfast on Pluto

So this is the story of an psychologically disturbed transvestite homosexual Irish foster child who grows up and travels around against the backdrop of political tensions in 60's-70's Ireland and England. "Kitten" was at times charming, sweet, innocent, and irreverent, but just as capable of being maddeningly obtuse, stubborn, and annoying. I never fully sympathized with this character, although I alternately pitied, rooted for, and disliked her.

The performance was good but a little weird. It was convincing, Cillin did a good job of selling me on the character, but the problem is this character never really felt real. There was never any clear motivation or character traits behind it all- nothing made any sense. She just floated along on a whim, changing to suite the circumstances but always being weird and never really fitting in. At times you could cry for her because she just needed to be loved and accepted (and find her mom) but at times you just wanted to smack her and demand 'Just what in the hell are you doing with your life?!?'

In the end, I just wondered what the point of watching that movie was (other then crossing off another title in the Cillian Murphy filmography). Was it to entertain? I don't know, the laughs and the tone were very inconsistent for an entertainment movie. Was it a drama? The character was just too flakey and inconsistent to pull me into a drama. Was it to show us something of the human condition? Perhaps that was the intent, but again the character would have to be at least a little more grounded for that to take hold- something like what I anticipate from Transamerica.

I didn't hate it, but I can't really recommend Breakfast on Pluto either. Cillian was good, but the character needed work. That may be on the director (or maybe it's just me). Two and a half stars, maybe three if I'm in a good mood.

Beavis and Butt-Head do America

Idiocracy

I was looking forward to Idiocracy for a long time. Some no-holds-barred social criticism and satire from Mr. Mike Judge, of Office Space, King of the Hill, and Beavis and Butt-Head fame. (honestly, I never really liked KOTH, but I like Judge.

So the premise is simple, Luke Wilson is forzen for 500 years and wakes up after humanity has de-evolved to a point where everyone basically acts like Beavis and Butt-Head. The satire is over-the-top and vicious: the reason for the de-evolution is laid out in an opening segment where a hillbilly family tree is played out and juxtaposed with a couple who are successful and intelligent but put off having kids until it is too late. The idea is that we have undermined the theory of evolution by making it easy to survive and breed, so that the be willing to reproduce (or stupid enough to not exercise control over your reproduction) is all it takes to succeed on an evolutionary level. Technology develops to the point where it does everything for people, and only the most basic skills are needed to function. Essentially, things are made idiot-proof and that is exactly what we get.

The concept is great, but as a movie it is flawed. It suffers from 'good idea but doesn't translate to the screen' syndrome. So along with the biting satire we have to endure a bunch of groin-kicks and the silly plot to find a way home and/or save people from being killed by the ignorant savages. There is ample opportunity for gags and not-so-subtle jabs at our culture, and they are what save the movie from being a disappointment after the back-of-the-box concept is over. Watching the characters interact was painful and boring. most of the dialog in this movie sucked. The point made by the omnipotent voice-over narrator that language had deteriorated to a mixture of hillbilly and ghetto slang and rudimentary grunts was funny, and occasionally the outlandish statements got a laugh, but when it needed to advance the plot it was just bad. Of course, there was no better way to do it. As I said above, the movie was interesting but flawed from the beginning. It makes an interesting point, but it isn't one you can build a compelling story around.

No, the jokes. sight-gags, and parody's of the decline in our own culture is what makes this movie worth watching. Taking the stupidity of reality TV, the sexualization of advertising, and the laziness and selfishness of our times and carrying them to absurd lengths provides the entertainment that caries this movie. Luke Wilson, and the other principle actors, have very little to add. It's good on the way SNL or MAD magazine is good.


I looked for a good picture of one of the many funny scenes and couldn't find anything but a movie poster of the President and Luke riding on a big bike, so here is what I did find, a review on the Onion that said everything I meant to, only better, because I am rushed to catch up on my movies and also possibly sick:

Idiocracy is an unrepentant satire, a genre George S. Kaufman famously defined as "what closes Saturday night." Idiocracy feels more like a Beavis And Butt-head follow-up than an Office Space follower, thanks to its depiction of a society devolving at a rapid clip, and the way it satirizes its instant-gratification-obsessed target audience using the limited vocabulary of the terminally stupid.

In Beavis And Butt-head, that devolution is just suggested; in Idiocracy, it's made dizzyingly literal. A perfectly cast Luke Wilson stars as a quintessential everyman who hibernates for centuries and wakes up in a society so degraded by insipid popular culture, crass consumerism, and rampant anti-intellectualism that he qualifies as the smartest man in the world. Corporations cater even more unashamedly to the primal needs of the lowest common denominator—Starbucks now traffics in handjobs as well as lattes—and the English language has devolved into a hilarious patois of hillbilly, Ebonics, and slang.

Idiocracy's dumb-ass dystopia suggests a world designed by Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, a world where the entire populace skirts the fine line separating mildly retarded from really fucking stupid, and where anyone displaying any sign of intelligence is derided as a fag. Working on a sprawling canvas, Judge fills the screen with visual jokes, throwaway gags, and incisive commentary on the ubiquity of advertising—for instance, with the presidential-cabinet member who works paid plugs for Carl's Jr. into everyday conversations. Like so much superior science fiction, Idiocracy uses a fantastical future to comment on a present in which Paris Hilton is infinitely more famous than Nobel laureates. There's a good chance that Judge's smartly lowbrow Idiocracy will be mistaken for what it's satirizing, but good satire always runs the risk—to borrow a phrase from a poster-boy for the reverse meritocracy—of being misunderestimated.

I gotta fever and the prescription is more Dr. Duchovny

PLAYING GOD


It has been a while since I've seen this movie and even when I saw it years ago, I was too busy drooling over David Duchovny to pay any leftover attention to the actual plot. This time, taking a break from Cillian Murphy, I actually sat and watched all of it. We were between Cillian movies and felt like watching something we didn't have to take seriously and JP was goodly enough to choose Playing God from the list of free On-Demand movies from Comcast.

I wouldn't call it a "good" movie by any stretch but it was interesting enough and a well-written narration. There is a chance that it might have just seemed that way to me because it was spoken through David Duchovny's sexy man-voice. It could have been a crap screenplay but all crap sounds beautiful with David as a narrator. All I know for sure is that I dug it.

Brief summary- So, David Duchovny is a drug addict ex-doctor (He lost his med license) who is in a bar one day, just minding his own business, visiting with his dealer when some bozo comes in shooting up the place and shoots this one dude over by the bar. Everybody is all, "Call 911! - NO, we can't cause we'll go to jail" or something. So here is this guy bleeding and dying all over the place. David Duchovny, I think his name was Eugene or something gay, leaps over the people and comes over there to help him. (Because with great medical knowledge comes great responsibility, right?) He touches the guy's neck and just like that, he can tell the guy has a punctured lung. (So magical, I love him.) Then, he yells at the bar people to bring him a water bottle and a plastic hose/tube thing and other handy stuff and he starts working his doctory magic on him and saves his life. Well, then, it turns out Angelina Jolie was at the bar gawking at him and went and told her not-handsome criminal drug-dealing boyfriend and before you know it, Dr.Cutey-Cute wakes up in the back of a moving jeep with two friends of AJ's boyfriend. They take him to a beachhouse to talk to her boyfriend. I can't remember his name. Maybe it was Raymond. Lets call him Peckerhead. (He looked like someone you would call a Peckerhead.) So, Peckerhead talks to Dr.Dreamboat about a deal that would make him a "doctor" again. Basically, he would fix up all of Peckerhead's thugs when they got shot for like, 10 grand a pop. Dr. Hotty is like, well, I don't know. Maybe I can do it for a little while... He doesn't feel good about it but he wants to practice medicine again so he goes along with it. Then some hoopla sets in with the FBI. Some twists and turns, yada yada yada. Some people wear wires to help bust other dudes. Dr. Man-Candy even wears a wire taped so gently to his manly chest. All I could think of in those scenes was how I wanted to be that particular wire. I could be the wire and I could just remember everything being said and relay it back to the feds and hide against Dr. Heartstealer's chest under his clothes. That would be the funnest job ever. Or maybe hide under there with a walkie talkie - "Peckerhead just told the other guy to put his gun down." "Yeah. Now some more guys walked in with some briefcases. Over." That would be sweet. Anyway, thats what I'm thinking.

David Duchovny is just so damn gorgeous in this movie. Its mesmerizing. I would want to get shot just so he could work on me and play doctor. Nothing fatal, just maybe in the back of the leg or somewhere cool. I wouldn't need any painkillers cause he would touch me and I would get all tingly and numb. That would be cool.

Oh yeah, I'm not just saying this but Angelina Jolie SUCKS in this movie. Her acting was just ridiculously HORRIBLE. She does okay in her more recent movies and everything so I'm thinking that maybe this was her first or second movie or something cause she absolutely could NOT act. NONE of her sentences came out like a normal human being would say them. Nothing she said or did came off natural. It was shit. It was so distracting, it was almost comical. And because she was such a bad actress and couldn't say her lines properly, she couldn't have chemistry with a single person in this movie. It was like she was in a completely different movie than everyone else. She was off in 'No Retreat No Surrender' while everyone else was living it in this 'Playing God' movie. Maybe she thought the movie was called 'Playing GodAwful' cause thats exactly what she was doing. It was distracting me from my Dr. Hotness moments.

Playing God isn't really a movie I would recommend to anyone. Its not really a great movie but its one of those movies that is good to check out at 2 am on the couch when it comes on cable.

...and her adam's apple was as big as her balls.

BREAKFAST ON PLUTO


As emotionally confusing as it was for me, I liked this movie. I enjoyed the main character, Patrick Braden or "Kitten" as he/she liked to be called. Basically, Patrick/Kitten was a cross-dressing homosexual foster kid who grows up, leaves behind his small-town life in Ireland for London, where he tries to search for his real mother. The fashion and bubblegum music lets me believe this takes place in the late 60's - late 70's. Its a little bit like Joe Dirt meets To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar only more soulful and interesting.

Cillian Murphy was amazing. I loved his performance and his character. He was just fabulous as the brave and relentless seeker of the truth who faced life with conviction even when everything around him seemed to be disintegrating. This film is about a transvestite on one level, but it is also a lot more: it's about, belonging, being, loving and being loved. What could have been a one-dimensional caricature becomes a three dimensional movie in the hands of a good director like Neil Jordan, and actors such as Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, and Cillian Murphy (who is magnificent...even in heels).

Who does not want to be loved? Not many of us, and Kitten wants it more than most. Her journey to find love in whatever form it may take is both touching and harrowing at times. You cringe when she finds her self in certain situations, and you root for her to take charge of her life, but that is something she is quite unable to do for the most part of her journey.

I found it funny that Steven Rea is once again the interest of a she-male. For a moment in the film, I thought we were going to see another Crying Game moment. I also had a huge Lesssbian crush on Cillian and it was taking me places I've never been. I've never wanted to jump a transvetite before. At first it was kinda weird seeing him all girly but then his character as "Kitten" develops and he had me through the whole movie. Not quite like Cillian's other films but still had me. Even though his character carried herself like a hero and was eternally optimistic, she was definitely a lost kitten who needed to be rescued. It was breaking my heart. I wanted to adopt him. I would have rescued him and danced with him to Bobby Goldsboro. And YES, I would have took him to the hospital if I came home to find him dead like Bobby's wife; although I did find it a bit strange that this circumstance is what Kitten found comforting (I mean of all the pillowtalk in the world, this is what she wanted most to hear) Anyway- Then I would kiss him so passionantly, it would turn him straight and his cross-dressing would be reduced to a kinky bedroom fetish. I could play along with that. A little champagne goes a long way with me. A little lipstick, stockings, maybe even "Goodbye Horses" or a whole record of Bobby Goldsboro as long as I get to please and satisfy every inch of Cillian, ahem, I mean Kitten. Kitten just needed love. I'm all for it. Whats not to love?

Overall, I enjoyed this movie. It was hilarious, yet heartbreaking. The events related by Kitten are sad and terrible, but Kitten's sense of humor and optimism always shines through. And Liam Neeson! He was also great. I love him. I couldn't close this post without mentioning his greatness. Everyone was great and Cillian is always my favorite.

Eat You? I don't even like talking to you on the phone.

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE



What can be better than Christian Slater, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Antonio Banderas all in the same movie? This is one of those movies I can watch again and again, when I'm in one of those dark, romantic moods that calls for a good vampire movie.

Directed by Neil Jordan, a great Irish director who also directed Breakfast On Pluto, the Cillian Murphy movie that is next on our marathon list. You can see from watching this film, that Neil Jordan actually cares about staying true to Anne Rice's novel and takes her input into careful consideration to avoid bastardizing the characters in the story, unlike Queen of the Damned where the characters and story were bastardized so much, the whole thing was like a damn goth-band music video. Totally unrecognizable. Lestat played by Stuart Townsend? Did the director lose a bet?

Anyway, fantastic screenplay. Fantastic cast (all except Kirsten Dunst, but then again she does have snaggleteeth so maybe I can forgive them for trying to go for real-looking vampire teeth so they can save on the budget for special effects.)

Christian Slater is the curious, kinda-jaded, reporter conducting an interview with the vampire, Luis (Brad Pitt). Luis is a tortured vampire who is happy to tell his story that starts in the year 1791 - New Orleans and leads all the way up to present day.

Lestat (Tom Cruise)is a vampire that comes out of the shadows and seeks out Luis. He asks him first if he wants to become a vampire and join him as a hetero lifemate and he says yes but then once he is made immortal, he is like, "I immediately regret this decision. I didn't know I was actually going to have to eat people. " To avoid eating people, he just eats the animals and comes off as a total gaylord to Lestat who at first thinks its funny and cute but then you can see it gets on his nerves.

Luis gets frustrated as he notices all the slaves on the plantation can sense evil and are scared shitless of him and his new pal, Lestat. So, he burns his own house down and sets his slaves free. They leave their nice, neat flaming little shit and set on for traveling adventures. Lestat is a ruthless, badass vampire and takes pride in his vampiric work while Luis is still a bitch who can't deal. He's all set on breaking up with Lestat and moving on to be miserable elsewhere. Then Lestat makes a vampire kid (Snaggletooth) to manipulate Luis into staying with him. She takes to vampire life well and then turns into a screaming brat who tortures your ears during several scenes of overacting and bitch-fits. "Feck You! This is a house of lies!" It gets old real quick and you are supposed to sympathize and understand what it must be like living as a forever-young, sheltered vampire with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as your 2 dads. The pscyho bitch scenes are all painful to watch and listen to and all you want while they are happening is for her to stop talking and to go on with the story. "Go ON with the Chlorafil."

The story takes some more turns after that on a dark, long and winding road. The story gets weirder and better. The ending was awesome, closing in an awesome cover of "Sympathy for the Devil" by Guns N' Roses.

This was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I would watch it with my best friend and we would talk about the man-candy and what it might be like to be a vampiric creature of the night and how much Kirsten Dunst sucks. 1995, good times.

Now, of course, it has a bit of a nostalgic feel to it. I can pretty much say all the dialoge along with the movie and remember all the parts I used to find funny with my friends. I think I can draw new things from it as well. I am able to notice different things and appreciate it different things such as cinematography and art direction of the film. A more educated view of film that I've picked up from the college years. That and I have more jokes now to blurt out during the movie with Tom Cruise losing his mind to Scientology and all. Its great fun.

Whatsa matter, Greit, You got somethin' against guys with hair?

THE GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING (Cillian Murphy movie marathon: Day 5)


Before I realized Cillian Murphy was in this movie and added it to the marathon, I figured this movie was way to boring for my taste and never would have seen this movie otherwise. Once this movie came to us in the mail, I actually gave this movie a fair shot and stayed with it the entire way through.

Of course, this movie WAS really boring and went nowhere. Thats why they couldn't come up with a more creative title to the movie. They were either being lazy or more likely, they didn't have much to go off of so GWTPE is the best they could do.

Anyway, a brief recap: Greit is a girl who had to go be a maid because her real family was poor and blind. So she goes to work for this family of weirdos. Colin Firth has really long hair. He's the artist that paints people mostly and he's really good and sponsored by the rich bajillionaire (the guy from Full Monty). His wife is weird and bitchy. Her mom is even weirder and scary. Like someone out of the Tom Petty "Dont Come Around Here No More" video. A brat kid that I think was a girl but I'm not sure. Greit has to live with these people and clean around them. We watch that for about half the movie. She shows interest in the artist. He sees something in her and wants to paint her. The whole time she wears a bonnet, hiding her hair and looking like Marilyn Manson. Seriously. With no hair, Scarlet looks like Marilyn Manson. With less make-up of course.

So anyway, yeah, for the whole first half of the movie, this is going on. Not much else. I'm sitting here thinking, OK. Where's Cillian? Before seeing this film, I heard of a really hot "love scene" involving Cillian and I waited and waited for that part in this movie. I was like, "Well, the movie kind of sucks for far and is kind of boring but at least I have that love scene to look forward to." Can we please get some Cillian up in herrre? Well, some boring scenes of cleaning shit go by and finally, Greit goes to the butcher shop. and there he is. behind all the meat. Looking a little like an elf from Lord Of the Rings with that long hair and crazy peasant clothes but finally, we are getting a little Cillian action. Greit is picking up some fish and then complains it isnt fresh enough. Cillian then gives her a fresher bag and she doesn't even say thank you. She says "Thats better". What a bitch. She's a peasant maid and she's acting like she some kind of heiress. Its the olden days. What did she expect? A big semi truck in the back is making speedy deliveries of fresh packaged fish? The fish came with eyeballs.

Cillian took a liking to her anyway, probably out of loneliness and desperation. He comes around again to her on the street and asks her out. "Hey, you're the one who ordered haggas, right?" She accepts his date, kind of. Like "Look, I heard this guy I like was going to paint me so I'm going to wait and see what happens there...That sounds great. Yeah." And he's like "So, is that like, like a yes? or...?" and Greit is like, "I thought I made it perfectly clear. If everything falls apart...maybe." and Cillian is like "I'm going to hold you to that!"

She goes back to her job and things are all crazy. With the paintings and the brat kid making her life hell and the bitchy lady. I guess the painter agreed to make a secret painting of Greit for the rich guy. She's doing that gig and its all secretive and the bitchy wife is getting jealous but she doesnt know whats going on. The painter is like "You know what this paining needs?...A really large over-sized pearl earring." And his scary mom steals them from the bitch wife and Greit wears them for the painting.

Meanwhile, I'm STILL waiting for the love scene. She ends up going for a walk with Cillian. I guess that qualifies as a "date". They stop and I guess they start making out. I'm seeing her face, hair still hidden in bonnet. I'm not seeing much of his face. They are standing up. Is this the love scene? Did they even have sex? or was that just an awkward body shake? Wow. That was weak. What was that? I felt so jipped. Not only do you not see much of anything but 2 clothed people making out or whatever, but there was no chemistry between them whatsoever. It was like she was settling for him and not that into it. I'm not sure if that was what it was supposed to look like but NO PASSION. No passion at all. No passion. No chemistry. That sucked.

If it was me, I would make out with him standing up. Then tackle him down to the grass. Then make sweet love to him. Then bring him lasgna at his work, rub his shoulders and ask if he needs any help linking his sausage.Maybe even drop him little butcher love notes like, MEAT ME AFTER WORK. Then go grab an ale afterwards and make love to him so more. What was her problem? He was right there, wanting to get to know her and she gives him the cold fish right back. Like, "Alright, alright, I guess I'll make out with you. Is this going to take long? I've got paintings to pose for." Poor Cillian.

So, they make out or whatever and I'm not sure if its then or another dull date they were on when he asks her to marry him. To blow off that jerk painter she was seeing that night and come with him to live free as peasants. and she's like "..how about No." and he's like, "...Please?". Its kind of a no-brainer. But she already looks like she has no hair with that bonnet covering everything, why not look like she has no brain too? Maybe it died from not EVER taking the bonnet off and giving it some air. I guess because she ended up giving him the same bullshit response as before. She basically then told him "I dunno. I've got this whole maid/paining gig. I should really concentrate on my career right now. If everything falls apart...Maybe. Don't hold your breath or anything though." WHat IS that??

Once again, if it was ME, I would have thrown my arms around him and cried "YES! YES! YES! Lets get married! I frickin' Love you! We'll get married on top of a mountain with trumpets and flowers and gardens of fresh herbs and we will start a family band and we'll tour the countryside and weirdo art family won't be invited." And THEN Greit gets kicked out of the house for...being in the painting or something? And She STILL doesn't end up in Butcher Boy's sweet lovin' arms, she decides she would rather hold out. WHAT AN IDIOT! WHAT A LOSER! ...GOOD. GOod. More butcher boy for me and you. He should have his own movie. Where his other peasant friends and him get a place together and start a fraternity to help him get over her. You can call it REALLY Old School.