Joe

 Joe IMDb

 Joe is a badass drama.  Shot almost entirely in the Great Austin area.  It had some humor but the entire thing is a hardcore drama.  Fucking Nicholas Cage plays a hard working man and a rebel.  He bonds with this one fifteen year old kid who gets abused by his drunken father.  Shit goes down between Joe and the kid's father and this other drugged up town bully.   Love some of the tension and and little moments with Joe.  Example: in one scene, he's all crazed up and goes to this whorehouse but there's this vicious dog there. Joe gets back in his truck, picks up his dog, comes back, and he lets his dog fight the other vicious dog while he goes in and gets oral sex from an older lady.  Directed by the one dude who made Pineapple Express and Your Highness.

It is a damn good movie to see.
And if it's on sale, okay to buy.

Ragnarok

Ragnarok IMDb 

87 days until Fantastic Fest 2015.  Some people are probably annoyed by my excitement but fuck it.  I wanted to watch a Fantastic Fest movie on the 90 days countdown but I was out of town.  So here I am with this monster movie from 2013.  It's from Sweden.  I thought it was pretty decent.  It's a straight up monster movie.  Well, ancient monster movie.  An archeologist takes his kids and two other explorers to a certain area where vikings once explored and found something interesting.  There's something there, alright.  And it is not dead.  This reminded me a little bit of Jurassic Park and a little bit of Indiana Jones.  The guy who plays the archeologist aka the dad, is also the guy who plays the main villain in the movie, In Order of Disappearance (one of my favorite Fantastic Fest films last year).

This movie was good to see on Netflix.  Decent adventure/creature movie.

The Wolfpack (2015)

The Wolfpack IMDb

Very interesting documentary we got here.  Decided to catch it at the Alamo Drafthouse last night.  So unbelievable that this actually happened.   If you ever think you're family is weird, stop, check out this story about The Angulo family, and you'll take back everything you thought about your own family.  Not that I think my family is weird. Just saying it in general.  This is literally one of the most bizarre documentaries I've ever seen.  It is the story about six brothers who were raised being locked away in an apartment with their sister, mother, and crazy father.  They would go out in the real world maybe once or twice a year.  In order to not go insane, the brothers would watch a shit load of movies and they would re-enact their favorite scenes.  The only thing they know about the real world is what they know through movies.  As they get older, they start rebelling and little by little, they start going out into the real world.  You have to see it to believe it.  I think that's one of the slogans for the doc.  The awesome parts were the homemade movie re-enactments.  Pulp Fiction!  They do a lot of Pulp Fiction (my favorite movie of all time).  They do Reservoir Dogs, The Dark Knight, and more.  The last part of the doc gets very bizarre and there are things that were left unanswered and other questions were drawn.  Other than that, very interesting.  Gotta see it once in your life, especially if you're a cinephile.  Not a priority though.  Good Thanksgiving movie.   

7 out of 10.

Wild Tales

Wild Tales IMDb 

Wow!  This was badass.  I was sucked in within the first 5 minutes.  It's a dark comedy from Argentina that has 6 different tales.  One of the main themes is revenge.  Oh yeah,  my type of movie.  The main message though is what we humans are capable of during heated moments.  How some people show their "savage" side.  Hence, the title of the movie.  This was nominated for Best Foreign Film at this year's Oscars.  If it were up to me, this should've won.  My favorite story is the first story.  The intro to this movie.  Straight up revenge story to set the mood.  Revenge is a dish best served cold.  The last two stories weren't really big on the revenge part but very big on the wild side.  The last story had a strange ending.  Good stuff, though.  The music was also good.  Loved it, that's all I have to say.  

Worth checking out.  Redbox has it.  Worth buying as well.  Adding this to my Foreign Section.

Zatoichi At Large

Zatoichi At Large IMDb 

The Zatoichi saga continues with this ruthless one. Lots of blood has been shed and there will be lots more blood that needs to be shed.  This one had funny exaggerated yakuzas.  It also had a few cheesy scenes that made the overall experience bizarre.  At some point here, Zatoichi gets captured and bullied for a bit, but, not for long.  Good fighting scenes.  Typical plot. Nothing new or exciting but good enough for Zatoichi fans.  My favorite moment is when old Zatoichi here swings his sword and cuts another sword in half.  Every town he goes to, people underestimate him because he's blind.  In the end, all evil men are punished and those left behind will know the legend.  Two more movies and I'm done with the series.  I'm hoping to do one next week and have a special sake and rice ball night with the last film next month.

That's all I have.  Writers block is a bitch.  I need to lay off the booze and sober up for a while.  Enough of my bullshit.  Zatoichi rules. 

Inside Out (2015)

Inside Out IMDb 

Pixar is back with another original and clever story.  A story all about emotions.  There's Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear.  Awesome voices by the way. Probably the best part of the movie.  Now, a lot of people praised this as something special and emotional.  It wasn't quite up there for me.  I mean, there are some good special scenes but it didn't hit me like other Pixar movies have done before.  I felt the chills shed a tear towards the end of Toy Story 3.  The first 10 minutes of UP was a tearjerker.  Toy Story, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille. and Wall-E have a special place in my heart.  Inside Out was cool to see and I love the originality but that's all I have to say.  Awesome Pixar movie to see but maybe if you lower your expectations, this would be more special to you.  It was cool seeing this with my son at the Alamo Drafthouse.  We ordered a cheese pizza with broccoli on my side just for this movie.  We also sneaked in cotton candy because one of the characters is partially cotton candy.  That's it.  Amy Poehler kicked ass voicing Joy.

Giving this one a 7 out of 10.

Hitchcock Thursday: The Trouble With Harry

The Trouble with Harry IMDb

This is the weirdest Hitchcock movie I've seen so far.  Little bit of dark comedy and a little bit of absurdity.  Poor Harry.  Harry is a guy who is found dead in the middle of the woods by a few people.  The first one who sees him is an old hunter who thinks he accidentally shot Harry.  Then a few of the townspeople just out of random are also walking the through the woods.  Each of them stare at the body for a little bit and they move on.  No big deal.  No cops are called.  This is the type of weird movie I'm talking about.  Coen Brothers style.  It becomes a "whodunit" movie after a while.  My friend Casey and I were laughing during some parts, mainly due to the absurdity nature of the movie.  I wonder how this movie would be like if under the influence of certain things.  Maybe one day.   

The most bizarre Hitchcock movie was alright to see.  Not for everyone.  If you're a fan of Weekend at Bernies and Death Becomes Her, then this is worth checking out.

Remembrance

Remembrance IMDb

I still had some German onion pie left from the previous movie, so later at night I've looked into my Netflix list to see what German movies were there to see.  And here we are.  I had this one on there because my co-worker, Melanie, told me about it.  I'm a fan of World War 2 movies so it was only right.  This movie was original.  Not your typical concentration camp movie.  They go back and forth between the 70's and the past during the holocaust.  A married woman figures out that her lover that saved her life during those times is still alive.  It was a bit confusing at first but it was pretty much a straightforward kind of movie.  Romantic too.  I like the ending where the two lovers are about to meet and it goes to black (Kind of like the way they ended "Under the Same Moon"). 

Good to check out if you're in the mood for a WW2 drama.  It's part English and part German.

Nothing Bad Can Happen

Nothing Bad Can Happen IMDb 

It is 99 days until Fantastic Fest 2015 and today I've decided to check out this FF alumni.  A crazy German drama/thriller.  It's crazy because of some of the crap that happens.  It's crazy because it's based on a true story. It's crazy because it's from fucking Germany.  Okay, so it's not that crazy but there are some dramatic parts.  So the main character is a "Jesus Freak."  He's a punk rocker who preaches Jesus.  He meets this one family who are non-believers.  The head of the family befriends him and takes him in and little by little he starts torturing the hell out of this "Jesus Freak."  It's pretty much straightforward.  No twists and turns.  Messed up ending, especially for our main character.  So yeah, bad things can happen.

Didn't quite deliver but this is more about the characters rather than the plot.

 

Made Zwiebelkuchen (German Onion Pie) for this movie.

Cadillac Records

 Cadillac Records IMDb

I had no idea this had to do with Muddy Waters.  Even Chuck Berry is part of the story.  The story of Cadillac Records.  Adrien Brody plays the producer for the record company.  I was recommended to this by my friend, Cici (which she saw it with me this past weekend).  Decent story about a good music era.  Didn't care too much about Beyonce's character but maybe because it's fucking Beyonce.  Good soundtrack, of course.  It was awesome seeing Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.  

Good solid entertainment.  Must have gin with it.

Jurassic World (2015)

Jurassic World IMDb 

Life finds a way!  I just wanted to start this blog post with that line.  So I purposely didn't read
any reviews or even went to Rotten Tomatoes until after I saw the movie.  I wanted to go in with a clear mind.  Here are my thoughts: I liked it for a big blockbuster but nothing special or magic like the first one.  Not enough to see it again.  It entertained and the dinosaurs were great, well, most of them.  Some decent thrills.  The things I didn't like was some of the poorly written characters and some unnecessary stuff.  I had a big problem with our main character.  No, I'm not talking about Chris Pratt's character.  I'm talking about Claire played Bryce Dallas Howard.  She was very unlikeable so I wanted bad things to happen to her like getting eaten by a dinosaur.  Since this is Holywood, her character is predictable.  After halfway through, her character changes from a cold blooded business woman to a caring aunt and respectful human being.  I hated all the scenes where she was running all over the place with high heels on the whole time (at least they look like high heels to me).  Kudos to Chris Pratt for playing a different role from his usual comedic slacker roles.  He's a badass here except that they made his character way too smart. A lot of other things I didn't like but I'm not going into too much detail here.  Anyways, there was one big payoff towards the end: the dinosaur vs dinosaur fight!  I'm not naming names so this is a bit of a spoiler but not too much.  That's it.  They had some very good ideas but not well developed.

If you plan to see it at some point in your life, my advice is to see it as big as possible.
Okay popcorn movie.
Giving this a 6 out of 10.

Daredevil

Daredevil IMDb 

These past few weeks, I've been watching the first season of Daredevil on Netflix.  Finished it this morning.  Enjoyed it.  I've decided to rent this Ben Affleck version just for kicks.  Well, I now know why this sucks.  I saw the theatrical version because Vulcan Video didn't have the director's cut at the time.  It was lame for a lot of reasons, mainly due to cheesy sequences that are meant to be serious.  The action didn't stand out either.  The only cool thing about it was Bullseye played by Colin Farrell.  The Kingpin (my favorite Marvel villain) was disappointing.  I guess I should have seen this a long time ago to get it out of the way.  But, this just made me like the show a whole lot better.  Better casting.  Better writing.  I mean, it's not fair to compare.  The movie was made to be a brainless blockbuster.  That's all I got.  

I might check out the director's cut someday, which I've heard is way better.

 Made Devil's Food Waffles to go with the last two episodes of Season One this morning.  Can't wait for Season 2 next year with my all time favorite Marvel character, The Punisher. 

Horns

Horns IMDb 

This started out really good, surprisingly.  Dark comedy at its best.  Good premise.  All of a sudden Harry Potter grows horns and nobody cares but him.  Everyone is just terrified of him because he is suspected of killing his girlfriend.  Everything is fine and dandy until the second half where everything gets slow and darker, then the last 30 minutes, it went too out there for my taste.  If they would have kept up the momentum from the first half, this would be a movie I'd be talking to a lot of people about.  Fuck it.  Can't win them all.

This was shown at Fantastic Fest last year.  Caught it on Netflix on a late Tuesday night.

Zombeavers

Zombeavers IMDb

2nd half of my Zombie Double Feature Sunday.  And what a coincidence that [REC] 4 featured a zombie monkey?  This is all about beavers.  Well, it's a campy cabin horror spoof.  Good setup.  Kind of like the cheesy set up to Return of the Living Dead.  Beavers look fake as hell on purpose.  Surprisingly, the characters were not that annoying.  Maybe because they were supposed to be annoying so it didn't bother me.  These fucking beavers didn't take no for an answer.  Would have been cool to see the bear that came out here as a zombie or the poor innocent dog they killed.  Oops, spoiler alert.  Zombeavers was some fun.  Not too much fun but enough to say, "yeah, that was kind of good for cheesy movie."   

Not worth buying but checking out for cabin in the woods fun.  

Can't wait for Zombees.  Another spoiler.  Fuck me! I'm out.

[REC] 4: Apocalipsis

 [REC] 4 IMDb

Pulled a zombie double feature on this fine Sunday afternoon.  Director Jaume Balaguero is back and did justice to the REC franchise.  Yeah, I wasn't a big fan of part 2 but it was okay comparing to the terrible part 3.  REC 4 is completely non found footage.  Most of it takes place in a ship.  It continues where part 2 left off.  Here we have a group of doctors trying to find an antidote to this so called crazy virus.  All of a sudden, a patient on board has the virus and hell breaks loose.  Not to mention the monkey they were experimenting on.  Oh shit! Zombie monkey!  Lots of good gore in the second half.  Good choice of weapon: a boat engine.  Oh yeah!  Our main female character from the first movie is back again.  She appeared in the last 10 minutes or so in part two.  Enough of that.  Good zombie movie on a ship, that's for sure.  

Worth checking out.  

Hell, I'll buy it at a decent price for my zombie section.  

Fact:  Director Jaume Balaguero directed my number two favorite film of 2011, Sleep Tight. 

Black Sea

Black Sea IMDb

I enjoyed most of this crazy suspense submarine movie.  Good plot, well, except for a few things that bothered me.  The main part that made this from being perfect was the all of a sudden change of character of our main lead towards the end.  But for a Redbox rental, totally worth it.  Never a dull moment.  Love that there's a twist on here about halfway through.  Kudos for not having that twist towards the end like others movies do.  It was a bit scary during the scenes where three divers exit the submarine in order to find the nazi submarine.  Maybe it's me because, the deep dark ocean terrifies me.  So, those scenes did it. It was a suspenseful Friday night indeed.

This movie is definitely worth checking out. 

No more bullshit from me.

The Vicious Kind

The Vicious Kind IMDb 

My friend Cassandra from work has been bugging me about seeing this movie for a while so we finally saw it last night.  I'm not an Adam Scott fan but the more I see episodes of Parks and Recreation, the more I respect him as an actor.  He does very good here as an asshole.  He got his heart broken and lives a very negative life.  Then his brother's new girlfriend resembles his old girlfriend and crazy shit happens.  Throw in J.K Simmons who plays an asshole father and we have ourselves a decent dysfunctional family dramedy.  In other words, a more serious less quirky Wes Anderson filmwithout the nice bells and whistles.

Alright to see, especially if you support independent films.

Time Travel Tuesday: Frequency

Frequency IMDb 

This is a very original take on time travel.  It's more of a mystery but time travel is part of the plot.
It's a great father and son movie too.  I chose to do this for the month of June because of Father's Day.  It's hard to explain the plot. Hell, the movie gets very confusing but the murder mystery part makes it easy.  So our main character accidentally makes contact with his dad who is talking to him from 30 years in the past.  They're communicating using radio frequencies.  So we go back in forth between the 60's and the 90's.  His future son helps his dad make some changes and it alters the future.  Whoa!  Then somehow they throw in a serial killer plot in there and now the father and son must solve this mystery through time.  Why didn't I see this earlier?

Good recommendation! 
The best father and son time travel and murder mystery movie I've seen. 

The Connection

The Connection IMDb

Love me a good gangster film.  When I first saw the trailer to this French film earlier in the year, I knew it was going to be something decent.  I had to see it on the big screen.  Now, it's not going to get points for originality.  Nothing new or fresh for the genre.  This is about the performances and a few good moments.  This is a clear example of "don't hate the player, hate the game."  Tragic fucking story with a killer soundtrack.  It played in the festival circuit last year and Drafthouse Films now owns it.    

Recommended for fans of Gangster and Foreign Films.  For some reason, this reminded me of a Spanish movie called, Unit 7 (which I bought no so long ago).  Might need to see that one soon.

The Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar location had a whole big wall for this in the lobby.  There were bricks of heroin too.  Hell of a party.  Had me French Press Coffee with this one.