Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (2014)

Sin City 2 IMDb

I went in with low expectations to this long awaited sequel and I was still disappointed.  I'm a big fan of the first one.  It is probably my favorite Robert Rodriguez movie to date (well, a tied with From Dusk Til Dawn).  So I was excited for this sequel up until sometime after the first trailer came out.  My gut feeling was telling me that this was going to flop.  Damn it!  I hate to say it but one of my favorite directors is losing his touch.  First off, there were some plotholes in this movie that need more explanation.  The stories seemed very weak.  Yeah, there were some good kills and awesome sequences, but, overall, the stories didn't deliver.  The ending sucked.  I'm not a Jessica Alba fan, she's cute and all, but her acting and carrying a big chunk of the movie didn't do it for me.  Please don't make part 3. Part one was innovated and fresh.  This one seemed like they were milking it.  

I wouldn't recommend this.  Unfortunately, I'm going to have to buy it for my Rodriguez section.  Who knows, I may like it the second time around.  I was buzzed while watching this movie.  My brothers came to town for a guys weekend and started this day with a local brewery tour.  

Saw this at the newly remodeled Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar location.  I can't wait to live here for a whole week during Fantastic Fest.

Breathless

Breathless IMDb

Ladies and gentlemen, there are 23 more days until Fantastic Fest.  Those of you that know me, know how important that festival is for me.  This will be my 6th year going.  Tonight,  I decided to watch this Korean Crime Drama that was shown in my first year of Fantastic Fest (2009).  It's pretty much a downer.  Not a feel good movie.  It reminded me of a few other Korean dramas where everything is shit and makes you feel like it too.  Korean films like Pieta, The Fake, and Bad Guy are some examples.   There's a lot of brutal violence in this one, especially towards women.  I felt like reporting myself for domestic violence just for watching it, and I live by myself.  I like how our main character isn't likeable in the first half but he becomes a semi-sympathetic character towards the end.  It's about this debt collector for a gangster that goes around beating up people and collecting money. He meets this high school girl and they bond (in a non-sexual way).  He then slowly gets tired of the same old crap and starts changing.  

Overall,  I was into it as a hard drama but definitely not a movie I would want to buy or see again.  I would only recommend it to those who love their Asian cinema and are in the mood for some drama (duh!).

Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame

Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame IMDb

Beautiful martial arts/Chinese drama.  It drags on a little bit but worth it for some of those magical martial art sequences.   The poster to this says, "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" meets "Sherlock Holmes."  Son of a bitches are right about that.  I admit, the story may be silly at times. Other times, it's serious.  Detective Dee is powerful.  Nobody can't mess with him.  He's also very honorable.   If this was just a bit shorter, I might have enjoyed it more.  

This is worth a peek if you're in the mood for a "cartoony" martial arts flick.  Other than that, nothing special. 

Made a spicy teriyaki shrimp dish earlier today so I was obviously in the mood for a Chinese movie.

Robot Friday: Westworld

Westworld IMDb

Robots go crazy in this pretty cool 70's sci-fi flick.  It has a nice setup.   There's an amusement park where people go and live out fantasies in three different worlds.  One of them is Westworld. You're in the wild west here and mostly everyone in this town is a robot.  Everything is fine and dandy until a malfunction happens at this park. Sound familiar?   Does Jurassic Park ring a bell?  The director and writer of this film happens to be the writer for Jurassic Park.  Westworld came out 20 years before.  There's a badass western chase scene between our main visitor and a robot gunslinger played by Yul Brynner.  Now, I've only seen two other movies with Yul Brynner (Adios, Sabata and The Magnificent Seven), but everytime I see him on screen, he plays a pretty awesome gunslinger. 

This was interesting to see for Robot Friday considering I also have Western Wednesday this year. This is definitely more robot than western.   There's a sequel called Futureworld.  Maybe I'll check it out someday.

French Cinema Night: La Haine

La Haine IMDb

This French film was so awesome. I actually didn't think I was going to enjoy it as much as I did.  I thought it was going to be too artsy but it really wasn't.  It was a good balance.  First and foremost,
a lot of the shots here were fucking spectacular.  Genious!  The story deals with social issues in France especially in the ghettos.  We follow three friends throughout the whole movie and it takes place in a day in the life of these people.  Lots of police brutality, lots of people retaliating, wait, that sounds so familiar. Could it be all the peaceful stuff happening in Ferguson, Missouri?  Maybe. 
This movie reminded me of the movies "Kids" and Martin Scorsese's "Mean Streets."
And speaking of Scorsese, there was a moment here where they paid tribute
to Taxi Driver (You looking at me? Scene).  Vincent Cassel is one of the main characters and
he was so badass.  Lots of good things to say about this movie. Good moments like a DJ opening up his window in the middle of the day and jamming to the "Fuck the Police" song that was used in Attack The Block.  That's it, this would make a great double feature with Attack the Block.

I'm buying this movie.  I can't wait to see it again. 
Highly Recommended!

Dom Hemingway

Dom Hemingway IMDb

Jude Law turns to a psychotic madman in this wild dark comedy.  Right from the start,  you're in for a fucking ride.  Hemingway is in prison doing a long monologue while receiving oral from another prisoner, setting the mood for the rest of the movie.  The best thing about this movie is the crazy dialogue spoken by Hemingway.  He kills anything with his words.  Reminded me of one of my favorite gangster movies, Sexy Beast.  The payoff to Dom Hemingway was okay.  Overall, a good old solid time.

Worth renting for sure.  I may consider buying it one day.  It's not all the time that you see Jude Law this way.

Bad Words

Bad Words IMDb

Shit! Fuck! Son of a gun!  This movie was pretty cool.  This is a movie that turns into a semi-revenge story with a twist at the end.  It's a little sweet at times but most times is pretty vulgar.  Directed by and starring Jason Bateman.  I enjoyed it, especially the first 30 minutes.   The rest was okay.  Some of the best moments were the moments with Jason Bateman's character and the little Indian kid.  This probably would've been a lot funnier if I was drinking with it, but I still didn't mind it. A lot of crazy dialogue, but with a movie with this title, you can't expect anything different.   Might make a good double feature with Billy Madison, even though this one is a little more serious. 

Worth it as a rental if you're in the mood for a vulgar comedy.

Sword of the Assassin

Sword of the Assassin IMDb

This Vietnamese Martial Arts/Revenge movie was okay.  I'm a big fan of revenge films so I expected this to deliver.  There were some good fight scenes and a lot of dramatic moments.  Beautiful cinematography.   Some of the landscapes were awesome.   Would love to visit those areas someday.  The story is about this boy whose family were executed by the government.   He gets raised by a Buddhist and martial arts expert.   12 years later, he's out and wanting revenge.  Then things get more complicated and they introduce this forbidden blood letter angle.  This letter has the proof to bring justice to our main character's family name.  The revenge plot gets preachy.  I wanted more fights and violent scenes but sometimes you can't have everything.   Overall,  it was okay.  Decent story.  Apparently every character here has a very good photographic memory about what happened 12 years before.  

Okay to see once and especially with a big bowl of Pho.  

Had me some Pho earlier in the day to cure a bad hangover.   This is also the reason why I decided to watch a Vietnamese movie at the last minute.  Luckily,  Netflix had this one.

Sharknado

Sharknado IMDb

I was totally blown away with this movie.  I never seen anything as good as this.  I almost cried towards the end because I didn't want this to end.  I want more, dammit.  Okay, I'll stop with the sarcasm.  Saw this so called "bad movie" because it's Shark Week and hell, I wanted to see what the big deal was.  I don't want to trash a movie so I'll just say a few things: bad acting, bad story,  and bad cgi.  Wish the characters could've been more interesting and funny. That would've added some value to this.  Tara Reid and Ian Zeiring? Wish they died in this movie but they're the main characters and heroes that save Los Angeles from the storm of sharks.  Oops, I spoiled it.  Now you can't watch this movie.

More sarcasm: I would recommend buying this and watching it every week.  Get the steelbook! 

Had me some Land Shark Lagers to make this movie even more interesting.  Milk was a bad choice!

Yatterman

Yatterman IMDb

Back in 2009, during my first Fantastic Fest, this was on my priority list but I only had a half day badge that year, so I didn't get to see a lot.  5 years later, and here we are.  This is an over the top action Japanese film by Takashi Miike.  Based on a Japanese comic.  This is actually kid friendly. Lots of fighting and adult situations but there's nothing graphic or gory like other Japanese over the top movies.  In other words, this isn't a splatterfest.  Still, I enjoyed some of it.  Some scenes were ridiculous but fun.  Love the music here.  Our main characters are superheroes protecting the world using their high tech gadgets.  The main villains also use high tech weapons.  There are several battles with giant robots.  But, I don't consider this a robot movie even though we see robots in more than half of the film.  So, I'm not cheating on Robot Friday.  The main characters have to be robots or the main plot has to revolve around robots.  Here, robots are used to help the characters with their tasks.  The main plot is about this evil ghostly alien who is trying to get more powerful by finding parts of this magic skull.   Yatterman and his team are there to beat him to it.

   

It was fun to see but nothing special or that I would recommend.   Gotta have an acquired taste for these types of movies and lose your sense of reality.  On another note, almost one more month until Fantastic Fest 2014. My favorite time of the year.

Western Wednesday: The Alamo

The Alamo IMDb

I finally made it to the Alamo!  An almost three hour epic with John Wayne himself.   I enjoyed the set up to this.  I don't know much about that part of history.  Didn't know Davy Crockett was involved.   This movie drags on a bit in the second half.  Then of course we have the final battle scene at the Alamo.  For a John Wayne movie, I really liked it.  He did good here.  I think this is my favorite John Wayne movie now.  I've only seen three, I think.   As a western,  this was okay.  One of the main scores here is actually the opening song for Inglourious Basterds.  Kudos for my favorite director,  Tarantino,  for paying homage to this long classic.  I had to watch this in two settings due to my busy schedule this week but I got it out of the way.

If you can make the time and haven't yet seen this Western epic, I say it's worth watching.

Awakenings

Awakenings IMDb

Today we lost a great actor and comedian, the one and only,  Robin Williams. Tragic!  Decided to watch one of his movies in his honor,  one that I've never seen before.  Went with this movie that's been in my Shame on Me list for a while.  Awesome drama.  Love me a movie that takes place mostly in a mental hospital.   Williams plays a doctor trying to treat catatonic patients.   Our main patient is none other than Robert De Niro (he was nominated for an Oscar for this role).  Williams uses a new drug and before you know it, the patients are alive again so to speak.  They depend on this drug. De Niro's character gets crazier and starts a minor rebellion.  It's great, man.  Sad ending.  Can't believe this actually happened.

Good movie to see if you're in the mood for a drama.  Feel like seeing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest now.  Good to see Robin Willams in one of his dramatic roles.  He's done a lot of different stuff.  He will always be the World's Greatest Dad (see that Robin Williams movie if you haven't already).

Cool to see the movie world paying tribute to the man.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything

A Fantastic Fear of Everything IMDb

A crazy paranoid dark comedy is a way to describe this movie.   I didn't know this movie existed until recently.   I liked it but this movie isn't for everyone.   Its got a schizophrenic style to it.   As a matter of fact, this movie reminds me of a script I wrote back in 2007 called The Schizophrenic Diaries.  Two of the characters from my script have the same kind of behavior as Simon Pegg's character here.  Every scene in this movie is pretty much whacked out crazy and that's what I like sometimes.  And the music? So fucking awesome how well it goes with the scenes.  There's a song every 5 minutes.   Love it.  Pegg plays a writer trying to write a serial killer novel and like most writers in movies,  they sink to their own imaginary world.  He becomes paranoid and becomes part of his own story in a way.  The laundromat scene was awesome.  The characters are mostly over the top and comic like.  Like I've said, this movie isn't for everyone.   I'm just a sucker for schizophrenic like and mentally unstable characters in movies. 

Good little surprise.  I wouldn't mind buying it.  Others, at your own risk.

Cuban Fury (2014)

Cuban Fury IMDb

This was actually fun for a dance movie.  The comedy was decent.  Now, in order to enjoy this, you must like dancing or at least appreciate it, especially salsa.  I learned how to appreciate salsa over the years. That and swing are the only kinds of dancing I appreciate (besides rock and rolling, of course).  Fuck the other shit.  I saw this movie for one main reason: Nick Frost.  He doesn't disappoint. There's another character here that made it enjoyable.   That character is a Persian gay salsa dancer.  He had the funniest lines plus he references Back to the Future and The Goonies.   Another plus is the one second cameo by none other than Simon Pegg himself.  Hell yeah.  The only character that was making the movie less enjoyable was the exaggerated co-worker scumbag (played by that one dude that comes out in Bridesmaids).  This has a sappy story: an ex salsa expert gets back to the salsa game to impress a girl.  Typical storyline with a predictable happy ending but at least there were some feel good moments and some heart.  

I expected this to suck big time but it was worth the rental.  I say check it out but don't take it seriously, but, only if you know that you're getting yourself into a movie about dancing.  Make sure to have lots of shots or even better, Fanta soda (that's referenced in the movie several times).

  

I made Ropa Vieja (traditional Cuban Shredded Beef) to go with this movie.  Surprisingly, it came out very delicious for my first time.   

The Man from Earth

The Man from Earth IMDb

My friend Mike likes this movie.  He's been telling me about it for ages now.  I joined Vudu and he added me to his circle to share our movie libraries.   And guess what? This movie was on the list. So I took the time to see it this morning. It was interesting to say the least.  It's a low budget Sci-Fi drama.  It all takes place in a cabin.  The whole movie is about this one guy who has his closest friends over before he leaves town and tells them all that he's actually 14,000 years old and he never ages.  He spends the entire time going through history.   Of course most of the circle don't believe him.  It gets a little tiring after a while.  But, that's what you get.  While I do like the concept and the ideals that it brings, overall, I didn't feel it personally.   

I would've went crazy and left the conversation after a short while but these people stayed the whole day and into the night hearing this caveman's story.  It's a movie, I know.  I wouldn't recommended.  Now, I gotta have a long discussion with Mike and see why he likes this a lot.

Cropsey

Cropsey IMDb

This is a documentary that played at Fantastic Fest back in 2009 I believe.   It's about an urban legend surrounding the disappearance of a few girls in a small town in New York.  The scapegoat is this weird guy Andre Rand.  He is the main suspect but some believe there's someone else out there that was more involved.   It was okay to see but it did feel boring at times with lots of narration.   Maybe a U.F.O or alien abduction angle would've been awesome.   The truth is out there, Sculley.
Fast and simple unsolved mysteries kind of documentary.
I probably wouldn't advise it.  Maybe check out some episodes of Unsolved Mysteries instead.

Zatoichi Night: Adventures of Zatoichi

Adventures of Zatoichi IMDb

Zatoichi is pretty much a legend by now.  Every fucker in every village has heard of him.  Some people still don't learn and they try to cross him.   Here, our blind masseur gets interrupted by a poor soul and asks him if he can deliver a letter to this girl in a village. Zatoichi does so.  At that village, everyone is getting ready for the new year celebration.  Zatoichi stays there but then trouble comes to him.  Love the gambling scenes.  Love the fights towards the end.  It seems Zatoichi is faster than ever before.  The snow fight scene is classic.

Overall,  this was pretty good.  Another Zatoichi movie, another journey.  Loving this character.  

Daytime Drinking

Daytime Drinking IMDb

I bought this Korean movie for 4 dollars at Hastings just for kicks.  I had it in my "To Rent" list for a while so I figured what the hell.  It's a dramedy.  It's about this one guy who is having a hard time moving on from a break up. His friends invite him to go out of town.  He does so, but, his friends don't make it.  So, he's all alone in this small town.  Little by little, bottle after bottle, he meets other people.  Eventually the poor bastard finds his way.  I admit, this was a bit boring half of the time.  But, I made it a great experience by pairing the movie with a bottle of Soju.  They drink that in the movie.  It was my first time trying it out.  It's almost like a cold sake with a vodka taste.  Actuallly one little bottle got me drunk. And it was 4 in the afternoon.   So I had my own daytime drinking with this movie. Love the ending to this.   That last scene reminded me of the last scene in 500 Days of Summer. 

Overall, this was okay.  Not a movie I would recommend unless you're in the mood to try soju, this movie goes well with it.

I went to Passionate Spirits, a liquor store in Austin with a Korean section,  and got a bottle of soju.  I had a short conversation with the owner about Korean Cinema and he hooked it up with a couple of Korean drinking glasses.  Fuck yeah!

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Guardians of the Galaxy IMDb

Loved it.  Another movie from Marvel that entertained me to the fullest and went above and beyond.  Only 4 other Marvel movies have done that to me in the past 9 years.  The last two X-Men movies (First Class and Future Past), Iron Man, and The Avengers. I can easily say that Guardians of the Galaxy is my favorite movie this year.  A nice balance between humor and action.  Good flow.  Too many damn good memorable scenes with so many great characters.   I never thought I would say that about a movie with Vin Diesel in it.   A lot of powerful moments that are up there in the same rank as moments in Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.  I would like to mention a few examples, but a movie this good, I rather not spoil one bit.  The soundtrack was also badass.  I need to make a mix tape just like the movie.  I already own almost half of the songs.  One more thing that's probably not important for most people: kudos to director James Gunn (writer of the awesome Dawn of the Dead remake).  He started out writing for Troma Studios (a low budget exploitation Z-movie company).  He wrote Tromeo and Juliet for them. Just a tiny trivia: the president of Troma appears in Guardians for two seconds.   I was the only one in the theater that got excited. Okay, that's it.

Badass movie that I can't wait to own.  Must see movie of the year.

Saw this awesome flick with my friend, Casey, on his birthday.   

I was shot in the leg multiple times and Casey, well, he's in critical condition right now.  Hope he pulls through.