Monday Mini Movie Reviews

Drag Me To Hell
Holy god this was great. So much fun...from the car fight in the beginning to the completely awesome ending. Staples, weird puke, great sound, the fucking goat! I'll be watching this again soon. The rainy grave scene was especially cool. 10/10

Bad Santa
Annual viewing, still awesome.
"I beat the shit out of some kids today. But it was for a purpose"
"I loved a woman who wasn't clean"
"It's a wooden pickle"
8/10

Inglorious Basterds
I've been thinking about this one for the last few days (which is a good sign for any movie, right?), and for a movie about Jews killing Nazis, it was empty. Individual scenes were great, but they're wasted by having stuff like the Samuel L. Jackson voiceover, distracting music, and general Tarantino-ness. With all that talk about "The Jew Bear" I was expecting some huge badass, so when Eli Roth came out after all that buildup I was let down. Mike Myers?? There weren't developed human characters...just Jews or Nazis. And however justified, the Basterds were just as sadistic as the Nazis. It seems like Tarantino was using WWII to kinda write himself a blank check. Still, there was some great acting (Landa) and it was super watchable and fun at times. You could see a great movie in there somewhere. I wonder...is Tarantino trying to make a great movie, or just a fun jerkoff reference-laden "watching Nazis die is awesome" kinda movie? Sometimes I think it's the former...and he would be wrong...but if not, ok. On the whole it was really well done. 7/10

The Village
Yeah, The Happening was completely horrible in many, many entertaining ways, but his premises are always intriguing. I'd rather watch his movies than most stuff coming out of Hollywood. The Village is not a bad movie. When this first came out, I think most people were so focused on the various twists that they didn't pay attention to the relationships between the characters and the themes, which work. The scenes between Bryce Dallas Howard and Joaquin Phoenix are beautiful. When he grabs her hand during the wedding party...oh man. Sure, there are many ridiculous, convenient things about this movie. Why does everything in the village need to be historically accurate for 1897? A complete no-fly zone? The retarded dude finds a suit in the floorboards and conveniently knows how to use it? Why didn't one of the elders go get the medicine? Because there would be no movie. But really...those things didn't bother me as much as they should have. It's well acted, the love story is great, it's beautifully shot, and the themes are interesting. It's about human nature...love, fear, and hope. That makes up for some of the eye rolly Shyamalan devices. "Magic rocks"?? Come on... 5.5/10

Mew In Chicago - 12/7/09

I rarely write anything inspired by pure hate because, really....why? Plus it takes a lot to get me upset. But last night I was raging pissed like I haven't been in a while. Like "balling up your hands and wanting to punch so badly" mad. I had a perfect Scandinavian evening lined up - heading down to Ikea for some home crap shopping and Swedeballs, and then off to The Metro to see Mew. Awesome. I've loved Mew for a while but never thought I'd see them beacause they're from Demark, so why would they come to the midwest? So when I heard they were playing their own show in Chicago I was very, very excited. After a struggle through traffic (another reason why I have no desire to live in a super big city), we got to the venue right on time and got a drink. The openers weren't completely shitty, which was a nice surprise, and the bass player looked just like a grown up DJ Conner. Awwww.

So Mew starts. They open with the first few songs off And The Glass Handed Kites (my favorite), and sound AWESOME. Unfortunately I have this giant woman in front of me bouncing around with a dumb hat, but ok, it's not her fault she's giant, so I decide to move closer to the stage. There's plenty of room and Mew is now like 10 feet away from me. Since I'm way on the right side of the stage, it's much less crowded. There was space for at least 5 large people around me. So I signal for Holly to come stand up by me, because we're both around the same height at 5'3" and she's behind a super tall guy. And like I said, there's plenty of room. Fucking PLENTY. As I signal for Holly to come up by me, the giant asshole she's behind gives me the "cut off at the neck" "no" signal. I was honestly shocked. Seriously, you're not going to let this tiny woman go in front of you where many people could comfortably fit?? I yelled, "Are you fucking kidding me??!" Maybe I'm used to death metal shows, but shit was not tight at all. You're at a general admission show asshole, this is not the fucking DMV. People might move around, and maybe even touch you. What a giant pussy. Anyway...I have never understood the desire to punch more than I did in that moment. I'm a very, very easygoing person, but this fucking prick and his faux hawk and asshole face had my heart racing. I seriously felt like one of those moms whose fight or flight instinct kicks in and she moves cars to save her childrens' lives and shit. So I yelled at him a little more...I remembered I yelled "that's mean" and pointed out the fact that he had a foot on both of us, and he just looked at me with his smug hipster face (yeah the word is overused but it couldn't have possibly been any more accurate). God I wanted to kill. But he was too much of a bitch to even say anything back to me so it fizzled out and I went and stood by Holly.

So after a few songs of heightened adrenaline levels, I decide that this fuck is not going to ruin Mew for me, so I try to put it out of my mind. About a song later he leaves, we move up, and I instinctively say to the girl who was with him, "Your boyfriend is a fucking asshole". She looked at me with possibly the dumbest face I've ever seen and didn't say anything. I don't even know if she comprehended what I was saying. I'm sure her dumb hair and outfit made her look dumber, but seriously...either defend him or apologize for his actions, but that face...ugh. I think at that point I wasn't really mad anymore, I just wanted her to understand why her boyfriend was an asshole, and maybe learn something about how to treat other humans, but it wasn't getting through. But I guess for the most part if people are assholes, it's because they don't know any better.

Really...Mew was great. Just beautiful. The setlist went something like Circuitry Of The Wolf, Chinaberry Tree, Special, Zookeeper's Boy, New Terrain, Introducing Palace Players, 156, Repeater Beater, Hawaii, Am I Wry? No, Silas The Magic Car, Sometimes Life Isn't Easy, Snow Brigade, Apocalypso, Beach, Louise Louisa. Click here to see some live footage - it was like that with 6oo other people instead of a giant venue in Copenhagen. I got verklempt.

The asshole quotient at this show was higher than I've ever seen, but like I said, maybe I'm just used to metal shows in Milwaukee, where people are actually nice and into having fun. Everything on these people just seemed so put on...from the overly styled hair, ill fitting pants, stupid fuzzy boots, non-prescription glasses, train conductor hats while not train conducting, constant gazes around to see who's looking at them, etc. I just don't see it as much in Milwaukee. I have never been so happy to see the "Wisconsin Welcomes You" sign as I was at about 11:30 last night. I would rather hang out with a million West Allis white trash weirdos with feathered hair and missing teeth than than see another show with Chicago's "indie" crowd. At least they will give you a genuine version of themselves and probably a good time. So take a moment today and be thankful that you can enjoy things without the worry about how you look, who's watching, or how big of a heartless pussy you are. I'm going to listen to some Mortal Decay and maybe even some fucking Amy Grant and it's going to be awesome...