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