MJLs guest spot movie review – wanted

a weaving loom that relays messages of our destiny, rat bombs, and insults directed at the audience. wanted was absolutely laughable. so much so i cant even bring myself to write this review. haha. lord have mercy that was absurd.

for now,

MJL

MJLs guest spot movie review – the happening

i was with m night all the way up to the lady in the water. at the time, while realizing the full impact of the cliché that is ‘i see dead people,’ the sixth sense was an impressive feat in throwing the viewer for a loop. i also have friends who would consider unbreakable to be one of the top tier superhero movies; and i personally consider signs to be a nail biting thriller. the lady in the water however was the beginning of an unfortunate downfall for m night. and the happening, or the crappening as it was referred to in the theatre by a friend, has in my opinion solidified the end of m night’s career.

i do not think that i am imposing my own interests, or reading into the film ideals that are not inherent, when i say that at its core the movie is a statement about proper consideration for the environment; and for that fact alone i graciously give the crappening a one out of ten rating. but no more, as that fact alone cannot and does not warrant a film to suffer in as many ways as this has.

the first of many failures in this movie was what had to be the directors decision to have every single actor, literally, play their character without emotion. in very few instances this proved to be comedic but at the expense of the thrill we so love in m night movies. and the reason for this purposeful lack of emotion still alludes me all these hours after the films end credits. i must admit that watching this movie has left me feeling as though i have been neglected from an inside joke, and i simply do not understand what is going on. this is not to mention the utter lack of climax, which i do not believe is even worth writing about, as i have simply decided, right this moment, to erase this experience from memory.

the crappening is extremely amateurish and had me wishing for the majority of its run that the object of fright in the movie would sweep through the theatre doors, take my life, and thus end the misery that was this movie. do not waste your precious hours. its as simple as that.

for now,

MJL

Movie Review – Shrooms

I am very happy that I snuck into this movie after watching Spiderwick.

It was utter crap. I would have been so upset if I had paid a single FILS for  this BS.  I had guessed the ‘surprise’ ending right from the middle. Ok let’s get it straight. From the name, I certainly wasn’t expecting an academy award winning performance but the story line was so shot!

I’m not wasting my time writing more about this.  If you still go to the theatres to watch this after reading this, you’re an idiot.

Mo Rating 2/10

Movie Review – The Spiderwick Chronicles

Spiderwick chronicles was a pleasant surprise to what I expected to be another Harry Pottereque gutterfilth movie translation of a classic book.

I was very pleasantly surprised.  The movie was really quite good to watch.  The ambience and feeling invoked while watching was something that I would have imagined as a child after reading an Enid Blyton book. They didn’t entirely rely on CGI to carry the movie through, but actually used it as a tool only to enhance the fantastic storyline.

I was really impressed by the whole thing, and am actually looking forward to watching upcoming franchises of the same.  The Golden Compass is another one I would love to watch, Prince Caspian – if overdone in the same way as the first one, not so much.

Mo Rating – 8/10

MJLs guest spot movie review – [rec]

the rate at which the west now hijacks movie ideas from… well… everywhere else in world is astounding (india not withstanding of course). i will prove my point with only providing a short list from memory because any research otherwise would undoubtedly unveil so many films that the server of this blog would be overwhelmed with information. so here goes; oscar winner the departed from hong kongs infernal affairs, the laughable the grudge from japans the juon, the feeble pulse from japans kairo made only years before, and so on and so forth.

a new film on the chopping block to be butchered by a remake is the topic of discussion in this my latest guest spot movie review. [rec] is an independent film made last year in spain, which received numerous awards for best acting, directing, fantasy and audience jury selection. such impressive recognition went noticed immediately and generated interest in the north american production market for a remake. with no time wasted the immaculate [rec] will be released this year under a title and with a pathetic cast that i refuse to list so as to support the original as is deserved.

loyal readers of this blog (and here i refer to the host) will recall the blank of the dead review that i wrote a short while ago. being a zombie fan i had mentioned that this film was an abhorrent addition to the impressive body of work that includes the original …of the dead films and 28 days later amongst many others. in my opinion [rec] has effectively restored the genre. one might even be inclined to say that this film has brought back to life what was once thought deceased (sorry i couldnt pass up the opportunity).

on a serious note, this film is an experience, and one that will haunt you for days after. truth be told i am unable to recall being thrilled so thoroughly as i was watching [rec] and all without the lavish budgets and name celebrities that are so mistakenly thought to be the key elements of a successful film. so in place of the rating you would normally find at the end of a review i will simply recommend that you see this film in its original spanish before the north american version leaves you demanding your time back from the universe.

for now,

mjl

MJLs guest spot movie review – horton hears a who!

it is somewhat remiss to title the posts i write for this blog ‘reviews’ considering they are more the ramblings of singular aspects of the films which catch my attention, as opposed to an assessment of the films as cohesive wholes. i am sure these ramblings are less than helpful for those readers who are legitimately interested in an opinion before chancing a trip to the theatre. this ‘review’ will be no different.

i recently watched the block buster adaptation of the dr seuss story, horton hears a who! having read and been read his books as a child, and reliving those experiences all over again reading them to my niece, i was compelled by nostalgia to see this film. horton is a story about an elephant, aptly named horton as you might have guessed, who discovers an entire microscopic world living on a speck of dust. the world he discovers is whoville, which is inhabited by whos; and although horton is unable to see the miniature world he is able to talk to the mayor of whoville via megacone. as the mayor describes the odd happenings plaguing whoville, horton realizes that the dangers of the jungle are responsible, and accepts the task of securing the speck in a safe location. one of those dangers is the antagonist, vlad the vulture, who vows to devour, regurgitate, and devour again, the flower that the speck rests upon.

the singular aspect of this book (and by extension film) which consistently captures my attention does so to the point of amazement. this aspect is represented in the film by the camera panning out from the world of whoville, to the world we occupy, and out again into the vastness of space. in order to propose the possibility that our world may be a speck of cosmic dust in some other world even more grand than our own. although this is a notion likely to have been pondered by every reader of this blog, at least briefly, to introduce this notion to children impresses me immensely. i might even be so bold as to credit, in small part, reading stories like horton as a child with the theoretical thinking that developed into my passion for studying philosophy. i may owe horton and dr seuss a large debt.

for three reasons this movie deserves a seven out of ten rating. first being the hilarious vlad the vulture. second being the reason for my aforementioned debt. and third being the dr seuss rhyme-speak which has never ceased to entertain me.

for now,

mjl

Mo’s Movie Review – 10,000 BC

I would have loved this movie ……………………………………….. when I was 10.

SPOILER WARNING AHEAD

The movie is based on the adventures of a Neanderthal man, D’Lei who in the process of rescuing his abducting love, Evolet, rescues his tribe from doom and also single handedly manages to fuck up the progress of the human race for a time frame of 9,500 years.

The story-line was so shot, I could have gone fishing with it, and only caught a whale. I’m not an expert on history, but I know well enough that gazelles, which they show prancing around, didn’t exist in the time of mammoths. There were no metal tools or weaponry. And horses, which the Egyptians/Atlantians rode around on were definitely not around in 10,000 BC.

So what was the movie about, you ask? Basically, it’s a love story that is wound around a script that the director seems to have written on in a bumpy car ride. It’s a psuedo-adventure story, which gives absolutely no twists or heart-stopping moments. Even the sabre-tooth tiger(or cat. take your pick) only has a screen time of around 5 mins! I mean what the hell?! If you’re making a movie about Neanderthal man, the least you could do was give the damn sabre-tooth some more fucking screen time! Throw in a vicious fight between man and sabre-tooth or something!! I swear to god, the first five minutes of ICE AGE had more true-to-life(as scientists have discovered) scenes than this entire movie.

Frankly, I am surprised that I was still in the theatre to catch the end – Evolet comes back to life(if you haven’t watched this movie and are upset about reading this line – Believe me you would have guessed it right from the start. Plus I put a spoiler warning before this!). In fact, I was upset about the fact that the protagonist ends up destroying an advanced civilization that would have driven forward humanity as a whole. Instead, he destroys the egypto-atlantians only so that he can go back to his backwater village to finally get with his girl. Little does he know that 9500 years down the line, his very descendants would be in slavery again to build the very same pyramids. Moral of the story – you can’t hold an egyptian down, mothafucka!

In my eyes it’s a bunch of crap of mammoth proportions. I am VERY surprised about the positive reviews it has gotten.

MoRating(4/10)

MJLs guest spot movie review – the bank job

in this installment the focus of my efforts will be about jason stathams newest crime thriller the bank job. it seems necessary to admit upfront that i have no quandary with jason statham. i am of the mind that he succeeds in his caper niche and i need not look further than lock, stock and two smoking barrels and snatch to prove my point. i also recognize however that after the low caliber of film produced by the actor lately some might not be so forgiving. of course here i refer to the transporter, revolver, crank and war.

so in need of a rather thoughtless thrill this week i browsed imdb for the ratings of movies that i was interested in seeing. by no means do i consider these ratings the be-all-and-end-all of reviews, i nevertheless find myself interested in where the collective mind of movie goers rests. in this case the majority vote landed on 7.8 out of 10. sitting with this rating for a while i started to wonder if this could be the film that has lifted statham from the hole that he has dug himself into; and decided to chance the disappointment that could lay in wait. having seen the film i can comment unequivocally that alone it cannot set statham back on the road towards producing snatch like quality. however, as i sat in the theater, i thought to myself that this film could be a baby step on the way. of course that notion was ruined when i returned home to peruse imdb once more for up and coming projects that statham has in the works. sitting in front of the computer i could only shake my head in dismay at the titles before me; the transporter 3 and crank 2 amongst others.

the bank job is about a heist based on a true british story from the 1970s; a notion im pleased was stated in the beginning and clarified again at the end. how tightly or loosely based on reality i am unaware but the notion itself provided the movie with validity when the story started to wane or become convenient. i will only briefly mention, as to not spoil the movie for others, that a ham radio was involved in which a random listener happened to overhear important details of the bank job in question. (the type of voyeur who sits with a ham radio in order to listen in on others conversations is another issue altogether.) where such a plot twist would have normally caused me to roll my eyes the fact the story is based on true events had me instead believing that the wildest tales of fiction can hold no flame to those of real life.

my rating is about a point lower than that found on imdb. as for a crime thriller it was successful as a mindless escape. however, similar to my taste in literature, i tend to sway towards substance over style, and so my rating is influenced by the fact that i was more interested in the side stories than the bank job itself. the tale of the black panther rebel who held the british government captive, or the wayward royal who created the scandal in the first place, would have made for far more interesting films if true as this movie asserts. that being said i was in the mood for some gritty (yet forgettable) action and got what i wanted.

for now,

mjl

MJLs guest spot movie review – ‘blank of the dead’

in order to christen my contribution to this blog i would like to elaborate on the reply box movie review which landed me this guest writer gig. just as i warned in the mini review, which can be found in the jumper thread below, i would like to urge movie goers to avoid george a romero’s newest ‘blank of the dead’ installment. a chapter so unworthy of the legacy that i refuse to refer to the movie by title here.

having access to the production studio in the east end of downtown toronto where this movie was filmed, i was privy to some insider information during its unfortunate inception; via production assistants, who laughed at the budget they were given to work with, as they walked by my friend, warning him not to expect much from this movie. well they were right.

as i mentioned previously this student-film-esq picture was riddled with absurd characters; the texan beauty queen being the mere tip of the ice berg. the most bothersome of all the characters was the film professor from england who was a patron of the arts, literature, fine liquor and, of course, a master of the bow and arrow. this character, whose name mysteriously slips my mind, was present in scenes only when the script-by-numbers story needed emphasis as to the severity of the situation the students were thrust into. such a dark sensibility could only be imparted by the tortured genius / war veteran which were also traits of this needlessly convoluted character. conversely, the deaf amish scythe swinging hero was entertaining as comic relief, although highly inappropriate for such a genre. perhaps the reason for such obscurity was that romero wished to take the zombie genre in a new direction. in either case, the director failed.

i will not spoil the ending for those who have a hard time believing that the master of the zombie genre could fail so miserably. i will mention however that at the movies close i was reminded of the comments made by the production assistants; who laughed at the feeble budget which clearly ran dry forcing the powers that be to stop the movie short.

i am compelled to give this movie three/ten – as a warning to those who desire to see this movie, i suggest spending your money on ‘the zombie survival guide’ by max brooks, which im told by reputable sources is a worthy read. perhaps the next time you hear from me will be to review that book.

one final note for the host of this blog… joseph from the aforementioned grocery store says hello. no lie.

for now,

 

mjl

 

Jumper – Movie Review

If you haven’t watched Jumper, hop, skip and jump there. Before I go into details,I have to highlight the fact that being in Dubai I can watch an entire movie in the theatres without ‘jumping’ even a minute of it. This is EXTREMELY liberating and satisfying, not to mention being in the theatres more than only one hour long!
Ok, now to the movie – unless you’ve been living in a cave, you must have seen the trailers for this, and by that token, you may have guessed it’s about a guy that can teleport. Personally,(and admittedly), I am a star wars fan. So I am partial to the acting talent of Hayden ‘Vader’ Christensen. This, paired with the stellar performance of Star Wars co-star, Mr. Samuel Jackson was a combo that yet again put together a great show. Rachel Bilson, however, had the facial expression of a fish. It never changed. The movie also starred a forgettable and unneccesary Diane Keaton Lane, who, given that her character created a leeway into a part deux, didn’t really put much into a role to excite us to watch the second part.

Movie revolves around the century old war between Jumpers, teleporting super beings, and Paladins, an ancient sect who is out to wipe Jumpers off the face of the earth. The typical good vs. evil wishwash.

The SFX were awesome though, and there is a hard to miss parallel between the Jumpers and NightCrawler(ne XMEN). Anyway, although it was a bit predictable, the story was quite entertaining. I really love the fluidity of Samuel L. Jackson’s portrayal of any character he plays, esp when he has the eccentric look(think Unbreakable, XXX (the movie sucked but he was great), PulpFiction, Kill Bill vol 2) and he doesn’t disappoint in this movie.

Christensen didn’t give a phenomenal performance, however, the character in the story carried him through. I am sure he could have given his role more justice. Not awful really, but could be better.

This movie seems like it would have a cult-following if they get the second part right. I definitely suggest going to watch it. Some people may think otherwise, but those people don’t own this blog!

Creepy fact – Set Designer David Ritchie was killed in Toronto by frozen debris while filming the movie.

MoRating – 7/10(I love super hero movies bar Catwoman(halle berry) and DareDevil(Ben Affleck) and Hulk(Eric bana))